I give up. My friends have moved on to hard mode. They all have 1 or 2 level 30s. Our same group has done the raid together every week yet somehow I have only gotten the raid gloves so the iron banner didn't even help me. I get the random drops. I've played plenty of MMOs like FFXI and WoW. But the fact that its so random that I can no longer play with my friends while they have gotten gear multiple times is ridiculous. I can no longer effectively play with and be useful to my team even though I've put in the same (and more than some) effort. Which means its a social game that I can no longer play with my social group. Mission failed.
You said you wanted everyone to have their own epic story. Mine is this: I put 328 hours into the game. Tonight the last one of our group who has put in 200 hours got the cuirass and can now hit 30. I quit.
-
dude first of all you can do the hard raid as a lvl 29 which you don't need a single piece of raid gear to get, if all your friends are lvl 30 like you say than having one lvl 29 in the group will still render the hard mode raid easy. secondly, iron banner should have guranteed you legs and boots, then you should get an exotic helmet and you'll be one piece of gear to get 30, I admit i feel bad that you've been so unfortunate but just think that as random as its been (in a negative way for you) it can be just that in a positive way. and hey when crota's end comes out all your friends lvl 30 raid gear will be pointless, and the easy mode is lvl 28 which means as a 29 you can still do it with ease. When you think about it you're not far behind.