Level 55 Advanced Stigma Quest

The other day while playing,  someone on LFG was complaining hard about the drop rate for the advanced stigma quest called "Cracking the Stigma Threshold". She made it seem like the item you need,  ensouled aether,  almost never drops, and you need 60 of them.  I started to get a little worried because I have that quest and I hadn't even started it yet!   The next day I decided to start on it so I could see for myself if she was right and finally start work on getting my last stigma slot.  Well,  I'm pleased to report that for me the drop rate was good,  about 4 out of 6 mobs dropped the item,  and I managed to accumulate 35 before needing to return to the fort.  Since then I've discovered that the quest is actually a rep quest which asks you to grind 60 mobs 30 times.  Can you believe it?  And this is one I can't just drop like I did with Miragent when I decided it was outrageous.  More on this as I find out from personal xp.....