I have a mage currently who's locations, as it turns out were really nice for my class abilities. They are gone now after collecting them in this new era of ABS. This did annoy me a bit but I have since collected the rods from a number of places and so far, so good.

I have also had the RNG shaft on the last 4 APs that I have played, having never found my blacks on any of them, and missing amber on 1 and sienna on one despite knowing 18 black, 20 amber and 23 sienna locations from previous mages I had played.

I feel your annoyance but you chose a class that has assemble zombie times constraints so that is neither her nor there in this complaint.

You are also at an advantage that you have a leadership spot in a cabal that means your frailty of hps is negated by despoil, so again not relevant.

It boils down to your annoyance of this current character having the rug pulled out from under her because you found your black and now it has moved.

This is one character, one time, think about how easy your next mage will be.