Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Dante Darkheart]

---

You read it right. So I'm working on raising my imbuing from GM to Legendary. However is a very slow and tedious skill to raise. So I've been making something of a game out of it. Basically every 0.5 skill I raise I make the best suit I can think of or have ingredients for. But I'm also a neat freak and can't stand having armor no mater how good just sitting around collecting dust. So I've been asking random friends what sorts of properties they would like in their armor and making it to the best of my ability. And in the process I've had fun doing that all while raising skill. So not that I've run out of friends but I could use a little bit of inspiration as far as property combinations. So if you have something in mind that you can't make yourself or it would be too expensive to buy or your other crafting friend isn't around then please please ask me. Also feel free to ask me either OOCly or in characterly. I have made an in character post regarding where to send orders. If this is the case I will go so far as to engrave a few pieces. Also don't forget about jewelry and weapons either.

And best of all this is all free. The only time I may ask you to pay is if you are requesting a max intensity of a particular property. In which case bringing me the ingredient needed will be sufficient payment.

Just respond to this post or the in character post with the properties you are looking for. Or if you would like it to be more under the table you can always ICQ me.


In Character Announcement
http://www.atlanticcommunityboard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=185882#185882

[= Imryrr Armunn =]

---

Great that your doing this for everyone.

Cool way to make what could be boring skill gaining into fun. Everyone gets something out of it.
_________________
= Imryrr Armunn =
| House Armunn |
"D|O Theme"
Hawk/ICQ#: 617689603
Enoch: "now I'm gonna have to make up some lich version of poo"

[Ceinwyn ab'Arawn]

---

I intend to hit you up, sir. I'll donate some mats to your cause. My own imbuing is somewhere around 115, but I'm so rusty on it I'd rather have you do it and get something out of it.

[Evenna Vael]

---

Aaah and everythings changing here to...

Very kind of you Dante, if I need anything I will ring..
_________________
There is Freedom in Strength...

[Dante Darkheart]

---

Oh I have something very special in mind for you Evenna.

Ring away!

[WilliamCastle]

---

PG 13 Please!

[Dante Darkheart]

---

So with the new patch Mage Armor added in a very different way and I'm a little disturbed by it. While technically cheaper and easier to get I takes some of the DIY aspect out of imbuing. For example, under the old method of adding mage armor it was 5 Enchanted Essence (the lowest of imbuing specific ingredient), 10 regular Diamonds, and 10 Abyssal Cloth. Abyssal cloth being around 500k for a stack of 10, 1k per Enchanted Essence isn't a bad price, and then Diamonds go between 95-125gp per diamond. Also factor in that if this isn't the first property imbued to an item you will usually fail once or twice wasting a few Diamonds and Enchanted Essence and if you're really unlucky some Abyssal Cloth too. So to have Mage Armor on a piece of armor costs at least around 506k or so not counting the type of metal/leather/wood/stone/bone used and other properties added.

Now under the new system you simply ask a mage guild master (only available in certain towns) if an item can have mage armor via context menu. If the piece already has been reforged imbued to the point where it meets it maximum item weight the Mage Guild Master will tell you he cannot add the Mage Armor property. If there is still room on the item he tells you that it will cost you 250k and if you agree to that price you simply drop the item on him. He will then return the item too you with the Mage Armor property. Effectively cutting the cost of Mage Armor in half.

So ultimately my feelings are yes cheaper and easier but I don't have to like letting some Mage Guildmaster do my work for me.

And I'm testing some of the other crafting method updates.... so more to come.

[Dante Darkheart]

---

So I played around with t he refinement. And here is what happened. First I had to gather the rare(r) refinement ingredients. The easiest way is running through NPCS tailor smith carpenter and provisioned shops with a thief/lockpicker. Just go for the strong box all other chests crates barrels kegs shelves and drawers proved to be a waste of time. Then you'll find these ingredients. They come in two favors for each of the three crafting skills and the spawn doesn't seem to be related to the shop you're in. They also come in different intesities. I found my first one, a smithing one, in the tailors shop. The two flavors are different as one will give you additional resist and the other will give you DCI (deflection chance increase). Also one flavor cancels out the other. So its a trade off. The other thing to note is that they are only for specific pieces of armor. The ones I found were for resists for Gargish plate and samurai plate armor. I also found some Gargish stone ones and a studded leather one I have yet to try.

Next I needed the secondary raw material which was easy enough to find from the corresponding NPC craftspeople. So double click the main ingredient and target 20 of the raw material and a new item will appear. In the case of blacksmithy it additional plating. Again keep in mind this is a one time use item and only meant for a specific type of armor.

Next cones adding the plating to you armor. Keep in mind you can't add this to medable (mage armor). So when I had my plating to add resist to Samurai Armor I had to make sure I didn't craft too good of Samurai armor as all exceptional samurai armor reciieves the mage armor property. The next kicker is when you double click the plating it tells you to go a specific blacksmith shop in a specific town. But it seems to vary from refinement to refinement. My samurai plate armor one took me to Cove. And my Gargish plate one took me to Brittain. I'm not sure how random this is but it's kind of cumbersome. I think it would have made more sense if these directed you at least to your town that you have loyalty too but alas this is proof that I'm not a lead dev at UO.

All in all it seems like a lot of work for little pay off. I'm hoping that my results are just because I had some lower level refinement recipes. Still some things to expect is that these refinements will be very pricey due to the fact that they are very specific. So much like max intensity properties, if you want a refinement added to the armor I make you you'll have to provide the refinement for me to add.

[Shaemus McBlade]

---

Well luckily for you, I doubt the demand for refined suits will be all that high. (they are still nerfing the heck out of medable stuff : ( ( why nerf stamina, shields and divine fury!?!?! ) ( But who knows, the devs seem to change the fracking patch details every other week)

Refined metal suits seem like they wont get much use for anything other than niche pvp or sampire/tamer type pvm suits. This is because like every other major patch, the lack of the devs knowledge of uo mechanics is pretty evident.. I mean if you have 90 dci with 45-50 resists you'll still get your dci lowered to like 30 every time you get hit by hld with the whole 35-55 percent scaling dci loss thingy, plus having no passive mr/med seems lame
_________________
Ralph, UgDug DigDug, Shaemus McBlade, Epimetheus, Jon Wilks Sleuth, Alecto, Typhon, Juks Inforlem, Kimbo La Four, Stelios Armunn, etc.

[Willow Smythe]

---

Well lets not forget mages! You'll end up needing two suits. One for Dexxers and another for mages. Then I think we'll be solid LOL.
_________________
Malorn ‎(12:14 AM):
I'm an idiot

[Dante Darkheart]

---

Yeah, I still haven't paid too much attention to the the natural LMC and stamina loss they're touting. I'm more curious of what can be crafted. So for now I'll just take requests as to what people want. Hopefully they're testing out the PvP/M effects. Depending on the feedback I'll be able to make better recommendations later down the road.

I think what would be helpful for me is if I had a better idea as to the templates people are using. I've never been a great PvPer, or even a decent PvPer. Part of my problem is I have no clue how to balance a template. I just pick seven skills that compliment one another and the personality of the character. Which is the main reason I tend to focus on crafting skills/templates.

As I started out imbuing especially for myself I just imbued physical resist and LRC. On occasion I imbue mage armor onto a piece of normally non-stealthable armor for my main Dante who is a ninja. But as I've started taking requests they seem to lean towards properties that effect mana, even for warriors. Which I think is really part of the sytemic problem UO armor is having. Health keeps you alive, Mana allows you to vary the types of ways you can hit your opponent, but what does Stamina do? That's not to be confused with Dex which determines how fast you hit. What does stamina do? I mean when you run out you start to walk rather than run. Which can strengthen the argument that you should have your stamina as low as possible making it less time to regenerate your low stamina.

....Ok so after writing that last paragraph I got curious and made standard Leather Studded Leather Ringmail Chainmail and Platemail tunic. Here is what I found; the stamina buff/debuff didn't seem in effect. So I'm not sure what that's about. However, the LMC buff did seem to work. But what I find disturbing is that this forces everyone to be dependent upon armor. Maybe I just miss the days of the naked PK mages at the crossroads. It just seems backwards with what UO is saying about mana and armor. Maybe I just like the days when LMC was a novelty rather than a necessity but UO is effectively saying you have a closer connection to mana wearing mid level armor (leather) in the spectrum of Naked to Plate. I would think it would be interesting to give advantages to being naked, or at least wearing just cloth (non-armor) clothing. Wouldn't it make more sense that if plate restricts your mana cost more than leather then shouldn't leather restrict your mana cost more than cloth/flesh? Or is there some secret ingredient that gets embedded into plate and leather that can't be embedded into your flesh?

Though again this all brings us back to the issue of mana and health are insanely more important than stamina. It makes what should be mage armor completely useful for warriors and dexxers alike. Why? Because all special moves, all ninjitsu 'spells', and all bushido 'spells' use mana when it would make more sense for them to use stamina. If this was the case then there would be a need to have stamina type properties. Perhaps instead of a lower mana cost there could be lower stamina cost. This would create a market for amror that focuses on stamina rather than mana. This means stamina-centric armor would be useless to mages as mana-centric armor would be useless to warriors. of course you could make trade offs and make hybrid armors for hybrid templates. Or how about when you're not wearing armor or at least with the less armor you're wearing the faster you can swing.

...........*rambles off muttering to himself*

UPDATE:
So Judas just corrected me. I was totally wrong, and I have a good idea why I might be bad at PvP. Apparently stamina effects swing speed along with weapon speed and SSI bonuses. So thank Judas or check uoguide.com like I should have. I still stand by my idea for making stamina comparable to mana for melee templates.