Tradeskill Armor

[Thinkmeats]

compared to droppable/sellable items like carrion flesh gloves, ench robe of deflection, crown of the depths, crown of the elements, carrion flesh band, boots of the bedeviler, bloodfire master's pendant, bloodfire insignia, arena lords protector, festering mask, seaweed breeches, damask leather tunic and others + items that can be gotten by grouping, its quite easy to skip over raidcontent without using tradeskilled items, if adding tmap items into the picture it gets even easier. With some of those items having been overfarmed it might even end up cheaper for some slots, and most of these items have lower lvl req or no lvl req at all, ie can be better used to twink out lower lvl alts. As the deepmetal market looked before double augs, there simply were no buyers of newly made items at the cost of components+time investment, and compared to droppable items ingame, classes that use hp and ac can often find better alternatives than tskilled items to wear. For some slots there are differences when it comes to mana when using double mana augs I suppose, especially on certain shadowsilk items that also sport a high int/wis (which is usually one of the downsides of tskilled items vs droppable gear.. the stats suck and if you want an ok overall char you need raidgear or other gear in some slots to make up for the crappy stats (like cha/wis/str/sta...) on the tskilled items.) for double ac or double hp a lot of droppable items still come out on top, especially with stats and modifiers/focuses included.

Also, some people dont play the game to raid, and there should be some content available to make them able to progress their characters as well, and to make them attractive to a group in more ways than someone being nice and taking pity on them.

For the former: It's a good point that theres lots of other really good droppable items available, but to fill your character out in those you have to scour auction or go to many many different zones, and even then there'll still be plenty of slots that you could still upgrade by knocking over Gnok or something.

For the latter, we're always designing new content (raid AND group), and there's plenty of stuff for groups to do to progress. There are plenty of really hard high end group areas (cmalath, cata, rust factory, firstruins) and more are always under construction. What's more, I think we're all in agreement that tradeskilling *should* be able to provide some very nice items, like mantle of the forest; our issue with it is that the deepmetal/ss/etc is for every slot. I think it'd be safe to expect smithing to get some mantle of the forest-type combines should the deepmetal et all be nerfed.

 

[panthernoswar]

Please take into account that SS/Imp hide is alot harder to make than deepmetal. Violet Ointment costs about ~885p at ally faction and 280+ cha per attempt to even make it, where it can fail at 250 brewing. Then SS/Imphide can also fail as well, so I can't see how increasing the prices woulddo anything but make it all but impossible for anyone to make.

 

[gatotaco]

Violet Ointments only cost you 885pp to make? I pay 150/each on Kedgewater, 10/each or more on Balsam and Blood of Yaralith, plus 608pp for the Liquid Platinum. That's 948pp per attempt to combine Violet Ointment. Then the actual combine not only for the ointment, but the piece of material you're trying to make can fail and does so often. I barely make enough money to pay for materials on Shadowsilk, turn a profit, and try to compete in the market against not only other tailors but second hand sales as it is, if it got nerfed it would make the immense amount of money tailors put into brewing and tailoring pretty much worthless. Also, I almost never get any sales on Imphide. Just adding some observations.

Also, I don't see anything wrong with it being equivalent of tier 4 gear, especially given the fact that it doesn't have any focus effects, which are huge boons to most classes. (Read DI/AI for DPS casters, HI for Healers, Mana Cons for all, Range inc. is key for some raid fights, etc.). Also, it doesn't trivialize any Tier 4+ encounters, and the prices are dictated by the market to be in line with similar items. I don't see why it should be nerfed.

 

[securus]

On the same note I noticed that the imp armor is more geared towards bst and monk than druid. Many of the pieces have no wis cha or mana on them making it it better to wear the shadowsilk armor

 

[robopirateninja]

Also, I don't see anything wrong with it being equivalent of tier 4 gear, especially given the fact that it doesn't have any focus effects, which are huge boons to most classes. (Read DI/AI for DPS casters, HI for Healers, Mana Cons for all, Range inc. is key for some raid fights, etc.). Also, it doesn't trivialize any Tier 4+ encounters, and the prices are dictated by the market to be in line with similar items. I don't see why it should be nerfed.

A lot of those focuses can be quested or picked up on the cheap, or accquired in raid targets tiers 1-3, which are possibly doable in only tradeskilled gear.

The prices for tradeskilled items are dictated by the number of tradeskillers trying to undercut each other, there hasn't been any more itemization in the type 5 mana augment scene, but EQ augs today are 100+ plat cheaper than they were 6 months ago.

 

[Danku]

1) TS armors have been in the game, mostly unchanged, for AGES and no one cried "BALANCE"

2) The people crying balance seem to be beyond the TS items

3) TS armors give casual players a chance to gear up and have occassional raids.

4) It was stated before that AA's are easy to get. That is a very subjective opinion. We do not all play 6 hours a day.


They are not insanely overpowered. They are nice, but they lack many many things. No one can move ahead just with this armor, they still must get AA's and spend time working on their characters.



What they are is a chance for people who can't commit 4+ days a week to raiding to get farther in the game. I really hope you guys do not consider taking that away. SoD has a sizable player base of casual players, we just aren't as visable as the raiders.

 

[Harziel]

isn't it roughly 2800 per piece of SS to double aug even the small bits?
I remember someone just farming the money for about 5 or 6 pieces and he was sick of the farming by then (old guildy, currently doesn't even play now).
Ended up with a whole set eventually but I think it took him a whole month to raise enough money for the set farming almost every single day.
If the stats are going to be balanced, then maybe some of the tradeskilling components to make em should be made to cost less to scale with it then (the vendor bought parts anyways).

I haven't been back long enough to see but were there alot of examples of guilds skipping straight ahead to tier 4 planes/raids using pure tradeskill gear?
I hear alot of people saying this skips content but I haven't heard of entire guilds fast tracking because of it...at least not yet.
I personally think the gear has been in game long enough to at least see really noticeable side effects (and it doesn't seem like its as bad as some people are making it sound).

 

[Tempus]

1) TS armors have been in the game, mostly unchanged, for AGES and no one cried "BALANCE"

2) The people crying balance seem to be beyond the TS items

3) TS armors give casual players a chance to gear up and have occassional raids.

4) It was stated before that AA's are easy to get. That is a very subjective opinion. We do not all play 6 hours a day.


They are not insanely overpowered. They are nice, but they lack many many things. No one can move ahead just with this armor, they still must get AA's and spend time working on their characters.



What they are is a chance for people who can't commit 4+ days a week to raiding to get farther in the game. I really hope you guys do not consider taking that away. SoD has a sizable player base of casual players, we just aren't as visable as the raiders.

Way to not read. NO one is saying they are insanely overpowered, or that they should not still be a viable alternative to low end raiding for those that do not want to see the raid game. And clearly you do not even understand the word balance, because you seem to think it means OMG NERF, which it doesn't. If you had even taken half a second to read any of my posts in this thread you would understand that.

isn't it roughly 2800 per piece of SS to double aug even the small bits?
I remember someone just farming the money for about 5 or 6 pieces and he was sick of the farming by then (old guildy, currently doesn't even play now).
Ended up with a whole set eventually but I think it took him a whole month to raise enough money for the set farming almost every single day.
If the stats are going to be balanced, then maybe some of the tradeskilling components to make em should be made to cost less to scale with it then (the vendor bought parts anyways).

I haven't been back long enough to see but were there alot of examples of guilds skipping straight ahead to tier 4 planes/raids using pure tradeskill gear?
I hear alot of people saying this skips content but I haven't heard of entire guilds fast tracking because of it...at least not yet.
I personally think the gear has been in game long enough to at least see really noticeable side effects (and it doesn't seem like its as bad as some people are making it sound).

Your logic basically prevents anything from changing ever: "It's been around a long time so lets just leave it like it is". Making it cheaper is not going to happen. It should take you 4 - 5 hours to farm a piece of SS armor if you are a fresh level 65 (or lower) and have no raid gear or High End TS armor already. This is the same period of time it would take a low end raid guild to knock off a few tarets and upgrade a few of their members.

 

[moghedancarns]

Felyn's entire point of the OP was to have the items nerfed.

You state:

The second aug slot is to allow for greater customization over dropped items.

Like for example the base Chain tunic can serve 8 Classes ( RNG ROG SHM WAR PAL SHD CLR BRD) Yes some are plate but they can all wear chain as well. Not all of the classes like the same stats. So if we try to create overly balanced items they would end up sucking. So by Dialing the stats back some across the board and adding a second aug slot you can focus your armor on the things most important to you. The question remains, should the stats be dialed back a little more on the base model (un-augged) armors. This is being looked into by staff currently prior to this thread even being made.

Note the bold.

"Don't mistake rebalance for nerf, though invariably some items will be nerfed"

Yes, as reading comprehension does serve me, you have directly stated that the tradeskill armors will be nerfed. The only thing not decided is HOW MUCH you are going to nerf them.

If you were just going to cut 4 str off some shadow silk and 5 mana from a few pieces of deepmetal, then you would nto even bother. Clearly, you are not going to be adding anything to some of the pieces, and that would be counter to the point. The only thing discussed in any of your posts are the reduction of stats on the gear... thus a nerf. Call it rebalance all you want, removing AC from the plate to add more DEX is a nerf. To remove mana from ShadowSilk to add more STR is a nerf... Both are NERFS just like simply removing the reduced stat would be, as the replaced stat is pointless or useless.


"It should take you 4 - 5 hours to farm a piece of SS armor if you are a fresh level 65 (or lower) and have no raid gear or High End TS armor already. This is the same period of time it would take a low end raid guild to knock off a few tarets and upgrade a few of their members. "

Now, please direct me to the location where I can farm 400 pp an hour, for I am a fresh 65 some raid gear and no TS armor. A piece of TS armor is a week's work for me.. roughly 20 hours.

 

[Allielyn]

Now, please direct me to the location where I can farm 400 pp an hour, for I am a fresh 65 some raid gear and no TS armor. A piece of TS armor is a week's work for me.. roughly 20 hours.

I'd be happy to but the last time I did that the spot was nerfed =(.

 

[robopirateninja]

I can tell ytou unequivocably that is is possible to farmm 400 or more plat alone without high end gear but I'm not going to tell you where because then you might be there the next time I want to go. :tinfoil:

 

[Wesell]

Lame... PM it to me please! :keke:

 

[Kelval]

Your logic basically prevents anything from changing ever: "It's been around a long time so lets just leave it like it is". Making it cheaper is not going to happen. It should take you 4 - 5 hours to farm a piece of SS armor if you are a fresh level 65 (or lower) and have no raid gear or High End TS armor already. This is the same period of time it would take a low end raid guild to knock off a few tarets and upgrade a few of their members.

I am going to disagree here. How long has it been since you have tried farming cash on a low-AAed / low tier geared char, and without outside help?

I can pretty much tell you that when I did start farming my DM gear for my war (geared with junk) in combo with my shaman, was barely making 300pp an hour, playing hardcore (wich means begging buffs to higher tiered chars and trying to push my chars to the max). Sure, war/shaman isn't the fastest killing combo out there, but it's a combo still, and beats many solo people.

It litterally took me weeks (I think 3-4 weeks) playing 4-6 hours a day or more, exclusively farming, to get a full DM set sans BP, cloak and face. All of this to be able to have a good start on raids for the guild. You can fomelo me, there's still nothing huge by any means, and I don't break the AC/HP records. I can do around 500pp an hour farming hardcore now, but I am working to get past that gear and have nearly 200 aa as well...

Anyways, tradeskilled armor might be slightly more powerfull than expected, but it's certainly not easy to obtain when you are fresh out of leveling. It's a huge time investment now that plat incomes have been nerfed.
It's easy to forget when you have had chars forever and well geared, so please keep it in mind.

 

[moghedancarns]

I'd be happy to but the last time I did that the spot was nerfed =(.

Thus, the contradiction.

We have a GM telling us that every Tom, Dick, and Harry should be able to do this. Thus, such spots should be plentiful, the norm, even. Definately not something that has any chance of being nerfed.

Or, his argument is flat wrong.

 

[Tempus]

Thus, the contradiction.

We have a GM telling us that every Tom, Dick, and Harry should be able to do this. Thus, such spots should be plentiful, the norm, even. Definately not something that has any chance of being nerfed.

Or, his argument is flat wrong.

They aren't hard to find, anywhere a level 65 group can get good dark blue exp will yield this kind of cash. Fire Grotto & Kedge possibly being the exception, but the tradeskill items dropped in there make up for the crappy cash drops. If you don't have a group you will need to set your sights lower, loot all the MC weapons and sell frequently, but it is completely possible.

 

[Tempus]

Felyn's entire point of the OP was to have the items nerfed.

You state:

Note the bold.

"Don't mistake rebalance for nerf, though invariably some items will be nerfed"

Yes, as reading comprehension does serve me, you have directly stated that the tradeskill armors will be nerfed. The only thing not decided is HOW MUCH you are going to nerf them.

If you were just going to cut 4 str off some shadow silk and 5 mana from a few pieces of deepmetal, then you would nto even bother. Clearly, you are not going to be adding anything to some of the pieces, and that would be counter to the point. The only thing discussed in any of your posts are the reduction of stats on the gear... thus a nerf. Call it rebalance all you want, removing AC from the plate to add more DEX is a nerf. To remove mana from ShadowSilk to add more STR is a nerf... Both are NERFS just like simply removing the reduced stat would be, as the replaced stat is pointless or useless.


"It should take you 4 - 5 hours to farm a piece of SS armor if you are a fresh level 65 (or lower) and have no raid gear or High End TS armor already. This is the same period of time it would take a low end raid guild to knock off a few tarets and upgrade a few of their members. "

Now, please direct me to the location where I can farm 400 pp an hour, for I am a fresh 65 some raid gear and no TS armor. A piece of TS armor is a week's work for me.. roughly 20 hours.

I love how you assume that every plate class only cares about ac, and that a casters only concern is mana. Maybe you should think outside the box a little. Because for an int caster losing a few mana points here but gaining some hps and agi or sta in return might let them avoid low hp aggro that causes them to die with half of their overly augged mana bar still full. Or maybe, that paladin wants a little more CHA so that his spells are resisted less thusly allowing him to maintain aggro better, or that bard so that his mez's are resisted less. So what one class may consider a nerf on an item may actually be a *gasp* upgrade for another class. Basically you are jumping to conclusions and crying wolf without really stopping to considering what I am trying to accomplish here.

And yes it should be work to obtain it. I mean this stuff is (and still will be) comparable to RAID armor where people put in a lot of time and effort to work together for the upgrades. You shouldn't be able to hit your favorite exp spot for one day and surprise have a piece of High end TS armor. Do you know how many raid hours people log for each upgrade they get? Why should those that choose not to raid, but still advance be able to do so at a faster pace?

 

[Syalara]

I love how you assume that every plate class only cares about ac, and that a casters only concern is mana. Maybe you should think outside the box a little. Because for an int caster losing a few mana points here but gaining some hps and agi or sta in return might let them avoid low hp aggro that causes them to die with half of their overly augged mana bar still full.

No.

just...no.

No caster who is buying armor will be saved w/ a few more hps that hp augs provide, or the hps sta augs provide, and agi? seriously?

Shadowsilk augs are almost all double mana. Maybe a guy here or there has a resist aug thrown to cover a weakspot but for the huge, overwhelming majority of casters w/ SS on, its double loaded mana augs all the way.

 

[Tempus]

No.

just...no.

No caster who is buying armor will be saved w/ a few more hps that hp augs provide, or the hps sta augs provide, and agi? seriously?

Shadowsilk augs are almost all double mana. Maybe a guy here or there has a resist aug thrown to cover a weakspot but for the huge, overwhelming majority of casters w/ SS on, its double loaded mana augs all the way.

That doesn't make it the right choice. Do you run the rest of your life with the "everyone is doing it" mentality? Resists are super important as are hps, for encounters that AOE or those times when you pull agro and a fast heal from a druid or cleric doesn't get there fast enough. You normally click off aego on your int casters because hps don't really matter right? I am not saying raw mana or INT/WIS aren't important, but you have to stay alive to actually reach OOM and that is where the other stats should come into play. This is just an example for Shadowsilk, but it applies to all of the armor. It is not meant for any one class. So try to take a step back and think about it. Really think about it. I know lof enchanters and necros that would welcome a hp increase in exchange for a mana decrease. Try to think from an over all perspective, instead of just focusing on one class that can use a certain armor type.

 

[moghedancarns]

Quite flatly... every single point of STA, DEX, or AGI on a caster wearable item is wasted. Completely wasted. Casters, including priests, do not get enough return to EVER make it viable.

Capped out on 305 Stamina... you have 1500 HP. With 125 Stamina... you have 1100 HP. The amount of AGI required to make a difference to a caster would probably be in the thousands. 400 HP is about a hit and a half...

Now, if you are saying you are removing these completely useless stats and replacing them all with CHA, INT/WIS, MANA/HP, and heavy resists... well hey... I am very sorry for the misunderstanding and apologize profusely.

As for Deepmetal Plate. Yes, they are wearing them for the AC and HP. The very reason they bought the armor was for the AC and HP. Where they can get better stats without losing much AC or HP... they are not wearing DM. The More AC and the More HP the tank has, the further the entire guild can progress. As people who have just now scraped and farmed mats enough to move ourselves into decent Raid Tier 2 territory I will be damned if I will be kicked back down to "raiding" blue con unnamed Storm Giants just because a few people who joined a guild of preestablished characters got a bug up their ass.

You mess with DM chain or Imphide, a few melee DPS cry for a while, but really, nothing is absolutely riding on their armor... they might solo better... and yeah, the Monk is going to die a few more times and they cry a lot more about FD changes. Life sucks. But healers wear Shadow Silk for mana pool, and tanks wear DM for AC, and you will have to forgive me be being exceedingly concerned about your ideas of rebalancing.





A full group of people getting 400pp an hour, sure, I buy that easy. However, they usually want their part of the split.

I don't know what you are arguing, however. I am not saying make it easier to get. YOU said a piece of TS armor is the equivilent of 5 hours work, roughly the same as one or two raids. I am contradicting you, saying that it is closer to a week's... maybe 10 to 12 raids worth of hours. It is SLOWER progress, we are penalized for taking the tradeskilled route.

 

[Tempus]

Quite flatly... every single point of STA, DEX, or AGI on a caster wearable item is wasted. Completely wasted. Casters, including priests, do not get enough return to EVER make it viable.

Capped out on 305 Stamina... you have 1500 HP. With 125 Stamina... you have 1100 HP. The amount of AGI required to make a difference to a caster would probably be in the thousands. 400 HP is about a hit and a half...

Now, if you are saying you are removing these completely useless stats and replacing them all with CHA, INT/WIS, MANA/HP, and heavy resists... well hey... I am very sorry for the misunderstanding and apologize profusely.

As for Deepmetal Plate. Yes, they are wearing them for the AC and HP. The very reason they bought the armor was for the AC and HP. Where they can get better stats without losing much AC or HP... they are not wearing DM. The More AC and the More HP the tank has, the further the entire guild can progress. As people who have just now scraped and farmed mats enough to move ourselves into decent Raid Tier 2 territory I will be damned if I will be kicked back down to "raiding" blue con unnamed Storm Giants just because a few people who joined a guild of preestablished characters got a bug up their ass.

You mess with DM chain or Imphide, a few melee DPS cry for a while, but really, nothing is absolutely riding on their armor... they might solo better... and yeah, the Monk is going to die a few more times and they cry a lot more about FD changes. Life sucks. But healers wear Shadow Silk for mana pool, and tanks wear DM for AC, and you will have to forgive me be being exceedingly concerned about your ideas of rebalancing.





A full group of people getting 400pp an hour, sure, I buy that easy. However, they usually want their part of the split.

I don't know what you are arguing, however. I am not saying make it easier to get. YOU said a piece of TS armor is the equivilent of 5 hours work, roughly the same as one or two raids. I am contradicting you, saying that it is closer to a week's... maybe 10 to 12 raids worth of hours. It is SLOWER progress, we are penalized for taking the tradeskilled route.

Now you can't deicde if raiding guild MT's or casual players should be the focus on DM plate? Quite frankly you are wrong on many levels, and I am not going to start repeating myself since you are obviously not listening. So I will just excuse myself from the conversation.