Level 1 vs 2 GoD products, and refining

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

Winblade/wmbs both were pre GoD dropable 2h kings, Winblade better for the tank role, WMBS better for solo/damage.

shimmering velium should out damage both, easily.

0 HP, 0AC is going to kill it in the twink market, knight are not a damage class they still look to tank, many will go 1h shield to do so better when they have a strong DPS group, the dmage a Knight puts out is minimal, Bezerkers maybe, twink berzerkers, but the plat these are going to cost is not going to be easily come by by the casual player, nor is it going to be possible to farm for combines as has been done (Hurricane plate for example)

Dai

[draethor]

There's a lot of debate going on regarding the smithing weapons. Seems the consensus is that they're good.

My question is, are they as better than elemental tradeskill drops? There are no elemental crafted weapons (outside of bows which incidentally have 100 hp) so there's nothing to compare against.

But these drops are *far* harder to obtain than drops in the elementals. And this is just for smithing, which so far, has the best crafted items by a LONG shot.

Look at the arrows made from these items, or the brewed items. Someone post examples from other skills, the points I was trying to raise with this thread is,

1) Level 2 GoD stuff is not much better than level 1 stuff, the risk/reward ratio is nowhere close to where it should be.

2) Level 1 and 2 GoD stuff are inferior to PoP items for the most part, which are farmed with less risk.

Draethor Ispowerful
Lanys

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

Stonewood was one of the best 3 bows in the game through out PoP, the smithed armors (Farwater) was better then most bps especially for knight classes then anything less then the cursed bp.

Raiders would use/wear these things, no raider, that is not a total newbie would use any of the smithed stuff from god for any period of time.


Dai

[Kronepsis]

The other thing to note is, Elemental Planes is supposed to be raid only access anyway (that is, no way in hell you can get there if you don't raid or have connections). Kod`taz, on the other hand, is supposed to be accessible to people single-grouping, with NO chance of interference from outside--but in-game--sources.

Because of that, comparing the RvR of the two doesn't really make sense to me. The mobs may be harder in GoD, but they're a lot more accessible when you think about it. Thus, looking at the tradeskill stuff from a "will a raider use it" perspective doesn't make sense to me either, since you don't have to raid to get access to farming the raw material; instead you have to have competent people who don't want everything handed to them on a platter, which most of us SHOULD be, right? Kod`taz is more like GoD's version of Drunder, Fortress of Zek, before the pathing problems in Plane of Storms. Not immediately accessible, but not impossible to get access to.

[draethor]

In that case, let us compare the tradeskill drops from Tactics to those from Kod'Taz. I'll pick JC'ed items (highly polished gem is also far more common than shimmering nihilite, even counting the fact that you'll get 2 attempts per shimmering nihilite drop):

GoD:

Velium Shimmering Pendant
Slot: NECK
AC: 4
CHA: +3 WIS: +7 HP: +30 MANA: +30
SV DISEASE: +2 SV MAGIC: +2
WT: 0.2 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ALL
Race: ALL

Tactics:

Bloodmetal Earring Of Engagement
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: EAR
AC: 7
STR: +12 STA: +8 AGI: +6 HP: +70 MANA: +40
SV MAGIC: +15
Recommended level of 60
Required level of 46
WT: 0.3 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL

The bloodmetal earring is worth around 30-50k, whereas the shimmering necklace is worth 300-500pp.

If you check the stats on the other items I've posted, all but a small number of smithed items are around the quality of the high end items before kunark (for instance, the necklace is inferior to black sapphire plat necklaces, the arrows are inferior to merchant bought arrows, etc).

Draethor Ispowerful
Lanys

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

The other thing to note is, Elemental Planes is supposed to be raid only access anyway (that is, no way in hell you can get there if you don't raid or have connections). Kod`taz, on the other hand, is supposed to be accessible to people single-grouping, with NO chance of interference from outside--but in-game--sources

Good luck in finding a tank/cleric/2ndry healer that is geared enough to get flagged to Kod'Taz that is not a raider.

Your typical bazaar warrior or knight is not going to find eve Feb easy with non stop, fast respawn, 1k+ hitters.

Dai

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Originally posted by Daikoku Ashikaga
Winblade/wmbs both were pre GoD dropable 2h kings, Winblade better for the tank role, WMBS better for solo/damage.

Considering the WMBS (War marshall's bladed staff, right?) is 31/28, and the high end shimmering velium 2handers are 34/28, I think the GoD weapons win the DPS roll

There are also higher AC droppable 2handers, like the 35/35 25ac Widebladed Greatsword, which can (agruably) be better in the "tank" roll.

knight are not a damage class they still look to tank, many will go 1h shield to do so better when they have a strong DPS group, the dmage a Knight puts out is minimal

Knights are not a damage class, agreed, but even so, until you get to some decent level raiding, 2handers have vastly superior DPS to available 1handers. Things like the Wideblade, Two-tined corpse pitch fork, Blacked Acrylia Greatsword are all just a few kpp and offer much better damage output for a non-dual wielding class than 1handers costing many times the price. Basically, if a knight goes 1-hander (before getting some of the high end raider's 1handers, which can be nice) their damage output goes from small to miniscule And you can't ignore DPS completely, especially in non-standard or less-than-perfect groups.

I imagine the rarity of Shimmering will push the price of the 34/28's far to high for them to be viable, and the existing 2hander favorites will still reign with the GoD weapons as good as non-existant. But just looking at the weapons themselves and ignoring cost, it does seem like they have a place and a roll somewhere in the 50s, at least.

[Kronepsis]

Dai: I'd comment more on that, but that'd send this to Primal Scream immediately. Let's not go down that path, okay?

Draethor: Yes, of course the Bloodmetal Earring is better. The only non-restricted tradeskill products out of Drunder is that and the Ceramic Sword, it had BETTER be good. (Poison Making isn't exactly useful to most classes after all.) I'm sure if the only thing tradeskill related you can grab out of Kod`taz was the Shimmering Nihilite, it'd be the same way for it. Even then, if it wasn't used for just that like the Highly Polished Gem is for the Earring, I'd be agreeing with you.

But, I'm more willing to wait for more recipes. We still have no clue WTH Taelosian Flour is for, for example, and that's just a freaking "Level 1" item as you'd put it. My suspicion is that they haven't even put in all the recipes yet. The only one that even looks remotely done is Smithing, and I'm pretty sure that's not even done yet (Shimmering Nihilite has NO effect for the hand-to-hand weapons, what gives?). Then, if there are other recipes where pretty much everything that is a drop/forage has to be a drop from Kod`taz and higher, like the more powerful smithing weapons, if you want to compare it then, it'd be more appropriate.

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

if a knight goes 1-hander (before getting some of the high end raider's 1handers, which can be nice) their damage output goes from small to miniscule

On a serious mob, knights will go 1h/shiield and not even turn on attack.


Dai

[wombat]

I use a Heavy Windlance (SK/Pal) 45/40 on my Pally, its got great DPS and resists etc.

I Consider it better than a WMBS as you get less mob ripostes and higher damge on my own ripostes.

As a MT for my (pre elemental) guild I always use my Tae Ew sheild and 25/25 Lightning Sceptre (18agi with aug) when seriously tanking, bash is a good taunt and interrupt btw also.

[mgrimpo]

You can't really compare the tradeskill items coming out of Kod`Taz with only those coming out of PoTac. PoTac items were only a VERY SMALL portion of the PoP tradeskill items, where as Kod`Taz seems to contain half (and the upper half) of all GoD recipies.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Originally posted by Daikoku Ashikaga
On a serious mob, knights will go 1h/shiield and not even turn on attack.

Yes, but how many knights that would be dealing with weapons of this caliber are actually going to be tanking something that nasty? I could easily be mistaken (not much of a raider), but I would think the progression to reach PoP harder content necessitates some better weapon upgrades.

(Great Spear of Dawn from NToV, 53/46, has lower DPS than the 34/28 GoD smithed ones, leading me to presume that Luclin content would lead to better weapons)

And if even at this level we should just turn off attack and sit there casting for aggro, what does it matter if the GoD ratios suck, since we're not using that part of the weapon anyhow [ment as humor, not as flame - this point just seemed a bit ironic given the context of the thread]

[draethor]

You can't really compare the tradeskill items coming out of Kod`Taz with only those coming out of PoTac. PoTac items were only a VERY SMALL portion of the PoP tradeskill items, where as Kod`Taz seems to contain half (and the upper half) of all GoD recipies.

Of course you can't. I only brought up the tradeskill drops in tactics because someone mentioned that KT wasn't a raid-only access zone (like the EPs) and hence tradeskill drops from the area shouldn't be as good as EP drops.

Aside from the obvious problem with this (since a group without elemental gear isn't going to get past tipt without incredible balance/dps - i.e. 2 or 3 chanters), I figured I would go ahead and compare loot from tactics to kod'taz loot, and the tactics loot is obviously significantly better.

The point is, almost every single tradeskill item in Kod'Taz is underpowered relative to PoP tradeskill stuff. You might be able to point out an exception or two (in fact, the challenge I initially issued in my thread was to do exactly this), but if you look at the examples I've posted, or have worked with the stuff yourself, you will very quickly understand where I'm coming from. People are saying that "well drops are more common in kt, and everything drops there!" but this is entirely mistaken. I could solo 3-4 highly polished gems in the amount of time I could solo 1 raw shimmering nihilite, or several stacks of regrua claws before 1 taelosian mountain wheat, or 10 shimmering fish gills before 1 shimmering ore, or the components for 5 water or earth bows before 1 chunk of discordian rock (which makes arrows that are far inferior to champion arrows)... That's one long ass run-on sentence, but you get my point.

So again. Let's see some examples, folks.

[edit: oops, noticed someone DID just post an example:

(Great Spear of Dawn from NToV, 53/46, has lower DPS than the 34/28 GoD smithed ones, leading me to presume that Luclin content would lead to better weapons)

So you're going to eat more ripostes with the GoD weapon, and the dps output makes it 9% better. Also it has far worse stats than the NToV spear, and no proc.

It's pretty clearly worse, but for argument's sake let's go ahead and decree them roughly equivalent. So we have rare, high end tradeskill drops coming out of a zone that's very difficult for your average gamer to get to, and these drops are roughly equivalent to high end drops from 3-year old content. Is this intended? Is this why we spent so much time getting our tradeskills up and advancing? To make stuff that none of our friends or us will use, that you will spend countless hours trying to sell to some twink who is too lazy to raid NToV for an upgrade to?]

Draethor Ispowerful
Lanys

[Fudapuda]

While your point may well be valid, I don't see how this is any different from anything we've seen before. I've been doing tradeskills since I began this game with my poor barb shaman making her own tattered armor way back in 2000. And since then, there has been ONE expansion where ANY significant portion of the tradeskill-made gear was even remotely comparable to dropped (and droppable) gear, or remotely marketable. That expansion was PoP, and even then, the vast majority of the genuinely profitable gear required elemental access to accomplish.

It was nice to dream that maybe the devs had actually decided, based on our experience with PoP, to give tradeskillers a chance to make an honest living by the trades, but I honestly didn't expect that to continue, and at least at present, it doesn't look like it has

Fudapuda
Bertox

[thrashette]

uh-huh...no

That expansion was PoP, and even then, the vast majority of the genuinely profitable gear required elemental access to accomplish.

Forget profit. Platinum is easy to acquire at that level.

Tradeskill items need to be competitive in both power and rarity for the zone in which they are found. As long as this is false, tradeskilling will not be a true part of EQ 'game'.

If items aren't competitive, they become bazaar bait.

While that's nice profit for the zone enabled folk at the expense of the unenabled, it would be better for everyone if people who collected components used the crafted items instead of selling them.

I see a lot of my fellow tradeskillers getting bent out of shape because some of these Ultimate Crafted GoD weapons are close to Slightly Good PoP weapons.

Instead, you should be getting bent because in EVERY expansion and for EVERY trade except PoP Jewelry, Elemental bows, and Cultural Smithing, EVERY SINGLE CRAFTED ITEM has been a throwaway for the people who had access to the drop zones.

We need a paradigm shift. Today's dominant paradigm is 'crafted items found where we raid are useless to us'. So the items end up being given to nutty 250s, or sold in the bazaar to the unflagged. This marginalizes crafters into merchants.

These items need to be worth more than that. I want to see people hoarding DKP for pottery drops. I want to have drama over who gets the next Ixxt robe. I want to see main tanks quitting guilds because a crafted breastplate acquired from raid components was awarded to a paladin.

That takes one thing. Making the items competitive with equal zone dropped loots.

The WORST weapon found so far in GoD Tier 3 is Dmg 29, Dly 25, with about 1 zillion in stats. That 34/28 isn't even close to competitive with that.

I think that these nihilite weapons could use a SERIOUS upgrade, myself.