Tailoring vs. Smithing Rare Combines

[Benthair Dunthat]

So far I have attempted 16 Sublime aug combines and 4 Elegant Leather Armor combines for myself and my guildmates. The 4 Armor combines (tailoring) were all successful. I have a 13/16 success rate on the sublime aug combines. The 13 successful combines were all tailoring, the 3 unsuccessful combines were all smithing. I am 300 in both, trophies for both, all TS aa's.

Quite frankly I am now apprehensive to attempt the porous loam combines since I am 0/3. On Drinal the porous loams are selling for 400k, so that is 1.2 million down the tubes. Anyone else seen this? Should I detect some sort of pattern here, or is this just one of those wild and crazy RNG things that are so infuriating?

[solithan]

I smithed some porous loams initially when they were fairly common and got 9 fails for 15 combines, then recently I did another run and got 0 fails for 6. In total 9 fails 21 combines thats what a 42%fail rate. I think its largely just the RNG playing tricks. We can't really "prove" anything because our sample size will always be too small. Funny though, every time I took a stats class max sample size was always significant at 30 for some reason, but here ya get blown off unless you do runs of well over 100.
I sorta expect a fail or 2 every 3 combines and I've encountered nothing to make me believe smithing is any "harder" then tailoring except the trivs.

[Zolina]

I'd say don't use porous loam for aug combines, too many classes need porous loam for their elegant armor sets.

[thomenthechanter]

Just to clarify...

Zolina, are you still referring to the 9-classes-of-metal vs. 3/4 for leather/silk? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Ngreth say he'd gone back and balanced that out already with the drops in Crystallos and Meldrath's?

Until the day the cultural armor changes, I will use Porous Loam on symbols instead of armor for anything *except* tanks. The extra mod2s on the Sublime aug speak more usefully to me than the 30AC on armor pieces for classes who shouldn't need any armor class at all. Even for tanks, I'm thinking the extra percent of Shielding may be more helpful than 30 overcap AC, depending on their other gear.

After the changes take effect...well, then we'll see.

[Aldier]

At least on my server, I advocate to anyone with a Porous Loam looking to have a symbol made, sell the Porous Loam in the bazaar and then buy a Spinneret Fluid or Marrow, and have that used to make the augment and pocket the 50-100k profit.

I have done a few combines of each type and have not seen any difference in success on tailoring vs smithing. All I can say is if you don't have a 15% mod item, get your trophy to levle 7/7 and get the mastery aa because they make a large difference on these high trivials.

[Bobaten]

Heh, on Prexus you would sell the fluid or marrow, buy a loam, and pocket the 50-100k profit.

[Zolina]

If you think only warriors, paladins, and SKs need AC, you're dead wrong.

AoE rampage is common on raid mobs, melee classes with poor AC end up being mana drains and can wipe the raid.

A lot of us like to solo, and AC makes a huge difference in what we can solo, especially in SoF.

Many rangers fill in tank roles when the group can't find a good tank, AC makes a huge difference there as well.

[Abazagaroth]

If you think only warriors, paladins, and SKs need AC, you're dead wrong.

AoE rampage is common on raid mobs, melee classes with poor AC end up being mana drains and can wipe the raid.

A lot of us like to solo, and AC makes a huge difference in what we can solo, especially in SoF.

Many rangers fill in tank roles when the group can't find a good tank, AC makes a huge difference there as well.

If you think the ac difference between even a full set of elaborate to elegant makes a substantial difference on a non-plate class, you're dead wrong =P

Its worthwhile, for some (monks/rangers/zerkers) to some extent, not to any extent that you'd ever notice.

[Bobaten]

Well, as a ranger, I most certainly do notice. 152 extra ac is a pretty significant AC boost, especially in SoF where AC matters. And for Monks/Bsts the AC nearly doubles (from 229 to 447). Sure it's all over the soft caps, but the penalty isn't bad enough that an extra 218 AC is not noticible. Now, int casters and druids on the other hand, certainly don't get as much use from ac as the other classes.

[Zolina]

You obviously don't play a ranger, Abaz. I've grouped with rangers with 1000 AC less than me, they fold up and die when they get aggro. I have 3500 AC and tank like a mediocre-geared paladin. I know we don't get as much benefit from AC as the tank classes, but it's definitely noticeable.

[solithan]

If the AC didn't matter there woudn't be such an uproar of folks calling for nerf....shrug.

[Pyraxis]

If the AC didn't matter there woudn't be such an uproar of folks calling for nerf....shrug.

The uproar you hear is people crying out against the nerf. There are about 20 people who had their e-peen stepped on for 30 minutes that want to have it changed.