Cultural Am I understanding it?

[byelka]

I have spent a few weeks back in the game and I am still getting used to all the changes.

Tell me if my understanding of new cultural is correct (well new to me gone 4 years)

I have a HIE cleric and my armor set seems to all be called
Moonglade
the best seems to be

Elaborate Moonglade Cuirass

Now I guess the real reason why I would want this is because I can add a type 11 and type 12 aug it.

Type 11 and 12 are both player made it seems and both can be very huge up to 300+hp and such.

So this and two super augs give me something a lot bigger then what I can achieve in a non-raid setting.

Is my understanding correct?

-Byelka

[thomenthechanter]

Sort of. I wear a pair of cultural leggings. (Check the magelo below.)

Type 12 augs require an item that only drops in what is or has been raid content. Some of that raid content may be more groupable now.

Bazu Stones can be one grouped, and there may be a groupable Last Blood event, but Serpent's Essences, Faceted Sunshards, and so on will be unattainable without raiding.

The problem with this is that the Elegant Defiant gear is every bit as good as the Elegant Moonglade + Exalted Symbol. Compare:

Elegant Defiant Plate Greaves
vs.
Elegant Moonglade Greaves plus Exalted Legging Symbol of Growth.

Sublime symbols give you a bit more HP, mana, and modifiers, but take a long, long time to complete the quest to enable their creation.

Also, cultural has no focus effects, which limits their use sharply in higher content.

Worse, the SoD group armor absolutely destroys the cultural, even when not fully expanded. Concordant Mindhallow Plate Greaves

[MareeTP]

Depends on the level of the aug. Cultural armor when fully auged does have foci, although typically the foci is one expansion behind the current top level zone - or was when cultural was being upgraded with expansions.

However, many raiders were still wearing pieces of elegant cultural with the MMM drop and sublime augs when they entered and worked through Crystallos.

You need the "faycite" drops and the sublime symbols to max out the stats, though. Its not so bad high end with all the maxed augs. I have an alt with elegant armor, sublime symbols and faycite augs --- those pieces of armor still are better than the SOD group armor. He has some of that too.

The defiant gear is good for someone who doesnt have options for raid drops, especially with the foci. However, there is still a market and a use for elegant cultural gear.

[thomenthechanter]

Maree, you mentioned fully-aug'd cultural having focii, but Byelka said "what I can achieve in a non-raid setting".

My point was that you can't fully aug cultural without raiding. Those focii come from the raid-drop-required Type 12 augs that I mentioned. You can't get Faycite Seals without raiding, and thus no focii without raiding.

[MareeTP]

OK missed that. Sorry. Cultural was designed to benefit most strongly with raid drops. I think thats a given.

Bazu stones are definitely one groupable now - Ive done them myself with a single group - but I think it might take more than just a casual pick up group to do it. There are some named that drop Last Bloods that are one-groupable now. Doubt anyone is one-grouping Solteris or higher though. Both those augs will give you a focus and can be obtained without a formal raid.

I dont know how the new Crystallos group drops combine to make the type 12 augs. Someone else will have to help you on that. I was left with the impression that these would add a foci -- but maybe not. And maybe they decided not to make type 12 group drops for cultural ... honestly I cant remember how that all turned out.

[thomenthechanter]

To be fair, I left out the OOW group Type 12s... like the Radiant Howlite of Pure Healing... because the focus effect is overridden by groupable non-visible armor pieces like the Twisted Elven Charm Necklace.

[Aanuvane]

One thing to consider, there might still be at least a few people around who have already completed the sublime quest and the components to make the sublime augs are more plentiful now, so the cost to make them is greatly reduced as compared to when they first became available. I'm more than happy to make them for folks on quellious if you provide the raw materials.

I agree with Maree - Bazu content may be one groupable, but only by 80+ in new gear. If you're still in old gear, I'd find it hard to believe you'd be able to single group bazu content. I even think a fair amount of Last Blood content might be single groupable - but again - only if you're already in gear that's past it. The focii on Bazu and Last Blood are also only level 70 - so you're really going to pay the price on % lost over level as you continue past 70 if you're a caster. It still makes decent gear for midlevel tanks. You also cannot rule out that these augs require AAAAs which are still fairly expensive IF you can even find them (50-100k per aug).

If you have Seeds of Destruction and are at least level 80 - you're better off focusing on the group level gear available from the drops in Field of Scale (instances can be less stressful but require questing/tasks to be able to request them) - though that content will require some grouping/mercenaries depending on your level (lower the level, more characters you'll need to manage the content). Of course that also requires doing the progression and is a lot easier if you do the mask quest. Check out rasper's guide to Seeds of Destruction for decent guides/walkthroughs.

http://home.comcast.net/~mathadon/Guides/SoD/index.html

[Luvimt]

For non raiders, choice may depend on wether you want AC gear or not. My cultural wristband with last blood has 30 more AC than T4 SoD wrist and hp are the same on each.

[thomenthechanter]

For non-raiders, there's no choice --- they can't get the Last Bloods unless they buy them in the bazaar.

[SeeboSteele]

Since when can you buy Last Blood's in the bazaar?

[Luvimt]

For non-raiders, there's no choice --- they can't get the Last Bloods unless they buy them in the bazaar.

Well according to a few posts above, last bloods can be 1-grouped now. I got mine while raiding but am in a low-tier family guild and would definately not call myself a raider. I think even with bazu aug, the cultural beats t4 armour though.

[thomenthechanter]

To start, I take back the "buy it in the bazaar" comment; you can't on any server but FV, because they're NoTrade.

The key to the above posts were summed up by Aanuvane:

Bazu content may be one groupable, but only by 80+ in new gear. If you're still in old gear, I'd find it hard to believe you'd be able to single group bazu content. I even think a fair amount of Last Blood content might be single groupable - but again - only if you're already in gear that's past it.

Re-summarized: If you can single-group Bazu and Last Blood content, you're already wearing gear that's better than the cultural with the Last Blood seal, and thus you are likely a raider anyhow.

As far as Bazu cultural being "better" than Tier 4 SoD, I'd respectfully disagree for any caster, simply because the focus effects are gone by the time you're wearing Tier 4 SoD group-gear. (Melee may be different; I haven't done a probe into that.) While stats and resists may be better, HP, mana, and endurance are nearly even, and the SoD gear benefits from powersources. Yes, the mod2s are better on the cultural --- if you have the Type 12.

But compare the focii:
Balanced Thoughthaze Silk Pants, the Tier 4 SoD pants, have a 17% detrimental spell haste focus on level 85 spells.
Bazu Seal of Baleful Celerity has a 23% detrimental spell haste focus on level 70 spells, which means it has a 0% effect on spells above level 80.
Last Blood of the Traveler has the same focus as the Bazu Seal, so it's useless post-80. The extra 30 mana it provides is a drop in a 20,000 point mana pool, just a smidge over a tenth of a percent.

[Veril]

Focus effects (as of the SoD release I believe) degrade at 5% per level, not 10%, so the bazu/last bloods focus effects at level 80 are 1/2 of what they are at level 70, and at 85 they are one quarter of the level 70 effect.

[thomenthechanter]

Veril's right about the degradation of the focii and I knew that but had a brain flatulence while writing the post.

My point still holds, though... the Bazu/Last Blood focii is worse than the focii on the SoD Tier 4 on anything over level 75 spells (23 - (25% * 23) = 17% @ 75). If you can single-group the Bazu/Last Blood events, you are almost guaranteed to already have better focii on your gear.

Anyone done the workup on melee, where the focii aren't necessarily level-driven?