Cultural charms

[Devilcharm]

Okay, so now that we have established that these charms are utterly junk and the materials needed to make them are very rare at best making them even less worthwhile to do, further more only having 1 augment slot which stops people from making them for themselves let alone others, has anyone caught word if the devs or sony is going to up these charm stats and adding more augment slots making them worthwhile? Or will they forever be a was of time and should I just destroy my charm patterns as getting to 300 pottery with these will be even more expensive and time consuming then the traditional method.

[Ysall]

There is a niche for these things, but its not at the high end of the game. If I were creating a twink, and gearing them up with a full set of expert or master cultural, then they might be worth having. But who actually wears a full set of cultural for any period of time?

For them to actually be worth having, one or more of the following improvements is required:-

- Increase the basic stats
- Front load the stats for low numbers of cultural armour pieces, so its even worth having for just a few items. So, for example, you get 50% max stats for 1 piece, 75% for 2, 85% for 3, 90% for 4, 95% for 5 etc.
- Add another aug slot
- Remove the requirement for one of each type of cultural ingrediant, so that non-silk classes dont have to find coarse silk as they do now for races that can have silk classes

The idea of cultural charms WAS a great idea, it just needs a little more benefit to make it worth wearing.

[Devilcharm]

Aye, the not worth wearing part is what drives most people from wearing or making them. As you pointed out in the case of coarse silk, those GM charms would be at best an utter joke for the difficulty of making vs rewards. Excluding GM charms, and moving down to masters. Let us not forget that most cultural materials minus yttrium ore and shissar scales are very very hard to get also. Great Reptile Teeth, Ice Burrower Silk, and Storm Volaa come to mind. There are other ones as well.

I agree, the idea behind a cultural charm was in fact a great idea. However the execution of the worthwhileness on these charms severely lacked. Unless a person has a niche to fill out like you say, they are in all other senses a total waste of time/material.

Melee's could benifit from journeyman and expert to some degree at lower levels, but casters will never touch them. Nor do I think a melee would opt for a master's/gm.

[andyhre]

You could make this very desirable if...

If you allowed Tradeskilled augments like Radiant OOW items and Bazu/Last Bloods to go into the charm, these would fly off the shelves.

[Mok]

But who actually wears a full set of cultural for any period of time?

Actually, that would be me. I am not 70th level and I have not done much raiding so Masters armor is about the best thing for my 58th Ranger. Since I didn't realize that I could get a charm in the tutorial, I didn't have a charm at all until 50th level and an experts charm was much better than the one I got from Dulak's Harbor. Looking at it that way I was very happy to make one of the charms.

Melee's could benifit from journeyman and expert to some degree at lower levels, but casters will never touch them. Nor do I think a melee would opt for a master's/gm.

If I had the tailoring I would make a masters charm and use it.

I would certainly like for them to be better, but knocking out an experts charm was a good choice for me and not too expensive.

[tkdman02]

Well I would certianly wear a full set of GM cultural armor as a Knight Class at level 65. The GM Charm would be great stats. I haven't really seen any charms that are better out there for me that I can attain.
I am not in a raiding guild at all and getting the Metallic Drake Scale and the Glossy Drake Hide wouldn't be that hard to get. Then just getting 300 Pottery and an evolved trophy and bam I have a great charm with almost no effort 18ac +90hp on a charm then add my slipgears and thats a dang nice charm...

Also the Cultural armor has 3 aug slots in it so yes it is good armor if you have alot of augs to put in it

[Astroshak]

My berserker bot was wearing a full set of GM armor, with a Master charm, for a while. I've since changed that charm for an Arena badge, which is good because I've also swapped out two peices of GM gear (Gray Iron Chain Helmet and Harlad's Vambraces of Fury). One thing I noticed though : GM gear with the master charm gave the charm somewhat better stats than Lucy indicated the max stats would be, which I presume came from the idea of using full master gear with the master charm.

[Queletan]

I debated getting a GM charm for my warrior (he wears a full set of well augmented GM cultural armor) but after doing the math, the small upgrade (I think it was like 5hps) was not worth the drake scale.

Quick aside: I'm lucky in that respect, as both of my mains are dwarves, so all I need is one MDS to make an charm.

I have a masters charm for my bard (she wears a full set of vah'shir cultural) and I'm thrilled with the charm. Once she hits 70 tho (67 atm) I might look to other charms.

Low to mid end, and higher depending on the situation, I think they're not terrible.. but for many races (silk wearing ones) it seems absurd. I do believe that if the second aug slot was added in, it would be much less of an issue, but the DON charm is far too good if you have a decent LDON aug and the Slipgear.

Q

*Edited to fix some bad spelling and the fact that I kept calling Charms Augs

[Devilcharm]

Even at level 55, you can do the arena badge quest and get higher stats then the cultural charms offer. So even for melee they are not really worth it.
I have to agree, they need another aug slot, and upped stats to be worthwhile for most classes. I suppose they are decent if you dont have the PoR expansion.

[Ixiola]

For me, getting this charm isn't worth the cost/time, because even though I wear a full set of GM culteral, I have both the slipgear and the LDoN augment I want to equip. (My LDoN augment is up to +86/+86 so even better than slipgear). So that left me with getting a GM charm, which has two augment slots.

I agree, it's a shame.