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**Kaysha Soulsinger** · 04-13-2003, 04:58 AM

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Personally I find it a waste too, to fashion these Hurricane and Night Terror Plate armors. Not only does it indeed cost way more tempers than the Chain (6 for a Plate BP, as opposed to just 3 for a Chain Tunic, for instance), but compared to other plates it is sub-par, stat-wise.

The least they need to do is somehow remove the temper requirement from the sub-combines needed, possibly by making it require only the Nightmare Mephit Blood or Stormrider Blood, respectively, for the subcombines.

**Ilona** · 04-13-2003, 09:28 AM

I personally will be making a few items of hurricane plate.
My cleric cannot yet make her own cultural, and the helmet, sleeves and gloves seem better than the cultural anyway (human erollisi).

That being said, I will only be making these items for myself, not for anyone else, and it is purely because for the level I am, I cannot get better and the fact that I prefer to wear armour I make myself

The night terror plate, though, I won't be making any of.

**Kaysha Soulsinger** · 04-14-2003, 03:18 AM

Originally posted by Ilona

I personally will be making a few items of hurricane plate.
My cleric cannot yet make her own cultural, and the helmet, sleeves and gloves seem better than the cultural anyway (human erollisi).

I'm a bit confused by this ... from experience I know that the trivial level of the Night Terror / Hurricane armor is around that of Blue Diamond armors, i.e., 250+ trivial level with about the same success rate; furthermore, it's easier to get components for the Blue Diamond armors than the Night Terror / Hurricane ones. Is your smith who is currently able to smith those armors not your human cleric, and even not human at all?

**Ilona** · 04-14-2003, 04:23 AM

Originally posted by Kaysha Soulsinger

Originally posted by Ilona

I personally will be making a few items of hurricane plate.
My cleric cannot yet make her own cultural, and the helmet, sleeves and gloves seem better than the cultural anyway (human erollisi).

I'm a bit confused by this ... from experience I know that the trivial level of the Night Terror / Hurricane armor is around that of Blue Diamond armors, i.e., 250+ trivial level with about the same success rate; furthermore, it's easier to get components for the Blue Diamond armors than the Night Terror / Hurricane ones. Is your smith who is currently able to smith those armors not your human cleric, and even not human at all?

Sorry, should have explained better.

My paladin is a high elf, and can make BD cultural (227 skill atm, with a stockpile of sickle combines to do). When she gets to 230, I'll hit combine on the hurricane items I have collected ingredients for. I have done two nightmare chain combines (2/2 on tunic), and a few Tae ew combines already. I'm hoping that the hurricane is the same trivial as the nightmare (by all accounts easier than BD cultural)

My cleric is a human, and currently only has 188 skill (has been wearing field plate since before the new armours were put in). I'm collecting seaweed etc, but will be a long time before she gets to make her Radiant Heraldic.

I prefer to make things myself rather than buy them off others.

**wyrmbane_** · 04-14-2003, 10:37 AM

guess it depends

Lets see, for the most part, the Blue diamond cultural platemail ROCKS, the chain is aweful. for the Pop armors, the Platemail is not that good, but the chainmail Rocks. Balance right?

Actually, the Night terror and Hurricane platemail offer me a choice. Right now, I can ONLY smith for Small races as a Dwarf. however, even though it may not be the best / perfect stuff in comparison to others, I CAN make night terror & Hurricane Platemail for my friends that are not Small race. THAT is what I like about it. It isn't something I will make to sell, but I love to be able to make the stuff for people who can't afford better in my guild, and get them to decent armor class.

That said, I would love to be able to by-pass the night terror / hurricane and just make Tae EW platemail. heck, I would like to wear that stuff over my current Underfoot breastplate / greaves.

Given the ease of fabricating Night terror, I don't have too much of a gripe about the platemail. yes, it takes more tempers. Yes, it is worst than the cultural in AC, but far better in stats.

My gripe with the hurricane is the same as Tae Ew, one component to make it is so bleeding rare, it is essentially not viable.

The Elemental armors from what I see have excellent balance for both Chain / Platemail. So that isn't an issue really.

Eh, yeah it would be nice to have better night terro plate....but at least I can smith for my friends with it.

wyrmbane

**Gryfalia** · 04-14-2003, 10:41 AM

Much to my shock I was able to sell a Hurricane Plate Breastplate for 45K last week. I don't know why the buyer specifically wanted it, but he was rather insistant (I brought my vendor down to do something else on that machine and he was there the minute I put it back up buying it).

The huge problem is that people try to get obscene amounts for the drops of pure rain (5-6K on DRo quite often), and multiply that by the 5.5 you need to get a breastplate, that's minimum cost of 27.5K just for those. Which, of course, means farming one of the barracks of BoT that people don't tend to like (the ocean side) for them, and, of course, they are quite rare. Blech.

Has anyone else noticed that the Wind-Worn breastplate drops very rarely now and is hardly, if ever, sold in the bazaar?

Gryfalia

**Angelsyn** · 04-14-2003, 01:21 PM

A reason someone would pay large sums for Hurricane Plate (and the Windworn BP) is that they don't have access to Cultural Plate for their character.

Agnostic Ogres & Trolls, and Vah Shir, don't have a BD Cultural option.

P.S. Cultural Chain armours should be increased slightly also... they are way too poor quality (AC wise) for the work. The Leather and (for Elves & Erudites) "Silk" armours could stand a slight AC improvement also.

**EQRipclaw** · 04-14-2003, 01:46 PM

Dont sweat about Teir 3 armors.

Its the Elemental armors you want to start getting components for.

**Kaysha Soulsinger** · 04-14-2003, 02:57 PM

It's also the stuff I cannot reach, heh

My guild isn't strong enough to reach the Elemental Planes anytime soon, and the only two guilds on my server that do hunt those places keep the stuff to themselves; only very rarely does tradeskill stuff from there get onto the market.

**Taraddar** · 04-15-2003, 03:07 PM

I think more than anything it's an idication of how poor the cultural chain is in compairison to cultural plate. You also pick arguably one of the best cultural plate sets. I think the high temper usage is more of a balance issue than the relative stats. Drop the extra tempers needed in making the jointing and make plates yeild 2 like the rings do so they require the same amount of tempers and I think things would be fine.

Also remember the stats on cultural aren't always as favorable as they are for a RZ warrior or a Tribunal warrior. Agnostic or odd gods often don't have very good cultural.

**Zopharr** · 04-15-2003, 06:38 PM

I agree with Wyrm and Taraddar. The cultural chain is pretty lame, IMO. The PoP Night Terror/Hurricanechain recipes (not to mention the increased Tae Ew blood drops) simply brought the chain up to the same level that the cultural plate had been.

The way I look at it, the cultural plate essentially provided plate characters a way to bypass farming for Skyshrine/Kael armor. The Cultural chain was clearly inferior to the velious quest armor, however. The PoP chain basically now gives chain classes smithed stuff comparable to velious quest armor.

And even the Hurricane Plate is an improvement for clerics and hybrids for a couple slots. Zopharr is sporting Hurricane Vambraces and Breastplate at the moment.

I certainly wouldn't argue with some extra AC/HP. I certainly *DO* agree that they shouldn't take as many tempers (relative to chain) that they do. But I think that overall SOE has achieved a pretty good balance between smithed chain and plate armors. Now to just increase the drop rates on the stuff. <grin>

**Meirril** · 04-15-2003, 07:19 PM

First off: there have always been smithed armors that arn't worth making. (when's the last time you've made a buckler? anyone? anyone EVER make a targ shield?!? How about making ornate armor to wear? anyone?)

Not every armor set is desirable. Get over it.
Sony intro'ed the BD cultural armors and it actualy made cultural armor wearable (before that you occasionaly saw HE cultural and dwarf cultural. that was it.). However, the chain was noted even then to be slightly inferior to commonly worn dropped equipment. The plate armor didn't have any decently available competition though. Honestly, it still dosen't.

Still, enough people complained that it appears Sony decided to "ballance" the chain armors into'ed in PoP by making them in line with the origional BD armors and made the lower tier plate armors 1) about equivelent considering racial/diety restrictions have been removed and 2) alot less available due to extremely rare components and lots of them needed.

Personaly, I'm starting to think ballance in EQ is a dirty word. Don't get me wrong, I like ballance, but I think when people say ballance what they realy means is "somebody has it better than me".

**Gargazon** · 04-16-2003, 06:05 AM

One thing about PoP smithed plate. As an agnostic troll warrior, I CAN'T bypass velious armor. It's great that the plate armor is nice for you clerics and hybrids, but the stats for a warrior suck. This IS an issue for me, because every hybrid/cleric has racial armor as good as/better than velious armor. Once again Sony has taken agnostic trolls/ogres and has treated us to a slumber party with Michael Jackson.

Now don't take this the wrong way, I know there is only 1 tradeskill guy, and he is probably overworked, but I'm pretty sure he would consider this site required reading to get some anonomous feedback on the skills he has implemented. There is no way he can have missed the vast numbers of complaints from the Troll/Ogre agnostic community about the lack of cultural armor for us.

Now before you start on agnostic meaning better factions....STOP! Until you play a troll/ogre agnostic don't tell me how good my base faction is, cause I'm KoS everywhere that any normal blood covered, flesh eating RZ worshipping troll warrior is. I was TOLD I had great faction from being agnostic, but the first time I wandered into freeport I was summarily executed. Sgt Slate didn't get the memo in ec either. The guys in Quenos/halas/high pass/akanon/felwithe/and every other city other than ogguk and neriak forgot to check their e-mails as well. I let it pass though because it didn't matter. If I had known 4 years ago when I started that diety was any more than a roleplaying tool, I would NOT have clicked agnostic. In fact, it WASN'T anything more than a roleplaying tool!

Those of you about to tell me I should make another character if I'm not happy, stop right there as well. I was level 59 or 60 when all these changes were put into place, and when all these changes took place to cultural armor I was as well off as most of your average warriors out there, but the BD stuff made it cheap and easy to get better armor, with more HP on it than almost all of the velious quest pieces. All of a sudden there was this huge disparity. There was also the fact that I had been playing since just after release.

The problem with this disparity of course is many facated, not only are the majority of the velious armors harder to get than the cultural stuff, cultural has better stats too. I figured out that if I had the ability to wear the cultural stuff I would not only pick up a ton of ac over the SS stuff I have, I would pick up like 500+ hp. News flash Sparky, that MATTERS!!! In fact, when you get down to it, HP are the ONLY melee stat that matters. I'd give up all my ac, stats, etc for a taunt that works and some real base hp.

Soooooooooo anyhow, starting over didn't really apeal to me, I figured I would suck it up and see what happened with PoP, especially since I was level 60 by the time it came out. Now, at 63, the blue zone makes it impossible for me to solo for exp since even green stuff in PoD is pounding me for 200+ a pop. Stuff in PoV hits 500+, and tier 3 is worse. Meanwhile the melee loot tables for the tier 1/2/3 planes are so pathetic that unless you are in an uber guild with VT+ gear and tier 4 access you are basically sol (nope, I don't mean shadows of luclin either ;-)

Of course there is another option, allow me to "find religion." I'm not sure I can speak for everyone else, but I can tell you, if you completely removed all my faction, and reset it to level 1 never killed anything RZ warrior faction, I would gladly spend the time to build my factions back up again. So what I would lose High Pass, Quenos, and Freeport. Thats just a matter of slaughtering some greenies to get it back. I wouldn't mind slaughtering giants again to get up my thurgadin faction either. Heck, I'd PAY for it. LoY was like $20 or so. Make the next expansion so we could reset out factions to starting base for a RZ warrior...thats it. No new bank space, no new item slots, mobs, zones, levels...just that one little feature and i'd buy it.

...Not that this would be the first time this has been said either.

Continuing on, I already have a huge racial exp penalty because I'm a troll. I guess thats because of regeneration (worthless past level 10), and my high starting strength/starting constitution, are supposedly so leet, but it is worthless today as well. There are far too many gear options that make even a level 1 gnome (who gets an experience bonus if reports are correct) as viable as I am in the str/sta department. The base hp he has at any given sta are the same per level as mine also, so I don't even get a bonus there anymore. I guess what I am trying to say is, if you didn't want trolls to play, why didn't you just say so. I would have made that gnome, or if I went large again, an Ogre. They have an exp penalty as well, but at least they get something worth taking a penalty for...frontal stun immunity.

It might have also been nice to know 4 years ago that I was gonna be homeless with no way to take back my swamp. I don't think the crowd in neriak are too happy about it either, they let me know everytime I con them that they are apprehensive, other than a few you stuck in the back of the foregin quarter, WTG!!!!!!!!!!! /HIGH FIVE

P.S. Having bought EQ, Kunark, SoV, SoL, PoP and LoY, as well as having spent monthly fees for the last few years I hope you will understand when I don't buy into EQ2. When my friends are gone, I'm gone from Sony products as well.

(feel free to remove this post is this isn't the right spot for it, or move it to primal scream

**Shjinn** · 04-16-2003, 08:22 AM

Bad time for you

You seem to be having a bad time with EQ. Chill out and take a break.

With all the other global problems and issues with EQ, finding a solution for an uncommon race with a very uncommon religious combination is not going to be high on Sony's list to fix. Neither is it high on tradeskills overall.

Many dead horse issues brought up here. Please refer to topped posts and such to see what issues have been brought up. See the smithing only dead horse issues also.

1. My Race/religion/class got screwed over in <insert tradeskill here>
2. The entire Troll/Neriak issue
3. Warriors/pure melee get screwed compared to Hybrids
4. Not quite a dead horse, but still should be a dead horse. I'm a warrior/melee and can't solo in PoP
5. My race/class/religion is not perfectly balanced play-wise with every other race/class/religion out there.
6. Don't ask me to create another char, though that would solve all the issues I am presently complaining about

Look. Things aren't always supposed to be perfectly balanced and peachy for every single situation. When they are not, you deal with your situation the best you can.

Not being crass here, but it seems you are very upset over many facets of your character. Your race because of exp penalty seems to annoy you. Your Agnostic view seems to annoy you. Being a pure melee with stats on items that you think are meant for hybrids seem to annoy you. The fact that you can't solo in PoP seems to annoy you. You didn't mention any positives about being what you are, so I have to assume that you are basically really annoyed with playing your char. Isn't that a signal to try out something else? A lot of my fiends have done the same and almost totally stopped palying their 61+ main.

On a last note before this become a scream, what I objectively see people wanting is not "balance" but features for their char to make them more powerful. If an average player in EQ were allowed to make their own changes, there would be a class that nukes like a wiz, tanks like a warrior, ports to everywhere, buffs like a cleric and shaman, heals like a cleric, solo's anything, keeps aggro like an sk...etc., and also can wear any single piece of cultural they drool over. Hey, the differences and challenges is what makes this game fun. Overcoming difficulties should be a challenge, not a chore. If it is a chore and so many facets of what you are doing is annoying, then perhaps a change is indeed in order.

Shjinn

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