Chain/Plate Game Balance Issue

[Zopharr]

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.

Great - get Hurricane Plate. It's better than the Velious quest armor so you can still skip Skyshrine. It's about the same or better overall for agnostic warriors than the agnostic cultural plate generally is (9 less AC, but 40 more HP and more stats), and is on a par with the cultural armor available to most non-RZ warriors.

Is Hurricane Plate as good as the Fierce Heraldic is? No. Then again, you don't see Garshok whining because he can't wear Fierce Heraldic (being a RZ SK), or upset because he can't convert to CT and wear the Fulvous Darkscale with 30 more STA than Crimson Darkscale. Is Hurricane Plate pricey? Sure - just like the BD stuff was when it first came out.

Functionally you *DO* have a bypass around Velious quest armor with the Hurricane plate. Up to you if you want to take advantage of it or not.

News flash Sparky

Sparky is my blowtorch. Please leave him out of it.

Now, at 63

Great! You are actually in a position where you can group and farm for components for Hurricane (or better) smithed armor for some smith to pound out for you. Far better than an agnostic troll/ogre in the 50s, say, who would have to farm for cash to buy components/armor outright.


quote="Gargazon"] I already have a huge racial exp penalty because I'm a troll [/quote]

Not really germane to a smithing forum discussion, but having an ogre SK and a troll shammy, my sympathy on this count is limited.



But I stand by my basic assertion. Cultural plate allowed most plate characters a path to avoid the TOV farming cycle. OK, sure, they missed a few class combos, but the Hurricane (and better) PoP plate closes that gap. The PoP Chain now allows the chain classes a viable alternative to TOV farming - something that didn't exist before. Basically, it brought the smithed chain in line with the smithed plate already available with cultural.

My 2 cp, at least.

[Gargazon]

Ok, the exp penalty annoys me, but it's not a game breaker. Sure i didn't realize it was there at first, but even when I found out about it, and how large it was I didn't really complain about it too much. While I didn't agree that the benefits justifed the penalty, I did agree that some sort of penalty was justifible, and that if I wanted to keep playing Gargazon, I would have to live with it. So I did. It wasn't really a huge deal anyway at the time, not til 51-60 got implemented with Kunark. Then it really started to matter because of the exp curve. No problem, I dealt with it. Most of the stuff in and of itself isn't a game breaker for me, but adding it all up really ticks me off. The armor issue is just a major one for me atm. And Hurricane plate isn't an option for me because of the stats, they are horrible for a warrior, velious quest is far better.

Further, if this were a new situation it wouldn't bother me nearly as much, but it has been known about for months and months. This should have been fixed with the smithed PoP armors to fill in the gaps created with the previous armors.

It's all well and good to say I shouldn't be annoyed, but with an issue like this, where the horse is not only dead, the flesh is beaten off the bones, and the bones pounded into dust, it can't be something that isn't known about. In this situation there is an ocure...BALANCE IT FOR EVERYONE!! Now if there is a tradeskill patch otw to fill in the gaps i'll be more than happy to take back anything bad I have ever said, thought of, written or even think I might have thought of concerning the issue. I'm not gonna hold my breath of course.

You might be right about needing a break though. I'm getting to the point where playing the game is more stressful than relaxing. Strongly considering looking into alternatives...anyone know a good mmorpg? Was considering shadowbane, or possibly just waiting til WoW came out.

[Morani]

Gryfalia, I too am on Dru-Ro. Granted, I haven't been on in a while and not everyone is like me, but I try to make a business out of supplying tradeskillers. If you see an item on my merch (Emuleo) that you would buy but at a cheaper price, fire me a tell. I don't stay online but I will (hopefully) get it latter. Let me know what you think is fair and why and I'll be as fair as I can. There is no WAY I'm going o be able to keep track of all the recipes for all the components I can find. Besides, the final product that I see listed may be the one that hasn't sold yet because the seller is WAY overpriced on that. If I see an end product selling for 50k I'm not going to think anything about pricing the rare component at 2-3k. I probably do not know that 50k is 20k over priced and 6 of said items are need to make it. I would HOPE that there are other sellers out there that would respond similarly.

[kiztent]

You might be right about needing a break though. I'm getting to the point where playing the game is more stressful than relaxing. Strongly considering looking into alternatives...anyone know a good mmorpg? Was considering shadowbane, or possibly just waiting til WoW came out.

If you play on SZ you might like shadowbane. The ruleset is about the same. It's dead easy to level as well, and has no tradeskills.

I'm thinking about looking at A Tale in the Desert, but EQ is still pretty interesting. Looks nice for a tradeskiller at any rate.

[Taraddar]

And Hurricane plate isn't an option for me because of the stats, they are horrible for a warrior, velious quest is far better.

huh? hurricane plate is better than agnostic culturals you complained about not being able to access.

Hurricane Plate Bracer
AC: 21
DEX: +3 WIS: +4 INT: +4 HP: +35 MANA: +25 SV MAGIC: +4

Fine Heraldic Bracer
AC: 25
HP: +30 MANA: +30 SV FIRE: +5 SV DISEASE: +5 SV COLD: +5 SV MAGIC: +5 SV POISON: +5

Less saves and slightly less ac but more hps and some dex that the agnostic doesn't have.

Hurricane Plate Greaves
AC: 34
DEX: +6 WIS: +5 INT: +5 HP: +40 MANA: +50 SV FIRE: +3 SV COLD: +3 SV MAGIC: +10

Fine Heraldic Greaves
AC: 40
HP: +40 MANA: +40

slightly less ac again but once again dex and now saves that the agnostic doesn't have.

The only cultural that is going to be any better than the hurricane armor is going to be the warrior favorable fiercy heraldic or the helanic tundra armor.

[Gryfalia]

Thanks for the offer Morani, and if I need anything I might look you up, but normally I do all my own gathering. I only buy in the bazaar if 1) the price is very good (oh, 1K for drops of pure rain, etc); 2) I really need it NOW (rarely); or 3) it's a common item that is so cheap that even if it's overpriced, it's cheap (most leather padding comes to mind).

I am a master vendor diver..;-) So most of my stuff either comes from my own killing, guildies who wanna help, or someone selling to a vendor (collecting the parts to go with my 84 blue diamonds, almost all from vendors..;-).

And to whoever is selling pristine tae ew scales in the bazaar for 10K, please please please purchase a clue. To make the only interesting Tae Ew item takes _6_ scales, not to mention blood, etc. People aren't gonna pay 10K for them. stop it..;-)

Gryfalia

[Meirril]

Geesh. Gargazon, go ahead and buy an SS multi for less than the cost of hurricane armor! Heck, when the BD cultural armor first hit, you could buy an SS multi for less than what they were going for. Main point was that you could twink a character with the droppable cultural armors. Honestly, you main shouldn't be wearing this stuff unless you spend alot of time doing nothing but making plat.

Why exactly would you wear Fierce Heraldic breastplate AC 51, STR 10, STA 5, DEX 5, HP 80
When you could be wearing Chestplate of Vindication
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
AC: +45 Sta: +15 Magic Resist: +15 Fire Resist: +15 Cold Resist: +15 Poison Resist: +15 Disease Resist: +15 HP: +100
Which should be easily doable by any guild that a 63 warrior belongs to. Heck, you could probably do Vindi with 2 groups.

Trade skill items are for people that want something fast and easy (and from someone else), for making great twinks, and on VERY VERY rare occasions for the person who actualy makes it. (by the time you get to be a GM smith (or tailor) your probably a high level character because you need to be a high level character to get components for combines and/or the plat to afford it.).

Also, warriors complaining about not being able to SOLO PoP? Since when have warriors been considered a soloing class? Get a shammy and everything is golden. Don't get a slower and get eaten alive like every other non-charming/fearing/wizard class in PoP. PoP may be harsh, but its ment to be high end content. If nothing else, the XP is high end, and so are the trade skill drops (insaine) .

Ok, /rant off

[Gargazon]

First of all I am not guilded anymore, I left my last guild several months ago because I didn't have the time to play to level up as quickly as they wanted me too. Gear and aa were a big consideration as well. So that basically rules out vindi BP (which I would LOVE to have, not holding my breath though).

As far as MQs of armor, I have pretty much full skyshrine, other than a thurgadin helm, one thurgadin bracer, and the BP. I have a cobolt BP though, so It's about comprable to thurgadin BP.

And as far as the solo issue, I soloed frequently before PoP. Soloing for a warrior was pretty easy if you knew what you were doing, the only major problem was adds. All you needed to have really, was a ToD and then quick switch your weapons when tepid deeds proced and stuck. Made velks spiders a joke for the most part, and was descent exp while you waited for a group. I even dropped a few of the smaller named spiders solo, sometimes. I don't expect to have the dps output of a wizard, rogue, or monk. I do think things should be balanced however to where soloing is still a possibility. Make it so it requires skill, I don't care, I have that. When every single casting class can solo (including clerics btw, I know some who do it, just can't do it very many places...and clerics get groups so fast it doesn't matter anyway) and basically none of the melee, something is wrong. Especially when casting classes don't even want melee in their groups, because it's faster and easier to get exp solo, or grouped with other casters, or duo situations like ranger/enchanter. Basically, if you have to take the hits to do the damage in PoP, you are a liability to most groups. This isn't always the case of course, but it does limit the areas that you can effectively opperate in.

Being unguilded doesn't help much with that either. I've had quite a few offers to join guilds, but I wanted to take some time and make sure before I apped anyone else again. Talked to a friend today though, his guild needs tanks possibly so probably apping his guild, I know a lot of people in it, they are all great people, and a very solid guild. Hopefully things will work out, if not, then I'll keep looking.

[Morani]

I pretty much do vendor mining and the basic stuff like padding, threads, etc. I'm trying to get to a point where I stock the basic stuff for all the tradeskills, swatches, threads, padding, studs, boning, rings, dough, noodles, etc. As well as the stuff I find dumpster diving. I've seen people who do one or two trades with this stuff but I've not seen anyone who does them all.