Can anyone explain the relative disparate in cultural armor?

[wold2]

I'm a Barbarian smith, so can make Tribunal Warrior, Shaman and Bst cultural armor. The warrior stuff is superlative, with most pieces superior to skyshrine armor. In fact I rarely roll for stuff in HoT.
But when you compare the shaman stuff to the thurg, or ss armor, it mostly is not as good. So a lot of people at the level required by this armor have better stuff.
Why is the quality of the best smithed cultural armor relatvie to the quested armor so different between classes??
PoP has made this problem much worse for me. Now common mobs in tier one are dropping items (Large smoothmetal torque, Chains of the accursed, Veterans chain leggins, Deteriorated arm links) that are either better than or comparable to the very expensive artificer's armor, and these items are selling for significantly less than I can make the artificer's armor for.
No common mobs drop anything even remotely comparable to the warrior stuff.
Can anyone address these disparaties?
Just when BDs dropped in price enough to make this shaman armor, noone needs it anymore..
I haven't ever compared the BST cultural armor

[Tenasi]

bd armors

The chain armors have always been the 'whipping boys' of cultural armors. Even back prior to the BD armors, the chain has been more in line with what VI believes the chain-to-plate ratio of stats/AC should be...rather than what the reality of all/all armors is. The 'good' news for those desiring a makable chain is that it seems they've just totally made the plate armor in PoP waaaaaay less useful to make than the chain, so those folks wanting to fill the world with chainmail can turn to Nightmare+ chain armors to fill that gap.

However, for plate so far the big winner is still the cultural BD armors (Helanic Tundra and Fierce Heraldic, especially, from the warrior perspective)...mainly because these give what almost every warrior wants: AC, STA, and most importantly high HPs.

[wold2]

levels of armor

I guess theres three levels of armor: 1) what drops of mobs and is tradeable 2) quest armor like thurgadain and ss 3) what can be made.

There ought, imo, to be about the same relative value amongst the three types for every class. This is the disparity I don't understand. I don't mind that chain armor isnt as good as plate, thats easy to understand. The issue is why chain cultural armor is worse than the plate with respect to quested and dropped armor. It makes the armor almost pointless to smith.
For example, there is no dropped armor even remotely close to helanic tundra in stats across all slots. But for shaman, with PoP , there are several new dropped pieces that are about as good as shaman cultural armor. Also, helanic tundra armor is better than thurg/ss armor (quest) , but artificers is not.
So artificers is becoming less viable to make. These disparities mess up the eq economy imo. I don't know how it could be fixed, but there it is.

An entirely different problem is why shammies are so darn poor :P Whats up with that?

[doedel]

Problems with cultural armour

There are LOTS of problems with the cultural armour which need to be addressed/fixed but werent so far because the programmer/designer resources were assigned to PoP instead.

Problems i see:
- Human made Rallos-Zek armour can be worn by Ogre Warriors and have better HP stats then Ogre made Rallos Zek armour; so its nearly IMPOSSIBLE for an Ogre smith to sell his Crimson Darkscale armour to his own race.
- There is no cultural Ogre armour for agnostic Ogres. Other races HAVE agnostic armour
- There is no Ogre/Troll-Beastlord armour; other Races (Barbarians) have it
- And the biggest joke is the disparaty in the Chain armour stats. While the plate is on par to the Velious quest armour (Kael/SS/Thurg) most chain items are not; some of them do not even compare to Kunark armour (look at Jaundiced Bone Legs in comparison to Crimson Darksplint Leggings). There is also a lot of droppable armour which is comparable or better than Chain (Greyflesh Arms, Shissar Gaunts for example)

So for me as Ogre GM Smith the market share is VERY small:
- Ogre Warriors following Cazic (very few, most are Agnostic or Rallos)
- Ogre Shadowknights (very few)
- Troll Warriors
- Troll Shadowknights
- Ogre and Troll Shaman MAY buy a Crimson/Blackened Darkscale Bracelet, but nothing else

I cant sell anything to
- Ogre Warriors following Rallos Zek (they buy from humans)
- Agnostic Ogres (majority of the second/third generation Ogres are agnostic due to faction issues)
- Ogre and Troll Shaman (with the exception of a Bracelet)
- Ogre and Troll Beastlords

Doedel Sding, Ogre Shaman, GM Smith, Familjen, Bristlebane

[Flabbo McFattyfatfat]

I am totally in your boat, 240 ogre smith here. Just not enough market for our armors. Allowing ogres and trolls to wear fierce heraldic was a big mistake. Its like allowing dark elves to wear blackened darkscale armor, or erudite sk's to wear fulvous. It negates the point of cultural smithing.

They really need to up the ac on both the chain and beast wearable armors. I have a hard time justifying the temper and bd costs for anythign I would want for myself.

Furthermore, the mana component on things like dwarven chain (rogue only?!) and why ogre plate has wisdom on it. You know, blatant ignorance of what classes can use what armor, and what stats mean something.

A summary of issues:

General
1) Upgrade the armor classes on cultural chain armors to at least be on par with ac's on Thurgadin quested armors. Specifically the bp and legs are significantly lower than where they ought to be based on the plate v thurg comparison.

Racial Specifics:

Iksar (I'll start with you guys, because you poor buggers got hosed the worst)
1) Create a warrior/sk based style of armor, with considerably higher ac.
2) Up iksar blood drops
3) Beastlord usable armor

Ogre
1) Create a set of inumbued plate for agnostic ogres and trolls
2) Create a set of beastlord usable armor
3) Remove the wis on the plate girdle, replace with a more appropriate stat. No plate based ogre uses wisdom for anything, this should clearly be Int.

Troll
1) Upgrade the stats on items. Currently requiring 2 bd sheets per attempt, they simply are not worth the effort involved.
2) Add more recipe's. Troll smithing is an excellent concept, removing items from circculation to possibly create something superior.

Barbarian
1) Create unimbued armor (not desparately needed, as they can at least wear human armor)
2) Barbarian Mith marr wearable armor.

Vah Shir
1) Allow them to wear something if you arent going to implement cultural smithing. Preferrably not human armor, as they already have enough of the market as is.

[wold2]

re disparities

You guys have Identified more of the disparities. The big question is whether verant realizes these problems, on the one hand, and intends to adjust things, on the other.
I can see no reason why one classes cultural armor (warrior) should be so much better relative to the other dropped and quested armor than another (barb shaman, rogue, beastlords). And why dropped armor in tier one of pop is better than barb shaman armor, but not comparable to the warrior stuff.
The easiest solution is to improve the stats on the cultural armor to balance them.
But this may be such a small point that it is beneath the radar or way low on their list.
If we could know that verant realizes the problem, there might be a fix someday.

[Zacatac]

As a high elf I am capable of making INT Caster wearable chain armor. However, I do not. Because frankly the stats just aren't that good in comparison to droppable armor that is already avialable. The plate classes are the happy ones, any other class like Barb shaman or High Elf Magician just have to settle for less it seems.

[Cantatus]

I would suggest using the /feedback command in game or submitting comments to the Developer's Corner if you wish to make Verant aware of your discontent. They acknowledged that a lot of this stuff wasn't where it should be and that there are a lot of missing race/class/diety combos. However, they were busy with PoP, so it's possible they have forgotten (or have more important things to deal with). Fortunately, they seem to be aware that a lot of the cultural armor is pretty bad, it's just a matter of them changing it.

[kronas]

Acutally for a shaman, half the cultural armour is on par with SS/Thurg. Aside from vindi BP and neck/bracer the rest of my armour is Artificer. With this armour at raid buff levels i can get over 4500hp and over 1100ac.
When looked at seperatly, yeah the armour looks inferior. But when you look at the hp/mana the pieces have, they are actually quite decent.

[Flabbo McFattyfatfat]

[quote When looked at seperatly, yeah the armour looks inferior. But when you look at the hp/mana the pieces have, they are actually quite decent. [/quote]

Err, come again? The pieces have to be looked at separately. Theres no bonus for wearing a full suit of anything. So what if a full suit provides 40 wisdom? If 10 are on one piece and 2 on another, the one with 2 is a waste of space, when you can just fill it with a better item. No one is going to make the chain gloves when leaf scale/shissar guantlets exist, unless its just for completeness sake. Its why so many pieces of arctic wyvern so blatently suck, with low ac and useless stats on them.

But honestly, even if blue diamonds were 200pp each, would you make

Black Lace-Boned Gloves AC9 DEX5 WIS5 HP25 MANA25

For your barb beastlord when you could have shissar gloves for the same price?

I have uber sk's asking for armor. Uber shaman dont want anything but the bracers. And since the chain is the same difficulty and requires the same blue diamonds as the plate, I take that to mean it should have the same desirability. So either lower the trivial on the chain, raise the stats, or reduce the price of the components.

And I would rather produce something good less frequently, than something mediocre more often.[/quote]

[wold2]

disparities cont

Yes, my wife is a shaman. I equiped her in the artificers, but put shissar gaunts on, they are better and only cost 1k or so, much less than artificers. And now many dropped items from PoP are getting like that. There arent any dropped items to compare with the plate. And many of the SS and even thurg stuff is just ass good or better than artificers...agreed the combined ac mana hp wis are nice items, but on the whole not as good as the plate compared to the other available options.

[kiztent]

You've described part of my worst fear for smithing.

By the time you get to the point you can make the armour, it will be obsolete. I'm starting to see a lot of Kael and Skyshrine Multi-quest sales, which is the competing drop for BD cultural. I haven't checked price points, but given time they will drop to the point where there's no reason to make the BD cultural.

[Flabbo McFattyfatfat]

Yeah, the low price point of thurg mq's hurt sales of chain armor. If I am making something that isnt custom order, I can either use my 3 bd tempers to do something like a plate greaves/tunic which would sell for over 20k, or use em for chain armor which would rot at 10k. Which do you think I do? Even IF I loot the blue diamonds myself, they still have value, and the stats of chain armor do not currently reflect that value. Were the temper required regular diamonds instead of blue diamonds, there might be some incentive. Again, I just think they need better stats.

[Flabbo McFattyfatfat]

Heres another glaring example

The following is stats for suits of armor

Fierce Herladic (human rz imbue)
Str 10
Sta 15
Dex 40
Agi 35
Int 5
Wis 0
Hp 840
Mana 0
AC 329

Total Stats 105 (5 are uselss Int)

Crimson Darkscale
Str 40
Sta 15
Dex 15
Agi 10
Int 5
Wis 10
Hp 645
Mana 215
AC 353
Total Stats: 95 (10 of it are useless wisdom, 5 mostly useless Int)


Fulvous Darkscale
Str 30
Sta 55
Dex 15
Agi 10
Int 5
Wis 10
Hp 645
Mana 215
AC 353
Total Stats: 125 (10 useless wis, 5 mostly useless Int)

The major kicker is the hp disparity between the armor. No warrior gives a flip about mana, and no sk worth his salt does either. Any ogre warrior is going to automatically buy the human armor for superior stats. The ac is basically irrelevant, as high end tanks focus on hp. Ogre plate may as well give 100 cha as a selling factor. The armors should offer the same hp on them, to give ogre troll warriors an incentive to shop inside their own culture for armor, and ogre smiths a chance of selling their armor. Even then I wouldnt buy it, were I unable to smith it myself, as it has less resale value. Ogre armor needs to be clearly superior to human armor, as its market is incredibly smaller. Yes, yes, I know humans have inferior stats, but your stats are maxed in the end, and ogres pay an substantial xp penalty along the way.

Then you have the fulvous, a set of armor with dramatically more stats than the ogre RZ equivalent. Why? They require the same effort to make. Do ogre sk's of cazic thule suffer some incredible hardship over ogre sk's of rallos zek, such that they should be rewarded? I just dont get it.

Essentially, the armors need to give the same hp at least. If this means a troll sk is superior to a human sk in their cultural armor, GOOD. The troll's levels were 6 bubbles to the human's 5, and the troll had to work harder along the way. It boils down to risk vs reward, but tis not applied here.

[kiztent]

No warrior gives a flip about mana, and no sk worth his salt does either.

Without taking away from your point, that statement is wrong. There is a school of shadowknights that favor mana over HP - some to the point of having more mana and more mana regen than HP and HP regen.

Considering that a SK is generally more responsible for damage than tanking, and mana = damage, this can easily be understood.

This appears to be a PoP phenomina.

For a mana deficient ogre SK (sorry, but yall are dummies), the extra mana could easily be worth the HPs exchanged for it.

But resale is a big issue here, given that ogre is limited to ogres and trolls (and ogres are very common tank), while human is much more accessable to different races.