Hurricane Chain or Plate Desirability

[Boleslav]

I have bought and scrounged some components for Hurricane Tempers and would like to make a few items to sell. I just wanted to pick the brains of folks here to see what might be best for me to make. I don't see much Hurricane stuff for sale in the Bazaar, so it's hard for me to get an idea of what to make.

The chain seems fairly limited due to competition with Tae Ew. However, the chain gloves look good. The Plate is generally not better than BD cultural. Again, the gauntlets are a nice piece, and some class/race combos can't use BD cultural so I might sell a BP or Greaves.

Am I on the right track? Does anyone have advice about what one or two pieces of Hurricane stuff has sold well? Thanks in advance.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 61st Campaign

[Kingbobb]

Keepin an eye on this as well, Boleslav. I've been waiting for Pure Rain prices to drop a bit, but any day now I'm going to throwq away a few thousand pp and give a BP a try. The stats do look about even (better stat bonuses) to various cultural BD plate, and with Heraldic open to me, I've been playing in that market. The only Hurricane plate piece I've seen in E'Ci bazaar was posted at 52K, close to 5 4times what Fierce Heraldic is selling for. Assuming that non-RZ warrior want this level of BP, the demand migth justify that kind of price, but then agian, I think the same piece has been for sale for over a few weks now, and hasn't moved.

BTW, 243 and climbing =)

[Ilona]

I have made a few items of hurricane.

My cleric currently wears the plate sleeves, hat, gloves and bp. Made in that order as I got the tempers for them. I can't make her cultural yet, but even when I can, these items are better. For the other slots, she will wear cultural.

I have made a few chain sleeves. I originally made one pair for a good friend, along with one pair to sell to cover costs. I settled on the sleeves from reading a different post in this forum (search is your friend). One 65th ranger I know said that the sleeves were possibly very slightly better than the Skyshrine quested he wore. I don't know how they compare to shaman or rogue armour.

[KyrosKrane]

I'd been looking to upgrade my gloves for a while now, but I couldn't find anything I really liked. Finally, I started looking at the PoP armors and fell in love with the Hurricane Plate gauntlets. They had the right mix of availability and price of components; stats on the finished item; and difficulty of obtaining.

I did all the precombines myself; even the chain jointing, which wasn't trivial. Would you believe I got a skillup on that? Woot! 195 smithing now. Then I auctioned around until I found a top smith and had her do the final combine for me.

My net cost (including components and the combine fee) was about as much as a pair of Heraldic guantlets would have cost me in the bazaar, for a much nicer item.

The recommended level of 60 on Planar gear is a pain sometimes; you see this uber item, then realize you can't get the full benefits for quite a while. However, it does sort of offer incentive to level.

If I somehow find a better pair of gloves, I'll probably end up selling these for 2-3 times the going rate of a same-slot Heraldic piece.

[kiztent]

I wear plate arms despite no int on them because of the AC/HP/mana. A cleric or paladin would like them even more. It's HARD to find good arms with wisdom on them (and int, arm is a weak slot overall). I'd say overall BP and legs are common (velious quested BPs, hate and quested legs), the windworn BP has better stats than the hurricane. Bracers are a dime a dozen, good plate boots are hard to find, as are helms (for a DE SK, the dark prince sucks. Find a piece with close to the same AC/HP/mana and better useful stats and it will sell. Too bad hurricane doesn't fit the bill).

So, I'd rule out BP, leg and bracer and see what replacements exist in the other slots. Arms are very nice.

I know for shaman HP/AC are the big considerations, but I'm not that famliar with chain itemization.

[Grimina]

I make the chain for sale rather consistantly. The chain coif and sleaves are the big sellers. Another guy has had the chain gloves for a LONG time and they haven't sold (I'm rooting for them to sell for the guy so I keep an eye on em hehe) Plate Gaunts took about an hour to sell, but with the amount of tempers/bricks needed for plate I don't think I'll be making many of them over the chain stuff. Plate BP....took over a month to sell *grumble* With the amount of wind-worn BPs I see for sale (many more than hurricane) people would rather have that instead for the same price. Another guy has had hurricane plate bp and leggings for MONTHS and they haven't sold. Feel rather bad for him =(

The pure rain price has been dropping quite a bit and there is a LOT of it for sale here. 10-20 on any given day at around 2k some as low at 1500p(which for making chain isn't a bad price) however on my (totally screwed up) server...the danged bricks of copper are more rare. It is a delight for me to find 1 brick on a vendor. There is a guy STILL with 1 priced at 3500 in the bazaar. And one guy with rings at 3250p each. So plate here isn't a very good use of what few bricks I can find.

Anyway that's my 2cents, hope that helps =)

[wyrmbane_]

My thoughts

Hurricane is the armor I want to be making at this point, but it is difficult to get the rain....

Based on my evaluation on a Shaman / Paladin standpoint, here is the order I would make or think is useful. I haven't tried in a while because I failed 4 times on plate gloves / vambraces and was irked I was out 30k, and the rng hated me that much. Hasn't been that bad since the old Blue diamond pre bazaar days.


Chain - Far better cost invenstment to sales, due to decreased tempers.

Gloves > coif > vambraces > boots - Skip bracer, Tunic, Legs

Those should be the best sellers give the stats and no really good alternatives. Most wear Tae ew for legs / tunic, so they won't sell. Boots are a posibility depending on the Shaman, but might be good for the Ranger / rogues.


Plate - Best pre ornate for nearly all plate classes. Those with a Human cultural and the insane HP's will not buy it, but there are several race / class combo's that have no Cultural....non-deity ogre / trolls for example.

Gloves = Vambraces > Boots > BP & Legs

The caution here is that with the new gloves dropping in Veksar, they may drive down the necessity of the gloves and possibly the vambraces as well. The BP / legs will sell primarily to those who have no cultural option.


My biggest frustration is just the drops of rain. They are getting more plentiful, and I have my "Buy under this price" rule in effect. It just takes a bit of time to collect enough to do a combine, and is very frustrating when you can only do one attempt at a time. Would be much nicer to have enough reasonable stock to have a stack of attempts to work with. But, the tempers don't go as far as blue diamonds used to given the amount needed per combine.

wyrmbane

[Dakonnen]

I've made a few pieces of the plate and sold them as soon as I put them up in the bazaar. This was of course before pure rain went as high as 8 K each on my server and still hasn't come down below 5 K. I occasionally find fome when dumpster diving but the pieces I make now are mainly for guildies who can't wear BD plate. Course Tae Ew would be better if I could ever get some scales to drop. Now that the Tier 2 Planes are open maybe the Pure Rain will become more available.

[Lling]

Chain arms are awesome.
We have rangers and shaman still wearing those.

As for the drops of pure rain, seeing as how hurricane temper is required to start the Aid Grimel quest, the prices really have shot up.

I would not waste my time making the plate, to be honest. The number of tempers required and the cost of the components means that you would have to charge far more than the items is worth based on stats to get an adequate return on your investment.

Chain is the way to go.

[Eumerin]

Lately on Sol Ro, Hurricane Plate Breastplates have been listed in the bazaar at 55k. In comparison, Serene Steelweave (which is what I would be interested in as a Paladin of Quellious) is going for 9k. Gee. I wonder which is more likely to move?

Of course, since Steelweave is made with tailoring, the correlation isn't exact, but it provides a good starting point, imho.

And for the curious, I also recently put together a magelo comparison of Serene Steelweave and Hurricane Plate. The base character is my own (it was originally designed for my own testing purposes), although I've boosted the level to 61 (so the Hurricane Plate is at full stats, instead of hamstrung, as it would be at my current level of 56). I've also added additional gear to give myself an idea of what my actual stats might be with it all equipped. At any rate, you can find it here:

http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=615364

One thing to note, however. BD Cultural provides gear for all slots, both visible and invisible. Hurricane Plate only provides armor for the visible slots. Thus the invisible slots on the Hurricane Plate profile have Serene Steelweave equipped there. Not the best comparison, perhaps, but you take what you can get. Also note that in direct contrast to what Kiztent mentioned above, Serene Steelweave puts an almost sickeningly high emphasis on wisdom (for this kind of armor, at any rate). You'll notice that the profile in Steelweave has a wisdom of 180. Without similar supplementary gear for the invisible slots, I wouldn't expect other characters with a full suit of Hurricane Plate to have a wisdom quite as high as the wisdom in my alternate profile.

[KyrosKrane]

Very interesting comparison there, Eumerin.

It's clear from the stats that Steelweave and Heraldic armor (which have basically the same stats) would be of more interest to paladins, clerics, and warriors, in decreasing order. Paladins love the stuff because it provides better armor class than Hurricane and more wisdom, too. The level restriction on BD armor is only 45, which makes it practical as early as 40. Hurricane has a required level of 46, and only comes into its own in the mid-50's due to the recommended level.

In contrast, Hurricane plate is of MUCH more interest to shadowknights. The AC is still quite decent, and you get far more intelligence out of it. The same points about level restrictions still apply, though.

I'm not familiar with SK-wearable armors. How would an SK in (the optimal) full BD cultural compare to an SK wearing Hurricane Plate in the available slots?

I don't think any int classes other than SK's wear plate, do they?

[Haphern]

SK

Used the CT Ogre SK, dumping 5 points into agi and dex and 10 into int. Remember that the Ogre smithed stuff has 2 ac or so extra on each piece as well as, imho, better stats for tanking rather than casting.

46th level

61st level

In neither case would I, personally, take a full suit of Hurricane Plate to replace the equivalent pieces of Fulvous.
For the medium and small SK races, who lose the AC and HPs on fulvous, I may be more inclined to take the Hurricane but it's not really as close a decision as other factors dictate.

The problems are, i.e. the factors I allude to, that: a. Hurricane is a lot more expensive than the equivalent high-end cultural piece and b. the horrible req. and rec. stuck on it. These two alone will put people off choosing Hurricane and sticking with high-end cultural which will provide them with excellent stats from 40 to 65, rather than the 60-65 and slightly lesser (probably) stats on Hurricane =/.

High-end cultural was a *really* nice addition to the smithing line up, how-ever, living up to it in the future is going to be *very* difficult... in fact, I may even stick my neck out and say we're unlikely to see anything like it again in terms of effect/value.
Ele plate will be wonderful, but the rarity of the drops *and* the filtering down effect from the large guilds will adversely effect it and it will also face competition from Ornate armour molds when they, too, filter down.

[kiztent]

In contrast, Hurricane plate is of MUCH more interest to shadowknights. The AC is still quite decent, and you get far more intelligence out of it. The same points about level restrictions still apply, though.

I'm not familiar with SK-wearable armors. How would an SK in (the optimal) full BD cultural compare to an SK wearing Hurricane Plate in the available slots?

Depends on the culture and the preference and race of the SK. SKs divide into two schools of thought. Taking either school to an extreme you have warriors with harm touch and necros with a sword.

For a dark elf SK, either of those types of armour is nice but a compromise. None have STR or STA on them, all have piles of AC, INT, HP and mana. Personally they are a little too one dimensional for me - I've swapped out most of my dark regent plate. I keep my hurricane arms because I never see any better for sale. And I'm not going to lose the AC and HP because I hate the stats on them. It's just a nagging itch every time I look at my equipment.

For a human, fetid heraldic is a no brainer - it's crawling with INT and STA. Hateful Heraldic is about the same as hurricane.

Ogre armour has some pieces that are clearly superior, some clearly inferior - much easier decision.

Fulvous steelweave is rather nice, but once you outfit both erudite SKs on the server, the market is pretty much done.

I don't think any int classes other than SK's wear plate, do they?

Bards.

[xaanru]

THere is one factor that seems to be left out in this discussion. NOBODY has mentioned SAVES. The only piece of Heraldic, or any BD cultural with saves are the bracers.

For that reason, my cleric upgraded to Tae ew plate.

Now, I'm not saying every piece of hurricane plate is as good or better than heraldic, but when you take saves into consideration, many pieces are better than most flavors of heraldic.

Note that the Hurricane BP has +13 sv magic, and +5 to disease and poison. I should point out that those last two have been the hardest for me to raise, and are the only two that I need resist gear to boost above 100.

Yes, the hurricane cannot match the HP on Fierce heraldic, Helenic tundra, or the RZ darkscale armors, but when you compare it as armor for support classes like clerics, its got some big advantages. In big fights, I don't get hit that often, I do however, get AOE'd and occasionally feared. Bad things to have happen to the cleric

Plus, being one of those poor Mithaniel Marr clerics, I am drooling over the Hurricane gloves because they have WISDOM, something the luminant heraldic gloves do not (/em breathes deeply, tries not to get sidetracked on a rant).

Anyway, just my view on the hurricane. Saves=good.

[Vruss Scalesmith]

Hurricane Armor

Chain is definately the way to go since you use less tempers per combine. I see a few items for sale on the CT server that haven't moved in quite some time unless the person has a large stock and just puts a new one for sale as soon as the old one goes. You can't sell this armor to make a huge profit since the availability of equal armor or close to is usually priced much lower than what you think you should get for your work.