Armorsmith Archive

Message Edited by Asir_SWG on 09-08-2004 05:12 AM

As an experiment prompted by a discussion, I am trying out some 80% kinetic with 60% base intentionally low HAM armor. At the layer level, using metal different than my usual (for high resists), encumbrance was experimented first (dropping it to 2/2/2). At the segment level base maxed then encumbrance for the rest. At piece level, the same.

80%kinetic 60%base 68%electricity total encumbrance 547/450/570

chest 217/68/37
legs 78/161/38
helm 36/33/267
gloves 36/34/38
boots 36/52/38
l bicep 36/34/38
r bicep 36/34/38
l bracer 36/34/38
r bracer 36/34/38


The first run of it has sold, but might only have started selling well after the rest of the composite on my vendor was picked clean on the weekend (my most popular is 80%kinetic, 80%energy, 68%base, 76%electricity, encumbrance 924/850/945). To complete my experiment on the lite kinetic's salability, I am stocking it against my most popular compbo and a compbo of 80%kinetic, 68%base, 76%electricity, encumbrance 796/727/870. I'll see if it sells well enough on it's own to warrant me stocking it in the future. Some of the sales, I know, were specifically for the encumbrance level, but I am not sure how many that will be. But then again... I stock Padded and sell out on it, too *laugh*.

On my server I checked a few of the largest vendors to see what kind of HAM's they had on their lightweight suits. They were a quite a bit lighter than I could make with my 10 points, but... I realized the reason they had so much stock of it on their vendors was probably due to 78% kinetic. It was great armor (540'ish mind encumbrance) but hardly anyone was buying it. So, I made sure to hit 80% on mine even though total mind ended up around 611 Like Ainwyn I tried to use some nice MA+OQ resources on layers but our aluminum/copper spawns just haven't been great.

I think you might also be asking which is better for 80%... energy or kinetic? To my way of thinking it's always kinetic. The reason is 80% kinetic can handle almost any PvE mobs doing kinetic damage. Some of the stuff that does energy though, like DWB and Corvette, need as close to 90% energy as you can get (at least if you're in smaller groups and doing tank duty hehe).

Message Edited by Ox- on 09-08-2004 07:47 AM

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Ox- wrote:
On my server I checked a few of the largest vendors to see what kind of HAM's they had on their lightweight suits. They were a quite a bit lighter than I could make with my 10 points, but... I realized the reason they had so much stock of it on their vendors was probably due to 78% kinetic. It was great armor (540'ish mind encumbrance) but hardly anyone was buying it. So, I made sure to hit 80% on mine even though total mind ended up around 611 Like Ainwyn I tried to use some nice MA+OQ resources on layers but our aluminum/copper spawns just haven't been great.

I think you might also be asking which is better for 80%... energy or kinetic? To my way of thinking it's always kinetic. The reason is 80% kinetic can handle almost any PvE mobs doing kinetic damage. Some of the stuff that does energy though, like DWB and Corvette, need as close to 90% energy as you can get (at least if you're in smaller groups and doing tank duty hehe).

Message Edited by Ox- on 09-08-2004 07:47 AM

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Unfortunately, as long as Doctor buffs are as large and easy to obtain as they are, very few people will care about HAM on armor. When the balance goes through - we will have to relearn best armor practices all over again. I think the dedicated armorers are going to have a huge edge in the coming nerf/balances. The armorers that follow the lead of others will be way behind wuith a lot of heavy HAM armor they can't sell, while the armor experimentors will have the best variety and combination of armor.

If you want to be ready when armor changes, make at least 5 suits with different layers and ratios than you normally make - this will only be astart, but you will at least be prepared to react fast when the change comes.

I certainly agree with the idea of being prepared for the re-vamp, but I personally wouldn't do anything like make full suit schematics until we start seeing test center results. Not just what the different armors look like but also how "existing" schematics will convert. At this point all I'm doing is collecting the best resources for all armor types that I can and hopefully those won't change with the new armors. For example, will the new "completely different" tantel still use avian bone? I don't know, but we recent had a pretty good spawn on Dath so I collected a bunch. Heck we even just had a decent spawn of Rori Animal Bone so I grabbed some of it... just in case