Stone of Change - Eldritch Rituals Cookbook

[Endrik]

Given the plethora of theories we've put forth here, I see no reason not to try and help sort this out with a few spare brain cycles. The input given by everyone here crystallized when jperz made his summation post and resulted in the following conclusion.

My intent is as follows:
Create an imbued shard (elemental fire... arbitrary, to be honest)
Create two additional ingredients, Essence of Water and Gem of Opposition (Opposition = opposite, duh.)
Attempt to combine the already imbued shard, a "blank shard" with the two additional ingredients and a power cell (five total according to my math).

Odds are I won't have enough ingredients until this weekend... Here's hoping...

[Big-Dex]

Heh, weird. I actually meant to say the Altar of Devestation. The theory being that maybe you can combine to two smaller shards into one bigger shard. If that is possible it seems likely that you'd have to do it at the altar for the bigger shard.

I did try to put two imbued shards of power into the Altar of Subjugation (Teir 2). It rejected them. So.. my hunch is that shards will only work on the altar they are recommended for, but this has not been confirmed on the Altar of Devestation. There is the slight possibility that the final altar acts a bit differently.

[Wulf_Ratbane]

Given the dearth of theories we've put forth here, I've culled my own from the input given by everyone here, but it crystallized when jperz made his summation post.

Huh. That's twice today on these forums I've seen dearth misused.

Trust me, there's no dearth of theories in this thread. Myriad theories, a dearth of answers.

[Endrik]

Trust me, there's no dearth of theories in this thread. Myriad theories, a dearth of answers.

Apologies, Wulf. I have allowed insufficient time for the coffee to settle in. In fact, I'm shocked that I spelled everything correctly. I don't typically post without carefully editing my material and it appears that I've lapsed in that...

[MysticTheurge]

Huh. That's twice today on these forums I've seen dearth misused.

Trust me, there's no dearth of theories in this thread. Myriad theories, a dearth of answers.

Glut is always my favorite opposite for dearth.

So I'd say there is a glut of theories.

[Wulf_Ratbane]

Apologies, Wulf.

I wasn't busting your balls but I had, literally, read the exact same thing only minutes before. It was odd.

Glut is always my favorite opposite for dearth.

So I'd say there is a glut of theories.

Oh, come on. It's plethora.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6E682C7Jj4

[Big-Dex]

After some seriously intense interogation and much "Chocalate Cake" ... an informant ... who will remain unnamed to preserve his integrity and his ridiculous addiction to the sweet stuff ... has answered the following questions in the following ways.

Mind you, despite my best interogation methods, he remains infuratingly cryptic in his answers... too much time with Kobolds I think...

Q: Can a imbued shard of power be imbued further on the same altar by adding another set ingredients (gem/foci/essence) to it?

A: Cryptic carefully worded answer: gem/foci/essence? No.

Q: Do all the altars act in the same way regarding ingredients or does teir 3 (Devestation) have special abilities (combining shards)?

A: All altars do not behave the same way. Maybe, to the last.

Q: Do soul gems have any special use yet outside of the adamantine ritual? Can weaker essences be combined create stronger essences? I have tried applying them to all but the altar of devestation with no luck.

A: Nothing yet. M7 and M8 will have more. I expect every soul gem to be of use by M8.

Q: (it is an intriguing grind I might add.)

A: I was hoping some people would find it intriguing.

Q: Perhaps you can tell us if we have finally discovered all that we need to know about the altars and recipes, we just have to add the correct Teir 3 (devestation) combo to score the special abilities that have been alluded to ... hence, that last discovery that we have been told that we have not made yet.

A: You're getting close.

Okay... so there you have some more juicy tidbits. I will post separately with my suspicions momentarily. WE ARE GETTING CLOSE FOLKS! Keep it up!

~ Dex

PS - LET THE SPECULATING BEGIN!

[Big-Dex]

I suspect, based on my informant's information, that TEIR 3 is the key to our success!

My hope is that some of you with TEIR 3 (large) ingredients will bow to the needs of all and work together to test a few things on the altar of devestation before upgrading your item/weapon. Yes it will mean a few more runs, a few more ingredients, but your patience and effort will garner you the appreciation of your piers and likely, a better item/weapon.

My suggestions for the Altar of Devestation in this order....

Try adding large core ingredients to an already imbued shard (one at a time and several at a time).
Try adding large manufactured ingredients to an already imbued shard (one at a time and several at a time).
Try combining imbued shards into an empty shard.

Perhaps someone might come up with a better list and order to try. If you are on ARGO and have large ingredients to use in this experiment, I will gladly help by donating what I get as soon as I gather some. PM me.

~ Dex

[Boulderun]

You know, it might be as simple as combining two Superior Foci on the altar. High Energy Cell (optional?) + Superior Focus of Positive Energy + Superior Focus of Air = Superior Focus of Lightning?

Has anyone tried that? Again, we're concerned with the Altar of Devastation - not working on the other two is irrelevant.

[Riggs]

But why would getting "Air in your lightning" be an upgrade when getting "Positive energy in your lightning" was confirmed by a dev as not being an upgrade?

We know that the upgrade path is more complex -- we know that we are missing something regarding the upgrade...following the standard path does nothing to allow it to be either complex or resolve the missing knowledge.

Granted anything someone tries that is new gives us more information...but we need to "think outside the box" a bit here regarding upgrading the special effects.

Couple reasons. First, I have an ac build, and wanted a good damaging weapon with an ac bonus. So even if there is no tier 3 effect I will have a shock, good burst, +4 ac weapon. Not shabby.

I have seen lots of mixes with pos/neg, but I havent seen a single Element a + b + element a. Everything seems to be a + a + b, or a + b + b, or mixing pos/neg - which doesnt make it a quasi element most likely.

People are looking for new options, and maybe the extra shard thing or extra foci will work. It seems pretty ingredient intensive, but if it works great. But it still seems no one has tried the first option of fire/earth/fire, or earth/fire/earth for example. It would seem that making sure that is NOT the upgrade path before trying more difficult paths would help narrow down the options a bit...

[Riggs]

He said it in this post --

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=899

I posited the same question adding air to lighting -- "Pos / air would make lighting, then upgrade it with more air" and he responded -- "You got air in my lightning!"

I then mused about making "big air" (i.e. air/air) and adding positive into that to attain a "bigger lightning" and he responded -- "You got positive energy in my (lots of) air!"

These two statements are why I feel very strongly about my hypothesis regarding the tier 3 upgrade.

Both statements are witty replies that dont specify a valid result either way. And if it is borrowing the phrase from the commercial "You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" then it in fact implies those are VALID upgrade paths.

Ruling out upgrade paths based on a flippant response is not valid until it is proven by an actual example of a successful/failed upgrade path. Both of those examples are of the a + b + b, or a + a + b - which seem to have been proven invalid, however both of those questions are not of the a + b + a path, which so far seem to still be a possibility until proven otherwise.

[Boulderun]

Positive + Water + Positive is listed as a failure on the wiki. Assuming that is accurate, I think we can move on.

[Riggs]

I have spent a lot of time experimenting with both types of crafting and I think the community is very close to cracking tier 3. Been checking this thread every morning over coffee and think we're almost there. Actually I'm feeling pretty good about my latest idea (had to scratch my soul gem hypothesis yesterday when essense of earth and strong essence of earth were rejected from all altars)

My new proposal, along with reasoning, follows.

To achieve a tier 3 quasi or para combo, when embuing your supreme shard omit the energy cell and include essences for both relevant elements.

Here are the supporting arguments:

• Logically this makes the most sense to me, since it follows the model of embuing a single shard with selected magical energies which can then be applied to your item. (i.e. essence of lightning is not so different from essence of fire, and a single shard should be able to contain either)
• The official crafting intro contains this sentence, which I cite as the best evidence for my proposal: In most recipes, you’ll usually need to include an Energy Cell to power the device, though some recipes contain enough magic on their own to power the altar. In the walkthrough the context for this statement was the blank creation (Eberron) process, but the wording seems significant to me. Note it pointedly does not say "for other recipes you will require", and so far we haven't seen any other occasions where power can be omitted.
• From a cost perspective, this requires 4 additional large ingredients, which would be fair for items that "tend to be" a little more powerful than the straight elemental upgrades. I was not very convinced by suggestions that 2 fully charged shards would work, given how powerful the "straight" upgrades are. A recipe requiring 24 large ingredients would be either overpowered for the game or overpriced for the power IMO.

Fortunately, this can be tested without the extreme investment of collecting 24 large ingredients, and if the combination fails there should be nothing lost. If I am wrong I would expect the combination won't mix at all; no harm done. Finally, this is an experiment that some friends/guildies should be able to collaborate on, since a bound shard will only be produced on success (so maybe you can borrow the ingredients or the missing essence; if the combination fails it can be returned. If it succeeds then you have a bound shard, but hey, progress!)

I urge someone who is in a position to do this to please try this approach and publish your results. I only have 5 or so larges, but I'll be talking to guildies to see who is in the best position to try Tier3 on a quasi or para item. Might take a bit longer on my end...

Good mixing!

Halfpint / Saigo / MrTea / Coldpint / Ironpint of Eternal Wrath on Sarlona

This sounds highly possible. Multiple imbued shards would be very expensive, by an order of magnitude. Swapping a power cell for a second foci would be slightly more expensive, and in line for a 'somewhat more powerful effect'. And also not break the statements of not being able to put in multiple shards.

[Big-Dex]

This sounds highly possible. Multiple imbued shards would be very expensive, by an order of magnitude. Swapping a power cell for a second foci would be slightly more expensive, and in line for a 'somewhat more powerful effect'. And also not break the statements of not being able to put in multiple shards.

Couple that with the statement by my informant ...

Q: Can a imbued shard of power be imbued further on the same altar by adding another set ingredients (gem/foci/essence) to it?

A: Cryptic carefully worded answer: gem/foci/essence? No.

... and you have a high likelihood that this might work.

Hmmm....

[Auran82]

Has anyone tried combining an imbues Shard of Power + the 4 base ingredients in the last altar?

For example, a Shard of Supreme power (imbued with fire) + 4 large ingredients to make an essence of earth to make an imbued shard of magma.

[Riggs]

You know, it might be as simple as combining two Superior Foci on the altar. High Energy Cell (optional?) + Superior Focus of Positive Energy + Superior Focus of Air = Superior Focus of Lightning?

Has anyone tried that? Again, we're concerned with the Altar of Devastation - not working on the other two is irrelevant.

"I asked Eladrin the following...

Can more than one imbued shard of power be applied to a green steel blank at each altar? More specifically, can three shards of power be applied at each altar, since there are two additional empty slots in the device when you upgrade an item.
To which he replied...


Very careful wording: All imbuing recipes that include a greensteel weapon or item use only one shard of power."

and
"Q: Do all the altars act in the same way regarding ingredients or does teir 3 (Devestation) have special abilities (combining shards)?
A: All altars do not behave the same way. Maybe, to the last."

It would be implied it seems that multiple shards is not the answer, but multiple foci in some way. Either as said just combining 2 foci and a cell to get a quasi/para foci, or skipping the cell in the shard recipe and putting 2 foci in to get 'Magma foci'. Or perhaps even a 3rd option, after a shard has been imbued, the extra spaces in the final recipe might be used for extra foci - but that seems an awkward path to follow.

We have seen failures in simple foci combinations, perhaps this is why, any 'mixed' elements have to be imbued with 2 foci at the 3rd altar or it will result in no tier 3 effect. And ONLY at the 3rd altar will someone be able to try mixing things in this special way, trying it at the first 2 will not have any extra effects.

[LeLoric]

So someone ask Eladrin if there are any recipes that require multiple foci

[gpk]

NOTE: The Pure Good 1d6 per hit has been fixed for pure good burst (tier2), the burst part is still pure good and hits all non-good mobs (better for us, but still a small bug).

Presumably Good Blast will now add 4d6 (on a khopesh, elemental blasts add 2d10 on khop) additional damage on a critical hit; can anyone with a tier3 good blast confirm description has been update to show this?

[Aesop]

Don't you need a Gem of Cleansing or some such thing to use in the last alter to cleanse the taint from items?

I suppose there could be other things that you could get besides that... but wouldn't that be the last thing that Eladrin is implying for the Alter

Aesop

[Borror0]

NOTE: The Pure Good 1d6 per hit has been fixed for pure good blast (tier2), the burst part is still prue good and hits all non-good mobs (better for us, but still a small bug).

You mean Good Burst?

As for the bug, I blame the lousy person in charge of item description. There is a lot of information lacking on lots of items. Shortly put, I say it's a description bug rather than a item bug.