New U13 Items

[LeLoric]

with +7 epic augment on rakshasa armor, and rough hide, it's 15 AC from the armor (not cunting insight bonus, as i have it elsewhere). that's highest you can get on evasion armors; for comparison, icy raiment + armor bonus +8 bracers = 12; epic duelist leathers slotted with +7 = +13. now, with stalwart enhancements, mobility feat and stuff, mithral tower shield MDB becomes high enough to warrant using it. my current AC shield is +5 mithral tower of superior stability (cannith crafted), and my MDB is currently limited by my armor (mournlode fullplate, as i couldn't get eCav)

Your not counting dodge 4 from the duelist leathers or icy's. If you count rough hide you have to count dodge as you can't get the +4 elsewhere.

The max dex bonus available on leathers is really high and can make these better for almost any non monk ac character with a significant enough investment in dex.

My stalwart runs these and has 40+ dex and the new hide is just not enough to compete at these dex levels.

[LeLoric]

so it is bis for towers - how does it compare to say the ekundarak?

hob

3 more ac over ekws. one less blocking dr.

[FengXian]

Well. I was talking from the perspective of a power gamer, one that doesn't create suboptimal item builds. And none of those items fit in an optimal build, with the exception of the shield, but who plays a S&B tank when you can monk tank?

Are you trolling me? lol nice try, keep it up pal.

As a side not, I tanked eLoB with S&B, if you can do it better on your monk we'll talk again

[Yan_PL]

Your not counting dodge 4 from the duelist leathers or icy's.

I'm afraid you're mistaken here.
I wrote exactly this:

for comparison, icy raiment + armor bonus +8 bracers = 12; epic duelist leathers slotted with +7 = +13

I did ignore protection +4 on icy's; in other words i only counted icy as source of +4 dodge, as you can get up to protection +6 on other slots.
epic duelist is 2 AC before enhancement bonus, +4 dodge AC, +7 enhancement bonus, equaling +13.

[Absolute-Omniscience]

Yes my wizard is a pm. He can umd heal tanks in raids. Many of the best wizards areable to fully scroll heal with maxed out enhancements while also kiting mobs/dpsing/doing other tasks assigned to them. This replaces two items for me when I swap to umd setup. It's a huge boost.

Fair enough, it has it's uses. But not if you have any other UMD item, really. It's still just a swap in that isn't that great. And especially not for the class or purpose it was designed for.

Casters gear hasn't really gone up much since greensteel either. It has nothing to do with why casters are stronger right now you've played the game long enough to know this.

It actually has, the echrono set for +3 caster levels and tod set for +2 max caster levels does a lot when it comes to casters' OPness. So does eardweller as well. And I'm not necessarily saying that they must have gone up so much. My point is that if we don't introduce better weapons for melees, they are sure as hell not going to catch up.

+5 hb gub is not better than trip positive are you kidding. It's not even better than mournlode. Really not close to either of these options. You're the dps guru you should know this. Much better? Laughable.

Sorry, forgot about the changes to gdistruption, so long since I played my character as a melee TR. But then again, that also means that pospospos does more damage than the new weapons, as long as the DR isn't sky high (ie, abbot elite, maybe hard, and wk (who plays wk? )

[FrostBeard]

not bad

[Yan_PL]

Fair enough, it has it's uses. But not if you have any other UMD item, really. It's still just a swap in that isn't that great. And especially not for the class or purpose it was designed for.

then what class was it designed for? I'd guess everyone who uses UMD, with minor favor to the chracters using CHA in other ways, or peeps with evocation spells. Like, i dunno, sorcs?
anyway, +8 to cha, +5 competence to UMD, +2 good luck in slot = +11 cha. now, +1 exceptional cha skills on necklace from this pack goes well with it, at least for my sorc - when i was making my SP conc opp item, i figured wizardry VI/+1 exceptional skills is kind of underpowered, when i have Archmagi on other item slots. this sort of fills this gap, while being +30 to bluff (20 competence, 10 improved deception enhancement) for quests where bluff is viable dialogue option. funny, with those two items, pretty much everyone will be able to do the talking optionals in ePartycrashers, lol. I might be reaching very very high UMD with this stuff. And think of other applications: no-fail scrolls of power word:kill on bard.

[LeLoric]

I'm afraid you're mistaken here.
I wrote exactly this:

I did ignore protection +4 on icy's; in other words i only counted icy as source of +4 dodge, as you can get up to protection +6 on other slots.
epic duelist is 2 AC before enhancement bonus, +4 dodge AC, +7 enhancement bonus, equaling +13.

Gotcha. Leathers are still a much higher max dex bonus if you factor in the mobility.

Leathers are 8 armor 4 dodge 12 max dex bonus and 2 mobility = 26

Hide is 11 armor 3 roguh hide 10 max dex = 24

If you can't get heightened elsewhere hide is better. If you are tempest they are even.
Both can be slotted with either +7 or +2 max dex.

[LeLoric]

Sorry, forgot about the changes to gdistruption, so long since I played my character as a melee TR. But then again, that also means that pospospos does more damage than the new weapons, as long as the DR isn't sky high (ie, abbot elite, maybe hard, and wk (who plays wk? )

Not factoring in the fort reducer just the normal lev 16 bow is roughly equivalent to trip pos for hard abbot 30 dr.

Add in an extra d8 base +2 enhancement and 2d6 bane and that's 13.5 average more dmg per hit for the epic version. So it's roughly even at 15 dr. That's any difficulty of abbot, almost every mob in epic wiz king, lich sorjek at any difficulty. I still run wiz king a fair bit. It's a quick faily easy run with 7-8 chances at some of the hardest to get seals in the game.

[aurum1]

3 more ac over ekws. one less blocking dr.

But MDB4 vs no limit so kinda limiting. Will be interesting to see how the enhancement revamp works to see if the AP cost of getting good ac gets better. Right now this wouldn't give me much boost of ekundarak since i dumped all the shield enhancements.

[Yan_PL]

Gotcha. Leathers are still a much higher max dex bonus if you factor in the mobility.

Leathers are 8 armor 4 dodge 12 max dex bonus and 2 mobility = 26

Hide is 11 armor 3 roguh hide 10 max dex = 24

If you can't get heightened elsewhere hide is better. If you are tempest they are even.
Both can be slotted with either +7 or +2 max dex.

so, you're aware that in some dex range (not enough to fill duelist) it would be better to use rakshasa hide?
when we factor in that as a stalwart i get +3 to shield MDB (possibly up to +6 with fighter enhancements) that range becomes similar with mithral tower shield MDB.

I'd love to have both on my AC tank, even if not for actual use, getting them in case I'd be changin' my dex would be cool.

[Saravis]

then what class was it designed for?

Evocation-based Favored Souls, would be my guess.

However, the item, while it has some nice things, is rather underwhelming for the level.
It's got a lot of stuff to it, but all of it can be gotten elsewhere and better.

[Yan_PL]

Evocation-based Favored Souls, would be my guess.

However, the item, while it has some nice things, is rather underwhelming for the level.
It's got a lot of stuff to it, but all of it can be gotten elsewhere and better.

Greater evocation focus isn't really hard to slot, and +7 charisma with +1 exceptional gives FvS whoopping bonus of.... 29 spellpoints over your generic charisma +6 item. FvS, like Clerics, base their spell DCs on Wisdom modifier. Why would FvS need UMD, also? maybe, to umd, dunno, heal scrolls?


As for bards, except for +5 to umd, Epic Elyd Edge seems vastly superior as damage dealer / silver DR breaker.

so, this flameward thingie, apart from being "anti-fire" item, benefits fleshie sorcerers the most (+cha for sorceror part, +umd for fleshie part hjealscrolls). And as a person having one of those, I can say: this would be so much more awesome as small shield/buckler with 0% ASF.

[Saravis]

Greater evocation focus isn't really hard to slot, and +7 charisma with +1 exceptional gives FvS whoopping bonus of.... 29 spellpoints over your generic charisma +6 item. FvS, like Clerics, base their spell DCs on Wisdom modifier. Why would FvS need UMD, also? maybe, to umd, dunno, heal scrolls?

There are other things to UMD besides heal scrolls, like fireshield and stoneskin to name a couple I can think of off the top of my head.

Anyway I already commented on the item being underwhelming, so it really doesn't matter who it would be for.

Edit: I just looked at the epic version and I have to say I like it, I could see making room for it on a UMDing FvS or Sorc.

[Yan_PL]

Epic Darkstorm Helm - Headgear - Epic Nullification 6, Epic Magnetism 6, Superior Void Lore, Superior Lightning Lore, Call Lightning Storm 3/day, Green Slot. Note that this item does not keep the boosts to level 8 spells from the base item. Clickie is caster level 20, 84 second duration.

It boosts Chain Lightning / Eladar's electric surge by 60%, all Pale Master self-healing spells + necrotic ray by 60%, gives "top quality" Lightning/Negative energy lore. This item is pretty much overpowered, if we consider the fact that nobody really cares for how much does the finger of death/wail of banshee hit for on failed save, and that there are no reasonable electricity spells above lvl 6.
for many, it would be great upgrade from Epic Mask of Tragedy (other than tragedy having Potency and clickie lowering will saves even on failed save).
This item is superior to existing Pale Master helmets in some ways, but all effects found on it could be slotted elsewhere already. This basically trashes Pale Master item set bonus.

[sirgog]

Gotcha. Leathers are still a much higher max dex bonus if you factor in the mobility.

Leathers are 8 armor 4 dodge 12 max dex bonus and 2 mobility = 26

Hide is 11 armor 3 roguh hide 10 max dex = 24

If you can't get heightened elsewhere hide is better. If you are tempest they are even.
Both can be slotted with either +7 or +2 max dex.

Hide is ahead for the rare Acrobat that wants to use Epic Nat Gann staff (with Shield wands) and has no Monk levels. IMO that build is pretty poor at current endgame, but who knows what the future might bring?

[jakeelala]

I want that repeating crossbow for my human wiz18/rog2 PM. How much does enervate proc?

[Yan_PL]

Gotcha. Leathers are still a much higher max dex bonus if you factor in the mobility.

Leathers are 8 armor 4 dodge 12 max dex bonus and 2 mobility = 26

Hide is 11 armor 3 roguh hide 10 max dex = 24

note, that if you're pure fighter, or 18/2 ftr/rog, you can afford to take mobility feat if you really wish to. and doing so might be actually "cheaper" in build points/feat slots/action points than trying to raise your dex by 4 to get full benefit of eduelist. They're actually even if wearer has mobility feat.
Let's say, feat is worth 22 HP (another toughness) whereas getting 4 more dex instead of con costs me 40 HP (let's say, different tod ring slotting and starting with 17 dex 15 con instead of 17 con 15 dex).

[LeLoric]

note, that if you're pure fighter, or 18/2 ftr/rog, you can afford to take mobility feat if you really wish to. and doing so might be actually "cheaper" in build points/feat slots/action points than trying to raise your dex by 4 to get full benefit of eduelist. They're actually even if wearer has mobility feat.
Let's say, feat is worth 22 HP (another toughness) whereas getting 4 more dex instead of con costs me 40 HP (let's say, different tod ring slotting and starting with 17 dex 15 con instead of 17 con 15 dex).

My 18 ftr/2 rog when buffed out has 42 str/42 dex/40 con. I didn't sacrifice any con really to get that dex I sacrificed strength.

Thats 16 dex bonus I need to fill.

I run the leathers as they grant 14 and then i get 2 from ftr mastery (will eventually be past life ftr and 1 shield mastery.) For me the leathers are still better. Mobility as a feat would be pretty hard for me to fit in actually. If you are a fang tank and need three dragonmarks, 2 shield mastery and imp shield bash it eats up a lot of those extra feats you get. Mobility is not an easy feat to just throw in.

There's a lot of trade off scenarios here but in reality you probably lose hitpoints in a hide over leathers choice maintaining like ac as you have to spend the extra toughness feat for mobility or you spend more action points for ftr mastery in which case you probably lack full toughness enhancements theres just not enough to go around here completely.

Anyways the hide has it's uses but I stilll think the leathers are stronger if you have the dex to fill em out.

[Yan_PL]

Anyways the hide has it's uses but I stilll think the leathers are stronger if you have the dex to fill em out.

my whole point is, that getting dex this high is impossible without possibly gimping str/con, and you can't use tower shields for AC with such solution, too.

now, i took a look at your character layout. +4 dex tome, alchemical martial dex bonus, 18 base dex and 5 dex levelups. let's see some changes: give up artificer past life for mobility, start with 16 dex and 14 cha. spend 2 levelup points in con instead of dex. wear rakshasa instead of eDuelist. benefit: Roar, 24 hp, +2 umd, +3 intimidate. loss: 15% chance not to spend clicky charge, 15 balance on duelist, 1 to int skills, 2 reflex save.


another example:
Duelist slotted with +7 has 9 armor bonus, 4 dodge ac bonus and 12 MDB, 14 mdb with mobility.
Rakshasa hide slotted with nimbleness has 11 armor bonus, 3 rough hide, 12 MDB, 14 if you have mobility feat. +1 AC with same dex bonus. Costs 1 feat slot, but has same effectiveness as "dodge" feat.

also, if shaken debuff from "Roar" effect works on purple names... i sense profit :P