Cannith Crafted Melee Gearset

[Eryhn]

Crunching some numbers on this:

21.5 base (3d6+6+5)
*2.33 (133 amp)
-------
50.095 per pot

That's a lot of amp for heroics, but sticking with that premise, what happens if we remove the mysterious cloak?

21.5 base (3d6+6+5)
*2.18 (133 - 15 = 118 amp)
-------
46.87 per pot

It's a difference, yes, but in the grand scheme of things it feels kind of meh.

that's true but doesn't take into account what happens when you crit on a cure med or cure serious spell. the gain is a bit more worthwhile then, especially when you get it off after a champ got you in the face. however, you convinced me. up to lvl14. from there, definetely want the hamp/MRR gains added.

[EllisDee37]

that's true but doesn't take into account what happens when you crit on a cure med or cure serious spell. the gain is a bit more worthwhile then, especially when you get it off after a champ got you in the face. however, you convinced me. up to lvl14. from there, definetely want the hamp/MRR gains added.

That post was about potions, which can't crit.

In terms of casting cure spells on yourself, something I'm still getting my head around is the fact that each point of healing amp is worth exactly the same as each point of devotion. Meaning Insightful Devotion (45 @ 14) is a much bigger swing than remnant gear (30 @ 14). For that matter, slotting any spell power augment (assuming a +5 weapon) would be the equivalent of adding a stacking +15 healing amp when calculating the effect of casting cure spells on yourself.

It all adds up and is all worthwhile, of course. Just something to keep in mind.

[Eryhn]

That post was about potions, which can't crit.

In terms of casting cure spells on yourself, something I'm still getting my head around is the fact that each point of healing amp is worth exactly the same as each point of devotion. Meaning Insightful Devotion (45 @ 14) is a much bigger swing than remnant gear (30 @ 14). For that matter, slotting any spell power augment (assuming a +5 weapon) would be the equivalent of adding a stacking +15 healing amp when calculating the effect of casting cure spells on yourself.

It all adds up and is all worthwhile, of course. Just something to keep in mind.

which is why my current heal casting capable melee sets from 15-20 have devo, insight devo, hamp +cloak hamp
cure med is most SP efficient. i like when it's enough 90% of the time



...
i might be overdoing it though lol

[Raeaddil]

I just upgraded my bracers of wind to the level 11 version and crafted up the level 10 boots. I noticed that they both have dodge bonus of +6. Do the dodge bonuses stack? On my character sheet it looks like I'm capped at 9%

[ChildofWizards]

Back: ML34 Charisma 15 Cloak of Dodge Bonus 15 w/Ins. PRR 18 (Fear Immunity)

Something about this just doesn't seem right? Also what changes would you make for a Dex to-hit/damage build?

[EllisDee37]

Something about this just doesn't seem right? Also what changes would you make for a Dex to-hit/damage build?

Ha! Yeah, not sure what happened to the level there. Lemme work on that.

I just upgraded my bracers of wind to the level 11 version and crafted up the level 10 boots. I noticed that they both have dodge bonus of +6. Do the dodge bonuses stack? On my character sheet it looks like I'm capped at 9%

They don't stack.

I always forget that bracers of wind have dodge on them, since I only use bracers of wind until 11 when I switch to greensteel smoke. Let me think about what to do about that.

[Eryhn]

I just upgraded my bracers of wind to the level 11 version and crafted up the level 10 boots. I noticed that they both have dodge bonus of +6. Do the dodge bonuses stack? On my character sheet it looks like I'm capped at 9%

dodge enhancement bonus do not stack with each other, i havent checked out the new boots effects yet but should likewise be enhancement bonus just like on bracers so most likely NO.

what WOULD stack on top of EITHER is a lootgen or crafted insightful dodge effect. or quality dodge, though not sure we have that one actually ...

the cap on the character sheet is determined by your armor's max dex bonus, + some enhancements or gear that may raise that a bit.

[EllisDee37]

I've been analyzing how much dodge my characters can reasonably attain and it's almost complicated enough to merit adding a Dodge calculator to my Character Builder.

Dodge is capped by 3 different things:

- 25% universal cap (27%, more likely, thanks to ship buffs)
- Your armor's Max Dex Bonus
- Your tower shield's MDB

Your cap is whatever ends up lower of the three. There are ways to increase both the Dodge cap and your armor and shield's MDB, and those are two different things. As examples, here's how it's looking to shake out for my characters:

Evasion Paladin

27% Dodge Cap (25% base + 2% Fencing Master ship buff)
22 MDB (20 from Celestial Leather, +2 from Armored Agility blue augment)

15 Dodge item
3 Dodge feat
3 Unearthly Reactions twist (Magister Tier 1)
1 from Rogue level 4
----
22 Dodge

Tempest Trapmonkey

27% Dodge Cap (25% base + 2% Fencing Master ship buff)
28 MDB (20 from Celestial Leather, +6 from Lithe twist, +2 Mobility)

15 Dodge item
7 Insightful Dodge item
3 Dodge feat
2 Mobility feat
----
27 Dodge

Kensei Warpriest

27% Dodge Cap (25% base + 2% Fencing Master ship buff)
13 MDB (8 from Planeforged Half Plate, 3 from SD Armor mastery III, 2 from blue augment)

15 Dodge item
----
13 Dodge

[EllisDee37]

Sitting down to analyze the challenge gear and what makes sense:

Bracers of Wind: Blurry, Dodge
Spare Hand: Parrying, Ins. Combat Mastery, Disable & Open Lock, and at 20 you also get Doublestrike
Ring of the Stalker: Seeker, and at 15+ you get ethereal/ghostly
Mournlode Armor: Resistance

The armor doesn't give much, but crafted armor only offers parrying for the extra effect which is on the spare hand, so dropping mournlode for crafted only gains us one prefix/suffix slot. One thing in mournlode's favor is that crafting Resistance is expensive. (Fragrant Drowshoods.)

Assuming we keep all four of those challenge items, plus a named cloak (invisibility from 9 to 14, Mysterious 15+) that only leaves 7 gear slots to work with: helmet, goggles, necklace, gloves, boots, ring 2 and trinket. That means 14 prefix/suffix effects and 7 extras.

6 stats
1 accuracy
1 armor piercing
1 deadly
1 alacrity
1 healing amp
1 sheltering (crafted is worth double the augment value)
1 wizardry (crafted is worth almost double the augment value)
1 false life (crafted is worth slightly more than augment value)
1 devotion
1 combat mastery
1 true seeing
---
17 prefix/suffix effects (3 too many)

False life seems like an obvious augment choice, though be aware that doing that increases the ML of whatever it's slotted into by 1. I'm thinking bracers of wind. That still leaves 2 effects to be axed, and notice there isn't even any doublestrike in the list at all. (Just have to wait for 20 when spare hand gets it.)

It's conceivable that we could drop out a couple stats, though for example my evasion paladin wants all 6: Str for dps, Dex for reflex, Con for hp, Int for trapping, Wis for spellcasting and Cha for divine might. So I'm not in love with dropping stats.

I really want true seeing not just for secret doors, but because I hate missing blurred and displaced mobs. It could conceivably be relegated to a swap item, maybe?

Accuracy looks like the least useful, during heroics at least. I really want it for epics, though.

I guess drop mournlode, since druids can't wear it and you can't craft resistance on armor. You can, however, slot resistance in a blue on armor, and the augments are 1 shy of crafted at all levels except 20, where it's 2 shy. (6 compared to 8.)

Dropping mournlode gives us 16 prefix/suffix slots, and if we move resistance and false life to augments we can keep everything else, including accuracy. In fact, if we put accuracy on a hat, we can make alternate hats of spot if we want to maintain spot on a trapper. Ignoring augments and extras for now:

ML7
Head: ML7 Sheltering 11 Helmet of Accuracy 7
Eyes: ML7 Wisdom 5 Goggles of Deadly 4
Neck: ML7 Constitution 5 Necklace of Charisma 5
Back: (unused)
Wrist: Bracers of Wind
Hand: ML7 Melee Alacrity 5 Gloves of Armor Piercing 7
Waist: Spare Hand
Feet: ML7 Dexterity 5 Boots of Strength 5
Ring: Ring of the Stalker
Ring: ML7 Wizardry 88 Ring of Devotion 66
Trinket: ML7 Intelligence 5 Trinket of True Seeing
Body: ML7 Combat Mastery 4 Armor of Healing Amp 17

You can only craft haggle on a hat (or trinket or runearm), so there's incentive to keep spellcasting stats and wizardy off hat so you don't lose spell points while vendoring, which would be irritating if you want to quickly sell/repair and hop back into a quest. I assume a silver flame necklace swap for beholder fights, but there's really no getting around con on a necklace. Devotion would be ideal for the necklace, but that would require moving a stat to the hat. I also assume Lesser Cunning Trinket as a shrine swap, meaning no caster stat on trinket, either.

As for augments, we have:

6 yellow (crafted hat, goggles, necklace, gloves, boots, ring):
- Blindness Immunity
- Fear Immunity
- Deathblock
- Striding
- Feather Falling
- Water Breathing
4 green (spare hand, wind bracers, stalker ring, invisibility/mysterious cloak):
- Resistance
- False Life
- Fortification
- Good Luck
1 blue (armor):
- Armored Agility (raise MDB for Dodge)

We also want to squeeze in Master's Gift and Vitality somewhere.

As for extras, we only have 7 slots (nothing good on armor except parrying), and Mysterious Cloak gives iMRR and Spare Hand gives iCombat Mastery and Parrying. I'm thinking:

1) iConstitution
2) iSeeker
3) iFortification
4) iPRR
5) iAccuracy
6) iDevotion
7) iJump

The epic version could swap out jump for something more useful, but during heroics you won't be at 40+ yet, so having some jump would be helpful.



What do you think so far?

[Enguebert]

Some remarks about your gear layout

We are in a thread where we talk about MELEE gear. (And heroic !)

1) Most melee don't need INT/CHA/WIS. You need at most one of those stats, not all 3
On cloak you can put those one of those 3 skills with Natural Armor . CHA/Natural Armor/InsCHA. Or INT/Natural Armor/InsINT or WIS/Natural Armor/InsWIS
That frees lot of slot for other effects. And those cloaks are also useful for casters

2) Deathblock augment are hard to find (except on store)
So if you don't want to spend TP, it is good to have DB crafted somewhere. But only possibilities are armor, shield or belt
I am happy to have pre-32 deathblock trinket :-)

3) Striding augment are also hard to find. This was unexpected. I was also planning to put striding on a yellow slot, but i can't find all the augments i found

4) For melee, i like mounrlode armor because they are easy to get (just have to farm challenges) and give protection + resistance
Protection is not mandatory, but it is a bonus for a Melee

5) Blue slot = Fortification. At low heroic, augments are better than craft and near 20, it is roughly the same. I usually slot in on armor

6) if you want, you can replace Wizardry by a yellow augment for a melee. if you are melee oriented, you don't need tons of SP

7) Don't forget to keep a slot for a GS item. Some effects are good from lvl 11-20


And for my Heroic Gear, i prefer to craft either "generic item" (= an item that can be used by all chars) or melee/SP gear (one item for melee, one for casters)

Example
Necklace : generic : CON/False Life/InsCON (+ Diamond of vitality)
Gloves : MELEE : STR/Deadly/Ins Str
CASTER : SpellPen/Resist/InsSpell Pen

[EllisDee37]

1) Most melee don't need INT/CHA/WIS. You need at most one of those stats, not all 3

Can't agree with you on this. I have two divine might melee alts, both of whom need a wisdom item to cast spells and a cha item to boost divine might. And one of them is a trapper, who also wants int for trapping. Plus, any melee without divine might should consider investing in int and taking know the angles from harper.

Other thoughts:

Cloak is not an open slot. It's Cloak of Invisibility @ 9 for ghostly, then becomes Mysterious Cloak @ 15 when stalker ring gains ethereal. It's only open from 1 to 8.

Agreed that it stinks to spend TP on deathblock, but what effect would you drop from the list to fit it in as a crafted effect?

Interesting about striding also being hard to find. Looking it up on wiki, you are correct: Only 5%, 10%, and 15% are purchasable in-game, plus you can get 20% from boots of the innocent using a jeweler's toolkit, but that's it. That's kind of a bummer. (See this thread for a list of pre-slotted named items you can farm augments from.)

The problem with mournlode is that it only offers one effect, compared to crafted armor than can cover two effects, or three if you need parrying. That means you have to drop an effect to fit in mournlode.

Crafted wizardry is almost double the spell points of the augment version, and all my bluebar melees use their bluebar for self-healing. (Paladin, ranger, fighter/cleric, bard.) More spell points is definitely better.

I'm totally with you on the greensteel. That's one of the downsides of the challenge gearset: there is no room for greensteel. For me personally, I'm sticking with the original plan at the top of the thread, which allows me to go with Smoke Bracers on all my melees.

And for my Heroic Gear, i prefer to craft either "generic item" (= an item that can be used by all chars) or melee/SP gear (one item for melee, one for casters)

Example
Necklace : generic : CON/False Life/InsCON (+ Diamond of vitality)
Gloves : MELEE : STR/Deadly/Ins Str
CASTER : SpellPen/Resist/InsSpell Pen

I do, within the confines of what's possible while still fitting everything in. In the challenge gearset, there is very little room for adjustments. But, for example, the universal melee gearset at the top of the thread includes a Con necklace of Sheltering w/iCon (Deathblock). Much easier to find extra Vitality augments than extra Deathblock...

[C-Dog]

This suggested mix is very attractive, if a bit out of reach for this player* w/ its reliance on insighful and augments to make the full mix work.

(* Premium, non-maxed Crafter, limited purchasing power for Augments, etc.)

...You can only craft haggle on a hat (or trinket or runearm), so there's incentive to keep spellcasting stats and wizardy off hat so you don't lose spell points while vendoring, which would be irritating if you want to quickly sell/repair and hop back into a quest...

You just hate to swap gear, don't you?

I understand it's a QoL thing, but I crafted a simple Ring of UW Action w/ +Swim on it, and have no prob swapping that out when I want/need it (sometimes as a panic button if I take a wrong turn!), and back when I surface (or just before if I expect trouble).

Sim w/ Spot goggles vs. other varieties (for Trappers or Ranged alts). I've put my key same-slot items on hotbars (like clickies, rings, or Haggle hat), 1st one of each type is always "default" for questing. BUT a lot of that is droploot, and so not optimized re combinations of effects to minimize total number of items (and total number of effects in operation at any given time).

For subsequent lives or characters, ML4-5 seems like the best range for crafted options. More to come on that.

Iirc(?), a while back (and def pre-32) you posted a bit about what items to craft at what levels - altho' that may have been strictly limited to trapper-items, and it may have been a response and not a thread unto itself (lost the link).

Could you take a swing at that, at least for trappers, w/ U32 sensibilities in mind? Optimally you'd want new gear (almost) every level to keep the max bonus possible - nothing worse than failing in the middle of a quest b/c you've out-leveled your Trapping gear - but that's just not practical for most, even w/ mules and expanded vaults. What cutpoints would you suggest?

[EllisDee37]

You can only craft haggle on a hat (or trinket or runearm), so there's incentive to keep spellcasting stats and wizardy off hat so you don't lose spell points while vendoring, which would be irritating if you want to quickly sell/repair and hop back into a quest.

You just hate to swap gear, don't you?

I understand it's a QoL thing, but I crafted a simple Ring of UW Action w/ +Swim on it, and have no prob swapping that out when I want/need it (sometimes as a panic button if I take a wrong turn!), and back when I surface (or just before if I expect trouble).

I'm not sure I follow.

After crafting up a complete ML34 gearset tailored specifically for my paladin, I almost immediately noticed a problem with his wisdom hat: When I vendor my loot, swapping to the haggle hat drops his spell points by triple digits. Then when I'm done vendoring and switch back to his wisdom hat, he's now 100+ spell points shy of max. Meaning I can't jump right back into questing at full strength, but instead would need to buy a drink to restore spell points. Or worse, run to a tavern first if I'm not vendoring at a tavern.

Thus my realization that you really want to keep two things off hats: spellcasting stats (wisdom on a paladin, int on a wizard, etc...) and wizardry. To be honest, I was pretty surprised that haggle only goes on hats. What happened to haggle necklaces? *grumble grumble*

Could you take a swing at that, at least for trappers, w/ U32 sensibilities in mind? Optimally you'd want new gear (almost) every level to keep the max bonus possible - nothing worse than failing in the middle of a quest b/c you've out-leveled your Trapping gear - but that's just not practical for most, even w/ mules and expanded vaults. What cutpoints would you suggest?

Skill gear doesn't increase every level, so that helps. I already made complete trapping gear years ago, all BTA w/masterful, through level 9: ML1 +5, ML5 +10, ML9 +13. So for me, I'm looking at adding two additional versions: ML15 +16/+8, and ML21 +18/+9. And honestly that ML21 isn't looking particularly necessary.

If I didn't have that old-style crafting BTA gear already, I'm not entirely sure what I'd go with before level 15. Nothing jumps out at me as a particularly good cutoff to hold onto for multiple levels.

[C-Dog]

I'm not sure I follow...

Ah, no, it was I who was being dense. I overlooked spell points, just thought it was a "one less item to remember to switch out" thing - fair enough.

I already made complete trapping gear years ago, all BTA w/masterful, through level 9: ML1 +5, ML5 +10, ML9 +13...

You're a dog. Yeah, can't get there from here, not anymore. Nice stuff, really helps crush the at-level DC's.

Skill gear doesn't increase every level, so that helps.... Nothing jumps out at me as a particularly good cutoff to hold onto for multiple levels.

Well, obvious skill cutpoints are ML 13 (+15), as ML 14 is the same bonus. Same w/ ML 15 (+16) and 17, and ML 18 (+17) and 19 (tho' making both could be seen as... excessive). And then ML 20 is only +18. So maybe w/ U32, Lvl 18 would be the (pre-Epic) cap if going on to Epic.

As has been pointed out, lowbie trapping can be covered with the Korthos Trapper set (+3 to all relevant), but after that things get tougher fast. The question is "How fast do DC's require everything you can squeeze out?"

So, since we don't have the luxury of masterful any more, working backwards from 18 (or 20), maybe... every 3 levels???

(L 1 - Troubleshooter - +3)
L3 (+5)
L6 (+8)
L9 (+11)
L12 (+14)
L15 (+16)
L20 (+18)

Could do every 4, but the X-1 Character Level starts to look a little shakey, a bit (too?) low vs. what's optimal/possible. :/

(L 1 - Troubleshooter - +3)
L3 (+5)
L7 (+9)
L11 (+13)
L15 (+16)
L20 (+18)

To compare to your Masterful set...

(L 1 - Troubleshooter - +3)
L5 (+7)
L10 (+12)
L15 (+16)
L20 (+18)

Not sure Level 9 can do his job with only +7 gear across the board, or a Lvl 14 w/ only +12 - seems a bit weak, no?

(For the first 2 sets, Lvl 3 probably can survive on Troubleshooter alone, but, working backwards from ML 18/20, the math worked out that way in both cases. Bump that to Lvl 4 easily enough.)

[EllisDee37]

Well, obvious skill cutpoints are ML 13 (+15), as ML 14 is the same bonus. Same w/ ML 15 (+16) and 17, and ML 18 (+17) and 19 (tho' making both could be seen as... excessive). And then ML 20 is only +18. So maybe w/ U32, Lvl 18 would be the (pre-Epic) cap if going on to Epic.

I disagree on almost all of these. My assumption is that you'd (of course) put insightful on the same item. For example, goggles of Search w/Insightful Search.

When you start looking at it in that context, the logical cutoffs become:

ML10: +12/+6 (obvious because it's the first level you're allowed to add insightful)
ML15: +16/+8
ML21: +18/+9
PL34: +22/+11

And again, I'm not sure how useful that ML21 version would be. You can easily pare those three pre-cap versions down to 2. I'd probably drop the ML21 altogether and just go with communal ML10 and ML15 versions, and then make individual PL34 versions for each alt to use at cap.

For me, with my old-style ML9 +13s, I'll skip the ML10s and the ML21s and just make a single set of ML15 +16/+8s.

[Raeaddil]

The changes look good. If I wanted to fit in spot would you switch out accuracy on your helm for spot? I am currently level 11 running your tempest trapmonkey build on my main till level 30. Are you still planning on just the one upgrade set at 10 to 13ish like before? I have alot of alts so the one upgrade looks good to me if it can work well. I'm planning to do barbarian for next life so a nice melee gear set that works for both looks ideal to me.

[EllisDee37]

If I wanted to fit in spot would you switch out accuracy on your helm for spot?

Yep, exactly.

Are you still planning on just the one upgrade set at 10 to 13ish like before? I have alot of alts so the one upgrade looks good to me if it can work well. I'm planning to do barbarian for next life so a nice melee gear set that works for both looks ideal to me.

I'm not entirely sure how the leveling breaks down for the challenge gear version. On the one hand, it seems logical to include ML7, 11, and 15 versions, but on the other hand, that's a LOT of challenge mats and expensive augments. The 11s will probably suffice until 20, is my initial thinking.

For me personally, I already crafted the original versions so I'll likely be sticking with those. I need separate, dedicated gearsets for my non-melee alts, and there's only so many complete gearsets I can easily afford to craft.

[Enguebert]

For Rogue gear, i crafted some goggles for heroic levels

Level of item were 4/8/12/16. Why multiple of 4 ? Because if you don't have WIS/INT gear, you can slot a diamond of WIS/INT on the goggle
Default goggle : Search+Spot (+Ins. Search)
Switch Goggle : Disable Device + Open lock (+Ins.Disable)

I can tell you that on a DEX rogue, the level 8 & 12 goggles (without Ins.) are enough for elite traps at level.
Spot is high enough to be warned (but without goggle, i don't always notice the trap), Search is ok (but again, goggle is a must)
For Disable, i had once or twice a failure on a roll of 1, but never a critical failure


Hide & Move Silently are more tricky to place because it breaks your usual melee gearset
I try to use ring & trinket slots to be items that change from class to class so Hide goes on a ring of Hide/Dex/Ins.Dex

[Eclaveriia]

My opinion about the early gear:

1) Level 10 is too late. At level 8-9-10 we have hard content: Chrono, ToEE, ASL.

I find that the best break points crafted gear is 7, 10, 14, 18, and 23. Thats where I planned my sets for. The only exception is armor, which can be done at 6 instead of 7 with no loss in capability.

My opinion about the early gear:
2) I love Mysterious Cloak / Bracers. The ML7 version gives 15 stacking heal amp and 11 insightful MRR, and two slots. I like Master's Gift in the colorless slot, and fortification in the blue. I want CSW pots to hit for 50ish when doing harder content.

my set is planned with 8 items with necklace, 1 ring, trinket, and cloak planned for character specific or non-crafted gear. Admittedly I also skipped some of the effects thats in the thread holders sets such as Int and Cha, but I plan on using some of my free slots on certain builds to cover that, like Charisma Ring of Devotion on my pali

My opinion about the early gear:
3) Too much focus on crafted gear. Why not use for example some ASL named items? Also ML9 cove hat with superior false life and jump is worth equipping.

The focus is on a gearset that you can use on any character, which means no bind to character. Its why I plan on having character specific swap items for the masters gift slot. Now if you want to make a set that uses very little or no crafted gear, you can make a lvl 14 set with the devils handywork items, random loot, and augments that is competitive with a crafted set. It wont be perfect but its all farmable in game without crafting.

[Eclaveriia]

For wizardry on melee characters, I find that I don't need spell point items on palidins, rangers, or barbarians in my experience, i only really need them on lvl 20 + characters who are fighters, and even then its to fuel epic destiny healing so I don't need it until 20+. And I generally don't need charisma and int on melee characters that need spell point items. And by the time a barbarian has any use for spell points they generally have much better options via Blood Strength anyhow.


But ymmv