Abandoned Codex

[Vicks]

It's not that ... it's that I can think of numerous sets of armguards that give better stats (and that aren't level 85, I might add). I'm not just complaining for the sake of complaining ... those titan vambraces are not av-suitable eq. You can add as much new eq as you want, but if it's not better than the gear that people are wearing at level 40, they're not gonna switch over to the new gear when they av (because, yes, we're all stat whores )
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"Kill 'em all and let Vicks sort 'em out."

~Ancient Proverb

[Nightblade]

I partially agree with Gareth and partially with Vicks. Most of the people who are complaining should already have better equipment but are just afraid of losing that piece and being forced to downgrade. HOWEVER, I can remember when the best wrist wear for an avatar thief was the copper bracelet. Now, I was a thief at the time, but every one of my friends felt bad for me and laughed their asses off every time I had to take another run into the desert to grab a new bracelet cause one scrapped (ie - every day.). I mean, some pieces of eq are just really sad to be seen on an avatar. I haven't checked out these new pieces of arm wear, but from the complaints I'll assume they don't add much (if any at all) to dr hr. That of course coincides with my original opinion but I've got to say, if a level 30-50 armguard is being preferred over the new guards which used to be the normal avwear, that's kind of bothersome. Especially if it's all got lower durability.
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"Eye level for a kender is door-lock height for the same reason a chipmunk has extra cheek space."

"A kender will take anything that's not nailed down, and a kender with a good claw hammer will get those things too"

[Vicks]

If the titan vambraces had 5 or 6 dr they'd be suitable avatar gear, in my honest estimation. As I've already pointed out, we're all pretty much stat-whores (as our char's overall performace is based purely out of stats), but what I'm looking for from eq is not so much "better" eq, but *comparable* eq. Ideally I'd like to be able to think "what does this char need more of?" and then be able to stack my eq appropriately. In fairness, the imms (mostly Gareth, I assume) and the builders have come a **long** way from the days where every avatar had the *exact* same gear (which was uber lame), but surely we can all agree there's still a ways to go. The bottom line is inferior gear just won't be used by anyone, and so any work implementing it is more or less time wasted. I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass, and I realize I am nitpicking a bit on this particular issue, but I just figure the more choices the players have, the better.

On a side note, it in fact kind of bothers me when new gear is put in at a given eq slot that's far and away better than anything else available. When I see new eq, I prefer it to be something that I couldn't honestly tell you if it's "better" than the eq I'm wearing; I'd rather it be a number of choices that I've got to test out to figure out what's best for my char in particular. The "far and away" stuff should be saved for rare occaisions such as large quests; "great" eq doesn't mean much if everyone else has the exact same thing.
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"Kill 'em all and let Vicks sort 'em out."

~Ancient Proverb

[Seph]

When i created my area, i popped in some armor, for example, that give 6dr 100hps and a bit more ac than:.
Most people still use the under layer/wooden armor for 8hr 5dr and 55hps.
An example of a choice.
On some muds the eq for evil chars is all hr/dr and good is all ac/hps. I'm not saying thats how it should be, but i think when it comes down to av eq, thats really the major choice. Save vs anything works so infrequiently it really isnt much of an incentive for equipment.
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

[Gareth]

[Vicks]

I would disagree with seph ... I actually think there should be more eq with saves on them; I've found save vs. breath, para and poison to be very handy ... I'm not sure exactly what save vs. spell does, but I'm reasonably certain it's also handy ... I just don't know quite what it does
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"Kill 'em all and let Vicks sort 'em out."

~Ancient Proverb

[Seph]

Unless im horribly mistaken, save vs spell is when you see that 'The gods protect soandso' when a spell is cast on you.
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

[Waldo]

Seph, I think that means you are not an evil alignment and the mob cast dispel evil on you.

[Vicks]

[Gareth]

[Gareth]

as an additional note, the saves are level based, and your savingthrow 'number' is a direct one-for-one adjustment to the spell's effective level.
Therefore, someone who's level 80 with a spell save of -5 should be as good at resisting damage spells as a level 85 character with a spell save of 0.
Also spell levels are bounded at 5-95 (after adjustment), so one limit you might be hitting is that if you're fighting, say, a level 75 mob (not uncommon for qp runs I believe), you've already got an effective -10 save before you start counting eq-based saves. It therefore follows that you get more effectiveness from savingthrow eq when fighting higher level mobs.

[Seph]

Why then does the hierophant of holy grove, who appears to be between level 15 and 20 when i identify it, still hit me with its harm spell for between 30-50 damage when it casts it when im clearin by buffer?
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

[Gareth]

because 'bounded at 5-95' works both ways - you can't ever get a saving throw to 0.
Damage calculation varies quite widely from one sphere to the next - the base elemental spells use a lookup table, the dark spells have a loosely bound algorithm, and harm has a fairly high minimum damage.

[Seph]

ahhhh... ok.
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

[neq]

sweet maybe i should start casting harm when i don't have a chance at winning a fight