Nov Update Preview: Adjusting AC on items from The Broken Mirror

As you may have noticed, item stats in The Broken Mirror expansion were not entirely conventional. The top tier of neck items have an inappropriate amount of AC relative to other pieces of top tier gear. We’ve decided to redistribute the AC on items from The Broken Mirror. These changes aren’t designed to lower overall AC, just redistribute it. Those of you outfitted with a full set of The Broken Mirror gear, will see an overall increase in your AC.

UPDATE: These changes also affect some of the 17th-anniversary gear.

To accomplish this, we're going to lower the AC on the eight raid neck items and one charm while increasing AC on other non-visible slots. Here are the changes:

• Deadeye Matrix, Star of Divine Tribulation, and Crescent of the Other Side will have their AC reduced from 262 to 228.
• Glib GuildedGoldentorc and Gorget of the Bottomless will have their AC reduced from 252 to 228.
• Bloodstar Pendant, Tallow-smeared Locket, Amulet of the Encore will have their AC reduced from 252 to 218
• Earrings will gain 4-5 AC, except Hoop of Waning Power which will gain 10, Fumigator's Alacrity which will gain 12 AC, Diamond Stud of Purpose which will gain 14 AC, and Etched Silver Stud which will gain 14AC.
• Masks will gain 4-5 AC, except Polar Guise of Brilliant Radiance which will gain 15 AC.
• Shoulders will gain 4 AC, except Morbomancer's Mantle which will gain 10 AC.
• Back items will gain 5 AC, except Feathered Cloak of the Lady which gains 11 AC.
• Range items (including bows) will gain 3-4 AC, except for Totem of the High Bokon which gains 11 AC.
• Rings will gain 4 AC, except for Etched Broken Skull Ring which gains 11 AC, Vibrant Vapor Ring of Grummus which gains 12 AC, and Runed Ring of Broken Skull which gain 15.
• Waists will gain 5 AC, except for Cured Flesh Sash of Boromas which gains 18 AC.
• Charms (at their maximum) will gain 4 AC except Polished Diamond Prism which will loose 4 AC.
• One-handed weapons will gain 2 AC except Tarantella which will remain the same.
• Two-handed weapons will gain 4 AC, except Serrated Flamberge of Hatred witch gains 9 AC and Demagogue's Crutch which will gain 31 AC to match other weapons in its tier.
• Shields will not change.
• In the worst case, if you are wearing only the items that get the "low" upgrades listed above and have only a single 1h weapon, your loss of 34 AC on the neck will end up gaining 9 AC (43 AC added from other items).

These changes will be going on beta this week, and are scheduled to go live in our Empires of Kunark expansion game update scheduled for Wednesday, November 16.

Our goal with these changes is to create a fair way to redistribute the stats from The Broken Mirror itemization and give us room to assign AC values to future itemization in a way that makes more sense. Thank you for your understanding and your continued support.