Type 4/7 vs Type 8

So this exists for all those players with a Left and/or Right Eye of Sul who no longer raid to face a tougher decision when upgrading their last one of two pieces of raid gear to group gear and for casters and tanks who prefer stats over damage and/or proc augs for their weapon(s) to have fewer choices if using group gear.

Did I miss any augs between Eyes of Sul and Gemstone of Scale that don't fit both Slot 7 and Slot 8? 12 straight expansions of 7/8 augs and the Eyes since Ngreth is taking the time to correct raid TS items from Slot 4/7 to 8.

For casters its an easy choice imo, as raid focus alone makes up for the lower stats on old raid items.
That is assuming you have TBM raidgear, where the caster focus still works at level 110.

I would keep the old raidgear, If it has useful raid focus.

Augs have always been type 8 if looted from raids with very few exceptions: IIRC one was the damage aug with the lifetap from Deathknell that could be placed in a type 4 (prolly done that way because Epic weapons were primary weapons still). The difference is, raids that are temporary in some way be it Anniversary Event or Hardcore Heritage event reward you with a type 7/8 aug. Remember, the original development intention for Plane of War was that it was to be a HH event. The Devs later changed their minds due to player feedback and made it permanent. So the augs from PoW are also type 7/8.

In 2003-2006 they released expansions that had raid augs that were Type 8 only.
In 2007-2016 all the content they released contained two Type 8 only augs. The Type 7 only augs were low level hotzone augs to prevent a raid geared alt from using a 25hp aug from The Hole.

I'm not sure how you get always from 7 expansions that all came out over a decade ago and 2 augs from TBM. After a decade of making virtually every aug 7/8 to me the logical path is to stop making Type 7 gear, even if this means that someone gearing up from group content in RoS also can't use a 25hp aug from The Hole.

True, I don't think there would be many complaints from live servers if they "consolidated" the 2 aug-types...

As you said, the distinction between the 2 types have been non-existent for many years.

thought the main difference in modern gear was that raid weapons (caster 2hb and bows) can have 2 augs for damage while group weapons could only have 1 and a stat aug?

edit: or to allow casters to put a proc aug in their shield if they chose to use one

True, it gives casters more options with proc augs, but there haven't been any new proc augs in ages(think newest were from tds).
My guess is that the devs would like to have fewer but stronger procs(I read somewhere that too many procs added a lot of network traffic).
So far it has been a good strategy to have as many procs as possible, I have no idea if RoS-itemization will change that...

What raids dropped augs other than anniversary event ones. No augs in EoK raids. No augs in TBM except the eyes. No augs in TDS raids, etc.

Raid only augs are almost always type 8, nothing has changed, except they only rarely make raid augs anymore except for special circumstances.

4 in Solteris, Old Man Dragon Scales which require raid flagging as well as doing the MM raids, Living Legacy raids, Anniversary raids, HH raids, Plane of War raid.

The Devs identified the biggest problem plaguing Norrath that they had such a large staff and created far more content than their customers were able to consume and started making temporary raids and content. One time at band camp they made the crazy decision to make one of those raids permanent and their decision to make temporary content was validated as many "top" guilds avoided the raid like the plague as they didn't have enough time for yet another raid.

Temporary raids during 2003-2006 would have dropped Type Zebra augs, if we are inventing things about content that never existed it seems really boring to say it would have been Type 7,8. If you're not inventing things at random then if the Devs back then had seen the value in providing less content to their customers then Antraygus, the Sporali King and Gnarlibramble would have been a temporary raids and still dropped a Type 8 only aug.

The basic change was realizing that the relative values were unsustainable, Anguish has 257.3 average HP according to raidloot so augs are providing over 1/4 of HP/Mana, by House of Thule that would be 500/500 augs, instead 500/500 augs are the current cap other than Artisan's Prize with some augs considerably exceeding 500hp or mana but lacking on the other stat. Relife Adornment is around 500/500.

To emulate Anguish augs you would take 1000-1500 HP/Mana from gear and add it to Type 5 augs. At least Type 7 and 8 split makes more sense than the Type 13 and 14 split.

Nope. Solteris was the last "raid augs" as part of the game with the type 8 mechanism. And they specifically posted during SoF beta (probably live somewhere too) that they were no longer going to make raid augs as they wanted that to be a group derived thing.

All the other things you posted are not raid augs. OMM was not tied to an expansion and anyone can buy the augs without ever doing a raid. They are, specifically something on the vendor which requires no wins in a specific mission or flags to buy, by design,to be for everyone.

Everything else is temp content, most of which you can get in a group (though better stats with raids).

That leaves plane of war. So one example. And now two examples of type 8 only again.

BUT! Remember, plane of war was supposed to be a TEMPORARY event. They only left it in after the complaints about people not getting a chance to beat it due to difficulty.

So that means zero augs designed to drop from static raids since TBS. Until a special mechanic of these eyes (which they even said they could have just made them no stat but decided to throw us a bone).

So this is not some mass breaking of precedent. The only thing that changed is that they decided to have some augs drop on a normal raid again. That's it. Making it type 4/8 would be the breaking of precedent.

I don't care either way, and think they should just make them all the same type anyway, but you have an invalid argument because you are basing it on a false premise.

Main example I'll give is the new Wurmslayer. Honed Wurmslayer has a type 4 aug slot, you cannot put a solid AC aug in your main weapon as a tank with the group version. Now turn that into an Invested Honed Wurmslayer and you now have a mainhand weapon with a type 8 slot that can use a 60ac type 7/8 aug. This is true for all raid weapons versus group. Of course if I could put that 60ac aug in my group weapon as a tank I'm not going to be mad about it. But really no need to consolidate aug types.

Are you sure about that? I remember that some of the OMM loot needed to be unlocked, and that the raid-quality items required you to complete the OMM-raids before being buyable.
I also seem to remember you needed to complete some SoF or SoD-raids in order to join(or was it just to request?) the OMM raids.
I admit, Im unsure if the augs specifically were locked from the start... Or if they were meant as super expensive chaseloot for everyone?

You are right, I forgot about that.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-tips-to-gain-omm-nagafen-raid-access.242459/

It's not a raid because it's temporary, it doesn't count if it was in prison, sure you can create exceptions out of thin air to explain a lot of things. If OMM doesn't match your argument just completely invent that raids are not required.

Raid only augs exist because that was initially the only possible option without letting people stick three "high stat" augs in a piece of LDoN gear. The reason there is a mechanism for changing a Type 7 only +15 HP aug into a Type 8 only +15 HP that you can still use today is that initially the only two options were fitting in a specific slot and fitting in any slot and +15 HP in an aug slot intended for resists would have been game breaking.

Initially it was also impossible to remove augs if you want to kick it old school, once you upgrade that piece of gear you need to then reacquire the aug, BiC and the LDoN charm aug were designed with that in mind so you could hail a mob to reacquire the aug.

So when they made Blessed Shard, Ruby of Steadfastness and such they could make them Type 7 only or Type 8 only and they picked Type 8 for fairly obvious reasons. This continued the concept of raid augs from the LDoN raids. When Anguish comes along and they decide to create an entire set of augs they could have made them 7, 8 like Flameshield Stone and Gemstone of Fiery Might but stubborn old men kept making Type 8 augs for 3 more years even with the underlying issue resolved.

One of those stubborn old men was even still around for the creation of the Eyes of Sul and was probably banging his fist on the table to emphasize the importance of how I remember a decade ago that augs from raids were Type 8 only so that's what the Eyes should be and that continuing to make 7/13 and 8/14 gear every expansion is a crucial gameplay element.

The problem is that little thing called reality and how underlying mechanics forced Type 8 for two expansions and then for five more expansions this was quasi-maintained even with substantial blurring of Type 7/8 split most notably with DoDH missions. Then things moved forward for a decade except that one time someone remembered how things used to be without remembering why it used to be or why it was changed and made Type 8 only Eyes of Sul.