I am new to the server and was happily leveling my tradeskills when I noticed that all the mastercrafted armors using the rare materials....were worse than their regular counterparts, like hugely bad. For example the Carbontite X would be 12 DPS, the Feysteel (next tier upgrade AND rare material) would be 8DPS with a little more str/sta/armor. Is this intended? Am I doing something wrong? Is it always going to be like this? Thinking of just dropping armorsmith
Since you mention str I assume you are looking at fighter plate mail. Since fighters are intended to be tanks str/sta/armor are far more important than secondary stats like dps. In any case the increased str will directly improve your dps. For example: Carbonite Vanguard Cuirass (level 20 handcrafted plate chest) has 150 mitigation, +10 str, +10 sta, +6 weapon skills Feysteel Vanguard Cuirass (level 32 mastercrafted plate chest) has 236 mitigation, +20 str, +20 sta, +6 weapon skills The feysteel is far superior in its intended role as tank armor.
Feysteel van gussets 18/18 8.8 DPS Carb van guessts 10/10 9.6 DPS According to http://www.eq2flames.com/shadowknights/55748-shadowknight-info-noobs-long.html , which is somewhat outdated (reitemization to hit harder less times) : 6 str = 1 dps So for a whole 10 levels teir upgrade, and a rare material you are looking at equal dps. I don't see how that make sense. Sure you get more beef, but it feels like it should be an upgrade all around. Compare them to the felliron gussets with 12 dps, and who would take a 4 dps nerf for a little bit of armor on a "superior" item.
While the itemization might appear strange, the increased strength, stamina and mitigation more than compensate for a small loss in a secondary stat.
It looks like an issue with Gussets. Across the levels, for HC and MC: T2 HC: 9.6 DPS. MC: 6.6 T3 HC: 12.8 DPS MC: 8.8 T4 HC: 17.6 DPS MC: 5.5 T5 HC: 18 DPS, 1.5 crit bonus MC: 5.7 DPS, 1.9 crit bonus I'd almost say they got them backwards, but then there's the inexplicable low numbers for MC T4 and 5. Actually, looking at it some more, other pieces have some issues as well. T4 Gauntlets sees the MC with less weapon skill than the HC. In other cases, like T4 and 5 spaulders, they vary as well, but then the MC version has an additional bonus (multi attack) the HC version lacks. Overall, the devs need to give it a look over though. Especially the gussets.
They could look at it, but would it really make much of a difference at those levels? Leveling happens so fast now. It's hardly worth it to bother with MC anything.
It depends on your play-style and goal. Some people race to the top, some level as they go, some stop to smell the flowers. For the last, MC gear is absolutely worth it, for the middle, it depends on where their slider is at. For the last.. intermediate gear of any sort is mostly worthless.
I tend to use full MC'd armor sets, as well as the charms, for my melee alts. Shields and weapons at times as well. Back then, I went with MC'd stuff because it was worth having (or rather should be). These days because the rare harvesting prestige AA makes rares easy to get. I go in with the assumption (and a reasonable one to make) that they are superior to the HC'd versions. That they aren't is a bug, and one that should be fixed. Of course, that's me. Others might just be taking it slow. And while doing so, they want the best possible gear, because they're trying out dungeons along the way. They might not have access to mercs, especially the 10 year vet ones. And they, like me, should be able to make the reasonable assumption that the rare versions are better. Short version: it is a bug that impacts gameplay and so it should be fixed.
These aren't bugs. Rather they are choices made by the developer on where to spend the allotment of itemization points given at each tier for HC and MC gear. Stats, mitigation, blue stats all of them have a value that the devs use to create each item. The higher the level and tier the more itemization points. Looking at a single stat (DPS in this case) isn't meaningful when your judging the overall effectiveness of an item. Some of the armor pieces have blue stats that are meaningless (crit bonus really means nothing until you get crit chance from things other than AA) but it still has an itemization value. Also your placing too much emphasis on DPS. Mitigation is a huge factor for anyone that is going to sit there and take damage. It has a much higher value than a few points of DPS or stats. It only starts to loose value when your very high or very low on the scale. If you want to get an idea of about how much each stat is worth go play with the sliders on the reforger. That will give you some idea of the relative value of several blue stats. If you look at adornments you can also get a general idea from them.
