What armour should I be buying now?

[Sollum]

<DIV>I'm level 42 atm, and I really haven't got a clue as to what is the best armour I should be thinking of getting as I start to approach level 50. Can anyone provide some guidance on this please. Also, is there somewhere some kind of spread sheet or listings where comparisons on kit can be made? </DIV>

[Jay]

<P>Well, the best player-crafted stuff available for our level is pristine imbued ebon chainmail. It's good great stats and great mitigation, but it probably costs 2p50g or so, depending on your server. There will certainly be Fabled armor that is better, but your chances of getting it depend on your gameplay situation, and it's likely to be more expensive on the broker anyway. </P> <P>The standard crafted gear for us is pristine forged fulginate, imbued if you prefer. This is decent. One option it seems that a lot of rangers go for is the rare imbued T5 light armor - pristine augmented leather (?) or something like that. Better stat bonuses and mitigation than the fulginate, and it's much cheaper than the crafted ebon chain. I myself don't wear it, but I've heard from a lot of ppl who do. </P> <P>Other than that, just check your broker, there's some different dropped sets of medium armor out there that might suit you - Frozen Chain, Sootfoot Chain, Arctic Chain, etc. There's also dropped ebon chainmail, which has some nice stats and mitigation but is far cheaper than crafted ebon. I'm starting to regard some of these dropped sets as more special-purpose stuff that I'd use to Swiss-Army my equipment - like replace a few pieces with the Sootfoot stuff to give my heat resistance a nice boost. </P> <P>Personally, I'm sporting a mix of pristine imbued ebon chain, pristine forged fulginate, a couple dropped ebon pieces, and two other pieces from dropped sets. I kept my enchanted thicket woven sleeves and bracers for those situations where I want to increase my magic and mental resists as much as possible. </P>

[Blackin_DeMast]

<P>Not counting <STRONG><FONT color=#ff33cc>Fabled</FONT></STRONG> gear, which is sometimes hard to come by... Until recently, Chain was the way to go and Ebon if you could get it due to the far superior AC and slightly better stats than it's Fulginate counterparts. However, Ebon is expensive and rare.</P> <P>Lately, there has been discussion of going with Light armor over chain. Partly due to the cost and better stats on most peices with exception to the AC rating. Look at it this way... A piece of Ebon is going to run 2-3pp depending on your server. A rare t5 pelt will be maybe a plat tops in comparison. You're only losing 5% armor-wise and gaining quite a few points in stats for a 3rd of the price. AND, alot of folks believe it actually looks better than chain anyway.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>It'll also depend on how you play your char and what kind of guild you find yourself in. I'm in a large raid guild and spend probably 90% of my time in Raids which means I have a big 10k+ hitpoint tank standing up there making the mob really mad and keeping the focus OFF myself so I can stand back in the back and sling arrows and poke it in the back with my blades. My AC doesn't matter in the least. I'm all about resists(AE Attacks) and stats(To increase my DPS). I'd wear Very Light armor if it had better specs honestly. But that's for me. Some folks will solo more, or be in smaller guilds that do more grouping and thus have more need of all that nice AC that chain can give.</P> <P>Blackan - 50 Ranger</P> <P>Dominion - Toxx</P>

[Jay]

Good points all. I went for imbued ebon chain b/c I want the capacity to solo if I need to; I was tired of getting slaughtered every time I closed to melee with a 43rd level mob. When I was grouping 95% of the time, my mitigation just wasn't that important. <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Who knows how the combat revamp will work, but something seems really wrong with avoidance vs. mitigation right now. I see plate-tanks whose AGI is 60 pts lower than mine, but their mitigation AND avoidance is higher - and they're wearing vanguard armor!! Now, I'm wearing lighter armor and have way better AGI, but I somehow avoid LESS attacks?? It just does not make sense any way you slice it. So the light armor may have the added bonus of providing better avoidance, but obviously right now there's no guarantee that anything will have the results you expect. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sometimes it hurts my brain to play a game where so much depends on mysterious behind-the-scenes voodoo. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>

[Blackin_DeMast]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Jay42 wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sometimes it hurts my brain to play a game where so much depends on mysterious behind-the-scenes voodoo. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>I feel you there man. For 5+ years, I lived on specs and stats in EQ1 trying to stay on top of the game and competition.... I simply don't wanna have to do that here in EQ2. I just wanna play and have fun here.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>

[draconetti]

another thing to consider is what stats you need to improve on, augmented armour (t5 light rare) has the str over agi whereas ebon chain has the agi and str reversed for higher agi. also the augmented still has better mitagation, stats and resists than fulginate. i've just switched over to augmented from fulginate at lvl 46, harvested some pieces of superb pelt and bought one or two (about 30-40gp on splitpaw a pelt) but still in mystic boots of the glade cos they're great boots. remember you don't have to wear all med or all light, go with what works <span>:smileytongue:</span> <div></div>

[theorbell]

<P>I wear nearly full ebon chain - kept a couple pieces of fulginate cause the upgrade to ebon wasn't worth it for stats ( i think hands and cap cause i use an agility cap i got in EF - frozen chain coif).  I like having the extra mitigation for soloing like Jay suggested, but also for raids/group situations where sometimes i can get caught in barrage before i get behind the mob we're killing.</P> <P>I've also taken to carrying a few specific pieces of armor i've found helpful on raids - for example Mobs with mental or poison AE's i have some gear i can swap out to up my mitigation for those attacks.  I may look like a patchwork person in raids, but i try to optomize those resists so i can stay up and FIGHT!  Otherwise i'm all about looking good in my ebon chain =)</P>

[draconetti]

<div></div><div></div>hopefully this will help more rather than just opinions http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b161/draconetti/EQ2_000069.jpg if someone could post some ebon too that'd prob be best might be a thread idea here, ranger armour and weapons thru the tiers? (edited cos it wouldn't post the pic!) <div></div><p>Message Edited by draconetti on <span class="date_text">07-25-2005</span> <span class="time_text">03:48 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by draconetti on <span class=date_text>07-25-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:49 PM</span>

[Sollum]

<P>Thanks all for your replies and help on this mind numbing topic. I've done a little bit of home work, collecting the data on some of the chest items, the pristine imbued and chain items, and it seems that the augmented items are the next best thing after the Ebon items. Although the augmented items are light, leather armour, it still has better mitigation and other stats than the chain! Which doesn't make sense to me. And it looks good as well.</P> <P>On my server the augmented is about 3p cheaper than ebon, so augmented looks the way forward to me atm. </P>

[Sean_Eisman]

<DIV> <P><BR> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sollum wrote:<BR> <P>Thanks all for your replies and help on this mind numbing topic. I've done a little bit of home work, collecting the data on some of the chest items, the pristine imbued and chain items, and it seems that the augmented items are the next best thing after the Ebon items. Although the augmented items are light, leather armour, it still has better mitigation and other stats than the chain! Which doesn't make sense to me. And it looks good as well.</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I've found some excellent armor on the broker that looks like it's come from Nek Castle: 2  (Returning to Nek Castle after completing "Putting Malenta's bones to Rest" quest.)</P> <P>I bought the Chain chest armor for 42 gold that has better stats than the augmented lighter amor... still not as good as ebon, but obviously a LOT cheaper.<BR></P> <P>I don't remember all the stats, but the essentials at level 50 were 387 AC, +12 Agi, +10 Str...</P></DIV>

[Fallnangel]

<P><STRONG><FONT color=#99ff00 size=2>I agree with the augmented light armor.  I never thought I'd wear anything other than medium, but an assassin friend talked me into it.  I now have the entire set and I love it!  My leggings and chestpiece are imbued which helps a lot.  I had just purchased the chainmail and am saving that for my second set of raiding armor (in case of too much damage to the main).</FONT></STRONG></P> <P><STRONG><FONT color=#99ff00 size=2>Another plus?  I think it looks more "ranger-y" and I never understood trying to be stealthy if I'm jingling like crazy!  :smileysurprised:</FONT></STRONG></P> <P><STRONG><FONT color=#99ff00 size=2></FONT></STRONG> </P> <p>Message Edited by Fallnangel13 on <span class=date_text>07-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:28 PM</span>