Armor upgrade evaluation help

[SerChandos]

<p>Hello all,</p><p>I am hoping to get a little advice on upgrading my armor in TSO.</p><p>As I see it the Shard Armor (at least the first tier stuff) is in some cases a questionable upgrade to my current gear. So much so that I was considering spending my shards on jewelry instead.</p><p>I only have a single fabled item (shield that drops in Seb). My armor is mostly Cabalistic and a few pieces from RoK that were upgrades from that set.</p><p>I don't raid and mostly solo (shudder) and group.</p><p>General Question:When you look at armor do you have any formulas that you compare with? Something like:</p><p>Heal Crit > Heal amount > more WIS > MIT</p><p>I realize these decisions vary depending upon roles and how close one is to the caps.</p><p>Specific Questions:</p><p>Is there any point to have 2 items or Item plus Set that have Overloaded Heal? Does it stack?</p><p>IIRC Benevolent Alacrity I will not stack with another I but it does with a II, III, or IV. Correct?</p><p>Any other tips or recommendations?</p><p>Cheers</p>

[FreddyRo]

<p>Here is something to get you started...</p><p>The concensus among healers is that the Void Shard shoulders is the way to go, due to +base healing.  Initially this was bugged to only affected direct heals, but now effects wards and reactives as intended.  For defilers, gloves and boots *may* be worth it, but ask me again in 42 void shards.  :></p><p>+Heal vs % heal crit.... +heal caps at half your heal/ward amount.  So, the most +heal you'd want is equal to half your ST ward... more will only help your group ward.  If you aren't capped yet (which it sounds like), I always used +25-30 heal amount = 1% heal crit.  This may not be the be the exact #, but you get the idea.</p><p>Here's a more current hierarchy, with the above paragraph in mind:</p><p>+base heal (rare) > % crit > % crit amount (rare) > +heal</p><p>Wis... eh.   How often are u running out of power?  And don't forget about STA/hps :></p><p>Something to keep in mind, casting/recast speed is what defilers lack most.  This is why defilers are running around with wizzy robes to get reduced recast time (reduced cast time is also good)</p><p>OLH?!  Uggh... This has been severely broken since shortly after TSO launch.  In addition to reducing range and making it only proc once on group heals/wards, they mistakenly made it so it doesn't fire on wards or reactives at all!!  Put your hard-earned OLH gear in the back of your bank until the next GU (january) when a fix is *supposed* to be enacted.</p><p>I wasn't aware of <span>Benevolent Alacrity stacking issues... maybe another defiler can comment?</span></p><p>As far as solo, you want to emphasize totally different things... namely dps, hps, and mit.</p><p>Good luck!</p>

[Kari]

<p>I was worried when I read the comment about benevolent alacrity stacking so I tested it today. I have 4 pieces of Benevolent Alacrity II armor equipped. I took off all four pieces to get my casting speed for Carrion Warding with just my other equipment, then checked the cast speed as I re-equipped each piece.</p><p>no pieces- 4.24 seconds</p><p>1 piece - 4.17 second</p><p>2 pieces - 4.10 second</p><p>3 pieces - 4.03 second</p><p>4 pieces - 3.97 second</p><p> It seems to be working quite well for me. As long as my overloaded heal and power procs are broken I have been loading up on constant effects like benevolent alacrity, runic recovery, heal crit and plus to heals. It hasn't totally made up the difference from the proc nerfs, but it has gone quite a ways toward bringing me back to where I was before the procs broke.</p>

[SerChandos]

<p>Thank you for the feedback.</p><p>I think you might be right, I am overvalueing WIS. It only goes toward power supply?</p><p>I also might need to start looking at Wizzie robes. That has always just felt wrong to me but shorter cast/recast times will really go a long way to solo healing some of these new instances. (Was so close the other night to finishing last named in Deep Forge as the only healer.)</p><p>Also thank you for testing the Alacrity items. Nice to know i can just load up on them and not worry about redundancy.</p><p>I also did not know about Overloaded being broken. Hurts after how much i paid for my Overloaded cloak in RoK.</p><p>Good hunting all.</p>