New Stat Item Changes Help

[Seablade]

I really need some help understanding the new item ability and stat changes that have been implemented.  I'm really at a loss here to understand some of them. From perusing the forums and reading a lot of posts, I realize that most of you disagree with these changes.  Frankly, I'm not in a position to agree or disagree, but I pay my dues just like everyone else here that plays.  The changes are what they are and perhaps they will go back, or perhaps they won't.  Regardless, we are stuck with this for the time being so I would like to understand, the best that I can, what I can expect from this game.

My main character's class is Paladin.  Now, to preface this, I'm not Mr. Ultra Uber Mega Paladin with Mythical everything and Fabled whatnots galore.  I'm an average player that mainly solos.  Since EQ2 was released, my life, as I'm sure is true of everyone else's, has changed dramatically and I just don't have the time that I used to, to invest in heavy grouping and raiding, so I find fun and enjoyment of an occasional group and doing lots of solo quests and content.  The only reason I bring this up is that I don't want to get reamed for playing as long as I have and still being ignorant and not having the best that I could.  I have a family and it's difficult to juggle a game in the size and scope as this one with the realities of real life.

That being said, yesterday, after the launch finally occured, I got out to start doing quests.  Now, these quests are commesurate with my level, between 86 and 90, which I should be able to complete with little difficulty.  I currently have T1 Void Shard armor which I got from doing the solo shard quest; it took forever, but I finally did it, but I digress.  Anyway, I noticed that level 87 creatures, which the day prior I was able to solo with ease (well, at least in Stonebrunt Highlands) I lost my lunch to yesterday.  Now, I had read that there was some stat changes, but I didn't realize how drastic these changes must have been.

So, last night, I decided to take a peek at my character stats and see what could be seen.  The tooltips for Agility, Intelligence and Wisdom all stated that they are not used for my class now.  Also, the Strength attribute stated that it contributed to additional health for every point of Strength and that damage was also affected by it as well.  Things became a bit more clear after that but I still don't understand a great deal of what's going on here.

The initial quests in the Great Divide provide some Legendary armor as quest rewards.  So, as a comparison I have two pictures to show.  The first is some boots from my T1 Void Shard armor and the second is some boots from the quest reward yesterday:

Now, to be honest, I do not completely understand the Crit Bonus and Potency attributes. But notice that the Strength and Stamina bonuses are greater than the Shard armor.  It seems to me, that the piece given as a quest reward is better just because of the bonuses and the greater Strength / Stamina attributes and the higher Mitigation (although one of the bonuses of the Shard armor is the Mitigation increase).  I realize that is has no XXX vs. YYY bonues, but cannot those be added via Adornments, or, are they not even necessary either?

In short, it would be helpful if someone could enlighten me or point me to some web pages or tutorials on what it all means.  Honestly, I'm at a loss to understand and all I want to do is play the content the best that I can with what I can afford and what I can get from it.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

[CoLD MeTaL]

Wear the new stuff, it's better.

[Pinuvin]

Wear the new stuff, you'll need all the Crit Mitigation you can handle.

[Yimway]

Crit Bonus and potency have been in the game for over a year.  Learn what they do and making these decisions are trivial.

[schizmark]

Seablade@Kithicor wrote:

I really need some help understanding the new item ability and stat changes that have been implemented.  I'm really at a loss here to understand some of them. From perusing the forums and reading a lot of posts, I realize that most of you disagree with these changes.  Frankly, I'm not in a position to agree or disagree, but I pay my dues just like everyone else here that plays.  The changes are what they are and perhaps they will go back, or perhaps they won't.  Regardless, we are stuck with this for the time being so I would like to understand, the best that I can, what I can expect from this game.

My main character's class is Paladin.  Now, to preface this, I'm not Mr. Ultra Uber Mega Paladin with Mythical everything and Fabled whatnots galore.  I'm an average player that mainly solos.  Since EQ2 was released, my life, as I'm sure is true of everyone else's, has changed dramatically and I just don't have the time that I used to, to invest in heavy grouping and raiding, so I find fun and enjoyment of an occasional group and doing lots of solo quests and content.  The only reason I bring this up is that I don't want to get reamed for playing as long as I have and still being ignorant and not having the best that I could.  I have a family and it's difficult to juggle a game in the size and scope as this one with the realities of real life.

That being said, yesterday, after the launch finally occured, I got out to start doing quests.  Now, these quests are commesurate with my level, between 86 and 90, which I should be able to complete with little difficulty.  I currently have T1 Void Shard armor which I got from doing the solo shard quest; it took forever, but I finally did it, but I digress.  Anyway, I noticed that level 87 creatures, which the day prior I was able to solo with ease (well, at least in Stonebrunt Highlands) I lost my lunch to yesterday.  Now, I had read that there was some stat changes, but I didn't realize how drastic these changes must have been.

So, last night, I decided to take a peek at my character stats and see what could be seen.  The tooltips for Agility, Intelligence and Wisdom all stated that they are not used for my class now.  Also, the Strength attribute stated that it contributed to additional health for every point of Strength and that damage was also affected by it as well.  Things became a bit more clear after that but I still don't understand a great deal of what's going on here.

The initial quests in the Great Divide provide some Legendary armor as quest rewards.  So, as a comparison I have two pictures to show.  The first is some boots from my T1 Void Shard armor and the second is some boots from the quest reward yesterday:

Now, to be honest, I do not completely understand the Crit Bonus and Potency attributes. But notice that the Strength and Stamina bonuses are greater than the Shard armor.  It seems to me, that the piece given as a quest reward is better just because of the bonuses and the greater Strength / Stamina attributes and the higher Mitigation (although one of the bonuses of the Shard armor is the Mitigation increase).  I realize that is has no XXX vs. YYY bonues, but cannot those be added via Adornments, or, are they not even necessary either?

In short, it would be helpful if someone could enlighten me or point me to some web pages or tutorials on what it all means.  Honestly, I'm at a loss to understand and all I want to do is play the content the best that I can with what I can afford and what I can get from it.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

Looks like nobody wants to help when they can be jerks. I'll try.  You need the crit mit because the mobs in the new zone crit a lot more frequently than before the expansion.  Power and health bonuses have been removed entirely, and replaced with higher primary stat increases.  For your class, those stats are strength and stamina.  For my conjuror, they are stamina and intelligence.  The amount of improvement per point has also changed so that, at level 90, each point of intelligence will be worth ten points of power for him, and stamina will do the same for health.   In my case, that meant a substantial increase in both versus prior to the expansion.  Since the armor piece in your post didn't have any bonuses to power or health, I imagine the same was true for you.

I may be wrong, but I believe the way to think of potency is, well...literally.  The more potent something is, the stronger it is (in flavor, for example), so the more potent your abilities the harder they hit, resulting in more damage for your opponent.

A good place to get the information you're looking for in better detail would be the release notes. They helped me a lot.

[das2000uk]

Go for the Crit Mit,

Its gonna save your life.

[d1anaw]

schizmark wrote:

Seablade@Kithicor wrote:

Looks like nobody wants to help when they can be jerks. I'll try.  You need the crit mit because the mobs in the new zone crit a lot more frequently than before the expansion.  Power and health bonuses have been removed entirely, and replaced with higher primary stat increases.  For your class, those stats are strength and stamina.  For my conjuror, they are stamina and intelligence.  The amount of improvement per point has also changed so that, at level 90, each point of intelligence will be worth ten points of power for him, and stamina will do the same for health.   In my case, that meant a substantial increase in both versus prior to the expansion.  Since the armor piece in your post didn't have any bonuses to power or health, I imagine the same was true for you.

I may be wrong, but I believe the way to think of potency is, well...literally.  The more potent something is, the stronger it is (in flavor, for example), so the more potent your abilities the harder they hit, resulting in more damage for your opponent.

A good place to get the information you're looking for in better detail would be the release notes. They helped me a lot.

They weren't being jerks, they were being honest. No need to muck everything up in BS when the simple will tell the story.

[Seablade]

schizmark wrote:

Seablade@Kithicor wrote:

I really need some help understanding the new item ability and stat changes that have been implemented.  I'm really at a loss here to understand some of them. From perusing the forums and reading a lot of posts, I realize that most of you disagree with these changes.  Frankly, I'm not in a position to agree or disagree, but I pay my dues just like everyone else here that plays.  The changes are what they are and perhaps they will go back, or perhaps they won't.  Regardless, we are stuck with this for the time being so I would like to understand, the best that I can, what I can expect from this game.

My main character's class is Paladin.  Now, to preface this, I'm not Mr. Ultra Uber Mega Paladin with Mythical everything and Fabled whatnots galore.  I'm an average player that mainly solos.  Since EQ2 was released, my life, as I'm sure is true of everyone else's, has changed dramatically and I just don't have the time that I used to, to invest in heavy grouping and raiding, so I find fun and enjoyment of an occasional group and doing lots of solo quests and content.  The only reason I bring this up is that I don't want to get reamed for playing as long as I have and still being ignorant and not having the best that I could.  I have a family and it's difficult to juggle a game in the size and scope as this one with the realities of real life.

That being said, yesterday, after the launch finally occured, I got out to start doing quests.  Now, these quests are commesurate with my level, between 86 and 90, which I should be able to complete with little difficulty.  I currently have T1 Void Shard armor which I got from doing the solo shard quest; it took forever, but I finally did it, but I digress.  Anyway, I noticed that level 87 creatures, which the day prior I was able to solo with ease (well, at least in Stonebrunt Highlands) I lost my lunch to yesterday.  Now, I had read that there was some stat changes, but I didn't realize how drastic these changes must have been.

So, last night, I decided to take a peek at my character stats and see what could be seen.  The tooltips for Agility, Intelligence and Wisdom all stated that they are not used for my class now.  Also, the Strength attribute stated that it contributed to additional health for every point of Strength and that damage was also affected by it as well.  Things became a bit more clear after that but I still don't understand a great deal of what's going on here.

The initial quests in the Great Divide provide some Legendary armor as quest rewards.  So, as a comparison I have two pictures to show.  The first is some boots from my T1 Void Shard armor and the second is some boots from the quest reward yesterday:

Now, to be honest, I do not completely understand the Crit Bonus and Potency attributes. But notice that the Strength and Stamina bonuses are greater than the Shard armor.  It seems to me, that the piece given as a quest reward is better just because of the bonuses and the greater Strength / Stamina attributes and the higher Mitigation (although one of the bonuses of the Shard armor is the Mitigation increase).  I realize that is has no XXX vs. YYY bonues, but cannot those be added via Adornments, or, are they not even necessary either?

In short, it would be helpful if someone could enlighten me or point me to some web pages or tutorials on what it all means.  Honestly, I'm at a loss to understand and all I want to do is play the content the best that I can with what I can afford and what I can get from it.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

Looks like nobody wants to help when they can be jerks. I'll try.  You need the crit mit because the mobs in the new zone crit a lot more frequently than before the expansion.  Power and health bonuses have been removed entirely, and replaced with higher primary stat increases.  For your class, those stats are strength and stamina.  For my conjuror, they are stamina and intelligence.  The amount of improvement per point has also changed so that, at level 90, each point of intelligence will be worth ten points of power for him, and stamina will do the same for health.   In my case, that meant a substantial increase in both versus prior to the expansion.  Since the armor piece in your post didn't have any bonuses to power or health, I imagine the same was true for you.

I may be wrong, but I believe the way to think of potency is, well...literally.  The more potent something is, the stronger it is (in flavor, for example), so the more potent your abilities the harder they hit, resulting in more damage for your opponent.

A good place to get the information you're looking for in better detail would be the release notes. They helped me a lot.

Thanks for this information.  That really helps a lot.  I really appreciate the assistance.I'm glad my initial thoughts about the new armor was true.

However, I do have another question.  What about the XXX vs. YYY bonuses?  How do they fit in or do they anymore?  For instance, when I drop all this old T1 Shard Armor in favor of the new armor, those bonues will tank.  Do I even need them or are they a legacy of the past as well?

Also, has anyone seen the release notes yet?  I've been trying to find them for this expansion but as yet haven't found them.

[Yimway]

schizmark wrote:

I may be wrong, but I believe the way to think of potency is, well...literally.  The more potent something is, the stronger it is (in flavor, for example), so the more potent your abilities the harder they hit, resulting in more damage for your opponent.

Yeah, you could be depending on the class your talking about.

Potency affects the amount your spells or CA's land for.  This is a base amount before crit calculation.  Potency does not impact auto attack.  Depending on your class, potency may be a significant stat or not.  Certainly more potency is nice, but for auto attack heavy classes the importance is much lower.  For a auto attack loaded class, crit bonus will pay off more than potency.

Like I said, understand the stats that have been in the game for well over a year, and making these gear decisions is trivial.  Blanket statements like more potency is better doesn't help players understand the mechanics of the game.

What is important to understand for noobs in this expansion is, mobs now have critical resistance, so you need well over 100% chance to crit to continue to crit.  The term critical resistance isn't even apllicable, cause what they actually do is debuff your crit chance.  This is an important distinction when you think about beneficial spells like heals, where the ability is never contested vs the mob you are fighting, but your crit chance is still debuffed.  Depending on the difficulty of content you run, you may need 130% crit or 230% crit chance.

Lastly, critical mitigation is now applied to all layers of content.  I wouldn't over weight this stat in your gear choices, as your going to find it along with other important stats.  Rarely will you wear something cause it has 5 more critical mitigation than another piece.  Generally as pieces have better other stats the value of critical mitigation increases.

There used to be an excellent mechanics thread on these forums authored by Timetraveling, however after he was layed off, the forum mods here in their infinite wisdom deleted it and no other dev has attemped to shoulder the responsability of actually explaining their game to their players.

[Pinuvin]

Hey Sea!  Here's a link to the patch notes.  http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=495442

The new stuff looks simple, but really the Crit Mitigation is a must for tanks.  We tried The Tower of Frozen Shadow last night and the trash mobs were criting for over 20k.  For most tanks that aren't raid geared, that is a one shot.  The named crited for over 30k.  So you have to have the Crit Mitigation to survice the initial onslaught and a good healer to keep you alive.  Was definitely different than what I was used to.

[Yimway]

Luminaire@Kithicor wrote:

Hey Sea!  Here's a link to the patch notes.  http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=495442

The new stuff looks simple, but really the Crit Mitigation is a must for tanks.  We tried The Tower of Frozen Shadow last night and the trash mobs were criting for over 20k.  For most tanks that aren't raid geared, that is a one shot.  The named crited for over 30k.  So you have to have the Crit Mitigation to survice the initial onslaught and a good healer to keep you alive.  Was definitely different than what I was used to.

Get a little further in, and the aoe's crit and more than just your tank needs CM.

[schizmark]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Luminaire@Kithicor wrote:

Hey Sea!  Here's a link to the patch notes.  http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=495442

The new stuff looks simple, but really the Crit Mitigation is a must for tanks.  We tried The Tower of Frozen Shadow last night and the trash mobs were criting for over 20k.  For most tanks that aren't raid geared, that is a one shot.  The named crited for over 30k.  So you have to have the Crit Mitigation to survice the initial onslaught and a good healer to keep you alive.  Was definitely different than what I was used to.

Get a little further in, and the aoe's crit and more than just your tank needs CM.

Yeah, I discovered yesterday that my CM carried over to my pet. I would have been tempted to keep my original gear otherwise.  I've lost over 400 points of ability mod to the change (down from 1100+ to a little over 700..so sad, lol).

[Seablade]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Luminaire@Kithicor wrote:

Hey Sea!  Here's a link to the patch notes.  http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=495442

The new stuff looks simple, but really the Crit Mitigation is a must for tanks.  We tried The Tower of Frozen Shadow last night and the trash mobs were criting for over 20k.  For most tanks that aren't raid geared, that is a one shot.  The named crited for over 30k.  So you have to have the Crit Mitigation to survice the initial onslaught and a good healer to keep you alive.  Was definitely different than what I was used to.

Get a little further in, and the aoe's crit and more than just your tank needs CM.

Thanks for help to all of you.

I was reading the release notes (Thanks Luminaire and this statement stood out:

Threshold Stats

• Critical mitigation is now a required stat for all tiers of content starting with Velious.

So, does this this work with doing old content from other expansions vs. Velious?  For example, I'm going to drop the T1 Shard armor in lieu of the new stuff.  So, if I decide to go back to Stonebrunt and do some more of that content (that I've not completed) how will those creatures be affected by the new gear or better yet, how will I refected by the new gear with battling with them?

[Pinuvin]

I'm not sure how it is going to affect older zones.  I'm keeping my old gear until I find out.  But knowing that trash mobs in the old zones don't crit much, I'm assuming the Crit Mitigation isn't going to really come into play.  Now if you get into raiding, that's a different story.

[Lethe5683]

For players who currently have bad gear its pretty much a catch-22 since you will need the gear offered as rewards from quests in order to kill the monsters but need to kill the monsters in order to get the gear.  On my troub, who now has no crit mit whatsoever due to them removing innate crit mit for unknown reasons, I didn't actually notice most of the mobs doing tons of damage but rather that they took about 10 times longer to kill.  A 89 no arrow mob in sf I could one shot with my bow now it takes me almost 10 seconds to kill a 89 no arrow mob in DoV.

[Yimway]

Lethe5683 wrote:

For players who currently have bad gear its pretty much a catch-22 since you will need the gear offered as rewards from quests in order to kill the monsters but need to kill the monsters in order to get the gear.  On my troub, who now has no crit mit whatsoever due to them removing innate crit mit for unknown reasons, I didn't actually notice most of the mobs doing tons of damage but rather that they took about 10 times longer to kill.  A 89 no arrow mob in sf I could one shot with my bow now it takes me almost 10 seconds to kill a 89 no arrow mob in DoV.

This isn't anything to do with CM or crit chance.

Mobs in SF were stupid easy with stupid low HP.  Mobs in DoV are scaled more accurately.

It seems that low dps classes weren't meant to one shot solo mobs.

[Lethe5683]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Lethe5683 wrote:

For players who currently have bad gear its pretty much a catch-22 since you will need the gear offered as rewards from quests in order to kill the monsters but need to kill the monsters in order to get the gear.  On my troub, who now has no crit mit whatsoever due to them removing innate crit mit for unknown reasons, I didn't actually notice most of the mobs doing tons of damage but rather that they took about 10 times longer to kill.  A 89 no arrow mob in sf I could one shot with my bow now it takes me almost 10 seconds to kill a 89 no arrow mob in DoV.

This isn't anything to do with CM or crit chance.

Mobs in SF were stupid easy with stupid low HP.  Mobs in DoV are scaled more accurately.

It seems that low dps classes weren't meant to one shot solo mobs.

I'm not complaining, I prefer the increased difficulty.  I'm just saying that the main difference I am noticing with mobs is not that they hit much harder but that they are much tougher to kill and not just in terms of HP, they are also taking only about half the damage of SF mobs.

[Seablade]

Luminaire@Kithicor wrote:

I'm not sure how it is going to affect older zones.  I'm keeping my old gear until I find out.  But knowing that trash mobs in the old zones don't crit much, I'm assuming the Crit Mitigation isn't going to really come into play.  Now if you get into raiding, that's a different story.

I guess it would be best to load up with the new gear and give it a try.

[Seablade]

Lethe5683 wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Lethe5683 wrote:

For players who currently have bad gear its pretty much a catch-22 since you will need the gear offered as rewards from quests in order to kill the monsters but need to kill the monsters in order to get the gear.  On my troub, who now has no crit mit whatsoever due to them removing innate crit mit for unknown reasons, I didn't actually notice most of the mobs doing tons of damage but rather that they took about 10 times longer to kill.  A 89 no arrow mob in sf I could one shot with my bow now it takes me almost 10 seconds to kill a 89 no arrow mob in DoV.

This isn't anything to do with CM or crit chance.

Mobs in SF were stupid easy with stupid low HP.  Mobs in DoV are scaled more accurately.

It seems that low dps classes weren't meant to one shot solo mobs.

I'm not complaining, I prefer the increased difficulty.  I'm just saying that the main difference I am noticing with mobs is not that they hit much harder but that they are much tougher to kill and not just in terms of HP, they are also taking only about half the damage of SF mobs.

These are the problems I was having yesterday as well.  For SF solo mobs I could hold my own quite easily with the Shard Armor for levels all the way up to 90.  Then, I start with the solo mobs in Velious and it took literally everything, including all my heals and a couple of minutes to kill one creature 87 no arrow.  Even level 87 double-arrow down mobs were taking too long and I was having to use too many heals.

[BetaTester]

Xelgads combat mechanics and player progressionTimetravelings Compiled Explanations for various Sentinel's Fate Mechanics Changethese are somewhat out of date now , but understanding the history will let you understand the stats on itemazation , for your lower level alts atleast .Amnerys patch notes for DoVthe other posters are describing how the new armor is pretty much required for DoV if you don't have SF t1 raid armor or better ... solo mobs now crit like raid mobs in previous content , requiring crit mit to survivewhat isn't being said is now your avoidance goes down , especially in offensive stances , because agi no longer benefits fighter classes . though in compensation , they added an avoidance buff to defensive stancesthe main differences between those two pieces is ...you gain approx 250 hp , 110 power , 75 mit , and a small boost in dps and heals , and reduces a mobs critical damage multiplier by 17% (the number the devs give a mob that mulitplies how much more damage it does when it crits )what you lose is harder to calculate because it depends on what your stats are . 40 wiz and 40 int might have been worth 1% resists and crit mit , but are worth nothing now .you do lose the 533 elemental & 328 nox resists , and parry and defense , which should be under 1% of each at your level , same with power regen , though the 5% set bonus closes the mit gap between the old and new pieces .in DoV , tso/sf hard mode tanking , and dps the new piece is clearly better . on paper , in old world solo/instance play the difference isn't as pronounced , and if you were comparing mark or SF legendary instead of shard armor ... ?

[Yimway]

Seablade@Kithicor wrote:

These are the problems I was having yesterday as well.  For SF solo mobs I could hold my own quite easily with the Shard Armor for levels all the way up to 90.  Then, I start with the solo mobs in Velious and it took literally everything, including all my heals and a couple of minutes to kill one creature 87 no arrow.  Even level 87 double-arrow down mobs were taking too long and I was having to use too many heals.

Odd, I zoned my illy in wearing 82 MC gear, no adorns, nothing special and was killing even con mobs.  It wasn't trivial like SF was, and if I got an add, I actually needed mez on my hotbar, but it didn't seem as dangerous as you state, and I had no heals to save me.

[BetaTester]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Seablade@Kithicor wrote:

These are the problems I was having yesterday as well.  For SF solo mobs I could hold my own quite easily with the Shard Armor for levels all the way up to 90.  Then, I start with the solo mobs in Velious and it took literally everything, including all my heals and a couple of minutes to kill one creature 87 no arrow.  Even level 87 double-arrow down mobs were taking too long and I was having to use too many heals.

Odd, I zoned my illy in wearing 82 MC gear, no adorns, nothing special and was killing even con mobs.  It wasn't trivial like SF was, and if I got an add, I actually needed mez on my hotbar, but it didn't seem as dangerous as you state, and I had no heals to save me.

i keep forgetting how much different gear requirements are for non melee classes , slaps forehead . So much for my comment about requiring T1 SF raid gear , lol

[Seablade]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Seablade@Kithicor wrote:

These are the problems I was having yesterday as well.  For SF solo mobs I could hold my own quite easily with the Shard Armor for levels all the way up to 90.  Then, I start with the solo mobs in Velious and it took literally everything, including all my heals and a couple of minutes to kill one creature 87 no arrow.  Even level 87 double-arrow down mobs were taking too long and I was having to use too many heals.

Odd, I zoned my illy in wearing 82 MC gear, no adorns, nothing special and was killing even con mobs.  It wasn't trivial like SF was, and if I got an add, I actually needed mez on my hotbar, but it didn't seem as dangerous as you state, and I had no heals to save me.

Yes it is.  It's why I posted here.Here's one item of my T1 level 80 shard armor:

And the Gnolls were sending me to the grave yard.

[Stubbswick]

You're talking about legendary gear from TSO, which came out over 2 years ago.  He's talking about the level 82 mastercraft gear which came out last expansion (and is better, even though it's only 2 levels higher).

Honestly... if you haven't upgraded your armor since the level cap was raised, and a whole new expansion came out, I can understand why you're having difficulty.

To put it bluntly: get used to it.  Gear matters a lot in the expansion, especially if you want to do dungeons and raids.

On the plus side for new folks, I've seen gear dropping from solo quests that has as much crit mit as my raid gear from SF, so it won't take you long to get up to speed.

Edit: Also, re: the original question.

Potency increases the amount of your abilities (spells, combat arts, heals, power regen) by a %

Crit bonus increases the amount of damage your critical hits do.  The typical base factor is 150% (that varies, but we'll go with that for the explanation), meaning if you score a critical hit that would normally hit for 1,000, it would critical for 1,500.  Crit bonus increases the factor.  10% crit bonus would make it 160%, and you would hit for 1,600.  Etc.

Both are uncapped, meaning you can get as much as you can find, and it will continue to boost your damage.

Now, Critical Mitigation is the ability to block crit mit.  If a mob has 150% crit factor, then you'll need 50% crit mit to absorb all the "critical" portion of the damage.  (You can never lower the damage below 100% with crit mit, you're only affecting the critical portion).  If you have no crit mit, the mob will be hitting you like crazy.

So, first of all the boots are tremendously better than the others you linked, because they have 17.4 crit mit.  This is going to help you stay alive in Velious.  The other "blue stats", Crit Bonus, Potency, and Multi-Attack chance will all boost your DPS quite a bit, allowing you to kill mobs faster.

And although you lose some of the "set bonuses" (although, you'll get similar effects as you progress in the expansion), all of these things add up to making the new boots significantly better.

[urgthock]

My main issue with the solo mobs in DoV is that they have too much health. For those of you stating, well that just make them midly challenging instead of trivial, my answer is that on all of my toons, these mobs were just as trivial as SF solo mobs. I was never really in any danger of dying, it just took a lot longer to kill each mob. I could solo an SF mob on my monk in about 5 or 6 seconds. Right off the turtle, these DoV mobs took me closer to 30 seconds. Those of you who are gearheads will easily be able to tell by my statements that I have middle of the road gear. Yet even with middle of the road gear, I never once felt like any solo mob was challenging... merely time consuming. I would suggest dropping the health of these mobs down by 30-40% since dev fist shows that they each have ~150,000 health.

[urgthock]

Wubbah@Butcherblock wrote:

You're talking about legendary gear from TSO, which came out over 2 years ago.  He's talking about the level 82 mastercraft gear which came out last expansion (and is better, even though it's only 2 levels higher).

Honestly... if you haven't upgraded your armor since the level cap was raised, and a whole new expansion came out, I can understand why you're having difficulty.

To put it bluntly: get used to it.  Gear matters a lot in the expansion, especially if you want to do dungeons and raids.

On the plus side for new folks, I've seen gear dropping from solo quests that has as much crit mit as my raid gear from SF, so it won't take you long to get up to speed.

Yes, if there is one thing the DoV intro quest gear has it is plenty of Crit Mit. Personally, I would like to see about 1/3 of it changed to crit chance or multiattack, since in order to swap my SF instance legendary gear to the new gear sees me jump up about 10-15 potency and crit bonus, but drop about 50-60 crit and MA.

[Yimway]

urgthock wrote:

My main issue with the solo mobs in DoV is that they have too much health. For those of you stating, well that just make them midly challenging instead of trivial, my answer is that on all of my toons, these mobs were just as trivial as SF solo mobs. I was never really in any danger of dying, it just took a lot longer to kill each mob. I could solo an SF mob on my monk in about 5 or 6 seconds. Right off the turtle, these DoV mobs took me closer to 30 seconds. Those of you who are gearheads will easily be able to tell by my statements that I have middle of the road gear. Yet even with middle of the road gear, I never once felt like any solo mob was challenging... merely time consuming. I would suggest dropping the health of these mobs down by 30-40% since dev fist shows that they each have ~150,000 health.

In SF, if you needed to kill 15 gnolls, you would run into the gnoll camp, agro 15 mobs, kill them all at once, and be done in 30 seconds.  The entire time your health wouldn't bounce out of green.

That level of trivial isn't prevelant in DoV.  Your not going to blindly ignore all the creatures in the zone as you bee-line from one update to another.  You have some incentive to take three steps to avoid aggroing something.

While it has some bonus and minus, overall I think its better.

[Seablade]

Wubbah@Butcherblock wrote:

You're talking about legendary gear from TSO, which came out over 2 years ago.  He's talking about the level 82 mastercraft gear which came out last expansion (and is better, even though it's only 2 levels higher).

Honestly... if you haven't upgraded your armor since the level cap was raised, and a whole new expansion came out, I can understand why you're having difficulty.

To put it bluntly: get used to it.  Gear matters a lot in the expansion, especially if you want to do dungeons and raids.

On the plus side for new folks, I've seen gear dropping from solo quests that has as much crit mit as my raid gear from SF, so it won't take you long to get up to speed.

Oh, don't get me wrong here.  I'm not stating that I shouldn't get new upgraded gear or should be able to use whatever I have on hand.  My only reason for starting this thread was for assistance in getting up to speed because of my ignorance.  It's like I said at the outset:  I have a life outside of EQ2 and my knowledge and understand of the changes and ramifications of those changes has languished for a couple of years (although I've played off and on) and I'm ready to start fresh and figure this out so that I can do a better job as a tank and playing solo than what I obviously am doing now.  Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss, and I'd much rather be in a position of knowing my limitations and what I can conceivably achieve within the framework we've been given.

That said, the T1 Shard Armor from TSO has been sufficent for a long time now, but it was very obvious to me that something had drastically changed and I needed to find out why.

[urgthock]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

urgthock wrote:

My main issue with the solo mobs in DoV is that they have too much health. For those of you stating, well that just make them midly challenging instead of trivial, my answer is that on all of my toons, these mobs were just as trivial as SF solo mobs. I was never really in any danger of dying, it just took a lot longer to kill each mob. I could solo an SF mob on my monk in about 5 or 6 seconds. Right off the turtle, these DoV mobs took me closer to 30 seconds. Those of you who are gearheads will easily be able to tell by my statements that I have middle of the road gear. Yet even with middle of the road gear, I never once felt like any solo mob was challenging... merely time consuming. I would suggest dropping the health of these mobs down by 30-40% since dev fist shows that they each have ~150,000 health.

In SF, if you needed to kill 15 gnolls, you would run into the gnoll camp, agro 15 mobs, kill them all at once, and be done in 30 seconds.  The entire time your health wouldn't bounce out of green.

That level of trivial isn't prevelant in DoV.  Your not going to blindly ignore all the creatures in the zone as you bee-line from one update to another.  You have some incentive to take three steps to avoid aggroing something.

While it has some bonus and minus, overall I think its better.

Ok, yes. SF mobs were extraordinarily trivial and DoV mobs are merely trivial. Yes, if you get more than 4 or 5 mobs on you, you will be in a fight for your life versus the example you gave. But seriously, if you are taking on 2 or 3 mobs at a time or less, they DoV mobs are just about as trivial as SF mobs, they just take almost 10 times longer to kill. That is boring and a needless timesink. Drop the health by 50 percent and double (or more)  the dps they pump out. THAT would make them a challenge. Oh, and one other thing I will admit, those [Removed for Content] ice urchins or whatever are KILLER on a monk. 1500 dmg per hit damage shield under 30 percent health (with the amount of health those things had) would drop my monk from 90 % health to about 30 in just the amount of time it took me to kill them the final 30%. They SUCKED for my monk and swash. Not so much for all my other casters, since it was a damage shield that hit on melee attacks and not spells. With how fast and often (haste, flurry and multiattack) my monk hit, I had to really save my big hits for the last 30 percent. Touche Devs... Touche.

[Stubbswick]

Seablade@Kithicor wrote:

Wubbah@Butcherblock wrote:

You're talking about legendary gear from TSO, which came out over 2 years ago.  He's talking about the level 82 mastercraft gear which came out last expansion (and is better, even though it's only 2 levels higher).

Honestly... if you haven't upgraded your armor since the level cap was raised, and a whole new expansion came out, I can understand why you're having difficulty.

To put it bluntly: get used to it.  Gear matters a lot in the expansion, especially if you want to do dungeons and raids.

On the plus side for new folks, I've seen gear dropping from solo quests that has as much crit mit as my raid gear from SF, so it won't take you long to get up to speed.

Oh, don't get me wrong here.  I'm not stating that I shouldn't get new upgraded gear or should be able to use whatever I have on hand.  My only reason for starting this thread was for assistance in getting up to speed because of my ignorance.  It's like I said at the outset:  I have a life outside of EQ2 and my knowledge and understand of the changes and ramifications of those changes has languished for a couple of years (although I've played off and on) and I'm ready to start fresh and figure this out so that I can do a better job as a tank and playing solo than what I obviously am doing now.  Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss, and I'd much rather be in a position of knowing my limitations and what I can conceivably achieve within the framework we've been given.

That said, the T1 Shard Armor from TSO has been sufficent for a long time now, but it was very obvious to me that something had drastically changed and I needed to find out why.

Understandably.  There was a good dev post on the beta boards with info about the stat changes - hopefully that makes it over here at some point.  One of the earlier replies had a link to a Xelgad sticky on the forums, which is still pretty accurate (honestly, stats like crit bonus, potency, crit mit, etc haven't changed since TSO, they're just more prevalent and necessary now).

Also I edited my last post with a little quick info - hope it helps.