Armor advice for melee dual wield and Sword and shield

I am in the process of making a full plate bronze armor. I will be switching between dual wielding ( for mages) to Sword and shield ( against Melee and archers ).

My sword will be bronze blade and meteorite iron hilt.

Questions :

Which mats should I use for the shield ?

Which Masterwork should I prioritize for :
1. Armor
2. Shield
3. Sword(s)
4.Jewels

Which Enhancement Should I prioritize for:
1. Armor
2. Shield
3. Sword(s)
4.Jewels

Which Gem should I socket in each ?

Ward or attunement, I was thinking of 2 X fire ( sword and shield / Sword and sword) and 3 X death (Chest and ring and neck).

I know it could cost me a lot in ressources to get the perfect suit(s) but hey, who does not need goals

 

No one has .02$ on this ?

 

First off ... DR is pretty worthless. You want Constantine Armor not Bronze. This will greatly increase your focus.

Masterworks for Armor .... Greater DR / DR are actually decent ... but Main thing you want is Stats. Avoidance really isn't worth the masterwork anymore. Overall Masterworks on heavy armor are very Meh.... It's the Material bonuses that are good.

Masterworks for Sheild. Block / Durability / Avoidance... rest of it's junk so stats if you can get them. Made of Metioric metal ... DR really REALLY matters on shields.

Swords .... This is easy ... Bronze blade and hilt. Masterworks are more important than enchantments. So Thrust / Rend / Double Slash.... Get those three magic masterworks and you have a 400,000 gold sword.

Jewels..... HP / STR / Dex / Int / Focus Really there Isn't a bad enchant it's just hard getting 3 major stats which is perfered.

 

LOL, put on some cloth armor and then say that.

 

I would do chain over plate if you do any type of casting whatsoever. First 2 years in plate and have not regretted the switch.

masterwork: DR, stun resist, DA, focus regen, on hit
enchantment largely depends on your build and what you are lacking.

 

First off, make your sword blade from meteoric iron. The base damage increase from meteoric is good and the crit increase on items from bronze is almost useless.
Calculated Crit Chance on longsword = (13% base + weak points + vital points+ dex/20 ) * (1+crit chance on gear)

So if you have 80 vital points, 80 weak points and 80 dex:

Calculated Crit chance = (13% + 5%+ 5%+4%) = 27%
Then if you get an extra 6% from item crit chance (like making your blade out of bronze)
27% * 1.06 = 28.62%... the extra +2 base damage from meteoric iron is MUCH better
​

Even worse, once you run calculated crit chance through the combat math your actual observed crit chance when you parse yourself will be:

Actual crit chance = (calculated crit chance) / (1+ calculated crit chance)
so the 27% without bronze is really only 21.26% (.27/1.27)
and the 28.62% with bronze is really only 22.25% (.2862/1.2862)​

Regarding Armor

• I would also agree that the increase in focus from constantium is more significant than the increase in DR from bronze (They both give you weapon damage which is the important part)
• I agree you should consider chain if want to consider casting anything besides heals
  
• Stats from enchants are generally more important that masterwork bonuses
  • I still like damage avoidance masterwork but its not as good as it used to be

Regarding Sword

• Masterwork skill bonuses are more import than stats from enchants
• Thrust, Rend, Doublestrike

Regarding dual wield

• Get the same masterwork bonus on each weapon (They stack)
  • So using two longswords that both have the thrust masterwork makes your thrust REALLY NASTY etc
• Even more reason to make your sword out of meteoric iron. That +5 base damage from the sword in your off hand also stacks with the +5 base damage bonus for the main hand weapon for all of your skills! (Base damage bonus on weapons CRUSHES crit chance)

 

@Sara Dreygon will probably dis-agree with you Mystarr. I let her argue that with actual statistics .... She's parsed Thousands of strikes on a dummy with almost nay imaginable sword to find the best swords in the game. She even tested against a stats weight spreadsheet i made to see if it's accurate. All in all ... I would go with what Sara is doing. She seems to be pretty successful in regards to swords.

 

Considereing i can tank a dragon better in light armor with bezerkers stance giving me 0 armor than i can in plate using defensive stance ... yea ... I would say DR is pretty worthless. Fully zerked out in full STR gear my blocks block about 1/2 his attacks and my dodge handles anouther 1/3 which leaves avoidance eating the rest. It's pretty impressive what you can acomplish with 200 str and 140 dex

 

Im not going to deny Sara's success with (or knowledge of) swords, but if she is doing as good as she is with bronze she would be a beast with meteoric iron!
(Id be curious to compare stats from tests with her. I'm VERY confident on crit chance calculations. If she is running REALLY high vital points, weak points, and dex then her base crit maybe good enough that the pathetic multiplier of weapon crit chance from bronze works for her. However, if she is also running really high str and has a high base swords skill then the str damage multiplier on the base damage bonus from meteoric is going to be hard to beat.)
@Sara Dreygon

 

I agree with everything that you said and it is all well put. I can't really disagree with the sword metal as both are good but I crit a lot (144 VP and 128 AWP) and like the spiky damage of Bronze in PVP over the consistent damage of Meteoric. Both are good but I'll try the meteoric again sometime.

 

Here is my observations and theory, see what you think of it.

It is not just a DPS war but also DPS vs regeneration.

Where usually due to the fast regeneration rates of Big Creatures and Players then crit spikes are mathematically better than an average increase.
Especially late in a fight where the crit spike could end it.
This factor also increase with skill/stats so that the better you are the more likely you'd benefit from the crit spikes since the effect is higher. Plus your mobility in that crits in the back get a bonus.

If there wasn't as much regeneration in the game then it would be the other way around since the meteoric gives you higher DPS average.

But the opposite is true for creatures below your level, the greens and the ranged yellows, where you'd be better of with a higher DPS average and don't need the crit spikes to counter regen.

So when gearing for a boss/pvp I'd go for crit, while when doing some gold/xp grinding I'd go for average DPS.


Does that make any sense?

 

I agree that versus a dragon, Light armor can be great because of Dodge, but versus a horde of Archers and Warriors, Damage Resistance`s consistent damage reduction versus Light armors "Sometimes dodge" (yes, you can probably proc it often at your level but we dont all have 400+ Stats), I think Bronze can work out better here. I know Mobidoy and his playstyle, 1. he uses 0 magic (took all my best arguments to get him to start training his spells just for attunement resists). 2. He rarely goes up against stuff like Dragons, and when he does, we already have a or some tanks. 3. He mostly plays solo in zones like The Rise / Crag Foothills.

That might help all of your answers a bit considering some of these answers are clearly set for higher end content than Mobidoy is risking right now!

 

%5 from bronze blade + (5% crit dmg)
3% from bronze hilt
3% master work

Lets say for someone like Sara, the numbers prob look closer to...
Calculated Crit chance = (13% + 8%+ 7%+4%) = 32%
Then dual wielding we double our fun so: 32 * 1.22 = 39.04

Actual crit chance = (39.04) / (1+ .3904) = 28.078

with 10% damage boost on the crits.

My numbers are probably low, sorry @Sara Dreygon . I"m using 1% higher than each of mine I agree with Spoon, Bronze looks best for high end pvp and meteoric for pve.

@Mobidoy Querrent , don't under estimate shield vs. mages. Shields will block "missle" and ray spells. I use mine all the time against the mages in Ravensmoor right now.

 

I think when it comes to what metal to use for swords, it really depends on what your other stats and bonuses are. Once your critical damage goes beyond a certain point, bronze will outperform meteoric, and below that point it's the other way around. If you're a tactics specialist, bronze becomes a lot more attractive because of the huge crit damage bonus on spec berserker stance.

You also have to consider how much of your damage is coming from rend. Rend can't crit, so obviously the more you are relying on rend, the better meteoric is relative to bronze. I think it's generally good to have a couple meteorics with rend bonuses for big/slow stuff and a couple good bronze with thrust/double slash bonuses for fodderizing easy stuff.

You could also just make unicorn daggers and have huge weapon damage with crit bonus and huge parry bonus.

 

Wow, lots of info here. So lets resume it.

Armor :

• Constantine Chain Mail (Constantine for increase in Focus and Chain for casting chances increase)

Weapon :

• Bronze for Boss fight or PVP (which I dont)
• Meteorite for PVE/grind
• Enchant/MW : Thrust (bread and butter) / Rend / Double Slash (Against Boss)
• Enchant/MW : Thrust (bread and butter) / Double Slash /Rend (to grind)

Shield :

• Meteorite
• Good against missile spell and ray spell
• Enchant/MW : DR/Dura/Avoidance

Jewels :

• Enchants HP/STR/Dex/Int/Focus

My goal in the moment is to grind in The Rise. I am AL 85, working up Blade (65) and Tactics (57) specialization to 80 each. Also working up Life, Fire and Death Attunement for increase in effectiveness (Life) and Resists (Fire and Death).

I was thinking of socketing :

• 1 X Sorcery Jewels in ring ( 5 Fire Attunement )
• 1 X Necromancy Jewels in Neck ( 5 Death attunement )
  
• 1 X Sorcery Gem in Chest ( 10 Fire Attunement )
• 1 X Necromancy Gem in Shield ( 10 Death attunement )

For a total of 15 death and fire attunement. Or would you recommend me to go with ward gems instead ?

Thanx for the help everyone ! (This would would be a nice place to refer Swordman/Swordwoman after reading @Sara Dreygon Swordswoman Guide )

 

@Mobidoy Querrent

This goes back to if your planing on casting those schools ... In R57 there is going to be a Massive change in direction for people who don't want to cast magics. There will be resistance skills added to each school. So Warding Gems are going to have much greater Value after the patch.

Really you need to come up with an answer to the question of what type of classes you want to be able to cast. Secondly develop Warding weapons / jewlery to the 2 types of damage you'll be recieving.

You can pretty much generalize the NPC to two types of damage when casting. Kobalds are Air / Fire . Elves are Death / Fire . Barbarians are Ice / Fire. Undead are Fire / Death. I don't think there is a group that uses Earth. Needless to say when your going to The Rise you'll want warding gear for Fire and Death. Unless you plan on using that fire / death to kill them.

 

You can try it for yourself but warding gems and jewels don't seem to do anything.

 

consider coup de grace mw for the boss weapon. it's not necessarily worth it for grinding, but can make a huge difference for bosses.

 

Ok so I am in the process of gathering ressources for the armor/shield/weaps

For the armor, it will be coil of constantine, what for bindings ? And Straps ?

For the shield ? Round, Triangle or Rectangle ? Meteorite sheets but what about bindings and straps ?

Weapon one hander to go with shield ? Longsword ? Meteorite for both hilt and blade ?