[ARCHMAGE] Set Item Stats

[charl8tan]

Ok, so I was looking at the AM sets and really just scratching my head and going "whut?" quite a lot.

Everyone knows the AM is not "technically" a straight up healer, instead being a hybrid DPS and Healer. However everyone also knows that's a load of borlz as the DPS an AM can throw it is about as high as that of a gopher with leprosy. Especially in Scenarios.

I'll just give a rundown of the gear (stat distrib) that I shoot for at the moment in RvR. Willpower is of-course my "favourite" stat, with Toughness and Wounds being an almost joint second place followed lastly by Initiative. Yep, you read that right, Initiative not Intelligence, I really do not give a toss about Intelligence for RvR and any point in the stat on an item I use is basically wasted space. Early on in RvR (Tier 1) AM was stupidly sick and I would consistently be #1 Damage and Healing..then I hit Tier 2, where I started getting smacked upside the face quicker than you could say "Oi!", this resulted in me re-evaluating what stats I aimed for, namely more healing with defence.

I do not believe it is a good idea to stack just Willpower, you must always ensure you have a decent level of toughness and wounds as you won't be healing anything if you die from a Witch Elf opener. And you will be their favourite target if that's what you do, at this moment I'm sitting on around 4.5k HP and 250ish Toughness with only around 450 Willpower (I don't use the +Willpower Tactic) at level 30. I hit on average 60-100k, sometimes stupidly high if I'm blessed with a load of BW's (it can of-course be lower if I play like a right schmuck), with around 20k damage done. As I said I don't even look at Int, I throw out the odd Force Transfer here and there as well as a dot or so on enemy healers just to distract them a bit, nothing more than that.

This brings me to the AM set, or specifically, the "Devastator" set (mid 20's Renown gear). What a steaming pile of donkey turd! Seriously, yes I might use this when solo questing (where I do want lots of int/"damage") however who the hell had the utterly genius (retarded) idea to put Weapon Skill on this stuff! Oooh yea I can parry, because I don't run like a complete girl everytime a Destruction even remotely glances in my direction.

And the set bonuses:
2 - +46 Intelligence
3 - +5 Magical Crit Chance
4 - 10% chance to increase Wounds by 2/level for 20s

The stats are spread pretty much all over (Willpower receiving the majority, followed by Int, then the defensive stats) which I can understand as we are supposed to be a hybrid after all. However the majority of people will generally specialise in one area over another and this set does not offer enough for someone focused on healing. The stat points from Int and Weapon Skill (that really does drive me insane) could be used elsewhere in an AM RvR Healing Set as well as the "extra" on the shoulders of +13 Threat Reduction.

I don't know how many players will honestly pay attention to the fact I'm causing less aggro but I think not many and I completely fail to see why a PvE only benefit would be dropped onto gear supposedly aimed at RvR.

Where is the set aimed at healing (as any AM focusing on damage in Scenario's should receive a thorough beating) is what I would like to know, as to me, so far, the sets seen are all mainly aimed at damage.

<Pausing Rant as some work issues have arisen>

 

[charl8tan]

I realise my rant is drifting somewhat from my original plan of discussing stat distribution on the set items, so instead I'll bin this and create a seperate (more appropriately titled) thread for it. That and the great big wall of text I had typed out got lost in a PC crash meh! I'll type up offline and post at some point.

 

[maba27]

My main alt is archmage, lvl 22 now. So far i've seen parts of three sets. To be more precise, at some point i was wearing three set pieces, each belonging to a different set.

Trackers, keepers and devastator.
Each has been a disappoint. For the trackers, i managed to get the chest piece first, which turned out to be the last (and best) piece of the set you're supposed to get. It was a reward for an Epic quest.

Keeper's drops from the bosses in the sewers, two pieces, gives +25 willpower. Uselvl 17ish.

Devastator gloves i bought from the renown merchant after taking a keep. Waste of gold that was.

I'd give you more details about the sets but i currently cant access my WAR so i'm bored and making comments on forums.

What's wrong with weapon skill?
Can you parry while casting a spell? (i mean,w hen you're waving your staff around in the animation of doing the spell)
Weapon skill certainly shouldnt be your main stat, but it can help against melee, no? Note that i currently cant access my WAR and i'm too lazy to look up what exactly the weapon skill does and my memory is poor.

 

[charl8tan]

Weapon skill helps you parry and penetrate an opponents armour.

Yes you can parry whilst casting. However I do not want to ever see +Weapon Skill on a casters gear, for the same reason MDPS and Tanks would prefer not to see Willpower on theirs. Yes, I can still get a use from it, but seriously, other stats are far more beneficial.

I've actually found that 3 parts of Devastator for solo play is pretty decent. Specc'd as a full healing AM I still get around 600 Int and a nice chunk of Magical Crit when in my "damage" (read: tickling) gear.

 

[Enli]

Each has been a disappoint. For the trackers, i managed to get the chest piece first, which turned out to be the last (and best) piece of the set you're supposed to get. It was a reward for an Epic quest.

Keeper's drops from the bosses in the sewers, two pieces, gives +25 willpower. Uselvl 17ish.

Devastator gloves i bought from the renown merchant after taking a keep. Waste of gold that was.

trackers => 1 quest per tier2 area (1 in elfland, 1 dwarf,1 empire)
keepers, i had the boots as reward from altdorf PQ at the docks
devestator, 2 @renown merchant and saw boots drop from pvp in tor anroc

 

[Enli]

Ps. Tier 3 has also Quests for Set items
they'll start of with "Kill 20 ennemy....

 

[Rulke]

I find it hard to stack Willpower, toughness and Wounds - everything has really high +int or even useless stuff like weapon skill or parry (lol)

Renown rewards are useless too from what I've seen.

 

[Aurelius LH]

Just out of interest - what sort of Stat level (since it's an Archmage thread, let's stick on Willpower) are you looking to have, relative to character level?

I've no idea if what I've built is good, bad or indifferent....

 

[charl8tan]

@ Rulke - Yea, it's a royal pain in the butt. I continually get items that would be a major upgrade if the Int was replaced with Will/Tough/Wounds/Init, it's most galling however I do somehow find bits and bobs here and there to keep my gear at an ok level.

As for the actual sets, well, they're all terrible (RvR or PvE).

@ Aurelius - Level 36 at the moment, 720+ Will, 250+ Tough, 500+ Wounds, Initiative is complete fail though. I keep swapping bits in and out but that's where I've been tootling around for the last level or so, not sure how good it is, but out of the Archmage's I've seen/spoken too it's fairly decent on all counts I think.

 

[Afran]

Tanks would prefer not to see Willpower on theirs.

Well you're wrong there, Willpower is very important to a tank in RvR at end-game. However, itemization IS currently screwed, Mythic are aware of it, and supposedly they're changing it with patch 1.1

 

[charl8tan]

Well you're wrong there, Willpower is very important to a tank in RvR at end-game. However, itemization IS currently screwed, Mythic are aware of it, and supposedly they're changing it with patch 1.1

Hardly wrong, yes Willpower improves their disruption chance but there's no way a tank will have a respectable amount to counter the bonus to reduce an opponents disruption that the casters get from their Intelligence.

Any tank aiming at Willpower instead of Toughness or Resistances (when they work) should be taken outside and beaten severely.

 

[Enli]

for the more bored among us
Mayhem set --> Gold bag in altdorf PQ's, had boots from the corpscart one and shoulders from the pub brawl

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

I've stopped bothering with RvR armor on my 39AM now after finding two of the sets have +34 weaponskill on them. Really - what the fuck do i want with that?

Better imo to go with the top-end PVE armor at the moment - the itemisation is shockingly bad for some classes - makes you wonder if they had the work-experience kids do it or something.

 

[charl8tan]

Yea, I'm quite disappointed that the "sets" are actually aimed at both damage and healing, as is evidenced by having both Willpower and Intelligence, as well as set bonuses such as:

+5 Healing Crit
+75 Intelligence
etc

I would much prefer to see two seperate sets in each "area" (RvR/PvE) one aimed at healing one at "damage" (currently you can get one from PvE and another from PvP, a total of 2, I'd like for a total of 4 sets basically). These should also contain the "bonus" stats applicable to that part of the game. IE, stop putting +threat reduction on items obtained via RvR.

I'm still adding to my (offline) huge rant concerning itemisation (focused upon Archmage of-course) and will (eventutally - when I'm around 50) end up posting it I guess.