[General] Question about durability and repair

[FusionX86]

I've got a sort of odd question with regard to durability and repairing. I've been wondering how to get the most life out of weapons and armor before their durability reaches zero. There are two ways that I can see to look at it.

1. Use an item until it reaches 1 or 0 durability and then repair it. You'll be almost (100%?) guaranteed to lose one durability, but you were able to use the item a lot before that point.

2. Use the item a little bit...maybe so it has 10 or so less durability than its max and then repair it. This would give you a better chance to repair without losing any durability, but if you're unlucky then you lose 1 durability after not getting as much use out of the item which shortens its life even more.

I hope that made sense. I'm just wondering if someone has done the math on or knows from experience how to extend an item's life the most. Is repairing often better than not? If you repair often, is it possible to never lose durability? Thanks.

 

[Gelf]

u usually lose durability when u repair(chance depends on max durability i believe), also u lose durablity when u fail on repair attempt. not a good idea to let it get to 0, as i believe u have a chance to break repairing(i believe it can also break if ur wearing and let durability get to 0 and it takes another hit). i just repair it around 30-60 then powder it up when max durabilty gets below 200. assuming ur not talking about imbued items, with them i'd still repair around 30-60. although once it got below a hundred i'd unravel and replace

 

[FusionX86]

Gelf,

Thanks for that information. You gave me something I wasn't aware of before. I'm an old player who recently came back to the game and wasn't familiar with the powder you speak of. I looked it up and believe you're talking about powder of fortifying. The information found talks about certain items that the powder won't work on. I'll have to play around with it and figure out how it works. Thanks again.

 

[Old Man of UO]

An item won't break any more unless it's max durability (not current) reaches zero. If you get really low on the durability, you can use the Powder of Fortification (POF) for normal items. By the way, imbued items and certain other items won't allow you to use the POF on them

I searched Stratics articles on repair and it is way out of date. I can't remember the numbers correctly, (but something like this) you have a 20% chance at legendary smith to not reduce the durability if the weapon has lost less than 10% of its durability. Someone please post the correct numbers - couldn't find them in a quick search.

I've found in general that for a weapon that you want to keep, use the Powder of Fortification to bring the item to max durability, then use it until it has 10-20 durability before repairing. You might loose a point or two in durability, but I more than make up for it by not repairing as often.

 

[FusionX86]

Old man of UO,

Thanks for that information. I was also wondering about the success chance of a legendary repair so that does help. I'll just use the items down to 10ish durability and then repair...while using powder once in a while. Thanks!

 

[Ultima Weapon]

The formula to determine your chance to lose a point of max durability is:

((40 + Max Durability) - Current Durability) - (repairSkill / 100)

Where repairskill is your skill in test center style, ie. 120 = 1200

So, by far the biggest effect on whether you lose a point of max durability or not is how far below its max durability the item has fallen.

Examples:

120 repair skill -1 durability from max
29%

120 skill -10 durability
38%

120 skill - 50 durability
78%

Anything beyond 70 durability or so below the item's max, you will ALWAYS lose a point of max durability(the chance rises to 100%).

 

[FusionX86]

Ohh those numbers are very precise! Thanks for taking the time to post that. It helps answer the questions I had even further.