Vial of Armor Essence

[pgib]

I'm doing the Zosilem's quests to check the pet stuff they added with stygian abyss.

The second tier given this Vial of Armor Essence. I read on stratics (and uoguide) that it gives around 10% more resistances to pet.

My findings are quite different.

Using the vial on a greater dragon with basic resistances:

80 88 50 57 75

results in a greater dragon with the following resistances:

82 89 55 61 77

So we have:

2.5% more physical
1% more fire
10% cold
7% poison
2.6% energy

Because the quest takes ages to complete (the iron beetles drop scales so randomly and the respawn takes so long that sometimes i need an entire day to gather the required 10) i have not been able to check the numbers on other pets. Can someone confirm this percentages?

 

[pgib]

Ok, this scary silence make me feel like i'm the only joker out there doing the quests for these rewards.

It is not a good sensation, you know, if no one wants this vial of dubious armor there might be a reason...

 

[Llewen]

Well, consider yourself to be a ground breaker, and please post your results. They are interesting.

 

[pgib]

Well, the ground breaker wasted another vial, this time on a reptalon

Starting resistances:

60 45 38 54 79

After so called armor up:

64 50 44 58 81

Upgrade percentages:

6.7% 11% 15.8% 7% 2.5%

I strongly suspect now that the vial's upgrade scales inversely with the starting resistance: the lower the resistance the greater the upgrade.

So unless you hunt with the softest greater dragon ever seen the vial is a colossal waste of time.

Having tried the tasty treats, the deliciously tasty treats and the vial of armor my opinion so far is that none of them are of any value but if i had to choose i'd choose the tasty treats: the 5% increase in stats means that your pet could sustain one or two hits more and deal 1 or maybe 2 points of damage more per hit. They are easy to find (treasure-maps) and the cooldown (2 minutes) is acceptable.

The deliciously tasty treats with 10% increase would be somewhat better but the quest requires you to engage positive karma creatures (a no go for "good guys"), and the combination of cheap duration (10 minutes) and huge cooldown (60 minutes) means that you can use them just because they print a funny text on screen.

I still have to try the ultimate tasty treats, unfortunately yesterday i wasn't able to find the 10 scales from the iron beetles (i had just half a day) and i need 10 more repetitions of the tier 2 before the third and final level: 10 to 15 days and i'll be there.

I must say that i'm greatly disappointed till now: as any fighting tamer knows, the difference in battle is made by the set of resistances above 80 and the wrestling skill yet we got these things that increases the hp (irrelevant) and scales the armor not over the usable threshold and only if it is unpractical at start. The cooldown time seals the coffin.

 

[Llewen]

Actually I use the tasty treats all the time. UO is a game of inches and that small boost makes a significant difference in the performance of your pet. Based on what you are saying about the armour enhancement, I would say the same. Having your lowest resist go from 38 to 44 is actually pretty significant, especially if there is a chance that consecrate weapon may be used against your pet.

However, in pvp dps and reliability of supply are paramount, so I'll stick with the tasty treats for now. Unless you can use more than one buff on your pet. I'm guessing not.

 

[pgib]

Maybe they are a pvp addition, i don't pvp, i can't tell.

But in pvm if they make a difference it is well below the threshold of rng vagaries.

Boosting all resistances to 90 for 30 minutes would make a difference. Or tripling damage output. As it is now a fight of 40 minutes maybe reduced, with luck, to 39 with the 10% treats. The chances to survive a gang of necro-monsters are unchanged (tested against maddening horrors). And for high-end creatures they have absolutely no impact (checked with rikktor, slasher and stygian).

You can't stack effects, it's either one vial of armor or one treat.

 

[Llewen]

I would have to agree. They are far more useful in pvp than in pvm, although I would say that the armour boost would still be useful in a pvm context. You would be surprised at the difference that a small increase in resists can make in real survivability. I'm not talking about crunching the numbers and being unimpressed, because it can be very challenging to accurately crunch the numbers. I'm talking about testing in real game situations.

For example, you may look at an increase in resists, do the math, and find that a given resist boost might only decrease the damage of an individual spell by 1 point. However, when you factor in all the increases across all the resists, then realize that a spell casting mob can cast well in excess of one damage inflicting spell per second, plus use an attack every few seconds, and then throw in the effects of a special or two, all of a sudden you may find that what seemed like an insignificant increase in resists might actually make a difference of as much as 100 points or more in damage received by your pet over a period of ten seconds.

A small increase in resists can make the difference between being able to heal your pet through damage, or not.

 

[pgib]

I disagree for the pvm part, the upgrade its too scarce to make a difference. As i wrote, i tested it against creatures that drain hp faster than i can heal and the picture doesn't change.

Initially i thought that the treats/vials were a way to upgrade pets to face the new environment (mobs strength has increased a lot while the pets at hand are the same as six or eight years ago) but that is not the case.

But for one thing: applied to a pack of lower level tamables the vial of armor could give a huge boost. Think to ostards: they have very cheap resistances so they would get the 15% or more improvement. I'd like to see a pack of ozzies with a full 50 suite.

You just need to gather 50 iron beetle scales for a 10 minutes run...

 

[Llewen]

Clearly if your pet is getting stomped in a certain context, it isn't going to make a difference, but there are plenty of contexts, especially as you become more advanced and proficient in your abilities to maintain the structural integrity of your charges, where a small increase in resists can make a difference, and in pvm resists are more important than stats. I know this from experience. I don't know what your experience level is with regard to using pets in more challenging contexts, but if you are less experienced, this is something you will learn.

 

[pgib]

Well, i'm a tamer-healer (i have to say a not so common class these days, at least in Europa shard), and while we gladly never stop learning, i'm proud to say that a mob has to be a pretty bad guy to take down one of my greater dragons and maybe just two or three creatures in the game can do so withouth killing me first. One being Sudiva (subliminal message n. 23, i'd love to tame that scaled beauty).

Maybe my experience is biased because of that. If a tamer is more up to hunt with the "softlings" (cu-sidhe and alike) or it has less healing rate, he might benefit more than i do from these things.

In fact of the few tamers i meet in game the majority belongs to the spellcaster school (also known as the circle of the dead pet ).

 

[sayler04]

So far, the only benefit of this stuff is that it's a lot easier to get the 200 iron beetle scales to advance to tier three and it is to get the hundred gargoyle medallions.

 

[pgib]

You may not believe it but i managed to pass to tier three today (2 months from start).

I tried the ultimate tasty treats just once (you can get one per day).

Well, getting it is far easier that the previous level. To get the logs without killing Trefellows (lowers karma, my char doesn't take negative karma actions on purpose) one can reach the north-west edge of ter mur where Treefellows spawns side by side with Kepetches. More often than not you will find a treefellow body on the ground.

Is it worth the effort? As i said i tried it on a greater dragon only. I took it to balrons - i use them for pet training so i know more or less how the gd goes against them - and i didn't notice a difference.

Stats are increased of course so it must do and absorb more damage but for something that takes so much effort to get i have to say that i was expecting a bit more (a "wow: is chewing that balron in two hits" kind of more).

Maybe all this stuff is useful in pvp.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Seems like opinions vary on what this stuff really does:

Vial Of Armor Essence - UOGuide, the Ultima Online encyclopedia

Items with Special Abilities


Guide says just a damage absorption deal which would not really show up in pet resists. Strat seems to say it buffs pets resists, but in excess of what you have witnessed *shrugs* Either way I agree, lots of work for a slight benefit.

 

[Klapauc]

I'm doing the Zosilem's quests to check the pet stuff they added with stygian abyss.

The second tier given this Vial of Armor Essence. I read on stratics (and uoguide) that it gives around 10% more resistances to pet.

My findings are quite different.

Using the vial on a greater dragon with basic resistances:

80 88 50 57 75

results in a greater dragon with the following resistances:

82 89 55 61 77

So we have:

2.5% more physical
1% more fire
10% cold
7% poison
2.6% energy

Because the quest takes ages to complete (the iron beetles drop scales so randomly and the respawn takes so long that sometimes i need an entire day to gather the required 10) i have not been able to check the numbers on other pets. Can someone confirm this percentages?

Your numbers show a roughly 10% damage reduction if you apply resists against damage dealt. Seems balanced to me as you dont need to spend any mana for this.

 

[pgib]

Seems balanced to me as you dont need to spend any mana for this.

I would gladly spend 150 mana to cast a similar thing instead of having to loose 1 or 2 days of gameplay for 1 (one) application (per hour).

Also considering the fact that iron beetles spawn in just one location this gives us one vial per shard per day (if we are lucky).

I don't know about balance but this doesn't look to me like a practical item - and that's probably why noone does the quests, at least in Europa.

 

[canary]

Well, i'm a tamer-healer (i have to say a not so common class these days, at least in Europa shard), and while we gladly never stop learning, i'm proud to say that a mob has to be a pretty bad guy to take down one of my greater dragons and maybe just two or three creatures in the game can do so withouth killing me first. One being Sudiva (subliminal message n. 23, i'd love to tame that scaled beauty).

Maybe my experience is biased because of that. If a tamer is more up to hunt with the "softlings" (cu-sidhe and alike) or it has less healing rate, he might benefit more than i do from these things.

In fact of the few tamers i meet in game the majority belongs to the spellcaster school (also known as the circle of the dead pet ).

Interesting. In just another thread you are crying out that a GD doesn't cut it and that you actually want something in the range of a PARAGON GD in stats... but now I see you here boasting about how you can solo pretty much everything.

So which is it, sport?

 

[pgib]

Well, i think i'm coherent: i ask for more power. I checked the pet rewards to see if the were they right answer but unfortunately they aren't.

I cannot understand why this irritates you so much that you feel the need to move this thread too into a personal debate.

Now, i'm too old for that. Maybe if we were talking about politics or religion but a videogame, c'mon. Express your idea about the subject if you want and go on.

 

[pgib]

Oh, and i missed that: yes i can solo a lot of things and yes i want a more powerful pet to solo them faster and even more things.

 

[canary]

Well, i think i'm coherent: i ask for more power. I checked the pet rewards to see if the were they right answer but unfortunately they aren't.

I cannot understand why this irritates you so much that you feel the need to move this thread too into a personal debate.

Now, i'm too old for that. Maybe if we were talking about politics or religion but a videogame, c'mon. Express your idea about the subject if you want and go on.

No, my responses aren't personal in nature. I'm not discussing your job, your mother, your nose, your weight, etc etc etc...

I'm speaking in response that you create a thread stating tamers need high level pets with power around a 'paragon greater dragon' in one thread to be effective like other templates (which is wrong, but that's your opinion), and then... surprise... I come across this thread where you joyfully note you can already pretty much solo everything in game.

I don't know you. This isn't personal. I'm discussing that there is already an imbalance and that creating something more powerful is asinine when you boast that you already have something incredibly powerful. You are already aware that the template you hold already wields more than enough firepower without needing an even more excessive boost.

 

[pgib]

But are personal in tone: boasting, which is it, sport... i do not talk to people like that if i'm not looking for a flame.

You say that the tamer is as effective as other "templates".

I repeat what i asked you in the other thread: show me. 'Cause i consider my tamer a pretty good one and i can't.

And if you say again that you don't do that kind of things then how can we discuss about "balance"? We don't even know what "balance" is if we don't try to do what other classes can do. Ask to an archer, a mixed-mage, a sampire or even a dexxer what he can do. Then try to do the same. Then you will know how balanced you are. I did it. And i'm asking for more power.

 

[canary]

I repeat what i asked you in the other thread: show me. 'Cause i consider my tamer a pretty good one and i can't.

.

Show you what, exactly? You have said this on the other thread and it means absolutely nothing.

You are telling us you are already able to solo almost everything in game. And I've already told you that no template can solo everything... and they shouldn't be able to, really.

 

[pgib]

Yes i can, that's why i'm talking: i know how it is, i know what can be done and what can't. And knowing that i know also that i cannot pretend everyone to do the same painful things i have to do do solo those mobs.

I also know what other classes can do (cause i tried) so I started the other thread and i'm talking about the usefulness of things here discussed.

Well, tbh the discussion was over when you showed up telling me that you don't anything because you didn't try a thing of what i'm talking about yet you know i'm wrong.

Which is kinda funny.

 

[Wulf2k]

Thread necro, but just to clear this up since it was the first discussion on the topic that I found.

80 88 50 57 75

results in a greater dragon with the following resistances:

82 89 55 61 77

That is a 10% reduction in damage.

Phys - GD is taking 20% of phys damage. 10% of 20% is 2%, so his phys resist went up 2%.
Fire - GD is taking 12% of fire damage. 10% of 12% is 1%, so his fire resist went up 1%.

And so forth.

It seems low as an absolute number, but as you approach 100% resist, each extra percent becomes increasingly valuable. For example, 98% resist compared to 99% resist is "only" 1%, but the 98% resist creature would take twice as much damage as the 99% creature.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

I would gladly spend 150 mana to cast a similar thing instead of having to loose 1 or 2 days of gameplay for 1 (one) application (per hour).

Also considering the fact that iron beetles spawn in just one location this gives us one vial per shard per day (if we are lucky).

I don't know about balance but this doesn't look to me like a practical item - and that's probably why noone does the quests, at least in Europa.

Just to necro this thread again, the drop rate of Undamaged Iron Beetle Scales, is influenced by your character's Luck. Just like Boura Skins and Treefellow Wood are. With 2,300+ Luck, i was getting 1 Undamaged Iron Beetle Scale every 3 Iron Beetles approximately.