Quite often I have wasted millions of gold crafting armor for my characters. I am somewhat addicted to imbuing and reforging and often find myself doing this when I am all out of gas and not thinking clearly.
One general rule I followed was to make my armor all leather. I did this towards the INT regen bonus towards passive and active med, and yes it does matter in most cases. So last week was no different. I started to craft a leather stamina/mana increase/MR/LMC suit. Well pleased I had all basis covered I equipped my new samurai char out and headed to painted cave to work his swords up from 80 skill.
Low and behold the Stamina changes they have done in the last few publishes quickly changed my perspective. Now I have played with studded, but I had a very one track mind, which was mana, mana, mana. But after those troglodytes hammered my stamina down to a trickle and my warrior swinging his sword in slow motion it came to me that I was over looking some simple basics I should have not forgot coming from a PvP background.
When you move you drop in stamina (That is why you gain in focus when you walk or run) and when you get hit. This will effect your swing speed especially if your stamina is on point zero to get max speed.
I took note and decided my next build would be Plate. Now up until they introduced reforging most stamina/dex suits consisted of 40 stamina increase on armor, mace and shield glasses, 2 jewels with dex and the crimson cincture.
While decent, with reforging better options are available by putting all your dex increase and stamina mostly on your suit with reforging/imbuing.
There are however different approaches on building a stamina suit and you have to build it around your weapon speed and your play style. For instance Fencers do not need optimal stamina increase as they generally have very fast weapons, but on the same note they have healing and want 3 second bandages which is based on dex.
To get dex you need 5 pieces of armor with +4 dex and 1 with +5 . To get +4 - +5 dex and 10 Stamina Increase is a bit tricky. I used a combination of Copper, Gold and a Valorite (can use lower, just what I had on hand at the time).
What should be noted is try to get these mods with the lowest runic possible. For instance Valorite will put 5 properties on the item. No room to add new properties or resists versus 2 properties and 3 left per piece.
Hitting the 210 Mark total will be a challenge as it is a luck of the dice and costly in runic charges. You will most likely be stuck with a few pieces with undesirable properties, but you can think of it as an investment like a hot rod or drag car. It needs tuning.
Some Pro's
Over mace and shield - 2 more properties.
Apron/Belt slot open - Your choice.
Jewelry - 2 slots open for Jewelry that now do not require dex for max dex/stamina.
Also note some Jewelry and Shields like from Shame can have Stamina Increase. The max I have seen so far is 5 Stamina Increase. This is not necessarily the rule. That is just all I have seen so far.
SSI also can be found on Jewelry and Shields.
Non Armor Equipment
Several items in game such as aprons, sashes, cloaks, robes, talismans give you a bit additional properties. As you will find hammering out Haste/Animated armor you will find stamina regeneration is often a 3rd property, making fine tuning a bit of an obstacle. However in between tuning your armor, you can use
the Ankh Pendant and Virtue Shrines to add temporary bonuses for an hour per visit
http://www.uoguide.com/Ankh_Pendant
How I build a Suit with Reforging/Imbuing
First I create the item either in Iron or Leather. Reforge using Powerful/Grand/Inspired. If the item is high end and not so common then I break out the Forged Metal of Artifacts to insure a 100% chance to enhance. With Plate I use Verite and Valorite mix to get my resists high as possible before the imbuing process. You must take a good look because you will not have many resist properties to slap on in the Imbuing process. After this I PoF the pieces to 255 (don't forget this step).
Before imbuing I now take a long look at what I want to accomplish. Make a plan and go step by step.
The Plate Stamina suit is probably the best for people who want to swing at max all the time. I have yet to see my stamina drop at all, even getting pounded by mobs. No need for Stamina Leech.
That's about it guys.
