70s horned leather suit

[Nous]

Hello all, I just started playing UO again about 5 months ago after some ten years, so much has changed.
I have a 120 Imbuer, he has made my Sampire some average suits, I have been reading alot online about what it takes to make a great suit, but there is something I don't understand. It seems that ppl have to make a certain kind of base piece (chest, legs, arm, etc), to get a good all 70s suit. I read online that ppl will spend hours and tons of leather trying to get the right piece before fortifing it and imbuing it. I can't for the life of me understand what that means. Why do they have to make so many (some say thousands) pieces looking for the right piece. What is it they are trying to find in a chest, legs, arms, gloves, or gorget??? Can some one pls explain what it is they need in a base leather piece of armor before they can continue to build an all 70s suit. Thank you all so much.

 

[UO Relic]

Offhand nothing pops to mind on leather, remember talking with someone who plays an Elf and was making the Darkwood suit (sorry might have gotten name wrong but believe there is only 1 wood suit so should be easy for you to figure out) if I remember what he was telling me a piece to the suit may get a DCI bonus and for a samp suit you want that bonus. So you might have to work for awhile to get that piece . . . perhaps that is what your thinking of. If not sorry I tried

 

[Basara]

(not so) Simple math

They want to get resists concentrated in a few specific pieces, as to minimize the number of slots taken up by resists (and therefore free up more imbuing slots). A Leather suit would seem to be one designed specifically for a human (to get the JOAT mana regeneration bonus, or the character might even have meditation), or to allow the character to be less vulnerable to pieces falling off (a real problem for an elf Sampire, if they don't devote some imbue or artifact slots to STR). We'll assume a human target user.


A base Leather armor piece has resists 2/4/3/3/3.

This means that the suit starts as 12/24/18/18/18, if made using only crafted pieces.

From Horned leather, this would add 2/3/2/2/2 - though optimally these would be enhanced using a forged tool after imbuing.

Each piece will have 20 random resists (Exceptional bonus plus 5 more from GM arms lore)

If one wants to have a suit with 95 fire resist, it's better to get the majority of the resist without imbuing any of it.

Each piece, after being crafted or enhanced with horned leather, will have a minimum of 7 fire resist. that's 42 fire resist.

With some real-life determination, you can get each of those pieces to have 9 additional fire resist of the 20 random resists, prior to the imbuing. Simultaneously, you want 1 resist with 0-3 resist in a non-fire resist on EACH piece, preferably in TWO resists on two of the pieces)

The end result is a 96 fire resist without using ANY Imbuing slots, once enhanced. (13 fire resist prior to enhancing, 16 after). Theoretically, you could even do this with barbed leather, going for 15 resist prior to enhancing (as barbed only adds 1 fire - or 11 additional resists out of 20 falling on fire on each), or even spined (all 12 additional resists coming from the 20 random points) if you want to imbue luck, then use a forged tool to add luck via spined.

You want to use the forged tool to enhance as the last step, to allow those 5 imbue slots per item to be taken as high as possible - otherwise you will lose some when you imbue.

HORNED Example:
So, before enhancement with horned, you would want parts totaling 58/78/58/58/58.
Before enhancement, fire is totaling 78 (13 each in fire), then the other resists will be 12/--/18/18/18, plus 66 randomly assigned. 46 of the 66, under optimum placement, would make the resists 28/78/28/28/28, BUT with the target of having eight slots to imbue with resists.

This gives you 20 resists that can be lost from those gained from exceptional/lore bonus, when you imbue the 8 resist imbues.

So (in no particular order), you want to have
4 pieces with 0-3 (1-2 preferred) extra resists in 1 resist.
2 pieces with similarly low resists in TWO resists each.
These low resists have to align up to 2 being physical, 2 cold, 2 poison, 2 energy. These are the 8 resists that will imbued over, and the amounts over the base amounts of each (that will be lost) can't total more than 20 (or 15, if you are adding in 5 more energy for an elf - who probably would have made a wood suit, to start with).

With this done, you enhance each piece (with a forged tool)

It's time and resource-heavy, but doable.

I'll do a post later with examples for more imbue-heavy Barbed & Spined versions.

 

[Basara]

Barbed version:

Base Resist: 2/4/3/3/3
Material bonus from enhancement: 2/1/2/3/4

Target resists (suit): 70/96/70/70/70 (if all pieces are 16 fire after enhancement)

Initial crafting:
Each desired piece will need to have 15 fire resist (4 +11 of the 20 from exceptional from GM arms lore).
Also desirable will be a total of 28 points from the exceptional/lore bonus falling into Energy resist. We'll assume this is true (would be fairly easy to accomplish, given time - the hard part is the 11 into fire - you are shooting for concentrations of the remaining 9 points into mostly 1-2 other resists, after all)

So, Suit target numbers, prior to enhancing (with resist imbues)
58/78/58/52/46

xx/78/xx/xx/46 will come from the initial crafting.

26 Exceptional/lore points remaining.

Prior to the remaining points, totals are
12/--/12/18/--
while theoretically you could end up with 13 bonus resist each in physical & cold (spread over 4 pieces; say 6 cold/poison & 3 energy on 2, 7 cold/poison & 2 energy on 2 others, and all 18 remaining energy on split between the last 2 pieces), it's just not going to happen without Mythic interference.

More likely will be 13 in either physical OR cold, and 7 poison, scattered over 3. 6 will be left over, that can be displaced from imbuings

So, what will be needed
3 Imbues of Poison
3 imbues of EITHER Physical or Cold
2 imbues of the 1 where 13 points of the random bonuses fell.

Results: 8 of 30 imbues used.

Alternately, get pieces where 22 fall into poison, and do 2 Poison imbues, and 3 each of the other two resists.

Frankly, this might even be easier than the horned, especially if you go to 9 imbues, and finish off Energy with 1 imbue.

 

[Basara]

Spined Luck Suit

2/4/3/3/3 + 20 random
Spined provides 5 Physical & 40 luck

You have several options:

A. Go completely nuts and look for 6 pieces that get 12 additional fire resist points (16 total).
This will result in x/16/x/x/x + 40 random resists.

After enhancing, this would be 40/96/18/18/18 + 40 random resists, plus imbued points.

For the random points, you'd shoot for 15 in physical, 7 each in cold, poison & energy. This leaves 4 leftover to be overwritten.

Imbues (before enhancement):
6 @ 100 Luck
1 @ physical 15 points
3 @ cold 15 points
3 @ poison 15 points
3 @ energy 15 points

or, Take the safe method and do 1 or 2 fire resist imbues. 1 imbue = 19 fire, and 95 is the real target (96 is for ease of calculation). So...

B. 4 pieces at +11 bonus, one at +12 bonus, to get to 76 fire (4 @ 15 fire resist, 1 @ 16 fire resist), with the sixth piece being at or near minimum so that it can be imbued.
After enhancing, this would be 40/76/18/18/18, with 64 points random non-fire.
For the random points, you'd be shooting for 30 random points into physical, 7 each into cold, poison & energy, with 13 left over.
Imbues (before enhancement):
6 @ 100 Luck
1 @ fire 15 points
3 @ cold 15 points
3 @ poison 15 points
3 @ energy 15 points

The difference in points (4 spare resists in A, vs. 13 in B.) makes this a lot easier

C. 2 pieces at or near minimum fire resist (for imbues), 3 at +10 bonus (14 fire resist total), 1 at +11 bonus (+15 fire resist total).
After enhancing, this would be 40/57/18/18/18, with 79 points random.
For the random points, you'd be shooting for 30 random points into physical, 7 each into cold, poison & energy, +15 in one additional resist (from cold, poison or energy, beyond the 7, for a total of 22) with 13 left over.
Imbues (before enhancement):
6 @ 100 Luck
2 @ fire 15 points
2 @ 15 points (pick one - cold, poison, energy)
3 each @ 15 points (the other two resists)

In all cases, 16 Imbue slots are used to get the base suit (6 in luck, 10 in resists), with 14 slots for other properties.

 

[Zolt]

Your three explanations was extremely helpful in me understanding this process better.

I was able to duplicate your numbers in an Excel spreadsheet that helped me follow your reasoning.

Does this guide change with the pending re-forging changes? I have yet to wrap my hands around all of the changes/features since my return.

 

[Basara]

There might be some changes - but you got to remember that several of the reforging actions add "Brittle" and/or "Cannot be repaired", making them less desirable.

We'll know more when we see the live version of reforging.