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BRK crafting

F

Facehugga

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I've been away for too long to be sure about that.


If i burn BRK's - what kind of leather should i use?
Luck is sure spined.

but for "normal" pieces which one is the best? Horned or Barbed? As i remember horned gives a bit more Fire resi ?


Arms Lore should be GM'd of course i guess
 

Basara

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Barbed or horned, is about down to preference. Barbed is only one resist better than horned.

If you are going to be making a suit for someone that will be casting Vampiric embrace, or routinely be corpse skinned, horned is probably better, as the fire resist will be a little higher, to counter the effects.

If you are crafting for someone that will be running around with the spell Protection cast, however, barbed will be better, to counteract the physical resist penalty.

Either will be fine for normal use - and since the Greater Dragons have made farming Destard a much more dangerous proposition, Barbed has about become more common than Horned, as there are safer ways to get barbed (serpentine dragons at Oaks spawn 4th stage, where everyone kills them to minimize karma loss, and WW that people farm to get their karma back up AFTER doing Oaks) than horned (Drakes and Wyverns are hard to find outside Destard, and the Ki-rin & unicorns drop your karma WAY too quick when trying to farm them - especially at Oaks).

In fact, at Ilshenar Oaks (which is probably the most popular champ spawn in the game, thanks to the added drops), people go out of their way to NOT kill the Ki-rins (killing wisps only) and Unicorns (killing centaurs, and the centaurs give spined leather and arrows), and only fight the Serpentines to advance the spawn (as they are several magnitudes easier than the warriors), many people cutting the leather and dropping it to the ground, if they don't want it.
 
F

Facehugga

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Thanks for the help.


So i think for nice items it wont really matter a lot, i think im going to try with barbed then.
 

ZidjiN

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Im allmost allways burn my kits with horned leather. Just seems better.
Barbed tend to give higher energy resist and that is one resist that i really dont need.
 
R

RichDC

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My advice Would be burn gloves...youll (if selling) never comopete with Val/verite runic armour which leaves gloves as the only part that a BRK can compete on.
 

Basara

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Except that no one, except maybe on RichDC's shard & Test Shard, uses those hammers on armor....
 

ZidjiN

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My advice Would be burn gloves...youll (if selling) never comopete with Val/verite runic armour which leaves gloves as the only part that a BRK can compete on.
I personaly think that thats a REALLY bad idea if you have a Luna vendor.
The illegal searchengine doesnt work well for gloves, its been like that for ages.
The only way you can search for gloves is by the advanced search option, otherwise it wont list your gloves.
 

ZidjiN

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Except that no one, except maybe on RichDC's shard & Test Shard, uses those hammers on armor....
Well ive followed your and Rich's discussion on this matter and i need to say i agree with both of you.
I i agree with you in the manner that i think BRK's should be used for armour and harmmers for weapons.

But most of the really nice armor around is really from Val runic hammers. Its like that on allmost every shard. Maybe that has to do with all the duped hammers. I honestly dont know why its like that, i just know that allmost every "imba/1337/Uber" piece of armor i find is made of hammers.
 
F

Facehugga

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Is there any difference btw the "normal" i.e. Gorget or Sleeves and the Tokuno ones (Mempo, etc) ?
Is there a better chance to get a specifig resist or property?


I burned 6 kits now (120Tailor/100AL) and i wasnt really impressed about what i saw :-(
 
R

RichDC

Guest
Is there any difference btw the "normal" i.e. Gorget or Sleeves and the Tokuno ones (Mempo, etc) ?
Is there a better chance to get a specifig resist or property?


I burned 6 kits now (120Tailor/100AL) and i wasnt really impressed about what i saw :-(
Property wise no, they are exactly the same.

Mainly looks.

I ended up burning i believe 10BRK's on glove to get one semi decent pair

Mana increase 8
Mr1
LMC 7%

fFire 17
Poison 12
(rest pretty much base)


As i tried to explain in another post, Hammers allow alot more specific crafting on resistances and gain a higher base intensity than BRK's, not to say that BRK's can make some nice armour pieces but i almost guarantee that if you had spent that 12mil on 4gold hammers you would have made at least 4very usuable/sellable pieces.

I did get given some advice that val/ver hammers use for weaps and gold/aggies on armour. Although im still sticking to verites for armour vals for weaps(i make a ton of very nice armour with verites, much much better base intensities than BRK's)
 

ZidjiN

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Ive Burned 15 Barbed kits this weekend.
I was looking for a pair with 13+LRC or 5HPI, 7+LMC high resist in two of the following, phys/fire/poison. So i was looking for a pair of gloves with 4 mods but didnt even get anything close. Nada, not a single piece i could use.

Same thing goes with my weapon crafting luck. Burned 2 Verite Hammers on Heavy Ornate Axes, got 5with 25 SSI and ONE with 30ssi.
Out of the 40 Ornate axes i crafted i got 1 that was okey, not good but okey.
50 Hit Lightning
14 HCI
25 SSI
58 DI
Next time im gonna try and get a good ornate axe i think im better of burning Bronze runics.
 
R

RichDC

Guest
Next time burn those hammers on armour and see the difference in pieces,

verites give 4-5mods(believe thats the same as BRK's)
they have a min intensity of (if memory serves)70% to a barbeds 50%
They also have 5more charges than a barbed.
 

WildWobble

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After burning 100s of brks over the last year and the recent influx of val hammers since the 08 change to bod rewards i will agree that to make anything except gloves with a brk is folly if there is avalible val armor around.

Unless you can prove they are dupeing them i will maintain my belief that the super boders who run 5+ accounts running bods like mad with scripts are the source of all the val hammers we keep seeing. Though i suspect there is dupers doing some things also. i just feel that its a numbers thing with the bods.
 

Basara

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scripting is the same as duping - both are illegal cheats. And, the way the BOD system works now, unless you have an Asian sweatshop, having more than 3-4 accounts will give you more BODs than you can fill and request new BODs for.

Most of the current Valorite Hammers are the result of dupers getting a few completed (but not turned in) Val Ex 20 Plate LBODs, duping the book they were in, pulling the dupes from that book, putting them into the first book, then repeating hte process several times. 3 becomes 6, 6 becomes 12, 12 becomes 24, 24 becomes 48, 48 becomes 96, 96 becomes 192, 192 becomes 384 (and that only counts as 77 items, the way BOD books work).

Then, they redeem the BODs a few at a time, and sell them at multiple points in Luna (vending with different accounts than the ones that duped and store the BODs, to reduce the chance of losing it all if they get caught - after all, if the dupe was a transfer-based one, they will typically have $100+ of transfers as an initial investment to pay off, and look to make $600-1000 profit above expenses when all the BODs sell).

I personally know a few legit super-BODers - and the typical Valorite hammer vendor has the ability to sell & restock more Val hammers in a WEEK than they can get in 6-12 months, using multiple BOD runners and active traders of BODs.

The proof needs to go the other way - anyone who can restock more than ONE Valorite hammer a week EVERY WEEK, for months, is a probable duper/scripter. Remember, I had to RUN the numbers of the BODs last year, to test the changes that were made.

Tailoring:
Larges are the only rare BODs (8.5% of all BODs, but BRK larges are STILL 1.8% of all larges by my testing). This is about the chance to get a Valorite BOD of ANY type, let alone one that fits a large with any worthwhile reward). 18 (yes, EIGHTEEN - count them) different Tailor LBODS give Barbed kits.
As a result, MORE THAN ONE IN EIGHT smalls by type, before factoring in rarity from leather type, fit Barbed Kit Larges*. Once you factor in the split for leather types (and the cloth/leather divide), 3.6% of all Tailor BODs are Barbed Kit BOD smalls.

For Smiths

25 weapon smalls + 24 Armor smalls for iron = 49; x 6 = 294 distinct Iron smalls (for 48 larges). Note that 66 of the smalls (over 20% aren;t even combinable with a large.
Under normal circumstances for a 120 smith, those Iron BODs make up 55% of the Smith's BODs. (50% weapon, plus 10% of the 50% that are armor BODs)
Armor types:
24 smalls, x 6 for quality/count = 144; x 8 for colored metal type = 1152; 528 of thise are NON-COMBINABLE.

Total distinct smalls: 1446 (almost twice the number of tailor smalls).
Number of Verite Runic smalls: 18 (12 valorite, 6 verite)
Number of Valorite Runic Smalls: 6

24/1446 = 1 in 60.5 (compare to about 1 in 7.5 for Barbed Kit smalls). Now, factor in that TWO of the Barbed kit larges are SPINED LBODs (If you consider cloth = iron, and regular leather = DC/Shadow, Spined is the tailoring equivalent to smith's Copper & Bronze BODs!), while Valorite smalls combined are 2% of all smith BODs, and that 3/4 of those won't be plate, half of the plate won't be exceptional, and that even adding in Verite Ex plate 20 for the easiest Verite hammer still won't do more than raise the chance by about half, compared to just Valorite plate ex (verite is about 50% more common than valorite for BODs, but only 1/3 are going to be specifically 20 count). From my testing, about 0.2% to 0.25% of Smith BODs (1/500 to 1/400) are Verite/Valorite Hammer smalls, compared to 3.6% Tailor smalls for Barbed kits(1 in 27.5). That means that the tailor runics smalls are 30-40 times more common - and that's for any BOD for any set. Getting the 6 specific you need for a specific LBOD, that gets even more astronomical for smiths, going into the probabilities, without serious trading partners.

No way in hell that ANY ONE operation is legitimately getting 50+ Valorite hammers a year. Sorry to rain on your fantasy parade.

*****************

* The math for the tailor BODs, if you don't believe me:

Cloth smalls: 7 LBODs*3 + 2 LBOD*4 (the hats, with no footwear, and the Town Cryer; footwear goes into the leathers) = 29 types, x 6 for the different qualities and counts = 174 distinct cloth smalls.
Leather smalls: 1 LBOD*4 + 2 LBOD*5, 2 LBOD*6 = 26 types, x 6 = 156 smalls per leather type; x4 for the different leather types = 624 distinct leather smalls

174+624 = 798

18 Barbed kit larges
16 are 6-parters = 96 (2 spined, 6 horned, 8 Barbed larges)
2 are 5-parters = 10 (2 barbed larges)

106/798 = 13.28%

1 in 8 is 12.5%
1 in 7 is 14.2857%
 

hen

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Barbed or horned, is about down to preference. Barbed is only one resist better than horned.

If you are going to be making a suit for someone that will be casting Vampiric embrace, or routinely be corpse skinned, horned is probably better, as the fire resist will be a little higher, to counter the effects.

If you are crafting for someone that will be running around with the spell Protection cast, however, barbed will be better, to counteract the physical resist penalty.

Either will be fine for normal use - and since the Greater Dragons have made farming Destard a much more dangerous proposition, Barbed has about become more common than Horned, as there are safer ways to get barbed (serpentine dragons at Oaks spawn 4th stage, where everyone kills them to minimize karma loss, and WW that people farm to get their karma back up AFTER doing Oaks) than horned (Drakes and Wyverns are hard to find outside Destard, and the Ki-rin & unicorns drop your karma WAY too quick when trying to farm them - especially at Oaks).
In fact, at Ilshenar Oaks (which is probably the most popular champ spawn in the game, thanks to the added drops), people go out of their way to NOT kill the Ki-rins (killing wisps only) and Unicorns (killing centaurs, and the centaurs give spined leather and arrows), and only fight the Serpentines to advance the spawn (as they are several magnitudes easier than the warriors), many people cutting the leather and dropping it to the ground, if they don't want it.
That's interesting, I find horned leather the easiest of all to gather of the four types.
 

Basara

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Where are you getting at? About the only "safe" places to get horned quickly (I.E. not risk having to fight a Greater Dragon or Shadow Wyrm; or get rushed by dozens of blue spawn) are the Elemental Canyon Ki-rin (that you got to get around a poison ele to get to), and the Wyvern at the Trammel T2A Lighthouse

Those are camped fairly often on large shards. On my low-population home shard, they aren't, but their inconvenience before Bags of sending were reverted meant no one did them much - I'm seeing more activity there now.

Even the Destard areas with just drakes & wyverns runs the risk of someone getting chased by a Greater leading one to you (or, on level 2, the Shadow Wyrms).

On the other hand, it's not uncommon to find 100s of barbed leather on the ground at Ilshenar Oaks (and occasionally at the WW in Ice) - people have discovered that scales add up quick at the library, it seems, and at 10 scales per stone you can carry a lot of them. A person can carry 5000 scales, easily (using potions on a human, if not already that strong), and 5000 scales = 100k donation points. My Tamer/Bard wears the anthropomorphist glasses gotten almost entirely from scales (the remainder being from crooks that people training carpenters left in Luna, and I hauled over to donate), though most people that turn in scales do it toward talismans.
 

hen

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I use Wyvern Island, It is a little safer than the lighthouse.
 

Basara

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Last time I went there, every wyvern in the island was in one spot, and I was DRT (Dead Right There) the second I stepped off my boat. The Lighthouse is just 1 wyvern, but respawns so quick you can'd do more than collect leather with a butcher's war cleaver, and not even attempt to loot anything else.
 

hen

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The Lighthouse may be a better bet on Trammel. On Fel the Island is safer and you go through a continous gathering cycle. The island is physically split in two so only very rarely will you be mobbed. Take cures.
 

Basara

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I think what happened is that, somehow, ALL the wyverns ended up on just one of the sides - and I couldn't find a place where I could holy light them from my boat. So, when I stepped off, since they were already targeting me, it was damage overload, and I fell over dead the second the mass could touch me; not even a greater heal pot would have saved me; I never even had time to BE poisoned.

Think of it like where the shadow critters could get stuck in Brit Cemetary during halloween, or the potholes on Mag coast that LOOK like they have one soul in them, but it's actually a stack of 10-20, that can't get out after getting in.
 

popps

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scripting is the same as duping - both are illegal cheats. And, the way the BOD system works now, unless you have an Asian sweatshop, having more than 3-4 accounts will give you more BODs than you can fill and request new BODs for.

Most of the current Valorite Hammers are the result of dupers getting a few completed (but not turned in) Val Ex 20 Plate LBODs, duping the book they were in, pulling the dupes from that book, putting them into the first book, then repeating hte process several times. 3 becomes 6, 6 becomes 12, 12 becomes 24, 24 becomes 48, 48 becomes 96, 96 becomes 192, 192 becomes 384 (and that only counts as 77 items, the way BOD books work).

Then, they redeem the BODs a few at a time, and sell them at multiple points in Luna (vending with different accounts than the ones that duped and store the BODs, to reduce the chance of losing it all if they get caught - after all, if the dupe was a transfer-based one, they will typically have $100+ of transfers as an initial investment to pay off, and look to make $600-1000 profit above expenses when all the BODs sell).

It STILL is possible to dupe items in UO ?

WOW. The game is about 12 years old and it has not been able to get rid of duping and scripting ???????????????????

WOW, WOW and again WOW.

Will things change for good with Stygian Abyss or we will never ever get rid of duping and scripting in this game ??

I always HATED playing the game and spending my time to WORK for items seeing then other players use short cuts as duping or scripting and eventually I had enough and left the game because of that.

Does this means I better close my story with Ultima Online because there simply is no hope, after 12 years, that duping and scripting will be finally fixed once and for all ??
 

Basara

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most of the dupe methods have been quashed - the problem is getting rid of stuff people made before the dupe.

For example, while a few years ago it was possible to interfere with an account transfer in such a way as it caused a dupe, the devs altered the means of doing a transfer and limited transfers.

However, on the other hand, one of the aspects the dupers exploited was that, while BODs and other items have unique item IDs, the rewards from duped BODs have different item IDs, so that if someone made 100 copies of a filled Valorite LBOD, each would have the same ID when unredeemed, yet the hammers from each copy would each have their own unique ID. They banned a number of people that had excessive numbers of valorite hammers (after some investigation), but in the process caught a couple of people dumb enough to buy 9 Val hammers from a single shop, that were the end users, not the dupers. Some of the dupers not caught in the initial wave quickly spread their dupes to a bunch of trial accounts to store them, and reactivate those trials as needed to restock from items duped years ago.

Things are getting better, and if there was a way to get everyone to convert to the Stygian Abyss client, a lot of the scripts would be kaput. And, the replicas are another means being used to combat the dupes, by replicating the most-duped event items in a more easily accessible form, to make the existing dupes not worth selling.
 
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