Crafting Good Suits (returning vet)

[LowdownandShifty]

I've been away from UO ~10 yrs and I'm trying to get spun up on crafting decent suits. With SoulStones, my mule can have up to 120 imbuing, smithing, tailoring, and GM carpentry, alchemy, LJ, mining, and tinkering. My biggest limiting factor is $$$. I have only about 100k in the bank, so I am relegated to using a crafted suit without artifacts. I have a few questions to which I can not find straight-forward answers. Can y'all help?

1.) Why do I find large stacks of armor laying on the ground around forges (especially on TC1)?
2.) I see importance of having 70s resist, but haven't found a clear guide to show me how to get there. Any links?
3.) Is there an excel spreadsheet (or similar calculator) for planning an entire suit? Are there any guides to help plan a suit for a mage? for a dexxer? for a sampire?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[CorwinXX]

1) on TC1 - people craft, test reforging and throw away
2) you can imbue resists up to (base + 15)
3) yes and it's sticked here

 

[Krinkle]

Arms Lore is now a good skill for crafters. It adds extra resists on armor and extra damage increase on weapons. The resists do not count against the total weight of the item.

Much of the information you ask for is spread around in many places. Many of the suit calculators are based on per piece, not for the whole suit calculating. Most people make their own basic spreadsheet for laying out and calculating properties. There have been several links in old posts from people letting others use theirs. If you can't find any, and still need it, send me a PM and I'll link you to one I have on Google Docs.

A guide for what you need on which character? Well, many people have their own ideas what you need, but it really depends on specifics skills and what you plan on doing in game. Generally, a magic using character needs 2/6 casting, all 70's resists, 100 lrc, 40 lmc, as much mana regen as you can get. Anything left over add extra hit points and mana increase. For pvp suits, hit point regen, 70-ish defense chance increase mage weapon -15 or -20 are popular choices. You can make a very powerful suit without artifacts. Certain items cannot be crafted, though. (i.e. magic talismans, aprons, cloaks and capes etc.)

Dexxers and Sampires have many more different and varied suit builds depending on use.