Epiphany armor: mana what?

[pgib]

So i killed a gazillion Nipowhatever and collected a full virtuos epiphany armor, imbued it with what i could put in and went to fight.

According to the armor i have:

Good Mana Burst
Frequency 5
Karma Bonus 5

Using it i didn't notice any difference in... anything. The question is: what is this mana burst supposed to do?

 

[Poo]

i assumed it would be the same as having a shadow wisp if your a necro.

and that it would just give ya a boost to your mana at a frequency of 5.

what that means, i have no idea.
but now ya have me thinking, cause i too have been collecting that stuff and was gonna imbue a suit.

now, just thinking out loud here, if its 'good' mana boosts, maybe its like the shadow wisp, where it wont give ya a mana boost if you have good karma, so maybe being that the suit is 'good mana' you need hella high fame and or karama to get the boost?

just like chiv now it?

 

[pgib]

Right now i have 15k fame and 12k karma. I'll try to make my way up to 20k to see if it makes some difference.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Try taking spell damage and see if that give you a burst, taken from uo guide. I have poured over the recent Pub's and I am pretty sure I remember seeing something mentioned about Mana Burst in one of them, just can't find it right now.

 

[pgib]

Checked with both physical and spell damage, i didn't notice any burst in mana, not even by one or two points. Nice try! =)

 

[pgib]

I checked the time needed to recover from 50 to 100 mana with and without the armor (which has no mr imbued): 31 seconds both times so it is not a mana regeneration thing.

Also wearing a evil suite on the same char reports 5 frequence, 5 burst (so these numbers only depends on the suite, it's the effect that is maybe influenced by karma/fame).

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Hmmmmmm....


May be difficult for me to put into words but here goes....

Got to thinking, evil and good could be there for a reason, but not for the wearer of the armor. Still haven't gotten a full suit or would try myself but, with good armor let evil aligned critters {evil mages maybe *shrugs*}attack you and pixies attack you when you have evil armor on? Also maybe let good aligned things attack you with the good armor on. Just a thought, probably way off tho.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

I made extensive tests with the Epiphany armor a couple of months ago:

- Karma determines the amount of mana you get when it triggers. At high level of Karma you get 20 Mana.

- Frequency is determined by the number of parts you use.

The Mana Burst triggers only when you receive direct damage though spells (curses etc don't work) and I have never succeeded with low damage ones. Even with a Frequency of 5 the burst is very rarely triggered: It can take 20-50 Flamestrikes or more to trigger, and after that there is a cooldown of (several?) minutes. If you use only 1 Epiphany part, you will likely take over 100 Flamestrikes before it triggers. You will have to pay attention to your Mana because there is no message saying anything.

Like many new mods, the devs seem to try to make sure they are not overpowered, and more often than not it results in something so underpowered that it ends up beeing completely useless. Epiphany armor clearly falls in that category.

I do actually wear an ephiphany necklace on my thrower, only because of the poor other choice for that slot on a garg dexxer (and the fact that the necklace doesn't loose imbuing weight from Mage Armor, you just loose the 20 free except resists compared to a crafted one). With just this 1 epiphany part, the property almost never triggers, and when it does chances are it is because there are 20 mobs Flamestriking you at the same time, so Mana is usually the least of your problems.

For all other parts than gargish necklace & earrings, the situation is even worse, because not only the property triggers way too rarely, not only do you loose the 20 except resists compared to a crafted part, but you also loose 1 slot and 140 imbuing weight from the Mage Armor property.

Clearly the best use of Epiphany parts is to trash them for clean up points

On a semi-related note, I'm looking for any precise info on the "Spell Consumption 1%" property of the Virtue Bane gauntlets/stonearms. I've been wearing them since months because I needed the 10 LMC on a char, but I have never noticed the property triggering, so I assume it doesn't give any message either, and is too underpowered to be noticeable even when it triggers, it it does.

 

[pgib]

Ahhh, many thanks.

Btw i tried to have a Unicorn dump his mana pool on me (Virtuos vs Good beast) and it didn't worked.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

Ahhh, many thanks.

Btw i tried to have a Unicorn dump his mana pool on me (Virtuos vs Good beast) and it didn't worked.

No, Virtuous means you get high level of Burst (if it triggers) if you have high positive karma (ie: paladins), and Villainous means you get high level of Burst (if it triggers) if you have high negative karma (ie: necros). It has nothing to do with the target itself.

 

[Zero Day]

The mana burst effect basically fires off when you are taking any form of damage (not just spell damage)
I think its a damage threshold for how much damage you take within a given time for a burst to trigger. So the more damage taken the more often you burst. The more pieces you have on the less damage to trigger a burst.



Spell consumption is triggered by being hit with damaging spells. When triggered it reduces the incoming spell damage to 1. (or 0 I don't remember)

Currently only virtue bane's gauntlets have that property, and if it triggers anything like a 99% lrc suit then it sure as hell doesnt need to be higher than 1%.

I'd love to get me another pair of those.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Btw i tried to have a Unicorn dump his mana pool on me (Virtuos vs Good beast) and it didn't worked.

Ah well, figured it was a long shot anyway. At least me posting that asinine thought got folks that seems to know how it works posting tho, so it was good for something

 

[pgib]

Whatever effect it was meant to have i grant you it is not noticeable. I fought three slasher and a number of t-map spawns with the full set on and it didn't made the difference one single time. In some way it reminds me the irresistibly tasty-treats: hard to get, totally irrelevant.

 

[Ashlynn_L]

See this is why we need some decent documentation. I've no idea what mana burst does. I still don't know what a mana phasing orb does. There a number of other item properties that I have no idea as to their function.

Ideally, I could just go to the UO site, click on a section labled "item properties" and it would tell me what they all do in a nice concise way.

But there isn't. And that is a problem I think (especially for those "new players" though they are rare these days so I'm surprised they aren't sold on vendors yet =P).

 

[pgib]

You know, they can't write the documentation for something they barely know it exists.

"Hey guys, we got to write the docs for UO!"
"UWhat?"

 

[elspeth]

I don't even know what this armor is you guys are talking about. What did you kill to get it? It's gargoyle only?

 

[popps]

Like many new mods, the devs seem to try to make sure they are not overpowered, and more often than not it results in something so underpowered that it ends up beeing completely useless. Epiphany armor clearly falls in that category.

I have no problems with items or tameables being underpowered when fresh release.

I can understand that to avoid releasing something that might screw up previous balance.

This said, I DO have problems with not following up the release of the new items or tameables to have them fine tuned and brought up to a decent and good balance with whatever is already out there.

This is what I have a problem with as a UO player.

Take the Reptalon.

How many years it is that it was released ? A LOT. noone uses it because, for the followers' slots it takes, it clearly is much less usefull then other pets out there and so it is relegated in the stables.

The Reptalon is a good example, IMHO, of something newly released lacking further follow up and fine tuning.

This is what I think that the Developing Team should focus on, fine tuning a bunch of the stuff out there which is unused by players.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

I don't even know what this armor is you guys are talking about. What did you kill to get it? It's gargoyle only?

The armor first appeared during the last of the Bane Chosen Invasion, or so I have been told, sadly I missed the last part of it. The armor was thought to have left with them but was left as an "Easter Egg" on Niporailem The Thief ( Niporailem The Thief - Hunter's Guide - UO Stratics ) . He is found in the Tomb of the Kings in a secret lair. The entrance to it is just past all the little rooms where silver serps and undead gargoyles are. Stay to the right when the hallway opens up and there is a hidden door on the right which leads to his lair. He can be a tricky fight. He will overload you with treasure sand pretty fast, if it "falls" out of your pack because you are already overweight it willl turn into a few different critters that will attack you.

It is also a drop on Charybdis, the newest sea boss that requires the ever elusive Oracle of the Sea to summon him. An even harder fight than Scalis imo.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

the armor from Charbydlis is a HP epiphany armor so same affect but with HP.


so ya kno

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

the armor from Charbydlis is a HP epiphany armor so same affect but with HP.


so ya kno

Oh dang, could have went a while without knowing that... even MORE junk for me to try and collect..

lol thx tho

 

[Wizal the Fox]

I have actually never seen the Charybdis version but I think it's called Virtuous/Villainous Regeneration and works like the Epiphany one but with HPs instead of mana. That beeing said, if this is the only difference, I hardly see any use either.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

I hardly see any use either.

*customary pixel addict twitch here*


If you were to ever run across my house, you would see my "use" for it lol

 

[Xalan Dementia]

one thing ive noticed is. I got a HP regen epiphany chest, if i wear that with 4 pieces of the Mana epiphany, Each mana piece says 5 pieces present and the HP one says 2 present. so they seem to at least count the other type for one of its own.

 

[pgib]

The Reptalon is a good example, IMHO, of something newly released lacking further follow up and fine tuning.

The reptalon has been buffed when they introduced the Skree: try to fight with a Skree then you'll never say again "oh my god the Reptalon is the worst pet ever"!

 

[Kojak]

the rarest of the rare types of new armor sets