[General] Exceptional armor crafting : bonus split up or only on physical ?

[popps]

According to Exceptional - UOGuide, the Ultima Online Encyclopedia , the bonus to resistances is either split up among the various resistances or, more rarely, it gets all allocated to physical...

My question to experienced crafters is, can it also at times be ALL allocated to ONE of the other resistances that is not the Physical one (that is, Fire OR Energy OR Poison or Cold ?).

The "Arms Lore" Wiki page Armslore – Ultima Online , when mentioning the Arms Lore bonus (which it indicates gets added to the exceptional bonus), says : "On armor the bonus is applied to resists and is spread randomly: eg at GM armslore the bonus to resists is 5% (8%), these could be applied all to one resist or split between several." What I do not understand, is whether ONLY the armslore bonus can be applied, ALL, to 1 single resist (not just on the physical resist...) rather then be split among various resists, or ALSO the exceptional bonus can all be assigned to 1 single resist rather then split among various resistances...

Also, can the exceptional AND the Arms Lore bonuses be BOTH assigned to the same one resistance ?

Also, this Stratics' Guide here UO Stratics - Guide to Damage and Resistance types , when talking about the exceptional crafting bonus, says... "Exceptional armor has a 6% defense bonus compared to non-exceptional armor. The 6% is distributed at random among the base properties of the armor. If you are lucky, the 6% is added to a single resist type.". Why the Wiki talks about a 15% max bonus for exceptional crafting but this Stratics' Guides identifies it as 6% ? Which is the valid bonus to consider ?

The "Base properties" Wiki page Base Properties – Ultima Online at the end of the page mentions it as being "rare" that the bonus is all allocated to one resistance (physical is mentioned...) and not split up among the various resistances though, it does not define or quantify this rarity occurrance....

Anyone knows how rare this occurrance is, that the exceptional crafting would fall all on one resistance and also, why this would make it for a more valuable crafted item ?

With imbuing (as well as with refinements for non-medable armor), cannot one change the resistances at will raising or lowering them as wanted ?

If so, why then this "rare" occurrance of the exceptional crafting bonus all being added to 1 resistance would make it for a better and more valuable item ?

 

[Basara]

You are completely misinterpreting the entire process.

It's exceptional bonus resists that are ALWAYS randomly applied, that increases by 1 point for every 20 points of Arms Lore. So, it is 15 points base, and can be up to 20 points (23 on Siege) for non-runic-crafted armor if you have 100 Arms lore. (like what is made to reforge later)

Runics used 6 for the base exceptional bonus when crafting magical items, instead of 15, but Reforging and Imbuing made this moot (as people will make items normal then reforge/imbue), and it might not even apply anymore.

If there is ANY situation where all the points would go to one resist, it must be some sort of easter egg, as NONE of the crafters I know have ever seen it happen, except when runic crafting with little or no Arms Lore.

After all, the chance of 6 points from crafting with a runic (as opposed to reforging) all going into one resist is 0.2^5. or 0.032%. Or about 1 in 300. That's rare, but not impossible. And, it typically was something that only happened before the addition of Arms Lore 12+ years ago as a modifier to crafting.

The chance of 11 points (runic crafted with 100 arms lore) is 0.2^11, or 0.000002048% or nearly impossible. 1 chance in about 500,000.

The chance of getting all 20 points (not using a runic, and having 100 arms lore) is about 1.05e-14 (e-12 for the percentile). or ELEVEN zeros between the decimal point and the 1, when written as a percentage. At that chance it might as well be zero, as you'd have to craft about 100 BILLION items to get one item with all the bonus resists in 1 resist (and it would be a random resist)

 

[popps]

You are completely misinterpreting the entire process.

It's exceptional bonus resists that are ALWAYS randomly applied, that increases by 1 point for every 20 points of Arms Lore. So, it is 15 points base, and can be up to 20 points (23 on Siege) for non-runic-crafted armor if you have 100 Arms lore. (like what is made to reforge later)

Runics used 6 for the base exceptional bonus when crafting magical items, instead of 15, but Reforging and Imbuing made this moot (as people will make items normal then reforge/imbue), and it might not even apply anymore.

If there is ANY situation where all the points would go to one resist, it must be some sort of easter egg, as NONE of the crafters I know have ever seen it happen, except when runic crafting with little or no Arms Lore.

After all, the chance of 6 points from crafting with a runic (as opposed to reforging) all going into one resist is 0.2^5. or 0.032%. Or about 1 in 300. That's rare, but not impossible. And, it typically was something that only happened before the addition of Arms Lore 12+ years ago as a modifier to crafting.

The chance of 11 points (runic crafted with 100 arms lore) is 0.2^11, or 0.000002048% or nearly impossible. 1 chance in about 500,000.

The chance of getting all 20 points (not using a runic, and having 100 arms lore) is about 1.05e-14 (e-12 for the percentile). or ELEVEN zeros between the decimal point and the 1, when written as a percentage. At that chance it might as well be zero, as you'd have to craft about 100 BILLION items to get one item with all the bonus resists in 1 resist (and it would be a random resist)

So, in the end, the best advice is to just take ANY piece as it comes ? Crafted as Exceptional with the Resists as they are allocated ?

Or is it still advisable to be "selective" in which exceptional piece to further reforge, enhance, powder and then imbue (is this the correct order ?).

In such a case, if it still is advisable to be "selective" in what piece to "pick" and further work on, what would be the right criteria to follow in selecting this "right" piece to further work on ?

 

[Basara]

The best ones to take if you're going to imbue after reforging, and if the reforged abilities won't take up all 500 intensity, are the exceptional ones where most of the bonus resists are in 3 or 4 of the 5 resists.

For example, a leather armor piece is 2/4/3/3/3. Exceptional with 100 arms lore, there will be 20 extra resists scattered randomly.

A good candidate for reforging would depend on what you are going to do with it.

If you're going to reforge for luck, then imbue to 500 total intensity, then enhance with spined (probably using a forged metal tool), then a 5/10/4/8/8 or or 6/11/9/5/9 piece would be good. In either case, you would be getting a bunch more physical from the spined enhancement, so don't need to worry about it as much.
For the first example piece, if you need it for the suit, you could imbue cold to be up to 14 higher (But would count as 100% intensity in one property). The Second piece could have the Poison imbued 13 points higher to reach 100% intensity. In both cases, you lose the point or two from exceptional that was in it, as the 15 points of imbued resist over-writes it. You want to not have more than 2 or3 points of exceptional bonus in any resist you want to imbue on an item - and frankly 0 or 1 exceptional applied are even better, but almost impossible to get.

If you're going to do one of the higher end (non-luck) reforges, where the total intensity of the reforging will be over 500, the spread of the exceptional matters less - you just want to start with 6 pieces for the suit that will, after reforging and enhancement, get you your desired resists (70+ in all 5, overcapped where desired, etc.). While not an imbuing or reforging thing, something that predates it was how people who made the one recipe wood armor set would make 5 parts with one wood, then one of another, to where the total resists reached cap. Planning out a reforged high end suit that isn't a luck suit works the same way.

Of course, one way to take a lot of the resists headaches out of the equation is to have a high end looted or reforged fortification piece with 100+ resists. Then, you can build the other 5 suit parts (and pick up the other items) with less worries about resists. Trying to make a 50/50/50/50/55 suit with capped properties out of 5 armor pieces requires a lot less math than trying to do 70/70/70/70/75 with 6 pieces.

 

[HooderSP]

Thanks for this Basara! I have been scouring the Data chest trying to figure out this.