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Newbie question about Imbuing, Reforging and Refinement

popps

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
It is not clear to me how these 3 interact with each other....

I mean, is there a linear logical order with which they need to be applied when crafting ?

We can craft armor, weapons and jewellery.

Does imbuing come first, then in the linear succession comes reforging and lastly refinement ?

Like I craft a chest piece, it comes out with some modifiers and stats, randomly. Then I use imbuing on it, and change numbers to what I like more. But even so, some numbers or modifiers do not show as good as I'd want so I then use reforging on the same chest piece that I just imbued to further change some numbers and perhaps push them over the CAP thanking to reforging abilities.
Even with this, though, they still do not come out really as good as I'd like and so I go to the third step and use refinement to further fine tune modifiers and numbers...

Is that how it works or am I totally off track with how these 3 interact with each other ?
 

Petra Fyde

Peerless Chatterbox
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
First you need to understand that refinement changes the CAPS and not the actual resists or dci figures, you still need to have build the properties into the suit
Second you can only reforge plain items, not runic crafted and not made in special materials, so that must come before imbuing or enhancing.
I suggest you read the information provided on Stratics for this purpose.
Imbuing
Runic Reforging
be sure to also consult Semmerset's Reforging Charts
Armor Refinement

You will also need to take into account the recent change to base properties of the various armor types
Items - Base Properties
 

Necronom

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
As an added note to Petra Fyde's post... You should always work with exceptionally made items with GM Arms Lore. As in Petra's post about reforging plain items.. Reforge exceptionally made items.
 

popps

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Thank you for the informations.

Though, I still have not clear in which cases a player might want to imbue, when to reforge, and when to refine a given item...

As Petra says, only plain items, without magic modifiers, can be reforged.
But most items that interest to players, have or are wanted to have magic modifiers. So, I would imagine that reforging would come BEFORE imbuing which can add magic modifiers....

But is that so ?

So basically the crafting process unfolds like......... one crafts the item with a low runic hoping that this does not add any magic properties (which kinda sounds strange as in the end we do want the magic properties but oh.well....). Then after crating a plain item and reforging it, one imbues it with the wanted magical properties and then pushes the modifiers just imbued to exceed the CAP with refinement ?

Is that how it works ?

And in this long process where does one applies the powder of temperament to bring durability to 255 ?
 

BeaIank

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Supporter
Basically it follows this flow:
1. Craft base item with normal ingots/leather/wood/stone
2. Reforge if you want some overcapped mod or unimbuable mod (ie. mr 3-4, luck 150, casting focus, dex, str, int, hci, dci) on the armour piece
3. Powder of fort it to 255
4. Imbue the wanted mods
5. Enhance with special material
6. Refine if you want overcap resists or DCI
 

popps

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Basically it follows this flow:
1. Craft base item with normal ingots/leather/wood/stone
2. Reforge if you want some overcapped mod or unimbuable mod (ie. mr 3-4, luck 150, casting focus, dex, str, int, hci, dci) on the armour piece
3. Powder of fort it to 255
4. Imbue the wanted mods
5. Enhance with special material
6. Refine if you want overcap resists or DCI
Thank you very much for the clarification.
Let me see if I understood your explaination.

1. Craft base item with normal ingots/leather/wood/stone
A crafter has the option to use regular or runic tools. Under which conditions should a crafter want to use just a plain regular tool or a runic one ? And should it be a runic, which or the various runics should a crafter use ? Like are there specific runics for specific items/modifiers wanted ?

2. Reforge if you want some overcapped mod or unimbuable mod (ie. mr 3-4, luck 150, casting focus, dex, str, int, hci, dci) on the armour piece
With reforging, I seem to understand that only 1 or perhaps max 2 modifiers can be pushed over the cap, and this comes at the expense of the remaining modifiers that the item has where their values goes shrinked to marginal numbers. Is that so ? If it works as this, why would it be better to push a modifier over the CAP at the risk of making an item brittle or not repairable rather than instead "spread over" the various pieces of a suit the modifiers wanted ?
I will make an example to try to explain better my point.
Let us assume that a crafter is designing to make a whole suit. We have Head, Neck, Chest, Arms, Gloves,Legs,
Ring, Bracelet, Weapon, Shield, Robe, Back, Belt, Sash, Talisman,Shoes. We have total of 16 items all of which can carry modifiers.
Now, let's say that we want the suit to have, among the other modifiers, Hit Chance Increase maxed out at the 45% CAP and, for example, also Hit Point increase at the CAP of 25 and Defense Chance Increase at the CAP of 45% for the suit. There will be of course other modifiers, but for the sake of not complicating this discussion, let's limit to these 3.
Now, the intensity range of these 3 modifiers is, for Hit chance Increase max 15% per item, Hit Point increase max 5 per item and Defense Chance Increase max 15% per item.
Now, why would a crafter, when designing an entire suit of 16 pieces, want to reforge anything to push any modifier over the set CAP per item (thus risking getting a brittle or unrepairable item) when, for example, to reach the suit CAP of 45% in Hit Chance Increase or Defense Chance Increase he/she can simply split over 3 pieces of the 16 pieces suit this 45% CAP with each of the 3 pieces carrying 15% each of these modifiers which would be within the individual piece CAP ? For Hit Point increase, where the total suit CAP is 25 and each piece has a CAP of 5, it would only take 5 pieces of the 16 composing the entire suit to carry each a modifier of HPI 5 without needing also here no reforging to exceed any item CAP.
I mean, where would be the need to ever want to reforge an item, when designing a whole suit of 16 pieces, when it only takes some planning to evenly spread out the wanted modifiers over the 16 pieces comprising the suit ?

As in regards to designing a whole suit, then, is there a character editor or calculator out there which helps in designing such a complete suit by starting from the wanted modifiers, skills, stats ?
For example, let's say that a crafter wants to make a suit that is all resistances at 75, HCI 45%, DCI 45%, HPR 18, MR 20, FCR 6, FC 4, LMC 40, HLL 100%, LRC 100%, SSI 60%, SR 24.
Using such a character editor or calculator, the crafter enters the above wanted modifiers for the suit wanted and the tool automatically computes all of the various possibilities to put together such a suit taking into account existing artifacts/special items and then it comes out with what artifacts/special items it suggests should be used PLUS what extra pieces will need to be crafted/added separatedly using reforging, imbuing and refinement.
Does such a tool exist or if not, how does a crafter proceeds to plan, design and then put together a whole suit of 16 pieces starting from what one wants the suit to end up being like ?

3. Powder of fort it to 255
Ok, so durability gets added after reforging and before any imbuing/refinement.

4. Imbue the wanted mods
Alright, so imbuing comes in between reforging and refinement.

5. Enhance with special material
Why enhancing ? What for ? Ain't imbuing enough to push number for modifiers higher ?

6. Refine if you want overcap resists or DCI
So refinement only works for resists or Defense Chance Increase to exceee the single items' CAP ?
That is, to have any Resist or DCI exceed the 15% item CAP ?
If so, like for #1 why, having 16 items to spread over the various modifiers would a crafter have any single item need to "break" the CAP for that modifier on that item ?

For example, let's take the resistances: Physical, Fire, Cold, Poison and Energy. Why would a crafter want to have any of them be past 15% which is the intensity range max possible using refinement, when having just 15% on each of the 6 body pieces (Head, Neck, Chest, Arms, Gloves,Legs) would get 15% x 6 = 90% in each of those 6 resistances for the overall suit without needing to break the individual 15% item CAP through the use of refinement ?

Please bear with me if I said a lot of nonsense, I am trying to understand how this complicated crafting dynamics works and I find it quite a lot confusing........
Thanks for all of the help !
 

BeaIank

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Supporter
1. NEVER use a runic to craft the base item. The base item must only have the bonus resists/DI from being exceptionally crafted.
You can't reforge items made out of runic tools.

2. The point of reforging is not to overcap, go past the limit of the hard caps to properties, but go past the imbuing cap (MR 3 or 4 on your chest piece, when you can only imbue MR 2, 10 stam inc when you can only imbue 8) or to get a property you can't imbue on it (5 DCI or 5 HCI, 5 str, 5 dex, 5 int on your chest piece).
That will come with the cost of imbuing weight, since the over cap properties will cost a fair bit (5 DCI/HCI seem fairly cheap, though)
With that, you will have an easier time reaching the hard caps on those properties (45 HCI/DCI, 30 MR, etc...)
As of now, you can't reforge jewelry.

3. You enhance to add extra resists to your suit, or extra properties with wood, to compensate resist you won't be able to imbue due to higher imbuing weight or properties total on your pieces to reach all 70s or all 75 depending on what you're aiming.

4. Refinements will help your suit break the hard cap on resists or DCI. With refinements, you can make a suit with all 75 resists, but only 25 DCI (or 20, can't remember) or a suit with 65 resists and a hard cap of 70 DCI.
You need to make sure your suit reaches those hard caps, though.

So, we are talking about two things here. Property cap, which applies to the suit pieces, and hard caps, which applies to the total of a property you can have on your suit.

Hope I made myself clear.
 

Petra Fyde

Peerless Chatterbox
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What exactly changed recently with base properites ? The link you point to says has it is now but it does not indicate what has changed in reference to how it worked before.
This part is new:
Player’s stamina loss is based on the type of armor as well as the amount of armor that is equipped. Each piece of armor up to five pieces will reduce the amount of stamina lost when taking damage. The armor pieces which provide the most stamina loss reduction will take priority.

  • Cloth armor, leather armor, and jewelry will give a minimal bonus to stamina loss reduction.
  • Blacksmith armor (platemail, ringmail, chainmail, and dragon armor) will provide a heavy bonus to stamina loss reduction.
  • Studded leather armor, stone armor, bone armor, woodland armor, and hide armor will provide a light bonus to stamina loss reduction.
Non medable armor provides lower mana cost (with the exception of woodland armor). Each piece of armor up to five pieces will provide a percentage which is not subject to the lower mana cost cap of 40. The armor pieces which provide the most lower mana cost will take priority.

  1. Platemail, ringmail, chainmail, and dragon armor provides 1% of lower mana cost per piece.
  2. Studded leather, hide armor, stone armor and bone armor provides 3% of lower mana cost per piece.
Thank you for the informations.


As Petra says, only plain items, without magic modifiers, can be reforged.
But most items that interest to players, have or are wanted to have magic modifiers. So, I would imagine that reforging would come BEFORE imbuing which can add magic modifiers....
First you need to understand that refinement changes the CAPS and not the actual resists or dci figures, you still need to have build the properties into the suit
Second you can only reforge plain items, not runic crafted and not made in special materials, so that must come before imbuing or enhancing.
 

Barry Gibb

Of Saintly Patience
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
1. Craft base item with normal ingots/leather/wood/stone
A crafter has the option to use regular or runic tools. Under which conditions should a crafter want to use just a plain regular tool or a runic one ? And should it be a runic, which or the various runics should a crafter use ? Like are there specific runics for specific items/modifiers wanted ?
A1) Runic tools ALWAYS add magic properties to a crafted item. You cannot Reforge an item which has magic properties. If you plan to Reforge an item, do not craft it with a runic tool.

A2) Go to Test Center to play around with Reforging and the above suggestions/advice. You will have a better familiarity of how things work. Most of this question will be answered. You can then come back to ask more focused/technical questions. Test Center is an often underutilized resource for learning crafting techniques.

A3) You cannot apply Powder of Fortification (PoF) to an imbued item, so yes.

A4) Yes.

A5) To get the bonus resists and modifiers from a special material (http://uo2.stratics.com/items/magic-item-properties/material-bonuses), in addition to what has been provided through Reforging and Imbuing. This will make the item even more powerful. There is a high chance to break the item (which destroys it), unless a Forger Metal tool is used (http://www.uoguide.com/Forged_Metal_Of_Artifacts). Consider this an optional step if you do not have the tool.

A6) Consider this an optional step until you have had practice with the above 1 through 4 and have had an opportunity to test out your suit.

Stayin Alive,

BG

Stayin Alive,

BG
 

DJAd

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
This is how I roll:

1. Craft base part (plain leather using a non-runic tool)
2. Go to the soulforge
3. Crack open a barbed runic kit.
4. Pick the two names I want and a powerful charge
5. Cross my fingers for the good mods.
6. Repeat.
 

popps

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
1. NEVER use a runic to craft the base item. The base item must only have the bonus resists/DI from being exceptionally crafted.
You can't reforge items made out of runic tools.

2. The point of reforging is not to overcap, go past the limit of the hard caps to properties, but go past the imbuing cap (MR 3 or 4 on your chest piece, when you can only imbue MR 2, 10 stam inc when you can only imbue 8) or to get a property you can't imbue on it (5 DCI or 5 HCI, 5 str, 5 dex, 5 int on your chest piece).
That will come with the cost of imbuing weight, since the over cap properties will cost a fair bit (5 DCI/HCI seem fairly cheap, though)
With that, you will have an easier time reaching the hard caps on those properties (45 HCI/DCI, 30 MR, etc...)
As of now, you can't reforge jewelry.

3. You enhance to add extra resists to your suit, or extra properties with wood, to compensate resist you won't be able to imbue due to higher imbuing weight or properties total on your pieces to reach all 70s or all 75 depending on what you're aiming.

4. Refinements will help your suit break the hard cap on resists or DCI. With refinements, you can make a suit with all 75 resists, but only 25 DCI (or 20, can't remember) or a suit with 65 resists and a hard cap of 70 DCI.
You need to make sure your suit reaches those hard caps, though.

So, we are talking about two things here. Property cap, which applies to the suit pieces, and hard caps, which applies to the total of a property you can have on your suit.

Hope I made myself clear.

Thank you very much again, appreciate the help and advice.

About the character editor or calculator, do you know whether there is anything out there that helps designing a whole suit, all 16 pieces ?
My difficulty, is that I can get a good guess of the final targets (such as modifiers, resists) I can possibly want on a total suit, but have no idea then how to get there or even whether it is possible to craft such a suit !

Ideally, one would like to be able to craft a suit with all modifiers on it and all maxed out to CAP and even further, considering that some spells like curse or other tend to lower stats, skills, modifiers and thus having modifiers over the hard CAP helps through the fight even when negative buffs are used against us.

Of course, it is not possible to craft such a 100% all around suit and I imagine it is necessary to make compromises. But where and in what ?

That is why I was wondering whether there is any aiding tool out there like character editors, calculators etc. that may help making one realize whether a wanted suit is just an impossible dream or whether it might be a feasible one, albeit expensive and time consuming to make.

Thanks again for the kind help !!
 

BeaIank

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Supporter
I just did a simple excel spreadsheet with the suit parts I bother with to total their properties and see if fits my needs.
Some other people have very complex spreadsheets but on mine I only account for the six armour pieces, shield, ring and brac to total the mods as I build my suit.
 

Necronom

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hey there popps,

At the moment, I don't think there is anywhere that you could check an entire suit out - switch stuff and properties and such (like WoW) on any websites. There is the imbuing calculator, but that only handles one item at a time but you could save your settings there.
http://www.knuckleheads.dk/imbuecalc.php

The best place for now would most likely be the Test Center. Gather any and all artifacts that you would want in your suit which you have. Gather any extra special ingredients if you want to test out max imbuing caps (such as Hit Chance Increase 15% - Essences of Precision. Essences and other special ingredients are not available on the Test Center once you log in. You have to obtain them the usual way. Use the in-game 'help commands' to see what you can obtain - give resources as a starter.)

Also note, you can use the command 'give arties'... and choose the arties from there, but you have to consider the fact that many arties are expensive and may not be obtainable anymore, unless you shard hop and stuff like that.

Click on the Help button and choose Character Copy. Go through the menus until you get to Test Center. Make sure you are not mounted. Complete the process and then log into the Test Center.

Enhanced Client and Pinco's UI would be helpful with the character stat sheet.

Edit: As BeaIank mentions using a spreadsheet also helps. You can check the UO Warrior forum for screenshots from various posters which give an idea of how you can setup your spreadsheet. Example: Duncan Drake's posts...
 
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