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[General] Refinements - How to get the best out of them.

Loriel

Sage
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
Hello Chaps,

Thought I would start a conversation/discussion about refinements because it seems no one is talking about these at the moment.

Are they UO's best kept secret or just a gimmick to add extra lines of statistics to that legendary artefact already groaning under the weight of a dozen mods.

Now people do go after and collect these components to combine in the amalgamator so people are using them, even if it is only the very highest end of crafters that knows what to do with them and how best to apply them to their work or loot items.

On Europa the end product simply isn't sold anywhere to any serious extent, you can find a couple of finished refinements which people label as odds and ends on their vendors but apart from that they are tough to get a hold of.

Now my point is this, can we please get some info together about what the limits and possibilities of refinements as they seem to be the only thing capable of giving an edge over other suits in a consistent way.

Say you are pvping a pure mage and you want to stop him doing the flamestrike death move when you are at a third health... you want a fire resist suit whose caps have been raised.

Or you want to stop his energy bolts and lightning strikes... you would want an energy resist suit in the same vein.

Do you focus on getting the highest cap on one resist or spread the cap raise across the board ?

Thoughts gentlemen and women please on this under discussed topic.
 

Tuan

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
There are a few threads over on the warriors boards talking about this precise topic.

In sum: against a melee opponent you want max DCI, but against a pure mage, you want resist - this is certainly true for PVP.

For PVM: If you're an archer/thrower/mage/tamer etc you want the resists.

For a meleer in PVM the question becomes more difficult, given that most of the "tough" monsters both hit pretty hard in melee, and have formidable magical abilities. In general, I'd say your best possible suit is one where you've refined it to be (assuming you're an elf) 73/73/67/67/75 so that you save a few damage per hit from big melee hits and fire attacks, while keeping your DCI at 45. Not much hits particularly hard with cold(wither/harm) or poison damage(poison strike). Being poisoned, for instance, deals direct damage. There are a few mobs whose melee attacks do deal either cold or poison damage, but it would only matter if it was >50% cold or poison.

Most people seem to simply go all 75s and call it a day, as it takes the least thought, and I'd say it's much easier to fit a few more resist onto a suit than to somehow come up with 70 DCI...
 

Mikeltin5

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
This is more of warrior's forum input...but my new samp suit I'm designing to have roughly 25dci (-10 from DF to end up with 15dci). My thoughts, at least, are that counter attack should be going off damn near every hit or every other hit, so the damage I get with be miniscule in comparison to the damage I deal. I've tested my old suit by dropping my quiver, tangle and robe (15 dci) which put me at 30dci...and definitely noticed how much more I counter-attacked.

So in the case of my samp, I believe raising the resists not only helps out a little with the damage i DO take, but allows me to counter more making me both offensively and defensively better.

If anyone has in fact done this to a samp suit please let me know. I'm still gathering refinements to perform the actual transformation, but it seems very promising.
 

NuSair

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
After much consideration I will be making a high resist - low DCI sampire armor suit.
 

Mikeltin5

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Just to add some insight that I learned the hard way (by ignorance), you don't combine the wash or cure item with the raw component (i.e. braided thread or w/e) until AFTER the amalgamator.

I lost probly 20+ studded leather refinements by combining with the other component. The item you steal from the NPC's or pull from tmaps or boats or however else you get your refinements, those in that state are what get put in the amalgamator, they get combined with the braided thread or whatever else it takes to finish them AFTER they are combined to get you to Fortification or whatever level you plan on stopping at. Didn't see it spelled out anywhere and I lost way more refinements then I care to think about.
 
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