To make armor: Val hammer vs Barb runic?

[Lord Kotan]

Which, in your opinion, makes better armor? It doesn't seem like the val hammer would make armor really that much better. Plus, With metal armor you have a chance to roll mage armor

 

[Corrupted Goblin]

If for some crazy reason you had excess Valorite hammers to spare. The only thing i would use them for is some sick ars Dragon Armour. other than using it for a role player weapons only as you will make a ton more money selling those then wasting the very rare Val Hammer

 

[Gildar]

Barbed, but only because there's no tradeoff to using leather armor as opposed to platemail.

 

[JC the Builder]

Which, in your opinion, makes better armor? It doesn't seem like the val hammer would make armor really that much better. Plus, With metal armor you have a chance to roll mage armor

50% minimum intensity vs 85% minimum intensity

Barbed Runic Kits have a chance to make the same armor, but how many hundreds of attempts before you even get one item that is Valorite quality? Also you always get the mage armor property for free (meaning it doesn't count as one of the 5 valorite properties) when you make certain Samurai Platemail pieces. That is why Valorite is the new Barbed.

 

[Ni-]

Which, in your opinion, makes better armor? It doesn't seem like the val hammer would make armor really that much better. Plus, With metal armor you have a chance to roll mage armor

I recently made some Samurai Platemail Armor for a couple of my mage suits with some Bronze hammers. The Mage Armor property is automatic on exceptional Samurai platemail. That could be an option.

Barbed Kits, however, are alot cheaper.

 

[RenaLynne]

Yep, I agree, I would use the hammer. Barbed kit armor cant compete with the sammy plate.

 

[Ravenspyre]

Yep, I agree, I would use the hammer. Barbed kit armor cant compete with the sammy plate.

Nor should it have. Leather armor should of never been able to be as great as a suit of platemail armor.

 

[Lariat]

The minimum intensity on Val hammers means that if you roll MR, it's ALWAYS going to be MR 2. LRC will ALWAYS be at least 17. LMC will ALWAYS be at least 6 or 7 (depending on how it rounds, as 85% would be 6.8). Plus, the minimum number of mods is higher. Val hammers will consistantly make better armor than barbed runics.

 

[Spellbound]

Barbed...never had a val hammer even after turning in a few multitudes of blackrock, and collecting thousands of bods since their inception has yielded only 1/7 of the val hammer bods. Not going to buy one off any vendor either, so the only choice is barbed (since my tailors at least can get these once in a while).

 

[Tiamat]

Pre-duping, it still wasn't worth the LUDICROUS cost of a valorite hammer to make armour using a valorite hammer instead of a barbed kit. You chould get like, 50 barbed kits for the cost of every valorite hammer or so.

Post-dupe, though.... *shrug*

 

[Lord Kotan]

50% minimum intensity vs 85% minimum intensity

Barbed Runic Kits have a chance to make the same armor, but how many hundreds of attempts before you even get one item that is Valorite quality? Also you always get the mage armor property for free (meaning it doesn't count as one of the 5 valorite properties) when you make certain Samurai Platemail pieces. That is why Valorite is the new Barbed.

You auto get mage armor on some of the Samurai plate peices? I've tried making some before, and I never got mage armor; I guess I was making the wrong ones. Which peices can I make?

 

[Radun]

it's only mage armor if you make it exceptional... the only ones I've seen are sleeves

 

[Radun]

you can get 16 or more barbed kits for the price of a val hammer... the individual pieces may not have all of their properties as high, but with the amount of pieces you'll get, you have a better chance of getting pieces that fit together properly.

 

[JC the Builder]

you can get 16 or more barbed kits for the price of a val hammer... the individual pieces may not have all of their properties as high, but with the amount of pieces you'll get, you have a better chance of getting pieces that fit together properly.

That isn't an accurate comparison. One swing of a Valorite Hammer can equal countless barbed runic kits in terms of equivalent intensities. So while it may take 5 kits to get a Valorite Hammer level piece (~10 million gold) it only costs 2.5 million for one swing of an actual Valorite Hammer. It is much more economical.

Plus you need to consider how much barbed runic armor just goes in the garbage. Out of all the Valorite Runic Hammers I have used, only a handful of pieces have been absolute unusable junk. Everything else is worth saving or selling for millions.

 

[~Antzy~Pantz~]

I'd say unless you got that val hammer yourself from a bod use barbed kits.. you take to big of a risk just having a val hammer right now.. maybe you missed all the posts of people being banned via duped items! I'm pretty certain val hammers was a big one!

 

[Setnaffa]

I'd definitely make my armor with the Barbed Kit. For many of the reasons already mentioned, but also for one very compelling reason: you can't make weapons with a Barbed kit, so save the high end Runic Hammers for weapons and use your Barbed Kits for armor.

 

[Setnaffa]

That isn't an accurate comparison. One swing of a Valorite Hammer can equal countless barbed runic kits in terms of equivalent intensities. So while it may take 5 kits to get a Valorite Hammer level piece (~10 million gold) it only costs 2.5 million for one swing of an actual Valorite Hammer. It is much more economical.

Plus you need to consider how much barbed runic armor just goes in the garbage. Out of all the Valorite Runic Hammers I have used, only a handful of pieces have been absolute unusable junk. Everything else is worth saving or selling for millions.

In 4+ years of doing BODs, I've earned 3 Val Hammers...2 since the BOD change in February. I've probably earned 300 Barbed Kits (around 1.5 per week). Where's the economy of wasting any of my 45 Val Swings compared to the 4,500 Barbed Kit chances?

Forget about all the Duped Val Hammers that have been around the last few months. That's an anomoly. Reality is there is around 1 Val hammer for every 100-1000 Barbed Kits.

Consider out of a typical Barbed Kit, I average 5 or 6 items with resists above 60 and 1 out of every 2 kits gets me at least 1 item with over 70 resists. Junk? A little more than half from your typical Barbed Kit.

Also consider I can't make a single weapon from any of my Barbed Kits. Not one.

 

[Raider Red]

In 4+ years of doing BODs, I've earned 3 Val Hammers...2 since the BOD change in February. I've probably earned 300 Barbed Kits (around 1.5 per week). Where's the economy of wasting any of my 45 Val Swings compared to the 4,500 Barbed Kit chances?

Forget about all the Duped Val Hammers that have been around the last few months. That's an anomoly. Reality is there is around 1 Val hammer for every 100-1000 Barbed Kits.

Consider out of a typical Barbed Kit, I average 5 or 6 items with resists above 60 and 1 out of every 2 kits gets me at least 1 item with over 70 resists. Junk? A little more than half from your typical Barbed Kit.

Also consider I can't make a single weapon from any of my Barbed Kits. Not one.

Mind if I ask how many smiths you have? I have 2 smiths 1 gm and 1 legandary and I have been doing bods about as long as you and I have not even got 1 small for a val hammer and I do bod runs twice a day usually,definately 1 a day but I try to get 2 in.


to the OP I would go with making armor with barbed kits,with money you spend on barbed vs 1 val hammer you could probalby make 2-3 high end pvp suits with the barbed kits vs. 1/2 a sui with just 15 burns on a val hammer.

 

[GarthGrey]

That isn't an accurate comparison. One swing of a Valorite Hammer can equal countless barbed runic kits in terms of equivalent intensities. So while it may take 5 kits to get a Valorite Hammer level piece (~10 million gold) it only costs 2.5 million for one swing of an actual Valorite Hammer. It is much more economical.

Plus you need to consider how much barbed runic armor just goes in the garbage. Out of all the Valorite Runic Hammers I have used, only a handful of pieces have been absolute unusable junk. Everything else is worth saving or selling for millions.

Out of all of the Val hammers you've used huh......membership has it's privilidges.

 

[Setnaffa]

Mind if I ask how many smiths you have?

I have 28 on 2 shards. I usually do 2 or 3 runs a day. I must admit I've slowed down quite a bit on my BOD fillings though, so I'm not getting as many as I was at my peak about 2 years ago.

 

[Harlequin]

Realistically I feel that using barbed kits for armor is much more cost-effective. Let's even say Val hammers ultimately reaches 15 mil. With BRKs going for about 2+ mil, I can buy between 5-7 BRKs for each Val hammer.

Statiscally, I have an average of 90 tries with BRKs as opposed to 15 tries with Val to make the armor with the same properties. 33% of the properties will have at least 85% intensity. 30% of 90 tries is 30 tries. That's twice more than the 15 tries from 1 single Val hammer.

Note that this is a crude over-simplification, there are mean/median values to consider, the chance of actually getting a Val hammer etc of course.

If I compare that for metallic weapons, I have 0 tries to make a weapon with a BRK compared to 15 tries with a Val hammer.

Yes, if it's only 4 properties you are shooting for - aggies can be used to make weapons, I love my 4-property Twinkling Scimitars. But I'll love them even more if I can get an extra leech/HCI/DCI/SSI. DI not so much, why waste a property on DI if I can already get 40 DI from exceptional and armslore. And I will hoard all my ASH for this purpose to guarantee exceptional chance.

I would definitely reserve Val hammers for weapons.

It's almost like the case on whether it is better to use horned leather or barbed leather as material for armor.

 

[Splup]

Valorite hammers seems to give VERY nice armor pieces. I don't know why but it just does. Does Arms Lore effect Blacksmithing more then tailoring or something?

And about that Mage armor thing. When you make samurai armor you get 100% (EVERYTIME) a mage armor. Dunno why but you just do.

 

[Gwendar-SP]

Which, in your opinion, makes better armor? It doesn't seem like the val hammer would make armor really that much better. Plus, With metal armor you have a chance to roll mage armor

Barbed kit. Leather armor is light, medable, the leather is easier to get than high end metal and anyone can get horned at least. Barbed kits are far easier to get than high end hammers.

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

Which, in your opinion, makes better armor? It doesn't seem like the val hammer would make armor really that much better. Plus, With metal armor you have a chance to roll mage armor

Barbed for armor and save the hammers for godly weapons. Using hammers to make armor is really a big waste because barbed runics are much cheaper and have the potential to make much better quality armor pieces than a hammer would.

However if you want metal armor then you have no choice other than to use a hammer. There really isn't much reason to do metal armor though.

 

[Raider Red]

I have 28 on 2 shards. I usually do 2 or 3 runs a day. I must admit I've slowed down quite a bit on my BOD fillings though, so I'm not getting as many as I was at my peak about 2 years ago.

Thank You and a big WOW.thats a few more than I got hehe.

 

[GL_Seller]

Like someone already stated the intensity of mods on the vals are disgusting and a hell of alot better. The fact that u can get 5 for the price of one isnt good. Ive burned almost 100 barbed kits of my own and countless more for friends. I have still never made a disgusting piece. My best piece i sold for 40 mil and 10 barbed kits not bad reburned the kits and got nothing worth a damn.

If you want to test them go to test center the mods on val hammer ones are extremely better. Also exception sammy plate are 100% mage armor. All it takes is 120 blacksmith a decent talis and a +30 hammer and ur 100% on all.

The question was which armor is better and its easy the val hammer armor is better.

 

[Starla]

Valorite hammer defintely makes better armor than barbed runit kit. The base resists and intensity of the 5 properties are higher. However unless u have a valorite hammer with as many uses as Test Shard, it is going to be very expensive to piece together a suit.

As for using valorite runic to make weapons, I prefer using verite/aggy hammers. Valorite is too expensive and has little charges. The lottery roll of getting SC-1, resists or some Snow/Fire elemental slayers using the valorite runic is very high.

 

[JC the Builder]

Out of all of the Val hammers you've used huh......membership has it's privilidges.

Membership to what? I paid 30+ million per for the hammers I've used. I'd like to know where I can get a membership discount!

 

[Thrand Graywolf]

Leather armor should of never been able to be as great as a suit of platemail armor.

All they need to do to even things out between leather and metal is :

Tweak the runic drops so the higher end hammers are easier to get. There's more leather out there than metal mainly because of how easy the sewing kits are compared to the good hammers.

Rename "Mage armor" to "Light armor", since it also effects stealth as well as med.

Create "Heavy armor" for metal armors that add something useful for tanks...like damage absorption similar to swampie barding.

 

[Harlequin]

Rename "Mage armor" to "Light armor", since it also effects stealth as well as med.

Create "Heavy armor" for metal armors that add something useful for tanks...like damage absorption similar to swampie barding.

I like this idea!

 

[Anakena]

Why does no one mention the runic saws? Of course wooden armor is not meddable (unless the mage armor comes as a property) and you must be elf (if I remember well), but since you can craft such armors with colored woods, you receive additional properties AND you have some control over them.

Potentially, Wooden parts are far superior to anything that can be crafted with a barbed kit or valorite hammer.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Looking over this thread.....I see starkly the main strength, and the main weakness, of the Age of Shadows equipment system, as modified over the years.

Strength: Variety. So many different theories of what's good and what isn't. So many different approaches. So many different paths to a viable suit. Pre-AoS, the system was simpler.....While simplicity can be a virtue, it can also be a detriment. It meant that, after I decided if I could live with Dex penalties or not, my choices were pretty static. Only the most innovative players and lucky players were able to piece together a suit of non-GM, magic armor pieces looted from monsters, and those were among the most effective players in the game. The rest of us prayed for bone armor, dealt with the Dex loss from plate, or (after the "new leathers") found a reliable seller or studded leather or plain leather armor, and just left it at that.

Weakness: It takes time, effort, and money in order to become viable. And to become more than viable, it takes more time, more effort, and more money. Luckily, however, the game has given us artifacts and sets. While some sets and some artifacts are accessible only to the wealthy, others have a broader base. If you hoarded stuff for years, you can have 1 of the 2 new sets, which have been more popular than I would've guessed. the Virtue Armor is also obtainable. And of course if you hitch a ride to Doom a few times, you stand a decent chance of getting an artifact which can be quite useful, or if not can be sold/traded for something else that's useful. If you can scrounge up 1.5 to 2.5 million (easy? no, but doable), Tokuno Majors are widely available and are among the most useful items in the game. Same for Community Collection artifacts.

Most, I know, firmly prefer one system or the other. Me? (And if you don't care, stop reading now.) I see it as a trade-off. I don't think either system has much changed the results for me. However, it did take years to really figure out the AoS system. And as soon as I've got it figured out, either something changes or players' thinking changes.

-Galen's player