Trying to understand the effects of Imbuing, short and long

[Trebr Drab]

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.

It seems to me that the only reason you need to farm massive numbers of arties (marties, whatever) is if you want to make the best items.

So, if I farm massive numbers of regular magic items, which are plentiful these days, I can imbue a regular GM item up to 90% intensity, right? I only need arties and marties if I want to get 100% intensity, correct?

Doesn't that mean that the actual difference in effect for the character is very small?

Now, it seems to me that with a character decked out in gear made to 100% intensity, there's very little benefit over one with 90% intensity, what with the caps and decreasing effects of these powers. Or am I wrong here?

So, in effect, in the very short term, those who have boat loads of items stored away will lead off as the first well decked characters, followed shortly by just about everyone, with a few heavy artie owners having a small advantage?

Or do you need arties and marties to raise your Imbuing skill to effective levels? That's the only thing I see might be a problem if my assumptions here are correct.

 

[Storm]

it looks like you are correct although i have not tested raising skill at the high end levels yet! but it looks like high end items (arties etc and high end magic items) will make the raising of the skill easier but it may still be able to be done(but slower) with lesser items !

This is a assumption as I have not seen data either way yet but should be easy to test but seeing as last day for me to test is sunday I dont know that I will get to it! hopefully someone will maybe Petra ;-)

 

[Maplestone]

I encourage you to play around with imbuing and unraveling on the test center.

Relic fragments are the limiting resource.

They can (currently) be obtained in a number of ways including unraveling many artifacts and high end runic-crafted items (anything where the sum of properties is high enough).

Currently, whether an item requires residue, essence or relic fragments depends entirely on the property. Obviously, most of the highly desirable properties demand relic fragments. Only the number of relic fragments varies: 1-5.

You do need some ML gems/herbs for 90+ intensity. Since I do a fair amount of mining for BODs, I tend not to see those as a major roadblack. If you're trying to stock a shop, it will be more of a challenge to keep up a supply.

You do not need any rare ingredients to train imbuing. You can get to 120 using monster loot and normal gems. It's a little more challenging than raising blacksmithing but Petra has a good guide that she's been making (she uses dull copper runics for testing, but don't get hung up on that - any junk loot can be substituted).

Keep in mind that this skill will probably continue to evolve right up until the release ... as you can see by Wilki's thread, it is one that is generating a lot of strong and varied opinions about what it's true power will be when it hits real-shard economies.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Where does Essence come from?

Do you need fragments (from arties and high end stuff) to enhance properties up to 90%, or is that only required to bump it up to 100%? Same question for Essence, is it required for all items or just to bump it to 100%?

Oh, and where is that list at that shows the ingredients required?

 

[Stupid Miner]

Oh yea almost forgot, I half made a list of unravelled minor artifacts:

Heart of Lion - Relic
Shld of Invul - Relic
Polar Bear Mask - Relic
Cold Blood - Relic
Blaze of Death - Relic
Staff of Power - Relic
Luna Lance - Relic
Night's Kiss - Relic
Arctic Death Dealer - Relic
Orcish Visage - Relic
Titan's Leg Bone - Relic
Club of Cavorting - Relic
Wrath of Dryad - Relic
Burglar's Bandana - Enchanted
Pixie Swatter - Relic
Nox Ranger's - Relic
Violet Courage - Relic
Captain Quacklbush's - Relic
Alchemist's Bauble - Relic
Bow of Juka King - Relic
Dread Pirate's - Relic

Robe of the Eclipse - No
Quivers - No
Righteous Anger - Relic
Soul Seeker - Relic
Raed's Glory -
Wildfire - Enchanted
Aegis of Grace - 2 Enchanted
Flesh Ripper - Relic
Windsong - 2 Enchanted
Fey Leggings - Relic
Helm of Swiftness - Enchanted
Brightsight Lenses - Relic
Blade Dance - Relic
Bonecrusher - Enchanted
Boomstick - Relic
Talon Bite - Relic


With 100 Armslore

Val Dagger - Enchanted

 

[Storm]

cool miner thanks

 

[Trebr Drab]

Miner, what's the significance of that? The unraveled results?

 

[kaldera4]

I encourage you to play around with imbuing and unraveling on the test center.

Relic fragments are the limiting resource.
......

why do you think so? it seems much more easy to get relic fragments than the gems needet. yesterday i mined several hours and only managed to get around 4-11 gems of each type so that would give me the possibility to try around 2-3 imbuing attemts. before i run out of gems again

 

[Storm]

this is what determains what you get this is the rough formula I think it was increased slightly but cant find the post atm
<= 199 Total Intensity = Magical Residue
200 to 399 Total Intensity = Enchanted Essence
400+ = Relic Fragment

 

[Storm]

why do you think so? it seems much more easy to get relic fragments than the gems needet. yesterday i mined several hours and only managed to get around 4-11 gems of each type so that would give me the possibility to try around 2-3 imbuing attemts. before i run out of gems again

the mined gems are not used up on fails relic frags and normal gems are

 

[Stupid Miner]

Miner, what's the significance of that? The unraveled results?

Yep, stockpile the worthless minors that give relics before someone else gets them.

 

[Maplestone]

Where does Essence come from?

Do you need fragments (from arties and high end stuff) to enhance properties up to 90%, or is that only required to bump it up to 100%? Same question for Essence, is it required for all items or just to bump it to 100%?

Oh, and where is that list at that shows the ingredients required?

Again, I recommend that you go to Retribution and play around with imbuing.

residue comes from items with low total intensity
essence comes from items with moderate intensity
relic fragments come from items of very high intensity

which of these you need depends on which property you are imbuing. Even for 1% in a property, you need at least 1. 100% you need 5. (these values may or may not be the same)

 

[kaldera4]

you can find a lot of stuff in vendorsthat reaches 400poits and is not too expensive (not luna shops for sure) for unraveling. to get lets say 50 parts to unravel and have 50 relic fragments. thats enough for 10 attempts of imbuing(max prop). but at the same time you need 100gems for the 10 attempts. try find them! for me it looks like to mine 100gems would take at least one week intensive mining. or am i wrong at one point?

 

[Maplestone]

why do you think so? it seems much more easy to get relic fragments than the gems needet.

er ... hmm.

You are right that way still be a way or two of crafting/imbuing up items with residue/essence or using mid-level runics carefully and unravelling them into relic fragments. It tend to see this as a bug not a feature, but now that you've called me on it, I have to admit that I have been assuming that will change, but don't know if it will. Sorry.

Last time I checked the threshold was 450 not 400 for relic fragments. *wanders off to test that*

 

[Storm]

Last time I checked the threshold was 450 not 400 for relic fragments. *wanders off to test that*

I think you are right I just cant find the darn post I could go test it but I am not ready for my headache to come back ;-)

 

[Trebr Drab]

you can find a lot of stuff in vendorsthat reaches 400poits and is not too expensive (not luna shops for sure) for unraveling. to get lets say 50 parts to unravel and have 50 relic fragments. thats enough for 10 attempts of imbuing(max prop). but at the same time you need 100gems for the 10 attempts. try find them! for me it looks like to mine 100gems would take at least one week intensive mining. or am i wrong at one point?

Hehe, you guys that play UO "right" might not think that's expensive. I couldn't afford 50 arties.

I - am - a - rebel. I refuse to play the money/horde game.
I'm a hermit. (I wonder how Rhysart did it?)

 

[Ailish]

With the newer luck gear that has come in in the last year (mempho, neveau bleu), getting high intensity items actually should not be too hard. Pick a named creature and go for it for a while while all lucked up. You should even get some ML arties out of the deal. Even without the newer luck stuff, it wasnt too hard. Just some food for thought.

 

[Storm]

Oh yea almost forgot, I half made a list of unravelled minor artifacts:

Heart of Lion - Relic
Shld of Invul - Relic
Polar Bear Mask - Relic
Cold Blood - Relic
Blaze of Death - Relic
Staff of Power - Relic
Luna Lance - Relic
Night's Kiss - Relic
Arctic Death Dealer - Relic
Orcish Visage - Relic
Titan's Leg Bone - Relic
Club of Cavorting - Relic
Wrath of Dryad - Relic
Burglar's Bandana - Enchanted
Pixie Swatter - Relic
Nox Ranger's - Relic
Violet Courage - Relic
Captain Quacklbush's - Relic
Alchemist's Bauble - Relic
Bow of Juka King - Relic
Dread Pirate's - Relic

Robe of the Eclipse - No
Quivers - No
Righteous Anger - Relic
Soul Seeker - Relic
Raed's Glory -
Wildfire - Enchanted
Aegis of Grace - 2 Enchanted
Flesh Ripper - Relic
Windsong - 2 Enchanted
Fey Leggings - Relic
Helm of Swiftness - Enchanted
Brightsight Lenses - Relic
Blade Dance - Relic
Bonecrusher - Enchanted
Boomstick - Relic
Talon Bite - Relic


With 100 Armslore

Val Dagger - Enchanted

do we know yet what the virtue pieces give?

 

[northwoodschopper]

lol, wow, the cavorting club is worth a relic fragment?

 

[Petra Fyde]

Storm, while I didn't actually do all the work, I did theoretically raise the skill all the way to 120 using nothing more expensive than enchanted essence and the older gems. The thread is in the Stygian Abyss board. Assuming you buy it to 40 - you imbue one mod (reflect physical damage at 8% on leather caps). Keeping your success chance at around the 50% mark, moving up in intensity when you have 63% or better. At 51 switch to hit dispel on daggers, starting at 2% and working up to 40%, by which time you should be at 84. Then add a second property (hit area effect) do the same with this, till 40%. - takes you to 107, then add 3rd property, any resist. That will take you to 120. Full break down here: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?p=1360964#post1360964


When did you do that unravelling? I only got essence from cavorting club, relic fragment from luna lance.

 

[Maplestone]

for me it looks like to mine 100gems would take at least one week intensive mining. or am i wrong at one point?

I take a couple of mining trips a week at most, just strip mining in Tram with a fire beetle and some basic macros set up in the enhanced client. One backback-full trip takes me about 30 minutes and nets an average of 10 gems. Obviously it takes a little longer to get the *right* gems, but even so, that's roughly 5 hours (or a little over) for 100 gems - less than it would take to get the resources for a library artifact.

5 relic fragments are much harder for me to find currently - but that doesn't mean there aren't ways to easily farm them that I haven't thought about.

I'm sure that people have hoarded away enough to make a few choice suits, but to me the more important question that needs to be figured out are (1) how easily can a mortal player acquire them (2) at what rate are powergamers going to manage to churn them out.

I can offer theories all day and night if the devs want them, but what's more useful right now are examples people can provide with hard data.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Ok, so what's going to be needed to make an item with good powers up to intensity of 90%? Essence, Gems, and Residue?

If so, that doesn't seem too bad. It would leave many of us behind the powergamers, but reasonably so, I think and hope.

 

[Amber Moon]

I thought they said they were redoing the ingredient requirements for imbuing to include; farmed, crafted, and gathered components. I haven't seen any more on this and can't quickly pull up the relevant quote from Wilki or Drac..

So this means that changes may come yet and we really don't know yet what it will take to hit those +90% intensitys and perhaps the lower requirements as well.

Any news on this front?

 

[Petra Fyde]

Trebr, yes, at current time you don't need the expensive ingredients to train, and you don't need them below 90% intensity.
Although something has been said about changing ingredients, it hasn't happened yet (and to be truthful, on a personal level, I hope it doesn't).

I used the ingredients table Ailisha put together to create my 'training guide'
http://uo.stratics.com/php-bin/show_content.php?content=31013

 

[Maplestone]

Ok, so what's going to be needed to make an item with good powers up to intensity of 90%? Essence, Gems, and Residue?

It depends on the property.

Examples:
1% luck: 1 enchanted essence, 1 citrines
90% luck: 4 enchanted essence, 9 citrines
100% luck: 5 enchanted essence, 10 citrine, 10 ecru citrines

2% hit lightning: 1 relic fragment, 1 amethyst
44% hit lightning: 4 relic fragments, 8 amethysts
50% hit lightning: 5 relic fragments, 10 amethysts, 10 white pearls

However, when you are training, all that matters is that your chance of success is between 0 and 100% (around 50% is ideal) ... so you can just add a few points of luck to random junk as a way of getting gains and never have to use relic fragments or ML gems.

(however it is extremely important to keep in mind that this is not necessarily what it will look like in its final version ... we have to remember that the open beta is still a work in progress)

 

[Trebr Drab]

Per Amber ....
Well,
Magic items=farmed,
Player made items=crafted,
and Gems=gathered

Right?

 

[Trebr Drab]

Damn. The Fragment requirements for all the good stuff is a real problem.

 

[Amber Moon]

Per Amber ....
Well,
Magic items=farmed,
Player made items=crafted,
and Gems=gathered

Right?

Yep. I think the implication was they were going to move away from the gathered gems as the only items used for 90% plus items. Still can't find the darn quote...

 

[Trebr Drab]

You know, if Fragments were required only to get above 80%, I think that would be acceptable.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Yep. I think the implication was they were going to move away from the gathered gems as the only items used for 90% plus items. Still can't find the darn quote...

I think that would be a good thing. It'd be nice if other harvesting skills were involved in this too.

 

[Mephistos]

Trebr, you seem to have a lot of questions about imbuing. Really, the best way to answer your questions and concerns is to go on retribution, and give imbuing a whirl. The resources may seem daunting, but artifacts like an Arctic Death Dealer will give a relic fragment, and those go for around 500 gold each.

I honestly think that in about 6-8 months, everyone will have their perfect suits, and be sitting at the Luna bank since there is no need to go hunting for any new gear. But that's just my opinion...

 

[Trebr Drab]

Trebr, you seem to have a lot of questions about imbuing. Really, the best way to answer your questions and concerns is to go on retribution, and give imbuing a whirl. The resources may seem daunting, but artifacts like an Arctic Death Dealer will give a relic fragment, and those go for around 500 gold each.

I honestly think that in about 6-8 months, everyone will have their perfect suits, and be sitting at the Luna bank since there is no need to go hunting for any new gear. But that's just my opinion...

Mephistos, I am a poor one to ask to do repetitive tasks. Heh
I'd rather be wasting my time looking at the levers in Covetous for the millionth time even though that's like standing next to a black hole, than do that.

But I agree, in time we'll be back to the same situation. But the idea here is to reduce the horded items. Then again, that'll just be replaced with other items in the hordes.

Hopefully, UO's future will be more along the lines of new things, like scrying crystal balls, Familiars and pets you can play as, player built cities with roads and defensive walls and artistic statuary and gardens, city trade and caravans, secrets to discover like secret rooms and mysterious artifacts and languages (remembers the Wisp Seekers), etc., instead of the constant inflationary shinies stuff.

 

[Silverbird]

do we know yet what the virtue pieces give?

You cannot unravel blessed items. So the virtue armour pieces are a no-go. I am not shure about the other 10'th anniversary items (shields, staff etc).

Unfortunately the rare ml resources (gems, lj-ones, white pearls) are fully scriptors resorts. Hopefully those can be stopped in the near future.

If there will be way too less relic fragments, the deffs have avery mighty tool to adjust the gathered numbers: they would just need to lower the total intensity needed for them. But it is definately better to start off with to less of them as with too many of them. Just remember there are many ways to balance a skill. One way is to keep the needed ingredients very rare. (A very strong skill that needs very rare ingredientsd would even out a weaker skill with more common resources.)

 

[Amren]

This sounds a lot like the World of Warcraft enchanting system, right down to the expensive materials and disenchanting items.

 

[Maggie]

why when unraveling some items do you get two products?

ex windsong >> 2 essence?

 

[pgcd]

I've been reading a lot of complaints about imbuing and how it will make the strong players even stronger etc., so I decided to check it out for myself.
After a few hours on retribution (when my client didn't crash), I made up my mind: no, Imbuing *will not* destroy the balance or whatever. Making a usable set of armor - decent resists, some MR and LMC etc - for an archer with a runic took me what would be between 5 and 10 millions on a standard game server, depending on luck and used arties.
I wasn't able to come up with a definite figure for the Imbued suit, since the price for mined gems and relic fragments etc will probably vary a lot initially, but I think that a similar suit will require at least 100 fragments and 300/500 mined gems (depending on how many will be lost when failing). If the prices stay where they are (and I doubt it), that could amount to *way* more than 10 millions, for the gems only. And the items you craft aren't POFable, so you'll need more within a few months.

The way I see it, Imbuing will be used mostly to adjust items - I know I have several pieces of armor or weapons where I could just add a few points of resists or a higher leech to have a very usable piece. But that's something you pay for with the reduced longevity of the item, so the choice is not as clear cut as you might expect.

Lastly, I think that the items that will see the bigger price increase will be the not-quite-high-end runics, those that give you 4 properties instead of 5: with them, you can craft great items to start with, and imbue them if required (because there's still a property left). And if you feel the RNG is smiling upon you, you can then enhance the stuff and obtain the very best.

 

[Silverbird]

This sounds a lot like the World of Warcraft enchanting system, right down to the expensive materials and disenchanting items.

No sorry. It is not even close to that. If you want to compare it to another mmo's craftingskill you should try out spellcrafting from DAOC. Its not the same but it is uo's way of it.