I don’t get it - why the demand for superior items? It adds massively to repair costs, while providing little benefit.
Makes sense for ethereal merc items, as well as ethereal items for runewords with indestructible or self-repair properties. But weapons and armour which will require repair? Who wants to pay millions every time to repair weapons or armour. And Ral runes have better uses than repairing frequently-damaged armour.
If you aren’t getting hit often enough to have to repair your armour frequently, the 15% extra defence probably isn’t giving you much. If your weapon isn’t breaking because you aren’t actually hitting anything with it, what does the 15% ED actually add?
Even when you need to repair gear, 15% damage or defence doesn’t add much anyway. It’s not a modification to base damage/defence - it’s an extra 15% like any other affix. So 300% ED becomes 315%. Only a few points worth, even for war pikes, thunder mauls and sacred armours. And if you’re making Chains of Honour, Treachery or some other armour without much of a defence mod anyway, what difference does 15% ED make? It’s not going protect you one way or the other.
I would have thought that non-superior armours with the max defence value for the armour type (e.g. 467 def dusk shroud, 489 diamond mail, 524 archons, 600 def sacred armours) would be much more practical than superior items. But everyone seems to want the superior.
Is it for duelling, or just bragging rights? Because it certainly isn’t practical for PvM.
coz life is bored, someone think there must be something to chase after, and more ppl say yes, and then the rest ppl like you and me are bound to the rolling rock. i dont care about the little def at all, but if i want to resell it in some day, they say they do.
makes a little sense. coz like enigma. it’s super easy to find a 3os base. then what’s the point to sell enigma for ber&jah? everybody can make it using own ber&jah.
but, i made a joke before, like this:
why you pay this much for a 15ed mp to make the enigma?
to keep the value of my engima
Can you really not understand that people always want the best? That’s like asking why people want more ed on weapons etc etc. On top of that, you can repair armor with a ral rune lol.
Yep - Ral runes. Which are easily sold in bulk for valuable runes, and getting more valuable by the day.
If you’re in melee and getting hit a lot, that’s a lot of Rals you’ll be burning.
If you’re not getting hit, the extra defence isn’t exactly giving you much.
Made Fortitude in a perfect 489 def diamond mail. Can’t get any higher without being superior. Costs nothing to repair. Used diamond mail because it looks great on my bowazon.
About the only thing that can be said for superior armour (apart from merc armour or indestructibles) is that you automatically get the maximum base defence on it. If you find one with max defence without being superior, that’s a valuable find. Maybe not on market, but certainly for personal use.
Well for paladin holy shield multiples the defense so 100 extra defense would be about 400 defense instead. I run 1866 def but it jumps to 11289 after lvl 32 holy shield.
A Vortex Shield has a maximum of 225 base defence. Another 15% adds a further 33 defence. Quadruple it due to Holy Shield and that’s a grand total of 132 defence.
Even on a 600 def Sacred Armour, you get a grand total of 75 more defence. And a stack more repair costs.
Remember, the 15% bonus for superior is additive on top whatever %ED you get from a runeword, not multiplicative. If you rolled a max defence Sanctuary with 160% ED, for instance, you’d get 175% with the Superior, on the same 225 base.
Let’s see.
Armour first. Let’s say you’re wearing sacred armour (base 600 def), a corona (base 165 def) and a vortex shield (base 225 def). Belt/gloves/boots don’t matter - they can’t be socketed anyway, so you’re going to use set/unique/rare/crafted items rather than superior. Make all three socketable components superior, with 15% ED, and you get an extra 148 defence. It’s the same 148 extra defence whether every component has 300% ED or are plain, white superior items.
Let’s say you’re going a defence-centric build, with 200% ED on the three components, plus a bit extra from non-socketable components, for 3300 base defence. Making the items superior increases it to 215% ED, for 3448 base defence. You’re running a level 26 Holy Shield for 400% extra defence, as well as a Defiance merc adding an extra 240%, for a total of 660% extra defence.
The non-superior version gives you 25080 defence. The superior version gives you 26204 defence.
Now plug it into the chance-to-hit formula.
A Death Lord in Hell difficulty has an AR of 6134. A unique Death Lord with the Aura Enchanted mod will run a level 17 Blessed Aim for an extra 315% AR, or a total of 25456.
At level 90, the mlvl 85 Death Lord has a chance to hit you of 200*(6134/(6134+25080))(85/(85+90)) = 19.08% when you’re wearing the non-superior armour. With the superior armour, that changes to 200(6134/(6134+26204))*(85/(85+90) = 18.42%. All up, this amounts to 3.5% less damage taken.
At level 90, the mlvl 88 Death Lord unique with Blessed Aim has a chance to hit you of 49.8% with the normal armour, or 48.72%, This amounts to just 2.2% less damage taken.
Let’s say you weren’t running a defence-centric build, and had whatever defence came on your equipment, but no Defiance merc or Holy Shield (a non-Paladin build). You have Fortitude armour, though, which gives you +115% defence through its Chilling Armour proc. That 3300 defence now gives you 7095 defence, while the superior armour, with 3448 defence, gives you 7413 defence.
At level 90, the ordinary Death Lord has a chance to hit of 45.04% in normal armour, or 43.99% in superior - 2.3% damage saved. The unique Death Lord has a chance to hit of 77.32% in the normal armour, or 76.58% in the superior - just 0.96% damage saved.
That’s not a lot of added protection for a lot of extra upkeep cost. And it doesn’t help when you’re running, or against any attacks which ignore defence.
Now for weapons. The most damaging single hit in the game comes from a Thunder Maul, with an average of 106.5 damage. An extra 15% damage for Superior versions gives you an extra 16 damage. Seems like a lot, doesn’t it, coming off a base of 106.5?
But the runeword you’re using gives you an extra 350% damage. Now the difference is no longer between the base weapon and one with 15% extra damage, but between one with 350% extra damage and one with 365% extra damage, or an average of 479 damage vs 495 damage. The superior version is only giving you just over 3% more damage. And that’s before you factor in extra flat damage from charms, War Travs and other items, which further reduces the percentage difference. You probably wouldn’t even notice it. But you will certainly notice the repair costs.
Note that none of this applies to merc items or ethereal items you make indestructible - in those cases, there is no downside to Superior.
that 3.5% is the chance it will hit you not less damage. When there’s 7 Death Lord trying to attack you it adds up. Yes, you wouldn’t notice in a 1 on 1 fight, but getting mob it adds up.
As to archon over diamond mail, armor weight class also effects run speed, so in town running to portal adds up on time and efficiency.
Yes, over time it is equivalent to 3.5% less damage, but you want to also worry about the in the moment portion too. So assuming the probability of a 7 death lords hitting you is independent of each other that’s similar to +24.5% of a death lord damaging you every time they swing. The key word is “THEY.”
If 7 death lords swung at you with the normal armour and the high defence build, you have a 22.7% chance of being hit no times, 37.5% chance of being hit once, 26.5% chance o being hit twice, 10.4% chance of being hit 3 times, 2.46% chance of being hit 4 times and <1% chance of being hit 5 times or more.
With the superior armour, the odds of 0 hits are 24%, 1 hit are 38%, 2 hits are 25.8%, 3 hits are 9.7%, 4 hits are 2.19% and 5 or more hits <1%. So minimal change.
Or, in other words, with the normal armour, you have a 77.3% chance of being hit at least once, while, with the superior armour, it only decreases to 76%… Hardly significant.
Meanwhile, you’re probably using up a Ral rune in repairs every time you clear an area.
I think it really depends on your comfort level. If you are okay with higher chance of getting struck go with a lower defense. As a hammerdin, I kind of have to stay in the middle of packs for a bit to cast, so I like the higher def, but if people play a Amazon or Sorc I guess it wouldn’t matter as much.
i like 15%ed+3bowskills, but i don’t like the price jump between 2um~2ber with or without 15%ed, but but but i do wish i could have one to sell for 2 ber.
