Is it viable to use choice weaps but only fine armor?

[phoenyx]

I'm curious what the more experienced players/crafters think about the feasibility of playing as a fighter/mage using the following gear setup:

1. Weaps are always made from choice harvested mats for best dmg/speed possible.

2. Armor is made mostly (or completely) from quartered mats instead of choice harvested mats.

I ask this question because of all the discussion about the crafting environment/economy that's been occurring the past few days on the boards here. It seems that demand is far outstripping supply, in general, because a good percentage of players don't want to play the harvesting/crafting side of the game. Some of us just want to explore, hunt, kill things, etc.

But it seems like keeping yourself outfitted in *all* choice gear at higher levels becomes unfeasible even for pure fighters/mages because of two factors:

A. The time/difficulty effort involved in crafting and harvesting by the community crafters, which drives up prices for choice or better gear beyond the rate at which a pure fighter/mage can sell quartered drops for money.

B. The too-fast decay rate of gear, which means you have to buy new gear fairly often. Now, I haven't personally experienced this uber fast decay rate, but then I usually solo or hunt with a single partner. Maybe your gear decays much faster when you're in larger teams fighting mobs that are significantly above your level? Or maybe its just that in a large team you are mowing through mobs at such a fast rate, and it's a matter of each mob contributing to the decay of your gear so faster kill rate = faster decay? All I know is that seeing players reporting their gear decaying from new to almost dead in a matter of hours seems like an alarmingly high decay rate.

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Regardless of the reasons for why it's difficult to stay equipped in all choice (or better) gear all the time, it stands to reason that you never want to skimp on the damage/speed of your weapon. So that cost factor cannot be mitigated. But is it feasible to fight in armor that is made mostly, or solely, from mob-drops? My reasoning here is based on experience in Matis newbland farming kipee drops to make nice Modi Striva (medium) and Modi Vestini (light) armor. It was *very* easy and fast to farm all but the lining mats for a full set of medium and light armor for me and my girlfriend's toons. A crafter made our armor for free because not only did we have enough kipee mats for our own armor sets, but also a fair amount of leftovers for other peices that crafter could sell.

Granted, our armor was not *choice* but it's degraded hardly at all and it protects us quite nicely. (Maybe because we use Parry instead of Dodge and parrying attacks prevents your armor from taking a hit?)

Extrapolating from this experience is what makes me wonder whether its feasible to hunt on the mainlaind using armor made mostly/solely from mob drops, assuming you always have a top notch weapon for damage output. This would significantly cut costs. Who cares if your armor wears out quickly if you can just hand a crafter all the mats needed to craft you a new set?

What do y'all think?

[bobturke]

Its a throw away comment but...

Join a guild!

You Choice/Fine seems pretty feasable to me.

I've heard this before and it has always confused me. Are fighter/mages really having that much trouble getting money? I've never had much trouble getting about 150K in Dappers per hour when seriously tanking either solo or even better in a small team. As I level its getting more and more so 200K is more the norm now.

A couple of hours of that and you have enough money for those 300K-350K weapons i've seen people complaining about.

[phoenyx]

Its a throw away comment but...

Join a guild!

I've heard this before and it has always confused me. Are fighter/mages really having that much trouble getting money? I've never had much trouble getting about 150K in Dappers per hour when seriously tanking either solo or even better in a small team. As I level its getting more and more so 200K is more the norm now.

A couple of hours of that and you have enough money for those 300K-350K weapons i've seen people complaining about.

Well the problem is for us casual players. I play anywhere from 12-25 hours a week, but it could be a half hour here, an hour there. In one evening I might pop on for a half hour, log out, pop on for another half hour, log out, pop on for 45 minutes, log out, etc. Also, I game with my fiance, so if one of us needs to log out then both of us do. And when you have two people's schedules involved in this way, you have less control over your personal play time. The end result is that you might be able to play for two hours solid, but your partner cannot play for that solid time block so neither do you.

I've played MMOGs for 5+ years now, all of them. I've been a heavy player that's stayed at the front of the leveling curve. I've been a guild officer/leader many times. Bottom line is that guild involvement usually requires a fair time committment. Casual players cannot contribute to a guild nearly as much. Especially in games that require large coordination of crafting efforts. (Horizons, anyone?)

I *will* join a guild here eventually, when I identify a good fit for us, but I realize I won't be able to contribute very much to the guild's harvesting efforts, and so therefore I won't be entitled to really good gear discounts.

Then there are the more solo-oriented players who don't like guilds for whatever reason. A good MMOG design should encourage people to socialize and join guilds, but it should not *overly* penalize someone who wants to play as a lone wolf.

[bobturke]

Well the problem is for us casual players. I play anywhere from 12-25 hours a week, but it could be a half hour here, an hour there. In one evening I might pop on for a half hour, log out, pop on for another half hour, log out, pop on for 45 minutes, log out, etc. Also, I game with my fiance, so if one of us needs to log out then both of us do. And when you have two people's schedules involved in this way, you have less control over your personal play time. The end result is that you might be able to play for two hours solid, but your partner cannot play for that solid time block so neither do you.

I'm in almost the same position.

Then there are the more solo-oriented players who don't like guilds for whatever reason. A good MMOG design should encourage people to socialize and join guilds, but it should not *overly* penalize someone who wants to play as a lone wolf.

I agree, which brings me to my second point about money. Even if you only play a bit here and there you can always save some cash and by crafted stuff.

The hardest bit then will be for players who are casual and who spent most of their time exploring and not slaughtering the wildlife. But you could argue that casual players who dont spend much time fighting dont have much need for top of the line gear.

PS I'm a litle sorry I threw that line now as its pulling us off topic

[klonkk]

Well, I think it all depends what you want to do.

If you only play a supporter in teams and rarely get hit it won´t matter, but if you take your role as the main tank and want to tackle hard mobs the quality of your armor becomes more of an issue.

I´ve seen enough situations where 10 points less damage absorption would have meant death for me and the team. (it the ones where you survive with 20 HP as a tank and your healers are completely out of HP/Sap from healing)

I craft my weapons and armor myself though and work as a team with a harvester, so I cannot really judge the pure fighter/mage situation.

Taking into consideration that you can do several 100k in a very short amount of time soloing makes me think that it is possible to keep your gear up on par.

[jesder]

Well the problem is for us casual players.

If you only have under 1 hr to play, try doing a mission or two in that time. This will increase your rewards greatly as well as giving you some fame. Most missions only take a few min to complete and you have to wait x amount of time (normally a day) before you can take that same mission again. So for the casual player this works out well. If you are in a guild then it will also help raise your guilds fame levels.

Once you get enough fame, you can take on even higher missions. I know of one run (actually 3 like missions) that can gain you ~30k in about 10-20 min.