Decay, harvesting, and the wardrobe...

[zzeii]

Over my time of playing tank and other combat related skills, I have come to notice a number of things in the game, and how various people play.

Decay...

Decay happens, no doubt about that. How fast it occurs is up to the player. Fighting things more closely in level with your gear can greatly reduce this decay. Chain pulling lvl 150-200 mobs while using q80-100 gear is just not good for your stuff. Weapons break on their much tougher hides, and their big nasty teeth and claws quickly shred apart your armor. Yea, you get 3kxp a kill for the next umpteenth levels and level really fast that way, but obviously your underleveled gear is going to poof out of existance in a very short amount of time.

I remember way back when....fighting level 100-120 critters, wearing q50 gear and being shocked at how fast it decayed. Went back after getting q80-90 gear, and low and behold, that same gear was lasting MUCH MUCH longer. All the while was duoing with a healer. No blinder, no stunner, no enchantments. Just a straight tank, and straight healer. Getting 1-2kxp+ xp was just dandy, and the levels still flew by, and we were getting more mats per level earned. Fetching us a tidy sum from the town vendors. So replacing the now slowly decaying gear was much easier, and didn't run into the feeling that I was barely affording my next set of armor.

The other problem that killing things that only give 3kxp (thank Jena for that xp cap), is that while you do level at a nice fast clip, you are outleveling the crafters, so you will be stuck with a decay problem until the crafters can catch up in level with you.

Harvesting and the wardrobe...

Similair lines for the harvesters, yea you can level ultra fast pulling the higher Q mats, but you also get less mats/time spent. And you get mats that are no more useful to the crafters than mats that are of the quality that the crafter can make (i.e. HarvesterX: Here's a stack of q250 mats for you to grind with! CrafterY: Gee thanks! Now I'll go grind out some q150 pikes...). On a -32 credit extraction, you can either get a) 6x q99/100 mats or b) 4x q148/150 mats over the same period of time (this is using agg speed 3/agg rate 3/agg quality 4 vs agg speed 1/agg rate 3/agg quality 5, patch 1 will change this, and I'm looking forward to playing around with it, didn't pre-order woe is me). Now, while pulling (b) i do get 2k+ xp a pull at lvl 120ish harvest, while pulling (a)I get around 800. Sure (b) may level my harvest faster (and increase how much dp I get), but (a) allows me to keep my dp at a lower level, and lets me harvest mats for crafting at a 50% faster rate (since I can only craft q80-90 gear at the moment, there is no benefit to my crafting to pull q150 mats).

Now on to the new system that is coming in patch 1. I've seen a couple of people testing out the new system on the ATS. Normally they were going with a lower speed than rate for their extractions, and were not pulling the max Q their action allowed. Has anyone tried using a higher speed but lower rate? With the current live system, I use a agg 1/3/5, I wont hit max Q til the quantity is 1.8. Using 3/1/5 I hit max Q at 1.3 quantity. Both were done on source mode 0, and both had 1 explosion for 645 and 719 respectively (I have noticed with the same actions getting a 150-200 dmg variance in the explosions force). I did not use any specialization, or increased source time. Currently on live servers, mat spec extractions are not in effect, so I have not been able to test out their impact on this.

Hope this post has been somewhat informative to some of you.

P.S. My applicable levels to this information are:
133 2h pierce, 105 1h pierce, 118 close combat
119 lakeland forage 122 prime roots forage

Zzei~

[wayas]

thx for the info, nice to read ^^

[pcheez]

ok. Question is, why does ql 50 gear decay slower then ql 100 when fighting a lvl 150 + mob ?

[korin77]

It doesn't, mine doesn't. Time to kill the crafter who sold you that lemon. Wait what level are you? If you are level 75 and wearing level 100 armor it will decay faster than level 50 armor because you're not high enough level to make good use of it.

[zzeii]

ok. Question is, why does ql 50 gear decay slower then ql 100 when fighting a lvl 150 + mob ?

I can't say I've experienced that. But I could surmise 1 of 2 things since you aren't being entirely clear on the circumstances.

1)You are using mats with a low durability on the q100 and higher on the q50..

2)Or you are a healer, and only healing your fellow players who aren't lvl 150+.

[dpkdpk]

It doesn't, mine doesn't. Time to kill the crafter who sold you that lemon. Wait what level are you? If you are level 75 and wearing level 100 armor it will decay faster than level 50 armor because you're not high enough level to make good use of it.

How do I determine what level I am? Which specific action category is it?

[zzeii]

How do I determine what level I am? Which specific action category is it?

The level you are using is weighed against the Q of gear you are wearing while doing the action.

i.e. using lvl 51 elemental magic wearing q100 LA against lvl 150 mobs will have a faster decay than using lvl 51 elemental magic wearing q50 LA against lvl 150 mobs.

[dpkdpk]

The level you are using is weighed against the Q of gear you are wearing while doing the action.

i.e. using lvl 51 elemental magic wearing q100 LA against lvl 150 mobs will have a faster decay than using lvl 51 elemental magic wearing q50 LA against lvl 150 mobs.

I use two actions simultaneously, is it true that both are counted against my armor? Is it 50% of each counting against it?

[zzeii]

I use two actions simultaneously, is it true that both are counted against my armor? Is it 50% of each counting against it?

To my understanding, dual weilding daggers or sword+dagger will cause twice the decay per 'double attack'. This will be modified in the patch, I believe, so that faster swinging weapons will cause less decay per swing.

If you meant using improved damage+Accurate attack (or another stanza combination) then you will not have increased decay to my knowledge.

Likewise I do not believe that using the doublespell template will cause faster decay either.

[pcheez]

It doesn't, mine doesn't. Time to kill the crafter who sold you that lemon. Wait what level are you? If you are level 75 and wearing level 100 armor it will decay faster than level 50 armor because you're not high enough level to make good use of it.

Well, let me clarify my points .
1. I would kill the crafter if he was not the guild high officer and the staff was not a 97/97 one made from (mostly) supreme mats .
2. My light armor is ql 80, loses 3 hp in a fight agnst ocyx, while a ql 50 store made set lost 1 hp agnst the ocyx.(teamed)
3. ql 80 lance lost 3 hp agnst ocyx as well, while ql 50 lost 2 hp. (teamed)
4. I am using items below my lvl.