Crafty

It’s not a rule, but it has become a fact; when I TR I always end up crafting something. It’s for that reason many of my guys have several BTC items, specifically crafted for them in the past and that I use when I TR. But somehow I always end up crafting something else.

Since I started organizing my mules better I’ve cut down on the redundant crafting; you know needing a con item and couldn’t find what I knew was in there somewhere, so now, for most part – I’ll find that BTA necklace with ease and use it for however many levels it’s needed (until something better, such as a named comes a long.

I also have plenty of armors – I don’t like the BTCoE binge that Turbine went through with the augmentation overpass since a lot of the named armor (well below 20) was converted to this format – looking at you blood plate, but I still got some that are untouched by time. Such as a few cavalry plates and another I just found – Scavenged Warplate. Now the scavenged Warplate is a BRILLIANT low level heavy armor. Moreso with the armor up change. It comes with 2 augment slots, one blue and one colorless. It’s also adamantine, so 3/- in DR. Of course with higher levels the DR won’t meant as much but around this level range it still helps. So I added a alchemical armor defense ritual on it and since it’s BTA it’s a perfect for TRing different toons. Bloodplate is unfortunately BTCoE. Altho it comes with deathblock and a blue augment slot – so that’s nice.

The nice thing with level 8 armor is that it’s perfect for augmentation. Like heavy fort. You can get those from the store, auction house but very easily from the ML 8 blue augment collectable turn ins. Either taking a chance for a random ML 8 augment or buy it outright for shards – either way it’s not that hard to get your hands on and it helps you combine several items into one. Not bad for a ML 8 armor.

The helmet in the picture was a crafted one that I came up with. I had a melee alacrity trinket (ML 3) but at level 8 I ended up wanting a few other stuff instead. I was getting rid of the infested armor (ML 4) but liked that Spell resist still worked. So I combined a few different items, like a feather falling crafted one (ML 1) with wiz I, the trinket into a helmet with a yellow augment slot and now I could also add a fear immunity augment. That’s not bad for a ML 8 items when melee alacrity named items are rare at this level. That’s at least 3 items in one with only the abilities that matter.

At the same time I created a natural armor +3 ring with a yellow augment slot (and I added a ML 4 underwater Breathing augment). ML 7. And on the other hand I added a Protection +5 ring (ML 7 too).

I wanted to mention that because in the early levels these items add such a premium to your abilities. The AC actually works and every minor investments in these things add another layer of ability to streak out Elite. That’ll change however down the road when it’s harder to get more AC out of gear and such unless you specially yourself in a more tank centric tree. But at least up until 10-12 these items add enough juice to be very effective.

Speaking of weapon – I’m currently using the ML 10 greatsword out of Lordmarch. It’s not ultimate (and I won’t upgrade it since that would turn it into ML 12) but the con damage does help. And even if a similar axe would have better crit damage, the greatsword crit more and at a pretty nice 160-180 range (compared to my Cannith Challenge Elemental Greataxe ML 8 tier 2 that can crit for about 250).

All in all these items helps me rock content and at level 10 I’m 3 bubbles away from 11 and with Antaraxia’s Haven done I now have all bank slots unlocked which will be useful with the ever changing gear selection.

So what’s next? At 11 I can finally put on my all HP, blur GS goggles. And at 12 I’ll have my triple positive undead killing Maul together with my Lightning 2 greataxe. And as far as weapons goes that’ll work nicely until I hit 20 and can pick up the Epic Antique Greataxe.

Armor wise I either have the armor from VoD or a black Dragon ML 14 one. I think I go with the Black Dragon since it adds fortification penetration and additional temporary bonus to damage after each kill. Both very useful items. Sure, I could put on my Dragontouched armor I made an Eon ago – but those are not as viable anymore. They’re in a real need of updating to be the goto 16+ armor. And I do wish they would. Just as GS is the goto item for items and weapons, Dragontouched with its runes used to and should be the armor people grind out for the below Epic runs.

Instead I notice that it’s more the different TOR heroic armor.