Where can I learn about appraising magical equipment?

[essjayehm]

I actually think that is wrong in the early levels, Fozzie.

24 armour absorbs 18 damage (when hit in the torso)
36 armour absorbs 24 damage

Unless the incoming hit is doing pure piercing damage (ie Honing prefix, or a skill, etc), then the incoming piercing damage is quite minimal early on, and resisting 7% of "very little" is quite a bit less impressive than upping your armour by 50%.

Melee toons should focus on armour rating for Act 1 Normal... barring any awesome affixes. Playing Xmax or ticking some of the remove broken/white/yellow boxes in Defiler can change that advice, but for vanilla TQIT, I focus on armour first in A1N.

[Ravensgrace]

Great point and suggestions. Thank you! Although, the formulas from the game mechanics threads on armor suggest that the armor rating is actually doubled when less than 475. So, 24 armor would actually absorb 32 damage, and 36 armor would absorb 48 damage.

So, if I was wearing 24 armor and struck for 32 damage and 30% of it was piercing, then I would take 10 damage and 7% of that is less than 1 point.

Yes, I'm learning, it's true. I feel like I'm taking a math course.

[Fozzie]

I actually think that is wrong in the early levels, Fozzie.

Yes, I was kind of thinking about a little further down the road, here. Because "in general" it is better to have a decent health bonus and some resistance (and pierce is/will be a quite important one) on a piece of armour than a few points of armour rating more and a useless other property. Cause to be honest, I don't think that armour matters that much in the very early levels anyway, and so it might be better getting used to not favour sheer armour rating over everything else but rather look out for other stats.

But, again, you're of course right concerning A1N.

[thegreatjedi]

Hi I'm just wondering, what are the key changes from Normal to Epic to Legendary difficulties that must be accounted for in changing expectations during gear comparison? Thanks!

[jaelrin]

Hi I'm just wondering, what are the key changes from Normal to Epic to Legendary difficulties that must be accounted for in changing expectations during gear comparison? Thanks!

You get -40% to primary (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison and Piercing) resists in Epic, and -100% in Legendary. So if you don't get some gear to cover it - expect to be very fragile.

[Irma2]

Although that is countered by finding gear with higher stats. Take, for example, Hippocrates' Vest, the unique torso armour that drops in Epic and Legendary. It can give around 130% Poison resistance. Good luck finding anything in Normal which offers that sort of boost.

Even green gear comes with much higher bonuses in the higher levels. A Legendary Batrachos Breastplate can easily give you +130% pierce resistance and Gigantes gear with the right socket can give more than 100% to Fire, Cold or Lightning. So maxing out resistances isn't that hard. It's quite hard to get one gear setup that gives you 80% to all your resistances all the time. But you don't need that, you really just need resistance to whatever damage is done by the boss you're facing right now. Achieving that is not very tough. You may need to carry a bunch of spare items in inventory and swap out regularly but the benefits are well worth it.

[jaelrin]

Currently I'm playing D2I mod, and need help to chose between armor. I have Champion's Coat with good stats and relic, The Citadel that gives +1 skills to one of my masteries and Armor of the Tireless Soldier

With Champion's Coat I have 854 DA, some Dodge and CtAP, with The Citadel only 744 DA, but more armor, some Health and stats, and +1 to skills.

Don't look at damage at the screenshot, it's unbuffed, with aura active it's almost 3k dps.

[essjayehm]

As far as vanilla TQ would go, that champions coat should do well until end act 2. Those are great numbers on your Veteran's roll, and upping your armour value compared to the 14% damage resistance is something you have to test in-game. It is tougher for me to evaluate +skills value in a mod I haven't played, so I would have to say test out the Citadel, if it feels safer, then it is a good swap out. BUT, Act 2 introduces tons of ranged enemies, so CTaP is important, too.
I definitely keep items like that (in my stash) around for a while, so that if I reach an area that I have difficulty with, the swap-out and test is relatively easy (rather than exiting to grab it from the Vault). Then, when I do get an obvious replacement, then I sell off both of the "equal" items.

Good, tough choice there. GL

[Shalie]

I think The Citadel is a terrible item and you should stick with the Champion's Coat. I find +skills to be less important on melee characters, and the other stats on it are not very exciting.