Spirit of the Totems?

[Wil]

What's the current thinking regarding Spirit of the Totem relayers instead of weapon relayers? Is it better to keep building sdi/enhance potions or is it better to take the 20 str on the SoT?

A SoT doesn't display durability. Does this mean it can't be damaged so doesn't need repair?

What are the optimal slots for the SoT? Head obviously since it is already headgear. I'm thinking also: chest, sleeves, gloves, legs, gorget, since those are where the crafting armor goes and you'll want to wear your LRC relayers at the same time as crafting armor.

What about the shield slot?

Regards,
Wil

[Johnny Warren]

The durability thing means nothing, relayered items don't reduce in durability.

My arguments are all if you are gearing for the end game. My points are not valid if you're talking about early game or the early-mid game. But they are useful for those who want to be a bit more efficient and plan their relayering a bit better from the start.

General UOEX hunter's progression: Early game relayers are to get to 220 dex help max things like LRC, LMC, FC etc. In the mid game it's all HP, how much HP can you get without losing those early game stats? The late game is just damage optimisation. The SoT only fits into the jump from early > mid, It doesn't help in the long run.

Relayers are only really needed if you want to go hunting. As such they need to increase 2 things: survivability and your damage rate. Beyond a certain point there are significant diminishing returns on the survivability front (outlined below).

SoT is an OK relayer for a new player, I would never relayer more than one. The key reasons why the SoT is actually a bad relayer (I've sold all of mine long ago) are as follows:

1. HP is redundant.
2. SDI/RPD are the most important stats.
3. Having 70% Physical resist in your final build is sub optimal.

Beyond 450ish HP, HP is actually a redundant stat. Which means the actual most important stats in the game are ranked as follows:

1. SDI
2. RPD
3. Strength
4. Enhanced Potions
5. HP
6. Who cares... as long as they're maxed.

3-5 are all actually related stats and could come in equal third really.

In the end game, spell damage is king. This is why there's an argument to keep gleam aura legging's in the optimal build. Reflect Physical Damage is just insane as well. These are your 2 main ways to deal additional damage. With a good weapon SDI adds a fair amount of damage. RPD is less versatile (some situations it is invalid or does nothing) but when it works it is incomparable to any other form in the game. Walking around dealing 1100+ damage per hit is pretty hard to top... as I said, in certain situations. This is why Jewel of Winter (overmax SDI and RPD) is better than all relayers including titan's hammers, although interestingly an all JoW suit would be much worse than an all relayers suit.

SoT not adding SDI is the reason it is not used at all in the end game.

The final reason is the 20% Phys resist. An end game suit should not have more than 50% Phys resist. As I said earlier, beyond a point its all damage output and your RPD is your primary or secondary way to support that, depending on the area you're in. Your HP is a resource that should be spent to increase damage output. I much prefer to take 450 dmg off a minotaur than 350. Taking 100 less damage from an AI hit means 250 less damage on him. Why would you willingly cut off the opportunity to deal an extra 250 damage per hit!? I know this is close to best case scenario, but even in S'gail taking an extra 20 dmg per hit means dealing an extra 50 dmg per hit. RPD really stacks up in situations where you're mobbed by mobs that use physical dmg. This is the reason you should really cap your phys resist at 40-50%. You WANT to take damage. What's the point in having 600+ HP if you don't USE it up? I want to actively be hit for as much damage at a time as I can.

For reference when I have Protection cast my phys resist drops to 34 these days, I've had to buy a few new relayers to get rid of excess physical resist. I'm finally at a spot that I think works nicely. I have a weapon for tough spots which naturally came with 18% Phys resist to bump it a little higher (nice that it was also a natural 5x58 too ), so I use that for farming places like Wrong, or if I am solo in Sgail. I can also turn off Protection to jump back to 44% at in tough times.

For this reason as well, SoT is a bad relayer. It gives you all that juicy HP, but then ensures your phys resist will be maxxed, making all that juicy HP so much more worthless.

The times when SoT is good: The one you wear on your head, un-relayered, is a good one because it's cheap. It has the third best HP boost out of all items in the game, so it is good. In the early game I could justify buying a SoT relayer to help break into the 400HP range. But buy it knowing you will eventually sell it as you move into the end game.

Other than that, they are pretty bad. There's a reason the market is flooded with SoT relayers.

-John Warren

[Nick]

yeah, SOT not having SDI or enhance potion and having 20 Physical resists, means I don't think they are good for a relayer. I wear one on my head but will replace it eventually. I've thought of making one a shield but, will stick with the relayer. I have -5 physical resistance when I take my hat off and usually fight at 15 physical resistance with my hat on.

There is an argument to be made it would be okay to hold on to 3 to put on for the very rare situation you need physical resistance. but that would be very very late game when you don't have anything better to sink your money into.

[Wil]

Thanks, that's very helpful info.

So, once you've maxed out the stuff which maxes out, what are the relayer starters that don't involve forking over billions of gold at an auction?

Regards,
Wil

[Johnny Warren]

So, once you've maxed out the stuff which maxes out, what are the relayer starters that don't involve forking over billions of gold at an auction?

Don't forget there are some relayer quality quest items you can get on the cheap. The Jewel of Winter is a must wear (obtained from the main Xmas questline), even once you're all BC/TH. I wouldn't swap my JoW for any relayer of any type. Gleam Aura Leggings are also up there, although there's arguments for a TH being better. I wouldn't replace my Gleam Auras for anything less than one. The Cloak of Mist also gives lots of "early relayer" stats. So that means you don't need to buy as many budget relayers and can instead start going for end game relayers earlier. Ultimately if you want to be in the really elite tier you need to be all BC/TH, the rest are sub-par. Cloak of mist is certainly not an end game item though.

I always encourage people to go for a resist relayer to start. Resists cost lots of spend points. If you can get a decent looted 4x14, 3x18, 4x18 that's a great start. It's one of the cheaper ways to cap everything that can be maxed.

If you are aiming to be like ubermax hardcore and want to be able to do things like drop your phys resist right down you need to start on the BC/TH bandwagon as soon as you can afford it. In all honesty I would not go for more than 2 non-BC/TH relayers. I'd get 1-2 Resist relayers then just save and do the rest as BC/TH if you are aiming for the end game. Obviously if you don't mind just being "efficient and strong enough to handle every area" then you can honestly relayer whatever u want and achieve that goal. My advice is only for those players who are aiming to be in the real upper echelon in terms of damage output and don't mind spending time and gold achieving those ends.

This all comes from my own 11 year UOEX experience. I did not follow the strategies I've discussed above, I had a bunch of garbage relayers for years, a few cavorting clubs and resist relayers. Then I jumped on the BC bandwagon and never looked back. Back in dem days you could get a BC for 1mil gp or so and even TH were only a few hundred ED. I foolishly thought of TH as being too expensive (I don't donate much so ED are harder to come by for me) because it was 200ed to buy and THEN 200ed MORE to type change it, what a rip off! Anyways, kinda like when I bought 0.1BTC for about $1000 and couldn't justify buying more due to the cost. Live and learn, or not learn...

In all honesty the whole thing has become pretty formulaic - relayer as many BC/TH as you can afford and make sure every stat is as max and the uncapped ones are as big as possible. A few of us muck around with our physical resist to improve RPD. I think potential future builds could explore also not maxxing out DCI so that you get hit more to further try and 'break' the fact that RPD is uncapped. I haven't explored that territory yet.

Side note on a different and interesting strategy:

Iltar relayers those jewels that give 75% enhanced potions and some HP. With a few TH relayers to increase the HP they would have by far the largest HP on the server once they'd drunk a greater str pot. This is really cool, you could tank the fire drakey thing in sanctuary without needing to die a few times. The massive raw str of this build also means a lot more base damage on the weapon. However, the big drawback is it means you have very little SDI and RPD, the 2 best dmg output increases. I mention it because I like out of the box thinking. I love seeing interesting weapon designs, relayer strategies etc. I am sure there are further advances in UOEX technology we haven't discovered yet.

[Wil]

I would not go for more than 2 non-BC/TH relayers.

So your thinking is: Ancient Titan's Hammer at +20 str and 500M gold, Titan's Hammer at +15 str and 100M-200M gold, or Bone Crusher at +10 str and 10M gold? Except for a couple slots where quest gear is particularly nice?

Regards,
Wil

[Johnny Warren]

I said BC/TH. Didn't mention ancient titans at all.

BC aren't expensive and are easy for a player to acquire themselves if they want.

The other option is relayer whatever you want then upgrade them slowly as you get richer. This ends up being more expensive as the resale value on mediocre relayers isn't good.