As the Title says, does anyone know why Armor Refinements have been made only for non-medable Armor ?

What would be wrong with Armor Refinements be available also for medable Armor ?

Ya when I log on daily, The first thing I hear is, "Why cant we refine leather armor?!"

Have you used refinements before?  3/4 or more of UO players have no idea what it is for other than to toss in the trash for points.

The Devs should stop what they are doing and make cloth and leather refinements!

Publish 81 back in 2013 included a substantial revamp for nonmeddable armor, including basing stamina loss on type of armor and # of pieces equipped; adding an inherent lower mana cost to all types of nonmeddable armor other than woodland armor; and allowing players to refine nonmeddable armor to either (1) increase resists while reducing max DCI  or (2) decrease resists while increasing max DCI. 

That publish also included a weapon revamp that normalized weapons based on their speed and handedness.

If you stood back and looked at publish 81 as a whole, it definitely seemed to be aimed at melee characters.  And since melee characters tend to wear nonmeddable armor, it makes a lot of sense that the armor revamp (including armor refinements) focused primarily on nonmeddable armor. 

To add. Increasing resistance decreases dci.  
That is the pro and con to a warrior using refinements.

A mage does not use dci if they do not have parry. So adding resistance and decreasing dci would have no disadvantage to a mage. 

The devs planned ahead.

Unfortunately there are a lot of players that do not have parry but they think they need dci on there build.

Pawain said:

To add. Increasing resistance decreases dci.  
That is the pro and con to a warrior using refinements.

A mage does not use dci if they do not have parry. So adding resistance and decreasing dci would have no disadvantage to a mage. 

The devs planned ahead.

Unfortunately there are a lot of players that do not have parry but they think they need dci on there build.

A mage does not use dci if they do not have parry. So adding resistance and decreasing dci would have no disadvantage to a mage. 

Well, for medable Armor, then, the counter perhaps could have been not for Defense Chance Increase but for another stat which characters using medable Armor use more ?

Margrette said:

Publish 81 back in 2013 included a substantial revamp for nonmeddable armor, including basing stamina loss on type of armor and # of pieces equipped; adding an inherent lower mana cost to all types of nonmeddable armor other than woodland armor; and allowing players to refine nonmeddable armor to either (1) increase resists while reducing max DCI  or (2) decrease resists while increasing max DCI. 

That publish also included a weapon revamp that normalized weapons based on their speed and handedness.

If you stood back and looked at publish 81 as a whole, it definitely seemed to be aimed at melee characters.  And since melee characters tend to wear nonmeddable armor, it makes a lot of sense that the armor revamp (including armor refinements) focused primarily on nonmeddable armor. 

Thanks for the explaination, I just find it odd that Refinements would not be available for Medable Armor.... and this, particularly because medable Templates could use some more resistance points to compensate for debuffs and the likes....

Pawain said:

To add. Increasing resistance decreases dci.  
That is the pro and con to a warrior using refinements.

A mage does not use dci if they do not have parry. So adding resistance and decreasing dci would have no disadvantage to a mage. 

The devs planned ahead.

Unfortunately there are a lot of players that do not have parry but they think they need dci on there build.

Max_Blackoak said:

Pawain said:

To add. Increasing resistance decreases dci.  
That is the pro and con to a warrior using refinements.

A mage does not use dci if they do not have parry. So adding resistance and decreasing dci would have no disadvantage to a mage. 

The devs planned ahead.

Unfortunately there are a lot of players that do not have parry but they think they need dci on there build.

ahem... I'm afraid you're wrong.

DCI is essential and it works without parry. It does require you to have either a weaponskill, wrestling, eval+anatomy, a mage weapon or a mystic weapon (in essence anything that will give you defense against being hit) to work.

So you get your base defense chance from your skill/mage weapon etc. and on top of that you get up to 45 defense chance increase from items.

Parry is actually factored in AFTER the attackers skill+hci has been counted vs your skill+dci and only plays a role when the attacker gets past your defense. Then another check will be done of his attack vs your parry.

Also: not all mages use medable armor, look at mystic mages for example. So they actually can benefit from refinements, however, it's a bit of a gamble and only makes sense in very specific settings.

@Max_Blackoak

What do you mean when you say "it's a bit of a gamble and only makes sense in very specific settings." ?

Max_Blackoak said:

Pawain said:

To add. Increasing resistance decreases dci.  
That is the pro and con to a warrior using refinements.

A mage does not use dci if they do not have parry. So adding resistance and decreasing dci would have no disadvantage to a mage. 

The devs planned ahead.

Unfortunately there are a lot of players that do not have parry but they think they need dci on there build.

ahem... I'm afraid you're wrong.

DCI is essential and it works without parry. It does require you to have either a weaponskill, wrestling, eval+anatomy, a mage weapon or a mystic weapon (in essence anything that will give you defense against being hit) to work.

So you get your base defense chance from your skill/mage weapon etc. and on top of that you get up to 45 defense chance increase from items.

Parry is actually factored in AFTER the attackers skill+hci has been counted vs your skill+dci and only plays a role when the attacker gets past your defense. Then another check will be done of his attack vs your parry.

Also: not all mages use medable armor, look at mystic mages for example. So they actually can benefit from refinements, however, it's a bit of a gamble and only makes sense in very specific settings.

Ok I was wrong. Not only do you need parry you also need a weapon skill and tactics. I did not want to get into the scores of builds so I stuck with a mage using magery as damage.

Most mages on prodo shards do not melee their targets. So they do not put melee skills on their mage.

As for a mage getting more resist. I can't think of a equitable. Trade off stat.

Pawain said:

Most mages on prodo shards do not melee their targets. So they do not put melee skills on their mage.

Max_Blackoak said: k8

Pawain said:

Most mages on prodo shards do not melee their targets. So they do not put melee skills on their mage.

this is no different on prodo than on Siege.

Mages do use either wrestling, eval+anatomy or a mage weapon or a mystic weapon to avoid getting hit and disrupted. Some mages even use a weaponskill in their build (PvP templates mostly) which achieves the exact same. On top of that they should get 45 dci to reduce the chance of getting hit and interupted while casting even more.

I don't see PvP players. 

@popps ask 

Armor Refinements : Does anyone know why they are only for non-medable Armor ?

Simple answer is because UO wanted it that way and unless you can come up with a detailed reason as to why they need to change it.

....because nobody used anything other than medable leather armor for like 15 years..

Nikard said:

....because nobody used anything other than medable leather armor for like 15 years..

You mean, Refinements were a somewhat "incentive" to promote non-medable Armor within players since everybody was preferring medable Armor ?

That is an explaination, an unusual and strange one, to my opinion, but still, could be a possible line of thinking that could have been used back at the time when Refinements were created....

It would be interesting, though, to actually know what was the actual reason and line of thinking which made the Developers release Refinements only for non-medable Armor...

Refinements, and the accompanying changes to armor in publish 81, was intended to make metal and other non-medable armor more relevant.

As usual @popps doesn't agree with the DEVs or that other armor needs to have a place in UO.  @popps what armor did your warrior class wear before Age of Shadow, oh wait you probably complained that plate was stronger then leather and wanted the DEVs. back then to make everything the same.  Sorry @popps I do not want everything the same I want a variety in my Armor / Pets / Houses / Decor / Skills / Classes / Chars. and everything else related to UO.  I have a very serious question for you because honestly it sounds like you really do not like UO so why do you even play?

the real question is: does he even play?