PvM : What works best, Resist CAPs raised to 75 (DCI 25), or DCI raised to 70 (Resists 65) ?

In PvM, in terms of more protection, what works best considering using Refinements on Armor ?

Raising one's own CAPs to 75 (Energy 80 for Elves) but at the cost of lowering one's own Defense Chance Increase down to 25, or, rather, raising one's own Defense Chance Increase CAP to 70, but at the cost of lowering one's own Resists' CAPs down to 65 (Energy 70 for Elves) ?

And, also, is there a difference in whether it matters more the Increase of the Resists CAP at the expense of the DCI CAP, or the increase of the DCI CAP at the expense of the Resists CAP, when considering doing either one for a Melee or a Ranged character ?

Thanks.

In my experience having higher resists decreased damage taken (spells and melee) while higher DCI decreased getting hit.

I think what you might be asking is: what is better for a warrior template in the current event. In short, having my resists at or as close to 75 knocks the single hit 50 or 60 damage para’s do down a few points, increasing my survivablity. I don’t believe DCI prevents that single-hit damage, but someone may correct me there. It is this way on both my dragoon and archer, all though my archer uses more non-refineable pieces in his suit. If I were doing this event on a mage I might consider more DCI for the other spawn as I tend to play dangerously without protection always running.

In what I’ve read it seems higher resists is favored more than higher dci. 

if you aren't using parry does DCI matter?

McDougle said:

if you aren't using parry does DCI matter?

Yes, they are separate checks. https://community.stratics.com/threads/defense-chance-increase-vs-parrying.233250/

@popps

Boss fight: 
25 DCI
45 HCI
Armor resist go for 75, energy 80 (preferred)
35 SSI
DI 100
However, I do have 120 parrying. 

Low level monsters
- Currently, I swap and wear luck jewels Lune and Souleil Rouge, so only 5 DCI with just 25 SSI. This is enough to kill imps and gargoyles because they are super weak and plentiful. I am getting more drops from killing low level more than the demons and paragons. 

Frankly speaking, you can just run around killing the mid and low levels, and leave the paragons to the other veterans. This is what I do most of the time. Paragons only when there are many players around and we can kill quickly. Otherwise its a waste of time not for solo fight. 

---
I quit pvp but I heard from some players in the past say high resist is also good. esp. fire resist against pvp mages. 

Right now I have raised my physical and fire resists to 75 and lowered my DCI to 35, I am curious how much benefit others are seeing from having all of their resists raised or perhaps just energy along with the other two. 

McDougle said:

if you aren't using parry does DCI matter?

Need to have both.
I have tried 60 parrying and 45 dci (ok but not good against rend)
120 parrying and 0 dci (weak against rend, easy die), I would say 50-50. 
120 parrying and 20 dci sweet spot, thanks to advise from various experts in stratics.

Sacrifice 25 dci for a 80-75-75-75-75 resist.

Basic test for newbie warrior is to kill greater dragon and balron solo.
Intermediate test do Purtrefier and Rend solo with no help.
Advanced test do the champspawn boss solo. 
Expert test do all the new bosses with help from Bard
God mode: solo all bosses with no help.

I am only at advanced stage. 

@popps
One more thing, high resist is also good for archer because it uses ranged attack so does not need DCI so much. High resist will protect against attack spells. 

JackFlashUk said:

Oh wait,  soon be time to argue, debate the life out of all the answers people are wasting their time giving you

I like talking about this game and helping others. Much as others have helped me. It's not wasting my time as it provides a great light alternative to the sometimes heavy stuff I deal with in my day job. There is no reason for you to attempt to speak for me.

DCI - checks (calculates) first. Determining if you get hit at all. 

Drago said:

with my samp. i swap 120 anat for 120 resisting spells and keep resists at 70 (except energy at 75 bc elf). 

45 HCI

40 DCI

25 SSI

187 Stamina.  With double axe. im at best tick rate (1.25) and with 120 resist,  mob debuffs dont drop my stamina below 180.

I found this to be effective against all paras.  you definitely want HCI maxed at 45 , since HCI drops against para mobs.

Does this mean you can solo para Balrons?  If so what's the rest of your skills at?

Kaz said:

DCI - checks (calculates) first. Determining if you get hit at all. 

Parry - checks 2nd

in terms of a melee dexer running bushido and high parry: it kinda makes sense that you want the dci check to fail a bit more so that you have a chance to parry.   Cuz when you parry, you counterstrike (good to get in the habit of keeping counter strike up at all times), and thus you are getting extra hits in. 

If you go this route, it makes sense to jack up your resists to mitigate the dmg that does get thru as much as possible. 

If you dont have max dci, i cant think of one reason NOT to refine your armor for better resists.  

Now if you are looking for the math behind it all: look it all up on uo guide and make some analysis that way.  

That's a good point, if one has high Parry, to prefer refining for higher resists and thus lower DCI so as to trigger counter strike.

Thanks for pointing it out !!

Drago said:

with my samp. i swap 120 anat for 120 resisting spells and keep resists at 70 (except energy at 75 bc elf). 

45 HCI

40 DCI

25 SSI

187 Stamina.  With double axe. im at best tick rate (1.25) and with 120 resist,  mob debuffs dont drop my stamina below 180.

I found this to be effective against all paras.  you definitely want HCI maxed at 45 , since HCI drops against para mobs.

Does that mean that you do not use refinements at all ?

Neither to increase resists' CAPs nor to increase DCI CAP ?

popps said:

Drago said:

with my samp. i swap 120 anat for 120 resisting spells and keep resists at 70 (except energy at 75 bc elf). 

45 HCI

40 DCI

25 SSI

187 Stamina.  With double axe. im at best tick rate (1.25) and with 120 resist,  mob debuffs dont drop my stamina below 180.

I found this to be effective against all paras.  you definitely want HCI maxed at 45 , since HCI drops against para mobs.

Does that mean that you do not use refinements at all ?

Neither to increase resists' CAPs nor to increase DCI CAP ?

nope.  I tried them and difference was negligible at best.  You  don't want to drop DCI cap against mobs that hit fast, even with parry.  The resist gains aren't worth it if you have 120 resist spells.

Drago said:

popps said:

Drago said:

with my samp. i swap 120 anat for 120 resisting spells and keep resists at 70 (except energy at 75 bc elf). 

45 HCI

40 DCI

25 SSI

187 Stamina.  With double axe. im at best tick rate (1.25) and with 120 resist,  mob debuffs dont drop my stamina below 180.

I found this to be effective against all paras.  you definitely want HCI maxed at 45 , since HCI drops against para mobs.

Does that mean that you do not use refinements at all ?

Neither to increase resists' CAPs nor to increase DCI CAP ?

nope.  I tried them and difference was negligible at best.  You  don't want to drop DCI cap against mobs that hit fast, even with parry.  The resist gains aren't worth it if you have 120 resist spells.

Ah, that's good to know....

I do see, though, looking around, players who who them on their Armor.....

I wonder, for what particular Templates and what hunts, they can be beneficial, whether one raises the Resists' CAP lowering DCI, or raises the DCI CAP lowering the resists, from the use of refinements.....

I take then, that from your personal experience, you disagree with @Kaz who wrote here https://forum.uo.com/discussion/comment/65999/#Comment_65999 , that lowering DCI from raising the Resists' CAPs with refinements, could be usefull for those Templates using 120 Parry and Bushido, since the lower Defence Chance Increase combined with 120 Parry can increase the chance of Parrying, and if one uses the Bushido spell "Counter Strike", that Parrying can trigger extra hits due to Counter Strike ?

The fun part about the warrior is that we use different gears for the different boss fights. 
Osiredon, Zipactriotl, Paroxysmus, Travesty, Shadowguard, Doom, etc. So it depends on your experience. 

I think I agree with Drago it's best for you to start at standard 70 armor resist for beginners. 70 resist works fine for most people. 

If you have tried to say solo the underwater BMV, you may prefer extra armor resists as the spells are really devastating and DCI does not help much... but ofcourse, some expert-level like Bear corpse does not need that extra resist. 

@Seth could you explain what suit set ups you use for which bosses? Also, what you use to determine which type to use?

Riner said:

@ Seth could you explain what suit set ups you use for which bosses? Also, what you use to determine which type to use?

I am thinking of refining my armor to have max resists using Invulnerability refinements since there is a chance of not getting one resist which one would you choose? I am thinking cold but not sure if that is the best choice. I know I have the option to try again if I don't get five just not the resources right now. Or I am better off chancing poison since most poisons don't last long with vampire form running? I use my sampire for most challenges other then the roof right now. Any thoughts?

Riner said:

I am thinking of refining my armor to have max resists using Invulnerability refinements since there is a chance of not getting one resist which one would you choose? I am thinking cold but not sure if that is the best choice. I know I have the option to try again if I don't get five just not the resources right now. 

Physical - only against melee attack. 

Fire, cold, energy - both spells and melee, but spells are more deadly because you can't run fast enough to avoid them.

Poison - mostly melee but few monsters have poison melee damage. 

imho, there are two options:
1) Choose the least-used resist which I think is poison. 
2) If you are using an elf, maybe choose energy since it already has 75 resist. 
For me I chose energy as I prefer balanced approach. 

Suggest to try and get +5 for the "permanent" gear, e.g. feudal gloves, Blackthorn helmet, britches or tinker legs, balron armor. 

Helmet +5
Balron chest +5
Feudal gloves +5
Legs +4
Above 4 is 19 points but I hope to get Legs +5 in future. 

Then remaining 2 imbued gear (could also be legendary/major arty):
Neck +3
Arm +3

So based on the above, it gets cheaper to remake the worn-out neck and arm armour since it only needs hardening.

One thing to be careful is that if it goes above +25 it means DCI will drop below 20.

Seth said:

Travesty needs to use sword and shield without life leech. The part when the ninjas appear it’s easier to honor self to finish off Travesty. If solo fight the ninjas, it is hard to kill Travesty.

PlayerSkillFTW said:

Seth said:

Travesty needs to use sword and shield without life leech. The part when the ninjas appear it’s easier to honor self to finish off Travesty. If solo fight the ninjas, it is hard to kill Travesty.

Travesty can be soloed easier by a Sampire with GM SS using Wraith Form+Curse Weapon. When Travesty transforms into you, she becomes vulnerable to Undead Slayer (due to Wraith Form). You can stack Undead Slayer on Weapon and Talisman to hit 300% damage cap against her then (also works against any other Changeling). The Wraith Form keeps sucking Mana from her, and the Curse Weapon keeps your Health up.

I usually just refine for +5 Physical/Fire/Energy Resist Caps. The other two Resists aren't needed that much. Physical/Fire/Energy are the three most commonly encountered attack types. DCI only functions against Kinetic attacks, it does absolutely nothing against Magic or abilities like Dragon Breath (which can hit very hard from high HP mobs).

Yeah, thanks for the input, we need more sharing of sampire and warrior tactics. I have seen those videos using Whammy but later a friend on my shard told me his sampire just used a sword and shield, and to drop the life leech from the sword. It works but I have to be careful about BO and the last part when Travesty summons the ninjas. 

I used EOO and honor for the double damage as I did not use the undead slayer method. 

I have tried both the high DCI and high resist cap methods with Sampire template and found the higher resist caps work better.   The boost in DCI is useful in PVP, but still didn't outweigh losing the higher resists. 

Sometimes the higher Resist cap can be enough to avoid bandy interruption when getting hit too (26+ damage will interrupt a bandy, lowering the healed amount), for Healing Warriors. I've seen high Eval Flamestrikes be just below 26 damage with a 75 Fire Resist cap, which meant they would've interrupted the bandy attempt if i had only 70 Fire Resist (DCI would've done nothing against that FS anyways).

I just recently brought my DCI to 65 on my sampire. Honestly 5 points in resist is literally only 5 damage for a 100 point hit. I consider a HUGE hit to be around 60. So that would only save me about 3 points in damage. And since I've had to lower my DCI cap, I'm much easier to hit.

Raising DCI: now I have a chance to straight up not be hit at all by those mega melee hits. This means for a 60 damage hit, I might not take any damage.

 I've heard the argument for having it low for counter strike, and honestly, I don't need to kill things a bit faster. My main painpoint on my Sampire is how do I survive against the toughest mobs? Anything that I can survive through I can kill fast enough. Counter-strike does enable you to hit the enemy, which enables you to leech life, but I think I'd rather avoid some of those mega hits than take the chance that one procs counter strike.

Not to brag but my Bard was getting 1 an hour this morning and I think if hail storm wasn't broken i could get two what a magical time to be alive 

Balin_Wingnut said:

I just recently brought my DCI to 65 on my sampire. Honestly 5 points in resist is literally only 5 damage for a 100 point hit. I consider a HUGE hit to be around 60. So that would only save me about 3 points in damage. And since I've had to lower my DCI cap, I'm much easier to hit.

Raising DCI: now I have a chance to straight up not be hit at all by those mega melee hits. This means for a 60 damage hit, I might not take any damage.

 I've heard the argument for having it low for counter strike, and honestly, I don't need to kill things a bit faster. My main painpoint on my Sampire is how do I survive against the toughest mobs? Anything that I can survive through I can kill fast enough. Counter-strike does enable you to hit the enemy, which enables you to leech life, but I think I'd rather avoid some of those mega hits than take the chance that one procs counter strike.

Actually you are right DCI can avoid the melee damage completely. 

If main point is to survive, any damage reduction is welcome since most of the time my sampire dies while running away from a bunch of spell casters. I could not remember a time when it died from melee unless it’s against a life tainted like Osiredon. Even then it died because of spells not melee because I just take a step away from the water and it cannot hit me.

I think that is also why evasion is nerfed because it can parry spells and so has long cool off time now.

CA do not trigger a lot for double strike in 1v1 but trigger more when surrounded. It’s the same theory how we train parrying, because it triggers most when surrounded. So it does help when surrounded by a bunch of heavy spell casters with high Hp like Wind Eles.

Perhaps DCI is useful in avoiding archer hit altogether, but there are few that threatens survivability. Also agreed with Merlin that high DCI mostly used in pvp to avoid getting ganked by the powerful paralysis weapon attack like splintering, armor ignore and death strike from ninja…

Evasion was nerfed because of PVP .... there's got to be a way to only apply these pvp  "fixes" in only pvp situations...woof woof says the dog archer who's regen rate is mathematically the same as a sampires leech ability.. woof 

McDougle said:

Evasion was nerfed because of PVP .... there's got to be a way to only apply these pvp  "fixes" in only pvp situations...woof woof says the dog archer who's regen rate is mathematically the same as a sampires leech ability.. woof 

Yup, but it proved the point in the discussion that spells is a bigger threat then melee. They don’t nerf parrying melee damage, but parrying spells are ‘frowned’ upon.  😂

In any case, that was my complaint when they extended cooling time for evasion to Pvm since it was for pvp, isn’t it? But no, they still do it for both. Why not different for pvm amd pvp like weapon damages and Eoo?

Seth said:

McDougle said:

Evasion was nerfed because of PVP .... there's got to be a way to only apply these pvp  "fixes" in only pvp situations...woof woof says the dog archer who's regen rate is mathematically the same as a sampires leech ability.. woof 

Yup, but it proved the point in the discussion that spells is a bigger threat then melee. They don’t nerf parrying melee damage, but parrying spells are ‘frowned’ upon.  😂

In any case, that was my complaint when they extended cooling time for evasion to Pvm since it was for pvp, isn’t it? But no, they still do it for both. Why not different for pvm amd pvp like weapon damages and Eoo?

I've never understood why the first line in any pvp code wouldn't be 
Is this player in heat of battle then...
No more timer for mongbat attacks 
They could unnerf ninja and horrific beast (why only one necro form got shafted is beyond me) 
Etc
Etc
Etc

Balin_Wingnut said:

I just recently brought my DCI to 65 on my sampire. Honestly 5 points in resist is literally only 5 damage for a 100 point hit. I consider a HUGE hit to be around 60. So that would only save me about 3 points in damage. And since I've had to lower my DCI cap, I'm much easier to hit.

Raising DCI: now I have a chance to straight up not be hit at all by those mega melee hits. This means for a 60 damage hit, I might not take any damage.

 I've heard the argument for having it low for counter strike, and honestly, I don't need to kill things a bit faster. My main painpoint on my Sampire is how do I survive against the toughest mobs? Anything that I can survive through I can kill fast enough. Counter-strike does enable you to hit the enemy, which enables you to leech life, but I think I'd rather avoid some of those mega hits than take the chance that one procs counter strike.

Not to get pedantic, but 5 resist would actually reduce by more than 3-5 points. You have to look at the raw damage, before your current resists are applied, and not take 5% off the already reduced hit.

If you were hit for 100 with 70 resists, the base hit would be around 334 damage. 

70 Resists: 334 * .30 = 100
75 Resists: 334 * .25 = 83

So 17 extra damage reduced.

Similar with a 60 damage hit, which would be 200 base damage:

70 Resists: 200 * .30 = 60
75 Resists: 200 * .25 = 50

An extra 10 damage reduced.

So 5% resist can actually make a sizable impact.

Your other point remains though, that DCI can give you 100% damage reduction by avoiding the hit altogether for melee hits.

So is the DCI and HCI cap of 45 really another cap that's not really a cap? So if he's at 65 dci and the monster at 45 hci he's really 20 dci?

Khyro said:

Balin_Wingnut said:

I just recently brought my DCI to 65 on my sampire. Honestly 5 points in resist is literally only 5 damage for a 100 point hit. I consider a HUGE hit to be around 60. So that would only save me about 3 points in damage. And since I've had to lower my DCI cap, I'm much easier to hit.

Raising DCI: now I have a chance to straight up not be hit at all by those mega melee hits. This means for a 60 damage hit, I might not take any damage.

 I've heard the argument for having it low for counter strike, and honestly, I don't need to kill things a bit faster. My main painpoint on my Sampire is how do I survive against the toughest mobs? Anything that I can survive through I can kill fast enough. Counter-strike does enable you to hit the enemy, which enables you to leech life, but I think I'd rather avoid some of those mega hits than take the chance that one procs counter strike.

Not to get pedantic, but 5 resist would actually reduce by more than 3-5 points. You have to look at the raw damage, before your current resists are applied, and not take 5% off the already reduced hit.

If you were hit for 100 with 70 resists, the base hit would be around 334 damage. 

70 Resists: 334 * .30 = 100
75 Resists: 334 * .25 = 83

So 17 extra damage reduced.

Similar with a 60 damage hit, which would be 200 base damage:

70 Resists: 200 * .30 = 60
75 Resists: 200 * .25 = 50

An extra 10 damage reduced.

So 5% resist can actually make a sizable impact.

Your other point remains though, that DCI can give you 100% damage reduction by avoiding the hit altogether for melee hits.

Excellent explanation of why players should put their pets resists to 80 in Phy Fire and Energy since only 5% or less mobs that do heavy damage do cold or poison damage. Setting them to a false balance of 70 really causes the pet to take unnecessary damage.  Or better option. Use pets, for the few encounters that have cold or poison damage, that have high resists in those as needed.

Pawain said:

Excellent explanation of why players should put their pets resists to 80 in Phy Fire and Energy since only 5% or less mobs that do heavy damage do cold or poison damage. Setting them to a false balance of 70 really causes the pet to take unnecessary damage.  Or better option. Use pets, for the few encounters that have cold or poison damage, that have high resists in those as needed.

Wrong thread, but you do you buddy.

Khyro said:

Balin_Wingnut said:

Not to get pedantic, but 5 resist would actually reduce by more than 3-5 points. You have to look at the raw damage, before your current resists are applied, and not take 5% off the already reduced hit.

If you were hit for 100 with 70 resists, the base hit would be around 334 damage. 

70 Resists: 334 * .30 = 100
75 Resists: 334 * .25 = 83

So 17 extra damage reduced.

Similar with a 60 damage hit, which would be 200 base damage:

70 Resists: 200 * .30 = 60
75 Resists: 200 * .25 = 50

An extra 10 damage reduced.

So 5% resist can actually make a sizable impact.

Your other point remains though, that DCI can give you 100% damage reduction by avoiding the hit altogether for melee hits.

This gives me the reason to use normal dragon barding armour vs Paroxysmus. Even though it's just 8% more but based on the above it reduces a lot. Then further multiply by 8 when surrounded x 8 hits per 2 or 3 seconds. That is a lot of damage to resist. 

I remember reading the old sampire notes in stratics forum and the uoguide, the warrior always seek the maximum attack damage while maximising defense. I am glad to have studied and created this template since 2015.

@popps
You should get the swampy also... it comes with +20% melee damage reduction. 
Dragon Barding – Ultima Online (uo.com)

Normal dragon barding deed is 20% damage reduction up to 12000 points each. 
Paroxysmus dragon gives 12% reduction that does not expire. 

The table at uoguide gives more information on the dragon's resist etc. 
Dragon Barding Deed - UOGuide, the Ultima Online Encyclopedia
 
Welcome to the warrior's club!

Unless you're a gargoyle then no damage reduction for you....

Balin_Wingnut said:

I just recently brought my DCI to 65 on my sampire. Honestly 5 points in resist is literally only 5 damage for a 100 point hit. I consider a HUGE hit to be around 60. So that would only save me about 3 points in damage. And since I've had to lower my DCI cap, I'm much easier to hit.

Raising DCI: now I have a chance to straight up not be hit at all by those mega melee hits. This means for a 60 damage hit, I might not take any damage.

 I've heard the argument for having it low for counter strike, and honestly, I don't need to kill things a bit faster. My main painpoint on my Sampire is how do I survive against the toughest mobs? Anything that I can survive through I can kill fast enough. Counter-strike does enable you to hit the enemy, which enables you to leech life, but I think I'd rather avoid some of those mega hits than take the chance that one procs counter strike.

@Balin_Wingnut

thank you for sharing your experience.

If I understood what you are saying correctly, you are finding that you seem to gain more benefits from having a higher Defense Chance Increase CAP (and lower resists as a consequence) as compared to having a higher Resists' CAP (and a lower Defense Chance Increase CAP as a consequence) ?

That is interesting because, from what others have said in this thread, it looks to be that you prefer the opposite direction as to what others, in this thread, indicated that they preferred for themselves and their gameplay, that is, to have a higher Resists CAP at the expense of their DCI CAP.....

You mention of bringing your DCI CAP from 45 to 65 (20 points) which it lowered your resists for 20 points. Yet, you mention a reduction of 5 points in resists which, x 5, would be 25 points of resists' CAPs lowered...

Does this mean, that you lowered 5 points for 4 resists (5 x 4 = 20) and not for all 5 resists ?
In such a case, which of the 5 resists' CAP did you leave untouched at 70 ?

In terms of actual gameplay, "how much" raising your DCI CAP to 65 actually lowered the chance of getting hit at all ?

And, also, what about spell damage to your character ?

Sure, your character gets hit less in melee, but, when you get hit by spells, with a CAP of resists now at 65, no longer at 70, don't you get more damage ?

What I am trying to ask, is whether your "higher DCI lower resists" configuration, you found that it works well against melee hitters who do not cast spells (or not that much) but that, when it comes to a spawn with lots of spellcasters, that it does not do much well...

Bottom line is, I am just trying to understand whether you found your DCI/Resists configuration to be a 360 degrees configuration that works in all circumstances, or whether you just use it for some specific, limited hunts....

Thanks !

McDougle said:

Unless you're a gargoyle then no damage reduction for you....

I am planning to build one gargoyle warrior this time, after getting the new armor and gargoyle epaulette. Maybe a thrower… I have not seen anyone using a gargoyle sampire 

Its so hard to build a gargoyle. I was missing an artifact so I stopped last year. 

Hmm,

Maybe elf just need +5 fire resist to 75.
It already has 75 energy. Most attack spells are fire and energy.

Then he can reduce poison to 65 resist by deflecting refinement.

So overall will be
Phy 70
Fire 75 with +5
Cold 70
Poison 65 with -5
Energy 75 For elf 

So add 5, minus 5 resist, I suppose the DCI cap still 45? I am not sure if this is possible to use both types of refinement on the armors.

Seth said:

Hmm,

Maybe elf just need +5 fire resist to 75.
It already has 75 energy. Most attack spells are fire and energy.

Then he can reduce poison to 65 resist by deflecting refinement.

So overall will be
Phy 70
Fire 75 with +5
Cold 70
Poison 65 with -5
Energy 75 For elf 

So add 5, minus 5 resist, I suppose the DCI cap still 45? I am not sure if this is possible to use both types of refinement on the armors.

One refinement per piece. You would need 10 pieces to get that.

You could get + 3 and minus 3. Using all 6 armor slots.

@popps I really think this depends on play style and the abilities of the player.

Notice how you see both answers.

Also depends on your armor. Do you have a suit with 75 DCI? Getting 75 DCI is not easy. Armor with DCI usually has odd stats.

What DCI are you using now? If less than 45. Add resists. 

I was only using 25 DCI on my macer. So I increased 15 resists. I use the 8 DCI fish pie as needed.

May be you could use some fish pies and see if more DCI is better if you are not at cap.

Pawain said:

Seth said:

Hmm,

Maybe elf just need +5 fire resist to 75.
It already has 75 energy. Most attack spells are fire and energy.

Then he can reduce poison to 65 resist by deflecting refinement.

So overall will be
Phy 70
Fire 75 with +5
Cold 70
Poison 65 with -5
Energy 75 For elf 

So add 5, minus 5 resist, I suppose the DCI cap still 45? I am not sure if this is possible to use both types of refinement on the armors.

One refinement per piece. You would need 10 pieces to get that.

You could get + 3 and minus 3. Using all 6 armor slots.

Yup, I will explore this method if dci is needed, but for now not so much. This is a good way to customise the gear to specific spawn.

Pawain said:

I was only using 25 DCI on my macer. So I increased 15 resists. I use the 8 DCI fish pie as needed.

May be you could use some fish pies and see if more DCI is better if you are not at cap.

Talking about macing, I was about to swap sword for macing, because the mastery gives 180 HP… I saw Bear Corpse used this method for the Abyss Stygian that is hard to solo… Its good for a boss type that is heavy hitter, and one that requires AI (no sword onslaught). 

Macing:

None of the weapons have 2 useful specials Like a Double axe.

2 hand War hammer for WW. Or Black Staff.  I have Shadow hammers to make metal 100%s.
Whip has a useless second and is low damage.
War Hammer is very slow need lots of stamina/SSI.

A Staff for DS Low damage.  The AI weapons are one hand and low damage.

Not easy to make a Macer.  But Toughness and Bard buff takes you to 180HP.

1 what?

No.  Hijacking threads with silly jokes has gone far enough. Off topic posts have been, and will in future be, removed.