Understanding Good Items: Body Armor Edition
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A question I often hear thrown around is "is this worth anything"? Well, in this guide, I hope to find you an answer. I'm going to be doing this in parts, hoping to sum up what makes gear good, saleworthy, or even exaltable. In order to understand this guide, you should understand how prefixes and suffixes work on gear, and how crafting works in general. Here's a nifty guide, and here is a spreadsheet with all of the mods you can roll. So, let's get right into it.
General
Just in general, for any piece of equipment. If it is a low-level item - say, below level 50, it is almost never going to sell, unless you get some insane magicfind roll on it or just stupidly good life+trires. If it only has one or two decent mods, it isn't going to sell (unless it's magic find and those two mods are godly).
The other most important quality of body armor is that it is one of the three types of equipment in the game (the others being 2-handed weapons and bows) which you can 5- or 6-link. As a result, any chest which is 6L'd is innately valuable (worth at the very least a divine orb at the vendor), and any good base chest with a 5L (In particular Astral Plates, Glorious Plates, Vaal Regalia, and Zodiac Leathers. So.
Armor
For Armor chests, it's pretty straightforward. Your ideal roll is Flat armor, % Armor, Life, two elemental resists, and chaos resist on a glorious or astral plate. Close second is above, just with three elemental resists. The more of these rolls you have, the better off you are. However, if your chest does not have a solid (60+) life roll, and it's not something absolutely amazing, like a glorious plate with really high armor and resists, it will not sell, as a life roll is critically important to almost any build that uses pure armor chests.
Generally speaking, any chest with a solid armor roll (1k+), life, and one decent resist, you can probably move (or at least use yourself - 1k armor is solid). Do not expect too much from it, though. 1k+ armor, life, and more than one resist is in the multiple chaos range; 1k+ armor, 60+ life, and three resists above 20%, and you should start looking into linking it, as that is a very valuable chest - easily 10 chaos unlinked. If your chest has high life and three good resists, but a low armor (especially if it's a lower level base item, like a crusader plate or a golden chainmail), it is probably not going to sell - people who use armor chests usually do so because they rely at least partially on the high values you can get. If, however, you have something like a high-itemlevel glorious plate whose sole mods are three good resists and 90 life, it may still be worth something, but not nearly as much. Perhaps consider exalting it, but from my experience it is considerably harder to roll a solid armor roll or two than a decent resist.
Evasion
Evasion chests work pretty much exactly the way Armor chests do. High evasion, life, and high trires. They are somewhat harder to sell, though, and the expected evasion value is considerably higher. For example, I have not been able to sell any of these:
The evasion on all three is just far too low. High-end EV chests go as high as 2000 evasion. If you see a chest like that, unless the other affixes are pretty much universally crap, it's worth something.
EnergyShield
For ES chests, the rules are different. The most important thing on any ES chest is the number at the top. If it's below 400, maybe even 500, it doesn't matter what affixes it has, it will not sell. If it's above 700, that could be the only useful affix, it's still worth not just something, but quite a bit. It's all about catering to CI builds. Life rolls are essentially as useful as "reflects 2 damage to melee attackers" - while there are some hybrid builds, their numbers are so few and far between as to be negligible, and must of them are using Shavronne's instead. Resists are generally good, but again, it's all about the number at the top. This is why virtually any ES chest that doesn't have a Vaal Regalia base is inherently inferior - Vaal Regalia has the highest base ES roll, and thus can get the highest numbers, going as high as slightly above 1000 (if you have a 900+ ES chest, you have something which is incredibly valuable).
Beyond that, as said, resists are, as usual, great to have. Another odd stat that is surprisingly great on ES chests is an Intelligence roll, which can go up to 60. The reason for this is because for each 5 points of int a character has, they get a 1% increase in energy shield. So basically, 60 int is equivalent to 12% increased energy shield - that's as much as one of the best ES nodes on the tree. So yeah. Resists, Int, and above all, as much ES as you can get. Preferably on a Vaal Regalia. Examples: Probably mirrorworthy: Very valuable (20+ ex):
AR/EV
See everything I said about armor and evasion chests already. Anyone using this probably has iron reflexes, so it doesn't really matter if the defensive rolls are balanced or which is emphasized - the important thing is that the numbers are high and that it has life and resists.
AR/ES
These are weird. Don't take my word for it, I have very limited experience. Basically, there are two basic ways these can be good - as a high-ES chest for CI builds with some armor thrown on, or a high-armor chest with some ES thrown on for Eldritch Battery builds. For the former, look for chests with 400+ ES and some solid resists, as well as an at least semi-decent armor roll. For the latter, look for chests with high armor, life, and resists.
" Examples: Mirrorworthy Armor chest:
ES/EV
I cannot name a single example of a good ES/EV chest. They are fundamentally either garbage or chests that would have been insanely godlike if they weren't ES/EV. The problem is that there is virtually no real overlap between builds that use evasion and builds that use energy shield. Although apparently, you can roll very good mods on them:
" That said, like with claws and staves, you won't have much luck selling it unless the roll is really godlike, due to the very limited market available - just my two cents. Examples: Godlike: If anyone cares to help me out with advice, price guidelines/examples, feel free. I hope this is helpful (and not completely wrong). Anyways, thanks for reading, -BPC Luna's Blackguards - a guild of bronies - is now recruiting! If you're a fan of our favourite chromatic marshmallow equines, hit me up with an add or whisper, and I'll invite you! IGN: HopeYouAreFireProof Last edited by Budget_player_cadet on Sep 4, 2013, 2:40:34 AM
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Thanks, this is actually useful info even if chests are one of the more straight forward items. I look forward to some of the other body parts because I do have trouble deciding what is good and what isn't sometimes once you are adding damage stats into the mix.
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Good thread, thx
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Some minor insight into hybrids.
If you get a hybrid AR/ES with over 400 ES, it's definitely rolled at least one %AR/ES mod and therefore has at least 600 armour. Which is pretty much the highest it can go without sacrificing ES. 650/550 with resists is mirror worthy, empirically speaking; there is one in SC which has been mirrored. As for EV/ES, the primary use is for ES builds which require a lot of green gems, I think. Example would be FP builds, which want cold pen, multiple projectiles, life leech and mana leech - next to impossible to roll that many off-colours on ES or AR/ES. EV/ES is also very much underappreciated as a defense mechanism, IMO, but that's everyone else's loss. 1500/500 with resists is mirror worthy and then some, and by goodness I wish I had that many ex to spend at the time he was selling it. How to make a build: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/510084 Current guides: N/A Last edited by Kirielis on Sep 2, 2013, 7:28:53 PM
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It's useful info like this that keeps me reading the forums. Thanks, OP, and I hope to see more of your insights. It's hard to know as a non-trader what stuff is worth to other builds.
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" I would not necessarily take my word for it - I'm by no means an expert trader. But I figured, it's about time I made this kind of thing. I figure I start with Body Armor, because if I'm off track there, then I'm going be waaaay off track on other things. " Thank you! Adding this to the OP. Also, if anyone wants to help me out, you guys can post pieces of gear with what you consider to be reasonable price points for me to add the OP. Luna's Blackguards - a guild of bronies - is now recruiting! If you're a fan of our favourite chromatic marshmallow equines, hit me up with an add or whisper, and I'll invite you! IGN: HopeYouAreFireProof Last edited by Budget_player_cadet on Sep 2, 2013, 9:04:11 PM
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I would love to see a rings and amulet edition.
IGN: Arlianth
Check out my LA build: 1782214 | |
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good read thanx. i'd also love a ring and amulet edition. it's so hard to determine value :(
My Build http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/496321
Gear shops thread: 486133 and 460916 Jewelry shop thread: 512124 IGN: Elyf | |
" Never being one to turn down an opportunity to show off mah chest, here's an example for you As for prices, when people make perfect or near perfect items, they almost never sell them. I guess that makes them priceless :P |
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" *drool* My Build http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/496321
Gear shops thread: 486133 and 460916 Jewelry shop thread: 512124 IGN: Elyf |
