Essences and their troubles

[q945]

For strictly PVE build is vitality worthless; morale essence gives more morale than vitality one and resistance is almost useless in PVE.
Main stat gives currently only 8 mastery per point, that means if you don't need secondary stats, going with mastery essence is the way.

Shhhh!!! Don't talk too loud!

Once dev's read this expect a 'rebalance' of the essences to make all choices viable. Look at the mess they made when they decided that fate needed to be relevant again...

[Vulcwen]

I would say that any essence gear should almost automatically be BETTER than standard gear. Otherwise, what's the point? We shouldn't have to waste 3 slots just to get our two main stats up to par. If we are going to go through this HUGE grindfest, then we should get the reward of having gear that is superior to the rest of the gear, the same way our Legendary Weapons are superior to standard crafted, looted or quest rewarded weapons. Otherwise, what's the point? Who wants to go through a huge grind for something that is at best comparable? Let's see, grind for a long time or go the quick route for something just as good? O.o

Lvl 100 socketed armour with purple essences are just as good as lvl 100 teal gear (barring rounding issues). Yellow essences are a little worse, but teal and gold essences are a lot better.
If you have 1 gold essence and 3 teal essences on a piece of gear, the stats are equivalent to a gold piece of armour, with all gold essences it's better than gold armour.
Don't forget that the distribution of stats you get with essences isn't the same as on regular gear. You can't get a 1/7 essence of this and a 4/7 essence of another stat.

Considering your example:
Normal gear: 239 * 6 = 1434 Will. 205 * 6 = 1230 Vitality. (1.8 * 6 = 10.8 stat slices* for other stats)
1230 Vitality contributes to 3690 Morale, 2460 Resistance and 8856 Non-combat Morale Regen.

With essence gear, you have 24 free slots, and you get 119 * 6 = 714 Will from the base stats of the armour.
So you need 720 Will with essences.. 6 purple Will essences brings you to 714 Will.. which is slightly worse, but having 1 teal will between it makes it better already. Note that this difference is just because of rounding, in theory they should add up to be the same.
With 5 purple morale essences you can get 3375 Morale. And with 2 Resistance essences, you get 3276 Resistance. (by forgetting the OCMR, and going with raw morale and resistance, you can save 3 or 4 essences)
This leaves 11 essences free for choice. So 15.4 Stat slices*, if you take all purple essences.

So, essence gear is already better in general, but the customization makes it even better, since turbine sometimes picks stats you don't want.

*)stat slices are a way to express the value of stats.

[aardnebby]

Shhhh!!! Don't talk too loud!

Once dev's read this expect a 'rebalance' of the essences to make all choices viable. Look at the mess they made when they decided that fate needed to be relevant again...

Didn't they just "rebalance" vitality? Look how that turned out as well...

[Nostro44]

I went through this exercise last week for my captain. I looked at the Dol Amroth Captain barter set (the one with set bonuses), tallied up all the stats, and came up with this:

Total Stats on Captain Class Armour:
1434 Might
1239 Vitality
170 Fate
2918 Crit Rating
6091 Finesse
614 Physical Mastery
1544 Crit Defense
377 Power

Then I started looking at all the different essence values, and came up with this (leaving out the values for the gold-quality essences as they are rarer):

Essence Values (Yellow/Purple/Teal):
Base Stat: 116/119/136
Avoidance (Block, Parry, or Evade): 1053/1075/1229
Critical Rating: 1053/1075/1229
Critical Defense: 2646/2702/3088
Mastery: 1053/1075/1229
Mitigation: 2370/2420/2766
Resistance: 1604/1638/1872
Power: 644/660/755
Morale: 746/765/875
Finesse: 3231/3280/3749
Incoming Healing: 2105.6/2150.4/2457.6

I then compared the stats of the set armor with the essences, and assigned an appropriate number of essences (in bulk, rather than per piece) to the collection of stats, and came up with this:

Total Essences Needed to Match Class Armour:
6 Essences of Might (plus 6 inherent, i.e. this stat comes on the armor to start with)
10 Essences of Vitality (one on each, two on four pieces of armor)
1 ½ Essences of Fate
3 Essence of Crit Rating
2 Essences of Finesse
½ Essence of Power
½ Essence of Mastery
½ Essence Of Crit Defense

It started to make sense once I realized that I had to look at the aggregate stats, rather than each piece individually because, as you noticed, some stats don’t add up to a full essence value. The armor set had roughly 24 essences to make up its total stats (which makes sense because each of the six pieces of Dol Amroth essence armour available (teal quality) has four essence slots). At this point, I started to think about what stats I wanted more or less of, and made a plan for what I’d put on the armor in total:

Captain Essence Armour Build:
- 6 Essence of Might (1 on each piece of armor)
- 10 Essences of Vitality (2 on four pieces, and 1 on two pieces of armor) OR 5 Essences of Vitality AND 5 Essences of Morale (to get a bigger morale boost for my captain if he tanks at the cost of slightly lower resistance with the lower vitality)
- 4 Essences of Fate (I love more in combat power regeneration)
- 2 Essences of Crit Rating
- 1 Essence of Finesse
- 1 Essence of Crit Defense

As you can see, I only slightly modified the build from the class armour set. I decided I didn’t need the half-essence value of power (since I’d have to waste a full essence to get it), but wanted more crit defense and fate. Overall, I think the system has promise, but it’s a heck of a lot of work (in its current implementation) for what is at best a side-grade, rather than an upgrade. For the system to be successful, purple essences need to be very common, and we need the ability to overwrite slotted essences with something new, rather than having to remove them first. Furthermore, the essences that provide mastery need to be buffed because there is really no point in slotting them over a stat essence of the same tier. A level 100 purple might essence provides 119 might, which gives 1190 mastery, as opposed to an essence of physical mastery, which only gives 1075. Furthermore, for classes that benefit from both physical AND tactical mastery (such as captains), that 119 might provides 1190 physical AND tactical mastery. A captain would be losing out by slotting a mastery essence in its current value over a stat essence.

I've been thinking of doing this sort of comparison but you didn't state what your stats ended up with to compare with the set armour. Would you add this please?

[Othniel]

I've been thinking of doing this sort of comparison but you didn't state what your stats ended up with to compare with the set armour. Would you add this please?

I can do that when I finish it. I've been collecting major essences and crafting them into greater/supreme, so my final build will have a few extra stats here and there because of the critical successes I've had. Thus far, I've only completed 3 (and a partial) of the armor pieces. I'm also contemplating only using 5 slotted pieces because I found a level 100 leggings drop that has some nice stats.

Also, I totally forgot that they nerfed main stat contributions from 1:10 to 1:8. I still think you come out ahead by choosing main stats though, considering the other benefits they provide. This is especially true for classes that utilize both physical and tactical mastery.

[bucko39]

All this effort on the new essence system, but no end game content. What is the point of gearing up? Their time would have been better spent giving us a 12 main raid with the update. To me the essence system us just a distraction from the lack of end game content.

[Dernudan]

All this effort on the new essence system, but no end game content. What is the point of gearing up? Their time would have been better spent giving us a 12 main raid with the update. To me the essence system us just a distraction from the lack of end game content.

I have to agree with this.
I am guessing stuff like TC and Epic Battles are Turbines definition of end game content. However, I do not think it is enough.

Fellowship areas are fun, but wont keep my interest for 6 months by themselves and Epic Battles can not be end game without more class involvement. Although, I am curious on how they are going to pull off the offensive BB in U15 and if your character will get more focus.

[Tromblon]

Ok, now that it's cleared out that Morale Essence overpowers Vitality, and that Masteries slightly come up on top over primary stats (I would add here that for Agil based class, the fact that Agil gives Evade/Parry/Crit comes on top imo. Losing around 100 Mastery value per Greater Essence for the gain in of the rest seems a good trade-off, until those other areas are capped of course).

From what I foresee, have 12 Mastery/Primary Stat Essence, 6 Morale, leaving you with 6 "free" slots to adjust the losses you may have suffered from Resistance/Mitigations and whatnot. You're still allowed to toy around with 2-4 slots and be well over whatever other set of lvl 100 gear you're looking at.

Now, I've done searches through this forums trying to find somewhere talking about the fact that there are no recipe for to make a Major Morale Essence into a Greater (if critted Supreme one). While there are recipes for every other types of Essence, there are 2 available to do the Vitality one but NONE for Morale.. Is this a bug? An overlook?

[Othniel]

Ok, now that it's cleared out that Morale Essence overpowers Vitality, and that Masteries slightly come up on top over primary stats (I would add here that for Agil based class, the fact that Agil gives Evade/Parry/Crit comes on top imo. Losing around 100 Mastery value per Greater Essence for the gain in of the rest seems a good trade-off, until those other areas are capped of course).

For my captain, I would still go with might essences over pure mastery essences because my class utilizes both physical and tactical mastery. There are other classes that use both as well, though maybe not to the same degree. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the morale vs vitality essence point. What you lose from vitality (resistance and out-of-combat morale regen), can be partially made up by slotting a couple resistance essences, and still come out ahead in max morale. This tells me that the morale essences either need to be nerfed, or vitality (not just the essences, but the stat) needs to be buffed so that there is more of a comparision between the two.

I am still working on my build, and will hopefully have it done in a few days (if not tonight). Unfortunately, I have not been able to find many morale essences, so I am making due with greater/supreme vitality essences.

[Othniel]

Final Build:*
(4) Supreme Essence of Might: 139 Might, 17 Vitality
(1) Greater Essence of Might: 139 Might
(1) Supreme Essence of Vitality: 139 Vitality, 17 Fate
(4) Greater Essence of Vitality: 139 Vitality
(2) Supreme Essence of Fate: 139 Fate, 17 Vitality
(1) Greater Essence of Fate: 139 Fate
(1) Greater Essence of Finesse: 3749 Finesse
(1) Major Essence of Finesse: 3280 Finesse
(1) Supreme Essence of Critical Rating: 1229 Critical Rating, 386 Critical Defense
(1) Greater Essence of Critical Rating: 1229 Critical Rating
(1) Greater Essence of Morale: 875 Morale
(1) Minor Essence of Morale: 746 Morale
(1) Major Essence of Critical Defense: 2702 Critical Defense
(5) Base Might (one on each slotted armor piece): 119 Might
(1) Greater Valorous Leggings of Penetration: 239 Might, 205 Vitality, 768 Critical Rating, 614 Physical Mastery

Total stats:
Might: 1290
Vitality: 1019
Fate: 434
Raw Morale (from morale essences): 1621
Finesse: 7029
Critical Defense: 2702
Raw Critical Rating: 2458
Raw Physical Mastery: 614
Total Morale (1621 from raw morale essences + 3057 morale derived from vitality essences/leggings): 4678
Total Critical Rating (2458 raw crit rating essences + 1085 crit rating derived from fate): 4628

If the numbers I derived from my essence build are correct, it came out roughly even. The class set armour provides a total of 12,086 physical mastery (and 11,472 tactical mastery), and my build provides me with 10,934 physical mastery/10,320 tactical mastery. Because this is for a captain (and captains need both physical and tactical mastery), I get more bang for my buck by going straight might essences, rather than sprinkling mastery essences. The mastery ratings ended up a bit lower, but I gained more crit rating, crit defense, and a bit more icpr (from the extra fate).

* This may not be 100% final. If I do swap out the leggings for a slotted piece, I intend on putting the following essences on: (2) Might, (1) Crit Rating, (1) Finesse/Crit Defense/Resistance (I can’t decide).

[Stephen1981]

even as DPS you want tactical mitigation and physical mitigation cap and about 7k-9k crit defense depending on if your melee DPS or not and the set gear for champs for example does not give tactical mitigation,physical mitigation, or critical defence otherwise your a class cannon and your probably gonna die easy on t2c 3,6,12 mans.

[Spilo]

A big problem that I hae run into is the weakness of the mastery essences. A physical/tactical mastery essence (even if it's teal) offers marginally better mastery than the base stat that provides mastery. The base stat also offers many more goodies other than mastery, though. This, in turn, renders the resistance essences for tactical classes useless, and the BPE essences for other classes useless, as stacking the base stat will bring that up enough as it is.

[GithlithMonaghan]

A big problem that I hae run into is the weakness of the mastery essences. A physical/tactical mastery essence (even if it's teal) offers marginally better mastery than the base stat that provides mastery. The base stat also offers many more goodies other than mastery, though. This, in turn, renders the resistance essences for tactical classes useless, and the BPE essences for other classes useless, as stacking the base stat will bring that up enough as it is.

I second that. Tactical essences are in fact really underpowered. And while the golden version of will even improves the mainstat the golden version of mastery only adds some power which is a rather useless stat. Also golden will adds vitality which isn't very useful either but it gives you some morale at least which is a lot better than power. If devs don't think about improving mastery-essences on the mainstat, they should at least replace the power by f.e. critical or tactical defense. But better would be to get higher mastery on those essences.

But apparently the problem between vitality vs. raw morale is a lot bigger than will vs. tact. mastery. However: Some balancing is necessary.

Well-balanced are critical rating and fate in my opinion.

[gelleg]

The funny thing is the only reason I am building essence armour for is to regain what my tank lost when vitality was nerf into ground. Actually I would still likely not bother replacing my 95 gear if vitality wasn't nerfed into the ground. I suspect the stat changes where made to make essence armour useful rather than rebalance content. My biggest gripe is that you can't overwrite essences like you can with relics. Which basically means I have to get it right the first time or pay almost 300 TP to fix my mistakes. It also means I can't start with cheap yellow essences and replace them as I get others. Out of curiousity does the removal scroll remove all essences or just one?

[Bucataru]

I have trouble with the following facts:
1. There is only one instance where essences drop reliably. Make them also drop as loot in normal instances, or in bb. If I have a chance at a relic or at a 1st age symbol, I should also have a chance at a good essence.
2. From a business point of view it is a good thing to have essences not bound and tradeable. Perhaps there are some who bought the tp-inventory-upgrades just for this. For me, a system like the relic system we have now would have been more useful (bound, managed separately from the inventory, and changeable)
3. Some of the essences are... junk. I have yet to see someone who uses power, block or parry on an essence armor. I have only seen wardens with evade. Resistance is also useless. Morale is much, much better than vitality.
4. So much I can see, audacity is still better valued than essence armor in the moors. A moors-armor with essences would certainly be interesting.
5. I hate that I have to beg for someone to upgrade my essences because I don't have the right crafting skill. You need a 1st or 2nd age weapon only twice per update, but you need 24 essences at the minimum, and you can build maybe 5-6 of them by yourself.

[GithlithMonaghan]

I have trouble with the following facts:
1. There is only one instance where essences drop reliably.

You're talking about the 6man-mirror-pond-thing that's getting farmed big time at the moment? That is indeed a bit weird. Droprate is overwhelming there and underwhelming everywhere else.

Out of curiousity does the removal scroll remove all essences or just one?

All of them. And they remain tradeable after being removed. Just for the record.

By the way: The bartered 4-slot-gear from Dol Amroth is also tradeable - you can even put essences into these pieces and still trade them, as long as you never wear (and thereby bind) them.