The Hidden Forest

Recently, I completed World Boss Hunter on 6 toons so had some points to burn. Burn them I did. I picked up 3 nice upgrades for my MT. What made me post this is that I am confused about some of the 2k(ish) items when compared to the 4k Bloody Skullcracker items. Often the 2kish items are equal to if not better than the 4k items. It comes down to aug slots.

You can buy a Loop of Kelethin for 2450 points.
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=12605
or a
Blood Skullcracker's Broken Tooth for 4000 points.
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=17842

You can also compare it to the Bloody Skullcracker's Toenail which is also 4000 points.
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=17844
Here, because of the Dodge XI (60%) on it, I guess one could argue that it's better than the Loop with a Fiery Diamond of Agility in there which would only give Dodge VIII (53%) but yet...we're only talking about 7% between the two.

When aug'd up for a tank at least, the Loop is on par with the Bloody Tooth/Toenail (statwise) and significantly less expensive even when you add in the cost of a Glowing Pearl of Whatever to go into the slot2. The differences are small enough that I could not imagine anyone bothering to upgrade from a Loop to a Broken Tooth or Toenail.


The AC/HP increase between the 2k(ish) items and the 4k...seem lacking as well. 10/15 AC and 200HP/END for almost double the cost.

This is as far as I got in comparisons. I'd like to pick up more LDoN items (Bloody Skullcracker stuff in particular) but...the expensive ones just do not seem worth it (unless I am missing something, which is entirely possible). I think it comes down to the Slot 2 Multiple Stat aug slot on some of the less expensive pieces that are absent on the higher end items. The higher end items get 2 slot 8's and a 1 while less expensive items often have an 8, a 2(Multiple Stat), and a 1.

Would it be possible to re-evaluate some of the Bloody Skullcracker items and consider changing one of the 8's into a 2(Multi-Stat)? Possibly bump HP/AC a tad as well.

NOTE: I can understand not adding a Multi Stat slot 2 to the less expensive Skullcracker items but really think the Bloody Skullcracker items would benefit from having it.

So Loop of Kelethin is "cheap" compared to the Bloody Skullcracker items?

That's the only thing you take away from that post? Oh....

I guess that's one way to see it. Another is that Bloody Skullcracker items have little appeal. Frankly, anything past the 2k(ish) items have little appeal(minus the pet focus item). It's a shame...some potentially good items there. I did not want to go into it too much since I thought my point was made earlier...but...really..LDoN items pretty much fail past the 2kish ones. The 15k item is.....only worth it if you're borderline retarded. The 9500 point face is worth it only if you're an illusion junkie. And I fail to see where the 4k items fit in as they currently stand. A simple modification to their aug setup (for Bloody Skullcracker items) would make them far more appealing as I suggested earlier. I guess another option would be to reduce their cost to the 2500/3000 point range.

I guess there does exist a lunatic who would pay 15k points for a 75ac aug but I have not met such a person. If that person does exist, I can almost assure you they did not farm the points running LDoN's. I guess there also exists a person who would pay 9500 for a face they get for free (more or less) with likely a fraction of the time invested. I wonder how many folks have purchased these items.

As it currently stands, unless a person wants to farm money (another issue with LDoN's i won't get into here but I will say the gem drop rate is absurdly high until one gets into SolRo...which boggles the mind) there is no incentive to run them past the Tower of SolRo requirements. LDoN points are more easily available through world boss kills. There is just nothing to realistically spend them on past the 2kish items.

This is why I asked for a re-evaluation of the itemization. I thought this was a reasonable request.

EDIT: I re-read this post 3x. I know I come across as a dick but can't pinpoint where (likely too many places to pinpoint an exact one). I'm a little drunk, forgive me if my tone came across negatively. I think I have a valid point if one bothers to look past the douchiness (is that a word?) in this post.

I might not be remembering correctly, but I think the bloody skullcracker items were initially an event item (halloween?) and when the events changed they were added to LDON vendors as a way for people who missed out on the event to get them.

The AC aug was added after that for folks that only did LDONs (pretty much not raiding at all) and had excessive points to spend and no real upgrades to get.

Not all older items will get upgraded as new things come out. There are lots of things that were added that made some older items seem out of place/whack.

Nilbus is right on every point. Sometimes I feel like he's part of the DEV team, he really has an awesome knowledge of THF.

*gnome blush*
I've been around a while and have a pesky habit of remembering details.

I've merely been a forum lurker for many months now, but I'd like to chime in here just a little bit

The items themselves I believe are fine. The more expensive items have their uses (mainly illusions, I believe I hoarded *all* the LDoN illusions ), but the stats are pretty good too considering you're grinding pretty easy mobs.

That said, I think the grind is a little too steep when compared to the ease of other avenues of obtaining better items. Not to mention it's likely far more feasible to farm plat and just buy the LDoN tokens from other players who are doing their world completion tasks. Increasing the points earned from each LDoN (I'd go as far as saying doubling or more the point reward) would probably make LDoNs pretty darn attractive. Could also adjust the point reward vs the mission. Everyone just does the slaughter missions because most people just clear the entire zone anyways (mm, gems). I think I've only ever done *one* escort mission (as soon as you tag the prisoner to follow you it kills your pet, so this mission is *horrible* for pet classes), a few collection missions (when LDoN first came out, because I didn't know better; plus it's a bane on inventory space), and I only *ever* did boss missions when I was able to do hard difficulty missions (for the small chance of loot). Increasing the point reward for the less popular missions by 25% or so would help spread out the base a bit.

Could also increase the point rewards from selling the junk loot aug gems that drop in every mission. I've never ever ever ever bothered looting those, as bag space is limited enough and I don't care to have every single bag slot full just to gain an extra 15 points.

An *extreme* difficulty mission would also be very interesting T8 difficulty, huge point reward, small chance of t8-scale loot off a powerful boss at the end of the mission, decently long lockout timer (2-4 hours?).

I *loooooooved* the LDoN system, but before my hiatus they were hardly done for anything other than gem drops/exp. Would be awesome to have the ldon points that are farmed actually mean something again other than having to do a trillion of them for an item that will likely get replaced rather quickly by most players.