Michaleo
ArchivesNotes on Imbuement[Note: This post is based on things I have observed, including on the Bullroarer Beta test for update 16.2. Please let me know if you find errors or omissions of any sort.] It took me a while to understand how Legendary Items (LIs) work and best practices for building them. The changes that added Imbuement to LIs will also take a while to understand. In the process, I’m trying to collect things I’ve figured out. Much has been written (not all of it correct or consistent) about the process of imbuing LIs. I will start with how they work after Imbuement. Imbued Legendary ItemsAn Imbued Legendary Item (ILI, but I wish there were a better abbreviation) is still a Legendary Item:
ILIs are simpler than LIs in some ways:
Some things are different:
If you look at an ILI (they appear in the same panel with LIs), you will see the default legacy and the regular legacies. Each will have a current tier and max tier. Adding or earning IXP will raise the current tiers until they reach the max for the particular legacy. It takes 30,000 IXP to raise one legacy one tier. The max tier is the limit at the moment, but may not be the highest possible. The largest possible max tier is called the final tier. For update 16, the final tier is 25 for the default legacy and 35 for regular legacies. Using a Star-lit Crystal increases the max tier of the default legacy. Using an Empowerment Scroll increases the max tier for regular legacies. (You can also spend Mithril Coins (MC) to do so through the Legendary Item panel, or buy scrolls in the LOTRO store). Since earning IXP or adding IXP runes will eventually raise the tiers to the max tier, the true potential of an ILI is determined by its max tiers. After imbuement, once you have the legacies you like, it’s just a matter of using Star-lit Crystals to raise the max tier of the default legacy, using Empowerment scrolls to raise the max tiers of the other legacies, and using or earning IXP to raise the current tiers to the max tiers. Raising all the max tiers to the final tier allows an ILI to be all it can be. The average max tier for a regular legacy after imbuement is between 28 and 29 (range 25 to 31). Depending on how a Crystal of Remembrance is used, it will typically take 36-46 tier upgrades to raise all max tiers to the final tier. Assuming you use a using a Scroll of Delving, for a FA LI, it will take 6 Star-lit Crystals for the default legacy to reach its final tier; 8 for a SA, 9 for a TA. The Future of Imbued Legendary ItemsThe design of ILIs is such that, if or when the level cap increases, the final tier level can be increased as well, allowing ILIs to get more powerful without starting over. In fact, the final tier could be increased without raising the level cap. In any case, it should not be necessary or worthwhile to scrap an ILI and start over to get a better one. Since it is expected that ILIs will last forever, deleting them simply destroys them. Relics can be removed first with a relic removal scroll, but anything else you invested in the ILI is lost. Legacies are intended to be open-ended to allow the final tier to be increased in the future. A legacy that increases damage or a rating can easily be extended, but one that reduces a cooldown may be a problem. In Update 16, many legacies were changed for LIs as well as ILIs to eliminate ones that would be difficult to increase now and in the future. For example, increasing AoE targets beyond a dozen is unlikely ever to be useful. Other legacies are changed when the LI is imbued. To allow more levels, the legacy effect may be more complicated. For example, Healing Skills Induction reduces the induction time by 0.5% per tier until it gets to -10% at tier 20. After that, the induction time decreases no further, but each tier adds 100 to the critical rating. When the final tier is increased, higher tiers of legacies may not be simple arithmetic progressions. Using Imbued Legendary ItemsAlthough many people focus on the ultimate ILI, with all the desired legacies at the final tier, it is not necessary to have that on day one. For people without the resources to achieve that, imbuing a LI can still make sense, allowing the ILI to be improved over time and tailored to your preferences. Replacing LegaciesLegacies can be replaced in ILIs, if you decide you’d rather have something different. An Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll (ILRS) will let you select whichever legacy you like to replace an existing legacy. There is no longer a restriction of replacing a minor legacy only with a minor legacy or a need to extract a legacy to put it into an ILI. When you replace a legacy, the new one inherits the max tier of the old legacy. The current tier is set to 1, so you will need to earn or apply IXP to raise the tier, but you do not lose the effect of the Empowerment scrolls you have used. The quests through Eastern Gondor give you four Imbued Legacy Replacement Scrolls as quest rewards. You can also use the Legendary Items panel to replace a legacy for 50 MC. Adding LegaciesIf you imbued a LI with less than 7 regular legacies, you may use a Crystal of Remembrance or purchase an additional legacy slot with MC to add another legacy slot. Although it is not likely to be a good idea, you could imbue a LI with as few as 3 legacies, and subsequently add them until you reach 7 regular legacies. When you add a legacy slot, you can choose whichever legacy you like to fill it, you do not need to supply a legacy scroll or use an Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll. New legacy slots start with a tier of 1 and a max tier of 25. Scroll of DelvingA Scroll of Delving can be used on a LI only once, either before imbuement or after imbuement. After imbuement, the Scroll of Delving increases the max tier by 1 for the default legacy and each of the regular legacies. Using the Scroll of Delving before imbuement is slightly better. If you have used a Scroll of Delving before imbuement, when the LI is imbued, the max tiers will be one higher for each legacy. By using it before imbuement, you also get one extra reforge when you level it to 70/70, which means some legacy will have a higher tier before imbuement. Scroll of EmpowermentA Scroll of Empowerment will raise the max tier of one legacy. You will still need to add or earn IXP to raise the tier. Earning or Adding IXPIXP is earned for ILIs as well as for LIs. You earn extra IXP according to how many LIs or ILIs are able to use IXP. The total is divided evenly among the LIs and ILIs. For each ILI, the IXP it earns is divided evenly among the legacies that are below their max tiers. It will still be a good idea to level additional LIs to increase the total IXP earned. When they reach 60/60, deconstruct them to get the IXP runes. You can then add them to ILIs as you like. Heritage runes of different sizes add IXP to a LI or an ILI. The IXP is divided equally among all the legacies that have not yet reached their max tiers. Each legacy requires 30,000 IXP to go up one tier. This is actually not a lot of IXP. One 938,000 IXP rune that you might get from deconstructing a LI will raise the default legacy and seven regular legacies almost 4 tiers each. Planning for ImbuementIf you are creating a LI to imbue, the strategy is different than when you are creating a LI to use. LIs have restrictions that we have to live with. However, a LI that will be imbued may eliminate those constraints. Think about what legacies you want to have in your ideal ILI. Think about which legacies you absolutely must have. There may be others that are equally acceptable; if so, you can save by not replacing one with another. What Imbuement DoesImbuement permanently changes a Legendary Item (LI) into an Imbued Legendary Item (ILI). The default legacy is changed to use the ILI tier structure. It starts with a max tier of
Rank up the default legacy to rank 7 before imbuing. This will save you some IXP (180,000). The other legacies are changed to use the ILI tier structure. Some ILI legacies are not very close to the LI legacy they replace. The max tier for a regular legacy is
The current tier starts at 1. If you have at least a handful of large IXP runes, you will be able to level a new ILI up to its max tiers. Further progress will depend on raising max tiers with Scrolls of Empowerment or Star-lit Crystals. What Legacies Are Possible?One way to see all the legacies that are possible is to imbue a junk LI (just identify it, slot it and imbue it). You can mouse over the default legacy and the 3 legacies it has. Then select one of the legacies and click Replace Legacy. (You will cancel before it charges you anything). You will see the possible (not including the initial 3) legacies. Mouse over them to see the bonuses they confer. Some legacies are different after imbuement. Take a LI that you are considering imbuing to the forge-master. If you click on Imbue Legendary Items and select the particular LI, it will show you the legacies you will have after imbuement (it does not tell you the tier it will have, just the generic stats for the particular legacy). You can cancel if you aren’t ready to imbue. Crystal of Remembrance ConundrumWith LIs, you were stuck with up to 3 minor legacy slots that could never be upgraded. On LIs where you wanted more major legacies, you could use a Crystal of Remembrance to add one, but you were still stuck with however many minor legacy slots you had. Except for that constraint, it was easy to replace legacies by extracting them from other LIs you were levelling. However, they would start at Tier 2, so you might have to get a pile of Empowerment scrolls to make them usable. If you are planning to imbue a LI, there is a trade-off. Replacing a legacy before imbuement may lower its tier, causing you to need more Empowerment scrolls after imbuement. After imbuement, replacing a legacy saves the max tier, but the Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll is expensive. However, if you were going to spend MC to raise the max tier, it would be cheaper to use an Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll (50 MC) if it will save you 2 or more tiers (29 MC each). If you use a Crystal of Remembrance after imbuement, you can add whatever legacy you want. However, that legacy will start with a max tier of 25, the same as if it were a tier 1 legacy in the LI. Instead you can do the Michaleo trick (patent pending ). Use the Crystal of Remembrance before imbuement, then add a Tier 4 stat legacy, which you can get from the Relic-master for shards or elsewhere for medallions. After imbuement, you will need to use an Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll (50 MC), but it will save you 3 tier upgrades (29 MC each). If you do not plan to spend MC or TP on LIs, then you may not want to waste the ILRS. In that case, wait to use the Crystal of Remembrance until after imbuement, when you can choose any legacy and take the tier hit, which can be addressed with in-game barter currency. Are First Age and Second Age LIs worth it?After imbuement, a FA, SA, or TA LI uses the same legacies with the same bonuses according to the tier of the legacy, including for the default legacy. The difference is that (assuming no Star-lit Crystals), at imbuement, the max tier of the default legacy for a TA will be 15, a SA will be 16, and a FA will be 18. (If a Scroll of Delving is used, it will raise each of them by 1.) This means a FA acts as if it has 3 Star-lit Crystals, and a SA acts as if it as 1. After imbuement, if you add 3 Star-lit Crystals to a TA, it will have identical stats to a FA with the same legacies and tiers. The drawback to using a FA or SA LI for imbuement is that it takes much more IXP to reach 70/70. (Remember, you will want to use a Scroll of Delving to get the extra reforge and tier upgrade before imbuing.) There is also the potential cost for the symbols to create one, and the cooldown for the recipes to try another one (7 days for FA, 3 days for SA, 1 day for TA). Replacing legacies before imbuement can cost you tier upgrades. Replacing legacies after imbuement can cost you ILRSs. Since making a TA LI uses only common ingredients, it could be a better idea to create multiple TA LIs until you get one that has the legacies that you want and higher tiers. You would be giving up some Star-lit Crystals, but could be better off by saving more tier upgrades. Costs of Operations on Imbued Legendary ItemsAs of this writing, I do not have an overall strategy for imbuing existing LIs or creating LIs specifically for imbuement. If you do not wish to spend MC or TP and you want Star-lit Crystals or Crystals of Remembrance, you will have to rely on drops. Currently, there are no drops of Imbued Legacy Replacement Scrolls. Delving Scrolls (you need only one per LI) are relatively inexpensive. Empowerment Scrolls are what you will need the most, and they are available from a variety of different barterers. The following shows the costs in various currencies of different items: Anfalas Scroll of Empowerment
Anfalas Scroll of Delving
Anfalas Star-lit Crystal
Anfalas Crystal of Remembrance
Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll
by Michaleo on 2015-07-01 11:33:06 |