Equipment-balancing aid

[johannhowitzer]

If this fits best in some other part of the forum please move it; I considered various other places but couldn't find a suitable place, so here it sits in the Monk.


For some time now, I've been using a spreadsheet I made to keep track of attributes on my characters' gear setups, so I can see at a glance which immunities/resists/ability scores need covering and which are covered redundantly. It has consistently exposed weaknesses or obsolete gear pieces. In a recent Hardcore Xul-Immo sequence, it provided the oversight in balancing my new Bard's gear, and she was able to run all three without spending a single Rebirth stone... in fact, she was tanking Lolth and Mariliths!

Of course most people don't want to bother with uber gear setups at level 40, but the principle is the same at 60. The veterans can easily do without this, I'm sure, but I find it incredibly useful, so I'm passing it along.

A link to the .xls file on MediaFire:
www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=84862e7aab5de038d2db6fb9a8902bda
File is in Excel '95 format to accommodate users with older systems. There is a second worksheet attached to the chart itself, which contains an example - my 60 Hardcore Druid's gear setup - and some notes at the bottom to show how I use it.

A few other things to add:
= The skills section is for my Druid and thus contains Animal Empathy. Feel free to delete or add columns as needed; Bards would find a Perform column helpful.
= Likewise, if you prefer to cover other immunities as well, add or remove columns in the Immunities section.
= In an effort to keep it concise and general-use, the physical immunity column is not separated into the three types.
= As with phys %, the saves column isn't split into fort, reflex, and will.

If you found this helpful, let me know. It's just something I use myself, I don't expect it to instantly adapt to someone else's play style!

[johannhowitzer]

Thanks for moving it; I considered this subforum, but it didn't quite seem to me like "software."

[Grogbot]

Oh baby!

Good work, I like it

Suggestions:

• Use conditional formatting to highlight gaps in bottom row
  
• Have bottom row SUM immunities %
  
• Have bottom row take MAX of resists
  
• Have bottom row cap ability bonuses at 12 and save bonues at 20 ?
  
• Include "Level drain" in immunes (maybe?)
  

Could expand to include AC types too (dodge, with haste separate, natural, deflection, armour, shield etc.)

Thanks for this!

Grog

[johannhowitzer]

Use conditional formatting to highlight gaps in bottom row

I don't know how to do this, if someone else wants to take the trouble I welcome it.

Have bottom row SUM immunities %

Physical immunity column already does this, if you mean elemental, those columns are for resists which of course don't stack (you'll notice the highest ones in my example are highlighted blue). Again, feel free.

Have bottom row take MAX of resists

Again, something I could probably figure out but is beyond my needs, since I do these things manually pretty quickly.

Have bottom row cap ability bonuses at 12 and save bonues at 20 ?

I left the whole sum there so I can see how much I'm over by. That way, I know how much I can lose before I cut into the +12 and +20. I recommend keeping this feature, but if you want it to show you how much you're over/under by, you could put stuff like "=B14-12" in the row below.

Include "Level drain" in immunes (maybe?)

I leave it up to the user to add/remove columns in the immunities section as they see fit; the ones I've included are the ones I feel a need to monitor (with the exception of spell level immunity, which I guess I never thought of removing... it was just in my original version).

Could expand to include AC types too (dodge, with haste separate, natural, deflection, armour, shield etc.)

I have a separate spreadsheet made for AC calculation. It would be a little hairy to integrate here. Again, if anyone wants to take my idea further, have at it!

The idea is to give a starting point and people can adapt it for their own use, perhaps even for their individual characters. Hopefully people new to the server or inexperienced in gear-balancing will find this educational, too - maybe less people will be surprised when they get Ruined on immortal runs? If you see someone on a run who clearly isn't geared very well, perhaps direct them here.

And thanks for the kind words and suggestions!

[Starcub]

Good idea here, thank for sharing!