Cultural vs Raid armor?

[SiegeTank]

Just for the fun of it I assembled an August chestpiece for my toon. August is the new cultural armor from the latest xpac.

The item itself, once augmented with the type 15, 16 and 17 augments, has superior stats to Dreadeweave and even Suppressed raid armor. At least standing on its own.

But my toon has a full set of raid armor (mix of Dreadweave, Apoc and Gelid) so when I swap out the chest I lose out in total on HP, Mana and AC---EVEN THOUGH the August chest armor on its own has superior stats to the Dreadweave. I'm not counting type 7/8 augments here to simplify the situation.

I'm thinking this has to do with Purity and the bonus achieved by having the complete set of raid armor.

Now I know you can assemble a complete set of August cultural and I'm thinking there must be a bonus for achieving that. But before I go to the trouble I want to know if anyone here is into cultural armor. Is it worth going to this trouble? I have toons maxed in all the tradeskills and I have most of the mats so cost isn't the issue. But is there a point? Can cultural Type 7 augment armor, even as a set, ever challenge a set of raid armor for stats?

I know the raid armor has special clicky and focus effects. But the click can be done from the piece while bagged and I'm going to ignore the 2-3 tick extension focus, which isn't decisive enough to matter here.

Opinions?

PS I play on FV and I'm comparing the August to the raid armor available BEFORE this xpac (up to SUPPRESSED) because I don't have time to raid and none of the raid level xpac armor has come into the Bazaar yet. I realize the end game armor from TDS is going to be superior to anything cultural, as a matter of EQ policy.

 

[Quackanator]

Pretty sure that cultural armour with the raid focus is meant to be a about half a step up than better than the highest raid level armor from the previous expansion and a half a step down from the highest level raid from the current expansion.

Believe it was most noticeable in VoA stuff when you could hardly get to T3/T4 zones but the cultural was semi T3.5 level equivalent.

 

[SiegeTank]

Interesting.... maybe I will try to make a full set and check out the effect. Does Magelo still permit configuring "wish list" sets of armor---and are the stats generated accurate, I wonder?

 

[Dealings]

its only awesome as long as you get current raid seals in it

and unless your on farm mode for tds raids and getting all the visibles cultural has been best route for max stats minus bp for a few expansions

 

[warking]

The decrease in stats when you have a mixed mode Culteral and Class specific could also be the charm. Do you have the progression charm or the class specific armor charm?

Purity of 75 vs 100 is about 10AC with metal power source. not sure the HP ratio per purity level. It would be based on the power source as well.

The TDS culteral items brought back Emblems as well which give a bonus to a full set of August.

Overall, without the Raid augment you are looking at an equivalent to Tier 2.5 RoF Raid (Between Apocryphal and Silvershade) for HP and equivalent to Tier 4 RoF Raid (Dreadweave) for AC; which is about equivalent to Tier 3 Group TDS for HP. AC in August Group gear is greater than Highwater gear.

 

[SiegeTank]

Thanks for the info, helps a lot.

 

[SiegeTank]

The raid seals give the focus effects and the purity, eh? I had a friend in game for years who always got into cultural, especially for his boxes since they had no access to raid gear. He swore by it. I never wanted to invest the time and energy. But maybe it's worth it if you have the tradeskills and access to mats.

 

[aspire2008]

The cultural weapons are usually infusable as well, so you gain powersource benefit from those too. So instead of 8 slots of infusible gear, you can have 9 or 10 slots. No clue on the latest expansion stuff though.

 

[Dealings]

maybe it's worth it if you have the tradeskills and access to mats

maxing out all TS is super easy now (especially smithing and tailoring)

materials to make cultural are plentiful and or cheap

 

[SiegeTank]

ur right, sir