Community

This thread's purpose is to make a compilation
of general purpose item optimization.

Post #1: Introduction and links
Post #2: Great items
Post #3: Item combo's
Post #4: Economical tricks
Further Posts: Discussion and suggestions

Introduction: Scouring the optimization boards the abundance
of item related optimization available. Having had a few
inspirations of myself I took it upon me to start this little handbook
of sorts. I hope the information glanced from this handbook
will be of value and feel free to contribute.

Information for item optimization was gathered from:

Frost Weapons+Lasting Frost+Wintertouched
Vorpal Weapons and You

Contents:

• Item+Feat combo's
  
• item+Power combo's
  
• item+Item combo's
  

Item+Feat combo's: Show
Item+Power Combo's: Show
Item+Item Combo's: Show

Some things I think you should mention:
Armor
Bloodcut Armor: I think you should up your rating on Bloodcut armor. Healing Surge is a great usage on items, since it doesn't use up a daily slot to use them. It's like a daily that doesn't count against your daily limit but you have an option to recharge them. I think you could do well with an occasional resist 10/15/20 all damage for a turn, and it also helps you ignore OAs. If you really need to survive, and you can't wait until the healer's turn, or they'll be busy, or you need to get out of the battle, because the healer is spent, then use this (and move away with the last one)
Elven Battle Armor: looks great on strikers. It makes them extremely resistant to being slowed down, which hampers their role severely. Also, +2 speed as an encounter ability can't hurt
Hydra Armor: This may be better for the item combo section, but the Hydra armor deserves some looking at. It provides a regeneration bonus until the end of the encounter if you get critted against by an "enemy". If you can give your allies the status of "enemy" somehow, combine that with Divine Oracle's Prophecy of Doom, and voila, insta heal (outside of battle) without healing surges.

Weapons
Berserker Weapon: hmm... this one is interesting. Without the resist damage, I'd say it was crappy, even with the bonus to attack rolls... but with the resist damage, you may actually take *less* damage with it activated. It also negates a lot of ongoing damage. I'll have to check out the average damage and average to hit of monsters at the levels you'd have this...
Terror Weapon: I think terror is a decent weapon type. -2 to all defenses with a (save ends) is pretty nice, even if it is 3 levels above a vanilla magic weapon.
Vicious Weapon: Vicious weapons are nice for daggermasters. Though, most likely, they'll prefer the next one
Wraithblade: This weapon is awesome for daggermasters. It's everything that's great about the vicious weapon plus more. (this is in Ashen Covenant)
Disrupting Weapon: This is the first weapon I've seen that is under par for enhancement bonus vs. level. It does amazing things against undead with it's daily. It's crap compared to a Holy Avenger (except against undead), but it's the only low level weapon/implement combo. (also in Ashen Covenant)

Implements
Symbol of Hope: You or an ally gets +5 power bonus on saves against an effect 1/day? Well, I'll be thankful for this when I get stunned (save ends), or get hit by a worsening effect (like sleep).
Rod of Corruption: This is great for Warlocks in large group battles, especially with minions.
Rod of Reaving: It's a minion killer. A minor action to kill a minion and get a nice benefit is a good trade. Combines well with Rod of Corruption, so that you even still get your curse damage on what you attack with your standard action. Pretty much worthless other than minion slaying.
Rod of Harvest: This looks interesting. Any of the pact boon effects would be nice to have as an encounter ability (usable when needed), so this could be good.
Staff of Power: Dailies are often AoE. Keeping dailies is good. Use with Legion's Hold, for example. (Divine Oracle makes this even easier )
Staff of the Warmage: Larger area burst/blasts are nice, but it's only 1/day. Burst gets a larger boost.
Staff of Winter: Hmm, that's interesting. Immobilize is a good effect, but not necessarily if they are that close. Could be quite good, but maybe too situational.
Thunderwave Staff: Lots of extra damage instead of pushing. Also knocks prone. Fun with what it is named after and a good Wis mod.
Wands: Amazingly good, as you can pick any encounter ability to gain keywords off of. Fear+Doomsayer+(save ends) = Win

that's it for now.

I think Dust of Appearance is worth a look. It's the cheapest and most reliable invisibility counter in the game. To make it even better it's an encounter power so it doesn't take away from your daily item power uses.

Black_Egg wrote:

I want to pipe in a bit with some support for the straight magic items. While they might not be terribly exciting, the cheaper magic items can become available to players several levels earlier in their progression. Since attack and defense isn't all that easy to come by, just being lower level is a huge advantage in and of itself.

For instance, if I was playing through the Epic tier and was the first guy to get a +6 weapon, I'd be a happy camper and wouldn't mind using it until the other players had their +6 weapons as well.

I agree that they are good choices ... for heavy armor users around level 16 and 26 the bouns is amplified. +3 Trollskin Scale costs 25,000gp, +4 Scale is 45,000gp but gives +4 AC more than the Trollskin and that's a huge deal.