Any news on Hybrid Armor potentially making it into the game?

Cause I'd probably roll up some toons if there was some mixed MDM/SDM pieces.
I just don't think I can do the whole "roll up 3 ASGW and 3 AIEW" again.

While I support versatility, there’s absolutely no reason to roll 3 ASGWr and 3 AIEWz. With the variety of gear and recent equipment balancing, many different builds are currently viable. Not only do the WL/WW/Caster gear provide some variation, you can further specialize your build using the updated anvil helms and/or HC jewelry. In addition, with the release of stat rerolls via Sovereigns (MTX), it is now very simple to try different stats to match your chosen play style.

Doesn't really answer my question.

Khego Jul 19
Hybrid Armor

I have a separate post in the Feedback forums about this. This game is fairly simple. You hit well, you cast well or you do both averagely. If I want the latter play style I'm kind of forced to mix and match cloth and metal armor. Feels bad, especially if we ever see set bonuses. An additional armor set split between wizard and warlord sets would be very cool. Example: Expert Adventurer Boots +8% SDM All, +8% MDM, Dex, 45 AR.

Redbeard (Staff) Jul 20
Thanks for the feedback. I've compiled some notes and will work on a round two iteration. I too would like to see hybrid sets, and with the impending prestige updates I think we will get there."

Just wondering if there are still plans for this to come to pass. Honestly the only thing that peaked my interest enough to give Realm another go. Every MMO past Realm I've primarily played hybrids and between that and the elemental weapons it looked interesting. I mean lets be real here PvE wise hybrids have always been terrible in realm. You either hit like a wet noodle, or cast like a wet noodle. While I certainly don't think you should do both well.. it would be nice to get into the realm of 60-70% of the job either way."

Spent years playing Shadowknights, Thanes, Death Knights, Warrior/Elementalist Shockaxe, Chanters, Melee Clerics…. you get the idea.

Anywho count me in for 6 NC accounts if this is ever put in. :P

My Thoughts on it:

1) There needs to be a reason to use a Hybrid set over mixing and matching the choice pieces of WL/Caster for hybrid builds.
2) The SDM is gives shouldn't be close enough to the caster stuff that wizzies just use it over the caster stuff for the better AR.
3) It shouldn't be so heavy as to write off elf hybrids as viable options. About 5 more AR than WW sounds right.
4) A good balance point on GM Hybrid gear would be around 10% SDM Thaum/Necro/Elem, 20% MDM, 5% SR. (Weaker at casting, or melee.. but still stronger than mix/matching. Five pieces would be [+50% SDM +100% MDM +25% MR] compared to [+75%/60% SDM +60% MDM +20 MR] or [50%/40% SDM + 90% MDM + 30 MR.])

What I was getting that is you can mix up the jewelry and helms to get there, not just armor. Warlord gear on a wiz with a MH and RoIs/RoEs wielding an ele SDM Wrath will likely serve as a good hitter/caster combo. Same goes for a high endurance adventurer with ele gear, an HoI and RoEs serving as a survivibility caster. While I do agree that more versatile gear would always be welcome, you still can make some interesting builds with the current gear.

There are a couple issues with that.
Mixing armor types leads to wonky damage spikes when you get hit on a cloth piece 5 time in a row because RNG.
Warlords is blasted heavy and wearing the chest legs tends to be a bit much for elves. So you end up wearing Cloth chest/legs… which get hit the most often.
You can use WW instead of Warlords… but you really don't have enough MDM behind it to back it up.

End of the day it really just comes down to me not wanting to start up with Realm again if the plan is to stick to the caster gear/melee gear idea. I've played too many games since then that had a better system for hybrids and nostalgia alone isn't enough inspiration. If I come back I'll be running 6 and I want enough variance to make them all a bit different.

ADV and THV need a LOT of love. Quickly, Ratlabs. I brought it up in chat and people say I'm crying my ADV doesn't one-shot things, I'm not saying that. But it certainly doesn't feel like the class is yet close to 60-70 damage potential% it should be, like Jhaerik says.

I mean I'm just waiting for an official nod saying, "Yes we plan to add in armor to a support Hybrid playstyle."

Also if anything Thieves are is a much worse place than Adventurers. HoI at least makes Adventurers hitters that can hit 12 int easily for 75% base SDM with meditate. 19/6/9(+3)/14 or 21/6/7(+5)/14 or example. Trade 5 str 1 dex 1 end for 10 int. That and Dex based Elf Wizzy/Elf Adven/ and +1 int Elf Thief are probably the only "Decent" PvE hybrids at the moment.

Lack of Thief only weapons sort of killed the point in making them. Zero reason to make a Thief over an Adven or Wizzy. 3/23/17/5 or 7/21/14(+3)/6 is just as good or better than 6/25/11/6 or 6/24/12/6 however you want to look at it.

And this is off topic… but I still always thought Humans and Orc should have +1 to all stats to make up for the fact that they don't specialize in anything. There is exactly 1 good human build… and that's an AIHWiz… Orc's…. errrm… yeh…. 18/10/9(+3)/11 Adven I guess?

Hey guys - we aren't ignoring you.

I think the plan for armors is to roll out what we have first before we entertain new archetypes.

I would personally love to see a tank/mitigation focused armor set, and an armor set that catered to adventurer types that are hybrid hitter and caster. Note that higher level melee armor will provide an SDM increase as well.

One of the differentiators for classes will be the prestige abilities as well - so stay tuned to hear about those.

Ok thanks for the heads up. I hadn't seen anything on that since July (unless I missed it) and I just wanted to make sure it was still coming down the pipe.
Think I'll go ahead and roll up some toons. Think I'll hold off until more gear/prestige system goes like to go paid though…. (and to make sure the whole cash shop thing doesn't go crazy. Have to admit paying cash for dyes and trading them for in game gold has me a bit worried…)

Hybrid characters are viable now, there's no doubt. The HoI change was huge for Advs, and hopefully when Thieves Mask finally is in game, that will help Thieves as well.

I currently have a (base) 10/10/18/10 Human Adv. With chants, he ends up 22/22/23/13, this is with him currently in HoI, RoI, RoE. He can use either Dex or Str weapons (currently using SoT/Pris Ward.) I can switch him to 2H if I want, and he has enough Str to wear Warlords gear (but I don't have a full set, yet.)

Now, someday if I can manage HC jewelry, I really think this char will come into his own, by using two Mag signets (+ Int, +end):

HoI, Mag1, Mag2 = +6 Int, +5 End

With AoC/Brooch/ACharm, this char ends up with +2 Atk additionally (there's not, currently, an additional +int item available to get to +7, as I'd need two pieces to get there, and I can only get 1 more with +int ammy like AoI, or Mag charm.)

This gives a chanted stat line of 23(ish)/23(ish)/24/15 - the "ish" is based on how many extra "natural" adds for Str/Dex you get from other items (Fin, or a +dex weapon like thiefs blade, for example.)

I'm only at about 440 with this char yet, but honestly he's really starting to round into form. Depending on gear setup, you can focus on either casting, or damage, and he can hold his own on either side. With higher level gear for melee adding both MDM/SDM as Gimli noted, I'm fully confident there will be a future that hybrid chars like that, while not min/maxing overall damage like pure characters; can fully hold their own in "reasonable" damage for both melee/and casting, and survivability.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Ehh dis regard this. Already gave up.

I can't handle the bind to account items. One of my favorite things about realm was the ability to mix and match gear between my toons. Huge part of why I don't enjoy newer MMOs.

Man it was fine for 2 decades…. why change that? It's just awful. If I'd known that was added I'd never reinstalled.

Man it was fine for 2 decades…. why change that? It's just awful. If I'd known that was added I'd never reinstalled.

It was actually quite broken and dead for the better part of the last 10 years.

Man it was fine for 2 decades…. why change that? It's just awful. If I'd known that was added I'd never reinstalled.

It was actually quite broken and dead for the better part of the last 10 years.

Ya, the Realm economy died a long time ago, and a big part of that was because no item ever "died" it stayed in the economy forever. Binding is a necessary evil in MMOs, all of them have learned this over the years. You have to do something to keep the economy moving.

I can't understand any disagreement with the path of the current development which is based on "Well it was always this way and there was nothing wrong with it." No, that's just wrong, there was plenty wrong with the state of The Realm, most things, in fact, were broken.

Hybrid characters are viable now, there's no doubt.
I'm only at about 440 with this char yet, but honestly he's really starting to round into form.

Not to rain on your parade, but this is what I'm talking about. Once you've gotten the adv almost to level 500 - 1/2 the game's cap.. and now it feels like they are getting somewhere.

Hybrid characters are viable now, there's no doubt.
I'm only at about 440 with this char yet, but honestly he's really starting to round into form.

Not to rain on your parade, but this is what I'm talking about. Once you've gotten the adv almost to level 500 - 1/2 the game's cap.. and now it feels like they are getting somewhere.

No worries, I have a good umbrella. Honestly, I get what you're saying, but to me, this "problem" isn't really a problem. I guess it all depends on your point of view. To me, having certain builds that will struggle a bit in early levels, but really excel later on, and in the right conditions, isn't a bad thing.

For newer players, ASGW/AIEW/ADET will always be your "easiest" build, lowest degree of difficulty. When you get into theorycrafting, and into hybrid builds, to me, you probably have some experience with the game, and are looking for something different. So if it's a slightly worse curve to get those characters really clicking, I don't see an issue there. Just about every game out there has situations like that, not every build can be the same.

Oh absolutely, Brancrese. I agree and appreciate your answer. The ADV is, at best, half a character of two job classes. But just look at the leaderboards for ADV, unlike the others, its not full of level 1000s. Its not popular, or is too underwhelming, or something. To me it just seems the allure for being an ADV, besides challenge.. isn't there, every class can use magic, so there's no direct appeal, adv needs a hook. I just want to see the game to feel more fleshed out and make better use of ALL its classes and races,