Etheral Items

[Burn To Burn]

I was just wondering what the advantages to these items are, especially since they can't be repaired?

[fauxgtfour]

Three uses:
1- Put them on a merc. When gear is on a merc it doesn't take any loss of durability, so ethereal items stay forever in good condition on a merc. You get way higher damage/defense for your merc this way. Eth bugged fortitude is very popular for mercs, you can get around 3,500 def, and when the chilling armor kicks in, the defense just goes through the roof. Eth polearms with infinity or insight are also very popular weapons, as well as various other ethereal polearms, reapers toll and tomb reaver.
2- Make a runeword in them that includes either "indestructible" (death, oath, breath of the dying, eternity) or "repairs x durablity in y seconds" mod (exile, prudence)
3- Put a Zod in them to keep them from falling apart (my sin uses two near perfect eth bartucs with zod's in them)

A lot of items that non-eth are near worthless, in eth form can be worth significantly more (i.e. an elite pally shield with perfect resists is 1-2 hrs, while if you can an eth one, then ebug it and land it with 4os, you are looking at 4-10 hrs)

Do a search, and learn how to ebug. You can make serious money fast this way if you find the right items, and roll and get a good number of sockets.

[thegiantturtle]

Other reasons to use Eth weapons:


Weapons only degrade when you hit something, so castor weapons can be ethereal and never break
PvP players might think the tradeoff of -10 str req is worth the item breaking after a while, say with a Spirit shield.
It's just awesome to have ethereal prebuff gear.
Rare ethereal crystal swords and dimensional blades will become indestructible when upgraded to phase blades.

[jgreg7]

For extra style - an Iron Golem made from an ethereal item is semi-transparent! :cool:

[ProfessionalBerg]

Everyone forgot to mention the obvious Etherealness defense/damage bonus :laugh: As obvious as it is, the added damage on, for example, a Berserker Axe for the Breath of the Dying runeword makes a HELLUVA difference.

[Noite Escura]

The assassin skill Blade Fury won't degrade your weapon but will get a high damage boost form it being ethereal.
Oh, and ehtereal throwing weapons with the Replenish Quantity mod will also get bonuses and never fade away.

[In the name of Zod]

Its also fun just spending stuff. "Hey I really got use outta that shield" *Dump*. As was mentioned in another thread [somewhere] recently that if you personalise an etheral it gets repaired. You can do that once only. May not work if its duration gets to 0, I heard a report anyhow.

If its an etheral rare then it could be a failed unique item so its durability could be (x3) high enough to use for a good while then x2 for personalisation, total x6 durability possible. There also a lot of good items for low level characters, as such they don't get used for extended periods of time so you should get good use out of an eth in these situations.

Another good reason to use eth's is to get rid of items. Sometimes they just mount up.

[aishilee]

holding a Semi Transparent Monarch Shield and Weilding a Semi Trasparent Titans sure looks cool . haha

[thegiantturtle]

</nothing to see here>

[jgreg7]

@thegiantturtle: what happened to the 10 character minimum? :laugh:

[mystified]

its ethereal. can't be seen by normal people XD

also some rare eth items and uniques come with repair durability option. they cannot be fixed, but they willl fix themselves eventually :p

[helvete]

@thegiantturtle: what happened to the 10 character minimum? :laugh:

Maybe his post is ethereal.

[thegiantturtle]

@thegiantturtle: what happened to the 10 character minimum? :laugh:.<./.BOO.>.

Remove the dots, and anything you put in will not be displayed, but will be counted toward the 10 character minimum. I found that out while attempting to make an end sarcasm tag. I believe those used to be displayed, so I think we can add it to the wackiness that is the forum update.

[Alc]

It's anything inside of <> brackets, by the look of it. Click on "quote" for proof.

<I told you so>