Thread: Ban Armor and Jewelry switching while in Combat!

Turbine should prevent all armor (except shields) and jewelry switching in combat to help make the various armor sets have more meaningful bonuses by not allowing you to hot-swap in various armor sets to get the Uber variants of skills, while having a general set so their stats don't go in the dumper.

Edit:
This does not include anything in the main hand, off hand, ranged, or class item slot, because they are not jewelry, nor are they armor.

So what you're saying is you don't want to bother getting multiple sets and thus want Turbine to level the playing field for you.

/unsigned

I agree...its obviously not what Turbine had in mind, and its not something the devs should ever expect players to do. Having it possible only makes it more difficult to balance, as new sets and items are continually added and every combination of existing items has to be considered. You get things like the Hunter infinite-IPS bug.

Banning the mechanism entirely would make it obvious that its not an intended mechanic, and remove the temptation to do things like automate it with macros to gain an advantage over other players.

Weapons are different, especially for classes like Guardian where you might want to switch between OP and tanking mid-fight, though I'd also support preventing class-item LIs from being swapped in-combat for the same reasons as armor and jewelry.

Originally Posted by droid

Weapons are different, especially for classes like Guardian where you might want to switch between OP and tanking mid-fight, though I'd also support preventing class-item LIs from being swapped in-combat for the same reasons as armor and jewelry.

You just negated your own example, guardians should have an OP belt as well as a tanking belt. You don't want skill threat up when you are trying to DPS. Not to mention I have a complete set of armour and jewellry for OP as well, OP just isn't very effective with only 500ish might and 2k vit.

Same goes for champs if they are needing to go to glory to tank mid fight, tanking weapon and rune armour and jewellry.

Originally Posted by TinDragon

So what you're saying is you don't want to bother getting multiple sets and thus want Turbine to level the playing field for you.

/unsigned

No, not at all.

I don't mind acquiring multiple sets. I have many in the vault.

I don't like that you can macro in a set to get that set bonus, then macro out the armor, so you essentially get those bonuses without actually needing to have the armor slotted the entire time.

Originally Posted by Azerog

You just negated your own example, guardians should have an OP belt as well as a tanking belt. You don't want skill threat up when you are trying to DPS. Not to mention I have a complete set of armour and jewellry for OP as well, OP just isn't very effective with only 500ish might and 2k vit.

Same goes for champs if they are needing to go to glory to tank mid fight, tanking weapon and rune armour and jewellry.

LIs would have to be exempt. If all weapons were allowed, that means that a hunter and warden have two LIs they can swap while everyone else only has one, because those classes don't have a class item LI, but a second weapon. To keep things even between classes, LIs would have to remain swappable.

When Turbine don't want you to do it, they implement a cooldown. If there's currently no cooldown, what's the problem?

Yet another example of seeing another player do something cool, fun, interesting, exciting or unusual and quickly shouting 'ban ban ban' because you haven't got the same item. The guy the other day who wanted earning TP to be banned. Wanting items and armour use to be banned. Good on them for optimising their gameplay with a wide variety of things.

Originally Posted by Lilka

Yet another example of seeing another player do something cool, fun, interesting, exciting or unusual and quickly shouting 'ban ban ban' because you haven't got the same item.

And by items you mean Logitech and Razer hardware with macroing software, right?

Cause it's NOT the armor sets I assure you.

Originally Posted by Azerog

You just negated your own example, guardians should have an OP belt as well as a tanking belt. You don't want skill threat up when you are trying to DPS. Not to mention I have a complete set of armour and jewellry for OP as well, OP just isn't very effective with only 500ish might and 2k vit.

Same goes for champs if they are needing to go to glory to tank mid fight, tanking weapon and rune armour and jewellry.

Why not let us equip every virtue we earn? You dont want Physical Mitigation virtues when you're fighting a Tactical damage boss

Why not let us equip every trait we earn? You dont want only Lightning traits if you need to start healing

Why not let us learn and guild every profession? You dont need Jeweller recipes if you need to make yourself more armor

Why not let us multiclass? You dont want Guardian skills when you're trying to crowd control


You have to choose things to specialize in for many parts of the game. Not every player can be idealized at every aspect of everything. If a guard wants to spend the time and effort to level a belt for OP and for tanking, thats possible. But I dont think it'd be unfair to ask him to choose which he wants to focus on before a fight. I'm not even saying he has to lock in to one choice before leaving town, like traits and virtues, just no in-combat hotswapping. The same for armor and jewellery sets...suit up before battle, not during.

If he's in a group that needs a tank, he can trait and equip his tank choices, and then if, during the fight, he wants to switch to OP, he can do so, but not as fully effectively as if he had chosen his OP gear. Likewise, if he goes out solo geared for OP, and then has to switch to tanking when a fight goes bad, he can do so, but not as effectively.

Basically the difference is that weapon choice can lock and unlock entire sets of skills in combat. Armor, accessories, and class items do not. If you could go into OP while wielding a 1h weapon (or any other similar situation) then I would say lock them out too

Its not fair to ask every player - even casual ones who might not want to have half a screen devoted to hotkeys, or learn how to build complex macros or use arcane LUA plugins - to learn how to do all that just to hotswap armor. And its equally unfair to balance the game for an "average" player that doesnt hotswap, and thus let people get a marked advantage by using those meta-game techniques, which dont really have anything to do with playing the game or their class, but rather, playing the engine.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

And by items you mean Logitech and Razer hardware with macroing software, right?...

You dont need macro hardware to hotswap effectively.

Originally Posted by droid

...
Its not fair to ask every player - even casual ones who might not want to have half a screen devoted to hotkeys, or learn how to build complex macros or use arcane LUA plugins - to learn how to do all that just to hotswap armor. And its equally unfair to balance the game for an "average" player that doesnt hotswap, and thus let people get a marked advantage by using those meta-game techniques, which dont really have anything to do with playing the game or their class, but rather, playing the engine.

Unless we´re speaking about extremes like a DPS champ switching into tank gear, hotswapping usually gets the most benefits when done with LIs. Everyone can "learn" this - noone needs to do it though because your usual "casual" will have so many areas where they can improve their performance that hotswapping is just one out of many.

Now consider this: there are classes which are very dependant on the right legacies to get the most out of their roles. A famous example would be Captain emblems - they "need" 4 major legacies to get a proper healing output. We all know that the usual number is 3 majors though. So by forbidding hotswapping, you penalize those people that go the extra mile and build up a swap emblem over those that were simply lucky at a reforge.

Lastly, by not allowing hotswapping you strip the players of all flexibility to ract to changing combat environments. Lets say I´m on my Captain and I play with a Pug. In the bossfight I see the tank go lower and lower, either because being to squishy, because of a healer that is not up to the job or whatever. Am I now supposed to watch the tank go lower and lower until he dies, and then wiping the rest? I COULD save him by swapping into different gear that is more suitable for spot healing.

For something like this, it is *good* that we can hotswap. There will of course be some people exploiting this (if that is even the right expression) by going to the extremes and macro-swap gear on per-skill basis. It doesnt invalidate the whole system.

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

For something like this, it is *good* that we can hotswap. There will of course be some people exploiting this (if that is even the right expression) by going to the extremes and macro-swap gear on per-skill basis. It doesnt invalidate the whole system.

Whether it's exploiting or metagaming, either way it's bad and it ought to be fixed. No way that's 'working as intended'.

I'd agree only with these conditions:

Players are allowed to equip legendary items interchangeably in combat. Anything un-legendary cannot be equipped while in combat. It's fair and it's good protocol as well.

/unsigned
This would destroy the ability for classes with multiple roles to swap roles midfight. A guardian NEEDS that vitality gear to take a hit, but if he has been offtanking in might gear he cannot swap if things go bad.
Champ? Same thing! I group regularly with champs that are forced into an tanking role when the guardian dies (or warden now). Sometimes things go wrong, you cannot depend on simply "Dont die". Someone needs to be able to offtank for a few seconds to get the proper tank up and active.
Really, I would need to disagree with any change that makes players lose flexibility.
Lets see, what other classes might have issues... Wardens? RK's? Cappies?

Now, I would MAYBE agree to a moors-only change, perhaps such that all set bonuses had a 30 second timer before activating?

I disagree, RKs have been hot-swapping their weapon/bag/armor for ages now to be able to best serve their raid if their role is needed to change mid fight (myself doing it macro-less as well). I'd hate to have that taken away.

I had to add something to the OP to clarify that this suggestion DOES NOT affect anything in the class item, ranged, main hand, or off hand slot - those should remain swappable.

Originally Posted by Strikerin

/unsigned
This would destroy the ability for classes with multiple roles to swap roles midfight. A guardian NEEDS that vitality gear to take a hit, but if he has been offtanking in might gear he cannot swap if things go bad.
Champ? Same thing! I group regularly with champs that are forced into an tanking role when the guardian dies (or warden now). Sometimes things go wrong, you cannot depend on simply "Dont die". Someone needs to be able to offtank for a few seconds to get the proper tank up and active.
Really, I would need to disagree with any change that makes players lose flexibility.
Lets see, what other classes might have issues... Wardens? RK's? Cappies?

Now, I would MAYBE agree to a moors-only change, perhaps such that all set bonuses had a 30 second timer before activating?

Skill in gear swapping should never trump skill in playing a class well.

And if the champion is going to expect to be tanking something, wouldn't it work better if they had to step up and take agro on the spot, than delay another second or two (while someone gets wailed on) to swap out gear and THEN take agro?

That's why you gear appropriately for the situation. Using resources like https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...xaDRSWHc#gid=2 helps players to find the gear they need.

Originally Posted by BBSoonerOU

I disagree, RKs have been hot-swapping their weapon/bag/armor for ages now to be able to best serve their raid if their role is needed to change mid fight (myself doing it macro-less as well). I'd hate to have that taken away.

Again, your weapon/bag swaps would be unnaffected, because those are not armor, nor are they jewelry. The only thing you'd "loose" is armor swapping - which really boils down to having to stick with a specific set of armor (and it's bonuses) for that combat situation. Your tactical mastery, finesse, and crit scores should work well enough to DPS or heal as the situation calls for it.

And if a squishy class like an RK needs to swap because they're in the line of fire, either they're in the 'Moors (and should have geared to withstand the punishment) or the entire group is about to wipe, and the group needs to figure out how not to wipe.

I think they should add a 20 second timer of non combat action for Armour switching and 10 seconds for jewelry and weapons 3 seconds while in combat.

A new player not going to learn how to play if someone else is doing his, her job.

I might be a far better player if i had the drive to learn all these little trickses.....

Ban it? No.

Figure out a way to actually enforce the rule against using third-party software (such as macro programs)? Yes.

If someone is capable of manually switching out and in various pieces of gear, cool. It's the macro users who are the ones gaining an (unfair?) advantage - Champs swapping weapons every second for different skills, Burgs hot-swapping in the Moors set for a HIPS dot wipe.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Again, your weapon/bag swaps would be unnaffected, because those are not armor, nor are they jewelry. The only thing you'd "loose" is armor swapping - which really boils down to having to stick with a specific set of armor (and it's bonuses) for that combat situation. Your tactical mastery, finesse, and crit scores should work well enough to DPS or heal as the situation calls for it.

And if a squishy class like an RK needs to swap because they're in the line of fire, either they're in the 'Moors (and should have geared to withstand the punishment) or the entire group is about to wipe, and the group needs to figure out how not to wipe.

Actually, with the introduction Finesse my healing/dps sets (including jewellery) are more different now than ever. I'll just have to disagree with you that the ability to do this is somehow detrimental enough to reduce a players freedom to min/max their character for every situation they are in. Sorry!

Originally Posted by Lestache

Ban it? No.

Figure out a way to actually enforce the rule against using third-party software (such as macro programs)? Yes.

If someone is capable of manually switching out and in various pieces of gear, cool. It's the macro users who are the ones gaining an (unfair?) advantage - Champs swapping weapons every second for different skills, Burgs hot-swapping in the Moors set for a HIPS dot wipe.

That's just it... these are next to impossible to detect aside from having Turbine code analyzing what's currently running on your system.

The way most of the macroing software works is by input replacement. It detects 1+ key presses from the mouse, keyboard, game pad, etc, then inserts a pre-programmed keyboard/mouse movement, so LotRO sees only keyboard and mouse movement.

Most of the scripts look something like this psuedocode:

Code:

setMousePosition(1000,234);
useButton(LMB);
wait(250);
useKey('A');
wait(250);
setMousePosition(1020,234);
useButton(LMB);

How do you distinguish that from someone who's learned how to do that fast enough that they can reproduce similar results?

So really, the software here isn't the problem, but rather a symptom of the problem.

Realistically, global cooldown timers are probably the best solution (similar to what was suggested by Celt_Ainvar).

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

I had to add something to the OP to clarify that this suggestion DOES NOT affect anything in the class item, ranged, main hand, or off hand slot - those should remain swappable.



Skill in gear swapping should never trump skill in playing a class well.

And if the champion is going to expect to be tanking something, wouldn't it work better if they had to step up and take agro on the spot, than delay another second or two (while someone gets wailed on) to swap out gear and THEN take agro?

That's why you gear appropriately for the situation. Using resources like https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...xaDRSWHc#gid=2 helps players to find the gear they need.



Again, your weapon/bag swaps would be unnaffected, because those are not armor, nor are they jewelry. The only thing you'd "loose" is armor swapping - which really boils down to having to stick with a specific set of armor (and it's bonuses) for that combat situation. Your tactical mastery, finesse, and crit scores should work well enough to DPS or heal as the situation calls for it.

And if a squishy class like an RK needs to swap because they're in the line of fire, either they're in the 'Moors (and should have geared to withstand the punishment) or the entire group is about to wipe, and the group needs to figure out how not to wipe.

The group did figure out how to not wipe. It's called "Have the RK swap into his healing gear to keep us alive while our cappy picks up our mini." Taking away the ability to swap gear is simply detrimental to unique playstyles.

I also fail to see how swapping armour is any different than swapping weapons/class items, so why you'd want to disable one and not the other I'm quite lost on.

Originally Posted by TinDragon

The group did figure out how to not wipe. It's called "Have the RK swap into his healing gear to keep us alive while our cappy picks up our mini." Taking away the ability to swap gear is simply detrimental to unique playstyles.

I also fail to see how swapping armour is any different than swapping weapons/class items, so why you'd want to disable one and not the other I'm quite lost on.

Swapping armor with LIs allows captains to get a 2 second induction, 100% morale, 75% power, 2.5 minute Battle Rez without paying the price of having the 'Moors gear's horrible stats equipped in PvE (reduces a 30 minute cooldown by 25% to 22.5 minutes), with the only requirement of having Escape from Darkness legacy maxed on an LI somewhere (not that hard to do, reduces cooldown by 10 minutes), and having the trait Blood of Numenor slotted (reduces cooldown by 10 minutes). And this is only one of many examples where you can heavily game the system in your favor because of gear and LI swapping.

If there isn't something wrong with the above example, then I'm at a loss of words.

It also gose agenst the Lore. I never seen anyone in all tolken books. Where in mid combat they change armour, change cloths it never happen.

For the people who this this. It lack of skill on there part because they dont know how to play lotro right. The skilled players are the ones that setup there Stats, Armour, Jewelry and win so they can live another day.

I guess I must be missing something, but I'm not seeing who armour swapping is hurting, at least in PvE.

I can imagine that it could cause annoyance in PvMP, and possibly in PvE sparring, but in regular PvE, who is being damaged?

If another player in the group is able to aid the group by hot-swapping their armour in combat, surely that is beneficial to the group.

I fail to see where in the game the fact that aniother player is able to perform "better" would be detrimental to me.

Originally Posted by mjk47

I guess I must be missing something, but I'm not seeing who armour swapping is hurting, at least in PvE.

I can imagine that it could cause annoyance in PvMP, and possibly in PvE sparring, but in regular PvE, who is being damaged?

If another player in the group is able to aid the group by hot-swapping their armour in combat, surely that is beneficial to the group.

I fail to see where in the game the fact that aniother player is able to perform "better" would be detrimental to me.

Being forced to choose what armor to use before a fight breaks out also helps put a damper on 'Moors gear bleeding into PvE (which seems to be the design direction Turbine is trying to enforce with PvE and PvMP gear). This also helps to put the 'Moors gear into a vacuum so it can have some insanely good set bonuses (like the captain 3 piece bonuses for example), but the gear itself is so badly statted that most do not want to take the penalty to use it. Being able to swap in the 'Moors gear allows you to take the set bonuses, without paying the penalty of the (generally bad) stats. While I have no objection to getting the gear (because I will do so anyway), I know that others will heavily object to having to go get the 'Moors gear if the set bonuses become good enough. This is just one example.

Given that there's an ever growing number of armor sets in the game, it's only a matter of time before armor swapping hits a critical mass and becomes gamebreakingly powerful because the right armor sets got comboed together - which reminds me of what happened with 5 champs, a captain, and IHW + LS that caused IHW to be nerfed/reimagined.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

I had to add something to the OP to clarify that this suggestion DOES NOT affect anything in the class item, ranged, main hand, or off hand slot - those should remain swappable.
[...]
Again, your weapon/bag swaps would be unnaffected, because those are not armor, nor are they jewelry. The only thing you'd "loose" is armor swapping - which really boils down to having to stick with a specific set of armor (and it's bonuses) for that combat situation. Your tactical mastery, finesse, and crit scores should work well enough to DPS or heal as the situation calls for it.

Now this caveat is even less understandable. Realistically, there are only a handful of set boni which have a comparable dramatic effect to what swapping LIs usually can give.

And if a squishy class like an RK needs to swap because they're in the line of fire, either they're in the 'Moors (and should have geared to withstand the punishment) or the entire group is about to wipe, and the group needs to figure out how not to wipe.

You mean, like, players adapting to a different role they had not planned for? Now I wonder how you can do that...
I just dont see why it is a good idea to let the whole group wipe because you want to remove large chunks of adaptability.

Originally Posted by Celt_Ainvar

It also gose agenst the Lore. I never seen anyone in all tolken books. Where in mid combat they change armour, change cloths it never happen.

It also never happened in the books that one sword swipe felled 13 foes at once (discounting Sauron), that anyone chugged a blue or red potion to fight longer or that people stop fighting because of demoralization instead of, you know, getting killed. Seriously, you cannot argument in a combat mechanics discussion with Lore arguments...

Originally Posted by TinDragon

The group did figure out how to not wipe. It's called "Have the RK swap into his healing gear to keep us alive while our cappy picks up our mini." Taking away the ability to swap gear is simply detrimental to unique playstyles.

I also fail to see how swapping armour is any different than swapping weapons/class items, so why you'd want to disable one and not the other I'm quite lost on.

Maybe you should try playing some other games, then. Being able to swap weapons in combat but not being able to swap anything else is fair; the difference is that there's a limit as to how much difference swapping weapons can make compared to swapping all your armour on the fly. It still allows you to be a bit tactical, but not so much that it's taking the mickey.

As for your 'unique playstyle', I call it easy mode. It was poor design to allow it in the first place, to have game mechanics so abstracted from what they represent (it's supposed to be people wearing armour, after all, not just a bunch of numbers). It's pure metagaming, something that makes no sense in terms of the environment the game presents us with.

Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

Being able to swap weapons in combat but not being able to swap anything else is fair; the difference is that there's a limit as to how much difference swapping weapons can make compared to swapping all your armour on the fly. It still allows you to be a bit tactical, but not so much that it's taking the mickey..

I agree.
For example, switching between DW and 2H weapons when playing a champ allows you to modify your role a little, but it's difficult to learn how to do that. It's fair as long as you're not using macros to switch entire armor sets or something.

To some extent I agree with the OP: Allowing hot-swapping of gear in-combat is not a Good Thing(tm). Sure, for players it's awesome to, for example, have a separate 3rd age song-book with buffing traits maximized that are only swapped in when using anthems and only to get reduced cooldowns/increased durations. Or a Rune-Keeper who has a utility bag with some nice legacies to swap in when using Self-Motivation or SNFTD, just to get a shorted cooldown on those skills.

Why is this bad? Well, as some have pointed out: in the long term we will accumulate a lot of nice gear with set bonuses that are just too awesome when combined with other set bonuses. Why do you think clicke jewelry goes in with an active cooldown???

In some ragards it's unrealistic to hot-swap (i.e. change 3 pieces or armour, cast one spell and swap back 3 piecees of armour) in 2-3 seconds. Yes, I realize that this is a game and not a Middle Earth simulation. Anyone ever tried to take off a tight ring when your fingers are a bit swollen because you've been doing some heavy lifting? Definitely not doable under 60 seconds if you want to keep your finger!

So, where's the fair middle ground that give the reasonable use cases a fair chance while blocking out the ones that skew skill use? Others have suggested it and I concur:

(*) Introduce a cooldown on set bonuses before they become active. I think 5-10 seconds in-combat should suffice. (If you're willing to fight for 5-10 seconds in clearly inferiour armour just to use the set bonus once then the set bonus is probably way way too strong in the first place)
(*) Introduce a cooldown on swapping out gear (any gear) in-combat, i.e. if you change your sword/RK-satchel then you cannot change your sword/RK-satchel again for 10-15 seconds. (A champ needing to tank while the Guardian is rezzed/healed up should have no problem waiting a few seconds to swap back to the main role gear but it would prevent said champ from swapping between 2H/DW every skill)
(*) Neither of these cooldown activate/act on broken gear, i.e. if your shoulders are broken then you can swap immediately and any set bonuses activate immediately. (Because it's unfair to force people to wear broken gear)

Please don't do this, my cappy carries around a tanking set and a healing set at all times. It's not uncommon at all for me to need to step up into an off-tanking role mid-fight and I love being able to do it!

Don't take away the ability to change our armor & jewlery, take away the benefit to others who are abusing it. Cooldowns like those sugested by Raven-EU would be very good, and targeted effects such as tripping the cooldown on any skills affected by the armor sounds fine to me as well.

I used to play Final Fantasy XI, where per-skill equipment switching is the norm (and facilitated by an in-game macro system); the amount of switching done in LOTRO is still lesser by far and frankly, I don't see a problem with it.

As for the RP argument ("But it's unrealistic to change one's armour in mid-battle!") - I'm a roleplayer too, and far as I'm concerned, the stuff a character wears ICly is the stuff she or he wears visibly (in the current cosmetics tab). The actual armour, unless visible, is just part of game mechanics. So roleplay-wise, any unrealistic armour changes don't even happen.

Originally Posted by Norliriel

As for the RP argument ("But it's unrealistic to change one's armour in mid-battle!") - I'm a roleplayer too, and far as I'm concerned, the stuff a character wears ICly is the stuff she or he wears visibly (in the current cosmetics tab). The actual armour, unless visible, is just part of game mechanics. So roleplay-wise, any unrealistic armour changes don't even happen.

That's pretty feeble. Hotswapping means there's outrageous metagaming going on behind the scenes and your excuse is that it isn't really happening because nobody can see it?

Rather not have the ability to swap things in combat taken away. I have 3 different sets on my champ and I swap them about when I need them during the fight. If the tank dies, I stick on all my morale/tank gear and take his place for a bit.

/unsigned for limiting people's choices.

So now we are starting to see how many unskilled player who look to play better just because the armour/jewelery switching Exploit. I can see how the Devs can mistaken this for a class being to good and nerf that class. Then the people who are affected are the ones that Play the game or class right.

I beleave the Devs needs to look at this topic and fix this issue before then look at the classes.

/Sign

/not Signed

If you can do it and its not game breaking and not an exploit

Originally Posted by Celt_Ainvar

So now we are starting to see how many unskilled player who look to play better just because the armour/jewelery switching Exploit. I can see how the Devs can mistaken this for a class being to good and nerf that class. Then the people who are affected are the ones that Play the game or class right.

I beleave the Devs needs to look at this topic and fix this issue before then look at the classes.

/Sign

Please explain how this is an exploit, and please explain how a class gets nerfed if there is an armour set bonus too potent with armour switching.
Last time it happened was the Draigoch + Hunter Isen sets allowing you to stack Fleetness (which, by the way, was quite often done without macros). Did they nerf the hunter because of that? No, they just cut off the ability to use both sets together like that. If the devs believe more than one set is OP when combined with another set, they'll change that specific set, and that's proof that they intend the rest of them to be used as they are: IE switching.

/Unsigned

Whenever the battlefield changes and I need to change roles, I have a backup pocket item, necklace, and one-two pieces of armour that let me shift roles. On all my characters. Even with set bonuses.

Until Turbine removes gear dependency on stats I think that disallowing people to change their stats in combat would limit everyone so much and cause wipes to be unavoidable when the healer or main tank goes down while grouping. I can't think of a single reason to prohibit it, this cannot be exploited. Those who benefit from multiple sets obviously have earned them. If Frodo can equip sting when necessary and captains can change between heralds, then the rest of us can change the rest of our stuff too.

And if there is an exploit it can be addressed without crippling everyone from early game on. Also I don't see how what you're talking about is an exploit.

/unsigned, i don't know why someone would suggest this unless that person is jealous that other people got more armor/jewel pieces then him/her, and are able to change it depending on the situation. People earn their gear so they should be able to use it whenever they want, even in combat.

I completely disagree with this suggestion. It would devalue even more loot than just armor sets by making it unable to switch in combat. It would make the game a lot more clunky too.

Example: mini goes down, I swap to heals. Gee, guess I can't use my heal set just because things went awry and the mini went down.

Example: You use the horseshoe for combining relics and pop into an instance forgetting to swap out. Now you're stuck in combat with a combat-useless pocket. And for what?


If you take the time to earn it, you should be able to swap it out whenever. If the effect is OP then the dev's need make sure the buffs won't stack/whatever.