A question/call for an experiment

So...I've just been reminded (its been 20 years after all..) that if you upgrade an ethereal unique armor via the cube recipe, it actually doesn't end up with 100% durability. Specifically, the

Eth max durability penalty seems to be getting lost and the actual current durability ends up somewhere half-way between the pre-upgrade penalty durability and the new max durability. So essentially, your upgraded

Eth armor no longer has 100% durability even if it had 100% going in.

Obviously, functionally that makes little to no difference since it'd typically only be used for a merc anyways. However, my inner OCD perfectionist is...irked. So it had me wondering...might there not be a way to repair ethereals after all and/or to avoid this bug from dropping the durability?
We all know NPCs can't repair them. And neither does the cube recipe. However, there's 2 scenarios which I currently have in mind that MIGHT be able to fix/prevent this. More likely than not, I already tested this 20 years ago but I honestly can't remember any of it.

So if anyone either has too many runes lying around or is still active in single-player and editing savegames, care to try out the following 2 ideas and let us know the results? (If anyone already knows, obviously feel free to chime in)

Control scenario (normal behavior):
1) Take a full durability exceptional ethereal armor that is not inherently indestructible or self-repairing (

Shaftstop, gaze, whatever)
2) Upgrade it to elite via the

Ko+

Lem+P.

Diamond recipe
3) You should now have an elite armor with increased max durability and increased current durability but with current durability lower than the max

Repair scenario (to be tested):
1) Take a full durability exceptional ethereal armor that is not inherently indestructible or self-repairing (

Shaftstop, gaze, whatever)
2) Upgrade it to elite via the

Ko+

Lem+P.

Diamond recipe
3) Add a socket to it
4) Socket a

Zod rune into it to make the item indestructible
5) Use the

Hel+Scroll of TP recipe to remove the

Zod rune
6) What is the durability and max durability after the rune is removed?

Reasoning:
-

Zod may effectively reset the durability upon insertion/removal
-

Zod may upon removal lower the max durability to what it should be with the

Eth penalty
I would call this one unlikely, due to the fact that adding a

Zod to an already broken item doesn't make it usable again (at least it didn't use to), implying that durability remains tracked at the current state and just hidden while the

Zod is applied.

Prevention scenario (to be tested):
1) Take a full durability exceptional ethereal armor that is not inherently indestructible or self-repairing (

Shaftstop, gaze, whatever)
2) Add a socket to it
3) Socket a

Zod rune into it to make the item indestructible
4) Upgrade it to elite via the

Ko+

Lem+P.

Diamond recipe
5) Use the

Hel+Scroll of TP recipe to remove the

Zod rune
6) What is the durability and max durability after the rune is removed?

Reasoning:
- Even if durability remains tracked with a

Zod, having a

Zod in an item prevents it from changing which is why the item really is indestructible. The same mechanism may prevent durability (cur, max or both) from changing (either absolute or as a percentage) during the upgrade process. As a result, the outcome may be either not affected (doesn't work), an item with the same durability as pre-upgrade (max is frozen) or an item with the increased max durability and full current durability (max is not frozen, degradation as a percentage is).

Might end up playing around with SP myself to figure this out. But I figured I'd post it here in case someone already happens to have savegames with everything needed and/or already knows the answers.

I can see why this has to be tested in single player... requires a

Zod, haha. I am curious of the results. The "prevention" scenario sounds most interesting, as the act of upgrading may have made the game "forget" the source of the indestructability

Alright, since the PTR was kind enough to supply me with all the

Zod runes in the world, I figured I'd finally get this worked out and share the results.

Spoiler alert: Nothing works.

As expected, Zodding does not repair an item. As such, the repair scenario goes straight out the window.

As not quite as expected, Zodding also apparently does not lock durability of an item. As a result, it doesn't matter what the durability of an item is prior to cubing it (tried all sorts of variations), the process of cubing will still cause it to randomly reroll its current durability, even with a

Zod attached. The resulting current durability continues to differ from the prior durability, both in absolute and in relative terms.

Can't say I didn't fear as much..but yeah, I suppose until the cube recipe is changed (if ever) there simply is no way to upgrade an ethereal without losing durability. Unless you get lucky enough for the random reroll to hit 100% (which I'm not sure is even possible).