Wyrmhide okay for an Enigma?

By hard work and in the end dumb luck (I found a claw I traded for

Jah

Ber) I can finally make an Enigma - my very first ever.

As a base I have a

Wyrmhide and was wondering if this is stupid and I should farm a better base e.g.

Archon Plate or something superior? Would be a shame if I make one and two moments later it is only worth have its price - and where would I want to farm? Pit?

I made my first Enigma out of a

Wyrmhide, non-superior. It had a fairly high defense roll but nothing special. I looked at it from this perspective: Your first Enigma (if not playing a Sorc, I was not I was playing hdin) enables you truly unlock effective farming. You can MF faster, you can farm keys, essences, etc. So, the sooner you unlock that potential the faster you can start building Wealth. The longer you wait to find that 'perfect' Enigma base is effective farming time you are losing.

There is always a debate that rages between AP, DS, Wyrm, and even MP. It bubbles up every couple of months. Which is base is better, as well as superior vs. non-superior. The str req, etc. I believe that any high-roll elite 'lite' armor is great for your first Enigma. The cost of repairing a superior armor is very high. That cost hurts, if you're at the point in your D2 journey, where you are building your first Enigma. I'll go out on a limb and say you don't have a gold-find character yet? Which means you're consuming

Ral runes to repair instead of trading those for

Ist, or all your gold is going towards repair costs.

Also, Enigma does not have an enhanced defense modifier, it adds flat defense (750-775). This means the defense difference between a

Wyrmhide and AP isn't then multiplied to get a final defense value, like you see with Fortitude or Chains of Honor. The difference in overall defense is simply the base defense between the drop rolls.

Maybe I'm a bit sentimental but I still have and use the first Enigma I made; I'll never trade it. It also contains the first

Jah I ever found. To me the 'resale' value is irrelevant.

Edit - Answering your last question which I missed. The fastest and easiest way to farm bases is cows with zero magic find. You don't need

Teleport to farm cows fast and the level monster density is high.

I’m in the non-superior

Mage Plate for enimga camp. At least for your first one. Repair costs are much more affordable, you can wear it with decent other gear and no points into strength.

Knappogue is right, it’s the gateway to the endgame, after Enigma pretty much everything else becomes not just a slim chance but a realistic possibility.

Because of this I’ll argue you want it as accessible as possible so you can swap it between all your characters.

The defence argument is a tough one for me to accept, a difference between a

Mage Plate Enigma and a superior

Archon Plate will change your chance to get hit by like…what 3%? (I honestly don’t know, but I’d bet it’s really low)

And don’t just dismiss repair costs… superior ones are significant. I have a Flickering Flame in a superior

Mask and it’s like an order of magnitude more expensive to repair than a normal one.

Take a look at all of these, if you like the look of your

Wyrmhide then enjoy. I agree with the above, your

Wyrmhide has an average def of 417, average

Archon Plate is 467. As mentioned above, engima is a flat def number your base defense isn't going to matter too much, what you look like will. My 2 cents is non superior by the way, trade and repair costs not worth it IMO.

Congrats on finding your Enigma man!

Enigmas are usually made in whatever armor looks best for your character or that requires least str (so any character can wear it). What @Nate2.0 said, many ppl use

Mage Plate for that purpose, it's the Exceptional version of

Archon Plate

Also huge deal is to have it in non-superior armor which drastically reduces repair costs, beautifully explained by @Knappogue !

And when you are ready for your first Infinity (for merc at least)

Eth

Mancatcher all the way!

Sorry it’s off topic

I'd take 3 points into account.

First is amount of str needed for gear. For example I've got a lvl91 trapsin that needs 156 str for Spirit

Monarch. for that I need 28 hard points (20 base + 20 anni + 20 torch +28 hard points + 68 Enigma). For this character, in order to not waste points, I need a base that needs at most 88 Str.

Wyrmhide works great for that. This is only for this character, if you will use the Enigma on multiple characters, the best bet is a

Mage Plate non-superior. With 55 required str, every class (except sorc) will be able to wear it with just base str + anni/torch.

2nd point is trade value. If you plan on using this Enigma forever on your account this doesn't matter. In general best bases for Enigma in terms of trade value are

Mage Plate,

Archon Plate and

Dusk Shroud. You'd want the best defense on this bases, but not necessarily superior due to repair costs. The best superior if you want it is 15% ED, 0 IMD. Even taking all this into account, the value will depend on the roll of defense, so its not a sure bet. Also if this is your first Enigma, the perfect base could cost as much as the Enigma itself, so not really worth it.

Third and most important for me is looks. On the chars you plan to use Enigma, which base looks cooler? For me its the equivalent of Fashion Souls, if you don't look cool, whats the point.

For the farming of bases, as Knappogue said, 0 MF cows is best.

The defense on Enigma do not matter even in PvP, its only for style points esp with 15ed for clean looks, you will get the same result with a

Breast Plate and

Sacred Armor, chose whatever you wan't but min maxers go for nothing higher then

Dusk Shroud (Melee builds

Archon Plate) due to the str requirement, I use

Wyrmhide on my PvP necro only when im using

Crown of Ages setup with 174str ( I like the look on my Necro with

Wyrmhide and CoA combined while

Dusk Shroud is ugly without

Diadem ) total rather then 156 with

Dusk Shroud.

If you like the look of

Wyrmhide, use it, since I dont think you have the neccesary rings and amulets to have 0 pt investment to equip it and get 156+ for

Monarch the life

Sacrifice between

Wyrmhide and

Mage Plate is minimal if you don't PvP.

Use whatever base you think look good and remember that the defense does not matter, its only for min maxing purpose where it looks clean wich people overpay for, a standard go to is

Mage Plate so if you like the look of

Archon Plate just use a

Mage Plate low str req and easy to equip and looks good on most classes.

I prefer

Scarab Husk for my necromancer. I used AP but one hand is uncovered and I hate how it looks. Sad that all elite armors with dope looks require too much strength. At least Scarab looks organic with

Shako lol.

it doesn't really matter if you have a

Wyrmhide or an

Archon Plate. the difference in def is minimal.
everything above 400 def (or 450 on a non-

Eth as a personal preference) is ok.

GG on your first Enigma.

One thing though- whatever the (non sup) base you find, try to find one with a decent defense roll (let's say top 15%). You don't need a perfect (expensive !) but it's a bit sad to put an Enigma with def below average.

Those bases are usually quite easy to trade.

And always keep a light armor to avoid speed penalty.

Grats !

Necrarch wrote: 11 months ago

One thing though- whatever the (non sup) base you find, try to find one with a decent defense roll (let's say top 15%). You don't need a perfect (expensive !) but it's a bit sad to put an Enigma with def below average.

Those bases are usually quite easy to trade.

And always keep a light armor to avoid speed penalty.

Grats !

1 million thumbs up on this. You can easily have a non-superior

Dusk Shroud roll with a higher defense than an

Archon Plate. When I made my first Enigma out of a

Wyrmhide, it had 461 def (max of 470). Definitely don't roll an Enigma in the first 3os elite armor you find.

davme_mcreg wrote: 11 months ago

My 2 cents is non superior

I see what you did here

Ouch! self burn.