Are any of the Underdark Rings any good?

hawkwoodnha

Because they work differently than all of the rings I'm used to I'm having a hard time comparing them. Are any of the Underdark rings worth using late game or are they all just salvage?

shaihulud

sofar i just salvage them all. .6 seconds of invulnerablity once every 30 seconds, but i give up 1100 power? strong pass

thegreatwhitemo

I've heard there are 2 or so that are worth using. I believe one gives you a good amount of power every 30 seconds or so. I wish I knew more! Sorry!

dupeks

On PC: some of the underdark rings are good. Many are junk.

The Ring of Rising "Stat" is good for power and crit, and possibly recovery or lifesteal for certain builds.
The Ring of Brutality ("sudden" power) and Ring of Sudden Precision ("sudden" crit) are also used.

Regarding utility, Ambush and Cowardice were not working as intended, and were abused in PVP as a result (not real effect on PVE).

It should be noted that some of the above rings are also great on companions (the "sudden" rings proc on augment companions too).

devlin

I wont speak for tanks or healers, but two rings that I find VERY valuable are:

Ring of Brutality +4 or +5 (i know i know....dream on) - this gives 4000 power (so about a 10% damage increase) for 10 seconds (at +5) with a cooldown of 30 seconds (so essentially 20 seconds without the buff).

Ring of Sudden Precision +4 of +5 - this gives 4000 crit chance (so 10% increase to critical chance_ for 10 seconds (at +5) with same cooldowns as brutality.

Now the 4000 boost is crazy and while the boost is active they are obviously the superior rings to use. During the cooldown though, they are lacklustre compared to say personalized rings.

But their are 3 reasons these rings come out on top.

1. At +5 both rings above have 2 offence slots (at +4 its 1 offence and 1 defence slot) which allows for extra stats via enchantments.

2. The aforementioned cooldown of 20 seconds is "reset" once combat ends. At higher level, you can typically clear trash mobs quite fast. For example. Fight starts - both rings proc and you kill mobs in 13 seconds. For the first 10 seconds you had the buffs, so you only had "inferior" rings compared to the personalized rings for 3 seconds. Now that combat is over, it is ready to proc again next time you start a fight.

3. Companions with bonding stones. If you dont know already, a pet upgraded to legendary (orange) shares 15% of his stats with you. But then you can also equip 3 bonding stones into the companions enchantment slots. Each bonding stone (at rank 12) shares 95% of your companions stats with you. The sharing of the legendary bonus and the bonding stones are added. so 95% + 95% + 95% + 15% = 300% of your companions stats are shared with you. This includes the proc of the rings.

So now the above rings that give 4000 now give 12000 when your companion casts his companion ability (typically very early in the fight. To add to this, the companions buff lasts 20seconds and takes the companions stats at the time. Meaning you get that 12000 for 20seconds.

Anyway. Longer than intended. Hope this helped. These rings are amazing at +4 or +5. Not so much at lower levels due to the smaller uptime.

dupeks

devlin#3775 said:

So now the above rings that give 4000 now give 12000 when your companion casts his companion ability (typically very early in the fight. To add to this, the companions buff lasts 20seconds and takes the companions stats at the time. Meaning you get that 12000 for 20seconds

Great writeup! I just have a handful of subtle comments to add:

1. Sudden rings trigger on entering combat, not when the wearer (or companion) attacks. So they can be put on augments as well, and are independent of attack speed on bonding companions.
   
2. Sudden rings allow you to time your spike damage (daily attack or big beefy encounter) for when you have maximized buffs. For this reason as well, they are typically superior to the rising rings.
   
3. Even though the game lets you equip multiple copies of the same sudden ring on a companion, when I tested last at the start of mod10 only 1 of each sudden buff was applied. So 2x Brutal rings only give you 1x the buff. That said, you can equip the same type of sudden ring as your companion, and both buffs will work (with the one on your companion passed back to you via augment or bonding proc).
   
4. Bonding stones work by "snapshotting" the companion stats at the time of the proc. Each time the gift is reapplied, the stats are re-"snapshotted". The downside here is that because the snapshots don't happen ALL the time, it's possible for you to miss some of the sudden ring buff if your companion doesn't proc the bonding gift frequently enough. To put it another way, your companion's sudden ring might proc, but you won't get the benefit until the next time that the companion's gift is refreshed.
   

Kind of technical details, but someone might find it useful.

mebengalsfan

The best question to ask is what is your class and role you play.

If you play a tank you want the rings of rising Defense and Deflection +4. Both will provide very nice stats.

If you play healer you want the rings that provide power, crit or recovery. Any of the rising or sudden rings. Just like the tanks go for the +4 or +5 rings.

As for DPS the best rings are the sudden rings +4 or +5 and you want crit and power. That is it.

pedroyaya

main thing is the rings have 2 slots so are good if your just looking for a boost to gs i use ring of rising focus for my cw they also work well for companions although im unsure if augments give you the equip bonus aswell as base stats i doubt that

oldbaldyone

devlin#3775 said:

So now the above rings that give 4000 now give 12000 when your companion casts his companion ability (typically very early in the fight. To add to this, the companions buff lasts 20seconds and takes the companions stats at the time. Meaning you get that 12000 for 20seconds.

This is inaccurate, at least from my experience on PC. The buff lasts 8 seconds and then goes on cooldown. If the pet goes out of combat, it resets (happens sometimes with slow attacking pets or randomly), so it can seem to apply longer. Still, 12k stats for 8-10 seconds is pretty brutal. For short fights, awesome. Longer fights, your mileage may vary.

dupeks

oldbaldyone said:

devlin#3775 said:

So now the above rings that give 4000 now give 12000 when your companion casts his companion ability (typically very early in the fight. To add to this, the companions buff lasts 20seconds and takes the companions stats at the time. Meaning you get that 12000 for 20seconds.

This is inaccurate, at least from my experience on PC. The buff lasts 8 seconds and then goes on cooldown. If the pet goes out of combat, it resets (happens sometimes with slow attacking pets or randomly), so it can seem to apply longer. Still, 12k stats for 8-10 seconds is pretty brutal. For short fights, awesome. Longer fights, your mileage may vary.

It used to work this way on PC (the sudden bonus lasted for the length of the gift = 20 secs). They fixed it with the bonding change. Not sure whether the fix has made it's way to our console brethren.

When they reworked the bondings reducing from 3 stacks to 1 (the change that made all companion viable), they also changed the way the companion's gift refreshes. Before, it used to last 20seconds and only reapply after the gift expired. Now it can be reapplied before the gift expires, and it re-snapshots the stats each time it's reapplied. Which, as I mention above, means that you can get less than 8 seconds of buff, if the gift doesn't re-proc right after the sudden buff triggers.

That said, if you happen to get the sudden proc and companion's gift trigger right at the end of a fight, you could have the sudden bonus on for much longer than the 8 seconds (since after combat ends, the companion's gift stays on but won't re-proc since your companion isn't attacking anymore). Not that it's helpful for combat, but it illustrates the mechanic.

mebengalsfan

dupeks said:

oldbaldyone said:

devlin#3775 said:

So now the above rings that give 4000 now give 12000 when your companion casts his companion ability (typically very early in the fight. To add to this, the companions buff lasts 20seconds and takes the companions stats at the time. Meaning you get that 12000 for 20seconds.

This is inaccurate, at least from my experience on PC. The buff lasts 8 seconds and then goes on cooldown. If the pet goes out of combat, it resets (happens sometimes with slow attacking pets or randomly), so it can seem to apply longer. Still, 12k stats for 8-10 seconds is pretty brutal. For short fights, awesome. Longer fights, your mileage may vary.

It used to work this way on PC (the sudden bonus lasted for the length of the gift = 20 secs). They fixed it with the bonding change. Not sure whether the fix has made it's way to our console brethren.

When they reworked the bondings reducing from 3 stacks to 1 (the change that made all companion viable), they also changed the way the companion's gift refreshes. Before, it used to last 20seconds and only reapply after the gift expired. Now it can be reapplied before the gift expires, and it re-snapshots the stats each time it's reapplied. Which, as I mention above, means that you can get less than 8 seconds of buff, if the gift doesn't re-proc right after the sudden buff triggers.

That said, if you happen to get the sudden proc and companion's gift trigger right at the end of a fight, you could have the sudden bonus on for much longer than the 8 seconds (since after combat ends, the companion's gift stays on but won't re-proc since your companion isn't attacking anymore). Not that it's helpful for combat, but it illustrates the mechanic.

I like running into combat with my tank, ring of fortress kicks in for me. Combat ends and than I run in again and it kicks in again. The only issue though it last a wonder .8 seconds. LOL...So it kicks in before I need it. LOL...But if I was using the other rings and had the defense ring it would still be working on the first hit or two from an enemy, which is much better than .8 seconds every 30 seconds. For DPS the rings with higher stats work very good. For tanks you want the ones that stack based on hits. Healer even benefit from the higher stat rings but IMO the stacking rings are the way to go for support roles.

I find it interesting that Tank and Healing gear is much cheaper in game than the DPS gear, but that is because for every single tank or healer you tend to have like 5 DPS if not more. It is why you see shouts all the time for Tanks and Healers. It is a very common issue in most games, DPS heavy.

IMO developers should be doing stuff to encourage support roles, for instance better drop rates from LB, gear in chest, etc...

But not tell us. LOL...

dupeks

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

I like running into combat with my tank, ring of fortress kicks in for me. Combat ends and than I run in again and it kicks in again.

I believe (but haven't recently tested personally) that the "ring cooldown debuff" drops off when combat ends, even if there is time still remaining.

So that's another case for using sudden rings vs. rising rings. Because if you are strong enough to end most combat within those 8 seconds, you have much better uptime.

I agree that some of the other rings are not too helpful. I personally don't use the ring of fortress for exactly the reason you describe: it only procs when I don't need it yet, and doesn't last long enough to be useful... I'd prefer more stats than a brief period of invincibility that usually pops up when I'm least likely to be hit.