Talk:Essence

Naming convention

Can we drop the "(<quality>-<level>)" part of the names? I believe this is a relic from beta when essence names didn't distinguished between type. Now they are "Minor Essence of <stat>" for uncommon, "Major" for rare, "Greater" for incomparable, and "Supreme" for epic. We can consolidate and put a table for stats for different levels like, for example, on Mathom-hunter's Shoulder-pads. Are there exceptions that fall outside of this? Neum (talk) 22:43, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The basic problem is (and the same problem exists with slotted armour) -- Turbine uses the same NAME for multiple different items - and differentiates them solely using their internal Database ID -- which we don't have access to. See the two versions of the Nadin shoulders on the main page here - same name completely different specs.

• At the moment, we have "level" 6 and 7 Essences - Lvl 95 and 100 respectively. However, they are expected to be expanded back to level 50, i.e. tiers 1-5.

To the extent that Turbine continues to provide these tier numbers (which is a first) we can probably replace <quality> with <tier>, but like the "Item Level" numbers displayed since Helms Deep, Turbine has never provided that information before - relying solely on color coding to provide the level information.

Similarly, we don't know what the follow on levels will be -- Major and Minor have been seen, but I don't know what the "Epic" level (or uncommon) versions are.

We may know more in 14.1. Interestingly, Arron's "Executive chats" have eliminated ALL "Dev Notes" about Update 14. I suspect that this is simply a way in which Turbine is "allocating resources" -- it takes A LOT of time for the Devs to write those "notes," and if what most of us assume to be true, really is -- the dramatic reduction in staff around late 2013-2014....

From the Twitch chat with EP Campbell:

What do the grey numbers in the corner of the essences mean?

Sapience – This is a question for HoarseDev, but he’ll make sure he gets that question.

Rowan – He thinks it’s a tier thing based on the level.

Sapience – He will verify that and respond here in the transcript thread when he has the answer.

So far Sapience has not posted any follow-up.

• So, what do we know?

Tier probably equals level.

Major/Minor and ??? probably equals Quality. -- Do you have any idea what the Crafted Essences yield?

Which would still leave us with two parameters in the name - <name(Quality)>-<tier>. But until the next update, we don't have much data to work with.

oops... got to run Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 12:13, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Confirmation from Sapience:

Finally, on the numbers in the corner of essences I spoke to Hoarsedev and he confirmed the numbers are a tier ranking value.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 20:07, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I have been saving screenshots of essence tooltips (AH is a great source) and most are level 95 or 100, but there are some for level 50+. Shall I upload them?

Seems like the tier number only displays if the essence is actually in your bags. I'm confused about the naming convention so will hold off adding essences for the time being. -Laineth (talk) 20:54, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I concur with Neum, it would be much easier to keep a page by essence with level & attrib, similar to these armour pieces from Hobbit Presents, and keep only the icon with no number to keep it generic. -- Goingbald (talk) 22:30, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Look at the section on the main page at the level 95 Essences. How does that naming convention work "<Level><attribute> -<tier>" ?

Where <level> = Major/Minor/Greater/Supreme and <tier> is ?/6/7.

(Player/item level 95 = T6 and level 100 = t7. No idea if these tiers are points or ranges. At the moment, they are clearly points, only lvl 95 and lvl 100 items exist.)

• Interesting about the number only showing up when in your bags. If that is true, then just having a generic numberless icon probably makes sense.

One thing which I don't understand about the Hobbit Presentes listing is - how are you separating them out into "rare," "incomparable," etc.? Especially since Turbine seems to have dropped the color coding of the icons. Especially when all of the Mathom Hunter's gear is "incomparable" according to color, but it is listed as Rare?

I suspect we will need to wait until 14.1 to see what Turbine is up to with Essences.

BTW, It looks like Sethladan has finished updating the Item Tooltip to include a parameter "| essence ="

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 05:25, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I saw my name, heh: It's | essences, with an "s" at the end. The preload is updated, so you should be set when creating new items. However you do decide on the naming convention, please consider something more descriptive than "6" and "7" for disambiguation - I would prefer, for example, (Tier 6) and (Tier 7) if that's how they're being organized in-game. I leave it to you guys who are playing around with these things, though. Sethladan 06:13, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I added some of the lvl 50 essences i got from farming in lvl 40+ mobs area. can someone pls change the order of the essences please, for example: might, agility, vitality, wil, fate, crit rating... as they appear in the character window. thanks in advance (i dont want to mess this clean article). Nelladh

Most people find it much easier to find things when listed in alphabetical order than when in some random order (which is what the order is in the character window).

It might be reasonable to copy the character screen order if that were the only place where the Essences were referenced. However, that is not the case.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:36, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Where does "Tier" come from?

Put another way, we use the term "Tier" on this page, but it does NOT appear anywhere in-game.

In-game, icons contain a number (I know it's the tier) in the upper left corner of the icon. That number is displayed in Quest Reward listings in the Quest Log, in your Inventory (pack) and in your vault. (Note: This consistency may be a "fix" as of 14.2, I don't recall at the moment.)

• Therefore I would recommend that we use the "numbered icons" on this page - somehow - as an explanation of Tier so that we can tie-together what players see in-game with what we are describing.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:16, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

That would be really time-consuming to gather all these icons, maybe a note with a single numbered icon as example would be sufficient. Numbered virtue icons (ex.: ) were gathered in the past, but when Turbine changed the icons, they were all flushed except the numbered 1s updated (so are now the old redirects). -- Goingbald (talk) 16:51, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking of something like a "legend" at the top of the page -- just a table equating the Tier column to a typical Icon. That way we would only need one from each tier, not one of each icon from each tier. I don't know if it's overkill or not. Hard to judge the comprehension capabilities of a lot of players from "/world." Just thinking of the fact that we are using a different nomenclature from that used by Turbine in-game. Maybe if players are smart enough to find the Wiki they don't need an explanation. I don't know.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 15:14, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Some basic considerations on essences (for lvl 105s)

I have rolled back the addition of this section, because it is flawed.

The main issue is this oversight:

An essence of masterful will gives 149 Will. 149 * 8 = 1192 Tactical Mastery, whereas an essence of tactical mastery gives 1310 Tactical Mastery. So, for pure damage/healing, an essence of will is only worth 1192/1310 = 0.91 or, 91% of an essence of tactical mastery.

However, a supreme essence of masterful will actually gives 149*8 Tactical Mastery PLUS an additional 374 TM. Which is 1566 TM, or quite a bit more than a the 1310 from a Tactical Mastery essence.
From strictly that point of view, the notion that will is worth less than a TM essence, is already wrong.

There is also this:

In conclusion, an essence of will gives 11% more than an essence of tactical mastery, but this bonus is for defensive stats only, for pure damage/healing, an essence of will is only 91% of an essence of tactical mastery.

Which is very biased. In fact most minstrel healing advise is focused on boosting defense, then morale, once TM is over 40k. (and I have seen similar posts on the official forums for captain healing)
As I have seen PuGs wipe on the first boss in the new raid, repeatedly, because the healer went down first of all from just AoE damage, I am rather inclined to agree with this.
So arguably the statement that defensive stats from a will essence are worse than TM essence for healing is wrong as well, since defensive stats are extremely important for healers.

To be honest, I am unsure if this page is the correct place for "guidance" like this, since this kind of guidance is based a lot on personal opinion anyway.
There are already some decent guides out there that offer solid advice on how to evaluate essences and also look at the larger picture of relics, LI titles and virtues. Because some stats - critical rating comes to mind especially here - are easy to get as well in other places and take far lower to cap than certain other stats. Whereas "defensive" stats like resistance are exactly hard to come by as supreme essences and additionally get a relatively greater boost from virtues than essences, just as one example.

If the Essence Comparison (Level 105) page is deemed insufficient, it may be a better idea to add a link to a guide instead and let people evaluate and judge essences on their own.

--Godun (talk) 15:17, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed with everything you said here. Choosing essences has a lot to do with what the caps are, what the most optimal way is to build without overcapping and how to get the desired stats as efficient as possible. So it's also very dependent on what is available at the moment and prone to being outdated due to in-game changes. Probably better to put 'guides' on another page, if someone wants to write them. We can of course link to it from this page. --Ravanel (talk) 12:28, 2 October 2016 (UTC)