Revel

I had a few questions about whether Vest of Force was a viable chest option over other robes. Since I was busy at the time, I couldn't give a very good answer. So to make up for that, here's my explanation. Short answer is that it's a great option if you are not in a VP/Trak guild.

The first step is to compare Hostage and Auspex, taking both at Master 1 quality. Hostage at 5 charges does about 29,500 damage per minute. Auspex at 5 charges does about 24,000 damage per minute. With Vest of Force at 7 charges, Auspex does 33,800 damage per minute. This comes out to about 4,300 damage gained over Hostage.

Now, we can't forget about the loss of the stats that the Vest of Force replaces. I decided to pick the Jarsath Robe of Royalty as the comparison item. The Jarsath Robe is a upper-end item that can be obtained through some work, and basically is the best pre-VP option. Assuming you're not capped on spell damage, this robe accounts for approximately 4500-5000 damage per minute, and thus beats out the Vest, but it's fairly close.

So, should you have anything less than a Jarsath Robe, the Vest of Force becomes a viable option. It's better than the Robe of Ancient Terrors or the Insidious Robe in terms of raw dps.

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