A Brief Analysis On Midgame Helmets

Hi everyone!

Following a little discussion in the legends Discord, I've decided it might be a decent idea to lay out some information with regards to choosing your midgame helmet. I think most people have a pretty decent intuitive grasp on this, but actually looking at the numbers was quite helpful for me and I hope it achieves the same for some readers.

Scope:
I said midgame helmets for a reason. When Aufheben Circlets are a (viable) option to you, these helms are without a doubt going to be your Best-in-Slot (BiS) helms. However, there is a fairly notable part of the midgame (both in terms of levels and meso) where it'll be worth investing in one of the other available helms. For this thread, I'll only consider the following four helms:

• Ravana Helmet
• Zakum Helmet
• Scarlion Hat
• Targa Hat

Additionally, as was rightfully pointed out by Krythan and -ovv, certain helms merit the benefit of being more easily obtainable. Whether for reasons of financial struggle or simply wanting to give a mule a 'decent' helm, this might impact your decision.

Requirements:
Before diving in to which helm is best for which character, it's important to distinguish the requirements for obtaining each helm. These are split into level requirement, pre-quest, and method of obtaining the helm.

Ravana Helmet:

Spoiler

Prequest level: 65+
Joining the fight: (Currently unknown, please do inform me of this if you know)

Pre-quest:
Ravana has a fairly simple prequest, but you don't need this prequest to join the bossfight. You only need it to host/lead. This means that you could pay for Rav helms without ever having to do a prequest. Obviously, it'd be cheaper (and more efficient) to complete the prequest so you can solo Ravana yourself.

Method of Obtaining Helm:
Ravana drops Ravana Dolls, you can exchange a Ravana Doll (you can only loot one) at Old Abbot. He'll give you one of 4 helms:

• Ravana Helmet (0)
• Ravana Helmet (I)
• Ravana Helmet (II)
• Ravana Helmet (III)

Of these helms, the one you want is the first one. The other 3 are essentially useless when compared to any other midgame helm. Which helm Old Abbot gives you is random, reported numbers so far seem to indicate that it's a 1/4 chance to get Ravana Helmet (0), but there have been supposed instances of this resetting to the vanilla rate, which was 1/16.

After you've exchanged your Ravana Doll for a helm, you'll also lose your Magical Stone Piece. This item is required to enter Ravana, so you'll have to repeat the latter part of the prequest (50 Banana Peel, 50 Monkey Doll, 20 Red Goblin's Axe, 20 Blue Goblin's Crown, 20 Stone Goblins' Red Undergarment).

This means you have two options. You can either:

• Do one prequest a day, run Ravana twice, but only exchange your doll after the second run. This gives you 1 helm a day at the cost of just 1 set of prequest items.
• Do one prequest, run Ravana once, exchange your doll, repeat prequest, run Ravana again, exchange again. This gives you 2 helms a day, but at the cost of 2 sets of prequest items.

Scarlion and Targa Hats:

Spoiler

Prequest Level: 80+
Joining the fight: 80+

Pre-quest:
Scarlion and Targa share the same fairly straight-forward prequest.

Method of Obtaining Helm:
Compared to Ravana, this is very straightforward. Scarlion and Targa simply drop 0-4 helms when they die. These helms are split between Scarlion Hat (STR) and Scarlion Hat (DEX) for Scarlion, and Targa Hat (INT) and Targa Hat (LUK) for Targa.
The stat indicated behind the helm's name indicates that this helm can get 15-19 of that stat.
So, a Scarlion Hat (DEX) can get:
13-17 STR
15-19 DEX
13-17 INT
13-17 LUK
etc.

It is relevant to note that soloing Scar/Tar is virtually impossible. You can join group runs, but these aren't very common. Honestly, the best method of obtaining these helms is sending a DM to MuscleUncle.

Zakum Helm:

Spoiler

Prequest level: 50+
Joining the fight: 50+

Pre-quest:
Zakum has a fairly straight-forward prequest, which is dreaded by certain people due to its jump quest.

Method of Obtaining Helm:
Like Scarlion and Targa, Zakum simply drops the helm upon death. There's only 1 version of the helm and it gives 13-17 in each stat.

Also like Scarlion and Targa, this boss is notably more difficult to solo than Ravana. Finding people to run it with should not be a problem, though.

A Comparison of the Helms:
This is where it gets interesting! From the discussion on Discord, the following conclusion followed: It essentially comes down to what class you play and what (or how many) stats said class relies on. There's three main 'categories':

• Classes that benefit from 3 stats: Shadower
• Classes that benefit from 2 stats: Bowmaster, Marksman, Hero, Dark Knight, Paladin, Night Lord, Buccaneer, Corsair
• Classes that benefit from 1 stat: Ice-Lightning Archmage, Fire-Poison Archmage, Bishop.

(You could argue that mages could theoretically go for the non-lukless build, which would place them in the second category.)

So, what determines which helm is optimal?
The relevant factors in a helm are the number of stat it gives and the number of slots it has.

• Ravana Helm: 16-20 in each stat, 7 slots.
• Zakum Helm: 13-17 in each stat, 10 slots.
• Scar/Tar Helms: 13-17 in 3 stats, 15-19 in the main stat, 10 slots.

If we go over each of the class-categories we established earlier, we see the following:

• Classes that benefit from 3 stats:
  A perfect Ravana Helmet (0) will give 20/20/20. This amounts to 60 total stat, with 7 slots to scroll it from here on out.
  A perfect Zakum Helm will give 17/17/17, this amounts to 51 total stat, with 10 slots to scroll.
  A perfect Scar/Tar Helm will give 19/17/17, this amounts to 53 total stat, with 10 slots to scroll.
  Obviously, Zakum loses to Scar helm, so the main question is Ravana vs Scar/Tar.
  As Scar/Tar gives 7 less stat (60 vs 53), you'll have 3 extra slots to get 7 stat. This would require 1 30% scroll and 2 60% scrolls in 3 slots.
• Classes that benefit from 2 stats:
  A perfect Ravana Helmet (0) will give 20/20. This amounts to 40 total stat, with 7 slots to scroll it from here on out.
  A perfect Zakum Helm will give 17/17, this amounts to 34 total stat, with 10 slots to scroll.
  A perfect Scar/Tar Helm will give 19/17, this amounts to 36 total stat, with 10 slots to scroll.
  Obviously, Zakum loses to Scar helm, so the main question is Ravana vs Scar/Tar.
  As Scar/Tar gives 4 less stat (40 vs 36), you'll have 3 extra slots to get 4 stat. This would require 2 60% scrolls in 3 slots.
• Classes that benefit from 1 stat:
  A perfect Ravana Helmet (0) will give 20, with 7 slots to scroll it from here on out.
  A perfect Zakum Helm will give 17, with 10 slots to scroll.
  A perfect Scar/Tar Helm will give 19, with 10 slots to scroll.
  Obviously, Zakum loses to Scar helm, so the main question is Ravana vs Scar/Tar.
  As Scar/Tar gives 2 less stat (19 vs 17), you'll have 3 extra slots to get 1 stat. This would require 1 100% scroll in 3 slots.

Concluding:

• Classes that benefit from 3 stats should realistically go for a Ravana Helm. The probability of landing 1 30% and 2 60% scrolls is roughly 10%.
• Classes that benefit from 2 stats can honestly go either way. The odds don't particularly make either helm much more appealing. However, there is an important distinction here. A few of these classes benefit largely from the avoid and/or accuracy that Scar/Tar give over Rav. I believe Bucc and NL don't particularly need acc/avoid, so these can go Rav. Credits to Jafel and iPippy for reminding me of this oversight.
• Classes that benefit from 1 stat should go for Targa Hats. Having 3 extra slots to make up for a 1 stat difference is statistically way better.

Finally, I'd like to note that there is a situation where a class falls outside of its 'normal category'. If you already reach your secondary stat without the helm (or by only relying on part of the helm's bonus), you can effectively exclude this stat from your consideration.
For example: If I can already wear my Shadower's Dragon Khanjar while only relying on 10 str from the helm, I don't benefit from Rav Helm's extra str. As such, I could effectively consider my Shadower a class that relies on 2 stats, bumping me down to the second option.
Thanks for reading, I hope this helped you choose your helmet!

Changelog:

Spoiler

31/10/23 - Thread posted
31/10/23 - Updated the scope to reflect situations where you just want to gear up a mule or want easy access to a 'decent' helm. Thank you -ovv and Krythan
31/10/23 - Updated the conclusion to include Scar/Tar's added Accuracy/Avoid into the consideration. Thank you Jafel and iPippy.
4/11/23 - Fixed some typo's, thanks cereal box!!

 

Very fair point! I'll include a disclaimer concerning this matter. Thanks for the feedback!

Very fair points, I initially overlooked these stats because they didn't seem as important (and, admittedly, I wanted to get the thread out quickly).
With regards to the accuracy/avoid, I believe this is mostly relevant for the 'classes that benefit from 2 stats'-category? Neither shads nor mages seem to really need this. I'll update the post to reflect this. Thanks for letting me know!