Epic Item Review: Part 3, the Sands of Menechtarun

[sirgog]

Warning: Ultra, ultra long posts ahead.

Revised post U11, as there were significant changes to the game in that update.

Post 1: General comments re Desert epics

Post 2: OOB, Wiz-King and Chains item review/suggestions

Post 3: Explorer area item review/suggestions

Post 4: Raid item review/suggestions


This is the third in a series of a few threads where I'll look at Epic items in the game, and single out the terrible ones with suggestions to the Devs as to how I'd recommend improving them. The first (looking at the Carnival) is here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=316381. The second, dealing with the Sentinels pack, is here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=317841. And the fourth looks at the Vault of Night: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=325739 .

As always, please point out both any factual errors I've made and any disagreements you have with my assessments or suggestions.

For each item, I'll try to clearly separate facts (in regular font) from opinions and suggestions (in italics).

Another post worth looking at (with different opinions on various Epic items, and different suggestions for them) along these lines is Leloric's Epic Item Review at http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=289273. And another by Carpone, dealing solely with the Red Fens is here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=322152

This time, the Sands of Menechtarun pack.

Notes on Quest Difficulty
Although for some of these quests players have developed easily-executed tactics that make them reasonably easy (cough cough, Halt Undead spam in Wiz-King), I'd argue that all five of the Desert epics are among the hardest Epics in the game. The easier quests - OOB, Wiz-King - are (IMO) of comparable difficulty to tackling Hard Vision of Destruction with only six people. Chains of Flame and ADQ1 are of comparable difficulty to the harder Amrath elites, and have a lot less shrines. Only a good group will beat those two without resources. ADQ2 was easy for a long time, but is quite challenging now that Lailat has the HP to survive a sustained beating.

Due to the difficulty of the quests, it's my opinion that the items from the Desert should be among the best in the game. Perhaps not as good as Epic Lord of Blades drops, but good.

Notes on drop rates
These items vary wildly in difficulty to acquire, due to extraordinary differences in scroll and shard drop rates. Acquiring the shard (and to a lesser extent the seal) of Sands explorer area items such as the Bloodstone requires extraordinary luck. Looting the scroll (and to a lesser extent the seal) of the ADQ2 raid loot items requires similar extreme luck. In my opinion (and it's an opinion a lot of endgame players share), drop rate issues are a significantly more pressing issue than item power level rebalancing for these two categories of items.

Even for the items that don't have such wild drop rate imbalances, acquiring a full scroll/seal/shard/base item set for any specific Desert item is likely to take at least three to five times as many runs as acquiring, say, a Red Fens or Chronoscope item. It's not uncommon for players to run Chains of Flame 20+ times to acquire a Cape of the Roc shard for their monk, or a Staff of Inner Sight shard for their wizard, and so on - and that is in guild groups where everyone agrees to pass the player the shard they desire.

Furthermore, for a player that acquires a scroll, shard and base item of either a raid item (such as Marilith Chain) or an explorer area item (such as Firestorm Greaves), the optimal way to acquire the seal for their item is to run dozens or hundreds of non-completion runs of ADQ1, looting the three non-epic chests, recalling, and then repeating until ransacked. I've personally looted those chests at least 200 times each; others have farmed them more.

Compare the number of people wearing epic red dragonscale armor (clearly intended by the Devs as a powerful, rare and prestigious item) and the number that own an Epic Bloodstone - the latter is far rarer as the parts are so rare. I'm not even going to talk about the Epic Ring of Spell Storing, except to state: In hundreds of Desert epic completions, including a lot of ADQ1s, I've never seen anyone pull this shard, or even the seal.

It's my opinion that if a player sets a particular item as their goal (say Epic Xuum), they should be reasonably likely to acquire it within 25 completions of the relevant quest(s), and fewer if the party works together to get the items. In addition, they should be encouraged to run completion runs, not to farm chests.

Presently, any specific Desert item requires more completions than this, except maybe the Offering of Blood items (because there are only four of them).

Suggestion re: drop rates:
I'm going to suggest a significant overhaul here. This has been overhauled, mainly due to the introduction on Lamannia of a fix for the scroll issue.

Proposed new drop rate system:
Summary:
Raid items require completing other quests as well as ADQ2, rather than ADQ2 completions and ADQ1 non-completion farming. Many items presently in DQ1 moved to other quests.

Raid items (Chaosblade, etc):
Shards continue to drop in ADQ2 only, at a 2% drop rate per shard. Seals are removed from all chests that currently drop them. Instead, four raid items are attached to each quest and their seals drop in the corresponding Epic Chest at a 3% drop rate. (Example: If Chaosblade is attached to Chains of Flame, its Shard would drop only in the ADQ2 Epic Chest, 2% drop rate, and its seal from the Epic Chest of Chains of Flame at a 3% drop rate).
Obtaining a specific raid item would require a significant number of ADQ2 runs and also a significant number of completions of its home quest.

Explorer area items (Bloodstone, etc):
12 of these remain attached to ADQ1, and their shards and seals drop in that quest (shard drop rate 4% per specific shard). The other 19 are moved to the other quests.
Seals for these are removed from all loot tables that presently drop them - instead, these 12 seals drop only in ADQ1 side chests, 1% per chest per seal.

Chains of Flame, OOB and Wiz-King quest items (Vambraces of Inner Light, etc):
These items drop as they currently do. However, drop rates are increased on the shards to 4% per item per player (so for Chains of Flame, each player has a 4% chance to have a Shard of the Unkor's Cleaver fall under their name). Seals are now quest-specific and again, 1% per chest per specific seal (so each side chest in eOOB has a 1% chance to drop a Spectral Gloves seal). In addition, some ADQ1 items have been moved into these quests.

Scrolls:
The drop rates currently are a mess, but the trade-in on Lamannia will fix that. I'd probably up the trade-in cost - maybe to 5 scrolls - so there is still an incentive to trade with other players for the specific scroll you want.

Summary of proposed loot tables:
ADQ2 epic chest: 32% chance at raid item shard (2% for each). 12% bonus chance for 'other' shards (as present, but with equal drop rates for each item, so 0.25% chance each). 25% chance for a base item (as present). 2% chance for a +4 tome, and a further 2% chance at a +3 unbound tome. Players that 'get skunked' (27% chance) instead receive two chests worth of level 23 loot.
Other epic chest: 48% chance at a shard of one of the 12 items tied to that quest (4% for each). 12% chance of a raid item seal (3% for each of the four raid items tied to that quest). 12% chance at a base item attached to that quest (1% for each, low chance as these are all unbound anyway, so players can trade for them, or get them from players that run other difficulties). 1% chance at an unbound +3 tome. 27% chance to get skunked.
Side chests in quests: 12% chance at a seal for a non-raid item attached to that quest (1% for each).

[sirgog]

Item by item review:

Starting with the Epic Offering of Blood items.

This is one of the few Epics I'd seriously consider a 'gear check'. Very easy for well-equipped toons, very difficult for less equipped toons. When Epics were new, I wiped in here more times than any other Epic (more times than I did in Chains and ADQ1 combined); now it's one of the quickest token runs in the game.

Epic Ancient Vulkoorim Dagger

Despite its poor critical profile and low base damage, this is best-in-slot for the narrow niche of fighting Giants. If a challenging Giant boss (Warlock S'Obrien does not count; neither does the Stormreaver) is ever added to endgame, this weapon will be amazing.
This weapon has a bug - the Epic Giant Bane is displayed in the tooltip without the word 'Epic'. I have one, however, and can confirm the +8/+6d6 works correctly.

Suggested change:
Nothing needed, the item is solid as-is. All it needs is a target to use it on - so please finish (and release) Epic Gianthold Tor, so we have three very powerful boss giants to test these daggers out on, as well as dozens of 3000+ hp giants along the way.


Epic Spectral Gloves

These are an amazing item that is in an item slot with a lot of competition. My much-loved set are mostly retired now (replaced by the Epic Claw gloves), but they are still worn in bardless groups for some ultra-high AC bosses (mostly Turigulon and Raiyum), and swapped in for the rare incorporeal mob at endgame.
Most players consider them third best in the gloves slot overall for melees (behind Epic Charged Gauntlets at #2 and Epic Gloves of the Claw at #1).

Suggested change:
These are fine as-is. However, if you want to make them best-in-slot for some builds, consider adding 'Exceptional Dex +2', or changing the Dex +7 to Dex +8.


Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers

These combine solid effects on an item slot that has a lot of competition. Undispellable, persisting-through-death Fire Resistance is very underrated, +4 to-hit is excellent, and Sneak Attack +3 is a borderline acceptable substitute if you can't slot Tharne's Goggles.
Still, most characters will prefer a 'perfect' Dragontouched armor (whatever that might be for them) to the eVFLs. I use these one on of my bards, but only because I had the pieces and couldn't be bothered farming a Sovereign Rune of Destruction.

Suggested change:
These are borderline OK as is. However, if you desire them to be excellent, consider improving the Sneak Attack to +5.
Or for something completely different, maybe a chance (a very low chance, perhaps 0.25-0.5%) for your melee attacks to proc that same brutal DoT curse that the scorpions in epic OOB sometimes hit us with. (~60 damage per 2 seconds for 30 seconds).


Epic Ward of Undeath

With recent changes to the sword-and-board combat style, it's too early to properly assess this shield (someone with a S&B toon that's used the new feats might like to comment on how much damage this shield adds when fighting undead). But even if it adds a lot of damage for a shield, there's currently no undead at endgame I could imagine equipping a shield to fight except maybe some of the eSentinels trash mobs (many of whom frequently miss a ~86 AC), but even then, pulling out a two hander and healing through the damage works too.

Suggested change:
Upgrade Greater Undead Bane to Epic Undead Bane. Add Weaken Undead (the new -20% Fortification proc) to its shield bashes. That might be enough for this shield to see some niche use.


Epic Chains of Flame items:

Generally considered one of the longest and toughest epics.

Epic Cape of the Roc

Solid on Monks as it is otherwise very hard to slot +2 exceptional Strength on them. The clickie remains a bad joke.

Suggested change:
As this drops from one of the toughest epics, it wouldn't be out of line, IMO, to replace the clickie with the Titan's Strength clicky from the Titan's Grip. The item is worth using as-is, however.


Epic Golden Greaves

The big selling point for this item at present is the DR 4/-, which is quite powerful on those classes without class-based DR. Striding 20% isn't an Epic effect - level 20s are usually hasted 95% of the time (the other 5% of the time, they are either in antimagic, are quaffing a haste potion, or have run out of haste potions).
Without knowing the exact proc rate of Earthen Guard (a significant alternative source of DR), it's hard to compare this to the Epic Ring of the Mire, which is probably the closest thing to a competitor to this item. If the proc rate on Earthen Guard is ~5-7%, DR 4/- is generally superior; if it is ~8-10% (as I personally suspect), Earthen Guard is probably superior, albeit less reliable.
Due to the need to replace your boots with Boots of Anchoring in Tower of Despair, the yellow augment slot is less valuable on this item than it would be in any other item slot - you don't want to have your Greater False Life item be something you can't wear against Horoth.

Suggested change:
For convenience sake, upgrade Striding 20% to at least 30%. (40% wouldn't break the game). Consider upgrading the DR to 5/-, or even 6/- if you want this to become a highly sought after item.


Epic Hruvayah's Medallion

This suffers from the same thing every other caster-oriented necklace in the game suffers from - it competes with the Torc of Raiyum, which is so good that it just outclasses all competition. If you are running content (such as Epic Snitch) where spell point conservation is absolutely no issue, or if Lailat has been stingy on the Torcs for you, you might use this. However, most players that want Spell Penetration 9 would rather use an Epic Shaman's Band, which despite not having the excellent green augment slot, doesn't occupy as valuable an item slot.

Suggested change:
The only thing that comes to mind is considering added Concordant Opposition to the item - it won't be nearly as good at SP recovery as the Torc is, but it will at least soften the blow of losing Transform Kinetic Energy. Another option that's been suggested below is to add Epic Necromancy Focus (+3 DC), which would be a very powerful effect and would certainly make this desirable, but casters don't need any more buffing, IMO.


Epic Ring of Baphomet

The two exceptional stats on one item are great for any character that melees, isn't an unarmed build and doesn't intend to use the Epic Claw set. There's just not too many of those types of melees, and given that this ring prevents using a second Tower of Despair set, this is a great item that's just not good enough any more.
Intimidate +15 is nice, but as Intimidate tends to be an 'all or nothing' skill, and this is effectively +14.5 Intimidate due to the Charisma penalty, this isn't usually used for the Intimidate.

Suggested Change
This item needs just a small nudge in power to catch up to the competition. Leloric suggests changing the slot to a green slot - I think that would help this item find a home in some builds. Another option (given that this appears to be a tank-oriented item) would be to add any one of Incite 15%, Natural Armor +5, Protection +5, Heavy Fortification or Toughness.


Epic Staff of Inner Sight

Exceptionally powerful item. Does come at the price of losing Arcane Augmentation 9, but you can't have everything.

Suggested change:
No changes needed.


Epic Unkor's Cleaver

This weapon combines mediocre DPS (mainly due to a bad crit profile, base damage is solid but that isn't enough), medicore crowd control (5% chance to perma-hamstring non-bosses with over 1000hp) and Vorpal (5 damage per swing for mobs over 1000 hp, better on low-hp or badly wounded foes). It's not enough to compete with the Brigand's Cutlass.

Suggested change:
Option 1: Remove Bleed, and upgrade the crit profile to equal that of a Khopesh. This would still be behind the Epic Chaosblade, but it will be impressive.
Option 2: Improve the enhancement bonus to +8 or even +9, in keeping with the theme of a weapon so sharp that it can cut through anything, including armor.


Chamber of Raiyum items

The actual quest has been quite easy since the undocumented nerfs a while back halved most DRs in here, and since players discovered the power of Halt Undead scrolls in here. Raiyum himself, however, is up there with Turigulon and ADQ1 Lailat for the title of toughest Epic boss fight. (And that's even after he lost about 10 AC, I remember the old days when his AC was 74). Still, while the quest will wipe any and all first-time groups, it's quite easily beaten now.

Epic Adherent's Pendant

Currently totally useless, this item appears designed for a paladin that wants to frequently use spells to heal. However, such a paladin doesn't function without the Torc of Raiyum perma-equipped.

Suggested change:
Overhauled this following suggestions from others.
Remove the action boost effect. Add Healing Hands: Your Lay on Hands ability regenerates at one per 90 seconds. Consider adding Exceptional Charisma 2.
Paladins with Quicken and/or Maximize will stick with the Torc, but for more traditional paladin builds (both DPS-oriented and tank-oriented), this is a useful defensive item. It competes with the Shintao set's +2 to-hit and damage - some will prefer Shintao's DPS boost, others will prefer the added survivability of more Lay on Hands, as dead characters deal no DPS.


Epic Bejewelled Letter Opener

Although it provides a smaller healing boost than Superior Ardor 6/8 effects, Superior Devotion 7 is powerful because it persists through death, allowing Clerics, Favored Souls and Bards to put out a lot of burst healing precisely at the time it is most needed - immediately following a healer death. However, only a 'healbot' build can spare a weapon slot for an item that needs to stay permanently equipped to be useful.

Suggested change:
I'm going to suggest a partial redesign to make this a top-notch item for a 'healbot' cleric or favored soul. I wouldn't play one of those builds myself, but they certainly have their fans, and this item is for them. (They'd need to keep it in the offhand).

Keep: +6, 2d4 base damage, Keen, Thundering, Efficient Metamagic: Empower Healing 2, Superior Devotion 7 (thanks to people that noted a typo here)
Remove: Healing Amp 20%, Improved Resonance 7, Red Slot
Add: Superior Healing Lore
Add: "Scroll Augmentation 9: You cast scrolls at +2 caster level." (This means Heal/Reconstruct scrolls hit for a base 130 hp instead of 110, before enhancements and healing amplification).


Epic Bracers of Deftness

One of many AC 8 epic bracers, these offer only small improvements over random lootgen armored bracers. Generally, players that want armored bracers will prefer the Epic Scorched Bracers, which offer 30 undispellable, persists-through-death fire resistance and the possibility of a great set bonus, as well as a more useful augment slot. Or, they'll use the eClaw bracers and epic red dragonrobes for the +8 AC.
The Tumble bonus and Uncanny Dodge bonuses are borderline irrelevant at current endgame.

Suggested change:
Add Dexterity +7. That gives these bracers something that stands out from the other AC 8 bracers out there.


Epic Mysterious Ring

Does not currently exist in Epic form. No real reason it needs to, IMO - it's a somewhat silly item, and the loot table numbers work out better without it. Better stats on ones that drop on Epic could be an OK little easter egg, but few would notice, and fewer would care.


Epic Silken Mail

There's quite a few light armors in the game that are all about AC (with no DPS increasing mutations at all), enough that someone recently posted a thread about it - http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=319730 . This is probably one of the worst of the lot, with worse AC than the Tier 1 Epic Duelist's Leathers. Axeblock is good, but nothing special, and available on random lootgen items or crafted gear.

Suggested change:
Completely redesign all of the AC-only light armors except the Epic Duelist's Leathers and the Epic Kundarak Delving Suit (those two items are enough of that very narrow niche).
Given the theme of this armor, I'll suggest something Rogue-oriented for this one - add 'Improved Opportunist: If you have the Opportunist feat, your attacks ignore 15% of enemy fortification instead of the usual 10%.'


Epic Sirroco

This is quite effective in its narrow niche - melee-based crowd controlling (through knockdowns). No changes needed.


Epic Spectacles of Spirit Sight

Excellent item. If you don't have the Epic Staff of Inner Sight or Staff of the Petitioner, or if you prefer to use the Epic Staff of Arcane Power or T3 Alchemicals alongside the Epic Docent/Robe of the Diabolist, this is a clear best-in-slot for you. I particularly like the Diabolist/2Alchemicals/SpiritSight gear setup.

Suggested change:
None. Already a great item, especially with the Update 9 changes making the Necromancy focus worthwhile.


Epic Vambraces of Inner Light

Edited because I'm an idiot - forgot this is heavy armor, not medium.
Third best in slot for many Paladin builds (behind red dragonplate armor and t3 Cavalry Plate). Second best in slot for many Clerics and FvS builds too (although melee FvS's struggle to afford the heavy armor proficiency feat; non-melee FvS builds can use it non-proficient), and it provides them a buff to Divine Punishment that they can use if clickie charges run out. Radiance Guard is buggy, but despite that is still the best defensive guard.
This is what an Epic armor should look like.

Suggested change:
No changes.

[sirgog]

Epic Explorer Area Items

All are attached to ADQ1, and that dungeon is pretty universally considered one of the tougher epics. The second Lailat puts up a real fight, and the quest leading up to it is a major SP endurance battle. One of the few epics where every PUG group and most guild groups will use resources.
At present, obtaining some of the more obscure base items can be a real pain too, even now that they drop in eDQ2.

Epic Bloodstone

Bloodstone was best-in-slot for a wide variety of builds, so a 33% better Bloodstone is, predictably, best-in-slot for a wide variety of builds. However, it is a very small upgrade over the minimum level 9 base item.
As always with Seeker effects, this item is massively more powerful in conjunction with weapons with great crit profiles like Khopeshes, or the Sword of Shadow (classic version or epic version), and significantly worse against high fortification.

Suggested change:
Consider upgrading this to Seeker 10. This comes from one of the three hardest epic quests, after all. However, the item will remain sought-after regardless.
Others have suggested far larger upgrades - I'd be really hesitant to do this. For an eSOS/eXuum/classic SOS wielder with Improved Critical, that twitch fights (~120 swings per minute), and that has no other class effects that boost crits or attack speed (Kensai 3, Fighter Haste Boost, etc), Seeker 10 is 18 damage per second on 0% fort foes - a lot for one equipment slot to provide - and much, much more against the higher AC bosses if you can't confirm a critical hit on a 1 without the Seeker effect. Without twitching (100 attacks per minute), it's 15 DPS.
By comparison, if to-hit is no factor, +4 stacking strength would add only 3 damage per hit, 9 damage per crit - 9.1 DPS twitching (potentially more than that non-twitch depending upon THF feats chosen). Think how expensive getting a +3 profane Strength bonus is in terms of item slots (although that set does boost combat tactics DCs as well as provide DPS, To-Hit and the individual effects of the items)

Item remains attached to ADQ1.

Epic Bow of the Elements: Air

This bow doesn't output the DPS of the closest Greensteel equivalent (Lit 2, Holy/Shocking Burst/Shocking Blast). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bow of Sinew outdoes it. +7 Dexterity is nice, but not good enough to use this bow over its Greensteel competition (much less over the eThornlord which comes from the same quest).

Suggested change:
Rather than trying to boost the DPS of this bow to something around the range of the eThornlord, I'm going to suggest a major utility effect. Archer types are often a small distance from the party, and as such often miss Haste. What could be more in-theme with an epic Air bow than...
Add "Supreme Alacrity: The wielder is under the effect of a permanent Haste effect."
Simple, useful, unique, and very 'epic'.
An alternate suggestion made below was to boost its Electric damage to make it like my eFlint variant below - lowish physical damage, extreme lightning damage. Epic Shocking Burst (four times the normal Shocking Burst effect) would be a starting point to achieve that goal.

Item now attached to OOB.


Epic Bracers of the Hunter

A viable alternative to Tharne's Goggles for any melee that values their bracers slot more than they value their goggles slot, or that desparately needs a yellow slot. Such a melee is very rare, as the Epic Bracers of the Claw are best-in-slot for probably 80% of melee builds, and Epic Jidz-Tetka are best in slot for probably half the rest.
Stealth Strike is great for arcane archers, but again only if they can spare the bracers slot.
I can see this item having been designed around the concept of a Deepwood Sniper (stealth/archery hybrid PrE that isn't viable at the moment in game).

Suggested change:
Add 'Hunter's Strike 2: Your ranged sneak attacks deal an extra 2d6 precision damage. Precision damage is negated by fortification.'

Item now attached to OOB.

Epic Chainmail Coif

Two slots, the best persists-through-death healing throughput enhancement mutations on any non-alchemical item, and a useless turning effect. Solid all-around item that would struggle to compete with Alchemical healing stat sticks, except that it takes up a less valuable item slot.

Suggested change:
None needed.

Item remains attached to Wiz-King.


Epic Collapseable Shortbow

Before I make any comments on this item - one source (that everyone else has copied) indicates this has Augmented Critical: 19-20/x3, but I can't confirm that. That source also says the weapon is 'bound to account on acquire', which makes me nervous that the crit information could be wrong. I'm going to assume this bow does have the Khopesh/eThornlord/Silverbow crit profile. The DPS of this bow is solid, but a fair bit behind the eThornlord against everything except DR/slashing foes.

Suggested change:
Really not sure what to suggest here. Maybe add Seeker +8, which would bring it up to eThornlord level for people that do not equip a Bloodstone/eMarilithChain. The eThornlord would still be better, but that's going to happen when there's so many epic bows in one quest.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Coronation Shield

Another anti-Undead shield... And just as bad as the other one.

Suggested change:
Add some sort of defensive anti-Undead ability - perhaps a 3-use (recovers 1/rest) Greater Restoration clicky; or alternately 'Greater Undead Ward: Undead that attack you suffer 3d6 damage and -4 to-hit' as a reverse Greater Bane.

Item now attached to Wiz-King.


Epic Dusk Heart

Superior False Life is great, but this is a slot with a lot of competition, and it's not quite up with the rest of the options.

Suggested change:
Upgrade Dusk to Blurry. This will make this item into something melees and divines that solo will have a use for. Or as an alternative, add Healing Amp 10%, which is useful and very hard to slot.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Dynastic Falcata

Note that this weapon is currently Charisma based for attack and damage. It's the best option for an extreme Charisma character to use against Demons, but this is an ultra-narrow niche, and most Cha-based characters (mainly Spellsingers) won't be proficient with the Khopesh and will struggle with the -4 To-Hit. In addition, even if you find a build with the Cha to use this weapon well, its main damage mutation (Axiomatic Burst) works only on the minority of foes that are Chaotic.

Suggested change:
Change To-Hit and Damage modifier to be the higher of Cha and Str.
Change Adamantine to Cold Iron (as Adamantine DR isn't found on any important foe that Axiomatic Burst works on, but Cold Iron DR is). Upgrade base damage to 3d10.
With a good augment (or a +7 augment in the hands of a capstone Paladin), this will be a significant upgrade over a Mineral 2 Khopesh against DR Demons such as Lailat (and other chaotic foes), and with that base damage, it will be acceptable against non-chaotic, non-lawful foes.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Firestorm Greaves

Like the Bloodstone, these are a great base item that gets almost no upgrade. Given how rare the base item is, most players prefer to keep an unbound set to switch between multiple toons - those players consider the Epic version a 'downgrade' as it is bound. (Slots are nearly worthless, as these boots won't be worn full-time).

Suggested change:
Remove Greater Fire Resistance. Add Inherent Fire Resist 5 and Inherent Fire Resist 10 (as the Shroud effects).

This would make the item into a clear upgrade from the base item, possibly saving its owner from feeling the need to craft a 45 Fire Resist Shroud item. It would also synergize well with the Superior Fire Resist on the various Epic Red Dragonscale armors, allowing a player that wears both to take only 130 damage on a failed save against Horoth's 250 damage DBFs. (The wise choose to wear other footwear around Horoth, however - perhaps Arraetrikos is a better example of a foe with 250 damage Max-Empped DBFs).

Item now attached to Chains of Flame.


Epic Flint

This weapon is clearly intended to deal little physical damage and a lot of lightning damage. However, in practice it just can't compete with Supreme Tyrant Lightning weapons, nor does it really come close. As a dagger, it deals awful physical damage, and gets less out of the Shocking Burst mutation than a Lit 2 khopesh.

Suggested change:
This pushes up the electric damage output significantly, albeit at the expense of the awful Magnetism 9 and the potent Lightning Storm Guard.

New Epic Flint
+6 dagger
Base damage: 2d4 - Strength OR Dex
Epic Shocking Burst: This weapon deals 4d6 bonus electric damage on a hit, and a further 4d10 on a critical.
Lightning Strike
Red slot
Violet slot
"Electric Surge: On a vorpal strike, this weapon channels lasting, powerful electric energy, mimicing the Eladar's Electric Surge spell upon the foe struck, at caster level 25 (no metamagics)." In practice, a player that dual-wields eFlints will have an almost 100% uptime of a 3-stack (adding ~42 DPS) after a few seconds. A player using one eFlint will have significantly worse results (getting less than half that amount of DPS as they will not be able to sustain a 3-stack often). And oddball Air Savant builds might even try to use this to get to three stacks more quickly than the 10 second cooldown on the spell would normally allow.

Overall, this version does more damage than a Lit 2 khopesh when wielded by a character with low base damage. However, it scales poorly with high Strength, making it a weapon more aimed at lower-Strength bards and particularly Finesse builds - builds that currently have fairly poor endgame items. Geared strength-based TWF toons (like Blitz builds) will find these inferior to Lit 2 khopeshes.
The two red slots allow this weapon to break boss DRs for anyone that falls in love with it and has 60 epic tokens to invest into it.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Gloves of the Falcon

Solid two-slot item that competes with the three better sets of Epic gloves.

Suggested change:
Upgrade Heightened Awareness 2 to 4. This would give Monk AC tank builds an additional option to avoid being pushed into using kamas, shortswords or longswords (all awful weapons).

Item now attached to OOB.


Epic Hyena Claw Necklace

There's a lot to be said for Con 7, Toughness and a yellow slot all in one item (as well as Intimidate 15), but this competes with Torc, ToD sets, and offers similar effects to the Epic Envenomed Cloak, which is generally a superior item.

Suggested change:
Add Healing Amp 10%. This is very hard to slot for any type of tank, and would make this necklace probably best-in-slot for Barbarians to wear while tanking high DPS foes like Horoth, Turigulon or the Demon of the Frenzied Deep.
Consider adding Repair Amplification 10% as well, so the poor Warforged get some love.

Item now attached to Wiz-King.


Epic Mirage

This weapon has one of the best crit profiles in the game (a smidgen ahead of Khopeshes due to scaling better with Seeker). However, it's still quite a long way behind Greensteel Khopeshes in DPS output.

Edit: Noone really liked my original suggestion; it was inelegant and clunky. Changing it.

Suggested change:
Going back to basics here. Looking at the original item - a +5 scimitar with Deception and Ghost Touch - it strikes me as a weapon designed for a character that cares about Sneak Attacks, and doesn't want their attacks to miss. Probably a strength-based rogue. Note that all of the damage is physical.
Here's a redesign that takes all of that into consideration. Its DPS is about 3.5-4% more than that of a Lit 2 khopesh, and it breaks a few obscure DRs as well as the /good that the Lit 2 breaks, making it a modest upgrade from the Lit 2. Note the complete absence of any red augment slots - that is very deliberate. This might become one of the best one-handed weapons in the game against general foes - I don't want it to also be the best weapon to use against two-component DR bosses like Horoth.

Scimitar
+8
Augmented Critical: 17-20
Augmented Base Damage: 4d8 (that's a lot, but compare it to the Lit 2 which has 3d6 alignment and/or energy damage per hit, 4d10 per crit, and a huge damage proc)
Ghost Touch
Deception
Aligned
Doublestrike: 6%
No augment slots at all.

Damage per swing comparison from Barrage (0 Fort, 50 base damage, Seeker 6, no relevant DR, no racial or class preference for Khopesh or Scimitar):
Lit 2 Khopesh: 110.4
eMirage: 113.84

Item now attached to Chains of Flame.


Epic Mummy Wrappings

Fearsome is useful if and only if you are soloing, and even then it is annoying.

Suggested change:
In the spirit of bad things happening to foes that attack you, replace Fearsome with 'Greater Enervation Guard: 10% proc rate, 1d4 neg levels'.

Item now attached to Wiz-King.


Epic Ring of Spell Storing

This item is an urban legend, right? If it exists, it's one of the most powerful epic items, probably #3 to only the eSOS and the Torc (epic version or classic version). And yes, I'm being facetious, I know it does exist, I think someone on my server might even have one.

Suggestions:
Keep this item as it is. It will sell the Demon Sands adventure pack.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.



Epic Robe of Fire

This is just worse than an unsuppressed Phoenix Regalia, which is a lot easier to get. Edit to note that it does have its fans specifically for Evoker FvS builds for the blue slot and Greater Evoc Focus, IMO it could still do with an upgrade.

Suggested change:
Replace Superior Combustion 6 with Epic Combustion 7, and replace Greater Evocation Focus with Epic Evocation Focus (+3 DC). This will make the item at least have some unique and useful effects.

Item now attached to Chains of Flame.


Epic Shard of Vollun

Note: This item has a 'hidden' Radiance Guard effect.
If you want both Radiance Guard and Archmagi on one character, this is a pretty solid item, albeit in a slot that faces stiff competition. In contention for best-in-slot for a 'healbot' build, as they love Radiance Guard (as it stops things attacking them). Improved Radiance 9 is unimpressive; there's no good high-level spells for it to boost.

Suggested change:
Upgrade Archmagi to Wizardry 10 (250 SP). Archmagi has been around since the cap was 14 and is found on several high-quality items with low minimum levels (Skiver, Bracers of the Glacier). Epic items can and should go beyond Archmagi.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Shield of the Scorpion

If you are going to equip a shield, this is one of the less bad ones - decent AC, and a decent DR effect.

Suggested change:
Adjust Epic monster To-Hit so that sustainable player ACs become more effective against them.
Adjust (at least some) Epic monster damage so that healing through the damage 0 AC melees take is less of an option.
Adjust player behaviour so that To-Hit debuffs (such as Waves of Exhaustion and Ray of Enfeeblement) are applied to Epic mobs.
These changes are certainly beyond the scope of this post. This item doesn't need changes, the AC system needs changes.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Spiked Turban

This was once a solid item on AC builds - two slots, the necessary Protection 5 and the useful Resistance 5. However, the combination of an Epic Envenomed Cloak and a Mineral 2 accessory, simply offers a lot more to most builds (45 hp, Good Luck or Toughness on the blue slot, +7 Con and more).
An arcane caster might use this as a Con 6, Greater False Life, Resistance 5 item, but that isn't anything special compared to other alternatives.

Suggested change:
Consider upgrading one or both of the +5 bonuses to +6.

Item now attached to OOB.


Epic Sting

High base damage +6 Wounding of Puncturing weapons would have been many a player's wet dream when the level cap was 16 (I remember +1 WoP shortswords trading for 6 large scales, and 3-4 times that for a +1 rapier). However, the Con damage nerf on one hand, and the 90% immunity to stat damage on Epic trash just prevents these finding a home at the moment.

Suggested change:
Reduce the Epic stat damage resistance from 90% to 75% (Eladrin posted a while back that it is presently 90%, previously players had believed it to be 95%). An average of one point of Con damage per 6 swings isn't enough to warrant using these weapons - an average of two Con damage per 5 swings would be more appealing.
The Large Scorpion Poison should probably deal hit point damage rather than Con damage, as this will help finish off any foes with significant Con damage.
Also, if these changes are made, some players will work together to debuff mob Fort saves before a Wail - this isn't really any different to the currently viable (but seldom-used) Cursespewer-melee-then-Wail approach.

Item now attached to OOB.


Epic Stinkpelt's Hide

Solid defensively-oriented medium armor for non-AC tanks, due to the Con and CK clickie. Nothing special, however - this feels of a power level that you'd expect out of the easier Epics like the Carnival.

Suggested change:
Replace Con +7 with Con +8. Replace Exceptional Con +2 with Superior False Life.
That makes up for the lack of synergy with the eClaw set (which anyone wearing this armor already has, or aspires to getting).

Item now attached to Wiz-King.


Epic Thornlord

Best in slot. Finally, one of the rare Epic weapons that convincingly out-DPS's Greensteel alternatives (in this case, Lit 2, triple positive or Steam bows). And such a simple design too.
Suggested change:
Leave this exactly as it is.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Tinder

So far behind the alternatives (Sup Combustion 7 from random lootgen in one hand, something useful like Skiver, or Major Fire Lore, in the other) that it isn't funny. As the only Combustion 9 clicky for WF, it needs something more.
So many fire-themed items here... I'd feel sorry for the other Savants, but well, Fire ones need the most help anyway.

Suggested change:
Upgrade to Superior Inferno 9 for the benefit of Warforged. At least it will be best in slot for the clicky.

Item now attached to Chains of Flame.


Epic Tourney Armor

Outclassed by other epic armors (note the low AC, only the same as +5 mithril fullplate). This is just flat-out-worse than the pre-U11 Epic Deneith Heavy Chain, which has already been upgraded.

Suggested change:
Really not sure where this should go - perhaps the DR could be improved to 8/adamantine, which would make this armor the best at something. Alternately it could get an AC boost (and really it should at least mirror +6 mith FP), but that only benefits the 2% of characters that build for an 80+ AC.
Edit: Someone else suggested making it an effective anti-caster armor - perhaps Resistance 6 and "Arcane Absorb 10% - This reduces all incoming spell damage by 10%, except from positive energy effects" would cover that niche, maybe even adding 'Armored Evasion: This armor counts as light armor for purposes of the Evasion feat'.
I'm curious as to who would consider wearing it if it had one of those effects.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Vulkoorim Dervish Robe

Quite an unfocused item - four effects, of which not many characters will benefit from more than two. Barbarians like Greater Fire Resistance and Disintegration Guard but don't care about the armor bonus or the cheaper Maximize. Casters don't care about the armor, seldom see Disintegration Guard go off, and like the cheaper Maximize. And so on.

Suggested change:
I'm really unsure what to suggest here. Maybe leave it as an item for the niche Leloric identified in his thread (melees with Maximized self-healing) and add Healing Amp 10% to benefit them.

Item now attached to OOB.


Epic Vulkoorim Pendant

Back when the cap was 12, Devotion and Nullification effects were both used by a large number of Clerics (as Harm was then considered an excellent DPS spell for Wisdom-based Divines).
Now, however, Divines aren't the ones that cast negative energy spells, and Nullification is now a Pale Master oriented mutation.
As such, this really is an item without a home.

Suggested change:
Replace the Nullification effects with Epic Nullification 7 (60%). Add Concordant Opposition (as this is an item that deals with both positive and negative energy). It will be mostly a Pale Master item (and less appealing in general than the Torc), but may have some appeal to the odd divine that wants to spam Harm for old times' sake.

Item now attached to Chains of Flame.


Epic Weathered Targe

An epic shield without epic AC potential. I had all of the pieces for this item and made it on a level 12 I seldom play just to get the pieces out of my ingredients bags.

Suggested change:
Again, this is more an issue with the weakness of shields (particularly small shields) rather than the actual stats on the item. This wouldn't be a bad spot to add a non-ring source of Lightning Absorb 33%.

Item now attached to OOB.


Epic Whirlwind

I believe this recently had its base damage upped to 4d6 and the Epic Telekinetic ability unbugged so that it functions. If this is correct, this weapon is borderline OK - DPS that is low but not derisory, and enough knockdowns to take one foe out of a fight.
Still, devoting a two-handed weapon to crowd control is more of a DPS loss than devoting one weapon on a TWF to crowd control, making it weaker than alternatives like the Epic Timeblade, Epic Sirrocco or Alchemical weapons with Air or Earth on the first tier.

Suggested change:
Consider making changes to increase the DPS output - perhaps upgrading the enhancement bonus to +8, and/or upgrading the base damage further to 4d8 or 3d12. Screaming and Thundering add very little damage, especially on a Greatsword.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Wolf Whistle

This is a fun toy. Impressive to have a ~3000hp summon that can survive Velah's breath on Epic.

Item remains attached to ADQ1.


Epic Xuum

Ah, here we go - a weapon that's a DPS machine, surpassing any Greensteel two-hander when immunities and resistances are not an issue. Were it not for the existance of the eSOS, this would be a highly desired item. However, even against foes that take 200% fire damage, this is barely on-par with the eSOS, and in the real world, most monsters take between 0 and 125% fire damage (0 being more common), not 200%.

Suggested change:
This weapon is good as-is against low fortification, and borderline OK even against fire-immune foes. However, if you want to push the envelope a little and have it be a serious alternative to the eSOS, I suggest removing Incineration, and replacing Flaming Burst (1d6/2d10) with Epic Flaming Burst (4d6/8d10). This would make it a serious alternative to the eSOS - clearly better against mobs that take increased incoming fire damage, clearly weaker against foes that are noticeably resistant to fire and/or foes with significant AC, and about equal against 'typical' foes.

Item now attached to Chains of Flame.


Epic Zephyr

Awful damage output and no ability to break two-component DR (except with unsustainable Devil Assault augments) make this is a very weak weapon. Extreme Dex characters built around this weapon's 'Dex to both attack and damage' have no alternative weapons for DR bosses other than the Epic Staff of Nat Gann.
For users with medium Str and high Dex, the Epic Cuthroat's Smallblade is leaps and bounds ahead of this weapon. At present, by my rough in-my-head calculations, this holds even if their Dex is 20 points higher than their Str.

Suggested change:
Note that this will look like I'm going overboard, however, I've run DPS calculations and can assure you, the results aren't as ridiculous as they might look. (Edit: Not playing a finesse build, I ran these on the assumption that the offhand weapon would get 50% of Dex modifier to damage; people have told me this is wrong and it's actually 100%. In this case, the weapon doesn't need as much of a damage boost and could lose the Seeker bonus).
Add Metalline (so max-Dex characters can use this as their main DPS weapon on 'almost everything')
Increase enhancement bonus to +9
Upgrade base damage to 4d6
Add Heightened Awareness 4
Add Seeker 6
Even with all of those improvements to DPS, it's still ~12% behind a Lit 2 khopesh wielded by a player with Strength equal to your Dexterity that uses no Seeker item (and close to the DPS of a Mineral 2 khopesh with Heightened Awareness 4). However, this gives high AC dual-wielding Finesse builds a viable DPS weapon for endgame and may help revitalise the 'Dexploiter' builds that players experimented with for a while after the level cap hit 20.

Item now attached to OOB.

[sirgog]

Epic ADQ2 Raid Loot

Note that while ADQ2 can be quite tough on Epic, players have discovered tactics that make it a cakewalk for moderately geared toons. It's probably the easiest of the Desert epics.

Epic Bracers of the Demon's Consort

Demonic Shield is very strong. The base item is quite good on many Pale Master builds - the epic version adding slots makes it even better. It's also an OK item for some melee tanks (for the de-facto stacking DR; some builds may even be able to put the Intimidate to good use), although they are often inseperable from their (easier to obtain) eClaw bracers.

Suggested change:
No changes needed, but adding Heavy Fortification would increase the item's appeal as a hotswap item for those that use the Claw set.

Attach seal to ADQ1.


Epic Bramble Casters

The guard is reliable damage for a melee that takes a lot of hits, but does less average damage than Disintegration Guard (and a lot less than Lightning Storm Guard does to non-immune foes). Greater Spearblock is useful, but unspectacular (and the Epic Ring of the Mire offers it in a much better overall package, albeit in a different slot). Solid item, but not good enough to compete in the highly competitive gloves slot.

Suggested change:
Upgrade the Guard to 3d6 damage (which at 10.5 average is more than the community-speculated 9.2 average damage of Disintegration guard - 2% for ~460). Upgrade Greater Spearblock to Epic Spearblock - 15. Most melees will prefer the 30% healing amp and +4 damage the eClaw gloves offer (if they are wearing the bracers), but this item will be good enough that it might find a home.

Attach seal to Chains of Flame.


Epic Chaosblade

The best Vorpal in the game, the highest DPS one-hander against most Lawful foes, and the minor bonus of Vampirism. Best-in-slot for enough builds that it is currently a very sought-after item.

Suggested change:
None, except for addressing scroll drop rate issues (and to a lesser extent, seals).

Attach seal to ADQ1.


Epic Cloak of the Zephyr

Best-in-slot for Air Savants; probably also best-in-slot for those Cold Savants that spec into electricity as well. Superior Lightning Lore wasn't all that impressive pre-U9, but Eladar's Electric Surge single-handedly changed that.
Perma-Blur is nice in the rare places we are chain-dispelled (epic OOB), or for long quests where incoming melee damage between shrines isn't enough to merit sustaining Displacement (eVON5).

Suggested change:
None needed - this is an item that fills a particular niche and fills it well.

Attach seal to OOB.


Epic Demon Scale Armor

As far as defensive armors go for non-AC toons, this is the best there is. A player that wears this, hotswaps in 'junk' ToD rings with 20% absorbs and uses other effects like Fire Shield can survive things like eVelah's breath, Cojoined Abashai Devastator's cold and fire 'ultimates', and presumably other future effects. Ironically, because of the availability of 20% absorbs on ToD rings, if/when Epic Gianthold Tor is released, the dragon it will be weakest against will be the blue one.

Suggested change:
No changes needed to the item. Great item that is only ignored because of encounter design - incoming elemental damage hasn't been a massive cause of player deaths since Enter the Kobold was endgame.

Attach seal to ADQ1.


Epic Dustless Boots

Striding is useful if you run out of Haste potions or are being chain-dispelled, the Jump clicky is more convenient than Morah's Belt (and you can carry both if you PUG often with people that don't have Morah's). Still, nothing about this item is special at all.

Suggested change:
This item is clearly intended to enhance mobility while stealthed - perhaps consider having it grant faster sneaking (similar to, but stacking with, the rogue enhancements).
Alternately, this would be a perfect item to add Striding 40% to. Still not as good as Haste (same movement increase but without the other aspects of Haste), but there's the odd time you just can't be bothered quaffing a potion.

Attach seal to OOB.


Epic Greenblade

Lesser Potency 9 doesn't add anything much at all. Basically this is a variant on Skiver - with Spell Pen 9 taking the place of Archmagi and the efficient metamagics. Spell Pen 9 is potent, but is available in other slots, and overall I feel the eGB vs. Skiver comparison is a draw.
Force Burst, of course, adds nothing to the item.

Suggested change:
Add the Staff of the Petitioner's 10% SP cost reduction, or upgrade to Major Arcane Lore. Either one would give this item a boost to make it clearly superior to the level 14 competitor.

Attach seal to Chains of Flame.


Epic Lion-Headed Belt Buckle

Pretty much only used for the Roar effect and slot consolidation on Pale Masters. In that niche, it's pretty good.

Suggested change:
Probably doesn't need any changes.

Attach seal to OOB.


Epic Marilith Chain

The base item is a viable item to wear at level 20. The Epic version is best-in-slot for eSOS, rapier, scimitar and Khopesh DPS against most targets (assuming the wearer doesn't use a Bloodstone). Shatter +10 just recently became useful, and the DR and retributive damage are gravy on an item that would be excellent without them.

Suggested change:
No changes to the item, just to scroll availability (and to a lesser extent the seal).

Attach seal to Chains of Flame.


Epic Pouch of Jerky

Great item, usually covering Toughness and Superior False Life (or SFL and +4 saves). Useful clicky. However, there's lots of competition for this slot, and this item doesn't match up to the alternatives for most builds.

Suggested change:
Adding 10% healing amplification (which is very hard to fit into a gearset) would make this situationally best in slot for tanks that expect to take a lot of damage (Barbarians, Kensais and the like). I made a similar suggestion for Epic Dusk Heart - I'm not opposed to both items getting the same effect, players that want one of them can just use whichever they obtain first.
An alternative would be to add an effect that recovers HP whenever you make a melee strike (basically granting your weapon(s) some level of the Vampirism effect), although that would heavily favor TWF toons, unless the effect only applied to your mainhand weapon.

Attach seal to ADQ1.


Epic Sandstorm Glasses

Probably the worst epic item in existance at the moment, especially as it competes with Tharne's Goggles, which offer basically all of the same utility, plus arguably the best melee DPS effect you can get on an accessory (+8 damage and +5 to-hit whenever you don't have aggro).

Suggested redesign:
This item was a melee item when the cap was 12 (both True Seeing and Blindness Immunity benefit melees at all levels). However, with basically all divines carrying the True Seeing spell, Displacement isn't an issue, and with Heal and Mass Heal being both widely used, Blindness isn't much of an issue even if you aren't wearing an immunity item, even against bosses like Malicia or Horoth that like to throw the odd Sunburst.
The name conjures thoughts of dust. Conveniently, many melees occasionally use Supreme Tyrant Goggles of Dust (Exceptional 10/15/20hp, Disintegration Guard) as a tanking swap-in.
I'm going to suggest making the item a straight-out upgrade of those goggles.

Actually 'epic' Sandstorm Glasses
Exceptional +10 hp (as Shroud effect)
Exceptional +15 hp
Exceptional +20 hp
Disintegration Guard
True Seeing
Blindness Immunity
Colorless Augment Slot

That's a pretty clear upgrade over one of the more frequently crafted Shroud items, and might save some characters from having to bother with a cleanser.

Attach seal to OOB.


Epic Seal of the Earth

For a period, this had Superior Acid Lore, and at present, the 'grandfathered' versions of this item are the only source of that effect. Reinstating that lore would make this item appealing to Earth Savants - at present, as an AC item it's weaker than the alternatives (Chattering Ring, Epic Ring of the Silver Concord, possibly ToD sets), and as a clicky, it's solid but unspectacular.

Suggested change:
Add Superior Acid Lore. This ring will then be best-in-slot for Acid Savants, and will still be a marginal but viable option for AC builds (particularly with the new Chattering Ring alternative in the Carnival possibly freeing up a slot for it).
Consider adding Unarmed Acid Burst so that the rare Monk that cares about AC and fights unarmed can use this as a replacement for a ToD ring.
The result would be a ring that would seem a mishmash of effects, but that's exactly what the Red Dragonscale Armors are - I can't think of any one build that can put all the effects on Red Scale to good use, yet the (worthless for my Red Scale wearer) Superior Fire Lore doesn't make the item any weaker.

Attach seal to Chains of Flame.


Epic Shining Crest of St Markus

I quite like Superior Devotion effects (even ones that Superior Ardor suppresses) as they add quite a bit of healing throughput and persist through death. Improved Devotion, however, just isn't enough to bother with unless it is Improved Devotion 9. Deathblock and your choice of Toughness, Good Luck or Heavy Fortification on one item aren't bad, but nothing to write home about either.

Suggested change:
Upgrade the Healing Lore to Superior Healing Lore.
Add a unique healing effect: "Positive Energy Surge: Clickie, 1/rest, 30 second duration, +100% healing spell crit chance". Make the item exclusive.
This would make it a very unique clickie effect that many different builds would strive to acquire, and might even make some builds invest a little in healing crit intensity.

Attach seal to Wiz-King.


Epic Staff of Arcane Power

This staff is excellent, only outdone by tier 3 Alchemical caster sticks. That's fine, as epic LOB is harder than anything in the Sands and so should have better loot.

Suggested change:
Nothing at all.

Attach seal to Wiz-King.


Epic Storm

This item doesn't need fixing, crossbows do.

Suggestions:
Keep this item as it is. Revisit after the ranged combat pass, if that ever occurs.

Attach seal to Wiz-King.


Epic Torc

The non-epic version of this item is considerably better than the Epic Spellstoring Ring, and is best-in-slot for basically anyone with a blue bar that doesn't use Madstone Boots. The epic item adds Wizardry 6 (probably letting you go without an Archmagi item), and covers Spell Penetration for most of your spells.
The only question is - is it worth losing access to your Torc from 11-19 on future lives?

Suggested change:
None. The 'Transform Kinetic Energy' effect should have been toned down well before it ever got onto the live servers, but it's far, far, far too late to touch it now. This item basically trivialises most content unless mobs hit for more than 50 damage per swing.

Attach seal to Wiz-King.


Tomes

Everyone loves tomes. The presence, however, of +3 BtC, +3 BtA and +4 BtC tomes all in one raid is a little odd, IMO.

Suggested change:
Unbind the +3 tomes, up their drop rate, and put them in other places too, now that they have been sold in the store.
Leave the +4 tomes bound, but drop rates should probably increase. (That's not just an epic DQ2 comment).

[sirgog]

Reserved, on the offchance that I want to use it later.


Remaining 'holes' in endgame itemisation

This is a list of item niches that I feel are underrepresented in endgame gear. Some I've suggested items for above. Others might be considered for future content.

This is not a definitive list.


Acid Savant: Superior Acid Lore
Cold Savant: Superior Ice Lore
Generalist arcane: Major Arcane Lore
Generalist arcane: Superior Potency 6+ in slots other than the weapon slot. Be careful with Potency 9 effects, they are a big buff to healing output (Mass Heal) and of little use to arcanes
Monk DPS: Metal-threaded endgame handwraps (+7 Silver-threaded of Destruction, etc)
Monk DPS: Alternative sources of Unarmed Holy Burst, etc (currently only available on ToD rings). Careful not to add Holy on a ring, that will outshine all the ToD elemental bursts.
Monk AC: Alternative sources of Heightened Awareness 4 (currently very hard to find outside Greensteel kamas/longswords/shortswords)
Finesse melees: 'Raw' DPS weapons (high DPS, few or no 'utility' effects like Improved Paralyzing, Epic Telekinetic, Deception etc)
Finesse melees: Medium DPS weapons that break the major DRs (Silver/Good, Cold Iron/Good, Blunt)
FvS Evoker: Clickies for 75% Light damage enhancement. Yep, we can craft these, but I'd rather some that you might consider wearing as fulltime items, just as many Savants wear their ToD belts fulltime if they have the matching ring
Divine DC-based caster: +7 Wisdom items (possibly on the same item as the previous suggestion)
Melee 0 AC tanks (mostly Kensais and Barbarians): Sources of 10% Healing Amp
General: Inherent Resist 5 and/or 10 (as per Shroud effect) to various elements.
General (but mostly melee tanks): Alternatives to Shroud HP items
Arcanes/Divines: Alternatives to Shroud SP items
Melees: Alternative sources of Morale To-Hit bonuses (other than a Bard's Inspire Courage or Heroism effects)
Melees: Alternative sources of Morale +damage bonuses (other than a Bard's Inspire Courage or a Good Hope clicky).
Melee tanks: Sources of Incite 10% and 15% (20% is pretty well covered)
Melee AC tanks: Retributive on-getting-hit procs that mirror Guards, but that proc on a melee miss.
Melee AC tanks: Retributive guards that are coded to reward only seldom getting hit (e.g. when you are hit, 100% chance to cause a 10 second debuff that deals 2 damage immediately, then this damage triples every 2 seconds - 6 damage at 2 seconds, 18 damage at 4, up to 486 damage at 10 seconds). Being hit again restarts the clock, so this has by far the best DPS if you are only hit by a 20.
Melee AC tanks: Retributive guards that proc on grazing hits only.

[Brannigan]

The bloodstone has become largely redundant on many dps focussed builds due to the Seeker hats and + 2 exceptional seeker trinket from the kobold events.

It really needs a good plug - I agree + 10 seeker is more in line with where it should be and possibly a incite bonus.

[voodoogroves]

First, thanks for this!

Second, most of your suggestions sound pretty reasonably decent.

Third ... I, of course, have some feedback ;-)

(1) Explorer items dropping complete ... ugh. I'd hate that because they'd only drop BTC and it invalidates hours and hours and hours of work by lots of folks. Maybe if they dropped BTA or BTA, BTC on equip?

(2) Sting - how about a poison DoT?

[Cyr]

First off I agree with the OP that the more pressing issue with desert epic items are their drop rates. However, I do not like their method of addressing the issue. My thought is a simple upping of the drop rates and addition of 20th completion lists for all epic quests and raids would clear up most of the issues we see with desert epic items.

As for having already created epic items such as the ring of spell storing and killing off any chance of people completing their almost done items of this regard...big not signed there (yes this is one that would effect me directly with numerous desert explorer zone items only requiring a seal including the ring of spell storing).

Edit: Onto items...

First off apply the same thing that is being used on some of the reworked items that allows two stats with the highest of either applying to to hit or damage on all the weapons that currently use an off str stat. Second, apply the same idea used with Garos's Malice (doubling proc rate on a power to make it 'epic') to a few items such as the consort bracers.

As to specfic items...

Air bow...this really should be an easy one...up the dps on this bow through electric permutations to convincingly beat out lit 2 for dps versus non resistant to electric targets (and by 10-20% versus thornlord), but fall well behind thornlord versus those with high resistance or immunities...ie make it best in class for dps versus those vulnerable to electric damage.

Collapsable Short Bow...this one really should be the rogue archers weapon...Add threat reduction 30%...add sneak attack range +15 feet...add Sneak Attack +6.

Weathered Targe...this is a hard one. The new permuatations on the shield feats really hosed this already poor item...so my suggestions for this item is to give the user all three of the shield feats...it would then be slightly less then useless in the rare cases when a non-tank wishes to add some effective DR.

Dervish Robe...this item is a mess as it looks like someone literally randomly rolled this item from some random loot tables and called it good. My suggestion is to work from the ground up here as the item doesn't make any sense now...it really was an AC item in it's original form so lets make it that again...Armor Bonus +10, Dodge +1, Greater Fire Resistance, blue slot and call it good...(note this would finally beat out icy for total AC possible in combinations).

Spectacles of Spirit Sight...this item deserves some help...the staff of inner sight convincingly outclasses this item...merely upping the necromancy focus to +3 would give it an added boost.

Bloodstone...+2 seeker for +11 ML...yeah that is pretty meh...up it to +10 to match the marilith chain and add a colorless slot...there are other neat things to put in trinket slots for melee builds.

Tourney Armor...bleh to the extreme now...the heavy/med armor choices are pretty strong due to the large numbers of epic options for them now so let's try something different for this item and make it into an armor that is good to wear versus enemy magic users...Add Evasion...Add Epic Reflex Save +3...Add Exceptional Reflex Save +2...this item might be worn situationally over some of the other very strong choices now...

Robe of Fire...Add Elemental Surge (Fire): Every time you attack, cast a damaging spell, or are hit in melee there is a chance that a surge of elemental energy (fire) is released harming your opponent in an amount proportional to the amount of damage you took or inflicted. Specifically the proc rate is 5% and this item deals 20% of the damage done or inflicted as fire damage. This averages to 1% more damage (fire typed) done in attacks of any sort that you make and 1% of the incoming damage done to you reflected back as fire damage.

[Ziindarax]

My suggestion for improving the Epic Bloodstone:

Replace Seeker +8 with Seeker +12, and add Exceptional Seeker +3. This would make the Epic Blood Stone more able to compete with various potent trinkets such as the Epic Spyglass, and other trinkets.

[Bodic]

My suggestion for improving the Epic Bloodstone:

Replace Seeker +8 with Seeker +12, and add Exceptional Seeker +3. This would make the Epic Blood Stone more able to compete with various potent trinkets such as the Epic Spyglass, and other trinkets.


That would be just a little over the top +10 is good, but as it is "The Juice is not worth the squeeze", needs to be changed.

[GotSomeQuestions]

To solve the problem of switching from shard/seal/scroll items to complete items, you could add a BTC "Transmutable Essence of Menechtarun" to the loot tables, with a ferociously low drop rate, and let that stand in for any desert shard/seal/scroll. That way, people could continue their hard work and complete their items, new players who found one could hunt down 2 more to complete the upgrade on the item of their choice, but both of these would still be very tough to do, and would only make sense if you were after an item like eBloodstone or eRoSS that you might never win the roll on when it dropped in-chest.

[Illiain]

Epic Vambraces of Inner Light

Best in slot for many Paladin builds, or second best for them to only the red dragonplate armor. Best in slot for almost all non-Warforged FvS's too, and provides them a buff to Divine Punishment that they may not otherwise be able to permanently equip (although clickies offering better can be crafted now). Radiance Guard is buggy, but despite that is still the best defensive guard.
This is what an Epic armor should look like.

Suggested change:
No changes.

Since you mentioned it being good for non-Wf FvS, what would your thoughts be to making it mithril so it's medium armor? It would also fit the concept as a pure white light type armor.

[voodoogroves]

Since you mentioned it being good for non-Wf FvS, what would your thoughts be to making it mithril so it's medium armor? It would also fit the concept as a pure white light type armor.

Mithral would be good. That's essentially what one of my DTs are on my non-WF FVS (radiance guard, etc.)

[Psyker]

Thanks for the post. Lots of food for thought.

Interesting idea on how to change the way acquiring Epic Items works, and if I didn't have so much time invested in the last year acquiring seals, shards and scrolls I would agree with you, but the thought of all of that work going to waste is a bit depressing...

Instead I would like to see the Shard drop rate in ADQ1 and ADQ2 increased (I'm thinking part 1 should always drop a shard for completion and part 2 should drop a shard close to 50% of the time, I would say less for part 2 but since there is a 3 day timer I think that keeps it pretty fair)

I also think the ratios of scroll/seal/shard drops should be reviewed and evened out some, same drop rate for a seal or scroll but even it out a little more (raid item scrolls slightly less rare, explorer item shards less rare).

Thanks again for the great post Sirgog.

[Henrieta]

I posted it in the other thread, so I'll post it here where it should be...

This Trinket Currently has:
Archmagi- useful to some...
Improved Radiance IX- not useful (that I know of)
Hidden Effect: Radiance Blindness Guard- useful, yes
Empty Colorless Augment Slot- hmm
Empty Yellow Augment Slot- hmm

My "maybe" possibilities to make it the best.

Maybe add a green slot to this instead of the yellow for when available enhancements improve or additional ones are added.

Maybe give it a single charge/rest of "major mnemonic aid" since it says in the item description that it has a tremendous amount of stored arcane energy. (meh)

Maybe something with boosting light damage spells like superior lore (once more are added). (meh)

My favorite:
Maybe just add the ability of applying brilliance and/or radiant blast damage to your attacks. It is a valuable trinket slot afterall, and epic items should be epic. Could be similar in application as the ToD crafted rings for monks or whoever.

[Zion_Halcyon]

Nice Job!

I hope it gets dev comments like your other 2 reviews did.

One thing I have noticed though in looking through all the epics all over, is a real lack of epic rapiers. I only see the one for a bard, but it would be nice to have a top end alternative to greensteel rapiers for those of us who are Drow, or use Weapon Finesse, and aren't bards.

Sone general kick ass-ness is in order, even better if they were silver with red slots :-).

[ORIGINALBAG0]

The Tharaak hound AI is still pretty much the same as before. He still tries to PK raid bosses and melee air elementals and doesn't do much else. However, they ninja-updated the Wolf Whistle at some point (or I missed the part in the release notes referencing it) to make the duration 5 minutes instead of just 1. Since it's mainly just a nifty toy, I honestly don't think they should change anything about it. I mostly use it behind the rock in EVoN 6 so I can watch him dance through a couple breaths before he finally keels over. It's a joke item, and it should stay that way. I love my adorably hilarious puppy.

[elraido]

wrong quests....my bad!

[Thrudh]

My suggestion for improving the Epic Bloodstone:

Replace Seeker +8 with Seeker +12, and add Exceptional Seeker +3. This would make the Epic Blood Stone more able to compete with various potent trinkets such as the Epic Spyglass, and other trinkets.

ROFL... Egads, man! Are you high? 2.5 times as good as the original bloodstone?

THe original bloodstone gives a khopesh user 18 extra damage on each crit, 4 crits out of 20 swings equals 72 extra damage over 20 swings or 3.6 extra damage/swing...

15 total seeker = 45*4 = 180 extra damage over 20 swings or 9 points of damage/swing!

[ORIGINALBAG0]

ROFL... Egads, man! Are you high? 2.5 times as good as the original bloodstone?

THe original bloodstone gives a khopesh user 18 extra damage on each crit, 4 crits out of 20 swings equals 72 extra damage over 20 swings or 3.6 extra damage/swing...

15 total seeker = 45*4 = 180 extra damage over 20 swings or 9 points of damage/swing!

Yeah, but it only has one effect and no slots. If it's gonna be an effect that you can get other places, it should be significantly better than those items to make me put it in my trinket slot at endgame. As it stands, Epic Mari Chain has better seeker than the bloodstone as well as myriad other effects. Right now, I only want a bloodstone on THF forgies or evasion types.

[Monkey_Archer]

Those changes to flint and zephyr almost make me want to reconsider the usefulness of dex based characters (I almost want to roll one up) almost...:rolleyes:

[KingofDiamondz]

Ive been playing around with my epic hound post U9 now that i got the guy with it back to 20. Took a stroll into Von 1 epic and let him fight a few bugbears. Summon lasts 5 minutes and I'm guessing the hound has around 2000-2500 hitpoints judging from how many heal scroll it took to heal him back up. Thing has major healing amp, heal scrolls that were hitting me for 121hp with 10% Healing amp were hitting the hound for 330hp. As for as AI goes, it acts like most other summons but I dont think it will teleport back to you if it gets stuck somehwhere. Will have to test this one out more. Hound was throwing its acid spray, pk and normal attacks. Pk didnt seem to be landing for insta kill on epic, not sure what the DC is on it. Pretty tough summon imo, even stronger when fully buffed up. I seen it live thru velah breath pre u9 and im sure it can still do it. Makes a great chew toy for distracting trash. IMO this item is not something to seek out unless you really love hound dogs, but if you happen to stumble on the stuff to make it, it sure is a fun one.

[ravengerpl]

+10 seeker and colorless slot should be ok for Epic The Blood Stone.

[Sarisa]

I agree with most of the suggestions.

I would only agree with the seal and explorer item change for ADQ1 if a second shrine was added. The resource usage in an average group is just too much to want to run regularly. Not all of us have regular private groups that can efficiently run it.

I'll only comment on items I either have or am trying to get.

Spectral Gloves - Goal, Agree with them being fine as is.
Staff of Inner Sight - Goal, Also agree with it being fine as is.

Bejewelled Letter Opener - I have one, and I use it in only one situation, healing the DQ raid when using the "ball" method. The SP savings on Empower Heal is nice when spamming mass cures. Aside from that, nothing about it as it currently exists appeals to me in any way. Agree with the suggested changes.

Spectacles of Spirit Sight - Have one on my wiz/rogue (who will TR to FvS after completing the raid circuit). What I like best about it is the slot. Probably fine to keep as is, or give it a yellow slot instead of just colourless.

Vambraces of Inner Light - Use it regularly on my cleric, especially when I melee without as much CC present. Makes the rogues I party with very happy when I hit intimidate while wearing it. It's also nice for the permanent light boosting ability (without resorting to clickies) while using a melee or support(destruction/curse) weapon for casting Divine Punishment. I agree with the previously posted suggestions to make it Mithral, to allow FvS's to use it without any penalty. Otherwise it seems great as is.

Bloodstone - Possible Goal. With just a minor increase and no slot, it doesn't seem worth the grind and cost unless I just get lucky and pull the shard. Seeker just isn't as powerful as it was when autocrit was around. It's still powerful with Khopeshes and the eSoS, just not AS powerful. Either give it a worthwhile slot, or increase the seeker value as suggested.

Chainmail Coif - Lucked into the shard, so I have it made for my wiz/rogue's future TR to FvS. I will happily use this item as is.

Dusk Heart - Possible Goal. Due to having other, stronger, trinkets, I would mainly use this for the clickie. Something to boost this item is needed. 10% Healing Amp and Blurry would probably make me use this on my Cleric.

Robe of Fire - Goal. I would use this more on a divine caster for the Greater Evocation Focus and blue slot. Something has to be done to make it more appealing to arcane casters and give it some upgrade over the Regalia. Epic Evocation Focus and at a minimum all the fire boosting effects of an upgraded Regalia, preferably more are good suggestions I agree with.

Tinder - Possible Goal. Agree with the suggestion, mainly to give Warforged a Regalia clickie work-alike.

Wolf Whistle - Would make if I got all the parts, just for fun.

[knightgf]

Really? Offering of Blood is hard? I will admit that Chains of Flame and Chamber of Raiyum(Which I will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER DO AGAIN!) on epic are no doubt difficult, and maybe I ran with a uber group, but I never thought chains of flame was on the top list of difficult epics. Here would be a top 10 list of difficult epics based on what I have seen or experienced:



Chamber of Raiyum
Chains of Flame
Devil Assault
ADQ2
ADQ1
Chronoscope
VoN5
VoN3
VoN6
VoN4

I think I might have messed up the priority of epics a bit, but most would agree, these are all fairly difficult to do.

As for the epic items...yeah, quite a few of them failed to deliver, I will say that much. They could definately use a overhaul with the whole epic system. In addition, I am not hoping too much for the release of epic gianthold, I still feel that releasing epic gianthold was the joke of a developer who wanted to tease us with something that will never come out. Only time will tell whether or not epics get improved or go straight down the toilet. And so far, I think they've changed for the better.

[sephiroth1084]

Epic Vambraces of Inner Light

Best in slot for many Paladin builds, or second best for them to only the red dragonplate armor. Best in slot for almost all non-Warforged FvS's too, and provides them a buff to Divine Punishment that they may not otherwise be able to permanently equip (although clickies offering better can be crafted now). Radiance Guard is buggy, but despite that is still the best defensive guard.
This is what an Epic armor should look like.
Just going to point out that this is one of 3, not 2, epic armors in contention with each other. Redscale, as you mentioned, this, and the Epic Cavalry Plate from Crystal Cove (I wouldn't bring it up, due to its rarity and inaccessibility to many players, but you've mentioned a few of the other items from the event elsewhere in this list). I'd say the Vambraces are best in slot for the FvS, as you mentioned, and for non-tanking paladins (KotC with medium HP I guess), but that the Cavalry Plate tends to beat this for tanks, even though they're left needing to stick Cha somewhere else.

I'd originally intended to use both, swapping to the Vambraces when soloing content with hard-hitting monsters for the Radiance Guard effect, but have found myself never doing that due to the excellent bonuses on the Cavalry Plate, so the Vambraces have gone into the bank.

Not saying they necessarily need a boost, but just that they have other competition.




Epic Hyena Claw Necklace

There's a lot to be said for Con 7, Toughness and a yellow slot all in one item (as well as Intimidate 15), but this competes with Torc, ToD sets, and offers similar effects to the Epic Envenomed Cloak, which is generally a superior item.

Suggested change:
Add Healing Amp 10%. This is very hard to slot for any type of tank, and would make this necklace probably best-in-slot for Barbarians to wear while tanking high DPS foes like Horoth, Turigulon or the Demon of the Frenzied Deep.
Consider adding Repair Amplification 10% as well, so the poor Warforged get some love.
I'll just point out that this item was also fairly attractive for AC tanks (Junts uses it in some of his gear combinations on Jaerlech), but had some serious competition from the Torc and Epic Siren's Charm + Gem combo (+4 Insight AC). With Grim's Bracelet getting upgraded to give +3 Dodge, along with a blue augment slot and whatever was on the necklace previously, this will likely see even less use by those characters. Something Genasi may want to think about, though not sure where this could go. It's still pretty good if you have the Dodge and Insight bonuses elsewhere without something competing for those items' slots, but this still feels like it is just shy of being truly excellent for that type of character.

The healing amp suggestion would likely put this as being a strong option for tanking barbarians, though it's competing with completion of the Shintao set.


Epic Mummy Wrappings

Fearsome is useful if and only if you are soloing, and even then it is annoying.

Suggested change:
In the spirit of bad things happening to foes that attack you, replace Fearsome with any two of the negative-energy aligned Shroud guards, perhaps Corrosive Salt Guard and Disintegration Guard, or for two that have a nasty synergy, Enervation Guard and Trap the Soul Guard.
I always thought that these should replicate the effects mummy's bring to bear more closely:
-Fear Aura: causes either the sort of paralysis-by-fear effect (no running away...treat it as something like the weapon effect, Paralyze, as a guard), or Shaken on a save.
-Mummy Rot Guard - turns off ability to be healed and causes stat damage.
-Slay Living Guard



Epic Spiked Turban

This was once a solid item on AC builds - two slots, the necessary Protection 5 and the useful Resistance 5. However, the combination of an Epic Envenomed Cloak and a Mineral 2 accessory, simply offers a lot more to most builds (45 hp, Good Luck or Toughness on the blue slot, +7 Con and more).
An arcane caster might use this as a Con 6, Greater False Life, Resistance 5 item, but that isn't anything special compared to other alternatives.

Suggested change:
Consider upgrading one or both of the +5 bonuses to +6.
One of the big problems, which you hit upon, with many of the epic items is that none can replace the Exceptional HP or SP from Shroud items. One suggestion I have is to add Exceptional HP +10 to either colorless or yellow augment slots, and then to start including +15 and +20 HP (and +50 and +100 SP) on some epic items. Not sure that this is the place for it, but figured I'd mention it here since you brought up the Min II cloak.

Improving the stats to +6 Protection and +6 Resistance would be good. Some stiff competition in the helm slot (Helm of Frost, the Moranon, the Red Dragon, Chimera's Crown), but I could see this seeing some use with the upgrades.



Epic Stinkpelt's Hide

The light armor of choice for non-AC tanks, due to the Con and CK clickie. Nothing special, however - this feels of a power level that you'd expect out of the easier Epics like the Carnival.

Suggested change:
Replace Con +7 with Con +8. Replace Exceptional Con +2 with Superior False Life.
That makes up for the lack of synergy with the eClaw set (which anyone wearing this armor already has, or aspires to getting). Just going to point out that I believe this is medium armor, and not light, which is part of the reason that virtually no one wears it. Basically, the only characters who would are non-AC barbarians, fighters and paladins, but many of those characters are hunting down the Red Dragon armor or Marilith Chain, both of which offer unique effects and upgrade DPS, whereas this offers an HP upgrade that can be obtained elsewhere.

Your improvements might make it desirable for someone tanking, but I'm not sure by how much.

[Crazyfruit]

The Desert is definitely the hardest overall pack on Epic.

Totally agreed, even with people cheesing OOB & DQ2. I've seen far more DDO Store purchased resources used in the epic Desert than any other quests.


Explorer items no longer have scrolls, seals or shards but drop as already completed Epic items in the Epic chest of ADQ1 (and maybe also with a tiny drop rate in ADQ2).

I love this suggestion. Would love it even more if they were 'Bound to Account, Bind on Equip' instead of 'Bound to Character'.

[Ilindith]

Epic Collapseable Shortbow

Before I make any comments on this item - one source (that everyone else has copied) indicates this has Augmented Critical: 19-20/x3, but I can't confirm that. That source also says the weapon is 'bound to account on acquire', which makes me nervous that the crit information could be wrong. I'm going to assume this bow does have the Khopesh/eThornlord/Silverbow crit profile. The DPS of this bow is solid, but a fair bit behind the eThornlord against everything except DR/slashing foes.

Suggested change:
Really not sure what to suggest here. Maybe add Seeker +8, which would bring it up to eThornlord level for people that do not equip a Bloodstone/eMarilithChain. The eThornlord would still be better, but that's going to happen when there's so many epic bows in one quest.


Unless they changed the Collapsible Shortbow since I've looted one (long ago) it was NOT bound at all and I sold it on the AH.

[Matuse]

Consider changing Adamantine to Mithril, as there are (IIRC) no Giants with DR/Adamantine

Fire Giant Mages are quite fond of casting stoneskin on themselves. I'm pretty sure this is why the /Adamantine is there.


Epic Vambraces of Inner Light

Best in slot for many Paladin builds, or second best for them to only the red dragonplate armor. Best in slot for almost all non-Warforged FvS's too

Except FvS don't have heavy armor proficiency.


Epic Stinkpelt's Hide

The light armor of choice for non-AC tanks, due to the Con and CK clickie.

Except it's medium, which inhibits evaders from wearing it.

[sephiroth1084]

Really? Offering of Blood is hard? I will admit that Chains of Flame and Chamber of Raiyum(Which I will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER DO AGAIN!) on epic are no doubt difficult, and maybe I ran with a uber group, but I never thought chains of flame was on the top list of difficult epics. Here would be a top 10 list of difficult epics based on what I have seen or experienced:



Chamber of Raiyum This is actually rather easy with a half-way decent group. The key is to just keep running until you have to kill something (one of the Mummy Guardians or whatever) then drop one or two firewalls and a Halt Undead on the skeleton mages (hopefully grabbing the melee types nearby as well). The boss fight with Raiyum can be challenging, but the rest of the quest really isn't (well, unless your melees don't have DR breakers for the golems). This should be lower on the list.

Chains of Flame Difficult mostly due to the length of the quest, and both the time and number of enemies fought from shrine to shrine. Also, the traps are fairly nasty, and one of the two end bosses has pretty high AC.
Devil Assault
ADQ2 Much easier than DQ1, VoN 5, VoN 3 (maybe VoN 4), Chronoscope and Elite ToD, though that's more a matter of strategy than anything else probably.
ADQ1 I'd rate this as being harder than anything on the list besides maybe VoN 5. Lot's of mobs per shrine, many of which have good saves, with a lot of casters mixed in as well. A bunch of dispelling and disjunction during a difficult fight for the end.
Chronoscope
VoN5 Probably one of the top 3 most difficult epics. Tons to fight per shrine. Nearly everything is immune to Hold, and much of the stuff is throwing out high-damage Chain Lightnings. The boss fight is a little easier than the one at the end of DQ1, but is fairly challenging.
VoN3
VoN6 This is much easier than VoN 4 for most groups, and even easier for many groups than Into the Deep, Offering of Blood (lot's of casters, dispels, many mobs per shrine with either high saves or SR) or A Small Problem.
VoN4

I think I might have messed up the priority of epics a bit, but most would agree, these are all fairly difficult to do.

My thoughts on the rankings.

[Carpone]

Epic Ancient Vulkoorim Dagger
There's only one epic quest where this shines: Into the Deeps, against the Scrag. Otherwise, it's a waste of inventory space. Why is such a niche weapon in the Sands content? There's no rhyme or reason to it. Some people will justify the existence of this item for the mythical Epic Gianthold, which doesn't exist.


Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers
Upgrade it to SA +5. Exceptional Seeker would be nice to see too.


Epic Ward of Undeath
Bane damage on any shield is an absolute joke with the way shields work in DDO. At the very least, the Bane damage should instead be a Guard. Flaming Burst -- even if it was a guard -- would be terrible, since so many bosses are immune to fire, so replace it with Greater Evil Guard (so it would stack with Epic Marilith Chain's Evil Guard). Replace Flametouched Iron with +1 epic saves. Replace Ghost Touch with Ethereal, like Ethereal Bracers, so the wielder's attacks have the Ghost Touch attribute. This would allow tanks with the eClaw set (20% Incite) to tank incorporeal targets.


Epic Cape of the Roc
The only problem with this item is the clicky. Replace the Roc's Strength clicky with a static +7 enhancement to Strength. Now it's a very nice consolidation item that will be sought out by more than just monks.


Epic Golden Greaves
Upgrade Striding to 30%. It's fine otherwise.


Epic Hruvayah's Medallion
This item isn't powerful enough to warrant the "Taint of Evil" on it. Also, the neck slot is super contested for casters -- this is not in the same league as a non-epic Torc which easily beats out the eHM. The obvious change is to make this Greater Spell Pen XI, but I don't think that's enough to get people to actually use this item. It needs something epic -- like +3 DC Necromancy.


Epic Ring of Baphomet
Remove the negative stat modifiers. The clicky effect, even if it was ML20, won't land 95% of the time on epic mobs. Replace the clicky with the Roar effect, so epic mobs hitting the wearer get -2 to saves from Shaken.

[Junts]

Fire Giant Mages are quite fond of casting stoneskin on themselves. I'm pretty sure this is why the /Adamantine is there.



Except FvS don't have heavy armor proficiency.



Except it's medium, which inhibits evaders from wearing it.

FVS dont need heavy armor proficiency: if you arent a melee-oriented fvs, the vambraces have no drawback and are all upside.


Gog, this thread is a noble endeavor but I think you drastically over-rate how difficult the desert is (its mechanically challenging in certain ways, such as mob saves being al ittle better, but overall the monster types in it are less threatening than in many other quests .. the instadeath changes in particular have made wizking, adq and chains a lot easier), and I think you also have to face up to a certain fact in doing it:

in 60+ items, not every one can be compelling, even for a niche use.

[Sarisa]

Really? Offering of Blood is hard? I will admit that Chains of Flame and Chamber of Raiyum(Which I will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER DO AGAIN!) on epic are no doubt difficult, and maybe I ran with a uber group, but I never thought chains of flame was on the top list of difficult epics. Here would be a top 10 list of difficult epics based on what I have seen or experienced:



Chain of Flames is difficult mostly due to the resource requirements. The extra traps that don't exist on non epic, along with only two shrines for a very long quest just makes for a tough run. The tricks that made it manageable before (Symbol of Persuasion on the archers) no longer work. While you can now instant-kill the archers, that adds up to a lot more SP usage in clearing the trash and healing up afterwards.

Wizard King is actually one of the easier epics. All of the skeletons, even the arcanes, are considered unintelligent undead and can be controlled with Halt Undead. In an arcane heavy group, you can just burn them after that; or beat on them with triple positive Greensteel in a melee heavy group. The golems are now affected by elemental spells, when they used to be immune or heavily resistant before.

There are some tricks to defeat Raiyum without a fight. I expect that to change at some point. In a heavy melee group who has to beat him down, he's not that dangerous as long as everyone has enough HP to take a disintegrate between mass heal's; and the kiter is good.

I haven't had a chance to test epic clay golems, but the non-epic clay golems in Amrath now have just adamantine DR, while before it was adamantine+blunt.

[darksol23]

Epic Sirroco

I've heard this has been improved recently (more accurately, debugged), and Epic Telekinetic is now knocking Epic mobs down frequently. I haven't tested this personally, so I won't suggest anything here yet.



Confirmed. Epic Sirroco actually works "ok" in epics now. That is, the knock down affect will actually land a fair number of epic mobs on thier rears. It's by no means a DPS weapon, but it actually works as advirtised now. As expected, the effect does not work on minibosses or higher.

[scoobmx]

Edit: nvm

[Junts]

Chain of Flames is difficult mostly due to the resource requirements. The extra traps that don't exist on non epic, along with only two shrines for a very long quest just makes for a tough run. The tricks that made it manageable before (Symbol of Persuasion on the archers) no longer work. While you can now instant-kill the archers, that adds up to a lot more SP usage in clearing the trash and healing up afterwards.

Wizard King is actually one of the easier epics. All of the skeletons, even the arcanes, are considered unintelligent undead and can be controlled with Halt Undead. In an arcane heavy group, you can just burn them after that; or beat on them with triple positive Greensteel in a melee heavy group. The golems are now affected by elemental spells, when they used to be immune or heavily resistant before.

There are some tricks to defeat Raiyum without a fight. I expect that to change at some point. In a heavy melee group who has to beat him down, he's not that dangerous as long as everyone has enough HP to take a disintegrate between mass heal's; and the kiter is good.

I haven't had a chance to test epic clay golems, but the non-epic clay golems in Amrath now have just adamantine DR, while before it was adamantine+blunt.

Wizard King Protip:

Halt Undead = Helpless = 50% more damage

Halt skeletons. Cast large, explosive aoe spell. Pick up dungeon token fragments. Rinse, repeat.

[maddmatt70]

Epic Robe of Fire is the best armor for an evoker FVS. +2 to evocation dcs and blue slot = yes.

I would not make the epic vambrances of light even with the recent change of adding divine punishment to DDO nor for a pally. That armor should get upgraded.

[sephiroth1084]

Bane damage on any shield is an absolute joke with the way shields work in DDO. At the very least, the Bane damage should instead be a Guard. Flaming Burst -- even if it was a guard -- would be terrible, since so many bosses are immune to fire, so replace it with Greater Evil Guard (so it would stack with Epic Marilith Chain's Evil Guard). Replace Flametouched Iron with +1 epic saves. Replace Ghost Touch with Ethereal, like Ethereal Bracers, so the wielder's attacks have the Ghost Touch attribute. This would allow tanks with the eClaw set (20% Incite) to tank incorporeal targets. This was complete garbage, but with Improved Shield Bash, this might be decent...or could be, if there were ever any undead we bothered using a shield around. Have to test what the to-hit is like in Wiz-King, but I don't expect to see many misses and can't imagine running it in such a poor group that I'd need to worry about getting hit much anyway.



This item isn't powerful enough to warrant the "Taint of Evil" on it. Also, the neck slot is super contested for casters -- this is not in the same league as a non-epic Torc which easily beats out the eHM. The obvious change is to make this Greater Spell Pen XI, but I don't think that's enough to get people to actually use this item. It needs something epic -- like +3 DC Necromancy. Concordant Opposition on this might make it strong enough to compete, though many casters run with both Conc-Opp and Torc already... At least that could make it attractive for people who aren't fully geared yet, and possibly present an option that replaces two other items.

[sephiroth1084]

Epic Robe of Fire is the best armor for an evoker FVS. +2 to evocation dcs and blue slot = yes.

I would not make the epic vambrances of light even with the recent change of adding divine punishment to DDO nor for a pally. That armor should get upgraded.
Why not? What would you wear instead?

It's among the high end for AC on epic armors, has +7 Cha in a good slot for it, Radiance Guard (very useful), both a blue and a colorless slot, and a couple of other minor bonuses, including Command, which isn't bad as an always-on +2 to UMD (sometimes you don't want to swap to whatever +3 UMD item you'd otherwise be using).

I agree that it could use a small upgrade, maybe, but...what? I was wearing this exclusively until Crystal Cove. Had been interested in the red dragonplate, but imagined that I'd be swapping back and forth between the two depending on the content (for example, Amrath probably wear the Vambraces, VoNs wear the red plate).

[Monkey_Archer]

Epic Hruvayah's Medallion

This suffers from the same thing every other caster-oriented necklace in the game suffers from - it competes with the Torc of Raiyum, which is so good that it just outclasses all competition. If you are running content (such as Epic Snitch) where spell point conservation is absolutely no issue, or if Lailat has been stingy on the Torcs for you, you might use this. However, most players that want Spell Penetration 9 would rather use an Epic Shaman's Band, which despite not having the excellent green augment slot, doesn't occupy as valuable an item slot.

Suggested change:
The only thing that comes to mind is considering added Concordant Opposition to the item - it won't be nearly as good at SP recovery as the Torc is, but it will at least soften the blow of losing Transform Kinetic Energy.

Why not just add Transform Kinetic Energy? This is still a semi-difficult item to craft given the length/difficulty of chains. It could be a decent upgrade to a non-epic torc but is still well behind an epic torc.

[Valindria]

My suggestion for Xuum was change the Colorless + Violet to Red + Violet. It'd give it more options than its current version. It wouldn't be better for DR beaters in a lot of cases but would still be solid with 15-20x3 (assumed IC).

[Junts]

My suggestion for Xuum was change the Colorless + Violet to Red + Violet. It'd give it more options than its current version. It wouldn't be better for DR beaters in a lot of cases but would still be solid with 15-20x3 (assumed IC).

Actually a bypassing xuum would be better than nearly every alternative simply due to the crit profile.

People unestimate the impact of enhanced critical traits.

[grodon9999]

Epic Spectral Gloves

These are an amazing item that is in an item slot with a lot of competition. My much-loved set are mostly retired now (replaced by the Epic Claw gloves), but they are still worn in bardless groups for some ultra-high AC bosses (mostly Turigulon and Raiyum).
Most players consider them third best in the gloves slot overall for melees (behind Epic Charged Gauntlets at #2 and Epic Gloves of the Claw at #1).

Suggested change:
These are fine as-is. However, if you want to make them best-in-slot for some builds, consider adding 'Exceptional Dex +2'.



That change would be wonderful, dare I say too much? Or maybe the right word for it is "Epic."

[sirdanile]

Honestly I believe The epic thornlord should be changed slightly with the ranged system as it is currently... how to change it is where there hits a snag.

The main issue I see with it is that nothing on it actually screams EPIC, when the desert first came out I was expecting Disintegrate or something similar to be added following the Straight (hidden) damage theme.

The main downside to this bow is that its only slightly ahead of a lit II or the bow of sinew but requires a lot more work.

So after saying that i'd probably take a "wait and see" approach if there are any plans at all in the near future for ranged combat changes.

[Qezuzu]

Wizard King Protip:

Halt Undead = Helpless = 50% more damage

Halt skeletons. Cast large, explosive aoe spell. Pick up dungeon token fragments. Rinse, repeat.

Wizard King advanced Protip:

The undead are mindless. They are not offered saves. Use halt undead scrolls.

[maddmatt70]

Honestly I believe The epic thornlord should be changed slightly with the ranged system as it is currently... how to change it is where there hits a snag.

The main issue I see with it is that nothing on it actually screams EPIC, when the desert first came out I was expecting Disintegrate or something similar to be added following the Straight (hidden) damage theme.

The main downside to this bow is that its only slightly ahead of a lit II or the bow of sinew but requires a lot more work.

So after saying that i'd probably take a "wait and see" approach if there are any plans at all in the near future for ranged combat changes.

Its actually not ahead of the ls2 for the majority of ranged builds. It requires a certain amount of base damage to be better then the ls2 which is fairly challenging to attain.

[sephiroth1084]

Why not just add Transform Kinetic Energy? This is still a semi-difficult item to craft given the length/difficulty of chains. It could be a decent upgrade to a non-epic torc but is still well behind an epic torc.
How would this be behind the upgrade?

Epic Torc:
Greater Spell Pen VIII
Transform Kinetic Energy
Wizardry VI
Colorless slot

Epic Hruvayah's:
Spell Pen IX
(add Transform Kinetic Energy)
Green slot

So, it lacks Wiz VI, which comes on plenty of other items (or better as Wiz VII or Archmagi), and trades Greater SP VIII for SP IX, and has the much better Green slot.

Honestly, if Hruvayah's got TKE, it would be much better than the Epic Torc and would be much easier to acquire.

[BoBo2020]

Eagerly waiting for your raid item suggestions.

I am particularly interested in your suggestions for the epic Torc.

The Torc itself is generally a "best in slot" item just for the "transform kinetic energy" property. The tor has the following:
Greater Spell Penetration VI, Wizardry III, Transform Kinetic Energy

The upgrade from Torc to epic Torc, however, is really pretty minor.

The Epic Torc has:
Greater Spell Penetration VIII, Wizardry VI, Transform Kinetic Energy, Empty Colorless Augment Slot

I would suggest the following:
Greater Spell Pen VIII is fine, Epic Spell Pen would be nice.
Wizardry VI is pretty irrelevant. Archmagi would be a reasonable (vanilla-flavored) upgrade, but thematically, I would really like to see it replaced or supplemented with something like Power Store (All spells cast while this item is equipped receive an enhancement bonus of -10% spell point cost).
Also, replace the colorless slot with a blue or green slot to spice this up a bit.

This is a "holy grail" item for casters and it should remain best in slot among epics. Ideally it would complement the epic Green Blade and/or epic Staff of Arcane Power without overlapping attributes.

[Carpone]

Epic Adherent's Pendant
Obvious upgrades like Epic Devotion IV and Archmagi won't be enough to get paladins to wear this over a Torc. This deserves some sort of Sacred bonus that's amazing but requires it to remain equipped (instead of swapping out for a Torc after Archmagi no longer matters). I don't know what that amazing effect should be though. I'm hoping Junts or one of his paladin devotees will suggest something fitting.


Epic Bejewelled Letter Opener
This dagger is trying to be a melee dagger and a healer dagger. It just doesn't work. Pick one path, and make it really good. No melee in their right mind is going to use this for combat, so push upgrades in the direction of healer usefulness. In fact, make this the best healer weapon in the game: Epic Devotion IX, Efficient Metamagic - Empowered Healing II, Lesser Empowered Healing (similar to Noxious Embers or Epic Ornamented Dagger), Wisdom +7.


Epic Bracers of Deftness
Caption Obvious: Add +7 Dexterity and increase Tumble to +15. Bracer slots are overloaded for melee and this needs something extraordinary to make it stand apart. Perhaps some of that new tech to allow the higher of Strength or Dexterity to be used for +hit/+damage, regardless of what weapon is wielded. That would be epic.


Epic Silken Mail
This armor needs purpose and some creative design. As it stands now, you could easily confuse it for ML20 randomly generated loot.


Epic Spectacles of Spirit Sight
While nicely itemized, it competes heavily with Green Steel accessories. After investing all those large mats into a double shard ConcOpp item, you'd be nuts to recraft it just to accomodate these spectacles when Epic Staff of Insight or Staff of the Petitioner are much easier to fit into an arcane build. If you want this to be a defining end-game item for the goggles slot, instead of letting Green Steel hold that title, then there needs to be a compelling reason to use Spectacles over GS. Upgrading the Spectacles to Epic Necromancy Focus and Epic Enchantment Focus would be compelling. Anything short of that, and you might as well use Epic Staff of Insight or Staff of the Petitioner.

[Carpone]

Eagerly waiting for your raid item suggestions.

I am particularly interested in your suggestions for the epic Torc.

The Torc itself is generally a "best in slot" item just for the "transform kinetic energy" property. The tor has the following:
Greater Spell Penetration VI, Wizardry III, Transform Kinetic Energy

The upgrade from Torc to epic Torc, however, is really pretty minor.

The Epic Torc has:
Greater Spell Penetration VIII, Wizardry VI, Transform Kinetic Energy, Empty Colorless Augment Slot

I would suggest the following:
Greater Spell Pen VIII is fine, Epic Spell Pen would be nice.
Wizardry VI is pretty irrelevant. Archmagi would be a reasonable (vanilla-flavored) upgrade, but thematically, I would really like to see it replaced or supplemented with something like Power Store (All spells cast while this item is equipped receive an enhancement bonus of -10% spell point cost).
Also, replace the colorless slot with a blue or green slot to spice this up a bit.

This is a "holy grail" item for casters and it should remain best in slot among epics. Ideally it would complement the epic Green Blade and/or epic Staff of Arcane Power without overlapping attributes.
The Epic Torc of Prince Rayium-de II needs zero changes. It is absolutely amazing the way it is currently itemized.

[Cyr]

Obvious upgrades like Epic Devotion IV and Archmagi won't be enough to get paladins to wear this over a Torc. This deserves some sort of Sacred bonus that's amazing but requires it to remain equipped (instead of swapping out for a Torc after Archmagi no longer matters). I don't know what that amazing effect should be though. I'm hoping Junts or one of his paladin devotees will suggest something fitting.


Holy Strike: Your weapons gain 2d6 good damage per hit. This applies to melee, unarmed, and ranged weapons.

[ORIGINALBAG0]

Holy Strike: Your weapons gain 2d6 good damage per hit. This applies to melee, unarmed, and ranged weapons.

OG broken. In the best way. Hello, red augment crystal of metalline shenanigans and ESoS; goodbye, every other weapon mattering at all.

[sephiroth1084]

The Epic Torc of Prince Rayium-de II needs zero changes. It is absolutely amazing the way it is currently itemized.
Agreed. It's best in slot on its normal version. Improving it to epic gives it, notably, a 2-level improvement in Spell Penetration and a colorless slot. That's pretty good. The bonuses aren't the most competitive, but most casters are going to be wearing the normal version all the time anyway, so the extras don't need to be a big improvement.

[Cyr]

The Epic Torc of Prince Rayium-de II needs zero changes. It is absolutely amazing the way it is currently itemized.

Agreed the Torc needs no upgrade. I wouldn't object to an upgrade, but it is far from the top of the list of needing an upgrade.

Now that said if it was to remain the top dog item when other items were given it's transform kinetic energy power, which they really should be with epic items, I would say the power store option would be very logical in place of the wizardry...in fact, I could think of a few caster oriented epic items that could use transform kinetic energy (note powers with the same name don't stack).

[Monkey_Archer]

How would this be behind the upgrade?

Epic Torc:
Greater Spell Pen VIII
Transform Kinetic Energy
Wizardry VI
Colorless slot

Epic Hruvayah's:
Spell Pen IX
(add Transform Kinetic Energy)
Green slot

So, it lacks Wiz VI, which comes on plenty of other items (or better as Wiz VII or Archmagi), and trades Greater SP VIII for SP IX, and has the much better Green slot.

Honestly, if Hruvayah's got TKE, it would be much better than the Epic Torc and would be much easier to acquire.

Greater spell pen 8 is much better then spell pen 9... spell pen 9 is rarely useful except for maybe enchantment archmages who spam mass holds. Not to mention its fairly easy to slot spell pen 9 in other places (eardweller, purple ioun stone, epic shamans band, epic greenblade) while greater spell pen 8 is only available on the torc and DT. In fact, greater spell pen 8 is the only thing preventing me from finally dropping DT altogether for the much better other epic robes available, so using a hruvayah's medallion instead of torc would cost me 2 slots (neck/armor) instead of 1 epic torc with the occasional trinket or ring swap if i really needed spell pen 9.

I agree the green slot is fairly valuable (and could be dropped entirely or changed to colorless), but i dont think it beats wizardry VI + colorless alone... which just leaves taint of evil vs no taint of evil...

[Illiain]

FVS dont need heavy armor proficiency: if you arent a melee-oriented fvs, the vambraces have no drawback and are all upside.


Not all melee FvS are WF. There are quite a few elven Undying Court scimitar TWFers. Since elves have few melee AP choices, they can easily fit in the AoV enhancements along with the full smiting/smiting crit line. Making it a medium armor would give an undispelable bonus to spell damage and still allow them to melee without penalty.

[Junts]

Not all melee FvS are WF. There are quite a few elven Undying Court scimitar TWFers. Since elves have few melee AP choices, they can easily fit in the AoV enhancements along with the full smiting/smiting crit line. Making it a medium armor would give an undispelable bonus to spell damage and still allow them to melee without penalty.

Unfortunately, that would also ruin it for paladin ac builds.

in any case, nearly all undying court twf scimitar builds are /2 monk because the feats don't work out without the splash.

[Junts]

Greater spell pen 8 is much better then spell pen 9... spell pen 9 is rarely useful except for maybe enchantment archmages who spam mass holds. Not to mention its fairly easy to slot spell pen 9 in other places (eardweller, purple ioun stone, epic shamans band, epic greenblade) while greater spell pen 8 is only available on the torc and DT. In fact, greater spell pen 8 is the only thing preventing me from finally dropping DT altogether for the much better other epic robes available, so using a hruvayah's medallion instead of torc would cost me 2 slots (neck/armor) instead of 1 epic torc with the occasional trinket or ring swap if i really needed spell pen 9.

I agree the green slot is fairly valuable (and could be dropped entirely or changed to colorless), but i dont think it beats wizardry VI + colorless alone... which just leaves taint of evil vs no taint of evil...


Who are you kidding? Enegy drain and wail are probably the most frequently cast sr-checking spells in the game now, and bot hare level 9.

And mass hold is stilli n the top 5.

Your epic hyrvus is a better item than the epic torc.

[LordPiglet]

First, thanks for this!

Second, most of your suggestions sound pretty reasonably decent.

Third ... I, of course, have some feedback ;-)

(1) Explorer items dropping complete ... ugh. I'd hate that because they'd only drop BTC and it invalidates hours and hours and hours of work by lots of folks. Maybe if they dropped BTA or BTA, BTC on equip?

(2) Sting - how about a poison DoT?

BTA with BTC on equipped? Or BTC on equip but marked as non-sellable (so they don't show up on the market)

[Monkey_Archer]

Who are you kidding? Enegy drain and wail are probably the most frequently cast sr-checking spells in the game now, and bot hare level 9.

And mass hold is stilli n the top 5.

Your epic hyrvus is a better item than the epic torc.

If wail with it's 30 second cooldown is the most frequently cast spell you're doing something wrong...
Energy drain would be a wasted spell slot even on a wizard if there were more useful level 9 spells to choose from. Enervate alone is usually enough on any single target (unless your dc sucks) and circle/symbol of death are much more useful now then single target neg leveling.

My point is that an epic torc frees your DT armor slot up for epic red scale, robe of fire, etc... Hruvayahs does not.
If it weren't for the extremely broken raid scroll drop rates, an epic torc might actually be easier to acquire then hruvayahs....

[Junts]

If wail with it's 30 second cooldown is the most frequently cast spell you're doing something wrong...
Energy drain would be a wasted spell slot even on a wizard if there were more useful level 9 spells to choose from. Enervate alone is usually enough on any single target (unless your dc sucks) and circle/symbol of death are much more useful now then single target neg leveling.

My point is that an epic torc frees your DT armor slot up for epic red scale, robe of fire, etc... Hruvayahs does not.
If it weren't for the extremely broken raid scroll drop rates, an epic torc might actually be easier to acquire then hruvayahs....

I'm confused what you're playing. No wizard I know has a spellslot for enervation - sopmething about everything from acid rain to ice storm to negative nergy burst and death aura all being on the same level. Maybe an archmage? Even so many of them like fireshield, dimension door, and stoneskin .. we just listed 8 spells at a single level that are worth casting.

Symbol of death is atrociously worthless. Its 1 negative level per entry into the area. I'd love to see you demonstrate actually kiting mobs in and out of it fast enough for the negative levels to be worthwhile when epic mobs regenerate a neg level every 6 seconds. Similarly, the neg level effect on circle is terrible, even though the spell is good, unless you follwo it up by immediately casting a wail (and you are best off keeping the two separated by 10-12 seconds i ncooldown). Both of these spells use necrotic ray's 1 negative level and not a 1d4 .. didn't you notice?

You might also be neglecting the fact that wail/circle are so good that most sorcs also cast them in between nuking opr prior toi nuking, and that energy drain+hold is a great awy to incapacitate a now-immune-t-death orange named boss to nuke it to death. Even the nukiest nuke sorc is still casting wails every 25 seconds. There's zero worthwhile level 9 spells for them to take otherwise, unless they're fire, and no one is fire right now. In fact, energy drain is actually the best single-target damage spell in the game, as 5 negative levels on average is 45% of a mob's hit points. The best way to nuke an epic oranged named boss to death is still to energy drain it once or twice first - the first two energy drains will do far, far more damage than any single spellcasting would deal, and while the saving throw penalties rapidly are removed, the hit points lost never are. Any mob with at least 5000 hp is in this category, which is pretty much every orange named mob in epic.

The substitutes for using energy drain as a source of neg level effect are pretty thin.

You're a smart caster player I think highly of, so you must be reading the spell descriptions and not actually trying them out, because they don't function as advertised, and there are a lot of misconceptions about the negative levels on symbol and circle of death.

[Rydin_Dirtay]

Epic Dynastic Falcata

Note that this weapon is currently Charisma based for attack and damage. It's the best option for an extreme Charisma character to use against Demons, but this is an ultra-narrow niche, and most Cha-based characters (mainly Spellsingers) won't be proficient with the Khopesh and will struggle with the -4 To-Hit. In addition, even if you find a build with the Cha to use this weapon well, its main damage mutation (Axiomatic Burst) works only on the minority of foes that are Chaotic.

Suggested change:
Change To-Hit and Damage modifier to be the higher of Cha and Str.
Change Adamantine to Cold Iron (as Adamantine DR isn't found on any important foe that Axiomatic Burst works on, but Cold Iron DR is). Upgrade base damage to 3d10.
With a good augment (or a +7 augment in the hands of a capstone Paladin), this will be a significant upgrade over a Mineral 2 Khopesh against DR Demons such as Lailat (and other chaotic foes), and with that base damage, it will be acceptable against non-chaotic, non-lawful foes.

Do you think that having this item add, "Exotic Weapon Prof: Khopesh" would make it too powerful?

This would make it a nice Spellsinger weapon as well. Although I suppose even with -4 to hit, a capstone Spellsinger will still have a CHA in the high-30's range, which would give a fair amount of to-hit...

[Lycurgus]

Upgrading the epic torc wouldn't be entirely out of line. Many, if not most, players would think twice about making the base item epic unless they were absolutely certain the toon was never going to be tr-ed again. Same could be said for several of the raid items.

[Monkey_Archer]

I'm confused what you're playing. No wizard I know has a spellslot for enervation - sopmething about everything from acid rain to ice storm to negative nergy burst and death aura all being on the same level. Maybe an archmage? Even so many of them like fireshield, dimension door, and stoneskin .. we just listed 8 spells at a single level that are worth casting.

Im playing an enchantment archmage with secondary necro (necro SLAs are worthless) so i dont have level 4 issues at all... but even a palemaster should be able to fit in enervate (Burst, Aura, enervate, firewall or icestorm depending on quest, then 1 swap spot). Fireshield, ddoor and especially stoneskin are usually a waste of sp and can easily be scrolled (or swapped in just for certain heavy use quests)



Symbol of death is atrociously worthless. Its 1 negative level per entry into the area. I'd love to see you demonstrate actually kiting mobs in and out of it fast enough for the negative levels to be worthwhile when epic mobs regenerate a neg level every 6 seconds. Similarly, the neg level effect on circle is terrible, even though the spell is good, unless you follwo it up by immediately casting a wail (and you are best off keeping the two separated by 10-12 seconds i ncooldown). Both of these spells use necrotic ray's 1 negative level and not a 1d4 .. didn't you notice?
Symbol of death is 1 only neg per pass, but circle of death is in fact d4 as the description says.

I agree symbol is very weak, but its not worthless. The key is to use both on large groups of mobs. While the single negs are useless by themselves, after a circle of death fails and does d4 negs, the symbol can be used to basically maintain the mobs neg-leveled state to be followed up by a wail (which could be 12 seconds later, but thanks to the symbol, assuming you can manage 2 passes, those mobs haven't lost any of the negs inflicted by the circle)



You might also be neglecting the fact that wail/circle are so good that most sorcs also cast them in between nuking opr prior toi nuking, and that energy drain+hold is a great awy to incapacitate a now-immune-t-death orange named boss to nuke it to death. Even the nukiest nuke sorc is still casting wails every 25 seconds. There's zero worthwhile level 9 spells for them to take otherwise, unless they're fire, and no one is fire right now. In fact, energy drain is actually the best single-target damage spell in the game, as 5 negative levels on average is 45% of a mob's hit points. The best way to nuke an epic oranged named boss to death is still to energy drain it once or twice first - the first two energy drains will do far, far more damage than any single spellcasting would deal, and while the saving throw penalties rapidly are removed, the hit points lost never are. Any mob with at least 5000 hp is in this category, which is pretty much every orange named mob in epic.

I take my nuking seriously on my sorc, which mean disintegrate and meteor swarm are must have spells... which means no room for circle or wail. (chain, ottilukes, discintegrate / meteor, masshold, PWK) I suppose i could drop PWK, but i prefer it... and other then that, any other swap would negatively effect my nuking...
I also completely disagree with mixing instant death while nuking (unless its circle of death cast before nuking for the pre-neg level damage) because generally on a sorc your necro dc will not be high enough to land often enough, and dropping a couple mobs eairly in a group of 10 or so doesnt help at all. You will still need to cast just as many nuke spells to finish them off whether you manged to wail a couple halfway or not.
As for neg leveling orange names to death, that can still be done by cycling the enervate spell with enervate scrolls.

[sephiroth1084]

Greater spell pen 8 is much better then spell pen 9... spell pen 9 is rarely useful except for maybe enchantment archmages who spam mass holds. Not to mention its fairly easy to slot spell pen 9 in other places (eardweller, purple ioun stone, epic shamans band, epic greenblade) while greater spell pen 8 is only available on the torc and DT. In fact, greater spell pen 8 is the only thing preventing me from finally dropping DT altogether for the much better other epic robes available, so using a hruvayah's medallion instead of torc would cost me 2 slots (neck/armor) instead of 1 epic torc with the occasional trinket or ring swap if i really needed spell pen 9.As has been said already, Mass Hold, Wail and Energy Drain are frequently used lvl 9 spells that all allow for SR. Yeah, there are other options for SP IX, but the Eardweller is competing with Litany and a few other good trinkets. Plus, the Eardweller is Minor SP IX. Shaman's Band is a good source, but has some (weak) competition in the ring slot. The Epic Greenblade is probably the best of the bunch, but can't be used if you're wielding any of the raid or epic two-handers, with at least a few of those being good enough to warrant holding onto.



I agree the green slot is fairly valuable (and could be dropped entirely or changed to colorless), but i dont think it beats wizardry VI + colorless alone... which just leaves taint of evil vs no taint of evil... Given how many other items Wiz VI or better appears on, I definitely feel that a green slot easily beats Wiz VI + colorless. The taint is of little consequence, as most casters have no reason to be good aligned in the first place.

Ultimately, Spell Pen IX and Greater Spell Pen VIII are pretty close. Certainly close enough for the Hruvayah's to be much better when it gets TKE and a green slot in addition.

Personally, I find it difficult enough to fit one spell pen item into my gear, let alone two, and I'd rather lose 1 point on my level 8 and lower spells than two points on my level 9s. Giving Hruvayah's TKE puts it in a category where the players who are of my line of thinking will go with Hryuvayah's, whereas those of your line will go Torc, and a rather mediocre quest item shouldn't be posing such stiff competition for a raid item, and certainly not one of the most sought after raid items in the game.

That said, I would like to see TKE appear elsewhere, kind of, though I admit that sticking it on anything else tramples all over the exclusivity of the item, and I think it's ok for some items to maintain a unique effect.

Some else's idea to use the spell discount from the Staff of the Petitioner (-10% SP cost) on some epic items looks pretty good. Stick that on Hruvayah's. Competitive with the Torc, but on a different basis, and even makes it worthwhile to upgrade and carry both of them.

[Junts]

Im playing an enchantment archmage with secondary necro (necro SLAs are worthless) so i dont have level 4 issues at all... but even a palemaster should be able to fit in enervate (Burst, Aura, enervate, firewall or icestorm depending on quest, then 1 swap spot). Fireshield, ddoor and especially stoneskin are usually a waste of sp and can easily be scrolled (or swapped in just for certain heavy use quests)


Symbol of death is 1 only neg per pass, but circle of death is in fact d4 as the description says.

I agree symbol is very weak, but its not worthless. The key is to use both on large groups of mobs. While the single negs are useless by themselves, after a circle of death fails and does d4 negs, the symbol can be used to basically maintain the mobs neg-leveled state to be followed up by a wail (which could be 12 seconds later, but thanks to the symbol, assuming you can manage 2 passes, those mobs haven't lost any of the negs inflicted by the circle)



I take my nuking seriously on my sorc, which mean disintegrate and meteor swarm are must have spells... which means no room for circle or wail. (chain, ottilukes, discintegrate / meteor, masshold, PWK) I suppose i could drop PWK, but i prefer it... and other then that, any other swap would negatively effect my nuking...
I also completely disagree with mixing instant death while nuking (unless its circle of death cast before nuking for the pre-neg level damage) because generally on a sorc your necro dc will not be high enough to land often enough, and dropping a couple mobs eairly in a group of 10 or so doesnt help at all. You will still need to cast just as many nuke spells to finish them off whether you manged to wail a couple halfway or not.
As for neg leveling orange names to death, that can still be done by cycling the enervate spell with enervate scrolls.

A 40 dc is plenty high enough to get 1/4 to 1/2 of the mobs in any given epic trash pack.

I never suggested actually neg leveling the mobs to death - I suggested neg leveling them once or twice before nukin g them because its extremely synergistic when the mobs have extremely high hit points (like orange named bosses). the first energy drain will nerf their reflex save by 10 while also halving the hp you have to remove, allowing you to follow up with a hold, power word: stun or other incapacitation effect and, if you want, easily killing them with nothing but your SLAs! This is a lot cheaper than any other alternative nuking approach to these monsters, and if you don't care about conserving the SP, doing the same thing but then casting polar ray/chain lightning will end the mob much more rapidly than omitting the energy drain first.

I think meteor swarm is a terrible spell, even if you intend to be fire specced, but thats another story. I've never been able to get more than 3 meteors per casting out of it, and any spell that slows me down when I cast it while jumping is a complete and utter waste of my time and mana, to say nothing of deadly while soloing. I'll also point out the spell often loses another meteor or two if cast while in midair. I can't express my distaste for meteor swarm when cast by a sorceror - generally, any spell that slows you down in the course of casting it had better be a persistent aoe cc effect that you can featherfall into while casting it. Meteor swarm could do 50d6 damage like acid rain and I'd probably still hate the spell due to its inherent lack of maneuverability. A spell cast when not in midair is a spell cast wrongly.

Considering you listed chain lightning (and I am an air savant), and knowing of its 5 target limited, I'm surprised you claim the size of the pack doesn't matter, since a smaller pack makes chainlightning a much better spell to cast (and since it's my best spell, its important to optimize its effectiveness). Further, wail has another added benefit: it cuts down on the damage you take while nuking by thinning out the mob pack. This makes maneuvering easier and makes it easier to keep all the mobs clumped closely enough that ball lightnings/otilukes/etc will actually hit every one of them, and that electric loops can daze most of them.

I personally run air with ice as my 2nd element, as cold provides 4 things I was looking for (now down to 3): Polar ray for evasion stuff I can't force to not evade via helplessness, Niac's Biting Cold for overwhelming single-target DPS, Otiluke's freezing sphere to provide a worthwhile AOE effect vs electric immune or highly-resistant targets (like epic tieflings with 80% lightning absorption in chrono and devil assault), and ice storm. I've since dropped ice storm completely (and also disintegrate, which I found worthless on a character with polar ray/chain lightning/sla lightning bolts), but the other 3 are worth their weight in gold, and much better than anything I was offered in my initial spec (air + fire). Further, leaving fire allows you to use web as an effective form of crowd control (as you dont evaporate you own CC), and frees up a spellslot you can spend on Dancing Sphere as another effective form of CC that is highly synergistic with nuking (things that are dancing recieve -10 reflex save). I routinely solo epic claws killing everything for scrolls, and I have found that the ideal size of a mob pack is about 10-12 mobs. When I pull 15-20 at once, it becomes impossible to reliably hit them all with my aoe spells and I end up casting as many, if not more, spells to deal with them, to say nothing of spending more time healing myself because the likelihood of them rolling 20s and breaking out of webs or whatever other cc I'm using is much higher iwth so many opportunities.

I have a 38-40 dc in necro spells and I have no spell focus feats (other than arcane initiate). I have no problem landing my necromancy effects and find it much better than my overwhelmingly powerful nuking in quite a few quests where mobs are not grouped up or are inconvenient to group up in large numbers. I do duo scroll runs of epic chronoscope with palemasters and rarely even cast damaging spells and keep up with them in killcount quite easily. Prior to the orange named change, I didn't even activate my spelldamage clickies because it was more effective to kill everything with my instadeath spells, despite, again, the fact that my spec into necromancy consists of arcane initiate, having a charisma score, and a staff of the petitioner. When I tried to nuke as my primary source of killing, I would kill 35-45 mobs on 3 shrines while the palemasters/necro archmagi killed 55-70. Playing entirely instadeath, I would run 50-65 kills in that same span. Those kill numbers are down across the board now that the orange named devils require more mana to remove, but its still true that it's far more effective for me to kill many epic traash with instadeath as opposed to nuking. I routinely run 100-130 kills in an epic devil assault run and don't cast any nuking spells whatsoever except when targetting the 3 red named bosses. Its much more mana-efficient killing and it doesnt require a 45 dc to be effective. A wail that kills 1/2 of the monsters is extremely effective, and I actually dropped disintegrate for circle of death specifically because this was far, far more often relevant than the limited amount of mobs on whom disintegrate is more effective than polar ray or chainlightning.

I'll note that most of my guildie archmagi have concluded that the best archmage spec is necro2/enchant1 with no necro SLAs and just hypno from enchantment - its a huge free SP boost that brings the archmagi up near to some sorcs (2500-2600 sp), and outside of the hypnotism debuff, none of the SLAs are worth the lost spell points.

[Sebastrd]

I always thought that these should replicate the effects mummy's bring to bear more closely:
-Fear Aura: causes either the sort of paralysis-by-fear effect (no running away...treat it as something like the weapon effect, Paralyze, as a guard), or Shaken on a save.
-Mummy Rot Guard - turns off ability to be healed and causes stat damage.
-Slay Living Guard


I'm pretty sure you mean Despair, and that was my first thought as well.

[Monkey_Archer]

I think meteor swarm is a terrible spell, even if you intend to be fire specced, but thats another story. I've never been able to get more than 3 meteors per casting out of it, and any spell that slows me down when I cast it while jumping is a complete and utter waste of my time and mana, to say nothing of deadly while soloing. I'll also point out the spell often loses another meteor or two if cast while in midair. I can't express my distaste for meteor swarm when cast by a sorceror - generally, any spell that slows you down in the course of casting it had better be a persistent aoe cc effect that you can featherfall into while casting it. Meteor swarm could do 50d6 damage like acid rain and I'd probably still hate the spell due to its inherent lack of maneuverability. A spell cast when not in midair is a spell cast wrongly.
Meteor swarm + disintegrate = max lich dps without any investment into fire. Since the update meteor swarm performs much better on sorcs now.



Considering you listed chain lightning (and I am an air savant), and knowing of its 5 target limited, I'm surprised you claim the size of the pack doesn't matter, since a smaller pack makes chainlightning a much better spell to cast (and since it's my best spell, its important to optimize its effectiveness). Further, wail has another added benefit: it cuts down on the damage you take while nuking by thinning out the mob pack. This makes maneuvering easier and makes it easier to keep all the mobs clumped closely enough that ball lightnings/otilukes/etc will actually hit every one of them, and that electric loops can daze most of them.
Oddly enough, i think chain lightning might be the only level 6 spell i'd drop for circle of death. Ball lightning/Ottilukes/Electric loop is usually more efficient, and when mob sizes are down to <5 its usually time to move on, or drop a mass hold an let the melees + your SLAs clean up whats left.



I personally run air with ice as my 2nd element, as cold provides 4 things I was looking for (now down to 3): Polar ray for evasion stuff I can't force to not evade via helplessness, Niac's Biting Cold for overwhelming single-target DPS, Otiluke's freezing sphere to provide a worthwhile AOE effect vs electric immune or highly-resistant targets (like epic tieflings with 80% lightning absorption in chrono and devil assault), and ice storm. I've since dropped ice storm completely (and also disintegrate, which I found worthless on a character with polar ray/chain lightning/sla lightning bolts), but the other 3 are worth their weight in gold, and much better than anything I was offered in my initial spec (air + fire). Further, leaving fire allows you to use web as an effective form of crowd control (as you dont evaporate you own CC), and frees up a spellslot you can spend on Dancing Sphere as another effective form of CC that is highly synergistic with nuking (things that are dancing recieve -10 reflex save). I routinely solo epic claws killing everything for scrolls, and I have found that the ideal size of a mob pack is about 10-12 mobs. When I pull 15-20 at once, it becomes impossible to reliably hit them all with my aoe spells and I end up casting as many, if not more, spells to deal with them, to say nothing of spending more time healing myself because the likelihood of them rolling 20s and breaking out of webs or whatever other cc I'm using is much higher iwth so many opportunities.

I have a 38-40 dc in necro spells and I have no spell focus feats (other than arcane initiate). I have no problem landing my necromancy effects and find it much better than my overwhelmingly powerful nuking in quite a few quests where mobs are not grouped up or are inconvenient to group up in large numbers. I do duo scroll runs of epic chronoscope with palemasters and rarely even cast damaging spells and keep up with them in killcount quite easily. Prior to the orange named change, I didn't even activate my spelldamage clickies because it was more effective to kill everything with my instadeath spells, despite, again, the fact that my spec into necromancy consists of arcane initiate, having a charisma score, and a staff of the petitioner. When I tried to nuke as my primary source of killing, I would kill 35-45 mobs on 3 shrines while the palemasters/necro archmagi killed 55-70. Playing entirely instadeath, I would run 50-65 kills in that same span. Those kill numbers are down across the board now that the orange named devils require more mana to remove, but its still true that it's far more effective for me to kill many epic traash with instadeath as opposed to nuking. I routinely run 100-130 kills in an epic devil assault run and don't cast any nuking spells whatsoever except when targetting the 3 red named bosses. Its much more mana-efficient killing and it doesnt require a 45 dc to be effective. A wail that kills 1/2 of the monsters is extremely effective, and I actually dropped disintegrate for circle of death specifically because this was far, far more often relevant than the limited amount of mobs on whom disintegrate is more effective than polar ray or chainlightning.

I'll note that most of my guildie archmagi have concluded that the best archmage spec is necro2/enchant1 with no necro SLAs and just hypno from enchantment - its a huge free SP boost that brings the archmagi up near to some sorcs (2500-2600 sp), and outside of the hypnotism debuff, none of the SLAs are worth the lost spell points.
Odd that you're synergizing your sorc with wizards, while im doing the opposite with my wizard for sorcs... Sure instadeath is the most powerful thing going right now, but its somewhat sp limited, and its often slower in many groups when the caster tries to kill everything while melees are taking a beating fighting non-held mobs, waiting for the caster to get to them ;). The hold monster SLA is worth more to me then 500 sp. Sure, I could kill 60+ on 3 shrines, but I could also lock down hundreds of mobs on a single shrine, which is extremely valuable in larger groups or longer quests, especially with dedicated nuke sorcs and high dps melees (the non-piking kind :)).

[LeLoric]

Epic Explorer Area Items


Epic Bracers of the Hunter

A viable alternative to Tharne's Goggles for any melee that values their bracers slot more than they value their goggles slot, or that desparately needs a yellow slot. Such a melee is very rare, as the Epic Bracers of the Claw are best-in-slot for probably 80% of melee builds, and Epic Jidz-Tetka are best in slot for probably half the rest.
Stealth Strike is great for arcane archers, but again only if they can spare the bracers slot.
I can see this item having been designed around the concept of a Deepwood Sniper (stealth/archery hybrid PrE that isn't viable at the moment in game).

Suggested change:
Upgrade the Sneak Attack bonus from +5/+8 to +6/+9 so this can better compete with the min level 13 Tharne's Goggles. Or, leave it as-is, but when Deepwood Sniper is finished, revisit the item then to make it an uber DWS item.

Id like to see the reflex save changed to epic save +3 here. There is no item with it and the other saves have them it seems a good place and the +5 reflex save is often wasted.

Epic Gloves of the Falcon

Solid two-slot item that competes with the three better sets of Epic gloves.

Suggested change:
Upgrade Heightened Awareness 2 to 4. This would give Monk AC tank builds a way to avoid being pushed into using kamas, shortswords or longswords (all awful weapons).

+2 exc dex wouldnt overpower this in any way but increase it's usefulness too.

Epic Mirage

This weapon has one of the best crit profiles in the game (a smidgen ahead of Khopeshes due to scaling better with Seeker). However, it's still quite a long way behind Greensteel Khopeshes in DPS output.

Suggested change:
Word association time: Mirage - Oasis. Oasis - Fire, Water, Earth and Air all in one place (fire being the midday sun). Fire, Water, Earth and Air - Elemental Mastery (that awful Shroud proc).
For that reason, I suggest adding "Epic Elemental Mastery: On-hit proc, 3% proc rate, deals 50d6 Fire + 50d6 Cold + 50d6 Acid + 50d6 Electric damage. (Average 700 damage per proc, 21 damage per hit, but this is hammered by resistances/immunities, and will occasionally be reduced by being 'overkill')

Against foes without elemental resistances, this would put eMirage level with a Lit2 Khopesh in DPS output, however, the eMirage would also provide better to-hit, Sneak Attack 4 (possibly freeing up an item), and Deception and Improved Cursespewing for utility effects, making it a better general purpose weapon (albeit not better in all circumstances).


I'd prefer an upgraded elemental mastery effect to do 3d6 25% chance per hit like the old one. Large procs are really common and having too many leaves you waiting around for a proc. This would provide more average dmg per hit than your idea but would also be much more susceptible to resistance.

Epic Mummy Wrappings

Fearsome is useful if and only if you are soloing, and even then it is annoying.

Suggested change:
In the spirit of bad things happening to foes that attack you, replace Fearsome with any two of the negative-energy aligned Shroud guards, perhaps Corrosive Salt Guard and Disintegration Guard, or for two that have a nasty synergy, Enervation Guard and Trap the Soul Guard.

I still like the idea of a despair type guard effect causing mummy despair instead of eveything running around stupidly. Either of these choices would be good though.


Epic Vulkoorim Pendant

Back when the cap was 12, Devotion and Nullification effects were both used by a large number of Clerics (as Harm was then considered an excellent DPS spell for Wisdom-based Divines).
Now, however, Divines aren't the ones that cast negative energy spells, and Nullification is now a Pale Master oriented mutation.
As such, this really is an item without a home.

Suggested change:
Replace the Nullification effects with Epic Nullification 7 (60%). Add Concordant Opposition (as this is an item that deals with both positive and negative energy). It will be mostly a Pale Master item (and less appealing in general than the Torc), but may have some appeal to the odd divine caster that wants to spam Harm for old times' sake.

Not that it matters much as it's pretty weak on the tod set but this would negate any use for the tier II tod set bonus on a pale master. I'd prefer a better tod set bonus but if it stays as is then this item is probably a bad choice negating that raid sets bonus.


Epic Weathered Targe

An epic shield without epic AC potential. I had all of the pieces for this item and made it on a level 12 I seldom play just to get the pieces out of my ingredients bags.

Suggested change:
Again, this is more an issue with the weakness of shields (particularly small shields) rather than the actual stats on the item. This wouldn't be a bad spot to add a non-ring source of Lightning Absorb 33%.


For Shield using tanks this is bad yes. However I recently made one for my PM and love it. The lack of any ASF is a big plus. Using this has me considering using two feats to be able to get shield mastery on it. Granted the Epic Kundarak shield could do the same thing when slotted. Maybe this would be a good place to grant Shield mastery feat. For ac tanks it is not a great item but it would give some of those feat starved tanks a chance to actually get the use of the feat at the cost of trading out some ac.

Epic Zephyr

Awful damage output and no ability to break two-component DR (except with unsustainable Devil Assault augments) make this is a very weak weapon. Extreme Dex characters built around this weapon's 'Dex to both attack and damage' have no alternative weapons for DR bosses other than the Epic Staff of Nat Gann.
For users with medium Str and high Dex, the Epic Cuthroat's Smallblade is leaps and bounds ahead of this weapon. By my rough calculations, this holds even if their Dex is 20 points higher than their Str.

Suggested change:
Note that this will look like I'm going overboard, however, I've run DPS calculations and can assure you, the results aren't as ridiculous as they might look.
Add Metalline (so max-Dex characters can use this as their main DPS weapon on 'almost everything')
Increase enhancement bonus to +9
Upgrade base damage to 4d6
Add Heightened Awareness 4
Add Seeker 6
Even with all of those improvements to DPS, it's still ~12% behind a Lit 2 khopesh wielded by a player with Strength equal to your Dexterity that uses no Seeker item (and close to the DPS of a Mineral 2 khopesh with Heightened Awareness 4). However, this gives high AC dual-wielding Finesse builds a viable DPS weapon for endgame and may help revitalise the 'Dexploiter' builds that players experimented with for a while after the level cap hit 20.

Some good options here. Alternate stat modified items need to have some way to break dr or the whole plan goes out the window this helps. Curious if on this and other weapons youve made dps calcs for are you factoring in the full ability mod on offhand versus a str item only getting .5 str? Giving a couple of dex to hit and dmg items would be kinda nice however with this and the midnight greetongs one would probably have to have keen .



Overall I like most of your suggestions Sirgog. I posted a few opinions in red above with some alternate solutions that I think may be better but good work overall.

[Mister_Peace]

Mirage - shouldn't this have some illusion effect, rather than elemental damage?
add Radiance and Radiance Guard.

[Junts]

I can't tell you the last time I fought a lich or cared to. You still solo epic wk all the time, I guess? I can see keeping it for that reason .. except that disintegrate doesn't work on raiyum either. You still running abbot for your litany?

I'd agree there are times that cc is called for - and I'd further point out that web/sphere + wail is a lot better way to spend your sp and assist the melees than spamming nukes is in general, and that it's still effective even if it doesn't kill everything because .. hey, they're there to kill the stuff that saves.

[Auran82]

I could be wrong, but doesn't the epic bow of the elements Air have the same 19-20 crit profile as thornlord?

[sirdanile]

Its actually not ahead of the ls2 for the majority of ranged builds. It requires a certain amount of base damage to be better then the ls2 which is fairly challenging to attain.

If my really outdated calcs are still right it was something like +55 or 60 bonus damage... which on a ranger is ridiculously high even against favored enemies, a kensai AA could pull it off though and a really old crit rage bowbarian could (and has) as well.

[oradafu]

Epic Adherent's Pendant

Currently totally useless, this item appears designed for a paladin that wants to frequently use spells to heal. However, such a paladin doesn't function without the Torc of Raiyum perma-equipped.

Suggested change:
Mostly taking this from Leloric's suggestions. Remove the action boost enhancement. Add 1-2 uses per rest of Lay on Hands (if and only if this can be coded in a way that doesn't have a negative interaction with item swapping). Upgrade Sup Dev 4 to Epic Dev 4 (60%). Add a 1/rest clicky that recovers 20 SP per level of Paladin you have.
Even with all of that, it would still be inferior to the (non-epic) Torc, but at least it would be useful to the builds it is designed for.



Obvious upgrades like Epic Devotion IV and Archmagi won't be enough to get paladins to wear this over a Torc. This deserves some sort of Sacred bonus that's amazing but requires it to remain equipped (instead of swapping out for a Torc after Archmagi no longer matters). I don't know what that amazing effect should be though. I'm hoping Junts or one of his paladin devotees will suggest something fitting.


I like the idea of adding more Lay On Hands to a Paladin item. I've been suggesting that there should be items for Paladins that increase the number of Lay On Hands or Smites. I also agree it should only be added if it doesn't go all glitchy.

I don't know how well this will go over, but how about adding some effect on this item to treat Paladins as if they are a level 5 caster. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of anything in the Paladin's arsenal of spells that would make this overpowered. Most Paladin spells are buffs are capped so they wouldn't get stronger and just extend the time of these buffs a bit. Also Cure spells would get slight boost. I'm sure if I'm forgetting something that would make this overpowered then it'll be pointed out.

Something I would like to see added to it would be Feat:Mobile Spellcasting. However, I doubt that will happen.


Holy Strike: Your weapons gain 2d6 good damage per hit. This applies to melee, unarmed, and ranged weapons.

If extra damage to weapons were added, I'd prefer a Lawful Strike--1d6 damage to non-Lawful targets. As Sirgog pointed out though, this seems more of an item to boost the spellcasting/healing aspect of the Paladin, even if it has the Lesser Action Boost on it.

Another thing I would do if alot of these changes are made is to raise the UMD. The stronger the item gets, the higher the UMD, I think.

[Junts]

On the adheren'ts pendant and healing in general:

For nonepic content, you will not replace the torc but b y having another transform kinetic energy item

I could see using the proiposed extra-loh item in some epic quests where I dont take enough physical damage for the torc to add, but evne when the torc isnt sustainably infinite ()like it is in all non-epic questing), its still worth a buable or more in mana per quest. Putting the bauble clicky on it and an etra loh would get me to think about it, yes. But why wouldnt I just use the torc and swap to it for the clicky>

[sirgog]

A few changes made based on feedback, and mistakes that have been pointed out.

[Illiain]

Unfortunately, that would also ruin it for paladin ac builds.

in any case, nearly all undying court twf scimitar builds are /2 monk because the feats don't work out without the splash.

How would making it mithril ruin it for paladin AC builds? It would still retain it's regular armor bonus and it's MDB would go up by 2. It seems like a win for paladins.

Most do splash monk, but some don't, including mine. Making it mithril wouldn't hurt evokers while benefiting melee. We are talking about an epic item, it should be epic instead of just meh.

[Shade]

Epic Golden Greaves

Suggested change:
For convenience sake, upgrade Striding 20% to at least 30%. Consider upgrading the DR to 5/-, or even 6/- if you want this to become a highly sought after item.

I don't see anyone going for that even with a bit more DR. People that want DR, have it as either a class or pre ability.. Or they are fighter type tanks that somehow lack stalwart defender.. Very rare weirdos, and even those would prefer better boots like madstone or epic corrosion, both of which are infinetely easier to get.

Since this slot conflicted with kundarak boots, which provide full on FoM, which covers more spell immunities then this, it needs to be very powerful to compete.
So it should have some effect to make it truely stand out on it's own as an epic. Something unique and powerful.
I'd go:
35% striding
Disease immunitiy, Poison immuntiy, and a new effect:
Stable Mind: This effect renders you immune to the effects of ottos irresistable dance and greater command.
+8 enchantment bonus to saves against other enchantment based spells. (Seems high, but remember the ml13 belt of tongue gives you +6 to all willsaves, and the upcoming ml14 "trace of madness" unlock gives you +10 to will saves.. So high bonuses are available anyways.


Epic Hruvayah's Medallion

Suggested change:
The only thing that comes to mind is considering added Concordant Opposition to the item - it won't be nearly as good at SP recovery as the Torc is, but it will at least soften the blow of losing Transform Kinetic Energy.
Yea agree, that would bring it to the point of being worth the effort at least.


Epic Unkor's Cleaver

I'd go with your option 1.. If it's just getting a boring enhancement bonus increase, it has to be at least +10.. That's what the esos gets, and you agree that desert epics are harder to get, so they should at least match.




Epic Bejewelled Letter Opener

Suggested change:
I'm going to suggest a partial redesign to make this a best-in-slot item for a 'healbot' cleric or favored soul. I wouldn't play one of those builds myself, but they certainly have their fans, and this item is for them. (They'd need to keep it in the offhand).

Keep: +6, 2d4 base damage, Keen, Thundering, Efficient Metamagic: Empower Healing 2, Superior Ardor 7
Remove: Healing Amp 20%, Improved Resonance 7, Red Slot
Add: Superior Healing Lore
Add: "Scroll Augmentation 9: You cast scrolls at +2 caster level." (This means Heal/Reconstruct scrolls hit for a base 130 hp instead of 110, before enhancements and healing amplification).
Just a minor note, you say superior ardor, when it actaully has/should have superior devotion.. So that when your focusing on your scroll healing, you actaully have a reason to keep this in your offhand, being your mainhand has a scroll - you have very little elsewhere to put a permanent devotion item. Also ardor is a clicky, and getting clickies to work in your offhand is a bit of a problem. So yea, sup devotion 8. Not sure why any epics would be limited to 7 anyways. 8 is far more epic, let you use up a 2nd slot for something with a lsser version of 9 for mass heal. Also don't see why the healing amp needs to go, it's a pretty minor effect given how many slots it can go into and that this is a healer item.

Epic Sirroco

I got one and yea it knocks stuff down, but otherwise still sucks imo as it's a very low dmg wep that otherwise doesn't proc that often unless your wield 2 of them, in which case your doing almost no damage. The actual "sirroco" effect should be made epic by removing it's save. It's essentially radiance without the light dmg, so that shouldn't be hard to do, nor overpowered.


Item by item review:

Starting with the Epic Offering of Blood items.

Epic Ancient Vulkoorim Dagger

Despite its poor critical profile and low base damage, this is best-in-slot for the narrow niche of fighting Giants. If a challenging Giant boss (Warlock S'Obrien does not count; neither does the Stormreaver) is ever added to endgame, this weapon will be amazing.
This weapon has a bug - the Epic Giant Bane is displayed in the tooltip without the word 'Epic'. I have one, however, and can confirm the +8/+6d6 works correctly.

Suggested change:
Consider changing Adamantine to Mithril, as there are (IIRC) no Giants with DR/Adamantine, but at least one (the Stormreaver) with DR 20/mithril. If this is done, please preserve the high hardness of this dagger.
But more importantly, finish (and release) Epic Gianthold Tor, so we have three very powerful boss giants to test these on, as well as dozens of ~3000hp giants along the way.
What your suggestion is essentially a nerf to the item.
Giants do indeed possess adamantine DR in epic tor, and in many other places. Why? They cast stoneskin. Frequently. Infact you'll find many already in the game that do, most noticeably giants in tor in regular difficulties, and most ogre magi in quests like ghola fan and most anywhere else you find ogre magi - they actually cast it on everything around them too, not just themself.

While mithril? It's a DR type you never need to break because only 1 enemy has it. and That enemy is the stormreaver, 1 foe in the game where theres absoultely zero advantage to killing him faster, since fast kills obviously fail the raid.

The other giant raidboss, sorjek.. I believe casts stoneskin, tho rarely too. Now none of these are of any challenge right now. But imagine if tor or TS did go epic eventaully (seems unlikely but we can hope), with the uncapped CL on stoneskin.. The ginats in tor? as high as CR46, tahts 460 points.. Very significant.

So it should stay as adamantine. Adding a mithral dr break couldn't hurt, but shouldn't lose its adamantine status, as that would reck its dur/hardness/dr break.

Overall it's a great weapon for what it does, we just lack content to use it on. Plus yea its a dagger, and daggers suck.. But hey, casters and finesse users can even use it, so yea.. We just need more weapons exactly like that, of martial and exotic varities.

Only change I could suggest for it, is to give the "giant slaying" a DC/procrate that may actually land on epic a bit. I'd suggest a 4% chance @ DC50, given epic giants massive fort saves. Would function as near-prepatch vorpal for low fort giants, and rarely for epic ones.

PS: The tor giants had closer to 12,000 hp heh. So if they did the same u9 nerf on them, 6k now. Tho some were oranged named that wouldnt change.

[Junts]

How would making it mithril ruin it for paladin AC builds? It would still retain it's regular armor bonus and it's MDB would go up by 2. It seems like a win for paladins.

Most do splash monk, but some don't, including mine. Making it mithril wouldn't hurt evokers while benefiting melee. We are talking about an epic item, it should be epic instead of just meh.

medium and light armors get less benefit from defender of siberys than heavy armors do.

The vambraces are the best ac plate in the game that isn't either A: a limited event item (cavalry plate) or B: red dragonscale.

It is actually pretty **** nice for that purpose.

[Auran82]

Am I the only person who is annoyed to no when when epic necklaces are discussed as options for fighter/barbarians and what is always brought up (and rightfully so) that it is competing with the shintao set necklace? A necklace with +15 concentration and +6 con that they already have in at least one other item slot.

Personally I think it would be nice to either see that set bonus changed (and this is from someone who has 3 characters with the ring, a monk and 2 other non-monk melee) or the bonuses be available from other (preferably epic) items. Not necessarily at the same time, but having +2 damage or +2 attack of the same bonus type elsewhere would give characters more options for gear and would in a way make some items 'better' by proxy.

Looking forward to the review of the raid items, especially (personally) the Sandstorm Glasses and Seal of the earth, which could do with some love (especially the glasses)

[Shade]

More original ideas:

Epic Xuum:
I was actually the first one to make this weapon gamewide, and really enjoyed it for the time.. Shortly before the esos existed, it was simply the ultimate DPS weapon. Today on khyber, there are still extremely few around. Probably under 5 due to the rarity.
But now it's been eclipsed by the ESoS in pretty much every way, which is too bad since its by far the rarer weapon. I might be a bit biased since I actually have both those weps on my main char, but I really wish there was a point to be using the xuum.. As right now, even vs trolls 120% fire weakness/regen shutoff, it kills slower then the esos.

Some suggestions were up base damage - but if you add enough that would just put me back where I was before - esos in my pack is now useless. Or 2 red slots for DR breaking, but I think that doesn't fit the theme of the weapon.. Since most things that need 2 DR types are immune to fire.

So to me, the solution is not just a base damage increase to compete with esos everywhere.. But rather just make it the ultimate fire damage weapon so it has it's use, without rendering the ESoS useless.

Suggested upgrade:
The 2d8 base is ok.
Enhancement bonus should go to +7 just due to the incredible rarity of the wep, for the extra hit bonus. And to let use play with the red slot.
Crit profile - already best in the game, keep.
Fire damage:
Right now it's worse then your ml12 triple fire GS. Lets fix that.
Enhancements should be:
Flaming
Flaming burst
Flaming blast
Greater Incineration
Imbue Elemental Weakness: Fire. This should work just like the savant ability, but stack with it. Works automatically on a vorpal strike. (20 + confirm) 15% vulnerability to fire for 30 seconds.

This would leave the weapon still behind the ESoS in terms of raw damage, but make it ideal for foes weak to fire, and especially useful if your grouping with casters using fire spells. Being so many foes are immune to fire at endgame, it deserves this large boost to fire damage output.


Epic Whirlwind
Desert rare.. Maybe 1 exists on all of Khyber. Never seen the shard in 200+ Epic DQ2, and ~50+ DQ1s.
Given it's insane rarity, it should be the best greatswordi n the game imo, better then the esos. Tho since it's got some utiility with the telekentic, instead of just going raw dmg tryign to beat the sos, I think it should be slightly less, but offer the ultimate DR breaking.. As Valindria suggested for the epic xuum - dual red slots. (fits the theme of this weapon better imo as the Ultimate rarest sword ever)
My suggested version:

Base: 4d6 + 10
Crit: Standard (19-20)
Multiplier: up to 3x - should be the minimum for any epic two hander.
Epic Thundering: 3d8 sonic per hit, 5d8 per crit for x3 multplier (-/+ 1d8 for other multipliers)
Epic Telekentic
Epic Thunderclap (Like the madlewts thunderclap, natural 20 only, but instead no saves on the effects and varied duration:
Stun - 4 seconds - helpless
Knockdown - 8 seconds, standard knockdown, DC40 balance to get up
Disorient - for players i believe this effect blinds you sorta.. For mobs i dont think it even works. Well make it a simply dex/ac penalty, say -10 dex, -2ac. And work on bosses too. Duration: 15 seconds
Dual red slots.

Remove some of the weak clutter to make it look less messy with a million weak enchantments:
Smoke skeen (meh real two handed users get this elsewhere)
Screaming/Thundering (combined into a better effect above)
Air Guard (eh again lots of other slots to fill it if u really want it)

This would make the weapon the ultimate DR breaker for 1 enemy type, if you spend the insane amount of time/effort to get/upgrade the thing.. (Years to get the thing, then 50+ tokens worth of uprades)
As well as the highest base ideal damage weapon for mobs with 100% fort that sonic dmg works on (which is most enemies cept skeletons due to blunt dr)
But behind the ESoS in raw power for critable mobs, since it's 17-20/x3 vs 15-20/x3 and lower base.

PS:
Epic weapons in general.. Should look epic.
Right now they look exactly the same as the non epic version. This is particularly disapoint with ones like ESoS.. Given that some lvl20s use the lvl10 version, you might see someone holding it at lvl20, and really not know thats an epic weapon.. Yet if they wear say redscale, you know for sure they are an epic caliber player. Would be nice to know just by a quick glance at their weapon.

It doesn't even need to be a unique model/texture or anything.. Just not the same as the very commonly used base versions. ESoS in particular just uses a basic lootgen design.

So you could just change them to different lootgen designs, since lvl20 players rarely ever use lootgen.. Just pick an obscure one, and use that for ESoS, and well know what it is when we look.

That or do a quick texture update to the original sword to make it look more menacing, and maybe give the hilt a very slight purply epic look.

Or you could use existing named unique models, and they could look different by mere fact they have different enhancements that give off particle effects..
Example: The terror has a cool unique look.. But it has no particle effect.
So if you made the epic whirlwind use the terro look, along with the sonic particle effect, bam you have a unique looking epic weapon with very little work.

(This actaully already works a bit for the epic antique greataxe, since no one would use the lvl2 version at 20.. Even tho it uses a lootgen model, since it has forceburst that lootgen usually cant have, it looks unique)

[Monkey_Archer]

Epic Sirroco

I've heard this has been improved recently (more accurately, debugged), and Epic Telekinetic is now knocking Epic mobs down frequently. I haven't tested this personally, so I won't suggest anything here yet.

Epic Whirlwind

I believe this recently had its base damage upped to 4d6 and the Epic Telekinetic ability unbugged so that it functions. If this is correct, this weapon is borderline OK - DPS that is low but not derisory, and enough knockdowns to take one foe out of a fight.
Still, devoting a two-handed weapon to crowd control is more of a DPS loss than devoting one weapon on a TWF to crowd control.

Suggested change:
Consider making changes to increase the DPS output - perhaps upgrading the enhancement bonus to +8, and/or upgrading the base damage further to 4d8 or 3d12. Screaming and Thundering add very little damage, especially on a Greatsword.


I'd give both of these weapons a 19-20x3 crit profile. The whirlwind still wouldn't even be close to the xuum or esos in damage, but the utility would give it a purpose. For the sirrocco it would be nice to have at least 1 desirable epic single hander that isnt either a khopesh or limited event weapon.

[waterboytkd]

medium and light armors get less benefit from defender of siberys than heavy armors do.

The vambraces are the best ac plate in the game that isn't either A: a limited event item (cavalry plate) or B: red dragonscale.

It is actually pretty **** nice for that purpose.

What if instead of making it Mithral for those FvS fleshies, it just granted Heavy Armor Proficiency while worn? Now, no problem for FvS, no problem for AC pallies.

[Junts]

I'd give both of these weapons a 19-20x3 crit profile. The whirlwind still wouldn't even be close to the xuum or esos in damage, but the utility would give it a purpose. For the sirrocco it would be nice to have at least 1 desirable epic single hander that isnt either a khopesh or limited event weapon.

The new epic kronzek's qualifies, but I agree and would love for my epic whirlwind, siroccos and xuum to get better.


I think we run a lot of risk in being self-serving in this thread because a lot of us giving feedback have many or most of these items despite their rarity.

[Auran82]

I could be wrong, but doesn't the epic bow of the elements Air have the same 19-20 crit profile as thornlord?

Checked on the DDO Wiki.

http://ddowiki.com/images/Item_EpicBowOfTheElementsAirDescription.jpg

Its still behind the epic thornlord, and is essentially trading +4 damage and +2 on the base enhancement for Shocking Burst and +7 Dex, which still makes is a pretty nice bow.

Don't mind if its upgraded though, pulled a shard the other day so just need to find the **** seal.

[Shade]

I think we run a lot of risk in being self-serving in this thread because a lot of us giving feedback have many or most of these items despite their rarity.

I actually doubt that.

Sure you and me have some of the rarer ones (actually all I have among outside rares is the xuum, bracers of the hunter, and woof whistle i think, tho i could make a couple of the crappier ones if i sorted thru my pack probably)

But I don't think sirgog has many, if any at all. Monkey might have some but i doubt many.

Or many others. Desert rare epics are just insanely rare. And other then back during the initial release when a small core of us ran the **** of them, no one runs them (except the raid, which doesnt get anyone the items themself, just fills there packs with shards they never use)

And yea maybe its self serving, but being almost no one else will ever get these without a redesign, who better to ask lol.

[waterboytkd]

Do you think that having this item add, "Exotic Weapon Prof: Khopesh" would make it too powerful?

This would make it a nice Spellsinger weapon as well. Although I suppose even with -4 to hit, a capstone Spellsinger will still have a CHA in the high-30's range, which would give a fair amount of to-hit...

Bards have access to Master's Touch. I know my wife's bard was looking at using Dynastic Falcata(s), and when the question of proficiency was brought up to her, her answer was Master's Touch. No more -4 to hit.

[Junts]

Checked on the DDO Wiki.

http://ddowiki.com/images/Item_EpicBowOfTheElementsAirDescription.jpg

Its still behind the epic thornlord, and is essentially trading +4 damage and +2 on the base enhancement for Shocking Burst and +7 Dex, which still makes is a pretty nice bow.

Don't mind if its upgraded though, pulled a shard the other day so just need to find the **** seal.

You can have one of my 25.

[Shade]

You can have one of my 25.

lol.. yea i got up to around 10 of the seals i dont want and stopped looting them. I have every single one except 1 i want now... lionheaded belt. Most I got long before the droprate nerf tho.

[Junts]

lol.. yea i got up to around 10 of the seals i dont want and stopped looting them. I have every single one except 1 i want now... lionheaded belt. Most I got long before the droprate nerf tho.

It took me 6 months of EADQ ransacks to get the seal for my torc .. and then a week later, I realized that I also had never gotten a cloak of the zephyr in that span. I have multiple of every other raid seal from it, and its pretty dishearetning.

I ransack 3-5 characters per week when I'm playing the game. The amount of time I've spent in there is just outragensous.

At least its a great source of deconstruction materials and its pretty nice renown for the time spent.

[Shade]

It took me 6 months of EADQ ransacks to get the seal for my torc .. and then a week later, I realized that I also had never gotten a cloak of the zephyr in that span. I have multiple of every other raid seal from it, and its pretty dishearetning.


yea stupid luck... My list shows i got 4 of those (zephyr cloak), possibly more since i stopped tracking thing i dont need. Also got the shard, tho I think i passed up the cloak up my sorcs multiple times, since at the time it sucked and i never thought upgrades would happen.. So now i want it heh. Well if i ever care to cast a lightning spell anyway.

Torc? I had several seals in the first few runs =).. I was stoked.. And a shard not long after.. yet to this day i havent crafted it yet since I could never get a scroll, then started tr'ing again. That and I wanted to keep its lower ml for the TR'ing.

This is why we need a proper endreward/token system where we can eventually turn in some tokens to get that 1 item that eludes us (at great cost).

That would fix a lot of the droprate issues, without making our previous effort so invalid as sirgogs idea does (not a fan of that btw).. As most of us who put that kinda effort in seal farming, also did some completions so we have some tokens to burn.. (I got like 100+ left, after spending no less then 400)

[Woody00]

Bards have access to Master's Touch. I know my wife's bard was looking at using Dynastic Falcata(s), and when the question of proficiency was brought up to her, her answer was Master's Touch. No more -4 to hit.

I thought Masters Touch only worked on weapons that were in the Simple or Martial category?

[Junts]

yea stupid luck... My list shows i got 4 of those (zephyr cloak), possibly more since i stopped tracking thing i dont need. Also got the shard, tho I think i passed up the cloak up my sorcs multiple times, since at the time it sucked and i never thought upgrades would happen.. So now i want it heh. Well if i ever care to cast a lightning spell anyway.

Torc? I had several seals in the first few runs =).. I was stoked.. And a shard not long after.. yet to this day i havent crafted it yet since I could never get a scroll, then started tr'ing again. That and I wanted to keep its lower ml for the TR'ing.

This is why we need a proper endreward/token system where we can eventually turn in some tokens to get that 1 item that eludes us (at great cost).

That would fix a lot of the droprate issues, without making our previous effort so invalid as sirgogs idea does (not a fan of that btw).. As most of us who put that kinda effort in seal farming, also did some completions so we have some tokens to burn.. (I got like 100+ left, after spending no less then 400)

I bought my epic torc scroll from a guildie for 3 other raid scrolls (heh), then pulled a torc scroll while soloing once .. so i traded it for the marilith chain that my bard's got now.

I just spent 100+ tokens so I'm kind of thin, but I've easily got 900 tokens worth of augments in my assorted equipments.

Just sucks to keep goping back to EADQ for that one seal: if I had that, I'd just run epic adqs for shards and the raid for general stuff and otherwies not have to worry about the area.

[Monkey_Archer]

I think we run a lot of risk in being self-serving in this thread because a lot of us giving feedback have many or most of these items despite their rarity.

I haven't commented on the mirage yet precisely for that reason, and i have plenty of self-serving reasons for making that one as powerful as it is rare :D
It's just my opinion that rarer epics should be more powerful, and even the easiest to acquire epics should at least be somewhat comparable to greensteel.
For the record i do have a sirrocco, but its not exactly rare (well at least the scroll,seal and shard arent ;))...

[Feithlin]

Epic Adherent's Pendant

Currently totally useless, this item appears designed for a paladin that wants to frequently use spells to heal. However, such a paladin doesn't function without the Torc of Raiyum perma-equipped.

Suggested change:
Mostly taking this from Leloric's suggestions. Remove the action boost enhancement. Add 1-2 uses per rest of Lay on Hands (if and only if this can be coded in a way that doesn't have a negative interaction with item swapping). Upgrade Sup Dev 4 to Epic Dev 4 (60%). Add a 1/rest clicky that recovers 20 SP per level of Paladin you have.
Even with all of that, it would still be inferior to the (non-epic) Torc, but at least it would be useful to the builds it is designed for.


Perhaps easier to code, the item could give the ability to regenerate LoH over time (similar to Anthem for bard songs). For effects, it could have only Sup Dev IV but could increase the effect of LoH by 100%.

[Junts]

Perhaps easier to code, the item could give the ability to regenerate LoH over time (similar to Anthem for bard songs). For effects, it could have only Sup Dev IV but could increase the effect of LoH by 100%.

Whats the point? Loh for 583 kinda does the job already..

I wouldnt mind a loh regen thing but I admit I'd rarely use an item for that purpose on either of my paladins. It'd need to be a perk on an otherwise-useful item, not something I'd wear just for that purpose.

its kind of like how the stormsinger cloak is better than the epic elyd edge: the stormsinger cloak provides useful benefits, the elyd edge doesnt.

[SirValentine]

OG broken. In the best way. Hello, red augment crystal of metalline shenanigans and ESoS; goodbye, every other weapon mattering at all.

Only if it made the base damage "good"-type damage, which it doesn't have to, depending on how it's implemented. If it left base damage type unaffected, 2d6 extra by itself isn't game-breaking. If it did convert all base damage to "good" damage, then, yes, you're right, very overpowered.

[Feithlin]

Epic Sting

High base damage +6 Wounding of Puncturing weapons would have been many a player's wet dream when the level cap was 16 (I remember +1 WoP shortswords trading for 6 large scales, and 3-4 times that for a +1 rapier). However, the Con damage nerf on one hand, and the 90% immunity to stat damage on Epic trash just prevents these finding a home at the moment.

Suggested change:
Reduce the Epic stat damage resistance from 90% to 75% (Eladrin posted a while back that it is presently 90%, previously players had believed it to be 95%). An average of one point of Con damage per 6 swings isn't enough to warrant using these weapons - an average of two Con damage per 5 swings would be more appealing.
The Large Scorpion Poison should probably deal hit point damage rather than Con damage, as this will help finish off any foes with significant Con damage.
Also, if these changes are made, some players will work together to debuff mob Fort saves before a Wail - this isn't really any different to the currently viable (but seldom-used) Cursespewer-melee-then-Wail approach.


Perhaps OP, but it would be unique. The item could bring epic wounding: still -1 Con / hit, but which would bypass epic stat damage resistance. The balance of the game wouldn't be too much affected, because this would be the only weapon to do it.
If the effect seems too big, it could have 50% chance of decreasing fort save by 1.

[maddmatt70]

It took me 6 months of EADQ ransacks to get the seal for my torc .. and then a week later, I realized that I also had never gotten a cloak of the zephyr in that span. I have multiple of every other raid seal from it, and its pretty dishearetning.

I ransack 3-5 characters per week when I'm playing the game. The amount of time I've spent in there is just outragensous.

At least its a great source of deconstruction materials and its pretty nice renown for the time spent.

Is that all I am up to sacking 12 characters on adq1 a week oh and I run 4-5 epic dq1s and 8 dq2 epic raids a week. Not much else to run for an end game player these days. One of my guildies runs 15-20 epic dq2 raids a week. Khyber runs a ton of dq1 epic and dq2 epic these days..

[sephiroth1084]

I'm pretty sure you mean Despair, and that was my first thought as well.Yeah.


Overall I like most of your suggestions Sirgog. I posted a few opinions in red above with some alternate solutions that I think may be better but good work overall.
The Pale Master ToD set needs revising. It's too weak to bother with for most players, and therefore shouldn't be the bar preventing an epic item from getting Epic Nullification.


Am I the only person who is annoyed to no when when epic necklaces are discussed as options for fighter/barbarians and what is always brought up (and rightfully so) that it is competing with the shintao set necklace? A necklace with +15 concentration and +6 con that they already have in at least one other item slot.

Personally I think it would be nice to either see that set bonus changed (and this is from someone who has 3 characters with the ring, a monk and 2 other non-monk melee) or the bonuses be available from other (preferably epic) items. Not necessarily at the same time, but having +2 damage or +2 attack of the same bonus type elsewhere would give characters more options for gear and would in a way make some items 'better' by proxy.
Absolutely agree. The Shintao set bonus was a mistake in its current form, both because it ends up locking out so many other items due to being the best set bonus from ToD for virtually every melee character, and also because it is incredibly difficult to acquire on the character it's aimed at: a Shintao monk! I tend to see many more non-barbarians pass an Encrusted Ring to barbarians in need, even when they want that set, than I see non-monks passing the Kyosho's Ring to monks in need.


Perhaps easier to code, the item could give the ability to regenerate LoH over time (similar to Anthem for bard songs). For effects, it could have only Sup Dev IV but could increase the effect of LoH by 100%.


Whats the point? Loh for 583 kinda does the job already..

I wouldnt mind a loh regen thing but I admit I'd rarely use an item for that purpose on either of my paladins. It'd need to be a perk on an otherwise-useful item, not something I'd wear just for that purpose.

its kind of like how the stormsinger cloak is better than the epic elyd edge: the stormsinger cloak provides useful benefits, the elyd edge doesnt.
I agree with Junts that improving the damage on LoH probably is meaningless...for a pure or mostly pure paladin, but for multiclassed ones, it would be a really nice boost. Regenerating LoH would also be very nice. In fact, if they regenerated fast enough, it might replace (some of) the need for the Torc in the first place. With Wizardry and Superior Devotion on here as well, it looks like a nice item. This at least is moving in the right direction, I think.

[sephiroth1084]

I don't see anyone going for that even with a bit more DR. People that want DR, have it as either a class or pre ability.. Or they are fighter type tanks that somehow lack stalwart defender.. Very rare weirdos, and even those would prefer better boots like madstone or epic corrosion, both of which are infinetely easier to get.

Since this slot conflicted with kundarak boots, which provide full on FoM, which covers more spell immunities then this, it needs to be very powerful to compete.
So it should have some effect to make it truely stand out on it's own as an epic. Something unique and powerful.
I'd go:
35% striding
Disease immunitiy, Poison immuntiy, and a new effect:
Stable Mind: This effect renders you immune to the effects of ottos irresistable dance and greater command.
+8 enchantment bonus to saves against other enchantment based spells. (Seems high, but remember the ml13 belt of tongue gives you +6 to all willsaves, and the upcoming ml14 "trace of madness" unlock gives you +10 to will saves.. So high bonuses are available anyways.


This looks just a completely different item.

DR 4/- isn't bad, though I think DR 5/- or DR/- would make the item attractive enough, along with an improvement to 30% Striding.

Here's how I look at it: for non-Stalwart, non-Warchanter, non-Barbarians, you have no other source for DR 4/-, but there are several items (in particular epic armors) that feature DR 5/alignment, epic or weapon property. DR 4/- is going to be better than any of those in some situations, but worse in many.

More importantly, though, Warchanters can sing you up DR 5/-, and I dislike a bard's song making all your grinding for naught, if even just for a shortish period of time. DR 5/- at least keeps you even with or without a bard. DR 6/- means that, even with a bard around, your grinding meant something; however, DR 6/- tramples on the Stalwart Defender's DR a little, though their DR applies in ToD 3, whereas this wouldn't.

Given all that, I think DR 4/- is reasonable, since epic armors with DR tend to offer DR 5/bypassable, so an unbypassable DR value should be lower. An argument could be made for the DR 5/- from the point that the only real benefit of this item is the DR, since you'd likely get the rest of its effects elsewhere, and it doesn't work in ToD. DR 6/- encroaches on an exclusive PrE ability--one of the big draws of the PrE.

Remember that bard, clerics, (eventually druids), non-Stalwart fighters, monks, paladins, rangers, rogues, favored souls, wizards and sorcerers could all benefit from DR 4-6/-. Some less so than others, and some more so.

[sirgog]

Changed the Adherent's Pendant following suggestions. It won't work for Junts' build, but will be useful to some.

[oradafu]

I mentioned in another thread that the Epic Mummy Wrapping should upgrade the Fearsome (which is hated in groups) to a Despair Guard. But there was something else than has been nagging me about the armor that I didn't express in the earlier post. This seems like an ideal armor, that's not a robe or docent, to give a Pale Master. Since I don't play a Pale Master, I don't know what could/should be added to the armor. Now, I wouldn't make the armor strictly an armor for Pale Masters, but I would throw a bone or two in for a Pale Master to seek it. It's just a thought.

[sirgog]

I mentioned in another thread that the Epic Mummy Wrapping should upgrade the Fearsome (which is hated in groups) to a Despair Guard. But there was something else than has been nagging me about the armor that I didn't express in the earlier post. This seems like an ideal armor, that's not a robe or docent, to give a Pale Master. Since I don't play a Pale Master, I don't know what could/should be added to the armor. Now, I wouldn't make the armor strictly an armor for Pale Masters, but I would throw a bone or two in for a Pale Master to seek it. It's just a thought.

I thought along those lines too. Problem is that Wizards hate wearing light armor.

If it was totally redesigned as a Pale Master item, it would need to have no arcane spell failure, and then it would probably end up just like the Mabar robes.

Oh and Negative Energy Absorption is bad on a Pale Master. It's like 'Healing Amp: Negative 20%'.

[sephiroth1084]

I mentioned in another thread that the Epic Mummy Wrapping should upgrade the Fearsome (which is hated in groups) to a Despair Guard. But there was something else than has been nagging me about the armor that I didn't express in the earlier post. This seems like an ideal armor, that's not a robe or docent, to give a Pale Master. Since I don't play a Pale Master, I don't know what could/should be added to the armor. Now, I wouldn't make the armor strictly an armor for Pale Masters, but I would throw a bone or two in for a Pale Master to seek it. It's just a thought.
That would be cool actually, though I'd love a new skin for the armor to make you look more like a mummy while wearing it.

I thought along those lines too. Problem is that Wizards hate wearing light armor.

If it was totally redesigned as a Pale Master item, it would need to have no arcane spell failure, and then it would probably end up just like the Mabar robes.

Oh and Negative Energy Absorption is bad on a Pale Master. It's like 'Healing Amp: Negative 20%'.
Well...it just needs an ASF of 15 or less, since the blue slot could remove that penalty...

If it were redesigned to be a pale master armor...
Boon of Undeath
Despair (Despair guard effect, though I think an aura would be cooler)
Mummy Rot Guard
DR 5/-
Blue slot
------
maybe Colorless slot
maybe Negative Energy Amplification (works like healing amp, but for negative energy spells)
maybe Slay Living Guard
maybe Mummy Rot (on-hit) instead of the guard, to play into the minor unarmed synergy Pale Master forms present
maybe Flammable: You take double damage from fire (if this gets a lot of the abilities)

Purposefully staying away from Nullification and Lore effects in order to keep this distinct from both the Robe of Shadow and Shroud of the Abbot.

[sephiroth1084]

Changed the Adherent's Pendant following suggestions. It won't work for Junts' build, but will be useful to some.
Could also add something like +4 to effective paladin level for LoH? Not much of a buff to pure paladins, but very nice for the multiclassers who, in particular, are unlikely to bother with the Torc.

The exceptional Cha kind of does that, and is nice all around.

Could also add Efficient Maximize II, to make it a little appealing to the self-healing types like the tanks Junts and I have.

I could see maybe using this in place of the Torc if I were getting enough LoH/rest. Not sure how well it would work out in practice, but if my healing moved from being mostly CSW to mostly LoH...

[oradafu]

That would be cool actually, though I'd love a new skin for the armor to make you look more like a mummy while wearing it.

Well...it just needs an ASF of 15 or less, since the blue slot could remove that penalty...

If it were redesigned to be a pale master armor...
Boon of Undeath
Despair (Despair guard effect, though I think an aura would be cooler)
Mummy Rot Guard
DR 5/-
Blue slot
------
maybe Colorless slot
maybe Negative Energy Amplification (works like healing amp, but for negative energy spells)
maybe Slay Living Guard
maybe Mummy Rot (on-hit) instead of the guard, to play into the minor unarmed synergy Pale Master forms present
maybe Flammable: You take double damage from fire (if this gets a lot of the abilities)

Purposefully staying away from Nullification and Lore effects in order to keep this distinct from both the Robe of Shadow and Shroud of the Abbot.

Well, if DDOwiki is correct, the Epic Mummy Wrappings currently has a 5% Spell Failure and a Blue Slot. If the Blue Augment Crystal of Agile Casting (aka -15% Arcane Spell Failure chance) removes the Spell Failure from the armor, it looks like it could be turned into a Pale Master armor.

[Krag]

I thought along those lines too. Problem is that Wizards hate wearing light armor.

If it was totally redesigned as a Pale Master item, it would need to have no arcane spell failure, and then it would probably end up just like the Mabar robes.

Oh and Negative Energy Absorption is bad on a Pale Master. It's like 'Healing Amp: Negative 20%'.

As long as the effect is worth the effort, ASF can be dealt with.

The real problem are already existing super awesome and easy to get alternatives: eChrono, Abbot and Mabar robes. Given how difficult desert items are to obtain, new eMW should outclass them all or you might aswell not bother revamping. 1-2 petty guards won't do the trick.

[SableShadow]

Interesting idea, but not very practical... My paladin usually doesn't die, if he still has charges of Lay-on-Hands... It's only when he runs out of the super-quick healing Lay-on-Hands that he gets killed.

I can't see my paladin ever getting any use out of this effect.

Rogue's had* the Cheap Death capstone. It was only epic in some developer's head.

I agree with you, though I don't have a pali ... my interest is only a /popcorn. :)





*Yes, we technically still have it but would you rather have Cheap Death or Deadly Shadow?

Edit: Also, epic ninja!

[Carpone]

Epic Bloodstone
Should be Seeker +10 with a colorless aug slot. Litany of the Dead -- a non epic item -- is still extremely competitive for this slot.


Epic Collapseable Shortbow
Epic Bow of the Elements: Air
Honestly, until the bow and thrown combat system get an overhaul, it's hard to care about bows.


Epic Bracers of the Hunter
There's no reason why this shouldn't have at least Sneak Attack Bonus +5. It's ridiculous that Tharnes Goggles remain so good, just because there are so few SA+5 items to choose from. Upgrade the Reflex +5 to Epic Reflex +3 so it stacks with Resist +5 items.


Epic Chainmail Coif
Upgrade Superior Devotion VII to Epic Devotion VII. Upgrade Devotion IX to Improved or Greater Devotion XI.


Epic Coronation Shield
ML5 offensive effects with saves on epic items are pointless.


Epic Dusk Heart
This item has no defined role. It's effectively only +10 HP, since GFL is easy to find on ToD belts or slot as an epic augment. The clicky is neat, but who runs quests without a divine? Plus, Visor of the Flesh Render is readily available for a Death Ward clicky. To get people to use this over Litany, or Blood Stone, or Gem it needs something unique. I like Sirgog's suggestion of 10% Heal Amp, since it's difficult to slot elsewhere in end-game equipment.


Epic Dynastic Falcata
This always seemed like something that wanted to be good for Paladins, but fell short quite a bit. Why not make this the anti-thesis of the Epic Chaos Blade?


Epic Firestorm Greaves
The non-epic version is useful for TRs, and for people with only one pair, they'd prefer the unbound version to swap between characters. Add Exceptional Fire Resist 15. People who do eVON6 fire base regularly might epic the boots for that.


Epic Flint
Obviously it's a caster weapon, because no sane melee would ever consider using something so janky. More lightning spells need to be added to the game before people will take a second look at this item.


Epic Ring of Spell Storing
The item doesn't exist, so there's no reason to discuss it.


Epic Robe of Fire
Upgrade to Epic Evocation Focus. Otherwise the infinitely-easier-to-acquire Regalia of the Phoenix makes this item look silly. Fire Resistance 10 -- really? Should minimally be Superior Fire Resistance, and you should consider Epic Fire Resistance.


Epic Spiked Turban
Either bump Protection and Resist to +6, or change to Epic +2 bonus for both so they stack with other sources of Resist and Protection.


Epic Tinder
Upgrade to Epic Inferno IX. Give non-WF a reason to use this over Staff of the Petitioner, Epic Staff of Inner Sight, Epic Staff of Arcane Power. Staff = 2 gear slots. It should be amazing.


Epic Whirlwind
It's used for it's effect-on-critical and nothing more. Instead of upping the base damage on this, it would be more appropriate to increase the crit range from 19-20 to 18-20 (effectively increasing the Epic Telekinetic proc by 10% for characters with Improved Critical: Slash).


Epic Wolf Whistle
Another item that doesn't exist. If the shard existed, this would be fine as is.

[Carpone]

I mentioned in another thread that the Epic Mummy Wrapping should upgrade the Fearsome (which is hated in groups) to a Despair Guard.
Love that idea, and it's very fitting flavor-wise.

[Junts]

If this provided a +2 sacred CHA bonus, would that be enough for Paladins to wear this full time over a Torc?

Paladins only care about base/tome charisma. I don't even take enhancements on mine, and sometimes I'd probably take off my charisma item. +2 cha is '+1 umd, +1 to saves, and +30 pts to lay on hands". Who cares? I don't.

If the Adherent's Pendant is supposed to be a paladin healing facilitator, I suggest giving it an effect that gives you SP return based on hitting stuff instead of getting hit. This would probably be bonkersnuts for nonpaladin/rangers, so you might want to either change the UMD to 0 or make the SP return be equal to your paladin level.

There are times when sp on being hit is clearly better, like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z6yf67StEU), but most of the time in epic I'd rather have sp return based on my attacks than on being hit, due to cc, displacement and the fact that I attack faster than mobs do.

[Carpone]

Explorer area items (Bloodstone, etc):
Shards, seals and scrolls for these items no longer drop. Instead, the pre-made Epic items drop from the Epic chest of ADQ1, just as the Epic Red Dragon Helm drops pre-made in eVON6. This would remove an enormous amount of 'guff' from the loot tables. Players would have a 16.5% chance (0.5% per item) to have one of these drop under their name each time they run ADQ1 epic.
Edit - These items would drop as 'binds to account on acquire; binds to character on equip', which is similar to how they drop today.

Chains of Flame, OOB and Wiz-King quest items (Vambraces of Inner Light, etc):
These items drop as they currently do. However, drop rates are increased on the shards to 4% per item per player (so for Chains of Flame, each player has a 4% chance to have a Shard of the Unkor's Cleaver fall under their name). In 25 runs, a player would have about a 70% chance of having (at least) one of the specific shard they want falling under their name.

Scrolls:
After removing 31 scrolls from the loot tables, scroll drop rates could be changed so that specific raid item scrolls are exactly twice as rare as specific other scrolls. This would mean that whenever a scroll drops, it has a 2% chance to be any specific raid scroll (e.g. Scroll of the Chaosblade) and a 4% chance to be any specific non-raid scroll (e.g. Scroll of Hruvayah's Medallion, or Scroll of the Spectral Gloves). With 16 raid scrolls and 17 non-raid, that conveniently totals 100%.
Raid scrolls would continue to be rare and valuable, but not as ludicrous as they presently are (on my server, the Marilith Chain scroll will buy you thirty flawless red scales).
I think this fixes many of the issues with Sands epic crafting. Definitely the right direction.


Existing scrolls, seals and shards of these items could still be used. For those who've put quite a bit of effort into acquiring the shard of an item but have no seal, they would be allowed to use 20 Epic Dungeon Tokens to fill in for the missing piece (so Thornlord + Shard of the Thornlord + Scroll of the Thornlord + 20 eDT's = eThornlord). As the seals are much more common for these items than the shards, this would not work the other way.
I like this idea and would expand it to ADQ2 raid items, using Epic Raid Tokens instead of Epic Dungeon Tokens. I like this much better than the generic "Scroll of the Sands" that another developer had suggested. However, I don't like the ability to substitute for the shard. For the seal or scroll? Sure.

[Qezuzu]

Epic Adherent's Pendant

Currently totally useless, this item appears designed for a paladin that wants to frequently use spells to heal. However, such a paladin doesn't function without the Torc of Raiyum perma-equipped.

Suggested change:
Overhauled this following suggestions from others.
Remove the action boost effect. Add Healing Hands: Your Lay on Hands ability regenerates at one per 90 seconds. Consider adding Exceptional Charisma 2.
Paladins with Quicken and/or Maximize will stick with the Torc, but for more traditional paladin builds (both DPS-oriented and tank-oriented), this is a useful defensive item. It competes with the Shintao set's +2 to-hit and damage - some will prefer Shintao's DPS boost, others will prefer the added survivability of more Lay on Hands, as dead characters deal no DPS.

My suggestion:

Unyeilding Adherence: If you are lost in battle, you will be recalled to life to carry out your duty. This effect consumes two charges of Lay on Hands. If you do not have two available charges, you will not be raised.

*The chance is based on paladin levels. If you have 20 paladin levels, there is a 100% chance of a raise. If you have 10 levels, you only get, say, 10%. Some sort of logarithmic progression.

THAT is, in my opinion, an epic effect.



Epic Bejewelled Letter Opener

Although it provides a smaller healing boost than Superior Ardor 6/8 effects, Superior Devotion 7 is powerful because it persists through death, allowing Clerics, Favored Souls and Bards to put out a lot of burst healing precisely at the time it is most needed - immediately following a healer death. However, only a 'healbot' build can spare a weapon slot for an item that needs to stay permanently equipped to be useful.

Suggested change:
I'm going to suggest a partial redesign to make this a best-in-slot item for a 'healbot' cleric or favored soul. I wouldn't play one of those builds myself, but they certainly have their fans, and this item is for them. (They'd need to keep it in the offhand).

Keep: +6, 2d4 base damage, Keen, Thundering, Efficient Metamagic: Empower Healing 2, Superior Devotion 7 (thanks to people that noted a typo here)
Remove: Healing Amp 20%, Improved Resonance 7, Red Slot
Add: Superior Healing Lore
Add: "Scroll Augmentation 9: You cast scrolls at +2 caster level." (This means Heal/Reconstruct scrolls hit for a base 130 hp instead of 110, before enhancements and healing amplification).

Since it's a letter opener, I would give to bonuses to scrolls. Like, +50% to scroll damage/healing/CL. I would definetely get it on my rogue, or my sorc.

[Qezuzu]

Explorer area items (Bloodstone, etc):
Shards, seals and scrolls for these items no longer drop. Instead, the pre-made Epic items drop from the Epic chest of ADQ1, just as the Epic Red Dragon Helm drops pre-made in eVON6. This would remove an enormous amount of 'guff' from the loot tables. Players would have a 16.5% chance (0.5% per item) to have one of these drop under their name each time they run ADQ1 epic.
Edit - These items would drop as 'binds to account on acquire; binds to character on equip', which is similar to how they drop today.
Existing scrolls, seals and shards of these items could still be used. For those who've put quite a bit of effort into acquiring the shard of an item but have no seal, they would be allowed to use 20 Epic Dungeon Tokens to fill in for the missing piece (so Thornlord + Shard of the Thornlord + Scroll of the Thornlord + 20 eDT's = eThornlord). As the seals are much more common for these items than the shards, this would not work the other way.

Somewhat shafting the people that got these items with the current system, but I like this idea. In anyway, the desert loot tables need to be cleared out, especially the scrolls.

As a consolation prize, I would make all currently crafted explorer items and make them BtA but not recieve any of the suggested fixes. Something to reward their hard work.

I would introduce 3 additional chests in ADQ1. One for killing every Prince of Swords, one for killing the undead bosses that you fight for choosing the wrong glyph, and one for killing Lailat the first time. These would drop the epic explorer items. The current three chests would then drop Raid seals at a very low droprate. I wouldn't want them to drop powerful items, since with 21 chests per week with 6 people, that's 126 chances for an explorer item, and more with alts.

Or keep the current system, but remove all epic explorer item ingridients from current quests, and make Maraud the Mines, Raid the Vulkoorim, and Purge the Fallen Shrine all epic. Have those drop explorer item components.

[SableShadow]

As a consolation prize, I would make all currently crafted explorer items and make them BtA but not recieve any of the suggested fixes. Something to reward their hard work.

Huh? So the reward for hard work is to have to grind the gear again? :confused:

[Qezuzu]

Epic Bow of the Elements: Air

This bow doesn't output the DPS of the closest Greensteel equivalent (Lit 2, Holy/Shocking Burst/Shocking Blast). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bow of Sinew outdoes it. +7 Dexterity is nice, but not good enough to use this bow over its Greensteel competition (much less over the eThornlord which comes from the same quest).

Suggested change:
Rather than trying to boost the DPS of this bow to something around the range of the eThornlord, I'm going to suggest a major utility effect. Archer types are often a small distance from the party, and as such often miss Haste. What could be more in-theme with an epic Air bow than...
Add "Supreme Alacrity: The wielder is under the effect of a permanent Haste effect."
Simple, useful, unique, and very 'epic'.
An alternate suggestion made below was to boost its Electric damage to make it like my eFlint variant below - lowish physical damage, extreme lightning damage. Epic Shocking Burst (four times the normal Shocking Burst effect) would be a starting point to achieve that goal.

I would also add whirlwind strike. Knockdown on vorpal.



Epic Dynastic Falcata

Note that this weapon is currently Charisma based for attack and damage. It's the best option for an extreme Charisma character to use against Demons, but this is an ultra-narrow niche, and most Cha-based characters (mainly Spellsingers) won't be proficient with the Khopesh and will struggle with the -4 To-Hit. In addition, even if you find a build with the Cha to use this weapon well, its main damage mutation (Axiomatic Burst) works only on the minority of foes that are Chaotic.

Suggested change:
Change To-Hit and Damage modifier to be the higher of Cha and Str.
Change Adamantine to Cold Iron (as Adamantine DR isn't found on any important foe that Axiomatic Burst works on, but Cold Iron DR is). Upgrade base damage to 3d10.
With a good augment (or a +7 augment in the hands of a capstone Paladin), this will be a significant upgrade over a Mineral 2 Khopesh against DR Demons such as Lailat (and other chaotic foes), and with that base damage, it will be acceptable against non-chaotic, non-lawful foes.

Add absolute law, too.


Epic Mirage

This weapon has one of the best crit profiles in the game (a smidgen ahead of Khopeshes due to scaling better with Seeker). However, it's still quite a long way behind Greensteel Khopeshes in DPS output.

Suggested change:
Word association time: Mirage - Oasis. Oasis - Fire, Water, Earth and Air all in one place (fire being the midday sun). Fire, Water, Earth and Air - Elemental Mastery (that awful Shroud proc).
For that reason, I suggest adding "Epic Elemental Mastery: On-hit proc, 3% proc rate, deals 50d6 Fire + 50d6 Cold + 50d6 Acid + 50d6 Electric damage. (Average 700 damage per proc, 21 damage per hit, but this is hammered by resistances/immunities, and will occasionally be reduced by being 'overkill')

Against foes without elemental resistances, this would put eMirage level with a Lit2 Khopesh in DPS output, however, the eMirage would also provide better to-hit, Sneak Attack 4 (possibly freeing up an item), and Deception and Improved Cursespewing for utility effects, making it a better general purpose weapon (albeit not better in all circumstances).

That doesn't really fit with the item, in my opinion. I would add something that has to do with Mirages, i.e. Illusions. Phantasmal Killer, Bliss*, so on.

*Fools the enemy into thinking they're not in combat, but are in a wonderful place. Perhaps picking flowers with their sweety or playing cards while drinking beer. Fascinated for 5 seconds on vorpal (no save, doesn't break from being hit), and penalties to attack, damage, saves, and AC.


MOre later.

[Nospheratus]

My suggestion:

Unyeilding Adherence: If you are lost in battle, you will be recalled to life to carry out your duty. This effect consumes two charges of Lay on Hands. If you do not have two available charges, you will not be raised.

*The chance is based on paladin levels. If you have 20 paladin levels, there is a 100% chance of a raise. If you have 10 levels, you only get, say, 10%. Some sort of logarithmic progression.

THAT is, in my opinion, an epic effect.

Absolutely loved it!!!!!

[Nospheratus]

MOre later.

Very nice ideas there! :)

[Dilbon]

Since it's a letter opener, I would give to bonuses to scrolls. Like, +50% to scroll damage/healing/CL. I would definetely get it on my rogue, or my sorc.

A handheld item that gives scroll bonuses is a bit silly, as you need to hold the scrolls too. Sure you can wield the letter opener in your offhand, but still.

[Carpone]

Epic Hruvayah's Medallion
This item isn't powerful enough to warrant the "Taint of Evil" on it. Also, the neck slot is super contested for casters -- this is not in the same league as a non-epic Torc which easily beats out the eHM. The obvious change is to make this Greater Spell Pen XI, but I don't think that's enough to get people to actually use this item. It needs something epic -- like +3 DC Necromancy.
Thinking about this more, why not add +2 profane INT, +2 profane CHA and +2 profane WIS to the existing Epic Hruvayah's Medallion? That fits with the "Taint of Evil" (similar to Litany of the Dead) and would warrant wearing this item full time over a Torc for the additional DC.

[Thrudh]

Unyeilding Adherence: If you are lost in battle, you will be recalled to life to carry out your duty. This effect consumes two charges of Lay on Hands. If you do not have two available charges, you will not be raised.

Interesting idea, but not very practical... My paladin usually doesn't die, if he still has charges of Lay-on-Hands... It's only when he runs out of the super-quick healing Lay-on-Hands that he gets killed.

I can't see my paladin ever getting any use out of this effect.

[LeLoric]

There's no reason why this shouldn't have at least Sneak Attack Bonus +5. It's ridiculous that Tharnes Goggles remain so good, just because there are so few SA+5 items to choose from. Upgrade the Reflex +5 to Epic Reflex +3 so it stacks with Resist +5 items.




Bracers already have sneak attack +5. I agree with the epic reflex save though.

[Carpone]

Epic Adherent's Pendant
Obvious upgrades like Epic Devotion IV and Archmagi won't be enough to get paladins to wear this over a Torc. This deserves some sort of Sacred bonus that's amazing but requires it to remain equipped (instead of swapping out for a Torc after Archmagi no longer matters). I don't know what that amazing effect should be though. I'm hoping Junts or one of his paladin devotees will suggest something fitting.
If this provided a +2 sacred CHA bonus, would that be enough for Paladins to wear this full time over a Torc?

[Carpone]

Bracers already have sneak attack +5. I agree with the epic reflex save though.
Do they? Bleh. I must have looked at an older version on DDO wiki. Thanks.

[SirValentine]

Thinking about this more, why not add +2 profane INT, +2 profane CHA and +2 profane WIS to the existing Epic Hruvayah's Medallion? That fits with the "Taint of Evil" (similar to Litany of the Dead) and would warrant wearing this item full time over a Torc for the additional DC.

Oooh, nice idea. That would make me seek this item out. That would make me stopping chasing the Wabbot and begging him to give me the Litany.

[LeLoric]

Thinking about this more, why not add +2 profane INT, +2 profane CHA and +2 profane WIS to the existing Epic Hruvayah's Medallion? That fits with the "Taint of Evil" (similar to Litany of the Dead) and would warrant wearing this item full time over a Torc for the additional DC.

I do like the idea of alternate sources of profane stat bonuses other than litany. This would also have the added benefit of putting drow back on top by themselves for max cha and int. I cant say I would swap out torc and litany for this myself as I have no other trinket and torc is just really good for my pm build that loves to get hit a lot.

[kernal42]

Oooh, nice idea. That would make me seek this item out. That would make me stopping chasing the Wabbot and begging him to give me the Litany.

Also, it would let drow reach a higher sustainable int/cha bracket than humans/helves again, which is a good thing.

Edit: Ninja'd!

[sephiroth1084]

My suggestion:

Unyeilding Adherence: If you are lost in battle, you will be recalled to life to carry out your duty. This effect consumes two charges of Lay on Hands. If you do not have two available charges, you will not be raised.

*The chance is based on paladin levels. If you have 20 paladin levels, there is a 100% chance of a raise. If you have 10 levels, you only get, say, 10%. Some sort of logarithmic progression.

THAT is, in my opinion, an epic effect.

That's cool, but as someone else said, if you're dying, you're probably out of LoH.


If this provided a +2 sacred CHA bonus, would that be enough for Paladins to wear this full time over a Torc?
No.

[oradafu]

Unyeilding Adherence: If you are lost in battle, you will be recalled to life to carry out your duty. This effect consumes two charges of Lay on Hands. If you do not have two available charges, you will not be raised.

*The chance is based on paladin levels. If you have 20 paladin levels, there is a 100% chance of a raise. If you have 10 levels, you only get, say, 10%. Some sort of logarithmic progression.



As much as I like this idea, I have to agree with others. As a Paladin, you usually die when you run out of Lay on Hands. Or if you are me, you forget or wait too long to hit Lay on Hands. Or lag...yeah, always blame the lag.


If this provided a +2 sacred CHA bonus, would that be enough for Paladins to wear this full time over a Torc?

Is it enough to get a Paladin to use it over a Torc? Probably not. But I do like the idea of a Sacred stat bonus though. Adding both +2 sacred CHA and a +2 sacred WIS would be a nice addition to the item though.

[Junts]

Paladins only care about base/tome charisma. I don't even take enhancements on mine, and sometimes I'd probably take off my charisma item. +2 cha is '+1 umd, +1 to saves, and +30 pts to lay on hands". Who cares? I don't.

If the Adherent's Pendant is supposed to be a paladin healing facilitator, I suggest giving it an effect that gives you SP return based on hitting stuff instead of getting hit. This would probably be bonkersnuts for nonpaladin/rangers, so you might want to either change the UMD to 0 or make the SP return be equal to your paladin level.

There are times when sp on being hit is clearly better, like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z6yf67StEU), but most of the time in epic I'd rather have sp return based on my attacks than on being hit, due to cc, displacement and the fact that I attack faster than mobs do.

So odd, I just made this post and it backdated by 7 hours. Quoted to put it where it belongs in the thread.

I also want to add something re: epic weaponry.


Please bear in mind that the primary dps advantage of the entire paladin class is the ability to take better weapons and make them bypass dr when they otherwise wouldn't. This is the main thing that makes paladins as good or better at fighting raid boss types than others, and its much more significant than the kotc bonuses or even the damage bonuses of the capstone.

This advantage is already eroding quite a bit due to crafting: the ideal crafted weapon is still a little worse than an epic chaosblade/brigand's cutlass, but by a lot less than the previous weapons everyone else was using. Making other epic weapons readily able to bypass for everyone removes the primary advantage of Weapons of Good: Being able to whack elite Horoth with your ESOS when everyone else is using min2 falchions.

[oradafu]

Paladins only care about base/tome charisma. I don't even take enhancements on mine, and sometimes I'd probably take off my charisma item. +2 cha is '+1 umd, +1 to saves, and +30 pts to lay on hands". Who cares? I don't.

If the Adherent's Pendant is supposed to be a paladin healing facilitator, I suggest giving it an effect that gives you SP return based on hitting stuff instead of getting hit. This would probably be bonkersnuts for nonpaladin/rangers, so you might want to either change the UMD to 0 or make the SP return be equal to your paladin level.

There are times when sp on being hit is clearly better, like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z6yf67StEU), but most of the time in epic I'd rather have sp return based on my attacks than on being hit, due to cc, displacement and the fact that I attack faster than mobs do.

I love this idea. It would basically be the same thing as the healing curse for light monks, but with SP. I also agree if this was implemented, it should be restricted to Paladins by either 0 UMD or Paladin levels.



I also want to add something re: epic weaponry.


Please bear in mind that the primary dps advantage of the entire paladin class is the ability to take better weapons and make them bypass dr when they otherwise wouldn't. This is the main thing that makes paladins as good or better at fighting raid boss types than others, and its much more significant than the kotc bonuses or even the damage bonuses of the capstone.

This advantage is already eroding quite a bit due to crafting: the ideal crafted weapon is still a little worse than an epic chaosblade/brigand's cutlass, but by a lot less than the previous weapons everyone else was using. Making other epic weapons readily able to bypass for everyone removes the primary advantage of Weapons of Good: Being able to whack elite Horoth with your ESOS when everyone else is using min2 falchions.

I have similar feelings about the suggestion of having all or most Epic weapons breaking all DR. It does seem to waterdown pure Paladins advantage. It's one of the reasons that I'm surprised people wanted to make the Epic Antique Greataxe to automatically break DR, instead of just slotting it with a Good crystal themselves. I do think the EAG needed a boost, but a pure DR breaker to me seemed a bit much. Now I don't might Epic items being designed to break a particular DR, such as Silver+Good or Cold Iron+Good. But I do think if the Epic weapons get multiple Metalline of Pure Good/Righteous weapons, it does push the pure Paladin's unique feature down a bit.

===

Another thought I have about Epic items (or named items in general) that has nothing to do with Paladins. Since everyone agrees that TWF does more damage than THF, I'd like to see the named/Epic THF weapons get a little more effects on it than single handed weapons since they can duel-wield.

[Junts]

I love this idea. It would basically be the same thing as the healing curse for light monks, but with SP. I also agree if this was implemented, it should be restricted to Paladins by either 0 UMD or Paladin levels.



I have similar feelings about the suggestion of having all or most Epic weapons breaking all DR. It does seem to waterdown pure Paladins advantage. It's one of the reasons that I'm surprised people wanted to make the Epic Antique Greataxe to automatically break DR, instead of just slotting it with a Good crystal themselves. I do think the EAG needed a boost, but a pure DR breaker to me seemed a bit much. Now I don't might Epic items being designed to break a particular DR, such as Silver+Good or Cold Iron+Good. But I do think if the Epic weapons get multiple Metalline of Pure Good/Righteous weapons, it does push the pure Paladin's unique feature down a bit.

===

Another thought I have about Epic items (or named items in general) that has nothing to do with Paladins. Since everyone agrees that TWF does more damage than THF, I'd like to see the named/Epic THF weapons get a little more effects on it than single handed weapons since they can duel-wield.


Since the EAG broke dr with an augment for anyone it isnt a big change: all its doing is saving 30 tokens fo ra new player who makes it as their breaker. That's a fine change.

Its the put multiple red slots on xuum so its a bypasser stuff that gets problematic. If most people's best weapon is also their dr breaker, difficult drs are meaningless.

What you sday about epic twohanders is already true. The epic chaosblade is a niche item - it does a bit less dps than a lightning2 to a more narrow range of monsters, and its the best epic dual-wieldable weapon. Outside paladins, it isnt an overwhelmingly better item.

On the other hand, even the 4th-best epic 2hander (the hellstroke) is much better than the typical 2hander, and the antique/xuum/sos are so mucbh better than non-epic 2hnaders they single-handedly make the style viable. If they were worse than the best shroud crafted 2handers like dual-wieldable weapons are, thf would be a dead style.

[Kourier]

I thought the letter opener was supposed to be for a caster bard? Here's my take then:

Epic Devotion VI
Epic Resonance VI
Superior Sonic Lore
Superior Healing Lore
10% healing amplification
Efficient Metamagic: Empower Healing II
Scroll Augmentation IX or a similar boost to scroll power (~20%)

[Angelus_dead]

Please bear in mind that the primary dps advantage of the entire paladin class is the ability to take better weapons and make them bypass dr when they otherwise wouldn't
The key step to fixing that situation is to give Paladins other DPS advantages (especially against things that aren't Evil Outsiders)

[sephiroth1084]

The offensive version of TKE for the Adherent's Pendant sounds interesting. That should definitely become "Paladin Only, no UMD." I'd like to rangers be able to use it as well, but having it be a paladin exclusive seem all right.

I agree with the above posters that the devs need to be careful about making too many weapons able to bypass complex DRs, both because it undercuts the strength of Weapons of Good, and because it removes much of the balance between strong weapons and DR breakers.

[sirgog]

I would introduce 3 additional chests in ADQ1. One for killing every Prince of Swords, one for killing the undead bosses that you fight for choosing the wrong glyph, and one for killing Lailat the first time. These would drop the epic explorer items. The current three chests would then drop Raid seals at a very low droprate. I wouldn't want them to drop powerful items, since with 21 chests per week with 6 people, that's 126 chances for an explorer item, and more with alts.

Just to clarify, I was only suggesting the Epic chest (the one with the dungeon token) drop the explorer items and the raid seals. That said, some reward (even if it's just level 23 lootgen chests) for killing the ten optional bosses (the first six Princes, and the four down the shaft) would IMO be a good thing.

Stealing some of your idea, if overhauling the number and locations of chests in DQ1 was done, I'd make it so only one of the current three chests spawns per run (level 20 loot), plus one lvl23 chest for killing the six Princes, plus one lvl23 for killing the four shaft bosses, plus two level 23 chests for beating Lailat the first time (these could have named items, perhaps +7 axiomatic cold iron threaded handwraps), and then the epic chest and two more lvl23 chests after Lailat v2. Pre U9 I'd have suggested a second dungeon token - this probably doesn't need it any more, as it isn't as long as it used to be now that the Efreeti have ~2600hp (presumably ~5200 before, I never tested).



If this provided a +2 sacred CHA bonus, would that be enough for Paladins to wear this full time over a Torc?

If it is UMD-able at all, it's plenty of reason for a Sorc to wear it.

[maha0201]

Think biggest problem at DQ is that you need to do 20 min quest ( 30 min before u9 with friends/ 45 pug) to get 1 epic chest, since you can get other 3 with no problem at all.
From mine experience we got 3-4 shards in 20-30 runs colapsedbow, shield of scorpion, mummy x2. Back in days when you needed to chug 2-3 pots so you could kill her :(

so 1 epic chest with low drop rate :S


Just to clarify, I was only suggesting the Epic chest (the one with the dungeon token) drop the explorer items and the raid seals. That said, some reward (even if it's just level 23 lootgen chests) for killing the ten optional bosses (the first six Princes, and the four down the shaft) would IMO be a good thing.

I like this idea and it would be nice if they don't put only epic version - leave that for lvling too, then you might get chance to pug dq1 on lvl for loot. I usually do 4-5 dq1 for exp at lvl with friend/guild groups. And think extra 2 chests on lvl would be nice touch too, and then you wouldn't see as much lvl 17-20 running dq1/dq2...
DQ 1 = 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 6 chests

As for the raid it don't drop scrolls :S we have scrolls in crono, we have scrolls in von6... At end we get 1 epic chest and 1 chest with 1 trash item :confused:
Id suggest to enable scrolls in that side chest so you would have chance 33% for extra scrolls (similar to red scale dropping) and spread % between raid and area scrolls. Maybe even put one extra chest with similar drop rate of seals.
DQ 2 = 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 chests

[sirgog]

Updated post 4 with thoughts on the sixteen raid items.

[Auran82]

Updated post 4 with thoughts on the sixteen raid items.

Regarding storm.
I would like to see this changed to basically be a repeater that you can use without proficiency while not suffering a penalty to hit, only difference being that you get 1 bolt per shot if untrained(hell, I would like to see crossbows and repeaters merged into one, with light and heavy versions, the feat just more or less gives you 'crossbow manyshot')

Epic cloak of the zephyr
I would like to see this have something else added to make it useful for both casters and melee, maybe a guard like air or lightning strike guard?

Lion headed belt buckle.
I am of the opinion that epic items that have stats should either be +7, exceptional or some other kind of stacking bonus.

Lastly, I am pretty sure haste only gives +30% movement speed, I think the description was never changed (though I could be wrong)

[sirgog]

Lastly, I am pretty sure haste only gives +30% movement speed, I think the description was never changed (though I could be wrong)

According to Vanshilar's testing, Haste and Striding both give you only four-fifths of what they say they do.

Haste is +32% movement speed. Striding 40% would also be +32% movement speed.

The one main exception is Expeditious Retreat - this actually does grant the 25% it says it does.




Epic cloak of the zephyr
I would like to see this have something else added to make it useful for both casters and melee, maybe a guard like air or lightning strike guard?

Lion headed belt buckle.
I am of the opinion that epic items that have stats should either be +7, exceptional or some other kind of stacking bonus.


I'm not a huge fan of having too many items that both casters and melees compete for. Just think of how much drama the VOD bracers cause when a Barbarian loots them (denying an Arcane the spell penetration and Archmagi), or a caster loots them (denying a Barbarian the only source of Fireshield Cold their class can ever use raged). Now imagine that with an item that actually is best-in-slot for casters. Ugh.

I don't mind some +6 stats on items that would be great without them (eClaw gloves). The Belt Buckle isn't one of those items.

[Sarisa]

Storm should be converted to a Heavy Repeater. While it will still be a poor item, it will at least give the mechanics some item to shoot toward.

I use an Epic Shining Crest of St. Markus, and while I like it, it doesn't have the "oomph" that it should. I only made the crest rather than the Chainmail Coif (which I also have all the parts for) because of the green slot rather than the yellow+colourless of the Coif. Improving the Healing Lore would be a great start. Adding a colourless slot would be another nice boost.

[Auran82]

I'm not a huge fan of having too many items that both casters and melees compete for. Just think of how much drama the VOD bracers cause when a Barbarian loots them (denying an Arcane the spell penetration and Archmagi), or a caster loots them (denying a Barbarian the only source of Fireshield Cold their class can ever use raged). Now imagine that with an item that actually is best-in-slot for casters. Ugh.

I don't mind some +6 stats on items that would be great without them (eClaw gloves). The Belt Buckle isn't one of those items.

Extra guards still make it an extra bonus for a caster, it just seems silly to have an item that was mostly a non-caster item suddenly become a caster only item in epic form.

[Illiain]

Reserved, on the offchance that I want to use it later.


Remaining 'holes' in endgame itemisation

This is a list of item niches that I feel are underrepresented in endgame gear. Some I've suggested items for above. Others might be considered for future content.

This is not a definitive list.

Finesse melees: 'Raw' DPS weapons (high DPS, little or no 'utility' effects like Improved Paralyzing, Epic Telekinetic)
Finesse melees: Medium DPS weapons that break the major DRs (Silver/Good, Cold Iron/Good, Blunt)


I'll mention this for finesse builds, but it also applies to strength builds. There's only one epic rapier in the game, and it's heavily biased for a caster bard. Not all strength builds use khopesh, and a high dps partial DR breaker (flametouched iron?) rapier would help these builds out a lot, and benefit elves/drow which are considered some of the lowest dps melee races.

Also stop making "epic" weapons with +hide/move.

[Beethoven]

<good stuff>


Notes on Quest Difficulty
They are either relative difficult (compared to other epics; ie: eCoF, eDQ1), long (eWiz King) or both (eDQ1). Add to it how long the loot table for the Desert is ... agreed the Desert should drop the best/better loot in the game since it is the hardest to acquire.

Notes on drop rates
I ran numerous eCoF and eDQ1 and rarely ever seen a Shard drop, nevermind one someone was actually looking for. Meanwhile I seen numerous outdoor area and quest Shards drop from eDQ2 (Bloodstone, Unkor's, Spectral Gloves, etc.). To me it seems the way things are set up it's /heavily/ biased to run the three eDQ1 chests (non-completion) and try your luck with eDQ2 for Shards. eDQ2 offers an almost similar chance to have a non-raid Shard than eDQ1 or any of the other quests because the non-raid chests often don't drop a Shard at all.

Personally I think the drop rate of the epic chests (non-raid) needs some significant improvement to make it actually worth completing them. Epic Chains is extremely long and because of the lack of Shrines probably among the most, if not the most difficult of the epics; having a reasonable chance to pull a Shard and maybe even adding a second epic token to the end chest would be well justified.

Epic DQ1 is rarely run for the same reason. It's beyond me how VoN5 gets two epic tokens but eDQ1 (which I find longer and harder than VoN5) only gets 1. It also really shouldn't happen that you run three of them in a row and don't see a single Shard drop (and I seen that happen a lot).

Epic Spectral Gloves, Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers, Epic Ward of Undeath, Epic Cape of the Roc, Epic Staff of Inner Sight, Epic Bejewelled Letter Opener, Epic Bracers of Deftness, Epic Silken Mail, Epic Sirroco, Epic Spectacles of Spirit Sight, Epic Vambraces of Inner Light, Epic Bow of the Elements: Air, Epic Bracers of the Hunter, Epic Chainmail Coif, Epic Collapseable Shortbow, Epic Coronation Shield, Epic Dynastic Falcata, Epic Firestorm Greaves, Epic Flint, Epic Gloves of the Falcon, Epic Mirage, Epic Mummy Wrappings, Epic Ring of Spell Storing, Epic Robe of Fire, Epic Shard of Vollun, Epic Shield of the Scorpion, Epic Spiked Turban, Epic Sting, Epic Stinkpelt's Hide, Epic Thornlord, Epic Tinder, Epic Tourney Armor, Epic Vulkoorim Dervish Robe, Epic Vulkoorim Pendant, Epic Weathered Targe, Epic Whirlwind, Epic Xuum, Epic Zephyr

/signed and agreed with what sirgog says.

Epic Ancient Vulkoorim Dagger
I'd leave it Adamantine too or perhaps even make it Metaline since it is such a nice item.

Epic Golden Greaves
I don't think additional DR is going to help that item much as it doesn't stack and DR builds are likely to have that covered even without them. I'd up t Striding to 30% and (if the tech ever comes available) something like 5 clickies of Sprint Boost.

Epic Hruvayah's Medallion
I really don't like the idea of two necklaces with Transform Kinetic Energy (same power, same spot seems iffy to me), so, I'd go with epic Necromancy Focus which also seems to fit thematically better.

Epic Ring of Baphomet
Heavy Fort or Toughness would be my vote here. Barkskin-like effects have become dime a dozen. Used to be a signature spell of Rangers, now we have several items that are actually better than the spell.

Epic Unkor's Cleaver
I actually found making that item significantly harder than eSoS and yet it has worse stats. I'd even go so far to suggest remove Bleed and increase the crit profile. Remove Keen and increase the bonus to +10.

Epic Adherent's Pendant
Add Healing Hands and +2 exceptional Charisma. I would leave it as UMD (as opposed to Paladin only). Heck, I could even see "Healing Hands" be usable by non-Pally's if they meet the UMD requirement.

Epic Bloodstone
Seeker+8 is nice and all, but adding +2 Seeker at the cost of making the item BtC almost sounds like a trade not an upgrade, and consequently the grind to actually epic it more something done for boasting rights than really an uprgade from ML 11 to Epic. I'd go with either Seeker +12 (or Seeker 10, Exceptional Seeker +2) /or/ Seeker +10 and an Augment Slot.

Epic Dusk Heart
Myself I feel the item requires a serious boost. What I'd do is remove the Mass DW clicky and instead upgrade the item to "Blurry, EpiC False Life and Healing Amp 10%."

Epic Hyena Claw Necklace
Generally agreed with sirgog except I would not consider Repair Amp; as much as I agree Warforged need love here it just doesn't fit the item. I'd love to see Repair Amp but could can think of several VoN items where it'd be a better fit.

Epic Wolf Whistle
AI always could use some work but same holds true with a lot of other summon items. I'd leave it as is. It's already superior to Roderic's Wand and the like.

Also, +1 to sirgog for doing all that work.

[noinfo]

Also, it would let drow reach a higher sustainable int/cha bracket than humans/helves again, which is a good thing.

Edit: Ninja'd!

But WF the equal of humans and helve which is not.

[Cyr]

I'm not a huge fan of having too many items that both casters and melees compete for. Just think of how much drama the VOD bracers cause when a Barbarian loots them (denying an Arcane the spell penetration and Archmagi), or a caster loots them (denying a Barbarian the only source of Fireshield Cold their class can ever use raged). Now imagine that with an item that actually is best-in-slot for casters. Ugh.


Which is a reasonable point with BtC loot. As the crunch point for epic items is very rarely the base item and all the other components are either BtA or unbound I'm not sure I see the point. In fact, that is one of the best parts of epic loot in that the BtA nature of it's pieces makes it largely irrelevent which toon you run in a particular epic quest instead leading you to bring the best toon for the party.

[edragoon148]

Proposed new drop rate system:
Summary:
Raid items require completing ADQ1 as well as ADQ2, rather than ADQ2 completions and ADQ1 non-completion farming. Scrolls are more common, but these items are still prestigious and difficult to acquire.
Explorer items no longer have scrolls, seals or shards but drop as already completed Epic items in the Epic chest of ADQ1 (and maybe also with a tiny drop rate in ADQ2).
Shard drop rates increase a moderate amount on WK/OOB/Chains. Being 'skunked' (no shards dropping for anyone in a 6-person run) should be the exception, not the rule, but getting the exact shard you want should take a fair number of runs unless you get very lucky.

Raid items (Chaosblade, etc):
Shards continue to drop in ADQ2 only, at their present rarity (0.9% chance per person to get a specific shard). Seals are removed from all chests that currently drop them. Instead, they drop only from the Epic chest of ADQ1, but with a fairly high drop rate - 3% per seal per player (so with 16 raid items, you have a 48% chance to see a seal drop). Plus, see notes on scrolls.
Obtaining a specific raid item would require a significant number of ADQ2 runs and a few completions of ADQ1.

Explorer area items (Bloodstone, etc):
Shards, seals and scrolls for these items no longer drop. Instead, the pre-made Epic items drop from the Epic chest of ADQ1, just as the Epic Red Dragon Helm drops pre-made in eVON6. This would remove an enormous amount of 'guff' from the loot tables. Players would have a 16.5% chance (0.5% per item) to have one of these drop under their name each time they run ADQ1 epic.
Edit - These items would drop as 'binds to account on acquire; binds to character on equip', which is similar to how they drop today.
Existing scrolls, seals and shards of these items could still be used. For those who've put quite a bit of effort into acquiring the shard of an item but have no seal, they would be allowed to use 20 Epic Dungeon Tokens to fill in for the missing piece (so Thornlord + Shard of the Thornlord + Scroll of the Thornlord + 20 eDT's = eThornlord). As the seals are much more common for these items than the shards, this would not work the other way.

Chains of Flame, OOB and Wiz-King quest items (Vambraces of Inner Light, etc):
These items drop as they currently do. However, drop rates are increased on the shards to 4% per item per player (so for Chains of Flame, each player has a 4% chance to have a Shard of the Unkor's Cleaver fall under their name). In 25 runs, a player would have about a 70% chance of having (at least) one of the specific shard they want falling under their name.

Scrolls:
After removing 31 scrolls from the loot tables, scroll drop rates could be changed so that specific raid item scrolls are exactly twice as rare as specific other scrolls. This would mean that whenever a scroll drops, it has a 2% chance to be any specific raid scroll (e.g. Scroll of the Chaosblade) and a 4% chance to be any specific non-raid scroll (e.g. Scroll of Hruvayah's Medallion, or Scroll of the Spectral Gloves). With 16 raid scrolls and 17 non-raid, that conveniently totals 100%.
Raid scrolls would continue to be rare and valuable, but not as ludicrous as they presently are (on my server, the Marilith Chain scroll will buy you thirty flawless red scales).
Also, DQ2 trash mobs should drop scrolls. If you are worried that the trash at the start will be too easily farmed, add some sort of 'gatekeeper' monster like Warlock S'Obrien.


/signed over and over again.

[Matuse]

In order to make DQ1 a heavier focal point for getting epic ingredients, you really need to stick a second shrine in there somewhere.

Plus, you're basically tied to the DQ2 timer for running it, which has a significant impact on how quickly the items it holds can be acquired.

[Junts]

In order to make DQ1 a heavier focal point for getting epic ingredients, you really need to stick a second shrine in there somewhere.

Plus, you're basically tied to the DQ2 timer for running it, which has a significant impact on how quickly the items it holds can be acquired.

You're not so tied as long as one person can open the instance.

And the quest is so much easier with instadeath that a shrine would be overkill. Its not hard anymore, folks.

[grodon9999]

You're not so tied as long as one person can open the instance.

And the quest is so much easier with instadeath that a shrine would be overkill. Its not hard anymore, folks.

Agreed.

[Alternative]

Agree, don't care about another shrine in dq1 as the quest is a joke now. What sucks are drop rates, there are so many explo shards that it wouldn't be unreasonable for the end chest to have a guaranteed shard, like the chest in ITD.

[Velexia]

Epic Mummy Wrappings

Fearsome is useful if and only if you are soloing, and even then it is annoying.

Suggested change:
In the spirit of bad things happening to foes that attack you, replace Fearsome with any two of the negative-energy aligned Shroud guards, perhaps Corrosive Salt Guard and Disintegration Guard, or for two that have a nasty synergy, Enervation Guard and Trap the Soul Guard.I believe that it is important to keep this item true to it's theme. Fearsome should not be replaced with some random guard, but instead the Mummy's despair aura.

That would make this a very unique and interesting item. Despair Aura already exists for us through the summon "Mummy Lord", and it makes those it affects helpless. Pretty cool I say. I would want one for the Despair Aura.

[sephiroth1084]

I believe that it is important to keep this item true to it's theme. Fearsome should not be replaced with some random guard, but instead the Mummy's despair aura.

That would make this a very unique and interesting item. Despair Aura already exists for us through the summon "Mummy Lord", and it makes those it affects helpless. Pretty cool I say. I would want one for the Despair Aura.No one really commented on any of my suggestions for the Mummy Wrappings:


That would be cool actually, though I'd love a new skin for the armor to make you look more like a mummy while wearing it.

Well...it just needs an ASF of 15 or less, since the blue slot could remove that penalty...

If it were redesigned to be a pale master armor...
Boon of Undeath It's important to maintain this if there is any desire for the item to be used by a Pale Master (unless Boon gets worked into an item in another slot) simply because very few, if any, PMs would use an armor that doesn't include this. Also, it fits pretty well with the other effects.
Despair Guard Aura would be more fitting, but I think it might be a little too strong (or too weak to compensate). Additionally, the other effects very much promote a "come on and hit me!" theme, which this contributes to.
Mummy Rot Guard Again, on theme.
DR 5/- Ditto.
Blue slot Necessary to remove the ASF. Would be nice to add another slot as well, but not a necessity.
------
maybe Colorless slot See above.
maybe Negative Energy Amplification 10% (works like healing amp, but for negative energy spells) May be too strong, particularly with Boon on here as well, and there are already 2 other totally unique effects, but it would be cool to see this somewhere, and this seems like a good spot for it.
maybe Slay Living Guard Fits the mummy theme (they tend to cast Finger of Death...this is basically the same thing), though not a big deal.
maybe Mummy Rot (on-hit with unarmed strikes) instead of the guard, to play into the minor unarmed synergy Pale Master forms present I like this a little bit better, thematically, than the guard version, but don't see this coming up very often
maybe Flammable: You take double damage from fire (if this gets a lot of the abilities) Thematic and could be used to counterbalance the armor if it gets a lot of the bonuses I listed.

Purposefully staying away from Nullification and Lore effects in order to keep this distinct from both the Robe of Shadow and Shroud of the Abbot.

Any of your items that I left out were because I agreed with your comments (mostly the ones you felt needed no changes).

Epic ADQ2 Raid Loot

Note that while ADQ2 can be quite tough on Epic, players have discovered tactics that make it a cakewalk for moderately geared toons. It's probably the easiest of the Desert epics.

Epic Bracers of the Demon's Consort

Demonic Shield is very strong. The base item is quite good on many Pale Master builds - the epic version adding slots makes it even better. It's also an OK item for Barbarian/Kensai tanks (for the de-facto stacking DR; some builds may even be able to put the Intimidate to good use), although they tend to be inseperable from their (easier to obtain) eClaw bracers. Well, the builds that could use this are likely tied to one of the eClaw, eScorched, Chaosgardes or the new bracers that replace them by adding Toughness on top of the +2 Dodge.

Suggested change:
Add Heavy Fortification, so melees that wear the eClaw set fulltime but (situationally) want this for DR can swap to it if they are taking a lot of hits.
That said, this isn't a needed change - this item is useful as-is.
Looks like a good addition; it doesn't increase the item's power level, really, since Heavy Fort is available in so many other places, but makes the item more situationally accessible.

Epic Bramble Casters

The guard is reliable damage for a melee that takes a lot of hits, but does less average damage than Disintegration Guard (and a lot less than Lightning Storm Guard does to non-immune foes). Greater Spearblock is useful, but unspectacular (and the Epic Ring of the Mire offers it in a much better overall package, albeit in a different slot). Solid item, but not good enough to compete in the highly competitive gloves slot.

Suggested change:
Upgrade the Guard to 3d6 damage (which at 10.5 average is more than the community-speculated 9.2 average damage of Disintegration guard - 2% for ~460). Upgrade Greater Spearblock to Epic Spearblock - 15. Most melees will prefer the 30% healing amp and +4 damage the eClaw gloves offer (if they are wearing the bracers), but this item will be good enough that it might find a home.
Sounds reasonable.

Epic Cloak of the Zephyr

Best-in-slot for Air Savants; probably also best-in-slot for those Cold Savants that spec into electricity as well. Superior Lightning Lore wasn't all that impressive pre-U9, but Eladar's Electric Surge single-handedly changed that.
Perma-Blur is nice in the rare places we are chain-dispelled (epic OOB), or for long quests where incoming melee damage between shrines isn't enough to merit sustaining Displacement (eVON5).

Suggested change:
None needed - this is an item that fills a particular niche and fills it well. I think it could do with some other minor bonus...maybe Superior Magnetism VI?


Epic Dustless Boots

Striding is useful if you run out of Haste potions or are being chain-dispelled, the Jump clicky is more convenient than Morah's Belt (and you can carry both if you PUG often with people that don't have Morah's). Still, nothing about this item is special at all.

Suggested change:
This item is clearly intended to enhance mobility while stealthed - perhaps consider having it grant faster sneaking (similar to, but stacking with, the rogue enhancements).
Alternately, this would be a perfect item to add Striding 40% to. Still not as good as Haste (same movement increase but without the other aspects of Haste), but there's the odd time you just can't be bothered quaffing a potion.

I like both suggestions.

Epic Greenblade

Lesser Potency 9 doesn't add anything much at all. Basically this is a variant on Skiver - with Spell Pen 9 taking the place of Archmagi and the efficient metamagics. Spell Pen 9 is potent, but is available in other slots, and overall I feel the eGB vs. Skiver comparison is a draw.
Force Burst, of course, adds nothing to the item.

Suggested change:
Add the Staff of the Petitioner's 10% SP cost reduction, or upgrade to Major Arcane Lore. Either one would give this item a boost to make it clearly superior to the level 14 competitor.
Both suggestions look good. I'd even suggest improving it to Potency IX in addition to one of your two suggestions.

Epic Lion-Headed Belt Buckle

Solid item, especially for getting lots of stat boosts in one item. Like all other belts, however, it competes with ToD sets. For almost every class and build, those are better (especially now that Savants and Archmages have potent set bonuses). Incidentally, this is also the same reason that few use the Epic Belt of the Mroranon, which is also a good item in a vacuum.
Agree with your thoughts here, particularly with the EBM, which I've been able to craft for 3 different toons for a few months now, but haven't simply because the Frenzied Berserker set bonus is stronger.

Suggested change:
I assume this was intended as a melee item. Adding something that mimics a ToD set effect (perhaps adding the +2 damage the Frenzied Berserker set gives to a non-Barbarian, or maybe even just +1) would make this a sought-after item. Alternately, upgrading (both) +6 stats to +7 would make the item unique.
Those are interesting. Currently, the belt is very good for Pale Masters, and not really anyone else. The stat bump could help melees a bit, while being about the same usefulness for PMs. Would be pretty nice with the non-stacking +2 damage from the FB set...I'd likely be interested in this for a couple of characters.

Epic Pouch of Jerky

Great item, usually covering Toughness and Superior False Life (or SFL and +4 saves). Useful clicky. However, there's lots of competition for this slot, and this item doesn't match up to the alternatives for most builds.

Suggested change:
Adding 10% healing amplification (which is very hard to fit into a gearset) would make this situationally best in slot for tanks that expect to take a lot of damage (Barbarians, Kensais and the like). I made a similar suggestion for Epic Dusk Heart - I'm not opposed to both items getting the same effect, players that want one of them can just use whichever they obtain first.
An alternative would be to add an effect that recovers HP whenever you make a melee strike (basically granting your weapon(s) some level of the Vampirism effect), although that would heavily favor TWF toons, unless the effect only applied to your mainhand weapon.
I feel like the Pouch deserves the healing amp more than the Dusk Heart (which could stand to get a different bonus, I think), but the Vampirism effect sounds interesting. Wasn't there a weapon that came out recently (or an upgrade epic) with something like that?

Epic Sandstorm Glasses

Probably the worst epic item in existance at the moment, especially as it competes with Tharne's Goggles, which offer basically all of the same utility, plus arguably the best melee DPS effect you can get on an accessory (+8 damage and +5 to-hit whenever you don't have aggro).

Suggested redesign:
This item was a melee item when the cap was 12 (both True Seeing and Blindness Immunity benefit melees at all levels). However, with basically all divines carrying the True Seeing spell, Displacement isn't an issue, and with Heal and Mass Heal being both widely used, Blindness isn't much of an issue even if you aren't wearing an immunity item, even against bosses like Malicia or Horoth that like to throw the odd Sunburst.
The name conjures thoughts of dust. Conveniently, many melees occasionally use Supreme Tyrant Goggles of Dust (Exceptional 10/15/20hp, Disintegration Guard) as a tanking swap-in.
I'm going to suggest making the item a straight-out upgrade of those goggles.

Actually 'epic' Sandstorm Glasses
Exceptional +10 hp (as Shroud effect)
Exceptional +15 hp
Exceptional +20 hp
Disintegration Guard
True Seeing
Blindness Immunity
Empty Green Augment Slot

That's a pretty clear upgrade over one of the more frequently crafted Shroud items, and might save some characters from having to bother with a cleanser.

I'd actually like to see one or two of the exceptional HP values getting added to the augment slot options. As such, I think this could stand to lose whichever of those were to get added (if they do) leaving players with an option to stick it in, or not, as they desire. If that never transpires, I'd say drop the +10 HP. These would be a pretty strong upgrade without completely negating the value of a greensteel accessory.
Epic Seal of the Earth

For a period, this had Superior Acid Lore, and at present, the 'grandfathered' versions of this item are the only source of that effect. Reinstating that lore would make this item appealing to Earth Savants - at present, as an AC item it's weaker than the alternatives (Chattering Ring, Epic Ring of the Silver Concord, possibly ToD sets), and as a clicky, it's solid but unspectacular.

Suggested change:
Add Superior Acid Lore. This ring will then be best-in-slot for Acid Savants, and will still be a marginal but viable option for AC builds (particularly with the new Chattering Ring alternative in the Carnival possibly freeing up a slot for it).
Consider adding Unarmed Acid Burst so that the rare Monk that cares about AC and fights unarmed can use this as a replacement for a ToD ring.
The result would be a ring that would seem a mishmash of effects, but that's exactly what the Red Dragonscale Armors are - I can't think of any one build that can put all the effects on Red Scale to good use, yet the (worthless for my Red Scale wearer) Superior Fire Lore doesn't make the item any weaker.
Upgrade the NA to +5 in addition to the other changes.
That would be:
Natural Armor +5
Greater Acid Resist
Superior Acid Lore
Acid Burst (same effect as on a ToD ring, and therefore does not stack)
Stoneskin 3/rest
Yellow slot

The mishmash works well without being too strong for any one character. NA +4 is passable, but seems like a weak upgrade, given the difficulty in acquiring the item, the slot it goes in and the history of the item (first, and only for a long time, item source of NA greater than +1).
Epic Shining Crest of St Markus

I quite like Superior Devotion effects (even ones that Superior Ardor suppresses) as they add quite a bit of healing throughput and persist through death. Improved Devotion, however, just isn't enough to bother with unless it is Improved Devotion 9. Deathblock and your choice of Toughness, Good Luck or Heavy Fortification on one item aren't bad, but nothing to write home about either.

Suggested change:
Upgrade the Healing Lore to Superior Healing Lore. As this item is quite popular with Paladins, add Epic Devotion 4 - this is of little benefit to Clerics and Favored Souls, but will be a useful boost for Paladins and maybe even the odd Bard.
I liked this on my paladin, and was sad to drop it for the Epic Helm of Frost. The changes sound good, although I feel like it should still be something clerics and favored souls desire. Maybe go with both Epic Devotion IV and Greater Devotion VIII or Improved Devotion IX (or even just Devotion IX)?


Epic Storm

This item doesn't need fixing, crossbows do.

Suggestions:
Keep this item as it is. Revisit after the ranged combat pass, if that ever occurs.
Agree with others that this should become a repeater. Either repeaters should be folded into other crossbows, or this should grant proficiency.

[Junts]

Seph .. Ravager >>> fb!

Always! Unless you're a monk!

I'll note the epic LHBB is the best belt in the game for the following characters already:

Pale Masters
Archmagi
Any cleric or fvs who dc-casts sometimes.

The later two categories will swap it back and forth with the archmage tod set depending what they are doing.


The roar effect of the LHBB is so strong that I will sometimes wear the nonepic version for no reason except to acquire it on my sorc, foregoing the savant set bonus, which is overwhelmingly good.

Also, *** are you guys talking about with the seal of the earth? Its already natural armor +6: its as good for ac as the silver concord, and you don't "upgrade" it to +5.

[sephiroth1084]

Seph .. Ravager >>> fb!

Always! Unless you're a monk! I like GFL on the belt better than the crappy Ravager belt. The set bonus for the Ravager is generally better, yes, especially with the change to helplessness, but the base items for the FB are slightly better. In any case, the LHBB would be at least an option with Sirgog's addition.



I'll note the epic LHBB is the best belt in the game for the following characters already:

Pale Masters
Archmagi I can't imagine wearing this on an Archmage: their belt/ring combo is too good to be giving up for this, and they don't have the kind of sturdiness to stand up to melee damage that PMs do.
Any cleric or fvs who dc-casts sometimes. I could see that, i guess, although my highest level divine caster is level 7, so I've no experience here.

The later two categories will swap it back and forth with the archmage tod set depending what they are doing.


The roar effect of the LHBB is so strong that I will sometimes wear the nonepic version for no reason except to acquire it on my sorc, foregoing the savant set bonus, which is overwhelmingly good. I agree that Roaring is very good, but good enough to forgo the savant sets? Archmage set?

Also, *** are you guys talking about with the seal of the earth? Its already natural armor +6: its as good for ac as the silver concord, and you don't "upgrade" it to +5.
I'm looking at the DDOwiki list of the epic items. Maybe that hasn't been updated? It lists NA +4, but no Superior Acid Lore, which had me assuming that that was the current version. I don't have the upgraded item myself, so I can't check. If that's wrong, you should go update, Junts. *ahem* :)

[Junts]

I like GFL on the belt better than the crappy Ravager belt. The set bonus for the Ravager is generally better, yes, especially with the change to helplessness, but the base items for the FB are slightly better. In any case, the LHBB would be at least an option with Sirgog's addition.


I'm looking at the DDOwiki list of the epic items. Maybe that hasn't been updated? It lists NA +4, but no Superior Acid Lore, which had me assuming that that was the current version. I don't have the upgraded item myself, so I can't check. If that's wrong, you should go update, Junts. *ahem* :)


The archmage belt/ring combo does little unless you are nuking. If you are dc-based casting, roar is infinitely more valuable. Like with a sorc, or a fvs, an archmagi wizard (and always a pm) is better off wearing this lovely thing that gives -2 to the saves of anything that hits you with no saving throw. Its really, really, really powerful, and I don't know how else to get it across in this thread. The AM set proc is only useful if you are spamming a lot of spells that scale past your max cl, which means that its primarily only useful if you are having spell penetration issues or casting polar ray. It is not a very good set bonus. If you are casting necro/enchantment spells - and most archmagi are - the LHBB is better by a tremendous margin. I dunno about you, but there's a wide range of content where even on a sorc I pretty much exclusively kill with necromancy - the mobs are too spread out and using direct-damgae when mobs are in packs smaller than 6-7 is a lot of wasted spell points. Even if you can group them up that way, if their saves are even somewhat bad, wail can be better - and my dc is usually only 39! Of course, that's like a 41 when everything is shaken! None of the archmagi or savant sets do a **** thing if you aren't casting a small selection of spells, and the LHBB works when you are casting a totally different, and often much better, selection of spells.

The amount that 7 damage is better than 2 damage is separate from this discussion but I suspect it is worth finding a yellow slot for it. Even considering the 2nd is critically-multiplied, the difference is nearly as big as the epic claw set. I'd find a way to get gfl elsewhere for an upgrade that big..

[sephiroth1084]

The archmage belt/ring combo does little unless you are nuking. If you are dc-based casting, roar is infinitely more valuable. Like with a sorc, or a fvs, an archmagi wizard (and always a pm) is better off wearing this lovely thing that gives -2 to the saves of anything that hits you with no saving throw. Its really, really, really powerful, and I don't know how else to get it across in this thread. The AM set proc is only useful if you are spamming a lot of spells that scale past your max cl, which means that its primarily only useful if you are having spell penetration issues or casting polar ray. It is not a very good set bonus. If you are casting necro/enchantment spells - and most archmagi are - the LHBB is better by a tremendous margin. I dunno about you, but there's a wide range of content where even on a sorc I pretty much exclusively kill with necromancy - the mobs are too spread out and using direct-damgae when mobs are in packs smaller than 6-7 is a lot of wasted spell points. Even if you can group them up that way, if their saves are even somewhat bad, wail can be better - and my dc is usually only 39! Of course, that's like a 41 when everything is shaken! None of the archmagi or savant sets do a **** thing if you aren't casting a small selection of spells, and the LHBB works when you are casting a totally different, and often much better, selection of spells. Oh, I know it's useful, but when I was a non-PM fleshy wizard, I tended to try fairly hard to not get hit. In fact, it's the sole reason that my wizard doesn't have an Ash accessory: I had considered it, but noted how infrequently I was getting hit at the time and decided against it. If I'd been doing the crafting now, I'd have Ash. On my WF wizard...I still probably wouldn't go looking to get hit so much, as he just doesn't stand up to abuse as well as the PM does. Maybe that's just me being conservative, but the effect definitely has a strong enough downside to give many people pause.



The amount that 7 damage is better than 2 damage is separate from this discussion but I suspect it is worth finding a yellow slot for it. Even considering the 2nd is critically-multiplied, the difference is nearly as big as the epic claw set. I'd find a way to get gfl elsewhere for an upgrade that big.. That is true.

And the LHBB is a mediocre item for a monk: basically, it lets you pick a ToD ring for its +6/+1 stats, rather than its set bonus in place of the FB ring, which isn't giving you anything over the Shintao if you're using that. It also offers you a +1 exceptional stat if you need one, or a spot to stick Dex +6.

[Junts]

Oh, I know it's useful, but when I was a non-PM fleshy wizard, I tended to try fairly hard to not get hit. In fact, it's the sole reason that my wizard doesn't have an Ash accessory: I had considered it, but noted how infrequently I was getting hit at the time and decided against it. If I'd been doing the crafting now, I'd have Ash. On my WF wizard...I still probably wouldn't go looking to get hit so much, as he just doesn't stand up to abuse as well as the PM does. Maybe that's just me being conservative, but the effect definitely has a strong enough downside to give many people pause.

That is true.

And the LHBB is a mediocre item for a monk: basically, it lets you pick a ToD ring for its +6/+1 stats, rather than its set bonus in place of the FB ring, which isn't giving you anything over the Shintao if you're using that. It also offers you a +1 exceptional stat if you need one, or a spot to stick Dex +6.

Agreed but the belt of the mroranon is superior for the monk use you outlined.

There are non-PM fleshy wizards? Confused. Non-self healing casters aren't viable characters on DDO.

[LeLoric]

Oh, I know it's useful, but when I was a non-PM fleshy wizard, I tended to try fairly hard to not get hit. In fact, it's the sole reason that my wizard doesn't have an Ash accessory: I had considered it, but noted how infrequently I was getting hit at the time and decided against it. If I'd been doing the crafting now, I'd have Ash. On my WF wizard...I still probably wouldn't go looking to get hit so much, as he just doesn't stand up to abuse as well as the PM does. Maybe that's just me being conservative, but the effect definitely has a strong enough downside to give many people pause.

That is true.

And the LHBB is a mediocre item for a monk: basically, it lets you pick a ToD ring for its +6/+1 stats, rather than its set bonus in place of the FB ring, which isn't giving you anything over the Shintao if you're using that. It also offers you a +1 exceptional stat if you need one, or a spot to stick Dex +6.

LHBB is pretty weak for a monk but they have the Epic belt of moranon which is extremely good for them if it gives a str bracket. +1 to hit and dmg versus +2 to damage is often times better in epic especially for monks. Add to that toughness and heavy fort freeing up either a helm or blue slots and a yellow slot for whatever here. Plus it frees up your tod ring to use whichever you choose.

If the ravager set weren't so blatently overpowered then all melees except frenzieds and pallys would most likely be better off with the belt of mroranon.

Making the LHBB somewhat equal to belt of mroranon for melees does nothing to remove their want for the superior ravager set.

[sephiroth1084]

Agreed but the belt of the mroranon is superior for the monk use you outlined. I'd say they're close to even, though +2 straight-up damage will often be worth more than +7 Str.



There are non-PM fleshy wizards? Confused. Non-self healing casters aren't viable characters on DDO.Yes, and you're wrong. They're not ideal, sure, but they are certainly viable. I did a fair bit of soloing on Elochka, at end game, before TRing, and she had under 300 HP for all but the last month or so of her life when the Loreseekers got their +2 Con shrine and I finally acquired a Litany. Think she buffed up to 278 or so, 320ish with a Yugo pot.

Was running Epic Deserts when they first came out, usually without dying...sometimes as the only one to not die. Again, viable, yes. Ideal, no.

[Junts]

I'd say they're close to even, though +2 straight-up damage will often be worth more than +7 Str.

Yes, and you're wrong. They're not ideal, sure, but they are certainly viable. I did a fair bit of soloing on Elochka, at end game, before TRing, and she had under 300 HP for all but the last month or so of her life when the Loreseekers got their +2 Con shrine and I finally acquired a Litany. Think she buffed up to 278 or so, 320ish with a Yugo pot.

Was running Epic Deserts when they first came out, usually without dying...sometimes as the only one to not die. Again, viable, yes. Ideal, no.



I'm sure its possible to play such a character, but I'd argue its impossible to play such a character in the way that casters are expected to be played on DDO .. and that that must have been excruciatingly slow and frustrating.

[sephiroth1084]

LHBB is pretty weak for a monk but they have the Epic belt of moranon which is extremely good for them if it gives a str bracket. +1 to hit and dmg versus +2 to damage is often times better in epic especially for monks. Add to that toughness and heavy fort freeing up either a helm or blue slots and a yellow slot for whatever here. Plus it frees up your tod ring to use whichever you choose.

If the ravager set weren't so blatently overpowered then all melees except frenzieds and pallys would most likely be better off with the belt of mroranon.

Making the LHBB somewhat equal to belt of mroranon for melees does nothing to remove their want for the superior ravager set.
Oh, I don't see this as being made closer to the BotM, but closer to the FB set. I think the Mroranon needs upgrading as well.

The problem with that for monks is that they typically can't adjust to make use of a new Str bracket--that is, if they're planned to be even with a +6 item, and acquire a +7, they need a +1 exceptional to go even again. Now, that's certainly a possibility, but most seem to plan to be even with +6 and +1 exceptional Str, meaning that they'd need either a +3 or +4 tome, depending upon what they assumed, to get even again. It's one of my frustrations on my halfling monk: no way to adjust for half-bracket increases.

What would you do to make the LHBB more attractive to melees then? Giving it the Ravager bonus seems like too much, but maybe not.

[Angelus_dead]

its impossible to play such a character in the way that casters are expected to be played on DDO
Actually that's precisely backwards:
Non-self-healing is how the designers expected casters to be played, and the self-healing ones are exceeding expectations and going beyond the desired power level.

All that stuff about easily soloing/duoing every epic dungeon? Not part of the expectation.

[Angelus_dead]

The roar effect of the LHBB is so strong that I will sometimes wear the nonepic version for no reason except to acquire it on my sorc, foregoing the savant set bonus, which is overwhelmingly good.
Has Roaring been massively buffed since I tested it two years ago?
It was just a small on-hit proc for a tiny sonic damage and a -2 debuff which didn't stack with other fear.

[sephiroth1084]

Has Roaring been massively buffed since I tested it two years ago?
It was just a small on-hit proc for a tiny sonic damage and a -2 debuff which didn't stack with other fear.
Who uses another source of fear? A -2 penalty to saves is pretty significant, and comes up often enough to be worth having. Nothing else really worth wearing on a PM in that slot besides, and it's as good a spot as any to stick +4 or +6 Str for carrying capacity and such.

[Hakushi]

Very solid epic items review and good upgrades suggestions. I enjoyed each of the three threads, and can't wait for the others and also to see Genasi comments on this one and the next to come, if he ever grants us another visit, of course. Only part I disagree with are:


Explorer area items (Bloodstone, etc):
Shards, seals and scrolls for these items no longer drop. Instead, the pre-made Epic items drop from the Epic chest of ADQ1, just as the Epic Red Dragon Helm drops pre-made in eVON6. This would remove an enormous amount of 'guff' from the loot tables. Players would have a 16.5% chance (0.5% per item) to have one of these drop under their name each time they run ADQ1 epic.


The Epic Red Dragon Helm drop as pre-made epic because the non-epic version dosn't exist. This item is special and should stay the only version like this for now. ADQ1 is not that easy to run, and tell me how many times you can see a lfm for this, almost never, this quest is extremely rarely run by pugs unlike most of other epics. I just think a good twink on seal/scroll/shard drops is needed for the desert epics, not changes like this. The system is already up and it wouldn't be fair for people only missing a part like the seal or shard.


Seals are removed from all chests that currently drop them. Instead, they drop only from the Epic chest of ADQ1, but with a fairly high drop rate - 3% per seal per player (so with 16 raid items, you have a 48% chance to see a seal drop).

Again I disagree with this, if with that, you want to prevent players to loot the 3 chests in ADQ1 like we all do, myself included, there's other ways to do this.

Again, besides those small 2 things I disagree, but that's only my opinion, and I would have no problems to adapt to any changes that are made, because of your posts,I've been on the forums for longer than an entire month. Well done, definitely well deserved rep. ;)

[Junts]

Has Roaring been massively buffed since I tested it two years ago?
It was just a small on-hit proc for a tiny sonic damage and a -2 debuff which didn't stack with other fear.

A constant -2 saves proc is incredibly potent when combined with aoe instant kill spells.

[Junts]

Actually that's precisely backwards:
Non-self-healing is how the designers expected casters to be played, and the self-healing ones are exceeding expectations and going beyond the desired power level.

All that stuff about easily soloing/duoing every epic dungeon? Not part of the expectation.

I'd agree that wasn't part of the initial intention, however, it's been that way and been continually buffed and encouraged for the past few years that it's clear that the developers have no intention of removing this functionality. If they intended to, they would not have added a specific method for fleshy wizards to do this, as they were the only ones who couldn't.

I appreciate you appear to think otherwise, but our developers are not incredibly stupid people who do not understand that 95% of epic solo, duo and shortman accomplishments are almost entirely casterbased. They've had ample opportunities to remove the ability, most recently when they killed massive SP efficiency via firewall, and instead they just nerfed firewall and made nearly every other spell as mana-efficient. This is how our game is designed now.

[LeLoric]

Oh, I don't see this as being made closer to the BotM, but closer to the FB set. I think the Mroranon needs upgrading as well.

The problem with that for monks is that they typically can't adjust to make use of a new Str bracket--that is, if they're planned to be even with a +6 item, and acquire a +7, they need a +1 exceptional to go even again. Now, that's certainly a possibility, but most seem to plan to be even with +6 and +1 exceptional Str, meaning that they'd need either a +3 or +4 tome, depending upon what they assumed, to get even again. It's one of my frustrations on my halfling monk: no way to adjust for half-bracket increases.

What would you do to make the LHBB more attractive to melees then? Giving it the Ravager bonus seems like too much, but maybe not.

Mroranon is pretty close to the FB set already and frees up augment slots or even another equip slot. It is ravager that it can't compete with.

I don't suggest making LHBB be made better for melees it isn't a very good melee item. It is a very good item for casters as discussed above and I think that is fine.

As far as monks halfling is bad sure but halflings are being outdone right now by either half-orc or half-elf anyways. Either of these options can much better accomodate the half strength increase. However even halflings can through a higher tome or litany. Add in the fact that they can now use something other than a +6/+1exc str ring and get maybe a +1 wis ring worked in is nice. If it gave me a str bracket I would in a heartbeat take belt of mroranon over FB.

Characters that use ranged every time manyshot is up will also lose a lot of the ravager bonus and as such may find a choice of either FB or mroranon to be better. My AA ranger went mroranon because of an extra str bracket and item consolidation freeing up my goggle slot for ravens sight to go with my Epic gem. This gives me 5 more to hit over FB set and only 1 dmg less. This build setup gave me the ability to go a lot lower dex too and still be able to hit while putting more focus on str and upping my dmg quite considerably.

[sirgog]

There are non-PM fleshy wizards? Confused. Non-self healing casters aren't viable characters on DDO.

Hard to take you seriously after that comment. Fleshy archmages are viable at all levels. One was the sole caster in the Khyber serverwide first completion of epic Devil Assault (universally considered one of the toughest epics), and unlike most WF archmages that run that quest, they used no mana pots - they could benefit from the Spellsinger SP regen over time song.

Just because you don't play a particular build doesn't make it somehow 'not viable'. Fleshy casters learn how not to get hit - before I respecced my ungeared wizard into PM (a change made due to the buffing of instakill and all six of the Archmage SLAs I used suffering some degree of nerfing), I'd often go through entire epics without taking a single point of damage. It's amazing how few mobs can do anything to someone that circle-strafes around them and takes them out of the fight one-by-one with Resistable Dance while throwing Mass Hold on packs of 4 or more mobs.

A stack of 100 Cure Serious potions (drunk out of combat) cover for mistakes made when not grouped with any healer-types; usually that stack would last ten healerless runs of Epics.



Which is a reasonable point with BtC loot. As the crunch point for epic items is very rarely the base item and all the other components are either BtA or unbound I'm not sure I see the point. In fact, that is one of the best parts of epic loot in that the BtA nature of it's pieces makes it largely irrelevent which toon you run in a particular epic quest instead leading you to bring the best toon for the party.

If you have multiple toons, it's easier (by far) to get specific DQ2 shards than base items. You can loot the Chaosblade shard on any of your alts, but the base item has to drop on the toon you want the Epic version on. 20th reward lists help, but I'm one of many that have had downright awful luck on those for DQ2.

In fact, the only time I can recall seeing an LFM offering to buy a specific shard was when the initial redesign of Seal of the Earth was announced, and someone on my server wanted to lock in a pre-nerf one - every three days they ran eDQ2 PUGs with 'Paying 1000k PP for Seal of the Earth shard' in the LFM. This is not a rare sight at all for base items - I've seen people post those sorts of LFMs for everything from the SoS to the Torc (granted, they probably are leaving that non-epic) to

[Junts]

Hard to take you seriously after that comment. Fleshy archmages are viable at all levels. One was the sole caster in the Khyber serverwide first completion of epic Devil Assault (universally considered one of the toughest epics), and unlike most WF archmages that run that quest, they used no mana pots - they could benefit from the Spellsinger SP regen over time song.

Just because you don't play a particular build doesn't make it somehow 'not viable'. Fleshy casters learn how not to get hit - before I respecced my ungeared wizard into PM (a change made due to the buffing of instakill and all six of the Archmage SLAs I used suffering some degree of nerfing), I'd often go through entire epics without taking a single point of damage. It's amazing how few mobs can do anything to someone that circle-strafes around them and takes them out of the fight one-by-one with Resistable Dance while throwing Mass Hold on packs of 4 or more mobs.

A stack of 100 Cure Serious potions (drunk out of combat) cover for mistakes made when not grouped with any healer-types; usually that stack would last ten healerless runs of Epics.


I should make my opinion here more clear. Yeah, its totally possible to play those characters and have some good success, especially with some of the archmage SLAs. People certainly did so, and they played palemasters when they were abominable and marginal before they were good.

My problem with these characters is that they don't do what people add casters to the group to do in general. On DDO, casters are extremely self-sufficient characters who are given autonomous tasks apart from the group with some frequency and generally expected to be able to do so without any assistance whatsoever. Solo a base in von6, manage the jailor in an elite tod by themselves while doing dogs/elementals, solo the right half of deep while everyone else does the left, the list is really, really long, and a small subset of casters by their very nature cannot do it. There's a reason sorcerers were played at a 3:1 rate over wizards for a long time - any sorc could heal itself, only wf wizards could.

I don't disagree that good players can play these characters effectively and be a group asset. Good players can also play finesse rogues, deepwoods snipers and a whole host of other poor character archtypes effectively with the right gear and playstyle.

That doesn't make those character types good, and more than any other the non-selfhealing caster runs contrary to the expectations of people who add them to group in ways that often result in needless complication or difficulty.

When I play a healing character, a caster that requires healing had better tell me so because by course of playing this game it is natural to assume that they can take care of themselves at least as well as I can.

Ask Leloric what it was like when he was a squishy ass wizard with barely-viable to no self-healing ability.

[Angelus_dead]

I appreciate you appear to think otherwise, but our developers are not incredibly stupid people
1. I do not give that appearance.
2. It is possible to make a mistake without being "incredibly stupid". In fact, there's a saying that that's part of being human. In particular, it is quite difficult to take away a capability from players of a live game, especially when that feature was something imported from a different set of game rules designed by someone else.

I'd say that the (slim) majority of DDO's design flaws are because "that's how it is in D&D".

[Junts]

1. I do not give that appearance.
2. It is possible to make a mistake without being "incredibly stupid". In fact, there's a saying that that's part of being human. In particular, it is quite difficult to take away a capability from players of a live game, especially when that feature was something imported from a different set of game rules designed by someone else.

I'd say that the (slim) majority of DDO's design flaws are because "that's how it is in D&D".

I'd certainly agree with that, but I think from the general nature of the spell changes, pale masters, and etc that they're clearly ok with casters having this particular extra capacity. They've had many opportunities to remove it and/or replicate it for melee characters and have never done so. In fact, they intentionally nerf and keep worthless the only melee feature that has ever given melees similar capacity: armor class.

The idea that they haven't noticed who solos and duos things all the time is disingenuous at best.

[sephiroth1084]

Hard to take you seriously after that comment. Fleshy archmages are viable at all levels. One was the sole caster in the Khyber serverwide first completion of epic Devil Assault (universally considered one of the toughest epics), and unlike most WF archmages that run that quest, they used no mana pots - they could benefit from the Spellsinger SP regen over time song. Yup. Admittedly, though, Sorgy was about as well geared an arcane caster as anyone on any server at the time.

Still, as I mentioned in the post I made about that run we did, I had just run eChrono for the first time on my drow wizard on whom I'd forgotten to equip my Minos Legens--under 330 HP for the whole quest and no fortification!--and never died, though I came close at 5 HP, and I didn't know the quest at all. The leader did, from Lama, but that's still not quite the same as personal knowledge.

[sirgog]

Who uses another source of fear? A -2 penalty to saves is pretty significant, and comes up often enough to be worth having. Nothing else really worth wearing on a PM in that slot besides, and it's as good a spot as any to stick +4 or +6 Str for carrying capacity and such.

LHBB (epic or not) is worthwhile if you are getting hit often. Some PMs build around this assumption (stacking both healing guards like Boon of Undeath and indirectly the Torc as well as debuff guards like Roar, Enervation Guard, etc, and Roar is the best of those), but as you can open up with Circle of Death and/or Finger from a distance, it's not uncommon to kill most non-teleporting mobs before they get close enough to swing at you.

For non-guard based PMs, who might get hit 10 times in an Epic, this item isn't offering much at all. For guard stackers, this item is solid but barely an upgrade over the non-epic version.

[Angelus_dead]

My problem with these characters is that they don't do what people add casters to the group to do in general. On DDO, casters are extremely self-sufficient characters who are given autonomous tasks apart from the group with some frequency and generally expected to be able to do so without any assistance whatsoever. Solo a base in von6, manage the jailor in an elite tod by themselves while doing dogs/elementals, solo the right half of deep while everyone else does the left,
That is extraordinarily incorrect in regards to how many people expect spellcasters to do those things.

The large majority of players look for casters to keep up Haste and some Displacements and to Hold or Firewall things once in a while. It's an unjustified generalization from your own preferences.

A big source of the problem is the "disconnect" (using that 1990s Washington word!) between elite players and average ones. Typical players needed the recent damage spell buffs just to get casters up to par; and they still get killed 5+ times in SOS Normal unless a healer is aggressively babysitting. In some ways it's a matter of skill cap: some types of characters have much more room for improvement if the player has more knowledge and planning.


The idea that they haven't noticed who solos and duos things all the time is disingenuous at best.
Sure, which is why I never suggested that was the case.


Who uses another source of fear? A -2 penalty to saves is pretty significant
Have you tried the new level 1 Cause Fear? It's very cheap, and a bit handy because Clerics get it too.

[sephiroth1084]

LHBB (epic or not) is worthwhile if you are getting hit often. Some PMs build around this assumption (stacking both healing guards like Boon of Undeath and indirectly the Torc as well as debuff guards like Roar, Enervation Guard, etc, and Roar is the best of those), but as you can open up with Circle of Death and/or Finger from a distance, it's not uncommon to kill most non-teleporting mobs before they get close enough to swing at you.

For non-guard based PMs, who might get hit 10 times in an Epic, this item isn't offering much at all. For guard stackers, this item is solid but barely an upgrade over the non-epic version.
Yeah. I wear it on Elochka for the reasons mentioned, and whenever I can get back to playing I'll be working on an Enervation guard item for her as well.

Oh, and thanks for bringing up our eDA run. It was fun reading back through that thread!

[Velexia]

No one really commented on any of my suggestions for the Mummy Wrappings:


Sorry to have missed that, I only read the first few posts before commenting =)

[sephiroth1084]

Have you tried the new level 1 Cause Fear? It's very cheap, and a bit handy because Clerics get it too.
Well, I haven't been in game since about 2 weeks before U9 went live, but I'll say that it A) costs mana (albeit not much), B) costs actions and C) is only applying to a single monster at a time, and requires a degree of focus.

For instance, with the belt, you can charge through something like Sins, building up a host of devils and orthons all out for blood. If your DC is too weak to get them all with one Wail, but you're resilient enough to take the beating for a bit, this basically gives you a +2 to your DC vs. most of the pack. This is how I run through Sins (my DC is enough on normal and I think hard, but elite they have pretty good saves): buff while running, kill the casters and their summoned whatever, repeat, then run until I get to a switch. Try to pull it. If I get through, keep going. If I get interrupted, wait about 5 seconds, then Wail. Hit the switch, and keep moving. I've tried it with and without the LHBB and the difference is noticeable.

[sephiroth1084]

Sorry to have missed that, I only read the first few posts before commenting =)
No need to apologize. I just wanted to get some dialogue on the proposal(s).

[sirgog]

Well, I haven't been in game since about 2 weeks before U9 went live, but I'll say that it A) costs mana (albeit not much), B) costs actions and C) is only applying to a single monster at a time, and requires a degree of focus.

For instance, with the belt, you can charge through something like Sins, building up a host of devils and orthons all out for blood. If your DC is too weak to get them all with one Wail, but you're resilient enough to take the beating for a bit, this basically gives you a +2 to your DC vs. most of the pack. This is how I run through Sins (my DC is enough on normal and I think hard, but elite they have pretty good saves): buff while running, kill the casters and their summoned whatever, repeat, then run until I get to a switch. Try to pull it. If I get through, keep going. If I get interrupted, wait about 5 seconds, then Wail. Hit the switch, and keep moving. I've tried it with and without the LHBB and the difference is noticeable.

You could get the exact same results by hotswapping a Fearsome item. Arguably better results solo, in fact, as some mobs will fail their save and run away, making opening the door easier still.

[Natashaelle]

The bloodstone has become largely redundant on many dps focussed builds due to the Seeker hats and + 2 exceptional seeker trinket from the kobold events.

It really needs a good plug - I agree + 10 seeker is more in line with where it should be and possibly a incite bonus.

Epic Blood Stone should be either seeker +11 or +12, to ensure better seeking powers than any other gear currently in the game. :)

[Carpone]

Epic Blood Stone should be either seeker +11 or +12, to ensure better seeking powers than any other gear currently in the game. :)
That won't ensure anything. Epic Marilith Chain + Greater Bold Trinket = Seeker +12.

[Elaril]

That won't ensure anything. Epic Marilith Chain + Greater Bold Trinket = Seeker +12.

2 slots < 1 slot though, so either bonus would make the bloodstone superior imho.

[Krag]

Epic Blood Stone should be either seeker +11 or +12, to ensure better seeking powers than any other gear currently in the game. :)

There is no reason for Epic Blood Stone to be any better than the other item.
Body slot is much more valuable for a melee than trinket. +5 resist, 20% healing amp and Destruction on a robe is a cheap but extremely efficient alternative to EMC.

[CaptainPurge]

Just saw a shard of the ring of spell storing drop. Cannith.

[Qezuzu]

When I see that Genasi posts in this thread, I'll totally DDOrgasm.

[LordPiglet]

Gensai mention Cacophony (sonic equivalent of lightening strike) being added to edyl edge. This would also fit well on whirlwind.

Upgraded to 4d6 19-20 x3 remove haste guard for the new effect?

[Qezuzu]

---

[oradafu]

I was wondering if The Epic Bloodstone (or is it now Epic The Bloodstone?) shouldn't have the seeker increased at all, but have something else added to it that nearly every melee seeks: +2 Exceptional Bonus to To-Hit and Damage. This might alleviate some of the pain that Light Monks have when it comes to getting their rings. (Yes, I know it probably won't help much since the ToD rings really stink for most of the classes/prestiges. An overhaul is due for them also, but that's another thread.)

Even with only the 8 Seeker, the +2 Exceptional Bonus to To-Hit and Damage added to it will make it still one of the most seeked items for melees. Heck, if you really want this to be THE melee's trinket, also add a +1 DC to tactical feats (like the Fighter Past Life feat) since 50 Stunning Blow is no longer reliable in Epics.

[Cyr]

More ideas (with the ideal that desert is the hardest epic pack with the hardest to construct epic loot and people should have more incentive to run these then easy welfare epics)...

Coronation Shield
Add Exceptional Cha +2
Add Radiance Guard

Ward of Undeath
Add Gives disruption to your melee weapon and shield bash attacks

Shield of Scorpion
Change spearblock on this to epic spearblock (20 piercing dr)

Sting
Add epic poisoner: Upon hit applies a debuff which removes a mobs resistance to stat damage. This does not apply to red or purple names, but does apply to epic ward.

Cloak of the Zephyr
(This item as is has a bizzare and silly combination of effects...it's really a caster item, but most of it's effects are useless to casters)
Upgrade Blurry to "Mist" - 10% incorporeal miss chance
Upgrade invisibility clickie to Invisibility Guard

Seal of Earth
Change Natural armor bonus to +3 epic bonus to natural armor (stacks with other natural armor bonus types)

Golden Greaves
Upgrade Striding to 30% (general epic item thing that says epic items with substandard old modifiers are silly)
Add Immunity to Movement Restricting Effects: You are immune to hamstring, crippling, slow, exhaution based effects, and dungeon alert based slowing effects. (This should make this item worth considering in certain situations).

Vulkorum Fighting Leathers
Upgrade Sneak Attack to +5

Bracers of the Hunter
Upgrade Sneak attack bonus to +7 making this the top dog sneak attack item in game

Gloves of the Falcon
Up insight bonus to +4
Add Exceptional Dexterity +1

Zephyr
Make this dex or str for to hit and damage whichever is better.
Add +10% doublestrike
Add electric damage to match lightning 2 rapier damage output with full dps lines (ie this would be a strict upgrade from a lightning 2 ie loot from a level 16 quest)

Dustless Boots
Upgrade Striding to 40% to make this the best movement modifier in the game so far

Hruy...soemething Medallion
Add Epic Spell Focus +1: This adds +1 to your spell dcs that stacks with everything else except the power of the same name and plus.

Bracers of Deftness
Add +1 Dodge
Add +2 Dodge

[sephiroth1084]

More ideas (with the ideal that desert is the hardest epic pack with the hardest to construct epic loot and people should have more incentive to run these then easy welfare epics)...

Coronation Shield
Add Exceptional Cha +2
Add Radiance Guard
Actually, I'd like to see all of the epic shields gain some functionality to support shield bashing. This likely means adding a red slot to many of them, and making some others that weren't already mithral or adamantine (or adding cold-iron or Metalline).

Ward of Undeath
Add Gives disruption to your melee weapon and shield bash attacks
Not bad.

Shield of Scorpion
Change spearblock on this to epic spearblock (20 piercing dr)
See my first comment.

Seal of Earth
Change Natural armor bonus to +3 epic bonus to natural armor (stacks with other natural armor bonus types) Why? +6 is pretty good, and with the Chattering Ring looking at an alternate item slot, this becomes a pretty good item.

Vulkorum Fighting Leathers
Upgrade Sneak Attack to +5 Agreed.

Gloves of the Falcon
Up insight bonus to +4
Add Exceptional Dexterity +2
Changed. I'm tired, honestly, of seeing +1 stat bonuses on epic items. Things come with colorless slots for that reason. Plus, many players wear ToD rings, which have +1 stats on them as well.

Hruy...soemething Medallion
Add Epic Spell Focus +1: This adds +1 to your spell dcs that stacks with everything else except the power of the same name and plus. Interesting.

Bracers of Deftness
Add +1 Dodge
Add +2 Dodge
Also interesting. Upgrade from Chaosgardes with a little more AC.
Comments.

[Cyr]

Comments.

RE Seal of Earth.

The upgrade to grim's does indeed make this item more competitive. However, it still is a fairly questionable item choice for AC builds which competes with ToD rings (monks this is a no brainer) and their upgrades (that also can add +1 AC through exceptional bonuses) or the ring of the silver concord (+1 from prot and very competitive charisma bonus for heavy armor builds that generally like high charisma for intim and or pali abilities).

RE Shields

I don't think adding metalline properties or shield bashing buffs to any of the shields really adds that much to their power so I would support changes to those, but not by themselves as they just would not be compelling choices for many builds based upon those alone (only tanks with shield bash feats are going to care at all about those properties after all).

[sephiroth1084]

RE Seal of Earth.

The upgrade to grim's does indeed make this item more competitive. However, it still is a fairly questionable item choice for AC builds which competes with ToD rings (monks this is a no brainer) and their upgrades (that also can add +1 AC through exceptional bonuses) or the ring of the silver concord (+1 from prot and very competitive charisma bonus for heavy armor builds that generally like high charisma for intim and or pali abilities). The game doesn't revolve around monks and their ridiculously powerful ToD rings. The fact that they can attain close to the same AC as a defender holding a shield, while often bringing quite a bit more DPS to bear at the same time leaves me feeling unconcerned with whether this interferes with their rings. Even if it did though, by your own admission, having this grant NA +6 is less unfair to them than your suggestion, since it represents only 1 point of AC they can't get, vs. your +3.

If you want to compare it to the Ring of Silver Concord, this should gain some other bonuses that compare favorably, though differently, to Cha +7 and Command, not something that seriously overshadows Protection +6 without offering anything else.



RE Shields

I don't think adding metalline properties or shield bashing buffs to any of the shields really adds that much to their power so I would support changes to those, but not by themselves as they just would not be compelling choices for many builds based upon those alone (only tanks with shield bash feats are going to care at all about those properties after all).
I didn't mean just the bashing support. Many of the shields need other bonuses, but I just want to see all epic shields gain some bashing functionality...at least any that could be used by a character who might pick up Improved Shield Bash. It was hard enough before to get a shield with the highest AC possible and even mediocre bonuses that did anything for a character. Adding bashing to the mix just makes that all the more difficult. Epic shields should be able to be chosen on any of those grounds without their seriously hampering the others.

[RandomKeypress]

Reserved, on the offchance that I want to use it later.


Remaining 'holes' in endgame itemisation

This is a list of item niches that I feel are underrepresented in endgame gear. Some I've suggested items for above. Others might be considered for future content.

This is not a definitive list.


Acid Savant: Superior Acid Lore
Cold Savant: Superior Ice Lore
Generalist arcane: Major Arcane Lore
Generalist arcane: Superior Potency 6+ in slots other than the weapon slot. Be careful with Potency 9 effects, they are a big buff to healing output (Mass Heal) and of little use to arcanes
Monk DPS: Metal-threaded endgame handwraps (+7 Silver-threaded of Destruction, etc)
Monk DPS: Alternative sources of Unarmed Holy Burst, etc (currently only available on ToD rings). Careful not to add Holy on a ring, that will outshine all the ToD elemental bursts.
Monk AC: Alternative sources of Heightened Awareness 4 (currently very hard to find outside Greensteel kamas/longswords/shortswords)
Finesse melees: 'Raw' DPS weapons (high DPS, little or no 'utility' effects like Improved Paralyzing, Epic Telekinetic)
Finesse melees: Medium DPS weapons that break the major DRs (Silver/Good, Cold Iron/Good, Blunt)
FvS Evoker: Clickies for 75% Light damage enhancement
Melee 0 AC tanks (mostly Kensais and Barbarians): Sources of 10% Healing Amp
General: Inherent Resist 5 and/or 10 to various elements.
General (but mostly melee tanks): Alternatives to Shroud HP items
Arcanes/Divines: Alternatives to Shroud SP items
Melees: Alternative sources of Morale To-Hit bonuses (other than a Bard's Inspire Courage or Heroism effects)
Melees: Alternative sources of Morale +damage bonuses (other than a Bard's Inspire Courage or a Good Hope clicky).

Massive area that is not addressed in epics: ranged combat (apart from a few weapons). Okay, so no-one actually likes ranged combat, it's gimp etc., but some people do actually use it, and it'd be nice to throw the gimps a bone every now and then.
Personal bugbear- only one epic repeater, and it isn't anything special.

[sephiroth1084]

Generalist arcane: Superior Potency 6+ in slots other than the weapon slot. Be careful with Potency 9 effects, they are a big buff to healing output (Mass Heal) and of little use to arcanes Would definitely be nice to see Superior Potency VI in a variety of other slots (not the neck or weapon) as well as items ranging from Greater to Superior Potency of VII to VIII.
Monk DPS: Metal-threaded endgame handwraps (+7 Silver-threaded of Destruction, etc) Agreed.
Monk DPS: Alternative sources of Unarmed Holy Burst, etc (currently only available on ToD rings). Careful not to add Holy on a ring, that will outshine all the ToD elemental bursts.
Monk AC: Alternative sources of Heightened Awareness 4 (currently very hard to find outside Greensteel kamas/longswords/shortswords) Agreed. The only source being the Siren's Charm and Gem of Many Facets, which locks monks out of their ToD bonus. If the Gem gets changed as per comments elsewhere to complete a set with either of the two items, then they'd gain this via the Siren's Belt + Gem, which works out much better for them.

General (but mostly melee tanks): Alternatives to Shroud HP items This is really a big deal. Even if only 2 of the HP effects could be found on epics, it would both make it easier to work epics into many characters' gear load-outs while also FINALLY injecting some variety back into Shroud crafting by rendering the crafting of items that don't grant +45 HP or +150 SP worthwhile as permanent or semi-permanent items.
Arcanes/Divines: Alternatives to Shroud SP items See above, although I feel this is less pressing than the HP issue.
Melees: Alternative sources of Morale To-Hit bonuses (other than a Bard's Inspire Courage or Heroism effects)
Melees: Alternative sources of Morale +damage bonuses (other than a Bard's Inspire Courage or a Good Hope clicky).Agree with both. Get some out there that range from +1 to +3 or 4, and that would lift the monopoly bards have on big to-hit and damage buffs while still leaving them in the position of best bonuses.
Comments.

[Cyr]

The game doesn't revolve around monks and their ridiculously powerful ToD rings. The fact that they can attain close to the same AC as a defender holding a shield, while often bringing quite a bit more DPS to bear at the same time leaves me feeling unconcerned with whether this interferes with their rings. Even if it did though, by your own admission, having this grant NA +6 is less unfair to them than your suggestion, since it represents only 1 point of AC they can't get, vs. your +3.


To me it's not about being fair to monks or Heavy armor wearers. It is about making it competitive and as a base AC item superior to other choices (as it currently does not really have much other function in game). An interesting alternative to giving it better AC would be to give it more defensive powers that would be valued by the builds likely to use it for it's AC that fit it's theme...

In that regard soemthing like double proc rate stoneskin guard CL20 would fit the bill (monks would find it useless, but they would want ToD rings anyways so non-monk pajama wearers and heavy armor builds could see some good utility here).

Or superior acid resistance (40 resist) and +5 exceptional acid resistance.

Or for a out of left field one...Earth Elemental Guard: Each time you are hit with weapon damage there is a chance that a Dense Earth Elemental is summoned under your control (2% chance, CR as GS clickie, does not dismiss any other summons you have out and can have multiple summoned at same time).

[Shade]

Massive area that is not addressed in epics: ranged combat (apart from a few weapons). Okay, so no-one actually likes ranged combat, it's gimp etc., but some people do actually use it, and it'd be nice to throw the gimps a bone every now and then.
Personal bugbear- only one epic repeater, and it isn't anything special.

Rangeds seems well represented to me..
Think there may be more epic longbows in the game then any other weapon type. 2 in desert, 1 in redfens.. 3 total.. 4 if you count the collasible shortbow, which while kinda crappy is at least almost like a longbow.
Greataxe: only 2 - antique/hellstroke
Greatsword: only 2 - esos, whirlwind
Maul: none currently.. ratkiller if you maanged to snag one in event
Dwarf axe: none


Repeaters specificly? mm yea named repeaters are extremely rare, epic or not .. Then again, people who actually used repeaters past lvl10 are even rarer, so maybe thats why heh.

[Melt-emi]

Maul: none currently.. ratkiller if you maanged to snag one in event

The Epic Hammer of Life is crying now =(

[Nospheratus]

Rangeds seems well represented to me..
Think there may be more epic longbows in the game then any other weapon type. 2 in desert, 1 in redfens.. 3 total.. 4 if you count the collasible shortbow, which while kinda crappy is at least almost like a longbow.
Greataxe: only 2 - antique/hellstroke
Greatsword: only 2 - esos, whirlwind
Maul: none currently.. ratkiller if you maanged to snag one in event
Dwarf axe: none


Repeaters specificly? mm yea named repeaters are extremely rare, epic or not .. Then again, people who actually used repeaters past lvl10 are even rarer, so maybe thats why heh.

Don't forget Xuum.

[sephiroth1084]

To me it's not about being fair to monks or Heavy armor wearers. It is about making it competitive and as a base AC item superior to other choices (as it currently does not really have much other function in game). An interesting alternative to giving it better AC would be to give it more defensive powers that would be valued by the builds likely to use it for it's AC that fit it's theme...

In that regard soemthing like double proc rate stoneskin guard CL20 would fit the bill (monks would find it useless, but they would want ToD rings anyways so non-monk pajama wearers and heavy armor builds could see some good utility here).

Or superior acid resistance (40 resist) and +5 exceptional acid resistance.

Or for a out of left field one...Earth Elemental Guard: Each time you are hit with weapon damage there is a chance that a Dense Earth Elemental is summoned under your control (2% chance, CR as GS clickie, does not dismiss any other summons you have out and can have multiple summoned at same time).
I'd opt for the higher-proc Earthen Guard, I think for this.

[Auran82]

Comments.

Regarding the Exceptional HP and SP items.

I made a suggestion in another thread to have more epic items with +20 exc hp and +100 exc SP on them. Then have +10 Exc HP available as a colourless augment crystal, and +15hp/+50sp available as a yellow augment crystal.

[Habreno]

FvS Evoker: Clickies for 75% Light damage enhancement


Craftable now, but only up to VI in the current system.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Craftable now, but only up to VI in the current system.

Which is fine, because Divine Punishment is the highest level light spell, and it's level 5.

[Shade]

Don't forget Xuum.

the mighty xuum is a falcion.. not greatsword nor axe. tho it crits hard as a greataxe, so its almost one i guess.

[Shade]

The Epic Hammer of Life is crying now =(

oh yea lol i have 2 and i forgot all about it. Kinda banked one, since triple pos maul is better.. Sadly.

[Melt-emi]

Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers

These combine solid effects on an item slot that has a lot of competition. Undispellable, persisting-through-death Fire Resistance is useful, +4 to-hit is excellent, and Sneak Attack +3 is a borderline acceptable substitute if you can't slot Tharne's Goggles.
Still, most characters will prefer a 'perfect' Dragontouched armor (whatever that might be for them) to the eVFLs. I use these one on of my bards, but only because I had the pieces and couldn't be bothered farming a Sovereign Rune of Destruction.

Suggested change:
These are borderline OK as is. However, if you desire them to be second-best-in-slot (behind red dragonscale) for light armor wearers that don't care about AC, consider adding Seeker 6, or improving the Sneak Attack to +5.

I slightly disagree here. As you said you can get the something similar on a DT armor:

-Greater Fire Resistance
-+6 Stat (or whatever you want), same as colorless slot
-Destruction (party buff, stacking with bard songs, better than +4 to hit)

+15 Hide and +3 Sneak Attack on the Epic Leathers aren't enough to match it and the Blue Slot (personally) goes away to mitigate the ASF. So, in my opinion, the changes you suggested (+5 Sneak Attack or +6 Seeker) are really a MUST to make it worth the grind.

[sephiroth1084]

I slightly disagree here. As you said you can get the something similar on a DT armor:

-Greater Fire Resistance
-+6 Stat (or whatever you want), same as colorless slot
-Destruction (party buff, stacking with bard songs, better than +4 to hit) Except that this +4 stacks with Destruction and does not preclude your from using a weapon with Destruction on it or having someone else in your group use Destruction.

+15 Hide and +3 Sneak Attack on the Epic Leathers aren't enough to match it and the Blue Slot (personally) goes away to mitigate the ASF. So, in my opinion, the changes you suggested (+5 Sneak Attack or +6 Seeker) are really a MUST to make it worth the grind.
The Fighting Leathers really don't need much of a boost. Certainly not both +5 SA and +6 Seeker. The SA should get bumped to +5, though.

[Yaga_Nub]

The Fighting Leathers really don't need much of a boost. Certainly not both +5 SA and +6 Seeker. The SA should get bumped to +5, though.

I would have to disagree about the Leathers. They need a fair boost. Not a huge boost but definitely need a boost.

How about SA to +5 and Exceptional Seeker +2?

Or if we really wanted to make something EPIC then Genasi would start using the Epic versions of stuff instead of the highest level of a boost that in the game.

For me this means that EPIC SA would be something like +7 to-hit/+12 damage AND vorpal effects.

[Krag]

Keep in mind, Leathers drop in the shortest and relatively easy desert quest. It shouldn't come close to Red Dragon armor or eMC in terms of power.

[Melt-emi]

The Fighting Leathers really don't need much of a boost. Certainly not both +5 SA and +6 Seeker. The SA should get bumped to +5, though.

As i said in the post you quoted they should get +5 SA or (or!) +6 seeker. I'd prefer +5 SA.


I would have to disagree about the Leathers. They need a fair boost. Not a huge boost but definitely need a boost.

How about SA to +5 and Exceptional Seeker +2?

Or if we really wanted to make something EPIC then Genasi would start using the Epic versions of stuff instead of the highest level of a boost that in the game.

For me this means that EPIC SA would be something like +7 to-hit/+12 damage AND vorpal effects.

I like +5 SA and Exceptional Seeker +2, it would gain some interesting singery with Seeker items.

What about leaving +3 SA but making it kinda exceptional (or epic, anyway) so it stacks with regular Sneak Attack booster? It would be a total of +8 SA in case you are wearing Tharne's Goggles or any other source of +5 Sneak Attack. I'd sign this one asap :D

[Aalric]

I'd like to see the bracers of deftness have it's AC go to +9 or + 10 to make them standout from other bracers (including the generic + 8 one's). Then it would at least occupy a niche for those who like AC. I don't think adding +7 dex would help much, especially seeing that spectral gloves (which is also from sands) already has that.

[sephiroth1084]

[quote=Aalric;3824514I don't think adding +7 dex would help much, especially seeing that spectral gloves (which is also from sands) already has that.[/quote]
Different slots with different competition and effects. The Spectral Gloves are good, but are competing for space with the Gloves of the Claw, Charged Gauntlets and Spiked Gauntlets (or whatever the gloves from CC were called). Sticking the +7 Dex in the bracers slot, along with +8 AC, an epic slot, etc... is pretty good for the types of characters who would want any of those effects separately.

[oradafu]

Different slots with different competition and effects. The Spectral Gloves are good, but are competing for space with the Gloves of the Claw, Charged Gauntlets and Spiked Gauntlets (or whatever the gloves from CC were called). Sticking the +7 Dex in the bracers slot, along with +8 AC, an epic slot, etc... is pretty good for the types of characters who would want any of those effects separately.

I have to agree that +7 Dex on the Epic Bracers of Deftness seems like a no-brainer since the item is the Bracer of DEFTNESS.

However, I never understood what the bracers were designed for. It has Lesser Swiftness, so it seems to be tailored for Barbarians and/or Rogues or people who multiclassed with those classes. However, the bracers don't have anything that's screams Barbarian on it. It could be an item for pajama wearing rogues that's not an Acrobat since Morah's Belt gives Acrobats a +15 Tumble. It could be useful for a Wizard/Rogue, but most that multiclass only go 2 levels rogue and Uncanny Dodge is a level 4 Feat. So that leaves me to think it's an Acrobat/Monk item, but I'll point back to the Morah's Belt.

Maybe I'm not thinking outside the box enough, but I don't see where these bracers have a build that's useful for them. Adding some sort of Save Vs Traps could be useful for both rogues and barbarians, I guess. Some other reflex save bonus would seem warranted. However, unless there's some direction on what build this item is for, I'm at a lose on what should be added to it to actually be useful.

[Aalric]

the only people who would wear such bracers are pajama wearer's who care about ac. That's why I suggested that they offer more AC... For those that don't care about AC, there are much better bracers

[oradafu]

the only people who would wear such bracers are pajama wearer's who care about ac. That's why I suggested that they offer more AC... For those that don't care about AC, there are much better bracers

Yes, but this is only one of two items that offer Lesser Swiftness; Cinder Dance being the other item. So the item seems to be targeted at the one or both classes that I mentioned: Barbarians and Rogues. The bracers are currently an unfocused item for those two classes. Whatever should be done to these bracers should have one or both of these classes in mind.

[sephiroth1084]

The bracers are clearly targeted at rogues who are concerned with AC, so, most likely Acrobats, though there may be some Mechanics, Assassins or un-prestiged rogues interested in there (such as rogue/monk combos). The Acrobat set, from what I've read, is pretty much junk, so the Tumble being duplicated (surpassed) elsewhere isn't really a knock against the item. They're +8 AC bracers (always in high demand for Dex-based AC characters) with some other bonuses on them. The Lesser Swiftness is kind of junky for some characters, nice for others, and pointless for another group still. The yellow slot is good. The Tumble is an okay addition. Attaching Dex +7 to these fits the theme of the item, is useful to the types of characters who would wear the thing and makes it unique and strong enough to compete, at least a little bit, with the other similar bracers out there.

[oradafu]

The bracers are clearly targeted at rogues who are concerned with AC, so, most likely Acrobats, though there may be some Mechanics, Assassins or un-prestiged rogues interested in there (such as rogue/monk combos). The Acrobat set, from what I've read, is pretty much junk, so the Tumble being duplicated (surpassed) elsewhere isn't really a knock against the item. They're +8 AC bracers (always in high demand for Dex-based AC characters) with some other bonuses on them. The Lesser Swiftness is kind of junky for some characters, nice for others, and pointless for another group still. The yellow slot is good. The Tumble is an okay addition. Attaching Dex +7 to these fits the theme of the item, is useful to the types of characters who would wear the thing and makes it unique and strong enough to compete, at least a little bit, with the other similar bracers out there.

Well, I had a level 20 Dex-based acrobat that wasn't multiclassed who is currently TRing a few times before he goes back to a level 20 Acrobat again. I was using pajamas, until the Tier 3 Epic Duelist Leathers came out. Those Dielist Leathers didn't hamper my rogue much, so the Bracers would have to be on par with the Duelist Leathers for me to even consider using them.

Yes, the Morah's set stinks outright, especially if you are an Acrobat...but there's still Acrobat III that will eventual be made, unless the Devs decided that Acrobat III is actually just levels of Monk (which I suspect is how they truly feel). If there is a decent bonus on the Morah set for Acrobats, I can see it being used. If that's the case, the Tumble on these should be equal, greater or stacking with the Morah set if these bracers are designed with the Acrobat in mind.

And yes, Uncanny Dodge is mostly useless at high levels, but that's more because of the way the game's mechanics go a bit wacky at those levels, like AC. Perhaps there can be something added on these bracers that will make Uncanny Dodge more relevant with the end game.

[sephiroth1084]

Well, I had a level 20 Dex-based acrobat that wasn't multiclassed who is currently TRing a few times before he goes back to a level 20 Acrobat again. I was using pajamas, until the Tier 3 Epic Duelist Leathers came out. Those Dielist Leathers didn't hamper my rogue much, so the Bracers would have to be on par with the Duelist Leathers for me to even consider using them. The Duelist Leathers are a totally different item. If you have splashed monk for AC, you can't use the Duelist Leathers. If you missed CC, you don't have access to them. If there is another set of armor you really want to wear for other bonuses, you also aren't going to be wearing them.



Yes, the Morah's set stinks outright, especially if you are an Acrobat...but there's still Acrobat III that will eventual be made, unless the Devs decided that Acrobat III is actually just levels of Monk (which I suspect is how they truly feel). If there is a decent bonus on the Morah set for Acrobats, I can see it being used. If that's the case, the Tumble on these should be equal, greater or stacking with the Morah set if these bracers are designed with the Acrobat in mind. Why especially for an Acrobat? It's just not good for anyone, really. Maybe the tier III PrE bonus will be worth wearing the set for, but equipment we have now can't be adjusted for something that may come in the future. Also, the tumble bonus is pretty insignificant. I hardly see that being the deciding factor on whether someone chooses to wear these or not.



And yes, Uncanny Dodge is mostly useless at high levels, but that's more because of the way the game's mechanics go a bit wacky at those levels, like AC. Perhaps there can be something added on these bracers that will make Uncanny Dodge more relevant with the end game.
UD is useless to some because AC is meaningless to them, and weak to others because it is kind of limited in how long you can use it. More importantly, though, Lesser Swiftness is problematic because it makes swapping your bracers very painful as it eats up IUD charges.

[Yaga_Nub]

... More importantly, though, Lesser Swiftness is problematic because it makes swapping your bracers very painful as it eats up IUD charges.

Isn't an IUD a contraceptive? You definitely don't want to eat up charges or you'll find yourself with little surprises that you might not have been planning for.

[Aalric]

A rogue will have + 6 dex from somewhere else - would he prefer to use these bracers over other epic bracers for just +1 dex? Especially if he uses spectrals?

+8 ac is nothing on an epic - you can pick up +8 ac bracers at the auction house

That's why I suggested making it have +9 or + 10 ac - it doesn't exist anywhere else in the game & it would definately bring the bracers back into contention.

Remember - the whole point of the thread is how to make epic items more interesting - what's the point of improving an item if it's still going to be lacklustre?

[sephiroth1084]

Isn't an IUD a contraceptive? You definitely don't want to eat up charges or you'll find yourself with little surprises that you might not have been planning for.
Hahaha!

A rogue will have + 6 dex from somewhere else - would he prefer to use these bracers over other epic bracers for just +1 dex? Especially if he uses spectrals?

+8 ac is nothing on an epic - you can pick up +8 ac bracers at the auction house

That's why I suggested making it have +9 or + 10 ac - it doesn't exist anywhere else in the game & it would definately bring the bracers back into contention.

Remember - the whole point of the thread is how to make epic items more interesting - what's the point of improving an item if it's still going to be lacklustre?
Are Dex-based AC builds suffering for AC so much that they need that kind of bump? Last I checked, they were staying fairly competitive (or surpassing) the Defenders, often while maintaining better offense.

I'd imagine that these would be an alternative to the Epic Spectral Gloves. For one, these would not be in such high demand, and for another, would open up the possibility of using one of the excellent sets of Epic Gloves that contribute to DPS in one form or another. Yes, you can buy +8 bracers on the AH, but those don't come with a yellow slot or +7 Dex (a Dex bump is still a Dex bump, and nearly every Dex-based character can easily adjust to odd increases in Dex, either saving AP or spending more).

[oradafu]

As I stated before, I don't really understand what build the Epic Bracers of Deftness is suppose to be aimed at. Since it has the Lesser Swiftness, it seems to be an item for an Acrobat/Monk multi-class or some other Rogue AC build.

As the Epic Bracers of Deftness stand right now, it has +8 Armor Bonus, Feat: Mobility, Tumble +11, Lesser Swiftness and a Yellow Slot. The Armor Bonus has been suggested to go up some. The Feat: Mobility could be useful for someone, I guess. As Serphiroth pointed out, the Tumble won't make or break anything, but I don't think bumping it up to 15 is going to hurt anything. The Lesser Swiftness is only useful for Barbarians and Rogues or their hybrids. (BTW I forgot that Swiftness, not Lesser Swiftness, is found on Epic Nat Gann's Staff....Just an aside that I forgot in an earlier post.) The Yellow slot is useful for sticking something in there that's not covered by the rest of a person's gear setup.

Since it is Deftness, +7 Dex seems useful. Will +7 Dex be covered by some other gear? Maybe, maybe not. If we're talking about +6 Dex, I would say don't even both. But +7 Dex or some sort of exceptional Dex would be useful on this item. As I said before, they are Bracers of DEFTNESS.

That's also why I suggested adding Saves vs Traps or Reflex Saves to the bracers. Quick and skillful does seem to imply a high reflex, does it not? Even a Haste Guard seems to be thematic to the Bracers.

Even with these suggestions, it still leaves me confused on what build these bracers were originally designed for.

[Auran82]

Maybe +2 exceptional Dex might not be out of place for the bracers?

The Feat: Mobility might be useful if mobility is ever changed to do something useful.

Tumble as well, might be useful of the skill did more, but should be at least +15.

Don't some variant rules allow for passive bonuses depending on the value in some skills? Like once you have a certain number of ranks in tumble, you get a bonus to your ac depending on your total tumble bonus (might be like +1 for every 5 ranks) think it was in NWN.

[sirgog]

Keep in mind, Leathers drop in the shortest and relatively easy desert quest. It shouldn't come close to Red Dragon armor or eMC in terms of power.

To be fair, OOB is a lot more unforgiving than eVON6 or eDQ2. Even quite solid groups can wipe in OOB if they only have one healing-capable toon, and that character gets their FoM dispelled and lands in a Web for a while. Actually, I think I've wiped more in eOOB than any other Epic (especially prior to the Minion debuff and the respawn rate nerfs), maybe a full 20% of my PUG runs of it have ended in a failure.

I'm happy to PUG or even shortman eVON6 or eDQ2; I'm a bit more selective about who I'll take in an eOOB group.

[Qezuzu]

To be fair, OOB is a lot more unforgiving than eVON6 or eDQ2. Even quite solid groups can wipe in OOB if they only have one healing-capable toon, and that character gets their FoM dispelled and lands in a Web for a while. Actually, I think I've wiped more in eOOB than any other Epic (especially prior to the Minion debuff and the respawn rate nerfs), maybe a full 20% of my PUG runs of it have ended in a failure.

I'm happy to PUG or even shortman eVON6 or eDQ2; I'm a bit more selective about who I'll take in an eOOB group.

Not to mention the change to mass hold (has an SR check), meaning Web is about the only arcane-method of CC that is reliable (unless you have multiple past lives). You'll really want to bring stun-spamming light monks or the like.

This thread is really deserving of another Genasi post.

[sirgog]

Not to mention the change to mass hold (has an SR check), meaning Web is about the only arcane-method of CC that is reliable (unless you have multiple past lives). You'll really want to bring stun-spamming light monks or the like.

This thread is really deserving of another Genasi post.

Yeah, if Mass Hold was still bugged, the drow wouldn't be the quite threat they now are (although their Will saves are high). Were I ever to roll as a WF archmage, epic Drow would be a significant factor in making me consider Necro/Conj instead of Necro/Enchant. Still, as well as stunning them, not CCing them is a viable option - the damage those casters puts out can usually be healed through without resources. (Of course, this gives them more chances to dispel the party, and maybe pull off the dreaded 'Dispel FOM, Web the healer-type' one-two punch).

Addressing the Desert issues will probably take a lot more thought from Genasi than two relatively minor packs did. Partly because anything about Greensteel-equivalent in power was acceptable as an epic item in the easier Carnival content, but the Desert is harder by quite a bit, and balancing items that are intended to be serious contenders for best-in-slot isn't easy. If I were him, I'd break these 64 items up and tackle them in 2-4 lots, getting feedback from each batch.

[Junts]

To be fair, OOB is a lot more unforgiving than eVON6 or eDQ2. Even quite solid groups can wipe in OOB if they only have one healing-capable toon, and that character gets their FoM dispelled and lands in a Web for a while. Actually, I think I've wiped more in eOOB than any other Epic (especially prior to the Minion debuff and the respawn rate nerfs), maybe a full 20% of my PUG runs of it have ended in a failure.

I'm happy to PUG or even shortman eVON6 or eDQ2; I'm a bit more selective about who I'll take in an eOOB group.

I can only but think you guys aren't doing it right, eOOB hasn't been a difficult epic quest for a long time.

The one thing that relaly bothers me about this thread is your insistence that the desert is somehow miraculously vastly, vastly harder than other epic content, and that it's therefore entitled to have 64 epic items that are all better than what you get elsewhere.

It isn't, and it's not. There are a lot of desert items that are unconscionably bad (sandstorm glasses anyone) an there are a bunch that are too hard to acquire for their very good niche uses (dynastic falcata), but many of them are good items useful to specific niches, and the desert loot list shouldn't be a laundry list of the 64 best items on DDO. Not every item here deserves to be that good, and the content isn't that much harder to merit it. A lot of it has become a lot easier recently, too.

The concept of this thread seems to be that you feel every desert item should be amazing, and that's impossible, unrealistic and silly: If it were, why would you own or run any other content?

I have a lot of these items and I'm looking forward to seeing them improved, but while there are major accessibility issues that have to be addressed and some truly egregiously bad items, most of the items would be just fine if their droprates were sane.

[sirgog]

A couple of things I'm looking for feedback on:

If the Epic Tourney Armor went along the anti-caster route, and had the following stats:

+6 mithril fullplate (base AC one less than Dragontouched, allows 2 more Dex modifier than DT)
DR 5/adamantine
Arcane Absorb 10% (reduces all incoming spell damage by 10% except from positive energy)
Resistance +6
Armored Evasion - for purposes of the Evasion feat, this is considered light armor.

would you:

a) Still consider it a poor item, weaker than a DT armor
b) Consider it on-par with a 'perfect' Dragontouched armor
c) Consider it on-par with the good-but-not-great Epic armors (like the Demon Scale armor) - you might use it if you come across it, but you won't farm for it
d) Consider it top-notch but balanced - you'd go out of your way to acquire it, it might even be best in slot, but if it is, it's only BiS by a small amount.
or e) Consider it game-breaking - if you had a toon that couldn't use it well, it's such a good item that you'd TR into a build that could use it.

I'll edit my answer in later.

[sirgog]

I can only but think you guys aren't doing it right, eOOB hasn't been a difficult epic quest for a long time.

The one thing that relaly bothers me about this thread is your insistence that the desert is somehow miraculously vastly, vastly harder than other epic content, and that it's therefore entitled to have 64 epic items that are all better than what you get elsewhere.

It isn't, and it's not. There are a lot of desert items that are unconscionably bad (sandstorm glasses anyone) an there are a bunch that are too hard to acquire for their very good niche uses (dynastic falcata), but many of them are good items useful to specific niches, and the desert loot list shouldn't be a laundry list of the 64 best items on DDO. Not every item here deserves to be that good, and the content isn't that much harder to merit it. A lot of it has become a lot easier recently, too.

The concept of this thread seems to be that you feel every desert item should be amazing, and that's impossible, unrealistic and silly: If it were, why would you own or run any other content?

I have a lot of these items and I'm looking forward to seeing them improved, but while there are major accessibility issues that have to be addressed and some truly egregiously bad items, most of the items would be just fine if their droprates were sane.


For about the fifth time, nothing in this game is difficult. When I say 'this is one of the hardest quests in the game', that is a comparison. I've never wiped in a guild group in Desert epics for any reason other than extreme lag or a critical party member disconnecting. That doesn't change the fact that this is the hardest pack on Epic by quite a long way.

Perhaps you'd rather that the Shroud, or the trivially easy epic VON6, continue to have the majority of endgame loot. I think that would be ridiculous. A far better setup would be to have each easier pack have one or two excellent items (like the eClaw set), several good niche items (like the eSouleater), and lots of OK but not uber items (like the eSacredHelm). Then the harder packs would have most items a tier below the 'excellent' items, with some better niche items and some items that are best-in-the-game.

Of course not every Desert item can be clear best-in-slot, but all of them should either be good enough to have some use, or at least unique and fun (like the Wolf Whistle). Currently maybe 15 items are worthy of actually chasing down (on some builds), maybe another 15 are solid items but clear upgrades exist (and those upgrades are usually easier to get), and over half are garbage.

[Junts]

For about the fifth time, nothing in this game is difficult. When I say 'this is one of the hardest quests in the game', that is a comparison. I've never wiped in a guild group in Desert epics for any reason other than extreme lag or a critical party member disconnecting. That doesn't change the fact that this is the hardest pack on Epic by quite a long way.

Perhaps you'd rather that the Shroud, or the trivially easy epic VON6, continue to have the majority of endgame loot. I think that would be ridiculous. A far better setup would be to have each easier pack have one or two excellent items (like the eClaw set), several good niche items (like the eSouleater), and lots of OK but not uber items (like the eSacredHelm). Then the harder packs would have most items a tier below the 'excellent' items, with some better niche items and some items that are best-in-the-game.

Of course not every Desert item can be clear best-in-slot, but all of them should either be good enough to have some use, or at least unique and fun (like the Wolf Whistle). Currently maybe 15 items are worthy of actually chasing down (on some builds), maybe another 15 are solid items but clear upgrades exist (and those upgrades are usually easier to get), and over half are garbage.

I don't think those places should - in fact, I make a pretty small number of shroud items, and I'll point out that von6 only has one outstanding item (the sword). Even the 7 cha items are at times eclipsed by the helm of frost. The belt of the mroranon etc etc are all pretty bad epic items, honestly.

The thing you aren't accounting for is that when you are focusing on the rarest or highest-demand items in a given pack, the items that are less wanted, even if they are also good, will become relatively trivial for you. For example, multiple rings of venom and elder's caps and twisted talismans and the like are a side-effect of having claw sets - if you get claw sets, you will inadertantly have multiple of these other items to distribute to your characters. The way epic plays out is that you frequently get very little loot for your first dozen or more runs while you get 1-2 pieces of each epic, and then you start to rapidly assemble epic items because nearly anything you pull will finish an item.

If you topload the entire desert with every single worthwhile item, people will just stop running the other content because outside the single niche useful items remaining in that content, there won't be anything to go get. If xuum is better than the sword of shadows, edragon is a token run! The other loot that isn't the armor (which you can basically buy, Ill point out) is pretty ordinary.

The best items have to be distributed in a wide range of packs. This makes us run a lot of different content, and it also sells the packs which is very important to turbine. If the desert is the source of all things good, you can get by without even buying some of the others (especially carnival, deneith and vons).

I don't disagree the desert should provide great items, but part of what has to change is not just making the items in the desert better, its chan ging the accessibility of those items in a way that makes it ok that a majority of them are simply situationally good and useful, because you will acquire those items while you are grinding the good stuff.

In any case, I really think you are overstating the difficulty, because the instadeath changes have made all 4 desert quests a lot easier and less challenging (especially adq and chains, which were resource-test quests before and aren't anymore). Undeath to Death even makes wizking trivial (to say nothing of 50% hp, taking 50% more damage automatically from a halt undead scroll skeletons that explode in a single spell). The content is not as hard as it was before. It isn't even necessarily harder than content in other packs. I'd argue a pug is now more likely to wipe on the demon of frenzied blood than it is on Lailat in either ADQ fight, and what had been the hardest part of ADQ (resource saving and not using pots) is basically gone. There's a sorc on my server who solos eadq in like 35minutes with nothing but his SLAs, and when a real party does the quest it's done in 15 minutes. It's so easy you can split up the sides like you do in a casual run! Yeah, that's not a pug, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility for a pug to complete the quest effortlessly in a full group at once, much less split in 2 groups of 3.

The only thing that makes offering even remotely hard is the drow SR, though webs and sorc damage suggest that isn't much the case. The same could be said of von3 and bargain of blood for that matter. Even so, those quests aren't hard, they just allow less tactical flexibility and you to not do the quest by spamming wail and circle of death.

I want to see improvements to desert loot, but I think you're extremely overinvested in the difficulty of the content compared to the others. I'd suggest that both evon4 and evon5 are harder than anything the desert has to offer (since the wf have solid fort saves and are immune to most will-based CC), and they're not particularly hard.

[Yaga_Nub]

A couple of things I'm looking for feedback on:

If the Epic Tourney Armor went along the anti-caster route, and had the following stats:

+6 mithril fullplate (base AC one less than Dragontouched, allows 2 more Dex modifier than DT)
DR 5/adamantine
Arcane Absorb 10% (reduces all incoming spell damage by 10% except from positive energy)
Resistance +6
Armored Evasion - for purposes of the Evasion feat, this is considered light armor.

would you:

a) Still consider it a poor item, weaker than a DT armor
b) Consider it on-par with a 'perfect' Dragontouched armor
c) Consider it on-par with the good-but-not-great Epic armors (like the Demon Scale armor) - you might use it if you come across it, but you won't farm for it
d) Consider it top-notch but balanced - you'd go out of your way to acquire it, it might even be best in slot, but if it is, it's only BiS by a small amount.
or e) Consider it game-breaking - if you had a toon that couldn't use it well, it's such a good item that you'd TR into a build that could use it.

I'll edit my answer in later.

I would get rid of the DR and the resistance +6 and go with lifeshield and exceptional resistance +2 (stacks with any other resistance except for itself). I would also add Fighter Armor Mastery 2 like the Daggertooth's Belt.

[maddmatt70]

The best items have to be distributed in a wide range of packs. This makes us run a lot of different content, and it also sells the packs which is very important to turbine. If the desert is the source of all things good, you can get by without even buying some of the others (especially carnival, deneith and vons).

I don't disagree the desert should provide great items, but part of what has to change is not just making the items in the desert better, its chan ging the accessibility of those items in a way that makes it ok that a majority of them are simply situationally good and useful, because you will acquire those items while you are grinding the good stuff.

In any case, I really think you are overstating the difficulty, because the instadeath changes have made all 4 desert quests a lot easier and less challenging (especially adq and chains, which were resource-test quests before and aren't anymore). Undeath to Death even makes wizking trivial (to say nothing of 50% hp, taking 50% more damage automatically from a halt undead scroll skeletons that explode in a single spell). The content is not as hard as it was before. It isn't even necessarily harder than content in other packs. I'd argue a pug is now more likely to wipe on the demon of frenzied blood than it is on Lailat in either ADQ fight, and what had been the hardest part of ADQ (resource saving and not using pots) is basically gone. There's a sorc on my server who solos eadq in like 35minutes with nothing but his SLAs, and when a real party does the quest it's done in 15 minutes. It's so easy you can split up the sides like you do in a casual run! Yeah, that's not a pug, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility for a pug to complete the quest effortlessly in a full group at once, much less split in 2 groups of 3.



Junts you are pretty out of touch with the pug scene. When you made the claim about into the deep pug casters soloing a side I just giggled. The end fight of epic dq1 is actually very difficult for pure pugs and pugs can not land their insta kill spells willy nilly like you say throughout the quest. Those disjunction balls will lag out anyone at the end fight. I tried duoing Adq1 with my guildie on his FVS and I was on my archer and she just owned us because we kept lagging out and could not exhaust her or stop her. The problem is its far too easy for the hardcore players who just own this stuff which has some further ramfications. Offering of blood is not easy for pure pugs because the caster can not land anything and the mobs just keep coming. Chain of flames is easier but still challenging what with the traps and the shrine locations etc.

Really somebody that never pugs should stick to not talking about the pug scene.

[Monkey_Archer]

A couple of things I'm looking for feedback on:

If the Epic Tourney Armor went along the anti-caster route, and had the following stats:

+6 mithril fullplate (base AC one less than Dragontouched, allows 2 more Dex modifier than DT)
DR 5/adamantine
Arcane Absorb 10% (reduces all incoming spell damage by 10% except from positive energy)
Resistance +6
Armored Evasion - for purposes of the Evasion feat, this is considered light armor.

would you:

a) Still consider it a poor item, weaker than a DT armor
b) Consider it on-par with a 'perfect' Dragontouched armor
c) Consider it on-par with the good-but-not-great Epic armors (like the Demon Scale armor) - you might use it if you come across it, but you won't farm for it
d) Consider it top-notch but balanced - you'd go out of your way to acquire it, it might even be best in slot, but if it is, it's only BiS by a small amount.
or e) Consider it game-breaking - if you had a toon that couldn't use it well, it's such a good item that you'd TR into a build that could use it.

I'll edit my answer in later.

I'd say somewhere between C and D: It would have it's place as ideal armor for evasion tank builds, but wouldn't be worth farming for on much else.

I'll also say, while I do like the armored evasion/spell absorption idea, this pretty much makes the epic demon scale completely obsolete (considering that you haven't recommended any improvements for it). 10% absorption is less then 15-20% on the demon scale, but the demon scale doesn't stack with easy to make shroud absorption items, so in terms of total spell damage mitigation this makes the tourney armor superior. Then, consider that the demon scale only has proof against poison to compete with the tourney armor's DR5, +1 ac and resist 6.

Even being clearly superior to the demon scale, its still not something overly powerful, so rather then suggest this be dropped down a bit to match the demon scale, I think the demon scale should receive something instead.... maybe set the absorptions to stackable percentages (25% for example) so it still retains that absorption advantage.

[Junts]

Junts you are pretty out of touch with the pug scene. When you made the claim about into the deep pug casters soloing a side I just giggled. The end fight of epic dq1 is actually very difficult for pure pugs and pugs can not land their insta kill spells willy nilly like you say throughout the quest. Those disjunction balls will lag out anyone at the end fight. I tried duoing Adq1 with my guildie on his FVS and I was on my archer and she just owned us because we kept lagging out and could not exhaust her or stop her. The problem is its far too easy for the hardcore players who just own this stuff which has some further ramfications. Offering of blood is not easy for pure pugs because the caster can not land anything and the mobs just keep coming. Chain of flames is easier but still challenging what with the traps and the shrine locations etc.

Really somebody that never pugs should stick to not talking about the pug scene.

Here's the thing - I don't pug a lot, but I pug 1-2 spots a lot. And it turns out on my server people can handle pretty complex tasks when they're told how to do them. And they can certainly handle tasks as simple as 'go solo snake' on their casters!

If you're getting hammered by disjunctions like that, you probably should have restarted your clients - the char-switch bug is particularly crippling with disjunction traps. Its also safer to have everyone in the room when you trigger her because she'll frequently kill someone who gets disjunctioned while loading through the teleporter. But that's neither here nor there.

I can only conclude that one of the three following things is true

1: The people who click on my LFMs are better players than the people who click on yours. I'm open to this possibility because about 50% of people I see on my lfms are people I already know who hit it because they recognize me. If you're really grabbing people entirely blindly, then you probably aren't getting the same quality of player I am.

2: You're throwing up 5 pug spots, taking the first 5 people without checking where they're from, guilds, etc and expect to do high-end content easily. That's never been true at any level, unless you were basically soloing said content (in whichcase its still true). I wouldn't expect that such a strategy would be effective in any epic content harder than Phiarlan carnival in general. If you have 1-2 other players of your level, it probably doesn't matter who the other 3 are for most quests ,though, and the 6th person basically never matters in any quest - even chains or adq.

3: You underestimate the people who join your pugs and don't give them clear and detailed enough directions what you expect. I have had far more people hit an LFM for a quest, admit they've never done it before and had them perform acceptably to admirably after giving them explicit directions and structuring the strategy around the expectation that they will not exceed those directions at all, than I have had completely stupid people who won't listen and contribute nothing to the run the entire time. Most people have some foreknowledge and don't need extremely detailed instructions as long as you tell them what you expect "You have dancing sphere and wail, right? Go up snake, finger the convoker, throw a sphere in the middle of the room, finger the convoker in there, then wail them down and wait until we tell you to hit snake .. you good for that?" .. I've never met a caster who wasn't able to follow that instruction. Ever.

I'd agree that there are certain ways in which the desert is more demanding mechanically than some other epics, but that's also true of, as I mentioned before, von4/5, into the deep, and several other quests, and it doesn't really make them all that much more difficult as long as you know the most effective ways to approach them.

If I take anything from these conversations, though, its that caster players on your server are just absolutely horrifically bad. Any palemaster/wf caster/sorceror should be able to jump up on each lever and grab all the aggro at each door on a run through OOB, and if they do that it barely even matters what else they do during the rest of the quest. Sorcs certainly have it easier (because they rarely even need the 1st shrine when doing this), but the only people I'd expect can't easily do that are fleshy archmagi who can't heal themselves for ****.

Are you guys just using months-old tactics on quests that have changed in the interim? Puggers won't learn current, relevant tactics unless you teach it to them, and you're clearly visible enough pugging players on your servers to take some initiative to do that. That's how new tactics are disseminated and learned by people who aren't in your main playgroup.

[Auran82]

All epic packs (IMO) should have items that are:

X exceptional items, best in slot as Sirgog puts it.
Y Really good items, ones which are really nice, depending on build, which might be outclasses by an exceptional item from another pack.
The rest should be good items, that might shore up holes in your gear, you are happy to use these but you would still be searching for something better.

There is no reason to have any epic items that just plain suck, though this is made more difficult to work out as there are too many items (mainly rings, belts and necklaces) that proxy suck because they stop you from using ToD sets or the Torc (this effect is plain too good, everyone knows it).

There are some effects that need to be replicated elsewhere to free these slots somewhat, Tod set wise, the main offenders from memory are Shintao and Ravager, are there any others? (I have no issue with characters with the appropriate PRE wanting these items, its every melee wanting these sets that gets a little silly) The Torc on the other hand, well, I don't know what can be done with this, maybe it should never have stacked with Conc Op, but be a greater version of the sp part of that.

[Junts]

All epic packs (IMO) should have items that are:

X exceptional items, best in slot as Sirgog puts it.
Y Really good items, ones which are really nice, depending on build, which might be outclasses by an exceptional item from another pack.
The rest should be good items, that might shore up holes in your gear, you are happy to use these but you would still be searching for something better.

There is no reason to have any epic items that just plain suck, though this is made more difficult to work out as there are too many items (mainly rings, belts and necklaces) that proxy suck because they stop you from using ToD sets or the Torc (this effect is plain too good, everyone knows it).

There are some effects that need to be replicated elsewhere to free these slots somewhat, Tod set wise, the main offenders from memory are Shintao and Ravager, are there any others? (I have no issue with characters with the appropriate PRE wanting these items, its every melee wanting these sets that gets a little silly) The Torc on the other hand, well, I don't know what can be done with this, maybe it should never have stacked with Conc Op, but be a greater version of the sp part of that.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

Except all the torc not stacking with conopp would do is make people save larges not making conopps because they'd be worse.

[noinfo]

A couple of things I'm looking for feedback on:

If the Epic Tourney Armor went along the anti-caster route, and had the following stats:

+6 mithril fullplate (base AC one less than Dragontouched, allows 2 more Dex modifier than DT)
DR 5/adamantine
Arcane Absorb 10% (reduces all incoming spell damage by 10% except from positive energy)
Resistance +6
Armored Evasion - for purposes of the Evasion feat, this is considered light armor.

would you:

a) Still consider it a poor item, weaker than a DT armor
b) Consider it on-par with a 'perfect' Dragontouched armor
c) Consider it on-par with the good-but-not-great Epic armors (like the Demon Scale armor) - you might use it if you come across it, but you won't farm for it
d) Consider it top-notch but balanced - you'd go out of your way to acquire it, it might even be best in slot, but if it is, it's only BiS by a small amount.
or e) Consider it game-breaking - if you had a toon that couldn't use it well, it's such a good item that you'd TR into a build that could use it.

I'll edit my answer in later.

I think C
Its direct competetor at the moment is Cav Plate and that is by far and away the better of the 2 and easier to get.
Adding nimble or something to boost dex bonus may also make it a little more worthwhile.

[sirgog]

All epic packs (IMO) should have items that are:

X exceptional items, best in slot as Sirgog puts it.
Y Really good items, ones which are really nice, depending on build, which might be outclasses by an exceptional item from another pack.
The rest should be good items, that might shore up holes in your gear, you are happy to use these but you would still be searching for something better.

There is no reason to have any epic items that just plain suck, though this is made more difficult to work out as there are too many items (mainly rings, belts and necklaces) that proxy suck because they stop you from using ToD sets or the Torc (this effect is plain too good, everyone knows it).



I think that's pretty close to what I'm suggesting, except that the 'Good Items' from the Desert are of a higher caliber than the 'Good Items' from the Carnival, and the 'Really Good Items' in the Desert would be more likely to be best-in-slot for some niche than, say, 'Really Good Items' in eFens.

On a scale of 1 to 10 - 1 = +5 Greatsword from random lootgen, 10 = eSOS, (and maybe a Lit 2 Greatsword might be a 6 or 7), I'd suggest the Carnival be maybe 60% 5-6s, 30% 7s and 10% 8-9, whereas the Desert could be more like 60% 5-7, 35% 8-9 and 5% 10.

As for why you'd still run non-Desert epics:
Maybe you just want to gear up a new alt to the point that they can tackle the tougher Epics and prefer running the eCarnival to grinding more Shrouds.
Maybe an item has a unique effect you value more highly than most other players do (case in point - I'm a huge fan of the new Epic Ring of Elemental Essence largely for the stacking 5 resists and may make them for swapins on multiple toons, I expect this to be an unconventional decision).
Maybe you'd rather a slightly lower powered item that's in an equipment slot you can more easily spare.
Maybe you want an item that has a completely unique effect, such as Greater Light Resist.
Or maybe you just find them fun.

[Auran82]

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

Except all the torc not stacking with conopp would do is make people save larges not making conopps because they'd be worse.

My thinking was more that you could weigh up the benefits of having something else in your neck slot + Conc Op Vs Torc and not having to make Conc Op, instead of having how it is now where you more or less *have* to use the torc on some builds as well as having to make a Conc Op item.

Personally I would like to see more thought have to go into what items your character uses as well as less untyped type bonuses that stack with everything (why does Shintao +2 damage stack with Claw set +4 damage for example?) There are too many items which have irreplacable stacking effects that essentially lock down an item slot.

The lack of endgame content and items probably has not helped this at all, as most gear has stayed fairly static for a while. Will the epic item revamp change this? I hope so, I want more epic items to look through to see if there is something for my character instead of having piles of useless junk I am never going to get anyway because the drop rate is so screwed.

Has anyone else looked at the pretty cool items they have brought out since they stopped making epic and wondered how cool epic versions would be? Like Garments of Equilibrium, stonedust handwraps and all associated combinable items, Tharrak Bracers etc?

[Junts]

I think that's pretty close to what I'm suggesting, except that the 'Good Items' from the Desert are of a higher caliber than the 'Good Items' from the Carnival, and the 'Really Good Items' in the Desert would be more likely to be best-in-slot for some niche than, say, 'Really Good Items' in eFens.

On a scale of 1 to 10 - 1 = +5 Greatsword from random lootgen, 10 = eSOS, (and maybe a Lit 2 Greatsword might be a 6 or 7), I'd suggest the Carnival be maybe 60% 5-6s, 30% 7s and 10% 8-9, whereas the Desert could be more like 60% 5-7, 35% 8-9 and 5% 10.

As for why you'd still run non-Desert epics:
Maybe you just want to gear up a new alt to the point that they can tackle the tougher Epics and prefer running the eCarnival to grinding more Shrouds.
Maybe an item has a unique effect you value more highly than most other players do (case in point - I'm a huge fan of the new Epic Ring of Elemental Essence largely for the stacking 5 resists and may make them for swapins on multiple toons, I expect this to be an unconventional decision).
Maybe you'd rather a slightly lower powered item that's in an equipment slot you can more easily spare.
Maybe you want an item that has a completely unique effect, such as Greater Light Resist.
Or maybe you just find them fun.

I'd agree with that comparison between the desert and Phiarlan, but that's partly b ecause Phiarlan is pathetically easy. There's no need for as large a void between the vons, fens, or chronoscope and the desert.

[Junts]

My thinking was more that you could weigh up the benefits of having something else in your neck slot + Conc Op Vs Torc and not having to make Conc Op, instead of having how it is now where you more or less *have* to use the torc on some builds as well as having to make a Conc Op item.

Personally I would like to see more thought have to go into what items your character uses as well as less untyped type bonuses that stack with everything (why does Shintao +2 damage stack with Claw set +4 damage for example?) There are too many items which have irreplacable stacking effects that essentially lock down an item slot.

The lack of endgame content and items probably has not helped this at all, as most gear has stayed fairly static for a while. Will the epic item revamp change this? I hope so, I want more epic items to look through to see if there is something for my character instead of having piles of useless junk I am never going to get anyway because the drop rate is so screwed.

Has anyone else looked at the pretty cool items they have brought out since they stopped making epic and wondered how cool epic versions would be? Like Garments of Equilibrium, stonedust handwraps and all associated combinable items, Tharrak Bracers etc?


The torc isn't as good as it was before, there are a lot of times that even my torc builds don't waer it because either a majority of the damage isn't physical or becuase sustaining enoug hdamage to get mileage out of it is an extremely bad idea.

howeve,r its insanely powerful in content you outgear and/or when you are soloing so it has to be an option at least.

[SableShadow]

Meh. If the quest difficulty is lacking, then amp it. Wasting time creating "trash epics" is, well, a waste of time....recall when the majority of them were, in fact, trash, and we complained about it. "Gratz on your purples!" my ass. ;)

[Cyr]

A couple of things I'm looking for feedback on:

If the Epic Tourney Armor went along the anti-caster route, and had the following stats:

+6 mithril fullplate (base AC one less than Dragontouched, allows 2 more Dex modifier than DT)
DR 5/adamantine
Arcane Absorb 10% (reduces all incoming spell damage by 10% except from positive energy)
Resistance +6
Armored Evasion - for purposes of the Evasion feat, this is considered light armor.

would you:

a) Still consider it a poor item, weaker than a DT armor
b) Consider it on-par with a 'perfect' Dragontouched armor
c) Consider it on-par with the good-but-not-great Epic armors (like the Demon Scale armor) - you might use it if you come across it, but you won't farm for it
d) Consider it top-notch but balanced - you'd go out of your way to acquire it, it might even be best in slot, but if it is, it's only BiS by a small amount.
or e) Consider it game-breaking - if you had a toon that couldn't use it well, it's such a good item that you'd TR into a build that could use it.

I'll edit my answer in later.

a) or c)

The issue here (and with many of the epic items in game) is that they often do not pay close enough attention to why people use what they use. Most of these decisions have to do with build types. In this case we have an item that is pretending to be a splash rogue or splash monk tank build AC item. I guess (A) you have to think how many of these builds really are around right now and (B) would these builds want to use something that gives less AC or less dps?

Defense is awesome, but in a game such as DDO you need a good reason to go defense on your med/heavy armor wearing toons if it's not AC. Hence my earlier suggestion of having this item grant evasion to those who wear it (and of course the ability to use it while wearing it). That way it could be used by those who have the vastly more popular dps builds as an occasional alternative to marilith chain or red dragonscale armor.

Oh and the a, b, c categories are kind of goofy in my mind because if you don't grind DT you never have a perfect set and that is a pretty common situation for alts (and those are really where a wear it maybe if you pull it type item ends up :)).

[Cyr]

I'd agree with that comparison between the desert and Phiarlan, but that's partly b ecause Phiarlan is pathetically easy. There's no need for as large a void between the vons, fens, or chronoscope and the desert.

9/10 pug runs of the vons and fens I run are successful. On the other hand screening for desert runs pugs have a much lower success rate.

In other words, I could see a reasonable argument made for chrono to desert being comparable, but not to any of the other packs.

[Carpone]

Ward of Undeath
Add Gives disruption to your melee weapon and shield bash attacks
I really like the idea of putting weapon-granting effects on a shield. I'd like to see this mechanic on other shields.


Shield of Scorpion
Change spearblock on this to epic spearblock (20 piercing dr)
Thumbs up.


Cloak of the Zephyr
(This item as is has a bizzare and silly combination of effects...it's really a caster item, but most of it's effects are useless to casters)
Upgrade Blurry to "Mist" - 10% incorporeal miss chance
Upgrade invisibility clickie to Invisibility Guard
Solid suggestions.


Vulkorum Fighting Leathers
Upgrade Sneak Attack to +5
I'd like to see epic SA, at least +6. Maybe +7.


Bracers of the Hunter
Upgrade Sneak attack bonus to +7 making this the top dog sneak attack item in game
I'd rather see the top SA be on the fighting leathers.


Hruy...soemething Medallion
Add Epic Spell Focus +1: This adds +1 to your spell dcs that stacks with everything else except the power of the same name and plus.
Should be a profane modifier, due to the Taint of Evil.

[Cyr]

Should be a profane modifier, due to the Taint of Evil.

Good call. Fits the flavor much better.

[HelvanderSeries6]

Epic Whirlwind

I believe this recently had its base damage upped to 4d6 and the Epic Telekinetic ability unbugged so that it functions. If this is correct, this weapon is borderline OK - DPS that is low but not derisory, and enough knockdowns to take one foe out of a fight.
Still, devoting a two-handed weapon to crowd control is more of a DPS loss than devoting one weapon on a TWF to crowd control.

Suggested change:
Consider making changes to increase the DPS output - perhaps upgrading the enhancement bonus to +8, and/or upgrading the base damage further to 4d8 or 3d12. Screaming and Thundering add very little damage, especially on a Greatsword.


I would like to see some changes with the sonic theme of this weapon.

Remove thundering - add epic roaring

Add a cacophony effect proc similar to a lightning strike.

[Carpone]

I would like to see some changes with the sonic theme of this weapon.

Remove thundering - add epic roaring

Add a cacophony effect proc similar to a lightning strike.
Epic Whirlwind is all about Epic Telekinetic. It's a great effect in epic quests, and I'd rather see changes that further supported that uniqueness so there's a reason to use it over an eSoS or other THF weapons on epic trash. Increasing the crit threat range improves the Telekinetic effect and DPS. It really doesn't need any more DPS proc effects. If anything, upgrade the Air Guard to Greater Air Guard (improved proc chance), since Air Guard is pretty common for melee Shroud accessories.

I'd like to see the crit range increased to at least 18-20 (15-20 with Improved Critical). Someone more math inclined can respond whether or not something like 17-20 (13-20 with Improved Critical) would be obnoxiously OP.