First Look: U31 Named Loot

[NoWorries]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

HEROIC
Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +1 , Enhancement Spellpoints +162, Blurry 20%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot





Level 15 items


Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +4, Quality Wisdom +1, Equipment force Spell Power +101, Quality Balance +4, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +10, Insightful MRR +10, Repair Amp +33, Enhancement Sheltering +21, Green Augment Slot





Level 17 items


Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (+2 max Dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +108, Quality Fortification +26, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot









LEGENDARY


Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot







Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot







Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot

[ForgettableNPC]

My favorites off this list:

Level 13 Helm: Solid. Total of +109 Spellpower and with bonuses that's greater than other sources of Potency at level such as Madstone Boots, Sora Kell set or Blue Dragonscale Armor. Just have to remind myself to make another Greensteel Accessory to occupy a different space than the Helm I'm using atm.

Level 13 Bracers: Quirky. I like it. Maybe on a Tank and if I'm not fighting Undead. Doesn't seem too practical, sadly.

Level 15 Belt: Boon of Undeath. Remember when we had to farm a level 20+ Robe of Shadow for this? Not anymore!

Level 15 Docent: Wooden. Bonus to PRR, MRR, and additional PRR/MRR on top of that. Tankiness is good. And Repair Amp for more repairs. Useful on almost all Warforged (As far as I'm aware), but this opens up more armor options for Warforged Druids.

Level 17 Gloves: I can see using this on either a Fey Pact Warlock or a Swashbuckler for the Sonic Spellpower and Charisma bonus.

Level 17 Bracers: Moar Disable Device. May have to reconsider keeping Gloves of Forgotten Craft.

[Steve_Howe]

Cooooool...something to read and then complain about!

Thanks! :p

[cru121]

heroic feedback

goggles OK. Illusion DC for those who care, TS, +1 Int and Green slot for the rest
helmet - strong. basically obsoletes all heroic spell power items
boots - weak. could use one strong useful heroic effect (speed vi)
necklace - blur in a different slot. and some spellpoints. okayish
bracers - I recall reports that multiple guards cannot proc simultaneously. probably useless.

trinket - similar to Sustaining Symbiont. okayish
cloak - strong. a similar ML15 necklace just gives +4 evo.
leather - okay. curious about max dex and similar
belt - looks great for a pale master
docent - very strong defensive option

belt - sneak, dodge, green. strong
bracers - good
hide - happy to see a non-metal medium armor. however, it's bad. replace fortification with something completely different. the sheltering stuff from docent would be a lot better
ring - strong. alternatively consider insightful deadly 3, quality deadly 1
gloves - strong for the right build

[Cleanincubus]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

Level 15 items


Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot



Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot

IMHO, these ones are very boring, and I would personally consider them vendor trash. I understand with them having Quality and Enhancement bonuses, they will stack with regular bonuses and Insightful bonuses of the same effects. I just can't see my self ever being willing to use these over something (almost anything) else. I've never been a fan of save bonuses (with the exception of Resistance) or elemental resist on named items.

I do however really like the belt with Neg Energy Amp and Boon of Undeath on it. I will actively farm for that on my 2 PMs, assuming it makes the final cut.

[Gratch]

I see there's two "Magical Efficiency" items. Did they ever fix the bug with items not stacking with destiny abilities?

Hmmm... some interesting pieces.

The sonic and illusion items would be great if the DEVS ALSO ADD a sonic damage (epic) or illusion DC spells useful beyond level 15.

Or are you thinking Greater Shout and Phantasmal Killer are used with your level 28 items?
Though I haven't tried Greater Shout with Master of Music.

Poor Illusionist gnomes having jack and jack for high level illusion spells is le sad.



Devs: Hey players. Here's this great race that works with an old class and it has this giant weapon, with great targeting... see how you can instantly see this monster... check out the easy to use grip on this weapon... you can make it so it never misses... it's very flavorful too with all the shinies. Isn't this the best ever???

Players: But it's firing rubber bands... can't I have some real ammo?



Total spells per school in DDO:
31 Abjuration
69 Conjuration
8 Divination
40 Enchantment
62 Evocation
7 Illusion (Total DC spells in Illusion: 2)
49 Necromancy
47 Transmutation

[dunklezhan]

I dislike the propensity for single saves on items in general but I otherwise like these items. I think especially the l13 stuff may be too powerful however.

[Roland_D'Arabel]

What is the binding status?

[NoWorries]

Bound to Account

[jaedom]

Since others were offering slight suggestions ). There are some really useful items in the list only two seem to need tweaking.

Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot

Illusion dc only effect a few spells few will give up slot for illusion only to gain 1 int however, adding spell lore to this item would make it much more viable. Casting dexterity would also improve these.
At present hypnotic pattern and phantasmal killer are the only dc based illusion spells making it far less desirable.

Level 17 items


Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (+2 max Dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +108, Quality Fortification +26, Green Augment Slot

I agree with previous poster giving it the insightful prr and mrr from docent instead of the 108 fortification would be handy.


Level 28 items

Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot

As with heroic it needs spell lore and arcane casting dexterity. Unless you going to add some awesome new illusion sla`s that call for illusion dc ).

[Bargol]

heroic items are to powerful. The constant creep to make all the same level old gear irrelevant is getting old. I must have woken up in WOW.

I am not impressed that I dealt with a buggy and laggy raid grinding till my eyes bled so my TF weapon effect becomes worthless. Why newer epic content is now legendary (just to remove mortal fear) is BS.

Odd illusion casting DC boost, when currently in the newest content dc casting sucks, and illusion has almost no real dc spells.

Beyond this all gear being BTA is lame. Everything costs shards and plat in the game, yet there is almost nothing new to be able to sell. So run the content a few times loot your gear and never run again.

[JOTMON]

you guys are nuts.

The heroic stuff is way op.
Level 13
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot

lets compare to historical..
By turning in 20 Blue Dragon Scales in Heroic Gianthold.. grinding the TOR optional many times...
Level 14
Robe- Spell Penetration II ,Spell Lore VI Potency +52 , Greater Lightning Resistance

or even..
Ornamental Dagger.. a grind to craft
Level 16 (Tier 1) +4 Dagger: Spellcasting Implement +12, Concentration +13, Potency +48, Fire Lore V


So you have a lower level item with higher potency, insightful potency and Quality potency along with an augment slot..
Sure its a great item .. that invalidates all other competitors in the game.

did you just decide to say screw it to sanity and scaling loot and just toss around quality bonuses..
+2 Quality bonuses at level 17
What was the objective.. invalidate all heroic named items .. nah lets go bigger and invalidate everything else... with a grind free quality give away..
Just reinforces the 'only run new content' and ignore anything historical.. that old scrap will never get updated anyway..


but hey, if this is that you are going with, I will be farming it.. since everything that came before is now shiaving cream....


Give up on trinkets.. unless you have something as a viable alternative to Litany and Epic Litany then you are just wasting your time and ours..


Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot
~this is just sad level 28 garbage... come on.. time to give the forged docents something actually worth getting...

More disappointing trapping gear..
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22
I can get +20 at level 20 on named gear.. and +20 on randomgen heroic gear that I would augment with things like gianthold/cannith bracers for the stacking +5 bonus..
What does this offer but a -3 to a trapper...stop with the scraps.. level 28 should be level 28 worth trapping gear... minimum +25.... wheres the quality stacking trapping bonuses..
Wheres the +25 gear +7 insight +5 quality all one one nice piece of gear..for the trapper...

[GoldyGopher]

Most of this is vendor trash and not worth any effort to earn.

If you want real feedback instead of giving us a list like this

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

HEROIC
Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +1 , Enhancement Spellpoints +162, Blurry 20%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot


you should have Cordovan create an official forum and list each item; both the heroic and epic versions in one post is fine.

Back to the issue, almost everything on here is vendor trash, they are almost all underpowered and attempting to do to too much with one item. if you upgrade everything they become too powerful if you upgrade bits and pieces they become too complicated.

Level 13 Googles - Equipment Illusion DC +4, True Sight, clear augment slot - Diamond of Exceptional Intelligence +1, Green Augment Slot - Empty
Level 28 Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +8, True Sight, clear augment slot - Diamond of Exceptional Intelligence +4, Green Augment Slot - Empty

It is too bad you do not have the ability to lower the base cost of Illusion spells by 25% and 50% which would make them a lot more interesting for builds that could use them.

Neither item is earth shaking, and I would actually do them differently if I was doing it but that is a story for another day.

[Thar]

Boon of undeath if nice to finally show on an item that isn't a once a year grind (and bound to account to boot). some PM love is welcome.

[Thar]

Most of this is vendor trash and not worth any effort to earn.

If you want real feedback instead of giving us a list like this


you should have Cordovan create an official forum and list each item; both the heroic and epic versions in one post is fine.

Back to the issue, almost everything on here is vendor trash, they are almost all underpowered and attempting to do to too much with one item. if you upgrade everything they become too powerful if you upgrade bits and pieces they become too complicated.

Level 13 Googles - Equipment Illusion DC +4, True Sight, clear augment slot - Diamond of Exceptional Intelligence +1, Green Augment Slot - Empty
Level 28 Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +8, True Sight, clear augment slot - Diamond of Exceptional Intelligence +4, Green Augment Slot - Empty

It is too bad you do not have the ability to lower the base cost of Illusion spells by 25% and 50% which would make them a lot more interesting for builds that could use them.

Neither item is earth shaking, and I would actually do them differently if I was doing it but that is a story for another day.

more ways to stack effects are fine. I don't see the issue.

[Thar]

you guys are nuts.

The heroic stuff is way op.
Level 13
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot

lets compare to historical..
By turning in 20 Blue Dragon Scales in Heroic Gianthold.. grinding the TOR optional many times...
Level 14
Robe- Spell Penetration II ,Spell Lore VI Potency +52 , Greater Lightning Resistance

or even..
Ornamental Dagger.. a grind to craft
Level 16 (Tier 1) +4 Dagger: Spellcasting Implement +12, Concentration +13, Potency +48, Fire Lore V


So you have a lower level item with higher potency, insightful potency and Quality potency along with an augment slot..
Sure its a great item .. that invalidates all other competitors in the game.

did you just decide to say screw it to sanity and scaling loot and just toss around quality bonuses..
+2 Quality bonuses at level 17
What was the objective.. invalidate all heroic named items .. nah lets go bigger and invalidate everything else... with a grind free quality give away..
Just reinforces the 'only run new content' and ignore anything historical.. that old scrap will never get updated anyway..


but hey, if this is that you are going with, I will be farming it.. since everything that came before is now shiaving cream....


Give up on trinkets.. unless you have something as a viable alternative to Litany and Epic Litany then you are just wasting your time and ours..


Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot
~this is just sad level 28 garbage... come on.. time to give the forged docents something actually worth getting...

More disappointing trapping gear..
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22
I can get +20 at level 20 on named gear.. and +20 on randomgen heroic gear that I would augment with things like gianthold/cannith bracers for the stacking +5 bonus..
What does this offer but a -3 to a trapper...stop with the scraps.. level 28 should be level 28 worth trapping gear... minimum +25.... wheres the quality stacking trapping bonuses..
Wheres the +25 gear +7 insight +5 quality all one one nice piece of gear..for the trapper...

Dragon robe - garbage even back in the day except for looks.
orimental dagger - garbage even back in the day again except for looks.
more trinket options are fine.
The new skill scaling is totally different than in past which makes those +20 items valuable and others like the above slightly more useful but is it worth the grind. probably for split class or for the crazy legendary traps that a full rogue can't find with the old gear.

[GoldyGopher]

more ways to stack effects are fine. I don't see the issue.

How many ways are you going to stack an Illusion DC? How about a +1 to a base stat?
Simply put you are going to use one item and go with it, so why complicate the process and have two stacking on one item?

[Ykt]

Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot

Not good enough, how about Intricate Potency +30 and Hidden Potency +30 on top of this?


Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot

Yay Boon of Undeath


Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +10, Insightful MRR +10, Repair Amp +33, Enhancement Sheltering +21, Green Augment Slot

Not good enough, stack moar PRR/MRR pls


Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot

You can do better, how about +50d6 evil damage?

Seems like you guys gave up on making us do difficult choices for equipment and instead shower us with best in slot equipment.

[Krumm]

Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot




What type of bonus is the melee/ranged power?
Enhancement bonus like Sightless?

[Zzevel]

Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot

Not good enough, how about Intricate Potency +30 and Hidden Potency +30 on top of this?


Really? this is a level 13 item and you're talking stacking POTENCY which is all spells not a specific school, this gives 109 Potency on a level 13 item + a slot.

Potency - Effect: Passive: +N Equipment bonus (http://ddowiki.com/page/Equipment_bonus) to Spell Power (http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_Power).

Traditionally you had ~ 70 Potency available at level 13, you want this to have 169 at level 13?

30 Spell Power - No Minimum Level/Minimum Level 1
36 Spell Power - Minimum Level 2
42 Spell Power - Minimum Level 4
48 Spell Power - Minimum Level 6
54 Spell Power - Minimum Level 8
60 Spell Power - Minimum Level 10
66 Spell Power - Minimum Level 12
72 Spell Power - Minimum Level 14
78 Spell Power - Minimum Level 16
84 Spell Power - Minimum Level 18
90 Spell Power - Minimum Level 20
96 Spell Power - Minimum Level 21
102 Spell Power - Minimum Level 22
108 Spell Power - Minimum Level 23
114 Spell Power - Minimum Level 24
120 Spell Power - Minimum Level 25

[Krumm]

Comments in Blue

LEGENDARY


Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot

Nice item but whats with True sight? Most casters will not need True sight and this is a caster item if ever. How about make it +2 Quality Illusion DC boost and drop the True Sight. Also it would be nice if there was a version of this item with +4 Cha instead of +4 Int also.



Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot

Extremely powerful item as is. It consolidates all secondary source of spell power (best in slot for Insightful & quality I think) and sets the base of spell power with eq potency. Even if you drop aug slot and/or Magical Efficiency, this item will be must have for a lot of casters.



Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot

Nice item... no additional comment.



Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot

Good for +2DC for enchant casters, not much else.



Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot

Not sure if anyone will give up a slot for this item. If you want to make it interesting, make it 25d6 or 30d6 per each guard and add more aug slots.
An Alternate idea would be to make the guard damage scale with melee power (probably not spell power as casters want to avoid getting hit most of the time) but thats probably too difficult to do at the last minute and effects lots of equipment...



Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot

Tricket items (for most players) will ultimately fight for the spot against Epic Litany. Hard to win against Litany but something like +6 Quality casting stat (Int/Cha/Wis) would be in the running. Insightful saves aren't as useful as we now have parry +4 - +7 items, make it +8 insightful save or just make it a parry/riposte item



Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot

Nice item. Would be nicer if you have other versions with Cha or Int.



Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot

Seems Meh... but I guess if you are going for SR, this is the way to go.



Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot

No comment



Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot

Quite nice for WF/BF



Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot

No comment



Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot

No comment



Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot

Light armor? Medium armor? Seems like it could use maybe 1 or 2 more bonus... Quality Dodge +4%???



Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot

Very nice melee/range item. Obsoletes Sightless if Melee/Ranged power doesn't stack. Lowering M/R power to 4 or 5 will keep Sightless as viable item (although deadly +14 is hard to pass up also)



Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot

Nice item.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

LEGENDARY


Level 28 items


Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot



Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot



Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot


boots are ok. armor piercing helps out lgs weapons, quality strength being wearable now is good, quality seeker being wearable now is good. and once again i can respect that you guys dont want to put alacrity on items left and right anymore, personally i think haste being really useful again as a party buff is awesome. but really, really, you cant just slap 30% STRIDING on epic level boots to help out the people who dont have quivers? and dont tell me you just gave everyone all the quivers they could ever want, most of those people still dont and wont have a single seal to make use of them. also, this directly invalidates the boots you just released with the anniversary event. i mean, i was happy when i got those boots, but now you are just throwing them right out the window. why did you even bother?

this docent is ok ish. it directly competes with the avenger docent however which means it probably wont be worn by anyone wanting to do dps. which is everyone. also robots are horrible for melees right now.

the belt is really really good. combat mastery doesnt stack with the individual combat bonuses but does stack with insightful combat mastery, right?

this ring is very boring. its obviously very powerful and a must have for physical dmg characters. basically what this does is it makes those kinds of characters only have 1 ring slot effectively.

[Krelar]

also, this directly invalidates the boots you just released with the anniversary event. i mean, i was happy when i got those boots, but now you are just throwing them right out the window. why did you even bother?


The gloves are in a similar situation.

I feel like a fair number of people will have ground out the boots/gloves primarily for the insightful bonus. Now they are being largely invalidated in the very next update. (either slot a +2 insightful augment in these to get the exact same bonus or slot a +3 or better insightful item somewhere else and get an even bigger bonus.)

Heck just swap the boots and the gloves abilities. Problem solved. ;)

[Saekee]

I am assuming the following:
very low drop rates like Devil's Gambit
these are from non-raid ftp quests
named items try to distinguish themselves now from lootgen via quality bonuses, unusual effects & ranged, melee & spellpower

[Anoregon]

That docent fills a nice niche for heroic-level characters. I dig it.

[TackW5]

I want to echo the concern that the Potency helm is significantly overpowered. I cannot see a caster not wanting it. Even a DC killer can throw this in one slot and be ahead of the game for every non-instakill. So, maybe change the 5% magic efficiency to 15% magic inefficiency. Best spellpower possible, but at a notable price. Just a thought.

[Zebedar]

Seriously, at what point did Turbine decide that the loot of a update should invalidate all the loot except the previous update?

I'm just asking because I clearly didn't get the memo.

[Wizza]

Bound to Account loot. Another pack destined to die soon just like The Devil's Gambit, Epic Vale's quest and Epic Amrath's quests. Not interested.

[Aelonwy]

Preface: I don't play epics as much as heroics so I'll let someone else make suggestions for epic itemization.


As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

HEROIC
Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot Even if Illusion DC were important for more than 2 spells, this slot is usually filled with my full Int item, this just does not compete well with Int +Deadly, Int + (Insightful) Evoc Focus, Enchant Focus, or Necro Focus. I would suggest putting regular Intelligence on the Heroic item.
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot I don't know this seems just abit over the top, maybe save the quality potency for the epic item? I've been fitting in sheltering on most of my characters helms, or additional fortification, some of them are still wearing their Crystal Cove 40HP hats. Just to give you an idea of what this competes with for me.
Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot Has anyone seen the bug where guard items, no matter how much damage they say they do, only do 1d6? Was that fixed? Without (one of) speed or Feather falling, or combat mastery of somekind, I cannot see wearing these boots on any of my characters.
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +1 , Enhancement Spellpoints +162, Blurry 20%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot I would use this on at least two different characters if it had at least deception if not improved deception included. Please think about putting Improved Deception on the epic item at least.
Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot I don't use guard items, if they work properly now they might be useful as a switch-in item. To be an always equipped item I would like to see either Constitution, False Life, or maybe Greater Stability (that hasn't been used in awhile).





Level 15 items


Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot What's the story behind this item? Sounds like the one from the Xoriat quests. There is an incredible amount of competition for this slot and other than the Green augment nothing really unique. Druid theme? Add regeneration maybe?
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +4, Quality Wisdom +1, Equipment force Spell Power +101, Quality Balance +4, Green Augment Slot Quality Balance 4? Yay? *shrugs* If this is a druid themed item perhaps rough hide?
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot I'd have to see the base stats - Armor Bonus, Max Dex Bonus. My light armored characters generally wear Parasitic Breastplate, Black Dragon Hide, or Deulist Leathers at this level.
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot Very nice for pale masters.
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +10, Insightful MRR +10, Repair Amp +33, Enhancement Sheltering +21, Green Augment Slot Awesome item, fills in an equipment gap for warforged druids nicely. Thank you.





Level 17 items


Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot Seems like a very good consolidation item.
Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot Seems like a switch-in item for me, which is fine but if you want it to be an always equipped item I suggest add ethereal.
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (+2 max Dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +108, Quality Fortification +26, Green Augment Slot I'd much rather see this be the healing amp version of the wooden docent.
Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot Seems decent enough, the accuracy is very good for this level. Personally, I'd rather have manslayer than +2 melee/ranged power.
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot I really like this except, again the quality bonus is less important than the regular perform and even if I slotted a diamond of perform +9 which won't change the level of the item I come away with -2 to my overall perform from what I currently have equipped at this level. I would rather the quality bonus on the heroic item be replaced with regular +15 perform. And would it hurt to ask for another item in the game to grant Anthem?



I'm not going to argue against the obsoletion of old named items with the introduction of new named items; I've accepted it. Suggestions in #642EFE (Violet).
I do feel its necessary to thank the dev responsible for the wooden docent, thank you so much for listening and filling in the equipment gap (even just a little) for warforged druids.

It may be time to have a discussion about retroactively adjusting diamond augments of stats and skills. These augments have fared rather poorly versus random loot changes.

With the mix of items that appeal to druids and bards, anyone else getting a fochlucan lyrist vibe?

[DagazUlf]

The majority of the Heroic versions of the items seem quite powerful for their level.


Now, on to the Epic Items....



More level 28 junk is not very exciting. I already have mules full of level 28 gear. Where's the level 30 stuff?
Mostly boring here, with a few exceptions:

Bracers are interesting and unique. Would like to see either some higher damage on the guards, or at least one other augment slot.
Docent is very solid for a WF, and I hope it has cool graphics.
Belt would be great if it could add at least something to Assassinate. A lot of players struggle to get that slotted someplace.
Ring is great for a lot of melees, though is a bit boring.
Gloves are going to be in high-demand for those Fey Warlocks.

[Bargol]

Bound to Account loot. Another pack destined to die soon just like The Devil's Gambit, Epic Vale's quest and Epic Amrath's quests. Not interested.

I agree. All new loot, other then raid loot, should be unbound or BTC/A on equip. There is no reason to rerun quests once you have what you want from them, that means no groups running the content.

[Saekee]

I agree. All new loot, other then raid loot, should be unbound or BTC/A on equip. There is no reason to rerun quests once you have what you want from them, that means no groups running the content.

considering also that they are ftp quests, they might as well unbind the loot

[mraz]

most of those new quests have a very good, even excelent xp so i'll always run them over and over again.... nice items are just a bonus! :)

[Bargol]

most of those new quests have a very good, even excelent xp so i'll always run them over and over again.... nice items are just a bonus! :)

There are quests you can get 100,000 xp in 5 minutes or less, so no unless they compete xp per minute with existing quests they will not be run.

[Aelonwy]

I happen to prefer BTA. But I would be willing to compromise and I know the code exists for unbound becoming BTA on equip. Example: Pale Green Ioun stone. Thus people could run it and loot/buy/sell as they wish. I understand that unbound and BTC on equip are good for those who profit on the ASAH but such items cause me personally storage headaches. There are many quests that I need nothing from that I run for fun. If people stop running a set of quests after they've got their loot from it, its probably for several reasons not just loot binding status up to and including: quest was not fun to begin with, quest was too long, has aggravating mechanic, incredibly low drop rate created situation of intense grinding causing quest to induce a shudder of displeasure ever after, not enough xp for time involved to complete, terrible narration or sound effect, and my least favorite - some situation that has to happen no matter what I do for the plot to continue. Examples are all over the place in MOTU including Spinner of Shadows, and Ana in the Portal Opens getting kidnapped. The story is predetermined and my actions as a player are irrelevant.

[Shoemaker]

Since this is the first update with real content since the U29 random loot pass, I have to say to those complaining about invalidation and overpowerness, it's pretty in-line with those loot changes. This loot needs to compete with that, and although it does effectively invalidate much old loot, I'd personally rather have Umberhulk than a loot pass for now.

[mraz]

There are quests you can get 100,000 xp in 5 minutes or less, so no unless they compete xp per minute with existing quests they will not be run....looks like i didnt make myself clear.. oh well... :rolleyes:

[Jetrule]

I am excited to see these items. They have a Monty Hall feel but what players dont love the fabulous prizes?

The goggles Rock!! A focused illusionist will be perhaps the best d.c. insta killer available.

For those complaining about the lack of decent illusion spells. The gnome tree adds 3 new illusion school spell like abilities that use saves. Color spray is great c.c. the two marks are illusion forms of glyph of warding and symbol of stunning. Both have been effective for my current gnome illusionist.

The Deep gnome illusionist has the ability to drop 3 phantasmal killers. 2 as sla's. Check out the Ginger Gnome videos to see the situational effectiveness of those in EE content. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Gsk1XanXM&index=8&list=PLTX5IZhNI5ubadwKsWiac0PJff68Egwv2.

The Gloves are a godsend for bards. Especially spell singers.

The helms are perhaps a bit to strong. That said I have 3 caster weapons with 99 spell power of specific types all on lvl6 btc wondrous craftsmanship items.

The sneak attack boosts are very strong the combat ring is huge. the docent is a godsend for caster forged especially.

The quality spell resistance armor. Will this stack with racial? Insightful does not, if so it could be very good for drow or deepgnome rangers.

All the items hold some interest for me. I know I will be farming them.


I am looking forward to the quests just for the loot. I hope they are fun and varied quests!

[Melt-emi]

Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot


Is it possible to have a rogue item with +X Quality Intelligence? It's a bit sad having to wear the Legendary Construct's Mantle (wich isnt rogue-ish at all), while the Dexterity Assassin gets the good stuff...

[Seikojin]

I agree with the general malaise about too good. However this has to be weighed against not only new lootgen, but named items as well.

[brian14]

The ML 15 trinket seems designed to obsolete Sustaining Symbiont.

[maddong]

If you are going to make the loot this good you should charge for the pack.... I'm wearing almost all lootgen currently and this messes up everything.

[DrawingGuy]

Only tackling the Legendary items. When it comes to Heroic, I think U30 Random Loot changes already obliterated the usefulness of almost all old named loot, so some actually useful named gear is nice. To cover the way I think it should be would be a far longer post than just talking about the specific gear.



LEGENDARY


Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot
As others have mentioned, True Seeing on a caster item is of questionable merit. I'd say either drop True Sight in favor of Quality Illusion +2, or possibly look into this being an INT Rogue assassin item as well with Quality Assassinate added.
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
This will be a hands down must-have for DPS casters. For Necro DC casters they'll have to debate between +2 from Epic Deific Diadem or this... though they'd still be using this for boss DPS. Though without completely changing the item, there is no way to take it from the "must-have" to "no one wants" as superior access to potency is its key, and the second it loses that, it's nothing. This item is high enough it can afford to be shaved down and still be "must have", but I also welcome the escape from slotting random loot for these.
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot
I find these boots to be pretty "meh". It would be nice to see these to pull a leaf from Battlerager's Harness with Spiked Guard and Spiked. That and/or Seeker 14 to give an actual other slot option for Seeker. Of course with Boots being the main slot for Speed items makes this a tougher bite no matter what you do unless it too has Speed.
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
This at least approaches use with the Enchant DC, Spellpoints, and Lesser Displacement. Maybe add Insightful Spellpoints?
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot
Guards are interesting, but these values are not high enough to escape the "only if I have nothing else needed" barrier. Would it be possible to have these bypass Good and Evil DR on attacks? That would add interesting utility.







Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot
It really is hard to pass up Litany as it gives +2 Profane to every stat along with other utility to both casters and physical types. But not everyone has an Epic Litany, so this would be a solid HP boosting item for those people.
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot
Definitely a Druid and Divine caster item... though hard to not go "Huh?" at the dinky balance bonus. Just drop the Balance bonus and go Quality Evocation +1/2.
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot
Interesting anti-spell concept with high save bonuses and SR, but don't see most people forgoing Celestial armors in favor of this. But there are some that already have Fort and PRR slotted that could find use from these.
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot
An amazing Necro item - and nice to see Boon of Undeath beyond event/lowbie items.
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot
These are impressive PRR/MRR bonuses, and great nod to druids with Wooden. Kinda makes me wish this armor was available on other armor types.







Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Is the "Sneak Attack" under a Deception value, or just straight SA? With, it's a nice Strange Tidings replacement. Without, eh.
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot
Quality Dexterity +4 is not enough to make this more than just a utility swap (unless someone really can spare the slots), but utility swaps are still nice.
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot
This one treads more deeply into the Celestial Armor territory with a lot fewer bonuses. Some of the bonuses are much higher, so there may be some that situationally will use it, but for the most part it will be waysided.
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot
It's nice to see an altertative to Sightless.
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot
Another solid item. Spellsingers and Fey Warlocks will be clamoring for it with CHA DC casters not far behind.


While there are items I think need some adjustments, overall this looks like an item set that will have people farming. I'm also OK with BtA statuses. Previously the market was dying and new content never being tradeable was just another nail, but one pro of the overpowered random loot changes is they are all tradeable and created a constant market for those. Now they just need to fix the loot level cap so some of the higher end random loot actually drops...

[Eryhn]

potent potency
im all like ...
http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_186,w_330/t_mp_quality_gif/gxinfejarxtt1llqee5w.gif

[acdcrocks]

Good items, but why not add substantial bonuses to stats instead of small "quality" bonuses.. E.x +6/+7 for heroic items and +14/+15 for epic items.(?)

:confused::p

[knightgf]

I can tell you that unless you plan on revamping heroic loot in addition to epic-level* loot, INCLUDING Greensteel of all types, these heroic-level loot items are too powerful, and if this trend continues, can negate the effort of crafting greensteel items for heroic levels. However, what I can say is that the bracers that offer 4 types of guards and a green augment slot are GARBAGE. Sure, it may be pretty good for a retaliation item, but really, who wants to wear guard items in place of a high-boosting stat item, or even a defense or DPS item? Nobody, that's who.

* (And dare I say Legendary? I don't even think there is a definition for 'legendary' loot in DDO yet, and if there is, PLEASE define it)

[Nyata]

Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot

Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot


so level 17 vs level 28... 11 levels difference... and only 5 points difference on the skills seems... wrong. also not liking the quality dex on a trapper item.




Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot

Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot

seems a lot more ballanced, I quite like it. will definitely want both.

I am missing quality INT and assassin boni somewhere in the mix though. seems like the gear is generally groomed to 'things you can do with a gnome' and those should be there.

[Marupal]

Liking the loot. Seeing some combos that give room to plan and play around with things. I notice that the affixes aren't something that random loot is going to be able to trump or duplicate. Excellent!

For the most part, the heroic versions range from good to too-powerful. A few things that stand out:
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot
Another magical efficiency item: Nice! The potency is above the top though.

Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot
Interesting and potentially a lot of damage being dealt back, but I still probably wouldn't take the time to slot it. Maybe an additional proc that's unique and thematic with the item's name. Something like radiance, enervation, dispel, vulnerability (alignment), or a small chance at turning the attacker into an odd animal or a kobold. Imagine the scene: an orthon or abishai mid-fight getting turned into a kobold, "Yark?!? I've got a bad feeling about this." *ding*. Very rewarding.

Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +4, Quality Wisdom +1, Equipment force Spell Power +101, Quality Balance +4, Green Augment Slot
Nice! The force spell power is a bit high though.

Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot
Maybe I'm missing it but this one looks really underpowered. Stats? Sheltering? Amp? Stun/tendon slice/etc? What is the aim for this piece of armor?

Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot
Yum!

Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot
An alternative to the Spare Hand. Cool!

Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot
Yum again!


LEGENDARY
I have a few characters filling out their shopping lists already. Looks pretty cool.

Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
Not as big of a problem as the heroic version but that's still a lot of potency.

Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot
Same as the heroic version of the bracers.

[Aelonwy]

im all like ...
http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_186,w_330/t_mp_quality_gif/gxinfejarxtt1llqee5w.gif

*shudder* Jack at his kooky, creepiest. Now I'm not going to be able to equip that item without feeling dirty. Rightfully so, I'm sure, if they keep it as is... ;P

[Elfishski]

HEROIC
Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +1 , Enhancement Spellpoints +162, Blurry 20%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot


As everyone else said, for general potency the helmet is WAY out of line with existing loot. Make it simply magical efficiency 5% and insightful potency 31 and an augment slot and you'd still find a lot of spellcasters wearing it to supplement other equipment rather than replace it all. The other things don't seem too out of line with current options at level while definitely being useful to some builds.


Level 15 items


Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +4, Quality Wisdom +1, Equipment force Spell Power +101, Quality Balance +4, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +10, Insightful MRR +10, Repair Amp +33, Enhancement Sheltering +21, Green Augment Slot


Cloak doesn't need to have more force spellpower than you can currently get while also having more evocation DC and a wisdom bonus that's otherwise unavailable at level. You only need to make one of those things BEST while keeping the other things at-level with what you can otherwise get and it's still a strong item. Same goes for other things like the Belt. Great for PMs and they don't have enough negative amp options, but it's a huge amount, and boon of undeath, and light resistance AND quality int. All the things you need all in one place, too obvious and uninteresting a choice. Other things okay. I like e.g. the armor which has other bonuses in line with the better options you can normally get at level while having quality spell resistance which makes spell resistance stacking options more possible rather than something to be ignored.


Level 17 items


Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (+2 max Dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +108, Quality Fortification +26, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot


Belt is stupidly strong compared to other options at level. Ring is a pretty obvious choice for melee/ranged too, which is really boring. Gloves... consolidation of all the sonic stuff in one place. Power creepy, really.




LEGENDARY

Did anyone compare ANY of these legendary items against the current best available bonuses of the same type currently in the game on raid loot etc, before planning to add it in as BTA stuff? These are all just stupidly power creepy. Best available bonus +12.... well now we need... +17! Start again and look at existing raid loot, balance against that, not against the +16 it's theoretically possible to get on the perfect random gen item with all loot boosts etc, leave that as special.

Worst of all, they're power creep for the current flavor of the month builds that already steamroll any and all LE content with no challenge, rather than being useful items for the currently neglected builds that nobody uses.

[hunzi2010]

Bound to Account loot. Another pack destined to die soon just like The Devil's Gambit, Epic Vale's quest and Epic Amrath's quests. Not interested.

Nope I still run these quests for both xp and loot for myself and friends and guildies.
I love the bound to account gear, this stops people who a greedy and put a rare item up for 5k shards.
I will vote and always vote to keep gear bound to account for as long as I can.
the only people that don't like it is the free to play accounts that play for 15hrs a day to try and make profit from it.
and you can now begin trolling me.
if I had it my way this would be VIP only, :)
and regarding heroic gear op, lets face it peps, how long are you at level 13 for? its not like end game where you sit there for a few weeks to months.
I know people tr, and that's awesome, but its the same at lvl 1, how long are you going to be there for??? your gonna stomp it anyways so don't worry about it if there is a bit of a kick to a heroic item.
p.s. I do not and will never use the astral shard exchange.

There for good work on keeping the new gear bound to account.
cheers.

[glmfw1]

Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot

How does this item make any sense? Which NPCs in their right minds would get together to make such an item? I can understand an item with Good Guard and Light Guard. I can understand killing people who wear an item with Evil Guard and Negative Energy Guard. But combine all 4? There should be a logic to the powers that an item has in addition to "wouldn't it be cool". An item of "alignment balance" would be created by NPCs of neutral alignment, who would be unlikely have the ability to create Good or Evil guardT hey might manage damage to Good and damage to Evil, but that's not the same thing as Good Damage and Evil Damage.

I understand wanting "cool" items. I understand wanting powerful items, but can't we also have items that make sense?
Cool and powerful items appeal to some of the player base. Cool and powerful items that make sense appeal to those players who have "characters" rather than just "toons" as well.

[Eth]

Why no new augments? The gear with augment slots is still being added but the last time we have got the augments from a regular content was, if I am not mistaken, 3BC. That is almost two years ago. Why is this system being abandoned?

They had some new ones planned for the DoJ loot pool, not sure why those got scraped...

[janave]

Well, i am a little surprised we get the "Fighter" pass next, and there we still have the more powerful items Warlock focused mostly. Less favouritism please :)



HEROIC
Level 13 items

Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot

-Okay, this is for the new Gnome Mages, who spam PK, and maybe ok for a Rogue Mech who "neeeds" that +1 dmg eventually. Its an (OK)

Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot

-This somewhat collides with boundless, which is a relatively new item - please dont kill off items from 1-2 updates ago (or at all). This item definitely should be redesigned, to be less generic. This is also a horrendous buff to Warlocks again, due to the best scaling of spellpower in the game.


Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot

-This one should be interesting, i probably wont give up permanent FOM for this. It would be nice if it would come with a preslotted striding, even if a lower level one.

Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +1 , Enhancement Spellpoints +162, Blurry 20%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot

-I dont see using this at all, it has good effects but i dont see this mix well. I would suggest making it a unique Stealth Strike item 20-25%, and maybe to proc temp spell pts instead, a lesser GreenSteel conc-opp effect?.


Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot

-Interesting item, except bracers is a very competitive slot on most melee builds. Looks like another spellcasting handwraps to me, that noone ever bothers to pick up from the chest :(






Level 15 items

Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot

-Sustaining Symbiont, and also not an exceptionally interesting item, i guess new players would be using this, maybe.


Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +4, Quality Wisdom +1, Equipment force Spell Power +101, Quality Balance +4, Green Augment Slot

-This one is actually quite nice for a Cleric/Fvs/Druid. Spell power is probably quite a bit overkill, because, yes, that class...

Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot

- This should be a Heavy Armor, thats all :)

Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot

-Ok, Palemaster item. Probably a bit too specific item, focusing on only the undead shrouds.

Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +10, Insightful MRR +10, Repair Amp +33, Enhancement Sheltering +21, Green Augment Slot





Level 17 items

Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot

-(Ok)


Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot

-Ok, not very interesting, that other items dont accomplish already, the dex buff is ok.

Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (+2 max Dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +108, Quality Fortification +26, Green Augment Slot

-I hope this looks good, because im not gonna wear it for the stats.

Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot

-Ok, this one seems like a new permaslot on martial dps guys. RP/MP can go to 3-4 even, it will only be visible on crits mostly.

Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot

-Too powerful, too much. Also almost completely invalidates the Cannith Blasting Chime trinket which is pretty tough to grind.


Legendary: Adjust the numbers to "sane" levels please.

[janave]

Worst of all, they're power creep for the current flavor of the month builds that already steamroll any and all LE content with no challenge, rather than being useful items for the currently neglected builds that nobody uses.

Very well said, this is by far the biggest issue with the list.

[Eth]

Why is this loot level 28?

[AzureDragonas]

I am happy to see at least some progress in game which is barely playable due to lag, but after seeing this list i am not quite sure what is goal of this update? To put dozen pointless items with couple best 1 for everyone slot?


As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

LEGENDARY

Level 28 items




Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot


Many told already there is no point on TS by this level and specialy to have item giving +8 illusion DC for 2 existing illusion spells. ETA till you actually add new spells to use this illusion dc?



Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot


http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Sage%27s_Ring_(Level_27). So far highest potency +92 item in game
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Libram_of_Silver_Magic so far highest Insightful Potency +10
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Docent_of_the_Celestial_Sage so far highest Quality Potency +27

(exluding random items), all 3 items offers 127 potency TOTAL in 3 slots. You actually plan to release single item which is same level range as those 3 and giving 228 (180% boost from previous???). This item goes with mod necklace and makes each and every other item in game giving spell power a waste. Specially when you consider only items for spell power which are still considered usable are elemental weapons from shroud. This single item is invalidating 10 years of items moment its released. It's not power creep anymore its power Everest for this game.



Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot


Some sense at least nothing in particular OP.



Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot


Strange item hard to imagine people using it too much.



Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot


You made legendary difficulty where monsters hits 4 digit numbers and killing most tanks who don't have 3k hp in raids. what is purpose of guard which might be usefull in heroics? Not to mention design itself being strange.



Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot


Too high power creep. single item gives too much false life and quality con.



Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot


Seems decent enough to consider in many builds - too good to balance with others. Dozen items becomes invalidated including raids



Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot


Unusable. Hardly imagine it being used by anyone



Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot


Well designed item for necromancers +1.



Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot


Wooden docent makes sense for druid wf. and yet druid dont have repair spells. change to heal amp and it would be usefull for druids while lowering PK for tanks by reducing healing from repair spells. It's wooden docent full with life so. Now its prob best wf/bf tank docent in game.



Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot


Monks, rogs will use 100% no other belt in game is competative to this. So it's too strong



Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot


Seems not too op compared to others.



Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot


Doubt anyone will use. Even without criticals monsters in legendary one shoot, there is no point in this fort bonus



Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot


Each and every melee will use it. Too strong for single item.



Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot


Bards needed some buffing this seems good way to go, yet bonuses too high also

This list seems terrible of how much PK it gives. You should reconsider this list from start. Compare with existing items. Making players tear god with penta digits damage which gets killed by single attacks are stupid design. We have energy bursts hitting for 3x monsters hp(16-24k on my shiradi caster) on crits each 30 seconds. Monsters except in legendary are too weak already and die too fast. You need make balancing on what you got already, and new items should give options to change items not to be "best slot in game". Making 3 items to give same bonus as let's say helm gives options for trade offs on item picks. And items should increase slowly maybe 5% from previous when you update but obviously not 80% as you try pull with potency.

[Wizza]

Why no new augments? The gear with augment slots is still being added but the last time we have got the augments from a regular content was, if I am not mistaken, 3BC. That is almost two years ago. Why is this system being abandoned?

They plan on adding new augments soon.

Probably the same time they will add more Mysterious Remnants items as they promised too.

Kek.


Nope I still run these quests for both xp and loot for myself and friends and guildies.
I love the bound to account gear, this stops people who a greedy and put a rare item up for 5k shards.
I will vote and always vote to keep gear bound to account for as long as I can.
the only people that don't like it is the free to play accounts that play for 15hrs a day to try and make profit from it.
and you can now begin trolling me.
if I had it my way this would be VIP only, :)

Good for you! You people must have hated this game when eGH came out, with people *gasp* trading items all over the place. How did they dare!!!

What if I told you that I sold a 14 con ring for 2k lately anyway? :rolleyes:

[Vhayre]

Comments in blue



Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Interesting. Tastes like gnome.
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
Nice to have all bonuses on one item. Maybe lower the equipment bonus slightly, but I'd personally still slot a separate item for my main spellpower already.
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot
Looks balanced. Good fit for a melee who uses something not thunderforged.
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Most classes that are going to be casting enchantment spells are able to cast displacement, so I question the usefulness of having it on this item. Note that I consider part of the flavour a valid reason, but I can't judge that until we know item names :)
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot
Flavour item obviously, it would be cool if it had a hidden effect of a much more powerful guard effect




Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot
Might use it for lack of something better. Not a fan of individual insightful saves since they're mostly invalidated by riposte items.
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot
Would use this on a druid or caster cleric. Spellpower is over the top. ML 28 raid loot goes up to 156, this stuff should not have higher bonuses than raid loot of the same level even if it's a different element.
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot
Haven't done the maths yet, but with base spell resistance, insightful and quality all stacking spell resistance could become a thing. It would be nice if random loot was fixed to stack with drow spell resistance for that since currently neither normal nor insightful stacks with that.
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot
You are my hero. You would be even more my hero if this could have void lore, since it can be a pain to slot at cap.
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot
Big PRR/MRR bonuses, nice defensive docent.



Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Would be nice if it had insightful or quality assassinate
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot
This looks like a trapper item, so adding quality int for the disable device would make sense.
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot
I like the introduction of old armor types. Unfortunately I also can't really see who would use this. It's a medium armor with +6 mdb, fortification and a small amount of stacking heal amp. It needs at least 1 more thing to make it worth considering.
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot
I will farm this.
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot
I will also farm this on my air savant, but it would be nice if the cores actually gave the listed caster level bonus to sonic spells for that. Spellpower bonus too high, like the cloak.


As for the heroic stuff, no quality stats please. That will not only invalidate named loot in the same level range but also a lot in low epics. The spellpower seemed high, but then I realized that a lot of the masterful craftsmanship lootgen I find at that level is over 100 as well anyways.

I agree with everyone who's asking for new augments and for existing augments to be buffed a bit more in line with current lootgen. Some more general options like spell lore and seeker would be great for slot consolidation.

[GroundhogDay]

My problem with this kind of loot is: it's too niche.

I mean, what if one is neither a caster or a trapper?

Add to that the recent "new genloot" that assumes every toon is a caster, and good old melee/ranged toons get the short end of the stick, again.

I cannot see one item any of my current toons would want to farm, sorry.

[Hara]

Congratulations I see you are continuing with your efforts to totally invalidate all older named items.

I havent been impressed with the loot update, if it were up to me I'd rollback. Overpowered random lootgen, and now here we have even more OP named. What will you bring out in U32? items even better than these?

Go read the Dungeon Masters Guide, I believe it contains details on how to create magical items. Code this into DDO, tweek as appropriate. Use this system for both named items which you create as static items and random gen items.

It really shouldn't be hard to create items, I certainly never had any problem when I was a DM but then I'm afraid I subscribe to the RTFM school of thought.

[rehakp]

Interesting loot. Some pieces are weak for their slot IMHO.
Some are interesting and long wanted (necro belt).
Some are even too strong for their level IMHO (potency helmet).

What i like is BoA.
1.) No need to farm for each alt.
2.) Even bigger issue for me personally .. no need to store bazilion BoC in my completionist TR stash

BUT what im worried about:
(I will demonstrate on DC casing beacause its the most obvious and easy to understand)
With all those new fancy +quality +insight +festivul +whatever bonus types and some new feats/destinies/trees otpions.
There would raise "crazy" MIN/MAX build and the gap between crazy MIN/MAX and "not so crazy" builds will be bigger and bigger.
Dont get me wrong here. Im perfectly ok with possible MIN/MAX caster that sacrifice "everything" but has finger necro DC 60 on level 15 and DC 100 on level 30 and fingers everything not even trying to attack weak saves of monsters.
BUT what im worried about is developers starts changing diffilutly based on that "crazy" min/max builds that sacrifices "everything". Then "non crazy" build that sacrifices "only" something starts to fall so behind they fail 80% of spells even when always targeting the weak saves. Then all casters are forced to either reroll noncaster or reroll to some "crazy MIN/MAX" without freedom of personalization.

[Melt-emi]

Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot



I'm not sure how many players specialize into Illusion, it would be nice if this item kept the Quality Int +4 and replaced the Illusion DC boosts with something useful to Int based Assassins (or Rogues in general).

[Claver]

Goggles - Keep the True sight and Green Slot to make this a little more appealing to builds who are not illusion focused


Helmet - I like the Magical Efficiency 5%...but overall this seems a rather strong helm for the level

Boots - Not bad...good flavor...happy to see two level 13 items with guard effects ...happy that so many of these items have green augment slot.

Necklace - A character who would be interested in Enchantment DC and spell points probably already has Displacement and certainly doesn't need Blurry. Make this 10% Ghostly to increase the value to a greater variety of builds.

Bracers - I LOVE the flavor of the bracers - regardless of the power level. I've been tempted to make a punisher Ravager barbarian build that maximizes guard effects. The boots and bracers are a good start. Please make a few more good named items with guard effects in different slots in future updates to make such build a bit more viable



Trinket - Sorry, this is not interesting or useful. You could start over from scratch of give it ONE and only ONE ability...say Quality Con +2 or Enhancement False Life +52. Give it just one good ability rather than 4 nearly useless abilities

Cloak - great for druids...I'll seek this out on several of my characters

Leather Armor - Not very interesting or imaginative --- repace the poison ward with MRR

Belt - Love the belt...my favorite item listed

Docent - Wooden - It's the wooden feature that makes this stand out...I hope this has a cool skin worthy of a mirror of glamouring





Belt - OK and functional

Bracers - Not a bad swap item

Hide Armor - Very happy to see more medium armors that druids can wear (as well as warlocks) but I'm not a fan of the fortification on a level 17 item. I would much rather see a devotion effect with maybe a bit more healing amp

Ring - If I needed the +14 accuracy I would take this...Otherwise, no

Gloves - Good for bards and warlocks...I could see using this on my sonic builds

[Aelonwy]

Most classes that are going to be casting enchantment spells are able to cast displacement, so I question the usefulness of having it on this item. Note that I consider part of the flavour a valid reason, but I can't judge that until we know item names





Necklace - A character who would be interested in Enchantment DC and spell points probably already has Displacement and certainly doesn't need Blurry. Make this 10% Ghostly to increase the value to a greater variety of builds.



For those of you thinking that only arcanes need an enchantment DC item, I was hoping to use this on my cleric for a boost to Greater Command and on my AA for a boost to her paralyzing arrows which now have a DC that depends on Enchantment bonuses. Neither my cleric nor my AA get blurry naturally... or Displacement without a Greensteel clicky. So I for one, would be happy with blurry and lesser displacement on these items.

[Robbenklopper]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update...

Are you guys really sure the loot is powerful enough? Could be still that there are some 1st life niche flavor builds left who have Troubles to zerg HE.
And please accept my Suggestion to make old epic gear ML20 available now at ML16 so it´ll be useful again and the game not too hard.
Sorry

[-D_Rock-]

I seem to fail to understand why we are yet STILL getting more heroic quest/loot when heroic has been totally fine for the longest time now. Instead of this, you could have offered up even more epic and not wasted your time adapting this new content to both Epic and Heroic. This is why I tend to TR a lot. I simply get bored to tears of the same old daily trash to run for xp. After having tr'd multiple toons for a hundred times it gets extremely boring to sit at epic capped level with nothing to do. So those toons sit in limbo while i start a new tr to avoid the boredom. Also you have recently upped the max character level, making the need for more epic content more prevalent. Quit wasting your time with heroic, we simply need more epic and that's it. I'd like to see an update with all epic content for once, forget the heroic and give us 100% epic and more quests/raids to run.

Also none of this heroic gear is needed what so ever except the Docent, where Docents are gravely needed in all level ranges. There simply is so few to go around that many warforged go with 'whatever' just to wear something at all. Other than that, none of this loot is needed at all. Especially the level 17 when you are just going to replace it in 3 levels (or 1-2 days).

And on another note, casters do not need more items in heroics by any means. I speak from experience as casters are my favorite to play. With all the new passes to melee as well, Heroic is a bit of a joke to begin with and can be soloed fairly easily with one weapon *knowledge of quests*. Heck i just soloed Heroic Elite Sins of Attrition on my 4th life toon paladin. He has 0 epic past lives, 0 iconic past lives, is not a completionist by any means and was only level 18 in a level 21 quest. A perfect example of why we don't need more heroic named items making older heroic named items useless or why we even need any more heroic loot at all to begin with.

[PolarisNC]

Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot


Given how hard it is to find general resistance on items these days, this is one I'll be looking for immediately.

Any chance that this update will fix the [elemental xd6] damage-on-hit bug with ranged weapons or handwraps?



Yeah, I know. I guy can dream, can't he?

[-D_Rock-]

Why no new augments? The gear with augment slots is still being added but the last time we have got the augments from a regular content was, if I am not mistaken, 3BC. That is almost two years ago. Why is this system being abandoned?

Totally agree. Not to mention new lootgen has made using some augments completely useless. *Defense Augs*. The highest level one is level 28 and gives 16 PRR. This is 2016 now though and I can just wear my heroic hat with 14 prr of insightful 7 PRR. 21 total PRR at lvl 16. seriously.... update these augments ......

[-D_Rock-]

I see there's two "Magical Efficiency" items. Did they ever fix the bug with items not stacking with destiny abilities?

Hmmm... some interesting pieces.

The sonic and illusion items would be great if the DEVS ALSO ADD a sonic damage (epic) or illusion DC spells useful beyond level 15.

Or are you thinking Greater Shout and Phantasmal Killer are used with your level 28 items?
Though I haven't tried Greater Shout with Master of Music.

Poor Illusionist gnomes having jack and jack for high level illusion spells is le sad.



Devs: Hey players. Here's this great race that works with an old class and it has this giant weapon, with great targeting... see how you can instantly see this monster... check out the easy to use grip on this weapon... you can make it so it never misses... it's very flavorful too with all the shinies. Isn't this the best ever???

Players: But it's firing rubber bands... can't I have some real ammo?



Total spells per school in DDO:
31 Abjuration
69 Conjuration
8 Divination
40 Enchantment
62 Evocation
7 Illusion (Total DC spells in Illusion: 2)
49 Necromancy
47 Transmutation

been saying this for years. go to the ddo wikki as well. look at how many level 9 spells there are. then look and brace yourself at the cleric list. and THEN look at the paladin list without cringing. but at least we have a TON of level 2 spells! thats useful in epics right?!......

[Silverleafeon]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

thank you, here is my first read thru w/o looking at others comments, and not worrying about what other's think of mine comments.

Bound to Account

I assume next dungeons are not raids, but quests with heroic/legendary versions. Sounds like a good plan atm.
Keep fixing lag more before introducing a new raid (but we want more raids).


HEROIC
Level 13 items


Not even going to comment/look at the heroic stuff, let others do that.





LEGENDARY


Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot



Question, will these guards stack with tier I legendary greensteel guards?
If not I think a guard master build will appreciate them anyway and build around that limitation.
Thanks for adding more guards.

I like the goggle a lot. Definitely nice addition for PK gnome fans.

The helmet looks nice as well. Honestly that could go on a main caster build, love the decent potency.
It has competition for the slot, but a druid/wizard/multi-element sorcerer will take a good look at it.

Boots could compete with other melee boots, might not take over the slot, but definitely will be considered.

Main casters are going to go with the MoD necklace, its best in slot atm, but this is a nice addition.
Nothing wrong with it. I like seeing other lesser displacement options as random rings are much stronger now.

Love the bracers, thanks still trying to build a guard build on my completionist toon, tough to balance AC.



Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot





Nice to see con and false life on a trinket, hmm...must be some fire theme in the new dungeons?

Woot, evocation on a cloak, nice thank you. And wisdom too, sweet some love for favored soul/clerics with that force boost for blade barrier.

Not bad leather, I like the save boost and I heard on the streets that some of the spell resistance is unbugged and stacking correctly.
A bit weak, but there is a lot of good armor around atm, hmm....might be poison theme in the new dungeons?

Nice belt, good for necromancers, and putting the option on a belt instead of armor is nice.

Pretty good docent, thank you for the docent love.
I could consider it for artty dogs/wizard/sorcerer builds.




Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot
[/QUOTE]


wow more stuff, sweet

Nice belt, love the combat mastery/dodge on it

And some more rogue love, thank you.

Decent barbarian armor.

That is a nice ring.

And finally a bard gloves, which looks good.



All in all, legendary looks nice, kind of good to be 28 instead of 30, helps with ER lives.
Obviously, equipment is very hard to compare imhowcbvw, but overall new end game options looking pretty good to me.

[maddong]

Are you going to drop the named items that are level > 28 to 28 since the best loot in the game will be level 28?

This reminds me of epic necro how I used to just use epic necro equip to round out my char with some loot gen fill in.

If you are seriously going to make this free pack the "pack to own" you might as well make some money off of it by making it btcoe loot. Just remember all the money you made in ddo at the end of dec/start of jan from astral shard sales (I had about 6000 astral shards flow thru my fingers and I don't play that much and was on vacation for peak economy) before you ran the game into the ground with the data center move.

[XbaileyX]

Why no new augments? The gear with augment slots is still being added but the last time we have got the augments from a regular content was, if I am not mistaken, 3BC. That is almost two years ago. Why is this system being abandoned?

Nice point and idea.

Non bound lvl 30 augments that were shiny/useful would give the content a reason to be replayed and farmed once bta acct items are all acquired.

[Aelonwy]

Also none of this heroic gear is needed what so ever except the Docent, where Docents are gravely needed in all level ranges. There simply is so few to go around that many warforged go with 'whatever' just to wear something at all. Other than that, none of this loot is needed at all. Especially the level 17 when you are just going to replace it in 3 levels (or 1-2 days).


I like TRing too and thus I like the new heroic content as something new to do on the way back to 20. You are right though, the game could use a handful more docents at various level ranges of materials other than metal. I always wondered why they didn't make a crystal docent with the look of the muckbane/adaxus/madstone shield. I know if someone ran past me on a warforged decked out in dark-blue crystal I'd grind my hiney off just to glamor the appearance. Ooooh ooh imagine if it also gave arty defenders a crystal look.

No one is saying it but we still don't have random generated orbs. So we could use some more named orbs at various levels. Should be one on Korthos already, I would suggest it look like a giant pearl (Sauhaugin theme) and be in the chest of the sauhaugin rare in the little wilderness.

[Arkai]

I like some items, will be farming a bunch of them for sure and I'm a veteran player, so, good work.

In the other hand, I will love to see some clickies added, I got tired of carrying visors of the Flesh render guards or that mask of good hope from phiarlan, useless items at inventary except when you cast the shiny thing :P

[Arkai]

Ooooh ooh imagine if it also gave arty defenders a crystal look.




http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/546/307/638.jpg

[hunzi2010]

They plan on adding new augments soon.

Probably the same time they will add more Mysterious Remnants items as they promised too.

Kek.



Good for you! You people must have hated this game when eGH came out, with people *gasp* trading items all over the place. How did they dare!!!

What if I told you that I sold a 14 con ring for 2k lately anyway? :rolleyes:

Honestly, I did, I hated the **** out of it and got so angry when all you people sold stuff for stupid amounts of money. but wait a sec. I will be honest here. the best thing that happened at that time was I concentrated on focusing and learning more to better fine tune my toon and game play. I made my self get better and advance to the next level of play so I could do those quests. so that was a massive positive for me besides the gear.
I have sunk enough money into turbine over the 6 years of playing nearly every day, I should get an email from codro with a gift for that dedication...lol. but im not spending money to make someone else rich.
sorry, but not gonna happen, gratz on selling your ring for 2k shards.
me personally I would have just given the ring to a friend if they needed it or put it in the guild chest. but then again that's me. and I prefer to help people rather than profit from them.

[Aletys]

I like that they'll be bta, rather than btc. Don't have enough bank space for the btc items I want to keep as it is.

Agree that augments need to be updated so they align better with the new loot gen.

Others have already commented on the individual items, so I won't duplicate that.

Some have mentioned there's no point in adding new stuff for heroic, but most of my guildies (and others I know), don't like epic, and much prefer heroic. They've been playing a long time, and so having new content & loot will keep them playing the game. They couldn't care less about epic.

But, and this is a BIG but, devs, you need to fix the lag asap, or there won't be many people playing by the time this comes out. Right now, Khyber is a ghost town much of the time, and my friends list shows very few on at any given time, sometimes none on. Used to be I could always find friends on line to play with. These days? Lucky to find an epic quest or raid on the lfm boards (if I post one, it takes forever to fill). And we still run into debilitating lag in quests, in raids, in public areas. Had a party wipe in Creeping Death (HE) yesterday due to being frozen in place while the mobs killed us. Shiny new items will not get people to play when the game is so laggy that it's not fun anymore.

[Alkusoittow]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

...

LEGENDARY


Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot







Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot







Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot


https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/37900128.jpg

[niknight]

The legendary helmet seems a "bit" too good. For an ES Warlock, this one piece of equipment provides almost as much spell power (228) as the current three best in slot pieces of gear combined do (around 250).

[Saekee]

Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot

These seem designed for a tank but are nigh useless since that is not scaling damage. Please add: force damage absorption (some %, like 25%), quality fortification and quality healing amplification.

[Saekee]

Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot

Overpowered!

[Saekee]

Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot

Really nice to see a PM piece of gear.

[Saekee]

Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot

This is very solid for rogues & ninjas, maybe even Best in Slot. Lacks only dexeption/improved deception in which case it would be OP.

[Broprichniki]

The 28 Helmet looks very nice.

The 185 Sonic spell power gloves worry me a bit if they're an indication that future items for other spell types will be equally powerful, especially when I've spent millions on lootgen gear with +150 spell power/+21 crit % min level 30.

Unfortunately, increasingly powerful items will just make old content mind-numbingly easy for people who have the new gear and new content impossible for people who don't.

[Broprichniki]

Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot

These seem designed for a tank but are nigh useless since that is not scaling damage. Please add: force damage absorption (some %, like 25%), quality fortification and quality healing amplification.

Guard items (and class enhancements) certainly would be interesting if they scaled with melee/spell power, even partially.

As it stands I don't know of any melee who can stand in the midst of a swarm of LE mobs and not get hammered. Against a smaller group, guards just aren't worth it.

[MeliCat]

Accuracy on the ring maybe? guessing quality on the damage there?

DD and OL I guess.

The SA belt maybe.

Kinda out of date but these look like loot for quests not raids so that's ok.

[BigGoettge]

I would like to see:

- a buckler with the quality con and 7/14 parrying
- Light armors with the high fort and quality fort - and maybe quality heal amp

Miss that for versitile gear splashing

[DrawingGuy]

Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot

Overpowered!

How is this overpowered compared to Sightless? The bigger question is if this and Sightless stack or not...

[Vallin]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:




I didn't see this comment yet so will throw it out there. I can barely care to look at the loot because all it is to me is numbers and statistics. I fully respect and appreciate that many people play the game for max power - even I do sometimes - but releasing info about new loot without at least throwing us some names and descriptions just doesn't feel right.

I can't remember seeing proposed loot like this - maybe there always has been and I just didn't notice - but you might as well just be talking about random lootgen if there aren't even any names, connections to lore, or anything else.

Blech.

Vallin.

[Saekee]

How is this overpowered compared to Sightless? The bigger question is if this and Sightless stack or not...

I assume they stack (could be wrong though) but, more importantly, sightless is a raid item, not a ftp quest named item plop.

http://m.ddowiki.com/images/Sightless.jpg

[Saekee]

Guard items (and class enhancements) certainly would be interesting if they scaled with melee/spell power, even partially.

As it stands I don't know of any melee who can stand in the midst of a swarm of LE mobs and not get hammered. Against a smaller group, guards just aren't worth it.

I wonder, then, what might make it compelling? Xoriat armors can get displacement guard; maybe a polycurse guard for debuffing; thoughts? It would be fun if it could get upgraded in the Altar of Insanity so one could choose.

[Saekee]

I didn't see this comment yet so will throw it out there. I can barely care to look at the loot because all it is to me is numbers and statistics. I fully respect and appreciate that many people play the game for max power - even I do sometimes - but releasing info about new loot without at least throwing us some names and descriptions just doesn't feel right.

I can't remember seeing proposed loot like this - maybe there always has been and I just didn't notice - but you might as well just be talking about random lootgen if there aren't even any names, connections to lore, or anything else.

Blech.

Vallin.
nice point--named items should have a name. I suspect that the name is still in development.

[Saekee]

Accuracy on the ring maybe? guessing quality on the damage there?


I was wondering about that & it might be a typo--it might be 'to hit' bonus while sneak attacking (as is typical with lootgen deception weapons and gear), not general accuracy, but the latter would be better

[Aelonwy]

I can't remember seeing proposed loot like this - maybe there always has been and I just didn't notice - but you might as well just be talking about random lootgen if there aren't even any names, connections to lore, or anything else.


It is unusual and it does seem like an extra early look at the loot proposal but I like it. What's more if you look at the combination of effects you can theorize or extrapolate from previous named loot a theme or possible story behind some of the items.


Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot (I'm guessing these are like those boots with blades hidden in the heel or toe.)

Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot (This is obviously an item about balance...*ahem* in the force.)

Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot (Something to do with health and fire? The pituitary gland of a Fire Giant? ewww.)

Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot (Its a belt so... maybe a scrap of mummy wrapping from a powerful mummy/lich.)

Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot (Hmmm these are both rogue themed, I'm going to guess the belt is made from an enchanted piece of displacer beast hide and the bracers are an articulated pair of artificier contraptions.)

Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot (I visualize these as being those perfectly smooth white gloves that conductors of the orchestra wore.)


These of course are only theories. There were also several items with a possible druid theme - the cloak, wooden docent and probably the hide armor as well. It could be the guard bracers are also aimed at a druid theme with the idea of balance but if so I think the four elements would have made more sense thematically.

[Kompera_Oberon]

nice point--named items should have a name. I suspect that the name is still in development.
It is also vaguely possible that releasing the names would tip off the content they plan to release, if it exists in PnP as a module or whatever.

I see a lot of love for casters, which seems to tie in with the comments by the devs when they released the new feats for the L30 cap about trying to give casters a leg up. It's nice, but devs, you can't fix a class with gear. You need to fix the classes, plural, that still need their class passes.

[NoWorries]

More level 28 junk is not very exciting. I already have mules full of level 28 gear. Where's the level 30 stuff?


We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.


I seem to fail to understand why we are yet STILL getting more heroic quest/loot when heroic has been totally fine for the longest time now.

Quit wasting your time with heroic, we simply need more epic and that's it.

Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.


I didn't see this comment yet so will throw it out there. I can barely care to look at the loot because all it is to me is numbers and statistics. I fully respect and appreciate that many people play the game for max power - even I do sometimes - but releasing info about new loot without at least throwing us some names and descriptions just doesn't feel right.


The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

[HouseAtreides]

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

I feel that many people who think that ring is overpowered do not spend the majority of their time running highest difficulty end game content. That ring is fine, and opens options and fills a nice niche. Powerful items are fine. It's an abundance of synergy that actually breaks things. The loot item as listed isn't overly synergistic with current high end gear slotting to the point that it creates a problem.

[Claver]

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

The heroic ring is just fine...It is level 17 after all...as it is now, I could see slotting it on a character who could use a BAB bonus...but if you were to take away the other percs (green augment slot, deadly) my BAB deficient character would slot something else


Consider that at level 15 I can get a ring of the stalker with ethereal, mans layer, seeker and sneak attack damage

[cru121]

snip

Legendary item level - the lower the better. 28 is okay

Heroic and epic variants - please continue to offer both. More heroic options is great. More F2P is even better.

Heroic helmet - I'd remove/replace Equipment Potency +63.

I still think you should work on the Hide Armor. It is very similar to http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Leaves_of_the_Forest. The list of medium armor compatible with druids is very short (http://ddowiki.com/page/Druid_equipment#Armor). Please reconsider the effects of the Hide Armor.

[Steve_Howe]

I feel that many people who think that ring is overpowered do not spend the majority of their time running highest difficulty end game content. That ring is fine, and opens options and fills a nice niche. Powerful items are fine. It's an abundance of synergy that actually breaks things. The loot item as listed isn't overly synergistic with current high end gear slotting to the point that it creates a problem.

This.

I spend ALL of my time these days in LH and LE content. The ring is needed and is fine as-is.

[janave]

I see a lot of love for casters, which seems to tie in with the comments by the devs when they released the new feats for the L30 cap about trying to give casters a leg up. It's nice, but devs, you can't fix a class with gear. You need to fix the classes, plural, that still need their class passes.

If by "casters" you mean Shirady-Warlocks, you are perfectly right. However thats one of the strongest caster dps builds right now.. if not the strongest. The build surely needs that extra 100+ static spell power and the best crit rate item yet :)

Looking forward to play one, if this hits live.

[DrawingGuy]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.

While I understand that sentiment, the complete lack of level 30 gear also makes it feel like that there is no "end game" gear. I think we SHOULD have some level 30 gear, and that it's ok to have some end game gear that people don't use on their TR train.



Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.

Agreed. It also helps fill some of the gaps that we had where there wasn't enough quests to cap at a given level without repeating. Your recent quests have helped that. We could use some at level 12.



The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

The heroic helm can EASILY lose the Quality Potency bonus, and still be a go-to item.



There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

I personally disagree with the others that say it is. The biggest argument is that Sightless, the comparable item, is a raid item. I personally don't find raid items to be a high barrier with 20th (or 10th in the case of new raids) giving you the item. Though if the item level cap were to be raised to 29 or 30 (preferred), I feel that even that argument would be made moot.

[Thrudh]

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot

I don't think if I would call it overpowered, but I will definitely want it for at least one of my melee. For my swashbuckler, I want it for the accuracy. Nothing stinks more than to waste a Coup de Grace on a grazing hit. Are there any other items that even come close to +28 Accuracy? That seems really high, so if to-hit is a problem at all for a character, this becomes a must-have item.

The deadly will free up my bracers slot too... Melee and Ranged power is just extra in my mind... You could reduce those if you want, but I don't think you need to.

Please leave the items at min level 28, so we can use them for a longer period of time. Thanks.

[nokowi]

The lvl 28 ring is not OP.

If I reconfigure every piece of gear to include it, it would add 2 Melee Power and 3 Deadly to my build which currently uses a non-mythic Sightless. It is not as simple as grabbing a non raid item and having effective gear, you need to fit all the effects you want/need in the remaining item slots. This item competes with Sightless, which can still potentially add +10 MP in its best mythic form, and Strange Tidings, which has deception (if this is fixed) and can also boost MP in its mythic form. If EE DOJ didn't lag-fail, I would still be looking for a top mythic Sightless and Strange Tidings.

This type of reconfiguring keeps end game players busy, and the occasional powerful item like this helps reduce some of the gap between have's and have-not's.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

personally i dont think this item is that overpowered.

that said, it is a little bit. its not because it offers the highest mp/rp. its not because it offers the highest deadly. its not because it offers the highest accuracy. its because it offers all three, and right now those stats are the absolute three most important stats to physical dps builds. what this ring does is effectively make all melee and ranged builds have only 1 ring slot, and the non swap ring slot will always have this item in it. basically you removed an item slot and passively buffed level 28+ characters with these stats. that is the why.

all that being said, i dont really think this item needs to change. since accuracy has become important, and due to the curve requires significant increases in value to make even a 5% difference, slotting all the gear affixes one needs has become very difficult, especially for classes which require balancing multiple stats. having all of these stats consolidated on the same item is REALLY appreciated. the fact that they are the max bonuses is really just icing imo, but its icing that i dont find to be over powered considering the insane level of damage were taking in certain areas. however you may want to consider lowering the melee power to 5 and the deadly to 10 and raising the accuracy to 30 for the sake of my ocd.. the reason for that is because if you do, this ring is still very powerful for its stat consolidation, but sightless will still offer that 1 more mp that may make it the preferred choice for some people, and sanctified gages will still offer that 1 more deadly that may make them the preferred choice for some people. and this is only because the level cap is going to remain at 30 for the foreseeable future, so it is important not to release loot that is decidedly more powerful than previous endgame loot, otherwise you are just digging yourself the same whole youre trying to climb out of. make loot different, not better.

regardless, i seriously wouldnt mind getting this ring as its been posted.

[Thar]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.



Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.



The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

29 is less useful than 28, please leave it where it is.

more quest choices is good in heroic.

helm - make the reg potency less and leave the quality which will make it useful as you level higher. too few good helms in the game.

the melee ring isn't too powerful deadly 10 to 14 is 4 pts. nothing wow gamebreaking. the melee/ranged power isn't out of line either.

with boon of undeath back on a normal item, how about the torc effect from desert? couldn't that reappear on some epic item? getting a few sp back is always good. epic hits are like too much to try to refill your bar that way so it's not overpowered as you'll die before you can self heal that much.

[GoldyGopher]

Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.

You do realize your statement is in direct contradiction to past statements by the development team, including two former Executive Producers, Senior Producers, Lead Tech Guy, and everyone from Turbine who has every posted on the subject? If the forum search worked I'd link a few of these statements. Now the reality is most of us have believed that too be the case where it is fairly easy to adjust the difficulty to create both heroic and epic difficulties of the same quest, it just wasn't the official mantra on the subject.

There is one important reason to not make both an Epic and heroic version of the same quest, just ask the players leaving the game rather than the ever shrinking pool of players staying in the game. It is kind of a white elephant that many people happily ignore, DDO does not have enough content at every level. Using content twice doesn't solve the problem and to those people leaving the game because they are bored with the content it makes it worse. When you add too that fact the content has been less than stellar too begin with, its mind boggling.

[Thrudh]

however you may want to consider lowering the melee power to 5 and the deadly to 10 and raising the accuracy to 30 for the sake of my ocd.. the reason for that is because if you do, this ring is still very powerful for its stat consolidation, but sightless will still offer that 1 more mp that may make it the preferred choice for some people, and sanctified gages will still offer that 1 more deadly that may make them the preferred choice for some people.

Good suggestions. Having deadly and accuracy on one item is okay. Having the HIGHEST deadly and accuracy on the same item, along with near highest MP and RP might be a bit much... Give it the highest value of one attribute (Accuracy is fine with me), and tone down the other three. Still a great consolidation item for most of us, but the power-gamers can still get higher numbers with dedicated inventory shuffling.

Lowering the RP and MP to 5 and deadly to 10 or 11 is a good suggestion.

[NoWorries]

You do realize your statement is in direct contradiction to past statements by the development team, including two former Executive Producers, Senior Producers, Lead Tech Guy, and everyone from Turbine who has every posted on the subject? If the forum search worked I'd link a few of these statements. Now the reality is most of us have believed that too be the case where it is fairly easy to adjust the difficulty to create both heroic and epic difficulties of the same quest, it just wasn't the official mantra on the subject.


There is a big difference between making a new quest have both a heroic and epic version and going back to an older quest that only had heroic and making an epic version of it. The former is very doable, the latter is the equivalent of making an entirely new quest from scratch and can sometimes even be more work than making a new quest.

[Thrudh]

There is one important reason to not make both an Epic and heroic version of the same quest, just ask the players leaving the game rather than the ever shrinking pool of players staying in the game. It is kind of a white elephant that many people happily ignore, DDO does not have enough content at every level.

(1) Your statement appears incorrect to me. There is PLENTY of content at all levels now.
(2) Your statement makes no sense... You claim there's not enough content at every level, therefore they should NOT make more quests at multiple levels?

[Jetrule]

I enjoy heroic content. please keep it coming. The ring is fine as is and the helm if it needs cut should get a -10% to each type of power. The option to stack some different types of power other than equipment is the appeal. dont remove them all together. My 3 cents, thanks

[Saekee]

The lvl 28 ring is not OP.

If I reconfigure every piece of gear to include it, it would add 2 Melee Power and 3 Deadly to my build which currently uses a non-mythic Sightless. It is not as simple as grabbing a non raid item and having effective gear, you need to fit all the effects you want/need in the remaining item slots. This item competes with Sightless, which can still potentially add +10 MP in its best mythic form, and Strange Tidings, which has deception (if this is fixed) and can also boost MP in its mythic form. If EE DOJ didn't lag-fail, I would still be looking for a top mythic Sightless and Strange Tidings.

This type of reconfiguring keeps end game players busy, and the occasional powerful item like this helps reduce some of the gap between have's and have-not's.

so they don't stack?
I still find the ring to be very powerful but then I suspect that it will have a very low drop rate...

[nokowi]

It is kind of a white elephant that many people happily ignore, DDO does not have enough content at every level. Using content twice doesn't solve the problem and to those people leaving the game because they are bored with the content it makes it worse. When you add too that fact the content has been less than stellar too begin with, its mind boggling.

There is plenty of extra content at heroic levels, so I am not sure I agree with "more content is needed" as the motivation for new heroic quests. The reason to make heroic/epic versions is to

1. give the heroic crowd something new (loot even if content is reused at epic)
while
2. developing more epic content, which is sorely needed for those unwilling to take advantage of bravery bonus by heroic/iconic TR'ing

If dev's save 30% work by creating dual content, I am OK with them making a heroic version. If dev's spend the time to create solely heroic content, I will complain loudly that epic content is a higher priority.

Given the choice of
1) screwing over heroic players
2) not developing epic content as quickly

I think they have found the best solution in the short term. Once epic content catches up, I would support solely heroic content.

[TheWalruss]

With these items it will be the first time since U23 that I will actually spend time trying to get new gear :)

Heroic ML13 Helmet, ML15 Trinket, Cloak, ML17 Belt, Ring.

The same items in Epic are also nice.

Nice work!

[Loromir]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.



Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.



The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?


ML28 is just fine for these Items. Leave as is.
Regarding the Helm...removing Quality Potency is a start. I would also lower the equipment Bonus bonus too. The total Potency power should be less than a character can achieve for an individual spell power.
The ring...I believe is just fine.

[nokowi]

so they don't stack?

Can we have some clarification on this?

I would want Sightless even more if they stack, so it wouldn't be replacing a raid item.

[Rhysem]

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.

For someone running TR/ETR loops, it isn't worth the bank slots/cache if they only come in at 29.

[Silverleafeon]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.[/quote]

Thank you, I think of it as a concession on your part after the raise in xp to reach level cap.

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.

Generally, players have to stop questing and take a 2 hour or so break to gear up, so traditionally it is done when there is significant changes in gear and usually at certain steps such as:

Korthos ~ bank get a few basics and potions

Level 5 ~ get voice, chrono gear, nice twink weapon, etc

Level 8ish

Level 11&12 ~ get greensteels out

Level 16 and quick stop for Level 18

Level 20 basic epic gear

Level 23~24 Citw stuff & Gianthold

Level 27~ 28 Orchard

So 28 fits better frankly.

Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.


I strongly agree, more content and more options is always good.


The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

Having been on the Player's Council, I am used to seeing gear before its named, the general public should feel privileged to see the loot that early and feedback on it.


On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it.

I am listening.

Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

There has always been way too little pure potency items in the game, remember my feedback on the cove dagger asking for it to be increased, hence the helmets are very interesting for me, since only a pure elemental sorcerer can feel happy with a single element, and its hard to slot multiple elements other than augments.

Taking the quality off the heroic helmet would still leave it useful for me. I would prefer to leave the leg one alone, but I would still value it w/o the quality potency.


There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

The heroic one looks fine, I mean 2 melee power is pretty small, its the same as Weapon Focus feat.

I guess we could compare the legendary one to:

http://m.ddowiki.com/images/Sightless.jpg

VS

Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot


Its f2p quest gear vs raid gear, so Sightless should be a little better.

Do the two stack? {assuming ???, since the Sightless is an enhancement bonus, and Ring is not listed ???}

Sightless has double the slots (good to fear immunity, blindess immunity, false life, etc
= win for Sightless

Ring has deadly and accuracy (which is sweet combo) VS Sightless has True Seeing (scrollable but handy to have), Deathblock (essential but slotable elsewhere), Con 12 (a bit low but very strong at 12), Sheltering 35 (extremely good and hard to slot)
= win for Sightless

Ring has +8 melee and +8 ranged power VS Sightless has +6 enhancement melee and +6 enhancement ranged power
= win for Ring

Ring may or may not have mythic version, but Sightless does have mythic versions.
=win for Sightless

Basically, I would recommend changing the ring to read "+8 enhancement melee and +8 enhancement ranged power" to ensure players don't feel they need to slot the ring because it stacks with everything. If necessary drop to +7 also, but don't drop below 6, unless this ring is intended to stack (untyped) in which case drop it to 4.

[janave]

For someone running TR/ETR loops, it isn't worth the bank slots/cache if they only come in at 29.

-or- could practice good game design and make them proper lvl28 power tier items :d

Gloves -VS- TF T3: Dwarvencraft Sonic Lore: Passive: Your Sonic spells gain a +22% Equipment Bonus to their chance to Critical Hit.


We are in deep trouble if these items are considered "balanced". I like the exceptionally powerful items once in every 5-6 updates, but it should be the exception and not the norm, also possibly aimed at helping the least and not the most powerful builds.

[legendkilleroll]

For the helm id lower the insightful potency alot, i think insightful spellpowers that come on random armors and gloves were nice items to find, having a static drop that applies to all spellpower types and being just a little lower power wise seems too much to me.

I assume all these can drop in mythic form too? That ring with a +4 mythic boost would be very sought after

[LadySorrows]

That docent is a stand alone docent -- all that MRR and PRR on one piece of equipment wowser. Such a shame you didn't feel the need to make it usable for toons who aren't warforged or bladeforged. I would rather have that on the leather armor than what you put on it. With MRR & PRR being so important in the game now, and not everyone liking to play warforged, I feel that you should make matchig light, medium, heavy, and cloth armors. Especially for light and cloth armors as it is absolutely a nightmare to get any kind of PRR & MRR on toons that HAVE to use those.

[GoldyGopher]

There is a big difference between making a new quest have both a heroic and epic version and going back to an older quest that only had heroic and making an epic version of it. The former is very doable, the latter is the equivalent of making an entirely new quest from scratch and can sometimes even be more work than making a new quest.

As for the amount of time it takes, I would much rather you spend more time creating content I want to run at Level X, regardless of what Level X is, rather than a quest that I could run at level X and Y but don't really want to at either level (See Update 28).

[Zzevel]

For someone running TR/ETR loops, it isn't worth the bank slots/cache if they only come in at 29.

Right? Where we really need the gear is levels 21-24...

And I would lower/remove the regular Potency from the helm, and drop the deadly from the ring (too many of the best stat for that level)

[Avenir]

Absolutely love the ring (legendary), maybe lower the accuracy a tad.

[Krell]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.



Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.



The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

Regarding item levels, I think the 28 min level is a smart move. I like being able to use my "good stuff" for a couple levels before I ER/IR/TR. An even smarter move would be to apply it to the recent level 29 and 30 gear that came out recently so I can use my end game sets for a couple levels.

The helm: If you strip one effect, I would leave the quality since that is harder to get on items and consider removing one of the other potency types.

The ring: It seems fine to me. Just a desirable item and the game needs desirable items. The effects seem level appropriate in my opinion. Named items from level 30 quests can give +6 melee/ranged power. I'm assuming these quests will be level 32 so +8 makes sense. Grouping effects is what makes named items desirable.

[Zzevel]

That docent is a stand alone docent -- all that MRR and PRR on one piece of equipment wowser. Such a shame you didn't feel the need to make it usable for toons who aren't warforged or bladeforged. I would rather have that on the leather armor than what you put on it. With MRR & PRR being so important in the game now, and not everyone liking to play warforged, I feel that you should make matchig light, medium, heavy, and cloth armors. Especially for light and cloth armors as it is absolutely a nightmare to get any kind of PRR & MRR on toons that HAVE to use those.

You do know Bladeforged and Warforged can ONLY wear Docents right? and to get ANY additional PRR you need to burn FEATS right? This Docent only does what ALL OTHER Medium and Heavy armors do... Do you know how many armors in the game (outside of the PRR issue) it would be nice if a Warforged could wear? .. more than one hon, this is a single win for the Robot, move on

[GoldyGopher]

(1) Your statement is false. There is PLENTY of content at all levels now.
(2) Your statement makes no sense at all... You claim there's not enough content at every level, therefore they should NOT make more quests at multiple levels?



There is plenty of extra content at heroic levels, so I am not sure I agree with "more content is needed" as the motivation for new heroic quests. The reason to make heroic/epic versions is to

1. give the heroic crowd something new (loot even if content is reused at epic)
while
2. developing more epic content, which is sorely needed for those unwilling to take advantage of bravery bonus by heroic/iconic TR'ing

If dev's save 30% work by creating dual content, I am OK with them making a heroic version. If dev's spend the time to create solely heroic content, I will complain loudly that epic content is a higher priority.

Given the choice of
1) screwing over heroic players
2) not developing epic content as quickly

I think they have found the best solution in the short term. Once epic content catches up, I would support solely heroic content.


In today's game with BB it is possible to run as little as 80%(ish) of the content once and reach cap on a third life (or more) character. Depending on how often you die that number goes up. So in that context there is plenty of content.
If I want to run another character to cap following the same system (BB One and Done) you are going to end running virtually the same content, you don't have any choice. Sure you can substitute a couple of quests here and there but you really wanna run Necro III vs. anything else? In that context there is far too little content. The other choice is I can run fewer high XP quests (farming) and see even less of the game.

If you look at other major MMO how much content do you duplicate getting from character creation to say 50% of cap? Sometimes it depends on Class other times race but usually there are clear paths that don't duplicate anything to some point along the characters progression. That doesn't exist in DDO, it is the same path and it is worse for F2P and Premium players than VIPs.

So now the solution is to reuse the content. You are not really creating an Epic content pack because you have to consider the heroic side and you are not really creating heroic pack because you have to consider the epic side of the game. Update 28, The Devil's Gambit is a classic example of the problem.

[Vhayre]

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.

I like them at 28. At 30 I almost always ETR, so if the gear is level 29 you only get to enjoy it for one level.



On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

Heroic sure, but for the legendary helm I would reduce the regular equipment bonus instead, or reduce all 3 of them by a small amount. With all the new stacking bonuses being added lately having items for slot consolidation is nice, but it should probably come at the cost of the stats having slightly below maximum values.



There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

It's a desirable item for sure, but I don't feel like it has to be nerfed. That said I suppose I could understand dropping the melee power to 6 so it doesn't have a higher bonus than raid gear of the same level. I would definitely not drop the deadly below 11, since that would make it lower than what's currently on epic necro gear.

[janave]

In today's game with BB it is possible to run as little as 80%(ish) of the content once and reach cap on a third life (or more) character. Depending on how often you die that number goes up. So in that context there is plenty of content.
If I want to run another character to cap following the same system (BB One and Done) you are going to end running virtually the same content, you don't have any choice. Sure you can substitute a couple of quests here and there but you really wanna run Necro III vs. anything else? In that context there is far too little content. The other choice is I can run fewer high XP quests (farming) and see even less of the game.

If you look at other major MMO how much content do you duplicate getting from character creation to say 50% of cap? Sometimes it depends on Class other times race but usually there are clear paths that don't duplicate anything to some point along the characters progression. That doesn't exist in DDO, it is the same path and it is worse for F2P and Premium players than VIPs.

So now the solution is to reuse the content. You are not really creating an Epic content pack because you have to consider the heroic side and you are not really creating heroic pack because you have to consider the epic side of the game. Update 28, The Devil's Gambit is a classic example of the problem.

Its a complete derail but, in most other games there is no replaying the character from lvl1 feature. While its true the way from 1 to cap is way more grindier, DDO has its own special wheel of grind. I like skipping stuff on one life that im gonna include on the other.

[ZhenBuYaoShi]

Here's a question. Are players supposed to use the same exact gear in the game forever and ever, amen? I would say, no. Has the game changed a hell of a lot since all of these old items that many of you are touting and pouting about were conceived? I would say, yes. The game evolving calls for gear that evolves. A stagnate game with the same exact gear selection for 10 years is not exciting. It doesn't matter that you grind something out that is 7 year old gear. If you want classic gear, and poor stats, then have fun with that. Creatures have gotten stronger. And, why? Because, you all that are complaining that this gear is, too, powerful wanted the game to be more challenging. Well, you know what, that means the average players, the ones that either don't have the time to, or don't want to, spend 100 hours grinding out raid gear can actually play the game, and be somewhat effective. It's not all about you elites that have every piece of equipment in the game. Yes, I'm sorry to say, gear does become obsolete; you're going to have to deal with that FACT. Don't worry, your Thunder-forged gear isn't going to be out done anytime soon by ANY random loot, neither is any of your Epic Orchard gear, Mark of Death gear, or even Caught in the Web gear. Please, this new random loot is NOT that big of a deal. All it is is actual random loot some people might ACTUALLY use that might ACTUALLY be useful; not these horribly crappy random combinations that are coming out, right now, that no one is hardly using at all.

As far as my casters go, I'm still using OLD random loot that I had built up, thank GOD, and saved. Why? Because, it has hefty amounts of matching spell power with spell lore, or Staves that have like 3 spell powers on them and spell lore that matches. Why on EARTH would I want to use new random loot compared to my immediately previous random loot?! Sure, they brought out some great new things like I was saying, Sheltering, Dodge bonuses that actually matter, etc, but other stuff, completely illogical. Why would I be interested in a Force spell power 128, intimidate +17 item? Can anyone answer that? I can't. But, some of these NEW new random loot items, they actually make sense. Overpowered, I think not. They just make sense; and yes, they stack, surprise, surprise *eye roll*.

[cave_diver]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long.

If we had an end game like we used to have when cap was 20, then it would not be the case.

[XbaileyX]

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.


The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

If you are considering nerf, I would put out there to consider a level increase for the items you feel are too strong. That way the people who leave there characters at lvl 30 with the intent of doing LE Raids can still use the power increase. The people who are going to hit 30 and TR don't need these items at 28. To me its a better balance than dropping the values on the items.

With the lag on the servers the way it currently is, Thelanis isn't running 12 man raid groups anymore. (And if they are is I'm not seeing them). < 8 seems to be the happy spot to be able to complete without freezing. Dps increase isn't a bad thing atm.

[Kza]

So many new items...i want them more or less all... Lovely!

I know it wont be done but...

Plz make them bound on equip and low droprate? So you can sell/buy/trade them?

And plz let the quests be wo kobolds and oozez and pirates? Plz some new monsters? Maybe umber hulks or something? :-)

[IronClan]

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful.

Personally I like that helm, but it does need to be toned down a little.

I requst that you remove the 138 potency, why in my view? because IMO at that amount you can legitimately ignore specific spell powers, and free up a lot of gear slots, and red augment slots filled with 138 spell power augments, because most of them only offer about 12 more spell power (150 on a thunderforged Magnetism stick for example is only 12% more.

As an example of ways 138 potency is bad I submit any SP caster that currently uses a wider range of specific elements and who also self heals.

I have a Druid build that does okay (it's SP based so it's significantly behind Warlock) this item is powerful because that 138 potency will free up:

Sonic on an Belt accessory (for forced escape)
Magnetism on an weapon (Electric Draconic burst and call Lightning)
Positive in a red slot (for self heals)
Glaciation on an accessory (for Glacial Wrath and Tsunami)
I will pick up that Force spell power cloak so I wont claim I would be freeing up a slot devoted to Force (force for Tsunami, Ruin and Word of balance SLA)
Light on an Ring accessory. (Divine Wrath and Sunbeam)
Fire on an Bracers accessory (Firewall, body of the sun and Consecrate ground twist)

That's 6 spell power slots (5 items and 1 red augment slot) I can free up with that Helm, and all I have to give up is around 12% to SOME of them (only really the Magnetism on a TF stick, the belt is only 144 and the bracers I think as well).

As you can see the thing to drop from that helm is 138 potency, or reduce it by some amount. 120 would probably be fine.

If you guys are trying to gear balance Warlock with SP based casters (I get that impression from this loot), Might I suggest 20% cooldown reduction on gear? and some forms of stacking SP savings? 10% is negligable, but if there was Insightful SP saving 10% and Quality SP saving 5% well now we're actually talking about something worth gearing. Also could try Orange augments that massively reduce Meta's costs similar to the meridian fragment, Orange Augment of "lesser extend" (increases duration by +25%). And "Improved Efficient Empower V" and Improved Efficient Intensify V (V = 5 sp saved). How about an Orange augment of "Enlarge" Feat, this metamagic in 99% of cases just can't be afforded, and having greater range than a Warlock is one way to help tilt the playing field back to center. You might also consider simply adding 5 to every heroic spells max caster level. In most cases this would still mean almost all heroic nuke spells are useless in Epic/Legendary content, but they would be more useful as filler between the good spells that are worth casting (see above for the ones I find worth casting at least on a Druid)

[IronClan]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.

I think most of us can see that list as clearly endgame loot some people get fixated on a symbol like "ML28" and not the actual values of the affixes... Needless to say, please keep giving us level 30 named loot with an ML of 28, I think this is a solid practice and should not be abandoned because of uninformed grumbles.

Oh and BTW since I have been very critical lately, I have to say nice job on this loot, a lot of it is very exciting and useful.

There will of course be people who call any progression in loot values "power creep" there's no way to make loot that motivates people to replay content without it also being good enough to displace existing loot of the same level. I wish more people around here understood that. the last thing this game needs is three more quests with meh loot that no one bothers with.

I would also like to echo the request that BtcoE makes a return... BTA seems to not be very healthy for replay value judging by the poor LFM numbers for the last several quest packs.

[alancarp]

Need everbright/blueshine back again.

[Starla70]

Everbright, blueskin, Ghost bane, Ghost touch all need to come back.

[nokowi]

Absolutely love the ring (legendary), maybe lower the accuracy a tad.

Accuracy +20 will only give about 5% better chance to hit on LE due to the to-hit curve. +5% to hit is still 5% more damage, but the issue players are having is grazing hits on rolls of 8 or 9 out of 20. Grazing hits ruin many player abilities.

Accuracy +40 wouldn't be going to far. I see no reason to lower the proposed value.

[nokowi]

In today's game with BB it is possible to run as little as 80%(ish) of the content once and reach cap on a third life (or more) character. Depending on how often you die that number goes up. So in that context there is plenty of content.
If I want to run another character to cap following the same system (BB One and Done) you are going to end running virtually the same content, you don't have any choice. Sure you can substitute a couple of quests here and there but you really wanna run Necro III vs. anything else? In that context there is far too little content. The other choice is I can run fewer high XP quests (farming) and see even less of the game.

If you look at other major MMO how much content do you duplicate getting from character creation to say 50% of cap? Sometimes it depends on Class other times race but usually there are clear paths that don't duplicate anything to some point along the characters progression. That doesn't exist in DDO, it is the same path and it is worse for F2P and Premium players than VIPs.

So now the solution is to reuse the content. You are not really creating an Epic content pack because you have to consider the heroic side and you are not really creating heroic pack because you have to consider the epic side of the game. Update 28, The Devil's Gambit is a classic example of the problem.


DDO is not other games. Join the hamster wheel, toon out until each new update and only play fresh content, or go find another game.

I Heroic TR in about 3-5 days. They create a few new quests every 3-6 months. DDO can't possibly create content fast enough to seem to have new content. You are going to rerun content no matter what they do. If you don't find enough new content in your play currently, that's the way its always going to be regardless of where/how the new content is created. It will be another 10 more years before the number of quests doubles.

[Saekee]

(snip) toon out

awesome pun

[Qhualor]

Everbright, blueskin, Ghost bane, Ghost touch all need to come back.

wouldn't mind seeing some new named loot with these affects, but they do need to drop on random loot more so. I cant imagine what players who don't have these until they can find a named item are doing in quests when fighting rusties and wraiths.

btw, I think you mean Blueshine http://ddowiki.com/page/Blueshine :)

[Saekee]

I cant imagine what players who don't have these until they can find a named item are doing in quests when fighting rusties and wraiths.

btw, I think you mean Blueshine http://ddowiki.com/page/Blueshine :)
hah! too true! But ranged toons, casters & monks (even splashes) are good

[Qhualor]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.

We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.



Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.



The main purpose of this post was for discussion on the balance of the items, which is why the focus is on the effects and numbers. That is not to say that naming/lore/tie in to quests is not important, it just wasn't the focus of this particular post.

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

There has been some feedback that the melee/ranged power ring is too powerful, but not a lot of feedback as to why that is. Is it that players feel the melee/ranged power should be brought down slightly? or is it the other effects?

you know better than us, but I think having some named loot ML 30 is a good idea for those that don't TR/IR/ER much or at all. bringing the ML down so more players will find the loot more useful means it needs to be balanced against existing loot in the same intended level range. I know someone in this thread earlier posted some comparisons. it is inevitable that old loot eventually becomes outdated or becomes niche use, but lets try not to invalidate recent new named loot.

I know this is a loot thread, but to comment on heroic/epic quests. heroics are pretty much in a good place right now xp wise. of course we all would like to see new content, but I wouldn't mind seeing a little more focus in epics for a little while especially raids. options are always good, but just doing one and done on a 3rd life + character I'm already skipping at least 25% of the heroic content and for me, heroic content isn't mostly that challenging that I need to farm out quests for more powerful loot. I still use a lot of my old skool gear.

easiest way to see how powerful an item is, is to compare the affects with existing loot in the same level range. these are stacking affects on the same item and not spread out on multiple items. I still feel the same way about the loot. it all depends where I can slot any of this after I equip my stat items and other important items depending on build. chances are, I wont bother with them and just collect dust in my bank regardless of their power.

[btolson]

We tend to try to avoid Named Items that have a minimum level requirement that is the cap level since so many players do not stay there very long. By bringing the minimum level down a little bit, it allows more players to find the items useful. These items were originally done up as level 30 with the same stats, and made 28 to be more useful. So if they went back to 30 they wouldn't be stronger.


I for one, greatly appreciate this. Thanks!



We could make these items min level 29 if players feel that fits in better with the power that they are, while also still allowing them to be useful to many players.


No thanks!




On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?


I tend to agree with others that it's actually the +Equipment bonus that is an issue with both versions of this item. Leaving the Insight and Quality bonuses intact will make them unique and useful, without being overpowered. I don't have any really good suggestions on what to replace the +Equipment bonus with right now.

Then again, maybe the primary issue with this item is just one of timing. If more options for wearable single element spellpower already existed in level 30 scale (+185, +54 better than the potency), this would probably be seen as a backup item at best because people are really going to want that extra +54 for any element they care about. If you have plans for releasing a comprehensive set of such items in U32/U33 (*cough* Cannith Challenge Upgrades *cough*), then you can probably just leave the hats alone, as they will be solidly outclassed when that happens.

[nibel]

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?

Not talking about the epic version because I'm not an endgame player.

The main point I see is that most heroic quests are balanced with the assumption that the spellpower item bonus cap at heroic would be 90, so any item with higher spellpower will look much more powerful than random or named loot. Double so in this specific case because it is Potency instead of a specific spellpower type.

Even then, in my view, I would use it as a quality of life caster item. Heroic leveling goes too fast to care about farming specifically for it, but would save me some slots that I have occupied with various spellpower item, and would also be an alternative to the archon helm (another ML 13 helm with magical efficiency 5%) as a plain upgrade from the witch's hat.

[Jetrule]

Not talking about the epic version because I'm not an endgame player.

The main point I see is that most heroic quests are balanced with the assumption that the spellpower item bonus cap at heroic would be 90, so any item with higher spellpower will look much more powerful than random or named loot. Double so in this specific case because it is Potency instead of a specific spellpower type.

Even then, in my view, I would use it as a quality of life caster item. Heroic leveling goes too fast to care about farming specifically for it, but would save me some slots that I have occupied with various spellpower item, and would also be an alternative to the archon helm (another ML 13 helm with magical efficiency 5%) as a plain upgrade from the witch's hat.

This may have been true at one point But I currently have 3 bound to character on equip wondrous craftsmanship weapons that provide 99 spell power on a specific type. They are M.L. 6!!! I think the genie is out of the bottle. And power inflation has well and truly set in. Once inflation sets in you cant roll it back. All you can do is slow or stop it.

[pjstechie]

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?


This is less from a power perspective, but I think it would be a more interesting item if it kept the quality potency and lost the equipment potency. It strikes me that the power comes more from putting many related things on 1 combined item. Leaving the quality bonus maintains a fairly rare ability while removing the equipment reduces its power. I personally think that would lead to more interesting gear choices.

[Vallin]

It is unusual and it does seem like an extra early look at the loot proposal but I like it. What's more if you look at the combination of effects you can theorize or extrapolate from previous named loot a theme or possible story behind some of the items.


Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot (I'm guessing these are like those boots with blades hidden in the heel or toe.)

Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot (This is obviously an item about balance...*ahem* in the force.)

Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot (Something to do with health and fire? The pituitary gland of a Fire Giant? ewww.)

Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot (Its a belt so... maybe a scrap of mummy wrapping from a powerful mummy/lich.)

Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot (Hmmm these are both rogue themed, I'm going to guess the belt is made from an enchanted piece of displacer beast hide and the bracers are an articulated pair of artificier contraptions.)

Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot (I visualize these as being those perfectly smooth white gloves that conductors of the orchestra wore.)


These of course are only theories. There were also several items with a possible druid theme - the cloak, wooden docent and probably the hide armor as well. It could be the guard bracers are also aimed at a druid theme with the idea of balance but if so I think the four elements would have made more sense thematically.

Well played - and I salute your effort and creativity! Kind of funny how different people like to see different things (many are just fine with the stats). Thanks for providing some fun loot guesses!

Vallin.

[DrawingGuy]

Accuracy +20 will only give about 5% better chance to hit on LE due to the to-hit curve. +5% to hit is still 5% more damage, but the issue players are having is grazing hits on rolls of 8 or 9 out of 20. Grazing hits ruin many player abilities.

Accuracy +40 wouldn't be going to far. I see no reason to lower the proposed value.

Other than a 1 (where you miss no matter what), they changed "misses" for players to grazing hits. You get weapon damage + SA damage, so hitting 5% more often does not translate to 5% more damage as the difference is only Stat + procs + damage bonuses.

I still hold that the ring is fine. It's a level 30 item that instead of giving a true end-game item, they're putting at level 28 for the purpose of TRs. An item that was created as a level 28 item (Sightless) should be comparable or weaker than a level 30. I still hold to that they should have actual "end game" items... we've had them for years, why not now? Would also help people understand the higher stats and not expect even higher when there are new items that are the correct level 30.

This ring is slight improvements over everything I already have (deadly 12, accuracy 22, mp/rp 6). I guess they could shave a level 30 type item down to the level of lower level gear and make it an alternate choice rather than an improvement... would save me the effort of regearing. I have notoriously bad luck - it took me over 100 tries to get the Legendary Pendant of the Warrior's Focus, almost 400 (over if you count guildy pulls trying to help - I quit for a while over this thing) to get the Mythic Emerald Gaze, have yet to get a TOEE upgrade mushroom (though admittedly I've stopped trying), and many other headaches that were only stopped because I gave up and purchased the items. Compared to what it takes for me to get a "ftp quest drop", 20 runs of a raid is nothing. Now if you're talking old Raid shards... pretty sure I'm over 1000 runs of VON 6, and still no SOS shard (nor armor shard). Also no Spell Storing ring shard (though haven't ground for that nearly on the level I ground for the SOS shard). Just because you're lucky and find quest items to be easy to get (and thus should be weaker) doesn't apply to all of us. Want a healthy mix of raid and quest loot with all being worthwhile.

[Aelonwy]

Well played - and I salute your effort and creativity! Kind of funny how different people like to see different things (many are just fine with the stats). Thanks for providing some fun loot guesses!

Vallin.

No problem, I'm glad someone got a chuckle out of my idle imaginings.

[Kompera_Oberon]

DDO is not other games. Join the hamster wheel, toon out until each new update and only play fresh content, or go find another game.

I Heroic TR in about 3-5 days. They create a few new quests every 3-6 months. DDO can't possibly create content fast enough to seem to have new content. You are going to rerun content no matter what they do. If you don't find enough new content in your play currently, that's the way its always going to be regardless of where/how the new content is created. It will be another 10 more years before the number of quests doubles.

You're probably at the top end of leveling speed. I know that I don't/can't go from 1-20 in 3-5 days. Maybe 3-5 weeks is more like it, if I'm always playing the same character.

But I'd agree that new content every 3-6 months (not doing any research on new content release frequency, just accepting your numbers) isn't fast enough for a large number of players. A player can try to keep things interesting by running the same content on different characters, or they can grind out the drops they want and run the XP elevator for TRs/eTRs/iTRs.

[Silverleafeon]

A few points:

Potency has been very lacking in equipment over the years, while single element spell power has advanced and melee/ranged dps has outpaced everything.

Take a druid to lamania then a ranger and dps down one of the timed kobolds. Notice the difference? Notice the HUGE difference between a druid blowing thru a blue bar and a ranger? Its not just big difference, its insanely different.

Does that ranger need half a dozen slots just to get decent dps? Well maybe some but their equipment is not scattered like a druid would be, its pretty awful dealing with no decent potency for any build that wants to support a variety of elements/types.

Removing the equipment bonus but leaving the insight/quality would simply advance warlock/savant builds because they already have the base bonus and the potency would stack on top of thus. At the same time, its the lack of a decent base bonus that fuels problems for a variety of multi spell type builds. What about the cleric that wants to energy burst acid (or the druid for that matter)?


How about starting a base line of single element vs potency proportion?
I would suggest that Potency should lag behind single element by about 75%~80%
or
Compare average single type spell powers at a level then multiple by 80% to obtain a comparison standard.

[IronClan]

ML28 is just fine for these Items. Leave as is.
Regarding the Helm...removing Quality Potency is a start. I would also lower the equipment Bonus bonus too. The total Potency power should be less than a character can achieve for an individual spell power.
The ring...I believe is just fine.

I'd rather see the equipment bonus removed or reduced, remove either of the other two and the item loses a whole lot of appeal to me.

That said someone brought up the possibility that 185 (as seen on the cloak) is going to be the new end game max spell power, in that case then the idea is fine as it stands... IMO that 185 is also over the top though and I'd rather not see phlog crafted TF items become obsolete due to 185, or even 165 spell powers

Thinking this through this also obsoletes LGS spell power and ToEE spell power items... so no 185 as the new max would be a bad idea... in fact I think they should reduce that to 156 with maybe some sort of Insightful Force crit chance instead of the over powered 185 spell power...

if 185 is seen as a one off one time only for force spell power number (perhaps to make master of Knowledge suck less) then I could go along with that.

BTW advocating that 185 not be put in the game directly hurts two of my most played characters, so I am conflicted but yeah we shouldn't be obsoleting TF caster sticks especially with wearable accesories.

[Lanadazia]

Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot

is this a raid item?
i hope so..
cause.. i didn't raid the abbot raid over 100 times to get a robe, that is outshined by a belt that drops in a nomral quest...
also does that boon of undeath proc stacks with the abbot's robe? that would be a good combination then




[B]7 Illusion (Total DC spells in Illusion: 2)


aren't there new illusion spells with the iconic gnome?

[IronClan]

A few points:

Potency has been very lacking in equipment over the years, while single element spell power has advanced and melee/ranged dps has outpaced everything.

Take a druid to lamania then a ranger and dps down one of the timed kobolds. Notice the difference? Notice the HUGE difference between a druid blowing thru a blue bar and a ranger? Its not just big difference, its insanely different.

Does that ranger need half a dozen slots just to get decent dps? Well maybe some but their equipment is not scattered like a druid would be, its pretty awful dealing with no decent potency for any build that wants to support a variety of elements/types.

Removing the equipment bonus but leaving the insight/quality would simply advance warlock/savant builds because they already have the base bonus and the potency would stack on top of thus. At the same time, its the lack of a decent base bonus that fuels problems for a variety of multi spell type builds. What about the cleric that wants to energy burst acid (or the druid for that matter)?


How about starting a base line of single element vs potency proportion?
I would suggest that Potency should lag behind single element by about 75%~80%
or
Compare average single type spell powers at a level then multiple by 80% to obtain a comparison standard.

You have fair points Silver but i'd really like to see them address warlock vs SP nuking by balancing the actual classes... Warlock gets a HUGE boost from that Cloak (185 force spell power), and the 138 potency on the helm allows them to consolidate Positive, Light/Alignment (for Scourge and consume and/or spirit blast) and Pact damage and possibly Draconic Burst (if it's different than pact damage such as a Sonic warlock) into a single non weapon item...

I must disagree that the item can be used to even the playing field with Warlock... Only buffs to SP nukes (such as max caster levels) or nerfs to warlock can truely accomplish that, IMO.

Frankly I wonder if they shouldn't have made Eldritch blast it's own type of spell power/crit chance, if the main damage was typed as "Eldritch" instead of force they could much more readily balance through items to more specifically design SP caster loot without collateral buffing of Warlocks.

[Krelar]

On that note, the helm seems to be one of the items that several people feel is too powerful. We had heard some of that from the Player's Council, but since the feedback was mixed on that item we did want to get a larger pool of feedback before making changes to it. Does removing the quality potency bonus for the heroic helm make it still feel useful but not too powerful?


The quality potency is the only interesting thing about the helm to my non-druid characters. They already have better equipment and insightful bonuses on the 1-3 spell power types they use.

The item is really only good for caster druid's or people who have not yet tried very hard to maximize the spellpower for the couple of types of spell power types they actually use.

My druid would likely still use the helm either way, I was excited at maybe not trying to slot 7+ different spell powers to use all my SLA's and healing. (Still have to fit in bunch of lore items)ddowik

[losian2]

heroic items are to powerful. The constant creep to make all the same level old gear irrelevant is getting old. I must have woken up in WOW.

I am not impressed that I dealt with a buggy and laggy raid grinding till my eyes bled so my TF weapon effect becomes worthless. Why newer epic content is now legendary (just to remove mortal fear) is BS.

Odd illusion casting DC boost, when currently in the newest content dc casting sucks, and illusion has almost no real dc spells.

Beyond this all gear being BTA is lame. Everything costs shards and plat in the game, yet there is almost nothing new to be able to sell. So run the content a few times loot your gear and never run again.

Look, I know where you're coming from. We all have been there. But you guys have to get over this mindset.

Just because you spent X days punching whatever Y quest for Z item and something new comes out doesn't mean new items can't/shouldn't be better. It's inevitable. It's NOT a bad thing. I repeat, and I know this is an anathema, it's NOT BAD. It creates incentive to try out stuff, new and old, and it keeps things exciting and interesting.

A new player isn't going to even be able to grind a buggy and laggy raid until their eyes bleed - they will never be able to get what you had the way you got it, it just don't work that way as a game ages. The devs, however, have to make content to keep people like you happy, and that means harder content.. stuff that makes people with 40 past lives, every raid item possible at every level, etc. at least break a sweat.. and how would you expect a new player in Hide Armor +1 with a Flame Touch sword to handle anything like that?

It's a part of MMOs, and we need to learn to work with creep rather than just groan about it. And really, I feel you, I spent weeks and weeks in EQ grinding VT key pieces and eventually it was made easier. Guess what? That's okay! Frankly it was a good thing, the grind was stupid, but all the people complaining about how they had it harder doesn't help make the game better, it divides the players.

Time passes, stuff *should* be easier so more people can experience it. The item you had was awesome as long as you had it - that it eventually is replaced doesn't disqualify that. Just because you spent a lot of time getting a thing does not mean that thing should be the best thing ever forever. You chose to get it when you did and it was the best thing for however long, that's what you get.

[Silverleafeon]

I'm flexible on leaving the quality & insight on the helm and reducing the equipment value.

Rocking fighter atm anyway, so not a big oar in the water.

Overall, I just think a standard of potency = 80% of typical used single type or the like might be a dev guideline?
How they get there is can be up to you folks.


Bear in mind that this is min level 30 stuff (even though its min level 28) and leg greensteel is min level 26....confusing lol...


Would like to see some form of sentient weapon that is actually min level 30 for max end game usage?
But as long as you consider it min level 30 and type if min level 28, I am ok with that.

[GoldyGopher]

Look, I know where you're coming from. We all have been there. But you guys have to get over this mindset.

<SNIP>

No I don't think we need to get over this mindset, letting power creep continue because a decision was made by previous Executive Producer is what has gotten us into the problem to begin with.

I'm going to simplify the argument against Power Creep.

Back in the day Stat Bonuses were limited to 3 of 11/12 slots. A few named items offered Stat Bonus on different items and even a few rare used the concept of masterful craftsmenship to provide an extra bonus.

Dexterity Items were limited to Rings, Boots and Bracers.
A named Item either offered a similar Stat Bonus in a different slot (say gloves) or the idea of master craftmanship was in place. So at level five you could find +3 Dex on Rings Boots or Bracers OR get he Blademaster's Bracers which had +3 Dex AND a Yellow Augment Slot. When the developers created new items they followed the same pattern.
until roughly Update 19 and suddenly the game lost its sanity check on some of the higher level items, it has progressively gotten worse.

With the new random loot generator at level 5 it is possible to get a +3 Dex Ring that also has +5 Balance on it. Prior to update 19 that would have been a level 9 (maybe in 11) item. Post update 19 that would have been a level 7 item. Now it simply a level 5 item. That is power creep.

Now looking back at the items in this update.
Most of the named items are a bit quirky and are not particularly different from the New Random Loot system. I'd argue that many of them appear a bit underpowered.
There are exceptions, the helm is an example. +228 Potency (three sources one slot) 10% magical efficiency and a green slot on a level 30 item. Even in the New Random Loot that works out to wondrous craftsmanship on a Level 38 or 40 item. It's out of whack.

[sjbb87]

I think before worrying about new items. You must make an adjustment for mortal fear work on legendary quest

[Vish]

Bring on the uber loot!

Seeing best in slot not of a raid is good course.
Allows to even the field. Since DOJ is unrunnable...

Returning player playing catch up. And getting items from quests has really helped step up to being able to raid. And the new lootgen is pretty great for keeping us competitive.

I don't think anythings overpowered, just juicy

Bring on more

[Holleyz]

Cloak of the unknown Archer
Blurry/Displacement/Incorporeal With Dex + 60/Ranged power of +100

[LightBear]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

HEROIC
Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot [Nice for PK I guess.]
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot [A lot of classes can use these as these will give a much needed Oomph to any damaging "spell".]
Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot [Nice, I might be missing what niche they'd be useful for tho.]
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +1 , Enhancement Spellpoints +162, Blurry 20%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot [A ranger necklace?]
Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot [This is an average of 56 damage on being hit. Nice, now all I have to do is just stand there.]


Level 15 items


Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot [Nice but change the false life to a quality bonus as well.]
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +4, Quality Wisdom +1, Equipment force Spell Power +101, Quality Balance +4, Green Augment Slot [Is this for monks or favored souls?]
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot [Very nice leathers, looking forward to the looks of these.]
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot [Very good item for the undead mages.]
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +10, Insightful MRR +10, Repair Amp +33, Enhancement Sheltering +21, Green Augment Slot [Very good docent, again wondering what the looks are.]


Level 17 items


Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot [Very competative belt, immediately 3 builds that could use it pop into my mind.]
Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot [So much for my epic utility vest. ;)]
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (+2 max Dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +108, Quality Fortification +26, Green Augment Slot [It's a hide, wondering if it's light armor or medium and what the ac and such are on this one. Again... the looks?]
Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot [Must have ring for melee and ranged at this level. Will be hard to replace it.]
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot [Must haves for bards! Tho could use insightful sonic power as well?]


LEGENDARY

Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot [Missing the other boost to DC school here.]
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot [Hello, look at the numbers! This is the one helmet that rules them all. ;) ]
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot [Nice boots, if anything you can hot swap for these.]
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot [25% displacement, worth it on it's own.]
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot [112 damage per taken hit isn't going to cut it at that level. To be worth it you'd need 40d6 per guard at this level.]




Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot [Same here, make the false life a quality bonus.]
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot [So, monk or what?]
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot [Same as the lower level item, this could be good.]
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot [Must have for pale masters I guess.]
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot [This is some walking bastion, load in adamantine body and see the numbers drop.]




Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot [Same builds can use this at this level.]
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot [Very nice, even if just to use for hotswapping when handling traps and locks.]
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot [I think you lost me here.]
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot [Hello, I'll keep this one around for many builds to come.]
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot [Highest spell critical out there and it's sonic. Forget 11 these gloves go to 27! ;)]



See my comments inside the quote.

Will be rerolling to get these as they are right now:


Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot

And probably for the lower level versions of these as well.

[PermaBanned]

Sorry if this has been covered in the last 4 or 5 pages, but do we know if these can drop as "Mythic?" (H+1/2-L+2/4?)

[changelingamuck]

There are exceptions, the helm is an example. +228 Potency (three sources one slot) 10% magical efficiency and a green slot on a level 30 item. Even in the New Random Loot that works out to wondrous craftsmanship on a Level 38 or 40 item. It's out of whack.

The ML 13 version of the helmet is particularly troublesome considering it's at a level that absolutely doesn't need more character power.

[LightBear]

The ML 13 version of the helmet is particularly troublesome considering it's at a level that absolutely doesn't need more character power.

The Equipment bonus on that helmet is perfectly in line with other Equipment bonuses on items of that level.
What's adding to the power creep is the recently added insightful and quality bonuses but those are here to stay.

[niknight]

What if the equipment potency on the helmet was replaced with a couple of points of insightful spell lore? Also, for the cloak, could we show the druids and clerics a little love by replacing the equipment force spell power with some amount of the potency that came from the helmet?

[Syonique]

(Apologies in advance for the really long post, but if the devs are going to give us the opportunity to comment in advance on the named loot, it deserves an in-depth response!)

There are a number of reasons why I really like named items:

- Name. If you say, "I'm swinging Sword of Shadows", everyone familiar with it knows exactly what you're talking about (heck, you could probably even abbreviate it to "Using SoS" and most vets would still get it). If anyone isn't familiar with it, you can link it, or they can look it up on ddowiki.

- Flavor text. For example, "There was once forged an axe so sharp, the very fabric of reality tore around it." That's just badass. You don't get flavor text like that on a randomgen +5 Banishing Flametouched Greataxe of Force Burst (with Bloodletter III in the 'unlisted third slot' and a red augment slot).

- Appearance. Named items have the opportunity to give you a distinctive look. When someone's swinging SoS, you can tell just by looking (unless they've glamoured it, I suppose). Trials of the Archons is a great example of visually distinctive loot, something I strongly encourage. Crystal docent appearance? 9Hells yeah! Lucid Dreams - take another look with True Sight on, that's just awesome.

- Theme. Usually named items have a collection of bonuses that actually make sense and synergize well together. Sometimes there will be an extra ability that doesn't directly help *your* build, but that just makes the item useful for more builds. Sometimes the item will even have a negative attached to it - and that's ok! Sometimes I have to just grin at a barbarian or fighter equipping an item that pumps up Intimidate but drops Wisdom - it's just so thematically perfect, even if it does mean I fail a few more Hold Person saves (for anyone who would shun the item based on that - what, I suppose you never drink Potions of Wonder, either? Live a little! Then die, res, and live a little more! :D).

- Number of effects. Used to be, items had exactly 1 or 2 effects (plus an Enhancement bonus if weapon/shield/armor): a prefix, a suffix, or both. Then we add in a little bit more: maybe a special material to bypass a DR type, maybe an augment slot. Maybe Masterful Craftsmanship or a curse to lower the ML. Furthermore, if it was a weapon/shield/armor, that Enhancement bonus would be fighting with the other special effects on the weapon - want a Paralyzing weapon? Better hope it has a low Enhancement bonus if you want to use it at a level where monsters will actually fail the Save. By contrast, a named item could have a whole ton of special effects, plus a decent Enhancement bonus. It wasn't that the bonuses on any individual named item was greater than that which you got on random lootgen - Charged Gauntlets only add +2 Str, for example - but rather, that you could get several effects stacked onto a single item.

- Unique effects. Weapons with unique crit profiles, or using unusual ability scores for to-hit/damage, or bypassing unusual DR. Armor and accessories adding things like Torc's SP recovery, or Halcyonia's Magical Efficiency, or Litany's Turn the Page, or Earthen Guard, or Tet-zik on Jidz-Tet'ka bracers, or useful clickies you can't get normally like Visor's Death Ward. Also, effects that could be replicated (or closely enough) by an item in a different slot, but are unique for the one the named slot has, eg. Manslayer (could be effectively replicated by Vorpal on a weapon).

- Powerful effects. Sometimes a named item will have an effect that is replicated elsewhere, but at a higher potency than in randomgen loot at that same level - usually balanced out by a negative and/or fewer bonus effects than other items. It's usually not too powerful (the cases where it might be too powerful, at least relatively speaking for the level, are usually the ones where it has a drawback to balance it out). If an item has MANY effects, the potency of each individual effect is often lower than what would be found on a randomgen item with just one effect.

- No permanent durability loss. YMMV on this one, but I personally love Bound to Account, because it means no permanent damage to the item (I hate that random pop-up "X item has been damaged!" when doing repairs), and if that item doesn't fit for that character I can use shared bank to send it to an alt that CAN use it. Also means I can pass around universally useful items after one character has outgrown them. By contrast, BtC often means dead inventory space or I throw the item away, either because I've outgrown it or because I couldn't use it on that build in the first place.


So, with those points in mind, here's what I think of the Heroic items (I don't play Epic, although many of the points I'll mention here will still apply). Also, since we don't have names or flavor text yet, just throwing some predictions/suggestions out there:

Goggles:
Name: I'm betting something like "Gnomish Grandfather's Inheritance" or something.
Flavor text: this item is clearly intended for gnomes, so something to that effect.
Appearance: should totally give you a glamoured Groucho Marx Glasses look, which you can always see on yourself. Debatable whether someone ELSE looking at you with True Sight active would see a more normal appearance (seeing through the glamour), or if ONLY others using True Sight would see the glamour (like Lucid Dreams).
Theme: Excellent. Clearly intended for illusionist gnomes, especially as Illusion otherwise has almost no DC-based spells. Make your own illusions, see through others'.
Number of effects: Ok. This basically boils down to +4 Illusion DC, +1 Int, True Sight. Since this is so niche, could probably afford to stick another effect in there, as long as it would not directly stack to Illusion DC even more.
Unique effects: Very good. There's no way to replicate this item, or even close, via randomgen.
Powerful effects: Good. This basically boils down to +4 Illusion DC, as well as +1 Int (which may equal another +1 DC). Would be overpowered if it weren't focused on ILLUSION.

Overall impression: Good item. I'd suggest also add Quality Cha +1 (it wouldn't stack with the Int and would help Sorcs and Bards, especially if more DC Illusions get added later down the road), maybe preslot that Green Augment slot with a crystal of Perform (since it's an augment slot, easy enough for someone to swap it out with something else if they want).


Helmet:
Name: I'm getting a "endless font of power" vibe here, so... "Sorcerer's Hat" (see below).
Flavor text: Ditto.
Appearance: Would be kind of silly and funny if it were Mickey's hat from the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Not sure if that'd step on any copyright toes or anything.
Theme: Good. This item just screams magical potency. That said, Magical Efficiency is technically not the same; would be more appropriate to replace it with Efficient Metamagic for something like Heighten or Maximize.
Number of effects: Poor. This basically boils down to 109 Potency, 5% Magical Efficiency.
Unique effects: Very good. Magical Efficiency, insightful & quality potency.
Powerful effects: Overpowered. Need to tone down the total Potency, as this item says "You'll never need another potency item again" as it outclasses any competition.

Overall impression: Overpowered. Specifically, should really town down the Equipment Potency (so there's still incentive to equip another generic Potency item if they really want to maximize that), and individual Potency items should be more powerful than a generic all-type Potency. Also recommend removing the Magical Efficiency 5%, perhaps replacing it with Efficient Metamagic Heighten and/or Maximize. Alternately, if you really must include all the maxed-out general Equipment Potency, then as has been suggested elsewhere, include a NEGATIVE Magical Efficiency - make the spells cost more (in other words, you'll get more bang, but it'll really cost you - just like what you get with Metamagic feats). Or perhaps make it have a 1% chance to proc a Potion of Wonder effect on spellcast...


Boots:
Name: As has been suggested, I'm thinking of something like knife-toed boots. That said, we do already have Switchblade Boots, and Spiked Boots, and Krugg's Spiked Boots, so... maybe Stiletto Heels? Eh. That would suggest more of a Deception / +Dex and this is +Str, so probably just another variant of Spiked Boots.
Flavor text: Maybe boots made of the hide of some spiked-hide monster?
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Good. All about penetrating through opponent's guard, except that +1 Str. Maybe replace it with Riposte or Deception?
Number of effects: Good. Four different effects.
Unique effects: Good. Armor piercing and Quality.
Powerful effects: Passable. Guard effects are kinda meh IMO, and while the other effects are usable I can't help but feel this item would have a lot of competition for the Boots slot unless the character already all of the 'necessities' filled in and boots are free for whatever.

Overall impression: Decent item. I could see certain builds going for this, whether for the armor-piercing or the Quality effects (or I suppose Guard-based builds might go for that, although I thought I saw something about a bug preventing multiple Guard effects from stacking?) Would suggest adding Riposte, either as a replacement to the Str or just straight on top.


Necklace:
Name: Getting a 'don't hit me!' feel out of this... maybe, eh, "Puppeteer's Bolo".
Flavor text: "A string tie for one that pulls the strings."
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Clearly aimed at casters, especially crowd control, as this grants bonuses to enchantment spells (don't hit me, hit him instead!), SP (for more enchantment spells), Blurry (don't hit me!), Stealth Strike (reduced threat on spells = don't hit me!). Not to say that a Rogue couldn't make use of it with the Blurry and Stealth Strike, but not as good a fit. Also, any caster could make good use of everything aside from the Enchantment DC.
Number of effects: Good. Four different effects.
Unique effects: Good. Quality Enchantment, Blurry, Stealth Strike.
Powerful effects: I'd have to double-check the numbers, but that seems like an awful lot of spellpoints at level 13.

Overall impression: Good item if you use Enchantment, not as much when using other spells, even less so if you don't use spells. If you're trying to increase the utility for Enchantment casters, would suggest maybe adding a Magical Efficiency *for Enchantment spells only* (assuming/hoping that's not too hard to code) rather than the SP. Also suggest adding a clicky of another "don't hit me"-themed spell (eg. Invisibility, Displacement, Shadow Walk, Dimension Door, Fascinate, Charm Monster, Dominate Person) to add utility for the non-casters (for example, a clicky with Dimension Door would get farmed for that alone).


Bracers (13):
Name: Probably something like "Moral Equilibrium" or "Four Shades of Grey". Or some play on the book "Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett, I suppose.
Flavor text: Probably blessed bracers that got corrupted or vice-versa. If it were a druidic item it'd probably have Law Guard and Chaos Guard instead of Light/Negative Guard.
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Very obvious - it's got guards on top of guards on top of guards! Unfortunately, as has been pointed out, the negative energy will wind up healing undead, so perhaps add an Undead Guard as well to help counteract it.
Number of effects: Poor. It's basically a giant ball of 16d6 Guard, most of which should apply at any given point.
Unique effects: Individual effects aren't very unique, but certainly unique to have them all stacked on the same item.
Powerful effects: Excellent or pointless (see below).

Overall impression: I believe I saw something about a bug where multiple Guard effects don't stack? If that's the case, then obviously that needs to get fixed, otherwise this item is largely useless. Assuming there is no such bug (or it's fixed) then this is a great item for anyone doing a Guard build. Certainly flavorful at any rate.


Trinket:
Name: Fire resist, bonus to Con and HP and Fort? Probably "Devil's Heart" or "Dragon's Heart" or the like.
Flavor text: Probably something like "This heart still beats with endless vigor".
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Seems like a good item for making your character tougher, especially when standing in fire - but fire attacks usually require Reflex Saves, not Fort.
Number of effects: Good.
Unique effects: Poor. Quality Con, that's about it. Enhancement HP is common, Insightful Fort Saves overshadowed by Riposte, Enhancement Fire Resist is common (heck, Guild amenities anyone?).
Powerful effects: Poor. Most of the above effects can already be replicated or surpassed by existing items and effects.

Overall impression: Poor. Good concept but execution is off. Keep the Quality Con, but instead of Enhancement False Life, find a different category if you want to stack on bonus HP (Is there such thing as Quality False Life? Or maybe give Life Shield or Demonic Shield for temporary hp on-hit). Instead of Insightful Fort Saves, perhaps +8 Resistance to Fort Saves (similar to the +8 Resistance to Reflex / Will found on U27 named gear), or Quality +1 Fort Saves, or even just Insightful Saves +3 (so applies to both Fort and Reflex, and happens to cover Will too). Instead of normal Enhancement Fire Resist, either give a superb Enhancement Fire Resist (like +40) or give Fire Resist in a different type so it stacks with existing resistances (such as Insight), or Fire Absorption. Or both! Enhancement Fire Resist 40, Fire Absorb 33 would make this the go-to item for standing in a fire.


Cloak:
Name: This item confuses me somewhat, but probably something like "Cloak of Blades".
Flavor text: depends on name really.
Appearance: N/A
Theme: With the +4 Evo and Wis, I'm getting 'divine caster'... but Force power? The only divine spell I can think of offhand that this would really benefit is the ever-popular Blade Barrier (do we really need to buff this up even more?), although if I'm just being ignorant here then please correct me. And why Balance, of all things? Seems like this item was designed to maximize Blade Barrier, so I'm not getting why Balance was thrown in there.
Number of effects: Good. Four different effects... although I really don't get that Balance.
Unique effects: Poor. Quality Wisdom and... that weird Quality Balance.
Powerful effects: Pretty sure that 101 Force power is a bit excessive? Would have to check the numbers to confirm. Also, +4 Evocation DC is quite powerful and should probably be toned down somewhat.

Overall impression: Poor. If not for the overpowered Evo DC and Force Power, I'd have a hard time seeing why anyone would take this. If you really want to make an item that boosts Blade Barrier with over-the-top Force Power, may I suggest you instead make it a heavy shield? "Blade Bastion" for the name, perhaps. As a heavy shield, you won't see most mages grabbing it (except maybe for Eldritch Knights, but they're hardly OP, and the force power would boost their Eldritch Strike force damage). Furthermore, as a shield it fits more thematically, and you could also add something like Slashing Guard (yet another item for the Guard-aholic build) and/or Riposte (would make more sense than the Balance). The Evocation DC is still perhaps a bit much. Finally, gives you the opportunity to make a unique shield graphic (maybe one that looks like an oversized blade from the Blade Barrier spell - bonus points if it's animated). Also, maybe give it Quality Tumble - make it easier for the shield-bearer to roll (which makes the shield spin, ah-ha!) while blocking.


Leather armor:
Name: I'm guessing something like "Nature's Resilience".
Flavor text: Maybe something about a fey creature blessing it, or a druid that fought against mages (maybe something from Moonshae), etc.
Appearance: Good opportunity for unique graphic - maybe something heavy on the leaves, or like a collection of animal hides.
Theme: Good. This item is all about the resistance. Would add Quality Disease Ward +1 (replace Spell Saves if needed).
Number of effects: Ok to good. About 3.5 different effects, since Spell Saves is like an extra +1 to the Resistance Saves that only applies some of the time. Perhaps preslot that augment slot with a Heavy Fortification or Deathblock, but not strictly necessary.
Unique effects: Very good. Lots of Quality effects.
Powerful effects: Very good. That's a hefty Resistance boost to all resists.

Overall impression: Very good, although obviously needs Enhancement bonus and stats (base AC, etc.). Usable by lots of light armor builds.


Belt (15):
Name: So many possibilities. Could be something generic like "Death's Embrace", or perhaps something named after one of the death gods in Forgotten Realms like Myrkul, or perhaps after a powerful necromancer (eg. "Szass Tam's Sash").
Flavor text: Should be based on the name and perhaps a little creepy.
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Excellent! This has Pale Master all over it. There's synergy between Boon of Undeath and Negative Energy Amp.
Number of effects: Good. Four different effects.
Unique effects: Excellent. It's a collection of rare effects, especially Boon of Undeath.
Powerful effects: Good.

Overall impression: Excellent item.


Docent:
Name: Probably something like Treant's Heartwood or Volodni's Blood.
Flavor text: Should be something suitably druidic, since this item seems aimed at druid WF/BF.
Appearance: Good opportunity for unique wood-based appearance.
Theme: Very good. This is clearly for a druid WF/BF. Should have Healing Amp instead of, or in addition to, the Repair Amp.
Number of effects: Ok. This is basically PRR, MRR, Repair Amp. That said - wooden!
Unique effects: Assuming the 'Wooden' effect means a WF/BF druid could take mithral or adamantine body feats, this is obviously the go-to docent.
Powerful effects: Excellent. If the above assumption regarding druid WF/BF holds, this is about as powerful as a suit of wooden plate mail for squishy druids, which makes it very powerful (even though AC drops off in usefulness at higher levels, it's certainly nothing to ignore, and this is also a big chunk of PRR - biggest possible to druids unless I'm mistaken).

Overall impression: If the above assumption is true, this is THE docent for druid WF/BF wanting good AC/PRR, but if so then perhaps that SHOULDN'T be unique - they should have other choices available for docents at varying levels (fleshy druids have access to armors at various levels, after all), so hopefully randomgen loot will be updated to allow for a chance for wooden docents (maybe same chance as another rare material like flametouched iron). Alternately, perhaps create a Wooden Body feat available for warforged that lets them get 1.0xBAB PRR and Light armor equivalent AC (in which case, this docent could grant that feat as a bonus feat - a unique and powerful effect suitable for a named item, and not the first time a named item has granted a virtual feat, although that might cause some conflict if the WF/BF already had another Body feat so need to check coding accordingly). Also, perhaps consider creating an augment crystal that would change the slotted armor/shield's material to count as wood (this would also allow fleshy druids to equip certain other armor/shields, as long as they have an appropriate augment slot - also note that means they're giving up slotting something else compared to someone who can equip metal armor/shields)


Belt (17):
Name: Seems aimed at nimble melee DPS like Rogues and Monks, so maybe something like Obi of the Dark Moon (the Order of the Dark Moon is an order of monks dedicated to Shar in Forgotten Realms lore) or named after a famous monk or thief.
Flavor text: Maybe something about being enchanted to help its wearer strike a victim's vital points and evade counterattacks.
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Very good. About the only thing to add in to complete the theme would be a bonus to Assassinate (maybe sacrifice Dodge if necessary).
Number of effects: Excellent. Four different effects, one of which (Sneak Attack) affects two different sub-categories (to-hit, damage) and another of which (Combat Mastery) potentially affects several different abilities.
Unique effects: Poor. Each of the effects could potentially be individually replicated by randomgen loot.
Powerful effects: Overpowered. That Dodge +9% is huge, and the other bonuses are nothing to sneeze at either.

Overall impression: A little overpowered. This practically becomes a must-have for any melee that isn't tanking. The Combat Mastery is nice, but could be overshadowed by a more focused effect (eg. Stunning) that corresponds directly to the move that the wearer typically uses... except Quivering Palm. If this is supposed to be used by rogues and monks, I would suggest perhaps removing the Dodge and replacing it with Ethereal (which not only gives a miss chance, but also a bonus to stealth) and bonus to Assassinate, in which case the flavor text could be something like, "The Shadow Weave was used to enchant this ebon belt, granting its wearer the power to strike from the shadows and then vanish without a trace before the victim's friends can retaliate.").


Bracers (17):
Name: Probably something like "Locksmith's False Manacles".
Flavor text: "This set of trick manacles is not only easy to slip free from, but also contains extra tools to help manipulate locks, traps, and magical devices."
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Good. Clearly an item to swap in on-demand when needed by the trapper rogue or artificer, although the UMD could be used by others as well.
Number of effects: Good. Since this is most likely not full-timed, it's basically +3 UMD, +17 Disable Device, +18 Open Lock (and +1 Reflex Save if a trap happens to go off!). For others full-timing it primarily for the UMD, it's basically two effects: +3 UMD, +2 Dex.
Unique effects: Poor. Quality Dex is rare, UMD is somewhat uncommon, Competence Disable Device/Open Lock are common.
Powerful effects: Good. High numbers in each of the individual skills makes this replace most other items that would otherwise be used to such effect (hooray, consolidation of inventory space).

Overall impression: Decent item, but it'd be much more interesting if instead of Competence Disable Device/Open Lock, it instead added a different category of bonus, like perhaps +4 Quality to each of those skills. Similarly, +1 Quality UMD would be more interesting. These boosts would make this a good item to stack on top of existing items that boost these skills, rather than rendering earlier gear obsolete. That said, it IS a nice bit of convenience to have a single piece of multi-use gear you can slap on as needed.


Hide Armor:
Name: Probably something like "War Troll's Hide" (or some other creature known for both tough hide and regenerative powers) or maybe some sort of symbiote.
Flavor text: Maybe something like "This suit of hide armor clings to you like a second skin - for that's exactly what it is."
Appearance: Great opportunity for a hulking cosmetic appearance here.
Theme: Decent. The Fortification 134 blocks critical hits, and the Healing Amp also helps reflect how tough the armor makes you (you bounce back from hits) - but the Greater Nimbleness somewhat breaks the theme.
Number of effects: Decent. This is Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (which could have been replaced by simply hand-coding in custom MDB and ACP values), and Fortification 134.
Unique effects: Ok. The Quality Healing Amp is rare. Quality Fortification is rare, but you could also have just increased the number of the Enhancement Fortification.
Powerful effects: Poor. Aside from the Quality effects and 8 points of Enhancement Fortification, this could have been replaced with lower level loot, randomgen loot even.

Overall impression: Ok item. If going for a 'so tough hide' armor, should replace (or at least supplement) the Greater Nimbleness with an additional effect such as Deathblock (especially one that reduces negative energy damage), Con, PRR, Regeneration, DR, etc. Also, base stats (AC, MDB, ACP) are important here.


Ring:
Name: Could be just about anything. "Battlehammer's Signet" if you want.
Flavor text: tbd depending on name. "If you don't rely on spells, you rely on this." at this rate.
Appearance: N/A
Theme: Excellent... begrudgingly. It's all about hitting better and harder.
Number of effects: Poor. +14 to-hit, +7-and-change (+2 Power) damage.
Unique effects: Ok. Melee/Ranged Power is rare... Deadly/Accuracy, not so much.
Powerful effects: Overpowered (Deadly/Accuracy specifically).

Overall impression: Overpowered. With the incredible Accuracy and Deadly both on this one ring, this basically becomes a "must-have" for any and every non-spell DPS - and the Melee/Ranged Power is just icing on the cake. A good item should not be a must-have for everyone; it shouldn't instantly render everything else obsolete, but instead provide interesting item choices and alternatives. Encourage item choice, don't eliminate it. If you really feel the need to give a generic "Hit more better" ring, perhaps instead make it Quality Deadly +1, Quality Accuracy +1 - thus not rendering existing equipment obsolete, but saying you can get an extra +1 to-hit/damage in there *if you're willing to give up whatever else you'd use in that ring slot*. +1 to-hit/damage is basically equivalent to +2 Str or +2 Dex insofar as damage is concerned (or another stat, with certain item enchantments/class enhancements/etc.), so an alternate ring choice that granted stacking +2 stat or some other benefit is still a viable choice.


Gloves:
Name: As previously suggested, perhaps something like Maestro's Gloves.
Flavor text: Definitely something bardic. Perhaps something tied to the Harpers.
Appearance: N/A (although item pic looking like white conductor's gloves is appropriate)
Theme: Excellent. Clearly designed for bards, also useful for Fey Pact Warlocks.
Number of effects: Ok. Basically +112 Sonic Spellpower, +16 Sonic Critical, +2 Cha, +4 Perform DC.
Unique effects: Decent. Quality Cha and Perform.
Powerful effects: Possibly overpowered. If this only applied to bardic sonic damage I might be convinced otherwise, but this is a huge chunk of concentrated power for the Fey Pact Warlock (as well as anyone else using Sonic damage). Would have to find out what the highest randomgen amount of Sonic Spellpower/Critical would be at level 17 to confirm (if randomgen can do 108/16 these days then nevermind).

Overall impression: Possibly overpowered (see above), may need Equipment Sonic Spellpower/Critical reduced, or perhaps replaced with lower-value Quality effects? Also, would strongly suggest adding Anthem.



Aside from the detailed breakdown of my feedback on each of the above items (whew, bravo to you if you actually read through all of that!), I also have a suggestion in general prompted by this thread. I've bolded the pertinent points for ease of skimming:
Introduce a way to upgrade older named items to be of comparable power to current randomgen loot and newer named items.

Sometimes items get updated automatically with version updates, requiring nothing more than a quick toss into the Stone of Change. Rather than give all the older items free upgrades - instead, make it so that upgrading each item requires a Seal. Each Seal would be tied to the quest or chain that the item drops from - for example, to upgrade any named item from the Phiarlan Carnival chain (regardless of whether it drops from a specific quest or is available from the end dialogue list) would require a "Seal of the Phiarlan Carnival", which could be obtained both randomly from any end chest in the chain or from the chain end dialogue list. Upgrading an item from VoN6 (or any named item from the earlier VoN quests) would require a "Seal of the Vault of Night" dropped from any of the VoN quests, as well as the raid chest and post-raid dialogue list. (Similar to the seals from Sentinels of Stormreach chain, except that the "Seal of the Sentinels of Stormreach" could drop from ANY of the relevant chests as well as the end list)

This would thus encourage players to re-run older content to get the new seals, even if they've already farmed the base items they want. It doesn't negate the work they may have already put into getting the base items.

Make the seals non-bound. Newbies will still need to run the quests themselves to get the base items (assuming they are BtA or BtCoA, as most are), but veterans who are sick of running a particular quest have the option to simply pay a newbie to run it and farm up Seals instead (and most newbies would be *quite* happy to get a ton of plat for running a quest they were going to run anyways!).

Make the seals have a higher drop rate based on number of people in the party. This will encourage people to group up, which IMO makes the game more fun.

Make the seals automatically appear in the end dialogue list after X completions. This will allow someone to definitely get a seal if they're willing to farm the quest, thus preventing (or at least reducing) frustration, much like is already in place for certain quests and raids.

Make the item Bound to Account after upgrade, regardless of initial status. This is totally a selfish request, feel free to skip this one. I just personally really love BtA over BtC, as mentioned previously. Making items BtA rather than BtC would mean I'm more likely to run a single quest or chain once on each alt (each with a different playstyle and experience) and have more fun, than to grind the same quest or chain over and over on the same character *just because it would be useless to me if any of my alts got that item* (Disciplinator, I'm looking at you!). If I'm going to grind a quest or chain however many times it takes to get the item, at least if I can mix up the playstyle I can have more fun while doing so.

If you introduce this system, it should only require a very minor tweaking to the relevant loot tables (since they already have existing code for such - look at Sentinels, etc.), and rather than having to design an entirely new quest, would really only require designing upgrades to existing items. Furthermore, this could be done on a case-by-case basis; you don't have to update EVERY named item instantly, and could do it on a quest-by-quest (or chain-by-chain) basis.

Anyways, thanks for reading, and thanks for the preview look at new loot!

[Shoemaker]

I'm noticing this list is missing armor and weapons/shields. There is a lack of F2P items like this. I'll do some wiki work tonight to see exactly what types of F2P items are missing from the game and edit this post with details.

[IBCrabin]

The Power of gear from quests should be equivalent or similar to the gear around the same level that came out from previous updates . Quest gear are much easier to get than Raid gear and they are there to help with game progression into "end game" level 30 raid content for newer toons with little to no raid gear.

Raid gear should be a bit more powerful and have a lower level requirement than the raid level they came out of. Reward people for the effort and time they put in to make the toons stronger. Give people a reason to run raids for gear.

[NoWorries]

I'd rather see the equipment bonus removed or reduced, remove either of the other two and the item loses a whole lot of appeal to me.


If the concern of players is that the amount of potency on the item is too strong for the level, removing the equipment bonus doesn't really solved that issue, as you can get essentially the same equipment level of potency from random loot at that level. Yes, it means the power is split across 2 items instead of 1, but the power is still there.

Where as we are only giving out quality bonuses through named items, so removing the quality bonus means that the level of potency this item had, isn't reachable by players at that level. It is the change that truly reduces the possible power attained by players.

[Mystera]

If the concern of players is that the amount of potency on the item is too strong for the level, removing the equipment bonus doesn't really solved that issue, as you can get essentially the same equipment level of potency from random loot at that level. Yes, it means the power is split across 2 items instead of 1, but the power is still there.

Where as we are only giving out quality bonuses through named items, so removing the quality bonus means that the level of potency this item had, isn't reachable by players at that level. It is the change that truly reduces the possible power attained by players.

I'm not concerned about the item, I think it is good as is. However, if you have to downgrade it, your logic above makes sense and I would remove the quality bonus.

[Silverleafeon]

Give the HUGE gap of power between casters and melee, I fail to see why the potency helmet is problem.

Really, go to lamania or look up the kobold beat down test times, compare a ranger or a bard or a paladin to a caster type.

Proof (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468523-Kobold-beatdown-times-outcomes-post-level-30-buffs)

I forgot but ranger beat down the kobold test dummy boss in about 1/5 the time of a druid using up blue bar with ruin and the like.

Ranger beat down same in about 1/20 the time of a druid wolf (including new bonuses).


How much is a small gain in spell power going to close that HUGE gap anyway?

If there is power creep, it implies gain of a class over all the other classes which is not happening here with wizards/sorcerer/clerics/favored souls/druids at all.

This is class balance not power creep imhowcbvw.

As stated earlier if warlocks are too powerful, they can be rebalanced.


How else are we going to easily balance the gap, beside equipment?

Please don't compare to leg greensteel as it should be 26/30 less powerful.

[IronClan]

If the concern of players is that the amount of potency on the item is too strong for the level, removing the equipment bonus doesn't really solved that issue, as you can get essentially the same equipment level of potency from random loot at that level. Yes, it means the power is split across 2 items instead of 1, but the power is still there.

Where as we are only giving out quality bonuses through named items, so removing the quality bonus means that the level of potency this item had, isn't reachable by players at that level. It is the change that truly reduces the possible power attained by players.

Quality potency comes on Celestial armor we are almost 100% guaranteed to be using at end game. Losing it off this items means negligible impact on the power of the item. In fact it reinforces the one dominant armor choice at end game and discourages casters from wearing anything else.

Insightful Potency allows me to free up the 2 or 3 slots I could give up for specific insightful spell powers (can't use armor here due to Celestial, tha tonly leaves gloves and two weapon slots). It allows me to hold a Golden orb of death in the off hand instead of a Insightful random caster stick... good stuff. But not I think "OP".

138 equipment allows me add 6 new pieces of gear in addition to the 2 or 3 from random gen Insightful that I no longer need to use. and I'm still wearing Celestial armor... So net gain: 9 new gear slots filled with complimentary gear because of one item.

All just my opinion of course.

[IronClan]

What if the equipment potency on the helmet was replaced with a couple of points of insightful spell lore? Also, for the cloak, could we show the druids and clerics a little love by replacing the equipment force spell power with some amount of the potency that came from the helmet?

How about quality spell lore 4 or something? This seems like not a bad replacement for the quality spell power or the equipment potency either way.

[Wizza]

No reply on the Binding of the items? Effectively having killed trading for a few years now?

[NoWorries]

Quality potency comes on Celestial armor we are almost 100% guaranteed to be using at end game. Losing it off this items means negligible impact on the power of the item. In fact it reinforces the one dominant armor choice at end game and discourages casters from wearing anything else.

Insightful Potency allows me to free up the 2 or 3 slots I could give up for specific insightful spell powers (can't use armor here due to Celestial, tha tonly leaves gloves and two weapon slots). It allows me to hold a Golden orb of death in the off hand instead of a Insightful random caster stick... good stuff. But not I think "OP".

138 equipment allows me add 6 new pieces of gear in addition to the 2 or 3 from random gen Insightful that I no longer need to use. and I'm still wearing Celestial armor... So net gain: 9 new gear slots filled with complimentary gear because of one item.

All just my opinion of course.


Worth stating that I am discussing removing the quality bonus off of the heroic version of the helm. The concern seemed to be mainly around the heroic version and not so much in regards to the legendary helm.

[IBCrabin]

Give the HUGE gap of power between casters and melee, I fail to see why the potency helmet is problem.

Really, go to lamania or look up the kobold beat down test times, compare a ranger or a bard or a paladin to a caster type.

Proof (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468523-Kobold-beatdown-times-outcomes-post-level-30-buffs)

I forgot but ranger beat down the kobold test dummy boss in about 1/5 the time of a druid using up blue bar with ruin and the like.

Ranger beat down same in about 1/20 the time of a druid wolf (including new bonuses).


How much is a small gain in spell power going to close that HUGE gap anyway?

If there is power creep, it implies gain of a class over all the other classes which is not happening here with wizards/sorcerer/clerics/favored souls/druids at all.

This is class balance not power creep imhowcbvw.

As stated earlier if warlocks are too powerful, they can be rebalanced.


How else are we going to easily balance the gap, beside equipment?

Please don't compare to leg greensteel as it should be 26/30 less powerful.


Given how the new legendary feats and some of the updated enhancement tree uses spell power for extra melee and range damage, adding spell power to equipment will only widen the gap between caster, melee and range.

Centralizing spell power to 1 gear only makes the game more imbalance toward melee and range class because now they have flexibility to choose a larger variety of gear for multiple source of damage,

As an example with feywild and devotion for cocoon.

Pre U31, the gear selection for spell power to use with legendary feats are either an augment (138), a ring (150+) or a TF weapon (150) in the offhand. For devotion people can also use halcyonia or gauntlet of immortality.

With U31, people can get rid of halcyonia, gauntlet of immortality, augment, ring and use the new helm for spell power which benefit multiple source that rely on spell power. This free up a lot of slots for even more variety in damage output. i.e. Strange tiding for SA damage, new ring for Deadly + accuracy, a different combination of melee weapon for the off hand, etc etc.

To expand on this example, the helm can also power up the divine crusader damage portion of consecrated ground. resonance from swashbuckler, electric damage from Artificer class and rune arm use.


The gear proposed are way too powerful and will make melee and range toon even stronger than caster toons in terms of damage output.

Adjust the class enhancement tree for balance and not rely on equipment that can benefit all class across the board

[btolson]

If the concern of players is that the amount of potency on the item is too strong for the level, removing the equipment bonus doesn't really solved that issue, as you can get essentially the same equipment level of potency from random loot at that level. Yes, it means the power is split across 2 items instead of 1, but the power is still there.

Where as we are only giving out quality bonuses through named items, so removing the quality bonus means that the level of potency this item had, isn't reachable by players at that level. It is the change that truly reduces the possible power attained by players.


What about changing the helmet to be a level 17 item instead of 13? This is late enough in heroic that the Quality bonus should not be an issue, seeing as how heroic ends at level 18, practically speaking*. To be honest, my main interest in the heroic version is in using it at levels 20-27 in the ER grind, before the epic version becomes available. Hopefully we don't have to ruin the item for early epic use out of concern for heroic levels that are already mostly trivial.

In exchange, perhaps the bracers can be moved down to level 13. That strikes me as a level where they would be more useful anyway.

Obviously the stats on both will become altered a bit, but I don't think shifting them 4 levels along the curve will change things too dramatically.


*Edit: and level 17/18 is where more spellpower is appropriate anyway, since this is where caster power -- largely dependent upon SLAs whose progression halted several levels ago -- begins to lag behind.

[HuneyMunster]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:



Level 17 items


Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot


Level 28 items

Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot



Would be nice to see assassinate dc on these two items. The highest currently available named item is +6 and a +3 insightful trinket which is effectively +2 dc due to taking the same slot as litany trinket.

Maybe +1 quality assassinate dc on heroic and +2 to 4 quality on legendary. This would only increase item value to a small subset of rogues as the majority are Mechanics now.

[Silverleafeon]

Worth stating that I am discussing removing the quality bonus off of the heroic version of the helm..

I have absolutely no problem with you doing that.

[Grandern_Marn]

Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot

How does this item make any sense? Which NPCs in their right minds would get together to make such an item? I can understand an item with Good Guard and Light Guard. I can understand killing people who wear an item with Evil Guard and Negative Energy Guard. But combine all 4? There should be a logic to the powers that an item has in addition to "wouldn't it be cool". An item of "alignment balance" would be created by NPCs of neutral alignment, who would be unlikely have the ability to create Good or Evil guardT hey might manage damage to Good and damage to Evil, but that's not the same thing as Good Damage and Evil Damage.

I understand wanting "cool" items. I understand wanting powerful items, but can't we also have items that make sense?
Cool and powerful items appeal to some of the player base. Cool and powerful items that make sense appeal to those players who have "characters" rather than just "toons" as well.

I think this item could turn out kind of funny. It could do a lot of damage to some mobs but do a fair amount of healing to others. In some cases it will even heal as much as it hurts, making it essentially useless. You'd have to switch it in and out which looks a little too high maintanence for my tastes.

I think having kind of troll items is very authentic to the D&D game. We don't really have cursed items anymore in DDO, let alone cursed items you're stuck wearing for any extended period of time like in D&D. That's fine as we must accept the MMO take on the game for what it is but these bracers are a good iteration of that 'tempting but questionable' item.

[Silverleafeon]

Yeah, remember the lore of Dragonlance where the black, red, and white robe joined together to create the Dragon Orbs?

Nice touch.

Unlike the sands monsters unique attacks, typical good/evil damage affects everyone, but light and neg would be a variable.

Nice item for F2P or an augment addition to the superior Leg Greensteel guards.

[janave]

Give the HUGE gap of power between casters and melee, I fail to see why the potency helmet is problem.

Really, go to lamania or look up the kobold beat down test times, compare a ranger or a bard or a paladin to a caster type.

Proof (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468523-Kobold-beatdown-times-outcomes-post-level-30-buffs)

I forgot but ranger beat down the kobold test dummy boss in about 1/5 the time of a druid using up blue bar with ruin and the like.

Ranger beat down same in about 1/20 the time of a druid wolf (including new bonuses).


How much is a small gain in spell power going to close that HUGE gap anyway?

If there is power creep, it implies gain of a class over all the other classes which is not happening here with wizards/sorcerer/clerics/favored souls/druids at all.

This is class balance not power creep imhowcbvw.

As stated earlier if warlocks are too powerful, they can be rebalanced.


How else are we going to easily balance the gap, beside equipment?

Please don't compare to leg greensteel as it should be 26/30 less powerful.

This is why dps cant be the only balancing factor. :)

Caster types can generally DOT while kiting/healing/afking at a safe spot.

There is also an extreme ignorance about warlocks and how their damage scales already better than any other magic dmg in the game. They also ignore most spell based resistances, sr, saves, casting animation is ridiculously fast, dmg proc rate is ridiculously fast, best passive crit dmg scaling, bugged endless vertical aoe, etc...

Oh, who would have thought shooting fireball level dmg on holding left button every 2s would not be OP.

The problem with just adding flat generic spell power boost is that it further pushes Warlocks from the pack, this is what Devs seem to ignore when they did the "caster buff" which ended up as an insane Warlock buff.

Having a passive spell power multiplier and a crit. dmg. multiplier makes every point of sp worth more for a wlock.


Most importantly while casters can bring a variety of tools and utility to the party, a DPS melee build will basically bring just that,..dps. If sustained dps roles no longer a thing, if tanking is no longer a thing (it rarely ever was), then why not just delete them from char creation ? They are totally useless if they cant bring superior sustained dps, or boss cc thru tanking.

Right now the biggest balance problems are in content, and items that just stack more flat/generic power dont exactly help with that.

As for gear:

Caster Level/Spell level increase items would be far better, as they dont push warlocks further ahead of the pack. Also some UMD:0, Arcane/Divine specific gear would be necessary at this point. Those are actual caster items, and not stealth buffs to the most broken class in the game.

[janave]

What about changing the helmet to be a level 17 item instead of 13? This is late enough in heroic that the Quality bonus should not be an issue, seeing as how heroic ends at level 18, practically speaking*.

*Edit: and level 17/18 is where more spellpower is appropriate anyway, since this is where caster power -- largely dependent upon SLAs whose progression halted several levels ago -- begins to lag behind.

+1 For actually thinking in terms of content, yeah the 4-5k hps on IQ elite monsters is where the spell damage gets a bit diminishing compared to the 1-2 shot everything in say Vale Elites, the helmet looks way better when positioned at lvl17.

I dont think anything helping the bracers case really other than replacing the effects.

[silinteresting]

dear dev.

i come to this discussion from a different view point to most, please dont do anything
to the loot you have posted. while i commend you for puting these posts up asking
for suggestions i would implore you to stick with your orginal ideas. the reason for me
is youve spent time i hope discusing this with your colleagues and youve all come to
the conclusion this is what its going to be so please to stick to it.

further to the above you must realise that those of us that post in this topic, myself
included, are coming at this from our perspective first on the loot and then second on
how this loot fits into our idea of how the game shoud be or should be played. this i
feel is wrong, you are the devs who design the game. we are the players who play the
game. i feel like there is starting to be a bluring of the lines here, ever so slight at the
moment but the way people are now demanding things my worry is it may get worse
in the future...

for me personaly i would like it if there was no preview of the said loot. not on the forums
not on the wiki and not on lam land. for me this would mean when i open a chest the
suprise factor would be good, you started this i believe with random loot and now i would
implore you to continue this good work but now with named loot.

your friend sil :)

[Thar]

How about replacing the quality potency with quality spell pen 1 or something? spell pen is a bane to casters with limited ways to ramp it up to take on drow, etc. My wizard has 3 pastlives all the feats, an item and still can't bypass drow spell pen.

[JOTMON]

~snip wall of inaccurate and pointless Warlock classism that isn't even relevant to the thread..~

As for gear:

Caster Level/Spell level increase items would be far better, as they dont push warlocks further ahead of the pack. Also some UMD:0, Arcane/Divine specific gear would be necessary at this point. Those are actual caster items, and not stealth buffs to the most broken class in the game.

Terrible idea.
Clerics are already screwed over by itens that boost 'Arcane spells only'
http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_Augmentation.

DDO has embraced TR's and as such pigeon-holing specific class/race/iconic items is a poor fit for the direction of the game.
Especially considering no decent efforts have been made to increase storage space in any meaningful way to appease players.
We need a much better storage system to track and filter inventory.. and a LOT more storage space indepenant of daily banking needs..
...revamp the storage systems to use the Auctionhouse interface (search/sort/filter) and give us storage vaults that separate long term storage from daily banking storage...


heroic level gear should be stepping stone gear to work our way up to the best of the best endgame gear.. stuff that makes us want to run various content to get all the bits and pieces of inconvenient gear to make it all work..
As we move into the epic/legendary endgame content we are looking to build ideal gear around our toons that suits our needs.


Would prefer to see them get away from pigeon-holing great items for unique specific classes.
there are 14 classes all vying for gear to suit their needs before getting into all the weapon types that force players into specific weapon types throughout the levelling process.
Content needs to appeal to everyone.. not just one-off builds/classes.


Give us more selectable base items with a variety of upgrade choices to suit our needs, not give names to randomgen mash various effects to create bizarre combinations.. we already have that with randomgen.
We were ignored when we asked for it for the armors for the latest LE Tempest spine/hound armors...
This is what I wanted to see for those.. not 15 randomly dropping static items, most of which end up left to rot in the chest... give us the motivation to farm ingredients for upgrading/adapting these items.


Could we get a cleaner generic version of the armors, do something along the lines of FOT/MOD/TF

upon acquisition base item (Heavy/Medium/Light/Robes/Dress/Docent):
•+13 Enhancement Bonus
•Fortification - Enhancement Bonus to Fortification (160%)
•Blurry - 20% Concealment
•Parrying - +10 Insight Bonus to AC, +5 Insight Bonus to Fortitude, Reflex, and Willpower
•Sheltering - Sheltering (+38 MRR and PRR)
•Green Slot
•Green Slot

Then have upgrade selection choices for..

T1 Enhancement Upgrade - select 1 of:
•Deathblock IX - (* relocated to T1 to be a selectable option since Deathblock and PM's don't play nice together*.. *re: Brenna)
•Max Dex Bonus - This item has an allowance for 4 points of additional Dexterity Bonus.
•Enchancement - Dodge - Enhancement Dodge Bonus (+15)
•Reduces Threat by Melee Damage by 22%
•Enhancement Bonus to Melee Alacrity 15%
•Enhancement Bonus to Ranged Alacrity 20%
•Green Slot

T2 Insight Upgrade - select 1 of:
•Insight - Spell DC's - Insight Spell Focus Mastery of +3
•Insight - Deadly - +6 Deadly Insight Bonus
•Angelic Grace - 150 Temporary hit points, 5% Proc Chance on Hit, internal cooldown 10 seconds
•Displacement (per Spell) - 5% Proc Chance on Hit, internal cooldown 30 seconds
•Green Slot

T3 Quality Upgrade - select 1 of:
•Quality - Doublestrike - Quality Bonus to Doublestrike (4%)
•Quality - Potency - Quality Bonus to Potency (27)
•Quality - Saves - Quality Bonus to All Saves +3
•Quality - Deadly - +6 Deadly Quality Bonus
•Green Slot


This would allow for much better versatility and desirability from all users and their build variants to build the armor around their toon and not build their toon around the armor.
Opens up opportunity to use selective desired choices, or augment slots to use existing in game augments .
Also enhances the quest farming to obtain required ingredients to upgrade items.

[IronClan]

In the Kobold tests Shiradi's were doing 1200-2000 DPS, this is 6 to 10 times lower than the top of the meta. and significantly lower than Mechanics and Warlocks tested. So any view of them as OP while at the same time pushing the notion that Warlocks are balanced should be suspected to be intentional misdirection from someone with a Warlock they want to keep OP.

When every meaningful math data point for Warlock is clearly superior to SP nukers there's really no amount of fake assertions and attempts to misdirect that any reasonable person is going to fall for let alone pushing a 3 years out of date idea that Shiradi are a problem LOL.

[LightBear]

Worth stating that I am discussing removing the quality bonus off of the heroic version of the helm. The concern seemed to be mainly around the heroic version and not so much in regards to the legendary helm.

Doing that will take the helmet from a reroll option to vendor trash, heroic or not.

[DrawingGuy]

Doing that will take the helmet from a reroll option to vendor trash, heroic or not.

Ummm... bull. Take a look:

- Magical Efficiency 5% :: useful for everyone but Warlocks as even Shiradi builds will be using normal spells pending epics
- Equipment Potency +63 :: no named item (or even new random gen that I've seen) offers universal potency this high level 20 or below.
- Insightful Potency +31 :: Stacks with your regular spellpower items
- Green Augment Slot :: can slot your DC augments, fort augment, spell failure, or whatever helps your build.

Taken together, 94 potency for everything is still more than the 90 best you can slot for single schools, and this would turn your 90s to 121. So yeah... even losing the 15 Quality would still put this at a "must have" level. All the 15 Quality does is make this item even better than items devoted to spell schools and would have people riding this item from 13 to the Legendary 28 version.

[Arathendir]

Worth stating that I am discussing removing the quality bonus off of the heroic version of the helm. The concern seemed to be mainly around the heroic version and not so much in regards to the legendary helm.

Please don't do this. We already have boundless for quality potency at level 15, so its not like this is something brand new or insanely over-powered. If you remove the quality potency, I'll simply use boundless every single time, instead of having to make a tough choice between the two.

I typically use the ML 13 cannith challenge loot for +90 spell power to my main spell power(s), and these have been in the game for years. There's also random gen items in the late teens that give 100+ spell power now.

I also have dozens of loot gen armors and various other loot gen items that give whatever insightful spell power I need for my current life. So, removing the quality potency would (mostly) destroy this item for me, since I don't really need the other spell powers and can easily replace them.

I'm not sure if there are many easy to get potency items around this level besides blue dragon scale, but if you have to remove something, remove the equipment bonus to potency, since getting a specific spell power that is much higher is fairly easy to get on old named items and/or random loot now.

Ideally, don't touch the helm at all. It's powerful, but it's in-line with many of the other items you've shown us.

[Qhualor]

Please don't do this. We already have boundless for quality potency at level 15, so its not like this is something brand new or insanely over-powered. If you remove the quality potency, I'll simply use boundless every single time, instead of having to make a tough choice between the two.

I typically use the ML 13 cannith challenge loot for +90 spell power to my main spell power(s), and these have been in the game for years. There's also random gen items in the late teens that give 100+ spell power now.

I also have dozens of loot gen armors and various other loot gen items that give whatever insightful spell power I need for my current life. So, removing the quality potency would (mostly) destroy this item for me, since I don't really need the other spell powers and can easily replace them.

I'm not sure if there are many easy to get potency items around this level besides blue dragon scale, but if you have to remove something, remove the equipment bonus to potency, since getting a specific spell power that is much higher is fairly easy to get on old name items and/or random loot now.

Ideally, don't touch the helm at all. Its powerful, but its in-line with many of the other items you've shown us.

the ML 15 Boundless has +14 quality potency while the ML 13 helm has Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15 on 1 item. removing the +15 still gives +94 potency on 1 item, or am I missing something here?

this is the difference with challenge loot and named loot from quests. for someone like you, you don't seem to have a problem running the challenges to craft items. for someone like me, I would rather just farm a quest X times and bring some friends to help me pull a named item.

[Arathendir]

the ML 15 Boundless has +14 quality potency while the ML 13 helm has Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15 on 1 item. removing the +15 still gives +94 potency on 1 item, or am I missing something here?

this is the difference with challenge loot and named loot from quests. for someone like you, you don't seem to have a problem running the challenges to craft items. for someone like me, I would rather just farm a quest X times and bring some friends to help me pull a named item.

Your numbers are correct, however, I was comparing the new helm to what we have available at roughly the same level. I'll leave out the challenge items and just use random loot in this example. Just do a quick scan of the action house and take a look at the spell power items. For ML 13 gear Equipment bonus seems to be around 84 and insightful seems to be around 42. That's 126 spell power vs. the 94 I would be getting from the helm if they remove the quality potency. You can get both of these on 1 item as well (like armor, there's some on the ah right now with both spell powers), if you're lucky enough or just check the ah enough. It really doesn't take much of any farming to get these spell power numbers. The other items I would be using also have other useful stats (depending on the item), so it's not like I would just be wasting slots on only spell power.

Both of the helms have other nice affixes that you could argue make them more powerful, but the point of my post was that if they remove the quality potency from the new helm, it would go from a nice convenience/consolidation item to a why-bother item for me, since I'll just be putting on a boundless 2 levels later and wearing 1 or 2 other easy to get items that give me more spell power anyway.

[Kompera_Oberon]

Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot

is this a raid item?
i hope so..
cause.. i didn't raid the abbot raid over 100 times to get a robe, that is outshined by a belt that drops in a nomral quest...
also does that boon of undeath proc stacks with the abbot's robe? that would be a good combination then
Hehe, the old "My years old item must remain the bestest ever, always" argument again. Gotta love it. Power creep is a thing, get used to seeing your old items outdated by new items.


aren't there new illusion spells with the iconic gnome?
No. Spells are hard.

[Kompera_Oberon]

This is class balance not power creep imhowcbvw.

As stated earlier if warlocks are too powerful, they can be rebalanced.

How else are we going to easily balance the gap, beside equipment?

Class passes. Using gear and feats and new races to try to achieve what should be achieved via class passes is not only poor game design, it actually raises arguments against future class passes and sets up roadblocks against them, because all you'll get is "Waaa! You can't take a pass at casters when they have [OP Item X|Y|Z], [feat imbalance], [racial SLA] available to them! Unfair!"

In the lead up to the level 30 cap increase the devs said that they deliberately made the new feats more caster-centric as an attempt to address the imbalance. If they want to address the imbalance all they need to do is finish the class passes started so many years ago and shelved for unknown reasons.

[Grandern_Marn]

Worth stating that I am discussing removing the quality bonus off of the heroic version of the helm. The concern seemed to be mainly around the heroic version and not so much in regards to the legendary helm.

Sounds good. Even without the quality bonus it is a very attractive item and I will be hunting for it.

[Dungeoner49]

Class passes. Using gear and feats and new races to try to achieve what should be achieved via class passes is not only poor game design, it actually raises arguments against future class passes and sets up roadblocks against them, because all you'll get is "Waaa! You can't take a pass at casters when they have [OP Item X|Y|Z], [feat imbalance], [racial SLA] available to them! Unfair!"

In the lead up to the level 30 cap increase the devs said that they deliberately made the new feats more caster-centric as an attempt to address the imbalance. If they want to address the imbalance all they need to do is finish the class passes started so many years ago and shelved for unknown reasons.

Honestly ,you can take a lv 9 dps caster and for the most-part practically roll through the dungeon where as any almost other non caster at that same lv will take noticeably longer to kill anything, yet in epics casters have to use 3-4x more spell points just to deal about half the proportional amount of damage as they could to one foe with a single spell, thus reducing their effectiveness down to about 10-20% and dieing in about to 3-5 melee attacks without heals, while both epic melee and non-magic ranged charas can kill with about 25-50% of the proportional damage as they did at low lvs with and die in about 7-11 melee attacks without heals. I understand that epic dungeons are supposed to even more difficult than heroic elite, but epic casters end up a even less useful than low lv bow based rangers. I don't know how you devs plan of increasing the viability of epic casters without making them too powerful in heroics, but granting dps casters more spell power from all sources once at epic lvs would be one way to go..

[janave]

Honestly ,you can take a lv 9 dps caster and for the most-part practically roll through the dungeon where as any almost other non caster at that same lv will take noticeably longer to kill anything, yet in epics casters have to use 3-4x more spell points just to deal about half the proportional amount of damage as they could to one foe with a single spell, thus reducing their effectiveness down to about 10-20% and dieing in about to 3-5 melee attacks without heals, while both epic melee and non-magic ranged charas can kill with about 25-50% of the proportional damage as they did at low lvs with and die in about 7-11 melee attacks without heals. I understand that epic dungeons are supposed to even more difficult than heroic elite, but epic casters end up a even less useful than low lv bow based rangers. I don't know how you devs plan of increasing the viability of epic casters without making them too powerful in heroics, but granting dps casters more spell power from all sources once at epic lvs would be one way to go..

This is because some spells cap out very early like at level 10-15. Usually true for the damage spells, that they were capped at a very low level. I guess they would have to rewrite the spells to properly scale and that might be far bigger work than adding feats, and spellpower sources.

The toolbox isnt huge either, If say Meteor Swarm was uncapped - (its a multi projectile spell so unlikely) - then we had one level 9 nuking spell thats worth casting at epics.

I think right now at lvl9, almost any build is great. A melee with keen falchion + cleave/greater-cleave .. is quite strong at those levels, unless it has many undead/robots, where casters will be generally better, but thats the whole point of content variety :)

On legendaries, casters with strong instant-kills are ruling up to the boss again, the DCs arent that hard to hit, altho the spell pen is very high which is a good thing in my opinion.

If 12 casters try to empty the mana bar (say ~3000points) using ruin+greater ruin, (archmages during arcane supremacy might throw in some disintegrates too). Im 90% sure they can 1 round LH Shroud Arraetrikos before they truly out of mana. Assuming a lousy 400 force sp, and just empower/maximize.

I actually find the lower epic levels (20-26) on a traditional caster to be tougher, especially while leveling a 0% synergy ED for a newbie Sorc.

[Kompera_Oberon]

If 12 casters try to empty the mana bar (say ~3000points) using ruin+greater ruin, (archmages during arcane supremacy might throw in some disintegrates too). Im 90% sure they can 1 round LH Shroud Arraetrikos before they truly out of mana. Assuming a lousy 400 force sp, and just empower/maximize.
It's hard to really understand what you're trying to communicate here.
"1 round" is not the same as ruin+greater ruin plus some disintegrates, as that is at least two rounds. Nor is it the same as "empty the mana bar," as that is many rounds. So what exactly do you mean when you say "1 round?"

And do you think it would be any different for 12 strong DPS melee classes? Or 12 strong ranged physical classes? I'm not trying to beat you up over minutia, but I am trying to understand both your point and your perspective.

[dunklezhan]

It's hard to really understand what you're trying to communicate here.
"1 round" is not the same as ruin+greater ruin plus some disintegrates, as that is at least two rounds. Nor is it the same as "empty the mana bar," as that is many rounds. So what exactly do you mean when you say "1 round?"

And do you think it would be any different for 12 strong DPS melee classes? Or 12 strong ranged physical classes? I'm not trying to beat you up over minutia, but I am trying to understand both your point and your perspective.

They mean 1 round of the boss mechanic. To 'one round' Harry in Shroud means to take him down before he disappears and starts his first bombing run.

[Hara]

Replace the equipment potency on the helm with an Orange slot, then as per an earlier poster (IronClan iirc) add new Orange Augment Crystals. This will have the effect of reducing the power of the item slightly but possibly increasing its flexability.

[JOTMON]

This is because some spells cap out very early like at level 10-15. Usually true for the damage spells, that they were capped at a very low level. I guess they would have to rewrite the spells to properly scale and that might be far bigger work than adding feats, and spellpower sources.

The toolbox isnt huge either, If say Meteor Swarm was uncapped - (its a multi projectile spell so unlikely) - then we had one level 9 nuking spell thats worth casting at epics.

I think right now at lvl9, almost any build is great. A melee with keen falchion + cleave/greater-cleave .. is quite strong at those levels, unless it has many undead/robots, where casters will be generally better, but thats the whole point of content variety :)

On legendaries, casters with strong instant-kills are ruling up to the boss again, the DCs arent that hard to hit, altho the spell pen is very high which is a good thing in my opinion.

If 12 casters try to empty the mana bar (say ~3000points) using ruin+greater ruin, (archmages during arcane supremacy might throw in some disintegrates too). Im 90% sure they can 1 round LH Shroud Arraetrikos before they truly out of mana. Assuming a lousy 400 force sp, and just empower/maximize.

I actually find the lower epic levels (20-26) on a traditional caster to be tougher, especially while leveling a 0% synergy ED for a newbie Sorc.

great comparison.. 12 casters using ruin/greater ruin.. or ... how about a moncher or two and furyshot.. and no sp..
What happens when a caster runs out of SP.. their DPS and self survivability is pretty much gone.. so they now have to resort to other resources to recover sp.. like DDOstore mana pots.. cashflow win for DDO.
What happens when a melee runs out of SP.. nothing.. they just keep on killing... no stamina bar to replenish..

Csaters have to contend with resource management along with building DC's, Spell pen, and spells to correspond to mobs.. they are supposed to be powerful.. for as long as they can keep their mana bar from depleting..
Melee's tend to shrine in longer durational fights, extended battles..

Unfortunately DDO has moved towards the trend of surround the boss and mass brute DPS for quick finish to win, a prolonged fight increases the likelihood of failure.
Mobs don't weaken over time, they don't run out of SP, and they keep bringing in waves of damage while players contend with death penalties, mana drains from rebuffing and healing..
DOJ is a new example ofthis.. endfight.. brute DPS kill her in less than 45 seconds to win..
then she bombards the party with thousands of points of damage that only the highest evasion toons with wicked saves will survive..Everyone else dies while red named mobs spawn in..
The circles have no representation for where the damage goes it just sprays all over the place.. laying down barrages of death.. no safe spot like Von6...

Even part 4 of Shroud.. continues with the trend.. drop arritrikos in 1 round or contend with rounds of gnolls with stupid high will/fort saves that heal arritrikos back to full health if you cant kill them fast enough.
Bard song and they still move towards the healing zone,, trip them they slide in to heal, web works but will only hold them for so long..
What does work.. speed killing...

Instead of utilizing the skills/abilities of 'all' player classes to benefit the group, the challenges are only won by those that can output the most DPS in the quickest amount of time.
Balanced party is meaningless. DPS is king.

[Eth]

The toolbox isnt huge either, If say Meteor Swarm was uncapped - (its a multi projectile spell so unlikely) - then we had one level 9 nuking spell thats worth casting at epics.


Worst example. ;)
Meteor swarm has no part that scales with caster level. The difference between a level 20 meteor swarm and a level 9000 meteor swarm is none.

[Kompera_Oberon]

What happens when a caster runs out of SP.. their DPS and self survivability is pretty much gone.. so they now have to resort to other resources to recover sp.. like DDOstore mana pots.. cashflow win for DDO.
What happens when a melee runs out of SP.. nothing.. they just keep on killing... no stamina bar to replenish..
While that is true in general, in the context of the discussion of Shroud/ L Shroud it is not true. There's no penalty for 'going nova' as it was called in PnP, because immediately after the Phase 4 fight there is a shrine.

[Shoemaker]

I seem to fail to understand why we are yet STILL getting more heroic quest/loot when heroic has been totally fine for the longest time now.

Quit wasting your time with heroic, we simply need more epic and that's it.
Once we are building a quest, the amount of extra time and effort to make it a quest for both heroic and epic levels is small compared to the work to make a single quest in the first place. Essentially there isn't really a reason not to make new quests available to both heroic and epic, and I'm not sure that adding choices for new characters/TRing characters is a bad thing.
You do realize your statement is in direct contradiction to past statements by the development team, including two former Executive Producers, Senior Producers, Lead Tech Guy, and everyone from Turbine who has every posted on the subject? If the forum search worked I'd link a few of these statements. Now the reality is most of us have believed that too be the case where it is fairly easy to adjust the difficulty to create both heroic and epic difficulties of the same quest, it just wasn't the official mantra on the subject.
There is a big difference between making a new quest have both a heroic and epic version and going back to an older quest that only had heroic and making an epic version of it. The former is very doable, the latter is the equivalent of making an entirely new quest from scratch and can sometimes even be more work than making a new quest.

My understanding from discussions with the DDO development team members over time since epic first came out was that when they add epic levels to a quest, they have to virtually rebuild the heroic version from scratch, which is a lot more work than building an all new quest. That is why they haven't been epifying packs anymore. They haven't epified a pack since 3BC. You'll notice that even the new Legendary stuff has different quest givers/entrances - which means they are entirely separate from the heroic versions even though they might use some of the same resources. I'm one of the big consistency pushers, and the Turbine Developers have been consistent as far as I have seen on this topic.

[Valentinest13]

I think you need to do an old gear pass before giving us any new gear.. make the old stuff fresh and relevant in the new gear system.

[Thrudh]

Given how the new legendary feats and some of the updated enhancement tree uses spell power for extra melee and range damage, adding spell power to equipment will only widen the gap between caster, melee and range.

Centralizing spell power to 1 gear only makes the game more imbalance toward melee and range class because now they have flexibility to choose a larger variety of gear for multiple source of damage,

As an example with feywild and devotion for cocoon.

Pre U31, the gear selection for spell power to use with legendary feats are either an augment (138), a ring (150+) or a TF weapon (150) in the offhand. For devotion people can also use halcyonia or gauntlet of immortality.

With U31, people can get rid of halcyonia, gauntlet of immortality, augment, ring and use the new helm for spell power which benefit multiple source that rely on spell power. This free up a lot of slots for even more variety in damage output. i.e. Strange tiding for SA damage, new ring for Deadly + accuracy, a different combination of melee weapon for the off hand, etc etc.

To expand on this example, the helm can also power up the divine crusader damage portion of consecrated ground. resonance from swashbuckler, electric damage from Artificer class and rune arm use.


The gear proposed are way too powerful and will make melee and range toon even stronger than caster toons in terms of damage output.

Adjust the class enhancement tree for balance and not rely on equipment that can benefit all class across the board

This. That much potency on one item doesn't make any sense at all... I can slot one item for 150 devotion, and another item for 150 fire damage, or I can just slot one item for 228 potency to ALL spell power types?

[janave]

Worst example. ;)
Meteor swarm has no part that scales with caster level. The difference between a level 20 meteor swarm and a level 9000 meteor swarm is none.

Its easy to criticize with 1 liner trolling comments.


Uncapped => solve it to scale, and yeah the example not great as i did noted being a multi projectile spell, still could be worked around to make it scale better.

As for Fury Shot, adding in 25/50/75% per diff. extra fort on the boss would be quite a show stopper. I know that it can be bypassed but it would lower the mega-spike damages. Or just plain PRR:Pierce.

[beuwolf78]

I never though I'd complain about items being too good but here I am...

Both the Heroic and Epic versions of some of this loot is completely OP and invalidates almost every other item in the game (even lvl 30 legendary gear from the previous update).

From a caster perspective: the helmet is completely nuts. That much potency in a single item where you can only get something close to that in a specific school for LGS?

Some comparisons on why I think the helmet will nullify every other caster item in the game:

- Helmet: 228 Spell Power to ALL schools + Green Augment + 10% SP reduction cost
- TOEE Caster Weapon: 156 Spell Power to a specific school + 21 to ALL schools + Lore XIII to a specific School + Spell Penetration+6
- LGS Caster Weapon: 224 Spell Power to a specific school + Clickie

So an LGS weapon which takes you ~15 LN shroud runs (best case) gives you less spell power in a SPECIFIC school than this helmet gives as a BTA item for ALL schools. hmm...

Same for TOEE caster weapons - since you can easily get that lore (22% at least) as random items and that spell penetration is nice but again, can be gotten from other items and not that critical for most schools (aside from necromancy), this helmet makes grinding for a TOEE weapon pointless (which some may say, it already is... but still).

That helmet needs some serious nerfing.

[Elfishski]

Heroic items: we REALLY don't need more power there, it's just nice to have different quests to run for variety and challenge. Replace all the numbers in keeping with otherwise available numbers from named items. Especially fix the helmet (reduce universal spell power overall AND ditch quality bonus, the insight bonus and SP cost reduction alone make it a good choice for casters).

Epic items: If they're level 30 make them level 30, making them level 28 when there are already level 29 named items is just... weird. If you need them to be that overpowered then make them endgame, something to give a reason to stay at level 30 to use.

At the moment there is an uneasy balance between named items having synergistic effects and width of power, while random items give the highest vertical power but you've got to get lucky and contend with a perhaps useless second property. This sort of works okay, with tradeoffs and interesting decisions to be made in gearing. These items point to returning to the days of 'named items have to have a higher bonus than the highest possible bonus from lootgen' which simply isn't necessary for the items to be useful to a variety of builds. These items also stomp all over established 'highest possible' values for things like spell power. 150 was highest for standard spellpower bonus, with 156 making TOEE sets special... now we're jumping to 185? That's really poor design. Those items [sonic gloves, force cloak] are FANTASTIC consolidation items that any bard/fey warlock/cleric respectively would use with 150, why effectively remove the decision to maybe use a thunder peaks raid item or TOEE set instead by setting the number so much higher? Ditch the potency on the helmet entirely, the insight bonus and quality bonus still make this a good choice for a lot of characters without removing the need to consider itemization for primary spellpower entirely. Similar arguments go for deadly/accuracy on ring, dodge etc etc, really all the items.

There can and should be slight power creep over time with new and interesting items, but it shouldn't feel like only the single most recent quests provide any challenge at all and only items from the single last update are any good, while every other content in the game is trivially easy and has worthless loot. I want all the quests and raids from level 28 up to still feel like they are interesting for my capped character. I don't want to feel like I'm playing a game that has only 3 quests in it.

Tone the numbers down to be in line with existing items, they are all* solid if boring consolidation items already that would be worth seeking out and that many characters would still want to use as a first choice if the numbers were in line with existing named loot rather than 20% higher.

*Except the epic boots, but a discussion of why they're not useful would lead into a much longer discussion of the broken balance and swingy combat in LE where normally either you're dead or the monster is before the other can get a strike in.

[Yalinaa]

My opinions:

Level 28 items

Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot - it's an ok "niche" item
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot - very powerful item, would farm it for my caster
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot - add Strength +14 and it's a must item for every melee
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot - add quality charisma +4 and it's a very good item
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot - I doubt anyone would want this, but who knows


Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot - change the fort save into quality +2, and change fire resist for all elemental resists and we might have an option vs Litany
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot - great item, druids will love it
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot - this need major changes, not good enough vs the ToEE (set bonus) armors and far behind legendary tempest armors
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot - Very good
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot - add repair spell power and its good



Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot - change diversion for Doublestrike 16% and its best melee item in game
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot - nice item
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot - dont see anyone to farm this, to be honest
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot - must have for any dps
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot - good for bards (only)

[hit_fido]

After a number of items were ruined for undead form by the deathblock/"negative absorption" combo, the belt is a very welcome change. I hope you'll keep it intact as proposed, it's good to finally see a new standout item for undead.

[Taurnish]

The gloves will be a nice addition for the sonic warlock and the bard. I think the items with guard on them (Bracers) should scale with spell power. Its just not worth filling an equipment slot for some minimal damage and a green augment. The hide armor is worthless. Add some PRR or boost the healing amp more. The helmet may be a bit overpowered unless this is meant to be an item to carry us well into legendary content. Thanks for asking our opinion.

[Thrudh]

My opinions:

Level 28 items

Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot - Excellent niche item - I probably will farm it for my caster
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot - stupid powerful item - it covers ALL spell schools, and is more powerful than 99% of specialized items
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot - decent item - wish I could use it, but I farmed for the boots from the Anniversary event
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot - +2 quality Enchantment DC is all I see here... might still get
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot - needs much higher guards to be worthwhile - 112 damage back everytime you get hit is too small


Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot I like this a lot because I don't have a epic litany. Will farm at least once
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot - great item, druids will love it
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot -not sure about this one - would cause a huge amount of inventory swapping if I went for this armor
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot - Very good - my caster will get
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot super awesome



Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot - Combat Mastery is almost too good... Again, you're giving a very high bonus to ALL tactics, but at least we can still get higher individual bonuses to stunning or trip - but that will take multiple items instead of just one
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot - very nice swap in item
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot - decent, but needs something more... maybe a dodge bonus?
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot - probably OP, because I will farm this for all my melees - Maybe tone down MP/RP?
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot - good for bards - put quality perform on other items for my non-caster swashbuckler![/QUOTE]

[Systern]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

HEROIC
Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 5%, Equipment Potency +63, Insightful Potency +31, Quality Potency +15, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 4d6, armor piercing +12, Quality Seeker +1, Quality Strength +1, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +1 , Enhancement Spellpoints +162, Blurry 20%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 4d6, Evil Guard 4d6, Light Guard 4d6, Negative energy Guard 4d6, Green Augment Slot





Level 15 items


Trinket - Quality Con +1, Enhancement False Life +32, Insightful Fort Saves +3, Enhancement Fire Resist +32, Green Augment Slot
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +4, Quality Wisdom +1, Equipment force Spell Power +101, Quality Balance +4, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +7, Quality Spell Resistance +6, Quality Spell Saves +1, Quality Poison Ward +1, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +33, Boon of Undeath, Enhancement Light Resistance +32, Quality Int +1, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +10, Insightful MRR +10, Repair Amp +33, Enhancement Sheltering +21, Green Augment Slot





Level 17 items


Belt - Diversion +14, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +7, Damage +9), Dodge +9%, Combat Mastery +7, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +3, Competence Disable Device +17, Competence Open Lock +17, Quality Dexterity +2, Green Augment Slot
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +10, Greater Nimbleness (+2 max Dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +108, Quality Fortification +26, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 2, Ranged power 2, Deadly +7, Accuracy +14, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +108, Equipment Sonic Critical +16, Quality Charisma +2, Quality perform +4, Green Augment Slot









LEGENDARY


Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot
Helmet - Magical Efficiency 10%, Equipment Potency +131, Insightful Potency +65, Quality Potency +32, Green Augment Slot
Boots - Piercing guard 8d6, armor piercing +28, Quality Seeker +4, Quality Strength +4, Green Augment Slot
Necklace - Quality Enchantment DC +2 , Enhancement Spellpoints +371, Lesser Displacement 25%, Stealth Strike 15%, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Good Guard 8d6, Evil Guard 8d6, Light Guard 8d6, Negative energy Guard 8d6, Green Augment Slot







Trinket - Quality Constitution +4, Enhancement False Life +68, Insightful Fort Saves +6, Enhancement Fire Resist +68, Green Augment Slot
Cloak - Equipment Evocation DC +7, Quality Wisdom +4, Equipment force Spell Power +185, Quality Balance +5, Green Augment Slot
Leather Armor - Resistance (Resistance bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, Will) +14, Quality Spell Resistance +14, Quality Spell Saves +3, Quality Poison Ward +3, Green Augment Slot
Belt - Negative Energy Amp +72, Greater Boon of Undeath (Inflict Moderate Wounds), Enhancement Light resistance +68, Quality Int +4, Green Augment Slot
Docent - Wooden - Insightful PRR +22, Insightful MRR +22, repair amp +72, Enhancement Sheltering +45, Green Augment Slot







Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot
Bracers - Competence UMD +7, Competence Disable Device +22, Competence Open Lock +22, Quality Dexterity +4, Green Augment Slot
Hide Armor - Quality Healing Amp +18, Epic Nimbleness (+6 max dex bonus, -4 Armor check penalty), Enhancement Fortification +185, Quality Fortification +45, Green Augment Slot
Ring - Melee power 8, Ranged power 8, Deadly +14, Accuracy +28, Green Augment Slot
Gloves - Equipment Sonic Spellpower +185, Equipment Sonic Critical +27, Quality Charisma +4, Quality Perform +5, Green Augment Slot



The goggles.... You're putting +4 DC to Illusion on them. Do you realize there are only 7 illusion spells in the game, and only 2 of them have DCs, and that one of those is Level 2 Hypnotic Pattern - a daze effect that players don't waste SP on, leaving only Phantasmal Killer as something that a player might consider using? Although that's just a single insta-kill spell, and a player interested in investing in the pass/fail nature of DC instakilling is better served with the necromancy school and investing the feats into that. The power budget allotted to Illusion DC is far too high, since it is just a noob-trap in the game. Even considering that Warlocks get PK as an SLA. The bonus values would need to be higher conceding that no decent player would waste feats on the Illusion DC feats, or Hypnotic Pattern and Phantasmal Killer should be changed to the Enchantment school and Illusion bonuses eliminated from the loot tables.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Spells_by_school#Illusion_spells

[Faltout]

Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot - Combat Mastery is almost too good... Again, you're giving a very high bonus to ALL tactics, but at least we can still get higher individual bonuses to stunning or trip - but that will take multiple items instead of just one
Remember that combat mastery stacks with enhancement bonuses to trip, stuns, sunder since combat mastery provides an insightful bonus.

[Thrudh]

Remember that combat mastery stacks with enhancement bonuses to trip, stuns, sunder since combat mastery provides an insightful bonus.

No, they changed that. Combat Mastery is an enhancement bonus, so it doesn't stack. They added insightful Combat Mastery as a whole new thing on items (with much smaller bonuses)

[Faltout]

No, they changed that. Combat Mastery is an enhancement bonus, so it doesn't stack. They added insightful Combat Mastery as a whole new thing on items (with much smaller bonuses)

No, I just confirmed in-game. Combat Mastery still provides insight bonus and stacks with stunning, vertigo, etc.
My warrior's 6 shield with Combat Mastery +6: +6 Enhancement bonus to the DC to resist the character's Trip, Improved Trip, Sunder, Improved Sunder, Stunning Blow, and Stunning Fist attempts
stacks with my Tiara of Stunning 5 with Stunning +5: +5 Enhancement bonus to DC of character's Stunning Blow and Stunning Fist attempts.

(Effects): You benefit from your +6 Warrior's 6 Mountain Shield of Intimidate 15.
(Effects): --- Insight modifier to Stunning DC: +6
(Effects): You benefit from your Invigorating 68 Tiara of Stunning 5.
(Effects): --- Enhancement modifier to Stunning DC: +5
Stunning Shield DC before Tiara: 63
Stunning Shield DC after Tiara: 68

[Thrudh]

No, I just confirmed in-game. Combat Mastery still provides insight bonus and stacks with stunning, vertigo, etc.
My warrior's 6 shield with Combat Mastery +6: +6 Enhancement bonus to the DC to resist the character's Trip, Improved Trip, Sunder, Improved Sunder, Stunning Blow, and Stunning Fist attempts
stacks with my Tiara of Stunning 5 with Stunning +5: +5 Enhancement bonus to DC of character's Stunning Blow and Stunning Fist attempts.

Stunning Shield DC before Tiara: 63
Stunning Shield DC after Tiara: 68

Wow, that's a pretty huge difference... Well that makes that item an absolute must-have for an tactics build... IF it's working as intended. Devs, can you clarify if Combat Mastery is supposed to stack with stunning items?

[Faltout]

Wow, that's a pretty huge difference... Well that makes that item an absolute must-have for an tactics build... IF it's working as intended. Devs, can you clarify if Combat Mastery is supposed to stack with stunning items?
No, it's a bug that we knew about the moment the new random loot hit live and I have bug reported since... 1/14/2016 Bug #24027-110169 Turbine QA - Combat Mastery applies insightful bonus everywhere :)
So, since it hasn't been fixed in those months, I guess it's the new WAI.

[Nadion]

If the concern of players is that the amount of potency on the item is too strong for the level, removing the equipment bonus doesn't really solved that issue, as you can get essentially the same equipment level of potency from random loot at that level. Yes, it means the power is split across 2 items instead of 1, but the power is still there.

Where as we are only giving out quality bonuses through named items, so removing the quality bonus means that the level of potency this item had, isn't reachable by players at that level. It is the change that truly reduces the possible power attained by players.

There currently isn't anywhere you can get +131 Equipment Potency (From what I've seen lvl30 items seem to top out just over a hundred). You can get it for specific elements, but not universally like this helmet offers. The suggestion that obliging people to use a second item doesn't matter just doesn't stack up. Having to expend a gear slot for each element you want to max out is a non trivial investment which obliges people to choose their favoured elements carefully and weigh the extra power against what else they could put in the slot.

With the the Pansophic Circlet in play however, all that thought and specialisation goes out the window. Instead everyone will just slot the Circlet, and wham bam they are done with spellpower. If the time releases as is, casters will basically be forced into wearing it whilst holding a LGS stat stick for INT/WIS/CHA (on a related note, could we please have INT/WIS back on lootgen rings, and CHA back for goggles and helmets?). Removing the Quality Potency from Tempest Spine armors only makes this worse by denying alternative sources (also, increasing the insightful spell focus on them to +3 is a poor move as it devalues all the the loogen +2 insightful focus items).

Exchanging the equpment bonus for something with a bit more character would dramatically improve this item. As is it is both bland and uninspired whilst being virtually mandatory for all casters. Some better options I can think of include:

1. +5-6 mental stats (Insightful) (Pansophic would translate roughly as "collection of all wisdom" so is appropriate)
2. +5 Spell Focus (Equipment)
3. +6 Spell Penetration (Equipment)
4. +22 Spellcraft/Concentration
5. Kinetic Energy Transformation + Exceptional PRR.

The rest of loot looks ok, although the heroic stuff is a bit on the OP side - but that seems to be par for the course these days.

[niknight]

Having to expend a gear slot for each element you want to max out is a non trivial investment which obliges people to choose their favoured elements carefully and weigh the extra power against what else they could put in the slot.

With the the Pansophic Circlet in play however, all that thought and specialisation goes out the window. Instead everyone will just slot the Circlet, and wham bam they are done with spellpower.

Exactly this! As the Head Designer for Magic says all the time "restrictions breed creativity". There is currently a large enough disparity between single element spell power and potency to require casters to pick and choose their damage spells carefully. This creates a large diversity in builds. Giving everyone this item that neatly condenses all spell power into one slot removes that diversity. Who cares about having to choose between Eldar's, Niac's, Meteor Swarm and the Missiles when you can have them all...

[LightBear]

Exactly this! As the Head Designer for Magic says all the time "restrictions breed creativity". There is currently a large enough disparity between single element spell power and potency to require casters to pick and choose their damage spells carefully. This creates a large diversity in builds. Giving everyone this item that neatly condenses all spell power into one slot removes that diversity. Who cares about having to choose between Eldar's, Niac's, Meteor Swarm and the Missiles when you can have them all...

Yeah, like an item is the only source of spell power.

That said, I do think the numbers of that item are a bit to high when compared to other items, I'd go with these:


Helmet - Insightful Magical Efficiency 6%,Quality Magical Efficiency 3%, Insightful Potency +50, Quality Potency +25, Green Augment Slot

So drop the equipment potency entirely and lower the insightful and quality numbers slightly and replace the Magical Efficiency with Insightful and Quality.

[LightBear]

Yeah, like an item is the only source of spell power.

That said, I do think the numbers of that item are a bit to high when compared to other items, I'd go with these:


Helmet - Insightful Magical Efficiency 6%,Quality Magical Efficiency 3%, Insightful Potency +50, Quality Potency +25, Green Augment Slot

So drop the equipment potency entirely and lower the insightful and quality numbers slightly and replace the Magical Efficiency with Insightful and Quality.

Btw, I'd drop the ML to 26 then.

[mikarddo]

Belt - Diversion +28, Sneak Attack (Accuracy +14, Damage +22), Dodge +17%, Combat Mastery +14, Green Augment Slot

The Sneak Attack part is textually bugged on Lam, and to be honest I am a bit uncertainly if its meant to be similar to the effect on the Strange Tidings ring or how exactly its supposed to work. I had hoped that I could read the in game description on Lam, but thats not working.

[Malekithe]

Most of the posts on this thread are by dedicated melees trying to ruin what was otherwise a happy day for casters in general. Leave it all as is, or nerf it all IMO.

as a dedicated sorc/wiz, everytime I get an Upgrade, it is actually a downgrade until I spend millions of plat at auction and elsewhere juggling slots, gems and gear, and when I am done the "upgrade" is usually marginal. A single mistake in this process costs a million more plat. I am certain for most melee this process is not as involved and I highly doubt 3-4 of their slots are forever occupied just to maintain their status as second class dps. I seriously doubt there is a caster anywhere with the devils handiwork set bonus, granted only a rogue could do it well. To a player such as myself, several of these items are not only upgrades, but massive boosts in quality of life within the game, they proposed a shining light at the end of the tunnel that might allow me to use gear of my choosing, to equip all the nice stuff ive gathered without fear of being even more of a burden to my groups in contrast to more "simplistic" classes. Imagine for a moment knowing you can never get gloves of the arcane soldier from DoJ, b/c your gloves slot will forever and always be occupied by insight gloves with ridiculous stats in other attributes that you must wear despite the fact. And all of this, only to remain marginal, not to be competitive...

[Thrudh]

Is the epic helm still being released as is? Or was it tweaked based on feedback?

[bsquishwizzy]

As we are getting closer to U31, it is a great time to get initial feedback on the named loot that will be in the update. Without further ado, here is the list:

HEROIC
Level 13 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC +3, Quality illusion DC +1, Quality Int +1, True sight, Green Augment Slot



Level 28 items


Goggles - Equipment illusion DC boost +7, Quality illusion DC boost +1, Quality Int +4, True sight, Green Augment Slot




What is the point of having a fantastic illusion DC? You have 1 maybe 2 spells that rely upon it.

Ain’t no one outside of a couple niche builds willing to grind for that.

[Loromir]

What is the point of having a fantastic illusion DC? You have 1 maybe 2 spells that rely upon it.

Ain’t no one outside of a couple niche builds willing to grind for that.

I guess the Quality Int and True Seeing and green slot are worthwhile, but yea...we need more illusion spells.

[Silverleafeon]

Most of the posts on this thread are by dedicated melees trying to ruin what was otherwise a happy day for casters in general. Leave it all as is, or nerf it all IMO.

as a dedicated sorc/wiz, everytime I get an Upgrade, it is actually a downgrade until I spend millions of plat at auction and elsewhere juggling slots, gems and gear, and when I am done the "upgrade" is usually marginal. A single mistake in this process costs a million more plat. I am certain for most melee this process is not as involved and I highly doubt 3-4 of their slots are forever occupied just to maintain their status as second class dps. I seriously doubt there is a caster anywhere with the devils handiwork set bonus, granted only a rogue could do it well. To a player such as myself, several of these items are not only upgrades, but massive boosts in quality of life within the game, they proposed a shining light at the end of the tunnel that might allow me to use gear of my choosing, to equip all the nice stuff ive gathered without fear of being even more of a burden to my groups in contrast to more "simplistic" classes. Imagine for a moment knowing you can never get gloves of the arcane soldier from DoJ, b/c your gloves slot will forever and always be occupied by insight gloves with ridiculous stats in other attributes that you must wear despite the fact. And all of this, only to remain marginal, not to be competitive...

+1

[Elfishski]

Most of the posts on this thread are by dedicated melees trying to ruin what was otherwise a happy day for casters in general. Leave it all as is, or nerf it all IMO.

as a dedicated sorc/wiz, everytime I get an Upgrade, it is actually a downgrade until I spend millions of plat at auction and elsewhere juggling slots, gems and gear, and when I am done the "upgrade" is usually marginal. A single mistake in this process costs a million more plat. I am certain for most melee this process is not as involved and I highly doubt 3-4 of their slots are forever occupied just to maintain their status as second class dps. I seriously doubt there is a caster anywhere with the devils handiwork set bonus, granted only a rogue could do it well. To a player such as myself, several of these items are not only upgrades, but massive boosts in quality of life within the game, they proposed a shining light at the end of the tunnel that might allow me to use gear of my choosing, to equip all the nice stuff ive gathered without fear of being even more of a burden to my groups in contrast to more "simplistic" classes. Imagine for a moment knowing you can never get gloves of the arcane soldier from DoJ, b/c your gloves slot will forever and always be occupied by insight gloves with ridiculous stats in other attributes that you must wear despite the fact. And all of this, only to remain marginal, not to be competitive...

I don't think there are that many players that are "dedicated melees" or "dedicated casters" - between TRs and alts anyone who plays a lot of DDO tends to be both at various times although perhaps leaning one way or the other, to that's probably not a fair accusation. As I've noted, I'm firmly in the "nerf it all" camp, but only in terms of the ridiculous number inflation.

I know when I do get to level 30 on a caster, I think about how much effort I would have to put into rearranging equipment to be useful in endgame content and sigh, then TR, because hitting the necessary DCs/spell pen/etc for those final few quests is SO much harder than everything else in the game, especially without past lives. When I get to level 30 on a melee/ranged, I don't do anything differently and I'm useful in endgame content. For my main character currently a shuriken-throwing monk, I could honestly leave half my gear slots empty and probably wouldn't notice the difference. I totally agree that fitting all the necessary things in for a caster is MUCH harder than ranged/melee and having some nice consolidation items is good.

Just... tone down the ridiculous number inflation, both melee and caster. It doesn't make that much difference, it just makes all other items look like garbage. The helmet with more universal spellpower than is readily available on a single spellpower stands out [and the only reason it's less of a problem is because at the moment I feel like the helmet slot is where there's the most competition for extra-good character defining items already], but there are a lot of other offending items, both caster and ranged/melee.