New Named items?

[Pyromaniac]

The desert is plagued with far to many epic items (with gimpy weapons compared to shroud) making it ridiculous to try and obtain the shard/seal/scroll you are looking for. I have multiple copies of several seals and have yet to obtain the only one I am interested in (Spectral Glove seal), though I do have the shard.

Agreed that fewer is better...the Spectral Glove seal seems to drop regularly in Offering of Blood Epic. I haven't seen it on a regular basis anywhere else. Hopefully you're farming it there.

[Woody00]

God, I hope not. They're all 4-armed monks with built in psionic powers and crazy exotic weapons. Basically, they're Psionic ninja monks. Who wants to fight that? Telepathic Pirate Priests?

Not just any Telepathic Pirate Priests. Telepathic Zombie Pirate Priests. I mean we're already half way there with the new quests.

[Impatiens]

Looks like bracers are designed mainly for monks at this point.

Oh wow, I'm definitely getting those for when I TR my monk. I wonder what they'll look like when made epic? Nice to see some new loot geared towards monks...but how about some handwraps for us? Please?

[Logic]

Lifeshield also stacks with bodyfeeder and you can get up to 30 temporary hit points. Not a bad medium armor piece.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

These are looking neat so far.
Can't wait to see more.

[Xionanx]

Yeah, so far those bracers are the only thing I'm seeing that are truly worthwhile.

If they are bound to account, why not roll a monk and toss them on to see how they effect the stances?

On a side note, I love WF, but if they made Thri-Kreen a playable race I would probably never make a WF again!

[Althotas]

[Borror0]

If technology permits, listing the benefits of Dragonshard Focus: Sentinel in bullet points would make the item description more readable

Also, since you're adding Insight bonuses to Fortification, you'll have to type other sources of Fortification bonus for clarity.

[Kyrn]

If technology permits, listing the benefits of Dragonshard Focus: Sentinel in bullet points would make the item description more readable

Also, since you're adding Insight bonuses to Fortification, you'll have to type other sources of Fortification bonus for clarity.

I thought Fortification bonuses had always stacked...

[MrCow]

I thought Fortification bonuses had always stacked...

Depends on the source. Currently, item worn fortification bonuses don't stack (such as a Ring of Light Fortification and Belt of Moderate Fortification). However, different sources of fortification do stack:

• Racial - Warforged (25%)
• Feat - Warforged Improved Fortification (75%)
• Enhancement - Fortification Item (25% - 100%)
• Profane - Bladesworn Transformation (100%)

And now we can add a new one:

• Insight - Dragonshard Focus: Sentinal, Greater (25%)

[Angelus_dead]

Agreed. It's too much. It's higher than the Black Widow Bracers while also granting +2 to Will saves and an unknown bonus while using your DPS stance - heck, compare it to the Bete Noir bracers which are ML 11.

Comparing it to Bete Noir is meaningless, as Bete Noir is a weak item that nobody has ever liked. (Ventilated Bracers have a similar problem and have never really been worn for battle). And Black Widow Bracers are a substantially lower level item.

The underlying problem is that AC bracers from +1 to +6 have been overcosted except for Black Widow, creating an illusion of overpoweredness when a +5 appears.

As for the +2 Will saves: Characters of that level probably have a Cloak of Resistance+1, so it's only +1, and monks don't highly value more Will either.

A +3 Armor Bonus would be more than sufficient, assuming the unknown bonus is desirable, and leave more design space free.

The competition for that item slot comes from two directions: On the low end is Axebane + Mage Armor, while at higher level is Chaosgarde + Mage Armor. Remember that Mage Armor 3x clickies give +4 armor for 18 minutes and aren't hard to get.

To give those bracers less than 4 armor is nearly the same as giving them zero. But 5 armor means you're gaining 1 AC from Axebane or losing 1 from CG, which is appropriate for an item available at an in-between level. (There's also the fact that this is p2p loot, while Korthos and Xorian are f2p areas)

Heh. Unless they clarify this description, it'll join the list.

When monks were first released I suggested that they add magic item properties which key to your active stance, such as clothing with resist 20 or a kama with energy burst damage. Let's see how close this thing comes to that proposal. (My version had a clause for non-monk usage: if you could not enter a stance, then it keyed off of whichever of your stance-linked ability score was highest)

[Kyrn]

Comparing it to Bete Noir is meaningless, as Bete Noir is a weak item that nobody has ever liked. (Ventilated Bracers have a similar problem and have never really been worn for battle). And Black Widow Bracers are a substantially lower level item.

Actually, as I mentioned above, Bete Noir is even worse than it seems. Refer to http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=235509 for discussion on it's hidden proc.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

I think the existence of Dragonshard Focus, even if the benefits aren't super, shows great promise.

At the least, any Sentinel-marked people can use this sword without worrying about proficiency, making it a somewhat decent weapon. Though Shocking Touch is kinda low.
Depends what Epic looks like, I suppose.

[Angelus_dead]

Chimera's Fang: +1 Shock Touch Bastard Sword of Maiming, Shatter +4, Dragonshard Focus

I can't see a reason for a sensible character build to equip that item over Nicked Scimitar from the Sharn Syndicate loot, or indeed generically available +2 Shock Bastard Swords.

The damage: 1/hit from Shock Touch, and 2d6 per 19 hits from Maiming equals 1.36 damage added per hit, much less than the 3.5 added by regular Shock or Acid.

Shatter: Nobody really cares about Shatter. If they do care it's because the monster has unusually high AC, which means you should probably be using a better than +1 weapon if you want the Sunder to even hit.

It's a Bastard sword: So the weapon type is inferior not only to that other exotic one-handed slashing weapon, but also to scimitars and even kukries.

Least dragonmark effect: Well, Deneith Marks are weak so I don't figure many characters will be able to take advantage of this. But if you did have Least Mark, the bastard proficiency is like +1.1 dph over longsword (still -1.46 dph below a +1 Shock Longsword). Oh, and which class is most able to blow feats on Deneith marks? Fighters, who are also the most able to train a feat in exotic weapons.

Lesser dragonmark effect: Nobody is likely to have been able to get the next two dragonmark feats down at level 5, and by the time they can get them they'll have gotten much better weapons. The second effect is +1 AC and saves from parrying. Hey remember Sharn Syndicate? It provides a Nicked Longsword that does more damage, takes less grinding, is usable at lower level, and includes Parrying without spending two feats.

Greater dragonmark effect: So suppose there's an epic version of this, and it still provides a Fortification bonus to people with the greater Deneith mark. It would be a trap to try to use that bonus, because you will not keep that weapon in hand for every single fight, meaning sometimes that fortification will be absent and an opponent will crit you.

Suggestion: Change the Shocking Touch to Shock on the upgraded version. It deserves at least that much. Shocking Burst might not be unreasonable (as burst isn't great on bastard swords)

Suggestion 2: Clean up the text, and simply say "With a greater mark you get a +25% Insight bonus to Fortification". Players can already know what Fortification is (such as by the tooltip on their character sheet), so it doesn't have to be spelled out here.

[Guildmaster_Kadish]

Have to agree with A_D that +5 AC is about right for a level 5 bracer set.

Now, I wonder how the epic versions will work... will it just require the epic shard/seal/scroll with the regular sigil things? Or will it require epic shard/seal/scroll and epic sigils? Or maybe the items will just drop epic (like the epic red dragon helm) and require epic sigils to upgrade?

Should be interesting.

[Borror0]

To give those bracers less than 4 armor is nearly the same as giving them zero. But 5 armor means you're gaining 1 AC from Axebane or losing 1 from CG, which is appropriate for an item available at an in-between level. (There's also the fact that this is p2p loot, while Korthos and Xorian are f2p areas)

Good point.

[LeLoric]

Sure nothing outstanding but remember they are ml 5 items and should be somewhere on par with say stk end rewards maybe a bit better due to the grind required.

I like the fact that even though they are not overwhelming the devs are thinking up new item effects.

[Vordax]

Thri-Kreen are located in the desert of Menechtarun, according to the Player's Guide to Eberron.

If I remember correctly the guide to Stormreach also says they hangout in water works.

Vordax

[spyderwolf]

[Kyrn]

So... considering the rate of spell usage by most bards, this is essentially better than every bard item/set which gives a static bonus to number of bard spells?