Item Revision - Epic Bracers of the Demon Consort

[jkm]

based on the upgrades in the red fens, it looks like new tech is available to upgrade effects from non-epic to epic, this is the first item i suggest for review.

Non-Epic - (Bracers) Demonic Curse, Demonic Shield, Demonic Retribution

Current Epic - (Bracers) Demonic Curse, Demonic Shield, Demonic Retribution, Intimidate +15, Empty Colorless Augment Slot, Empty Yellow Augment Slot

the biggest issue is that the demonic curse/shield/retribution (and hidden effect) were great pre-gianthold. unfortunately, the mod 4 hit point escalation has pretty much rendered the positive effects useless and the hidden curse a huge liability. carrying these over to epic without an upgrade makes the item less than desireable.

epic - the slots are nice, the intimidate 15 is a weird upgrade though.

suggested change ->

basically, i'd like to see the bracers keep their theme, with upgraded effects while expanding the reach of the hidden effect to affect attackers as well (through the addition of enervation guard)

(Bracers) Greater Demonic Curse, Greater Demonic Shield, Greater Demonic Retribution, Enervation Guard, Colorless Slot

Greater Demonic Curse - Each time you are hit in combat, there is a chance that your attacker will be hit with a cursed wound (-50% healing amp) for 60 seconds.

Greater Demonic Shield - Each time you are hit in combat, there is a chance that you will be hit with either a heal spell (1%), reconstruct spell (1%), or 30 temporary hit points (3%)

Greater Demonic Retribution - Each time you are hit in combat, there is a chance that your attacker will be hit with a random guard effect -> lightning storm (.5%), harm (.5%), epic wrack (.5%), epic knockdown (.5%)

<<Hidden Effect: Greater Demon's Consort>> Each time you are hit in combat, there is a chance that you will have to endure the following effect for letting your life force be chained to a demon -> Demon Amusement -> Otto's Irresistable - 6s (.1%), Demon Punishment -> Level Drain - Bypass DW (.1%), Demon PO'd -> Slay Living DC 30 - Bypass DW (.1%), Demon Anger -> +8 Infernal Bonus to Strength - 60s (.1%), Demon Sated -> Exhaustion (.1%)

[Stormface]

I fully agree with the OPs suggestions concerning the Bracers of the Demon Consort. (+1 rep)

I use them myself on my main for their life shield effect. But the hidden effect of the lvl drain make them less desireable especially when it comes to makeing them epic.

And I am really considering to discard them in favor of some other bracers because of this painful effect. There are many items in this game which are equally powerful or even more so without the penalty of having a negative effect on the wearer. In my opinion this renders a great item nrly useless. So the removal of this hidden effect would be desireable.
Make it even cleansable for what i care.5 or 10 epic raid tokens (or whatever) to remove that negative effect on an epic altar.
I really think that this item would gain much more appeal by that and become useful instead of a curiousity once more.

About the OPs suggestion for upgrading the effects in the epic version: nice idea aswell, which i would like very much. But the removal of the hidden effect would take precedence for me.

[Nailog]

I like the suggestions except for this ...

Greater Demonic Shield - Each time you are hit in combat, there is a chance that you will be hit with either a heal spell (1%), reconstruct spell (1%), or 30 temporary hit points (3%)

You went from a 20% chance to proc 30 temporary HPs down to 3%. I don't think a 1% chance at a Heal is worth that.

[supp3nhuhn]

I think the bonusses can stay as they are, just remove the level drain and they're quite nice.

I also don't see the need to let it cast reconstruct which only wf would benefit from who are also immune two half of the suggested negative effects.

[sugrcain]

I use the epic version of these all the time on my WF fighter, even tanked ToD p1/p3 bosses, VoD, and epic bosses out of curiosity and everything ended well. While I don't use them all the time, and generally when I do use them I will also have on a con opp item and lifeshield docent (with the epic dr), the neg levels are so far a non-issue. The most I've ever had is 6 running sins solo, but the combo of temp hp procs go off so often that red bar doesn't change too much regardless of what the max hp number. The neg levels decay after 2 minutes now also. But that said, I probably would be a bit leery to use either version of the bracers as my only HP proc item, the neg levels would be much more detrimental.

It does seem a bit of lazy epic item design (but then so do a lot of the others) to me though, as this was one of those items that had the potential to be a lot more interesting.

[jkm]

I think the bonusses can stay as they are, just remove the level drain and they're quite nice.

I also don't see the need to let it cast reconstruct which only wf would benefit from who are also immune two half of the suggested negative effects.

warforged aren't immune to any of the negative effects (see post below).

[hi_sa1nt]

resurrecting an old thread. these still need updating.