Epic Item Review: Red Fens

[sephiroth1084]

With the bludgeoning arrows tech on the new bow coming out with u13, I'd like to see the Shatterbow gain:

• Bludgeoning ammo
• Weaken Construct
• Cacophony (a la Epic Elyd Edge) -- replace Screaming
  
• Red Augment slot

The bow would then be:
+6 2d8 20/x3
Blunted Ammunition

Greater Construct Bane
Improved Destruction

Weaken Construct
Cacophony
Move Silently -10
Red slot

[Logic]

I agree fens loot needs an overhaul. Only thing worth its weight is the claw set. I just made the epic shatterbow and went to put an adamantine crystal in the red slot... only to find it has no red slot. What a worthless bow... its not even good against constructs.

[LeLoric]

I agree fens loot needs an overhaul. Only thing worth its weight is the claw set. I just made the epic shatterbow and went to put an adamantine crystal in the red slot... only to find it has no red slot. What a worthless bow... its not even good against constructs.

I use my epic shatterbow a lot against constructs. If it had a red slot I would not put adamantine in it.

There is just not a lot of adamantine dr constructs we fight anymore. Very few iron golems and even sparser clay golems. Some warforged but even without bypassing dr a thornlord wins out here. The cases to want adamantine are few enough that swapping in a stack of adamantine house d arrows is enough. If it had a slot the adamatine uses are rare enough that I would most likely give this thing a +7 enhancment.

Lob is a bit of a different story but he also requires good and takes holy dmg to boot. A holy burst gcb is better against him. Shatterbow shines when holy doesn't work like say against lob pillars, lob dogs. In these situations it's hands down the best. For elobs I carry a few stacks of construct bane arrows to put in this bad boy for some nasty fast pillar take down.

With the bludgeoning arrows tech on the new bow coming out with u13, I'd like to see the Shatterbow gain:

• Bludgeoning ammo
• Weaken Construct
• Cacophony (a la Epic Elyd Edge) -- replace Screaming
  
• Red Augment slot

The bow would then be:
+6 2d8 20/x3
Blunted Ammunition

Greater Construct Bane
Improved Destruction

Weaken Construct
Cacophony
Move Silently -10
Red slot

Cacophony is less than one dmg per hit more than screaming. Add in that it's less steady and more susceptible to overkill dmg and I'd rather have screaming. Blunted ammo would be great if we actually fought hordes of clay golems.

If you wanted to step this up I would probably add the slot, weaken construct, and to further the sonic theme thundering for a burst like effect and either cacophony or peals of thunder (the latter only because with weaken construct cacophony and screaming together may be too much).

All this being said while I would love to see some improvement in soem of the epic items that still need some love I doubt we will get many changes between now and a fair bit after the expansion and shatterbow is already a farily decent performer compared to many of the other bombs out there in the epic item loot tables.

[aristarchus1000]

Some nice suggestions regarding the shatterbow.

I hope they do. The House P and House D upgrades were definitely a good change and it has made the runs more fun.

[Sarisa]

Blunted ammo would be great if we actually fought hordes of clay golems.

That doesn't even matter any more for the Clay Golems that you face on epic. The one in eVoN3 and the ones in eWizKing just have Adamantine DR, not Adamantine+Blunt. That change happened in u9, when they also lost some of their elemental immunities.

[Carpone]

It's been 9 months since the House D/House P revisions to epic itemization. I've pretty much given up hope that Sands, Red Fens and VON epics will get epic itemization revisions.