U23 Items Feedback thread

[UurlockYgmeov]

Quiver of Alacrity (-50 skill for -8 level), and it looks great for a quiver item otherwise- but we need some sort of flavor text to explain why concentration is being affected, 'cause, let me tell ya, it doesn't make all that much (RP) sense at a glance.

much better way to handle this. -50 is the worst cursed item by far. I have every toon that I can wear the quiver of alacrity because it frees up one or several slots from level 1.

Even casters.

Especially casters.

Now don't think I will even have this for any toon except primary - and just to joke link instead of the Club of the Holy Flame (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Club_of_the_Holy_Flame ). I am serious about it.

On the Belt of Thoughtful Remembrance-
It's been years and a ton of additional levels. I think it's time we add Superior and Troll's and Greater Troll's and Epic and so forth Regeneration in, and not just keep relying on the old, so barely not entirely useless, regeneration tiers.
Potency aside, it just feels kinda pathetic and sad having such a profoundly low-tier heroic effect on a high level epic item.
That is to say, it'd be like finding Resistance: 15 on level 27 item.

I loved seeing the Epic BoTR. Use a level 11 version, and a level 13 version of it right up to epic. Like it overall - but must agree with Dagolar on this point. Swap out the regeneration for healing amp - or make the regeneration epic.

DECEPTION . Improved Deception at level 28 is just like Regeneration. Epify it! Epic Deception.

[Portalcat]

So, everything is BtA right? So there's still no meaningful incentive left in the entire game to farm something to sell on the ASAH?

[UurlockYgmeov]

So, everything is BtA right? So there's still no meaningful incentive left in the entire game to farm something to sell on the ASAH?

Slayer/Quest loot BtAoA.

Raid loot BtCoA.

Plenty of other things to go farm and sell. GH / HHoE / Wheloon / High Road / Stormhorns / MotU items.

[G_Lich]

Keep in mind the ML of this

150Force - Good
22% Kinetic - Good
Spiked Guard - Flavor (No arti has enough defense to stay in melee unless he's splashing, and that's where the EP go)
Spiked - OK (Extras)
Imbue - Weak (Yes it's piercing, I saw yellow numbers on liches, and purple numbers on vampires, decent rock paper scissors here, but arti's aren't looking for a swap, especially on their force source)
Augments - Standard and expected


Shot pattern: It's still a horizontal fan on targets - Most end-game runearms are fans, great for short races, horrible for hallways. Please adopt Tira's splendor's spiral pattern - It would be 403% cooler (If you needed the numbers). The delay-per-shot is a nice new mechanic, but it feels very slow. I've found in playing with it that you can target-self to drop your target and control the subsequent shots, solving the AOE problem if you wanted (Much like you can self-target to dump an AOE Wild Shots, more on that later). Please drop the fan and take a more direct approach, and speed up the Rate of Fire by about 100%.

Shot projectile: Knives OK however the model for the knife is decidedly NOT epic - It's a masterwork dagger. Can we get a sprite effect on the knives at least? I can barely tell these things exist in the middle of combat, with party members spamming spells, and enemies throwing aura's and rays. How about different knife models? (It does say "various")

Shot damage: Weak - In EE it looked to be higher damage than corruption of nature when compared. Because runearm DC's are still hilariously low, every shot is saved out, and half-damage is the best you can hope for. Even though this is "Free" damage, it takes time to charge, and keeps the DPS low (It is only meant to be supplemental damage I understand, but when an *EVADE EVADE EVADE EVADE EVADE shot lands and doesn't do %3 of a single trash mob's HP, its not worth the 30AP it takes to keep the thing charged while running, and the spellpower boost out of battle engineer is not enough to worry about a 3-stack constantly charged. In a perfect world, this runearm should fire Wild Shots with NO SAVE - the cooldown to the next shot would be quicker than the ability itself, but considering the investment... It should be worth it. If we have to stick with a fan, I want wild shots. I love that this can fire a straight beam of knives, though, but it's pure flavor.

Art: Toven's Hammer? I hope this is still In-progress - Epic Endgame needs Epic Art - Please please please, change this - I can't stress this hard enough - If new art is completely out of the cards at least kit-bash a mini blade barrier on it (ex. General Tagherist). Or steal something off the Magefire Cannon - The 3-Barrels on the St. Mu'Ray's Fire are out of alignment by the way, that wheel will eventually fall off.

If I consider the shot damage weak, then why try to appease the artificers? Because it can be good. I've been there when Runearms were great - Before the spellpower switch. Artificers are rare these days, juggernauts may make a comeback with the new armor/melee changes, but traditionalists are left out in the cold. Splashing is the only way to get decent value out of your EP. Modifying one runearm to be "OP" will still not make it overpowered, because it requires so much Artificer - (I keep my artificer w/ the most PL's as my main, I really want it to be good, but it's hard without splashing)

---

More general thoughts - Recent runearms are severely lackluster, and this is supposed to be a major class feature, Runearms DESTROY in heroic. They fall flat right about level 19. Maybe I'm underestimating the benefit of being able to use this WHILE using a ranged item, but it's not much different than a spell-spammer who can take an orb and get the same force/kinetic/augments.

I was really hoping to be impressed, and while it's impressive on paper, I currently see it as a boring-looking letdown because it is weak, and weak is not fun, especially if you have to spend 30 enhancement points to take advantage of it.

[G_Lich]

MYTHIC SERAPHIM:

Sacred and Hallowed are redundant with Eternal faith - Expected by reading them, Tested item specifically (Hoping for a bug or design flaw) on Lamannia on my Turn-Cleric. These may as well be called "Glitter" and "Gloss" or "Textspam"

A. If you're thinking of making these all seperate bonuses, great, but it won't get turning to pass 59

B. These are obviously the same buff, the only thing that does something more than Eternal Faith is the Silver Flame (which adds +2 Max HD, which isn't a major concern, and is literally 1.5-2% of the final Max on a turn build)

[Silverleafeon]

Overall I was extremely pleased with the level of loot in U23. I was a bit worried that it might end up being more power creep and make even more older content obsolete (+12 stats, +5 insight, etc..) but was really happy to see that it is competitive with, but not completely replacing stormhorns/thunderholme level loot. Good stuff, different and interesting. Right on the mark IMO.

Steel is a rather clever Dev.
He dropped an interesting post in the middle of the Player's Council (like the apple in mount Olympus then watched from afar...lol...

End result was a huge discussion on what the future of loot should be for the next two years...

[Desonde]

Here are my thoughts;

Epic Purging the Pantheon:
Protection and the Absorption effects seem too low.
Improved Quelling Strikes sounds very weak with a lot of hoops to jump through (5-10% chance that your target (assuming non-boss target) has 3 second window where they have a 50% chance to not be able to cast divine spells). By level 28 unless Quelling can lock down a single target and slow down bosses it does nothing for the DPS is king state of the game.

Knives Eternal:
Seems very mesh-massed; if knife shot is the selling point of this item it needs to have a much more detailed description of what it does and how the charges affect it.
Spiked Guard is very niche, so much so that I can only see it being used in one very specific splash build.
The Imbue is weak for the current state of the game play, especially at lvl 27.
Impulse and Lore are good.
Spiked, would probably be better off switch the imbue to 10d6 and dropping this.

Epic Ring of Unknown Origins:
Feels like a lvl 20-23(solely because of the double augment) item.
Poison/Disease need to be 16-20, and whirlwind guard doesn't protect against the thing people will want it to protect them against.
I think this item should be redesigned completely.

The four pieces of armor:
They are ok, Insightful Constitution, Insightful Spell Save, Persuasion, Haste Guard, and Elemental Resistance are too weak for a lvl 27 armor.
Constitution shouldn't be any less than +4, Epic Persuasion instead of Persuasion, Epic Haste Guard, at least +6 spell saves, 45 resists.

Epic Quiver of Alacrity:
Not going to use it, -15% hate and +5% attack speed is not worth the -50 concentration on my rogue or arti.
Add doubleshot 15-25% and I'd consider the -50 conc. or Insightful Sneak attack 20, but I'd probably just keep the non-epic version to swap when I need to cast scrolls in combat.

Silver Lining:
Feels like a lvl 24 item:
+8 is too low, needs to be +10 or 11.
Double Strike 6 is too low, needs to be 10-14%.
Resistance is too low, needs to be 11-12.
Hardened Spikes is too little, needs to be 10d6 or add the 2-6 to all weapon melee weapon damage.

Emerald Twilight:
Feels like a lvl 24 item:
+8 is too low, needs to be 10-11.
Reposte VII isn't bad, if the rest of the shield was decent this could pass, but consdier VIII or IX (Epic Ethereal Bracers are a better shield than this shield in all accounts).
Guardbreaking is very weak.
Speed XV is great, but not enough to carry the item.

The Falling Darkness:
Feels half done;
+8 is too low, needs to be 10-11.
Sheltering is good.
Natural Armor is good.
Spearblock has no place on any item lvl 18+ since prr directly reduces it's effectiveness (with no feats or prr from any other source the -14 piercing damage is reduced to -12 from the sheltering ability alone).

Epic Cloak of Ice:
The guard effects seem pretty weak, it's very easy to UMD fire shield scrolls than to take up two item ability slots.
Freezing Ice needs to have a DC of 55+ to be on a lvl 27 item.

Mythic Muffled Veneer:
Definitely not worthy of being a Mythic item.
No one is going to Shadow Walk for 14 minutes so that's not an issue,
Hide/MS +20 can be obtained on many lvl 20 epic items.
Reflex Save +10 is easily surpassed by +10 resistance loot gen.
Assassination +4 is not enough to make this item both ml 27 and Mythic.

Epic Eye of the Beholder:
Only works on doomsphere, 8 charges are too few especially for a creature with so much health that these aren't going to matter (and it's exclusive so you can't fill your inventory with them).
The other effects are ok, but not enough to pursue the item.

Epic Emerald Gaze:
Feels weak,
The +20 intimidate can be overlooked if the rest of the item is good (as it is with many of the other items in the pack).
Shatter doesn't have much effect to the game.
Will save is going to be obtained from a all encompassing item.
Immunity to Fear comes with greater heroism.
And Fearsome isn't what melee characters want (does it have a DC?).

Epic Fanged Gloves:
Wisdom isn't an Arcane Stat.

Epic Locus if Vol:
Apart from the Vitality +40 and the dual augments there isn't an effect higher than you can get from a ml20 item.

All other items are great.

[kmoustakas]

Runearm feedback: for me it's an automatic lock to use. I use ruin a lot, I use blade barrier a lot, I want to save my augment on the repeater for a damage effect. Lock. I don't even know how/what the shot. I hope it does some damage.

[poltt48]

Okay I played a little bit more in epic orchard and noticed something you get 2 epic taps per rare encounter or quest complete but you need 120 for a normal augment or 120 master taps for a orange/purple/green augment slot. I have not seen a single master tap guessing they drop in raid. Got to say you got to be insane if you think running 60 quests or killing 60 rares in explorer for 1 augment slot. Especially when everyone will want multiple items from expansion with 2 slots each your talking hundreds of runs just to put augment slots on items.

[patang01]

The Rune Arm shot is a little different than any of the other ones. Give it a try if you get a chance.

As for the Armors, unlike Shadowscale, they aren't Raid Loot, and shouldn't necessarily be as strong as Shadowscale as a result.

I tried the run arm and I love it. The damage seems to be untyped as suppose to force, which is really nice, and the shot pattern is 'homing' but not as wide as force and acid, and more like firing several homing knives. As I can see it, since they're not fired in wide left and right archs, most of the knives do not miss. And that's a good thing. Really well done.

For the armor; I get that it's no raid loot, but I assume you want people to actually use these armor. And as a player I look at utility; what would get me to drop what I already use to pick this up? And adding an insightful +4 con expands the type of items that has this other then the necklace from haunted hauls. If I can easily find +3 con elsewhere then I won't really consider the armor at all (and face it, haste guard is not going to convenience me at all). Plus that would add synerge with the items that both provide +11 con and +11 strength and +4 insightful.

BTW, it's not about ultimate power. If that sounds too much then lower something else. There should be trade offs, but there should always be a carrot, or else you create loot no one use. Which I hope isn't your desire.

[patang01]

Player asks if rune arm will have the terrible buggy to aim get lost in the terrian shot like others on live...

You say try it!

I will when it hits live!

However if this rune arm shot actually is useable maybe it's worth fixing the other shot types they are aweful.


Still I would not add this rune arm to my arsenal /not impressed

The imbue is pierce that's likely to be useless on half the endgame mobs undead etc.. And the 10% proc of 10d6 is not much different than a second imbue of 1d6.

I guess for a force spec caster Arti it's ok otherwise nothing special

Honestly, the rune arm is awesome. The range of hits is untyped. I noticed everything from 400 in damage to 3000 per hit. They're not AOE hits so no silly reflex saves.

[Sebastrd]

Paladins aren't the only Lawful Good characters. And not every item needs to work well for every class.

That's true, not everything does. However, the new Litany is light years ahead of anything else in that slot at that level; it is literally the best accessory in the game. EVERY character will want to wear it because of its unique bonuses.

[patang01]

Turbine

Let me suggest something. Speaking for me alone of course, but also with a basic idea what people in general look for - the loot are okay, some even combines many different hard to slot items. Some are really powerful, others are okay and some won't be used at all.

But if you look at the armor and helmets, you're going to notice that few of those won't be used at all. And it's not that they're bad, but they don't offer a compelling reason to use compared ot the stuff that's already out there. Particularly since this is near end cap stuff and these won't be part of a ETR cycle, but more a end raid or end grind cycle. And they're in direct competition with dragon scale EG armor and shadowscale.

The idea behind the set bonus is good. To be able to combine all type of helmet and armor with the set bonus feature is smart. There's nothing special about the set bonus but it's the little extra for combining two items. But the problem with the items is that they're not all that useful. They don't fill that 'must sharpen the stick' niche that end gear does. Look at minos legen. I love the idea of a epic (type EN) and the mythic (type EE - and I really suggest for these to drop on EH and EE only, give an incentive for people to run for it). But Minos Legen at level 11 represent a hard to slot item that adds 2 good features. Heavy Fort and stacking HP. At 11 it is used almost all the way till 20 (if not beyond). At 28 it's in competition with items that are much harder to slot and sharpens the stick significantly. Fort items are legion at that point and so are stacking HP. The set bonus won't cut it and looking at the armor, there's no real incentive.

Here's my suggestion. At a +1 luck bonus to all abilities as set bonus. Mentally it'll be the same as adding +4 insightful con and it adds that little extra that helps people consider it. You want people to go 'hmm, I can use that' instead of putting it in the bank and maybe use it on a different toon. Maybe. I mean how many will plow down considerable amount of epic or masterful tapestries to unlock the augment slots on something with little or temporary use?

Also add a caster armor/rob. Call it the Fractal Robe. Add +3 insightful to Charisma, wisdom and intelligence. 110 potency and a colors of the queen proc every 30 second. Then of course the set bonus feature and the 2 augments. It's not a uber armor, but it's the one item that makes it possible to get that +1 luck bonus to all abilities, making it a +4 bonus. That's sharpening the stick. It adds potency that helps secondary and rarely used spells and the color of the queen is just something something, without being over powering. Make it 45 seconds if you think that's too good.

Now you have items people will consider. I also suggest adding the set bonus to the raid helmet. You want it to be considered as part of a bigger solution. And given that and say the fractal robe (make that an raid item if you want) you have a desired item set. Not over powering. Not super duper, but a considerable temptation compared to say going with the shadow scale armor. The shadowscale armor is still a completely different type of bonus and definately desired - but this allows people to consider say sharpening the ability point total or the DC total. And notice that you can't get both - you're going to have to make a choice. Necro set, or shadowscale.

Please consider this; I hate for you to make items that people don't use. I don't want super duper items. I want that little extra. I want to look at all my gear slots and see an enticing mosaic of choices. It helps we waste considerable time in DDO and chase that little something.

Anyways, thanks for considering.

[Dilbon]

That's true, not everything does. However, the new Litany is light years ahead of anything else in that slot at that level; it is literally the best accessory in the game. EVERY character will want to wear it because of its unique bonuses.

Some incentive not to run a paladin splash.

[patang01]

Okay I played a little bit more in epic orchard and noticed something you get 2 epic taps per rare encounter or quest complete but you need 120 for a normal augment or 120 master taps for a orange/purple/green augment slot. I have not seen a single master tap guessing they drop in raid. Got to say you got to be insane if you think running 60 quests or killing 60 rares in explorer for 1 augment slot. Especially when everyone will want multiple items from expansion with 2 slots each your talking hundreds of runs just to put augment slots on items.

Hopefully the drop rate in the quests and the raid will be higher. I'm actually for this. We need a reason to grind over time. As long as the drop rate is adjusted so it gives you say a reasonable time to upgrade 1 item. Not 3-4 months, but certainly not a few days. Plus the mats are unbound and the only tradeable part in the pack. Good. As long as the over all drop rate between quests, raid and wilderness gives a fair time frame I'm all for it. Instantly unlocking features or having to do mind boggling amount of runs are not good. But 'taking time' is not bad either. It adds to incentives - one to actually keep running the pack over time and 1 to get the items. Getting 2-3 taps for just fighting mobs is not bad at all. I did a full run and got 25 from rares and mobs. That's a little over a fifth in a run. That seems okay with me.

[Loromir]

So far as I know, Paladins indeed are the only class required to be Good.

The fact that other classes may choose to be Good misses the point; Paladin's can't choose not to be Good.

I don't really have a problem with this mechanic. If you consider the lore of the area, it is purely evil...everything about it is evil. So, why wouldn't the items created there have a taint of evil? It might suck that as a Paladin, you can't use such item, but hey, you are a Paladin...you're LAWFUL GOOD...you should want to use items created of such evil.

[Caprice]

The new +4 insightful strength item hurts paladin's quite a bit too, further devaluing divine might.

Why not devalue Divine Might? In my opinion it is not a good thing that almost every min-max melee build has to splash a divine class right now specifically to get DM, and personally I am all for further devaluing the Paladin 2 splash in particular. Besides +4 is really easy to beat anyway anyway with DM. +7 is trivial to reach at cap (e.g. 8 base +3 tome +10 item +2 insight +1 exceptional), and the heavy CHA builds are pushing +20 bonuses already. Is a +4 item really that much of a threat? Throw the Barbarians and Rangers and Fighters a little bone.

[Loromir]

... So there's still no meaningful incentive left in the entire game to farm something to sell on the ASAH?

I would submit that this is not the goal of this game. The ASAH, is nothing more than icky sweet frosting on the cake. I tend to scrape the frosting off before I eat cake, but some people like it.

[painkiller3]

Epic Mentau's goggles look very strong.

[Caprice]

Paladins aren't the only Lawful Good characters. And not every item needs to work well for every class.

I have no issue at all with the Taint of Evil items, and I am all for items that don't work well for every class. I am less keen about effects that penalize people for choices they made that they may not have understood at the time.

So I want to consider this assertion about Lawful Good characters. I am sure that there are lots of characters that have LG as their alignment. It is not required for any class other than Paladin, and no min-max player is LG except if they are taking Paladin levels because it has penalties (e.g. increased Chaotic and Evil damage taken) with few upsides (e.g. early access to Pure Good items, which are easily bypassed in twinking). So why is it a common choice? Some people probably make that choice for role playing reasons, but I suspect that the vast majority of the non-Paladin players who are Lawful Good did not pick it deliberately. Why? Because LG is the default alignment setting in the character creation process for any class that is not restricted from being LG. And since that selection is made on the cosmetics screen of all places it is both fairly easy to overlook it and also to assume that it does not have an impact in the game. After all my choice of character name or skin or hair/cranium color or style doesn't affect how the game plays, right*? So why would anything else on that screen? Yet alignment choice does and that is completely obfuscated by its placement.

Which leads me back onto the topic of this gear: in this case I think that it is rough to penalize those characters who did not understand the consequences of that obfuscated choice 27 levels later. IMO this was adequately addressed in the heroic version by the ability to cleanse the effect. I think that a similar option should be available again here. If you really want to specifically and permanently penalize Paladins when using these items then maybe that should be an additional effect that is Paladin class specific (just like there are a few items that require levels in the Paladin class). Or at least put the store alignment changes on sale more often. :-/

* In terms of game mechanics that is. These can affect interactions with other players, of course.


Off topic: If you moved the alignment selection to the attribute screen and gave it proper tips, or perhaps set some other alignment as the default (e.g. TN or NG) then I am pretty sure that the number of new non-Paladin characters that are LG would plummet. However changing the default is not ideal because people could equally well become angry after discovering later in their character's life that the new default prevents them from taking Monk and Paladin ubersplashes. But giving alignment better placement and explanations of its consequences in the character creation screens would be fantastic and I do not see any downside other than that older players would need to adjust to picking it earlier in the process.