First Look: U31 Named Loot

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Kinda out of date but these look like loot for quests not raids so that's ok.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