U38 Preview 2: Loot

[Seikojin]

Don't worry, SSG's dislike of this style of play is being expressed very clearly in the current parlous state of the stealth game. What makes it worse is the total lack of developer engagement on the question of what is going to be done to make stealth play better and when that will be happening.

I can understand why Draven is annoyed with the lack of decent assassin gear in u38, especially after the gloves fiasco of Ravenloft, the still broken deception effect on the Echo of Ravenkind trinket, the oddly low MDB on the Mistladen Vestments, the terrible light armour and cloak from the raid, not to mention those lame bracers from Newcomers that were the last bit of gear for high level assassins.

Fortunately for all of us it's still possible to get a workably high DC for difficult endgame content without all the newest gear. Bad gear, whether because it's poorly designed or because it fits in so badly with other gear we use, just isn't worth chasing.

I think you guys really need to look much harder at how you're building gear for people playing assassins at cap. Perhaps we could have a discussion thread that involves people who are playing assassins before any final decisions are made so we can enjoy harder content with the help of new gear rather than despite it.

Thanks.

Priorities. What do you think is lower hanging fruit? Fixing stealth and skill dc killing, which has had patches before, or fixing druids and monks?

And that doesn't even touch the very truthful and accurate content in Steelstars response.

I don't play the stealth game right now because it is not good. I do have toons for it when it is good.

[Renvar]

All of the items listed below can be found in the Test Dojo on Lamannia. They are sold by a vendor near the back of the Dojo just to the left of the section with the trainers.

Hunter of Wilds Short Bow
Damage Dice: 1.5[1d6]/7[1d6+2] (7 is because of Keen)
Critical Profile: 19-20/x3 because of Keen

• Elasticity This bow is strung with special fibers that cause it to occasionally launch arrows with shocking force. When rolling a 19 or 20 on a ranged attack, your critical multiplier is increased by +1.
• Anarchic 3d6/9d6
• Heartseeker I/VII
• Keen I/V
• Red Augment Slot

Stormreach Guardian's Crossbow Repeating Light Crossbow
Damage Dice: 1.5[1d8]/7[1d8+2] (7 is because of Keen)
Critical Profile: 17-20/x2 because of Keen

• Armor Piercing +11/+31
• Keen I/V
• Impactful 3d6/9d6
• Crushing 8d6/20d6 On critical hit
• Red Augment Slot

Short bow? Why a Short Bow? Why not a long bow? What exactly is the benefit to making it a short bow, besides to make it unusable with Favored Soul Silver Flame Diety Feats and Wis/Cha to damage? And to make it d6 die instead of d8. Because Bow DPS is too high?

Please consider switching to a Long Bow.

Also, I included the cross bow because you seem to add a cross bow every single pack.

To be fair, I checked:

U38 - Xbow
U37 - Xbow (A bunch)
U36 - Xbow (2 of them)
U29 - Xbow
U28 - Xbow
U27 - Xbow
U25 - Xbow

Note: there were no weapons of any sort released between U30-U35 besides the Forgotten Axe, Snowball Dart, and the Slavemaster's Staff (A caster stick)
Note 2: U26 offered no new loot. Just the Warlock class release and an update on ToEE loot/set bonuses

So basically, every release since 2015 where new weapons are released, there is a named Xbow.

Compared to Bows:

U38 - Bow
U37 - Bow (Void)
U36 - Nope
U29 - Bow (GS)
U28 - Nope
U27 - Nope
U25 - Bow (Sapphire Sting)

So, you do exactly two named (non-generic/non-crafting systems) long bows in 3 years. Compared to 7-8 named x-bows. And all the named X-Bows are considerably better than the bows. Especially the U37 and U38 ones. These both have Keen, but Heartseeker is not better than armor piercing and two extra damage types vs. one, clearly two is better. The elasticity thing is nice and all, but it doesn't even fully offset the fact that bows have a weaker crit profile than crossbows.

Can we get a named Long Bow that is actually competitive with other ranged weapons, namely X-Bows, please? The fact that rogues can do 2-3 times as much damage with a great xbow (not including sneak damage) and that arti endless fusilade is far and away better DPS with a 1/4th as long cool down over many shot (and that repeating Xbow RoF is crazy good without an action boost) while doing double the damage of a bow is bad enough without itemization also being such a negative.

Please re-evaluate the bow in this pack. Make it a long bow and give it another useful effect so that it is at least on par with the xbow.

[Dreppo]

Short bow? Why a Short Bow? Why not a long bow? What exactly is the benefit to making it a short bow, besides to make it unusable with Favored Soul Silver Flame Diety Feats and Wis/Cha to damage? And to make it d6 die instead of d8.

You seem to be saying short bows shouldn't exist in the game. There actually is a reason to have short bows in the game: bards and rogues get short bow proficiency, but not long bow proficiency. They would have to burn a feat in order to use long bows.

There are far, far more named long bows than short bows. Not counting greensteel and the like, there are only two named short bows: Scorpion Tail Shortbow (ML6 from Redwillow's Ruins) and Collapsible Shortbow (ML10 from the Sands). This will be only the third named short bow, and the only one that's high level.

Yes short bows use a [d6] damage die instead of [d8]. That's 1 less damage, on average, per [W]. Just incorporate that into your DPS calculations when comparing it to other options. If it comes out behind, don't use it?

Of course there's nothing stopping a named weapon from having an unusual damage die. This particular short bow has [d6+2] which is better base damage than standard long bows.

[FuryFlash]

These helmets would become much more desirable if you replace the enhancement stat bonus with an insightful stat bonus.

Many of us have already farmed out our +19 enhancement stat item, and are working towards a +20 raid stat item that totally eclipses your helmets.

Some of these potential insightful stat bonuses don't exist in the game anywhere at all, and this is your chance to provide them.

Of course adding alchemical, profane, house, primal, or holy stat bonuses to these items as well could be nice.

Actually, I really like the helmets with the enhancement bonus as they are now. I'm actually planning to slot one in once this goes live, and if the bonus changed, it would no longer be worthwhile.

[Avocado]

You seem to be saying short bows shouldn't exist in the game. There actually is a reason to have short bows in the game: bards and rogues get short bow proficiency, but not long bow proficiency. They would have to burn a feat in order to use long bows.

There are far, far more named long bows than short bows. Not counting greensteel and the like, there are only two named short bows: Scorpion Tail Shortbow (ML6 from Redwillow's Ruins) and Collapsible Shortbow (ML10 from the Sands). This will be only the third named short bow, and the only one that's high level.

Yes short bows use a [d6] damage die instead of [d8]. That's 1 less damage, on average, per [W]. Just incorporate that into your DPS calculations when comparing it to other options. If it comes out behind, don't use it?

Of course there's nothing stopping a named weapon from having an unusual damage die. This particular short bow has [d6+2] which is better base damage than standard long bows.

They shouldn't exist. The meta of the game is to specialize. I don't see people playing bards, let alone ones that would need or want to use a short bow. Moreover why would a rogue be using a shortbow, knives are the logical option with the int to damage and dex to damage. The d6 +2 is standard on loot 29 and up after ravenloft, so it's not new. Shortbows are dead and should be deleted from the game.

[Renvar]

You seem to be saying short bows shouldn't exist in the game. There actually is a reason to have short bows in the game: bards and rogues get short bow proficiency, but not long bow proficiency. They would have to burn a feat in order to use long bows.

First, Bards, just need to spend 2 AP in warchanter to get all martial weapon proficiencies. So you are incorrect about needing to burn a feat.

Second, Is there a bow build that exists that doesn't make use of ranger, fighter, or elf (for AA tree)? All of which give longbow proficiency.

Why would one want to play a bard or rogue short bow build? Neither class offers any feats or enhancements that provide any benefits to bow use. Bard WC abilities are mostly melee based. Swash precludes bows and only supports throwing weapons. Rogue Assassin is all melee. Mechanic specifically limits every ability to thrown or xbow. TA is all staff.

Sure, those classes get short bow use, but at this point it is a D&D lore thing, and something that allows a primarily melee build to have an option to hit levers and such the few times that some quests need it. But it's certainly not something that needs named items designed around them.


EDIT: Also, I would argue that the need for composite longbow, longbow, and composite short bow and short bow to exist, given the lack of named bows, is questionable. SSG supports Great Xbow, Light Repeater, and Heavy Repeater xbow heavily with new named items of at least one type (sometimes 2) in every release.

[Avocado]

Don't worry, SSG's dislike of this style of play is being expressed very clearly in the current parlous state of the stealth game. What makes it worse is the total lack of developer engagement on the question of what is going to be done to make stealth play better and when that will be happening.

I can understand why Draven is annoyed with the lack of decent assassin gear in u38, especially after the gloves fiasco of Ravenloft, the still broken deception effect on the Echo of Ravenkind trinket, the oddly low MDB on the Mistladen Vestments, the terrible light armour and cloak from the raid, not to mention those lame bracers from Newcomers that were the last bit of gear for high level assassins.

Fortunately for all of us it's still possible to get a workably high DC for difficult endgame content without all the newest gear. Bad gear, whether because it's poorly designed or because it fits in so badly with other gear we use, just isn't worth chasing.

I think you guys really need to look much harder at how you're building gear for people playing assassins at cap. Perhaps we could have a discussion thread that involves people who are playing assassins before any final decisions are made so we can enjoy harder content with the help of new gear rather than despite it.

Thanks.

I don't think they dislike rogues, I just don't think they understand end game assassins well. The ins Dex and ass in same gear slot shows this. But they did a heck of a job on the daggers from the RL raids and a good job on the sentients for rogues. They lack knowledge on what would help assassins beyond dps and DC. Dc is def still an issue and we need an assissinate 9 item that doesn't overlap with a dex item. They need to fix a plethera of stealth bugs that really makes assassins a pain to play. I mostly with they would count tactical DC's in the reaper tree towards assassinate and fix the greatly expanded tremor sense range while stealthed abilties of reapers. My assassin always ends up with aggro of reapers while stealthed because they sense you before you any other mob and before they can see other party memebers

[Grace_ana]

The thought was that Caster Druids - People using Season's Herald for offensive spellcasting - would likely be using two casting implements, and that others who might use the set would be likely to do the same. If a lot of you thought it was likely some might go Implement+ Large Shield instead on a dedicated caster, we might be able to figure something out.

Instead of changing one of the weapons to a shield, I would prefer you guys added a shield in so people have the option. I've really been struggling with the exceptionally limited named item sets we've been getting. If you only choose two weapons OR one weapon and one shield, you are leaving out roughly half the caster druids either way. Give us three options so we can choose two, please

This applies to the arty set as well. I really, really would prefer if the rune arm weren't the only third option. If I'm up against something that doesn't take as much damage (or heals, or is immune) to the elemental damage my rune arm is putting out, I change the rune arm. With a set bonus dependent on the rune arm being equipped, that means that when I swap, I lose a TON more damage. Given that, I am not likely to bother with the set. I'd prefer either a third accessory, or a two piece set, or a 2 piece and 3 piece bonus depending on how many are equipped (a la Abashai Set) so we don't lose everything when swapping.

[blerkington]

Priorities. What do you think is lower hanging fruit? Fixing stealth and skill dc killing, which has had patches before, or fixing druids and monks?

And that doesn't even touch the very truthful and accurate content in Steelstars response.

I don't play the stealth game right now because it is not good. I do have toons for it when it is good.

I didn't say that stealth should have been fixed before the druid and monk class adjustments, so your comment about priorities isn't relevant. Also, I think you do not understand how to prioritise if you think the low-hanging fruit is what should always be addressed first.

There are problems with Ravenloft gear for assassins and there are serious problems with the stealth game. If you spread your time across many alts it's less of an issue, but if you concentrate on that class it's worse. Since assassin gear is added fairly infrequently, it's important that when it is, the developers do a good job of designing it but that has not been happening.

Compulsively defending developers, even when the work they are doing could be much better, is not the path to a better game. Having a conversation about what didn't work well and setting up a better process to avoid these problems in the future is much more useful.

I don't think they dislike rogues, I just don't think they understand end game assassins well. The ins Dex and ass in same gear slot shows this. But they did a heck of a job on the daggers from the RL raids and a good job on the sentients for rogues. They lack knowledge on what would help assassins beyond dps and DC. Dc is def still an issue and we need an assissinate 9 item that doesn't overlap with a dex item. They need to fix a plethera of stealth bugs that really makes assassins a pain to play. I mostly with they would count tactical DC's in the reaper tree towards assassinate and fix the greatly expanded tremor sense range while stealthed abilties of reapers. My assassin always ends up with aggro of reapers while stealthed because they sense you before you any other mob and before they can see other party memebers

My impression of Ravenloft itemisation for melee rogues is that the gear designer didn't try gearing one out to see how it all fit together (both with other RL pieces and existing gear) and use that to decide what adjustments to make.

There are missing effects and duplicated ones on the new gear we got. It did very little to address gearing problem effects like assassination/insightful assassination, doublestrike, healing amp, insightful dexterity and constitution. While some of these effects did appear on Ravenloft gear there are conflicts with other items, and before someone starts up about tough choices, fitting these key effects in at BiS values has been possible before and is not the same as asking to have every useful effect on our gear.

I don't quite agree with you about the raid daggers, though they certainly have some good points. I think it was a mistake to raise the damage done by them (and ML/NM weapons) to be that far ahead of other alternatives like LGS. It's also very odd they were given deception (not the improved deception proc) and wounding over other more useful effects.

Thanks.

[HuneyMunster]

Take comfort in knowing that all four of those item qualities will be found again someday on shiny new items in future updates.

If we actually hated Assassins, there are much easier ways we could show it than simply "not giving this one specific build a new best-in-a lot item every update while other builds have gone years without one". But we don't hate Assassins. They're just not getting a specific, exclusive item this update, which is pretty normal. Noted for the future.

Adding Assassinate DC to Dread Adversary Reaper Tactics would go a long way to help. I think(not test) Quivering Palm even benefit from those enhancements.

[Dreppo]

Adding Assassinate DC to Dread Adversary Reaper Tactics would go a long way to help. I think(not test) Quivering Palm even benefit from those enhancements.

Yes, Quivering Palm benefits from that because it benefits from general tactics bonuses.

Casters, monks, and tactics melee get explicit DC boosts in the reaper trees but assassins don't. They just get the 2 DC out of ability increases in the reaper trees, which all of the previously mentioned classes also get.

[blerkington]

Yes, Quivering Palm benefits from that because it benefits from general tactics bonuses.

Casters, monks, and tactics melee get explicit DC boosts in the reaper trees but assassins don't. They just get the 2 DC out of ability increases in the reaper trees, which all of the previously mentioned classes also get.

The way the reaper trees are set up also works very poorly for INT based assassins.

If they want any sort of bonus to their DCs they have to spend points in the caster tree of all places. Not exactly a triumph of good game design.

Thanks.

[Selvera]

Sure, those classes get short bow use, but at this point it is a D&D lore thing, and something that allows a primarily melee build to have an option to hit levers and such the few times that some quests need it.

Having a returning shuriken takes up less inventory space then a bow and levers don't need to take over 20 damage or even have a "to hit" roll to hit them. It also doesn't uncenter you if you're a monk hybrid.

The only mechanical (aka non flavor) reasons I could possibly think of someone wanting to use shortbows are as follows.
1) They want to make use of the gnome racial enhancements.
2) They want to make use of the elf racial enhancements which buff scimitars (so maybe a ranger focused on melee who wants a bow as a swap item).
3) They are a melee rogue or bard who needs to break the crystals in the shroud or kill a fear reaper in a spot which they can't reach in melee.
4) They have or want to use good named shortbows.

Now, point number 4 seems to be unlikely, since the only good named shortbow in the game is the epic collapsable shortbow, and if they farmed that then they have way too much free time on their hands. The shortbow in this update is far, far from good enough to make #4 have any case.

Point #1 seems to be unlikely, since gnome racial enhancements also work with light repeating crossbows, which have much better named items and are better weapons in general, and gnome's int-bonuses are likely to gravitate more towards the int-based artificer and rogue classes which have heavy crossbow support and not bow support.

Which leaves points #2 and #3; and for these, I guess this shortbow actually works ok. It will deal not-negligible damage with 0 investment for classes who happen to have bow proficiency as a side effect of the class they picked. However, to fill this role well, I'd argue for dex-to-damage as a built in option for the bow (in addition to everything it has now).

However we all know we'd prefer points #1 or #4 to have any valid reasons behind them, and want the bow to have better damage for investment-included builds, such as giving it an 18-20 x3 profile, and swapping the keen out for 15%/25% ranged alacrity or vulnerability stacking.

Or alternately; give it some nice utility, like reworking the entire bow to the following:

Hunter of Wilds Short Bow (Rework)
Damage Dice: 1.5[1d6]/5[1d6+2]
Critical Profile: 17-20/x2

Target Acquired: Critical hits apply "Mark of the Hunted" to the target for 1 minute.
Anarchic 3d6/9d6
Paralyzing DC 17/50 ? - subject to balancing
Bodyfeeder I/II - On a natural 20 the target takes 1d2/2d3 negative levels and gives the wielder of this bow 15/75 hit temporary hit points and 5/10 temporary spell points. Both temporary buffs expire after 1 minute.
Red Augment Slot

And there we have a low damage bow which might actually be used.

[valkrei]

This isn't a criticism of these specific poisonous items per se. But, I do want to note that there hasn't been a named poisonous short sword added to the game since the MotU expansion in June of 2012. That's roughly six years.

Thematically and when it comes to their class enhancements, assassin rogues and ninja spy monks are the characters that should have appealing named poisonous weapons. The named poisonous items that have been added to the game since 2012 are weapons that monks and rogues either lack proficiency in or they cannot remain centered while using them, or they cannot apply stacks of ninja poisons while using them because they're not bladed weapons.

Every update for the past the six years, I check release notes to see if there's a poisonous named melee weapon that is usable by assassins and ninja spies. And there isn't...

I suspect that this is an oversight in the named item design because it doesn't track with how other named weapons are designed for this game. For instance, bard's occasionally get named weapons added to the game that deal sonic damage and those are weapons that they're proficient in. And artificers occasionally get weapons added to the game that deal electric damage and those are weapons that they're proficient in. Etc. etc.

But ninja spy monks and assassin rogues haven't gotten a single named poisonous melee weapon for six years that they can use. The highest minimum level poisonous named shortsword is ML 20.

I found poison to not hit many things or immune ect ect issues. With the metaline would that be different?

[valkrei]

Something like this would be cool and to the point:



Head

Mighty Stormreach Guardian's Helm Helm

• Strength +7/+19
• Insightful Strength+?/+9
• Feather Fall
• Blue Augment Slot

new helms lack augment slots and why not STR and Inisghtful Str on the same item for example? And augments should be better.

[valkrei]

No.

Raid gear should always be superior to noraid gear.
High grind gear should always be superior to low grind gear.

I am not expecting +20 enhancement stat out of a quest duneon, and would object if it appeared.

What I do object is that Ravenloft brought us a multiple version of +19 enhancement items for every single stat along with the possibility of +20 enhancement stat items, yet half the insightful stat ability stats are not supported.

What I do object is that the Devs seem to want to offer more and more types of bonuses but are unwilling to combine two or more bonuses of the same stat on the same item.



I can understand and definately respect your point of view.
Its a matter of perspective.

Given that Insightful Stat is up to a potential of +9, Quality is up to a potential of +4, Profane is up to a potential of +2, these add up to +15 stat bonus which is hard to ignore.

So, the Devs can seek to cover all the basics or seek to add diversity, hopefully given enough time, both will be dealt with.

Its a bit sad that Warlocks have better Insightful Stats than Fighters, imho...

imo the raid armor from baba and COS should have been better.

[Renvar]

Having a returning shuriken takes up less inventory space then a bow and levers don't need to take over 20 damage or even have a "to hit" roll to hit them. It also doesn't uncenter you if you're a monk hybrid.

The only mechanical (aka non flavor) reasons I could possibly think of someone wanting to use shortbows are as follows.
1) They want to make use of the gnome racial enhancements.
2) They want to make use of the elf racial enhancements which buff scimitars (so maybe a ranger focused on melee who wants a bow as a swap item).
3) They are a melee rogue or bard who needs to break the crystals in the shroud or kill a fear reaper in a spot which they can't reach in melee.
4) They have or want to use good named shortbows.

Now, point number 4 seems to be unlikely, since the only good named shortbow in the game is the epic collapsable shortbow, and if they farmed that then they have way too much free time on their hands. The shortbow in this update is far, far from good enough to make #4 have any case.

Point #1 seems to be unlikely, since gnome racial enhancements also work with light repeating crossbows, which have much better named items and are better weapons in general, and gnome's int-bonuses are likely to gravitate more towards the int-based artificer and rogue classes which have heavy crossbow support and not bow support.

Which leaves points #2 and #3; and for these, I guess this shortbow actually works ok. It will deal not-negligible damage with 0 investment for classes who happen to have bow proficiency as a side effect of the class they picked. However, to fill this role well, I'd argue for dex-to-damage as a built in option for the bow (in addition to everything it has now).

However we all know we'd prefer points #1 or #4 to have any valid reasons behind them, and want the bow to have better damage for investment-included builds, such as giving it an 18-20 x3 profile, and swapping the keen out for 15%/25% ranged alacrity or vulnerability stacking.

Or alternately; give it some nice utility, like reworking the entire bow to the following:

Hunter of Wilds Short Bow (Rework)
Damage Dice: 1.5[1d6]/5[1d6+2]
Critical Profile: 17-20/x2

Target Acquired: Critical hits apply "Mark of the Hunted" to the target for 1 minute.
Anarchic 3d6/9d6
Paralyzing DC 17/50 ? - subject to balancing
Bodyfeeder I/II - On a natural 20 the target takes 1d2/2d3 negative levels and gives the wielder of this bow 15/75 hit temporary hit points and 5/10 temporary spell points. Both temporary buffs expire after 1 minute.
Red Augment Slot

And there we have a low damage bow which might actually be used.

Point 2 is invalidated because elves get Longbow proficiency automatically as well, so switching it to a longbow would not be a problem there.

Point 3, are we really making legendary named items for 1 class (rogue, because Bards can get proficiency in longbow from warchanter in t1) to use occassionally to kill crystals and fear reapers? Because you REALLY think a rogue is going to use a shortbow for that instead of a great crossbow? Which, as you noted, do waaaaaaay more damage and rogues get all kinds of bonuses for.

I really hope the developers have not decided to invest time and effort to make a named shortbow for the benefit of two classes that will never use them to the detriment of clerics and favored souls who do. There are a lot of FvS wis/cha to damage sliver flame bow builds actually in game right now. Using bows as their primary DPS option. Void is not a very strong option. A decent named bow for end game play would be appreciated.

[Dreppo]

Point 2 is invalidated because elves get Longbow proficiency automatically as well, so switching it to a longbow would not be a problem there.

I think you misunderstood Point 2. Elves get an enhancement line that buffs your choice of "short bows and scimitars" or "long bows and long swords".

[Selvera]

Point 2 is invalidated because elves get Longbow proficiency automatically as well, so switching it to a longbow would not be a problem there.

Through racial enhancements, assuming that they take the ones that increase the damage of scimitars, a shortbow would do +4 damage in heroics, which would be offset (on average) by the bigger damage die in epics and thus make longbow better even with sidelined investment into shortbows.

What I'm saying is that the reasons to use a shortbow are very few and far between, and this shortbow isn't good enough as presented to be worth being a shortbow. My suggestions above address this issue in multiple ways, depending on what the developers actually want/what their design goals for this item are.

If you make it a longbow, it might be in the same ballpark of damage as the top 3 longbows right now (Epic Sapphire Sting, Morninglord, Void) - Which by my math all do fairly similar amounts of damage on most builds. As noted above, a lot of the recent longbow complaining comes from the fact that crossbows seem to get a new best-in-slot named weapon every single update, while the longbow from 12 (soon to be 13) updates ago is still arguably the best endgame longbow in the game.

[Cetus]

Devs, you guys still haven't addressed the *complete* absence of Insightful strength +9 items in the game. Multiple pieces of loot having this effect would be very useful to customize gear sets, as 1 item would pretty much make that best in slot for str-based melees.