Sharn Raid 2 Preview: 7/9-7/11

[Ordinary]

In the raid, I got the "blue" buff but the quest would not let me enter the blue elemental room. Running into the relevant circle ported everyone else with the buff, but not me. I ran in out several times, to no avail.

On a different run I did get ported after leaving the port point and running in again.

[jskinner937]

They won't be putting dust on this axe. Imagine if they did, a great axe with raid weighted dice that stacks dust and vulnerability and can have a sentient jewel attached to it. That would be like making another esos power level 2hander.

Thats why it's "taboo".

But GA crit range is not eSoS. And Dust and vulnerability have limits on the amounts they stack and if more than one is applying all it does is stack faster. Once you hit the max it doesn’t matter anymore. THF needs love anyway at end game. Maybe exclude wolf from the extras.

[Lencrennis]

Hi, everyone!

Not downloading Llama, but I'm curious. What is the raid actually against?

[SerPounce]

They won't be putting dust on this axe. Imagine if they did, a great axe with raid weighted dice that stacks dust and vulnerability and can have a sentient jewel attached to it. That would be like making another esos power level 2hander.

Thats why it's "taboo".

Every 2wf build already has all that...

2HF is both mechanically worse and has worse itemization. Whether it's casters with staffs vs. sticks or melees with 2hf vs. 2wf there's this bizarre lack of understanding that items that take two slots to use need to be better than items that take only one. It's baffling that this is apparently such a difficult concept.

[lyrecono]

Every 2wf build already has all that...

2HF is both mechanically worse and has worse itemization. Whether it's casters with staffs vs. sticks or melees with 2hf vs. 2wf there's this bizarre lack of understanding that items that take two slots to use need to be better than items that take only one. It's baffling that this is apparently such a difficult concept.

Yeah, itimization for 2handed is so poorly done, devs don't seem to understand why it is so far behind., 2wf can debuff and dps at the same time (in a far higher rate too)
The other issue i often see is augment slots. Slotting spellpower, damage, special effects, etc is impossible because we loose the first slot to dr breaking (often dr good). The second to a metal type (or the mabar ghost touch in heroics).
2wf and swf can easily slot whatever spell power or debuff item they like.

.
[*]"Baz'Morath, the Curator of Decay" (Raid Greataxe) now has the effect "Disease: Unholy Tear: This weapon saps the vitality from your enemies, dealing 10d6 Evil damage on each hit to Good enemies. It also has a chance to spread its disease whenever you strike an enemy, which will reduce their Armor Class and Positive Healing Amplification.".[/LIST]

Funny you should mention that... the Greataxe, Kukri, and Repeater all got a bit of a facelift and some mechanical tweaks to make them fit the theme of the raid a little more. They should each feel a little better power-wise, too

No thanks
I had no reason to participate in the "thth" raid due to poor loot and more important, i already burned my hands on killing time.
Months of farming to upgrade a sword that became useles a month later. (When sharn saves made the effect useless)
Combined with the loot attitude (the 2year old slavelord crafting system being more complete then any thing that was published in the 2 years that came after) and the attitude towards 2h weapons(and playstyle in general), i see no reason to pick this up at all.

I'm sick and tired of farming items that don't work out of the box, get invalidated a moth after getting it, in an enviroment where you can't even get a competent raid party together outside of the US prime time.

That is, if players even want to play the content, riding the storm is considered to play so poorly, no one raid savy over here wants to run it.

If you sold expension packs in the future with and with out the raids, i would opt for the raidless one, it's becomming less and less bang for your buck.

[Zretch]

The family's blessing (quest item for neck) is poorly customized. It is supposed to be an item for a melee build but there is a +2 quality assasinate? Pretty useless for most of the melees except for assasin builds. Also the other stats are not very compatible with the non raid item. This would require to almost completely rearrange the gear in order to make it useful. I think it could be kept with same stats as the non-raid family's blessing neck piece but with added some sort of bonus that would be useful to all melees and would not require to rearrange all the other stats among the other pieces of equipement.

Thanks.

The raid necklace isn't the worst offender for a raid upgrade. The raid gloves take that crown. Raid gloves with BiS doublestrike that actually break the Part of the Family set bonus, leaving you with less doublestrike than you had originally. (24 DS in raid gloves - 11 DS on PotF gloves - 15 DS on PotF set bonus). Wearing those gloves as a melee pretty much means you go back to silent avenger + adherent of the mists just to not take a giant step backwards in both doublestrike and melee power (22 DS on Mantle of Fury, 11 iDS on Hammerfist, and 15 aDS on PotF set is 48 doublestrike vs 34 on Raid gloves + Lore Fueled). At that point, you're at 9 slots dedicated to the raid gloves + SA (3) + AotM (5), leaving not much left for anything else. Why aren't the gloves part of the Part of the Family set? The world may never know.

[Fivetigers33]

The raid necklace isn't the worst offender for a raid upgrade. The raid gloves take that crown. Raid gloves with BiS doublestrike that actually break the Part of the Family set bonus, leaving you with less doublestrike than you had originally. (24 DS in raid gloves - 11 DS on PotF gloves - 15 DS on PotF set bonus). Wearing those gloves as a melee pretty much means you go back to silent avenger + adherent of the mists just to not take a giant step backwards in both doublestrike and melee power (22 DS on Mantle of Fury, 11 iDS on Hammerfist, and 15 aDS on PotF set is 48 doublestrike vs 34 on Raid gloves + Lore Fueled). At that point, you're at 9 slots dedicated to the raid gloves + SA (3) + AotM (5), leaving not much left for anything else. Why aren't the gloves part of the Part of the Family set? The world may never know.

+1

Devs please listen to Zretch.

[Lynnabel]

Given that the itemization hasn't actually released yet, there's still time to make changes and respond to feedback. If you'd like something to change, I would strongly recommend constructive feedback that clearly explains what you actually want (instead of nonconstructive feedback that tells me what you do not like or tells me what you hope I'm naive enough to include :P). I'm willing to work with what you guys want, within reason

To that end, if I were to place Doublestrike on the raid necklace, what would be the best thing to replace?

Follow up, do you guys have suggestions on how to make the Adamantine Gauntlets more unique or situationally useful?

[cru121]

Hi, everyone!

Not downloading Llama, but I'm curious. What is the raid actually against?

Lieutenant Zaira Dane of the Dark Lanterns has asked you to confront the mysterious invaders who are attempting to release Project Nemesis into the world. Head to the Hazardous Prototype Repository to prevent them from opening the vault.

When you enter the quest, you find yourself in a giant cannith-style room with your favorite adversaries from Sharn quests (Irk, that gnoll, etc, etc). They are the invaders. They got a couple constructs working on some puzzles.

Then Irk shot me dead.

While dead I watched how they opened the vault in a couple minutes and that's when I got kicked out of the raid.

[Vorachtin]

To that end, if I were to place Doublestrike on the raid necklace, what would be the best thing to replace?

Deception 18

[Fivetigers33]

Follow up, do you guys have suggestions on how to make the Adamantine Gauntlets more unique or situationally useful?

As explained before. The problem with these gauntlets is that they are not part of the Part of the Family Set. Anyone that would be interested in what these gloves offer, will be more attracted to the Part of the Family set bonuses.

So you can either make them part of the set, or completely redo them and make them have nothing to do with melee DPS.

I know for myself as a melee player, there is nothing within reason that you can add or change about these gloves that would make me put them on and break my set bonus. If they break DR, I will find another way to break that DR. Any stat they have that I care about, I will gear with other slots.

It sounds like you guys are doing the ole "trying to fit a square peg through a round hole" with these gloves. They are clearly melee gloves, but you have already taken up the glove slot for every melee player. I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just trying to explain why they are not working.

Is making them part of the set not an option? That would be the easiest solution that I think most players would agree on. It would open up some more gear options, as right now literally the only doublestrike item most melee players can equip is the Mantle of Fury. Every other doublestrike item is either on specific weapons, shields, or on gear that conflicts with the Part of the Family set.

[Lynnabel]

Deception 18

Sure. If no one else shows up with a good enough reason to not do this, I'll make the swap.

As explained before.

The explanation above was not constructive, so I didn't engage with it. I don't like responding to nonconstructive feedback.

Anyone that would be interested in what these gloves offer, will be more attracted to the Part of the Family set bonuses.

I just can change what the gloves do, yanno :P I don't want to break the raid parity for one set. A cool pair of standalone gloves is a lot more fun than a strict upgrade to what's currently available. That's why I am looking for suggestions on what the gloves could do that would make them worth using. They don't have to be themed the same, though, so keep an open mind

[SerPounce]

Given that the itemization hasn't actually released yet, there's still time to make changes and respond to feedback. If you'd like something to change, I would strongly recommend constructive feedback that clearly explains what you actually want (instead of nonconstructive feedback that tells me what you do not like or tells me what you hope I'm naive enough to include :P). I'm willing to work with what you guys want, within reason

There was a whole thread about buffing the two handers by adding either dust or a similar (non-stacking) debuff. That gives 2hf DPS access to an essential endgame debuff without increasing overall group DPS (every good group already uses dust debuffs). You seemed receptive to the idea at first, then went quite.

Furthermore, if putting Dust on literally anything makes that thing OP, it's because Dust is OP.

This seemed like solid logic to me. Either Dust is straight OP and should be nerfed, or all primary DPS should be given a realistic way of applying it. It's simply too strong an effect to be gated by fighting style.

To be clear, I have no intention of allowing more than one LGS-proc per singular weapon, don't worry.

This on the other hand doesn't make sense to me. If you're 2wf you get two powerful stacking proc effects. Not only that you can pick whatever two you want. And you still get sentience and endgame W in your main hand. For any hope of keeping up a two hander needs to be able to have both the debuffing proc effects. It still won't keep up because the DPS is lower and you don't get to pick the effects separately. But it will be closer.

Items that use two slots need to have more effects than items that use one slot. This has always been an issue, but with the importance of debuffing effects in the endgame meta the issue has become increasingly noticeable.

[Fivetigers33]

I just can change what the gloves do, yanno :P I don't want to break the raid parity for one set. A cool pair of standalone gloves is a lot more fun than a strict upgrade to what's currently available. That's why I am looking for suggestions on what the gloves could do that would make them worth using. They don't have to be themed the same, though, so keep an open mind

You could make the gloves almost as good as part of the family set bonus as an incentive for players to use it with Pre and Post Sharn gear.

Something like this might make me consider going back to Silent Avenger for them. This is a pretty big wishlist though haha.

Deconstruction (same effects as the Deconstructor Augment, Adamantine DR breaking, Rust damage, Destruction on hit)
Overwhelming Stealer of Souls
24% Doublestrike
Draconic Reinvigoration
Orange Augment Slot
Purple Augment Slot


Something like that and the Silent Avenger set is back in style.

[jskinner937]

I just can change what the gloves do, yanno :P I don't want to break the raid parity for one set. A cool pair of standalone gloves is a lot more fun than a strict upgrade to what's currently available. That's why I am looking for suggestions on what the gloves could do that would make them worth using. They don't have to be themed the same, though, so keep an open mind

Agreed. This could be useful on a ranged toon as well. I think the deadly is a nice add. But regardless of how you change the enhancements, you are abandoning the set bonus and likely it will only be an item switch rather than a static piece of gear due to the strict gear slot allotments from Sharn Set bonuses.

But I would make this suggestion...either universally part of any set bonus or add a function in sharn crafting to add the set bonus of your choice to it....an maybe include other exp pack set bonuses in there like Ravenloft. This could also apply to all the raid items so that people do not have to make a choice of staying with items for the set bonuses or taking a stand alone and scrapping the idea altogether.

[apep1412]

Given that the itemization hasn't actually released yet, there's still time to make changes and respond to feedback. If you'd like something to change, I would strongly recommend constructive feedback that clearly explains what you actually want (instead of nonconstructive feedback that tells me what you do not like or tells me what you hope I'm naive enough to include :P). I'm willing to work with what you guys want, within reason

Can Ethereal Gaze be changed to something like:
Dexterity Skills 22
Insightful Dexterity Skills 11
Ghostly
Lesser Displacement

As they are now, they are a downgrade from the Epic Elite version of the Ring of Shadows - trading the 10% miss chance and 3 extra hide/move silently from Ghostly for an extra augment slot.

[jskinner937]

You could make the gloves almost as good as part of the family set bonus as an incentive for players to use it with Pre and Post Sharn gear.

Something like this might make me consider going back to Silent Avenger for them. This is a pretty big wishlist though haha.

Deconstruction (same effects as the Deconstructor Augment, Adamantine DR breaking, Rust damage, Destruction on hit)
Overwhelming Stealer of Souls
24% Doublestrike
Draconic Reinvigoration
Orange Augment Slot
Purple Augment Slot


Something like that and the Silent Avenger set is back in style.

I like Draconic Reinvigoration for sure.

[Paisheng]

You could make the gloves almost as good as part of the family set bonus as an incentive for players to use it with Pre and Post Sharn gear.

Something like this might make me consider going back to Silent Avenger for them. This is a pretty big wishlist though haha.

Deconstruction (same effects as the Deconstructor Augment, Adamantine DR breaking, Rust damage, Destruction on hit)
Overwhelming Stealer of Souls
24% Doublestrike
Draconic Reinvigoration
Orange Augment Slot
Purple Augment Slot


Something like that and the Silent Avenger set is back in style.

Staggershocker Gloves should be part of some melee or general set bonus in my opinion or as a melee I really find little appealing in terms of gear from the second raid. Making them part of Mists or Silent Avenger would be interesting but since this is a Sharn adventurer I put my weight with those already suggesting making it part of the Family set. No one who uses the family set is likely to give up all those bonuses for any pair of gloves that don't help maintain family set bonuses.

Changing all the abilities on the gloves won't render them useful without set bonuses... for what "dps melee," having bought the Sharn pack, has not schemed to make use and max their abilities with Family Set? The gloves will only look pretty but in some bank toon otherwise.

[Lynnabel]

Can Ethereal Gaze be changed to something like:
Dexterity Skills 22
Insightful Dexterity Skills 11
Ghostly
Lesser Displacement

As they are now, they are a downgrade from the Epic Elite version of the Ring of Shadows - trading the 10% miss chance from Ghostly for an extra augment slot and 2 hide/move silently.

Sure, sounds cool to me.

[Zretch]

I just can change what the gloves do, yanno :P I don't want to break the raid parity for one set. A cool pair of standalone gloves is a lot more fun than a strict upgrade to what's currently available. That's why I am looking for suggestions on what the gloves could do that would make them worth using. They don't have to be themed the same, though, so keep an open mind

Do they have to be gloves? Honestly I'd be far more interested in that item if it had the exact same stats, but it were a cloak instead. Any melee focused item that breaks the Part of the Family set bonus will either be crazy overpowered as a stand-alone item, or will be unjustifiable to use. 15% stacking doublestrike, 25 stacking melee power, 15% stacking helpless damage, and 10% stacking fort bypass in addition to the stats on Hammerfist itself can't be made up for on a single item without crazy unintended consequences.

In Ravenloft, the Molten Silver Gauntlets were outstanding because they were part of the general Adherent set bonus, and didn't break Silent Avenger, Crypt Raider, or Knight sets. In Sharn, the melee set moved to Neck and Gloves, freeing up Belt and Cloak. You gave us a melee-ish raid belt. A melee-ish raid cloak wouldn't be a bad thing.