U50 Preview 2: Scroll/Seal/Shard Loot Revamp

[Cocomajobo]

Update 50 includes the complete refactor of the Seal/Scroll/Shard crafting system, which is usually abbreviated to s/s/s. There's a lot to get into, so let's dive right in.

All of the rest of the Heroic items from the s/s/s item packs will be revamped as part of this pass. This includes the following adventure packs:

• Web of Chaos
• The Vault of Night
• The Chronoscope
• The Sands of Menachterun (None of it was in preview 1 but is in this preview everything except for the Legendary versions of the items and all versions of the accessories are available)
• Phiarlan Carnival (already completed in U39)
• The Red Fens (already completed in U36)
• Sentinels of Stormreach (already completed in U40)

All of the Epic items from the above packs will also be revamped to bring them up to appropriate scaling values (as with our other revamps).

Finally, all of the above packs will get level 30 Legendary versions of their items that will be competitive for endgame play.

So, what's changing with the upgrade flow?

Heroic items will continue to drop as-is.

Epic items are obtained in the Altar of Epic Rituals with the following recipe: Heroic Item + 50 Pack Ingredients* ( + 5 Greater Tokens of the Twelve if the item is from a Raid)

Legendary items are obtained in a new Altar of Legendary Rituals with the following recipe: Epic Item + 100 Pack Ingredients + 5 Star Fragments** ( + 250 Threads of Fate if the item is from a Raid)

*: Pack Ingredients will drop wherever Seals or Shards would drop in a moderate amount. It will likely take 2-3 runs of a quest to get enough of the material for 1 item. These ingredients are Pack Specific - for example, the Pack Ingredient for the Chronoscope would be a Broken Sliver of Time, etc. You'll likely collect quite a bit of these, as they're a guaranteed drop and they're also obtained elsewhere, as specified below.

**: Star Fragments will be an uncommon drop from Legendary Saltmarsh to start, and will become more available later on (just like how Empty Soul Vessels will be joining the list of Threads of Fate purchasable items as of Update 50). Our goal is that it will not be hard to find enough of these to upgrade your items.

What about our existing materials?

You will be able to crunch unused seals, scrolls, and shards down into some amount of Pack Ingredients of the appropriate type.

Why not just let the Epic Items drop as-is?

Since the s/s/s is a crafting system, we don't want to invalidate previous progress. If someone has spent 10 years grinding the ESoS, we don't want to tell that person to keep farming for it, we want to actually let them get that item as soon as the update drops. They've already done the time, we need to let them turn those spare materials (which in this instance represent time they're already spent grinding) into a tangible reward.

What are you going to do about the ESoS?

Nothing, I actually don't think that item needs changing. If people can finally get and use it, that's great, I'm genuinely happy to make something that cool more accessible.

Are you worried that by making those items, which have for so long been so rare, so much easier to obtain, that you'll be invalidating the years of grinding already spent?

That's something only the players can really answer for me.

What are you going to do with the legendary SoS?

We are not going to be creating a functional Legendary version of the Sword of Shadows. If we were to create a version that kept the large expanded critical profile that it is known for it would be incredibly hard to create other comparable legendary weapons that didn't also feature that same expanded critical profile. If we were to make a functional greatsword that used the Sword of Shadows name but didn't have that expanded critical profile it would feel like a pale imitation of the lower level variants. With that being said, the plan currently is to create a cosmetic version of the Sword of Shadows featuring brand new art inspired by the current model that can be earned and shown off. We know this solution will not fit all desires but believe it necessary to avoid painting our item design into a corner.

If we have old Epic items, will we need to reobtain them?

There is already a stone-of-change recipe that will let you turn any epic s/s/s item into a new version, so no, just throw it in the stone of change, it'll fix itself. Be aware, this will effectively delete your item and give you a new one, so take care if you have Augments or Sentient Filigree that you'd want to keep.

What about Mythic Bonuses?

Since we aren't "dropping" these items, we can't rely on our existing mythic tables, so we're probably going to need to get fancy. Current plan:

Players will be able to turn a large chunk of Threads of Fate into an item that, when combined with an Epic or Legendary version of an item, upgrade it to Mythic and then Mythic +3 (or +4). Sorta like the Schism Shard recipes but more generic (so we don't need 900 different crafting recipes). Note: This is not present in this preview.

How does Saltmarsh fit into this?

Saltmarsh will contain new, level 3 heroic items, that you will then be able to upgrade into level 20 and then level 30 versions through Epic and Legendary Crafting. Saltmarsh's Legendary content will still contain a few standalone level 29 items, as well as new Augments, but a portion of Saltmarsh will require engagement with the revamped s/s/s system. Feel free to take a look at the items in this preview in the Saltmarsh Itemization post!

Note: There is also something special with certain Saltmarsh items in this system that will get to do something a little differently, but that part wasn't quite ready for this preview.

Can we walk through an upgrade process just to be sure?

Sure! Here's how someone would obtain a copy of the Legendary Kundarak Delving Boots. First, they would do the raid The Vault of Night and its subsequent raid, The Plane of Night. In the end chest on any difficulty (heroic and epic), there is a chance to obtain a copy of the heroic level Kundarak Delving Boots. From there, they would take the Kundarak Delving Boots, 50 Vault Keys (found within any Vault of Night chest that could have dropped a Seal or Shard), and 5 Greater Tokens of the Twelve, and combine them in the Alter of Epic Rituals found within The Twelve to obtain the Epic Kundarak Delving Boots. With those, they would take their new Epic Kundarak Delving Boots, 100 Vault Keys, 250 Threads of Fate, and 5 Star Fragments, and combine them in the Alter of Legendary Rituals to obtain the Legendary Kundarak Delving Boots. If you had a copy of the current Kundarak Delving Boots or Epic Kundarak Delving Boots, you can skip right ahead to whichever part of this process, as the old items from before the revamp will work with this new system.

[QuantumFX]

Preface: I'm going to focus on stuff that should be upgraded. The rest looks good.

Epic Ring of Spell Storing: What's the matter Colonel Sanders? Chicken?

Legendary Magewright Goggles:
- Still has +9 Spell Penetration. Is that intentional?

Legendary Jidz-Tet'ka:
- No legendary Tet-zik, The Enlightened Change? Also, no Quality WIS? You can augment that +1 Exceptional WIS.

Legendary Elder's Knowledge set:
- To prevent confusion, please change the description to: +6% Artifact bonus to Universal Spell Critical Chance and +30% Artifact bonus to Universal Spell Critical Damage. You have the term Universal listed in the Autumn set, so it will help gear tetris.

Legendary Gem of Many Facets: Will this change set bonuses when you upgrade it from Epic to Legendary? The fact that this item can be Cannith Crafted is not intuitive.

Epic Coronation Shield: The DC on the Greater Sorroco is too low for the content it could be used in. You guys need to make the DC for effects 10 + (ML of weapon * 3)

Epic / Legendary Deneith Heavy Chain: You guys need to add an enchantment that adds a unique bonus to PRR if you have the Heavy Armor Proficiency feat.

Epic Siren's Charm: Resonance +111 is so nice that you had to add it twice?

[Kielbasa]

Are you finally getting rid of 20th rewards and implementing tokens for these raids? Or at the very least increasing the drop rate in zawabi by like 10x?

[droid327]

What about Mythic Bonuses?

Since we aren't "dropping" these items, we can't rely on our existing mythic tables, so we're probably going to need to get fancy. Current plan:

Players will be able to turn a large chunk of Threads of Fate into an item that, when combined with an Epic or Legendary version of an item, upgrade it to Mythic and then Mythic +3 (or +4). Sorta like the Schism Shard recipes but more generic (so we don't need 900 different crafting recipes). Note: This is not present in this preview.

I'd just entreat you to consider a non-raid currency for this: currently Mythic bonuses arent specific to raids. Creating that obligation in the new system isnt going to be fair to players who dont raid, and currently can (theoretically) get Mythic bonuses on their various non-raid gear.

At least for the non-raid base items, anyway. Threads to upgrade your raid loot is obviously different.

[R1ncewind]

So legendary Raid Items get a +5 lvl to their item power so those are the best at their lvl, but on heroic and epic raid items don't get any bonus to their level power, this is bad for a lot of reason but the main one is that it make those items less powerful than a lot of the items we use now, two examples:

In heroic Von items are lvl 9 (10 for weapons) as a lvl 9 item they get +5 to their stats and compete with Ravenloft quest items that are lvl 10 but have +6 and have also better set values, but raid ones are much more harder to get, and they should have more or equal power despite being 1 level lower. The same happens with sand items being lvl 12 and lvl 13 quest items having the same advantage.

In epic Raids items have the same item values than quest items for example, and they shouldn't, also they are less powerful than Borderlands items by a whole magnitude so you loose a lot for those items, hell I even would say that Epic Raid items should be +3 to their level and Epic version of quest items should have at least +1 to match Borderlands values considering how much farm you need to do to get them. This would make borderlands items your go to for new players and Epic versions of this pass the items you aim for farming Epic past lives.

the idea is not only to give more power to items but also to create an incentive to run those raids and give them life again. its important that items that are harder to get have a better satisfactory factor than regular quest items that can be farm alone or with a small group. compare to raids that are way harder take a lot of time are have a timer to re-run them

Plz take this into consideration -

[WiseFreelancer]

The Gem of Many Facets has the potential to be sooo cool, especially with the new Sands sets (which all seem pretty great). But random re-rolling of abilities when it upgrades kills it for me - I have to waste upgrade materials not knowing what set bonuses I might get?

One option would be a turn-in that lets you swap a (legendary) gem for a specific pair of set bonuses. Or (and I imagine this isn't possible in the system) let it retain the pair the heroic gem starts with, as then at least there's a realistic way to farm the pair you want.

I like the Sands sets that pair accessories/armors with weapons. That's a nice touch and not something we've had a lot of in a while. I normally find it quite hard to get excited about weapons, even raid ones, because they are so standalone. This allows them to contribute to the overall build plan. Nice touch!

I mentioned this in Preview one: Kundarak Delving set has Search and Spot on two items, which is frustrating overlap. Perhaps the armour could be tweaked?

[Forcystus]

The Gem of Many Facets has the potential to be sooo cool, especially with the new Sands sets (which all seem pretty great). But random re-rolling of abilities when it upgrades kills it for me - I have to waste upgrade materials not knowing what set bonuses I might get?

One option would be a turn-in that lets you swap a (legendary) gem for a specific pair of set bonuses. Or (and I imagine this isn't possible in the system) let it retain the pair the heroic gem starts with, as then at least there's a realistic way to farm the pair you want.

As I wanted to comment on this, I decided to quote you. The thing is, the gem is so close to being an interesting item at Endgame, especially with the new other items hitting legendary status. However, at the same time it falls so short because of this random factor when upgrading it. Remember, getting one gem to Legendary requires:

• Greater 5 Token of the Twelve, which only drop in older raids.
• 150 Broken Slivers of Time
• 5 Star Fragments
• 250 Threads of Fate (which are 4~7 Raids, depending on how many Elite Dualchest Raids you run)

For every. Single. Try to get a decent set of Legendary Bonuses. Making it Cannith Craftable is a godsend, as it now can be customized to fill holes and even be competitive, stats wise.
So, the first change would be that if we have to invest the resources into this upgrade:
Let the player know/determine what they get, primarily by keeping the sets of the previous version!

However, there is a second, even bigger gripe with this item. For most builds, it's plain useless. Sure, you might get something out of ONE of the set bonuses. But both? If they are random, sometimes even contradictory? VERY unlikely one can even use the set bonuses in most build (in case they even get what they want).
So my second recommendation would be to change the generation of the item into a curated list of combos that make sense instead of an "anything goes" approach. You turned "Might of the Abashai" into a set that is supposed to help everyone.
How about using this to just turn it that one set is fixed to be Mights, while the other can be a random set? That way, you bind the item to its Origin (Chronoscope Raid/Abashai Set), while still retaining the "many (random) facets" you want to introduce here. Otherwise, if you don't want they to feel too samey, then curate the list to actually represent viable combinations. NOBODY needs "Epic Vulkoor's Cunning" with "Epic Desert's Writhing Storm" unless they want a VERY specific build like an electric EK.
So, to TL;DR this paragraph:
A smaller list of curated or sensible combinations is preferable over a giant list of random, potentially useless combination.

And if you did not see: What items are the most sought after from Demigod? Definitely not Changestone. Don't add another Changestone...

[Dabima]

Were the ring of spell storing and wolf whistle scrapped? They aren't on the heroic or epic S/S/S trade window.

Edit: Disregard, I see the original post

[WiseFreelancer]

Were the ring of spell storing and wolf whistle scrapped? They aren't on the heroic or epic S/S/S trade window

One of the threads notes that accessories for Sands haven't been made yet, so presumably they are coming (plus Torc, Shard of Vollum, Asbestos Boots, etc).

[SWCarter]

Is it expected that all of the epic weapons (including Sands/Vault raid loot) are 2W? You can craft a Borderlands epic weapon with 3W in about 5 minutes.

[SWCarter]

Also, there's a typo in the Sands set bonuses. It's spelled "Menechtarun", not "Menachterun".

[QuantumFX]

This is not working for my Epic Antique Greataxe.

If we have old Epic items, will we need to reobtain them?

There is already a stone-of-change recipe that will let you turn any epic s/s/s item into a new version, so no, just throw it in the stone of change, it'll fix itself. Be aware, this will effectively delete your item and give you a new one, so take care if you have Augments or Sentient Filigree that you'd want to keep.

[QuantumFX]

Just ran Epic Partycrashers and only got one Scrap of Patterned Cloth. That drop rate needs to increase dramatically.

[Strimtom]

These are the items I have found that I think are bugged. Here is list:

resplendant fury still has 10 charisma craft, didn't get adjusted - I didn't check a new item but I should have.
shields in sands heroic do not have current shield damage stats

epic vulkoorim dagger - epic giant slayer
epic mirage - 16 - 20 crit???
epic sorroco - needs epic sorroco not heroic sorrocco
epic staff of inner sight - attack and damage mods seem off
epic sting - still have heroic sting stats
epic storm - supposed to be x3 crit?
epic whirliwind - had dex to hit and damage in heropics, but not epics?
epic robe of fire - has no + on it, robes generally have a + to AC
epic tourney armor - if light armor should have higher max dex, if heavy armor then it's fine
epic vulkoorim dervish robe - needs an armor bouns
legendary deneith heavy chain - MDB 3 on medium? get oututttta heeeeere

Legendary chronoscope items - all need legendary values of items added to the items, like the extra effects
Legendary mask of comody - caster level of good hope should be 30
Legendary mask of tragedy - crushing despair should be caster level 30
Legendary noxious fang - scorpion poison is heroic version
Legendary shimmering pendant - Should be caster level 30 on suggestion
Legendary Red fens weapons - Do not currently have level 30 expanded damage dice
Legendary necklace of vemon - has two sets of proof against poison
Legendary Siren's Charm - Resonance x2 electric boogaloo
Legendary doublecross bow - nightshade vemons is heroic version
Legendary envenomed blade - needs legendary paralyzing
Legendary Chimera's crown - Doesn't grant deific warding
Legendary darkstorm helm - uses old call lightning storm please help

[maha0201]

Is there a bit more detailed way how old epics items are being upgraded to the new system ?
They will not go in epic altar.
Tokens of the 12 will not go in Stone of changes.
Placing item in Stone of change does nothing.
Placing item in Stone of changes with Siberys shards - does nothing as well.

Epic red armor does not display or give set bonus.

Old fens items have new set but stats are at about level of existing ones.

Fens S/S/S when exchanged provide some how house Denith essences or are at least displayed as such.

Some of new items are moved to be Bound to Account while others are Bound to Character - I would presume that is if the items are gathered from raid - but whole Crono set is BtA now and everything from there is from a raid. Can we just make everything then BtA ?

[rabidfox]

Legendary SoS looks pretty.

LSoS


vs SoS

[Edwinge]

I noticed that the Heroic Web of Chaos weapons/shields/armors only have a +4 enhancement bonus. Unless I'm mistaken, at min level 16 those should be +5.

The heroic VoN gear is all over the place with it's enhancement bonuses. I can't imagine that is intended. Some are +5, some +4, Docent of Grace is +2, and Ironweave Robe doesn't even have an enhancement bonus.

The heroic sands gear all has +5 enhancement bonuses (except the two robes, where the bonus is missing). Shouldn't they all be +4 at their level?

Unless the scaling of enhancement bonuses are changing, cannith crafting doesn't get +5 until min level 14 gear. Or is enhancement bonus a stat where named items aren't intended to follow cannith crafting scaling? (I also noticed that with the legendary gear stat adjustments that legendary weapons/armors are still at +15 enhancement bonus even though that is well above cannith crafting levels. CC is +11 at 29, +12 at 30 on live for enhancement bonuses.)

[Forcystus]

epic mirage - 16 - 20 crit???
epic storm - supposed to be x3 crit?

Epic Mirage critrange is the same as now: https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Mirage
Epic Storm had x3 crit before: https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Storm
Epic Xuum also has a non-standard crit profile (+1 Multiplier) as well: https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Xuum

Looking forward to their Legendary Counterparts...

[Elisser]

- Sentinels S/S/S turn in was giving and showing Chronoscope.
Others - Web of Chaos, Sands, Carnival, VoN, and Chronoscope were correct for my turn ins.

- UI often needs reopening, clear button doesn't refresh. Alternatively clicking the 'x' in the search bar up top helped with not needing reopen barter box from NPC.

- Trade in image - bottom right corner of UI - is black/blank.

- Epic and Legendary Masks of Tragedy and Comedy, Top Hat and Illusionist's Garb still show heroic caster levels. WAI?

I didn't have any named items to try out the trade and put on new upgraded old loot at the time.

Thanks.

[CEastwood]

I note Sands Base Weapon Multipliers are 1.0 not 1.5 for equivalent level weapons