Lamannia Update 59 Preview 2 Feedback: Loot

[Steelstar]

Hey everyone! Welcome to Preview 2. You all gave a lot of really good feedback for items in Preview 1, so much so that we're still working through adapting it all! We got a few changes and fixes in for this build, so let's look at those as well as what's still coming before the Update goes live.


Changes in this Preview:

• A global change: Modern items individually grant a Resistance, Insight, or Quality Bonus to (individually) Reflex, Fortitude, or Will Saving throws have had that bonus increased by 1. This should almost always put an item's individual bonus to a single saving throw higher than the value given by a similar item with Resistance (the item effect that contains all 3 saving throws). This change affects most modern items with those effects (not just Droaam items!) and is retroactive on those items.
• Legendary items should be dropping in Legendary Droaam quests now!
• Legendary Stonedust Handwraps and its crafted variants should now be on the Dojo vendor.
• Many items in Legendary Droaam now have two augment slots
• Fixed [w] values and enhancement bonuses on Legendary weapons in this pack
• Legendary Droaam weapons can now be Sentient.
• Legendary Shield of Reflection should now have appropriate Shield Bonus and other relevant stats.
• Fixed armor bonus values and other stats on Legendary armors in this pack that weren't up to expected values
• The Wand of Blasting (both Heroic and Legendary) should properly blast now
• The Legendary Sora Kell set has had the Artifact Bonus to Attack and Damage that was present in Preview 1 replaced with a +3 Artifact Bonus to Imbue Dice.
• Several items throughout the Legendary pack have had stats shifted to Insightful or Quality versions.
• Legendary Trial by Fire's effects now properly scale to expected values, and its Minimum Level now works properly.
• The Legendary Night Hag's Hearthstone is now a Lesser Artifact with very different effects than its Heroic counterpart.
• Legendary Teraza's Sight (and its Perfect version) now have Quality Potency in place of True Seeing.
• Legendary Teraza's Sight (and its Perfect version) now have Exceptional Prudent Skills in place of their previous Heal bonus.
• Legendary Maenya's Fists (and its Iron version) now have Exceptional Alluring Skills in place of their previous Intimidate bonus.
• Legendary Katra's Wit (and its Razor version) now have Insightful Alluring Skills in place of their previous previous Diplomacy bonus.
• Legendary Wind Howler Bracers now have Insightful Doubleshot in place of Longbow Proficiency.
• Legendary Wind Howler Bracers now have the Wind Through the Trees feat in place of Shortbow Proficiency.
• Legendary Wind Howler Bracers now have 5 charges of Cyclonic Blast instead of their previous 3.

Changes Not In This Preview:
These are changes we're still planning on making before things go Live:

• We attempted a system to try and scale the DCs of clickies on items in this pack in Preview 1; this did not work. Feedback in Preview 1 indicated the Cyclonic Blast on the Legendary Wind Howler Bracers might still see some play, but the others will likely be replaced.
• We're planning on deep-diving into Weapon and Armor effects that were brought up in Preview 1 for potential replacement. It won't necessarily be the case that we replace all of these (or only these), but so far we're looking at:
  
  • The guard on Shield of Reflecting
  • Con damage on Fury items
  • Feeding on Bloody Cleaver
  • Bow Strength on the War Bow
  • The number of effects on Rocksplitter
  • The Rage Clicky on Ogrish War Axe
  • Vengeful items in general
  • Infectious items in general
  • Potentially adding a Greater Evolution clicky to Scepter of the Fleshweaver
  
  
• Whatever else comes up in feedback in this Preview!

Please let us know about any bugs you find or thoughts you have on these items! As usual, the most useful type of feedback specifically names something you wish was different, and/or specifically names something you want to see. A lot of you did that in Preview 1, and we were able to turn a lot of that into actual changes!

[Steelstar]

Known Issues so far:

• Legendary Droaam weapons still do not have their expected +2 or +4 to base damage dice. This has been fixed internally.
• Legendary Stone Prison is performing Earthgrab instead of Flesh to Stone.

[Arkat]

The Legendary Shield of Reflecting still only has a +5 Enhancement bonus.

Same with the Legendary Crimson Chain...and Brutish Cuirass.

And also with the Legendary Gorgon Armor.

And with the Legendary Snakeskin Vest.

Oy!


Well, at least the Legendary Frostflame Docent has its +15 Enhancement bonus. So there's that.


Several weapons still don't have any augment slots. Some of them do, though.

Did anyone check this stuff?

I mean an intern could have looked at all these and made notes pointing this out. Why do we have to do it?

[apocaladle]

I would still love to see rocksplitter get overwhelming shockwave on top of its current effects to make it a more appealing to go heavy pick

[Don1966]

why does
Legendary Teraza's Sight have green and colorless augment slots and the upgraded version just a green slot?
Legendary Maenya's Fists have green and colorless augment slots and the upgraded version just a green slot?
Legendary Katra's Wit have green and colorless augment slots and the upgraded version just a green slot?
Legendary Garments of Equilibrium not have an armor bonus?

[Arkat]

I would still love to see rocksplitter get overwhelming shockwave on top of its current effects to make it a more appealing to go heavy pick

I would too, but it must be pointed out the Overwhelming Shckwave is only available on The Everstorm, Maelstrom Courser (Raid loot) and on Reflection of Whelm and Overwhelming Impact (both of which are essentially raid loot because the crafting ingredient needed to make them, Schisms, are only found in the KT raid.

My point is that Overwhelming Shockwave appears to be a raid-loot-only effect. A very cool one at that.

[Nickodeamous]

Hey Devs,

Thanks for putting up another Lam!!

Hey, I noticed that the base damage for all weapons is something like this 5(1d6) or 5(1d8). These are level 31 items, and current the lev 31 Dino stuff would be like 5(1d6+2) and 5(1d8+2). Any reason why these are really low base damage?

In reality, the base damage looks to be on par with my lev 26 shroud items.

Just looks kinda weak compared to everything else. Not sure why anybody would use them (shrugs)

Thoughts?

Thanks!
Nico

edit: I missed where steel covers this doh!!

[rabidfox]

Hey, I noticed that the base damage for all weapons is something like this 5(1d6) or 5(1d8). These are level 31 items, and current the lev 31 Dino stuff would be like 5(1d6+2) and 5(1d8+2). Any reason why these are really low base damage?

Scroll up to the 2nd post and Steel covers that.

[Nickodeamous]

Scroll up to the 2nd post and Steel covers that.

ahhh!!! ok, cant believe I missed that. doh!!! thanks!!

[QuantumFX]

Looks like everyone else managed to nail the bugs already.

Legendary Shield of Reflecting: Petrification Immunity guys. If you need a "Reflection" element to the shield, replace the Insightful Physical Sheltering with the "Mirror Shield" enchantment.

Legendary Crimson Chain: Come on guys, Legendary Air Guard instead of the Speed enchantment. It's in the item's description.

Legendary Snakeskin Vest. That Proof vs. Poison needs an upgrade. Maybe an additional +36% poison absorption?

Legendary Stonedust Handwraps: "Path of the Guarding Stone" is useless to a 20 Monk. Perhaps have the buff grant bonus PRR instead?

Legendary Night Hag's Heartstone: This artifact is still meh. It's a trinket, give it something that'll make us suffer from gear tetris anxiety if we don't have it. +5 Spell Focus mastery is super common, and Spell Pen 9 is an augment. Replace the Spell Focus with Insightful Spell Focus +3. Per the item description, it should have the ability to exhaust foes when you hit them with an offensive spell. No, I don't mean a clickie, I mean on any offensive spellcast.

Legendary Trial by Fire: The Insight bonus to Fire resistance is wrong for an item of it's level. Should still be Cannith Craftable.

[krzyysiek098]

Legendary Trial by Fire: cannot be fed to sentient items.

General note: I really can't see anyone using one of those legendary armors. The stats are just too weak and there is only 1 augment slot. Maybe add a set bonus (paired with fusible weapons)? The thing I liked when it comes to armors is a no-save trip on Brutish Cuirass (useful!), but that is just one armor that can be occasionally used by some undergeared toons.

[Seph1roth5]

First off, thanks for taking our suggestions/comments into considerations. It's definitely not easy turning ooooooold items into halfway usable legendary ones, especially since they weren't used that much when they were new lol. I can definitely see some of these getting playtime though, once the obsolete stuff goes away.


Bonus to individual saves
- Really not a fan of these, it makes gearing way more complicated for a very tiny bonus.
- How about making these single save bonuses a little better by adding something else to them?
- Reflex + X: Increase reflex by X (12 at lv 31), reduce damage from traps by 2x
- Fortitude + X: Increase fortitude by X(12), force absorption + (7+X)
- Will + X: Increase will by X(12), MRR cap + (7+X)

Clickies:
- You mentioned trying to make their DCs better, but I think that's just one small part of (damaging) clicky's problems. Even if they used our dcs, the spellpower would be way too low, and even if it used ours, the spell crit wouldn't work. If all of those applied then maaaaybe it'd be worth it, but it'd still be a lot of work swapping gear to just throw out a chain lightning or something.
- I think damaging clickies (unless they do all of the above) need to be revamped to be useful in other ways, like my suggestion for cyclonic blast down the line.
- For example, a fireball clicky could have a larger aoe (if possible) and make it great for breaking stuff, or give some sort of untyped bonus to fire spellpower
- Wands could be similar, not trying to compete with players' real spells, but say...a wand of fireball would give a big bonus to fireball/dbf, beef up fire slas (slas are really hurt by not being affected by cooldown reduction and such), or, if possible to code, give other unique effects. Give fireball a chance to double hit ala lightning bolt, add duration to melf's or something.


Bundling Effects:
- I see a lot of that in this lam 2 and I definitely like that, especially with augments giving options for a bonus to single skills
- There are definitely a lot of opportunities in gear I see this lam for bundling in several effects that could really help some of the less desirable effects on gear. When 3 of the 4 effects are meh, it hurts a lot. If ONE of the effects has 3 meh effects rolled up into one, that upgrades to uhh...slightly-meh-but-not-that-bad-because-of-other-effects.




*Legendary Shield of Reflecting
- Any way to make legendary stone guard trigger on being hit or missed? The chance is usually pretty low to begin with, and people most likely to use it are going to be tanky and not hit as much.
- I don't really know how medusas work, but can this somehow also protect against the damage while you're slowly turning TO stone? I'm not sure at what point in their gaze the absorb petrification would kick in.


*Legendary Stonedust Handwraps
- Stone Prison needs to be legendary, and dc 100 at least.
- Stunning+15 is worded weird, is it actually a +15 to anything that gets a bonus from stun, or is it literally stunning blow/fist like the description says?
- Path of Guarding Stone is also the heroic effect and should be upped. Maybe perma dr 30/adamantine? That'd be interesting too. And/or a big boost while in earth stance (throw the DR in there at higher, 40-50 maybe, and then add something else)
- Wow never noticed the path of guarding stone was only while in earth stance too, definitely needs a boost.
- Should be made of stone because why not. Sounds like they're more dust than cloth.

*Legendary Maenya's (Iron) Fist:
- Still not a fan of single saves.
- Like the alluring skills change. Ooooold gear like this really needs bundling like this.


*Legendary Tereza's (perfect) Sight
- Same notes as Maenya's


*Legendary Frostflame Robe
- Same notes as lam 1, fire and cold resistance are bad effects past level 7 or so when resist energy hits 20, and should definitely not be 2 effects
- Fire and Cold lore seems difficult to use here also, since most people that want to use fire or cold heavily are probably going to use an item that gives them spellpower+insightful sp+lore (+ insightful lore maybe). Does quality sp/lore exist? I get going for the theme but all 4 of these effects really need to go, or be combined better and make room for more effects.
- Some sort of perma (new) fire shield that gives 50% fire and cold absorption?
- Any way to code something that triggers when you get hit by something like fire or cold (maybe spells specifically)? Or gives evasion vs said elements? Something like that
- Armor is a very competitive slot, with nearly all of the good sets using it, so I think armors without set bonuses should be fairly good/strong to be considered at all.


*Legendary Brutish Cuirass
- Some of the same notes from lam 1, maybe some new
- Single saves, booooo
- Unstoppable Staggering blow, nice idea but again, not as useful on a heavy armor. And still no info on how long the trip is (some are ultra low like less than a sec) or if they get saves to get up or anything.
- Acid resistance needs to go, absorption at the very least. maybe included WITH acid resist

*Legendary Crimson Chain
- Again probably a lot of the same notes
- Single saves bad, unless they were a chunk higher, not just 1
- Speed is all over gear and needs to be changed/upgraded

*Legendary Garments of Equilibrium
- Would like to see concentration and resistance replaced, since that is included on a lot of other gear often, especially monk-specific ones
- Any way to reduce ki consumption like SP? I know ki's not generally a big problem but it would be something unique at least.
- Maybe make a concentration bundle, or like the alluring stuff, exceptional bonus to concentration+uh....what else do monk-types do or need lol. Hell even insightful concentration probably isn't available on a lot (any?) of things.
- Handwraps are pretty sad damage, especially after martial arts got nerfed, can superior reinforced fists by bumped up a little, to adding 2d or 1.5w+1 or something?


*Legendary Gorgon Armor
- Still not sure what the save is on gorgon breath, and it's taking up one of the effect slots so it should have a good dc and not a high cooldown, since it has charges
- Con on armor is...okay, but like I mentioned earlier, armor is a very competitive slot.
- Legendary Stone Guard: Any guard with a good effect (not damaging, poison, disease, etc.) should really be on hit or miss.

*Legendary Snakeskin Vest
- I know not every item has to be super awesome/meta, but this is literally just never going to be used. There are much better trap items, and this is light armor so it's not like anyone would want to swap to use it for trapping. Proof against poison is an effect that needs to be removed entirely
- Search/spot should be something stacking, insightful/quality/exceptional/whatever
- Maybe throw on freedom O movement, that's snakelike, or one of those "immune to most forms of knockdown" or something.

*Legendary Katra's (razor) Wit
- same as the other perfecty items, single saves have to go



*Legendary Stormsinger Cloak
- I remember always wanting this in heroics for the resistance yeaaaaars ago. Now it seems a bit lackluster. Even my bard would probably never wear it
- Ditch cacophonic guard, bards don't like being hit, and the sonic damage isn't scaling or anything
- Maybe a guard that adds a few stacks of sonic vulnerability like fatesinger?
- Could really use stormsinging up, like someone had brought up in the first lam, something that isn't on 50 other pieces of gear
- quality sonic/electric/cold spellpower?
- Any way to affect certain spelltypes? Like -10% cooldown on electric/sonic/cold spells, or SP reduction (would that stack with magical efficiency?), or chance to cast a cmw mass on yourself when casting said spells or something.
- Similar question, can you modify specific spells at all or is that too much? Like Adding targets to chain lighting, +25% chance for lightning bolt to fork, etc. That was one of the most fun parts of diablo 3 loot, all the different loot that could modify your skills.





*Night Hag's Heartstone
- I'm not a fan of sf/spell pen on this either. I kind of like the sleep/death theme it had before.
- Maybe a small chance to sleep on harmful spellcast ala crown of snow. It wouldn't even be as strong because they'd wake up when hit, and would work on less monster types, but being on a trinket would give more flexibility
- Some small chance to cast Weird when hit? That'd be a decent guard.
- Maybe (again with crown of snow) chance to cast PK on spells? That'd be weaker than a no-save sleep, unless it's also no save. If this one had a save the other effects would have to be pretty good, especially for an artifact
- Maybe give banes or some other usually-weapon effects to weapons, like monstrous humanoid bane 6. That'd be interesting on a non-weapon.
- Some weird immunities? Like sleep+fear+death all in one new bundle?


*Legendary Wind Howler Bracers
- Well, I like that the clicky is lv 30 now, but not sure that does much since it doesn't care about SR and the max dice is 20. Any way for the clicky to be max lv 30? The damage would still be meh but at least that's something
- Actually, going to suggest again, forget about cyclonic's damage, it's never going to be feasible. I think it'd be useful/neat if it were a rechargable clicky, useful for taking out AoE effects
- Wind through the trees is nice, definitely a lot of weird effects out there that could find homes on items without being broken



*Legendary Trial By Fire
- Numbers look good, but vitality and fire res are a bit lackluster, though I guess runearm is a slot that's nice for flexibility.
- 5 inherent fire resistance is suuuuuuuuper low. Might be worth it at level 2-3. In legendary it needs to be way higher or something very different. Is 5 just what the number is at lv 31 for cannith crafting or something? Absorption on there would be better, or usable anyway.

[btolson]

For the individual +Saves effect that's seeing a global change, how about also changing them to add "... and you no longer automatically fail your saving throw on a roll of 1". Otherwise I feel like this is still way too weak to care about.

[btolson]

Also, for damaging clickies, is it possible to just have them assume a spellpower based on their CL instead of trying to use your personal spellpower, etc? If we think about PnP, where spellpower doesn't exist, scrolls and clickies aren't totally useless because you're a rogue, etc, compared to being an actual spellcaster -- the scroll (or clicky) is just powerful enough all on its own, certainly not a tiny fraction of the power a real spell has.

So, what if all clickies, wands, and scrolls assumed a moderate power behind them, so they're equally useful to all classes, and just actually useful. You'd probably want a scaling lookup table, just like you use for item power progression. I would expect the (nonlinear) progression to look something like:
level 1: 50 spellpower
level 10: 150 spellpower
level 20: 350 spellpower
level 30: 500 spellpower
level 35: 600? spellpower

This is a fair bit weaker than a caster for his/her primary element (factoring in both gear and enhancements), but should be close for a tertiary (potency-only) element. And if my estimations are off, that's what i was aiming for

Class enhancements that add up to +75 bonus should probably change to a +caster level bonus instead to move up the table (hence the need for the table to go past the current level cap, and further than I wrote here, but idk what those values should be atm).

Crit chance could be added too... or not. I think it's OK if crits are a "real caster only" thing, but am overall ambivalent.

The second part of this would be to audit the caster levels on clickies throughout the game, but that is something that can be done a few items at a time per update.

[cru121]

Potentially adding a Greater Evolution clicky to Scepter of the Fleshweaver

Hey, that's actually my idea! So you indeed read some of the comments. Who would have guessed that?!

Anyway, reconsider adding Legendary Night Hag's Heartstone (and heroic) to the hag set. After all, Sora Teraza, Sora Maenya, and Sora Katra are hags, daughters of the legendary night hag Sora Kell. Flexibility in item sets increases their potential dramatically.

[mikarddo]

For the individual +Saves effect that's seeing a global change, how about also changing them to add "... and you no longer automatically fail your saving throw on a roll of 1". Otherwise I feel like this is still way too weak to care about.

I do agree that +1 is not enough. But giving that easy access to "dont fail on a 1" would be far too good.


Just drop the individual +reflex, +fort and +will and replace with resistance, parry and spell saves.

[btolson]

I do agree that +1 is not enough. But giving that easy access to "dont fail on a 1" would be far too good.


Just drop the individual +reflex, +fort and +will and replace with resistance, parry and spell saves.

I don't think it's "too good". Not failing on a 1 is available from a variety of sources, including some tier2 action boosts (which is what I was thinking of specifically when this idea occurred to me).

Also, in order to not fail on a 1 anyway, your saves have to be high enough that you're no longer "on the die".

And, obviously this only only effects one particular save per effect... if you want to not auto-fail at all 3 of fort/ref/will then you need to itemize all three individual saves (and to not "be on the die" for all 3, you need to itemize them even moreso).


Honestly I wondered if this was still going to be too weak in most players' minds, since most people will use immunities to bypass the roll altogether whenever they can, and those immunities are a lot more common than "don't fail on a 1".

[droid327]

I'm worried if there's a G Evol clicky then that's going to start back towards the "Batman belt" design that the game deliberately moved away from. AFAIK that'd be the first plenary, reusable Alchemical stat bonus available.

[cru121]

I'm worried if there's a G Evol clicky then that's going to start back towards the "Batman belt" design that the game deliberately moved away from. AFAIK that'd be the first plenary, reusable Alchemical stat bonus available.

Was the move truly deliberate? I don't recall some big paradigm change. But my memory might be failing here.
One chaser item with some longevity in the pack would be nice.
Tenser's Transformation scrolls are a renewable source of alchemical strength, dexterity, and constitution. Plus there's Cannith Combat Infusion. So those abilities are probably not a problem.
Alchemical bonus to mental ability scores are rare indeed.

Would a CL30 Evolution clicky (not Greater) be a safer choice? Would it still be valuable?

Optionally, it could involve a jibber's-level rarity item/ingredient.

[Uruk-hai]

Was the move truly deliberate? I don't recall some big paradigm change. But my memory might be failing here.
One chaser item with some longevity in the pack would be nice.
Tenser's Transformation scrolls are a renewable source of alchemical strength, dexterity, and constitution. Plus there's Cannith Combat Infusion. So those abilities are probably not a problem.
Alchemical bonus to mental ability scores are rare indeed.

Would a CL30 Evolution clicky (not Greater) be a safer choice? Would it still be valuable?

Optionally, it could involve a jibber's-level rarity item/ingredient.

Nah, make it a Greater Evolution. I need something to chase and get excited about in this, sadly to say, lukewarm offering of loot.