Update 40 Preview 1: Raid Loot Feedback Thread

[Aelonwy]

Kargon came here to say this.
Well maybe not the third augment slot part, but this are good comparison why need more crit range.
Fortunatamally many other people seem to agree.

While talking about new loot... when Kargon get a club that look like tasty ham? already have broccoli club...

I've been asking for about two years now for the Anniversary Party to get a Meatshield (a shield that looks like a slab of ham) to go with the Broccoli Basher, it should be made of flesh so wield-able by druids.

[Xyfiel]

Pointing out that the Staff being bludgeoning will frequently gain crit range from Pulverizer. And staff builds can get 15% increased speed. When I first saw it I said it looked too weak as well. I still think it needs something but I don't think 18-20 is it. +1 range and multiplier would likely put it where it needs to be.

[cru121]

Maybe you noticed, maybe someone else mentioned this:
Cloak of the Mountain and Sphere of Waves have no ML.

[Arienn]

Elyd Charm Necklace

• Anthem
• Charisma +20
• Insightful Devotion +104
• When you have 3 or more sources of Anthem, this grants exceptional 30 sonic spell power and 15% sonic spell lore
• Green Augment Slot
• Yellow Augment Slot

So, no inspiring echoes? I mean, I guess it's a start that you've somewhat began to realize you've been putting anthem on so many items that bards have 3 or 4 sources of it at this point by making an item that gives some benefit but at the same time you put anthem on yet another bard item. Maybe one of you guys should consider rolling something other than an artificer and giving it a spin.

[Ultramaetche1]

The Reflection of the Chiropractor Bastard Sword
Damage Dice: 11[1d11+11]

• It Goes to Eleven (whenever you deal 1, 11, 111, 1111, etc. you outright kill the opponent. Deathward and Deathblock to not block this effect)
• Red Slot
• Orange Slot

[Emerslochingvyrr]

Chaosbow Longbow
Damage Dice: 5[1d8+3]
9d6 Chaotic Damage (Lawful characters will take a neg level)
Improved Destruction
Elasticity (+1 Mult on 19-20)
Ranged Alacrity 25%
Red Augment Slot
Orange Augment Slot

This is good, but inherently requires one to take a feat to get most use (as the crit threat range is not 19-20). Its a feat bow users are highly likely to take anyway though. Expanding the crit threat range would give this bow the hands down advantage over all other lvl 29 LONGbows (which my calculations speculate it already will have, edit: won't beat out legendary hunter of wilds which will remain objectively best bow in general), but makes more sense for the bow to stand alone.

The chaos must be the reason. Its very chaotic for an item to bestow an effect it cannot achieve full use of on its own xD

[FuryFlash]

Nightshard Scimitar
Damage Dice: 5[1d6+3]

• Identity Crisis (Salt proc on-hit)
• Keen V
• Utter Disintegration
• Material: Byeshk
• Red Augment Slot
• Orange Augment Slot

My Tempest will be U N S T O P P A B L E

[QuantumFX]

The OG sword of shadows also had a bigger base damage dice (5d6 back then I think) but that got changed sometime since

It got changed because of the [W] system... and how an artificer with Deadly Weapons would turn a beastly weapon into an ungodly weapon. But, I think this is covered by the 5[1d6+6]. Sure, the other raid q-staves have it, but they’re caster sticks, or saddled with Animal bane.

[FuryFlash]

This is the first update in a long, long time where I have felt that the loot is almost universally well-made. The last update I can think of that really made me go "wow" about loot was ToEE. This is a step up from that. So many new choices, so many new effects (or re-used updated effects) and weapon procs that actually have reasonable DCs! Many of the weapons in the list made me say "it's about time" (awesome melee quarterstaff, one of the only improved critical profile weapons we've seen in years iirc). Great work, keep this up. I love where you guys are taking the game from a content perspective.

[Annex]

I am moved by the plight of Kargon. A man like that takes his food seriously. He kills it seriously. He eats it seriously. He beats you with it seriously. The man needs a ham.

However, as I was considering the indignities put upon poor Kargon, having to do battle without a suitable club of dead animal flesh, it occurred to me that a club of dead pig flesh may not provide the necessary dramatic impact. Kargon needs something...bigger.

Well, what animal could possibly provide a hunk of dead flesh sufficiently impressive for a man of Kargon's reputation and stature. Kobold leg? Don't be dumb. Mind Flayer head? Kargon could certainly grab it by the tentacles and use it as a flail, but that still seems lackluster. Then it hit me. No, not a hunk of dead animal flesh. An idea for a really awesome weaponized hunk of dead animal flesh.

Kargon needs to wield a dragon. No, not the whole dragon, just a big hunk of dead dragon flesh. So here is my idea. Take a dead dragon. Any color will do but red seems super appropriate for Kargon. Now, tear off one of the front limbs at the elbow. Kargon is not squeamish and you should not be, either. Now that you have a bloody dragon forelimb, cut off enough flesh to leave a foot long section of bone exposed. That will be the haft. Curl the fingers of the dragon claw into a fist before rigor mortis sets in. That will be the business end. At this point, you will need to contract with a lich to cast some preservative magik on the dead dragon limb weapon. Heck, load it up with spells and give it an expanded critical profile, too.

Now, at last, Kargon will have a truly worthy weapon of dead meat, the Red Dragon Fist of Kargon, with which to bludgeon opponents into oblivion. He can even duel wield it with a Ham or Broccoli or a Mind Flayer Head or whatever.

Kargon has done so much for us. It is time, my friends, to do something for Kargon.

[janave]

Can we please get a bow please that is decent from a meta player point of view?

As it stands the bow have nothing exceptional or raid rewardish about it. It lacks both performance and utility.

I would like to understand the philosophy for designing lackluster bows, for both current and wanna be builds. I have mained a bow build for almost 2 years now, and finding bow designs insanely mundane & unexciting since basically pinion and Thunderforged (when mortal fear worked at endgame quests)

Generally players these days expect CC from a bow user OR spike damage, this bow does not help with either of that.

CC: Tornado Handaxe's effect would be much nicer
DPS: Base and Crit profiles, since bows are already lagging behind xbows and shuri builds.

If you dont want any of those options, why not drop some clicky on it?
Meld, Improved Invis, An action boost, cool new arrow conjures, etc..

DPS:
Damage Dice: 5[1d8+4]
+1 Base Multiplier
Fetters of Unreality
Legendary Heartseeker: on crit 11d120
On Vorpal: Exceptional double shot boost +15% for 6s

Admittedly a bit on the overpeforming side, but at least this bow is not nulled or greatly diminished by char. build choices.

Also please...

[HuneyMunster]

Looking at this and Wind howler bracers: Marksmanship, Proficiency longbow/shortbow, shrieking bolt, and Cyclonic blast x3. Why not take SOMETHING from the original and put it on the new one?
My suggestion: Replace Tendon slice with Epic Shrieking bolt!

What would be something different would be to add Sounburst stun proc similar to what Boneshrieker Harrier in Xorian has.
http://ddowiki.com/page/Boneshrieker_Harrier



Finally an item with both assassinate and insightful effects that does not compete with either dex or insightful dex item slot.

Though I would like to see new Greater Deception over Improved that gives a higher bonus to bluff skill to help Improved Feint to be more usable in Legendary content.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Staff of shadows looks pretty sweet, I get the reasons for it's theme but it's a shame about being another non-wooden one for those fighting druids out there, would it be possible to add a new unique material for it, "adamantine-infused densewood" which still counts as wood but has the other adamantine properties?

Brilliant crescent seems nice, the doublestrike thing will make it good for 2wf but it'll be a great swashbuckler weapon too, and nice for druids.

Chaosbow looks good to me

Hellstroke heavy mace - ooo a top-end amaunator-compatible weapon, very tasty.

Tornado handaxe - love this, combine with a nice guardbreaking buckler & swashbucklers will have a whale of a time with things getting knocked down, blinded, dazed, stunned etc.

Timeshard - looks pretty tasty

Nightshard - another rather nice thing

Staff of Irian - interesting mechanic with the spell absorbtion thing, though will probably result in most people dropping the aura except situationally, giving them a defacto debuff to their DCs & spell penetration, or just keeping the aura & having the spell absorb as a minor extra benefit for the 1st fight or 2.

Lightning coil - another one with an interesting mechanic.. let it charge up for a bit & then you'll hit extra hard with your spell, pretty fun.

Mail of the Mronanon - energy drain immunity from rage... which rage effects? just barbarian/druid, or does it include skaldic rage & the rage spell too? And is this metal, locking out druids? Still, a nice bit of kit

Nullcloth Armour - another one where material is a question.. "cloth" suggests non-metal though & maybe if it gave heavy armour proficiency while worn, with only that one un-bypassable spell failure property present, it could be a very interesting option for arcane casters. Nice effects on it overall.

Gauntlets of the Stormreaver - "big huge lightning strike" keep this phrasing please and is that really 76%(!) lightning absorb, or 76 energy resistance?

Ring of the Silver Tongue - nice bit of kit for assassins & falconers. Prepare yourself for the incoming jokes though

Clouded Dreams - oh this is nice

trinket of freewill - solid bit of kit

Elyd Charm - 3 of more sources of anthem - ok, that's weird but fair enough, however while the bonus is nice, IMO it'd be better having the "make single-target songs mass versions instead" thing from the old epic elyd edge rapier to make it a really desirable bit of kit.

Bracers of the Mountain & cloak of the mountain - I'm guessing "spellcast on the run" means you no longer get movement slowdown while casting? Both solid items, however having a stoneskin guard to knock 10 points of damage off from each of a few hits isn't particularly legendary IMO, something that works more like ablative shield so it just straight-up absorbs a set amount of damage before disappearing would be more useful.

Wind howler mask - nice for ranged characters

Reflection of blackrazor - hmm, Blackrazor ate Terror & upgraded it I guess? very nice, though that vampirism effect, assuming it has the internal cooldown vs. old-school on every hit, is more flavour than useful, maybe swap it out for Life Devouring from the Axe of Famine - even if the low (and therefore useless) DC on the stat drain, the greater restoration portion could be useful & the effect would still be in the right theme.

Soulrazor - blackrazor goes one-handed, nice. Same point about vampirism

Reflection of Whelm - nice, though I'm probably going to be referring to it as "the boomhammer"

Overwhelming Impact - "the boomhammer wot you sling at em" - so, Mjolnir?

Reflection of Wave - an extra 5 caster & max caster levels on cold spells, while also able to laugh at such puny concepts as "immunity" to cold as a druid? That's pretty brutal & a good bonus for giving up the off hand.

Sphere of waves - solid bit of kit

Reflection of Angdrelve & Soul's Sorrow - very solid

Reflection of the Frostblade - Drizzt is going to want this back

[kmoustakas]

If you want staff of shadow to be good, you need to make it either 17-20/x3 or 20/x4. SoS is blonkers because of extended critical threat and multiplier otherwise someone might as well go with the epic elemental bloom.

And we already have an item named Staff of THE shadow so you might wanna do something else with that

[NarutoArgo]

Pointing out that the Staff being bludgeoning will frequently gain crit range from Pulverizer. And staff builds can get 15% increased speed. When I first saw it I said it looked too weak as well. I still think it needs something but I don't think 18-20 is it. +1 range and multiplier would likely put it where it needs to be.

The math on this is completely off. In no way would pulverizer make up for the fact that the staff is trash. With pulverizer and a feat and enhancements your looking at 17-20x4, the same thing a khopesh gets. Not to mention staffs aren't known or meant for base damage. And in current end game staff builds underperform so bad that in no way would +1 multiplier ever make them up to par. Taking the fastest attacking weapon in the game and making it the only weapon without procs or stat drain, in the update, is in and of itself insane. every other weapon has 4 different weapon enhancements where as the staff gets indestructible and expanded multiplier. Indestructible is hardly a weapon enhancement, its a nice utility and I appreciate the fact hey added it for once, however, it doesnt make up for the fact the weapon is trash.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the base damage is 65.63 which when you are relying on base damage and crits that is trash as well. Its 5[d6+6] weapon die. I could easily be twice that and hardly keep up.

[DeltaBravo]

Soo i think some of theese items are okey and i guess could work for some people.. But if you a min/maxing. I dont really see alot of stuff to go for ? Or am i missing something here ? Keep in mind you will very likely loose a set bonus either from Ravenloft set or/and your slavers set. and i dont see any of theese items worth of dropping that over..

Now what i would really really like to see is some goggles that are actully worth it.. for now i think most people is useing Cannith crafted goggles or L-Shroud goggles. But pretty pretty please add some good goggles that would work for casters . there is nothing other then what i said thats really worth it for casters for that slot.. You have no idea how much love from the people you would get if you made , some caster goggles Maybe spell pen or even better quality spell pen.. insightfull wisdom/intelligence/charisma maybe ? ( no need for enchament bonus there is pleanty of places to get that.. Or if you want to make a very very wanted item. add well rounded +2 profane bonus... I belive a pair of goggles that have profane well rounded might just beat pretty much any other named loot in the game.


Sadly for the 4th update in a row not a single item that will help me on min/max

Pretty please give casters goggles love

Cheers DB

[Iriale]

and another update without a resistance item. This has become worrying, devs. I hope you have not decided to eliminate the resistance items. Split Sheltering is already bad enough. Split resistance is absurd, given that it is a fundamental stat and it becomes a nightmare slot the three ST

Now what i would really really like to see is some goggles that are actully worth it.. for now i think most people is useing Cannith crafted goggles or L-Shroud goggles. But pretty pretty please add some good goggles that would work for casters . there is nothing other then what i said thats really worth it for casters for that slot.. You have no idea how much love from the people you would get if you made , some caster goggles

Pretty please give casters goggles love

Cheers DB

true, there is not good caster goggles atm

[Iriale]

The clouded dreams also gives +10% exceptional spell lore. 10% stacking lore is a lot. Sorcerers would love this one.


I wonder if anthem augments count for the Elyd Charm, though.

Like the legendary barovian robe, who has no penalties? I would say that sorcerers are better served with the robe which is not even a raid iterm

[janave]

Chaosbow Longbow
Damage Dice: 5[1d8+3]
9d6 Chaotic Damage (Lawful characters will take a neg level)
Improved Destruction
Elasticity (+1 Mult on 19-20)
Ranged Alacrity 25%
Red Augment Slot
Orange Augment Slot

This is good, but inherently requires one to take a feat to get most use (as the crit threat range is not 19-20). Its a feat bow users are highly likely to take anyway though. Expanding the crit threat range would give this bow the hands down advantage over all other lvl 29 bows (which my calculations speculate it already will have), but makes more sense for the bow to stand alone.

The chaos must be the reason. Its very chaotic for an item to bestow an effect it cannot achieve full use of on its own xD

I just hope they make the skin nice, so far looks like a cosmetic item slash sentinent food. +3% speed and elastic is barely making this a wilderness item, not raid gear in its current form.

[lLockehart]

Not too keen on them being ML29, we do have Stradh and Baba currently and some of the items overlap each other. It's said they'll match the prior raids in numbers but this is just not how it is, for example, compare the two bows together, which one will see use? even if the Ravenloft one was fixed with the pure ice damage working... you would still use this new one.

I also dislike the trend of having 9d6 unscalable procs on almost everything.

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WEAPONS

The Staff of Shadows is super bland, is this supposed to be for Acrobats and such, why not add Felling the Oak or something more spicy? I'm happy there's an up to date Qstaff with 1 extra multiplier as it should be but this is this is just bland powercreep over an ill designed raid weapon. Why not have that one upgraded instead?

Brilliant Crescent would be a sad weapon if not for the set bonus which is pretty interesting and strong enough to warrant experimentation with Ninjas. I like the idea of having to farm 2 of them, it adds to the value of the raid and it's a cool chasing design.

Chaosbow suffers from the same issue with the Qstaff above, why not have the RL one upgraded instead?

Hellstroke Heavy Mace is a mace...it has 23 Doublestrike, it's alright I guess, for a Scourge maybe? It'll probably end up being Raid filler.

Tornado is flavourful and I like flavour. With a 90 DC... who knows, might be okay enough.

Timeshard is probably a throwback to the longsword found in Chronoscope. It's awight ~ the Paralysing proc may very well function enough to see it being used by a more support oriented Tank or Healing role.

Nightshard is a Scimitar... and that's it. Is the base weapon at 3W? That's a little cheeky.

Staff of Irian is the 1st item that's raid worthy and has a significant change in usual effects to make it really exciting. It's awkward that Clr gets the offensive bonus though, that's what Fvs is supposed to do but sure. It deserves to be a tad stronger in my opinion.

Lightning Coil is as cool and interesting as the aforementioned staff, except it's looking more competitive. This is what the game needs more of. Wouldn't hurt to throw a critical damage bonus somewhere along the lines. My only issue with this is that it alienates the Fire element and it should have been released with other items supporting them as well, in different ways if possible like the Acid was with the accessory set.

---

ARMORS

The armours are... a thing. Why are they here, filler?

---

ACCESSORIES

Gauntlets of the Stormreaver sports Big huge Lightning Strike on vorpals and I agree of this message.

Ring of the Silver Tongue was the perfect opportunity to have a unique bonus to Rogue'ish playstyles, perhaps something happening while you're stealthed?

Clouded Dreams devalues the RL robe, no it severally devalues it and the drawback doesn't make much sense balance wise or has much coherency with the "spells get stronger" theme, why not have it grant bonuses based on the missing SP pool?

Trinket of Freewill it's alright I guess.

Elyd Charm is, again, what the games needs. I really enjoy this kind of spiciness and the numbers seem alright.

Bracers of the Mountain & Cloak of the Mountain spicy set, I like it very much. As above, I feel it should have some measure of extra critical damage multiplier %'s and it could have some unique effect going on when you're Stoneskinned, that would be neat.

Wind Howler Mask is alright... should have something more spicy to warrant being a raid item, it's basically a Ranged version of the helm found in Slavelords right? only that one is arguably better.

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OTHER WEAPONS

The Reflection of Blackrazor Now, I'll be blunt, I'm not too keen on upgrading weapons in this way, I don't dislike it completely but feels cheesy. This is basically the kind of weapon that should have been found above, it's raid worthy because it's unique and it's arguably the strongest in slot ThF wise, even against Tremors coupled with 2 extra Range.

Soulrazor is a shame. Why bother with the new sickle when you have this now? granted, it'll only see some play on maybe Ninjas who are looking to Twf this but it's not like those are very active. Anyhow, I think it just devalues things and brings nothing new short of copy pasting.

The Reflection of Whelm I think it's high time for us to know what big huge lighting strikes and 'extreme' damage is, does this even stun? might be okay.


Overwhelming Impact is copy pasting from the aforementioned Whelm. I guess it's alright.


The Reflection of Wave got considerably stronger and justifies its raid inclusion, it's also quite spicy.


Sphere of Waves is shameless copy pasting. This just super devalues the identity of the staff for no good reason. If the freezing proc is to be 1 handed for enabling higher build options, it should have been its own item with his own coherent theme. But it's not that bad, and hey, it's better than nothing since it works.


Reflection of Angdrelve & Soul's Sorrow are looking quite strong and a just upgrade for a raid inclusion.


The Reflection of the Frostblade a stronger Leopard's chill which was already quite strong in my opinion so it's good to see it updated.

---

Overall, I'm happy that we're taking riskier steps in unique effects, I think we should risk even further.

I very much enjoy the throwback theme, there's a lot of potential that can be fleshed out of this and trying to figure out where the items come from is a neat, nostalgic mini-game.