From looking at the new gear and the bonuses they provide, there is a vast difference in usefulness. Not only is the new 1k gear only providing 1200 defense instead of 2000 like current 1k gear, but only one of the armor pieces seems worth using and that is the 1k version of Terrored grips.
For chests, there is a slightly upgraded version of Gurdunn's Defense with 50 more IL, Butchers Tenacity bonus that adds 1% armor pen when hitting for more than 15% of your HP. These bonuses will now only proc on daily and encounter use as at wills don't do the necessary damage, so getting to the 5 stacks on any class besides HR is nearly impossible. Lastly Butchers remedy, which heals for 1% when damaged for 15% of your HP or more, to be used in a trail where the new minimum hit will be 300k according to some of the alpha testers. Aside from tanks and the new requirement for hit points Hag Rags and Fured Kiono will still be BIS for dps classes in most cases.
As for helms, 5% power increase on kill for 10 seconds, will still not be as useful as the protégé gear assuming the trial takes place in an undermountain region. Executioners Zeal bonus that adds 1% AP on kill, which is three times weaker than Executioners Zeal from the Chultan Boots. Lastly Executioners Guard, which adds 5% defense for 10 seconds on kill. With max defense being a requirement for Tomm, 5% over the cap will again be useless.
For the gloves, there is a+3% damage to encounters, a +3% damage to at wills, and -3% ranged damage taken. All of these options are somewhat viable but only one can be selected.
For the boots, gaining additional movement speed when in combat may have some versatility, but unlikely when compared with gaining 5% combat advantage, gaining 3% damage when over 75% stamina, gaining 3% AP on kill, 3% melee damage, or 3% damage to at wills. Death Defier's Might adding 250 power per enemy engaged in combat also pales in comparison to the aforementioned bonuses. Lastly, Focus which gives 200 crit per enemy engaged with is again a useless bonus with a stat cap of 80k.
On another note the current successor boots for ranged classes that add a combat advantage bonus when beyond 25' is also useless on any ranged class that cannot grant their own combat advantage as you must be with 15-20', however far that happens to be in game, to gain the advantage.
The rings will be useful but require competition of Tomm and RNG, and given how long some people had to farm Fane to find a +4 or +5 ring I imagine it may hundreds of runs before a +5 ring is found and possibly into the 1000s of runs to find the desired ring.
The Demo set is still ahead of all other current sets with regard to dps. Tying all of the newer sets to daily activation ensures there bonus is only activated approximately every 45-75 seconds. The new Halister gear set bonus appears nice but the bonus will become null if you have to dodge or adjust to get combat advantage.
While these items are still in the test phase I would like to see something comparable to current dps gear or a more permanent defense bonus with regard to tanks.
Or even look at the option of paying AD to transfer an equip bonus from a lower IL item to another.
I'm sure a large number of players would prefer to utilize the newer gear but the currently have to sacrifice damage output for a higher IL.
Sorry for the long post.
Jufes
12
Comments
I will strongly suggest to establish a set of rules for how itemization should happen - you can still do this before mod 17. Postpone mod 17 if necessary.. this REALLY need to be done right.
Some suggestions:
* At endgame most players have capped all offensive stats maybe except CA. Do not offer time-limited effects with offensive stats, as they will not be used. Make time-limited effects with power, +damage and maybe CA.
* Make very sure there is a sane progression in items.. new top-end gear should always be better.
* You might need to do a clean cut and just nerf the old +damage gear - this should have been done with mod 16 really. Well geared players can generally take the stat loss from using old equipment - +damage gear is too valuable.
* The +damage gear formula need to be changed from a multiplicative to an additive model. As it is it is too strong. Should not be base damage * (1+d1)*(1+d2)*(1+d3), as this gives exponential growth and each added +damage item is very valuable. Should be base damage * (1+d1+d2+d3), which gives linear growth.
* Be very careful with giving out +damage items. Restrict +damage to a few defined slots, and do not increase the +damage percentage from mod to mod. Improvement of +damage items should come from the stats om the item, not from increased +damage. This rule could be relaxed for time-limited +damage.
* +damage effects with same name should not stack. Having odd stacking rules for +damage is just confusing for players. That also adds another dimension to the hunt for gear - find a mix of +damage effects so that all take effect. It will be ok to make two identical rings as long as they got different effect names.
> @jufes said:
> From looking at the new gear and the bonuses they provide, there is a vast difference in usefulness. Not only is the new 1k gear only providing 1200 defense instead of 2000 like current 1k gear, but only one of the armor pieces seems worth using and that is the 1k version of Terrored grips.
>
> For chests, there is a slightly upgraded version of Gurdunn's Defense with 50 more IL, Butchers Tenacity bonus that adds 1% armor pen when hitting for more than 15% of your HP. These bonuses will now only proc on daily and encounter use as at wills don't do the necessary damage, so getting to the 5 stacks on any class besides HR is nearly impossible. Lastly Butchers remedy, which heals for 1% when damaged for 15% of your HP or more, to be used in a trail where the new minimum hit will be 300k according to some of the alpha testers. Aside from tanks and the new requirement for hit points Hag Rags and Fured Kiono will still be BIS for dps classes in most cases.
>
> As for helms, 5% power increase on kill for 10 seconds, will still not be as useful as the protégé gear assuming the trial takes place in an undermountain region. Executioners Zeal bonus that adds 1% AP on kill, which is three times weaker than Executioners Zeal from the Chultan Boots. Lastly Executioners Guard, which adds 5% defense for 10 seconds on kill. With max defense being a requirement for Tomm, 5% over the cap will again be useless.
>
> For the gloves, there is a+3% damage to encounters, a +3% damage to at wills, and -3% ranged damage taken. All of these options are somewhat viable but only one can be selected.
>
> For the boots, gaining additional movement speed when in combat may have some versatility, but unlikely when compared with gaining 5% combat advantage, gaining 3% damage when over 75% stamina, gaining 3% AP on kill, 3% melee damage, or 3% damage to at wills. Death Defier's Might adding 250 power per enemy engaged in combat also pales in comparison to the aforementioned bonuses. Lastly, Focus which gives 200 crit per enemy engaged with is again a useless bonus with a stat cap of 80k.
>
> On another note the current successor boots for ranged classes that add a combat advantage bonus when beyond 25' is also useless on any ranged class that cannot grant their own combat advantage as you must be with 15-20', however far that happens to be in game, to gain the advantage.
>
> The rings will be useful but require competition of Tomm and RNG, and given how long some people had to farm Fane to find a +4 or +5 ring I imagine it may hundreds of runs before a +5 ring is found and possibly into the 1000s of runs to find the desired ring.
>
> The Demo set is still ahead of all other current sets with regard to dps. Tying all of the newer sets to daily activation ensures there bonus is only activated approximately every 45-75 seconds. The new Halister gear set bonus appears nice but the bonus will become null if you have to dodge or adjust to get combat advantage.
>
> While these items are still in the test phase I would like to see something comparable to current dps gear or a more permanent defense bonus with regard to tanks.
>
> Or even look at the option of paying AD to transfer an equip bonus from a lower IL item to another.
>
> I'm sure a large number of players would prefer to utilize the newer gear but the currently have to sacrifice damage output for a higher IL.
>
> Sorry for the long post.
>
> Jufes
As for artifact gear I find it weird that here we are almost 10 mods later and Demo is still the best set and we have had plenty of sets introduced over that time.
If the devs would increase the damage bonus we get from our ability scores and make new sets have 2x those stats some sets such as demo would become obsolete.
For instance if the Halister set provided +5 Int and Cha and Int provided 2% dmg increase per a stat over 10, I believe many wizard would take this set over the Demo simply do to the 10% constant dmg bonus from the +5 Int.
One thing I noticed is that with mod 16 is the value of enchantments is lower now than in previous mods, even with power being a primary stat to increase you only really need R8 to play end game content.
But it needs to be available somewhere on collections every mod or 2. Or we will stick with what gives best dps.
When they start bouncing the best abilities to different slots all we are going to do is stack gear from different mods to those slots.. Keep the slots specific to specific bonuses. If we can mix and match we will..
I disagree with the premise that the end-game newest gear should be designed to always be best gear.
The way it is creates a nice variety of options for players.
The original poster is greatly over-egaggerating the multiplicative exponential effect of damage bonus from gear:
If a player obtains six pieces of gear that all give a 3% damage bonus... AND they all function at simultaneously.. the player receives a 19.4% damage bonus from the gear. This is only 1.4% more than the additive formula that gives 18% bonus.
This is what he basically said.
"We're going to spend a little time looking into how this is all set up. It's not a priority issue so no guarantee we'll do anything. If it looks like it will take more time than we want to invest into changing it than, guess what, we never actually promised it was a guarantee. We did what we said we would. Looked at it. You're welcome."
@mentinmindmaker pointed out correctly, that +3-5% bonuses are multiplicative, so they are always giving you 3-5%, while stat bonuses are diminishing.
These bonuses are always have an inherent danger of making their way back if the developers are not careful enough.
In my opinion, the Orcus set needs to be nerfed to 5%. You could buff the new sets as well, but seems unreasonable, because you are getting most of it so late, that you don't really need their benefit now and the next content will be designed with them in mind.
Btw, this was a discussion at mod 14, when the Barovian hunt items appeared... and yes, the Omu items were just better. And they listened and changed them. So, they are aware of the problem, just I guess waiting for a time when the community is more accepting to nerf old items.
I used HV and HP set, until they nerfed the bonus. Ignoring comments from idiots complaining about my low HP (bc of the old set) and my defensive playstyle (bc of the low HP). A party with SW, DC and CW with old sets was able to burn Demigorgon in seconds, while most parties struggled, to complete the phases.
To make the changes not THAT brutal, they could add a legacy bonus to some items, like with some epic mounts. This way long time players would still have some bonus/reward for their grind.