Info Item Team Update Thread - Latest Updates, Rebalance Changelogs & More - Update 28/6

Black is also good because it has extremely high damage... beating every non-mythic dagger in the game (powders included) except for Hive Dagger, and actually beats Nirvana just in base damages (gets even higher powdered because of the attack speed difference and higher power of Thunder powders). The 50% base damage boost actually puts it about on par with Weathered, even when stacking tons of boosts on top of that, where the difference is less important.

I do agree that we need more competitive dual-element options in endgame. Black benefits from an abundance of damage-boosting items for fire/thunder, which other dual-element combos don't really have.

 

Literally only two viable fire/thunder boosting armors, with Black people usually build the thunder damages more than the fire because there is an abundance of damage boosting items for thunder. I wouldn't even really consider Black a fire/thunder type because of it, many would consider it to be more of a thunder dagger.

 

In my opinion the orange wybel weapons should all be buffed to be among the strongest in the game solely based on the fact that for new players trying to fight wybel for the first time he's a pain in the ass.

 

I know the conversation wasn't about this, but I feel like this is a point that deserves more attention- mostly in terms of weapons; Black, Harwrol, Phoenix Wing/Lunar Spine I guess, and possibly Hellstrand are the only double-element weapons that are really usable/viable so you're either gonna have to go with a rare with simply less damage ouput or a Hive Infused Weapon, which then leads to a (bigger) lack of armour for certain double elements. Earth/air, thunder/fire and thunder/air are pretty good, but some combinations have hardly any or hardly usable items. Just an example, water/fire may have Sizzling Shawl and Ophiuchus among quite some other water/fire gear, but good luck somehow getting any mana regen and decent defenses on there (not a challenge ok?).

Just a general count over armour 100 - 80 (general usability range, requirements being requirements and damage/defense in that element) gives:

Spoiler: numbers

Earth/Thunder - 8
Earth/Water - 13
Earth/Fire - 12
Earth/Air - 9
Thunder/Water - 12
Thunder/Fire - 12
Thunder/Air - 19
Water/Fire - 10
Water/Air - 10
Fire/Air - 10

Which we can mostly discard for info on which dual-element is good, but I put in too much time to not at least post it.

So yeah, better dual-element weapons and armour would be appreciated. Especially for the ones not in the Hive armour pieces. The same for triple-element items- there's Medeis, the air/water/air armour (who on the Item Team likes that so much?) and that's about where it stops, until Tophet or something.

tl;dr more actually strong dual-element weapons please thank you (more armour good too)
oh and if earth/water would get some actual weapon instead of unique bow/manna/bedruthan that would be appreciated too

 

I have one question, what is your defintion of general usability? Fire/air only really has 3-4 viable pieces; viable being actually used in builds, those would entail: Burnout, Heatsink, Frontliner, and Hephestus(hive master leggings). And of course I'd love to see where those fire/thunder pieces are. . .

 

forgetting phoenix prince's crown
I'm sad now

 

ive said this before but honestly the difference between legendaries rares and uncommons should be smaller and common tier weapons should not drop from mobs cause they are nothing but annoying tbh.

 

You're right, but I only realised it after having counted it all and decided to still put it in the post. It didn't really properly show my point either, so you're probably better off just ignoring that part tbh.
That being said, Phoenix Prince's Crown, Grillface, Thanos Plate, Uth set, and maybe even Heroism are all good to decent fire/air armour.

 

Looking through your "viable dual element weapon list", I'm seeing that it's effectively just the endgame legendaries which makes sense as few people use non-legendaries when legendary options exist. Though this may be true, we can't exactly add legendary weapons for each element combo without severely diluting the pool. This is largely why rare weapons exist, to provide gimmicky designs and largely to help fill out combos that we just don't have enough legendaries to fill. Crafting, though grindy, can also help you make duel element weapons for any elemental combo if you are willing to put up with durability and the work to acquire them.

Now responding to the water fire example, while you said "not a challenge", I feel like the claim you made isn't exactly valid. By nature of being part water, it is easy to use intel items to acquire mana regen, and there are items like soulflare to provide mana steal, or chef hamseys apron, which can provide both mana regen and thunder defense.

All that count really shows is that there is too much thunder air, but there are no elements that don't have at least twice the minimum, so while many would appreciate the additional options, for none is it absolutely required.

Lastly, about trial element. In general it's very difficult to design tri-elemental items with an identity and enough focused power to be viable, which is why you haven't seen it too much

Thanks for the feedback! Always like to see discussion on this thread.

 

just pointing out that fire/water is totally viable.

I kind of disagree about diluting the pool. Even though rares in general are about 5-8 times more common than legendaries (guesstimate, idk the true value), the fact that there are about 2.5 times more rares (sampled level 80-100 weapons) means that legendaries aren't nearly as uncommon as they appear to be. Rare weapons being so uniformly weaker than legendaries, making them relatively easier to find by adding more legendaries might be a good thing.

 

Terrible idea, considering legendaries just have higher damage baselines than rares, its seemed you've learned nothing from the mythic problem.

 

Diluting the pool doesn't only mean that legendaries are too common, it can also mean that specific items become too rare. I'm not sure if you guys have actually tried to make midgame builds, but often times it can take hours to find a single item you want, and while the ability to buy and sell alleviates this slightly at endgame, it is still an issue. The other issue is one that could be clearly seen with sitis vs black a couple patches back, where sitis was a dozen times easier to find than black. with regards to the "mythic problem", while yes, having lower baselines on some items than others does hold them back, we have tried to create ways for any build to be suitable for all ingame content, and indeed it is, nearly any element combo on any class can solo all content save wars, which by nature are in a different calaber. So while these may not be as efficient as other options, they are certainly enough to clear the game, and crafting has served to help alleviate this issue as well.

 

Your concern for legendaries doesn't hold water, the solution is simple, don't make them drops, make them rewards for endgame content such as dungeons or Li. Is it really too much to ask for you to make support for elemental combos that are underutilized?

 

That doesn’t really fall under the IMs, though. The IMs can’t make dungeons and endgame quests just so they can put items in them - other parts of staff develop those parts of the game and the item team is asked to put stuff in them.

Even if the IMs asked for an outlet to add items to, it would take a very long time to create as it is complicated with a ton of other aspects of the game (if other staff agreed to make such endgame amenities, which is unlikely if the sole purpose is to add a few more items).

 

You don't need new dungeons, just add it to the dungeons we already have, I don't think people are gonna complain that there are too many good rewards for completing a dungeon, and if it adds to the balance of certain archetypes it would be an accepted change.

Yeah that sounds like a chore, god forbid they like, make new items, and work with the ct to find ways to add them into the game effectively.

 

You have a point - and honestly I’m not opposed to the dungeons, but dungeons also have a theme so it would be hard to encorporate wanted element combos in them, if the team wanted to make them (also not many dungeons at the right level).

Meanwhile ofc staff works together, but making the items before making a challenge is much harder to do then modeling items after a challenge. Also, I have absolutely no clue what ct would even be working on for endgame challenges, if they even are (my statement was more hinting to that). Endless endgame challenges can’t just be made with the flick of a finger.

Basically, while a possible idea, options for using it are very limited.

 

So something is probably in the works already given that Quinque was apparently changed from its original design pretty late, but now that I think I've finally figured out what Quinque was meant to do... why isn't it Super Fast with some Fire and Air damage? Elemental weakness exploitation would let it be something other than "Thunder Hive but worse" (plus it would have five points).

 

Good idea actually

 

Curiosity regarding the hp buff on endgame items: if the issue is that crafted endgame armor have significantly higher hp than regular endgame armor, why do endgame armors get their health buffed instead of crafted items theirs nerfed in a way to make balance?

 

Based on SilverMirror's post, the rest of the items were always off baseline.