What Has The Item Team Been Up To?

Hey everyone! I know the team has been really quiet lately, so I figured what better time to talk about what I’ve personally been up to involving items? We haven’t died yet!

As you guys may have seen in the last push, most of the items in the Earth/Water duo received balance changes, from small tweaks to full overhauls to adding new ids the combo has never had access to before! This isn’t actually an isolated set of changes, but was rather the start of my massive undertaking to go over every piece of endgame armour in the game, and make sure the 10 tris are functioning as intended. The very beginning of this was actually before the Earth/Water changes, with the introduction of Heavy Melee as a mainstream playstyle for Earth/Thunder/Fire!

I’m pleased to inform you all that as of now, I have completed every piece of endgame armour for the following element combinations:
Air
Earth/Water
Earth/Air
Thunder/Air
Water/Air
Fire/Air

Alongside this progress, I will be releasing my personal checklist to the public so you all can keep up with what’s finished and what has yet to be done! You can find the spreadsheet here, and I would highly recommend you check it out, there might be a few names you haven’t heard of before on there if you look closely~ Feel free to comment on the spreadsheet as well.

Now, I would like to talk more in depth about one of the tris that has been completed thus far: Thunder/Fire/Air. This combination required some of the most planning out of any of them so far to make sure everything slotted together, and I now believe TFA has one of the most unique identities of any elemental combo in Wynncraft: Zero Intelligence Spell Steal Tank. This doesn’t roll off the tongue very well but definitely is an accurate descriptor of how the combo plays. We can always call it ZISST instead!

Spoiler: THE TFA CHART OF DESTINY

Here’s the chart I used to keep track of all the dedicated TFA-leaning armour pieces at endgame. These numbers on the left side are definitely the main event, as these are Negative Spell Cost Percent identifications. Rather than building intelligence to have cheaper spells like a standard spell build, TFA actually ends up with negative intelligence almost by default, and instead gains good spell access through items with these ids. Alongside this, TFA has good health access due to its generally tanky nature, as well as plenty of life steal, mana steal, and walk speed to go around. It excels at being aggressive to maximize damage output and sustain and can take enough of a beating to enable that type of play.

Now, for most builds, you would focus on your Third Spell Cost. If you build smart, you should be able to land roughly around a 65-75% cheaper third spell, while also having good sustain in the form of mana and life steal. I did take care to recognize that that isn’t how everyone plays, however. Especially when it comes to Assassin, First Spell Cost will be seen as much more important to most players, and some Archers and Mages might find it more worthwhile than Third Spell Cost as well. That’s why Missing exists and was completely reworked to be a… mini Heph, for you assassins out there who are willing to sacrifice a bit of tankiness for the cheaper spin attacks. Ceramic Shell Greaves has a completely new spell cost design as well, meant to be geared towards support mages! Yes, this is a very niche style of play, but that’s why it’s on a unique. It’s strong at what it does but doesn’t take away any higher tier options from more standard playstyles while still adding more diversity and options to players who want to play their own way! Don’t worry, Fire/Air boots won’t be missing out on options, if you check the spreadsheet you’ll see a brand new pair of boots coming to the combo! As for Flashing Boots? It’s certainly interesting, and can actually find good use outside of TFA much easier than a lot of other items with spell costs can. Brainwash, anyone?

Now let me just show you a couple of the designs. The choice between Sparkling Plate and Tinderbox is a good case study of the kind of choices you’ll have to make when building in TFA, and this isn’t even considering the other options! Just wait until you guys finally get to see Bastille’s rework, it might actually be good!

Spoiler: Tinderbox is coolant

Spoiler: But Sparkling Plate is coolanter

I hope this update gets you guys excited about what’s to come for buildmaking in the future! Please let us know what you just can’t wait to see, and what you may be worried about too! I’m excited to show off more item changes in the near future, though they will probably just be comments on the item team thread here rather than full updates such as this.

Now, despite all these changes, TFA may seem a little one dimensional from what I’ve shown you. We thought of that too. I’ll leave you all with this brand new item: Ambivalence.

Spoiler: I should not be allowed to make items.

(Please keep in mind that while the concept is sound, the exact values require much more testing before they will be finalized.)

How does Heavy Spell sound to you?

 

Knock it off with the buff lament thing. It's totally unrelated to the discussion...

 

ah yes, my favourite element combination: Air
also pog tfa finally becoming generally good..?

 

omg heavy spell ambivalence hadal!!!
epic build thank you xavier!!!!

 

hey A was my favorite ele combo but it lacks good support so i went ETWFA instead.

 

This thread is oozing hotness. Thank you xavi very cool!

 

Yay that's my elemental combo

 

Short list of some new names from the chart:

Spoiler: Helmets

- Slideshow
- Prosencephalon

Spoiler: Chestplates

- Windshear
- September

Spoiler: Leggings

- Dizzy Spell
- Demon Tide
- Entanglement
- Flummox
- Nuance
- Weightless
- Quarantine (bruh)
- Adrenaline

Spoiler: Boots

- Signal Flare
- Frenzied Mockery
- Spiritdancer
- Virtuoso
- Magnet Repulsor
- Counterfeit

 

bruh moment
Well at least we'll remember when the item came out

 

Missing 2! A chestplate and leggings.

 

Inspired by the EU hubs lol

 

Gotem

 

ngl i kinda didn't know like 75% of these items existed

 

Thank you item team
very cool
edit: here is wynndata for tinderbox https://wynndata.tk/ci/538560250

 

what about collapse madness heavy spell?

also we want patch notes reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

Wow this looks neat...glad I just got an inferno ;))
I do have one question. Will the -intel scale with the amount of -spell cost. Like more -intel for more -spell and less -intel for less -spell. Mainly just asking cause i'm curious how quad element might work hehehe...

Few other things. With this change to buff fire/thunder/air is there still plans for more fire intel support or is fire spell going to pushed almost entirely to fire/thunder/air? My last question for fire/thunder/air is now that there is more spell sustain will hp regen/mana regen still be a prominant part of fire/air?
buff inferno btw

 

Air is so OP it doesn't even need a combo..

 

Air just does its own thing

 

spell cost build
spell cost build

let's go

 

TFA no Intel LI