Info Item Team Thread - Item/ingredient/major Id Changes, Updates & More

Almost every bow hat is currently stupidly powerful is a result of the problem that is Nighthawk, specifically stopping Freedom from being able to use it not only means it's going to have to use something that shouldn't be available in the first place (double Draoi Fair) to stay relevant and doesn't stop it from abusing, say, Pandemonium hardcore. And even if that would solve Nighthawk being stupidly good on Freedom, it leaves the rest of the bows open to still use it without issue which in the end means you really didn't fix anything.

Now, Freedom should probably get some kind of negative to balance its otherwise amazing everything else out (even if that would go against the 'Freedom' this weapon is supposed to give), but considering flipping ids especially on a mythic go very wack, it leaves very little options past some negative sp (rainbow or -def could both work, I guess) or negative rainbow elemental damages (I shouldn't have to explain why this is probably a bad idea), and nerfing the current ids wouldn't actually even change that much as the mana and agility wouldn't get touched anyway. Which is why, in my opinion, the base damage should get nerfed a little further and its reqs should be 45 (specifics can be left up for change but that's roughly the idea), as requirements is the only real good option without obliterating the base damage. That would still not really solve any big problems with Freedom in the current meta (neither does the current pending change though), but it would make Freedom need to consider stuff, eventually. Down the line. I hope.

Oops, spent to much time on Discord again. It being "a bit e" in this case means that it's kinda really mediocre, with quite some items basically being locked in (Kindled Orchid, Calidade Mail, Rainbow Sanc/Horizon, Accelerator, Breezehands, Flashfire, Flashfire is not just standard but really hard to get out of with rainbow as well), although Rainbow Sanc isn't required which is nice.
However, if I did my attack speed base damage changing right, that would net Collapse (remember: highest base damage of any spear, with an absolute monstrous melee damage) an easy 35k+ dps which is kinda busted with rainbow tankiness (no crafteds, might I add), so it's basically asking for Collapse to lose melee % in order for it to become super slow. And, in case you haven't seen:

Not a lot of room for another endgame rainbow super slow melee spear. Either way, I would love for it to become very slow while rainbow mythic weapons' shared gimmicks are being looked at- Fantasia and Collapse can definitely swap attack speeds.

edit; wow this went kind of unclear really fast. what i'm trying to say is that super slow collapse would kind of not work well balance-wise and uh, PROXIMA, although very slow should be fine. it's also a pretty good example of the everlasting struggle of melee tiers being so inconsistent it's almost funny. anyway my biggest gripe with super slow collapse is just that it wouldn't really fit, but it's hard to make a hard argument against it because it can't really compare to anything but singularity, which it specifically can't have the attack speed of (woop de doo) and proxima (which sucks a ton).

 

Well, is super slow it shouldn't be 35k dps, even if you use a tier stack build 35k dps is pretty average. Can you please show the calculation because I'm curious too.

 

Purposefully ignoring Proxima aside,

60 * 1.46 / 0.51 = 171.8
90 * 1.46 / 0.51 = 257.6
250 * 1.46 / 0.51 = 715.7

If you want to know how and what I'm doing I've done some figuring out of this kinda stuff a while ago and I've been procrastinating on making a thread about it aaagh (but this should be accurate on like a whole % or so)

Then plug it into a somewhat glassy tierstack build and: https://wynndata.tk/s/2gray3 37k dps w/out warscream, 41k with
This can be surpassed by Alkatraz pretty easily of course, but that is much glassier and doesn't have a powder special or mana.
It's not super broken, but it's kind of on the edge here, and like I said, very slow just fits a whole lot better on Collapse IMO.
Either way, we agree that slow is a pretty sad place to exist in for something that wants to be used with melee, so again, swapping Fantasia and Collapse attacking speeds seems the easiest. And we're not ignoring the most ignored endgame legendary spear c:

 

for the record proxima generally does more melee dps than collapse and is super underrated.

 

The first major ID change since January 17th has been logged! No ETA, as with the item update containing the upcoming changes.

 

Isn't it 120% right now? Anyway, this should reduce the oppression of nighthawk, hopefully

 

It's 100%, but the tooltip didn't update properly. Check the January 17th changelog- that's the one that's live, and it reports the damage decrease from 140% to 100%

 

I talked about the nighthawk meta freedom in my post but nighthawk is just an archer problem. Freedom is still too powerful in terms of its damage and supporting abilities compared to the other mythic bows, with huge benefits and glassy built GMA level damage. A jack of all trades is supposed to be a master of none, but Freedom clearly surpasses that. Some sort of drawback would be good; I like the idea of -defense skill points too.

 

Okay may i ask, how is it a nerf when you up freedoms reqs from 35 to 40. Everyone uses rainbow sanc with it so that automatically gets it to 40 req. Its useless ”nerf”, set it to 50 req each and then it *might* be balanced

 

I feel like all of you are kinda ignoring exploding. Let me give a very extreme example here.

You hit 20 mobs with uppercut, you hit a min roll with all of them, but one. The one you hit does a rather high roll.
The one mob that got hit with a high hit explodes, dealing its damage to the rest of the mobs, and killing all of them dispite the low rolls.

Thats of course assuming exploding still did spell damage, and not the shitty fucking melee damage, but its still more reliable then its made out to be, at least in groups of mobs.

 

fuck twilight-gilded cloak. all my homies hate twilight-gilded cloak.


ok after actually reading i can confirm that this does not actually pertain to twilight-gilded cloak, and is finally more nighthawk nerfs. nice.

 

Comments:

1) Yay Hawkeye nerf. I don't think the damage nerf is necessary on top of the velocity reduction, but I don't really have a sense of what it'll be like after the nerf, so...

2) On the topic of Renda Langit, I have never found a good use for it. Assassin and Shamans have the 2nd spell cost 1 mana at all intelligence levels, meaning that its only real use is to cancel +2nd spell gear such as Anya's Penumbra. Archer builds generally don't use escape in boss fights, and rely on long distance engagement and strafing to avoid attacks. This leaves warrior and mage, and while they might find a use for it, I can only see it really having a use in melee builds, where mana is limited. Unfortunately, Renda Langit is a pretty weak choice otherwise, as items such as Bottled Thunderstorm give good SP and damage, the steam necklace gives more SP and mobility, and Necklace of a Thousand Storms and Charm of the Storms both give better damages. There are quite a few competitive air necklaces for different element combos, and unfortunately, a 2nd spell cost bonus isn't nearly as useful as a 3rd or 1st spell bonus, meaning that Renda Langit falls short of the other Grookwarts and other air necklaces in the endgame.


Feedback on some items:

1) Why does Idol give 26 intel and require 120. Is this some subtle joke, making the player allocate 1 extra SP for 2 cost uppers? Lol.

2) Any plans to rework Scorpio? I mean, I'm going to be honest, I completely forgot Scorpio existed until I checked my bank and saw a near max poison one sitting there. What is that thing even for?

3) I've had some time to play around with Alkatraz following the previous patch, and while it's pretty strong in an ETA build, it's still very awkward to build. With a 120 strength requirement that is compounded by -15SP bonuses in every other element, it feels needlessly restrictive. In a spell build, you're forced to go full dual elemented water and earth to get high intel, turning this weapon into a really strong glass cannon. While the damage is exceptional due to 150 strength, Thrundacrack simply does the spell glass cannon playstyle better with much more spell dps and additional SPs to allocate to defensive elements.

Due to the presence of Thrundacrack as a much better spell spear, Alkatraz seems like it's restricted to a melee playstyle, which is fine, as its high base damage gives it a very high DPS in a tierstack build. However, when I started building and playing around with the weapon, I found that the biggest issue was survivability. The damage provided, while very strong, requires you to stand directly next to your opponent, which quickly makes you take a lot of damage (and also requires you to chase your opponent on many occasions). To mitigate this, I found that you'd want a very high amount of agility and walkspeed. And, of course, the -SP bonuses and really high requirement on Alkatraz hamper this. It makes me feel as though I'm completely reliant on items such as Dark Shroud and Accelerator to make my build functional.

So there it is, my post-patch opinions on Alkatraz. I must say that Dark Shroud makes it much easier to use, but I feel kinda iffy on having to rely on one pair of leggings to make my build work decently. The weapon itself only has one thing going for it: a really high base damage that allows you to penetrate almost any mob defense. Otherwise, it's fairly mediocre, and it shows. It's painfully restrictive, has no powder slots, and its base spell dps (base damage x attack speed) doesn't even surpass Hero. I feel like tierstacking potential isn't enough to justify Alkatraz being this mediocre, as despite the exceptional damage, it feels far too glassy due to being a melee weapon.

 

i'd rather the damage nerf than the velocity reduction imo but idrk

 

The damage nerf was needed because you can cast more nighthawk arrows (because of the shorter duration) than you can cast regular storm arrow. Even if nighthawk has the same damage as a regular storm arrow, nighthawk will still win out because you can spam it faster than regular storm arrow.

 

The update is going to have hawkeye arrows shoot at the same speed as regular arrow storm. Both arrow storm duration and damage are getting nerfed according to the logs.

EDIT: I keep referring to arrow storm duration as velocity, which can mean an entirely different thing. Changed wording to be more clear.

EDIT 2: I'm illiterate. Everything I said in this post is a fucking lie.

 

This is a remnant of when skill point weren't fixed, and max 26 was base 20, which is just a common and easy amount to use. Could go to 27 I suppose, but I'd much rather have a conversation about Uppercut base cost going to 8 than this.

If you look at Xavier's armour progress spreadsheet , in case people forgot about it), you'll see that Scorpio is likely going to be tri-elemental, which may or may not indicate a full-on rework. Whatever happens though, it's not forgotten about.

I still think a bit of a damage and/or strength nerf in order to make that negative sp just.. disappear is really just a fine change. The intelligence hinders the previously very cool spell Alka builds, and the negative def/agi means it either needs to rely on Dark Shroud or suffer.

 

That's an exaggeration. Entertaining this scenario, I'd much rather shoot 20 arrows every spell than 5, considering that each individual arrow is identical anyway. The original arrow storm doesn't even prevent you from casting other spells like bomb arrow during its casting duration so there's nothing that stops it from outclassing a hawkeye storm that has been nerfed this hard.

The velocity at which the arrow travels is not the speed at which you can cast it (ie. the duration of the spell). I think I'm getting confused reading this discussion.

 

Fuck you're right. Why did I use the word velocity even? That's not what I meant at all lmao. What I meant was the duration of the spell. I personally think that making hawkeye arrow storm last as long and have only 80% damage per arrow is too much of a nerf.

 

even if it is too much of a nerf, it would be barely too much of a nerf, and it's still on a reqless helmet with 3300 health, 390 raw spell, and walk speed

 

statwise, because of raw's poor scaling with archer, nighthawk faces huge competition from aphotic, bpc, cumu, sizzling shawl, shadow cowl and unravel. most of them actually beat nighthawk in theoretical damage in their respective archetypes. the problem with nighthawk being overpowered lies in hawkeye being overpowered; i think there's nothing particularly wrong with the item design itself.