Game Design The Problem With Warchief

Hi there.

If you don't know me, I'm Golfbawl. I tried to quit Wynn awhile ago, but after solving some things in real life, I decided to come back, because I love this server, and this community.

But, I'm not writing this post as a welcome back message, but rather a *slight* rant about a specific item I've had sitting in my bank for over a year.

I'll try to keep this post as short as possible, but I also want to make my points as clear as possible, so I do apologize if this comes out as a massively infuriating wall of text.



This is my warchief, the only mythic I've held onto for over a year. In case you aren't familiar with Wynncraft mythics or have been living under a rock for over 9000 years, Warchief is a glassy pair of mythic boots meant to give you insane damage, insane health, and insane weakness to elements.

I'm going to start off by saying that the problem with Warchief is NOT that it's a trash item. It is an extremely capable item for glassy earth melee builds. As an endgame item, it's ok, But as a Mythic item, it's considerably lackluster for one massive reason:



Oof.

120 Strength is what you have to allocate in order to use these pair of boots. Now, that's a LOT of strength. Mythics generally tend to cost a lot and have high rewards to compensate, but there's a number of things that make this immense requirement extremely unreasonable:

To start, Warchief, on top of having a 120 strength requirement, also has -dexterity. And, while this may seem insignificant as hell, it actually hurts Warchief's viability considerably. This is because most attack tier items have extremely high requirements, and many of them require dexterity (Breezehands, Physalis, Nephilim, Centipede). So each extra -SP in dexterity is one bit more harder to use one of these pieces of gears. The -dexterity, stacked with the 120 strength requirement, makes using Warchief far too difficult.

That's the biggest concern with Warchief. There are some smaller gripes which contribute to Warchief's shortcomings, such as the -walkspeed making Warchief slightly impractical for air builds, and the -water damage makes mage's heals a little less effective, but these issues aren't that big.

I get that Warchief was meant to be a super restrictive item meant solely for use in Earth builds, but at this point it's just too much. Warchief currently feels like one of those really gimmicky rare items that only suits one type of build style.

If I were to suggest a change, drop the 120 strength requirement to 105, and get rid of the -dexterity altogether. If needed, make the -defenses or -walk speed harsher to compensate for this change. By doing this, Warchief is immediately made significantly more usable in a variety of builds (Alkatraz builds can use Warchief to gain the extra needed strength, and all Warchief builds would have some excess SP leftover for other items). Right now, Warchief is really odd in terms of usability. It's intended to be a glassy item, but it has such a high requirement that it's a chore just to be able to pair it with other glass-oriented items like Centipede.

So there you go. This is why Warchief is almost never used, and is merely chucked around the trade market worthlessly (it's also really common, but that's another story). Warchief gives good benefits, but is literally unusable in most builds.

TL:DR Buff Warchief:

120 Str Req -> 105 Str Req
-7 to -13 Dex -> -0 Dex


I know many people have many opinions on items, especially mythics. So please leave your thoughts below. This post is merely my opinion, but I feel generally sums up Warchief's biggest issue.

Many thanks.

Golfbawl



Oh yeah and I've been told to tag some people:
@thot pocket
@Toy
@HueTheColors
@The Demon Queen

 

warchief is gay

 

Could instead lower ele defs, having a higher str req just means more dmg

 

Official respond:
Warchief is the epitomy of earth melee glass cannon, and from your post its apparent that you know that, but items' design are to push your builds in a direction and set up challenges around it.

Earth Melee's trait is "slow and hard hitting", the anti dex is obviously there to enforce that, however its penalty is low so its more of a conceptual barrier rather than an actual one. Most attack tier items have extremely high req for a reason, attack tier is a very strong id, +1 tier can basically increase your total dps significantly, and it is accompanied in items of fast elements, which is mainly dex and agi. Therefore high restriction is there to set up the obvious challenge of making +tier builds difficult but not impossible.

In fact, judging from how the community make builds, if the restriction is any less people are likely to build tank and patch up its defenses, which defeat its purposes (not like gambler doesnt exist but h gambler). Moreover, theres no items with higher than 120 strength requirement, the strength on warchief is just a damage boost and nothing else, is this a lost of opportunity? maybe so.

To sum up, its high req and -dex is there to make +tier builds difficult on purpose.

While the -water dmg affect heal make sense, my limited build knowledge has lead to the conclusion that people dont use warchief for air builds.

Which is what mythic armors are all about, suitable for specific types of build style. (slayer eh...)

=============
Personal opinion:
I wouldnt say warchief is perfect, its certainly unpleasent to use, for wt its taking its not giving enough in return. However, I believe your post is approaching the issue in the wrong direction. The design concept is technically "fine" but it is just not living up to what it is supposed to be doing. That said, its obvious that the community is not content with how its designed, so thats another issue unrelated to its potency.

 

I had a feeling that the -dex might have made Warchief more restrictive on purpose. However, this flows into a completely different topic about melee damage mechanics, as currently tier stacking is the only way to make an immensely powerful melee build (and it shouldn't be this way IMO). At the moment, the design concept sort of tries to make Warchief be incredible for melee, but ends up harming melee potential at the same time, making Warchief counterintuitive. I feel that if Warchief wants to see any use at all, it either needs to change the design concept (at least until melee mechanics are changed, if they are) or get a massive buff.

Right now, as you mentioned, you spend a lot just to use Warchief, but don't get a whole lot. That's what I'm trying to point out. Warchief's problems can probably be fixed in better ways that I suggested, but based on current game mechanics, I feel that lowering the requirements would be a good way for Warchief to be viable in several builds. As I think about it, the design concept could be good, and in that case Warchief just needs a straight up damage buff.

 

since i don't feel like typing out a full essay or whatever (i am currently on mobile) i'll just summarize my thoughts (although if you talk to me on wynn discord you are likely to hear more thoughts from me)

warchief is perfectly balanced and doesn't need a buff, although the way it as designed is simply unappealing and hard to use

in a nutshell, warchief doesn't need a buff, but should be changed a bit, not to stray from it's original design, but to make it more appealing

 

or just remove it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯