U55 Preview 1: Itemization

[Lynnabel]

Howdy folks. There's a lot of itemization in any expansion, and this one containing a level jump means there's a lot of moving parts. Forgive me for the disjointed nature of these notes as I reorganize

Isle of Dread Overview

Isle of Dread will contain two major groups of items: Pirate themed standalone items and Dinosaur Bone crafted items. Generally speaking, the pirate stuff will be whole items dropped in dungeons, and dino stuff you'll need to craft and craft upon. This expansion will also contain new Augments, new Sentient Artifacts, and Raid loot, none of which are available in this preview.

Item Power Levels

Items follow the CC Curve. CC will also be adjusted so players can craft levels 31 and 32 shards again. This will use existing shard ingredients so if you had some crafted before you'll be able to add them now.

Yes, this means that CC at level 32 will have higher ilevels than level 31 quest items from Isle of Dread. As an item's min level increases, its power level also increases.

Raid items and Minor Artifacts will continue to get a boost in their effective power levels. This means that raid loot at level 31 will be better than CC loot at level 32, with Minor Artifacts being better than raid loot.

Pirate Stuff

These items will drop fully realized in dungeons. This means they'll have a name, a theme, effects, and a specific appearance. Very much standard named loot here. My goal with these items is 1 brand new affix per item, which I know for a fact I won't get to finish but its good to have goals.

There will be 5 main sets in Isle of Dread and 1 overall set - think like Ravenloft here. The goal of these sets is to provide meaningful alternatives to Sharn and Ravenloft's 3pc sets. Each 3pc set will contain an Armor (or docent), a helmet, and a cloak - this is partially because this way we can match art assets together. There is also a larger set like the Adherent of the Mists set in Ravenloft, anything else not in the 5 main sets will be here.

In Legendary, each Pirate item will have one Dinosaur Bone augment slot (see below for details).

Augments

Level 32 augments are going to be added to global treasure tables, and a subsection of those will be available for trade with Randall Lyric for Isle of Dread ingredients (Randall will also trade level 8 augments for Isle of Dread ingredients, as some of you may have guessed). There will also be new named augments in Isle of Dread that drop as treasure which will be minimum level 30. These augments are not in this preview.

Artifacts

Artifacts in this content pack will be level 31 have 4 max Filigree slots, which means if you haven't found a Perfected artifact you'll soon be able to use a variety of alternatives.

Dino Crafting

As you explore Isle of Dread you'll collect Isle of Dread ingredients (such as fossilized dinosaur teeth). You can use these to craft Isle of Dread augments. Isle of Dread augments only go into Isle of Dread augment slots. There are 5 main types of augments: Fang, Scale, Horn, Teeth, and Set Bonus (okay that last one is a little meta but it really is just a set bonus slot).

Blanks consist of all weapon types, all shield types, helmets, cloaks, and all armor types (yes, including docent). Here's how the spread of slots shakes out:



The Set Bonus slot allows you to put that item into one of the 5 Isle of Dread set bonuses. This means that you can theoretically have that set bonus with all 3 of your items being dino bone crafted. Or none, and you just use standalone items, or a mix - totally up to you.

Augments will clearly state which "version" of the slot they're in. For example, this means that yes, there are 3 types of Scale Slot (armor, weapon, and regular) but this denotation will appear in the augment slots display and the augment's description to help prevent confusion.

To craft augments, think like Slavers - you turn many disparate ingredients into a standalone augment and then slot those directly. Unlike Slavers, this will use the new augment system, so there will be both unslotters and destroyers available (unlike previous crafting systems which, once done, were permanent).

The bonuses available are split by slot type - this means that Scale (Weapon) will have a different set of options than Scale (Armor) or Fang (Weapon) and so on.

This crafting system only exists in legendary! At level 7 (the level of heroic isle of dread's items) you'll just be finding the pirate stuff.

Anyway, that's the overview. Please feel free to explore all of the loot available during this preview and let me know what you think!

Known Issues and Important Notes:

• Raid Loot is not included in this preview
• Quest Augments are not included in this preview
• Several Dino Bone augments have incomplete or incorrect descriptions
• Certain ingredients have the wrong icons
• Minor Artifacts are not included in this preview
• All armor, robe, outfit, cloak, and helmet art is not in this preview (weapons and shields are!)

[Zeklijan]

I'm glad to see that we'll be able to unslot crafting choices on Dino bone crafting. This was the biggest drawback to Slavers IMO. Will it use a new component or the jeweler's kits we currently use for augments?

I really like what I'm seeing so far

[Vooduspyce]

Thank you for making stuff unslottable!!!

Please add set bonuses to shields.

<3 <3 <3
Voodu

[WetWip]

Can we please have an item in a set that does not require the helmet? Some of us have put massive effort into getting a reaper helm, I finally just got a usable one myself recently. I hate having to choose between using any set of the new expansion or using the reaper helm I finally got after years of trying.

[GramercyRiff]

Did you just make it possible to make all kinds of stuff that was pretty much exclusive to LGS?

brb buying the most expensive isle of dread pack.

[voxson5]

Any chance you can increase the base storage of all the various ingredients bag storage slots?

[Caarb]

It was assumed that IoD would have the missing ML8 augments - is this going to be the case?

[Kivandel]

It would be nice to see some bonus effects of Bone augments for two-handed weapons, like Iridescent Fang's Exceptional Spell Crit Chance bonus when slotted in Quarterstaff for example. Or Two-Handed only exclusive augments. Or just extra slots on two-handed type of weapons for existing ones. Make paddles great again.

[gorocz]

It was assumed that IoD would have the missing ML8 augments - is this going to be the case?

Yes, it is confirmed in the first post of this thread that this will be the case.

[TFerguson]

Did you just make it possible to make all kinds of stuff that was pretty much exclusive to LGS?

brb buying the most expensive isle of dread pack.

Is a "dust" weapon possible?

[WiseFreelancer]

It's a small thing, but it would be great if the Dinosaur Bone Buckler could be dex to hit and damage rather than strength (or as well as) - there's been a lot of inconsistencies with this in the last few major expansions/updates, with some bucklers taking dex and some not. Makes building difficult where there's no easy way to change to hit for most buckler wielders.

[rabidfox]

Is a "dust" weapon possible?

[Ulfo]

->skip<-

So now LShroud and LGS crafting officially obsolete and useless... one more raid to skip...

[rabidfox]

So now LShroud and LGS crafting officially obsolete and useless... one more raid to skip...

There's no salt if one wants that, or if one wants the LGS set bonuses (spell points/HP/etc.), or for leveling from 26 to 30, then LGS will still have it's place for some stuff. It opens up a huge catch-up mechanic and offers the ability for those things to be on main hand sentient weapons now too; overall, it's nice QoL and eliminating exclusivity is great for not having to farm out gear 6 levels below cap for stuff.

[Krell]

From a DC caster perspective, since the 3 piece sets are armor/helm/cloak and the set bonus is still +3 artifact bonus to spell DCs and +3 to stats, I'm better off with a Sharn or Magewright set with a reaper helm. Ravenloft, Sharn, Feywild, and Saltmarch are all +3 DC +3 stats so I was hoping for a bump with Dread.

Drop the reaper crafting costs by 75% and I may use the new sets. Based on projections from the last few months, running r10's 4 nights a week works out to around 1 reaper crafted item a year. There will probably be some useful artifacts or raid gear but I don't see using the Dread quest gear set bonuses due to the helm requirement.

Spell focus and Ins spell focus is +5 +3 on 31 quest items, which is the same as 29 raid gear (Attunement's Gaze), so hopefully there is an upgrade there in raid or artifact gear. Possible Dread DC increase sources are raid and artifact gear that we haven't seen yet, +3 to one school with a legendary feat, and one more stat point at 32 which may or may not help depending if you end up odd or even.

Recommendations:
Don't raise Dread mob saves more than 1-2 above Saltmarsh levels.
Allow 3 piece set bonuses on some additional slots besides helm.
Drop reaper crafting prices by 75%.
Make sure there are some DC upgrades with Dread raid and artifact gear besides an extra stat point.
Bump the artifact DC and stat bonus in the set to +4 +4. Since the Walking Ancestors set bonus is to all stats, it would make up for the reaper helm loss.

[Ulfo]

There's no salt if one wants that, or if one wants the LGS set bonuses (spell points/HP/etc.), or for leveling from 26 to 30, then LGS will still have it's place for some stuff. It opens up a huge catch-up mechanic and offers the ability for those things to be on main hand sentient weapons now too; overall, it's nice QoL and eliminating exclusivity is great for not having to farm out gear 6 levels below cap for stuff.

It's mean clearly what i say above - both raid and crafting system be dead at U55 release. Who need any LGS weapon at cap (and leveling from 26 to 30 is one play session effort, think leveling from 30 to 31 be much, much faster), when you can combine 2/4 BiS for your build LGS effect in 2 weapon slot? How oft you see anybody run with LGS set bonus? I personally have ender set... and it so obsolete and useless that i don't even get it out of TR cache. I just cannot waste 5 gear slot without heavily gimp my build.

[Annex]

As someone who heavily favors Cannith and Slave Lords crafting because I understand them, this system as described seems extremely hopeful.

[rabidfox]

As someone who heavily favors Cannith and Slave Lords crafting because I understand them, this system as described seems extremely hopeful.

It's really easy to use. Won't need an external crafting planner nor the wiki to figure out how to bone craft. Very solid and straight forward. I spent way too much time messing with gear ideas before I got around to finally trying the new quests.

[WetWip]

At first pass - I think the new bone crafting will be very nice and flexible. Are all the planned augments in the preview? Seems to be missing a few key ones.

I love the look of the bone tower shield

[Artos_Fabril]

Drop the reaper crafting costs by 75% and I may use the new sets. Based on projections from the last few months, running r10's 4 nights a week works out to around 1 reaper crafted item a year. There will probably be some useful artifacts or raid gear but I don't see using the Dread quest gear set bonuses due to the helm requirement.

You're not thinking about the positives here. If you run R10s 4 nights a week for a year, you'll be able to put Reaper bonus on the new BiS level 35 helm as soon as you get it!