Update 79 Preview 1: Loot

[Falkor]

Casters: "SSG, please help!"
SSG: Ok, help is incoming, roll 1d20 for Wish!
Casters: /roll 1d20 ... Rolls a 1.
SSG: Ahahaha, corrupt a wish it is!

Presenting this probably rare ring, specially for casters! Here's the help you asked for. Please say thAnK yOu!

 

[Lazuli]

The first two are intentional - We do not need a full array of armor types every time, and in this case we took a targeted eye at Light armors. The expansion pack later this year will feature armor of each type, as it typically does.

The Insightful Temporary Spell Points is a bug, it's an unused effect that's in data but was intended to be Insightful Wizardry. Open to suggestions other than Insightful Wizardry, though we are unlikely to add Spell Lore to these items.

Arcane endurance. That gem is practically impossible to slot due to the saturation of solar slots, and it fit with the idea of more spell points. It would be nice to have it as a regular enchantment. Furthermore, % HP exists in regular equipment, so why not % spell points as well?

Well, spell lore is damn hard to come by. I don't know why you all hate generalist casters so much, to the point that you not only forget them in the design, but frequently design against them. At this point, why not just give everyone an immunity bypass and convert all the classes into clones?

Talking about the Legendary DC bonus on the band: This is an intentional addition, and while it does appear on this item only for now, it will appear on more items in different slots in the upcoming expansion pack.

I've already explained why it's a bad idea. Seriously, caster gear has too many stats, too many divisions, too many channels. Way too many.

We can do a pass on augment slot types here, for sure.

With IOD you added several heroic emeralds. And now you're not adding green slots to heroic items. It doesn't make sense. How are we supposed to use those emeralds if you don't give us green slots? Please keep the design consistent; don't change it from one expansion to the next.

Will do some thinking about the state of elemental resist items - There's something to be said that if they aren't impactful enough, it's possible elemental damage isn't as much of a factor as it needs to be. Worth a discussion with the team.

Elemental damage is in many cases too big, more than it should be. The problem is in the stat itself. Energy absorption is very useful. Elemental resistance is barely noticeable. So, a quality resistance is pretty meh. Absorption saves your life. Resistance takes away a couple dozen points of damages, and when you're taking thousands of points of damage, it's barely noticeable.

Now, I also ask that you don't go overboard with stats that help withstand elemental damage. It's impossible to gear up for everything, and the higher you set the values, the more you'll assume players have them, and the more damage you'll give to monsters. It's a vicious cycle, based on the assumption that we'll all have that gear equipped, and no, there aren't enough slots for everything. Especially if you're a caster.

 

[seph1roth5]

Like I suggested earlier, bundle in the crummier effects into other stuff. Make one effect that's
- electric resist + dodge (+ tumble?)
- Fire resist + fort bypass (+concentration?)
- cold resist + insightful fortification
- etc.

 

[MrWindupBird]

Talking about the Legendary DC bonus on the band: This is an intentional addition, and while it does appear on this item only for now, it will appear on more items in different slots in the upcoming expansion pack.

While new effects are nearly always welcomed (new is good and loot has gotten a bit stale!) I think adding another spell DC channel is a significant mistake in the context of legendary gear and endgame gearing for casters, both DC and nuking (the latter barely exists outside of Arcane Trickster, which is sort of its own thing, but that's a separate matter). Casters do need help, but this makes the problem worse.

I actually think that mobs having really high/nigh unbeatable saves in one of Fort/Reflex/Will isnt a problem, as long as they have corresponding weaknesses in some other areas (eg Dryad beetles having absurd fort saves, but quite weak will and reflex saves). You do need to have multiple schools that actually function in order to attack weak saves like this. Rewarding mob knowledge and incentivizing adaptive gameplay is a good thing!

Here is a list of the spell-DC affixes you essentially need to fit in to function as a caster- at most one of these categories can be skipped, typically exceptional.

1. Equipment bonus (+6 single school vs +5 general)
2. Insightful spell mastery (+3)
3. Quality spell mastery (+2),
4. Exceptional spell mastery (+2)
5. Artifact spell mastery (+4 single school vs +3 general- typically hard to justify a sun slot for single school)
6. Profane spell mastery (+4 single school vs +3 general- likewise hard to justify 6moon slot for single school)
7. Sacred spell mastery (+3 or +2)
8. Enhancement bonus to spell school (+2, ie GH augments, and the biggest offender).
That's 8 channels! Pretty confusing, and further compounded by the fact that spell schools are enhanced individually in some of these channels. Most casters will use ~4 schools regularly; alchemist and druid are fortunate to be a little more focussed in this regard. For example, I just geared a favored soul, and have to fit in DC-boosting gear for all of necromancy, enchantment, evocation, and illusion- each of these schools is used in pretty much every mob pack. If I use no sun or moon slots for single-school bonuses, but pick up the +6 equipment bonus (Dread augs) and +2 enhancement (GH augs) for those 4 schools, I need a total of 14 affixes/augment slots for spell DCs alone!


Compare that to a melee investing in tactics:
1. Enhancement (eg stunning +16-17, vs combat mastery +12)
2. Insightful (this is almost always obtained from trance, and bonus range varies, usually ~15-25 depending on mainstat or offstat)
3. Occasionally one of profane or quality combat mastery is easily tetris'ed into gear, but more commonly neither, and almost never both.
4. Artifact. Ive never personally used this in any melee build I have played, as there are better things to do with the slots and it simply isnt needed
90% of melee builds will only use stunning, but if you do need another tactic like sunder, thats a single extra affix/slot.
So, 2-3 affixes/augment slots for melee, add 1 if using multiple tactics, such stunning and sunder or stunning and trip.

I'm not interested in litigating the relative strengths of melee vs spell CC here, just pointing out the massive discrepancy in investment needed to make them work. Again, adding another enhancement channel to squeeze spell DCs in just makes this worse. Here are some better solutions if seeking to help casters with hitting usable DC targets-
1. Make the Legendary Spell DC bonus instead an Enhancement one, eg same typing as GH augs. This is my preferred option, as those augs are an old and cumbersome slot tax, and a tax that actually worsens the more you try and diversify the build. If this change cannot be made to the ring, I would prefer that the +2DC effect change to something else entirely, such as Insightful Spell Lore, Insightful MRR Cap, quality potency, etc
2. Nerf mob saves. Really only a small slice of content needs adjustment (at cap this is Lamordia and to a much lesser extent MD; I dont pay enough attention while leveling thru heroics to speak to outliers there)
3. Increase existing values for some of the channels above. Don't love it, but would work.


Context- someone who plays both casters and melees in r10 and mid-highR raids at cap.

 

[Lazuli]

I don't think the devs have been fully aware until now of how fragmented caster stats are, and how negatively impacted has been to have to include critical damage for multiple elements in our sets, or to have two different artifact/solar damage set types (the universal and the potency-style-- those in addtition to others like artifact spell DC etc of course). There was already an overabundance of stats before, but since those two additions, caster gear has become pure madness. And we've had augment slots cannibalized by GH augments for... how many years now? Seven? Eight? It doesn't matter. Too many.

EDIT: I have just checked how many years. They were introduced with Update 17: Return to Gianthold, which launched in February 2013. 13 years! Thirteen years is a long time to have our augment slots hijacked by those GH augments. Please create a new one that encompasses all schools. Thirteen years. It's time for something new and better.

Another thing that's incredibly unfair and remains unresolved update after update is how casters basically have to invest all their filigrees in DC. Filigree sets that simultaneously grant spell DC and spell damage are desperately needed. Because casters can't do without DC even for nuking.

 

[Diaari]

+1 to Lazuli and MrWindupBird's comments above about the sheer difficulty of gearing a caster these days. I also want to point out that much of caster gear is locked behind rare gear or limited options:

• Sacred DCs - 9 items. 3 are raid items, 4 are rare items (I'm counting Feytwisted as rare even though it's predictable). The most predictable options for a new player are a Dinosaur Bone artifact (4 years old) or Gloryborne Gloves (6 years old).
• Quality DCs - Almost exclusively on weapons (DoV and fallen age).
• Exceptional DCs - Again, exclusive to weapons, mostly the DoV weapons.
• Enhancement DCs - only the GH augments

Why does this matter? Together, these represent +8 DCs for a caster (I'm going to be generous and pretend Artblade's +3 Sacred doesn't exist for a minute). Because spell DCs are still on the d20, that gap means a 40 percentage point gap for a caster who doesn't have these items. If a geared player succeeds on a roll of 2 or higher (95% success), the ungeared player needs a 10 or higher (55% success). This creates a wall that new players have to climb in terms of gear and past lives in order to become modestly successfully as a caster. Because these bonuses are almost exclusively tied to rare drops, legacy raids (Dinosaur Bone), or specific weapon types (DoV), new players are effectively forced into a 40% higher failure rate. We are relying on 4-to-6-year-old items to fill 'must-have' slots, which signals a stagnation in accessible gear diversity.

EDIT: I also want to point out how much this will continue to lock casters by forcing them to use specific slots in order to boost their DCs. Using a DoV weapon will next you both quality and exceptional, but requires you to use a two-handed weapon (no orbs). If you use Gloryborne, you can't use Anger of the Avalanche as a cold caster. If you use a Dino bone artifact, you're missing a 5th filigree slot and can't use other artifacts. I didn't mention Insightful because it has more slot options (bracers, ring, goggles, rare necklace, cloak, trinket, boots, gloves, armor) but it can be almost as restrictive since you have to work it into your broader tetris and several are rare, artifacts, or old gear with lower bonuses that you have to make up for elsewhere. You mentioned plans to add Legendary DCs to other items but in the meantime, it will lock casters out of using Chained Elementals and muck with their ability to use MD artifact rings in the meantime.

I did want to clarify that I didn't mean to imply that nuking doesn't require DCs today, rather I wanted to ask if SSG plans to make it easier to nuke with low DCs while simultaneously making it more difficult to gear for both DC casting and nuking. Yes, that would mean removing game mechanics that are carried over from tabletop for the sake of game balance.

 

[Lazuli]

+1 to Lazuli and MrWindupBird's comments above about the sheer difficulty of gearing a caster these days. I also want to point out that much of caster gear is locked behind rare gear or limited options:

• Sacred DCs - 9 items. 3 are raid items, 4 are rare items (I'm counting Feytwisted as rare even though it's predictable). The most predictable options for a new player are a Dinosaur Bone artifact (4 years old) or Gloryborne Gloves (6 years old).
• Quality DCs - Almost exclusively on weapons (DoV and fallen age).
• Exceptional DCs - Again, exclusive to weapons, mostly the DoV weapons.
• Enhancement DCs - only the GH augments

Why does this matter? Together, these represent +8 DCs for a caster (I'm going to be generous and pretend Artblade's +3 Sacred doesn't exist for a minute). Because spell DCs are still on the d20, that gap means a 40 percentage point gap for a caster who doesn't have these items. If a geared player succeeds on a roll of 2 or higher (95% success), the ungeared player needs a 10 or higher (55% success). This creates a wall that new players have to climb in terms of gear and past lives in order to become modestly successfully as a caster. Because these bonuses are almost exclusively tied to rare drops, legacy raids (Dinosaur Bone), or specific weapon types (DoV), new players are effectively forced into a 40% higher failure rate. We are relying on 4-to-6-year-old items to fill 'must-have' slots, which signals a stagnation in accessible gear diversity.

I did want to clarify that I didn't mean to imply that nuking doesn't require DCs today, rather I wanted to ask if SSG plans to make it easier to nuke with low DCs while simultaneously making it more difficult to gear for both DC casting and nuking. Yes, that would mean removing game mechanics that are carried over from tabletop for the sake of game balance.

I agree with you in all, except... Why to do more difficult dcs for not nuking spells? They have given to martials IKs and CC with ridiculous low investement. They have put a hundred of obstacles to CC and IKs too; in any mob group always there are several mobs inmune to that.

Stop with screwing casters. Casters deserve to use all their spellbooks. Nowadays casters don't have room nor role in high reaper quests nor in raids. Cages for the casters and free roaming for the martials? Come on!

 

[nenetteblackmoor]

As usual, SSG devs rarely respond to the preview loot threads, if at all.
Just like always, they don’t really take feedback into account, and even when bugs are reported, they go ahead and push it to live without fixing them.

They haven’t replied even once this time either, right?
Even though they’ve been posting all over other threads.

 

[Tharminator]

There are new items for the new dungeons in this Preview! They can be found in chests in the new content, as well as in the Test Dojo!

As usual, if you have feedback, feel free to talk about it here!

Insightful temp sp 0 this seems useful only if a number significantly greater than zero
Why temp? Does this not replenish with other effects like sp pots or torc/cord op?

 

[J1NG]

1% or 2% isn't going to matter at all. How many spells cost 100 or more (that would see the cost reduced by 1)?

I will only say, if it isn't going to matter for you, it doesn't mean it isn't going matter at all for others. That's like saying just get Dodge and AC is useless. It's both true and not depending on a variety of factors which a blanket statement doesn't cover.

Insightful temp sp 0 this seems useful only if a number significantly greater than zero
Why temp? Does this not replenish with other effects like sp pots or torc/cord op?

It was confirmed to have been a temp placeholder, that's not what it was supposed to be (Temp Spell Points). Suggestions are being fielded to see if the Devs will implement it.

J1NG

 

[Mnemor]

I would like to see a few more yellow augment slots on heroic items. Right now 8 out of 10 slots (not counting weapons) have blue augments. Granted, there are more blue augments in general, but their effects are also more often covered by the items themselves. I think it would be nice to have at least 3 yellow slots and maybe the armor changed to green.
Also, I appreciate the theme going on with the different dragon color items, but from a gameplay perspective it seems like it would be annoying to have a loot table padded with 2x5 items where the only difference is which resistance they grant - a stat that probably doesn't matter much to most players.

Lastly, there are two long swords. Was one of them perhaps meant to be a short sword? It would make sense to me if Drysvayla's Razor was a short sword since it's called a razor and it's poison.

yellow and green. There are heroic emeralds. Lamordia heroic items lacked green slots. Now this pack follow the same pattern. I want to use those emeralds!

 

[Monkey_Archer]

Compare that to a melee investing in tactics:
1. Enhancement (eg stunning +16-17, vs combat mastery +12)
2. Insightful (this is almost always obtained from trance, and bonus range varies, usually ~15-25 depending on mainstat or offstat)
3. Occasionally one of profane or quality combat mastery is easily tetris'ed into gear, but more commonly neither, and almost never both.
4. Artifact. Ive never personally used this in any melee build I have played, as there are better things to do with the slots and it simply isnt needed
90% of melee builds will only use stunning, but if you do need another tactic like sunder, thats a single extra affix/slot.
So, 2-3 affixes/augment slots for melee, add 1 if using multiple tactics, such stunning and sunder or stunning and trip.

While I completely agree with your point about having too many channels for spell DCs, this tactics point is a bit disingenuous... While it is true that it it much easier to gear for tactics, if you add up all those bonuses (using fully maxed values, 50 str mod) you still only get to about a 110 dc on trip. So its only easier to also achieve similarly useless DCs.

IMO both basic tactics and basic spells need at least a +10 generic buff to dcs across the board to match the current level of endgame mobs. This current design paradigm of giving excessively overkill dc values (150+ with no effort) to only a few select classes while all other builds spend thousands of hours/dollars farming pastlives and gear for peanuts, just to remain borderline useless is very frustrating.

 

[r8chel]

Black/Red/White versions of Nullscale armor do look nice. I'm also a big fan of getting some extra sash color options. I like the split look compared to normal cloaks.

I often hide my cloak while actively playing because I’d like to see myself better so yes that sash is nice. I wish they would figure out how to decorate them to reflect the theme of the release. A plain color is ok but given how many nice cloaks are out there some artwork would be nice.

 

[r8chel]

My congratulations to the art team. The items look gorgeous. I already have a few mirrors ready.

Regarding the ring... I appreciate, devs, that you want to help casters. We need it. DCs are through the roof. But a new channel isn't the way to do it. Caster gear these days is a complete nightmare. There are so many stats, so many bonuses within each stat, and you differentiate between schools for DC and elements for damage. There's simply not enough room for so many stats. Specialist nukers have it very tough. Generalist casters like wizards have it impossible.

Devs, equipping a martial is ten times easier than equipping a caster. There's too much stat division for casters.

Then we have the fact that the DC provided by caster gear is much lower than what you get with tactical gear (and martials also add trance to their DC). And let's not even talk about the DC gained from skill abilities, like Intimidate or Disable Device. No, seriously. Casters are at a tremendous disadvantage.

Contract stats, please. We need gear that buffs multiple elements in a single enchantment. We need you to reduce stats for DC as well: remove some DC channels and increase the value of core enchantments, like regular, insightful and quality spell mastery. We need a new augment to replace the Gianthold augments: a +2 (or better yet, a +4, since DCs are out of control in the new content) for all schools. It's so frustrating that these Gianthold augments are eating up all the caster color slots.

And finally, there's an overabundance of stats in solar slots for casters. For example, we have to add TWO sets of spellpower and critical chance (the universal one and the potency-style one), plus critical damage, etc. This leaves no room for the new gems you've released, like Arcane Endurance and others. Please merge those two sets of spellpower and critical chance, or make one of them profane so it can go in lunar slots. Or make the new gems lunar, now it seems like everything has to be solar.

I appreciate the attempt to throw casters a bone, I really do. But a new stat isn't the way to do it. Caster gear is seriously oversaturated. We need a slimming, not a fattening up. Please help us with this.

Yes, yes and yes

 

[Tharminator]

I often hide my cloak while actively playing because I’d like to see myself better so yes that sash is nice. I wish they would figure out how to decorate them to reflect the theme of the release. A plain color is ok but given how many nice cloaks are out there some artwork would be nice.

There is an almost invisible cloak from dq raid that is nice.

 

[Tharminator]

Yes, yes and yes

Agree. Tons of work on DC casters to make it work but other classes get easier paths for their critical abilities. Imagine if clerics needed 100 past lives to heal effectively... or fighters to do dps effectively. Casters need dcs to NOT do half damage most of the time. Destinies are of little help.

 

[Defunct]

On another note, there are stats that remain seriously underrepresented for casters. Lores are always a nightmare to slot. Just look at this pack, again. Insightful Spellpower is also a nightmare. And Sacred DC is another nightmare (why not remove this and add it to one of the other channels? Anyway, it's silly to have profane and sacred bonuses that don't cancel each other out, like in PnP).

As for the ring, replace the regular SFM with Insightful Spell Mastery.

I'd vote for insightful SFM or quality SFM or sacred SFM or profane SFM instead of the useless SFM currently

 

[MrWindupBird]

While I completely agree with your point about having too many channels for spell DCs, this tactics point is a bit disingenuous... While it is true that it it much easier to gear for tactics, if you add up all those bonuses (using fully maxed values, 50 str mod) you still only get to about a 110 dc on trip. So its only easier to also achieve similarly useless DCs.

IMO both basic tactics and basic spells need at least a +10 generic buff to dcs across the board to match the current level of endgame mobs. This current design paradigm of giving excessively overkill dc values (150+ with no effort) to only a few select classes while all other builds spend thousands of hours/dollars farming pastlives and gear for peanuts, just to remain borderline useless is very frustrating.

I confess that it's been a few years since I've played a melee that wasn't either a monk, dragonlord, or Strbased +raging- all of those archetypes hit 125+ DCs with relatively minimal investment. So you are probably right for other classes! And outside of DL Roar, melee tactics certainly could be buffed- the recent changes to stunning blow cooldown and DC calculation are a step in the right direction.

It's still silly that maybe most the most universally effective CC avenue in the game is to completely ignore tactics and CC actives and just slap on a guardbreaking weapon with good threat range and wave your hands around/cleave madly, no investment or target selection required.

 

[Veldrina]

As usual, SSG devs rarely respond to the preview loot threads, if at all.
Just like always, they don’t really take feedback into account, and even when bugs are reported, they go ahead and push it to live without fixing them.

They haven’t replied even once this time either, right?
Even though they’ve been posting all over other threads.

Steelstar has replied

There probably won't be major changes to items.

It's ok if they don't improve the loot. Bad loot is fine... Disappointing but fine !

The ring is slightly different... Because it's good loot but that doesn't go into the right direction :(
I hope they'll listen to the outcry


But yes an extra stacking DC is... Just going to make caster gearing harder, less flexible. And if casters can hit 155 DC? Then mobs will start showing up with 145 saves making it harder for new casters to land anything.


I don't want them to change d20 system for DC because it's "iconic" but it's a system genuinely hard to tune and that creates very very high discrepancies between played

 

[danzig138]

As usual, boring, lazy and unimaginative. Again, there are decades worth of cool magical items you could be drawing on but all we get is the same old boring bonuses in the same old boring set mechanic.

Please, just once at least, do an update where all the new loot is old stuff from the actual pnp game books. Just try it - it won't hurt, I promise!