Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?

[Ivanfyodorovich]

I'm curious what's on your list of weapons, armor, or accessories that don't really make sense to use. Is it because they are just weak compared to other options, bland in their design, or something else? 

I'm slowly working through a list of items that I think fit the above - namely that I can't figure out a situation where I would use them - and trying to "fix" them via modding. My goal is to preserve the item design philosophy of the original item, overall itemization design of the game, and avoid power creep. I want each item to be useful in some situation or for some build, but not a new default best choice. 

An example case is Queen's Rule. The on use ability seems cool enough, if situational. But that's all that the item does, and it has to not only compete against other 2H weapons, but also against a stacked deck of great sword options. 

My first draft fix here is to add a new enchantment to the base item that improves it's power mechanically, and fits a tactical and battlefield control niche. Commanding Presence: +2 all defenses per engaged target (stacks 5 times) (that's for each target you are engaging), +1 enemies engaged. In addition, shift the on use ability to 2/rest or 1/encounter. 

So what items would make your list? Have you thought about how to fix them if you could? 

[Boeroer]

Mātakau would be no. 1 on my "I don't ever plan to use this"-list I guess. 

[thelee]

most of the trinkets, honestly. 6s is a really long time for a once/rest effect with huge interrupt risk. my last run i forced myself to use a lot of the trinkets, and most of them were a lot of fun to use (sidenote: holy crap Muatu from SSS is extremely good, especially if you infuse him with souls). i think if their cast times were shrunk down a lot, they would be easier to use w/out causing major distortions in power (once/rest is a pretty hard constraint). that being said there are still trinkets i didn't bother with, but maybe i'd bother with them if they were cheap in terms of action economy.

in terms of "normal" items that stand out - i basically don't bother with unique war hammers. bland and niche effects.

Sanguine Great Sword - never use, it's really just underwhelming for the hoops you have to jump through to get.

Rotward Amulet - too small a resist for such a narrow set of abilities. Futility - the recovery penalty is soooo minor. 

[yorname]

My very first character was a Devoted/something with Estoc and I gave up. Looking back now I probably picked the worst choice possible (at least one of them).

[Ivanfyodorovich]

1 minute ago, yorname said:

My very first character was a Devoted/something with Estoc and I gave up. Looking back now I probably picked the worst choice possible (at least one of them).

Are you saying that Estocs as a general group felt like the wrong choice? Was there one in particular that you think didn't work the way you hoped/expected? 

[yorname]

1 minute ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

Are you saying that Estocs as a general group felt like the wrong choice? Was there one in particular that you think didn't work the way you hoped/expected? 

Yeah I think the group is very problematic. It pays damage for pierce pen and offers even more pen with modal. It's useless. Stiletto is a similar case but it's so much better for simply being 1-handed, also Rust's Poignard and Azure Blade have some interesting enchantments. With the unique estocs, we only get some additional accuracy (which we could've had if we just use a slow 1H weapon), some speed (which we could have had if we dual wield), or some AoE on kill (that I can simply use a hand mortar if I really need). Blade of the Endless Paths has a potentially -20 DEF, but if I desperately want it on someone, how can I crit it 5 times to get the debuff? Why not just use pike modal. I just can't justify using them for anything but style points.

[Lamppost in Winter]

I've been wondering if blunderbusses are ever viable as a primary, damage dealing weapon. Not hand mortars, not special abilities like Thunderous Report or using Powder Burns to trigger Streetfighter; just using regular old blunderbusses to shoot guys. I've tried it once or twice, mainly on Maia (and then mainly for Concussive Tranquiliser), but I feel like they're always at a severe deficit in penetration and base damage.

[Opera]

Cloak of poverty - the effect is good but to have it you need to stay poor, which is really hard in this game.

Ring of the Solitary Wanderer - the effect is good, but it's only ever useful in actual solo. 20 meters is too much a distance to bother with this if you have a party. Some other items with similar constraint for activation have like 5 meters distance to trigger I think.

 

Personally don't like any items with limited amount of charges to cast something. So Necklace of Fireballs, Missile Gloves etc.

Same story with per rest casts, even though they can be really good.

Edited February 13 by Opera

[yorname]

1 hour ago, Lamppost in Winter said:

I've been wondering if blunderbusses are ever viable as a primary, damage dealing weapon. Not hand mortars, not special abilities like Thunderous Report or using Powder Burns to trigger Streetfighter; just using regular old blunderbusses to shoot guys. I've tried it once or twice, mainly on Maia (and then mainly for Concussive Tranquiliser), but I feel like they're always at a severe deficit in penetration and base damage.

They're decent weapons for gambit rogue, at least if use BPM to fix the guile refund. Before the fix you only get guile back if the 1st of 4 hits crits, and after the fix you only need any of the hits crits, making them one of the best gambit weapons. Kitchen Stove's Hurried works for both hands, and Xefa's Empirical Explication has 30% total lash, can both knock back and knock down on crit. With this set you can knock most bosses to death.

[Kaylon]

3 hours ago, yorname said:

Yeah I think the group is very problematic. It pays damage for pierce pen and offers even more pen with modal. It's useless. Stiletto is a similar case but it's so much better for simply being 1-handed, also Rust's Poignard and Azure Blade have some interesting enchantments. With the unique estocs, we only get some additional accuracy (which we could've had if we just use a slow 1H weapon), some speed (which we could have had if we dual wield), or some AoE on kill (that I can simply use a hand mortar if I really need). Blade of the Endless Paths has a potentially -20 DEF, but if I desperately want it on someone, how can I crit it 5 times to get the debuff? Why not just use pike modal. I just can't justify using them for anything but style points.

Personally I consider Engoliero do Espirs one of the best 2H in the game, but it also depends on the build you're using (works great especially on a soul blade/rogue). Eager Blade has also a great heal on crit with Battle Unending, but you also need to be able to enfeeble your targets (a great choice for FF/berserker). Overall I would say the estocs have good enchantments compared to most 2H weapons and their modal is also better than other piercing modals, however their lower base damage puts them a little behind other obvious dps 2H.

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Lamppost in Winter said:

I've been wondering if blunderbusses are ever viable as a primary, damage dealing weapon. Not hand mortars, not special abilities like Thunderous Report or using Powder Burns to trigger Streetfighter; just using regular old blunderbusses to shoot guys. I've tried it once or twice, mainly on Maia (and then mainly for Concussive Tranquiliser), but I feel like they're always at a severe deficit in penetration and base damage.

Blunderbuss (and Frostseeker) trades DPS (and a bit of PEN) for multi attacks. Multi attacks is a bonus on its own and has a lot of combo potential :

- Tranquilizer as you said. Bane of Auranic life IMHO. 

- BPM Gambit

- Really any condition inflicting or interrupting attack, just for getting more rolls. Worth mentionning Stunning Surge (almost guaranteed refund vs single target) and Confounding Blind

- Combusting Wounds, Avenging Storm (28-40 additional base damages per attack), resonant touch, 

- Dispelling mirrored image, iron skin, etc... 

 

Without this advantages, they are indeed meh. 

Worth mentionning Kitchen Stove cone attack is one of the most potent per encounter weapon activable ability. 

Edited February 13 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Estocs are okay, and have the distinct advantages of universally good ones being accessible early (BofEP and Eager Blade) , which is priceless for a two hander (No purchasable Stalker Patience or Sun&Moon). 

BofEP has excellent properties, I think. 

 

 

Granted, yeh, they are more about PEN, but so are half of two hander, and two handers as a whole are more about PEN. 

Probably not top tier for a optimized DPS, but works well for reliable DPS. Estoc modal also doesn't trade damages for PEN but deflection. Having base 12 PEN on demand is neat.

The issue is Pierce damages type is often resisted, so you need a backup weapon. No way for Devoted, but apart for them, I think they are okay. 

Edited February 13 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Estocs are fine if you are not clinging to them in every fight. So... Devoted+Estocs might not be the best combo. But it's also not that bad imo. Leaning into massive PEN, even if only pierce, can be fun, too. You make overpenetrated shashlik from some enemies and not much from others. Of course Estocs are worthless against pierce-immune foes (enemies with high pierce AR often still receive full PEN, at least with the modal and esp. with a Devoted). But that's what the 2. weapon set is for, isn't it? A pollaxe can be a nice backup, doesn't even need to be unique imo. A Devoted can use Monastic Unarmed Training if he fears the lower ACC with a backup weapon.

Engoliero do Espirs has awesome potential but also comes pretty late for my taste. The early Blade of the Endless Paths is an excellent unique weapon to me. The potential -20 deflection on (4)crits synergizes very well with the auto-accumulating ACC bonus it gets. The debuff stacks with all other deflection debuffs - such as the pike modal. It even stacks with itself if you have two or more BotEP on the field (Wizard's Phantoms, Watery Double, Living Illusions). Theoretically one can stack unlimited instances of the deflection debuffs because every newly added phantom/double adds a new stackable instance. If you prolong them all (e.g. with Dispersed Suffering) you can theoretically drive anybody's deflection into the realm of sub-zero. Not that this is practical... just saying.

Had great results with it on several characters who used it to support the main weapon damage dealers. It doesn't make a big difference against most ordinary enemies but is really handy against tough ones. I combined it with the Cap of the Laughingstock and a Ranger more than once and added a buddy with a pike. Wicked Beast for example is a great partner for BotEP, especially on a Monk with Swift Flurry/HBD (Wicked Beast has multiple potential attack rolls per attack). But you absolutely need backup weapons. Places like Hanging Sepulchres are not the best environment for those.

Maybe I fee like that because I prefer a more slowish style of encounter. I usually don't try to overpower the enemy with brute force but try to strengthen accuracy, then debuff and only then try to deal damage. I guess BotEP fits that approach better. 

---

Anyway: a weapon type I almost never use (as tools for melee dmg) are hatchets. The modal is not very useful imo.

Wands are also kind of meh to me. 

 

Edited February 13 by Boeroer

[Constentin Lévine]

15 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Mātakau would be no. 1 on my "I don't ever plan to use this"-list I guess. 

Matakau had an hired encantment that destroy any vessel on kill, so i planned to kill Neriscylas at the first encounter with it (but that didnt work)..

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The early Blade of the Endless Paths is an excellent unique weapon to me. The potential -20 deflection on (4)crits synergizes very well with the auto-accumulating ACC bonus it gets. The debuff stacks with all other deflection debuffs - such as the pike modal. It even stacks with itself if you have two or more BotEP on the field (Wizard's Phantoms, Watery Double, Living Illusions). Theoretically one can stack unlimited instances of the deflection debuffs because every newly added phantom/double adds a new stackable instance. If you prolong them all (e.g. with Dispersed Suffering) you can theoretically drive anybody's deflection into the realm of sub-zero. Not that this is practical... just saying.

New Dorudugan approach spotted

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

---

Anyway: a weapon type I almost never use (as tools for melee dmg) are hatchets. The modal is not very useful imo.

The unique are quite niche, that's the main issue IMHO.

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Wands are also kind of meh to me. 

 

Both unique wands are quite nice. A Whale of a Wand is very strong with pulsating spells, and Weyc's Wan is a good Empowering casting stick. Granted you don't want to use them as actual weapons.

[yorname]

7 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Personally I consider Engoliero do Espirs one of the best 2H in the game, but it also depends on the build you're using (works great especially on a soul blade/rogue). Eager Blade has also a great heal on crit with Battle Unending, but you also need to be able to enfeeble your targets (a great choice for FF/berserker). Overall I would say the estocs have good enchantments compared to most 2H weapons and their modal is also better than other piercing modals, however their lower base damage puts them a little behind other obvious dps 2H.

What makes Engoliero do Espirs so good in your opinion? It seems to be the least powerful of the 3, lacking something other weapons don't offer.

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The debuff stacks with all other deflection debuffs - such as the pike modal. It even stacks with itself if you have two or more BotEP on the field (Wizard's Phantoms, Watery Double, Living Illusions). Theoretically one can stack unlimited instances of the deflection debuffs because every newly added phantom/double adds a new stackable instance. If you prolong them all (e.g. with Dispersed Suffering) you can theoretically drive anybody's deflection into the realm of sub-zero. Not that this is practical... just saying.

This seem to be a win-more case, the wielder needs to have extremely high accuracy to get this to work on more powerful enemies. To use that accuracy for something like chain stun/knock or enabling the party is a interesting question. Might be worth trying on the wanderer I'm running.

[Boeroer]

33 minutes ago, yorname said:

the wielder needs to have extremely high accuracy to get this to work on more powerful enemies. To use that accuracy for something like chain stun/knock or enabling the party is a interesting question. Might be worth trying on the wanderer I'm running.

Of course I mean for usefulness for the party. If the wielder can reliably crit with BotEP he himself won't need much more accuracy or deflection debuffing. 

But if you as a party can drive a boss' deflection down by 60 points or so, every party member (plus summons) can land good hits, making the fight a whole lot easier. If you combine that with weapons that disable on crit (Ball and Chain, Thundercrack, Grave Calling etc.) this has great synergies, too.

I try do do the same with the other defenses, too. That's why I often have stuff like Pikes (Ngati's Tusk), Morning Stars (Willbreaker), Flails, Maces and Clubs in the party and combine them with other sources of stacking debuffs.   

33 minutes ago, yorname said:

What makes Engoliero do Espirs so good in your opinion? It seems to be the least powerful of the 3, lacking something other weapons don't offer.

Engoliero do Espirs has Blade Feast that triggers on all kills, not only weapon kills. Also works if you kill allies (like Many Lives Skeletons) and barrels and stuff. Blade Feast can proc itself (a kill from the cone procs another cone and so on as long as smth. dies). It not only damages enemies but also heals the wielder. It's essentially Ghost Blades + healing. 

Since it procs off of any kill it's even great for offensive casters. You just have to stand near the enemies because Blade Feast will originate from you, not the killed enemy. It also counts as weapon attack so it works with Avenging Storm and such. Avenging Storm again will trigger Blade Feast on kill. Blae Feast also profits from weapon quality and other dmg bonuses. 

Then, with the right apporach you can quickly get +3 to 3 attributes which isn't bad either.

One examplary character who can make great use of it is Berserker/Troubadour with Many Lives Skeletons and Blood Thirst. SC Barb with Driving Roar is also nice with it. Or Evoker/Helwalker, a Skald who uses Her Revenge a lot, Fighter with Clear Out... 
  

Edited February 13 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

8 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Eager Blade has also a great heal on crit with Battle Unending, but you also need to be able to enfeeble your targets (a great choice for FF/berserker).

Oh - I used it on a Berserker/something (don't remember) and just lived with the occasional healing of enemies - I only lowered that a bit with Effigy's Husk. That wasn't too bad actually.

I didn't think about going one step further and use a Forbidden Fist to prevent that healing completely - what a nice idea.

Edited February 13 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

1 hour ago, yorname said:

What makes Engoliero do Espirs so good in your opinion? It seems to be the least powerful of the 3, lacking something other weapons don't offer.

Besides the tricks Boeroer mentioned, the proc is affected by the same damage/accuracy/penetration bonuses as the weapon (becoming much stronger than the original spell) and can be increased further with sneak attack, deathblows, etc. Since the proc is considered a weapon attack it will also replenish focus for a cipher allowing a rogue/soul blade to chain kills very easily.

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Then, with the right apporach you can quickly get +3 to 3 attributes which isn't bad either.
  

Works on summon kills too, I guess ?

3 minutes ago, Kaylon said:

Besides the tricks Boeroer mentioned, the proc is affected by the same damage/accuracy/penetration bonuses as the weapon (becoming much stronger than the original spell) and can be increased further with sneak attack, deathblows, etc. Since the proc is considered a weapon attack it will also replenish focus for a cipher allowing a rogue/soul blade to chain kills very easily.

Reminder of the general scaling rules for weapon abilities :

1) Passive scales with weapon quality

2) Active scales with weapon quality AND "classless" Power Level  (classless Power Level scales as Single Class Power Level and ends up at 9 for every character, also used for Monastic Armed Training)

      => That's why Thunderous Report and the likes have such disgusting damages

 

Reminder of the general scaling rules for other equipment abilities :

1) Passive scales with nothing (so are bad if they are attacks)

2) Active scale with classless Power Level f

[Ivanfyodorovich]

20 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Mātakau would be no. 1 on my "I don't ever plan to use this"-list I guess. 

Good example. It's slightly better than a vanilla weapon when you enchant it to remove Fragile, but it's so marginal that you're honestly better off saving the money you would use to upgrade its quality and just using a vanilla exceptional/superb Battle Axe until you get Magran's Favor.

To fix this, I would add an additional enchant to the base item. Option A) play up the obsidian angle and steal one from Kahua Hozi, probably Knapped Glass to make it more unique relative to other Battle Axe options. Option B) play up the imbued with souls of warriors and priests angle and give it a defensive On Crit effect - a small heal over time, or bonus defenses. 

20 hours ago, thelee said:

most of the trinkets, honestly. 6s is a really long time for a once/rest effect with huge interrupt risk. my last run i forced myself to use a lot of the trinkets, and most of them were a lot of fun to use (sidenote: holy crap Muatu from SSS is extremely good, especially if you infuse him with souls). i think if their cast times were shrunk down a lot, they would be easier to use w/out causing major distortions in power (once/rest is a pretty hard constraint). that being said there are still trinkets i didn't bother with, but maybe i'd bother with them if they were cheap in terms of action economy.

Great points here. Fixing the action economy seems pretty easy - most of these could be moved to .5s/4s or even 1s/3s cast times without doing any harm. They are late game items (some literally gained from the hardest encounters in the game), so increasing their power level doesn't do much harm to the overall difficulty or pace of the game. Their opportunity cost is relatively low, because they use an item slot that has nothing else in it (for non-wizards), so that frees up some design room. Once we fix the general use case issue, we can look at each one and try to balance them with each other and their relative challenge level to acquire. 

The thing I can't stop thinking about, though, is how offensive On Rest abilities and items built around them by definition fall into this category of Rarely Used/Built Around. They are a limited resource, which creates a base level psychological barrier to using them ("What if I use it in this battle, but need it in the next and don't have it?").  But even if you can clear that barrier, let's say, and are committed to using them, you then have the added work of creating a decision tree for when you use it. What are the conditions when you should use it? Which fights? How many enemies? Etc. This problem is largely not an issue for defensive on rest abilities. If you're at risk of dying, you use the ability. The decision tree is much clearer there, and the risk for not using the ability is obvious - I might die, which might lead to more deaths and a reload. This second barrier is much less of an issue for per encounter abilities. You know you should use it every fight, so what's the best time in any given fight to use it. If you make a mistake on any one particular fight - oops, used it too early when I hit less targets, or when their defenses were too high, etc - then it's okay, you try again the next time. 

All of that is a long winded way of saying - why not just make most on rest abilities into per encounter? It seems so clear to me in terms of how I see the game, I'm curious what I'm missing, or what other perspectives there are on this. 

[Elric Galad]

4 minutes ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

Good example. It's slightly better than a vanilla weapon when you enchant it to remove Fragile, but it's so marginal that you're honestly better off saving the money you would use to upgrade its quality and just using a vanilla exceptional/superb Battle Axe until you get Magran's Favor.

To fix this, I would add an additional enchant to the base item. Option A) play up the obsidian angle and steal one from Kahua Hozi, probably Knapped Glass to make it more unique relative to other Battle Axe options. Option B) play up the imbued with souls of warriors and priests angle and give it a defensive On Crit effect - a small heal over time, or bonus defenses. 

Great points here. Fixing the action economy seems pretty easy - most of these could be moved to .5s/4s or even 1s/3s cast times without doing any harm. They are late game items (some literally gained from the hardest encounters in the game), so increasing their power level doesn't do much harm to the overall difficulty or pace of the game. Their opportunity cost is relatively low, because they use an item slot that has nothing else in it (for non-wizards), so that frees up some design room. Once we fix the general use case issue, we can look at each one and try to balance them with each other and their relative challenge level to acquire. 

The thing I can't stop thinking about, though, is how offensive On Rest abilities and items built around them by definition fall into this category of Rarely Used/Built Around. They are a limited resource, which creates a base level psychological barrier to using them ("What if I use it in this battle, but need it in the next and don't have it?").  But even if you can clear that barrier, let's say, and are committed to using them, you then have the added work of creating a decision tree for when you use it. What are the conditions when you should use it? Which fights? How many enemies? Etc. This problem is largely not an issue for defensive on rest abilities. If you're at risk of dying, you use the ability. The decision tree is much clearer there, and the risk for not using the ability is obvious - I might die, which might lead to more deaths and a reload. This second barrier is much less of an issue for per encounter abilities. You know you should use it every fight, so what's the best time in any given fight to use it. If you make a mistake on any one particular fight - oops, used it too early when I hit less targets, or when their defenses were too high, etc - then it's okay, you try again the next time. 

All of that is a long winded way of saying - why not just make most on rest abilities into per encounter? It seems so clear to me in terms of how I see the game, I'm curious what I'm missing, or what other perspectives there are on this. 

In term of balance, you can always rest so it shouldn't be too much of a problem out of... Eothas challenge I guess ?

But Per Rest items are sort of mutually exclusive with a "no rest" approach where you try to stack as much "until next rest" bonuses as possible. That's quite niche in term of gamer population but it is still a bit of powercreeping.

[thelee]

1 hour ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

All of that is a long winded way of saying - why not just make most on rest abilities into per encounter? It seems so clear to me in terms of how I see the game, I'm curious what I'm missing, or what other perspectives there are on this. 

for me i almost always play with rymrgand's challenge, so there's a real cost to rest-spamming. both monetarily (have to keep replacing food) and also because i can't stock up on good rest bonuses so i end up with lame rest bonuses (if i haven't been paying attention to how long i've been at sea i might literally just be left with water and hardtack). so it's not quite a no-rest challenge, but there's friction that can be a necessary counterbalance for on-rest vs on-encounter abilities.

more generally the on-rest mechanics of this game are kind of a poor fit. most of the game is geared around encounters and trying to avoid the tedium of skill resource management between fights, and between empower points and the growing amount of items they added that had on-rest effects, there's a gameplay design tension. generally i'm in favor of the idea that we shouldn't have on-rest effects at all, but in practice i think that would be a huge power creep.

outside of generalizations, the trinkets come so late that i'm not sure how much of a harm making those per-encounter would actually hurt the game balance. i actually ended up having lots of fun with the merge trinket from hauane o whe and the fiery core trinket from dorudugan, but at that point there were only like... 6 encounters in the game left, some of them extremely easy, so i ended up using it only like two or three times. would've been nice to have them up in every battle, and i already had to kill megabosses not sure i should be worried about encounter balance for some extremely under-leveled faction/mainquest content.

edit: maybe instead of makin them per-encounter, they are multiple uses per rest? i'm just thinking of leaping boots, i really like that item, and 2 uses/rest hit a sweet spot where i didn't feel like hoarding the ability, but i still had to be a little careful with it.

edit also to add - the unique amulet you get from assembling across the three DLC really should be per-encounter. a 20s dominate can be pretty powerful, but as a payoff for three DLC, and an amulet slot, and the fact that you can miss with the dominate, really makes it feel underpowered for one/rest usage.

Edited February 13 by thelee

[Ivanfyodorovich]

5 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

But Per Rest items are sort of mutually exclusive with a "no rest" approach where you try to stack as much "until next rest" bonuses as possible. That's quite niche in term of gamer population but it is still a bit of powercreeping.

5 hours ago, thelee said:

generally i'm in favor of the idea that we shouldn't have on-rest effects at all, but in practice i think that would be a huge power creep.

I think that's a helpful point you are both making - converting everything to per encounter would have a negative impact on game balance, or at least for the people who are interacting with the rest mechanic in a meaningful way (Rymrgand/Woedica's Challenges, no rest runs, etc.). Though I'm hearing you say that the trinkets are probably an exception to that, given their power level. Also, maybe 2/rest is the better fit here, at least for some of them. 

5 hours ago, thelee said:

more generally the on-rest mechanics of this game are kind of a poor fit. most of the game is geared around encounters and trying to avoid the tedium of skill resource management between fights, and between empower points and the growing amount of items they added that had on-rest effects, there's a gameplay design tension.

I think this is really helping me to put words to the specifics of why I have always felt per rest was an out of place mechanic. The conversion of all player abilities to per encounter in Deadfire is likely the biggest factor. 

Do any of you see any logic or design principle being employed here to decide what item abilities are per encounter and which are per rest? I actually started a short list of all of the per encounter item abilities, because they are so random and unexpected when I do end up finding them. Incomplete list at the bottom here.**

Maybe the better question, though, is what SHOULD the rules or logic be to determine which are which? Is it the overall strength or impact of the ability? The amount of "enchant points" being spent on it in terms of itemization (if that's even a thing)? 

6 hours ago, thelee said:

the unique amulet you get from assembling across the three DLC really should be per-encounter. a 20s dominate can be pretty powerful, but as a payoff for three DLC, and an amulet slot, and the fact that you can miss with the dominate, really makes it feel underpowered for one/rest usage.

Oh yeah - this is a prime example. The whole item just feels bad. I spent a week theory crafting around the stat boost only to find out it doesn't work with summons. The item is completed so late. Completing it gives such a weak boost to the functionality. And it competes with necklaces, which have many great options to choose from. My ideas for this so far are to add an enchant to the second tier (combining 2 of the items) that just gives a flat +1 Might, +1 Resolve. For the stacking buff, make it +2 per stack, stacks 2 times. You never really build a party around killing your characters, but it can happen, and if you really wanted to, you could build around it. Then, on the final item (combine all 3), increase the power level of each of the effects. +2 Resolve, +1 Might base, +3 Might/Resolve when party member dies (stacks 2 times); and change the Dominate to 1/enc. 

**Incomplete list of active per encounter abilities on items

• Kitchen Stove       Thunderous Report
• Pale Hide        Dread Howl
• Sanguine Great Sword       Prepare the Offerring
• Whispers of the Endless Paths       Run Through, Spinning Assault
• The Magnificent Escape Cape        The Magnificent Escape
• Rakhan Field Boots       No Quarter
• Spidersilk Robe       Dripping Fangs, Silk Spinner
• Slayer's Claw       Stelgaer's Lunge
• Healing Hands       Lesser Lay on Hands

[Ivanfyodorovich]

On 2/12/2024 at 1:48 PM, thelee said:

i basically don't bother with unique war hammers. bland and niche effects.

Looking these over, and I agree on Resounding Call and Glacierbane. Last Word I always thought worked fine for an engagement tank, but looking at it again, I think it's lacking. Specifically, effects that only work on lower levelled enemies are contradictory design at best. They do nothing in the case you most need them, and out-levelling content to make them work more often undermines the whole project of paying close attention to the items you're using. The smallest adjustment would be to add a lesser effect that works on same and higher level enemies. The best case, though, is to just change it to an effect that works on everything. 

Using Last Word as a test case (Lower level enemies cannot use active abilities for 2/3.0 sec on Critical Hit), I think it's probably fine to just make this work on everyone. Writ of War and Writ of Sorcery exist now. Even if it did work on everyone, 2.0/3.0 seconds is very short. Prone is a stronger effect, and prone on crit exists for a few items. I'm thinking upgrade it to 3.0/5.0 seconds. 

The other enchantments could use a pass, too (Steadfast for 6s on kill is pretty weak - should be at least 8s, if not 10s). Can someone remind me how duration of item proc abilities scale in terms of duration? Is that "classless" power level? Universal power level?