Magic Items under CBM

[Mardagg]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

I do not agree that it should be an instant no-brainer.
Death is powerful enough as is.

Thats much more complicated.
Essentially,every built Wraith sword means less Tartarians to field.
Seriously,you have so many uses for death gems,that making the wraith sword better only makes the decision more difficult what to do with them.
Keep in mind also,that lowering the cost means lowering the casting requirements.E.g. D2 mages are better to come by for every nation.
Death alyways will be a very strong path,no matter how you alter the items,thats just how it is in DOM3.
I would be much more hesitant to add a new and very good fire item on the other hand since that would have a much bigger impact on the overall balance already known in this game.

A smallish does not.
And I hope you are not suggesting that high earth bless should be mandatory.

Say u take only E4 bless,just +2 reinvig ,makes your example already slightly in favor of the frost brand +boots of messenger build imo.Although i still cant figure out,what shield u did take,when you are mentioning parry.
And thats not even the best build following your (not advisable)alchemize strategy imo: instead of alchemizing the gems for the boots you could alchemize for the cheap girdle,leaving you more gems left,not less(!), or you could alchemize for the rainbow armor,adding MR in addition to reinvig,which is also nice to have for the giants.

Death gems only, remember.
And, well, you might not have alteration 6 researched and have some other research target in sight for the moment.

Sure,Soul vortex might not yet be researched.
Isnt it just better then to wait for soul vortex to be researched or to make it an early research goal before mass producing SC`s with expensive weapons that become obsolete?


@ Micah
I am also curious about the Sword of Swiftness?
Its 10 gems,9 damage,1/4 Att/Def,2 attacks.
You probably mean the def reducing ability for every attack after the first for quickened thugs wielding it?
That might be enough to be on par with the frost brand..after nerfing it to 12-14 damage.Its still more expensive though than the AoE and Cold resistance offering brand.
Currently i would lean towards improving the SoS by just a tiny bit further.

[Micah]

I've made an implementor axe, for the fear (only once the whole time I've played dom, but still.) I don't think I've ever made a pike though.

Wraith swords are junk. The stuff they work well on in any over-convoluted example is the same stuff you're going to wade through with pretty much any gear kit. They are also a problem because your fatigue is all front-loaded if you cast buffs before combat, whereas with reinvig items you don't have to wait for melee to bleed off the extra fatigue. Your theoretical life drain potential in rounds 7-50 of a combat doesn't matter if you die to crits on round 6.

Swords of swiftness are awesome weapons, I don't understand how they even came up in this conversation.

[Squirrelloid]

I'd like to know what games Amorphous is playing where he has excess death gems and no other type. I've *never* had that problem!

Edit: Micah, when would you ever use a damage 8 weapon, even if it does have 2 attacks? 1 damage +16 attack is almost certainly better than 2 damage +8 attacks in almost any circumstance, even before counting the AoE cold damage.

[Sombre]

Swords of swiftness are great because they both add def and counter def. With reasonable strength they turn thugs into confetti while keeping you alive. Even better when you dual wield them and crazier still if you're quickened - it adds up to such a huge def disparity with the opponent that they'd need really, really nice attack to get through and must have high prot to avoid being diced.

[Mardagg]

U can also dual wield the brands
But i see,having 8 attacks vs 4 attacks there is quite a difference indeed.
You surely got already quite some niche uses for SoS therefore.
So its certainly not a must to change it.
Maybe 1 more damage and/or 1 more defense(thematically) for the price?

Dual wielding omits shield ...having just read through the combat mechanics again,those shield hits seem to be pretty strong and nice to have,though.And shields add defense,too.

Btw,did i understand it right,that flails/morningstars not only add 2 att vs shield,but also ignore them completely when damage is dealt,thus no shield hits possible?

[Micah]

Sombre hit it for me.

To elaborate: I don't see how you can compare 7 damage to ANOTHER FULL ATTACK and come out on the side of 7 damage as being universally better. The CR on the brand is often useless since undead are already 100% CR, and the AoE doesn't beat a second swing in many cases in terms of chaff control. Additionally, the SoSwiftness is the best (non-unique) defensive 1-hander you can get.

It's not a weapon for weak, cheap raiders, it's a weapon for nice SCs that have enough strength to really administer beatdowns with each swing, even if they're just using a toothpick. At that point the 4 extra gems over a frost brand for the 2 points of defense and ability to really multi-attack your opponent's defense down starts to look like a great deal. Pair with chi shoes for yet more defense and you get 3 attacks for a full square-clear each action against the common size-2 chaff. (Including skelspam, which a frost brand sucks against.) Oh, and add weapons of sharpness from a support mage and the extra attack really leaves the slight bonus damage from the brand in the dust since it increases the damage-prot differential substantially.

[Mardagg]

Micah,good points.
I still would mainly niche use it dual wielding with ambidextrous thugs/Sc`s.
Dont forget that the frost brand got 4/2 att/def.So the first strike is more likely to hit than the first strike of the SoS.
That way,you might get more often the full 16 damage with the brand ,whereas the SoS profits a lot more from every subsequent attack,missing the first 9 damage here and there.
But,to exploit that, u gotta dual wielding it ,missing out the shields...it essentially becomes a 2h weapon for 10 W gems then.
Certainly not a underpowered one ,though,thats sure.

[vfb]

It's not that the pillage bonus on the Axe is weak, so much as pillaging itself is just pretty much a waste of time.

The RNG does like handing out Implementor Axes; at least I've frequently gotten a few. Or maybe I just notice them because they mostly sit around in my lab.

[Tollund]

He's got a point. There are plenty of people suggesting things that can't be done by modding. They are even suggesting that these things be done after posts which explicitly state that those things can't be done. I think it's been mentioned twice now that the pillage bonus on the implementor axe can't be modded out.

[Sombre]

Wow you sure piled the irony on in that one. Let's get back to the thread though shall we?

What about underused magical spears having the #charge tag? This has already been modded in before and allows for some nice tricks with high AP thugs. Consider the spear of sharpness - currently never built over the sword of sharpness. But if it had charge,..?