10 unqiues that are in need of renewal, badly

Lochtonial caress? I use that while doing palace maps ffs, 15% cast speed (30 because echo) is great and the only thing I could have there is either resist, or HP which I don't care about since I'm a pretty little glasscannon snowflake.
About the Oro's, saw many ppl wanting attack speed on it. I had a half made templar for oro's and all this talk about it made me continue with it, it's lvl 79 atm levels at crazy speed, has 4.5k hp 9.8% regen, does insane AoE dmg practically oneshots any group that is not ele resist. Oro with 1 big hit that prolifs around is a beast, I took 150%+ life and can still roll through maps, the only problem is the unique bosses at the end of the maps take longer, but that is because its a melee build and since I always played speed LW arc, I have literally no clue how ppl even fight these bosses where you HAVE to get hit (looking at you mine boss) that take half your HP away with 1 hit.
The sad part about this, is that I could probably get a phy based weapon and have it do more fire damage with all the scaling it can get, but running with Oro's has that niiiice feel to it (culling herald of light <3) which I doubt I could get with other weapons.

"

Boem wrote:

^And how much did it cost?

Ghudda's project is around 50 chaos worth for example.

Like i said in the post before, a rare should be better, but when it comes to cost efficiency this is a solid helmet to get the job done on a budget.

This thread is about the viability of unique's, i am simply saying malachai serves a purpose and still does. I used it in several lightning specs to alleviate 6-link mana cost before i got to end-game etc, it's wonderful with a tabula cost associated to your gems.

I simply disagree with the fact it is vendor trash and has no purpose anymore.

**

you are trying too hard to be a special snowflake

next time use mana leech gem or just do not avoid mana nodes on the tree

the mana you throw away can also be used for clarity/Heralds

while heralds with discharge do not give significant damage boost with any other spell (all lightning - tendrils/spark/arc/storm) these are significant dps boost worth more than one or two extra link (curse on hit!!)

most expensive supports are lvl31+ so up to lvl 31 there is pretty much nothing to link and after that the +1 wand or staff is enough to get to merciless

but if you insist on using 5link + LL (+ BM from the malachai) for the cost of heralds - so be it. but do not confuse gimping oneself on purpose with a viable choice. malachai mask solves you a problem that you yourself created.

there is also that nice aspect of life leech efficacy on low levels (low % coupled with low base coupled with the way LL works). if spell cost is sooooo high that it 'requires' BM then 'before endgame' it might be just as well too high to survive such adventures. esp wearing at least two items without life (helm/chest). not mentioning how well storm call works with LL sans Vaal Pact:)

I think Sid is missing the point of budget enablers = cheap complimentary gear. If anything, your argument amounts to "don't build discharge because other spells don't have that problem," not "Malachai's is 100% useless for 100% of people" because clearly it's not.

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CanHasPants wrote:

I think Sid is missing the point of budget enablers = cheap complimentary gear. If anything, your argument amounts to "don't build discharge because other spells don't have that problem," not "Malachai's is 100% useless for 100% of people" because clearly it's not.

Malachai solves an issue it itself creates. it enables what exactly? that one can play a build purposedly devoid of any mana on gear/nodes? sure - it enables that. but the price is astronomical and the outcome - dangerous even for SC standards.

and if you want to talk about budget enablers - check my Infractem end-game LA build in ranger subforum. you might realize that i understand 'budget' pretty well

note: anyone twinking 6Links etc should get at least one of these:

no mana problems whatsoever + bonus XP for even faster twink. not that getting to 50 is something worth talking about with twinked gear..

"

sidtherat wrote:

you are trying too hard to be a special snowflake

will you cut the special snowflake stuff? youve been missing the point of the thread since your first post, youre the only "special" snowflake around here mate.

Malachai's Simula has the same problem as Hyrri's Ire : it gives a major keystone without the mandatory nodes behind it.

But in Hirry's case, you don't sacrifice that much because if you want acrobatics you would be evasion anyway. For Malachai, you give up your ability to use auras/heralds, which is a MASSIVE drawback.

Malachai was fine 2 years ago (i myself used it a lot back then), but the game has changed since then with the introduction of powerful auras/heralds (very few casters don't go for herald of thunder&ice; very few physical attackers don't take herald of ashes for example) and sustainability has increased tremendously since then (clarity + mana regen nodes + mana regen on gear + elreon jewelry makes it trivial to spam skills).


So yeah, in the current version of the game, Malachai is useable, but is somewhat bad compared to the other alternatives availables. Like Hyrri, giving it the nodes behind the major keystone it provides would suffice to make it an interesting choice to use.

I tried Hyrri's Ire and if I remember correctly, it didn't reduce my block chance. On the other, my block wasn't that high. I think that Hyrri's Ire uses old version of Acrobatics, so could it be now somewhat usable?

"

RaivokasMagma wrote:

I tried Hyrri's Ire and if I remember correctly, it didn't reduce my block chance. On the other, my block wasn't that high. I think that Hyrri's Ire uses old version of Acrobatics, so could it be now somewhat usable?

Oi! That's an extremely useful observation. Nice find sir, really.

Peace,

-Boem-

@Sid: This is the last I'll say, because it's derailing the fuck out of Vic's thread at this point.

"

if you want to talk about budget enablers - check my Infractem

Tis where you're taking a nose dive right into the deep end of irrelevantville. This should read "If you want budget discharge this works better," because the entire point is that discharge minimizes a fair deal of Malachai's drawback, and makes fair use of its potential to overcome some of budget discharge's other drawbacks.

"

Malachai solves an issue it itself creates. it enables what exactly?

Come again? It cheaply trades discharge's drawback for another drawback which doesn't impact discharge that severely.

I won't say I'll ever go out of my way to use Malachai's. I never was interested in it; not back in CB, and not today... but it serves a purpose. It allows you to shuffle your resource constraints around, so that instead of building for those constraints, you can focus on building towards something different. Possibly until you're ready to build for those constraints later on. That is good unique design, IMO, even if the effect only lasts for a few levels (where a few could be ~20 while going through cruel).

That we're even debating this is further testimony that this is good unique design, especially since people actually use it. Not every unique needs to be "omgstrong" and not every unique with a drawback is immediately "fuckthatgarbage." The item need only make you (well maybe not you ^-^) question your resource priority, and Malachai's does that.

Furthermore, any issue you seem to take with this item, has been peripheral to the "swinging meta," aka, "since patch x.x mana is easy." That situation is more likely to change again in the near future than this item is. Just saying.. when the meta is fundamentally unstable, current meta doesn't make a very good argument against the long-term viability of an item, and there are plenty more items with drawbacks that don't even beg the question "can this shift my resource priorities?" because their drawback is so far out of alignment with their function.

"

sucrecandie wrote:

Malachai's Simula has the same problem as Hyrri's Ire : it gives a major keystone without the mandatory nodes behind it.

But in Hirry's case, you don't sacrifice that much because if you want acrobatics you would be evasion anyway. For Malachai, you give up your ability to use auras/heralds, which is a MASSIVE drawback.

This I can agree with, although I disagree with your conclusions.

Blood Magic does not need MC if the build does not need auras (or rather, if trading potential auras is less detrimental than not relying upon BM instead of "fixing" your mana).

In the case of Hyrri's, the bottom line is that EV doesn't need Acro nearly as much as it needs Phase Acro. It is good enough on its own to avoid attack damage, but its Achilless Heel is physical spell damage.

Don't misunderstand me here--Acro pushes EV's potential against attacks to much more comfortable levels, but this item has been fundamentally flawed since the first Acro nerf. It gets all of the drawback without any of the real benefit of Acro.. that is, if an EV character picks Acro, it's because it's on the way to Phase Acro.

All this item needs is a well worded exception that grants Acro without the drawbacks while still precluding any additional benefit from stacking this item with the actual keystone. I.e., "30% chance to dodge. You gain no benefit from Acrobatics."

"

CanHasPants wrote:

All this item needs is a well worded exception that grants Acro without the drawbacks while still precluding any additional benefit from stacking this item with the actual keystone. I.e., "30% chance to dodge. You gain no benefit from Acrobatics."

Your observation about acro is probably good, if it didn't have phase acro behind it people would still take it, but phase acro seals the deal. It's supposed to be a node for archers and eva 2Handers but we see people sacrifice a part of block for it these days.
If we assume you have 30% block chance with a nice +block shield what would you do with five passive points if you aren't building anything especially tanky, get ~4% block, some shield defenses and recovery, or 40% dodge and 30% spell dodge. That doesn't even need an answer.

Ok, the juiciness of acrobatics aside, we can take a look at what separates a successful keystone unique and an unsuccessful one, first one represented by the almighty cloak of defiance and the second by simula, hyrri and crown of thorns.

* Ok, let's take a look at a build that would use the cloak, typically it's a caster that uses eldritch battery so MoM is a bit far to get. So, cloak of defiance offers:
- Sockets of right color in your chest
- Synergy with eldritch battery with some ES and a whooping 100 mana
- It even has a decent amount of mana regen that an EB user highly values because it usually has AA
- It has no particular drawbacks besides the lack of 'common' armor mods, keytone it offers has no drawbacks either

So you see, Cloak is good because it plays right into the build you need it for. It probably shows the best why additional keystone-related benefit won't make or break the unique, it's still popular even without additional 10% damage to mana. Yeah, it means another 10% dodge on hyrri wouldn't help it much, but cloak wouldn't be nearly as popular if it had just MoM and nothing else.

* Now, if we assume simula isn't a levelling unique it's supposedly meant for a caster that has mana problems and doesn't need auras or heralds badly because it does damage in one big hit. It offers:
- A bit of damage, some general, some specific
- A sliver of lightning resist
- A minor drawback and full drawbacks of keystone

The reason it fails is because its niche doesn't really exist, casters very, very, rarely have mana problems these days. A build that could need it is an elemental attacker built on right side of the tree and those need auras BAD.

* Crown of thorns is meant for low-life STR casters that are too far from pain attunement. Now, what it has are:
- A nice bit of ES, which is useless
- Pretty much nothing else

What's wrong with it? Well, for one, low life casters aren't STR based, they need high ES and that's not where it's found. At some point in time devs probably envisioned that we'd be able to play with only a third of our life pool or something, And we could once, with old tree and legacy Kaom, but we can't anymore so the item is pointless, every low life caster these days can get pain attunement easily.

* If I'm correct Hyrri is meant for archer maras and templars. It offers those:
- Right color chest slots
- Some dex, which helps them wear it (might be pointless, you need even higher dex to use bows)
- Very high defense

Actually, nothing is particularly wrong with this unique, it does what it's supposed to do. It isn't popular because archer maras and templars aren't popular and regular east-side archers don't need it. However, even a bowman mara might find the choice between an item with an useful keystone and no life/resists and a rare chest kinda difficult. It would be a good item if it had at least some life. Still, Pants is right about physical spells, they can hurt badly, so an archer mara might actually prefer going armor/end.charges and keeping his main skill in his bow. So in this case I'd say the fault lies with game balance, not the item itself, and we should probably keep in mind it was designed back when we had much fewer physical spells and they weren't as strong.