Buff Apep's Rage in 2.0 - the changes are rendering it irrelevant

The wand Apep's Rage is an interesting niche item that is currently occasionally useful for builds due to adding flat chaos damage to spells, when no other weapon adds flat damage to spells, and having a cast speed that is slightly higher than what is otherwise attainable on weapons; It comes with the significant drawbacks of having negligible spell damage and a 40% increased mana cost.

With the launch of 2.0 and the addition of flat elemental damage to spells as a random modifier it would seem to completely loses its niche.

In general added flat elemental damage of the same type as the main attack is much superior compared to added flat chaos damage in PvE, as the former is affected by the various penetration gems and chaos damage isn't - and, of course, you can find or construct such an elemental wand with many other desirable modifiers, such as high spelldamage, relevant elemental damage, projectile speed, or added flat damage in several elements, each potentially individually greater than Apep's added chaos damage.

So not only will it be outclassed in PvE, due to the 40% increased mana cost drawback it will be outclassed and more expensive to use. (As for PvP, chaos damage has the advantage against players with low chaos resistance, though why such ones would expect to survive in PvP is anybody's guess, suffers the same drawbacks as in PvP against high chaos resistance, and is useless against CI.)

That seems a crying shame. It is one thing for uniques to be outshined for general purposes by good rare items, this appears to be the core design philosophy and one I like well. But to be outshined by the merely mediocre means it is likely going to be relegated to the dust heap together with other trash uniques rather than maintaining its own niche.

So I suggest buffing it, either to have it remain a good choice in its current niche or to give it a new niche.


Here are a few suggestions, one or several of which might make Apep's Rage remain in use in some builds:


#1: Significantly increase its flat chaos damage, doubling or trebling like. This maintains its niche of being good at one part of its specialty (adding flat damage to spells), while being bad at the general boosting of spellpower.

#2: Significantly increase its cast speed, 40-50% or whatever. This maintains its niche of being good at casting speed, while being decent in added damage and bad in general.

#3: Boost its spelldamage% significantly, 90-100% or whatever. This lets it remain competitive with rare flat elemental damage wands that only have mediocre or a few high stats, but outshined by those with more relevant high stats.

#4: Add some life leech from chaos damage - 0.2%, 0.4%, or whatever. Interesting synergies with Infernal Mantle and other items.

#5: Turn it into a projectile wand: Add an absurd projectile speed,50-60% or whatever. There aren't any unique caster weapons with projectile speed. Now there would be, and it would shoot further than rare wands.


Disclosure: I don't use Apep's Rage myself as it hasn't fitted into any of the builds I've made so far, but it certainly looked like an interesting item and I'd hoped at some time to get around to making a build around it. :)

I agree with everything. Reflect is no longer such a danger so that takes from it's attractiveness as well. A perfect roll for cast speed on Apep's is only marginally better than a well rolled new maraketh wand so it doesn't even have that. This item is no longer useful.

I like option #5 best, and agree with overall idea.

I agree, it was the first wand to add flat damage to spells and it should be the best one.
I would double or even triple the flat chaos damage that is added to the spells. And then you might as well make it so that Apep's converts all of your damage into chaos damage. Making builds with Apep's + Added Lightning/Cold really viable as pure chaos builds.

Worth revisiting these ideas, imo. For its drawbacks, Apep's doesn't seem to compete as well anymore.

Apep's now gives a 40% chance to gain onslaught for 3 seconds on killing an enemy.

Fits the "Rage" theme.

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Daresso wrote:

Apep's now gives a 40% chance to gain onslaught for 3 seconds on killing an enemy.

Fits the "Rage" theme.

says who?

well another possible suggestion would be:

#6: adds 40% of elemental damage as extra chaos damage

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Not disagreeing, but I get the feeling GGG are very loath to create yet more legacy uniques. GGG can't win here. They opted for a shifting metagame that WOULD make certain items redundant, but put in precisely zero means to effectively and efficiently update items in such an event.

Fair point, but I think if they were to simple buff some of the values a bit, you wouldn't have a big issue with legacy versions demanding huge prices.

Lightbane Rainment is a good example, imo. Seeing the new version inspired me to try a gimicky build (as much phys>chaos as possible) and I never once considered the older versions to be a superior choice, since the changes were straightforward buffs in nature.

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Sphen wrote:

Fair point, but I think if they were to simple buff some of the values a bit, you wouldn't have a big issue with legacy versions demanding huge prices.

well, your thinking is sort of wrong. if they buff an item that makes it better as NON legacy, why would anyone keep the legacy one then (or demand more for them)?

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rokki82 wrote:

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Sphen wrote:

Fair point, but I think if they were to simple buff some of the values a bit, you wouldn't have a big issue with legacy versions demanding huge prices.

well, your thinking is sort of wrong. if they buff an item that makes it better as NON legacy, why would anyone keep the legacy one then (or demand more for them)?

and why would ggg want such legacy uniques to be in game in the first place?