Talisman League Mechanics

For a general introduction to Talisman, including a video and examples of Talisman items, make sure to read the 2.1.0 Announcement first.

You'll encounter a monster possessed by a Talisman approximately once per area. This is an average - the actual number can be zero, one, two, or more per area, but averages to approximately one.

The properties of the Talisman affect the monster fight. For example, if the Talisman grants +1 Additional Maximum Zombies, then a monster possessed by it will certainly have some Zombies in tow.

Each monster possessed by a Talisman will drop that specific Talisman. There's no chance or conditionality here. When item allocation is enabled, Talismans are allocated to players like other valuable items.

If a Talisman is lying on the ground, other monsters will try to pick it up to gain it's power. You'll then have to kill that monster to get the Talisman.

The set of Talismans for Standard and Hardcore are different from each other - you can find a few base types specific to each league.

Talismans are always corrupted (i.e. can't be crafted), but have very strong implicit mods. For low-level players, Talismans without other mods will often be more powerful than whatever amulet they would otherwise be using. Talismans can also drop as magic, rare and unique. Magic Talismans are a large upgrade over normal ones because they have up to two mods in addition to their strong implicit. Obtaining a rare Talisman is a big improvement also, because it can have up to six mods. Some magic Talismans with two good mods are better than regular rare amulets. Rare Talismans with six good mods are among some of the hardest-to-find but most powerful items in the game.

Talismans come in multiple tiers (of base type). The tier of Talisman is subtly but noticeably indicated in the art. The lowest tier ones are found by killing possessed monsters in the world.

When you encounter a Stone Circle, you can sacrifice five Talismans to summon a monster possessed by a higher-tier Talisman. The five Talismans must be of the same tier, and must all be of different base types. If you manage to kill this monster, you will receive its Talisman. The rarity of the Talisman you receive is directly influenced by the rarities of the Talismans that you sacrificed to summon the monster. There are five slots, and each one contributes a 20% chance towards the next-tier Talisman being of that rarity. For example, if you sacrifice three normal Talismans, a rare Talisman and a Unique talisman, there's a 60% chance of getting a normal next-tier Talisman, a 20% chance of getting a rare next-tier Talisman, and a 20% chance of getting a Unique talisman from the next tier.

You'll have plenty of spare normal Talismans, a few spare magic Talismans, and occasional spare rare Talismans. Using Stone Circles, you're able to turn failed rolls of these items into a chance to get a good roll of the next tier up. While putting five rare Talismans into a Stone Circle guarantees a new rare one, you can sometimes put only one or two rares in and luckily get a rare as the outcome.

There are three main tiers of Talismans. Combining five first-tier ones gives you a second tier, and combining five second-tier (i.e. 25 first-tier) gives you a third-tier one. If you're able to combine five third-tier Talismans (125 first-tier!), then you can summon a portal to fight Rigwald, the Wolven King. He drops a special type of fourth-tier Talisman. These talismans have two random Talisman mods from lower tiers. As usual, its rarity is based on random selection between the Talismans used to summon him. While normal versions of his Talisman can be amazing, magic and rare ones are even more so. Imagine a lucky roll on a rare fourth-tier Talisman that has two good Talisman implicit mods and six explicit mods. Needless to say, if you're able to chain unique Talismans up from the first tier, Rigwald is able to drop a unique fourth-tier Talisman.

Because you can pick the rarity and item level of the Talismans that you put into the Stone Circles, you're able to customise the difficulty and rewards of the eventual Rigwald encounter. Higher rarity Talismans result in higher rarity rewards. Higher item level Talismans result in a wider pool of mods that can spawn if you roll a lucky rare. (The item level of the output Talisman is slightly better than the average item level of the input Talismans).

We're incredibly excited about the itemisation possibilities in this league. It's a really fun and rewarding league to engage with. We've purposely designed the league to not be too disruptive to normal play (lol Invasion) but to provide a lot of rewards for players who want to engage with it. We're expecting to see some insanely powerful Talismans spawned in the next few months!

Note that this article describes our current internal version of Talisman, which may change as we continue to test it before its release on December 11!

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sybrwookie wrote:

So no word on what level things will pop out of the summoned circles? Will they be relative to the area? The character(s)? The level of Talisman?

The highest out of:
a) Current area level
b) The level of the talisman which will drop (one standard deviation above average of input talisman item levels).

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NeroNoah wrote:

125 talismans seems insane for Rigwald. I'll play this league, I want to fight him. When this gets gates behind Zana or a random event, it's going to be hard as fuck to fight him.

You accumulate 125 Talismans surprisingly fast! For a start, you're getting an average of one per area (with the ability to farm them pretty easily), and secondly, anyone who doesn't want to engage with Rigwald is offloading their spare ones in trade.