Cospri's Will - My Unique Story

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Fixed a bug where Hexproof monsters were immune to curses, rather than being Hexproof.

Fixed as of Patch 2.3.1.

Hello everyone, today after a very long time I'm happy to finally announce Cospri's Will coming in Patch 2.3.0!

I'd like to go over the entirety of the design process from start to finish, however it should be noted that I will have to summarize a fair bit as I accidentally deleted a large portion of the e-mails sent between myself and GGG during the design process. Additionally I'll try to compact everything down into blocks of spoilers so you can skip ahead if you do not wish to read the entire process.

Backstory
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I had heard Zeno talking about designing a unique item; this was the 2nd time I'd heard him talking about designing one. He went on to say if he was willing to pay $1,000 GGG would allow him the opportunity to design a unique item, but before his item would even be considered he needed to put the money forward for it.

No problem, later that day (August 11th, 2015) I purchased the ability to design a unique item. At this point I was already designing an item, scribbling down ideas for affixes as they came to me and removing others. My idea evolved heavily from the initial email to where we are today. In fact, none of the current mods were present as I asked to start over almost completely around the time of Talisman being released, but we'll get to that a little later.

Just to put things into perspective, at the time I starting working with Nick to design my item Tempest and Warband Leagues were only halfway being over.


Version 1 - The Shackles of Aspiration - Humble Beginnings
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The Shackles of Aspiration was the original name for Cospri's Will, and the mods I proposed were vastly different from what we have today. Thankfully I don't have the emails containing the details of the proposed mods, but needless to say my original suggestion was a complete and total clusterf**k of an item. It featured 12 mods and could best be described as a mad man's Thousand Ribbons. To be perfectly honest at that point I was designing it largely based off the Thousand Ribbons unique. They featured the same number of mods, and both had some beneficial and detrimental to the player.

I liked the idea, but Nick was quick to give me a reality check and school me on what the end item should look like. Thank you, Nick. The example he used was the newly buffed Hyrri's Ire as I had talked specifically about this unique in my email. He went on to explain the theming of the unique, and how each mod fits into the item as a whole.

Dodge, Spell Dodge, and Evasion had specifically been chosen as mods for Hyrri's Ire as it's a Dexterity based chest and these defenses are purely DEX themed. On top of these mods we find an actual DEX mod and Added Cold damage which is also aligned as being DEX themed. For reference Fire is Strength themed and Lightning Intelligence.

It was around this time I realized I had no idea what the hell I'd really gotten myself into. Anyway, Like I said I don't have a list of the various mods being thrown around at this point in time, but the basic gist was to try and cut the number of mods down from 12 to 6-8 and focus in on a particular theme.


Version 2 - Cospri's Will V. 1
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Eventually I settled in on a chaos and dodge themed set of mods. The list changed quite frequently as ideas were thrown around and patches/updates came and went. Some example mods include up to 13% Dodge, 13% Spell Dodge, Added Chaos Damage to Attacks, Chaos Res, 0.2% of Chaos Damage Leeched as Mana, Instant Mana Leech, and the list goes on.

Some time passed, and Nick and I focused in on a particular set of mods that look promising; that is, until Talisman and Blasphemy went live.

The Talisman League, or more importantly Patch 2.1.0, brought with it the Duelist Leech nodes. For the 1st time in POE's history Leeching Chaos Damage was a real possibility. No special gimmicks like Warlord's Mark, Hungry Abyss, or Berek's Grip were required to make Leeching Chaos damage possible.

This change is what spurred the almost complete and total rework of Cospri's Will I mentioned earlier. Without needing to focus on Chaos Leech I suddenly found myself free of needing to dedicate mods for that specific purpose.

An example list of mods at this current point in time (prior to my final major rework) include the following:
- X% Chance to Dodge Attacks
- Increased Eva %
- X-Y To Maximum Life
- 0.2% of Chaos Damage Leeched as Life
- X-Y% Chaos Resistance
- Mana Leeches Instantly


Version 3 - Cospri's Will V. 2 - The Final Version
Spoiler

Right before the launch of Talisman I emailed Nick and made my case to scrape what we had thus far in terms of mods and start over. Luckily, he obliged. Blasphemy had just been added to the game at this point, and unlike the teaser it had a 35% mana reservation instead of the 25% originally shown. This posed an issue. I felt it was way too much of a reservation cost and thus I found a new direction to take my unique in. After going back and forth with Nick I once again changed my focus; this time for the final time.

I decided to ignore Blasphemy's reservation and tackle the "issue" that is being able to apply multiple curses to enemies, while simultaneously tackling one of the most annoying monster and map mods in the game --- Curse Immunity.

Although the list of mods changed multiple times between then and now the final set of mods was agreed upon. BUT....... there was one little issue, the Curse Immunity mod itself. You see, when you ask to change or bypass a game mechanic that's been around since day one naturally you may be met with some resistance. I want to stress that ultimately it was GGG's right to tell me no, and at many points it looked things were going to go that way. After some internal discussion on their part (in which I had no say whatsoever - as it should be) I was informed that we would move forward with the Curse Immunity change. Tentatively.

Fluff - A VERY, VERY stupid blunder on my part
Spoiler

The same day I received word we'd move forward I may have... well... I, I leaked how the system was going to work on reddit in a thread regarding another unique someone had theory crafted to bypass the Curse Immunity map mod. GGG saw this post and were quick to call me out on it. I immediately deleted my post, and reddit account to best suppress my incredibly stupid blunder. On that note, I would publicly like to apologize to GGG and Nick in particular for my foolishness on this matter, I had no right releasing that information when I did.

Thankfully that thread didn't garner very much attention, and I never saw anyone ever bring up my particular post so at the very least my damage control was successful.

Fast forward a few weeks, and things weren't looking too great. There was a possibility that despite our previous discussions the Curse Immunity change wasn't going to happen, or at least not in a large enough scope for the ability to bypass it being included as a mod.

However, things changed and I was given the final say as whether or not Curse Immunity would be changed - or at least that's the way it was made out to sound. I have to admit it was pretty damn awesome being given the ability to have the final say, even though really GGG had already decided whether or not they'd allow my request to bypass/rework curse immunity happen.


This section contains spoilers in regards to the final mods.
Spoiler

So, one of the issues with Curses is you can only apply one at a time normally. If you want to apply mutliple you need very specific gear or passives. The passives are located in the Witches section of the passive tree meaning a skillgrimmage across the passive tree, or worse yet having to play a Witch to take part of the Occultists +1 Max Curse node. The uniques Doedre's Damning and Windscream are equally bad and out-dated options. The last and final option is Vaaling Amulets. Not only is this Corruption extremely rare, but actually relying on getting it is downright foolish especially if your build requires a specific unique amulet.

So, we had a problem. I needed to include "Enemies can have 1 Additional Curse" as a mod, and Nick gave me the okay. I should note - this was included in my original reasoning for changing this unique to being Curse/Chaos themed.

This gives us 3 mods in total thus far: Increased Evasion, Bypassing Curse Immunity, and +1 Curses. Let's be honest though, 3 isn't enough is it? Nope. I added Chaos Resist back into the mix and the final mod is a bit of special secret giving us a nice global 7th link. That's right, a global 7th link. Just let that sink in for a moment.


So, that brings us to where we are today. About 5-6 hours prior to writing this wall of text I received word Cospri's Will would be added in Patch 2.3.0 unless I wanted to make any final changes. I didn't!

Cospri's Will - This is with the max possible rolls. The ranges are listed after the image.
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The possible ranges of values include:
- 120% - 160% Increased Evasion
- 17% - 29% Chaos Resistance.

Oooooh sweet damn, that's right! We Poison cursed Enemies! Now this comes on the back of bad news for the Chaos Meta, but Physical Damage can poison too, so there's that to consider. Regardless, this is a free global 7th link and all you have to do is Curse enemies to enable it which you'll already be doing.


Flavor Text, Naming, and Art
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The flavor text evolved with Cospri's Will as did its various versions. The final flavor text speaks of a Council, not the Pale Council that's being added with Prophecy. This Council fails to see the power Cospri is capable of and as such casts her aside, disregarding her abilities. To be more literal, the 1st line directly refers to us using Curses as that's the entire point of this chest, the 2nd line to the fools who don't see the potential in this item, and the 3rd line speaks to our ability to Curse Enemies that are Hexproof.

The naming was interesting. I knew for a fact the base item was going to always be an Assassin's Garb and I wanted a name that made sense with that base item's name being there. In a lot of ways the Assassin's Garb influenced the mods themselves. Nick and I shared a few ideas ranging from religious names (a no-go) to Karui God names. Ultimately I chose Cospri for the name. Cospri is a name I made up a few years ago by combining Coke and Sprite into one word. It may not be very original, but at least I didn't name it after myself, so there's that.

For the art I wanted something purple to go with the Chaos theming. I may have understated this part, but in every stage of this process some kind of chaos themed mods were included. Beyond that I knew I wanted some form of straps to be present, and lastly Shavronnes Wrappings has this really cool scale-like texture on the front of it. I needed it. Thus we ended up with this artwork.

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~~~READ ME~~~
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So, you might be asking yourself "what the hell is Hexproof?", and I wouldn't be blaming you. You see, as part of GGG allowing my unique the ability to Curse Enemies that normally can't be, a compromise needed to be struck. One that still allowed for GGG to balance their game as they felt necessary while allowing for as much freedom for my unique to function as I originally intended. I didn't ask for Curse Immunity to be changed, I just wanted to Bypass it.

This compromise came in the form of a new Bypass-able mod dubbed Hexproof. This new mod replaces the older form of Curse Immunity on Maps, Magic monsters, and Rares. However, Curse Immunity is still a mod that exists within the game, but from what I was last told it will only be used on Unique Enemies moving forward.

But what's the difference? Hexproof can be Bypassed with Cospri's Will and with other uniques in the future, Curse Immunity can never be Bypassed. The Immunity granted by flask mods cannot be Bypassed either - I'm not sure if this changes how they function with "You are Cursed with X" map mods. I imagine not.

Still confused? Refer to the image below.
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Refer to this thread for any specific limitations. Subject to change of course. I'll try to check this section updated if I become aware to any other limitations.



So yeah, that's the end of things. Once again I'd like to say thank you to GGG for giving me this opportunity, Nick for handling my constant swapping of mods, and sorry once again for leaking information in regards to the Hexproof mod when I had no right to do so.


tl;dr
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F.A.Q & Questions pertaining to Mechanics
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Q. Is this a Prophecy League exclusive item?
A. No.

Q. Will this have 3D art on release?
A. As far as I'm aware, no.

Q. What item level restriction does this chest have?
A. At the lowest 68. I have yet to see any chests with lower item levels than this, however I will keep an eye on things. It's possibly a map only drop.

Q. If I'm using a Curse on Hit set-up and I hit an enemy that isn't cursed yet will I apply a poison?
A. No. --- see this reddit comment.

Q. Will Cospri's Will be nerfed before Patch 2.3 is released?
A. No, this is the final version that will be going live in Patch 2.3. If my unique receives any changes it likely won't be until after Prophecy has ended.

Q. Will there be a Divination Card for Cospri's Will? If not can I create one for it?
A. If you'd like to create a divination card for Cospri's items you are free to do so. (Changed as May 17th, 2017)

Used in the following Build(s) of the Week(s)
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Season 6 - Episode 1: Insobyr's Volley Fire Barrage Deadeye

Season 6 - Episode 3: Djnat's Mistress of Agony
Designing Cospri's Will: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1665314
Designing Cospri's Malice: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1717008
Iron Heart/Iron Fortress too!
Last edited by LostArtz on May 19, 2017, 10:00:01 PM
Last bumped on Oct 9, 2016, 2:32:17 AM
Nice, interesting item. I read most of it but i think ill have to re-read a section about the curse immunity theory crafting bypass lol
Harvest sucks! But look at my decked out gear two weeks in!

Labyrinth salt farm miner.

"But my build diversity" , "Game is too hard!" - Meta drone playing the same 1-3 builds for years.
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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:
Nice, interesting item. I read most of it but i think ill have to re-read a section about the curse immunity theory crafting bypass lol


Yeah, it's a lot to take in.

A tl;dr is unless you're using this chest, nothing changed.
Designing Cospri's Will: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1665314
Designing Cospri's Malice: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1717008
Iron Heart/Iron Fortress too!
Last edited by LostArtz on May 26, 2016, 4:18:41 AM
Congratz on making a spectacular unique!

Wouldn't worry too much about the chaos meta.
since it reads poison "on hit" unlike snakebite's "on attack" it's still insane imo.
@Minstrelshadrak
Thanks for sharing, though I didn't read all of it...

Looks like an interesting unique, though I guess it depends entirely on how much Hexproof shows up as opposed to Curse Immune, or if Curse Immune is being relegated to specific bosses and map mods now.

Spoiler
Why 29% for max Chaos Res?


Very nice, the naming was quite original.
Ign: Shaavu
Really nice item, good design.
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Zephryl wrote:
Thanks for sharing, though I didn't read all of it...

Looks like an interesting unique, though I guess it depends entirely on how much Hexproof shows up as opposed to Curse Immune, or if Curse Immune is being relegated to specific bosses and map mods now.

Spoiler
Why 29% for max Chaos Res?




Hexproof replaces the map mod.

As for the range of Chaos Res Nick told me GGG likes to work in prime numbers for chaos. This excludes crafting affixes.
Designing Cospri's Will: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1665314
Designing Cospri's Malice: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1717008
Iron Heart/Iron Fortress too!
I love uniques like these that change the rules. Well done :)
sorry to be blunt but this item is disgustingly powerful. it is yet another BrokenForth-class item

and yet another chest that makes rare chests worthless

'we do not want to make uniques BiS'.. sure you do

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