Honourhome could use some improvements.

It seems like a neat little item that could be useful to low-life builds, but its only really unique feature is the reduced mana cost, which is a bit underwhelming when there is another item in the exact same slot that gives a more sizeable bonus (Crown of Thorns).

The elemental resists on low life may as well not exist, as it is not particularly difficult to get resists maxed out, and once your resists are maxed the bonus does nothing. Even if I intended to play on low life most of the time, I would rather have my resists already maxed out before the bonus, since i wouldnt really be losing all that much by doing it.

My suggestion is to replace the extra resists on low life with +5 to Max resists on low life.

This would make the item useful outside low-life builds (as getting really high elemental resists is a build of it's own), it would make it a rather decent defensive item, and of course it would grant a unique benefit from being on low life.

how many level 12 low life builds do you know. is level 12 blood magic possible?

why the fuck is this thing level 12 , it needs to be level 20 atleast and have its bonuses doubled.

Curious if this helm can be exploited to cast auras for 20% less reserved mana and then switched out for a better helm?

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Dues wrote:

Curious if this helm can be exploited to cast auras for 20% less reserved mana and then switched out for a better helm?

no , skills and auras are not the same.

skills imply active skills that have a mana cost.

mana reservation isn't actually mana cost , mana isn't being used , only reserved.

thus it would have no effect on your auras.

I'll remark that 20% reduced mana cost is extremely powerful. Keep in mind that as you keep reducing the cost, you get exponential returns.

54% reduced skill cost. The next "20% skill cost reduction" gets you to 74% (worth 41% marginal). A 20 quality Concentrated Effect after that is another "15% skill cost reduction", which gets you to 89% (worth 42% marginal).

The best use I could imagine would be Firestorm (since it naturally enjoys Concentrated Effect). Base cost is ~40 at high levels, support with Fire Penetration (1.4x), 20qual Concentrated Effect (1.6x), Faster Casting (1.2x), and Increased Duration (1.5x). This would normally be 161 mana per cast, but with the above, only 17 mana per cast.

they have to be extremeely careful about which items they let have + max resists..

The item is fine the way it is. it can be used with extremely high mana costings spells or skills.. for example linking GMP, Chain, concentrated effect, fire penetration on a fireball....... thats 280 mana per cast normally...

That is a good point, but it doesn't really address my largest issue with the item, that the elemental resistance still has zero impact on the item.


Also, There are much less risky and gear-dependent ways to make resources irrelevant (mana leech gem, blood magic, simply investing a lot of points in mana, regen, and using Clarity). Not to say this isn't an option, but it's hardly the most effective when considering the risk involved in being at low health.

yeah low life thing kinda destroys any benefit those affixes could yield

now 40%+ resistances is fine and dandy, until you realize that doesn't include chaos damage.
and chaos damage face rapes low life builds.

unless you have layerd defenses , like long ranged spells , traps , mines and minions and if you have those .. then you really dont need them resists and probably could do better with the P A unique.


which brings me back to the non low life stats which are a weaker version of goldrim with some lightning damage. sure that's cool for right at level 12 , but i might as well just use goldrim since dps in act1 normal is easy to render a moot point.


sure it can make those insanely high mana cost skills uber cheap. but is it worth 65% of your life? at high level?

you would need a build that is so perfectly built for low life for that kinda thing to work. otherwise you are shooting your self in the foot.

i guess we can chock it up to one of those one off built items , like melee damage on full life.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

you would need a build that is so perfectly built for low life for that kinda thing to work. otherwise you are shooting your self in the foot.

Presumably the helm is only an option for low-life builds (those that use Pain Attunement and Redbeaks already).

Problem is it occupies the same space as Crown of Thorns. They both do pretty much the same thing for a low-life build: allow you to save some passive points by not having to invest in something on the tree. In the case of CoT it means you don't have to take a detour for Pain Attunement, and for Honourhome it means you can spend fewer points on managing your resources.

Honourhome should be different, and I think giving it a unique defensive capability is one way to make it a more viable choice. Low life builds are going to need all the defensive bonuses they can get, so I think it would fit perfectly with the theme.