Is Bronn's Lithe completely dead?

Just saw Engineering Eternity's build guide for Charged Dash. And despite it being a movement skill, he still chose to use Loreweave instead for his chest. There was even a comment below the vid asking about Bronn's, and his response was simply "LOL".

This reminded me of how I actually haven't seen Bronn's used in any build for years now. Even builds that specifically use movement skills like Charged Dash, Leap Slam, Lightning Warp, etc. No one ever seems to use the one movement-centric unique chest in the game (Queen of the Forest is for speed, not buffing your damage).

As a side note, this also reminds of the fate of Taryn's Shiver on cold builds - but at least with that one I still (sometimes) see guide writers explaining why they don't recommend it i.e. it's still considered often enough to bother warning against. Bronn's is just..."LOL"? Like, it's not even a valid doubt?!

It's kinda sad that the game has more viable movement skill builds than ever before, and yet the major movement-focused unique in the game still is seen as so bad that it's not even worth considering. I feel rather sorry for the supporter who made it, especially since it was a cool choice of focus that few other uniques even now seek to address.

Most people (especially those who favor/follow the meta) will refuse to use a chest piece without a form of life on it. Flat life, % life, energy shield, % energy shield.

Using a chest without a form of EHP on it is losing an item slot where you could have a potential 100 or more life.

Bronn's Lithe isn't dead. It isn't meta. It never was, and for the above reasons it never will be. Most attack skills don't scale much with level so much as with weapon damage. So the +2 doesn't provide much. It does give you an increased damage mod on it, which is nice, but so does Carcass Jack, and - referencing the OP - so does Loreweave.

You can always make a "hipster" build with it, and be forever pleased that the item is cheap/will stay cheap due to the lack of demand.

Some uniques were designed to be must-haves. Some were designed to pay homage to things the designer loved. Bronn's Lithe pays homage to A Song of Ice and Fire, and does so very well with the flavor text.

No life, no resistances, and only a small damage increase for maybe two or three skills in the game. It's also pure evasion, making it harder to get colors for a melee build.

Meanwhile Loreweave has 80% max res and quite a substantial damage increase to many builds (especially the most meta ones like reave/bf) and even has a bit of life on it.

The choice is pretty clear.

Just replace the 10% movement and attack speed for 100 flat life, and movement speed cost no mana and it can be used... Not an OP item, but it can be of some use.

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alex12709 wrote:

Just replace the 10% movement and attack speed for 100 flat life, and movement speed cost no mana and it can be used... Not an OP item, but it can be of some use.

This. Unfortunatly GGG has bad habit of creating useless uniques, which became even more useless after few patches. At its current state Bronn's Lithe is perfect example of another useless crap, no matter what can by done to improve it somhow. Even corrupted with some nice corruption from the temple, this armor still be junk. Same issue with many other items.

Still flashy armor visual perlacer, especially on witches XD

I've seen it used on Cyclone builds, but yeah most people want EHP on their chest.

It's still good, loreweave if you want a bit of MF and overcapped resistances (which a lot of people do want atm)

if it was 40% more damage with movement skills, instead of increased, i'd use it over having life on my chest. otherwise you can't pass up life/resistances there. there are way better uniques in other slots to use in such builds over a unique chest at all

Not as dead as Lightning Coil. Way to big a penalty for only 30% Phys to Lightning. Should have never been nerfed in retrospec. Old School was fine.


All these old chests need an update though to compete with new uniques and Shaper/Elder rares.