The Blood Dance Sharkskin Boots - Perfect Example of What a Unique Should Be

The Blood Dance are definitely one of the best uniques in the game.
I fondly remember talking to ML when he was still designing them.
He's got a great gamesense. +1 to the sentiment of allowing him to design another 'on the house'. :)

I'd like to add to this thread, items such as crest of perandus and goldrim.
Both great low level uniques, that are still usable well into merc.

Agreed.

Blooddance + additional frenzy charges + blood rage + chaos res is an insanely powerful and cheap combination.

Probably my favorite unique together with Crest of Perandus.

Truly a great unique, one of the best, a godsend for builds that are attackers in essence but can't rely on leech for whatever reason.

GGG, feel free to give the guy another go.

add to this list Sliterpinch and Thiefs Torment.

blood dance boots are awesome

Those boots can be incredibly good, as Sa_Re pointed out, the combo with blood rage is very good.
They are balance to me because they don't give life/resistances, but people like them because they are powerful.

They are also awesome for trappers.

Damn, I hadn't seen this thread. Sorry I missed it a few months ago. I've been less active around here/in game since I got a job.

I really appreciate all of the compliments, but I must say a lot of others had input on them as well. Bounced ideas off quite a few friends, and the unique design team was a huge help along the way. I probably drove them crazy sending emails, but this was one of those 'once in a lifetime' things I decided to take a chance on, and I'm really glad I did. I wanted to get my value's worth out of it, and working alongside the design team was a very unique experience that I'm glad I had the opportunity to be a part of.

I can definitely acknowledge the criticisms pointed out as well. They're meant to be an alternative to rares that don't necessarily outshine them but provide different options entirely. In this case, it provides Regen as a stat rather than Resistances and life. The other stats are there mostly as flavor. Mid-range, accessible, and able to be used across a wide variety of builds were definitely goals kept in mind during the process. Aside from picking the base, I did very little for the item thematically. Thank Eric for that, mostly, and Rory for putting up with my constant tide of emails and throwing lots of suggestions out to me.

I get the feeling this is one of those uniques that came out really well but required quite a bit of time to get to such a happy place. I imagine not every unique gets that kind of attention due to limited resources/time. As far as a go at designing another unique, I'd love the opportunity, but I know the design team have their hands full with other supporter uniques as it is.

Anyway, thank you guys for the kind words. Glad the general consensus for them is positive, and I really enjoy using them in game. :)

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MonopolyLegend wrote:

Damn, I hadn't seen this thread. Sorry I missed it a few months ago. I've been less active around here/in game since I got a job.

I haven't used these for like the last 70% of the playtime on my main, but these boots dropped randomly without my knowing they existed, and they changed the whole game around for me. Just a really nice item, props.

They've been replaced in spirit by a Gifts from Above ring and Darkray Vectors for the DPS, but they will never be forgotten!

I have a pure frenzy char (8 charges), and I tested A LOT around BD boots. Sadly they can nowhere near compete with

Well of course you can go not full frenzy, but just some frenzy. In that case there are tons better boots than BD. But I agree on how a unique item should be. For me BoR, Vector, Daresso Salute are among best uniques (funny I use all of these)

Other very very interesting unique is Romiras Banquet. It is expensive one so does not fit into 'cheap but good' bin sadly.

It has few surprising uses - i used it to create 2h crit build that..works..

People used that for cold snap or to get extra charges for discharge. It is a very nice unique.