Upcoming Unique Items

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mattislouie wrote:

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AsbelFar wrote:

Wait...


New maps confirmed?

Abberath, Avarius, Kitava as map bosses?

And this new map skin sounds like a full atlas revamp

Where did you find that? O_o

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DER_PSYCHOPATH wrote:

At first, I was a little hyped, as usual. New uniques, fancy, new things to do. Then I read what they do, and like many others here, I was frankly disappointed. Even for leveling, most of these aren't that impressive.

Stormcharger

Spoiler

Except for the self-shock builds, that might become meta with 3.1, the boots will be useless. They will however also only be a neat addition rather than an actually useful unique. The reason that build will work is the chest.

Wraithlord

Spoiler

1k Life doesn't seem that significant when talking about spectres. Unless you're doing the same thing as you have done with totems (increase resistances / reduction, decrease life) it will end up being fairly insignificant, and as previously mentioned, skullhead adds more regeneration.

Giantsbane
I have no experience with strength based projectile skills, so I'll leave that one untouched, but it looks like it'll end up as another leveling unique to vendor for 99% of the drops.

Cane of Unravelling

Spoiler

Now to the staff. It's far more interesting than the other items, because it actually has decent stats. Decent though, not actually impressive. It's questionable what chaos crit build will need the +2 gem level mod. Since all other chaos skills that work with staffs are dot based, the only possible option remains dark pact, which gains a whooping 5% damage bonus from those two levels (yes 5%, because 100% base + 100% level 20/21 is already 200%, so at 22/23 the 10% bonus are 5% overall). Now I don't know what you have planned for new skill gems, but you need to introduce a proper crittable hit damage chaos gem that scales with level and not half dot or life based damage. From what I can tell, depending on drop rates, this staff may however be only behind the shield in terms of value. Currently sold rares with similar stats range from around 5c to 50c in standard, but if the droprate is high enough, it will be around 1-2 chaos fast enough. The main problem remains that if you choose to not use a shield for your build, you might as well dual wield wands or daggers, and those will easily grant you more damage to chaos spells (which incidentally all benefit from spell damage, even the dot ones, so the pure chaos damage mod is pointless).

I really like the concept of chaos damage, so it's sad for me to see a unique catering to that damage type to not exceed existing uniques or fairly easily obtainable rares at all.
One last thing concerning this staff: To at all reap the benefits from a +2 gem level mod one needs to socket their main combination. Socketing their main combinations means requiring a 5L item (if it's not 5L a different 5L item without said mod will be superior). However, 5L items are hardly easier to acquire than rares with similar mods to this staff. And crafting a staff, that will replaced around 5-10 levels later into a 5 link seems considerably expensive. Not to mention, that in order for that staff to actually be superior to existing items, it needs plenty of maximum power charges. If you play with power charges, you'll want to replace it with Void Battery (6 levels later), which will provide considerably more damage and is, unlike this item, something, that cannot be 100% recreated with rares (which then even have fewer build restrictions).
/rant

Pullars of Arun

Spoiler

I imagine the price for the map will soon be around 10-20 chaos and it will be run by farmers with high movement skill utilisation. It will not be worth that price for anyone else and the gap to the players at the top will only widen. I really like the idea of a map with gaps, but since it's a unique map and has insanely high quantity, rarity AND experience, MF builds will run the maps and earn a fortune while maintaining the experience of t10 maps without greater difficulties. Not to mention for some builds the clearspeed will actually increase.

Vix Lunaris

Spoiler

The shield certainly more impressive. However, its true use can't be judged without being able to appraise the data for the provided skill.
As for the gem level, I've run a calculation and have been thoroughly disappointed. Even running both Wrath and Anger at level 21 with a level 4 Empower together with Piscator's Vigil, which should undoubtedly have one of the highest benefit rates of the items involved resulted in only a 10% damage bonus over an average Lycosidae (also using the auras with empower). However, using such powerful auras will require significant mana reservation reductions (as they would otherwise reserve 125% of the available mana), which in turn will diminish its effect for the overall dps.
The first thought I had was, that a shield with the +1 gem level corruption would be in the "unreachable" price range of 10-30ex, but after the calculations I'm assuming it will be more used for niche builds as well as helping against reflect. It might still become popular, but if it does not and the drop rates are high enough, the price and its use will surely drop.

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Explanation of why the price is used as a reference to judge a unique, both to the staff and people who haven't thought about it too deeply:

The price of items in poe is calculated from supply and demand, and demand depends on how useful the item is.

In other words, if an item is judged to be worth an alt or an alch (or in other words, not worth the time and effort to sell it to other players rather than a vendor), the item is simply not very useful for a large amount of builds. And quite frankly, even if uniques are largely meant for leveling, vendoring them is most likely not the intended purpose.

The use of an item often stems from mods, that cannot be gained on rare items. An example of that is the +1 power charges mod from Void Batteries. An example of a mod being in fact obtainable on an item is the cast speed per power charge on the Cane of Unravelling. 16% cast speed for extreme builds with 8 power charges (requires at least one item and ascendency node as well as all three passive nodes) is simply insignificant. 25% increased spell damage (per power charge per hand) is not.

Edit1: P.S.: An equivalent of 5 power charges constantly active can be crafted for 2 chaos on any rare wand or staff. If it is crafted on two wands, it will actually at least be equivalent to 9-11 power charges constantly active. Oh, and Opal Wands with the same level requirement will have at least 38% increased spell damage each resulting in at least 76% increased chaos (spell) damage and 18% increased cast speed with 2 normal items (+ a random irrelevant mod, assuming it doesn't actually improve the item beyond this) and 4 chaos orbs and a level 3 master in your hideout. The word ridiculous is barely covering this.

I have done my research. You have not.

Edit2: Post seemed too long, put the individual comments in spoilers. Preview shows it's still too lonng, but the unspoilered parts are too important to hide them.