TOPIC: 2025 Ultra Rare Tokens

Picc’s Grindstone: Will repeat my comments from last round that as slotless this is just too good. More damage that everybody gets, with no downside in the character creation process for taking it. It also boosts people that don’t really need boosting, such as those with complete Elemental Eldritch Sets and Dragon Orbs and such. This is the type of power expansion that gives bad feels. After “everybody” (at least “everybody” who invests in URs) has this, what will dungeon design look like? Would suggest reining its power in. I also liked the version as a Runestone.

Another thought that occurred to me on Nightshade's Grim Gloves.

Could they be renamed to Nightshade's Viper Strike Gloves? Unlike Monks and Rangers, Rogues do not get to equip 2 Viper Strike weapons to help make the set bonus, which means that the Viper Strike set has been getting worse and worse for Rogues as other tokens like Arcanum Shirt, Kilt of Dungeonbane, etc are printed which are much better than the UR Viper Strike items. Adding Viper Strike to the gloves would be a near-perfect answer since:

• It'd give Rogues a Viper Strike piece on a token they may already want to equip, putting them on the same footing as Monk and Rangers.
  
• Since it's a token the other classes would not want to equip, it brings Rogues up to the same level without essentially handing out the set bonus for free to Monks and Rangers.
  
• The gloves are meant to be a standalone token, so wouldn't require any additional Viper Strike items to be printed in the same set.

Iross wrote: Could they be renamed to Nightshade's Viper Strike Gloves?

+1
While we're at it, could Belt of the Hunter just be a Viper Strike Belt reprint? As has already been mentioned, its current incarnation is about the same or slightly weaker than the recent Belt of the Deadshot. It would lose the 2 damage in favor of the contribution to the set, but that helps to draw a clearer contrast between it and the Deadshot

Weighing in on the Nightshade gloves again... I see some people saying they're underpowered now, and at least one saying overpowered, so it sounds to me like they're probably in a pretty good spot.

Just wanted to address a couple comments...

Iross wrote: [snip of some valid questions which I'm not qualified to answer]
I'd also suggest letting this work with ranged weapons as well - otherwise Nightshade's +2 Throwing Dagger suddenly goes from being a very decent ranged weapon to falling way behind all the other UR+ Rogue weapons since it's the only one which is missed out by both Gladiator Gloves and Nightshade's Gloves.

I can think of at least one good reason not to have it work with ranged: Because then we'd have to figure out how it interacts with the Assassin's Crossbow. Does 3x on crit stack with the Crossbow 3x damage? Does it make x4 or x5? Either way is extremely overpowered. This token doesn't offer as awesome a combo as the Crossbow & Raphiel's, but it does offer rogues one way to get a triple crit in melee. It probably won't appeal to Ranged Rogues, but that's okay.

One thing to keep in mind: It *does* work with the Nightshade Throwing Dagger. That dagger doesn't have to be used exclusively for ranged. At lower levels of play (not Nightmare/Epic, where builds are significantly min-maxed) this is still an excellent token for an entry-level UR Rogue who doesn't have a ton of equipment, and might switch between Melee and ranged depending on the specifics of a particular combat.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Nightsahde's Grim Gloves: This token just feels troubled. Now I think it might be too weak to be desirable. Maybe this could bypass crit immunity on the attack it is used for as well?

I think this token doesn't stack up well against some other gloves/gauntlets... but it doesn't have to. It fills a niche. It's an answer to the request for a Melee route to Triple Crit on Sneak attacks. It's not overpowered. People with a lot of glove options may have to make some hard choices if they want to use these. Newer Rogues who haven't invested in UR gloves yet will probably really like them.

There's one other advantage which has barely been mentioned... a sort of "secret" set bonus if you will... Since the power of Nightshade's Shortsword/Throwing Dagger is that it allows Sneak Attack to double on a crit, these gloves - when used with their namesake daggers - will (probably) cause that Sneak Attack damage to triple. (And before anyone looks aghast and says "That's way too powerful now!" we're talking an extra 15 or 20 damage, no more than once/combat, which is nice, but hardly game-breaking).
This would also work with the Viper Strike set bonus, but fewer and fewer folks are using that bonus now, especially since there's better options in most locations where the Viper set slot in.

Iross wrote: Another thought that occurred to me on Nightshade's Grim Gloves.
Could they be renamed to Nightshade's Viper Strike Gloves?

Oh. Ooooooh. Ooooooooooooooooooh!
I *like* this!!!

I was even thinking, "Aw, Jeff was awesome and added a little blue dagger on the backs of these gloves, just to make the Thieves Guildmaster happy!" (Spoilers alert: it worked!) and that blue dagger looks a lot like a punch dagger. Renaming them to Nightshade's Viper Strike Gloves would be *chef's kiss* perfect!

+1 to making the gloves part of the Viper Strike set.

AAckeret wrote: Picc’s Grindstone: Will repeat my comments from last round that as slotless this is just too good. More damage that everybody gets, with no downside in the character creation process for taking it. It also boosts people that don’t really need boosting, such as those with complete Elemental Eldritch Sets and Dragon Orbs and such. This is the type of power expansion that gives bad feels. After “everybody” (at least “everybody” who invests in URs) has this, what will dungeon design look like? Would suggest reining its power in. I also liked the version as a Runestone.

I agree that slotless power expansion is bad. I, too, kinda liked this as a Runestone (though I like the *name* "Grindstone" better.) I can understand that it was complicated as a "reusable" Runestone, though.

What would folks think about this:

Picc's Grindstone
+2 to Damage with Melee & Ranged attacks
(May not equip any Runestones)

That way it effectively takes up the Runestone slot (all the runestone slots, technically) and it's a logical Rare to UR progression from Runestones. This might not appeal to people who use Runestones, or who have invested in Runestone Fitting bases, but it would be a way to get the same/similar effect without using consumables. And every now and then, you might not want to use it, because you wanted a particular Runestone effect for a specific run ("All weapons count as Silver" Runestone, etc). It's not an auto-choice... but it remains very good.

Raven wrote:

AAckeret wrote: Picc’s Grindstone: Will repeat my comments from last round that as slotless this is just too good. More damage that everybody gets, with no downside in the character creation process for taking it. It also boosts people that don’t really need boosting, such as those with complete Elemental Eldritch Sets and Dragon Orbs and such. This is the type of power expansion that gives bad feels. After “everybody” (at least “everybody” who invests in URs) has this, what will dungeon design look like? Would suggest reining its power in. I also liked the version as a Runestone.

I agree that slotless power expansion is bad. I, too, kinda liked this as a Runestone (though I like the *name* "Grindstone" better.) I can understand that it was complicated as a "reusable" Runestone, though.

What would folks think about this:

Picc's Grindstone
+2 to Damage with Melee & Ranged attacks
(May not equip any Runestones)

That way it effectively takes up the Runestone slot (all the runestone slots, technically) and it's a logical Rare to UR progression from Runestones. This might not appeal to people who use Runestones, or who have invested in Runestone Fitting bases, but it would be a way to get the same/similar effect without using consumables. And every now and then, you might not want to use it, because you wanted a particular Runestone effect for a specific run ("All weapons count as Silver" Runestone, etc). It's not an auto-choice... but it remains very good.

I have no problem with it taking up a runestone slot, but I would like to be able to use the two runestone fitting bases I have at the same time. It doesn’t feel so powerful at the UR level that it should prevent the bases from working.

Matthew Hayward wrote:
Shield Maiden Bracers: Rangers can use neither two handed melee weapons nor shields, and shouldn't be able to use this token.

Monks, Rogues, and Wizards who can't use shields should probably also be excluded.

We are leaving the classes off of this item to allow for some future Shield ideas for all classes. Who knows? All these classes do not currently have a Shield, so we are good either way.

As a dwarf main I’m disappointed to see our UR be only slightly better than an uncommon. Maybe have it be something that forces aoe to only hit dwarf or something more for a 2 rarity jump

Raven wrote: Picc's Grindstone
+2 to Damage with Melee & Ranged attacks
(May not equip any Runestones)

For what its worth, I generally don't like items that are balanced around the phrase "may not" or "+X/-Y". If we go that way I would prefer a wording like "Dose something (Runestone Slot)", I may or may not also have a few fitting bases so take that for what you will

As an off the wall idea if people don't like +hit/dmg, what would you all think about something like "Makes 1 TE only token slotless" that way it maintains high utility/flexibility for the foreseeable future, has power tied to the quality of the users other gear, and kind of rhymes with the "you don't equip TEs in grind thing".

Picc wrote:

Raven wrote: Picc's Grindstone
+2 to Damage with Melee & Ranged attacks
(May not equip any Runestones)

For what its worth, I generally don't like items that are balanced around the phrase "may not" or "+X/-Y". If we go that way I would prefer a wording like "Dose something (Runestone Slot)", I may or may not also have a few fitting bases so take that for what you will

As an off the wall idea if people don't like +hit/dmg, what would you all think about something like "Makes 1 TE only token slotless" that way it maintains high utility/flexibility for the foreseeable future, has power tied to the quality of the users other gear, and kind of rhymes with the "you don't equip TEs in grind thing".

That would be incredibly powerful I think.

I feel the earlier wording (runestone slot) was perfect. It takes away other future URs, any uncommon or common runestones, and other rare runestones without fitting bases.

That's a big enough trade off for either +1/+1 or +0/+2 to me.

Don't get me wrong, your wording would make me want to buy it too, but it might be too good.