TOPIC: Final Ultra Rare Token Images

Rachel Stemm wrote: My half UR+ build right now has me wearing a Ring of Fervor and Greater Ring of Havoc. At a +5 for passed skill checks, I would totally swap out my fervor. I like skill checks, I'm good at skill checks in VTD and PTD, and that bonus would be worth it. Less than +5 would make it harder to justify the PYP price to replace the fervor that I drew from treasure.

Please note, even with your ring of fervor this isn’t a slam dunk. You lose 3 damage out of the gate on lightning storm and both ray spells. You have to cast 2 skill check spells (and get the Check correct) to come out ahead. If only get 6 rounds of combat total in a dungeon, you need to pass all your skill Checks to come out ahead.

I would like to point out that those values would be less if it was compared against Ring of Storms, a standard +2 damage Rare ring, which doesn't have any conditional requirements attached to it. These comparisons also assume that a Wizard would burn down through all of their spells, including every Level 0 spell, which is not realistic. I just want people to keep that in mind before making too simple of comparisons.

David Harris wrote:

Rachel Stemm wrote: My half UR+ build right now has me wearing a Ring of Fervor and Greater Ring of Havoc. At a +5 for passed skill checks, I would totally swap out my fervor. I like skill checks, I'm good at skill checks in VTD and PTD, and that bonus would be worth it. Less than +5 would make it harder to justify the PYP price to replace the fervor that I drew from treasure.

Thank you for your perspective and weighing in on your build, much appreciated.

Assuming you are a Wizard or Elf, so at +5 you would get up to +36 damage as Wizard or +33 as an Elf, over Ring of Fervor. If it was reduced to +4 you would still get up +26/24 more damage over Ring of Fervor.

But ONLY if she casts every spell on the card, and passes every skill check. In the real world, at +4 damage per skill check, she is almost certainly better to use a $2 rare ring of storms.

David Harris wrote:

Rachel Stemm wrote: My half UR+ build right now has me wearing a Ring of Fervor and Greater Ring of Havoc. At a +5 for passed skill checks, I would totally swap out my fervor. I like skill checks, I'm good at skill checks in VTD and PTD, and that bonus would be worth it. Less than +5 would make it harder to justify the PYP price to replace the fervor that I drew from treasure.

Thank you for your perspective and weighing in on your build, much appreciated.

Assuming you are a Wizard or Elf, so at +5 you would get up to +36 damage as Wizard or +33 as an Elf, over Ring of Fervor. If it was reduced to +4 you would still get up +26/24 more damage over Ring of Fervor.

I like Elf.

Considering that those damage numbers are over the entire seven rooms, 3-5 combats, the extra 33 damage doesn't really seem like it would be too much. I am not a math person, so for me it's taking into considering not just the exact numbers for the extra damage, but the extra cost for the additional purple, and the amount of fun vs stress (would I fail more tests if extra damage was on the line? probably, thanks to murphy's law/anxiety). +5 feels worth PYP costs to me in a way that +4 feels borderline and +3 definitely would not.

Powerblade3 wrote: I would like to point out that those values would be less if it was compared against Ring of Storms, a standard +2 damage Rare ring, which doesn't have any conditional requirements attached to it. These comparisons also assume that a Wizard would burn down through all of their spells, including every Level 0 spell, which is not realistic. I just want people to keep that in mind before making too simple of comparisons.

Endgame wrote:

David Harris wrote:

Rachel Stemm wrote: My half UR+ build right now has me wearing a Ring of Fervor and Greater Ring of Havoc. At a +5 for passed skill checks, I would totally swap out my fervor. I like skill checks, I'm good at skill checks in VTD and PTD, and that bonus would be worth it. Less than +5 would make it harder to justify the PYP price to replace the fervor that I drew from treasure.

Thank you for your perspective and weighing in on your build, much appreciated.

Assuming you are a Wizard or Elf, so at +5 you would get up to +36 damage as Wizard or +33 as an Elf, over Ring of Fervor. If it was reduced to +4 you would still get up +26/24 more damage over Ring of Fervor.

But ONLY if she casts every spell on the card, and passes every skill check. In the real world, at +4 damage per skill check, she is almost certainly better to use a $2 rare ring of storms.

Fair points, I think it highlights what Mike was saying it is more impactful for not BiS builds, because my Wizard is very much not BiS and I often cast most of my level 0s and this seems very powerful at +5 to me and probably just right at +4. Sure my exercise was on the far extreme of full utilization of card and successful skill checks. But several times in VTD, I've used every damage spell on the card and was casting scrolls at the end and also succeeded on all skill tests....so the scenario does exist.

Also, in True Grind you auto-succeed on skill checks and use everything.

David Harris wrote:

Ian Lee wrote:

David Harris wrote: Ring of the Savant - hum, most clerics, druids, and wizards with any experience will get the skill test like 90-100% of the time. So if it is almost automatic that make this item equivalent to Relsa's. It is a bit concerning to see an UR that is very close to the same power level as a legendary.

I mean if the assumption is the skill test is like a 50/50 thing maybe this is okay, but not at 90% or even 75%. I think this is way to powerful at UR.

Not exactly as only some spells have skill tests. Using sketchy math, the effect is still too much. Whether sketchy math suggests +3 or +4 I'm not sure.

Fair point:

Cleric effects 6 of 12 spells effected by focus
Druid effects 8 of 14
Elf effects 9 of 12
Wizard effects 10 of 14

So still pretty impactful, +3 feels right to me. It doubles the effectiveness of a skill test at +3.

I think you should be looking at level 5 casters to see what the total benefits are among casters:
Cleric: 7 healing
Druid: 3 healing, 7 damage
Elf Wizard: 9 damage
Wizard: 10 damage

I also think what spells benefit is at least as important as how many there are, for example:

Wizard gains the benefit with:
6x 3 point damage spells
1x 6 point AoE damage spell
3x an 8 point spells

Druids gain the benefit with:
2x 5 point heal spell
1x 13 point heal spell
3x 8 point damage spell
2x 11 point damage spell
2x 17 point damage spell

A Wizard has an opportunity cost tradeoff of choosing to cast a level-0 spell that is worth 3 on a failed test and 11 on a passed test. A druid is probably going to cast all the spells above over a dungeon regardless of whether there is a skill check bonus.

On the other hand, this allows burning hands to be a 14 point to all damage spell with a passed skill test, making it better for Wizard than Elf Wizard/Druid/Cleric who don't have AoE spells with skill tests.

Wizards with MeC and Druids with spell surge can get +10 points of damage from this effect, making it better for them than for Cleric.

All 5 of the Druid's Level-1 spells both benefit from this item, and are castable as a free action with Ring of Quick Blessing; so druids are getting potentially two 13 point healing spells and three 16 point damage spells castable as a free action with 2 UR Rings on passed skill checks. So that's pretty rad.

All in, I feel Druids benefit the most from this item, followed by Wizard, followed by Elf Wizard, followed by Cleric.


Overall I think 5 is might be too much, but 3 is too little.

Looking at comparable tokens:

Ring of the Yeti: +3 to missile damage
Ring of the Eel: +3 to melee damage
Ring of the Drake: +2 to melee, missile, and ranged and also returning property on Shurikens

This year's Arcane Charm in the current set that gives +2 to all healing and damage spells, no restrictions, and gets you closer to a set bonus.

There are numerous URs in other slots, and even slotless, that +2 to healing and damage spells, and some also benefit polymorph damage.

This year there is a UR shirt that is +3 to focus with a drawback.

This ring has a drawback that limits the spells that can be modified.

Ring has historically been the most powerful slot for casters.

To me that all that puts +3 as the absolute floor for this effect in the ring slot: as if it were +2 it would be substantially worse than other focus and arguably other non-caster UR rings.

I do think +5 might be one too many.

Among 3, 4, and 5 I think 4 is the best number, followed by 5, followed by 3.

The ring of the Savant does not work every time. You have to actually stop and take the time to do the skill check and just as important, pass it. If you fail the check you gain nothing. The ring HAS to be more powerful then the math suggests compared to other Ultra Rare tokens otherwise it’s completely useless.

Leave it at +5 and reward players skill.

Gauntlets of Divine Guidance, for the majority of classes it’s a reprint of Weapon Finesse. Is it more powerful due to the plus healing? Yes, but only for a small number of classes. Considering the tokens available in the slot it does not seem overpowered.

David Harris wrote: Thank you for your perspective and weighing in on your build, much appreciated.

Assuming you are a Wizard or Elf, so at +5 you would get up to +36 damage as Wizard or +33 as an Elf, over Ring of Fervor. If it was reduced to +4 you would still get up +26/24 more damage over Ring of Fervor.

But ONLY if she casts every spell on the card, and passes every skill check. In the real world, at +4 damage per skill check, she is almost certainly better to use a $2 rare ring of storms.[/quote]

Fair points, I think it highlights what Mike was saying it is more impactful for not BiS builds, because my Wizard is very much not BiS and I often cast most of my level 0s and this seems very powerful at +5 to me and probably just right at +4. Sure my exercise was on the far extreme of full utilization of card and successful skill checks. But several times in VTD, I've used every damage spell on the card and was casting scrolls at the end and also succeeded on all skill tests....so the scenario does exist.

Also, in True Grind you auto-succeed on skill checks and use everything.[/quote]
I promise I’ll make a post in about 6 hours that breaks this down for a mostly rare build. Do you have sample low end build, or should I update the one from my starter guide?

Endgame wrote:

David Harris wrote:

Rachel Stemm wrote: My half UR+ build right now has me wearing a Ring of Fervor and Greater Ring of Havoc. At a +5 for passed skill checks, I would totally swap out my fervor. I like skill checks, I'm good at skill checks in VTD and PTD, and that bonus would be worth it. Less than +5 would make it harder to justify the PYP price to replace the fervor that I drew from treasure.

Thank you for your perspective and weighing in on your build, much appreciated.

Assuming you are a Wizard or Elf, so at +5 you would get up to +36 damage as Wizard or +33 as an Elf, over Ring of Fervor. If it was reduced to +4 you would still get up +26/24 more damage over Ring of Fervor.

But ONLY if she casts every spell on the card, and passes every skill check. In the real world, at +4 damage per skill check, she is almost certainly better to use a $2 rare ring of storms.

I don't see that at all, she wouldn't have to cast many skill check spells to come out ahead overall. She could easily come out way ahead.

Now, whether it's worth the price if a UR is the same decision everyone has to make. Limited resources and lots of options.

Arnold wrote: Want to echo the opinion that gauntlets are plenty good at +2 to-hit and +2 healing.

Then there's room for Brute, Finesse, Death Knight, etc to all have a place. You can also reprint Gloves of Weapon Finesse in 2+ years.

If it's the year of the Cleric, then I guess +3/2 is cool, too.

I disagree. +2 to melee hit, +2 to melee damage, and participate in a set bonus is par for this slot.

To-damage is worth more than to-hit unless your damage modifier is up around +20 or more (depending on your assumptions about what percentage chance increase comes from +1 to hit, I'm using 5%).

+to-hit eventually becomes useless as you get to a point where you need a 1 to miss, damage never goes out of style.

So in general losing +1 damage and gaining +1 hit is a net loss on a token.

So starting with Death Knight Gauntles:

+2 to hit, +2 to damage, set bonus

Remove the set bonus:
+2 to hit, +2 to damage, and some credit

Swap 1 damage for 1 hit:
+3 to hit, +1 to damage, and some credit from lost set bonus, and from swap +damage for +hit

Then the question is:

Would you trade:
+1 melee damage, and some credit for a lost set bonus, and some credit for swapping one +damage to one +hit
For:
+2 to healing.

Arguably the answer should be yes. At absolute minimum it should be +3 to hit and +1 to healing.

Also - on the Ring of the Savant:

Druid's Sacred Vestments, an uncommon shirt, has offered +2 to healing on a passed skill test since 2011, and I haven't heard a single complaint ever about how it's too good at UC.

Using rough guides for how much better things get as they move up rarities, around slots, and add/remove limitations:
UC -> R = +1
R -> UR = +1
Limitation of spells -> +1
Shirt slot to Ring Slot -> +1
Druid only to more classes -> -1

All that makes it look to me like +2+1+1+1+1-1 = +5 is an OK number.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arnold wrote: Want to echo the opinion that gauntlets are plenty good at +2 to-hit and +2 healing.

Then there's room for Brute, Finesse, Death Knight, etc to all have a place. You can also reprint Gloves of Weapon Finesse in 2+ years.

If it's the year of the Cleric, then I guess +3/2 is cool, too.

I disagree. +2 to melee hit, +2 to melee damage, and participate in a set bonus is par for this slot.

To-damage is worth more than to-hit unless your damage modifier is up around +20 or more (depending on your assumptions about what percentage chance increase comes from +1 to hit, I'm using 5%).

+to-hit eventually becomes useless as you get to a point where you need a 1 to miss, damage never goes out of style.

All that to is losing +1 damage for +1 to hit is already a bad tradeoff, so if these were:

+3 melee to-hit, +1 melee to-damage I think they would be worse than Death Knight Gauntles.

So, all that remains to consider is:

Is +1 melee to-damage and a set bonus ~= +2 healing?

I think it is close enough.

I guess it depends on the build. There are probably people playing higher difficulty levels with less than BIS builds that would value the + to hit a lot more than + damage. I'd always thought actually that + to hit was valued higher than + damage in token design, but I do understand your point that some builds are so high that they already hit all the time.