I’m curious if anyone has ever crafted, levelled with or theorycrafted a character with any of the Level 90 yellow weapons? Namely Flamewarder Rifle, Stormsurge Pistol, Rime-Rotten Wand and Deathborne Wand stand out to me as underused and for a few of them lacking in potential.
I’ve considered Bloodspill Cleaver for a g1/low gear Bleed build before (2 of these is a big boost to Circle of Slaughter’s damage) and Gutcrush Warmaul for a g1/low gear Physical Blade Arc character but the others never struck me as usable as they either have better alternatives through MIs or faction gear.
I have considered bloodspill cleaver for a budget Bleed Trickster with Murderer cowl. I have not test played the build yet since I do not even own a trickster
Imo, they don’t offer anything too cool, nor good. Bloodspill Cleaver gives only a little of bleeding ot RoS, but there are other items that do that better. Rime-rotten Wand and Deathborne Scepter both have the same modifiers in other legendary items. Same for Stormsurge Pistol. Smoldering Effigy gives bonus to Blackwater Cocktail, which is a demolitionist skill (bet I don’t have to say it’s shit, at least as for now). Spellshock Tome is actually good, issue is Pulsing Shard is way better. Gutcrush Warmaul is tasty, no joke, but then you look at Gutsmasher or Guillotine, and you ask why would you bother wasting so much for that maul when you can get a legendary item that is maybe even better? Flamewarder Riffle. I mean… it’s better than Adversary because it has physical -> fire, but then only 25% WD to Grenado, so Adversary is better but it’s also shit because it has no conversion on your basic attacks. You could use it with a fire Forcewave build, but then you can not afford the skillpoints.
Best for last, Stonewall Defender… Okay, seriously, no physical build is ever going to get it because there are plenty of other, better shields… but the other shields, not the huge plates you wear on your arm but in your hand. Seriously, even if you chose a shield, this isn’t nearly as good as other choices, like Siegebreaker. You could use it if you need physical resist, just sit in Angrim’s smith and push the “craft” button unless the shield is Durable and has the highest Physical Resist roll possible. Or just farm giants from Malmouth, and visit the shop in Malmouth that sells Colossal Fortress/Bulwark and wait for a Durable one.
All in all, I think all need to be buffed if Crate wants us to use them, but Spellshock Tome, imo, is the best from them all. A nice alternative if you’re sick of farming Port Valbury for Pulsing Shards, for a lightning AAR build.
If someone will also point out jewelry, both medals are good if you want to get some resists fast, both offer fairly nice stats.
There was once a thread about belts, but everyone just said that legendary belts offer bonuses to all skills in a mastery, so yeah. Intrepid Warboots should get buffed because Stoneplate Greaves are superior in comparison to them.
Even with potential affix/suffix…they are just not interesting for bonuses.
For example, the Flamewarder Rifle seems to be a ~lesser version of the Adversary and at a higher lvl requirement. Or in terms of physical, inferior to other high-physical 2Hs with more interesting bonuses - even if you could roll a decent affix/suffix.
Further you can get easy lvl20+ drops of MI such as fleshwarped or a white Preserver Carbine or a bunch of other(faction, etc) lower lvl BPs.
And finding MI/Drop means no affix/suffix-crafting pita. ie, Stoneplate Greaves can blow through mounds of scrap and so would this - if you wanted a decent combo.
I used to think through those yellows quite frequently at the start, but never could see any potential for crafting them. By the time you get up in levels (lvl 90, for example), you will have found an excess of competitive junk.
I saw stonewall defender in the budget pre-krieg death knight solely for the stacking -10% phys resist on ill omen, but I just stuck with a decent colossal bulwark I already had by then, and that was ample enough to get to Krieg, at which point I’m using bulwark anyways. So yes, wasted potential there.
To make these weapons useful they need to add something to make them stand out from other weapons. Even playing solo self found you are better off farming a m.i. weapon until you get your legendary, and using your scrap/iron on getting a nice pair of boots.
One way to make the weapons more wanted would be to add a proc that you can’t get on other items. But as they are now there’s really no reason to bother with them.
The yellow recipe works for boots because there is no m.i. boot and most legendary boots are mediocre.
I mentioned earlier that I tried to make budget bleed trickster with the Bloodspill cleaver. I wanted to show what I did come up with, in case someone has any more ideas (I would very much appreciate it) You can PM me if you want.