What are the legendary sidegrades / what sort of rolls are generally perceived as the cutoff for “better than any legendary you could grab” ? Ranged PS has been growing in popularity both for leveling and as an endgame build (well that’s PS overall).
Evoker of Elgoloth and Raka’Jax are the two legendaries that come to mind. Evoker locks you into Inquisitor as your secondary and Raka’Jax afaik is used more for Savagery builds. They’re both solid for PS if you can’t find a good rolled sparkthrower though.
As for the sparkthrower itself, typically the mods you’re looking for are anything that grants attack speed, OA, physical converted to lightning, or increased lightning damage. Skyfallen of Fury does all of that so it’s the best, but any combination of that is really good. Vampiric is nice too for some survivability. As far as “better than any legendaries,” with the sparkthrower’s innate bonuses to PS probably anything with at least two of those is going to be better.
edit: Actually come to think of it I think it’s typically Evoker that’s used for Savagery. Raka’Jax is just outclassed by a sparkthrower that’s rolled well enough. It is craftable though, so it’s got that going for it.
Like, would a 10% lightning conversion w/ flat damage prefix + alacrity suffix match or beat rakajax? Is anything like this called out in various guides, seen discussed by the guide makers?
Thanks for this, it’s been very helpful.
I have a couple of questions/suggestions:
Are MI helmets never used in endgame builds? Even if they aren’t it would be nice to have a spoiler with an explanation that this is the case.
Could you make ranged weapons into its own category? Especially the 1h list is very long so you gotta scroll to see the bottom ones. Splitting out ranged would help (slightly).
It would be cool to have “competes with legendary X” for the ones that have very obvious competition, like mutant bludgeon and The Pummeler like you have already, so a noob like me can look up the legendary and see if a roll I got is anywhere close or the legendary is just straight better 
Even a charged sparkthrower of alacrity (both magic) imo beats raka as long as you have oa to compensate. Raka’s problem is no attack speed.
Spectral Crown for skele-resummon builds. Ascendant hood on ele devastation. Others maybe. All rather niche. Helmet often defines a build. The slot is often reserved by sets and/or used for all skill bonuses. EDIT: if you count purple MI Outcast Secret is IMO BiS for most non-Clairvoyant and non-Iskandra mages.
Thanks for the answer, would be nice to have a mention of them in the guide then imo
A mention would be nice but like op stated time and again this guide is 1) subjective 2) based on popularity of concepts. These green helmets, as I said, are rather niche. For most pets Beastcaller Cowl beats just about anything you can put on your head in GD. And elemental mages more often than not use Iskandra set to which the helmet is crucial.
Just realized that you didn’t review MI helmet, why is that?
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I am holding off on updates with 1.0.7 being right around the bend. Lots of changes are due and it’s a perfect time to shift the format based on user responses.
Envisioning something like this for a new presentation
Mutant Bludgeon
Competes with X,Y,Z on A,B,C builds, needs Q,W,E rolls to beat them
Said builds are vaguely (this popular) and given how well this item needs to roll you are (this likely) going to keep one you find
Useful as a leveling item?
That looks very nice!
Edit: A quick summary of the base stats on the item (the skills/otherwise unusual stats, not armor/requirements etc) could be nice if possible?
Working that in, the framework is coming together. Polish, revisions and adjustments will follow.
Great work. Just this - many Alex Chausses beat Barbaros on Fire Forcewave commando (and to a lesser extent tactician, too).
Useful thread, gave me some new ideas
Nice work Xervous!
Btw, am I the only one using Rylok Crest for Soldier based phys melee?
No, it’s a rather popular option on a variety of soldier builds that don’t have other options / desire a good stat stick in place of other options.
wow, great work and thank you very much for the information. Very valuable.
I originally came here to ask if there’s really no common use for the MI belts, but then I thought about it and I couldn’t think of any.
So, I’ll just say thanks, mostly because the list alerted me to the existence of stormstrife. It was weird, but funny, to be upset when Janaxia was wielding a Legendary that would preclude me from getting that MI.^^
A question on valuation:
If, there was an extra item that granted notable aether to phys conversion, and thus likely build options, would that increase the apparent worthiness of FP?
Or would that only be the case if a noticeable amount of people actually used that, and how do you find out?
Any plans of updating this guide?
You can get around 80 % aether to physical with shoulders and 2 presence of might components.
The m.i. belts with conversion get some use, but like amulets it’s hard for m.i. belts to compete with +1 to all class skills
Yup.
F.Ex., I wonder if the ranking of an item is only influenced by usage - as in, if all players suddenly decided it to be deeply unethical to use lightning damage, would stormstrife drop in ranking?