A very strange item. Everything about it says that it is geared toward an Aether/Fire/Elemental build Spellbreaker build, +2Shaddowstrike, +1 Calidors Tempest. The Soul Steal ability, which just rings in my head as a Aether based ability…maybe because of the Soul Touched gloves…deals Elemental Damage, and even more weirdly has this 33% Vitality Damage tucked in there, and neither Calidors nor ShS does Vitality damage. Even the color wants to be Aether, but its slightly off from the typical Aether blue, and not quite Cold Blue either, definitely not vitality red or fire orange. It doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, just like the Nightblade.
I am really trying to learn to love the nightblade, but she is a mess. No focus. It seems half of the items I have gotten are Nightblade items. And many of those are caster items, offhands and such, that really want me to build an Aether/Cold nightblade caster, but the masteries and items are working against me. nightblade it seems wants to do everything all at the same time, all the time, and have access to everything.
arcanist on the other hand can’t use many of her own abilities. Panettis is a fun ability, you get drawn to it immediately because it is the only obvious energy bolt type spell at first, but its growth is awkward and it seems isolated in the sense that it doesn’t work terrifically with many of her other skills, or many of any other mastery, and others like Calidors and Flash freeze are visually redundant and awkward to use together. Its just hard to be an Elementalist(damage type). Like, why no Burn or Frostburn on the Elemental missile? It would be a so much more versatile spell if perhaps it had a small Aether as the base and drew it’s damages from the Magic effects on the Mainhand sheet and perhaps let the buffs give DOT. By default she would be Aether/Elementalist and you could specialize through items or by the buffs. The “elemental” damage type in it’s self is weird and seems a catch all, I guess it adds versatility though.
I was so excited to discover a nice symmetry between Blade of NeraVal/Tome of Plagues and Plagueblood Carver and Malformed Effigy. It felt really well designed and intelligent. The items guided my build choices and it resulted in a really fun and really powerful caster. It felt like there really was an underlying system to discover. I’m trying hard to find a similar intelligence in the square metric ton of Aether/Cold/Elemental items I have with Spellbreaker bonuses. To me, dirty builds are just less fun, by that i mean builds with alot of stray damage types bleeding into the abilities or giving unused modifiers. Hard to avoid with Nightblade. In general i wish we could drop the pretense that there are no intended builds, its just not true. There is a reason Lightning Druid comes up again and again…It is closed, it is complete, It just makes sense, and those abilities across those two classes were designed with each other in mind. Nightblade though, she is a tough one, very hard to find the rhyme let alone the reason.
I feel like some items/playstyles are designed for classes that do not yet exist, namely aether/cold, vitality/cold, and aether/vitality. The Necromancer will add perfect support to all of these combinations, so you might be able to make a Reaper (nightblade/necromancer) caster that focuses on aether/cold.
Just what I was going to say Snazzblaster. The new Necromancer mastery will deal vitality/aether/cold damage so should open up more opportunities for builds dealing those kinds of damage.
I just hope they take a moment to clean up some of the current masteries. Necro won’t help with all these items that currently have no clear use. They probably do though, it’s just not as obvious.
I always get the sense that a deliberate attempt was made for things to not too obvious and ordered, or too “samey”. You are to think about it and come up with something that works, but anything I have found that works arose from trying to figure out what someone intended. That is fine, but the intention is hidden behind an illusion that you can mix and match from this random pool of skills and come up with your own. You can perhaps in a few cases, but mostly you will run into headache. When it works it is because, after spending a few hours beating your head against the wall, you finally discovered beneath the mess something that someone designed and created and intended to work.
MI? Everyone is suddenly using this term. I’m lost. Monster Infrequent? Its polite and good practice to only use jargon abbreviations when you are repeating a term that you have already used, otherwise there is a good chance people won’t know what you are saying. Im guilty, i said DOT, but its practically a word.
I feel like the build design was unfinished, and some builds/items are really well designed and some are loose ends. Even Fire/Chaos caster, while it works, and Demolitionist being one of the better designed masteries, seems to be an idea pitched but not fully fleshed out. Nightblade seems like a really big loose end, or hastily smashed together, or is a pet build of someone who wanted to do all damage types. Im holding out hope that its just a little more sophisticated than some others and the design intent is harder to see.
Yes, Monster Infrequent. And if someone doesn’t know what that means they probably don’t know what DoT means either. We’re all guilty of not saying what the abbreviations mean.
What threw me off is the context, i am not sure which item is the Monster Infrequent. Soultheif is an epic, i thought the MI’s were rares like Mutant Bludgeon’s and Incendiary Shoulderplates, which are not all that infrequent.
"Monster Infrequents are a special type of item that drops only from specific monsters, and then not with a 100% drop rate. For example, to acquire the Monster Infrequent known as Salazar’s Sovereign Blade, you must hunt down Salazar, Blade of Ch’thon in his lair.
Monster Infrequents are unique in that they always have some base attributes. On top of that, they can still roll the usual affixes. This makes Monster Infrequents very powerful. A well-rolled Monster Infrequent is a highly desired item and worth hunting for.
Monster Infrequents have their names displayed in green."
I get the feeling this item is indeed to bridge a gap between Callidor’s Tempest users who will use some amount of Fire (hence Elemental) and Shadow Strikers who will use some amount of Cold (again, hence Elemental). It gives users the option of either side or a mix of both without being exclusive, even if Elemental damage is a bit too broad and won’t give either side as much of a boost as a Fire-focused or Cold-focused weapon would.
I do agree that that the Vitality damage and the green glow are odd though :p.
I don’t see the issue with Nightblade really. It’s laid out pretty well for Pierce/Cold damage through dual wielding with the option of adding or focusing on Acid/Poison in certain spots such as NJE/NHH. I’de agree that just adding this extra Acid/Poison damage ontop of some Cold or Pierce you might not use isn’t great but the Venomblade set later on makes some use out of it via conversion.
The only standouts otherwise are Phantasmal Blades, Blade Trap and Blade Spirit which are geared more towards a caster approach which i find interesting as not many games take the approach of making the quick, slashy-types into spellcasters and it offers some synergies with the masteries that are about that sort of thing such as Occultist or Arcanist.
There’s also some Bleed support in there as well, you can either focus on it or ignore it on the skills it’s a part of. All around, it’s incredibly versatile while still being a strong mastery.
There was a build made around DW soulthieves: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25599
But it is made back when 60 was a level cap. I don’t even know what you can replace it with later on. Maybe reforged beronath, but it lacks the WPS.
I’m pretty fine with silly items as I enjoy trying to figure builds around them. I hope Crate doesn’t change Soulthief or my elemental conjurer will be pissed.
Throw in some Elemental Exchange and you have some lightning/electrocute too. And then Elemental Awakening. That vitality bothers me though, but i suppose Phantasmal Blades benefits from it…ok, i think I see her. Not complete though, i just cant see taking Calidors and Ring of Frost and/or Flashfreeze, it is just too much radial AOE. Skyshard will complement Calidors well without being too similar, but Im a little burnt out on skyshard from lightning/cold druid. Need something with a duration, for flair and effect, elemental storm maybe. Glacier Relic, of Scorched ends/Squals/WinterStorm proc.
Aether/Vitality/Fire/Cold Gamebreaker…I mean Spellbreaker. And gear to grow into at least to level 50. Blades, Strike, Burst, Exchange, Calidors, FlashFreeze. Probably can drop FF later with Glacier and Chillsurge Ring. EzMode. Can I dual Wand for s**ts and giggles, cause i don’t think it will matter. Or maybe Ill dual wield these two spellweavers for 250% Aether and +2 Aether Ray each. I might have started to love the Nightblade a little.
We’re all guilty of not saying what the abbreviations mean.