TOPIC: Build Diversity

Fiddy wrote:

Endgame wrote: I'm afraid I can't quite follow your BiS examples, because I'm not sure what CoS and RFB are.

Isn't Tulz slotless? No choice to make there, so of course everyone will have them.

Also, which gloves option is BiS? I'm not sure any single one would be in every build if they were all available.

Edit : if it's really broken, nerf on reprint like LoDS?

CoS = Charm of Synergy
RFB = Runestone Fitting Base

Thanks! I should have thought of synergy, never would have gotten runestone fitting base.

So given Tulz and the rune stone base, the primary concern is slotless items?

Endgame wrote: I'm afraid I can't quite follow your BiS examples, because I'm not sure what CoS and RFB are.

Isn't Tulz slotless? No choice to make there, so of course everyone will have them.

Also, which gloves option is BiS? I'm not sure any single one would be in every build if they were all available.

Edit : if it's really broken, nerf on reprint like LoDS?

Charm of Synergy... You don’t really need a list of tokens to understand my point, do you?

As for “which is BiS” - does it matter? But my guess is it’s the one that costs the most on the secondary market and has the most people clamoring for a reprint. For melee, the consensus seems to say Mithral Gauntlets. There were lots of attempted replacements, but none of them were apparently good enough to stop people from asking for it.

And again, if it does get reprinted, who gets hosed? Certainly not the people who have been using it since they PYPed it nine years ago, just the new players who could have gotten three or four PYPs instead because they didn’t understand the strong pro-reprint forces that are constantly trying to kick the slats out from under them.

But it kind of doesn’t matter. Whichever glove gets reprinted first will become the new BiS for the majority of players who don’t have the others. So all those players get locked into the same old build path. And isn’t that the problem we’re trying to address?

It would be great if we’d stop trying to zero in on solutions when it feels like we don’t have a clear idea of what problems we’re trying to solve. Otherwise we’ll go all-in on an idea that only makes things worse.

Let's start with this problem statement then.

Many builds use duplicate tokens. The reason are :

1: slotless tokens have no opportunities cost, so all other things being equal, should be in every build.

2. Diverse options exist as printed tokens in some slots, and all other things being equal would allow diversity in slots or even whole builds. However, these diverse options cannot be purchased, forcing players, especially newer ones, to only use the commonly available tokens.

3. Some slots have stand out options that are better than any other option and are widely available to all classes. All things being equal, these items will always be taken.

4. Some classes have minimal build direction or alternative. The barbarian really only swings with 2H weapons, making all barbarians high level the same.

That cover it?

Brad Mortensen wrote: As for “which is BiS” - does it matter? But my guess is it’s the one that costs the most on the secondary market and has the most people clamoring for a reprint. For melee, the consensus seems to say Mithral Gauntlets. There were lots of attempted replacements, but none of them were apparently good enough to stop people from asking for it.

To speak to this, the consensus seems to be that brute is the current BiS. I think a large part of the reason people (myself included) want Mithral (or the equivalent) is that some of us really don't like the +/- model (Or being told you dont need that, here take this instead).


Also in terms of build diversity. To me it means ways for classes to feel different in play. ie a mec wizard or a mystic mouth wizard, or a ranged ranger vs a melee ranger, or a polymorph druid or a healing druid. I wish more classes had the option to play differently like this.

Engame - I've got a question - I'm curious about your diversity ideas but not sure if I understand them.

I have the impression that you would term some builds using each of: Mithral Gauntlets, Gloves of Weapon Finesse, Gloves of the Brute, and Gauntlets of Linked Fury as an example of build diversity.

Is that accurate?

If so I've got some thoughts, but don't want to bother if I'm misunderstanding your thoughts.

@Endgame - thanks, that helps. Let me take those on in the context of reprints because that seems to be a go-to solution.

Endgame wrote: 1: slotless tokens have no opportunities cost, so all other things being equal, should be in every build.

True. Not sure how you fix that, if it’s a problem. A large number of PYPs I see people ordering are slotless because there’s always room for them. People grabbed scads of Kvothe’s for that reason. Not sure how many people would have gotten them as slotted tokens. I’d guess TD would see a big dip in token sales if slotless tokens were limited dramatically.

2. Diverse options exist as printed tokens in some slots, and all other things being equal would allow diversity in slots or even whole builds. However, these diverse options cannot be purchased, forcing players, especially newer ones, to only use the commonly available tokens.

I don’t think reprints help. Say Mithral Gauntlets were reprinted. Everyone gets one because they’re 75% off now, so what we accomplished, diversity-wise? Nothing. All those “commonly available” tokens get replaced and we actually have LESS diversity than before the reprint.

You could avoid that by reprinting all four gloves at once, but we only get 20 a year. No one wants 20% of a year’s collection going to one slot.

3. Some slots have stand out options that are better than any other option and are widely available to all classes. All things being equal, these items will always be taken.

And reprinting them doesn’t help.

4. Some classes have minimal build direction or alternative. The barbarian really only swings with 2H weapons, making all barbarians high level the same.

Exactly! One reason there are so few directions is there are no tokens to support them.

That IMO is the root of the issue, and is the cause of problems #2 and 3.

People primarily played melee Rangers for years, because dual wield is a beast. Yes, a few people built Archers but the damage output isn’t competitive. It seems like there’s much more love for range lately, so Archers seem more playable than ever. But enough tokens in enough slots had to exist before people could make that path viable.

So the only way to create diversity for Barbarians is to give them an option other than 2H or, as you said, there’s no reason to expect them to be built any differently.

Some people also want mitral gauntlets reprint for the 3 piece set bonus

Is diversity in builds actually all that important in a team game where each class is only represented once?

If every monk or barbarian is the same at the highest levels, does that matter? Let those players play however they want.

I guess I'm not sure I understand that this is a problem at all.

If you want build diversity *and* equivalency, that will be tough. If you just want diversity, you can certainly have it. I cant wait to play my retribution builds. They aren't the "best," but I enjoy the DMs faces when they hit me for 30 and get hit back for 25.

I think part of the solution could be to give each year a focus on one build path. This would not have to be all tokens, but a good percentage of the UR level tokens. For an example of this look at all of the short bow items that are in the proposed 2020 tokens. If 4 or 5 of these had been bumped up in power and offered as URs a player could easily start the core of a ranged damage build. The next year after ranged damage could be one handed, followed by spell damage, etc. This would allow people to start new build options without having to lean so heavily on the secondary market. Because these would be staggered by years, players would have diverse builds based on when they started collecting the class. It is an imperfect solution, but I think it would help.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Engame - I've got a question - I'm curious about your diversity ideas but not sure if I understand them.

I have the impression that you would term some builds using each of: Mithral Gauntlets, Gloves of Weapon Finesse, Gloves of the Brute, and Gauntlets of Linked Fury as an example of build diversity.

Is that accurate?

If so I've got some thoughts, but don't want to bother if I'm misunderstanding your thoughts.

Yes, that is accurate.

I see 2 different concepts. One is build diversity, and one is.. Uh, play diversity? Play diversity is one I'm not going to focus on, but will give a quick example. The druid can be a healer, spell damage dealer, or a polymorph melee attacker. This is play diversity, and outside the scope of build diversity.

A fighter is generally going to be a melee first play style given the fighter bonus. There is likely minimal play diversity, however we can branch the builds at least 3 different ways.

1) 2H melee build. Ideally you would use gauntlets of linked fury here. Depending on budget you'll also probably also pull in ring of brilliance, maybe charm of rampage. You might go Redoubt with shield sleeze, or you might push damage further with helm of the boar and powered plate. You'll almost certainly want goggles of instant analysis and girdle of stone giant strength to pull up your +hit, and you'll probably pull in medallion of Valhalla to get extra hp.

2) the balanced ranged and melee build. You'll probably go 1H melee here, but the exact build will depend on your ranged weapon. With a mighty long bow, i would pull in Mithral gauntlets, sniper spectacles, Redoubt set, stupendous pendent, belt of ogre mage power (don't want the Dex penalty from stone giant girdle) and extra str where I could get it.

2b) if I had a keen slayer bow, I might worry less about str and focus more on stacking up range damage buffs, and bring in the gloves of weapon finesse, Brawlers horn, etc. That said, I would probably not run that as a human fighter given the reslide is melee only, and instead run it as a paladin.

3) high damage, high accuracy 1h fighter. Gloves of the brute here, Brawlers horn, Valhalla, stone giant girdle - in general this looks similar to the 2H fighter, but without all the fancy 2H damage buffs.

Since so many of those options can't be bought, though, I just use gauntlets of the Midgard serpent in all the builds for my party. It's cheap, can be used by everyone, and the new amber cube negates the poison damage and all I had to drop was the ruby rhombus.

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: Engame - I've got a question - I'm curious about your diversity ideas but not sure if I understand them.

I have the impression that you would term some builds using each of: Mithral Gauntlets, Gloves of Weapon Finesse, Gloves of the Brute, and Gauntlets of Linked Fury as an example of build diversity.

Is that accurate?

If so I've got some thoughts, but don't want to bother if I'm misunderstanding your thoughts.

Yes, that is accurate.

I see 2 different concepts. One is build diversity, and one is.. Uh, play diversity? Play diversity is one I'm not going to focus on, but will give a quick example. The druid can be a healer, spell damage dealer, or a polymorph melee attacker. This is play diversity, and outside the scope of build diversity.

A fighter is generally going to be a melee first play style given the fighter bonus. There is likely minimal play diversity, however we can branch the builds at least 3 different ways.

1) 2H melee build. Ideally you would use gauntlets of linked fury here. Depending on budget you'll also probably also pull in ring of brilliance, maybe charm of rampage. You might go Redoubt with shield sleeze, or you might push damage further with helm of the boar and powered plate. You'll almost certainly want goggles of instant analysis and girdle of stone giant strength to pull up your +hit, and you'll probably pull in medallion of Valhalla to get extra hp.

2) the balanced ranged and melee build. You'll probably go 1H melee here, but the exact build will depend on your ranged weapon. With a mighty long bow, i would pull in Mithral gauntlets, sniper spectacles, Redoubt set, stupendous pendent, belt of ogre mage power (don't want the Dex penalty from stone giant girdle) and extra str where I could get it.

2b) if I had a keen slayer bow, I might worry less about str and focus more on stacking up range damage buffs, and bring in the gloves of weapon finesse, Brawlers horn, etc. That said, I would probably not run that as a human fighter given the reslide is melee only, and instead run it as a paladin.

3) high damage, high accuracy 1h fighter. Gloves of the brute here, Brawlers horn, Valhalla, stone giant girdle - in general this looks similar to the 2H fighter, but without all the fancy 2H damage buffs.

Since so many of those options can't be bought, though, I just use gauntlets of the Midgard serpent in all the builds for my party. It's cheap, can be used by everyone, and the new amber cube negates the poison damage and all I had to drop was the ruby rhombus.

Got it - interesting - well thanks for teasing out the play diversity / build diversity difference. I'm thinking more about play diversity.

One problem I see with build diversity is that, at least for melee, there is so much stackable strength and to-damage mods that seem unbeatable (e.g. Ioun Stone Onyx Cube, Surtr's +7 Girdle, Dungeonbane +4 STR, +5 Eldritch Boots, +3 Ring of the Eel), that the small differences in the gloves slot end up not really mattering.

For example, most UR melee builds can get to 30 STR easy, a +2 UR weapon, and at least +5 melee damage in their build.

That gives, say: +12 to hit / +15 to damage.

If you then fiddle around with the hands slot you get:

Mithral Gauntlets: +14 / +17, mithral set
Weapon Finesse: +15 / +15
Brute: +14.5 / +17.5, -2 DEX
Linked Fury: +12 / +20, class limits and must use 2 handed weapons

To me the differences between these are small enough that they don't count for much. Linked Fury seems to actually offer some kind of choice, but I don't see the difference between the others to be substantial enough to fit the description of offering build diversity.

As the builds get higher and higher the differences are minimized further - a BiS melee build can be fielding something like +24 to STR, an additional +6 to hit, an additional +14 to damage before the gloves slot. Here you're looking at like:

+21 to hit and +29 to damage before gloves. The ~2 point to hit or damage differences between different gloves seem irrelevant to me at this point.

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Is diversity in builds actually all that important in a team game where each class is only represented once?

If every monk or barbarian is the same at the highest levels, does that matter? Let those players play however they want.

I guess I'm not sure I understand that this is a problem at all.

If you want build diversity *and* equivalency, that will be tough. If you just want diversity, you can certainly have it. I cant wait to play my retribution builds. They aren't the "best," but I enjoy the DMs faces when they hit me for 30 and get hit back for 25.

Just going through this thread, I’m not sure why there has to be build diversity? In each rn there’s only 1 wizard and 1 Elf Wizard so it’s not as if there are 8 wizards with overlapping responsibilities and capabilities.