TOPIC: 2025 Ultra Rare Tokens

Endgame, the power of the Death Knight items are that they are a cool set. They are not Relics. We need to stop making them into something they are not. There will be another cool UR melee set that at some point functionally replaces them. There will be non-set URs that by virtue of not being a set should be more powerful.

OrionW wrote: Endgame, the power of the Death Knight items are that they are a cool set. They are not Relics. We need to stop making them into something they are not. There will be another cool UR melee set that at some point functionally replaces them. There will be non-set URs that by virtue of not being a set should be more powerful.

I disagree with this logic entirely. I think set URs should be as powerful and as a cost of giving up certain options in set slots you are rewarded with a capstone ability. Restricting choice for power is a fine mechanic.

Additionally many Death Knight options are martial restricted which should be classically more powerful bonking gear, otherwise why play a fighter over Monk, Druid or Ranger? Let some classes have uniquely nice things I say. At the very least, don't make the Martial Specific items objectively worse than generic class items.

Also Death Knight Set Bonus is very... underwhelming in comparison to its fellow UR sets, like Might, Deadshot, Arcane, and Cabal.

Impy wrote: Charm of Echoed Taunts: I personally thought Charm of Critical Taunts was much much cooler. Sad to see it go. I did not think the damage buff achieved by it was overpowered in any way (we're talking about 2%ish of damage boost for the dungeon). This feels like a rare power given tokendb.com/token/abyssal-lenses-of-taunting/ is a uncommon token. I'd say consider 1/extra taunt per combat? Which I think is probably fine now, but maybe too good depending on how class design goes.

I also liked the Charm of Critical Taunts, especially how it connected the dwarf fighter abilities.

If we want to build off of just taunt, we could take inspiration from Charm of Epic Insults and maybe have something like being able to taunt all monsters (or some number or monsters larger than 2 and less then infinity, say half a dozen(?), to prevent extreme corner cases). Since I am not sure if that comes up consistently, maybe just tack that ability on to the 1/game bonus taunt to buff it up, so 1/game an additional taunt that may affect all(or 6ish) monsters. That also could help balance it between dungeons with no multi-enemy fights where it would still be useful and dungeons with lots of multi-enemy fights where doing it every time may be a bit much.

Impy wrote:

OrionW wrote: Endgame, the power of the Death Knight items are that they are a cool set. They are not Relics. We need to stop making them into something they are not. There will be another cool UR melee set that at some point functionally replaces them. There will be non-set URs that by virtue of not being a set should be more powerful.

I disagree with this logic entirely. I think set URs should be as powerful and as a cost of giving up certain options in set slots you are rewarded with a capstone ability. Restricting choice for power is a fine mechanic.

Additionally many Death Knight options are martial restricted which should be classically more powerful bonking gear, otherwise why play a fighter over Monk, Druid or Ranger? Let some classes have uniquely nice things I say. At the very least, don't make the Martial Specific items objectively worse than generic class items.

Also Death Knight Set Bonus is very... underwhelming in comparison to its fellow UR sets, like Might, Deadshot, Arcane, and Cabal.

Death Knight stacks strength, gives AC, and retribution for when you do get hit. What more would you want on these items?

With that said if you don't give retribution or AC on an item you should have a bigger budget to work with. For example if you didn't make the new Death Knight Helm part of the Death Knight set you could go definitely go to +4 strength and put Barbarians back on it.

Also Fighters need to be fixed in a way that isn't gear unless the gear says "Fighter Only", because limiting tokens that folks can buy is not a good solution. Hopefully they get some love on the new class cards to be at least as good as Dwarf Fighters, that for the most part can use the same gear.

OrionW wrote: Death Knight stacks strength, gives AC, and retribution for when you do get hit. What more would you want on these items?

With that said if you don't give retribution or AC on an item you should have a bigger budget to work with. For example if you didn't make the new Death Knight Helm part of the Death Knight set you could go definitely go to +4 strength and put Barbarians back on it.

Also Fighters need to be fixed in a way that isn't gear unless the gear says "Fighter Only", because limiting tokens that folks can buy is not a good solution. Hopefully they get some love on the new class cards to be at least as good as Dwarf Fighters, that for the most part can use the same gear.

Again, I disagree. Fighters especially, don't have a utility outside of fighting via bonking. Their gear should be better, martial gear should have more stat value than gear for other classes because its gear you have to train your life to use. From a game design point, each class should have gear that presents them a better value than other classes. Martials should have a easier time getting STR, CON and AC than the rest of folks. Clerics should have a easier time getting healing. Rogues should be able to more easily get DEX.

Class identities should exist in both the character card and in gear. Generic all class items should be objectively worse than all class restricted items because their benefit is being able to be used by everyone

If you said you wanted a barbarian only helm that gave -2 AC and +4 or +5 STR I'd say yes to that. Cause it feels very barbarian, and they should have the easiest time getting STR, and a hard time getting AC.

Also for a note, AC and Retribution are anti-synergistic. The more AC you have the worse retribution damage is which inherently makes the Death Knight really meh. Then we can get into history that its also the most resisted damage type in TD, making it worse. And compared to a level, free action spells, bonus spell slots, its not nearly as good even if it did work all the time.

From a community perspective the relative value of retribution damage is high; otherwise, we wouldn't be seeing the hedgehog charm. I am not saying the in game benefit matches the desire perfectly, but it is sought after right now.

I agree with others that Picc's Grindstone felt better balanced when it granted +1 to hit and occupied a Runestone slot. A slotless +2 to damage means that the current version would be a must-have token in every single build for every single class, which feels more like a Relic+ level ability to me.

It's not really possible to assess Nightshade's Grim Gloves without knowing more about the intention to rebalance Raphiel's Sneaky Necklace and +2 Assassin's Crossbow. Will the crossbow be errated to only 1/combat? If so, the current gloves are perfectly balanced. If not, why have this restriction if we want them to be a viable choice instead of the crossbow? I'd also suggest letting this work with ranged weapons as well - otherwise Nightshade's +2 Throwing Dagger suddenly goes from being a very decent ranged weapon to falling way behind all the other UR+ Rogue weapons since it's the only one which is missed out by both Gladiator Gloves and Nightshade's Gloves.

Amulet of Folkvangr is similar - it's power level will vary a lot depending on what happens with how STR and DEX stats are used.

Charm of Echoed Taunts feels like it could use a little something extra, maybe a CON bonus considering what the token does.

The rest all look good to me, almost there!

Charm of Echoed Taunts: could this be 1/room? or 2/game? (alternatively I could get behind Fred's idea of a super-taunt whose target may ONLY attack the dwarf fighter)

I heart Charm of the Hedgehog <3

Holy Symbol of Thor: I love the idea of holy symbols doing different stuff! My favorite idea so far has been 1/room cast Spiritual Hammer without marking (I think maybe this was Endgame's on a previous thread)

Picc's Grindstone: I'll get it either way, but I agree with others this was ideal as a reusable runestone rather than slotless. I also would prefer +1/+1 (hit and dmg) over +0/+2, especially if the idea is to be a successor to Enchanter's Whetstone

I disagree with removing Barbarian from the helm.

1. Barbarians have not had a martial helm for a long, long, long time - they were even removed from the Legendary transmute helm late in the process. They should get one soon.
2. Barbarians rarely stack AC, so it does not seem unbalancing. Their AC will always be lower compared with similar armor wearers because of their other equipment.
3. It makes an Ultra Rare less desirable, without the need to limit power.
4. A helm that adds strength seems more in flavor for Barbarians that the other classes on the helm - the only reason to remove them is the flavor of a heavy helm, which could be fixed by changing the picture.

If a typical Barbarian is wearing the Blessed Redoubt Helm (+4 AC), wouldn't it be better flavor to wear this helm (+2 AC, +3 Str) ?

If we really feel the slight bonus to AC is a problem, I would rather it be fixed like adding AC if worn by other classes or subtracting AC if worn by a Barbarian. This method makes more UR tokens desired by more people.

OrionW wrote:

Endgame wrote: My additional commentary
Drop Thor's to +2 damage and add a potion drinking kicker to it (It's a mug, it should have some kind of synergy with drinking). Some options would be:

1) Drink a potion as an instant action 1/game (previously seen as a wonder effect)
2) Drink a common or uncommon potion without turning it in 1/game
3) Heal some amount of damage when drinking a potion

Is trivializing healing more really the direction we want to go with this token? Asking for the healers in the group.

If you're spending an Instant Action to drink a healing potion instead of a Potion Bull’s Strength ; or using the ability to save a +3 healing Potion instead of a +4 STR Potion; or spending a SA to drink a Potion instead of swinging your weapon, I'm judging you.
Loudly. And harshly.
(And also hurt you don't trust in me.)

(Drinking or saving a Potion to remove a status effect that also has healing on the side, on the other hand, is more acceptable. But I'm still judging if you give up your attack to do so.)
(LOUDLY.)

Death Knight Helm:
Consider that any class can equip the 2021 UR Cranston’s Helpful Hat and the 2023 Rare Lenses of Sixth Sense for a total of +2 AC, +2 Ranged damage.
DK Helm is limited to four classes, gives +2 AC, +1.5 Melee to-hit, +1.5 Melee/Thrown damage, +2 Darkrift RD (from set bonus). Are those numbers reasonable?
(Admittedly, Cranston's is honorarily named, meaning it should have a bit more power than average; and the combo uses an extra Rare, but I can't find a [slotless] Rare to use with DK Helm.)
(Recall, too, that RD and AC are anti-synergistic: if you don't get damaged in Melee, the enemy doesn't take Retribution. From what I recall, Hedgehogs need to put a lot of effort into reducing their AC!)

Ho-Yi Fung wrote: Death Knight Helm:
Consider that any class can equip the 2021 UR Cranston’s Helpful Hat and the 2023 Rare Lenses of Sixth Sense for a total of +2 AC, +2 Ranged damage.
DK Helm is limited to four classes, gives +2 AC, +1.5 Melee to-hit, +1.5 Melee/Thrown damage, +2 Darkrift RD (from set bonus). Are those numbers reasonable?
(Admittedly, Cranston's is honorarily named, meaning it should have a bit more power than average; and the combo uses an extra Rare, but I can't find a [slotless] Rare to use with DK Helm.)
(Recall, too, that RD and AC are anti-synergistic: if you don't get damaged in Melee, the enemy doesn't take Retribution. From what I recall, Hedgehogs need to put a lot of effort into reducing their AC!)

Maybe give it a more primal look, change it to +4 strength, drop the AC, and put Barbarian's and Rangers on it? This lowers the AC which it seems folks are not valuing and also alleviates needing to print another helm too quickly (although needing a new helm for Barbarians and melee Rangers in 2026 might be a feature, not a drawback).

But from a power level, outside of Cranston's, there isn't a comp at the UR level. It certainly doesn't need more stats.