Given this latest rebalancing makes the Control Rod not as great as it was, what is the new best gear for late game black mages, your classic glass cannons? Most things are the same I'm sure, Crown of Winter, Izkanti Dress, Geomancer's Bracers, Weed Walkers, Ouroboros Pendant, Cloak of the Deep, Etc, but what are the new best rings, belt and primary/offhand items?
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- Thread starter King Kenya
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Up to a certain amount of spell pen, King's Thunderblade actually used to out-damage a lot of the main- and off hand-weapon combos that can be slapped on a black mage. That's probably not the case anymore with the level 9 perks though and a generally higher spell pen stat.
You might wanna give it a try and find out for yourself!
You might wanna give it a try and find out for yourself!
Even before the latest balance changes the best weapon configuration for a black mage was spiral staff + blank scroll, and as long as Titan's Grasp is in the game none of the one handed weapons are likely to be meta relevant since you can (and should, if we're being optimal) spend a comfy training vacation as a temporary warrior to equip a two handed weapon + black scroll.
Izkanti Dress has always been worse than Tiran Vestments/Habit.
Helm is either Crown of Winter or Circlet of Clarity depending on whether you value the Dawnbreak + defenses of the crown or the crit on the circlet more.
Geomancer's Bracers, Weedwalkers, Ouroboros Pendant, Cloak of the Deeps are all still either BiS or in the conversation for it (there's an argument to be made about the sunder immunity from the seaweave shaman cloak being more useful than what the Deeps gives you but I think either way it's close regardless)
For the belt I think Fertile Girdle is going to be best most of the time, 10 initiative on one piece is really hard to pass up when the only (spellcasting) offensive opportunity cost you're paying is an anemic 5 spellpower on a sallow belt. As soon as you leave glass cannon territory a Senninbari or Champion's Belt start making sense as alternatives.
For rings the single best one is the Ring of Pale Flame. For your other one it's either Guldring or Ring of Fortune, again depending on how you value 5 spellpower vs 5 crit (5 fire damage is pretty negligible). Since both are additive, and assuming you're wearing everything above so you have much more of the one than the other, this decision is therefore between a ~2.5% increase to spellpower and a ~12.5% increase to crit. I personally go for the crit here, but if for some reason you have Presence investment, or are a Valkyrie and care about the Aurora of Vigor effect, or care about leadership etc Guldring makes sense.
Izkanti Dress has always been worse than Tiran Vestments/Habit.
Helm is either Crown of Winter or Circlet of Clarity depending on whether you value the Dawnbreak + defenses of the crown or the crit on the circlet more.
Geomancer's Bracers, Weedwalkers, Ouroboros Pendant, Cloak of the Deeps are all still either BiS or in the conversation for it (there's an argument to be made about the sunder immunity from the seaweave shaman cloak being more useful than what the Deeps gives you but I think either way it's close regardless)
For the belt I think Fertile Girdle is going to be best most of the time, 10 initiative on one piece is really hard to pass up when the only (spellcasting) offensive opportunity cost you're paying is an anemic 5 spellpower on a sallow belt. As soon as you leave glass cannon territory a Senninbari or Champion's Belt start making sense as alternatives.
For rings the single best one is the Ring of Pale Flame. For your other one it's either Guldring or Ring of Fortune, again depending on how you value 5 spellpower vs 5 crit (5 fire damage is pretty negligible). Since both are additive, and assuming you're wearing everything above so you have much more of the one than the other, this decision is therefore between a ~2.5% increase to spellpower and a ~12.5% increase to crit. I personally go for the crit here, but if for some reason you have Presence investment, or are a Valkyrie and care about the Aurora of Vigor effect, or care about leadership etc Guldring makes sense.
Yeah, those guys!
The classic combo for a pure mage is Grease + Fireball... but personally, I prefer Crackle Powder + Arc Cannon for more versatile damage, especially since at level 8, Arc Cannon will be replaced with Cryostatic Arc. The problem is that Crackle Powder requires a weapon with the Ranged tag, and there aren't many catalysts of that kind. Basically, I'm talking about either the Metal Rod or the Wooden Rod. I was a Metal Rod fanatic for a long time, but after Spell Penetration became meta, I was forced to switch to a Wooden Rod, but in the previous version, there was a revision, and a Metal Rod became better than a Wooden Rod again. The only caveat is that this hasn't made it into the public version yet, so if you use it, the Wooden Rod remains the best.
As for offhand, a Blank Scroll, judging by the wiki, also seems to have improved after the revision (at least, I remember it with completely different stats), though I'm not a fan of the accuracy reduction. If you're also not happy with this, alternatives include Wyrmtooth (additional accuracy and initiative), Bull Totem (extra spellpower), or Shield Orb (a shield; without the accuracy bonus and with a crit penalty).
As for items for the other slots, everything has already been listed here, so I can't add much.