The latest developer diary is up and it’s all about changes to the Legendary Item system. I’m liking what I’m hearing so far as the changes appear to increase the value and strength of these items, while also making the whole process of leveling them a bit less grindy. Looking across the LOTRO blogosphere, it seems to be going over pretty well with others too (Jaxom, Merric).
I really recommend reading the entire article (there’s some nice details for Champions in there, for example), but here’s some interesting bits:
- “The experience needed to move from level 30 to the maximum level of 60 (all Legendary Items regardless of Age have a max level of 60 now), is dependent on the Age of the Legendary Item. Every level from 30 to 60 is now a flat amount of experience; Third Age LI require 20,000 experience per level, Second Age take 40,000 and First Age require 80,000.”
- “With Siege of Mirkwood, each class’s set of legacies has been updated. The weakest legacies have been removed and will no longer be added to new legendary items, while other weaker legacies have been improved. Additionally, each class has gained a handful of new legacies.”
- “Every legendary item now has a fourth relic slot. This slot will only hold a new type of relics that are not part of the relic combining system but are instead created by Crafters. Each craft can make relics that give a bonus to a particular stat, morale or power. In addition, all crafters can make Greater Crafted relics once they reach Supreme Master rank. These Greater Crafted relics can only be used by the Crafter that made them and give a small bonus to Melee, Ranged, Tactical or Healing skills.”
- “A new Tier of relics has been added to the relic combining system after Tier 8. These new relics give the same style of bonuses as the other relics.”
- “We will be introducing a new set of heritage runes which can be used on all legendary items with Siege of Mirkwood.”
There will also be some new scroll types to apply to your Legendaries, which I think is pretty exciting:
- Scrolls of Empowerment: “These scrolls allow the player to upgrade the Tier of any Legacy of their choice on one of their Legendary Items. There are no limits to the use of these scrolls other than availability and having a Legacy available to be upgraded.”
- Legacy Exchange Scrolls: “These scrolls allow the exchange of one existing legacy for the Legacy on the scroll. So far the Wise have only been able to decipher scrolls that grant Legacies that increase basic Statistics, Might, Vitality etc.”
- Scrolls of Delving: “These scrolls increase a Legendary Item’s maximum advancement level by 10 up to level 70. No item experience is granted. The extra ten levels have to be earned. Only one of these scrolls can be used on any one Legendary Item. A legacy upgrade reforge is granted at level 70. Legendary Items from level 60 to Level 70 are treated as having reached maximum level for deconstruction purposes.”
- Scrolls of Renewal: “These scrolls reset the legendary points spent on the item to zero allowing the player to re-spend the points in any manner.”
These scrolls can be found as loot or may be awarded during deconstruction. The scroll that could allow a Legendary to reach Level 70 is interesting, mostly because it gives you one final chance to reforge it.
Any thoughts or hopes for the future?
In general, I really do like the sound of these proposed changes. It is going to make a complicated system even more complicated, but to me it seems that post-SoM the LI system will actually work like originally intended.
Not at all happy about the Champion Fervour nerf though. 2nd major Fervour nerf in as many updates. There is an argument that Fervour remains slightly too powerful DPS wise, but the last change punished us for pulling aggro off tanks as it was. I am trying to reserve judgement though, the changes might work.
Actually, with the addition of the Class A and the Class B legacies, and the whole idea that getting a Class A legacy in a reforge is essentially impossible, the quality of legendary items is going way, way down.
Currently if there are 3 particular legacies you want on an item, you have approximately a 36% chance of getting the 3 legacies you want from unidentified to level 50, assuming you get 4 legacies on identification.
With the new system, your only shot at getting a Class A legacy is on the initial identification, and given there are 9 Class A legacies, your chance of getting the 3 you want goes down to roughly 4%, again, assuming you get 4 legacies on the initial identification. If you want the actual math, just ask.
My thinking at the time was that the overall ranges of legendaries seemed to be better. Like going from a 5 through 8 scale to a 6 through 9 scale. Seems like I might have misunderstood…
Well, think of it this way: The odds of you getting 5 Group A legacies right now are actually pretty good in MoM. Come Mirkwood, having 5 Group A legacies will be nearly impossible, because the reforges at 10÷20÷30 will have almost negligible chances to grant a Group A legacy.
Depending on your class, this can be a noticeable downgrade even considering that you can get more overall points due to the IXP level cap increasing.
I don’t like the introduction of crafter use only “greater relics”. I could see these becoming a necessity for certain professions. Champions have to have weaponsmith, guardians have to have armourer etc. Crafting changes from being an optional economic activity into just another thing you have to grind in order to be allowed to raid.