[Post Clear] CoA Itemization Review

Now that several guilds have cleared CoA hard mode, let's look back upon the itemization and rewards.

Upgrade Piece Drop/Usage Ratio

• 7 for accessories (2 for the trinket and 1 for every other piece)
• 9 for armor (2 for the cape and 1 for every other piece)
• 5 for weapons (2 for one hands, 4 for off hands, and 1 for ranged weapons)
• 21 total

The ratio of tower sigil drops to the amount that's needed to upgrade items is ridiculous. Five sigils drop from a full hard mode clear (1 from each boss, none from the minibosses, and 2 from Fionn), yet the weapon drops from a clear alone require more sigils than that. Azaphrentus drops ranged weapons and offhands, Herecius drops 2Hs and mainhands, and Fionn drops relic mainhands and 2Hs (T3 relic, still requires sigils to upgrade). A single clear can yield weapons that require ten or more sigils to be useful to T3 geared raiders. As hard mode is tuned around players with more or less complete T3 gear, those weapons mostly remain useless until they're upgraded.

It would require 8 weeks of completely clearing hard mode to upgrade 10 sets of weapons (not including ranged)

If we compare this to T2, Hammerknell dropped 3 eyes of madness per clear. If we assume 6 people use relic weapons from Akylios, and that a third of the raid is dual wielding, then it would take 6 of completely clearing the instance to obtain relic weapons for all 20 raiders. As Estrode, Sicaron and Rune King Molinar dropped mainhands/offhands/2Hs, the rate of eye drops to usage was fairly balanced. Furthermore, epic weapons obtained earlier were actually useful.

At the same time, a large number of broken cosmos drop from both normal and hard mode CoA. Absolutely nothing in the instance uses it, yet every boss drops one.

My suggestion is to halve the number of Tower Sigils required to upgrade weapons, and add a broken cosmos. Instead of:

Epic T3 > (2/4 Tower Sigils + Nightmare Weapon Amender) > Relic T3 (2/4 Abyssal Crusader Accelerators + Nightmare Weapon Amender) > Relic T3.5

Let's have:

Epic T3 > (Broken Cosmos+ Nightmare Weapon Amender) > Relic T3 (1/2 Tower Sigils + Nightmare Weapon Amender) > Relic T3.5

Another issue I have with the inaccessibility of Tower Sigils is that armor and accessories from CoA are not better than MoM/store T3 pieces until they are upgraded. Unlike previous tiers, where relic armor was a small upgrade and primarily a status symbol and sink for excess upgrade pieces, CoA relic armor and accessories are close to a tier better than their epic precursors. However, the heavy upgrade cost of weapons means that for most guilds, armor and accessory drops from CoA will be only useful as sidegrades for a long, long time.

Weapon Sidegrades

All CoA weapons drop as epic, with T3 MoM DPS procs. They can only be sidegraded to healing after being upgraded with Tower Sigils. This is extremely unfair to healers. Weapons should be given sidegrade options that allow us to switch their procs to healing with only Nightamare Weapon Amenders and Abyssal Crusader Accelerators.

Trinkets

Transcendent trinkets drop from hard mode Lord Fionn. Only DPS and healing trinkets drop, and they can be sidegraded to tanking. Trinkets can be upgraded with 2 Tower Sigils and an amender for a stat increase.

First of all, the stats on the upgraded versions of these trinkets are a little too low. The warrior DPS variant has 201 STR, 201 DEX, 201 END and 385 CP. In contrast, the MoM warrior DPS trinket has 258 STR, 214 DEX, 189 END and 231 CP. As the most exclusive and rarest trinket available, it shouldn't have lower main stat and secondary stat than a epic trinket of a similar, if not lower tier.

Secondly, the procs on these trinkets still need a lot of work. The DPS ones are too weak and the ST healing ones are too build dependent.

DPS

In Paragon, 600*10 AP increases the damage of my attacks by approximately 20% (18.5% to setting moon and 21% to reaping harvest). The 15 seconds of the block with Alacrity accounts for approximately 44% of my damage, and the 10 seconds of Alacrity perhaps 38% Assuming that damage is evenly distributed throughout these 10 seconds (which it isn't), this increases 38% to maybe 42%. If I use the trinket every 2 minutes with Alacrity, that's a 2% gain in DPS. If I'm parsing 100k on a dummy, that's around as much DPS as a T1 trinket.

These numbers are approximate and highly err on the generous side (since I took that 20% from a non-raid, non-combat setting, without stacks of readiness or raid buffs). Furthermore, Power Manipulation, Consuming Fissure, Renewing Pod, self healing but not shielding abilities (Jolt but not Storm Shield), self buffs that scale off AP, and some INTERRUPTS (Flinching Strike in Paragon, but not Wind Spear or Distracting Pulse) all consume the stacks. On TOP of all of that, there's no internal cooldown on stack consumption! This means that the 10 stacks will last roughly 7 seconds in Tempest during Wavelength, and even less for Harbinger or any 1 second GCD build with procs.

Finally, different builds have vastly different AP scaling, and I highly dislike how much this trinket varies depending on the build. For example, the tooltip damage of Rift Burst in Riftblade increases by 27.6% with 10 stacks.

The original version (where you build up to 10 stacks, which last for 5 seconds) of this trinket was actually STRONGER. I recommend either changing back to this version with higher AP, or better yet, reworking it entirely. Personally, I'm tired of oGCD, on use procs, and I think most of the raiding community will agree with me.

ST Healing

My main issue with the ST healing trinket is that its usefulness vastly differs between builds. 3 instant Ward of Fires are extremely powerful in Purifier, and 3 instant Inundates are great in Preserver, but some healing souls simply don't benefit very much from this trinket.

Tooltips

Trinket tooltips are far too vague. The DPS one says 'Use: Gain 10 stacks of increased Attack and Spell Power'. The ST healing and tanking trinkets also do not state the values of the increased healing or mitigation.

These tooltips should all show exactly what they do.

Easy Mode Gear Upgrade Paths

Easy mode CoA T2 gear ('Nascent') require broken cosmos to get a set bonus.

According to Vladd:

Originally Posted by Vladd

Vladd replies!

This is intended. Broken Cosmos are available through multiple resources plus all of the CoA bosses drop them on normal mode.

This shouldn't be in any way intended. Set bonuses have always been obtainable with amenders and accelerators, or do not require upgrades. There's no source of Broken Cosmos except from the daily calendar for players focusing on easy mode CoA, and if a player is doing normal mode CoA and can obtain cosmos, they don't need easy mode, T2 gear.

Instead of requiring Broken Cosmos to obtain a set bonus, these pieces should use a cosmos to upgrade to T3 epic. This would allow players that are transitioning from easy to normal mode to keep use of their easy mode gear, and it fits the name of easy mode loot.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

[Post Clear] CoA Itemization Review