Most-loathed artifacts!

Galt

This thread might get derailed quickly, so please don't argue! I'm just curious which artifacts people dislike and why, specifically those you wish didn't exist or made the user explode like a bacon firecracker every time they used them.

Personally, I find the speed artifacts most annoying - Dirk, diadem, pipe filter, lyre of shallah, curing/speed earrings, etc. They throw balance off, and they tend to become mandatory for the class that uses them. Good luck playing Mage or Bard without a diadem, or Assassin or Renegade without a dirk!

Next up would be the stealth and detection artifacts - Veil, Seer's Eye, Phantom Mask in particular. The veil is like a 2k tax on getting into combat right now, the Seer's Eye negating all stealth skills entirely is unspeakably lame (But yes, I do plan to get one), and the phantom mask should never have existed in the first place. 

On the third tier of lame are the escape arties. Raksha band and gazali earrings. Yeah, raksha now has a 1 second channel, but I think it should change further. Gazali earring escapes should probably be blocked by something, too. 

Disclaimer: of the above, I own a dirk, diadem, pipe filter, lyre of shallah, all of the curing speed and bal/equi earrings, a bow, a veil, and I do have gazali earrings but I don't use them in combat. 

So, which artifacts and types of artifacts do you all dislike? What would you like to see consigned to the foggy halls of memory and never used again?

Asmund

all of the above plus flipboots. pretty much any artifact that gives something that is exclusive to a class to all the classes should, in general, be a no no.

Galt

Oh yeah, flip boots. They're obnoxious as hell.

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing flip boots go away too, but only if I can get an arti that lets me flip past walls and rubble, because I enjoy feeling like Robin, in this context:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93bAdEf0pzc

Kalynthari

Most promotion-based artifacts.

Scepter, earrings (the speed ones that were mentioned, mostly). Card decks. None of them are inherently awful on their own, but combined with everything else that exists and works alongside them, they quickly become pretty **** obnoxious.

Unfortunately not a problem limited to Imperian.

Tyanna

I hate the assembly ones. They are very spammy in inventory and artifact list, as well as tedious to put together. I think I'd like them more if they were virtual items like in Lusternia, but I kinda hated them there as well. Seeing that most of the wheel prizes were those had me uninterested in buying more spins. Aside from being annoying to assemble, they also feel very money grabby which seems out of line with Imperian's new goal, but that's probably a bit of exhaustion from them in other IRE games.

Gjarrus

Cloak of Obfuscate because I can't upgrade it to keep ghost up as well.

Kalynthari

Oh, tome as well.

Also not artifacts, but I'd also include reflection/removal rituals in things that make combat incredibly unfun.

Eochaid

Veil.

Shells.

Bronze tome.

Gjarrus

Card table for not having turn management, blinds, and being unable to beckon it while it's setup

Septus

Silver neck guard. You don't know suffering until you hit it three times in a row on the same person within the same 40s.

Earring of gazali because I bought one then useless @Khizan retired on me.

Rokas

Veil. It's so obviously a credit tax, and it punishes everyone. The more people that have it, the less useful it becomes but the more you need it.

Ryc

Veil is definitely the worst artifact for the game on a macro level. Balancewise anything that modifies curing speed is far worse than modifying attack speed. Auction arties are meant to be OP (debatably they should be). Seer's eye, Flip boots and Phantom Mask are overblown. 

To go another way I actually dislike most of the QoL arties the most. The arties that are effectively 'here's how this ability should work, but because money, it only works that easily with this artifact, otherwise it's gonna take you 4x as long. 

also Foreboding stone and the warning skill.

Swale

I don't like warning, but I honestly love Foreboding.  It gives you a chance to blow out when a giant team shows up.  But whatever happens, happens.  

What about web tattoo thing?  We don't see web much, but if we did, you'd still need the no web artie, right?  It's definitely on the list of least favorite needed artifacts in every game.  

Kalynthari

Swale said:

I don't like warning, but I honestly love Foreboding.  It gives you a chance to blow out when a giant team shows up.  But whatever happens, happens.  

What about web tattoo thing?  We don't see web much, but if we did, you'd still need the no web artie, right?  It's definitely on the list of least favorite needed artifacts in every game.  

Torch tattoo, at least, exists. Most classes honestly have much better hinder than web gives, even at lower levels/lessons.

Ryc

Web tattoo and quicksilver are a pretty bad interaction, but less so than Achaea because of the lack of web bombs and just general lack of usage. Foreboding can, and often does, give information in too wide of a radius. I'd much rather kill warning than foreboding but I'd be okay with both of them dying, or foreboding getting a pretty significant change over where it's at now. 

Swale

Foreboding did get this change, as of the 4th (also, I wish it told me how much longer it's active when probed, and that it IS active):

Artifact – Foreboding Stone:
TOUCH <stone> will activate it for one hour.
It will notify you when any of your enemies enter the same area as you, but it will not report every move in the area that they make.


EDIT:  er, actually a lot earlier than that... It's another article on that page that's from 4 Sep.

Trying to think how you could change foreboding to let "a guy" or possibly even "a guy and his buddy" try to jump someone, but retain its "holy ****, a lot of people are coming, yeah, I'm good with us running" function.  Everything so far seems not good enough, but that would be the ideal in my mind.  

Havamal

Web tattoo thing? Eh, sure, but a torch tat is cheaper.  You can get a perma one if you want to be swag.


If I could make any single artifact disappear, it'd be the veil absolutely no question or reservations.

If I could make two disappear, throw in the diadem, because for the classes that need it, most of them are bubbling toss without it, and they oughta just be rebalanced without it.

If I had to pick a third, arrowcatching thing without a doubt.  I don't like it when one of my skillsets is basically rendered completely pointless, especially when its by a relatively-cheap artifact.

Swale

Since it's come up a couple of times, as I remember, torch tattoo isn't a great option, because it works once and must then be put back up, right?  It's honestly been a long time since I considered it.  So you're going to be spending precious seconds doing that (and not turtling or hindering or DPSing), and if you're in one of the scenarios where web really seems to become a problem (probably pretty giant fights, where someone is bringing along maybe several newbies, and tells them "just spam web on the target") you'd probably be in a lot of trouble without a no web artifact.  

That said, I'd already not be enjoying teams that big, and it's definitely true that in teams with that many players, you'd already be experiencing plenty of hinder without any level 50-somethings spamming web.  Teams that big are fun for the captain leading, and for someone getting their very, very first taste of combat, so I'd hope they never became the only or even main show in town.  

I had a torch tattoo briefly years ago, "just in case" and was told don't bother, and I think that was the rationale (which made enough sense to me at the time).  Anyway, not pressing at the moment, but possibly something to put on a list (or not).    

Kalynthari

I'm with everyone else on deleting all the various speed artifacts. Arti weapons were changed so that they no longer affect speed; why diadem, dart sheathes and dirks still provide speed is pretty puzzling. Especially considering how much speed.
Curing related ones really have even less business existing in a game like this.

Tyden

I'm going to through a few out there:

Raksha band-Regardless of the channel time, this item has no business being within combat. I assume the earrings are similar, so yeah basically just repeating what others have said. Since this game is going more FTP route, having items this rare in the game just seems off. An advantage that just shouldn't be afforded regardless of what was paid in the past.

Tome of the Bronze shield- Honestly a full negation of damage for 15-25 seconds is pretty strong. Not sure on if you just remove this silly item or make it a chance to shrug off damage/50% damage reduction.

Not an artifact, but just something that needs adjusted:

Reflection ritual- 30% faith for this just seems off. I'd understand if it was 3-5 reflections, but a full 10 reflections should cost much higher. 70% faith. Or just simply change it to spend faith for the amount of faith you want. 1-10% 2-20% 3-30% etc etc.

Sarthan

In order - Veil. Raksha band. 

That's it. I like artifacts. I like things like Diadem and whatever. You people just like to complain a lot.

/grumpy old man on porch

Get off my lawn.

Kalynthari

But diadem / speed arties in general have gotten just as many complaints as both of those things have. There's a reason artifact weapons were changed to no longer give speed.

:thinking:

Sarthan

Kalynthari said:

But diadem / speed arties in general have gotten just as many complaints as both of those things have. There's a reason artifact weapons were changed to no longer give speed.

:thinking:

/waves walking cane in a disparaging manner

Icarius

Veil Veil Veil Veil Veil 

Lartus

I wonder if there is an artifact that is considered borderline pointless.

Naruj

Lartus said:

I wonder if there is an artifact that is considered borderline pointless.

Does that walking cane artifact still exist?