Theorycraft the new RWs

[maxicek]

We won't see these in Single Player yet, but just wondered what everyone's thoughts are? What would you do with them?

Unbending Will​

FalIoIthEldElHel
Sword Class
Required Lvl: 63 (Edit: Assumming this is because it was made in a CB)
18% Chance to Cast Level 18 Taunt in Striking
+3 to Combat Skills [Barbarian Only]
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+330% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
+50 to Attack Rating
+75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating Against Undead
+8% Life Stolen Per Hit
Prevent Monster heal
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
Damage Reduced by 5
+1 to Light Radius
Requirements -20%
Socketed [6]

Mist​

ChamShaelGulThulIth
(I'm assuming this is Missile Weapons, but it doesn't say)
Level 9 Concentration Aurs when equipped
+3 to all Skills
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+100% PIercing Attack
+327% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
20% Bonus Attack rating
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage
Freezes Target +3
+24 to Vitality
All Resistances +40
Socketed 5

Wisdom​

Pul Ith Eld
(Edit: Seems to be Helms)
+33% Piercing Attack
+20% Bonus to Attack Rating
5% Mana Stolen per Hit
+30% Enhanced Defense
+10 Energy
15% Slower Stamina Drain
Cannot be Frozen
+5 Mana After Each Kill
15% Damage Taken goes to Mana
Socketed 3
Req Lvl 64

Pattern​

TalOrtThul
Assassin Claws
+30% Faster Block Rate
+68% Enhanced Damage
10% Bonus Attack Rating
Adds 12-32 Fire Damage
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage
+75 Poison Damage over 5 Seconds
+6 to strength
+6 to Dexterity
All Resistances +15
Socketed 3
Req Lvl 23


I think I see why they never enabled Pattern - Because it is useless.


Edit: New RWs added

Flickering Flame​

NefPulVex
Level 8 Resist Fire Aura When Equipped
+3 Fire Skill
-13% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+30% Enhanced Defense
+88 Mana
+5% To Maximum Fire Resist
Half Freeze Duration
Poison Length Reduced to 50%
Socketed 3
Req Lvl 64

Plague​

ChamShaelUm
Sword Class
20% Chance to Cast Level 12 Lower Resist When Struck
25% Chance to Cast Level 15 Poison Nova on Striking
Level 14 Cleansing Aura when Equipped
+1 to All Skills
+20% Increase Attack Speed
+311% Enhanced Damage
-23% To Enemy Poison Resistance
+37% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
+25% Chance to Open Wounds
Freeze Target +3
Socketed 3
Req Lvl 67

 

[ffs]

What is that level req on Unbending Will. Otherwise could have been a good twinking weapon.

Mist could be interesting for Frostmaiden/Magezon but probably won't outperform Ice or Faith. Maybe FA-based or hybrid phyiscal/fire Zon more so than cold-based.

Otherwise all garbage from an end-game perspective, which is good I wouldn't have liked it at all if they continued the original trend with new runewords massively outperforming the previously established setups.

 

[art_vandelay]

Just a note on the level requirements people claim: The sword in question (and the other stuff) is made in a base and that base has a level requirement itself, in the case of a Colossus Blade that is 63 whereas the level requirement of the highest rune (Fal) in Unbending Will is 41, so that is most likely the true requirement. A barb wielding two Unbending Wills in Executioner Swords is probably fine for playing through Nightmare. In fact this might make UT barbs easier to get through the game.

Just for reference, the only six swords which can get 6 sockets are the Crystal Sword and the Great Sword line.

I saw the Wisdom in a Diadem, so it probably goes into Helmets. Could be a fun RW for a questing throwing barb.

And in the dev update they said that they would tweak Pattern and Plague, so maybe they will be viable somehow.

EDIT: Just saw the WSM of 10 on Executioner Swords, RIP.

 

[Nona]

When I first looked at unbending will I thought maybe for a barb merc to make them more of a magnet for the mobs…similar a form of pierce for an act 1 merc in wisdom

 

[Miron]

Really weird combination of mods on these items. After a bit of thought - going over various builds - most interesting options are:

Unbending Will - couple this with a source of knockback
- BF Assassin
- Zealot
- Frenzy barb

Mist - couple this with Bone RW
- Rangers (fire, physical)
- Bow barb

Wisdom - agree with @Nona here

 

[Vang]

Both the new weapons can be used and Unbending Will qualifies as a really good midranged and possibly great Barbarian mercenary weapon if they made 2 handed swords deal more damage than one-handed.

The Bow is interesting and it maybe going for a mercenary route, although very expensive.

Wisdom I actually like as it has a lot of mana stuff to help with classes that may need to chug for things that are easily killed. +5MPK is really nice for leveling someone.

My thoughts on the rest

​

Amazon:

New Spear mid and possibly late game. We have a slew of endgame Polearms that deal massive damage such as Obedience. The only decent mid-range are both Honor and Passion, so I see another Spear class one that is either spear or Amazon Spear with some similar stats of Unbending Will.

Stats I see being used for a spear class

• Life or Mana leech
• 250-350 ED
• Increased Attack Speed
• +skills
• Resist or enhanced defense

Assassin:

Chaos is all she gets and with the focus on improving a few skills I see us getting 2 total, one martial arts focused and one Blade skill focused. Both can be similar in nature but would see different set mods. Pattern having a Tal hurts the use, so I see that rune being changed as it counteracts venom.

Martial Arts stats

• Increased Attack Speed
• +Martial Arts Tree or specific Martial skills
• Chance to Cast (lower resist would be cool if it is a phoenix striker)
• Enhanced Damage (200 range)

For the Blade Fury stats

• Ignore Target Defense
• -25% to -50% Target Defense or #per hit
• Crushing Blow
• High Enhanced Damage (250-350 range)

Last up is the Druid with a focus on revitalizing the Shapeshifting Tree:

I am hoping they include non-weapon increased attack speed in the speed equation. I see a Werewolf Focused and Werebear focused Runeword hopefully incoming

Werebear stats

• -25% to -50% Target Defense
• +Werebear and or Maul (4-6)
• Enhanced Damage (200 range)
• 30-40 increased attack speed

Werewolf stats

• +Werewolf or related skills
• Enhanced Damage (200 range)
• 20-30 increased attack speed
• Faster hit recovery
• Magic Damage

 

[saracen85]

Any idea how FBR on dual-wielded weapons will translate to weapon blocking? Will it be weapon specific or aggregated?

Because I'm intrigued with Pattern. 2x Pattern Claws + Guardian Angel equates to 2frame blocking. I might just try weapon block on a Phoenix Striker..

EDIT: I kinda hope that they have some sort of "themed" runeword sets like what they did with 1.11, but with class-specific weapons. That'd be interesting.

 

[lizard]

Do we know bases for the runewords yet? is Unbending Will only swords or weapons in general?

Wisdom is a bit too expensive at Pul imo. Should have been a Io or Ko Rune. I like the Mana regen, which could even help out druid and barb in a pelt or battlehelm with nice mods.

The bow i am a bit puzzled if it has a place. maybe on a bowazon merc that runs faith herself.

 

[maxicek]

@art_vandelay Agreed, looks like it was from a CB. I added a note.
If Wisdom is helms this could be interesting for an A1 Merc. Shame it is mana leech and not life though.

@ffs If I'm twinking I will just throw on an Ethereal Oath Small Crescent at lvl 49. Of course for un-twinked it is useless as you can't find a greater than 4os weapon in NM.

 

[ffs]

Yeah I use Small Crescent Oaths as well for twinking, although specifically the last couple of levels before 49 are always painfully slow until Oath is finally available... In many cases Ginter's Rift is the best option I found so far for 37-49, and that says a lot. Butcher's Pupil being the alternative, tbh both uniques look better than Unbending Will. As @art_vandelay was hinting at, the 6os bases available around clvl 40-ish aren't that good either.

 

[NorthDakota]

Wisdom is supposedly a helmet RW!! I am really hyped up for this rw as it's a pretty significant QOL item for a lower level bowazon, but not just classes that benefit from pierce, it's good just generally!

First off - helmet runewords. Compare this one with the other 5 (!). 2 are pretty niche (dream/delirium) 1 is actually pretty good (lore) and 2 are pretty limp (radiance/nadir). This helmet is a pretty strong RW that could be used on a wide variety of characters. If I were making a helmet RW tier list, this one would be up in the S tier for versatility and utility. It's strong enough and offers enough good stats to carry it through the end of the game imo.

Next - cannot be frozen. There are so few sources of cbf. If you don't luck into a ravenfrost, you're kind of pidgeonholed into a chest piece drop which is also rng, or a death's sash but then you're stuck with two rows of potions. Cannot be frozen is so incredibly rare. At least this gives another option, and fairly budget for getting it at what I assume is going to be level 45 at the price of a pul rune.

On top of that the mpk is nice on any build, and the mana leech is also great! How many times are you stuck chugging pots partways through the game and struggling for some sort of solution so you can go back to being lazy? You haven't found tons of leech on rare rings or other sources. Now you can build this and just be lazy!

Pierce is the interesting one. Another stat with very few sources. This isn't a top-tier endgame helmet when comparing with the options, but at least it'll be a nice stopgap, gives another option for getting 100% pierce. I could see all the new ladder baby amazons building this and using it until getting the staples like ravenfrost/razortail.

My thoughts - I'd try to build this on any bowazon I'm playing through with. Javazons probably great as well. Throw barbs also great. Any character that attacks - great. If you luck into a pul rune, I'd be hard pressed to imagine a better way to spend it than this. You're opening up ring options or chest options from the CBF alone. I'm so sick of slapping ravenfrost on nearly every character. It's such huge QOL in so many ways! Really excited for this one.

 

[NorthDakota]

MIST is another interesting runeword. Obviously a wearable runeword for a bowazon. But how does it stack up by comparison?

For physical bowazons, competing with faith is tough. You sacrifice ignore target defense to wear it, and need to take an act 1 merc for fanaticism which means losing might and potentially concentration if you're running pride. You get more resistances (yawn for phys bowas), you get 1 more skill (I like it but it's not enough) and you get more attack speed. To me these tradeoffs aren't good enough.

BUT if you put it on an act 1 mercenary, and use faith yourself, you are only sacrificing might for those other benefits. Before, if you used an act 1 merc, you also lost concentration. I still don't think this is enough to beat wearing faith, a2 might merc with pride, but who knows. This is a really strong weapon to put on an act 1 mercenary, when you compare to the damage the actual act 2 merc puts out with pride. Your a1 merc wearing this thing is going to be popping off doing big damage, freezing targets, piercing through literally everything and freezing things doing big damage with both concentration and fanaticism. A2 mercs wearing pride are sad damage. The other issue with the a1 merc setup is of course a1 mercs don't tank anything, so you really have to go valkyrie. I mean there's really no reason you'd skip valk on a phys bowa, you're definitely not starved for skill points. The other comparison is the level of concentration aura for pride (level 18-20) vs mist (level 9?)


As for elemental / hybrid bowas, I think it competes fairly well. Comparing with ice for frozen arrow bowas you get a bunch more skill points (+3 more on mist) and you can also skip putting points in pierce altogether. Overall you save a ton of skill points. You can also skip wearing razortail which gives some decent options. You are hitting slightly harder with the physical portion of your attacks from concentration. You lose ignore target defense. But you're probably doing far less cold damage, and of course no added safety from that holy freeze aura. Adding in fire/exploding arrow for immunes is much much easier though with saved skill points. So at least there's kind of an interesting tradeoff here. I'd say it's at least usable, don't know if it'll be any better but there's a lot of QOL you don't get with ice. You can't put it on an a1 merc setup with an elemental bowa obviously since you'd lose conviction which is imo too much.

 

[lizard]

New Runeword.
Probably most usable in Fire Druids. Will be interesting to see what the range on the -fire res is.

 

[Kartongen]

Alot of good comments here already. I am intrigued. But why don't we have a spear runeword here?

Flickering flame should be pretty good on a sorc and a Amazon too right? Maybe I am overestimating the usefulness of -res here, but skills and -res sounds great to me. Also a nice amount of mana there.

 

[NorthDakota]

New Runeword.
Probably most usable in Fire Druids. Will be interesting to see what the range on the -fire res is.

Holy man that's a helmet. You can put that on a druid pelt.

Aside from that it'd be very strong on a fire sorcy...

This helmet grants +106% fire resistances, and +13% max fire resistance meaning you're almost certainly capping out at 88% fire resistance on any character wearing it

Okay how about this... holy fire paladin wearing this, Dragon armor, Hand of Justice weapon, and Phoenix shield. You use conviction aura yourself, and always have all this active:

1. Resist Fire lvl 8
2. Conviction lvl maxed
3. Holy Fire lvl 30 fully synergized
4. Redemption lvl 15
5. -13% enemy fire resist from this, -20% from HoJ, -28% from phoenix = -61% enemy fire resist........
6. Fully capped 95% Fire resist
7. aw heck slap faith on A1 merc and have fanaticism as well.

OR WAIT. You could use dragon as a shield as well and have level 44 holy fire at all times without the redemption aura.. actually why haven't I done that already. This helmet doesn't really enable that. Anyways. Still cool and if there's holy fire buffs then it's gonna get bananas.

IF they actually buff holy fire (a possibility I think) then this could be insane.

 

[ffs]

OR WAIT. You could use dragon as a shield as well and have level 44 holy fire at all times without the redemption aura.. actually why haven't I done that already.

I have. It's fun but little reason to do it when you can dual Dream for this kind of build archetype.

Flickering Flame is pretty much what I hoped they wouldn't go for, things like that change the whole meta for fire builds... One could argue that existing options can still be better in many scenarios, but it's very strong and costs basically nothing....

 

[Kartongen]

Holy man that's a helmet. You can put that on a druid pelt.

Ah, yes. This is what I missed. Insane.

I think pattern seems fairly interesting too, considering the very cheap runes. I mean... It is quite bad. But at least it is cheap/low level. I feel there are worse examples of runewords from the already existing pool.

 

[Vang]

I have. It's fun but little reason to do it when you can dual Dream for this kind of build archetype.

Flickering Flame is pretty much what I hoped they wouldn't go for, things like that change the whole meta for fire builds... One could argue that existing options can still be better in many scenarios, but it's very strong and costs basically nothing....

Looks like it was designed for Fire Druids, sure Sorceress will make good with it, but +6 to a fire skill is solid.

I'm really happy with the new Plague.

Looks like they really are trying to bridge that middle ground with some of this stuff that is accessible in NM (others not so much so far)

 

[Nagisa]

If Plague works in all weapon types, I would really like 1-2 of them to try on my K/T Baal runner. Aside from that, just mostly looks like good mid-game filler or ways to fill out more uses for underused runes.

 

[NorthDakota]

Shazam. It's a big boyeee. Changed from %ED to demons in the old files, to straight up just %ED - added attack speed, slightly more %Deadly strike than the original version and swapped the Fal for a Shael.

Looks like just swords though. Maybe a5 merc to trigger lower resist could be an option? Ooo like you could use this on a your pally's new act 5 merc, drop the fanaticism from my above posted holy fire build, and then just have lower resist and cleansing as well! XD Just tryin to think of ways to keep conviction and get this LR as well in a situation that could benefit from both.