The new unique boots “Boots of Vithrasil” come with a significant downside:
“You cannot move while in Spriggan form”
However, as it has been called out in the bug forum a few times now, that is currently bugged and you can circumvent this by going into Spriggan form without them equipped, then equip them and you can move freely.
The problem I see is that this downside is incredibly limiting for a form that already has 0 mobility options. You can use them as a hybrid caster or a dual-form spec, but they feel clunky at best with the form shift cooldown. Additionally, this completely destroys your ability to use these boots as a pure Spriggan form caster, which seems kind of silly for a pair of boots that thematically revolve around being in Spriggan form.
What I would suggest is instead of a permanent root, something along the lines of:
“When you directly cast a spell in Spriggan form, you are rooted for 2 seconds”
This would still give the fantasy thematic feel of the “rooted” downside.
Allows for actually playing with these boots as pure Spriggan form
Allows for some potential counterplay if you have a way to cleanse roots (since it’s no longer a permanent debuff)
I’m sure there are other options out there, but the short of it here is that the downside completely removes these boots from being viable with an already niche set of stats.
I totally agree with the sentiment here. I don’t think the original intention for this item makes sense, its hard to imagine anyone wanting to use this if permanent rooting is implemented correctly. I think even 2 second rooting is a deal breaker in boss fights where getting stuck in place for 2 seconds means death (unless the rooting came with a defensive bonus maybe). I was actually going to lobby for removing both the rooting and the huge damage bonus to make these boots about adding extra hits to the build.
Yeah, the 2 seconds of root was just trying to keep the theme alive, but I agree, it’s unfeasible when standing still means death in a lot of cases. Again, especially with Spriggan having 0 mobility regardless.
There are several skills that lock you in place. Channeling abilities like Smelters Wrath, Rebuke, Desintegrate. But the most obvious similarity with this boots mechanic is Arcane Ascendance. This skill locks you in place on activation until you deactivate it again.
So this boots mechanics are meant for building that kind of gameplay. Position your character, Transform into Spriggan, Transform into something else for movement again.
It doesn’t work well in a perma Spriggan build. But instead altering uniques to fit your playstyle, I’d say, people should adept and build around the unique.
Some items are meant to force a very unique and unorthodox playstyle. For some items it may take some time to figure out the best build/ synergistic skills for an item.
By the way: I can’t see it on the item database, propably because they are removed. Can somebody post a screenshot of the stats?
Looking on the sharp downside i dont see the upside being good enough.
I get the phantasie of the “Turret” but a “turret” needs to be made of stone not of wood.
If you add in “50% less damage taken while rooted” and change the “increased damage” to “more damage” at least one could think about bearing the cluncky playstyle.
If you did that it would do insane amounts of damage while taking very little (due to Spriggan form being able to get large amounts of armour from Thorn Shield, like high 70s).
Being locked in place isn’t the problem to me. The problem is that to move again you have to drop out of Spriggan, wait for the cooldown, and then back into Spriggan, to start doing damage again. This requires a lot of micro management and seems really not fun for boss fights where you constantly have to avoid heavy damage attacks. The original idea just seems overly niche and like it would get old really fast. Plus I think you’d need even more upside to justify it. I’m really enjoying these on my perma-Spriggan with the current workaround - I’d love if the devs could keep them viable for perma-Spriggan (with some tradeoff other than the permanent rooting).
These boots upside might not warrant the downside for some, but for sure having your entire boots slot be dedicated to an ability with iirc a 6 second cd to shift back into seems kinda meh. if you are a double form druid build, giving up your entire boot slot just for some damage while in spriggan seems less then ideal.
The boots definitely need some work in terms of the value of the upsides vs the downsides, maybe give it -2 to -3 seconds to the cd of spriggan to allow more fluid turret gameplay.
I don’t like the drawback of this boots, seems too much for what it provides. Why not playing around it a little and for example root character in place if you are not in spriggan form? Or if you want drawback to spriggan form, maybe movement will cost x rage as spriggan so it will be much harder to stay perma and moving a lot with those?
I like this idea of some kind of increased rage cost. Its currently stupid easy to stay perma-Spriggan, all you need is Legacy of the Quiet Forest and nothing else - I don’t have any of the rage passives or skill nodes (except an incidental one point in rage on thorn cast). It could be cool to be rewarded for investing more in rage.
These boots aren’t meant for a permanent Spriggan build. They are meant for a shifting build. While there are options between human and Spriggan, it is probably made more for those that go from Bear/Bug to/from Spriggan. The Spriggan form is the damage dealing. Adding the extra projectiles and increasing damage that much is a lot. The 25 flat health regen is insane, easily over 100 more health per second if you are building regen.
The boots are too strong without the drawback precisely because they would be used on permanent Spriggans. That is why they removed them to fix the snapshot bug on it.
Then why do they boost the “0-cost spammable attack” of Spriggan? That makes 0 sense. If this were Sorc, it would be like making it affect Lightning Blast or Fireball, when you would think it should affect Glacier or Volcanic Orb.
Because you are supposed to temporarily shift to Spriggan to deal damage, then shift back out to move around. On top of that, there are other bonuses you get for shifting recently if you build for it.
A 0-cost spammable attack is meant to be used extremely frequently. No build “splashes” a main attack.
If it affected Entangling Roots, Tornado, Earthquake, etc. then it would make sense to swap into Spriggan, drop a few spells, and swap out. It however makes no sense to swap into Spriggan for your main attack and then have that go on cooldown.
The simplest solution is for the boots to add “Channelled” to Spirit Thorns (or just text that says “You cannot move for 1 second after casting Spirit Thorns”.)
That would make them a 100% buff with no downsides. Making the skill channelled would then add on top all of the beneficial affixes for “while channelling”.
I am done with you. Almost every post you make lacks reasoned arguments.
Quite a few of them have downsides. Just ask @Heavy, he only likes powerful uniques that put you in such a moral quandry that you turn to shouty music to escape the horror of decision paralysis.
I did propose some “downsides” in my two fixes - make it channeled (which also comes with a potential upside to use “while channeling” affixes), or just make it lock you for 1 second whenever you cast it. Neither of those ideas force you to “Swap forms” to make the boots even viable, and yet, both ideas work even IF you make a form-swapping-heavy build. Like, seriously.
Heck, you can even make some of the “benefits” of the Unique “If you’ve Transformed in the last 4 seconds, then…”. Lots of ways to solve this.
