The Fang needs a change

Primalist
1

The cast speed part of it is useless for who would use it with how pets are now. I can understand when pets were how they were before and we had to cast them much more often but now that we have to revive them what is it good for? How about attk speed instead at the very least. Another affix would be nice too I think but maybe that is asking too much.

2

Thanks for the suggestion - we’ve been discussing it.

Here’s a quick summary of how that discussion has gone;

 
Arguments In Favor

  • A more minion-focused implicit (e.g. making The Fang a Turquoise Amulet) might generally make most people interested in using The Fang happier to find / use it.

 
Arguments Against

  • The Turquoise Amulet base type already has a unique (Death Rattle), while the Brass Amulet base type does not have another unique. Due to how unique item drops work, making The Fang a Turquoise Amulet would result in unique drops being slightly more rare.
  • While melee-focused Beastmasters are an obvious example of a build which this unique would be useful for, Summon Wolf that is not the only build which uses the skill.
    • Also Cast Speed is not, strictly speaking, entirely useless for such builds. Due to Companions having Activatable Abilities, even melee-orientated Beastmasters will have spells. Summon Wolf’s Howl is a Spell and benefits from Cast Speed.
  • The design goal for uniques in Last Epoch is for them to be interesting alternatives to magic items, with the latter being easier to mix-max, but the former having interesting properties which cannot be readily replicated by magic items. To make The Fang a Turquoise Amulet would move it to the base type which people are likely to use when crafting minion-focused magic amulets, and thus makes it less interesting.
    • Please note that this is not an objection to increasing the power level of the item - it’s just that were we to do so, we would prefer to come up with an interesting explicit property for the item than to simply change the implicit.

 
Current Stance

  • The Fang is currently in an okay place and we’re not in a hurry to make changes to it.
  • It could probably be made stronger without becoming overpowered.
  • We’re not opposed to changing the implicit, but we’re not excited about doing so.

 
While we’re talking about The Fang, we’ve identified a bug affecting the 20% Increased Minion Damage per active Wolf affix which is non-trivial to resolve, and in the next patch we’ll be changing The Fang to instead grant minions flat Melee Physical Damage.

1 Like
3

If it it mainly becuase of the active abilities I would again put forward that hardly anyone remembers to even hit thst button. I have a thread about just that and most the replies say the same thing they almost never remember to hit it. Mainly becuase itnisnt instant and you have to stop to cast it which just makes it feel clunky.

So you are saying having two type of the same unique make them drop less? That seems an “interesting” way of going about it. Other then the aciticr abilities the cast speed doesn’t help much and again it doesn’t seem that anyone uses those much at all.

If nothing else maybe the extra wolf node could be moved so it doesn’t that as big an investment to get the second one.

4

To clarify, having base types without unique variants results in fewer unique drops.

If the game decides that a dropped amulet will be a brass amulet, it cannot then decide that this item will be a unique item if there are no eligible uniques for the brass amulet base. We plan for most / all base types to have unique variants, but that’ll take time.

2 Likes
5

But if an amulet had two uniques to its base type it could drop either of them correct? It is just that is not a thing at the moment? For a better more useful unique I think people would be ok with this personally.

6

That is correct.
 

We try to focus unique item development to spread uniques over base types so unique item drops aren’t artificially rare. There is a small number of base types with multiple uniques.

1 Like
7

Fair enough. I still voice that the amulets base ability is not useful at all and almost anything else would be better. Heck most BM build like attack speed so that would be my pick. But anyway it isnout there now.

8

I played a pure summon beastmaster till about level 75/76. I think i used the fang until about level 55/60 until i was able to get the pet crit where i wanted it to be. I would def be in favor of changing the base to turquoise for better flavor as well as use well into end game. The only reason i swapped is because of the implicit to squeeze a little bit more crit chance as the math worked out better that way dmg wise. I really like it how it is right now but would def be on board for the implicit change as that would be the staple of the build from start to finish without really needing to go for a rare for min/maxing.

9

Sarno thank you for the insight into the dev’s current thinking! I’m generally in agreement with Zikkar and Thephenom2004 on this one, in so far as this feels like it should be a build defining unique, yet the current additional stats on it make the unique difficult to justify end game. This is especially true given that The Fang is an amulet, which is a gear slot with a lot of valuable crafting options. I definitely understand the devs thinking on making it the same base type as another unique, so maybe it would be better off if The Fang had some extra stats on it, and maybe it also could have a higher level requirement to compensate. That way it could be a bit more aspirational for a “wolf pack” style beastmaster build.

10

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.