Can someone explain to me how sacrificing vestiges work?

[Doodlebops]

It says I get 2 of the 'sets', sometimes I will feed it a vestige and none of them will go up (for example, reaver will be highlighted, I will sacrifice a vestige, and it still stays where it was). Then, sometimes, it will go up by 1, for example from 2 to 3. I can't figure this out but I'm sure it's very simple. One run I sacrificed all my vestiges and not 1 of them moved up. Then other runs, it will go up and up. IDK help a newb!

[Tam]

There are two kinds of vestiges destroying mashines. One that doubles the set value, these are normaly found via waypoints where you have to choose between for example an event, a market or a vestige destroyer, these will outrigth state that they give double the set bonuses of the destoyed vestige.
Then there are the ones that only give 1x the set bonus. These are normaly found in the inksea when you are transitioning from a guardian area to a new book. These are used to free up your vestige slots so that you can gather rarer vestiges while still keeping whatever bonus the old destoyed ones would have given.

Both of these should say if they give one or two times the set bonus when you mouse over them.

[krr]

When it goes up by 1 point it's because it's giving you the set you had by owning the item + the extra set. I was confused by that at first but then it clicked xD

[Doodlebops]

Oprindeligt skrevet af kurjuus:

When it goes up by 1 point it's because it's giving you the set you had by owning the item + the extra set. I was confused by that at first but then it clicked xD

What happens if it is at 3, and I sacrifice one, and I get nothing? (It stays at 3)

[krr]

The machines that are not encountered by opening a new path in your runs won't give you an extra set. They should mention this somewhere.

[Doodlebops]

Oprindeligt skrevet af kurjuus:

The machines that are not encountered by opening a new path in your runs won't give you an extra set. They should mention this somewhere.

Ah so the starting of the next level after the Sea of Ink WON'T give an extra set? And the ones that you 'choose' in a path, will?

[Terkala]

Think about it like this:

Your vestige score is equal to the sum of the vestiges in your inventory (IE: If you have two items that give might, you have Might 2), and your "base" vestige score (which starts at 0 for everything).

If you throw an item into the Sea of Ink, it leaves your inventory, and instead adds to your "base" score. If you throw it into the 2x machine, you get twice the value added to your "base" score. So you have your inventory space back, but you keep the point for the set-bonus.

The whole point is just to give you back inventory space for more items later, while keeping the set bonus.

[FDru]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Doodlebops:

Oprindeligt skrevet af kurjuus:

The machines that are not encountered by opening a new path in your runs won't give you an extra set. They should mention this somewhere.

Ah so the starting of the next level after the Sea of Ink WON'T give an extra set? And the ones that you 'choose' in a path, will?

Basically.

The machine that gives 2 sets only accepts 1 vestige. The other can take as many vestiges as you want.

I got confused by this too... the first several machines I found were giving 2 so I assumed they all worked that way. But the popup that appears when you use them should clear that up...

[scaine]

It's not very well sign-posted that the choice-vestige-destroyers are double the bonus, but one item only, while the end-of-story-vestige-destroyers are single bonus (ie. you gain nothing except the item slot, but at least you don't lose the set count) and take as many vestiges as you care to feed into it.

It's also not well sign-posted that you lose the vestige "effect". I mean... it should be obvious, but I've played with some people who wonder why, say, their omni-damage has suddenly gone down after sacrificing the vestige that gave them that bonus...! They thought there were "preserving" the vestige.

[Limdood]

vestigial shrines are one use, they will give you 2 of the bonuses of each of the set types of a vestige, while deleting the vestige (functionally, your set types of the sacrificed vestige will INCREASE by 1)

The vestige harvester in the sea of ink after the bosses of the first and second books are UNLIMITED use, and will give you only 1 of each of the set bonuses of the vestige, while still deleting the vestige (functionally, your vestige set numbers will not change, but you will lose the vestige effect and free up a vestige slot).



Now, in practice, the vestige sets are quite strong, and prioritizing vaults is generally a strong option. In fact this update largely boosted vestige power over that of binding augments. Since you will LIKELY be prioritizing vaults to gain more vestiges, the 7 slot limit for vestiges is a big deal.

You want to prioritize throwing vestiges into the Vestigial shrines (the ones that increase your set bonuses) that:
1) have multiple vestige sets, since you get an increase to EACH set type
2) have weaker or less useful vestige effects
3) have one or more sets that you really feel like you need the next level of NOW

These vestigial shrines are great for building early important set bonuses, such as Kwilling hoarded, verdant, Mythos, treasure hunter, fabled, and Curio, that are important to get early on in the run for best effects (note that some of the above listed sets are much stronger/weaker than others, and they're not all EQUALLY valuable to prioritize)



As for the vestige harvesters between books, those still serve an important role. the best use for those is to FREE UP your vestige slots so you can fit more vestiges in as you move on. After the first book, it's probably a good idea to remove most of your common and some of the uncommon vestiges you've gotten whose sets you want, but you expect to get stronger vestiges in the next book. After the second book, you will still have one more fight (which has an epic vault and a rare vault as guaranteed rewards), and a carver. So you probably want to throw out vestiges to have ~2 free slots (maybe more if you're rich, maybe less if you're really poor and can't afford rerolls on the vaults) so you can make use of the last few vestiges. (Fun tip, you can fight the first fight AFTER boss #2, and then go BACK to harvest vestiges, allowing you to use vestiges in that fight and then harvest them, or even draft the new vestiges from the vaults and immediately go harvest them...so long as you have not triggered the final carver (once you trigger the carver, the previous bridge disappears))



Lastly, you want to be really aware of certain interactions with vestiges and sets. The fire/frost/poison/spikes/bleed and especially alchemy and stormking (smite) sets can be really awkward to build up, because those vestige EFFECTS tend to work hand in hand with the vestige set. So deleting stormking items to increase your smite effect usually has the side effect of removing one or more of your ways to actually smite! Holding onto those vestiges can be equally awkward since it cramps your ability to get complementary bonuses (like boosting magic/physical/omni damage). For most of those sets, I recommend making sure you have significant supporting bindings/augments (like a mosscloak or magma miner for poison or burn) or you wait to harvest vestiges until you have doubles of the key vestige effects (like pulsar belt - if you have shield, smite attacker on being hit - great to ditch if you have multiples or lack good shield generation)