How do you feel about the new weapons/items/relics?

[Valrynn the Dragoness]

I've not tried all of them so far, but Im generally...kinda underwhelmed. I am on NG+7 and dont have everything anywhere near maxed out, but here's my thoughts so far:

Blunderbuss for the Gunslinger: I don't like it; you trade the gunslinger's biggest strengths, which are accurate, aimed fire in any direction, the ability to float in midair while attacking, and range, for...more burst damage and annoying midair pushback? It's not like the gunslinger has slow time to kill in the first place, and while it does make dealing with some enemies that like to get up in your face easier...I don't think it's worth the tradeoffs. Hell, some enemies it can't even kill with both shots, while the gunslinger can with the entire magazine.

Lich Crow Staff for the Astromancer: the 2nd game's take on a popular class from RL1, it creates a circle that any enemy that enters it will have homing crows sent after them until they die or you let go of the attack button. It sounds cool in theory but in execution it's hard to use. The time to kill is actually quite slow and I dont think it has any knockback, not to mention you need to stay completely still while using it and the crows can't attack through walls. It's very hard to stay still in this game and survive, and it completely changes the Astromancer from "throw down a black hole and let it do it's job while you dodge projectiles to "sit still and hope you don't get hit". It's very weak against enemies that rush you down or in closed spaces, I've found because you just can't sit still to make use of it.

Dragon Fangs for the Assassin: It sounds cool in concept, free Serquet's Stinger AND Amaterasu's Sun? Hell yeah!...except it forgets to mention that the blades themselves do extremely low damage; all your damage while using these will come from the damage over time. It's not the most ideal thing since the Assassin doesn't have magic damage modifiers built in, but it can be quite strong and fun to use if you find the right relics. Probably the most viable of the weapons I've tried so far.

Umbrella thing for the Ronin: It's actually not bad, you dash forward like you're using Charon's Scythe from the wizard, blocking projectiles and doing big damage in one hit, skill critting if you blocked a projectile. It doesn't store charges though, so you need to block the projectile and hit an enemy to make use of the guaranteed crit. You can also float with it, blocking projectiles above you and doing constant lower damage to anyone hit by the umbrella. While I don't prefer it over the katana, it's not bad at actually killing things quickly...just need to be careful like the scythe that you dont crash into enemies. However unlike the scythe you cannot use it to travel in a straight line side to side as easily, as the scythe can attack right away again, whereas you have to chain this with the floating aerial attack in order to do so.

Triangulator crossbow for the Duelist: Completely changes the duelist from a fast hitting, aerial attack/combat roll chaining melee class to a long range sniper class. It has longer range than the gunslinger, but it also, for better or worse, lacks the arced trajectory of a bow and arrow or pirate cannon. Piercing projectiles actually make it quite good at mobbing, which is good since it has low knockback. Easy enough to skill crit, at least, if you're indoors in a room that is fairly flat. Really good when paired with something like Amaterasu's Sun since it's DPS isn't the highest if you can't land ricochets. Still, if you don't like how the duelist normally plays you might like this

Star Sling relic: cheap relic that lets you get a little more damage out of casting a talent or spell. For 20 resolve I guess it's okay, but Id rather save my resolve for better things.

Lucent Beam spell: decent DPS spell, fires a thin laser that can be aimed and goes through walls. Drains your mana fast though and you have to sit still, but it's not so bad since it has no windup time; it's like a spell version of the gunslinger's revolver.

Silk Slippers relic: gain dance stacks when spin kicking enemies...I mean, damage is damage, but I don't think it's worth taking unless you're playing bard.

What're your thoughts?

[clemons75]

My favorite new thing by far is the Lucent Beam spell. Astromancer built for magic damage with that spell is deadly.

[Gnodab]

Blunderbuss - don't really vibe with it, but it has cool functionality with the mid-air knockback, and really strong damage if you're up close. For those who like it.

Crow Storm - thing about this is, if you make it too strong it becomes this giant "kill everything" magic circle that you just sit there and activate. To use it effectively means a lot of moving around, and this can get very difficult depending on the room. I like it though, and it provides a stark contrast to the Celestial Sceptre's playstyle.

Dragon Fangs - like a melee DoT Ballista. I love it. Makes you value the mobility of the Dual Blades once you lose your airborne mobility and dash attacks. It's a fun alternative that also doesn't overshadow Dual Blades. I think it's perfect.

Kasa-obake - super fun. The airborne mobility on it is ridiculous, blocks projectiles and you can just float upward with double jumps while Skill Critting everything to death. Makes mincemeat out of Plonkies, Defentries, Skrangers, basically anything with a mid-sized projectile, which is most of the enemies in the game.

The Triangulator - I can make it work, but I don't really enjoy it. It's essentially a variant of the Spoon, which I'm also not a fan of. It's fine power-wise, just not my thing.

I like all the relics. Mammon's and Transmogrificator are probably the best additions to the game in a long time lol. I take them practically on sight. Also Tattered Rope and Cloak of Eventide.

Both spells are awesome. Lucent Beam is great without it being just an upgraded Blaze Bellow, which is my favorite spell. Shield of Thorns just outright denies most things in the game. Projectiles, as well as obnoxious enemies like Doomvasses, Charites and Wargs.

Very happy with the update.

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Personally, I like everything that was added. The weapons are cool (though I'm bad with a number of them) and the relics are all good, though they tend to be situational (which makes them even more interesting).

My favorite weapon is the triangulator. It has pretty good power and reasonably reliable skill crits. You can use it to get enemies lodged in little crevasses that other weapons can't get. The main downside is that it requires slower, more cautious gameplay so if you want to play aggressively it probably isn't for you.

I don't really have a favorite weapon/spell since they kinda depend on your build. Mammon's Bounty is definitely my guilty pleasure though since I love taking unnecessary risks (Why does it seem to give me Heavy Stone Bargain so often?).

[Attournity At Coleslaw]

out of the new weapons, i think the triangulator and blunderbuss are my favorites.

[brickey.8]

Many of the new relics feel even more situational than the old relics, which is annoying. The ones that just give you extra double jumps/air dashes are ok in Scars and probably very useful if you're on your first run and haven't got those runes yet, but once you already have 3+ of each from runes it's a waste of a relic to add just one more (if it, like, doubled your air jumps, that would be a different story). Charged for using your talent is entirely dependent on which talent you have, and completely useless for many classes (duelist or wizard class bonus, assassin/chef talent). Silk slippers don't give you dance stacks for bouncing off terrain or bullets, just enemies, which makes it mostly useless for everyone (unlike the class bonus).

[Gnodab]

Originally posted by brickey.8:

Silk slippers don't give you dance stacks for bouncing off terrain or bullets, just enemies, which makes it mostly useless for everyone (unlike the class bonus).

Silk Slippers work exactly the same as Bard's passive. You don't get stacks from anything other than enemies.

[HeraldOfOpera]

The Triangulator may not have an arc, but the ricochet will let you hit most of the same places and also places that arcing weapons could only dream about. You just have to be really good at geometry if you're doing it against enemies that can actually fight back. Also a protip: if you shoot the ground an enemy is standing on, they'll be hit twice because the normal shot and the ricochet are essentially treated as separate projectiles. Same if an enemy is next to a wall and you shoot straight at them.

Originally posted by Gnodab:

Originally posted by brickey.8:

Silk slippers don't give you dance stacks for bouncing off terrain or bullets, just enemies, which makes it mostly useless for everyone (unlike the class bonus).

Silk Slippers work exactly the same as Bard's passive. You don't get stacks from anything other than enemies.

Yep, and that's all well and good for Bard who's built around spin kicks but nobody else really wants to be doing that sort of thing. Even Bard wants the Electric Lute and Clownanthropy so that it can just snipe instead of having to get up-close.

[Whiplash]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

The Triangulator may not have an arc, but the ricochet will let you hit most of the same places and also places that arcing weapons could only dream about. You just have to be really good at geometry if you're doing it against enemies that can actually fight back. Also a protip: if you shoot the ground an enemy is standing on, they'll be hit twice because the normal shot and the ricochet are essentially treated as separate projectiles. Same if an enemy is next to a wall and you shoot straight at them.

Originally posted by Gnodab:

Silk Slippers work exactly the same as Bard's passive. You don't get stacks from anything other than enemies.

Yep, and that's all well and good for Bard who's built around spin kicks but nobody else really wants to be doing that sort of thing. Even Bard wants the Electric Lute and Clownanthropy so that it can just snipe instead of having to get up-close.

Real talk, the Lute might be one of the top three worst weapons in the game. I'd take anything else over the Lute tbh, even with it's few buffs it's gotten.

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Originally posted by Whiplash Athetos:

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

The Triangulator may not have an arc, but the ricochet will let you hit most of the same places and also places that arcing weapons could only dream about. You just have to be really good at geometry if you're doing it against enemies that can actually fight back. Also a protip: if you shoot the ground an enemy is standing on, they'll be hit twice because the normal shot and the ricochet are essentially treated as separate projectiles. Same if an enemy is next to a wall and you shoot straight at them.


Yep, and that's all well and good for Bard who's built around spin kicks but nobody else really wants to be doing that sort of thing. Even Bard wants the Electric Lute and Clownanthropy so that it can just snipe instead of having to get up-close.

Real talk, the Lute might be one of the top three worst weapons in the game. I'd take anything else over the Lute tbh, even with it's few buffs it's gotten.

I don't think the lute is bad, it's just weird. You need to change the way you play to use it well. I'm not that great at it either, but I've heard it's great against bosses (probably not as great as Enkindled Boxer though).

Incidentally, my best time using it was during a crippling intellectual run where the lute basically became an easy source of defense while I used my spell to deal the actual damage.

[UNDERDOG-223]

silk slippers is godly on aerial classes though, gunslinger, mages with lucent beam, hephaestos hammer and icarus wings. heck i think somebody could prolly pull it off with a lancer

[Gnodab]

Originally posted by UNDERDOG-223:

silk slippers is godly on aerial classes though, gunslinger, mages with lucent beam, hephaestos hammer and icarus wings. heck i think somebody could prolly pull it off with a lancer

Yep, it's amazing on Gunslinger, Astromancer and Reaper for sure. I actually tried it with a Dragon Lancer last run, but I overloaded on Burdens and was overwhelmed before I could do much with it. The potential is there though, especially for boss fights.

[cookies for everyone!]

Currently in NG+15 having no problems to clear each NG+ on a single run.

Blunderbuss: One of the more usable Fabled weapons imo, since it fires a total of 6 projectiles it works great with most damage relics, Great to use for an entire run.

Crow Staff: Usable as well, worse than Blunderbuss since as OP mentioned it has a charge-up time and it doesn't do much damage, usable for an entire run as well.

Dragon Fangs: Complete garbage imo simply because it roots you in place when it attacks which is a HUGE detriment and becomes more and more of a hindrance the higher up you go in NG+, usable as well, but is harder to make use of due to it's low damage and being rooted in place during it's attack.

Umbrella: Fun to use, but not very good if you are aiming to do a full run, it has short attack-range and is slow in it's attack motion, imo not usable for an entire run unless you want to spend double the amount of time compared to the faster weapons that not only deals more damage but are also faster and more versatile.

Triangulator crossbow: Trash weapon, it's so incredibly slow that it is only suitable for usage for the few first NG+ games, after that it's unusable unless you want to spend ages doing a full run. I am quite surprised that it doesn't do more than it currently does because it's so incredibly bad.

Grim Scythe: Fun weapon to use, works, but is on the slower side with it's attack speed, does attack through walls and can forever stay hovering while attacking, but it doesn't allow very much versatility as it's a linear attack always and you can't animation cancel the attack which means you end up taking damage a lot of times if you do not calculate the distance you can safely attack an enemy in, which gets harder and harder the higher up you go i NG+, usable for an entire run, but it's slow.

Enkilddled Boxing Gloves: Complete garbage, grade A trash, fires explosive projectiles that explodes on contact with any enemy or wall and also hurts yourself if you are in it's explosive range, not usable for anything else than a meme run imo and if you want to stay alive you have to go slow which is painfully boring.

Triangulator: Worse version of the regular Bow, does guaranteed skill crits on a bounce, but it only fires 1 projectile and you can only fire while on ground and it's slow as the regular bow, works for a full run but like many other of the fabled weapons it's going to be a much slower run.

Pizza: shots out a Small to medium sized projectile(pizza) which stays for 3 seconds i think? then returns to you, doing damage the entire time if the enemy is in it's range, works well enough, but does low damage, works for a full run but it's on the slower side of things.

Hephaestus' Hammer: Looks cool and is fun to use, however, it only has 40% str scaling meaning that it does very low damage which is the problem i have with it and is the reason i do not use it, guaranteed skill crits during dashes with it, but doesn't make up for the low damage it does, can be used for an entire run, but as most of the fabled weapons it will be a slower clear.

Electric Lute: Since it only gains a weapon attack charge after you spin-kick something i only used it for a few areas to try it out and have never again even looked at it, it's not a very good weapon for anything else than if you enjoy using it imo.

Spoon: One of the more usable fabled weapons, but certainly not a weapon i like to use simply because i find it janky having to aim the bounces, works for a full run, but it's also a slower weapon due to having to set up bounces for faster killing.

Out of all the Fabled Weapons i only use the Blunderbuss sometimes since i do enjoy that weapon even if it's a bit slower.

My weapon of choice which i almost always use now is the Great Sword, it has fast attack speed, attacks in a 90 degree arc and always skill crits on a dash attack and it also has the 2nd highest str% scaling at 200% which means you kill most monsters in 1 hit, i find it to be the most versatile weapon since it allows for high attack speed, high damage and doesn't require any annoying skillshots or gimmics to work, just dash around and attack and stuff dies in a single attack, in comparison the only Fabled Weapon which even comes close to the same kill-speed/efficiency is the Blunderbuss which is why i sometimes use that if it rolls on my contrarian, but other than Blunderbuss i don't use any other Fabled Weapon since i find them lackluster and detrimental in comparison.