Underpowered relics

[praetarius5018]

This is just my observation, so feel free to correct me.

1) Eye Donors
I've no idea what this is even supposed to do, I noticed no difference.
If this is meant to be aggro range of my minions, this doesn't matter by stage 6 or so, there're always enough enemies in my face so that minions have something to target.

2) Penitence Pin (raise random level 1 skelly at cost of health)
This is basically worth 1 boneraise, in contrast Giantun Serum and Meldum Serum are worth 3.
This could be buffed to raise randomly 2-3 level 1 skellys when taken.

3) Deboning Cutlery (every boneraise has a 4% chance to raise a level 1 skelly)
Over the course of a normal run, I usually get 1 minion out of it, sometimes none at all, so it is the same as Penitence Pin above, but delayed.
Maybe rework this to a 20% base chance, but each time it is triggered, the chance for future ones gets halved, rounded down.
20% -> 10% -> 5% -> 2% -> 1% -> 0%
This way, it gives at most 5 skellies for NG+2 loops, making it better for regular runs without making it broken for NG+x

4) Rune Arc, Blue Candle, Meaty Club, etc. (those that add a attack)
Damage seems too low and rare to be relevant (and unwieldy in case of club), doesn't seem to be even as much as a level 1 skelly. Ectoplasm Poop at least slows enemies.
Could add secondary effects, like rune arc also slows in an area, candle inflicts a 1 dps burn, club scales damage and size with number of giant minions, stuff like that.

5) Scavvy Mitts (each boneraise has a 5% chance for a relic)
Over the course of an average run, this only cuts even (get nothing now, get 1 random relic later).
Compared to Loot Box which gives 2 random relics RIGHT NOW, this is less than half as good.
Same suggestion as for 3.

6) Holy Bloom (+10% damage to beasts, -5% dmg to humans)
To me, this is a complete trap.
Aside from dryads (damn slowing vines), beast waves are no issue, and only Werewolf Prince and Necarch are non-human bosses. So this relic gives little benefit except make the hard waves even harder.
Its counterpart Unholy Bloom in contrast may be too good. With most bosses being human that one is basically another Book of Grudges on top.

No idea how to fix that without destroying its identity.
Otherwise, I'd have said something like reworking it to +5% beast damage and randomly spawning a few beasts during each wave.

7) Ethereal Rage/Acuity/Mysticism, Funky Turnip, Colossal Tooth (+25% chance to see melee/ranged/magic/bro/giant minion in boneraise menu)
They didn't feel like they had any impact at all, like dead draws.
If the idea for the first 4 is to make it easier to build a mono-type army, the relics should have much higher impact, or rather guarantee that at least one of the given types appear in the boneraise options.

Either at least guarantee that one of the given types appears (if possible with current caps) and/or also spawn a random level 1 minion of the given type (behemoth for giants since that one can be evolved into a random giant with destineous raises)

[ZeppMan217]

Agree with all points except for the minion cap raising relics. Having an extra giant or bro makes a world of difference.

As for relics like Funky Turnip, I think this is an NGF issue, wherein you get a lower chance to be offered a non-skelly minion the higher you go. I don't like this mechanic since you're already limited on the amount of bones you get from, well, bones and all the other bone-adjacent sources.

Ethereal stuff is garbage. Plain and simple.

[caiys]

Thanks for the feedback! :]

[ROBERTHATMAN]

Deboning cutlery is extremely useful on Doll maker/Beast whisperer due to their limited pool of minions.It often gives you boss minions too.
Scaving mitts is probably the most busted relic in the game if you can max it out early.With a 1/5 chance of giving a relic every boneraise,you're essentially getting free relics every other level up with no drawback.
Meaty club is pretty good if you have it fully upgraded but that usually happens for me only with cyclops.
Funky Turnip was an essential relic before because the bros were so rare; but with the increase in their spawn rate and addition bonebigly destineous it has somewhat reduced relevance.It is still essential in NGF since the bros are probably the only thing you haven't capped by then.
Other than these I agree with the list and these are consistently my least picked relics.

[praetarius5018]

Originally posted by caiys:

Thanks for the feedback! :]

You're welcome. :)

Originally posted by ROBERTHATMAN:

Deboning cutlery is extremely useful on Doll maker/Beast whisperer due to their limited pool of minions.It often gives you boss minions too.

Might just be my bad luck, but I always only get level 1 minions out of it.

Originally posted by ROBERTHATMAN:

Scaving mitts is probably the most busted relic in the game if you can max it out early.With a 1/5 chance of giving a relic every boneraise,you're essentially getting free relics every other level up with no drawback.

The question there is how much you gain. If you get it 4 times, that is 4 choices where you could've picked something else. If it gives you then only 4 relics randomly over the course of the game, you only cut even, as if you never took the mitts at all.
For NG+/F it is potentially busted, yes, but that is only one of many gametypes.

[AN]

Originally posted by praetarius5018:

[
The question there is how much you gain. If you get it 4 times, that is 4 choices where you could've picked something else. If it gives you then only 4 relics randomly over the course of the game, you only cut even, as if you never took the mitts at all.
For NG+/F it is potentially busted, yes, but that is only one of many gametypes.

If every relic was meant to be equally balanced for all game modes you would massively limit your design space. You're smart enough to recognize where it does and doesn't work and so you can make informed decisions, just like what kind of minions to focus on: This is the goal, that a feature improves the game in some circumstances and, if you know how to play the game, doesn't make the game worse.

The point is not to make all things good in all circumstances, if you did that then the building part of the game would be nothing but a spectacle(since your decisions wouldn't matter) instead of half of the main gameplay loop.

[Thirsk]

Originally posted by AN:

The point is not to make all things good in all circumstances, if you did that then the building part of the game would be nothing but a spectacle(since your decisions wouldn't matter) instead of half of the main gameplay loop.

I think you've fundamentally misunderstood their point. They were saying "This item is, at best, as though you did not even pick it up, making it bad in every circumstance" not "This item is situationally useful"
You can disagree with that opinion, but it feels disingenuous to argue as though they were saying something completely different.

[AN]

Originally posted by Thirsk:

Originally posted by AN:

The point is not to make all things good in all circumstances, if you did that then the building part of the game would be nothing but a spectacle(since your decisions wouldn't matter) instead of half of the main gameplay loop.

I think you've fundamentally misunderstood their point. They were saying "This item is, at best, as though you did not even pick it up, making it bad in every circumstance" not "This item is situationally useful"
You can disagree with that opinion, but it feels disingenuous to argue as though they were saying something completely different.

You haven't been paying attention, if you aren't going to catch up on a conversation then don't interject.

[praetarius5018]

Originally posted by AN:

If every relic was meant to be equally balanced for all game modes you would massively limit your design space. You're smart enough to recognize where it does and doesn't work and so you can make informed decisions,

Eh, if a relic was only meant for use in a specific gamemode, the dev could just remove it from the draw pool in all other modes.
Feel free to correct me (RNG is RNG after all), but I've never seen the book of grudges in necrotic skirmishes; there are no bosses there as far as I got, so it wouldn't do anything.

But yes, equally "balanced" went out of the window once the giant and meldum serums existed. They are worth 3 "levels" and if everything was equally as strong the difficulty curve would just crumble. But that doesn't mean we should ignore options that do *on average* nearly nothing.
Else it just goes on everyone's list of gigabanishes and is just a waste of everyone's time.

Can you trigger mitts 5% on every single level up? Possible, but you're much more likely to get 0 relics out of it ten runs in a row.

[gay moth aunt]

Turnip and Tooth are fine, but the Ethereals ARE kinda... not really worth a pick, especially in Skirmishes where you're getting less picks overall. I'm thinking if they offered a chance to summon skelly minions bumped up one level (similar to Boning Totem but not guaranteed), that might make them more attractive.

Cutlery/Mitts/Trick Box are gambles. You're wagering a pick now on getting more out of it later; sometimes it isn't gonna work out, sometimes it will.

My personal choices for relics that could use some love:

Haunted Trinket: Suffers the same problem as Demon Boomeranger in that orbitals just aren't really all that damaging. An idea is the flame could slow down while in contact with an enemy to do more ticks, or the flame could leave a trail of fire behind it as it orbits.

Sullen Urn: It could probably do with summoning more ghosts than it currently does, one by itself isn't all that strong. You generally need a bunch of them around to have any significant effect.

Blooden Emerald: Just has no real significant effect at all, even in the shorter skirmish mode, 1,111 score isn't going to make that much of a difference. It may be better to give score over time or some kind of conditional multiplier.

Ectoplasm Poop: The pool just being in one static location, usually at the dead center of the map, hampers the overall use of this relic a bit too much. I feel like the pools should fade and respawn in different locations every so often.

Jellied Eel gets an honorable mention because it's really more for beginner players so it's not completely useless, but I still just outright never use the thing.

[Pizzarugi]

As a liche necromancer player who's still #1 in Mausoleum Awakening, a lot of items you listed are generally bad picks if your aim is to get high score. I'm going to list the items you listed, but only the ones that are actually good and worth picking up.

1. Deboning Cutlery
Probably best for Liche Necromancer and less so for other classes since minions get more damage for every minion you raise, including the T1s. It still helps in sometimes getting other T1 minions you need for your class if you're intending to later upgrade them. Free minions are free minions.

2. Scavvy Mitts
Relics provide a LOT of power, both offensively and for accruing score. The more of them you can get, the better your odds of getting a high score, especially if they happen to be relics that would improve those odds (ex. more merchants, events, blessed enemy spawns, more enemy spawns, enemies dropping gems on death). Just like Deboning Cutlery, free relics are free relics.

3. Colossal Tooth
Just want to reiterate that this is from the perspective of doing a run for high score. Colossal Tooth means more giant minions. More giant minions mean more gargantuan boners. More gargantuan boners mean more excavators. More excavators mean more chests. More chests means more score, spells, and relics if you found Magnifying Glasses. You're vastly underestimating the true value this relic has.

----

Here's a list of items I do think could use looking at:

1. Mother's Milk
How often do you get poisoned? Really? The only enemies that can poison are elves and they're only around for one wave, plus half of them are archers so they're pretty easy to dodge. The poison reduction is nice if you like spamming the poison gem spell, but I feel like it needs something more to make it worth picking up.

2. Nature's Wrath
Even when maxed out, the extra birds, bees, and shrooms that spawn feels incredibly small versus everything else. It feels hardly worth picking up over relics that increase spawns such as the Wanted Poster.

3. Oily Feet
Just like the Rune Arc, Blue Candle, and Meaty Club, this relic doesn't feel like it puts out very much damage. It pairs well if you get lucky and find the Manky Fingerer, but feels like a bad item to pick up otherwise.

4. The relics mentioned in the OP
Minus the ones I listed earlier actually being good, the rest of those mentioned in the OP are pretty underwhelming.

[praetarius5018]

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

1. Deboning Cutlery
Probably best for Liche Necromancer and less so for other classes since minions get more damage for every minion you raise, including the T1s. It still helps in sometimes getting other T1 minions you need for your class if you're intending to later upgrade them. Free minions are free minions.

2. Scavvy Mitts
Relics provide a LOT of power, both offensively and for accruing score. The more of them you can get, the better your odds of getting a high score, especially if they happen to be relics that would improve those odds (ex. more merchants, events, blessed enemy spawns, more enemy spawns, enemies dropping gems on death). Just like Deboning Cutlery, free relics are free relics.

Yes, they are very powerful when they work. Big "if".
You can get those 4-5% on every level up, unlikely, but it can happen.
But how good are they on *average*?
I wanna say I get about 60-70 boneraises when doing NG+2 (didn't exactly count and there's plenty variance), so that's about 3 trigger. So it is just barely better than the loot box (2 relics right this instant) in the best of circumstances?
Going for normal playthroughs makes it even weaker.

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

3. Colossal Tooth

I was listing it purely from the perspective of the +25% chance to see X minion type in the boneraising selection. The +1 cap is fine (it just slipped my mind when posting that; for the egg bro relic I did remember...), but the chance is trash.

In general, I'm not even sure the chance increase works at all. I went through a full NG through +2 run with 3x egg bro relic (+50% chance each) picked in the first 4 stages, and I didn't see egg bro at all in the entire run.
But that's the basic problem with RNG dependant power ups, sometimes you're just unlucky.

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

1. Mother's Milk
How often do you get poisoned? Really? The only enemies that can poison are elves and they're only around for one wave, plus half of them are archers so they're pretty easy to dodge. The poison reduction is nice if you like spamming the poison gem spell, but I feel like it needs something more to make it worth picking up.

Additionally, slimes can poison as well. The archer boss has a chance to shoot poisoned arrows and can appear for the final boss. I think that is about it.
Yeah, that's also quite a bit unpowered.

[Finvaara]

Not sure if it will let me link to an image of my current banish list, but I"ll try. https://imgur.com/a/7HDdiyZ

If that link doesn't appear above, I banish Blooden Emerald, Stolen Sininnity, Skelly Key, Soul Blades, Blooden Cloak, Jellied Eel, and all three ethereals. The only reason I bother banishing Soul Blades is that at the time, no other single relic seemed less useful except for the money bag, and I can no longer banish the money bag.

----

I can go into some detail on other relics mentioned.

Eye Donors - These are most useful with a few specific minions in my experience. I don't know the exact details, but I seem to get more value out of Gaunt Skewerers, Volt Coilers, Eye Poppers, Weirdo Warlocks, Boo Bros, Mad Magus, Zogzeich Diabolos, and some of the beast and wax minions seem to benefit as well. If you have plenty of calf muscles, it can also help with other minions, but you might be forced to chase them late in the run because your safety zone becomes distressingly mobile.

Penitence Pin - You don't necessarily want to take this one on purpose, there's usually something better, but it's nice to get in a gift box alongside something else. Worst case scenario, it's better to take it than to take a forged soul when you're not actually ready for an upgrade that requires a soul

Deboning Cutlery - Take it early in the run, double it once at the blacksmith, and you'll get at least four or five boneraises out of it in the game, usually closer to six or eight. I found it carries its weight well. Certainly don't take it late in a run.

Generalized Attack Relics - Some of these combine with other relics or strategies in useful ways to help you succeed.
--The Club is much better than it used to be, and if you couple it with other close-ranged control and damage abilities, it can help you clear out the things that get to you and stretch a run out for a couple minutes longer than you might otherwise get.
--Ring of Fire combos with at least three relics, two minions, at least one spell, and the clay pots.
--Blue Candle combos well with things like the Haunted Trinket to create zones of damage that you have a little bit of ability to steer with your movement.

The biggest problem with any of the damage relics is that they don't seem to scale properly with anything at all, and so will always stop looking relevant compared to the sheer beefiness of later waves of enemies. That could just be my perception, though

Scavvy Mitty - I want to like these so much, but I get so little out of them. No matter how many copies of them I seem to get, I don't think I've ever recorded more than 4 relics in a run from an early copy of Scavvy mitts

Holy/Unholy Bloom - I don't like these relics, but taking two relics for a flat 5% damage boost is better than taking one relic for a 5% damage boost and becoming 10% more vulnerable to damage. The suggestion that beasts aren't just as deadly as human enemies is misguided.

The Ethereals - I won't pretend to like them, but they're really handy if the class you're playing isn't a generalist. Cyclops loves the ranged ethereal if you can find it. Voodoo Shaman and Sorceror both love the Magic Ethereal. If your class needs a specific minion to shine, there's probably an ethereal for that. Or a turnip, if you're a potato. Heck, the Giant's Tooth is a favorite for every class just because the top tier giant is so useful. I love to get that, and two meldus flame so I can have 3M and a Manipulator at the same time.

Haunted Trinket - Function 1 is letting you increase your flamebro cap above 1 if it's at 1, helping to summon the biggest of the bros. You can get a lot of mileage out of steering the flame to do damage, and multiple copies give more flames, making it even easier.

Sullen Urn - Function 1 is again, raising your cap above 1 so you can summon a tier 2 bro, on the road to tier 3 if you're fortunate. The ghost seems to do alright damage, but I don't know the numbers. When I stop to watch it, things die. Multiple copies do, again, produce more ghosts

Ectoplasm Poop - This is one of the best relics on the market despite some problems. The combination of damage and slowness, coupled with its design of locating itself fairly centrally, means it's great to lead problem enemies across multiple times. Even better, it combos with ring of fire, which should increase that damage significantly. The biggest problem it has is that multiple copies are lackluster, placement is random to the extreme, and sometimes even overlaps the first puddle. I would genuinely change this effect to instead spread the initial puddle outwards, splashing multiple smaller puddles into connected, legal splash zones on walkable terrain with a minimum and maximum overlap threshold so they're not too good or too bad.

Mother's Milk - After this relic was reworked it became genuinely good. I have no complaints. One of the few defensive relics I'll take on purpose.

Nathure's Wrath - I don't take this on purpose, because mushroom swarms are deadly late in runs, but those birds and bees are super valuable. If it were at all possible to stop the mushrooms from ending my life in a hail of unpreventable bullets that fill the screen, I'd rate this relic a must have

Oily Feet - This relic is alright. I don't love the dash-damage relics, but they combo well together, and this links them decently with the puddle relics to a degree. So apart from Knuckle Duster and Mankey Fingerer, it also pairs well with the bustling diaper, and from there you're opening up combos into ring of fire and all the other puddles. I just wish the damage on damage relics scaled on something we could count, measure, affect, or rely on.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Yeah, Oily Feet is probably only useful with the Manky Fingerer. It doesn't deal enough damage to be relevant without deathen curses, but being able to deathen curse something and then immediately deal damage to it is as powerful as it sounds.

[burn1none]

you make some decent points but I have to disagree for 3 and 5 if you stack those items you will see a much better return. I'm not sure why you think one relic on it's own should be so powerful that really doesn't make too much sense. like most relics stacking even a few can be really strong in my experience. also you didn't mention Magnifying Glass but I assume you don't take that either but I assure you it's good when you have a few.

[praetarius5018]

Originally posted by burn1none:

you make some decent points but I have to disagree for 3 and 5 if you stack those items you will see a much better return. I'm not sure why you think one relic on it's own should be so powerful that really doesn't make too much sense. like most relics stacking even a few can be really strong in my experience.

It should at least be better than doing less than nothing.
I had several runs all the way to the end of NG+2, and on some of them even a maxed stack of both relics procced a total of ONCE in the entire time. I wasted a total of 7 relic choices and got one random relic out of it. Absolutely not worth it.

Was it better on other runs? Yes, but just as often it was a waste of game data. Hence my suggestion in the first post to give it a very high chance up front and lowering that depending on how many raises/relics you get.
If the math for that is done properly, the *average* should stay mostly the same while getting rid of the extremes.

Originally posted by burn1none:

also you didn't mention Magnifying Glass but I assume you don't take that either but I assure you it's good when you have a few.

Nah, that one is okay. You can generate a lot of chests with spells, contraptions, or plain random chances. If you just focus on that, you can often have about 3-4 times as many chances to proc the relic as the other two relics.