=AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (Full Version)

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Lorekeeper -> =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/12/2025 18:26:48)

Hello everyone! Here is the long awaited preview of the Ironhoof set's mechanics!

As with the other preview, the following is strictly conceptual. Details such as the exact numbers for implementation are pending, as they're subject to change based on development and preliminary feedback.



Set Mechanics:


Element: Energy, though dual Energy/Earth is also considered in case players find it desirable.

Criticality Matrix: Stacks passively increase LUK and can be consumed to fuel an armor attack. The tentative maximum of stacks is 30, with each stack increasing LUK by 6.

Lucky Strike Manipulation: All Ironhoof items are clickable to open a menu that displays critical damage information and grants one increment of control over the Lucky Strike 'lean' per set item, allowing it to be shifted one step towards crit rate or crit damage per equipped item with this mechanic.


Weapons:



Ironhoof Annihilator [vME-00/vMA-00/vRA-00/vRA-100]
  • Tentative function: 0-proc Melee/Magic/Ranged and 100 proc Ranged versions of a -BtH lean weapon that can be clicked to access the aforementioned LS management menu or to activate a skill using the bow attack as an animation. The skill pays additional SP for an on-crit effect to refund an amount of SP based on the crit rate, with an example formula for 10% Melee SP being (10 x CritHits / AttemptedHits / Crit%)% Melee.


    Shields:


    Dauntless Ironhoof Ward
  • Tentative function: MC: Gains Criticality Matrix stacks at the end of the turn if you land a LS, with higher output the lower the rate. If stacks are maxed, gain Barrier instead.



    Armors:


    Ironhoof Executor
  • Tentative function: FO armor. MC pays for skill compression. -MRM pays for initiative boost and a chance to gain Celerity at the end of every turn.

    Hostile Criticality Matrix: Elelocked attack toggle. Eats Unlucky to gain Criticality Matrix stacks.


    Ironhoof Protocols: Toggles between mounted (FD, +BtH Lean, damage split between fewer hits) and merged mode (FO, -BtH Lean, , damage split between more hits), with an activation checkbox by the button to activate the costs of the following mechanics:

    - Mounted mode: After attacking or casting a spell, spend SP to inflict Unlucky.
    - Merged mode: Pay HP for extra damage. After attacking, pay SP to guarantee a turn of Celerity. Additional SP pays for the on-crit refund effect as seen on the weapon.

    Note: While Lean switching between the modes may result in the mounted mode feeling suboptimal to builds other than 100 proc users and FD warriors, it's one way in which the set could be designed to still accommodate the 100 proc weapon without having to lose out on an existing advantage to pay for a 100 proc weapon damage bonus.

    Prime Devastator: Available when the misc is equipped. Counts as a spell if using a magic weapon, and as a weapon skill otherwise. If Criticality Matrix stacks and the permanent Unlucky from the misc are both maxed, it eats both effects and does Void damage.






    Pets:


    Ironhoof Support Crawler
  • Tentative function: Toggles between sacrificing damage to inflict Unlucky and a full damage mode that gains power in turns in which you crit. Alternatively, instead of a raw damage mode, the second mode could generate Criticality Matrix stacks for faster accumulation.



    Items:


    Ironhoof Overdrive Capacitor
  • Tentative function: Increases LUK and outgoing elemental damage. Outgoing attacks passively generate Criticality Matrix stacks. Can be clicked to pay SP to inflict permanent Unlucky with the next attack, up to a cap.





    • GwenMay -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 0:15:39)

    Thanks for the preview! First off, the set concept looks great, for every item. I'm a big fan of how it integrates the new lucky strike mechanics and charge systems while still paying homage to the damage focus of LS builds. I'm particularly excited for the LS lean mechanic and how that might interact with future item design. That's not to mention the set's excellent art (the mecha rider theme for this year and 2024 was a great art direction). All in all, I'm very excited for the set's release.

    I have a few minor suggestions/thoughts to tweak the set a bit. Feel free to adopt, change, or ignore them as you like - it's going to be a great set regardless.

    Set Mechanics: The Criticality Matrix mechanic is a neat idea. I like how it allows 0 LUK characters to use the set, by granting them up to 180 LUK.

    I am concerned about how fast players will be able to gain the charges, however - lucky strike builds generally focus on fast damage, not passive charge generation. Perhaps the set could have a FSB to passively increase Criticality Max charges?

    For elements, an earth secondary, while thematic, isn't optimal for maintaining a high elecomp, which is a must for this damage-focused set. I suggest a 39/42/42 earth/fire/light spread, like we had with wingweaver/ wishweaver 2 years ago. Everyone loves triple compression armors (it's one of the best aspects of past donation armors like Wish/wingweaver, Frostwyrm, Veywild, and Desert Raider), and that spread should maintain optimal elecomp while having triple compression with energy's allied elements (fire and light are also fairly thematic for the set's mecha theme too). Here's some sample numbers of how I think the spread would look based on wish/wingweaver:

    Fire - 42
    Water - 105
    Wind - 66
    Ice - 95
    Earth - 66
    Energy - 39
    Light - 42
    Dark - 95

    Weapon: The weapon is a strong idea. I just worry that its skill, which is essentially a pure damage skill, will be obsolete for players with the armor, hence my suggestion below about making the armor's elelocked toggle boost weapon skills and 100 proc attacks.

    Also, could the magic version of the weapon pay MP for its spell(s), like the magic wishweaver weapon? This will make it more useful for tome mages, and more thematic/useful for mages.

    Shield: I like the shield, no notes.

    Armor: Everything about the armor is amazing, excellent design. I just have two thoughts/potential tweaks (besides the resist spread). First, could the elelocked toggle mode boost 100 proc and weapon-skill damage like the elelocked mode of Wingweaver does? This synergizes nicely with the weapon skill (and maintains the weapon's usefulness for top 50 donors) while allowing 100 proc players to use all aspects of the build, mitigating the concern that the mounted mode is superior.

    Second, could the Prime Devestator skill/spell use MP if the player is holding a magic weapon? I think mages generally prefer to use their MP for damage skills/spells when possible. (Also, I always love seeing true Void skills).

    Pet: I think giving the pet a Criticality Matrix generating mode is an excellent idea. If we could have three modes (damage, Unlucky infliction, and Criticality Matrix generation) that would be ideal (and the top 100 donation cutoff will be high enough to justify it), but if I had to chose I'd pick raw damage and Criticality Matrix generation over Unlucky infliction, so beastmasters can use it as their damage pet without compressing another energy option. That said, Unlucky and Criticality Matrix is also a strong combination.

    Item: Excellent misc. My only suggestion is to have the damage boost be a generic 20% boost, like Blood Contract, QuadMod, or the Paleskull Misc. Players using these items will want the misc equipped when attacking at all times, both for LS lean manipulation and Criticality Matrix charge generation. It's also hard to justify a one-element damage booster with how competitive misc slots are nowadays, plus lots of players need generic damage boosters and 4000 tokens is certainly worth it. Also, AQ already released an energy misc that increases only energy damage as a summer donation reward - Thunderbird Joust Helm. Limiting the misc's boost to energy attacks would cause them to overlap.

    Once again, great set. Can't wait to see it in action!



    Rastaban -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 8:54:32)

    I could not agree more with Gwen's elemental resistance suggestion. This style of triple compression is a wonderful thing and markedly desirable for armors such as this. Gwen's suggestions for the magic weapon and 100 proc interactions with the armor skill and elelock would also help a wider variety of players enjoy the set to the fullest. I feel she brings up an excellent point concerning the misc, too.

    Instead of gaining a barrier from the shield at max stacks, I think it would be better for it to take after the new Coal Golem armour passive. This has the potential to open a new frontier of boss strategizing and would be highly useful in certain scenarios even as a standalone item.



    ming shuen -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 9:22:13)

    Is it possible to somehow weave in a SC Lean? The Rubicon armour is FD/FO /Dire, a triple lean, so it will be great if this one becomes FD/FO/SC, a triple lean also



    Rastaban -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 10:02:32)

    An SC lean would also be welcome. Can never have too many of those.



    Lorekeeper -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 10:28:07)

    Decoupling the lean from the existing modes, the way the concept is currently designed, would require either making it a third mode with its own additional mechanics, or separating lean control into an additional skill. We can't do the former and still keep the armor within the scope of what can be designed in a week's release, and the latter would push it up to five skills, which would guarantee this issue for future sets like this. It's essential for the implementation of this set to be doable within a week.

    For a few clarifications that aren't covered by typo/general fixes to the main post:

    We've been correcting recent elelocks that erroneously didn't affect 100 procs, so it was my design assumption that Hostile Criticality Matrix would work with them. That being said, we could still reduce overlap by making the weapon skill efficient (Making it better at crit fishing for SP refunds) or refocusing it on stack gain.

    Thanks for the feedback! We'll be keeping an eye on it leading up to implementation.



    CH4OT1C! -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 14:21:11)

    Before anything else, it's important to state that I like the principles behind this set's design. The ability to modify LS lean for each of the individual mechanics, combined with the use of Unlucky and charges, is really interesting. With that said, irrespective of the sanity check that has clearly been done, there are some key issues that still need to be resolved.

    Chief among these is just how dependent this set currently is on the armour. While I'm sure other aspects of the set's mechanics will be of interest to many (e.g., elecomp), a far more fundamental problem is how much other parts of the set currently need the armour in order to be decent. Since @Gwenmay's already mentioned charge issues, let's go with that as an example.

    Currently, three mechanics are proposed to have charge accumulation outside of the armour: the pet, misc, and shield. Let's set the pet aside for a brief moment and concentrate on the other two (don't worry, I will get to it). Being reasonably generous, assuming that the misc diverts 20% Melee to charge accumulation, the player can expect to gain two charges per turn (yes, that does align with the current value of stat drives). This would be the equivalent of gaining 12 LUK per turn, reaching the maximum 180 after 15 turns i.e., it's very slow to accumulate. You might think that, because the shield effect applies only on crits, that'll lead to faster accumulation. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Assuming the shield pays its MC and 3 MRM (i.e., 10% melee) for charge accumulation, has a 10% chance of a LS, and assumes two hits per turn, we can reasonably expect it to provide 1 / 0.1 / 2 = 5 charges per LS. That's six LSs to full charge. Remember, that's also at a base 10% rate; higher rates will reduce the amount of charges gained.

    The tl;dr is that even with both the misc and shield, it's going to take multiple turns and 90% melee investment before the player even approximates the power of a single LUK drive. As I said, I'm also being fairly generous with my base assumptions; for instance, there's nothing to suggest the shield will be paying any more than the MC currently for the charge gain effect (i.e., it could be half as fast as the numbers above). There's also no reason why the misc would provide 20% melee of charges, that's just a typical %Melee value dedicated to these types of effects. Without the armour's 'Unlucky Eater', these items are extremely cumbersome.

    Bringing back in the pet; yes, it would definitely speed things up if the pet generated charges. It's something I thought of as soon as the set design was released yesterday. However, after having a day to mull it over, the less I like the idea. It wouldn't solve anything; it would just reduce the number of players to those below the top 100. The shield and misc would still be slow and unwieldy.

    This is just one example, too. Unlucky is no better - having the misc apply Unlucky is an avant garde (and potentially very interesting) effect, However, in a world in which there are virtually no ways to take advantage of Unlucky, it's not exactly very useful. Again, the only set item that actually exploits Unlucky is the armour. To have so many of the set's mechanics only exploitable if you have the armour raises a major red flag unless you also have a lot of subsequent item support to paper the cracks. I'm also not exactly fond of the fact the armour effectively doubles as a powercrept H-series, given how dubiously balanced that item is.

    The most helpful way of improving the set would be to rearrange some of the armour's mechanics onto other parts of the set in a way that makes the shield and misc more useful. They need to be able to stand on their own. Right now, they're too slow and you can't "spend" the charges (also reserved solely for the armour). Alleviating at least one of these two problems is extremely necessary. It may also help tie in the weapon better too; that item is quite the departure from other parts of the set.

    I won't comment much on most of the ideas proposed by other contributors to this thread, primarily as most are matters of personal preference rather than serious design issues. I don't see a problem with requesting the armour have SC lean, but it's more of an extra convenience for the few SC lean users that both want to use, and can afford to acquire, it. A reasonable-enough request, definitely, but not a true balance issue. With that said, I do need to bring up the proposal for making the Energy damage of the misc into all damage. That elemental damage is the only thing tying the misc to an element. Removing it would make the misc omni-elemental, with all the associated benefits and drawbacks. I daresay that few would mind paying a little bit more SP for their misc upkeep (given misc standards are crazy and we have effectively infinite resources), but I can't exactly endorse the idea balance-wise. Why even have elemental versions if there are no real downsides to omni-elemental options?



    Dardiel -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 14:54:49)

    The more time I spend thinking about this set the more interested I am by it, I'm definitely looking forward to its release. My feedback on particular items would be:

    Weapon: The mechanic basically being SP-to-SP resource conversion that happens at random after you attack does feel strange to me, but I could very well just not be the target audience for the mechanic; on average it'd be no different than just not spending the SP at all, although maybe the value of having a sub-50% chance to get more than you've paid so far (at the cost of a sub-50% chance to get less) has more relevance than I give credit for.

    Shield: I have learned from a past mistake with the Warwolf shield, and would like to pass the knowledge on to this shield that fuels a set-wide stacking mechanic - if the shield only spends its MC for its effect, it will likely feel Incredibly slow especially for characters that only have/use the shield. I suggest adding a toggle to spend player damage for the effect to be increased, which I think would help the shield provide meaningful support to the set mechanic while also highlighting it by making Lucky Strike damage contribute proportionally more (due to LS being 150% damage on top of 90, instead of 100; a 267% change rather than a 250% change even before including the extra boost from Criticality Matrix); alternatively, a skill to spend the turn on gaining Criticality would also allow for some quick initial gains.
    As a minor point there's also a funny thing where a 0-LUK character gets no use from the shield, but 5 LUK or any temporary LUK boost unlocks complete access for the rest of the battle.

    Armor: An energy armor with celerity and elecomp-to-damage attacks, sounds familiar... I do feel like this is an opportunity to consider the level of free power that comes from "attack in FO with elelock against an enemy that's weak to the element, get celerity, then switch to a properly defensive armor for a net result of x2.2ish outgoing damage and x0.8 incoming damage". Other than that and the second coming of the SP-SP conversion mechanic I've got no real concerns, just a small note that the FD mode feels a little under-serviced in comparison; FO is dealing more damage and getting reliable celerity and performing SP juggling while FD "just" inflicts unlucky. I love the armor+misc combination attack, that's incredibly cool and I like the double-stacking requirement, maybe the eat should happen at the end of the attack so that the Criticality Matrix effect can be felt on this "showstopper" style effect.
    I am tickled by the idea of the elelock applying to spells (since it applies even to attacks that ignore armor lean now) although I'm pretty sure that's considered just one step below "war crime".

    Pet: All 3 modes feel really interesting. I think the most interesting is the damage boost when you lucky strike (especially since the pet itself can lucky strike, for a 10% chance that your LS leads to a super pet LS), while the Criticality mode would be generally helpful and unique, and finally the unlucky mode helps players with the armor. I think with that in mind I personally would prefer the damage mode and the Criticality Mode, especially since it would make it a pet that 0-luck players can still use. That Criticality stacking mode might need something else to put its power into once you hit the cap though, since at that point it'd just be a straight damage mode alongside a straight damage mode that's boosted by LS.
    However I must raise a point that Jeanne drew attention to last year - pets are supposed to be 20% melee baseline, but due to both pet accuracy and pet damage scaling with CHA it means non-CHA users are actually getting about 10%. If this pet can be designed in a way where the floor is 20% instead of 10%, it'd be a step toward making CHA less mandatory (especially in this set where it encourages LUK; it'd be optimal to go CHA+LUK just to use the pet).

    Misc: I think having the misc be non-elemental is a good move here, mostly because the armor assumes has a skil that requires the misc - so for stacking it you'd be paying for energy damage that you theoretically shouldn't be using, including on the turn that you do the Void attack. So boosting all elements seems to best fit the intended usage of the item.
    Since the misc applies permanent Unlucky up to a cap, I would suggest that it still just be a regular permanent Unlucky stackable by other sources, so that gear choice can still help without hitting a bottleneck of "you have enough Criticality stacks (potentially due to the armor's eater) but you don't have enough Unlucky and your existing Unlucky gear can't help".
    I would also suggest that the effect has some way to apply a different effect while at the cap / when the infliction reaches the cap with leftover power, particularly for the players without the armor that might otherwise be put off by a misc with a skill that turns off after a while.

    Also from the sounds of it the armor button layout will be some really nice UI, with the mode swap having the mode-dependant toggle beside it instead of under it; I imagine it being a a nice way if conveying that the two buttons are linked to each other, snd not separate skills like the elelock toggle.



    Mananite -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/13/2025 20:57:36)

    Before anything, I'm going to echo @CH4OT1C!'s sentiment about the set's design; I think it's conceptually really cool! It's also a neat look "behind the scenes", showcasing a bit of the design process that goes into a set.

    That being said, I'm not a huge fan of the specifics of the set. In lieu of discussing them as listed in the design doc, I'm going to discuss them in order of acquisition based on the donation tiers (TLDR at the bottom):

    Shield: Echoing @Dardiel's problems with the shield; it needs to be able to pay more to fuel the set mechanic. I can't see a situation where someone would actually use this in lieu of a different Energy shield as-is; it simply can't do anything meaningful with how little it has to work with if it's only given the 5% of a MC.

    With how it's proposed, the shield is barely better in practice than a generic shield from Yulgar, as stacks will take an eternity to generate by itself.

    Misc: It really should be changed to "all" damage and not just "energy" damage.

    My issues with it are the same as the shield's: it can't stand on its own as an individual item as-is. Perhaps move the HP cost damage boost to the misc by making it be a generic damage misc that costs HP to use?

    As it stands, the participation trophies this year are extremely weak as individual items, moreso than usual compared to the recent donation drive rewards. They come off as items that were designed "for" a set, rather than items that were made "in" a set (I.E. they're only good when used with the full Ironhoof set vs. being good items that synergize with the full Ironhoof set)

    Weapons: The worst I can say about them is that they're incredibly "bland", which isn't the worst possible thing that could be said about an item's design. An "overcharged" weaponskill that can potentially pay off the overcharge with crits seems very "perpendicular" to the set's design too, coming off as something that was released later that happens to have incidental synergy with a set based on crits, rather than something that was explicitly designed to work with the effects of the set.

    Conceptually, the weapons are fine (weaponskill that interacts with Luck-based mechanics), but I think it's off the mark making the interaction "it can recoup the cost spent using the skill by getting crits". I feel that moving the "eats unlucky to gain stacks" from the armour's elelock to the weaponskill would make it much better as an item, especially since it opens up more interactions with Unlucky for more people. Perhaps make the skill pay damage to build more stacks, and have it eat Unlucky to zero out the resource cost and make it deal "full" damage?

    Pet: I don't have any huge design issues with the pet. My gripes are with what it "should" and "shouldn't" do. I think the key in what it should do lies in it being explicitly labelled as a "support" pet in its name. Given that the team has expressed a desire to not make more triple toggle pets to avoid powercreep, I don't think it should have a "full" damage mode at all; it should toggle between paying damage to inflict Unlucky and not attacking to generate stacks.

    Armour: I'm going to be honest: I don't like anything about the proposed mechanics for the armour. In order from (relatively) minor issues to major issues:
    - The flavour effect "chance of Celerity each turn" should be removed, given how little is going to be paid for it relative to the cost of Celerity as an effect.
    - I feel that the hitcount should be flipped, with FD having a higher hitcount to take advantage of hit-based effects, and FO having a lower hitcount so it can't take full advantage of those same effects.
    - As stated with my issues with the weapon, the status eater from the elelock should be moved to the weapon.
    - The armour should stay a single element, as having it be compression on top of what it already does is a little too much.
    - I understand that Prime Devastator having a true Void conditional is a "win more" showstopper effect, but I feel that its inclusion only hurts the set as a whole. Given that Unlucky already exists as a status, it would create all sorts of balancing and design headaches unless the set's specific permanent Unlucky worked like Entropy Scourge, and be a completely unique effect that cannot stack with any other source of Unlucky, lest that conditional becomes trivially easy to fulfill (for an example of this problem, the Melee Heroic Titan weapon is a generic Fire Burn, letting all other sources of Fire Burn feed into it).
    - It just does way too much as a single piece of gear. Within the context of the set, it feels like the armour was designed first, with the rest of the set being designed to facilitate its use; without the armour, the set falls apart into an array of LS and Luck-adjacent effects with the only unifying factor being "they can generates stacks that increase luck"

    And my biggest issue is simply *what* it does: A FO/FD Energy armour that has Initiative, an elelock, and guaranteed Celerity. All three of these effects together is what makes H-Series so overwhelmingly dominant. Given that the latter has already created huge design issues for future armours, along with multiple developer statements stating that they're never giving future armours all three effects at once (EG Knightmare Plate, Hyperalphean Slayer, Praetorian Warlock), it comes off as incredibly hypocritical that the team would suddenly turn around and release Ironhoof, an armour that not only has the trifecta of Initiative, an elelock, and guaranteed Celerity, but comes with even more effects taped on top. This isn't getting into the implications if Ironhoof was released as-is, but that's a conversation for a different topic.

    TLDR Conceptually cool set. Move armour effects to non-armour pieces so they can stand on their own as individual items, and further strip the armour down to avoid making a powercrept pay to win version of H-Series that only 50 people in existence can own.



    Telcontar Arvedui I -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/14/2025 7:56:18)

    I structured my feedback to cover 3 major categories amongst the playerbase, in personally-perceived order of importance:

    Category 1: The players who donated >4k tokens but are not placed in the Top 200
    This category covers the largest proportion of the summer donation drive's participants, if not the whole playerbase. Given that this is a thematic set centered around Lucky Strike (LS), I can concede to the notion that players will have no use of the rewards if a) their characters invest minimally in LUK, and b) they've received only the Shield and Misc. However, for players whom either of the above 2 does not apply, I hope that they can get a competitive-enough use-case out of it. To do that, I think we should start with....

    Lucky Strike Manipulation: The ACTUAL crux of this set, IMO. Not Criticality Matrix. For a 2-piece to be able to shift it significantly enough, I hope that each set piece can sift a "step" (quoting from OP) of at least +/- 15% LS rate. At baseline rate of 10%, naturally there needs to be a floor at 0% to prevent wonky math in the code - but if the minimum-of-15% step-shift is implemented, then Shield and Misc alone could crank LS-rates up to 40%, which IMO adds a LOT more consistency into the Shield's charging mechanic outlined in the OP. A lower value will likely reduce the consistency of LS-rates to the point where it loses appeal to players in Category 1, although I suppose it can incentivize players to invest in other non-Ironhoof equipment (spells, weapons) that also boost LS-rates for synergy. 15% also allows a fully-equipped 5-piece set to push LS-rates up to 85%, which IMO is very respectable - although theoretically, 18% to 20% being the magnitude of step-shift per set-piece could also be acceptable....?

    Misc Item: If devs want to keep Unlucky infliction as a side theme, then I would like to suggest to move it to a higher-tier placement-reward set-piece. Instead, let the Misc Item clickable be something that spends resources to increase Criticality Matrix stacks. Yes I know I just said Criticality takes the sidelines to LS Manipulation, but removing the Unlucky infliction would keep the Item's focus on stacking Criticality, passively improving LUK-related performance, be it LS damage or Minor Rolls in status infliction attempts. WRT the (omni-)elemental boost, personally I am advocating for a different direction - let the misc reduce incoming damage of the Shield's element. This further synergizes with the Shield as a 2-piece defensive combo (Armour too), and frees up resource budgets that can be potentially funneled towards more passive Criticality stacking. assuming there's an intended timeline to reach the 30-stack maximum. Also, an alternate mode once Criticality stacks cap, similar to how the Shield functions, would also be nice - this could be where the Unlucky comes back in, I guess?

    Shield: Should the LS Manipulation step-shift is significant enough, per above, the premise Shield wouldn't need to change IMO. I do agree with @CH4OT1C! per post #7 that the numbers may have to be scaled up via sacrificing defensive capabilities, in order to better stack Criticality Matrix. Maybe the Shield could follow Fungibushi weapons' example, and sacrifices inherent defenses to stack on-crit while MC provides upfront stacking value at the first crit?


    * * * * * * *


    Category 2: The players who placed 51st to 200th
    IMO this category should be where the rewards diverge more into the side themes, such as Unlucky inflictions and Criticality Matrix consumption, to further improve on the appeal of the set without armour.

    Weapons: As echoed by other posts, I also don't agree fully with the SP-to-SP conversion aspect of the weapons' clickable skill. Which is why, to align with what I wrote per Misc Item above, I'd like to suggest that the weapons' clickable skill pays additional SP or skill damage to inflict Unlucky instead. If the weapons are still intended to have an on-crit effect, I'd like to suggest incorporating it (further) into the Unlucky infliction. Also, I'd like to suggest increasing, or partially consuming Criticality Matrix stacks (reducing costs, improving the magnitude Unlucky infliction, etc), as part of the weapons' (skills' ?) effect, but I understand if devs want the consumption aspect to be exclusive to the Armour, or if either of the consumption/stacking aspect exceeds the workload.

    Pet: I agree with just about everything @Dardiel says WRT pets in post #8. With the addendum that, should the weapon inflicts Unlucky per above, the pet could perhaps consume Unlucky to increase Criticality Matrix stacks in 2nd mode, instead of stacking passively. This can improve the offensive synergy and stacking efficiency between the weapon and the pet for Top 100 Giftmasters, giving them an alternate 2-piece combo without having to resort to elemental redundancy of the Shield and (potentially elemental) Misc Item. And the Pet can still be self-sufficient in CHA builds, since the 1st mode allows it to inflicts Unlucky by itself.


    * * * * * * *


    Category 3: The Top 50 Giftmasters
    Armour: I agree that the Armour reward for these players should incorporate a degree of exclusivity, which is why I like the premise of Prime Devastator skill as Void output.

  • However, I will agree that the capped Unlucky consumption aspect is unnecessary, per @Mananite's comment in post #9 regarding potential balancing and design issues to wrap around Unlucky. Therefore I'd like to suggest that consumption of Criticality Matrix should be sufficient for Prime Devastator, while Unlucky consumption is simply there to increase the Void (and/or non-Void) damage, and additional cost requirements be paid via resources.

  • I also agree with Mananite that the having the trinity of Elelock, Initiative, and Celerity is too overwhelming. Thus, I'd suggest to remove Celerity as it is not directly tied to LS (and LUK stat as a whole). This should result in less MRM reduction, and FO Merged Mode may instead just pay SP for an on-crit HP Healing....? I am suggesting this because owners are likely to equip the armour and use it's Elelock attack against opposing-element mobs in a hyper-aggressive playstyle, or otherwise combo it with the Shield for set synergy, where the Shield will likely have to inherent sacrifice defenses in order to improve stacking capabilities, both of which on-crit HP Heals can help mitigate. Not to mention the toggle already pays HP to buff damage, so on-crit HP Heals help close the loop/gap.

  • I do think having overlap in "eat Unlucky to stack Criticality" between the Elelocking and my suggested weapons' skills is acceptable, unlike @Mananite, as it should result in increase stacking efficiency towards unlocking Void Prime Devastator, or allow for flexibility of non-Ironhoof weapons' effects when used in tandem with the Elelock.


    * * * * * * *


    I hope to use this opportunity to advocate that tiered rewards that are set-pieces be designed with 2- or 3-piece synergies in mind, to accommodate for players who did not unlock the full set. An obvious implement method, given the current tiers (Item, Shield, Weapons, Pet, Armour) is to synergize the first 2 tiers defensively, the next 2 offensively, with the final tier offering exclusive tie-ins. Or, the first 2 tiers focus on 1 certain status, the next 2 tiers on another synergistic status, with the final tier offering direct synergies with both statuses. Hopefully my suggestions fulfil my former statement. Anything in the OP that I haven't comment upon, I support with no further comments. Devs did a pretty good job homing into the important bits of Luck - Initiative, Lucky Strikes rate/damage, on-crit effects, Unlucky status - so I hope this set becomes well-received by Category 1 donors with LUK investment as well as top-placing donors regardless of LUK investment.



    • Maxtrigon -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/14/2025 8:39:04)

    quote:

    Set Mechanics:


    Element: Energy, though dual Energy/Earth is also considered in case players find it desirable.

    Criticality Matrix: Stacks passively increase LUK and can be consumed to fuel an armor attack. The tentative maximum of stacks is 30, with each stack increasing LUK by 6.

    Lucky Strike Manipulation: All Ironhoof items are clickable to open a menu that displays critical damage information and grants one increment of control over the Lucky Strike 'lean' per set item, allowing it to be shifted one step towards crit rate or crit damage per equipped item with this mechanic.


    Personally speaking I would prefer the set be single element rather than the dual Energy/Earth. While I personally don't mind compression element armors (and use them quite a bit myself) due to the set and the issues I'm going to bring up in regards to how I feel this set does way too much, I think merely creeping up on H-Series is enough, it doesn't need to creep on yet another element as well.

    I'm also mainly going to be talking about the armor and how obscenely busted it is on paper and how dominating it would be in practice. IMO it's doing far too much and is essentially three different armor archetypes at once (H-Series/Void Celestial/WarForged & Warwolf) and that's a problem that I hope I break down enough for this to get toned down or at least my thoughts on it to get through.


    quote:

    Ironhoof Executor
    Tentative function: FO armor. MC pays for skill compression. -MRM pays for initiative boost and a chance to gain Celerity at the end of every turn.

    Hostile Criticality Matrix: Elelocked attack toggle. Eats Unlucky to gain Criticality Matrix stacks.


    Ironhoof Protocols: Toggles between mounted (FD, +BtH Lean, damage split between fewer hits) and merged mode (FO, -BtH Lean, , damage split between more hits), with an activation checkbox by the button to activate the costs of the following mechanics:

    - Mounted mode: After attacking or casting a spell, spend SP to inflict Unlucky.
    - Merged mode: Pay HP for extra damage. After attacking, pay SP to guarantee a turn of Celerity. Additional SP pays for the on-crit refund effect as seen on the weapon.

    Note: While Lean switching between the modes may result in the mounted mode feeling suboptimal to builds other than 100 proc users and FD warriors, it's one way in which the set could be designed to still accommodate the 100 proc weapon without having to lose out on an existing advantage to pay for a 100 proc weapon damage bonus.

    Prime Devastator: Available when the misc is equipped. Counts as a spell if using a magic weapon, and as a weapon skill otherwise. If Criticality Matrix stacks and the permanent Unlucky from the misc are both maxed, it eats both effects and does Void damage.


    Let's just rip the band-aid off first and foremost, this armor is regressing in terms of the power balance that was being achieved thus far with all of the current in game gears and sets to such a point it trends dangerously close to being on par with other broken items such as PCO/CiT/Imbues in general and we can start with the very obvious two sources of celerity. This armor does NOT need two whole sources of celerity, it arguably doesn't even need one but the fact it has both an on chance and on demand already powercreeps H-Series, just in terms of mechanical redundancy. There's also no written limit as well, so theoretically as written, it can go two times in one turn if the player gets lucky which seems to go counter to the now limits of celerity (that being celerity items only give ONE turn more to act instead of TWO). Even assuming that the celerity only procs once I don't quite understand why then the armor would even have either celerity source instead of one or the other as they would be wasted and I think the celerity could be paid for elsewhere (or removed but that's my own personal preference).

    Let's as well dive into the Lean changing, which on its own isn't bad, and while I do appreciate it, lean changing in general has started to also become really popular as well and I have mixed feelings on that personally. I don't mind it, but this also feels just like another mechanic thrown on just to make this armor even more desirable and busted. It's starting a trend where my fear is that the moment there's more options for lean changers what will happen to armors that fill that lean niche (SC/FO/FD) will become depreciated just by the lack of fitting into multiple build types due to being restricted to just one lean. Don't get me wrong either, I understand the desire for the compression and not wanting several armor slots just for FO/FD/SC but with the introduction of even more leans with this year's dono sets, I think this particular one should do more to just highlight one lean and how well it does it versus being the generalist it is attempting to be by being available to all lean types (especially if an SC lean is added).

    Finally the Void skill. No. No no no NO. I cannot stress this enough how many recent premium items have had a True Void Skill/Imbue over the years (Void Celestial/Entropy/Void Queen/) but yet another Void Imbue on an armor that doesn't even make sense to have it in the first place??? Why? This one is the most confusing one since at least with the aforementioned examples, they all have some tie to the Void itself or have a reason to use Void damage. This is an Iron Centaur armor, Centaurs do not need to have Void attacks and tack on yet another busted mechanic on top of an already busted armor concept. Again, H-Series celerity mechanics + Lean Changing + Warforge stacking and now Void Imbue, this armor is taking the best aspects and concentrating it down to one unit. It is incredibly unneeded and does need to be toned down.

    My personal solution is getting rid of the celerity, since its concept is rooted in Warforged, it doesn't need those celerity sources to function as is given past examples. I also think instead of Void, if the concept **relies** on a neutral element, Harm exists and should be the substitute if it really needs it, though personally it should be an Energy spell full stop so it can't even be imbued as well. As well it's the only piece of the set that requires another part so maybe spread that around the whole set. Like make the FSB only need any two pieces and just have them grant another charge every turn instead and replace the celerity skill with the Misc + Armor skill with the fixes I recommended above.

    Anyway those are my thoughts, I would appreciate feedback as well and I really hope even if none of my suggestions get taken, the armor at least gets toned down otherwise it's just going to set a bad example of what premium items are allowed to get away with in terms of power (which has already been an ongoing issue, this is just gonna make it worse imo).



    Lorekeeper -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/14/2025 9:27:29)

    Some important clarification before any feedback is processed.

    Nothing was simply thrown onto any item to make it more busted. That's not how I ever design any concept.

    The reasons to include certain features were as follows:

    Celerity is a feature in the armor as a source of fishing for additional hits to potentially LS. Unlucky, while not essential to the concept and possible to abridge if finding ways to improve stack generation, is there due to prior requests and thematic reasons of tipping luck in your favor — And it's only written as capped as I had the idea of the status feedback signaling that it's at the maximum for Prime Devastator, but that is not essential either. As of Prime Devastator itself, it's meant to be a way to burn the LUK bonus for quicker power if a burn phase proves dangerous enough to trade a restarting of LS damage buildup for raw damage.

    Do note that this is an early design phase, so things are subject to change (But not as far as a complete redesign) based on feedback and concerns, so it's great to see those explained so thoroughly.

    That being said: Rest assured, I am the last person that needs to be reminded of the lore of the Void. We're open to mechanical feedback, but I ask to be given some benefit of the doubt rather than being corrected on lore that we haven't even revealed yet.



    KhalJJ -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/14/2025 12:08:54)

    Set conceptually looks very very cool.

    Favourite parts are the LS lean control mechanism, and the concept of "eat X for charges" in a charge set - this is really great for player flexibility, and feels like a strong "feel-good" feature.

    Very cool that both this and the community set appear to use the updated charge system from Warwolf!

    To echo sensible feedback I think I agree with:

    - Caution on making set items at least passable for those at each tier, well outlined by Telcontar and Chaotic.
    - A little confused at previous staff stance of never making another H-series, and this being that ++ extras. To be clear, I don't really take any issue with making the armor as suggested/ any such armor, just the apparent conflict with previous messaging. This was just my interpretation, I may have misunderstood.
    - The misc being omni-damage boosting, rather than one element, is more generally attractive imo.

    After Warforged, and seeing this preview, I'm inclined to say, Let LK cook!




    ming shuen -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/16/2025 6:18:35)

    Misc: Omni Damage Boost
    I think it will be better to have the Ironhoof misc provide a generic +20% boost instead of an Energy-only boost. Making it omni aligns with the utility standards set by other top-tier damage boosting miscs, and gives a quality-of-life improvement because LS is not restricted to a singular element. It also a great way to provide value to lower-tier donators, they should get something nice too!

    Armour: Triple Resists
    The appeal of LS lies in its big numbers and for that, I think we can amp up the elecomp via making it an Energy / Fire / Light armour with 39 / 42 / 42 resists.

    Increased Charge Generation
    Maybe we can have a toggle on the shield or a full set bonus so that we can gain charges faster. It would help keep LS-centric builds feel fast and aggressive without feeling like they need to wait for power.



    JhyShy -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/16/2025 7:18:08)

    I feel the weapon should also give charges



    Lorekeeper -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/16/2025 12:49:48)

    For some clarification: The intent when clarifying that the Tempest Power Armor is ineligible for cloning was that we wouldn't take requests for elemental clones of it. The armor was meant to plug a gap in warrior builds, and designed well before the changes to Initiative Bonus were a concept. Because it would not have been designed in that way after that change, and we have been backing out of build-homogenizing design to be able to provide a variety of quality items, elemental/build swapped clones were out of the question. That's the manner in which its design was meant to be one of a kind.


    Celerity is one of the tentative features for Ironhoof strictly as a means of fishing for additional Lucky Strikes, whether one gets lucky and rolls a turn of it or spends SP on it. I considered that we essentially could only include guaranteed celerity if the armor was Energy, as it then wouldn't be an elementally swapped Tempest Power Armor with further features added. Ironhoof is emphatically not meant to go back on our word in this regard, so changing the armor's elemental resists would require this specific feature to change.

    The cap on permanent Unlucky was meant to serve as a cue to use the eater, but does mean there is no point in the misc's skill while Unlucky is capped; this wasn't a good reason to cap the effect. However, I'm weighing hands on removing Unlucky from the concept. Along with anything that doesn't make it in, it could be consolidated into ways to get Criticality Matrix faster. This would make the set more aggressive, but require the introduction of a replacement condition for Prime Devastator to access the Void element.

    Another way to accomplish a faster stack gain could be to make the shield pay its MC for skill compression, handling its current mechanic as a toggle and incorporating the stack gaining skill shown in the Warforged set. We could also make the weapon's skill efficient and/or pay a cost for stack gain.



    LUPUL LUNATIC -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/16/2025 13:24:35)

    After seeing the preview and the potential changes for the set's mechanics i can give my feedback regarding some parts of the set :

    IronHoof Weapon :

    After initially reading the weapon's effects, the idea was to gamble SP to get more SP on a LS, however since this effect is tied to using the weapon skill and normally that costs 392 SP (Warriors/Rangers) or 490 SP (Mages) i do strongly feel that you are gambling too much SP for the chance of ... potentially making the weapon skill free but not for actually targetting the actual SP regeneration, so i do like that making the skill efficient, costing less in order to gamble is definitely the way to go for the weapon.
    However,similarly to WarWolf's weapon,adding on top of the efficient skill also a cost to gain more stacks is beneficial (WarWolf added a self Bleed to gain 1 more WHz stack).

    IronHoof Misc :

    I have to agree on the fact that the misc should get changed from +20% Energy damage to a generic +20% Damage boost. Yes i know this will turn the misc into a non-elemental misc (and have slightly increased costs) but it begs the question of why even using elemental damage boosts but also here is also an answer i have : Why use an elemental damage boost misc when it has the same value boost of a generic damage booster misc? (Aka +20% is still only +20% its not more because its only 1 element)

    IronHoof Shield :

    quote:

    Another way to accomplish a faster stack gain could be to make the shield pay its MC for skill compression, handling its current mechanic as a toggle and incorporating the stack gaining skill shown in the Warforged set


    Yes i agree on this change, it will make the MC be used on compression but having the option to skip a turn for more stacks on the Shield should help players that only opted for the misc+shield rewards.




    Grace Xisthrith -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/16/2025 16:39:54)

    Unlucky questions and assumptions: (someone check my calculations)

    Unlucky is a weird status, and it should be really cheap since it provides relatively little value to the player, so I'm doing some basic analysis to try and figure out what we might pay for a strong unlucky effect. I think this is important because it really changes how players might feel about including or not including unlucky. Basically, if we can get a strong unlucky for relatively cheap, that might sound great to a lot of people, if we get a relatively weak unlucky for relatively expensive costs, that might sound not as great.

    Item 1:
    Using a semi recent item standard, Woe Betide
    Comes with a toggle: pay [20% Melee] in SP and take -25% damage to make your foe Unlucky (1 turn, -111 LUK). The mob can resist with a save at a -20 penalty (inflict with STR/LUK, resist with CHA/LUK)
    50% melee invested x (85/75) (-10 BTH lean) / .7 (-20 save) = that gives me 81% melee = -111 LUK for 1 turn (or 1% melee = -1.37 Unlucky)

    Reverse engineered by monster damage:
    Monsters should get something like 15% of their damage from LUK on average. That means 140% melee x .15 = 21% melee per turn. If you reduce monster LUK by 250, in theory this would reduce to 0% melee per turn. So with that we can get that 250 Unlucky is worth 21% melee (or 1% melee = -12 Unlucky). This ignores status use, because I'd rather have more information about what staff are deciding for status use than just pick a random number on how much losing LUK should benefit status users.

    Item 2:
    Here's another standard though, a more recent post LUK to BTH and MRM changes Sign of the Troupe Misc:
    MC compresses a toggle that charges 100% Melee in SP, paid on your next attempted hit, to eat up to 200% Melee worth of Unlucky (sum of -648 LUK) to give you 3 turns of +X LUK Lucky, where X is based on the +STAT section below. The numbers below are how much 100% Melee gives in +LUK spread across 3 turns, so when using the Lv 150 version of the misc, if you eat 100% Melee worth of Unlucky, you'll get 3 turns of +117 LUK Lucky. After use, this toggle goes on a 3-turn CD.

    This item instead values 200% melee at -648 LUK for 1 turn (or 1% melee = -3.24 LUK)

    If we're thinking about whether to advocate for getting unlucky gear or not, I think we should be given more information about what standard the unlucky status will use (and if possible, why it does that so I can stop being curious)

    My general opinion is right now we're being robbed blind by unlucky items in terms of how much benefit we get versus how much we pay, mathematically. The only way it starts to make sense is if you assume that every Unlucky actually benefits the player's status roll by how much it gives (which on some items is basically impossible given how much unlucky they provide at a time) and you assume the player is dumping a ton of resources into statuses, but in my opinion it's just unrealistic in a vast majority of circumstances. Either way, I'd love to get more information on how unlucky is valued, why it is that way, and what value it will be given if used in the set.



    Dardiel -> RE: =AQ= PREVIEW: Ironhoof Set Mechanics (7/16/2025 18:55:15)

    On the unlucky topic, I agree that the evaluation feels pretty up in the air at the moment - I'd also propose that the unlucky status might feel better if it came with a +LSRate lean; meaning that the LS damage is reduced both by the lean and by the unlucky status to double down on mitigating the monster's ability to get much benefit from high damage rolls.

    For example every 2.25 unlucky could also be +1% lean up to a cap of +90% at 250 Unlucky (whereupon they reach a 100% chance of 0 extra damage, in most vases). Thematically it would also continue when they reach negative luck, with the Unlucky Strike becoming a prevalent reminder that the status is putting in consistent work.

    (The status might need to adjust for monster level so that a level 5 monster doesn't need a bunch of Unlucky for a new player to notice the rate change).



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