Hello, adventurers, and welcome back to Wildspace, where you’ll meet new friends and hopefully say farewell to foes new and old! The first lockbox in our 28^th module, Adventures in Wildspace, is the Doomspace Lockbox. Along with the standard lockbox rewards and chances, our two headline items are the Zodar Armor mount and the Beacon of Meteor Swarm artifact.

 

Mount: Zodar Armor

Zodars are mysterious beings, known for their stony silence and their seeming lack of emotion. It is rumored that they can only speak up to three times in their lives. Legends also speak of them being able to cast Wish, though those legends also say that the zodar who cast it is then destroyed, turning to dust.

What, then, is this armor? Was it fashioned in the image of a zodar? Did a zodar, in its final moments, wish for its body to remain in pursuit of a distant goal? Regardless of why, this armor will allow you to ride it from within, and will assist you in combat.

 

Summary

• Slots: Barbed, Enlightened, Universal, Universal (Regal preferred)
• Combat Power: Single-target damage attack with a 15% self-buff to each of Damage Reduction, Damage Dealt, and Outgoing Healing.
• Equip Power: +Power, +Forte

 

Slots

This mount comes with four insignia slots. Its static slots are Barbed and Enlightened, and of the two Universal slots, the final prefers Regal insignias. This means that, in the stable and at full efficiency, the following 4-slot insignia bonuses are available:

• Enchanter’s Hex (DPS focused)
• Lionheart’s Perseverance (Tank focused)
• Warlord’s Motivation (DPS focused)

 

At the cost of the 20% Preferred Slot bonus, you can also access the following 4-slot insignia bonuses:

• Master’s Precision (Situationally beneficial to all roles, though mostly suited to DPS)
• Mender’s Covenant (Healer focused)
• Accursed’s Resolve (Situationally beneficial to all roles, though mostly suited to tanks)

 

Combat Power: Actions Speak Louder

The power in this armor is best used with planned bursts or in advance of big incoming damage. On use, this power damages the target. In addition, it buffs the caster for 15% Damage Reduction, Damage Dealt, and Outgoing Healing for 10 seconds.

We hope this power will be desirable for all roles in high-end content. Though its primary effects benefit oneself instead of the party, the breadth of the effect should be useful when a little extra “oomph” is needed, and the lack of class restrictions on each of the buffs may provide a little extra benefit outside of min-maxing consideration. We think it might also be useful for players struggling outside of party-focused environments, or players who like to squeeze value out of off-class stats; 15% damage reduction is a nice cherry on top of the 15% damage dealt buff for DPS classes, for example, and tanking paladins may find the healing bonus to be situationally useful, too.

Values at 100% Mount Bolster:

• Direct damage: 2400 magnitude
• Damage Reduction: +15%
• Damage Dealt: +15%
• Outgoing Healing: +15%
• Duration: 10 seconds

The duration is 10 seconds regardless of Bolster percentage. Magnitude and buff values vary depending on Bolster.

For the number crunchers, here’s some extra information:

• Cast time: 0.6 seconds pre-cast, can cast while moving.
  • Note that if queued (e.g. waiting on an at-will to finish), and an Encounter or Daily power is hit before the power begins, the Encounter or Daily will execute instead.
  • Aside from the above, there is an 0.1 second span immediately after casting where Encounters or Dailies can interrupt the cast. In practice, we hope this will not present any issues.
• Range: 80 feet.
• Affected targets: Damage only strikes the target. Buffs only apply to the caster.
• Stacking behavior: Buffs stack additively with other +% buffs to the same stats.

 

Equip Power: Otherworldly Force

Continuing the “Forte combos” trend, this equip power grants the standard ratios for two-stat powers, split between Power and Forte. At 100% Mount Bolster, this comes to:

• 2250 Power
• 2700 Combined Rating
• 2250 Forte

 

We hope for this to be a useful stat combination for DPS and Healers, with some potential use for tanks.

 

Artifact: Beacon of Meteor Swarm

With this artifact, we wanted to look at the Token of Chromatic Storm artifact and upgrade it to the current maximum item level, while providing tweaks to the artifact’s stats and power to make it more directly viable for use.

 

Summary

• Item level: 1500
• Use power: AoE barrage centered on target, plus 10-second “10% increased damage taken” debuff to all targets struck, a stun, and a DoT.
• Stats: 33% Crit Severity, 33% Crit Strike, 33% Combat Advantage

 

Use Power

The Beacon of Meteor Swarm casts, as you might as expect, Meteor Swarm. This deals about 81% of an artifact’s damage budget, but it’s made up for by a DoT that applies another 45% over 10 seconds. Not only that, but it also applies a stun with each meteor, and a debuff causing the target to take 10% additional damage from all sources for 10 seconds.

Major change, compared to Token of Chromatic Storm: All meteors strike the target, with all AoEs centered on the target. Which means the meteors do not normally miss the target. (However, they also do not follow the target.)

 

For the number crunchers, here’s some extra information:

• Cast time: Instant lock-in, about 0.4 seconds of animation lock.
  • Roots the player during cast.
    • Roots the player for less time than other similar artifacts. This was a bug discovered during the writing of this blog, but depending on feedback, we might leave it as-is.
  • Animation cancelling feels a little weird; hitting Indomitable Battle Strike (an Encounter power) during the artifact’s 0.4s cast time resulted in the Encounter power being interrupted, not the artifact.
    • This didn’t reproduce for Punishing Charge, so this might be specific to the power used.
    • During the 0.4s cast time, anim cancelling with Shift powers will case the artifact not to trigger, and not to go on cooldown.
  • Stun is applied on first meteor strike, and reapplied with each strike.
    • Stun duration is 4 seconds PvE, 2 seconds PvP. However, due to the meteor reapplication, a single cast can mean a 6.5 second stun in PvE.
    • No diminishing returns on stun in PvE.
  • First damage tick is applied immediately after the cast, so 0.4 seconds after button press. Each meteor hits 0.5s apart, with the final hitting 2.5s after the first, for 6 meteors total.
• Range: 80 ft
• AoE radius: 25 ft
• Max targets hit: 15 (prioritizes closer to center of AoE)
• Stacking behavior: Stacks additively with other unique Damage Taken debuff sources.
  • Does not stack with other iterations of the same power.
  • Debuff name is Damage Vulnerability: Storm.
  • Does not stack with Token of Chromatic Storm’s Damage Taken debuff (which has been reclassified to vulnerability type Storm, though retains its own name).
• Multi-hit considerations:
  • The damage taken debuff does apply to the damage dealt by the artifact.
  • Crit and Deflect are rolled once and apply to the entire power. (If the first hit crits, all hits will crit. This includes the DoT.)

 

We expect that DPS players will find the most use for this artifact, especially for artifact burns or AoE encounters where control is needed.

 

Stats

The stat values are standard for an Item Level 1500 artifact, with an even split between all three specific stats:

• 1,125 Critical Severity
• 1,125 Critical Strike
• 1,125 Combat Advantage
• 1,275 Combined Rating

 

We mainly expect this stat combo to find use among DPS players.

In Closing

As always, we hope these new headline rewards are appealing to you! These lockboxes require an Enchanted Key to open, and retain the same reward structure as before, including plenty of items that will help you continue to progress your character overall. As always, we’re open to feedback that’ll help us develop features and offerings for players like you.

 

Happy unlocking!

Vincent “Terramak” Malley