Cover artwork by Kiana Hamm, the artist behind many of our beloved skins
Gear changes
Season 10 brought a whole raft of gear changes and then no opportunity for them to be refined, as the dev team were fired by Amazon. This leaves us working with a system that is unlikely to change, which means we can take advantage of the imbalances in our favour.
Contents
The Old and the New
Old and new gear
The first thing you’ll notice is that any gear that is 700 gear score or higher can be upgraded to 800GS. Since the previous gear score cap was 725, this allows a lot of old gear to be upgraded. Additionally, old Named gear below 700GS can be upgraded to 700 using the kiln system and then with umbrals to 800GS.
If you had a decent set before season 10, it’s okay to just upgrade that to start with. At the least, you should upgrade your weapons to 800 as soon as you can, as they make the biggest difference. A lot of new builds will use one or two old pieces.
Old and new perks
All the perks have been reworked, and new perks have the suffix “II”, for example Vicious II. Importantly, this means they are different perks and have their own stack limit.
Old perks do not scale beyond the old caps, so new perks are better in this regard. However, some perks were reworked or are missing from the version II, so it can be useful to have these in your set.
New perks freed from item restrictions
There have always been rules around which perks can appear on different types of items. These rules have been loosened with the addition of the charm socket system in Season 10. Perks like Keen or Vicious, which were previously restricted to weapons only, can now be applied to any of the 10 item types, as long as it has an Offense charm socket. Multiple skill slots or Attunement perks can appear on the same weapon. Many perks can stack up to 5x.
New Gear - Charms, Fixed perks and Infixes
New gear comes with a combination of sockets and fixed perks. Some pieces with come with special perks called Infixes.
Sockets
Fixed Perks
Fixed perks cannot be changed. For some items, such as rings or earrings, there are strong fixed perks so you may want more. For others, such as armour, you usually want more charm sockets so you can customise and stack your bonuses. One fixed perk or two at most is good here.
You’ll notice there is a full range of Conditioning perks so they often appear on gear. Conditioning is a bad perk unless you’re a tank, and even then there are better perks. Basically, you have to get hit once before the perk even triggers, so it’s only good for the second hit. For anyone with low con, a second hit is going to kill you, even with the full 20% increased absoption.
TL;DR – Conditioning is trash
Infixes
Infixes are special perks, similar to the unique perks on artifacts. In fact, some are identical to artifact perks.
They can drop as random standalone perks on gear, or as part of a set bonus. Infix gear has the icon of an artifact of that type, so you can identify it easily.
Set infixes usually require the conditions provided by the set to work, even if they drop on a non set item.
Set Bonus Gear
There are eight new sets that provide different bonuses the more pieces you have equipped. Most of these lend themselves to exploring different playstyles or have a counter to the bonus that prevents them from being too powerful. Creative use of set bonuses leads to a huge range of buildcrafting options.
Item Sets
- Elementally Charged Set – bonuses at 2 and 4 pieces – Catacombs vendor and Soulwarden Forge
- Enrage Set – bonuses at 1, 3 and 5 pieces – Isle of Night and Soulwarden Forge
- Focused Set – bonuses at 2 and 4 pieces – PVP track and Soulwarden Forge
- Overcharged Set – bonuses at 3 and 5 pieces – Catacombs vendor and Soulwarden Forge
- Protector’s Blessing Set – bonuses at 2 and 4 pieces – Isle of Night
- Second Wind Set – bonuses at 2 and 4 pieces – Isle of Night and Soulwarden Forge
- Stifling Set – bonuses at 2 and 4 pieces – PVP track – disabled
- Tenacity Set – bonuses at 2 and 4 pieces – PVP track and Soulwarden Forge
Best General Perks
The perks you want on gear will vary depending what the build is for, however there are some perks that are pretty essential across most gear sets.
Beloved II (or Despised II)
Both Beloved and Despised got an upgrade in Season 10 and add more damage as well as their respective threat changes. For cooperative PVE, Beloved has become an essential perk. It only drops on earrings and is a fixed perk, so can’t be swapped in.
Refreshment II (and/or Refreshing Move II)
Refreshing didn’t make it into the gear upgrades but a new, improved, perk, Refreshment II takes its place. This frees up perk slots on other gear. Refreshment II can only roll on earrings, as a fixed perk.
Refreshing Move II also only appears on earrings, and not weapons like the old version. However, it will stack with the old perk, if you have an old style weapon.
Sacrificial Empowerment II
This is a fixed perk that increases base damage by 1.2% and can be stacked up to 5 times. If you remain above 50% health, there is no down side.
Enrage set 1 piece
The Enrage set is the only one to provide a bonus for having a single piece equipped. This increases outgoing damage by up to 10%, with the offset of incoming damage also being increased by up to 5%.
We originally used the ring from this set for the free 20% leech, with Enchanted Totality as the preferred final perk. However, Unscathed Empowerment can make you very vulnerable to being one shot. Other options are:
- Amulet – one dead perk Stop, Drop and Roll, need to collect the full set of protection types, can’t get double protections
- Earring – no gem slot, Refreshing Move II instead of Refreshment II
- Gloves – decent for a heavy attack build
- Pants – interesting infix
- Chest – you get an Offense slot.
The infixes on Helm and Boots require 3 pieces to get 15 stacks and you don’t want the life drain that comes with 3 pieces, so those are wasted perks. I personally use the earring.
Lifestealer's Draught
It’s worth having one of these perks on your gear for an baseline lifesteal, since it only takes one perk slot.
Global Weapon Ability perks
There are a number of weapon ability perks that are either broken or intended to work whether you are using that weapon or not.
- Stopping Powered – incease base damage by 13% – requires someone to be using the Stopping Power ability on a musket.
- Plagued Powershot – increase base damage by 6.4% – requires someone to be using Powershot on a musket and to also have the Plagued Powershot perk to apply disease.
- Nullifying Oblivion – increase the duration of debuffs on your target by 19%
- Crippling Mighty Gavel – 3.2% more damage against slowed targets – needs someone to be applying slow.
Stacked Weapon ability perks
As mentioned above, stacking an old and new weapon ability perk increases the power of that ability. Some popular uses of this include Leeching Flurry, Enfeebling Skewer, Sundering Shockwave, Fortifying Sacred Ground. The main trade-off is that you lose new perks and charms due to the old piece you’re using to stack. Hoplite or Azoth Crystal gear is good to use as you get Enchanted Ward and Refreshing, plus can choose the weapon ability perk in the Gypsum Kiln.
Protection Amulets
There are a few options here. You can go with a set of Spectral Wrath Amulets and get your Enrage bonus as well.
You can aim for single fixed perk protection amulets of each kind to maximise charm sockets, and match these with the same gem protection.
You can also aim for multiple protections, for example Slash, Strike, Thrust all on one amulet.
If you want to maximise damage, you can put T4 carnelians in your amulet instead (assuming you already have 5 T5).
Gem slots
When sorting gear, look for gem slots first. Generally, if an item doesn’t have a gem slot, it’s not worth keeping.
Gems provide damage bonuses on weapons, and customised protection on armour. Also, in Season 10, Carnelians got an added damage boost when added to armour. As well as generating 10% less threat per gem slotted, you also do 2% more damage to taunted foes.
To maximise damage, use 5x cut pristine carnelians (in runeglass if you can) and 3x brilliant carnelians, for a total of 14.5% extra damage to taunted foes.
Where to get gear?
The new gear is very random, meaning you can no longer target a named item and get what you want. You also cannot craft new gear with the perks you want.
Catacombs Shop
This is the most targetted way of getting new gear. The Sterling caches in the Catacombs shop are gear biased, so if you open a one-handed weapon cache with a Hatchet and Hammer equipped, you will get only hatchets.
This gear drops with:
- 2 Fixed perks
- 3 Sockets
You can also purchase caches for the Overcharged and Elementally Charged sets here.
Soulwarden Forge
his is the easiest way to solo farm gear. There is a solo chest run in Reekwater that drops Soulmarks and the chests can be looted every hour. Check Aeternum Map for a Route (search “Soulmark”).
You can buy lots of things in the Soulwarden Forge near the Spirit Shrine in Reekwater town. This includes caches for the Elemntally Charged, Enrage, Focused, Overcharged, Second Wind, and Tenacity sets.
The main thing you are looking for is the Mutation Cache. It is gear biased, so will drop items based on what you are wearing – equip weight, weapon type. However, it can be any item, so more random than the Catacombs Sterling caches. Mutation cache gear has:
- 1 Fixed perk
- 4 sockets
Elite Chests
Elite chests in max level zones can drop gear with infixes. You’ll usually get 3 fixed perks and 2 sockets and sometimes 4 fixed perks and 1 socket.
Gear Farms
When there are at least 4 players in some locations, the mobs spawn quickly and it’s a fast way to get lots of RNG gear. This gear usually has 2-4 fixed perks and most of it will be trash but you might get something good. At the very least, you’ll get salvage scraps for crafting skill leading to prismatics from aptitude crates.
Mutations
You can get gear with 2-3 fixed perks and 2-3 sockets from all levels of mutations, while 4 socket gear only drops from M3.
Isle of Night
The Isle of Night raid can drop pieces from the Enrage, Protector’s Blessing, and Second Wind sets.
PVP track
Gear from the PVP track will have more PVP perks. You can also get pieces from the Tenacity, Focused and Stifling (disabled) sets.
Builds
Once you get used to the new system, you’ll discover that there is great potential for making a range of builds. But, as it can be overwhelming at first, here is a list of basic builds you may want to aim for. When considering charm sockets, they don’t need to be on the same items as the build, rather you need to hit the same or similar totals for each charm perk. Offense/Defense perks work on both weapons, regardless of which one you are using. Skill charms are stronger on weapons.
Foundation for most PVE builds
- Beloved / Refreshment II earring
- One piece Enrage set (not ring)
- 4 x Sacrifical Empowerment
- Lifestealer’s Draught
- Set of Protection Amulets
- Light equip load (except heavy tanks)
- Stopping Powered, Plagued Power Shot, Nullyfying Oblivion
- Carnelians in armour
italised = group content only
Heavy Tank
- Despised instead of Beloved
- The Unmoved boots
- 4 x Prolonged Favor
- Enchanted Ward / Grit Ward / Invigorated / Leeching
- Set of Protection Shields (if SnS)
- Heavy equip load
- SnS build here | Greatsword build here
DPS Healer
- Old Blessed/Refreshing Move/Skill perk Life staff, or
- Heceta Life staff
- Sundering Essence
- 5x Sacred
- Healing Breeze ring
- Vicious/Rogue
- Nimble Coat
- Example build here
Single Target Healer
- Old Blessed/Refreshing Move/Skill perk Life staff, or
- Insurmountable Vitalization Life staff (Tenacity set)
- 5x Sacred
- Healing Breeze ring
- Nimble Coat
- Example build here – Light’s Embrace
Double Flurry Evade Rapier
- Both old and new Leeching Flurry perks
- Inferno fire staff
- Nimble Coat
- 5x Vicious/Rogue
- Example build here
Bleed Rapier
- Finisher rapier
- Nimble Coat
- 5x Vicious/Rogue
- Example build here (musket debuff tree included)
Weaken Spear/Bow
- Both old and new Enfeebling Skewer perks
- Both old and new Bleeding Sweep perks
- Aconite bow
- Winged Leather Shoes
- 5x Vicious
- Example build here
Rendbot Hammer/Flail
- Both old and new Sundering Shockwave perks
- Sundering Destiny II
- Healing Breeze ring
- Nimble Coat
- 5x Vicious/Rogue
- Example build here
Blunderbuss Inferno
- Close Quarters on BB – Insurmountable Shrapnel from Tenacity set with Keen Speed II as random perk
- Leeching Shrapnel Blast II on weapon
- Inferno fire staff
- Winged Leather Shoes
- 5x Vicious/Enchanted/Skilled Enchantment
- 5x Ignited Calm runeglass
- Example build here
