December 2007's Item of the Month - Aegis Flux Incapacitator

[MagiNinjA]

A new item! Exciting. The Hero's Cape from November will still be in the store for this month only as it was the very first IotM for TH.

Discuss away!

Personally, I love it a lot. It's shiny WITH light analogues and it's a shield! I LOVE shields!

[Ryme]

Well, the damage reduction was supposed to cap at 20 and isn't presently, so I need to fix that. (If that's a complete dealbreaker for anybody, I'll perform a refund.)

But I'm not sure that the quantity of bonuses is necessarily a thing to focus on, at least not for me. Not that it's the only standard to go by, but a number of KoL donation items in recent months have a wide range of effects (bottle-rocket crossbow, pilgrim shield, navel ring). I think I'm likely to alternate between lots of mid-level effects and a few really good effects. My belief, which may be completely off base, was that these were 4 moderately good bonuses, whereas the cape's 2 bonuses are quite good in my opinion. It of course depends on your goals whether this is true, and maybe I calculated badly.

The cape represents my intended level of quality for a 10-star donation item, and what I think most future items ought to come close to. If the shield overshot that mark, that's my mistake, and I'll try to balance better in the future.

[Jesus]

The Cape's +10 PP/turn and +item are great. They pretty much let you cast spells at will and the +item% is twice as good as the next two pieces of equipment combined.

As for the shield...
+20 to maximum HP -- half of a silver star
Attacker takes 5 damage -- close to a Paradox Naught
+20% resist fire, ice, electric, and acid damage -- 4x forcegloves
(1 x your level) damage absorption -- offhand, the only place I remember DA is kneepads, and they give +2

Can discharge elemental attacks after charging for a couple rounds.
Rounds as in rounds, or rounds as in turns? Or both? I mean, higher level characters don't get involved in too many long-round battles.

[edit: Rounds as in both, apparently. And you get to choose the element to fire off. But it costs 5 PP to use the elemental attack, and while that's a reasonable amount, it's not obvious that it would cost anything; I figured it'd do random elemental damage randomly. But I suppose that's the price you pay for being able to choose.]

I haven't actually used it yet, but it looks pretty cool. Maybe not "holy crap, that's awesome" cool like the Cape, but that's a nice mix of effects. Hell, this + a Paradox Naught, and anything that hits you will take 11 damage. A few rounds of that would knock a lot of enemies ass over tea kettle.

I said "ass over tea kettle". I'm so proud of myself.

[Ryme]

That's supposed to be turns, not rounds. I tend to be really bad about mixing those two up.

[Jesus]

The Cape is good for everyone. If you've got one, there's no reason why you wouldn't use it.

The shield is good for low level characters, for the HP and damage.
It's also good for high level characters taking on enemies who scale with level. That being said, it's almost a must-have for powerleveling.

But for anywhere you can kill things without trouble, you might as well use a Flashlight instead.

[TheK3vin]

I shall donate, as I've said before Ryme, ASAP!

[Lxndr]

I'll admit, I'm a bit sad that you have to manually choose when the shield goes off. The description suggested random discharges, and that's what I was really hoping for.

I can live with it, though. I just won't use that feature much.

[Cristiona]

I'll admit, I'm a bit sad that you have to manually choose when the shield goes off. The description suggested random discharges, and that's what I was really hoping for.

Same here, actually. If it got overloaded every so often and released a blast, I'd be very entertained.

...or blew off your arm?

"You acquire an effect: Needs neurosurgeon"

[Lxndr]

Man, I already need one of those in real life. I hope I don't get that in game too.

Anyway, if it gave off a blast automatically, but less often than if you did it consciously, I think it could be balanced out somehow.