Impackt: Back to School 2020

I liked the title idea anyway

_{Author note: Trying an idea where I give a brief overview of what the latest pack contains and what it means for the crafting and/or hero meta. Saves people having to camp the academia page anyway.}

Blueprints

Starting off with the low tier item in the pack, the Erudite Vector is the second dagger in a row to be released with critical chance on it. Nothing else worth noting. If you don’t have Kunai/Ice Pick can be used as a cheapish ascension target.

From a crafting perspective: This is unpleasant. Iron/Steel is generally a jewel pairing, it is hard to match up against all the main resources if you want to stick to items and not enchants.

From a meta perspective: Valedictorian boasts an extra 10 ATK and 60 DEF over the Dawnflower at the cost of losing 14 HP so at Legendary quality we’re looking at 30 ATK and 180 DEF vs 42 HP. The majority of the main classes that wear rings are Green-type and they will value the HP of Dawnflower more so this ring is kinda meh; there might be an edge case or two involving a spellblade/ranger but that’s about it.

Cosmetics/Furniture

These are the 2 new furniture items displayed against a neutral floor/background. They have no special animations.

The top has 2 parts that can be colour changed:
-The Tie and Armband share 1 colour
-The top itself is another, so you can have some pretty interesting colour schemes.

As for the school bag, I’ve recorded the animation below:

Superior Item

From a crafting perspective: A superior precraft requirement should generally send people running. In the case of Spellward though the milestone to lower that to normal is the 2nd crafting one instead of an ascension. 19 ether is a lot but ascending can fix that. With its value qualifying for the full 25k bonus from rounding (see here) and low castle mat requirement it’s a pretty good craft so long as you ascend it once.

From a meta perspective: finally we can ditch the raven mask and actually be able to tell our heroes apart! For the vast majority of spellcasters this will now take the spot for best-in-slot due to the extra health it gives (casters generally lack in that department.) 100% recommend using this going forwards unless dropping Raven would increase your hits-to-kill.

Conclusion

• Dagger blueprint is useful if you don’t own Kunai or Ice Pick
• Ring will only be best in some marginal scenarios, loses to Dawnflower otherwise
• Superior item is the new best item for spellcasters who can wear it. It’s also not a horrible craft.
• No animations for the furniture

Final Rating
Mega pack: 3/10
Superior: 7/10