Impackt: Goodbye Summer

And goodbye old Shop Titans logo!

Blueprints

A cheaper alternative to Bunbun Buckler (still holding the record for longest Best-in-Slot item), the Vanguard Buckler opens up a cheap break-bait choice whilst still providing a good amount of evasion.

The crafting costs are inline as to what we would expect on a tier 7 and it’s possible to remove the herb cost completely. Can’t do anything about the precraft unfortunately.

From a crafting perspective

What we have here is a slightly unusual pairing for the Axe line (using Ether over Jewels) with a low component requirement. The Ether can be reduced to 23 and the Talon count to 2 (bit of a disappointing ascension track there.) Also of note is that the value increase milestone is in the 4th spot instead of the 3rd.

From a meta perspective

Whilst the Shroom Doom takes the place as best axe over the Beeswaxe¹it doesn’t really have much of a place at the moment.

Lords and Chieftains can use the Elegant Rapier which gives the same HP but also more damage, Pathfinders have access to the Dogbone Blaster and so on. There’s some potential use for a Berserker with Warlord but yeah for an item coming this late into the tier it has lower stats than the first pack item of the tier (the Elegant Rapier.)

Superior

Blueprint

From a crafting perspective

A fascinating item – a high tier item that only uses the basic common resources for its craft costs. There’s a milestone to reduce the costs of each of the three resources and the Boreal Gale amount can be lowered to 2. Something else to keep in mind is due to how King’s Caprice calculates favour costs (it goes by total resource cost of an item) this is worth an absolute ton of points if it comes up as a craft.

A very interesting design and a worthy consideration of your crafting queue if you can balance around it.

From a meta perspective

As for where it will fit into the meta – it’s competing against Gaia’s Hold and unfortunately it doesn’t quite come out on top. The majority of Gauntlet users are Red types and generally you want to buff their survivability which means they favour the health from Gaia.

For Samurai/Daimyo i’d consider using these to take advantage of their initial big crit damage but for most other scenarios go with Gaia’s Hold instead.

Flooring/Wallpaper

Summary

• Vanguard Buckler brings a cheap alternative to Bunbun
• Shroom Doom fails to really leave an impact, being outclassed by weapons from far earlier in the tier
• Vanguard Gauntlets have an interesting crafting cost but don’t really pack a punch.

Final Score

Mega Pack: 3/10
Superior Pack: 4/10

1. 5.29 Swan’s Edges/9.07 Barkback’s