Original Post — Direct link
about 3 years ago - /u/PonPonWeiWei - Direct link

Originally posted by SpookyMarsCasting

I disagree. The whole purpose of the upgraded starters is to be a 6th full item late game. They should be in balance with each other.

The bigger problem here is how much it takes for Ob Shard to be worth picking up. With Coin getting nerfed again it makes the issue even worse.

For what it is worth the general goal for Starter Upgrades internally was to shoot for about 110% the power of other T3s. They ask players to lock themselves into potential build options very early on and we felt it was important for these to always feel like a + so that decision feels good. It's why we recently just announced buffs for basically all the Jungle Starters as they didn't meet that goal.

As for this post; a bit of math.

Let's use Ra's 1 as an example since its numbers are nice :

335 + 100% Magical Power. In the above build we have 725 before we add either Sacrificial or Obsidian Shard. We also have 10% Penetration from Rod Of Tahuti.

Let's assume 3 targets. 100 Magical Prots. 200 Magical Prots. 300 Magical Prots.

Sac 100 : (335 + 840) * (100 / (100 + (100 * .9))) * 1.15 = 711 damage.

Sac 200 : (335 + 840) * (100/ (100 + (200 * .9))) * 1.15 = 482 damage.

Sac 300 : (335 + 840) * (100/ (100 + (300 * .9))) * 1.15 = 365 damage.

Obs 100 + Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (100 * 0.6))) = 712 damage.

Obs 200 + Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (200 * 0.6))) = 518 damage.

Obs 300 + Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (300 * 0.6))) = 407 damage.

Obs 100 + No Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (100 * 0.7))) = 670 damage.

Obs 200 + No Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (200 * 0.7))) = 475 damage.

Obs 300 + No Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (300 * 0.7))) = 367 damage.

So Obsidian Shard pretty directly competes or outperforms on all targets compared to Sacrificial Shroud when its passive is consumed. However; when its passive is not active it does require a high amount of protections on the target to compete. In general this item is probably quite close to a point of balance if it can compete with an item that provides more Power and damage amplifies by a raw 15%; although the comparison is tricky. A small bump to its Magical Power for example make these comparisons much more favorable (and probably makes it a default go to). Their goals are a bit misaligned so one-to-one comparison is a bit strange.