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Children of Asha - New High Elf Set


Flix

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Presenting another set created from Dmitrius154's models! This one is also themed around Heroes of Might and Magic. This set is heavy armor and has numerous defensive bonuses.

 

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Children of Asha
Asha is the primordial dragon, creator of the world of Ashan, sister of Urgash and mother of the six elemental dragons: Elrath, Malassa, Sylanna, Arkath, Ylath and Shalassa. While she is well-known as the "Dragon of Order", Asha appears in many different forms. Asha and Urgash fought against each other in the Genesis, during which Asha banished Urgash into the heart of her world. However, she was wounded in that battle, and hid in the moon in order to heal herself. Asha renders the fate of all mortal beings—she spins forth their destiny upon their birth, measures it throughout their time in the physical world, and then embraces their life force upon death.
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Helmet: Elrath's Luminosity
Elrath is the Dragon of Light and patron of Angels. Elrath himself is usually not depicted as a dragon at all in the art of the Empire, being thought as an abstract "Holy Light". He has golden scales and feather wings. He attacks not by breath but by light beams fired from his eyes.
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Arms: Malassa's Secret
The black Dragon of Darkness is the Faceless foe, the Slithering Shadow with a hundred faces and a thousand whispers. She is the most intelligent dragon and is also called: "Keeper of the deadly secrets". She may spare a life one moment, only to snuff it out in the next. She may offer comfort to one weary traveler, while cruelly destroying another. Malassa is a fickle and dangerous mistress and perhaps the most dangerous of Asha's children.

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Legs: Sylanna's Contemplation
Sylanna is the Dragon of Earth and patron-deity of the Elves. Worshipped by druids, rangers, hunters, farmers and herders, she is peaceful and cautious compared to her volatile siblings. The Dragon of Earth is the stolid, slow, even-tempered one among the Elemental Dragons. Peaceful and cautious, Earth acts only after long deliberation and study.
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Gloves: Arkath's Vehemence
Arkath is the Dragon of Fire, and has always been worshipped by the Dwarves. He is rash, hasty, and ill-tempered. The Dragon of Fire is ruled by his passions and impulses, rather than by logic and cool discourse; these traits make him a terrifying force in battle.
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Boots: Ylath's Scrutiny
Ylath, sometimes also called Sylath, is the silvery-white Dragon of Air. Young and impetuous, the dragon of Air is the seeker of hazardous knowledge, of crafts that are handed down by the shortlived humans from father to child, of myriad facts about the world which he views from on high. Like the wind, he travels everywhere to collect all the sights and sounds he can pick on his way.
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Belt: Shalassa's Sagacity
The blue Dragon of Water is humble, quiet and secretive. She is the serene mystic, wisest of the dragons, and her knowledge is only second to her sister Malassa, the Dragon of Shadow, for her watery realm is ripe with forgotten lore and treasure. In all things, she values diplomacy, versatility and adaptability. Yet, if she decides to act, she is swift and indomitable.
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Torso: Sar-Elam's Oblation
When the war against Urgash's and Asha's creations began, Sar-Elam, the first of the Wizards, became the first and only mortal to touch Asha's conscience and became a creature with the powers and abilities of a Dragon-God. He used his new power to banish the demons into their infernal prison of Sheogh, sacrificing himself in the process. For his deeds, Sar-Elam became known as the Seventh Dragon.

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Stats are from Gold difficulty, item level 120.

Edited by Flix
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Some times less is more, that's why I like Taarna so much. I mean, the only thing that's really armor is her one shoulder, the rest of it's basically a bikini, and I don't even think her boots are metal. However, some times more is more. I never thought I'd like a fully clad female, but I must say that I really like this set.

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Congratulations on getting another part of your mode done, Flix!

 

However, I have a bit mixed feelings about this set:

On one hand, my first thought was - "Yay! Finally a set of High elf armor that looks like armor and doesn't make you think that some of her eqipment was stolen!" (that's what her Iron Set makes me think, as it's a heavy knight's armor + panties). Don't get me wrong, I don't mind sexy elves, just like variety. And the fact that you based it on HoMM Dragons is another thing I like a lot, because it's some pretty nice lore and matches well with number of set items (and because Sacred, HoMM and Dragons all hold very high places on my personal list of interesting things). Putting it simple - I really like the idea behind this set.

 

On other hand, sometimes less is really more. And I don't mean the amount of armor. It's just that this design has so many things going on at the same time, it makes me think that it would be better if textures looked a bit simpler. How about trying it without the black stripe on the inside of the legguards (leaving just the iron main part and black plate on the outer side)? And maybe knee-caps would look a bit better if they matched overall "glossy black + gold trim" theme instead of current "matte black + white trim"? Sorry for nitpicking...

 

Also, is it just me, or bonuses on legguards and armguards look very powerful? Three very good modifiers + two high-quality sockets... Might not be overpowered by themselves, but I can't help thinking that equipping the legs, arms and belt and swapping chestplate for Velaria's would give you an over-protected elf. Maybe you should try moving some bonus to chestplate instead - won't make it overpowered, as now it looks weaker than aforementioned Velaria's Garment, but can make wearing full set and not just arms and legs more attractive idea.

 

And again, I'm sorry for nitpicking, as you're doing really great job making amazing new item mod for community to discover.

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Feedback, glorious feedback. Thank you!

 

Bonuses:

I think I'll move Regeneration Time from the legs and Detrimental Magic Effects from the arms and move them both to the armor. Then Defense Value can go to the legs and Block Close Combat to the arms. That should balance things out a bit.

 

The arms will still be mighty. I could give it only one socket to compensate, or make it two Silvers instead of a Gold and Silver. I may reduce the Damage Mitigation values as well given how OP that modifier is.

 

Design:

First, the textures have been slightly altered from these pics. Gauntlets are now black instead of brown, and the blades on the kneecap and forearms are no longer yellow (they're now gold to match the other gold pieces). Also the black inner thighs (seen in #'s 5-9) are now lighter and colored (as seen in #'s 1-4 and the first post). The pic at the character screen (very first post) is the most current look. These are fairly minor changes though so the pics in the gallery are pretty much the final design.

 

Second, I have to say I'm extremely satisfied with the current look. This set IS busy, it's basically three sets combined into one (Raven, Pearl, Diamond). I did a lot of tweaking to try to get the colors and textures looking uniform (I can post some rejects if you like, might add a little perspective). Maybe it's because I worked through a dozen other combinations of color schemes that didn't look as good as what's here, but I don't think I could do much more to this set to get it looking any better than it does now. So I'm a bit reluctant to start chopping pieces out of it, because it's Dmitriy's design and also because I like the look of the existing elements.

Edited by Flix
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Good ideas about the bonuses. Having Regen time on chestplate would make it attractive item for a mage to wear. As for the arms - having block chance is doubtfully weaker than detrimental effects (as there is extreme ammount of enemies that try to attack you in close combat), and with two silver sockets it would still be powerful. Don't think you should lower mitigation though - its values are on par with other set items of the same level, besides HE can't have toughness, so for her mitigation is less overpowered than for others (she is never completely invulnerable). Maybe giving the arms block chance instead of detrimental effect and leaving one gold socket would suffice (though I know that much lamented gloves from the Virtues of the Seraphim set have mitigation + two sockets + two yellow modifiers, but there was always talk that this item is a bit OP).

 

As for design, I didn't know how much experimentation you did on it, and I understand that you don't want to alter the design. And at first, I failed to realize that last pictures were of a different edit than the first one and thought that with in-game lighting it just looks different than at the starting screen. So I perfectly understand why you don't want to change it and again apologize for my critique. And by the way, it's not three, but five sets merged together - there are solid parts of Iron Set on chest, arms and legs, and decorative bits from Special on gloves - so yes, it's busy.

Edited by Silver_fox
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5 sets smashed into one, that's how much it takes to finally cover the High Elf lol. Good catch with spotting the Special set elements. I thought I checked the Iron set but I guess I didn't notice it, although it's obvious to me now. There may be a few more visual tweaks I can do then...

 

I'll update all the pics with final versions so it's not confusing.

Edited by Flix
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Man, the more I dig into this set the more things I'm discovering. Apparently 5 days with it isn't long enough. There's elements of the Iron set on the back of the helmet too!

 

I'm going to have go in and try out some custom textures, to get the various gold pieces to match up. Some are orange, some are yellow, some are closer to copper. Currently the blue glowing effects from the Special and Pearl elements don't quite match up either (one being more aquamarine, the other more violet).

 

I'll probably make a few varieties, and see what people prefer.

 

In the meantime I updated the item stats in post #1.

  • Arms now have a Bronze and Silver socket instead of Silver and Gold. Damage Mitigation has been slightly lowered as well.
  • Regeneration Time on legs and Defense Value on torso have been swapped.
  • Armor Values on torso slightly increased.
  • Gloves now have some Fire Armor.
  • Boots now have some Poison Armor.
Edited by Flix
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First of all I would like to say that I do deeply respect and honour the effort you guys are doing on those things! Coming up with new sets and ideas for them is, I guess, not that easy especially as you have to use what is already there.

But than I have to admit that I'm with Silver Fox on this set. In a way it feels to me too noisy. But I also can understand You, Flix, fully that You don't want to change anything on the work of someone else, in this case Dmitriy.

If I'm allowed to make a suggestion, I would recommend to try to "reduce" the "colours" down to three. As I can see, the "main" are black, dark blue and gold. In my opinion, if the metal/iron parts could be matched to these "main" colours, the overal impression should calm down!?

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Вы смешны в своих попытках рассуждать об имбалансности сета. Вы видимо не хотите видеть что у той же Серафимы есть два дополнительных элемента доспеха и как следствие дополнительные сокеты для заковки. Опять же, говорить о "слишком большом" параметре DM на вещах для высшей эльфийки глупо, т.к. есть всего 1-2 элемента, где может встречаться этот modifier, и он не может быть двойным, это делает невозможным собрать большие значения DM и в целом делает высшую эльфийку очень слабой в живучести.

___

You are ridiculous in our attempts to talk about the overpower of this set. You probably don't want to see that the same Seraphim have two additional piece of armor, and as a consequence of additional sockets for jevels. Again, talk about "too large" parameter DM on things for the high elf is stupid, because there are only 1-2 element where can meet this modifier, and it cannot be double-bonuse on one piece of armor. This makes it impossible to collect large values of DM and generally makes the highelf very weak in survivability (oneshot on niobium for some bosses).

Edited by mibbs
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Well, mainly what I wanted to make sure is that all pieces had some value, and that there weren't some pieces that were overpowered within the set itself, compared to other pieces.

 

The High Elf can also gain Damage Mitigation through Incandescent Skin (Fire), Crystal Skin (Ice) and Cascading Shroud (Physical), so she's not helpless. But I think, in terms of melee combat, generally she should be more weak than the Seraphim, it's the design of the character. But this armor should help the High Elf survive much better.

 

I spent all night trying out some color variants for the set. I think, except for one, none of them are actually any less "busy", though the colors may be more coherent. I'll try out some more ideas and post the results in a few hours.

 

I still happen to like the original design. ::Shrug:: But who knows, I thought some Dragon Mage set designs I had were just fine and then I just kept working at it until I struck gold.

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Don't let the comments get you down, Flix. You're doing a good job here - this is a good defensive set that offers a choice of items with many useful defensive modifiers. As for mitigation, it's not hard to notice that Mibbs put a great value in this modifier, but it's by far not the only useful defensive modifier in game. There are many people in this community who ran the High Elves through Niobium Hardcore, and they weren't building their defenses around mitigation. So as long as this set has various defensive modifiers to offer, it would be useful without having extremely poweful pieces. Besides, it already seems a pretty good choice of fighting suit for a higher level character (aspect-oriented sets are good for buff suits, but their bonuses to CA levels start to loose their value later in game - a that's also the time when you would want more defense).

 

Though if you haven't yet tired of tweaking the bonuses, how about swapping Defense Value (legs) and Detrimental Effects (arms). If I remember correctly, mitigation and DoT -% are considered yellow quality modifiers, so if you swap these two, you'd have 2 yellow+white on arms and yellow+2 blue on legs. Maybe it would be slightly better balancing.

 

As for design, the thing that stands out most as far as glow is concerned, is a bright-turquoise collar that comes from the Pearl set. I don't know if you tweaked that yet, but maybe it's worth trying to make the glow a bit less intense/ less bright?

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Wow, this is the set that keeps on giving! Just discovered elements of the Leather set on the legs and pelvis. ::Laughs insanely::

 

Tinted red/pink here so you can distinguish them:

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And the ugly perils of making those elements lighter (they need to stay dark):

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No new pics tonight, sorry, but I should have a nice array of changes tomorrow.

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Finally realized where these elements come from (in pink):

 

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Shoulder armor from the female Inquisition guards. Had to load it into 3DsMax and look at the materials to figure that one out. Add the Human officer's cape and we've got at least 7 different sets of armor composing this set.

 

Ok, I've finished editing the armor and somehow I've wound up with 5 variants, all of them actually pretty kick-ass looking. So, all I need to do is just get some pics uploaded (ETA in the next 12 hours) and maybe some community input will help me decide what should be the "official" skin for Children of Asha.

 

Balance changes: suggestions noted, thinking it over.

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Flix, that's awesome! Really, seriously awesome!

 

My own vote would be for the following: Whatever you choose as a final Asha skin, please include other color variations as random drops (like all other sets do in game - they have one skin for unique set and others drop on random items). If including these models into droplists for random things is too much trouble, then please, make them at least an optional additional download. These designs are too good to lose.

 

When I asked you to tweak the textures, I have not thought you'd go for such complete overhaul, but maybe it's good that you deed - the results are interesting to look at. So yes, the 'Hand of Balance' design is what I had in mind while asking to make golds and blues match and make black more uniform. I understand why you think it a good bet for the official skin. On other hand (not of Balance), I thought about such design because, being a refinement of original, it requires the least amount of new ideas and severe tweaking. As you spent you time and creativity and came up with those other ideas anyway - they must be considered.

 

Golden and silver designs are both very cool, I think them equal and like them a bit more than the balanced version. For whatever reason, my personal favorite is a green one, but I'd probably be alone here. And I really like how both green and gold versions look with that shield (it's not really visible, but what I can see looks good). I agree that the 'Rust' one is less fortunate than the others, but still not a bad design.

 

Long story short - if you like Golden Girl, go for it and nobody would fault you, because it's a wonderful design. If you're afraid to alter the desing you were given and want to honor what Dmitrius made - Hand of Balance is good-looking too. But personally I would like to see green and silver designs also making appearance somewhere.

Edited by Silver_fox
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> ".. Flix, that's awesome!.."

Here comes heavy back-up for that statement: man, that's an incredible effort you put in those textures! Beautiful screens too!

 

My favorite is.. "Hand of Balance".

I have to add that "Huntress" is probably the most original of these variants, and I also like "Arctica".

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Beauties Flix!

My favorite is Huntress. The green and the shine work together perfectly, I think there is great synergy tween the colors, and the concept of her being clothed metallically like that, makes me see this as being ultimate call of war armor.

Love it

 

:)

 

gogo

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What else should I say beside what had already been said and adding another +1 to Silver Fox comment!?

If it would be me and if I would have to chose only one, I might go for the Arctica simply because blue is my colour! But all of them are in their colour equally beautiful!

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Well...so many surprises in just one week away. This is some amazing work. I liked the green one best of all and red least so the fact that red is being abandoned and all others making it in in some form or other suits me fine. Very awesome.

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  • 2 months later...

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