What’s in your transparent backpack?

Introduction

Some long time ago, or, for someone, recently, every one of us had to pack a school backpack. In the morning, or in the evening, independently, or after a long period of parents’ prodding. Absentmindedly forgetting the agenda, or, purposefully, the gym clothes. By an old soviet habit, someone named their backpack a briefcase, forgetting that a briefcase is carried using only one hand, not on the back. Another person had a satchel, imitating the military and provoking the classmates to do jokes together. Everyone had their own memories. Where am I going with this, you may ask?

This. It was on September of last year. Our administration, possibly inspired by the students hurrying to school, allowed the heroes to yet again ‘’pack their backpacks’’. They introduced a new slot for ammunition after the Rayzar’s Challenge – a backpack, to be more specific. Truth be told, it cannot be packed in the ‘’school’’ meaning of this word. It can only fit in one thing and not just any thing, in fact. This article will be about the artifacts made for the newly made ammunition slot.

Artifacts’ description, links and characteristics.

From the moment that the tenth slot of ammunition was introduced, there have yet been only two events with a reward made for the backpack slot. Those are Rayzar’s Challenge and Castle Siege. The result was an emergence of five artifacts for the new slot. They are all trophies, which means they can only be bought from other players today; the leasing of these artifacts works analogically. Down in the article, there are the characteristics, the appearance and descriptions of ‘’on the back’’ artifacts.

Features of the artifacts. Flaws, bugs and interesting moments.

• Artifacts for the backpack slot cannot be purchased in the artifacts’ shop. At the moment, there are no shop analogues for the tenth slot. Turns out, that backpack artifacts are only available for purchase or leasing from other players.

• Artifacts for the backpack can’t be enchanted. It is unknown whether it’s a bug or not, however, the ‘’on the back’’ artifacts aren’t written in the list of artifacts to be enchanted.

• Backpack artifacts can’t be placed in a depository. It’s a mistake related to the previous statement. It is because the artifacts on the depository are sorted by enchantments, and so, because backpack artifacts can’t be enchanted, they also cannot be deposited. The only way to lease something is straight from another player.

• These artifacts are located in the Misc section of an inventory. The same section as chests of abundance, potions, treats, TGI and some types of gifts. These also cannot be deposited in a depository.

• Backpack artifacts are located in the ‘’Miscellaneous’’ section of the market. This is the same section, where TGI’s, gloves, arrows and compasses are sold.

• There is no default artifact for a backpack. These five artifacts are described with a phrase ‘’Equips in your inventory.’’ Instructions like these already exist and relate to additional items. For example – a shield is a default artifact for the left hand. Daggers, arrows, scrolls, a compass, not being default items, have a qualification: ‘’Equips on left hand.’’ The situation with right hand, ring and chest slots is similar. However, there is not in the backpack slot.

• Unlike the name of a topic, sending to an old performance of KVN, the backpack in LWM isn’t transparent. ‘’So what?’’, you may think, well, it’s just that even an empty backpack slot is showing as a white spot above personal images and New Year’s characters’ images. It isn’t the best aesthetic, is it?

• The Cube of Equality was made as an element of balancing EWL’s for territories. This can be supported by its’ ‘’code name’’ that goes into the link to the artifact (id=bal_cube). It’s true, actually, the balance against battlewise wizards, playing from golems and attacking-factions is now on the side of the latter. With the introduction of this artifact, attackers gained some chances of defeating battlewise wizards in battles.

Areas of use. What battles can a backpack be used in and in what battles is it necessary to pack it.

Where can one go with a full backpack?

The same battles, that allow non-shop artifacts. Those are:

• Battles for facility control (assaults, defenses, taxing, re-takes, takeovers);

• Hunters’, mercenaries’, thieves’ and rangers’ guilds;

• Group battles and duels outside of the Tactics’ guild;

• Events without restrictions to artifact types;

• Quick tournaments

Where should one use a full backpack?

• In EWL-battles for facility control. The format in which both sides fight has to also have the tenth slot filled and to the maximum. More modifiers for the god of modifiers! In all seriousness, the next section is dedicated exactly for the correct choice of a backpack artifact for EWL battles.

• For HG/MG record battles. When using an enchanted beastbane set or other excellent equipment, in order to achieve the possible maximum, a couple of extra stats will only prove useful. The Cube of Equality should also not be forgotten about, as it also works in the guilds.

• Events without a restriction to ammunition and dynamic balancing. The so called ‘’high’’ competitions also require maximum ammunition. Higher levels of such events are sometimes difficult to defeat even in rare sets. It would be a shame to lose because of the lack of a few stats, don’t you agree?

Using spheres and cubes in different types of battles isn’t proven useful. If one needs to maximize their effectiveness – it would be cheaper and more profitable to switch 2-3 ‘’bare-minimum-full’’ artifacts to other better analogues of those artifacts, or equip enchantments that are more effective. For example: 5x12 instead of 5x10 on a weapon, or an armor with ignore instead of a regular armor. An exception can only be a Cube of Equality that would seriously increase the quality of battles against mechanisms.

What to put in a backpack before a EWL-battle?*

In order to answer this question, another question must be asked: ‘’How will I be killing a lodestone golem across me?’’ In this situation, everyone except chaos DE’s and classic wizards using a chaos build (and other casting builds, absent from this topic), will answer as one: ‘’I shall surpress them and shoot at them with my creatures. The last piece standing will be dealt with using magic.’’** The effectiveness of this ‘’surpression’’ on opponent’s golems is guaranteed with the Cube of Equality. This artifact is necessary for all attackers, defenders and tanks. It proves useful to casting battlewise wizards, too, to fully implement the attack bonus in mirror fights. By the way, 2% additional initiative can be compared by usefullness of modifiers with the Cube of Destiny and the Sphere of Mysteries, which makes the Cube of Equality a clear choice*** for the abovementioned majority of builds an factions.

With that, anyone who is betting on magic and has such a low attack rate and enchantments that no one will notice +70% physical damage to a golem, the choices left are out of the Cube of Destiny and the Sphere of Mysteries. This choice will come to the answer to the question: what’s better, +1 attack or +1% initiative. An attack point is useless for the same reasons as bonus damage against mechanisms: a caster’s army is adapting a defensive stance, not attacking the opponent. However, 1% of initiative will, with a high chance, allow shrews to be faster than forest keepers or berserkers, and take on a defensive position with the troops earlier. The stats of wizards on low and middle levels are equally strong. If you have way too much mana (it is never clear for a caster DE, having an unholy necromancer in a battle), you can try the Sphere of Mysteries, in other cases, a Cube of Destiny is shown to be better both price and stat-wise.

*Let’s make this clear, that the Cube of Strength and the Cube of Vitality lose completely parameter-wise to the Sphere of Mysteries, so they will not be reviewed.

**Yes, yes, having multiple BW’s as opponents, they often have to be destroyed using the army. And a demon playing using Hellfire, even though is classified as a casting build is forced to attack the golems with their creatures.

***If you are absolutely sure about the lack of BW’s in a threesome/pair against you, you can take a Cube of Destiny or a Sphere of Mysteries which are better stat-wise, but the author suggests you don’t do that. The only exceptions would be UN’s or BW’s at a defense from taxing. Ultimately, no-one is insured against failure.

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