This Month's Target of Ire Is:

[Havral]

The latest in a long line of rants from the PvP community is this: The Lieutenant's Helm. It's only available in the Henge of Denravi ("Home of Hated Equipment"), costs 500 gold, 8 steel ingots, and 2 bolts of silk to craft. 60al, +10al 'gainst physical, and lacks an innate attribute boost.

There's a pretty good reason why it's so disliked. Notice the mod?

It's an absolute hex-killer.

Curious, I dropped some of my rapidly-diminishing stores of materials and cash onto buying this (In the last week or so, as my thoughts turn towards PvP, I've bought a full set of Droknar's Gladiator's, runes for that set that matches my main, a new pair of Platemail boots that I'd destroyed to get a major/vigor rune off of when I found a sup, a pair of Stonefists, a pair of platemail gloves that I also destroyed in rune salvage... Oh, and orange dye for the lot. Just as well I'm cheap on that account.) and ran a test run in Grenth's Footprint while ostensibaly looking to capture Dwarven Battle Stance (That Droknar's hammer was expensive too.). Two, hideously painful and long-lasting hexes being Rust and Ice Spikes.

Yep, I can say that halfing the hex duration was really beneficial in both counts. Man, I can't honestly believe that this helm has slipped through the cracks for so long.

Jormund on the Guild Hall forum (A primarily PvP one, which makes me wonder why the hell I still hang around there) did some more experimentation with the Lieutenant's Helm and some Me/N hexes in this thread and the numbers are quite astounding. Want to reduce a crippling hex specced at 12 down to 0? Slap this helm on yer noggin and go wild in the arenas. The only skill that's actually more damaging with the helm is Wastrel's Worry.

But basically, as reaction to Jormund's post, people are jumping on the bandwagon in asking for the removal of this helm. Anet required less prompting to remove the infamous SoA axe.

Personally, I'd like to see this helm added to the PvP pre-made list for reasons I can't exactly explain. In short it boils down to this: The SoA could be farmed en masse by someone prepared to rush pre-Searing and a few post-Searing quests. To get the Lt. Helm you have to make it to an oft-skipped outpost in an oft-skipped part of the PvE campaign to get something that only one person of one particular prime profession can use.

But meh, it'll probably get removed soon. Not even "removed" in the same way that the Denravi Sword was, but retroactively wiped from the game like the SoA axe.

[Swiss Mercenary]

It'll hopefully be fixed when the championship is over, considering that I'm sure that the alpha testers are among the most vocal in the 'complain over pve pvp disparity' department.

[WarBlade]

How many of these out-of-the-ordinary armour items are there and what do they do?

I know of the:
Lieutenant's Helm
AL 60 +10 vs. Physical
Shortens Hex Duration

Stonefist Gauntlets
Lengthens Knockdown


I don't have a Mesmer or Necro primary and have heard of some unusual Necro boots. Are there others?

Heh. I tried google on: "lieutentant's helm" "stonefist gauntlets"
Guess what page comes up near the top of search results. 8)

[FoxBat]

Heh I kinda realized this on my own without reading any of the posts, wonder what's taking everyone else so long... this helm is great , especially for a W/N as I don't have anything to deal with enemy hexes. I recently overhauled my armor, shifting the weapon runes to my gauntlets, just so I could try this helm out.

Hmm, so should I start stocking up on these in case they are merciful as with the denravi sword?

[WarBlade]

should I start stocking up on these in case they are merciful as with the denravi sword?

What for? They're customized.

[Swiss Mercenary]

How many of these out-of-the-ordinary armour items are there and what do they do?

This is an out-of-the-ordinary item, in the respect that it is not available to a PvP only character when selecting your equipment. If it were, nobody would be complaining about it.

However, in the category of 'out-of-the-ordinary-but-not-broken', there are:

Stonefist Gauntlets
Lengthens Knockdown

Bloodstained Boots
Reduces casting time of spells that target corpses.

Regal(?) Attire
+15 armour when casting spells (Mesmer) - you only need one piece to receive the global bonus.

Knight's Armour
Reduces damage taken by 2 - you only need one piece to receive the global bonus.

[KingOfPain]

I have known this for a long time too - see Jinni's mix and match outfit on the fashion page: Lt's helm and Stonefist.

People like to brag. (Not that I was keeping quiet because of pvp vs pve issue; I didn't know it isn't available for pvp.) Every little secret is... um, nvm, I think I will keep my mouth shut on this one. ;p (which made this post almost pointless)

Even if/when it gets the nerf, it still looks good with the mix and match

KoP

[Seijin]

I could care less what they do with the helm. I mainly use it when running as my weapon runes are in my helm and I don't feel like spending anymore on runes to move them somewhere else. Seriously, Wars have too many types of helms.

The HoD sword I happened to get 2 of before they changed them. They're not great. You get a whole whopping 2e extra (+5 sword +12 offhand for 17e...a staff with +10 and +5 insightful is 15e). How many 2e cast spells are there??? I think there's some staff you get from an early quest that gives +9 energy, +3 > 30% hp, +3 > 60%, +3 > 80%...or something like that.

I know what I wouldn't mind getting back is the old collector longbow that I had that gave +5e. That'd be nice. I'm kickin gmy own ass for pawning it to the merchant.

[Havral]

The thing with the Lieutenant's Helm is that, contrary to the French, Spanish, Italian, and German descriptions, it reduces hex duration on the wearer by 50%, not 20%. For quite a few hexes, this will reduce their length to something below what they'd be able to cast if the attribute was specced at 0.

Insanely useful in PvE Tombs, also an insanely useful and simple counter to warrior-hate hex builds.

[FoxBat]

What for? They're customized.

Doh, stop thinking for me.

Ah well, I'd rather see them nerfed to say 20% than removed if it comes to that. But as for mass hysteria, seems only the Guild Hall has complained about it, not a single topic on gwonline or guru.