Elementium tools/armor – are they good or do they need a buff?

Wormbo

With this post I would like to gather some opinions on the Elementium tools and armor, to see if they potentially need some form of upgrade.
Currently, Elementium is considered a "sidegrade" from Manasteel – same stats and usage, just with a bonus ability and higher durability. For reference, both manasteel and elementium tools and armor have stats that resemble those of iron tools, except the tool speed and mining level are slightly higher so the pickaxe is able to mine obsidian and can (barely) instant-mine stone, similar to a diamond pickaxe.

Current Elementium bonus abilities:

pickaxe discards common stone types (can also be added to the terra shatterer)
axe causes mob head drops (only vanilla heads, i.e. zombie, skeleton, creeper, wither skeleton, and piglin; also players and guardian of gaia)
hoe lets tilled farmland start fully hydrated
shovel mines entire columns of gravity blocks
shears can be used like a bow to shear all nearby shearable mobs (one at a time)
sword and armor have a chance to spawn pixies when the wearer is hit (sword also increases pixie damage); chances stack to 57% with a full set of armor and the sword, plus up to two Great Fairy Rings for additional 25% chance each

Let us know your thoughts on Elementium items and what, if anything, you would like to see improved (and how, if you have details).

artemis

Personally i think it makes sense as a sidegrade lore-wise. I see manasteel and elementium as complements in a way. This opinion is just based on vibes though really, not considering the mechanics and what makes sense progression-wise

Wormbo

In the dev notes I've seen "make pixies more enticing" as a suggestion, like have them use different attack modes, making them faster, maybe even have upgrades for the sword and armor pieces. The pixies predate vexes by over two years, so maybe those (and allays) could be inspirations for possible upgrades.

adarsh

Mentioned on Discord but better logged here:

Make at least one Pixie always spawn when taking damage from a hostile source with the full armour set equipped - with a chance to spawn more than one with an Elementium Sword and/or Great Fairy Ring equipped. The set bonus could be "Call of the Fae" or something 🤷

The above would go well with the addition of Pixies being able to protect/defend the player in some way, perhaps by blocking a single hit - this would need a cooldown.

Other suggestion was changing the recipe for elementium armour to one involving the Smithing Table, with the application of an Elementium plate + Pixie Dust to regular Manasteel - imo this makes more sense than using 48 Manasteel to craft yet another entire set of armour.

I think Elementium tools are fine, maybe they could also build off of their Manasteel counterparts. I appreciate that Dreamwood would need to be added somewhere. It just feels kinda bad to have obsolete tools lying around in a chest (looking at you, Manasteel Shears).

LeoBeliik

I don't think a manasteel to elementium upgrade recipe would work very well here, unless you use elementium to make terreasteel armor (either as base recipe or alternative recipe), because there's little incentive to use the pink armor over the blue one (not typing manasteel and elementium every time I'm too lazy) besides the pixies, and even then, would it be worth the double materials (double as in, you would need 2 sets of blue, one for pink and one for terra).. I dunno
IMO we could have a boost here for pink armor, be diamond level, ~~maybe increase the discount to 20%.~~ (I was convinced terrasteel was 35% discount but is 20% so nevermind)
for the pixies.. well first make them fast because they're quite useless rn (literally snails), they do block projectiles if they hit them so that's a little good thing about them, maybe you could also have them orbit the player if they survived and there's no more enemies around (max of 3 or 5)
For the tools... they're kinda weird.. the shears... I don't think I have ever seen anyone use the special effect of them, specially when you have a drum that does the same for free.. but I don't know what could it do instead (maybe the range shear could be like the horn of the wild but with silk touch?)
The hoe, dunno the use of the hydrated farmland, but the best I can think is aoe farmland so I guess it's good enough
Pickaxe I think is good as it is, it gives an actual different use for the tool, I would love if you could add blocks to the list it destroys (in game not thru datapack)
Shovel is ok I guess, maybe make it a little faster? since we don't have a terra shovel
the axe is literally the best think in botania don't @ me
and for the sword.. well.. I dunno, like, really dunno.. I can think a lot of stuff that doesn't really work on minecraft so I guess it's good as it is with a little bump?

EDIT: wait I forgot, for the shears, alternatively, could make the secondary effect drop string instead of wool (with a better conversion than the mana recipe)

Wormbo

A thing that doesn't quite sit right with me is that the book mentions the elves traditionally use elementium armor and a terra blade to challenge the guardian of gaia. This implies that they do have access to terrasteel (somehow, even though they don't have manasteel), yet choose the armor type with less total damage reduction stats. (I guess the lore could be interpreted as "it exists, but specifically the elven clan you contacted doesn't have easy access to it", which is why they want you as additional source.)

I like the idea of always having a "body guard pixie" around, although maybe it should be limited to when there's an actual reason for it to be there. Like, it could spawn immediately when you are attacked, or when you have line of sight to a hostile mob. The great fairy ring could add bonus pixies to this.
Maybe the system could go something like this: Wearing the armor set, or a ring, adds defensive pixies that spawn as soon as trouble is in sight. They would be responsible for anything in your immediate surrounding area. Maybe they could be equipped with a shield (could be a property of an elementium shield to let pixies have one as well) and attempt to block incoming projectiles.
The pixie spawn chance still stays, and it spawns offensive pixies that primarily take on ranged threats that hit you. These pixies aren't just like homing projectiles as the current ones are, but more like vexes with multiple attacks and some health. The defensive pixies would respawn a short time after they got killed, but for the offensive pixies there would be some kind of cap that scales with the number of elementium equipment items you wear (i.e. armor pieces, sword, and great fairy rings).

KiNg

I like the idea of revamping the pixies to diversify their effects, although I suspect stuff like a "bodyguard" pixie might be pretty jank, and killing nearby enemies isn't always good (like iron farms). One option could be each armor piece grants a single defensive pixie that passively provides some amount of defensive boost that gets consumed upon taking damage. So for example, a full set would provide 4 pixies, each of which can sacrifice itself to block/absorb/prevent a single heart of damage. I also like the idea of an elementium shield further improving the defensive capabilities. This would make elementium very good when you expect to take infrequent, larger hits, while terrasteel would have the more consistent damage reduction.

Pookly

KiNg Having different effects for different pixies would be quite cool. Maybe 4 types, one to protect, one to attack, one to debuff, and one to buff.

danone__

KiNg Think the elementium armor and tools are fine, the only problem I have problems with pixies, i don't think they do much and the "me do headbutt" is a boring attack

I think an upgrade to the mana gun with a proper mana lens (magnet maybe?) that captures the pixies and shoot them like bullets would be very funny

and kiNg's idea of every amor piece give an different pixie i think it's very great, and could be like:

helmet - when hit, have an % of spawning a pixie that heals 1 heart and disapears
chestplate - when attacking, have an % of spawning a pixie that makes your weapon do 1 more damage and make a chain reaction to nearby enemies
legs - when hit, have an % of spawning a pixies that boosts your speed for x seconds
boots - when attacking, have an % of spawning a pixie that goes through floor and slightly knocks up the hited enemy

artemis

I got an idea while reading this thread, which i'm just going to throw out there:
Currently, terrasteel is made by "upgrading" a manasteel set, right? What if you could also do that with elementium, creating terrasteel plated elementium armor. And the current terrasteel armor would be terrasteel plated manasteel armor. They would be visually different, and the elementium version would keep the elementium buffs, and the manasteel version would have manasteel-like buffs (are there even any buffs for the manasteel armor? or just a discount?)

Wormbo

artemis Elementium is a strict upgrade over manasteel, in terms of armor abilities, as adds pixies and some durability, without any other changes than the crafting/repair material.
If terrasteel-plated elementium armor did the same compared to terrasteel-plated manasteel armor, that would be an interesting change of the "meta". Suddenly there would be a benefit of maybe not going straight for terrasteel, skipping elementium. In fact, the change could be severe enough that terrasteel-plated manasteel armor might become situational, e.g. in certain non-standard progression variants where Alfheim is locked behind more requirements than just terrasteel.

artemis

I guess this would further establish elementium as a sidegrade to manasteel. Which i'm not sure how viable is to do or if it would make sense.