A: “Hello, and welcome back to our show!”

L: “Yes, yes. Welcome.”

A: “That’s Lex for you, and I’m Ari. Today is a big one, so we’re just going to get right into it.”

L: “Items. One of the things about the game where it’s obvious that they’re important, but realizing how important is often a matter of having it explained or having experience with similar games.”

A: “No matter how much the tutorial impresses on you that they’re incredibly important, almost every new player doesn’t really understand quite what they’re getting into! We’ll try to clear some of that up, but the only one who can really control your understanding is you.”

L: “Something something wildfires.”

A: “So– assuming you have any understanding of the game at all, you know that during the game, you’re presented with a somewhat limited number of credits, that can be larger or smaller depending on how well you’re doing.”

L: “If you’re doing better, you get more credits, and if you’re doing worse, you get fewer. There are catch-up mechanics, but to take real advantage of them requires you to outplay or outplan your opponents. Don’t expect it.”

A: “But we’re focusing on spending those credits today. There are eight primary stats that people look at when they’re looking at item basic stats.”

L: “Base Damage, Magic Boost, Special Boost, Ranges, Loadbearing, Shield Capacity, Shield Strength, and Shield Recharge.”

A: “That’s not an exhaustive list, by any means.”

L: “Couldn’t be. Too many specific stats and such, but those eight are applicable to most builds.”

A: “Base Damage is an obvious one– every weapon, and some special items, have a base damage number that abilities will boost or reduce in actual play.”

L: “The numbers are usually much lower than seems effective– with the right builds, you can pick up a weapon with a listed DPS of a few hundred and end up dealing damage on the order of the mid tens of thousands.”

A: “Largely because the way items work, there’s a few multiplications that go on before any damage is actually dealt.”

L: “The flipside to this is that while the numbers can seem easy to compare, your particular build may have a more or less effective item that isn’t obvious because you don’t see any difference in average numbers or how particular secondary effects combine with your abilities.”

A: “Take the ability Focused Fire, which makes repeated shots against any target for the duration deal more damage. The multiplier starts at one, and builds up at a rate of plus point two for every hit made against the same target for the duration up to ten times.”

L: “If we have a sniper rifle and a rapid-fire laser pistol with the same listed DPS, the laser pistol will come out wildly ahead.”

A: “For simplicity’s sake, we’ll say that the pistol deals ten damage ten times as often as the sniper rifle. By the second shot, assuming the pistol has made eleven in the same duration–”

L: “This is the best case scenario for the rifle, by the way.”

A: “The pistol will still have dealt as much damage as the rifle.”

L: “The distance grows over time, and it’s not in the rifle’s favor.”

A: “Though only because the ability is time-limited. If they had infinite duration, they would once again equalize– once both were capped, at least. In the meantime, the pistol would have had a truly absurdly long time hanging out at the cap, dealing several times the DPS during the ramp-up period.”

L: “Next up are the two boosts, which work differently but are still usually lumped together.”

A: “Magic Boosts are numeric, adding a flat number into the equation of any ‘magic-themed’ ability. This is different from the actual theming or tags of an ability, and instead just a slot-in place that some abilities have.”

L: “Even some abilities that seem tech-themed have this number, and Magic Boosts Affect them as normal.”

A: “Though that is rare.”

L: “More interesting: Special Boosts. Not actually what they’re called. They’re percentage boosts to certain things, which can actually be anything up to and including shield stats.”

A: “They’re all categorized together because, frankly, coming up with actual numbers for all the different types for item comparison would be incredibly difficult without it.”

L: “Ease of use, the bane of accuracy.”

A: “But the blessing of readability.”

L: “Blegh. Readability.”

A: “These boosts usually function as an increase on your base strengths, separate from your ability multiplies and multiplicatively stacking with them.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

L: “Which is why the base damages often seem so low.”

A: “Ranges are self-explanatory.”

L: “Extremely. Some have falloff ranges! But as a whole, simple.”

A: “Some things don’t have listed ranges, and instead have speeds or such. Because gravity is a thing that exists, that’s just a range that varies based on angle.”

L: “Loadbearing seems like a bit of a new concept, but in reality it’s basically cooldown reduction.”

A: “Limited to certain classes of abilities, and sometimes coming with charge systems so you can use an ability multiple times or extend one use beyond the original duration. All that it really means is that it plays with duration or cooldowns in some way. Usually, you’ll find a bit of this on your primary items, and you don’t particularly want to dip into it intentionally.”

L: “As always, there are exceptions, though not too many and it’s very case-by-case.”

A: “The basic rule is that the higher your base damage and lower your Magic Boost scaling, the more you want loadbearing.”

L: “Next up, the shield stats.”

A: “Capacity, Strength, and Recharge. Those first two may seem similar at first, but they work complementarily: Capacity refers to the ‘number’ that makes up the backbone of your shields’ durability, and Strength actually refers to your shields’ ability to reduce the incoming numbers before applying them to the Capacity.”

L: “Because most sources of Recharge are numeric, not percentages, it also makes that more effective.”

A: “The downside is that Strength usually costs significantly more than Capacity or Recharge on its own, and that it’s more effective against small hits than larger hits and damage over time effects.”

L: “That’s why the carry role exists, mostly. Scaling up the ability to break through Strength, so that a single tanky member of the enemy team can’t wipe out your entire team.”

A: “There are ways to deal with that that don’t involve being one of the more effective archetypes, but those take advantage of synergies or combinations that we won’t cover here until more advanced episodes.”

L: “And now with the basics done… the fun stuff.”

A: “The fun stuff! Named items, basic items, specialist items, and consumables!”

L: “Basic items is stuff. Cheap, you buy it, you use it. Usually, this includes the weapons everyone buys first.”

A: “Don’t discount it just because it’s basic, though! Most shield upgrades fall into this category, and everyone needs to get a few of those throughout the course of the game.”

L: “Unless you’re trying to die. Which, given a few of the teammates I’ve had…”

A: “You’ve wanted to?”

L: “I was going to say they seemed to be doing so, but you know what? Both work.”

A: “That’s fair enough.”

L: “Next category.”

A: “Consumables! There are hundreds of them, in a bunch of different effect categories and styles. There’s a lot of repetition, but the ones that are important for most people to be aware of are shield boosters and wards.”

L: “Wards are complicated, and we’ll touch on them later, either as part of the stat breakdown or the role breakdown.”

A: “But shield boosters aren’t! They’re fairly simple things, essentially carriable batteries that can be applied to either your own or an ally’s shields, giving them a burst of energy and restoring a flat amount of shield based on the tier of the recharger you bought.”

L: “Which means they’re more efficient on tanks. You will almost never see them used on tanks.”

A: “Largely because the one buying them is the support, and the person they’re buying them for is the carry. A well placed recharger can easily save a fight by keeping the carry up and dealing out damage. They can’t bring back a destabilized shield, but they can absolutely delay that destabilization.”

L: “And all the other consumables that aren’t ammunition are technically available for everyone, but only really bought by supports.”

A: “Supports have a lower income than the other roles, except a ranger who’s getting choked or a complete zone-out in another lane. It means they don’t get as far in their own builds, but it also means that buying high-powered but limited-use items to supplement their abilities and permanent items is usually much more worth it.”

L: “Not that you shouldn’t buy one as someone in another role; it just means be careful about it.”

A: “Specialist items are different from the other classes, and we’re finally getting into the real meat of Arrows’ system.”

L: “Specialist items like the ‘Charged Warbanner,’ ‘4-Mode Laser Rifle,’ or ‘Chronojump Recharger’ aren’t named, like the next category, but they aren’t basic, either.”

A: “With a higher price tag, these items have some sort of secondary, strange, or multiplicative effect that only some builds can seriously take advantage of. Outside the right context, they may even be detrimental or nearly worthless…”

L: “But in the right context, watch out.”

A: “Most builds have a power curve. Builds that make good use of Specialist items have a power wall.”

L: “You’ll be completely destroying them, wondering whether you need to look out for some deathball of an ultimate, when wham! suddenly they’re outperforming you from fifteen hundred credits behind.”

A: “That said, that power doesn’t come free. Dependance on these items means that they start out with an often nearly-crippling weakness that you may be able to punish. If you can’t beat the on the front end, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to worry either!”

L: “‘Cause Specialist items? They don’t get Named variants.”

A: “Which brings us to Named items, the bread and butter of late-game Arrows. Usually named after gods and heroes from myth, sometimes after places, and with a few folk tales scattered in there, these are the items that everyone interacts with at some point or another.”

L: “Expensive. Powerful. Upgradeable. And customizable.”

A: “If you want to make your build viable, step one is usually finding a Named item that fits it.”

L: “Even if it’s a secondary boost to a primary Specialist item, you can usually find one. And whether you can find one or not, bets are that one exists, it’s just hard to find.”

A: “But that’s for the AI to know and for us to find out.”

L: “I’m still not sure it’s real.”

A: “But we operate under the assumption–”

L: “To my eternal dismay.”

A: “I… don’t get it.”

L: “You wouldn’t.”

A: “O… kaaaay…”

L: “Yeeesssss.”

A: “There… There are no hard limits on the items you can have, by the way! Beyond the purely physical, that is. You can’t wear two powersuits, because they’re skin-tight and overheat when they don’t have either cooling hookups or air contact. You could buy two rifles, but you’d need to be able to aim and fire them, or at least switch between them effectively. But you could easily buy a powersuit and a set of power armor, because the armor goes over the suit, adding its own strength on top and providing more material between you and getting squished by enemy abilities.”

L: “Technically, you can wear two powersuits. If, you know, you have an ability or passive that lets you neutralize their issues like ‘Winter Skin’ or ‘Heat Absorption’. Like everything in this game, the only rule to which there are no exceptions is the rule that everything has an exception.”

A: “That was quite possibly the most complicated and least useful way that you could have phrased that.”

L: “Heh. No, it’s not.”

A: “I… won’t challenge you on it. Especially because we’re out of time!”

L: “Just as planned. Next time, Roles. Because I want to torture Ari.”

A: “Wait, what!? I thought–”