Welcome to Wildspace, adventurers, where even folks from Faerûn cannot fully prepare for the flora, fauna, and the foes they’ll face! The first lockbox you’ll come across with the release of our 27th module, Spelljammer, will be the Miniature Giant Space Lockbox. Along with the standard lockbox rewards, our two headlining items are the Giant Space Hamster mount and the Xaryxian Defector companion.
Mount: Giant Space Hamster
Those familiar with Minsc and Boo may recognize this name! It turns out that when Minsc described Boo as a “miniature giant space hamster,” he may not have been joking. Giant Space Hamsters are real, and with enough luck or enough opens, you can have one of your very own!
Summary
- Slots: Crescent, Enlightened, Universal, Universal (Regal preferred)
- Combat Power: PBAoE Shield on allies and self, CC immunity and Movement Speed buff on self
- Equip Power: +Crit Strike, +Forte
Slots
This adorable creature comes with four insignia slots. Its static slots are Crescent and Enlightened, and of the two Universal slots, the final prefers Regal insignias. This means that, in the stable and at full efficiency, the following 4-slot insignia bonuses are available:
- Executioner’s Covenant (DPS focused)
- Accursed’s Resolve (Situationally beneficial to Tanks and DPS)
At the cost of the 20% Preferred Slot bonus, you can also access the following 4-slot insignia bonuses:
- Master’s Precision (Situationally beneficial to all roles, though mostly suited to DPS)
- Mender’s Covenant (Healer focused)
- Trainer’s Restoration (Situationally beneficial to Tanks and Healers)
Combat Power: Hamstphere
The friendly nature of the Giant Space Hamster lends itself to support. On use, this power shields the activating player’s party (including themselves). In addition, for the caster only, it grants Crowd Control immunity and massively increased Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
We hope this power will find use by tanks and healers in high-end content, or anyone looking to provide a little extra survivability when outgoing DPS isn’t an issue. We also hope that the extra movement speed may be a fun tool in the kit for speedrunners, or may be a way for tanks to get out of AoEs they’d normally have to take to the face.
Values at 100% Mount Bolster:
- Shield: 20% of each target’s Max HP
- CC immunity
- Movement Speed: +45%
The duration is 10 seconds regardless of Bolster percentage. Shield and Movement Speed values vary based on Bolster.
For the number crunchers, here’s some extra information:
- Cast time: 0.6 seconds pre-cast, no post-cast animation lockdown.
- At launch: Interrupted by Encounter powers, Daily powers, and tactical mechanics (e.g. dodge and block). If interrupted, the power will neither take effect nor go on cooldown.
- In a patch after launch: Cast can be animation cancelled immediately and will still take effect.
- Currently does not root the player during cast.
- The above behavior may be tweaked based on live feedback. The lack of rooting causes some issues with sliding while casting and moving, but we felt functionality was the most important part here.
- Range: 50 foot radius, centered on caster.
- Affected targets: Any allies, maximum 15 targets, with priority based on distance from caster (closest gets highest priority).
- In a patch after launch: This will change to all members of a party (including everyone in a separate party in a trial). No max targets, will still affect companions.
- Stacking behavior: Currently coexists with all other powers that grant Shields or Temporary HP.
- In a patch after launch: Overwrites Shields or Temporary HP from most other powers. Coexists with Shields and Temp HP from companions.
- In a patch after launch: Overwrites Shields or Temporary HP from mount powers. Coexists with Shields and Temp HP from companions as well as player powers.
Terramak also apologizes for the extreme stretch of a portmanteau that came in naming this power (“Hamster” and “Sphere”), but is not sufficiently apologetic to change it.
Equip Power: Otherworldly Determination
This equip power grants the standard ratios for two-stat powers, split between Critical Strike and Forte. At 100% Mount Bolster, this comes to:
- 2700 Combined Rating
- 2250 Critical Strike
- 2250 Forte
We hope for this to be a useful stat combination for healers, as well as some DPS classes with favorable Forte allocations.
Companion: Xaryxian Defector
This companion is grounded more directly in the story of our newest module. The actions of the Xaryxian Empire are not condoned by all of its subjects, and this astral elf is a role model in standing up to power. She will gladly assist you in fighting those loyal to Prince Xeleth, and the bonds you build in this battle will persist far beyond.
Summary
- Companion Enhancement: +Critical Strike on self and companion, no proc required. Caps at 5% instead of the proc version’s 7.5%.
- Offense Enhancement: 3:2 ratio CritStrike and CritSev percentages, capping at 4.5% and 3% respectively.
- Combat style: Ranged AoE, with two targeted AoEs and one cone AoE.
Companion Enhancement: Enduring Precision
Until now, nearly all Companion Enhancements have been proc effects, where the player has a 10% chance to receive a buff when striking enemies. In testing, the buff had between 66% and 80% uptime, but wasn’t reliable.
This one, marked by the Enduring prefix, does not require a proc. It always applies to your companion and yourself as long as your companion is summoned and is not downed. It still functions with augment companions as well. And you don’t even have to be in combat to see its effect on your character sheet!
The actual buff is up to 5% Critical Strike (based on the quality of the summoned companion) to yourself and your companion. This is lower than the proc version (which capped at 7.5%); we felt this would be a reasonable tradeoff for its relative reliability.
Offense Enhancement: Xaryxian Precision
This is a relatively standard stat combo at a different-from-usual ratio. It can be slotted into Offense and Universal slots. The values are:
- 4.5% Critical Strike
- 3% Critical Severity
- 750 Combined Rating
Though we expect that most high-end DPS players already have a version of this stat combination, we hope that the different ratio adds just a little bit of extra min-maxing / stat tweaking room. And for those who haven’t yet gotten their characters to their ultimate goals, this is a great way to get your crit machine going. Healers may also find occasional good uses for this stat combo.
Combat Powers
This companion is in the ranged AoE archetype. She’s an archer with exploding arrows, sticky bombs, and starlight magic. She’s at her best when she targets an enemy in the middle of a group. In internal testing, she appears competitive with other ranged AoE casters, and settles in at about 20-30 ft. away from her target.
Exploding Arrow: Fires an arrow at the enemy, dealing less damage in an area around the target.
- This deals damage to the primary target as if it were a single-target attack, and to other enemies as if it were an AoE. That way, this power basically gets the best of both worlds, in terms of single-target and multi-target damage budgeting.
- Range: 80 ft.
- Radius: 15 ft. around target
- Cooldown: 2 seconds
Starlight Beam: Unleashes starlight energy in a forward-facing cone, dealing damage to all enemies in its path.
- Range: 55 ft.
- Arc: 35°
- Cooldown: 10 seconds
Sticky Bomb: Attaches a bomb to an enemy, dealing damage to the target and every enemy nearby after 4 seconds.
- Range: 80 ft.
- Radius: 20 ft. around target
- Cooldown: 20 seconds
In Closing
We hope these new headline rewards are appealing to you! These lockboxes require an Enchanted Key to open, and retain the same reward structure as before, including plenty of items that will help you continue to progress your character overall. As always, we’re open to feedback that’ll help us develop features and offerings for players like you.
Happy unlocking!
Vincent “Terramak” Malley
About The Author
