Weapons & Equip Making the Old One's Army Accessories More Interesting

[GRΣΣK]

Let me cut straight to the chase, all of the four OOA accessories are the same, I'm talking about the Squire's Shield, Apprentice's Scarf, Huntress's Buckler and Monk's Belt. They don't stack, so they might as well be reskins of each other, don't get me wrong, vanity items are good and fun, but I feel these accessories should be more distinct, they all line up with a certain class yet they all give the same stats pertaining to summoner, particularly to the sentry subclass.
I want these accessories to be unique, unfortunately I haven't played Dungeon Defenders 2 so I can't recommend changes that would be coherent with that game's heroes and It's difficult to balance accessories in general, I want to keep the sentry focus of these and make them unique. That being said, to suggest changes to equipment and not actually give any suggestions is lazy, so I'll give it my best shot, as long as they're made more unique, even if it's not from my suggestions, it's a win in my book.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The sentry slot bonuses do not stack with each other but the other bonuses do.

Squire's Shield: It is one of the melee class and focuses on survivability, so its perks should reflect this, it's a tricky one to balance but these are the changes i propose:
+1 Sentry Slot
Your sentries gain Shield Charge after striking an enemy.
A shield charge is simple, when you go near a sentry with shield charge you drain it and gain a stacking shield for a short time (15s), this buff stacks up to three times (and renews its time after each stack) and gives 4 defense for each charge picked up, while under the effects of the buff the player is immune to knockback. If the player is struck one shield charge is consumed, similar to Beetle Armor with Beetle Shell, if only one charge remains upon taking damage the buff is removed. Any player can benefit from absorbing shield charges. If the buff were to run out with more than one charge its duration will reset and one charge will be consumed instead.
The knockback immunity and defense are balanced by the stationary nature of sentries, if the player wishes to benefit from this buff they must fight close to their sentries, rewarding playing with your sentries with a safety net when unable to dodge an attack.

Apprentice's Scarf: An accessory for mages using sentries, it should reward playing with sentries with a mage specific upside.
+1 Sentry Slot
Your sentries restore nearby players' mana proportional to the damage they deal.
The radius of the mana restoration would be similar to the pickup radius of mana stars with the celestial magnet equipped, the visual effect would be similar to the Spirit Heal from the Spectre Armor set bonus, tinted blue to indicate that it restores mana. The only case I can see this being overpowered is in the Old One's Army event itself, so it's effectiveness should be reduced or void and null for sentries summoned with etherean mana (not talking about the OOA sentries as a whole, just the ones summoned during the event).
The mana regeneration helps mages hold down the area by allowing them to fight uninterrupted for longer, the benefit is useless without good positioning as you won't be in range of the sentries for long enough to make a difference.

The next two accessories can be obtained as soon as one mech boss is destroyed, thus they will be more powerful compared to the first two as they have to compete with accessories such as emblems and gloves. (I don't know why they are currently just as powerful as the ones that can be acquired post-evil boss)

Huntress's Buckler: This accessory is for ranged players, since ranged weapons are mostly single target DPS it will assist in that aspect.
+1 Sentry Slot
When your sentries kill an enemy a Snap Trap is launched.
Enemies caught in a snap trap are immobilized and marked, marked enemies take 10% extra ranged damage. (a purely ranged damage bonus would only serve to further push the accessory in the ranged direction, but if all players are to see the marked enemies I get the feeling it's a better idea to let all of them benefit from the extra damage. ranged players would still benefit more from the enemies standing still than the other classes)
The snap trap would work like this, when an enemy dies by one of your sentries it shoots a projectile upwards and in a random direction, upon colliding with terrain (or platforms) a snap trap is created in its place, it takes 2 seconds to become active and once armed will snap when an enemy collides with it dealing some damage (something like 50 as it's not the main point of the trap), immobilizing the monster for 3s/5s and marking it for 10s. Boss type enemies are marked but cannot be immobilized.
Snap Traps help ranged players not only by giving bonus damage but also holding enemies down making them easy targets, the marked and immobilizing debuffs being separate helps to balance them.

Monk's Belt: The monk armor is more aggressive than the squire one, this will be reflected in the accessory.
+2 Sentry Slots (maybe 2 is a little generous)
Dealing melee damage grants +4%/+8%/+12% summon damage and sentry critical strike chance.
The damage bonus would take the form of a buff which i will name Battle Frenzy to make things easier to understand. Battle Frenzy works similarly to Beetle Might, once a certain melee DPS threshold is passed the buff levels up, and not meeting the threshold makes the buff level down.
Battle Frenzy rewards aggressive melee players with bursts of increased sentry DPS, note that the buff must provide something other than just summon damage to not be overpowered when using minions or outclassed by emblems (needs to be some sentry specific buff, I was going to go for sentry attack speed at first).

 

[Stellar Mastodon 267]

Super cool idea. I like it. The monks belt does seem otherwise very similar to the ballista bonus from the Valhalla knight armor.
Only real issue is please don’t color your text grey. It makes things very hard to read.

 

[Baconfry]

It's cool, but a little high-effort for immediate implementation. I can realistically see them adding something like 2 def/8% melee speed/-10% ammo usage/-10% mana usage though.

 

[J Bame]

Squire's Shield: It is one of the melee class and focuses on survivability, so its perks should reflect this, it's a tricky one to balance but these are the changes i propose:
+1 Sentry Slot
Your sentries gain Shield Charge after striking an enemy.
A shield charge is simple, when you go near a sentry with shield charge you drain it and gain a stacking shield for a short time (15s), this buff stacks up to three times (and renews its time after each stack) and gives 4 defense for each charge picked up, while under the effects of the buff the player is immune to knockback. If the player is struck one shield charge is consumed, similar to Beetle Armor with Beetle Shell, if only one charge remains upon taking damage the buff is removed. Any player can benefit from absorbing shield charges. If the buff were to run out with more than one charge its duration will reset and one charge will be consumed instead.
The knockback immunity and defense are balanced by the stationary nature of sentries, if the player wishes to benefit from this buff they must fight close to their sentries, rewarding playing with your sentries with a safety net when unable to dodge an attack

So, there are a pair of issues with this. You have a lot of sentries, and almost every sentry in the game pierces or hits very rapidly (lightning aura, queen spider). 3 hits are nothing even for 1 single sentry, this buff will be maxed out instantly. Second, fighting near your sentries is a non-condition; Sentries don't move and are limited in range so you have to stay near for them to be useful in the first place. This is basically 12 defense and knockback immunity at all times.

With that in mind this can be simplified a lot: Make it a defense/regen/damage reduction increase when you get near a sentry, and let the buff linger for a short while (5-8 seconds). This isn't just the same thing with fewer steps, it's much easier to code.

Apprentice's Scarf: An accessory for mages using sentries, it should reward playing with sentries with a mage specific upside.
+1 Sentry Slot
Your sentries restore nearby players' mana proportional to the damage they deal.
The radius of the mana restoration would be similar to the pickup radius of mana stars with the celestial magnet equipped, the visual effect would be similar to the Spirit Heal from the Spectre Armor set bonus, tinted blue to indicate that it restores mana. The only case I can see this being overpowered is in the Old One's Army event itself, so it's effectiveness should be reduced or void and null for sentries summoned with etherean mana (not talking about the OOA sentries as a whole, just the ones summoned during the event).
The mana regeneration helps mages hold down the area by allowing them to fight uninterrupted for longer, the benefit is useless without good positioning as you won't be in range of the sentries for long enough to make a difference.

Forget Old One's Army, this always ends in infinite mana. Spectre Hood's healing is also based on your damage but it has a hard limit at 30 hp recovered in a second no matter how much damage you are dealing, simply use the same system here.

Huntress's Buckler: This accessory is for ranged players, since ranged weapons are mostly single target DPS it will assist in that aspect.
+1 Sentry Slot
When your sentries kill an enemy a Snap Trap is launched.
Enemies caught in a snap trap are immobilized and marked, marked enemies take 10% extra ranged damage. (a purely ranged damage bonus would only serve to further push the accessory in the ranged direction, but if all players are to see the marked enemies I get the feeling it's a better idea to let all of them benefit from the extra damage. ranged players would still benefit more from the enemies standing still than the other classes)
The snap trap would work like this, when an enemy dies by one of your sentries it shoots a projectile upwards and in a random direction, upon colliding with terrain (or platforms) a snap trap is created in its place, it takes 2 seconds to become active and once armed will snap when an enemy collides with it dealing some damage (something like 50 as it's not the main point of the trap), immobilizing the monster for 3s/5s and marking it for 10s. Boss type enemies are marked but cannot be immobilized.
Snap Traps help ranged players not only by giving bonus damage but also holding enemies down making them easy targets, the marked and immobilizing debuffs being separate helps to balance them.

Every aspect of this one doesn't work

• To get a lot of Traps down your sentries need to be killing most of your enemies, yet even with several sentries summoned you will still have something else to be attacking with, you are going to be killing and even finishing off more enemies than your sentries do
• the trap's position is practically random making it super unreliable. Also, only grounded enemies will realistically step on them, anything that flies won't be affected at all. These traps wouldn't be very big, either, you will end up covering a really small and spread out area
• Even if Marked ends up being 1.1x damage, that really wouldn't be much in practice: You are going to be using this against crowds, you are going to have a lot of sentries summoned, enemies in this game die super quickly so by the time it even gets to step on the trap, your sentries combined with your CC weapon will have taken over half its health in damage already.
• Forget ever getting a trap against a boss
• immobilizing enemies is a huge can of worms, the devs have been avoiding this one for a reason

Monk's Belt: The monk armor is more aggressive than the squire one, this will be reflected in the accessory.
+2 Sentry Slots (maybe 2 is a little generous)
Dealing melee damage grants +4%/+8%/+12% summon damage and sentry critical strike chance.
The damage bonus would take the form of a buff which i will name Battle Frenzy to make things easier to understand. Battle Frenzy works similarly to Beetle Might, once a certain melee DPS threshold is passed the buff levels up, and not meeting the threshold makes the buff level down.
Battle Frenzy rewards aggressive melee players with bursts of increased sentry DPS, note that the buff must provide something other than just summon damage to not be overpowered when using minions or outclassed by emblems (needs to be some sentry specific buff, I was going to go for sentry attack speed at first).

One thing to keep in mind is that a Summoner emblem gives 15% summon damage, and Summoner Emblem is a good item. One sentry is worth more than just 5% damage, so the vanilla OOA accessories are better than an emblem outside of bosses.

So this being yet another sentry, 2% more summon damage and then 1.12x sentry dps is more than "a little generous". You should keep this one unchanged, really. 10% summon damage and 1 sentry already fits what you are going for.