All 10 new items for Vanessa have the Aquatic tag, meaning they clearly tilt the pool towards a specific direction. Currently, Vanessa's Aquatic build is geared towards a mix of Shield and Poison, aimed at triggering both Pufferfish and Pearl as often as possible. For that specific build, here are the items I believe are worth widening the pool of items we pick from:
While it isn't a great item when it comes to its own contribution, Diving Helmet allows us to include any item into an aquatic builds. Then, although this is a rather slow item, it should largely make up for it allowing us to include super fast items on its sides.
This doesn't really synergize with anything in the build, but offers two potential great upsides in my opinion. First, Volcanic Vents could replace Pufferfish to make our build Burn oriented rather than Poison. It only takes a little haste to make this Multicast 3 item a solid damage dealer. Then, that same Multicast could represent a potential great enchantment target down the line, for example if we get Turbo, as Volcanic Vents would then Haste 2 items for 2 seconds, three times.
The fact Zoarcid charges when we burn is a bit of a problem in a Poison build. Yet, we just saw how Volcanic Vents could potentially be our damage item. Otherwise, Zoarcid could become bonkers with an enchant down the line, as either Pearl or Pufferfish burning our opponent would suddenly make this super fast.
Dive Weights got nerfed quite heavily in the hotfix deployed on March 7. Still, this is an Ammo item with Vanessa, and that last line "This has + Multicast equal to its Ammo" is very, very scary if some Gunpowder are factored into the equation. Add something else to haste the Dive Weights and you suddenly have a 3 seconds, small item, potentially hasting your entire carpet.
Adding 4 good items from a total of 10 means a 40% ratio. Now, I don't want to enter into super detailed maths, but I'm sure Vanessa's aquatic build does not use 40% of the heroes arsenal. As such, this is a probably a good addition if you are looking to play Vanessa this way.
If you aren't however, then adding more items might not be such a good idea. Let's take the other builds of Vanessa at the moment, either the Mono-Weapon, or the Trebuchet surrounded by many weapons. Here, I can only one item making sense for each:
Both Zoarcid for the Trebuchet build or Submersible as the Mono-Weapon if joined by Crow's nest, make a lot of sense. However, these builds don't function exactly the same as the Aquatic build. Indeed, these tend to only net great results when you find specific items, and these new ones are good options at best.
Once you found Crows Nest in the Mono-Weapon build you can work with Double Barrel, Cutlass, Submarine, Flagship to name a few. Sure, Submersible is better than Submarine as it's a bit faster and take one less spot on your carpet, but it is completely useless without Crows Nest, or another large item.
Then, finding that key item looks more important than a specific weapon. In that sense, adding 10 more items to the pool could be detrimental to the Mono Weapon build. The same could be said for the Trebuchet build, which will be improved when Zoarcid is added to the mix, but still relies on finding Trebuchet first and foremost. One thing to note in this example is the possibility of Zoarcid opening a new build with other burn items such as Lighter, Pop Snappers or Incendiary Rounds. I really like Zoarcid in case you didn't notice.
Conclusion
I don't feel like Vanessa gains much flexibility with her Mysteries of the Deep kit. There are some great items in there, but they need to fit into an already existing mold. Then, while Pygmalien feels like it gained both potential and versatility, Vanessa mostly raised the power of her aquatic build, but likely hurts her Mono-Weapon core because of it.
For all these reasons, I would consider the Prize Pass for a Pygmalien player, but likely would pass if I was playing Vanessa. We already know there will be more item kits in the future, and we can only use one per run. Obviously, there will be a metagame that will make us miss this Aquatic kit eventually, but on average, I think I'm fine playing with the base pool until more options come around.
