Simple idea: you can reroll an item’s rolls (same affixes) given 5 items of the same type with at least one matching affix.
This would allow people to continue the ‘chase’ on an individual character in a reasonable way. Consider a circumstance where you drop a really nice double-rare MI, but it has a sub-par conversion stat. It is pretty much impossible to contemplate farming for another one. However, farming for 20+ single-rares with affix overlap is a more conceivable proposition. Allowing you to reroll the affix rolls by supplying 5 of the same item then becomes a motivation to keep up the grind, letting you complete your character in a satisfactory way rather than ditching it because you know it’s impossible to drop another impossible MI with the rolls you want.
There is precedent for this (in a much more lenient form) in that you can already ‘reroll’ set items by transmuting within the set. You can’t do this for target-farmable sets, but I would say the reroll functionality is justifiable here as if you’ve dropped 1+5 of the same item, having a single additional reroll chance isn’t a big deal: particularly when the opportunity cost is the resource-gain from dismantling the useless ones, or having duplicates for alts.
There are a few examples of ways this can be balanced for. A few are:
- Each additional reroll costs an extra item or additional iron
- Rerolls cost 5 of the same item with at least one matching affix. For example, a
Wanderer's Groble Stone Effigy of Blightcan be rerolled with 3Wanderer's Groble Stone Effigy of <something>and 2<something> Groble Stone Effigy of Blight. This could be tightened by requiring all 5 reroll items to have the same overlap affix. - Non-set epic/legendaries can’t be rerolled
- Rerolls eliminate synthetic properties (e.g. crafting bonuses, completion bonuses)
I understand there have been suggestions like this already, but wanted to throw this out there as I think previous suggestions have mentioned using rare materials, which bypasses the grind.