Seriously, random rolls on item stats for legs/epics simply makes it a nightmare to play the numbers game. Inconsistency with stats makes character planning unfun. Part of the appeal of epics/legs is that they have the same TYPES of stats every time they drop. Why would you then take that and go “but let’s make it so that the stat VALUES aren’t consistent!” I don’t get it. It doesn’t really make farming for that “perfect” legendary any more fun. Farming isn’t fun. Farming is what you do to get items that let you have more fun elsewhere.
Sorry, I have to politely disagree. The random values on the epic/legs are not a big deal here. They do not make or break builds. The additional +10 OA or 25% elemental damage is not going to make your char kill faster. I’ve had fully geared char/chars which use not “BIS” items and still be able to comfortably clear most of the hardest bosses in the game. Farming for the perfect/BIS legendary is what makes me keep playing my older chars.
I think epics and legendaries have the right amount of consistency here. (this is not to say some couldn’t use some more quality…) It is a good medium point between ‘Every Bloodsong will be 100% IDENTICAL!’ and the ‘Here is a ring with a great effect, but it better roll these 3 stats or it’ll be unusable trash’ that D3 uses. I like being able to say ‘Oh, I already have Iceskorn gloves but this new pair is even better!’ I’ve yet to see a legendary I wanted that rolled so poorly that I decided to skip it until I find a better version.
The stats roll are so small that it hardly matters. And even if it hardly matters i actually like it. It’s on that line where i can just use the item regardless of stats roll, but when i get it again and it has just slightly better rolls, it honestly makes me happy.
It happened today when i dropped an Open Hand of Mercy. It just had slightly better stats than the one i had but i was happy it dropped with slightly better stats. If they all dropped with the same stats it’d be boring as hell and it’s not as rewarding dropping a new copy of the item you already have.
So yeah, i think it’s fine as it is.
Exactly, if they were identical then any duplicates at all would become ‘dangit, but I already have that one!’ While at the same time the variations tend to be small enough that it is very rare you’ll get an item you want and be like ‘dammit, if it was just a bit better I could actually use it over (crap you have equipped)’
How about a second tier of legendaries?
They could have up to 30% better stat rolls than total crap legandaries (formerly known as legendaries), but drop not very often.
Yay, that sounds like fun! 
Seriously though, Silben, Norzan and Viper0n are completely right.
System is fine as it is.
If you totally hate it though …that´s what modding is for, I guess.
Agree with OP. Yeah, stat rolls can be fun and gives the illusion of loot depth, but it’s really just padding; if stat rolls didn’t exist and you found a Legendary with awesome stats on it, you’d enjoy the Legendary and move on. Stat rolls on items is a shit system for the same reason that Pokemon IVs is a shit system: you reroll the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and it’s a huge boring waste of ti- HEY I GOT A PERFECT ONE! Now to reroll a different one over and over and over and over and over…
I don’t understand the arguments defending stat rolls on uniques because “it’s awesome to find a better version of the unique I’m already using!”, when this system makes it equally possible to roll a good Legendary first and then roll two crap ones later (“damn, I already have this one and it’s fucking worse”). Furthermore, if the stat rolls don’t matter then why would you even be happy to find a superior version of the same item in the first place?
Yes, yes they will. That is the entire reason those stats even exist. :rolleyes:
Because it makes getting the same item feel more rewarding when it has slightly better stats. If they were all the same it would be boring as all fuck.
If the stats were fixed, everytime i would get a repeated legendary i would just say: “Oh, i already have this. Yay. Awesome”. With varied stats it makes getting the same legendary less pointless and annoying.
Also, farming for perfect rolls is really stupid. All the items are functional the same way regardless of the stats rolls.
So you would prefer to feel as though any additional farming is completely pointless once you have found a single copy of every legendary item? At least now they are all usable regardless* of rolls when you find them but there is still some chance of incentive to find more. If they were identical you’d always trash duplicates flat out. In short while this system lets additional drops be useless (if you found a high quality one first/find low quality ones 2nd onwards) your system would guarantee that any additional drops would be useless. Why would you want to do that?
*there are a few exceptions to this, notably when cooldown reduction is involved
Yeah, because if I’ve played GD enough that I’ve found every Legendary item then it’s time to go outside.
Kidding aside, the only incentive I feel to farm duplicate Epics/Legendaries is if multiple characters on my roster need the same thing (ex: two of my fighters needing Chausses of Barbaros). The items themselves should be more important than carrot-on-a-stick stat rolls.
Finally, item farming in GD is already pointless and unrewarding regardless of stat rolls: you can’t farm for a specific item you want, so trying to get higher rolls on your favorite item is an endeavor that will result in many wasted weekends. Unless your favorite item can be crafted or it’s an MI.
Who mentioned every? I’m sitting at about 3/4s of legendaries found and have found 5 daggers of dreeg, and likely 8-9 of some of the most commons.
Some can.
I do not think a total derandomization is necessary; however, some stats could stand to be added to the set of stats which don’t vary piece to piece. Conversion is one such stat; a Warpfire with under 75% Conversion is trash; a Warpfire with over 90% Conversion is godtier. Similarly, +Health can make or break an item, especially on things like Mark of Divinity (which is more or less worthless if it rolls with under 430 Health but very good if you get one over 650 (I craft mine at the Legion Smith so I have a chance at getting more +Health on it)).
There are far too many stats in GD for me to know off the top of my head which are/aren’t worthy of being made definitive, but there are likely others than that which I’ve described here.
I disagree, keep the randomness. It’s not like they are so random that they become unusable if you have a ‘bad’ roll
Unless I’m mistaken, part of the point of legendaries, and especially epics, is that they may not beat perfectly rolled greens but consistently offer good fixed stats. So given that consistency is part of their appeal I’d be in favor of removing the randomness or at least cutting it back like Ceno suggested.
I also agree that random stat rolls on unique items are completely fine, but since most rolls I’ve been tracking seem to have a 20% deviation from the average listed on Grimcalc, the difference between a worst possible legendary and best possible can actually be up to 50% better stats… Quite sizable for me at least.
The randomization of stats is way too big the way it is now.
Look at these two Flame-Keeper’s Repeaters on the image. The difference between them is huge, 864 dps, and this is without augments/components (I was holding ctrl when comparing). With augments/components the difference would be much bigger. 10% attack speed is a lot.
Compared to the Empowered Boltspitter I had equipped, the weapon on the left (the first one I found) was trash, while the weapon on the right had bigger dps and was very good, so I keep it on weapon swap to kill light-armored enemies. Therefore, stats make a difference when deciding to replace your old gear with new non-duplicate ones.
I would be in favor of removing the randomization, but this is probably not happening, so at least the deviation should be reduced.
864 DPS boost is actually literally nothing. I tested Leviathan on my Chaos Witchblade which uses Obsidian Juggernaut and it showed i lost 4000 DPS. And yet i was killing stuff just as fast and in some cases i think i was killing faster.
The only reason the other Flame Keeper’s Repeater has higher DPS is because of the 10% Attack Speed. If you look at the other stats, there’s barely a difference.
And of course deviation between 2H is bigger than everything else because of the higher stats. Deviation in stuff like acessories, belts, armor and one handed weapons are small and only matter in some cases (when conversion is concerned).
I’ve just tested both weapons augmented, with components and auras activated, the sheet dps difference is actually 2,105 (30,746 dps vs 28,641). A bigger difference, but my point was that one was worth for replacing my Boltspitter against light-armored enemies and the other wasn’t, so stats deviation matter when replacing different gear.
I know dps can deceive. I had a similar thing that happened with your Witchblade happen with my Elementalist because of a granted skill. By the way, granted skills and set stats don’t deviate.
As you and Ceno said, conversion deviation matters. Also, entrapment resistance can make a lot of difference. I have a 93% Reduction to Entrapment Duration Footpads of the Grey Magi that allows my Saboteur to comfortably kill Benn’Jahr without getting hit, while the other pair I’ve found has around 70%, which is not enough to free me from his obsidian prison before I get hit (very dangerous).
I do agree the deviation should be reduced, even though my posts seem to show i don’t want that which is not my intention. What i don’t want is for it to be completely removed like some people here want.
I would settle for it being reduced (particularly on stats that use % to calculate, like, say, % X damage converted to Y, % anything really - flat value variance is mildly annoying, but percentage variance actually screws with things a fair amount)