Each gear slot gives you on average 50% if you have decent gear. At more than 12 slots, this is 1.5^12 (and I am generous here…). That is a factor of 130 !
At 1.2^12 you are still close to a factor of 9 btw… and that again is generous as I ignore components and augments and do not even count all item slots
Spirit/Cunning gave you a factor of 4, so less than half that
Also, I did not say that you would not adjust how much damage you get from it per point. If you can do that for gear, I can do it for attribs. It still is a heck of a lot easier as there is only one (as they buff different damage types) that becomes a factor rather than 15 factors or so that will grow out of control very easily, see above…
Finally, if items are multiplicative, so are attribs, as there is nothing left for them to be additive to
We’ve considered taking all empowered epic sets/epic sets at 60+ and just making them legendary and then buffing them up to par. More loot dilution, but more actual choices.
I’ve also personally considered adding a way to turn lvl 50 and 58 legendaries into a level 75 version, so that’d solve your blade-arc problem. It would probably be through expensive blueprints.
As for Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth and hybrid items… you bet your ass I’m going to make these items good for hybrid builds. Hybrid builds WILL be a thing. I will fucking find a way. Necromancer’s deathgrips… I have plans in place already. Also look what I did to the revenant constellation in v.2… hybrid builds will prevail! It will take some time to find the balance though.
As I said above, I’m working on it. But it’s not going to be for a pet character, it’ll be for a half vitality dmg half pet character. We actually want to maintain that epics are generally just place-holders. I will talk to Ceno when he’s back about buffing epic drop rate in elite to near ultimate’s rate. I’m sure we’ll bump up a bunch as well. We’re conflicted about it because epics look cool but you end up not wearing almost any after level 58. Do we make legendary versions of them, or turn them into legendaries? Do we re-evaluate the place of epics in the game? We have mostly settled on that they should be weaker than legendaries, but I have plans to implement some of their unique procs (sometimes modified stronger versions) on future legendaries we may make.
I love Obsidian Juggernaut and when I first got it I thought it was great, especially if you throw wendigo’s mark on it. Unlike forcewave you can hit a single target 3 times per cast so it’s a beast at proccing. However it does fall off so hard. Funny that you, my friend, would mention this item as it is the exact item that made me first consider, and strongly, making lvl 75 versions of lower level items.
Define most. I find there’s a lot of gear that has no place in the end game. They will be bumped. And as I’ve mentioned, I will make hybrid pet builds more of a tempting thing… If you look at some of the past hotfixes and changes made to devotion you’ll see some preparation being set up :].
I pretty much agree with your synopsis, as we came to the same conclusion ourselves. Especially when we discussed how to make double rare MI’s outcompete legendaries, we had to figure out what instances do and what instances don’t and why. Anyway, we will definitely be doing a lot of what you call the “safe route.” And buff up stats on some of the shittier ones. But we also absolutely love some of the cool ass procs that are on bad legendaries, and we want to see if on some of those we can improve the procs/granted skills enough that we don’t have to improve the item stats, or that we only have to improve the item stats marginally.
Touch of Purity: Agreed. It’s made for a cheerleader build but there are plenty of other ways to support your allies defensively without gimping your character. Now I’m considering making a challenge dungeon where you’ll need a party of people with multiple touch of purity’s… >.> I’m not convinced that a cleanse will make people pick this item in solo play, or if it’s even intended to ever be used in solo play tho… and I haven’t fucked around with it enough on multiplayer to make judgements on it. The item will definitely be touched up though.
Footpads of the Grey Magi: Funny you say that but as it turns out, I’m already using the item in a really nice spot on my 2h ranged elemental cadence build. So Cornucopia has already succeeded in opening up new viable choices. But I agree it is only working in a VERY specific way and still needs touching up. I disagree with your solution though, I think it needs more.
Necromancer’s Deathgrips: I’m going to do more to this item than your intended solution :]. This item will receive personal doomy love.
worth reading: 0.3.2 will be our first pass on base items. While we may get some nice inspiration here and there, you can count on a lot of our choices being “bland” “generic” etc.
Think about it, right now there is such a huge fucking disparity between good and bad items of even the same tier. How the heck do you expect us to be super clever and creative in making items more interesting when the foundation is troubled to begin with? So first thing we do is just bring the bottom tier up as we have been. This sets the groundwork for the future.
Basically we’re trying to create some “general rules” to loosely stick to for item types/slots in terms of their stats and design. After we accomplish that items feel generally good, then we can go BACK and undo some of our blander stat choices, and add more interesting item procs and abilities. Or we might get lazy and just leave it as is, I personally enjoy a lot of the items’ abilities but just wish more of them were viable… and thus we will make it so.
Oh and pardonne-moi, but anyone who thinks that legendaries give too many stats to too many different places and you get a lot of useless facts: Here’s a big “no fucking way.” You want me to design items that truly only fit a singular build? That’s how you get Diablo 3 and I will bite off my own fingers before I use them to mod the game toward D3’s itemization state. All snarky jokey jerkiness aside, I disagree with whoever is in the above party and like that items often have a few stats that make you think “wuh?” Sometimes they’re superfluous, or just a little added bonus, but sometimes they open up the space to create new synergies in the future with new classes/items/constellations etc.
This is not directed at Hal btw, just a general thought. Hal was talking about itemization in general not legendaries, but it made me think of legendaries. I’ll address Hal below.
A lot of what I said above about being patient was in response to your comment. First of all: I don’t find the items as bland as you do. I agree with what you’re saying, but I don’t see it as much as a problem as you do. ARPG’s need a baseline of what you’d call bland stats in order to have balance. If anything, having a lot of items that follow a general formula, is what allows us to make items that one would classify as “very interesting” because they break the rules of the formula. Like putting CDR on a slot that no other legendary has CDR on, and making it a lot but with a big draw back. (~-300% total dmg?) Etc. I personally like unique item abilities a lot.
I guess I’m just generally unclear as to what you’d call “less bland.” It’s easy to say “make it more interesting!” without suggesting a way to do so and keep gameplay interesting and balanced.
Universally all epic sets below level 68 should be seeing buffs in v0.3.2. We’re still unsure what we want to do with item sets at and above lvl 68. (Buff or make legendary?) We don’t really give a shit that they’re not build defining, but they shouldn’t feel as bad as they do. And I haven’t talked to Ceno about it yet but I want to buff the drop rate of epics in elite to that of ultimate or close to, so you can actually have a shot of building some of these sets. They’re generally intended to be completed over a few characters, and then you use them to twink out a future character though.
Also we don’t want sets to be build defining. We want non set legendaries with similar damage types to be able to compete for those slots… generally. This will mean a lot of messing around with legendary set boni and their base item stats.
And again, it’s easy to say, hey that extreme outlier in TQ (which mamba pointed out was unintended anyway) was cool. No it wasn’t. It was game-breaking and trivializing. But you’re implying we do unique shit like that but try to make it not game-breaking. Do you know how much work it is? It takes creative mathematical thinking, inspiration, testing, and more… PER ITEM. It takes a knowledge and assessment of the complex web of every other thing said item may interact with. Look man, we’ll try, but if you think the items are that bland, maybe the problem is you need to find a new game lol. So yeah, just be patient while we try to make all the items “good” in some way, and then we’ll see about creativity. Oh and don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to antagonize you. I do want what you want. And we definitely will make some interesting choices. I mean we already put % chance to pierce through enemies on all 2h ranged weapons :]. Being able to make niche individual choices will be a blast.
Do you play on Corn? We already improved the quality of drops by both removing absolutely trash affixes as well as improving existing ones. But 10 levels is not unreasonable at all to me. When you get a really good item for a slot it should stick around for a while. I think you just need to adjust your thinking. It’s still my top ARPG of all time. I think your perspective on what itemization should be fails to see the costs and ramifications of changing it to fit your view. Hybridization is good. On the other hand, if you’re just arguing that the drop-rates on both items and what affixes appear on them need adjusting, I definitely can get behind that. Ceno and I will discuss item loot table weighting in 0.3.2, and probably work on drop chances in 0.3.3.
This not the solution to the cunning/spirit problem we’re currently looking at. We already changed DA to reduce dmg to anything with less than a 90% chance to hit you, now we’ll be looking at whether or not we can move some or all of the DA on physique to cunning and spirit and whether or not we can balance that to work.
Conversion is an extremely interesting mechanic to Ceno and me, but it also runs the risk of imbalancing things in a way that simply can’t be fixed if implemented. It’s something that both of us are thinking about, and we very well may add bits of conversion in 3.2, but for dramatic amounts like Albrecht’s duality, that won’t come until version .5 or later, when we start adding brand new content instead of just editing existing content.
Also: All of this got a bit off topic and onto Corn. But for vanilla I will say that I hope the devs take some notice of the thread and tweak some of the worst bad items, as well as perhaps tone down those over-performing. Now that GD’s balance is a lot better than it was, the part that is most frustrating for me is how much cool shit there is in the game that is just under-statted.
Overall it depends on how you play the game. The items are set up in a combination of ways. Offensive items lack DA and resistances but usually boost attack speed/cast speed or total speed. Defensive items lack OA but provide resistances of all types and usually have +%health or flat health etc etc. Some items are balanced or designed for specific builds which puts them in a whole league of their own and some provide build defining proc skills which pretty much also puts them in a league of their own. If you look at the belts for example. Many have +1 to all skills for a specific mastery. But the other belts are usually still competitive. I normally take Tinker’s Ingenuity because the proc skill is just “that good”.
In terms of functionality I like to have “options”. The more the better. When I look for what item fits my build I look at a few options
What functionality does the item provide? Is it a great defensive/offensive proc? A much needed passive? A huge boost in DA/Health or OA/Total speed?
Does it suit my chosen damage type? (This is not a concern for most players - but it’s a “big thing” for my builds).
What resists does the item offer?
There’s a few items that look terrible in my eyes at first glance - “Chausses of Barbaros” just for example. Gives high armour and OA. A proc skill with a ridiculous cooldown which imo makes it insignificant and finally +3 to Oleron’s Rage. Now here’s the thing, if I have a build with maxed Oleron’s Rage these pants really only offer me 3 free skill points. The levels above 12/12 Oleron’s are insignificant, so I would probably buy back the skill points and use them elsewhere. Basically I see these pants as 3 free skill points and an OA booster. I prefer resists and a more reliable proc however but don’t consider them to be useless.
Itemisation is about making choices. If I were to change “Necromancer’s deathgrips for example” I would just add +% cold damage and use them with a hybrid trickster and increase the proc chance to +100% with a cooldown of 3 seconds (so it matches “raise the dead” or 50% as has been suggested). I would probably still leave the bonuses to bonds of bysmael in case a “conjurer” still wanted to fart-ass around with this item.
^Oh yeah that’s right, I forgot they’re one of the gloves that had no %cast or attack speed and now has both. That’s a nice improvement.
And hmm, yeah the spirits need less help than I thought. I added a lot of dmg to revenants (they hit so softly before) and the spirits still do a good deal more.
They have no pet limit either. I like the cold damage suggestion for the gloves more now.
Also “- Does it suit my chosen damage type? (This is not a concern for most players - but it’s a “big thing” for my builds).” We are kindred spirits. I really try to make the items I pick fit my build’s theme unless I really need to optimize stats to survive. Maybe I should also add %cold dmg for pets. Also considering upping that value as well. So instead of +50% vit and cold… maybe more. Actually nah, I should try and spread the pet vit and cold dmg out a bit more. Hmm. HMM. We’ll see.
^Oh yeah that’s right, I forgot they’re one of the gloves that had no %cast or attack speed and now has both. That’s a nice improvement.
And hmm, yeah the spirits need less help than I thought. I added a lot of dmg to revenants (they hit so softly before) and the spirits still do a good deal more.
They have no pet limit either. I like the cold damage suggestion for the gloves more now.
Also “- Does it suit my chosen damage type? (This is not a concern for most players - but it’s a “big thing” for my builds).” We are kindred spirits. I really try to make the items I pick fit my build’s theme unless I really need to optimize stats to survive. Maybe I should also add %cold dmg for pets. Also considering upping that value as well. So instead of +50% vit and cold… maybe more. Actually nah, I should try and spread the pet vit and cold dmg out a bit more. Hmm. HMM. We’ll see.
Honestly you’ve changed my thinking a bit. I was thinking of the gloves with blinders on, staring straight at “vitality pet hybrid build.” But perhaps there is room to give it cold support too. Ofc I’m leaving Bonds of Bysmiel on. While a vitality based nightblade occultist could work, I definitely want a shaman variation. Devouring swarm’s vitality resist debuff, their vitality totem, and maybe one day I’ll add an item that converts a % of lightning damage to vitality >.> (and if I made it do the same for pets would that be OP? Raven necromancer deathgrip revenant combo?) huehuehue hybrid pet plans.
I see what you’re saying about how you’re going to work on base items first so more interesting stuff will come later, but since you did ask what I consider less bland:
I like it when unique items are truly unique, as in my previous post, many unique items in D2 had stats you couldn’t find on items with random affixes, although the latter had the potential to be the best in the game as well with the right affix combination.
I’d like to see more of the same thing in GD, with stats that have a significant impact on the gameplay.
Some ideas:
[u]1) +Skill bonuses on items that normally don’t get them[/u]
The sets and other items that have +skill bonuses (such as Peerless Eye) are often in a class of their own, because that bonus is just that good and unbeatable.
Having more +class/all skill bonuses in irregular item slots would reduce the dominance of the above items (and that of sets), create more desirable items thus improving item choice variety in the end game.
2) Different base damage types on unique weapons
There are already some items like this, such as the Hellmaw Shotgun that deals around 60% fire and 40% physical damage. I feel that some careful changes in base item damage types in this manner would open up more builds as well and set these items apart from the flock.
Yes, there is damage conversion but it’s not entirely the same thing.
3) Items with high speed procs could use some adjustments
Take the Footpads of the Grey Magi: it has a 50% MS bonus when hit, but the run speed cap in GD is below that.
I don’t remember if this is because Crate lowered the MS cap along with the AS one a while back and didn’t alter these items along with it, but because of those caps these affixes have very little added value since the player will usually be very close to the run speed cap to begin with, so the “oh shit!” escape bonus isn’t there.
At most they give you that extra bonus while your movement speed is reduced by foes.
The same thing goes for the AS procs, but to a lesser degree since it’s harder to reach that cap for many builds.
The best thing would be of course for these items to bypass the speed caps for their duration, but I assume that isn’t possible without an engine change.
Perhaps there is a way to work around it, such as by increasing the character model size? (as per the TQ’s Defender class skill)
4) More visible / improved defensive CC retaliation procs
I think that having items with prominent defensive procs could add a lot of spice to items.
For example: an item that freezes or petrifies foes that hit you with a 100% success rate for 1 second. That way you can actually see the effect influence your attacker.
I have the feeling that the current defensive procs are mostly focused on giving damage absorption shields or health regeneration when you’re low, but there are relatively few CC procs.
The ones that are there are short or have something like 20% chance for 2 seconds. I suppose that this might be done so you don’t perma-stun enemies passively, but don’t monsters have sizable CC resistances on the higher difficulties to begin with?
If 100% chance is stupid, I’d like to see these have their proc chance improved somewhat at least.
Or take (Energy) Leech retaliation, I think there are some items that have this affix, but the values are vanishingly small to the point they might as well not be there, while this could be both a good offensive and defensive option if they had stronger values.
5) Active skills on items need an incentive to be used
I think that many of those pure damage item skills with a CD aren’t worth using, because you often lose DPS in the time you stop holding down the mouse button, if the skill isn’t on a hotkey.
Or you simply have no reason to use it, because your main attack:
a) has no CD
b) does huge damage due to skill investment
c) can have a devotion linked to it (because you’re generally not going to link an attack devotion to an item skill with a CD unless it has a debuff)
d) can proc WPS
e) those WPS can have a devotion linked to them as well, so 1 click can have 4+ different effects
And so on.
So when you use these item skills, you’re actually losing damage and losing out on the procs.
Take the skill on Leviathan:
Grants Skill: Great Tide (Level 1)
Unleash a great tide to scatter your foes, just as the great leviathan parts the waters with every move.
+80% Weapon Damage
372-516 Physical Damage
187-265 Cold Damage
33% Chance of Freeze target for 1.5 Seconds
10 Meter Wave Distance Over 2 Seconds
5-10 Meter Wave Width
5 Seconds Skill Recharge
225 Energy Cost
It has a fairly long CD but the damage is low. It has a freeze chance as well, but it suffers from the above issue where the chance is low.
In my eyes, the player has almost no reason to use that skill, at least I probably wouldn’t use it very often.
How could this be changed? These skills need longer CC (which is balanced and limited by their CD), or they could give the player a buff for a duration, such as Deadly Momentum.
I don’t know if you can have such an effect on an item skill, but that’s the kind of thing that makes that button worth pressing.
It would also increase the player’s active input, since he has one more button to press, which is always good in GD, a game where many builds end up spamming one main attack plus their mobility skill.
Other on-hit effects such as removing a sizable chunk of OA/DA of the foe could be interesting too, assuming that the value is large enough for it to make a difference.
Or if you want to have pure damage skills on items, their values need something to be competitive with that crazy powerful main attack the player uses.
Crate has improved the skill on the Valdun set recently to allow it to deal good shotgun damage apparently, I think that’s a step in the right direction.
Of course -res is always super desirable and if it was limited by CD/duration and the player has to press a button, it might not be as overpowered as -res can sometimes get.
The activation on Blessed Steel is an example of a good skill like this.
6) Other unique features
I get that you guys are not at the stage of creating new items yet, but some items I thought could be interesting were:
a) An item that increases your crit % significantly, but lowers total damage %
b) The opposite of the above
c) An item that drains HP per second but has a proc on low HP (or a set where one item drains HP and another item has the proc if you can’t have both on the same item)
d) Items with high values of a single CC type length reduction, so you can use them as swap-in gear for specific fights (would add more stuff to hunt for plus another layer of player input required)
e) I noticed there currently isn’t a legendary 2h ranged weapon focused on an Elemental damage build, while there are several epics like that, so there’s a small item gap there that could be filled
f) In the same trend, as someone else has pointed out, some weapon types surprisingly lack a good high-end physical option, while this is one of the most common builds (could be solved by tweaking some of the current options such as Reaver’s Claw)
g) Items with a powerful bonus and also a significant drawback: offense at the cost of defense and vice versa, etc.
h) Weapons/items with active skills that complement each other: the player must press skill A that lowers resists to skill B and vice versa (keeps the player active and away from the hold-1-button style gameplay)
i) A way for the player to remove debuffs a la Nullification
j) More stuff but post is long as hell already
Don’t get me wrong though, of course I don’t mean that every item should have every buff I listed, naturally for some items to be standout good, others have to be worse.
But some careful adjustments on key items would definitely give them that “Hey, this item is different from the others!” feeling.
From what I’ve seen, most of the max-level legendary two-handers are lightning or elemental-based, right? I’d like to see more that synergize with other kinds of builds, even if it seems most 2-hander builds are the aforementioned damage types.
Some of the above will be addressed later when we add new items instead of just changing existing ones.
Guys please, list some epics. Me and Ceno and the devs already have legendaries covered. As legendaries are love and life and thus will receive a large amount of our attention.
But I feel the leveling process could be a lot more enjoyable it epics felt better.
For example, I found blue items in TQ to be higher quality than some of the ones in GD.
Take Twilight Signet. The empowered version’s alright (maybe I’ll lower it’s level) but the lower level one is kind of eh. You just don’t need all that resist at that low lvl compared to other things you can get on just magical-tier rings. I’ll probably add +1 phantasmal armor to it.
Well, honestly the only non-weapon lowlvl epic i’m happy to use are hermit’s legguards. They have all dmg, OA, health and movespeed, soooo good for low lvls. Zealot’s gauntlets are ok until you get access to faction gear. On casters i like the max movespeed boots - ahmmmm… names… - boots of swiftness or sth…? In all other slots double affixed magic or rare items usually are just better.
On high levels most epics simply don’t have enough meaningful defensive stats. (With some prominent exceptions such as empowered legplates of valour, wich are better than a lot of legendaries in that slot.)
All in all I think my list of useful epics would be a lot shorter than my list of useless ones :p.
Edit says Fanatic’s Overcoat (both versions) is quite ok, though empowered one has low armour. Still trying to think of more epics i would use… hm, some sets are ok if you get the full set or at least several pieces. The lifesteel amulet is awesome ahm…names again… goddam… has 10% /15 % (empowered version) lifesteal and solid chaosres… god… warp shard, yep that’s the one… In general jewelery is a bit better than the other stuff i feel…
it’s too hard for me to list the underperforming epics, so instead I’ll list some of my favorite epics and the reasons why I use them so often. I’ll try to think of some exceptionally bad epics that might deserve special attention.
First, the good epics.
Hermits legguards : Bonuses to OA, DA, and Health are extremely versatile. Total damage % bonuses also increase its versatility and offensive capabilities quite a bit. It’s empowered version has bonuses to two great skills as well, but I’ve worn these pants on numerous toons that weren’t even arcanists or occultists.
Bloodseal: It’s an early-level epic that I wear on almost all of my characters. 8 hp regen at level 14 is quite large, and the OA bonus is great. I haven’t actually found empowered bloodseal yet, but it provides great hp regen and I’d most likely use it often if I had found it.
Zealot’s Gauntlets: I would argue that these gloves are the best level 20 item in the game. Extremely high attack and cast speed with some OA are hard to pass up. I usually wear these on every single toon from level 20 through level 35 when I can replace them with faction greens. The empowered version also grant two fantastic resistances.
Amulet of the Eye: Like bloodseal, I wear this on all of my levelling characters. Flat elemental damage with OA and a Crit damage boost noticeably boosts my offensive capabilities at level 15. I’ve worn this amulet well into the 30’s if I can’t find any other good drops
Glory of the Silver Knight: I’d argue that this is the best epic in the level 50 range. I usually wear this helm for at least 15 levels until I can access level 65 legendaries. HUGE flat hp, DA, good armor, and a fantastic active ability really make this helm shine. The fire resist is a nice bonus and allows most of my toons to have max fire resist through elite difficulty.
Blackwood wand/spiritweaver circlet/nether crown: My spellcasting toons really love the +1 to all skills in arcanist/occultist that these items provide. Since spells without weapon damage scale quite poorly, it’s important to get as much + skills as possible, so I often don’t replace blackwood wand for dozens of levels on my warlocks.
Frizzick’s Utility pack: OA/DA are great. Energy/health regen bonuses are great. It’s a good all-purpose item for when you can’t think of anything better to wear.
What are some epics that stand out as exceptionally bad? There are only a few I can think of at the moment, but here they are:
Tempest of the Void: Lightning/chaos would be a fantastic niche build idea, but these damage types and skill combinations are not supported on any legendary items. There are no other items in the game dedicated to a chaos/lightning build, so this item was created with a build in mind that isn’t currently supported by itemization. The item’s bonuses are also lackluster: meager electrocute retaliation on a caster helm with no resistances, no health, and no OA/DA. Maybe a chaos/lightning build could surface if the empowered version provided the player with a spammable chaos/lightning skill, but in the meantime, no build will ever use this item.
Mogdrogen’s Tranqulity set (and almost all epic sets): I made a physical/bleed damage pet hybrid 2-handed shaman. I did everything that this set wanted me to do, but ultimately, I was never attracted to this set despite it being theoretically designed for my build. The bonuses are too weak for a level 72 character. Why wear 4 pieces of a set to get +1 skills to shaman when I can get the same bonus using Bramblewood Amulet (which is a great shaman epic)? Most epic sets struggle from this same problem: It’s hard to gather all the pieces in one playthrough, which means that the player will likely acquire pieces of the set either by extensive farming or multiple playthroughs. If this is the case, then the player will acquire better items in the meantime by the time they actually gather all of the set items! One of the only exceptions is the Praetorian set because its completion stats provide bonuses that are otherwise difficult to come by. I’ve made about 10 characters and 6 of these have reached level 85. How many times have I worn an epic set? Once. One of my toons wore the Praetorian set for about ten levels.
Devil’s Charm: Mind control is a terrible mechanic. At least the empowered version grants great skill bonuses though.
Mantle of the Patron: This niche item suffers the same problem as Tempest of the Void. It’s designed for a lightning damage pet build centered around the raven, but the raven just isn’t strong enough to be a build focus. The player stats it provides for a level 75 item are also mediocre. Keep in mind that when the player is able to wear this item, the player can also wear every other legendary item in the game. If this item granted the player access to another permanent raven pet or lightning pet it would be extremely interesting…
Obsidian Grasp: Level 50 hand armor that provides no offensive boosts. Since hand armor is one of the few armor slots where players can accumulate noticeable offensive boosts like attack speed/cast speed, it really hurts when these aren’t present. The item does provide some physical resistance, but it’s not worth sacrificing so much OA and dps to get this. Another defensively-oriented epic hand armor of the same level (Runic Bracers) is much more useful and well-designed.
I know there are more bad epics out there but I don’t really feel like scrolling through Graceful Dusk to find them all. As a general rule, good epics are either versatile, have in-demand stats, or are really good for a certain niche build. There are a few niche epics (I listed 2) that are just not good enough to prompt the player to build around them. There are also quite a few epics that just don’t have some of the most in-demand stats like OA, attack/cast speed, resistances, or health.
“Kind of meh” is the understatement of the century for that ring. At level 28 it’s basically only 16 spirit since Vitality resist even at high level isn’t sorely needed, light radius is a non-stat, and even if you added +1 phant armor to it, it will still be worse than most single-affix greens and nearly all double-affix yellows at that level. Rings, like gloves, are a major dps contributor slot and not having attack/cast speed, OA or total damage at that level basically guarantees the item won’t be used. This is the problem with lots of Epics right now, most people find a good affix green or yellow and often hold on to them for 30 levels even as they find low level epics that only offer 1-2 good stats and a hodge podge of useless ones so they rarely feel “epic”. Like right now on my level 61 blade master, I found a double affix green boot and shoulder and even though the affixes aren’t the most optimal ones they still blow ALL epics out of the water from 35-61, this is a red flag itemization wise.
For me and epics, nothing is worse than the Epic sets with Explorer’s set being the poster child of underpower. Wildcaller’s Set and Maiven’s are the only one I’ve found useful at its level but even then you’re not going to farm for them which is the problem with sets pre-60. The best low level (pre-60 or so) epics are the most general ones that offer stats that players actually like pre-60, i.e. damage ones for the most part and physique. Prime examples of these that I’ve found useful in lots of builds are Stormcaller’s Circlet, Maiven’s Hood, Nether Hood, Astral Mantal, Bladedancer’s Handguards, Slithscale Legwraps. Bad slots for epics pre-50 are chest and boots for me, all of them are very meh and often have stats that are less than affix yellows/greens at their level and over way too many defense/random +skills to beat said affix items or vendor items.
I fully agree with Snazzblasters list, but i somewhat disagree with Marcus. I’m coming from a hc perspective and for me items like stormcaller’s circlet and bladedancer’s handguards are the worst of the worst - just some inc dmg and nothing else. I would never ever use these over a random “of vitality” piece. Pre 50 in hc hp are king, then resistances become more important. If i opted for damage instead of defenses on an item, it would either provide attack/castspeed or offensive ability (later in the game) or a useful proc.
I agree defense is king in Ultimate, but even in Veteran Normal there’s no reason to use “of Vitality” at level 24 even in HC. Your best defense at those levels is to one shot everything, not stack a bunch of resistances or HP. The items I listed are the epics designed right more for the fact that they’re more general in their bonuses rather than super niche, and I agree that attack/cast speed and OA are very much needed but unfortunately those are pretty rare in low level epics too as others have said in this thread.
Well i happen to have a lvl 19 occultist, sec… if i unequipp my hp items i drop from 2591 hp to 2021 hp. More than 25% difference. In vanilla the difference would be a lot bigger since cornucopia nerfed the magic hp suffixes. Now let me unequip my 23% acid dmg offhand… My DEE damage drops from 404-411 to 387 -393. An actual difference of around 5%. You might disagree with me, but my conclusion is that my hp items help me more.
You took off one damage item but ALL your HP gear, presumably more than one item, and compared? Not sure that’s fair, nor is your off-hand very good. There’s a reason Crushing Will is insane as an off-hand at its level for elemental builds, it has everything you need for damage save for OA and is one of the best designed “epics” in the game at its level.
Well, i took off all my hp gear (four items) and all my gear with % inc dmg (one item) :D. Found nothing better till level 19. Now let’s assume i had another three items with around 25% increased dmg each. This would probably increase my damage per hit by another 80 - 100, giving me something like 480 - 530, wich would net me 25% more dmg. In hc, i still take the 500 hp.
I agree on Crushing Will though, its very, very good, due to its massive castspeed bonus and solid manaregeneration.
Justice set - The + skills to blitz and forcewave just ruin it, blitz is a good movement skill but that’s about it, not worth any extra points and I just don’t like forcewave, it’s a bad skill.
Markovians set - Needs some OA, just a little or something.
Dawnbreaker set - it’s a retaliation set and the 4th set bonus sucks for retaliation. Plus there is better legendaries in all slots anyway.
Wildblood set - Vitality, physical and bleed damage is a little weird and again, your better off going for other items in them slots.
demonslayer set - gives lots of + skills to PB yet only gives pierce and vitality damage…
Earthshatter treads - your better off just using golemborn greaves instead.
Personally I would remove Markovian’s set tie to Shields. I know its called “Fortress” but its really the only pure physical/soldier set (unless I’m forgetting one) and until we get another I’d rather not limit the set so harshly. I do agree though that OA is sorely needed.
I also agree on Demonslayer, great set for a PB build but if you go Spellbreaker PB (the most popular kind of PB by far I believe) then you’re probably going Cold/Elemental for at least half your damage which the set completely ignores. I can’t remember the name of it but there’s also a Pierce/Cunning PB chest piece which is also very oddly designed since nobody plays PB going Cunning due to energy requirements.
