Please, please remove it (the staff already is generic for any class). I have this AWESOME build idea for a Beastmaster Earthquake build that would use the set bonus from Vilatria’s to scale EQ damage…that suddenly got bricked when i realized only the helm was Mage locked. 
Having a Beastmaster caster that scaled off of INT could be an awesome archetype and I feel these are the kinds of builds y’all want to encourage, completely outside the box and creative!
Yeah, I think the set being mage locked is quite underwhelming for what the set could do.
+1 for this idea. There is lots of class unspecific unique bases, just throw it on one of those and call it a day.
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TLDR: I agree, removing such restrictions can greatly improve build diversity.
I’m not a fan of class restrictions in general. It’s like every such item and even affix has a special radar, that says “Nope, you use a different skill, you are unworthy of wearing me, no bonus for you”. In your case there is not a single mage specific stat on the item, yet only mage can wear it
Mage will have a lot of new juicy stuff this patch, but I don’t play Mage, so it doesn’t matter. Other classes will want area of effect for elemental skills too. So why restrict?
Primalist and Acolyte can scale minion bleed chance and duration for minions through affixes on gear, but Sentinel can’t (even though he even has a passive specifically for it). Is his minions’ bleed a different bleed or what?
Or take base items. Primalist has no base body armor with endurance, while acolyte has. Why? And vice versa, he has flat shared spell damage, but Acolyte and Mage don’t.
I love to invent unusual builds, without such restrictions there would be so many possibilities. Imagine spriggan bowmage. I’m curious, what abominations we would see.
Some items will be OP without class restrictions. That shows, how stupidly strong they are in the first place. I already see everyone wearing Fractured Crown or Herald of the Scurry because of their high defensive stats, if allowed. But take a fractured crown away from Mage, and suddenly he can’t push 2000 corruption. Isn’t that OP?
The reason the helm is Mage-specific is because it’s built on the Gilded Crown base which is a Mage-specific helm. That’s the only base helm that gives elemental damage. If there were another helm that provided elemental damage and wasn’t Mage-specific that would be better, but there isn’t.
Maybe provide some ideas which EHG can consider that would expand your build thoughts?
Naturally dropping helmet bases are all class specific. Unique(and set helms) that are non class specific all use special bases that don’t drop naturally. So the simple solution would be to make it into bronze casque/gladiator helm base since the loss of ele damage is not too significant(IMO the increased armor on those bases would be much better).
Or just make a new non-class specific base with 42 armor and ele damage which is something they already do for some unique weapons and body armor like Lament of lost refuge, Pyre axe, Valeroot, etc.
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Exactly my point, I was suggesting providing them some recommended options rather than just lamenting on the fact that the helm is class-specific. There are a couple of “general” options in what was said above but maybe more specific? 
His response was plenty adequate. The suggested ways to solve the issue are simple and to the point. Do you have a 150iq idea how to go about something more eloquently? A fix for this doesn’t need to be complicated just for the sake of being complicated.
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How much detail needed is always an opinion from those who are providing the suggestion. Your opinion is that his response was adequate, mine thinks more detail would be helpful.
Nobody is trying to make this complicated, but the more detail provided makes it more likely that it will be received by the ones it’s being provided to with more acceptance is a norm. The only ones who “know” how much detail is needed is the devs.
Can you give more detail for why you think more detail is needed? it doesn’t meet my arbitrary conditions for what is acceptable, sorry.
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I was actually hoping for less detail. Golden’s suggestion is like a wall of text that would take over 5 seconds to read through.
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Well, since you asked, here’s what I’d do:
I’m not a fan of class restricted gear, especially in a game that has so much variety baked into it, as long as there’s an interesting choice to make: do I go for full affix value on a generic piece, or do I pay the “tax” for wearing something that POTENTIALLY has more value for what I’m trying to build. For instance, a sentinel wants to use the Jaspar’s staff for a DoT build, they’re paying a “tax” for wearing it since they lose out on entire affixes they can’t benefit from. (Skill levels to Flame reave, etc.)
So, change the Helm implicit to something generic, and in return, change the +1 to all Lightning skills to +3 to Meteor. That way, Mages get the full value out of a set that was clearly intended for them, but other classes CAN use it if they’re willing to pay the “tax”.
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Class specific gear was added specifically for class specific affixes. It allows for more design space. They can put an ability on a Primalist helmet, for example, that would be OP on a mage. It is another layer to balance around. All gear used to be generic and it was changed for the above reason.
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Perhaps. But there’s already more than a few non-class specific items out there with class specific mods on them. So there’s a precedent… But you’re right, in instances where they might want to do something that would be OP elsewhere, limiting that item is the best bet. But I don’t think class specific should just be the default on items/sets.
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I agree. Was just trying to give some background for the people who weren’t around when that change happened.
There are a lot of things that should be done with gear to make it more exciting and allow for creativity in builds.
I think Sets should be reworked entirely from the ground up. There needs to be some innovation in what “set items” are in an aRPG.
If it were me, I would get rid of set items as drops. Make the items that are currently sets into uniques. Remove the set bonuses or integrate them into the items themselves. Introduce a new crafting materials that lets you turn any unique into a “set item”. For example. If you had 4 “Stone of the Serpent” set runes, you could craft 4 of the uniques/legendaries you are wearing into set pieces of the “Serpent Set”. The Stone of the Serpent set would have known affix bonuses for each piece you had. That’s just one idea.
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One of the MUDs I played had an interesting take on set items, that was similiar to the old affixes here (% Dodge per affix of this type). Set items had regular stats, but they were increased for each item of the set worn, along with granting additional stats/abilities at certain thresholds. This meant that a set item alone was still pretty useful (maybe not AS useful as a regular, non-set item), but sets were powerful when implemented together.
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I think this is on the table. At least I’m pretty sure I’ve read it in several dev comments. It probably just keeps getting put on the back burner as they have other fish to fry currently.
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Yes, they’ve said they need/want to do something to sets, but not what.
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Hopefully not like Bastion was re-worked:
- We’ve removed set bonuses, and lowered the affix value of set items by 50%. All set items now have +1 to all stats.
- Set items are now rarer.
- Set items have high chance to drop as regular, non-set items, with 0 FP
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