Item Rarity Classifications

[Promethean]

So currently rare/yellow means more than 2 affixes. Not ranks of affixes but individual affixes.

The thing is when I see a yellow drop my first thought is “99.99% chance of being junk”. When I see a blue with an prefix or suffix I care about I immediately pick it up. This is because the rare is going to have junk affixes I don’t care about. However that blue “Damage prefix of my build Swordname” is something I know I can make into something I want.

This disconnect between supposed rarity and actual value is most stark when doing monoliths and seeing the rewards for rare items. Why would I ever go for that? I’ll just get a pile of useless junk. How about instead of rare being “has 3 or 4 affixes” make rare “has a tier 4 or 5 affix”. Exalted already work on a similar system. So my suggestion is to apply this better value system to lower tier gear as well.

[Heavy]

You are correct. Getting an all desired affix magic item is more likely.

But rare items still have way better chances to become top tier items, because of the lower instability, if they already dropped with many/high desired affixes.

Also keep in mind you can use rune of removal on rares, if they have undesired affixes.

If you don’t want to see so many rares, that are no good items, just split up your loot filter rules.
Show magic items with 2 desired affixes.
And show only rares with 3-4 desired affixes.

This would significantly improve the average power rare item you see.