With this season, we saw a lot of changes in crafting. For most of them, I love them and I use them. But, one of them seems a bit lack luster: crafting set items in exalted items.
Since exalted items are meant to be slammed into uniques to become legendaries, unless they are best in slot, it make no sense to slam a set item into them which prevent them from being used for slamming.
At firs,t I tough this could be a mean to create early monoliths upgrades but that echo comes too late to be useful.
At the same time, with class idols crafting (it is also a bit lack luster due to rng but there is potential), it leaves regular idols out (not weaver idols, the ones you get in the campaign).
How about instead of crafting set items into exalted we could slam them with set items? They would not gain an affix but they would count as part of the set items bonuses.
This way, for idols, you would have to choose between 3 options:
Class idols (slammed with tombs / cemetaries affixes)
Weaver idols (which are stronger version than regular ones)
Normal idols that could be slammed with a set item
Of course, for this to be usable, it would need this system to be usable way earlier in normal monoliths.
I think maybe you missed the memo about crafting set affixes on to exalted items …
It prevents you from slamming set affixes on to a unique on purpose.
The design is meant to have you choose between uniques, or exalted set items … It’s a trade-off and it’s intentional.
To elaborate, exalted items and uniques are the 2 best item types in the game … Set items were rarely used prior to Season 2. Now, set items are on par with Exalteds in a way, because they can become one in the same, and rival uniques. Now we have to choose between uniques, exalteds, and set-exalteds because all three are good now.
That is not a true premise though. A good exalted with a good base is very often better than using a legendary that does nothing for your build, even with the same affixes. This was already true before this season.
And set crafting (as well as champion affixes) have come to compete with that as well.
There are already lots of builds that are running one or two crafted sets because they are much stronger than any unique you can use to replace them.
Not sure what builds you’re using that completely eschew Exalted items, but for most of the progression into late game, most builds rely heavily on Exalted items, and having them also give you Set benefits is huge for quite a few builds. Hell, even some of the Set mods you get from crafting them are BiS for different builds. I think this idea of Set crafted Exalts comes from them not being useful for whatever you’ve played so far, but if you branch out a bit, you’ll see plenty of builds using this very powerful and cool system.
You missed one argument from my original post: The echo to ‘shards’ your set items comes way too late and can take way too little amount of set items per use.
By the moment you have the option, it is not that useful.
As for what I am playing, I am doing the Holy Explosions Warpath Paladin build from Icy Vein so the only set I can use without competing with uniques and that provides something useful is the Last Bear set items (a helmet, a body armor and a glove).
I have legendaries for my belt, my amulet, one of my two weapons, one of my two rings and my relic. And I had all of those by the time I dropped the first time the echo to turn set items into shards.
Again, this is not true. For many builds, an exalted with a set affix is BiS.
Until then you either run the set itself (sets aren’t too strong, but a few of them are nice for leveling), or you use something else until you can craft the set piece.
Exalts with set bonuses now compete with legendaries, even more than they did before.
Besides, your suggestion would do nothing to address this. You’d only shift from crafting into exalted gear to crafting into small idols. You’d still get them at the exact same place in progression.
Lastly, letting you craft them into small idols would mean that you can run 5 or more sets at once. That’s overkill.
