Hello, I started playing Last Epoch about 2 weeks ago, and have already racked up 107 hours of playtime in game…
Firstly, i wanted to say my impressions of the game as far as Skills, Trees, and Passives are Incredible and those alone, make FLEEING D4 well worth it.
I wanted to let Developers know of things that Counter act that impressment i have with the things i stated above (Things that almost immediately make you say WHYYYYY and immediately make your time seem not worth it)
The Major WORSE thing ive seen is how you guys seem to Makeup these Unique benefits, as if each unique is trying to only cover 1 thing a person is looking for on gear… And THEN give a Negative affect which makes you think “who is the idiot who writes these uniques…” There is so many Uniques in a pool in this game, yet FEW anyone would ever want to use in a Build.
I realize getting uniques for other Classes are part of the grind (trying to find them for yours), but when you do get a Unique for your class its something along the lines of this ridiculousness “Your poison stacks 100% , but you do 80% less poison damage”
(That isnt an actual unique ability but this is VERY similar to EVERY unique you find… its like someone isnt thinking clearly and stuff like this is on almost EVERY unique you find… I hope when the Full Release hits you guys will re-vamp all of your uniques, remove the negatives (and if you MUST, just add less of a positive) .
I feel like the person who wrote the descriptions and affixes on these Uniques are saying to themselves “alright, time to up the Anty on this one”
+100% damage
-100% defense
-You walk faster
-20%ignite damage
Honestly i feel as though i have looted 70% of the uniques in this game for all classes and they are all bad… except for a few, makes you want to test the waters in D4 again just for that reason… (I do NOT want to go back to D4)
I guess I have a question. Could you provide some examples? For the life of me I cannot think of any uniques that have a drawback for equipping it other than singularity, gamblers fallacy and the peak helmet. All three of those have very purposeful use cases.
I am currently not at my PC, but when i am i will visit my stash and name some. Another issue i am seeing alot of is unique gear, seems to be more focused around certain skills we are not using, with damage type to a skill we ARE using, or to Skills we are using but not the damage type we are using, and f. It almost seems all the uniques are purposed to try and make a build around, rather than us being able to facilitate our build we want to use with the uniques… For example as A Frostclaw(fire damage) mage i would be forced to use a unique with + fireball affixes just because it has ignite damage on it…
My meaning is i have equipped all the exact skills and tree (damage types) i want to use but i cannot see any uniques to make a build with them…
I personally really like Uniques and Set Items that come with drawbacks and the benefit of the unique usually outweights teh drawback, but you need to find away to build around it and mitigate the drawback as much as possible.
The example you gave here:
I think you were talking about Serpent Milk?
That is specifically for minions which you can very easiyl build around when you have multiple minions. So this uniques makes individual poisons weaker but gives insane amounts of poison on hit.
But aside from that not every unique has drawbacks.
Uniques are not meant to be BiS items for the most part, just another option.
There are a couple fo build-enabling ones, which usually are also not super powerful but are requried for certain playstyles.
But the beauty of LE is, with its Legendary crafting the viability of uniques increased a lot.
Some of the very medicre uniques can become pretty powerful with 1, 2 or 3 LP
So what is your specific request @Papa-Kilo?
Do you want Uniques to not have drawbacks? I feel like then they would be much more like a different coloured rare or exalted item, which would make them less unique
Do you want Uniques to be Best in Slot in most cases? So everybody and their grandma is running around with uniques left and right? They are nto supposed to be the best items in the game. They are interesting and sometimes oddball options that you can have, but you are not forced to.
Many uniques have their purpose even with the negatives.
Newcomers don’t take into consideration the LP system and should play more, talk more, search more before giving such absolute opinions about something that has a very solid foundation in this game.
I’m not saying this to disregard OP post, just trying to show things are not really bad designed around the uniques.
I could agree that some of the uniques could use more love in it’s sinergies, stats and design, but that does not mean we need to say the whole system is flawed.
That’s the point of unique items - they have upsides and downsides, and you have to play around downsides to utilize upsides. Uniques are not meant to always be an upgrade. Many uniques are build-enabling, so you have to plan in advance.
Low-level uniques are mostly for leveling, meaning that you are supposed to swap them later in campaign or in monoliths.
The whole system is flawed though. Most uniques are useless and crafted rares are overpowered but boring. LP papers over that problem instead of fixing it.
Sure, a high LP legendary on a good base can be a very nice item. But LP is rare, and a lot of the unique bases aren’t worth using, and the T20+ rare they are competing with is really very strong. So an actual good legendary is something you may see well into a season when you have already interacted with the majority of the content. Casuals and altoholics probably aren’t getting there at all. The items that actually define the core experience of playing the game are the basic rares and uniques, and (with a few exceptions) they are not great.
LP is balanced around the rarity and strength of uniques. LP on otherwise mediocre items that are very common or weak is actually now THAT rare.
Like finding a Strong Mind Amulet mit 3LP is pretty likely. Surely it is rare enough that you should not plan around it and Strong Mind usually is an item that you would only wear early on on some builds until you find a good rare or exalted amulet. But with 3 LP it is incredibly likely that you could make it useable. (for builds that utilize the stats on the unique already)
And uniques that are already endgame viable don’t need to have LP. Having LP on them and getting some nice extra stats is just the aspirational goal that is not really required, but can still be possible.
I also don’t like the term useless. I despise talking in absolutely like this. Yes there are a lot of uniques that you would never consider on a lot of builds (even with LP). But that is not the purpose of them. They are not meant to be the good items that you can slap on any build.
For the most part uniques are meant for very specific ways of building a character and if you not already doing it, you will not use it. And if you are already building into that direction they are an option, but not mandatory
Almost everything in this list is a fantastic unique if you know what you are doing.
The negatives on bleeding heart and calamity basically dont exist they deal so little damage even at level 1. Source, I level with twink calamity/bleeding heart on every build. They give lots of stats with almost no downside.
The only legit bad item in this list is fighting chance.
I feel like people just want orange item = best item. which isnt how most modern arpgs do it anymore. Unique items define the niche of your build, then you slot in rares.
As for serpents milk, when you convert the poison chance, it does not convert the poison damage modifier. So you can convert it to frostbite for certain primalist minions and its a huge ailment boost.
This kind of design is very similar to “why does shaman get fire damage conversions when they get no fire damage passives” some items exist to be puzzles to be solved rather then strictly good options. Having the potential for a niche application of mechanics is what makes these games great.
Until they nerfed poison (and poison stacks). Now, it’s just not as good/required on a poison minion build. It used to be insane on a totem spriggan buidl.
What’s a downside for one build can be ignored by the other and can even be turned into an upside.
Leech/regen disabling or health drain mods are beneficial for low life builds.
Serpent’s Milk chance to poison can be converted into something else (mainly frostbite), so the less damage part is ignored. Minion poison chance was used to buff totem damage with a certain node, until it was nerfed.
Uniques that apply an ailment on you can be combined with other uniques for a good bonus. Warlock will have a passive giving more damage per negative ailment on you.
Bleeding heart’s less regen is compensated by the leech, and most builds don’t have much regen to begin with, because it’s is weak compared to leech.
Fighting chance gloves are bad for any build, they need rework. Unique shields are not in a good spot either with some exceptions.
Most uniques don’t have any downsides, and the ones that have make the game more interesting, at least for me. There is a certain pleasure in trying to make a build around a unique with a strong upside and a downside. As you learn more about the game, you will find more ways to deal with the downsides.
I didn’t know those Wing Guards existed until now. 40% attack speed is a lot, and not deal crits is fine, just do a DoT build. Might be something I look into for one of my Rogues. Thanks m8
I think many of those uniques are awesome. Calamity is a fantastic early unique and has huge potential for late game crafting. The LE uniques are a lot like what the POE uniques were supposed to be at one point
I enjoy these smattering of uniques that have tradeoffs to them. They feel like pieces of a puzzle with personality instead of generic stat sticks. I feel clever working around a weakness to take advantage of a strength, or even finding a way to manipulate that weakness into a strength.
It reminds me of the types of Magic cards where you have to set up the battlefield to get their maximum value before playing them. It’s very satisfying to see it work.
