Possible improvements for future set item overhaul

Feedback and Suggestions
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So according to the latest FAQ feedback is still very much wanted by EHG:

What’s the status on set items?
Set items are a compelling item type that we’ve always wanted to make work in Last Epoch. However they are also a potentially dangerous item type to include in an ARPG. They take up a lot of slots, so they give a build fewer opportunities for customization and upgrades, and if there is a meta defined by powerful sets that encourage specific combinations of skills, it can feel like you’re choosing a kit rather than building a unique character.

However, since the introduction of exalted and legendary items, the gap between items that are viable in early to mid endgames, and best in slot items has widened. This provides much more space to balance sets in a place where they are good enough to use, but don’t completely crowd out other options. We are in the process of rebalancing existing sets to occupy this space, but it’s not a precise science, so feedback on which sets still feel underwhelming or which, if any, are too powerful is always welcome.

We also intend to continue to move towards creating more two piece sets over sets with three or more pieces, because the former are easier to balance and we believe the reduction in set size does more to mitigate the negative aspects of set items than it does to dampen the positives.

I will start here to give a few suggestions of some sets that I want to really see shine and some of the issues I see with some of the sets as they are currently.

Gaspar’s Set
I really like the core concept and the set does have more defensive stats than most other sets.
But it just doesn’t make the cut. It works so well for normal monolith, but as soon as you enter empowered, the damage of the decimate proc falls of very fast.

I tried making this work with as much falt added spell damage as possible and just genericlly increasing spell dmg, regardless of damage type to get as much value out of all the different added damage type and decimate still will fall off very fast in empowered monolith.

As soon as it needs 2-3 decimate’s to kill minor or medium mobs its more a gimmick than everything else.

I think where this set also fails to deliver is to have all 3 basic elemental ailments (Ignite and Shock + Freeze Rate Multiplier) spread among all items.

Gaspar’s Will (the Scepter) alone is crazy strong for void spell/ignite builds.
But both of the other ailment affixes are kinda weak.

Suggestions:
Remove Ignite, Shock and Freeze Rate multiplier entirely.
Majorly buff Decimate’s damage

Isadora’s Set
Really like this set’s theme. The set bonus is amazing. %mana efficiany for specific spell type is a mod that I really like.

The Gloves and Belt are decently good.
But the Helmet is not that good, just for competing with skill prefixes on acolyte helmet.

Both Gloves and Belt have two conditional effects with different conditions. Makes them very unreliable.

Suggestion:
Make the conditional effects on Gloves and Belt permanent.

Buff the Helmet considerably. E.g. give the helmet necrotic shred on hit, instead of penetration (Would work way more, because the 100% damned chance on hit would synergize with this way more, since you already want to hit often)****

Remove stun avoidance from the helmet and give it some %inc. health on top fo the flat health

Forgotten Knight Set
Really like the set, my only gripe with this is, that the power lays too much on one individual item, the sword.

Suggestion:
Move some power from the sword to the set bonus (Flat Spell Void Damage). This would incentivice using this set as a whole and not just dual wield the sword and ignore the set.

On top of that, I would like to see more items giving flat spell void damage in the weapon slot, to create some competition for this sword. Just some solo uniques, like Wands or Scepters

What are some of the sets you would like to see changed/buffed?

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I do not know how much this idea is realistic in terms of balancing.
Before Legendaries came out I was always thinking that they will make some sort of skill cross over from other classes which would put a lot of more possibilities for builds on the table. I guess that is what I would hope for for sets to be, it would make them in a lot of cases concurrent to legendaries and very interesting items without need to buff them in terms of numbers on affixes

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Thats a very different approach to sets for sure.

I am not a fan of this, because I really like class identity and mixing skills of other classes will make class identity way worse.

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Honestly based on my total disregard for Set items as viable gear for so long, I am not sure I could offer solutions for existing sets…

The last set items I used was the Shattered Lance combination that allowed a set bonus for the Increased Health Regen per point of Strength… I think that was around 0.8, then it got nerfed to hell and I have not used a Set item since… At least not as a Set, the only green items I have used is the Blade of the Forgotten and Isadora’s Tomb Binding - and not for the set - just on its own.

So, for me this effectively illustrates that the entire Set concept is seriously flawed… and I am not sure that just updating existing sets individually is actually the way to go… I think that the fundamental idea of Sets in LE needs some thought…

  • I like the idea of restricting sets to only a few items (2 vs 3 or more).
  • I like the idea that set items could be targetted for specific periods in the progression of a build.
  • I agree that Sets like those D3 are not what we should have in LE. Thats just boring as hell.

But these are not enough in my opinion… Else all the concerns everyone has about Sets either being useless or too powerfull are likely to still happen…

I honestly think that we need to shift out of the proverbial box on Sets in LE… Stop just taking the age old concept of Sets that have existed forever and go totally left field with the concept…

Spitballing here:

  • Why should set items be a combination of traditional gear… Why cannot set items be a combination of gear and a skill together - perhaps the set of item and skill could unlock additional nodes on a skill tree.

  • Why do sets ONLY have to apply to the individual - i.e. if you have a 2 piece mage set, any spells cast by someone in the MP group is boosted/changed etc…

  • Maybe the SET idea in LE could be entirely different and random… ie… you wear two unrelated Uniques and you receive a random bonus that resets each time you change the items… Maybe even a traditional set could have different random boosts that re-roll every time to equip it…

  • Why do we even need set items? Right now no-one is using them so why bother…

  • Why not try a Dungeon that allows the creation of your own Sets - i.e. instead of finding sets as drops, you can complete a dungeon and a Forge Imp can magically link a rare/exalted/unique and in doing so allow for the creation of a special affix that is unique to your own character created “Set”

Honestly, with some alcohol I could probably go on indefinitely here - probably getting quite silly at times, but I REALLY think that Sets should not just be updated - I think the whole concept of Sets needs to be reconsidered…

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I really like the idea of sets and so i hate to agree with you. lol.

Either a set is good enough to get you into endgame, maybe not 400+ empowered endgame, but pretty far along, otherwise there’s no point in their existence.

we don’t need “leveling” sets, crafting and leveling uniques do the job nicely.

Forgotten Knight set looks way cool and there’s absolutely no point in using it.

I tried Ruby Fang, and even though I had some kind of ridiculous poison chance, the build is one of the weakest i’ve made.

I think LE is right, there’s now more room at the top, but “so what ?”. A set will always be temporary untily you craft your legendary items.

I guess they could fill a niche where you don’t have to craft “temporary” items while trying for your BiS. There’s a possible niche there, but the problem is that the sets require a bunch of work to create and balance. And so all that work for something that might be useful on a temporary basis doesn’t seem like a good use of time and resources.

I really, really hate to agree. I just love the idea of sets, but i don’t see how they fit into the current game in such a way that they are worth the work to generate in the first place.

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:wink: This is exactly the point I was trying to make - do we even need Sets… I think thats the question that needs to be asked before anything else is done… if yes, then the second question is … Do we need sets in the traditional concept of sets? or can we try something new?

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Sets that give you an alternative way to build like shattered lance and vilatria’s are very cool.

But do they actually need to be sets? why not just roll them into a singular piece of unique gear instead. I really dont think if you turn vilatrias set into just a staff with all the features of the staff that suddenly the lightning meteor build archetype with INT stacking is going to be game breaking. It also opens that feature up to Acolyte who cant make use of the meteor stuff, but could play a quirky spell lightning build(Off theme elemental scaling is super interesting build wise!)

I am sorta in agreement honestly, I like what many of the sets do as features, I dont like that they are tied to set effects. Id gladly take watering down of the power of the sets in exchange for making them singular slot build arounds.

Like I really love the totem set that came out recently forget its name, but its a dagger/ring 2 set. But the ring is really weird and not particularly useful outside of having an okay int roll, and giving you +1 totem skills from the set effect. which is honestly not that worth? Id rather just use a good turquoise ring which has better implicits and does not have half its affixes be useless junk.

Sets just need a lot of work put into making them unique and flavorful even if they are not the best. Stuff like the forged weapons set are just bad and dont mesh with the flavor of 1 skill and instead are all over the place.

Also buff gaspars 2022, I want to play a build thats core feature is decimate, its all the set gives you, why does it have such a horrible cooldown?

edit: also just like to say, I also agree, we certainly dont need leveling sets. Sets should be an end game affair.

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