This means you would have to collect all pieces of a set before even considering using the items as they are too weak to be used solely. This is not the desired item design for me personally.
I think the generalisation isn’t fair at this point. Perhaps you guys could point out more concrete what exactly sucks regarding sets:
The Last Bear
(2) Set: +15% Critical Strike Multiplier
(3) Set: 100% Increased health regen if you have stunned an enemy recently
Ok, I think. Haven’t played a lot of Bear shrug
Isadora
(2) Set: 80% Increased Necrotic Damage if you have been Hit Recently
Recently refers to the past 4 seconds
(3) Set: +30% Mana Efficiency with Necrotic Spells
I use this set a lot on my Lichs. Not Endgame viable, but ok.
Boardman
(1) Set: Limited to One Active Companion
(2) Set: Storm Totem can hit allies to grant 21 health
Health granted is not affected by minion healing effectiveness
(3) Set: Storm Totem can hit allies to grant 21 ward
Really wanna see a @Boardman21 Build Guide about this set. Reading the tooltip looks interesting but wasn’t able to collect all items, yet.
Sunforged
(2) Set: 150% Increased Melee Stun Chance
(3) Set: Gain inspiration when you stun an enemy
Inspiration lasts for 4 seconds and increases cooldown recovery speed by 20%
Nice Set, viable for high monolith as the items themself have good stats.
Zerrick
(2) Set: 40% Increased Chance To Find Potions
(3) Set: Potions no longer heal you, but instead grant +40 necrotic damage to melee and throwing attacks and mark you for death for 4 seconds.
Mark for Death is a curse that reduces all resistances by 25%.
Could not make any use out of this set. The lack of potion health kills me a lot.
Don’t like this set as it has major drawbacks. Doesn’t feel good to me.
Pebble
(2) Set: +5% Chance to replenish one potion when Bone Golem hits an enemy
Applies to all types of Bone Golem
(3) Set: Your Summon Skeletons’ spells and attacks deal +15 fire, cold or lightning damage. The element selected is your lowest elemental resistance.
Very good early / mid game set. Also viable for the start of Monolith. Surprisingly good.
Harvald
(2) Set: +10 Spell Cold Damage
(3) Set: +100% Chance to cast Avalanche Boulder at target when you critically hit with a spell.
This is affected by your Avalanche tree and has a 1 second cooldown.
Haven’t played a lot of Shaman, but the set looks really nice.
Love this set on my Smite focused Void Knight. As I stacked a lot of spelldamage, the Avalanche proc is a nice damage addition without a tree. And it’s really cool what chaos you can create on screen with it.
The Forgotten Knight
(2) Set: 50% increased Void Damage
(3) Set: 50% Increased Time Rot Effect
Really cool set for VK or Sorcerer
Shattered Lance
(2) Set: 6% Increased Health Regen per point of Strength
This bonus can get HUGE. And the items are some of the BIS.
The Invoker
(2) Set: 80% Increased Fire Damage if you have directly cast a Lightning Spell Recently
80% Increased Cold Damage if you have directly cast a Fire Spell Recently
80% Increased Lightning Damage if you have directly cast a Cold Spell Recently
Recently refers to the past 4 seconds
(3) Set: +50% Elemental Resistance
The damage increase is a bit niche, but the resistance stuff is ok. The weakest of all sets for me and barely of any use, though. Using these rings is very punishing as you lose a lot of necessary ring affixes.
My personel conclusion:
Not all sets have really stunning effects. But all have their purpose. I used most sets so far (except Boardman’s) and they are viable for a decent amount of time.
They are not BIS for endgame. But saying they suck is not adequate, I think. They don’t serve the porpose of BIS chase items as the final gear of your lvl 100 character. If this was the plan, ok - they suck. But this wasn’t the plan with these sets. The plan was/is to enable some niche builds or have a early/midgame progression boost.
Maybe we get some BIS chase sets in the future. Maybe not. But I’m really satisfied with the current implementation of sets. They are not too strong so they are not hindering build variety.
In terms of balance some might need a buff to be more in line with other items. The lack of defensive stats on many of the items makes them hard to use on higher levels.
So what are your concrete thought on sets. And what would you do to improve them?