Thanks for your opinions, this is 100% up to devs tho. I hope they consider set removal tho not a deal breaker for me but just not a fan of sets anymore.
I am a big fan of “game-breaking” or “game-altering” effects and giving such effects to one singular item sometimes might not be balanced.
Set’s are a great way to give the opportunity for very unique and powerful effects.
If implemented well, they are a boon to build diversity.
And since i don’t see the slighest sign of LE moving into the direction of other games, that ruined sets, i am totally for introducing even more sets.
2-3 pieces are perfectly fine.
I would argue, that some of the current sets are not powerful and exciting enough at this current stage, but some of them are already pretty old.
The general direction of sets in LE is very good regardless
1 Like
I wish sets were more impactful myself. Sets should cater to specific builds. Maybe not be the best in slot for the build, but it should be good. Sets currently don’t really do that. Set bonuses are completely negligible. Sets in LE don’t feel like sets.
Maybe LE should reimagine what items of a set should be. Just as an example, maybe set items could be generic in that the only thing that matters is the number of set items you have equipped, rather than being a piece of a specific set. Put on one piece, it acts like a unique. Put on a second green item and you get to choose a 2-piece set affix. Put on a third piece and you get to choose a 3-piece set affix. This allows players to mix and match “Set Uniques” and customize the “Set Affix Bonuses”. Maybe even have a crafting rune that lets you remove the most recently added “Set Affix” so players could re-customize their sets at the cost of item instability.
4 Likes
Yeah that mechanic is original and never been done before. But then your main goal would be hunting these sets… instead of making a build by which uniques you currently have. Not to mention that rare tier gear is better than most uniques, so uniques and sets need lots of work still
Top tier rare items should always be best in slot. The only exception is a Unique or Set item that changes how a skill works in such a way that it is build defining. I posted quite some time ago that item rarities should have a specific definition and should not veer from that.
Rare items - Basically stat sticks that should be BiS at the very highest tier.
Set items - Should be items that improve very specific builds. A great example of this is the Werebear set that changes your werebears color.
Unique items - These items should have unique affixes that cannot be gotten from any other source. This includes affixes that change the way skills or rules work. Exsanguinous was a good example of this.
Rares need to have the potential to be BiS or crafting becomes pretty pointless.
1 Like
What you describe is already the case with most of the items.
Not all of the uniques are equally “crazy” but I’d say 90% have properties that you can’t get elsewhere. Devs also stated that the old uniques will get an overhaul in the future.
But the ruleset you suggest(ed) is already present.
It’s not even close. The VAST majority of Unique items and Set items have bland meaningless stats. When I say Uniques need affixes you can’t get elsewhere, I don’t mean silly generic things. The +2 to Shurikens or +2 Fireballs are fine. The 100% void damage taken as fire is fine. THOSE are build defining. Chance to blind/stun/freeze/chill, etc. are not unique traits. Increases to damage types are not unique traits. Non-rare items in this game are in a pretty sad state. Even the ubiquitous Eye of Reen is bland. It is very high attack speed and very high ignite chance with a proc that is useful if you build around melee crit.
I hope this will not happen. Just take a look at D3 and look at the ammount of useless skills because there are no good sets there for it. Sets that cater specific builds are the worst freedom canceling crap ever implemented into games.
Sets in LE can be simple for each mastery and still they most likely would suck. Just look at the beastmaster for example. If you play the build bordman came up with a set with a lot of pet bonuses that benefit the mastery thematicly it will still be useless for certain builds.
Sets just narrow down the possibilitys and less possibilitys = less fun and noone came up with good sets in the past and present. No offence intended but the sets in LE are a big joke as well and a good example of how you schould’nt do it from my point of view.
That is because D3 decided to make sets BiS for most builds.
Sets are supposed to be thematic but not BiS. I also think sets should change the way your toon looks overall. Like the white werebear set.
If sets are not BiS what are they good for? I think the usage of clever uniques will be far better.
2 Likes
Sets are supposed to be cool, thematic, beginning end-game gear. Sets should fit specific build themes and make your character look different. Top-tier rares should be BiS for everything except for the one or two Unique items that builds are built around (because they change the way skills work or change something fundamental about the gameplay).
Why these affixes are not unique in themselves, there usually unique to the item they are on.
Example
- Eterra’s boots come with healing effectiveness on boots. You cant normally get that on boots that’s why its unique.
- Shattered Lance comes with healing effectiveness on a weapon which is not possible outside of a unique set item
There are very few uniques that are not true uniques and most of them are very old and as people have mentions those ones are most likely to get updated and reworked as when they were made the game was In a completely different state.
4 Likes
That’s your personal impression. The truth is that almost every unique has at least one effect that is unique.
Look at this page and point out one unique that has not at least one unique effect.
Go on for every peace of gear. There are no uniques that aren’t unique besides very rare exceptions that only have “boring” damage modifiers. But those are often specific for certain damage types and so thematic for a certain build and/or you find those stats on items they cannot be occur on normal items because of crafting restrictions.
If you don’t know what to build with certain items, that’s fine. I haven’t found the purpose of all of them either.
But most of them have a defined theme you can use for doing niche builds, like a void sorcerer for example.
I agree with some of the iniques/sets not being powerful enough. But show me one single set that doesn’t have a clear theme?
BTW, you can use Harvard’s Set on a void knight very well.
Just go for it and do crazy stuff. Many things will work surprisingly well.
1 Like
So, “build-defining” then?
As Raw said, the old uniques are going to get reworked.
Why not remove all the stats from items while you’re at it? You want/need certain stats and bonuses for your build to work and if you want to get them, you need to farm them. If you don’t get certain items, change your build to match the items you have at your disposal. As Boardman said, there’s about one build in the game at the moment that NEEDS set items to work properly.
1 Like
I don’t know if you are purposefully misunderstanding me or not. When I say they don’t have unique effects, I am purposefully excluding those that are “This stat doesn’t appear on a boot but does appear on 4 other slots of gear”. Those are not unique. When I say unique, I don’t mean to that specific slot of gear, I mean unique to everything in the game, All gear and skill nodes. A unique item should fundamentally change something about the game that you can get nowhere else in the game but on that unique item.
No. Crit builds build around crit, not that sword. Nobody makes a build around Eye of Reen. They make a build that Eye of Reen can fit into. There is a huge difference.
1 Like
Simply not true.
Ill post a flurry build today thats completely built around eye of reens crit buff that no other weapons would be able to do as well.
1 Like
Not necessarily, you can use a build that has high crit chance to proc lots of stacks of Reen’s Ire & then do massive ignite damage (which is what I was doing here: Llama’s Firebrand/Flame Reave Spellblade Tankyboi)
That’s not true though, any melee ignite build will have Eye of Reen as it’s BIS weapon. Where you draw the line between “this weapon is BIS” & “I’m building around this weapon” I’m not sure, I think that is a matter of personal definition.
IMO, if you’re going to use a definition of “this build only works with XXX unique” to define a unique, then that could probably only be applied to a very small minority of uniques - Exsanguinous/Last Step of the Living/Shroud of Obscurity for low life builds & Dark Shroud of Cinders/Blade of the Forgotten Knight before they nerfed Fire Auras.
IMO, there are a number of uniques that, while they aren’t essential for a build to work, they really do make it significantly better - Eye of Reen for any melee ignite, Blade of the Forgotten Knight for any void hybrid/spell build, Taste of Blood/Undisputed for any fast melee bleed build, Plague Bearer’s Staff, Dragonflame Edict (probably), Draalsting, Vipertail, to name just a few.
2 Likes
I’m a bit tirered today so I only thought about this without doubble checking it but in every arpg with sets sets are THE endgame gear and not only something to dabble with but something that get’s worse.
This is sort of what I am getting at. It is just my opinion, but I think unique items should make unique builds. I agree that Eye of Reen is good for ignite builds just because of its very high ignite chance, but it isn’t unique in flavor.
This was absolutely NOT the case before the Set rework in D3. Sets in D2 were hot garbage for the vast majority of them too. Even the great sets like tals and IK weren’t BiS for the whole set.
Honestly, the ONLY game I can think of where full sets are BiS is current D3.
Grim Dawn sets are great, but that is because they massively overlap with Unique design space in how they change how skills and builds function. D3 sets do the same thing currently. Even still, I don’t think Grim Dawn has full sets as BiS on the vast majority of the sets. Partial sets are common.