But it is unique in flavor because no where else in the game would you possibly try to build into 100% crit chance to boost your ignite damage as thats what you do with eye or reen since you get a 5% boost to fire damage over time per stack of ire reens. This weapon is completely build defining and can and is built around in quite a few builds. It is unique because you dont get its benefits anywhere else in the game.
You are right I should’ve narrowed it down a bit. D3 and chaosbane comes to my mind and oh boy wait for D2 remastered :D. In Grim Dawn sets are the core of every endgame build and I’ve never seen a build without it. Then again… Grim Dawn did a very good job to incorperate everything but I still hope this can be done better but we’ll see. Afaik we still miss another rarity tier in LE and I’m eager to see what EHG has up their sleeves.
I said
While we give a lot of examples you keep on saying that uniques in general are boring. If you expect unique effects like spawning litte ants that shoot rainbows that explode on impact - yes, you are right. That’s not the case with LE items.
We only have uniqes that spawn skeletons, tidal waves, animated weapons, firebolts and all that boring stuff.
I think you made clear that you have set your mind and thats it.
Great, so maybe Eye of Reen isn’t the best example of a bad unique, but it is still bland. Unique items should be items in the game that when dropped, people make a new character to specifically build around that item. I still don’t know that Eye of Reen reaches that point. It still seems more like an item that just gets slotted into an existing build idea rather than the item creating the idea itself. Eye of Reen is a good item, it just doesn’t feel particularly unique to me.
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It’s really crazy how the perception of certain mechanics (in this case uniques) differs so greatly.
LE for me has by far the best approach to uniques out of any aRPG.
I do agree, that there are alot of old ones, that need to be updated to live up to the new standard, but i am definitely very happy with uniques in LE.
It’s really crazy, because i think one of the most complains i hear about uniques, is actually the complete opposite. People do not find them very exciting most of the time, because most of the time, you find a unique that does not fit into your build, because they are so specific.
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They are very specific, but for the wrong reasons.
Just to clarify what I am talking about, of the 7 different unique helmets, only 3 feel in any way “unique”. That is Altors Legacy for the generic +1 to max companions, Decayed Skull for the damage taken conversion, and The Ashen Crown for “Elemental Nova is now cast at target location”. Of those, only The Ashen Crowns effect feels exceptionally unique and build defining. So 3 of 7 if I want to be very generous, but really 1 of 7 for what I actually am talking about.
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Don’t get me wrong, i am totally behind the idea of overhauling and maybe reworking some uniques/sets that are no longer exciting enough.
But even the uniques that do not have have outrageously special mechanics, usually have at least stats on them, on a slot where you can’t get that stat for example. Which still is way cooler than a “unique” that is just a infalted stat stick.
Except one helmet(namely the Snowblind, which has a unique stat “cannot be blinded”), your example was perfectly valid, if you want to go one step further you could even rule out “The Ashen Crown”, since it’s basically only doing what a node within Elemental Nova’s Tree is doing. So it’s not “unique”, just unique for an item.
But i feel like you just picked out possibly one of the “worst” slots in terms of uniqueness.
Literally all other slots have insanely cool uniques.
I just clicked on the first lastepochtools.com link RawSuicide posted. Just happened to be helmets. I think weapons are in the worst shape, but that may just be due to the number of them.
But how is that unique… you can literally get that inside the skill tree.
You can get this inside wolves skill tree and inside passive beastmaster tree… even less unique
I must say, this whole discussion is now totally focused on examples of bad unique or set items. While the core question was about removing SET MECHANICS. And I’ll repeat myself: I’m totally convinced (thanks @boardman21 
) that LE version of this mechanics is totally viable.
Concept is like …
- Unique items give some unique modifiers.
- Set items give some unique modifiers INDEPENDENTLY to exact item combination. Those mods depends on the NUMBER of items.
So, perhaps this discussion should transform to a new suggestion-topic?
- List of uniques that desperately need to overhaul
- …
? 
Right, and that is the best example. You are bolstering my point.
Snowblinds “cannot be blinded” is unique, but seems utterly useless.
Tell that to the blind marksman
Absolutely uniques are definitely boring right now i don’t use them purple rares only thing worth using right now.
Actual Unique ideas?
Skills use health in stead of mana
Shrine effects are double the time
X skill cast instantly (aka buff skills that you can add more buff faster if you skip animation)
Every 3rd summon skeleton summons a zombie bear
X summon never dies but damage is reflected on you
Gain use of Skill (skill you cannot usually use because you chose opposite class)
All magic skills use Strength stat instead
Do 600% more physical damage as long as no weapon is equipped
Revive on death once, but resistance is 50% less for 10 seconds
^ something like these would count as unique
wonder if any of you have some ideas on what other unique effect might be missing out this game
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In my opinion it should be something like idol-system - skill based. I have an example, suggestions of uniques for reworked Black Hole and Fire Shield spells (at the end of my post).
Looks like we need a dedicated “hist on uniques” thread as it seems :D. I hope it wasn’t me who distracted everyone from the topic :D.
Facebreaker Shield/Hammer Throw. lol
Example, maybe OP, Snowblind rework.
Cannot be Blinded, Slowed, Frozen, or Chilled.
All damage you deal is converted to cold.
All damaging ailments you inflict are converted to Frostbite.
Some chill chance
Some freeze chance
Cannot inflict ailments other than Chill, Freeze, and Frostbite.
Honestly i forget about idols some time maybe there should be only SETS idols instead of SETS gear.
And yes my Warcheif is boss this season lol
I want this…
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Sets are not that good in this game anyways, so you aren’t forced to use them for anything but the most specific of builds.(even then they tend to be weak options)
Sets should at least have some big awesome effect at 3 of.