Griswold’s would be broken OP. Also Headhuter’s+Sanctuary would be crazy. There’s a reason uniques can’t have Runewords, that make normal items UNIQUE. A unique would be even more unique? That’s just pure insanity
Griswald’s is a set item. But yes, that would be a no-go with Enigma.
Not really? There’s nothing really special about Headhunter’s. It has a little bit of FR and PR, some Life after kill, and some extra defense. I just don’t see it. It would be a good item though, no question, just not broken. A better Sanctuary, to be sure. But how often do you see Sanctuary?
I’d be more worried about “Dragon” in HeadHunter’s.
Sets are a set of unique items. They are not a seperate item category. They are sub-category in unique items.
this would be a very bad idea. Black Hades enigma, for example. and reducing the sockets defeats the purpose of them in the first place(using jewels).
it sounds good before you actually start to think about it. then it sounds like a ridiculous idea.
1 Like
I completely forgot about Black Hades. That would be problematic, too. Maybe just due to the outliers it just wouldn’t work unless some uniques are specifically tagged.
lol @ this terrible idea.
1 Like
Ok you got me there I had a brain fart and could have sworn Heavens light was 3os. Ok then how about lawbringer in a tomb reaver.
You already see the problems yourself and still think it’s a good idea?
It’s either broken or useless, there aren’t that many options as sockets in unique items are rare enough.
Lawbringer doesn’t go in Axes; And Tomb Reaver is one of the ones I suggested might be changed to a 2 OS roll., which actually would make it more powerful with “Wind”, you’d get 40 IAS and 120-160% Enhanced Damage. SUR rune would be going up in Value if Wind didn’t suck.
But again, we’re back up against some legendaries, like Black Hades, would dominate Enigma, Wealth, and Class +2 armors. It, too, could be changed to two sockets. You’d be able to make “Smoke” “Stealth” and “Prudence” with two OS Black Hades. Not a terrible solution.
The amount of ED needed depends enormously on which item you use.
The effectiveness on a lot of factors, no simple calculation can be made to show whether an item is better or worse than that one OP weapon.
Grief for example has no CB and with this items with a little lower damage but decent CB can be made aswell.
Even a Heaven’s Light with Wind or even Strength would be a very strong option, Wind very strong and Strength strong and cheap.
Not sure if you count set items as well but in these a lot of broken items would arrise as well.
Funny enough I only see weapons and shields as possible issue be named, and ofcourse the obvious Runemaster which would be broken AF.
But these aren’t the only problems, even if not counting Sets (Grisswold especially would be insane).
Enigma is already OP, it can now be made in an unique item instead of a White base, Black Hades isn’t a good armour itself, but you’d be adding it’s stats to an enigma, it’s not improving Black Hades, it’s improving Enigma.
Nerfing an item so your idea can be made?
Sounds like a bad start to me, but 4s runewords also have strong options.
Yes a Kingslayer Runemaster would “only” have 211-422 damage, but 33 CB is pretty good.
Famine Runemaster 244-488 with all that elemental damage added.
Oath Runemaster Eth 50ias 348-703 damage.
And all get free Cannot be Frozen and some other stats.
It could work with some uniques combined with some runewords, but thats of course not how it works.
I just don’t think that if it has less damage than Grief (which is not always the case either) it’s not to strong is really where it’s at, simple damage numbers aren’t the only thing in D2.
You are entirely correct, Black Hades is another too-good option. It would have to be “nerfed” (but actually buffed) if it was moved to two sockets with “Runeword” capability.
It’s a significant buff if Runewords can be made inside Rune Master. It’s simple removing one socket here and there to not totally break the game. 5 OS Rune Master, 3 OS Black Hades, and 3 OS TombReaver would be standouts. Reducing the socket by one on each of them and adding “Runeword” tag would fix the problem entirely.
Thanks for correcting me again. I think your idea is incredibly stupid, perfect for D2R. Good day.
Don’t fully agree on this, it would reduce the issue as Grief/Beast etc could not be created.
But Famine/Kingslayer/Oath etc could, even Fury Runemaster would be a very powerful option as well and it’s 3 sockets.
Yes a Phaseblade Grief has more dps than most of those, but also requires 136 dexterity which cuts into life (which is something that should be included if trying to value something).
The Grief zerker is not much faster than the Runemaster options and this does drop dps.
But more important in plain damage Eth Oath Runemaster tops Grief big time, Runemaster Famine deals an amount of plain damage not far behind Grief and adds a ton of elemental/magic damage and has lifeleech, Kingslayer has 33CB which Grief lacks and is very important for melee and while not your first choice it does add 1 Vengeance which might help in certain situations as a free bonus.
And these are not the only strong options.
Not saying these items would whipe the floor with Grief, but I would say they can top Grief in many cases, while I personally think Grief is far to powerful and needs a nerf (combined with a rebalance in melee) so diversity could come back to melee builds.
This idea would bring a bit diversity, but nerfing Grief and buffing melee would bring a lot more.
PS: honourable mention Eth Fury upped Hone Sundan 157-1223 with 45cb and the rest of the Fury bonus and range adder 4.
1 Like
That No! Currency Tab Yes!
I literally remember when runewords first came out and tried this on rare and magic items but never worked 
You ask for an opinion
An opinion is given in why it’s a bad idea
Then you parrot the same thing everyone does when they are challenged
This is the typical response of people when their ideas are challenged.
“Oh you don’t like my idea, you must be against any changes”
No
Your idea isn’t good for the game and he gave proper reasons why.
You can disagree still sure.
But to say that they are against all changes just because they gave you reasons why it’s a bad idea is just plain narrow sighted.
I love posts like these that start off with
“ hey here’s my idea what do you think?”
But really you only want to hear from people that agree because when someone disagrees you get bent
Out of shape and say that they never want changes.
Also here’s my stance
Uniques are unique and built specific.
Add more runewords before creating a balance issue in items that are not designed to be boosted by a runeword
Your idea creates far
More issues than it’s worth
Add more runewords
But seeing as I disagree you should go ahead and assume I’m against all changes
This is the goal! It would introduce weapons who, while not be able to top “GRIEF” could potentially complete with it. When was the last time you were excited about finding Hone Sudan? Black Hades? Rune Master? Headhunter’s? Never? Now you would. Grief wouldn’t be the end-all item for every melee build, which it currently is.
If there were ever to nerf Grief, melee would die on the spot. So I’m against nerfing it, but some of these runewords are not as expensive to make.
Long term, melee should get splash damage, I think. Hell, short term.
Thank you for the constructive discussion, Regonox. That’s rare in this place. See below
To be fair, I know your posts are as stupid as you seem to think my idea was.
But in the words of Warrev; Good Day!
I don’t know how this is even up for debate.
Obivously no, no and no.
Thanks, can we lock this now?
1 Like
Hence nerf Grief and in the same patch rebalance melee.
More power in melee should come from skill choices and less from just the weapon, the weapon should remain important, but I think the balance is now 5% skills and 95% weapon so to speak, when you have a crap it doesn’t matter what skill you use it won’t work, if you have Grief it hardly matter what skill you use you crush.
Many items were added increasing skill levels, with magic this means much more damage (varies between skills and builds but mostly seeing increases of 3-8% damage per skill level, with melee a netto damage gain of often less then 1% per skill level.
Which means Torch and Anni for example impact a caster much more than a melee/bow build, these only really become stronger when their weapons increase in damage.
Not saying the weapons should be rendered nearly obsolete or something, just shift the balance a bit, lower the highest plain damage (mostly this means Grief, but a few more) and raise the bonus damage from skills.
Melee basically needs an overhaul as it was left behind when 1.10 hit and falling behind more each new patch.
Grief has no ED.
A Berserker Axe with 450% ED would end up as +319 damage. Adding +20 Damage (which is also multiplied by the ED) means you’d get an additional +110 Damage, resulting in an effective +429 Damage to the weapon, which is then multiplied by the skill and off weapon ED. (That’s why on weapon ED is so much more valuable than + Max Damage)
Thus, it is in fact comparable to Grief’s flat Damage +400. Although, it does have a greater variance since the minimum damage is only increased by +108 by the ED, that would then get an additional +110 from the proposed Damage + 20, so you’d get +218 to +429 Damage as opposed to Grief’s flat +400.
However, a rare could get up to two additional affixes besides the 450% ED, 40% IAS, and Damage +20. You could also get for example +2 to Barbarian skills, or 2 open sockets (which could then be filled with two 15% IAS 40% ED Jewels for even more on weapon ED).
Grief still has several additional nice bonuses, but theoretically you could get higher damage output from a rare with my proposed change.
And unlike your suggestion it would not result in several additional broken items.