Most individual set pieces are not worth using (especially low level sets).
In a typical ladder start, virtually all set pieces go to the vendor as vendor bought gear or magic/rare pieces end up being the superior option.
Only after farming For multiple pieces of the same set do a small subset of items become useful.
Shouldn’t set pieces be at least superior to magic items found at equivalent qlvl?
The thing is, most magic items are useless as well. There are some that have more purpose, have better utility or roll better than set items, but that’s a small minority.
Most items overall even uniques are useless. The issue with set pieces is by the time you get enough low level pieces together, you’ve surpassed the point where they’re worth using. You can’t even complete sigons before you have some piece of gear that beats the entire set. So, not only do uniques/rares/ get passed up quickly too, but sets have a challenge that is far too great to get past. You need multiple items to make them worthwhile.
Yes there are plenty of decent set items that don’t need multiple pieces to be effective…
Aldurs boots has huge frw/life/fr
Nats boots pretty similar little less effective
Trang belt has decent life/mana/life rep and is the only belt with cbf
Trang gloves is the alternative to magefists with poison % damage and cr
Laying of hands very decent pvm bow/melee gloves
that’s wrong. Most of the set items are very useful in normal as single item and get very powerful combined with another piece or more.
Magic and rare items roll very low values in that lvl range.
examples:
death hands,belt
civerbs szepter
sigons hands,belt,armor,boots,shield
hsarus belt,boots
irathas hands/head
infernal,berserkers,head
cathans head,rings
they are all pretty nice in normal->nm even as solo pieces
As others have said there are some exceptions. Things like LoH are basically BiS for several melee builds. Trang belt is an awesome way to get CBF and also has big life bonus. GFace is BiS for several melee builds with the massive damage modifiers. Sigs and Isenhart are also really nice low leveling options, but definitely shine with multiple pieces.
I’ll add the IK gloves/belt/boots are pretty nice as well in the NM/early Hell range, either individually but with 3-4 pieces you end up with some nice bonuses, sort of like a slightly higher end Sigs.
Belt gets you nice STR, FR, LR, & Def (FRH with all 3 pieces mentioned)
Gloves gives you 20 to STR/DEX (and IAS w/ 3 pieces, 10 LL with 4 pcs)
Boots give you Def, 40% FRW, 110 AR, and 44 Life (MF and BComb with 3 pcs)
That said I agree, many are no better than magic items individually, and by the time you gather multiple pieces you are far enough into the game that it’s not viable anymore. So they’re regulated to fun OP feeling when leveling alts.
Agree with the above, 40% FRW on boots is amazing, and I’ve always been pleased when I find an Aldur’s Rhythm, especially with 3 sockets… load that up with some rolled P.Topaz’s or toss a P.skull in and you are off to the races.
My lvl98 Zealot is still running LoH as main gloves and GFace never gets removed.
A couple other quite good low level set Items are:
Vid’s Boots: can run for days at low levels (+Ammy for mf)
Cathan’s Ring: good life leach and super common
Other low level set pairs that are really good:
Angelic Ammy/Ring: massive AR boost
Tancred Ammy/Boots: 78% mf + 30% FRW
From mid+ sets, Wilhelm’s Pride is interesting as the only dual leach belt, and each piece of the Griswold set has multiple open sockets for customization.
Partial set bonuses do make set pieces better and useable. The OP literally says that:
This has to be a joke…
There are a total of 62 normal set pieces that cover a total of 16 “classic” sets and the only useful individual piece that you could come up with was Civerbs Cudgel, Death’s Guard, Hsarus’ Iron Heel, and Hsarus’ Iron Stay…
Virtually all other pieces are worthless when they actually drop. For example:
Cathan’s Visage only provides 20 mana and 25% cold resistance but has a TC of 21 so can only drop in A3 or later.
A magic or rare jewels with a “sapphire” affix can roll 16 to 30 cold resistance and has an ilvl requirement of 19. A “Normal Sapphire” provides 24 mana when socketed in a helm and can be found as early as A1 Andy. Charsi will sell you a 2 socket helm…
Sigons Shelter is a TC 33 item with a lvl of 32 that only provides +25% ED and +30% lightning resistance.
“Coral” prefix on an armor only requires an ilvl of 18 and can roll +21-30% Lightning Resistance. An Ort rune in the armor also adds +30% lightning resistance. For reference, Frigid Highlands is a level 25 zone in Normal…
I usually buy a +25%+ fire or lightning resistance armor off Jamella or Halbu once I get to A4 on a melee character, it usually also has a decent suffix.
This literally proves my point 
I literally started the discussion saying MOST set pieces were worthless on their own and all anyone can fixate on the the rare exceptions or multi piece bonuses that makes certain combinations viable
Laying of Hands is a staple for me for demons/bosses when playing a Bowazon. I keep Ghoulhide in the cube and switch to it if I run areas with undead.
I’ve been doing the same thing with my throwbarb this season. He’s a beast with his Wraith Flight ghost glaives. Hork hork hork! 
Credendum belt is also a decent set belt if you don’t have anything better just for the 15 all resist/str/dex boost.
Yes, LOH are amazing for any physical build. Credendum also has some utility on its own. The rest of the set pieces not so much. Dark Adherent is absolutely nothing more than Charsi food.
Sorry I forgot that you are a troll. Bye
Wonderful rebuttal Sir!
Great job defending your claims:
The problem with a stance built upon complete ignorance is that it cannot stand against any scrutiny… Ergo, ad hominem
I agree with Insidious that they are primarily useful for leveling alts. Original set pieces have insanely low level req’s compared to other gear. This is what I keep around for leveling:
Arctic Gear: Armor, Belt, Gloves: Req Lvl 2: You can use it almost immediately and it gives +10% IAS, which is essential at low levels for any character since all casters are effectively hybrid melee-casters until you get to Lvl 27 and can use Insight to replenish mana. This partial set also has a huge life bonus (+50) which is ~100% of your health at this point in the game. The health allows you to put all your stat points into strength so you can use Sigon’s pieces that come available at Lvl 6. Also has 40% MF!
Hsauru’s Iron Heel: Req Lvl 3: 20% FRW, 25% FR – It’s very hard to find any boots with 20% FRW if you’re under lvl ~25 and I hate moving slow
Sigon’s Boots, Belt, Gloves: Req Lvl 6 (though usually Str limited till a bit later): 30% IAS, 10% LS, 50% MF, 20% FRW plus resists–this is an awesome set! I use it till the end of Nightmare on melee builds; till ~Lvl 40 on casters. Sigon’s Shield is good to have on WS to give +skill to buffs until you can get Spirit.
Isenheart’s Lightbrand: Req Lvl 8: With 20% IAS and +10 dmg this is the best 1H melee weapon in the game until the rune word Steel is available
Angelic Ammy, Ring, Ring, Armor: Req Lel 12: +100% MF!!, +1 All Skills, +105 life, +12 replenish life, 50% FR, unbelievable AR boot (awesome for tanky builds with 0 dex investment). I usually run this with Sigon’s till the end of Nightmare. Add 3 PT crown for additional +72% MF, total of 222% MF with very cheap gear that gives all the other bonuses you need. And, this really shines when you play with a Tesladin or Frost Zealot and can use the Angelic saber instead of the armor. Replacing the armor with a 4 PT Gothic Plate gets another 96% MF for a total of 318% MF; with a Rhyme Paly shield (343% MF total) you have a great Nightmare farmer to get gear for that, seemingly impossible, leap to Hell.
Other stand-alone pieces not yet mentioned include:
IK’s Ogre Maul: Very good weapon, especially for Druid shape shifters
Griswolds Heart (Paly Set Armor): Is great for melee MFing as it has 3 OS and a Def ~1000. Works great with a Maul druid.
Griswolds Redemption (Paly set scepter): Has 40% IAS and up to 4 OS. With 4xShael can have 120% ON WEAPON IAS. This enables some melee builds to hit their highest BP
Natalya’s Totem: This is a good mid-level helm and especially useful for helping Merc’s meet Str and Dex req’s. It has up to 20% All Res, +20 Str and +30 Dex! Socketed with a PA for an additional +10 Str, you can actually get an Act III Merc strong enough to use an eth Spirit shield
Dangoon’s Teaching (from Ondal’s) and Sazabi’s Cobalt Redeemer: both decent 1H melee weapons. Not BiS, but they’ll work in Hell until you get something better; and Redeemer is good for an Act V Merc.
There are some set pieces that are individually okay to use even end game, but they’re not worth noting for the most part.
There are some combos with can be used later such as angelics and tal’s sets where you might not use the full set, but a bonus is worth it.
But sets overall largely have okayish stats, but lower than a unique of that same caliber item, their bonus is taken into consideration once you have multiple pieces. The problem is by the time you find multiple pieces almost all sets are useless and replaced by uniques and runewords. There is no way to change that nowadays really. The early game lasts a day on ladder reset, coupled with those sets being hard to put together in a time frame where your character might still be considered early game. And even then if you follow that up even even if on ladder reset you could choose to receive 1 full set (yes most would choose tals) but lets say the top end ones weren’t available. If you could choose 1 full lowbie set to spawn in with, it would only last you a day until you replaced it.
Edit: Beyond that a good 70% of the lowbie sets are trash even in the early stage.
Agreed. Moving to make the item specific set bonuses permanent instead of requiring multiple pieces would make a lot of gear more usable. There are already set bonus to entice the use of multiple pieces.
Imagine the maul having all the element damage on the weapon without the need for multiple set pieces being equipped. Without the bonuses, it’s a trash weapon(even the full set is trash now thanks to WW nerf to 2h Maces). Oath, Obedience, Unbending Will, and Insight all far exceed the damage of the maul and they are all cheap low level runewords that can be farmed for easily.
It’s not just lowbie sets, at least 70% of all set pieces are trash.
I’d tend to agree, couldn’t pull up arret summit to confirm that. I was going to give it a once over before I said that lol.
Isenhart swords are hard to beat at lvl 8!
sure on a fresh season you dont have all these item , but this is a low level set item build i love all cheap set D2planner - Maxroll.gg - Diablo 2 Resurrected Resource Website
Isenhart’s Lightbrand is TC 15, it only drops off Andy in A1.
Once you get to A2, can buy a 3s Flail or Long Sword for equivalent damage with just chipped gems socketed.