Actually, an even better fix:
+100-150 minimum damage
+350-400 maximum damage
That would have the added benefit of fixing the display bug it gets from using an affix that wasn’t supposed to be used for items and is bugged on items, that it currently uses,
Some CRPGs have dices you can buy inside the game, that will give you + or - % chances for certain rolls.
I could see something similar for itemization in D2R. In a fantasy world like Diablo I imagine it working something like “magnetizing” your drops on a spectrum that would be more to your liking. For example, if I bought a dice geared towards wizards, I might be more likely to see rolls with + to wisdom.
I haven’t played it, but I think D4 lets you disassemble items and gives you crafts of affixes you like in an item, which you can put into another item, customizing your gear. That would be cool in D2. I’ve put a lot of time into D2R recently. I think anything that helps make loot more interesting is a good thing.
It’s the sorc energy shield’s BIS, but this is not a main build of the game, some players sacrifice 2 slots for the meditation aura
There are 3 builds that support using it as a fake best in slot, Paladin Hammer, Necro Bone, Necro Sum
Essentially the first two are primary sources of magic damage, and the lack of resistances to that type of damage makes up for the skill spam. Necro Sum for supporting many sub builds like 4 maxed skill can be revive crazy mana flow can help in game.
it is only the third in cost benefit losing to Pride and Obidience (infinity in the hand of necro sum merc is not justified by the existence of obidience)
I disagree with the nerf. I think the proposed up on honor evens things out for transitional weapons from nm to hell.
But to write this text made me think of the following general proposal for runewords. If it’s applicable to polearm, so be it to spears.
How about something like this?..
Grief
Eth Tir Lo Mal Ral
Swords, Axes
35% To Cast Level 15 Venom On Striking
+30-40% Increased Attack Speed
Damage +340-400
Ignore Target’s Defense
-25% Target Defense
+1-185% Damage To Demons
Adds 5-30 Fire Damage
-20-25% To Enemy Poison Resist
+20% Deadly Strike
Prevent Monster Heal
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
+10-15 Life After Each Kill
You and Necromant make a good point and will drop proposed nerf to Insight. As you mentioned, we did propose to expand Insight to Spears. I’m also curious what people think about a modest buff to Rift as no one really uses it and expand to spears and swords?
I must have missed this discussion a while back. I do like the idea of increasing the max sockets on shrunken heads. I’m curious what other people think about this?
Lastly, I think the new runeword Mosaic could use a nerf. I think the 50% chance to not consume charges should be lowerd to 33%, then x2 would be 66% which is more than enough paired with the refresh…
Mosaic
Mal Gul Amn
Claws
+50% Chance For Finishing Moves To Not Consume Charges
When a finisher is executed this way, it now refreshes the expiration timer of the stack
+2 To Martial Arts (Assassin only)
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+200-250% Enhanced Damage
+20% Bonus to Attack Rating
7% Life Steal
+8-15% to Cold Skill Damage
+8-15% to Lightning Skill Damage
+8-15% to Fire Skill Damage
Prevent Monster Heal
Tyrael’s Might
Templar’s Might
Nitpicking on these. I think for the most part your suggestions are good. I’m on the fence about +skills on Tyraels. Its a niche item. I just think that the +str should always be +30. The item is literally called “Tyrael’s might”
…or just have finishing moves only execute one unique charge per attack and only once per attack cycle.
The reason Mosaic went over our ‘heads’ was that even the attack that sais it applies charges to both attacks, Dragon Claw, historically didn’t apply the charges to both claw attacks.
Nobody realized, I believe, that Dragon Talon would trigger once PER KICK.
Nor that Dragon Claw would trigger once per claw – as they’ve obviously never worked that way before, because all charges were being consumed on the first hit and thus only one attack per use of a finishing move procced charges.
I was blindsided by this when ‘reviewing’ Mosaic.
…
And after such a change, the skills needs a buff.
It’s just silly that one runeword is required for a build to work, and takes it from low tier D to SSS.
As for teleport:
Cast delay 6 seconds
Teleport: Reduced cast delay by 0.1 seconds per hard point
Telekinesis: Reduces cast delay by 0.1 seconds per hard point
…making it an escape skill and a skill that can skip walls.
…
Then rework Hell monsters and bosses to have better treasure classes to compensate.
Slower runs means treasure classes must be buffed to compensate.
That would allow other classes to run bosses.
Also:
Add more unique monster packs, and heavily buff the unique monster packs’ treasure classes.
It’d be great if players stopped to kill some elite monster packs because they have specific heightened odds of dropping good loot, again as compensation for having to walk more.
reworks on uniques should be done for low levels and for high levels. i still walk the entire game when i make a new character, put level restricts on to stop unwarranted rushers or helpers and play through entirely.
with uniques, it’s either the most useless stat item that can be beaten by a rare at level 14 (one of my most noticeable examples is Lenymo Sash. it has amazing stats for level 7 but it is a SASH so at level 7, having 2 rows of potions hurts the item more than just using a rare with 3 or 4 rows for potions) or a useful item that starts at level requirements in the 40s at which point runewords basically start to make general unique items obsolete. once you get into the 60s the entire field of uniques has been whittled down to a small, select group of unique items.
another example Que-Hagen’s wisdom which is comparable to Skin of the Vipermagi. que-hagen has a level requirement of 55 on a base item with a level requirement of 25, completely obliterating its value against the similar item of viper, usable at 29, and making it useless competing against anything else in the level 55 realm of items.
same with low level set items. it can make more sense to put all of a sorceress’ stats into strength just to get 75 strength until like level 30 so you can use Sigons instead of anything that would be aimed at a sorceress.
a good example of the disparity of items is the pre-lod sets versus the lod sets and their level requirements. you go from level 3 with Hsarus to something like Trang-Oul’s which becomes useable in the mid 60s and one usable set being Sigons which you can stretch to like level 28
there are a lot of cool unique items that would be fun to use from level 1-70 but are just not worth it at all. i feel like they kind of attempted this with the class specific, flagship items such as Jalals or Oculus or Bartucs or Arreats, Homunculus, Titans, Herald of Zakarum with level requirements at 42 across the board but it still leaves a lot to be wanted from 1-42
I’m curious what you think about our proposed buffs mentioned in the OP for the exceptional and normal uniques? If you have any ideas to make uniques more fun around the level requirements from 1-40 as you mentioned, please share your thoughts.
For the proposed Salvation Aura on Tyrael’s Might, we thought it would be cool to have the same level range as Sanctuary Aura on Azurewrath, 10-13.
And rolls increase the desire to check and the overall fun imho 
Just found a Silks of the Victor and went through normal armors. As far as I remembered, didn´t we say, that we would like to add 1 OS to Goldskin (for the theme and viability). Jewelers armor wealth, so to say
Still think 1 OS would be appropriate and a good addition to compete with Stealth a bit more. I´m pretty sure we wont see increased gold pickup radius and even 200% + GF would not to crazy that early on.
For Tyrael’s might and salvation aura might I make a suggestion? I know it’s the rarest item in the game. But double digits salvation is kinda crazy. Basically you and your merc will need no other forms of resistance. I think 5-7 is enough to where you don’t have a situation that makes all other resistance modifiers obsolete.
I made a RW ‘Wings of hope’ that requires Zod Ber so not cheap and gave it salvation aura and even level 7 salvation with a -70 light sunder and otherwise naked I still need about 35 all resists to max. And my merc doesn’t really need any so just stack all the damage.
Salvation is an amazing aura and imo underutilized for end game gearing.
This is a runeword design problem. By being able to choose the base item you choose the strength prerequisite. Usually you choose the smallest, this is the case with armor.
Making a comparison, these are the 4 with the lowest use of force, Greyform, Blinkbat’s Form, The Centurion and Twitchthroe with respectively 12, 15, 20 and 27 of force. The others, because they have a prerequisite of 36+ strength, are simply not worth mentioning.
Blinkbat’s approaches steath, but is still inferior.
Except for the sorc, all classes have 15+ strength and can use Quilted Armor and Leather Armor without burning a single point in strength, and both bases can steath.
Sigon as you mentioned is another classic case of this problem.
So from my point of view, is it possible to do the rework to balance the uniques at the beginning of the game? Yes, but we have to consider what is necessary for this balance to exist:
Steath is more powerful than all low unique armors and can be made with less strength requirement therefore:
Exposing all this, we don’t even consider the chance of a drop, but it’s much easier to be alone in the room and take down such and eth from the countess than having to find a good armor to start with.
These items might be saved for solo players who got them in better condition with characters already level 70+ in much better condition to use when making the second or third character.
I do consider this a fair and necessary task, but by far the most difficult one ever proposed in the topic, and that to move forward requires proposals and discussions from those who actually keep such items.
I simply put my proposal, mainly because the comparison with the paladin is unfair.
Paladin shields can have all resistance or increased damage and attack rating and 4 socks, and access to any counter shield runeword, ridiculous poison damage, up to 3 bonus skills with a maximum of 2 socks and access to only 2 runewords.
See your point! We’ve been discussion double digits only due to the needed range to reach out for your merc. But 6-8 would be fine imho. It still would be viable and an alternative to the very good RW. So fine for me!
I don’t see any problem with this armor being overpowered due to its rarity, but I have to agree, any necromancer summoner with more than 3 points in summon resist and devotion aura, has all its minions immune to Fire, Cold and Lightning, so the salvation aura is something to think about calmly, not to turn the new mosaic.
I agree that we won’t see increased gold pickup radius, so how about instead we buff GF a little more and add a roll for 1-2 OS?..
Goldskin
Full Plate Mail
Defense: 356-405
Required Level: 28
Required Strength: 80
+120-150% Enhanced Defense
+2 To Light Radius
All Resistances +35
Attacker Takes Damage of 10
100% Extra Gold From Monsters
I would support toning down the Salvation Aura to roll between 5-7 as mentioned. I think numbers 5 and 7 are thematic as they are supposely angelic numbers.
Tyrael’s Might
Sacred Armor
Defense: 1322-1502
Required Level: 84
Required Strength: None
+120-150% Enhanced Defense
+50-100% Damage To Demons
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+20-30 To Strength
All Resistances +20-30
Cannot Be Frozen
Requirements -100%
Slain Monsters Rest in Peace
Indestructible
I recently found a Crown of Ages but was disappointed when it rolled with only 1 OS. As this item is a rare TC87 item, it deserves to have better consistency with always rolling 2 OS. I propose we make this change as well…
Crown of Ages
Corona
Defense: 349-399
Required Level: 82
Required Strength: 174
+50% Enhanced Defense
+100-150 Defense
+1 To All Skills
Damage Reduced By 10-15%
All Resistances +20-30
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
Socketed (1-2)
Indestructible
Love it!
Is the excitement not to major part of it? Haven´t found one myself and traded a low value 1 OS just for fun. But would leave it as it is. Is is still BIS in some builds and always a usefull item even with 1 OS?
I tend to agree, but still. I´d rather see it in a decent spont on par with other good options. It doesn´t help the game if we would create a new meta armor (like enigma). So I would rather place it in a spot we you still have to choose if armor A, B or C helps your char the most…
Good!
I updated OP based on previous discussions:
Tyrael’s Might
Sacred Armor
Defense: 1322-1502
Required Level: 84
Required Strength: None
+120-150% Enhanced Defense
+50-100% Damage To Demons
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+20-30 To Strength
All Resistances +20-30
Cannot Be Frozen
Requirements -100%
Slain Monsters Rest in Peace
Indestructible
Goldskin
Full Plate Mail
Defense: 356-405
Required Level: 28
Required Strength: 80
+120-150% Enhanced Defense
+2 To Light Radius
All Resistances +35
Attacker Takes Damage of 10
100% Extra Gold From Monsters
Lidless Wall
Grim Shield
Defense: 271-347
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 58
+80-130% Enhanced Defense
+1 To All Skills
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+3-5 To Mana After Each Kill
+10 To Energy
+1 To Light Radius
Does everyone support the proposed nerfs to runewords below for side discussion?..
Spirit (Shield)
Tal Thul Ort Amn
Shield
+2 To All Skills
+25-35% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missiles
+22 To Vitality
+89-112 To Mana
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+3-8 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
Spirit (Sword)
Tal Thul Ort Amn
Sword
+2 To All Skills
+25-35% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage 3 Second Duration
+75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
+250 Defense vs. Missiles
+22 To Vitality
+89-112 To Mana
+3-8 Magic Absorb
Mosaic
Mal Gul Amn
Claws
+50% Chance For Finishing Moves To Not Consume Charges
When a finisher is executed this way, it now refreshes the expiration timer of the stack
+2 To Martial Arts (Assassin only)
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+200-250% Enhanced Damage
+20% Bonus to Attack Rating
7% Life Steal
+8-15% to Cold Skill Damage
+8-15% to Lightning Skill Damage
+8-15% to Fire Skill Damage
Prevent Monster Heal
Grief needs to be ptr testet extensivly, but I´m good with all changes
Agreed. After more thought, I think the nerf to Grief should stay a simple reduction of +Damage as orginally proposed. Also, check out videos on testing The Cranium Basher and The Grandfather by Endugu and Nickie, fun stuff. The GF looks to be in a really good spot, but we may need to take another look at TCB. Here is what I would like to propose…
The Cranium Basher
Thunder Maul
Two-Hand Damage: (119-132) To (560-632)
Required Level: 87
Required Strength: 253
200-240% Enhanced Damage
20 To Minimum Damage
50% Damage to Undead
75% Chance Of Crushing Blow
4% To Cast Level 1 Amplify Damage On Striking
20% Increased Attack Speed
All Resistances +25
25 To Strength
Indestructible
Didn’t we discussed a lower level req as well? So that you could use it in a normal playthrough? If I’m correct we talked about 77?
For TCB I find it hard to predict effectiveness on paper. But a few thoughts and discussion points - just to be sure. Lvl 10 amp dmg has a duration of 35 seconds (range 8 yards from 2 at lvl 1) with a 8% chance to proc that would stay up almost constantly. Do we want that? The 8 yards should not be a problem even in a party I guess. But doesn’t work with WW if I’m correct? If so it doesn’t really matter too much I guess.
How’s the added strength of min 77 in combination with the already high strength req of 253 (resulting in min 330 strength). Is that useful (increases dmg of course) and reasonable (not saying that it isn’t, but just up for discussion 
)? Not saying that we need the 100th item with -req.