Hi,
I’ve been playing DII for more than 20 years, and nowadays, my way of playing is to raising a character to Gardian from scratch with the following constraints : no unique, no RW, no farming, only using stuff found by my character.
This way is very entertaining : i can only use magic and rare, and runes for sockets, so the achievement is very rewarding.
The best way to find items is gambling, but then it is almost impossible to find a good rare elite weapon : very few gamblings are elite, few are rare, few of rare are good.
For gloves, belt, boots, normal rare items are very good, particularly when playing a caster, and it’s easy to find a good circlet and wand/scepter at merchants or in game.
But when playing a barbarian, paladin, combat druid, bowazon/combat javazon, I also need a good rare weapon, and it is very hard to find it by playing or gambling, and almost impossible before acte IV or V in Hell…
The only way is to be able to upgrade a rare one from exceptional to elite.
But inexplicably, the rare weapon upgrade recipe is also the hardest : compare to others, you need a Um and Fal runes.
Why is this recipe so hard to perform ? I don’t understand why it is easier to upgrade a unique than a rare…
So I propose to have the same recipe for unique and rare weapons : lum + pul, runes one have chances to find in late nm or early hell.
I’m aware my way of playing may be unusal, but even, I think there is no reason for this recipe to be so hard to achieve : by making it easier, it would turn rare weapons much more usable and interesting, which imo was part of the willing of DII original designers.
Ty.
It’s not hard, just cube runes up to a um, or pray your hell diff forage drops a um, these kind of changes will absolutely never come to d2lod, that’s what thay made d2r for, I doubt Anything will come to d2r either because it seems like they abandon it like I did for a couple reasons that I don’t really wanna talk about but this older version is the superior version.
I play this way often, but I don’t use runes.
Save your Charsi quests for elite weapons.
Roll wicked 2os magic weapons.
Save up pskulls to reroll rares
Use Pgems and jewels in 6os whites.
Hell is easy on /p1 with melee using junk weapons. You just gotta know how to use the skills most efficiently.
Another fun way is to use only crafted items - no charms or socketing. Work toward filling every slot with a crafted item in nightmare and only go through hell with crafted gear.
I feel Blizz made RWs so OP and not updated/cared much for rares/crafts that one could legitly find/create even on single player? I was ard 20 years out and just came back last month and after updating myself on stuff there are now D2R only RWs that are not applicable on legacy?? Hell the rares/craft recipes are the same back in the day! I self cubed a CCBoQ via the chippie recipe but they saw fit to nerf that yet make RWs OP and at times exclusive to D2R? I dun even 
Perhaps a more fair recipe to reroll/upgrade rares could be
3 perfect gems + rare item = reroll rare item
2 perfect gems + any rune + any jewel = upgrade rare item
Lastly i feel some skills/trees could be reworked?
For Barbs
Level 1 : Melee or Ranged Weapon Mastery
Level 12 : Blood Lust that works passively via aura that can share with minions/party? There is no need for specific mastery on a particular weapon and max it? Max out Blood Lust seems less limiting and makes more interesting builds?
Act 5 Barb mercs would have Blood Lust and BO always on and dual wield any weapon or equip a ranged one? All mercs can equip belt/boots/gloves/rings/ammy like players and even weapon switch via shift-w command?
For Necros
Rework Poison Dagger to Poison Fury? any weapon could be used it becomes an aura that can be shared with minions/party
Skeleton Mages now do magical not elemental damage
Replace Fire Golem with Spectral Golem? Deals magic damage and spurts out teeth/spear when hit
Lower Resist curse now lowers everything? Elemental, Physical and Magical resists…
For Druids
Oak Sage/HOW is “ethereal” n cannot be killed by enemies
all spells can be casted in wereform, time duration limit/mana cost removed n just cast were wolf/bear again to return to human form
Lycanthropy now adds all resists and increase attack speed bonus
2 types of summons can be casted at all times
Maul now adds a % crushing blow bonus
Shock Wave Receives Bonuses From Maul: +10% Damage Per Level