I just picked up a unique sword. Crainte Vomir Espandon. Its stats are very nice:
Very fast attack speed
20% faster runwalk
50% increase attack speed
200% enhanced dmg
slows target by 35% INSANE
-70 to monster defense per hit
damage reduced by 10% INSANE
Damage 54=120 STUPID
I cannot and will not use it. Why? Because melees are shafted enough as it is even with all the fancy runewords. The unique weapons just cannot match the runewords at all in terms of pure dps numbers. Its just too low to use.
So that got me thinking. Why are unique weapons so meh? It would be so awesome to use some cool uniques for weapons rather than relying on runewords all the time. I know there are a few exceptions but they are far and few.
22 Likes
That is why classic players say runewords destroyed the game. Make uniques great again.
32 Likes
Yesss. Letās start makeing hats 
3 Likes
As mentioned uniques were king before runewords came out. Then runewords power creeped the uniques into non-existence. They are still good to use while you donāt have the runes to make the big weapons.
5 Likes
Could lowering crazy requierments on some of them, and increaseing damage on a lot of them be enough?
No, they are rare to find, if Iām looking for one of the unique scepters I might find most of the runes I need for Death before I find it.
They need to be ābrought upā to runewords statues.
2 Likes
While Iām also in the ārunewords ruined the gameā crowd, there are still some good unique weapons, like my Zon uses Windforce, which is very powerful.
But yes, Iām in the process of making Faith bowā¦
4 Likes
Yes like it was saied before not all uniques are out classed by RWs, but like 90% of them are.
1 Like
I remember the days when I could run my barb with Doombringers or Grandfatherās and it made my barb feel awesome. Then, runewords came along and those 2 righteous swords went to the stash, never to be used again. 
6 Likes
Unique/set/rare/magic items could strongly benefit from 4 small mechanics to add diversity to them
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corruption
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item quality( lower quality/superior)
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indestructible can spawn eth
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base that can have 5-6 socket now larzuk for 1 more socket (ie: GF now can have 2 sockets)
This alone adds a lot of flavour to non-runeword itemization and gives them layers of small buffs
Add to this that their appearance could be made interesting with a Transmog system through Anya personalize quest
2 Likes
even the big ones like the grandfather or windforce ā useless
at least i guess throw barbās and javazonās bis weapons are still uniques 
I think they mentioned a way to upgrade uniques and sets with the cube in the upcoming patch.
haha, so true! I just had a Doombringer drop and it brought back all those memories.
1 Like
While the previous meta uniques are still good to use, some are now just stepping stones towards the higher powered rune words.
Once upon a time prior to the high rune drop boosting 1.13 patch, runewords were basically impossible to get, and for legitimate players the uniques still served them wellā¦ Then hackers found a way to dupe around the rune rarity issue and flood the game with extremely rare runes.
Now weāre used to those rare runes being commonly availableā¦ Weāre spoiled. Non-meta items? Whaaa???
1 Like
It realy should be the other way around. But I guess thereās no way to change this. Imagine the outrage.
this gameā¦and d3 too for that matter has evolved over time. items that were once ācutting edge, top of the lineā get replaced by new fancier gear. āthe grandfatherā was once a much coveted item. sojās were actually used for something other than getting anniās.
thats been one of my pet peeves for this and for d3(although ive entirely abandoned that one): upgrade crap items and find a way to make them not completely useless. d3 allows you to convert them which i think is a good solution here but perhaps an even more imaginative solution is out there?
some nuance facts for context:
Diablo 2 first form, now called āclassicā, before LoD. there was no act 5. there was no ladder. so to beat the game (act 4, diablo final boss) was objectively easier. there were also no runewords. also not all the set items were introduced. this is why many many of the upper end uniques you see are basically ābadā is because they were from literally an older version of the game.
Add in Act 5 - harder than act 4, in some ways.
Add in ladder - monsters on ladder have more HP and deal more dmg.
Add in uber tristram and uber diablo - very difficult zones
these additions literally required, and thus came along with, more powerful items - mostly runewords but also uniques (see 1.10 uniques, runewords).
while this all went on, the PVP game also evolved and influenced the way the game evolved. pre-1.09 pvp was really sad and resulted in certain items being nerfed.
there, thats concise explanation for all these relics of ābadā items you see 
2 Likes
Crainte Vomir is great, I got 2 high ED% ones, upped them, and socketed them, and theyāre incredible. Are they Grief? No. Are they EBOTD? No. But are they still pretty damn amazing? Yep. Totally usable on a double swing barb, or with a single one on a feral druid. Highly underrated weapon, that you may want to consider upping, socketing, and using, itās completely viable. Also very good on barbarian mercenary, may be even better next patch with the merc buffs
4 Likes
Because melee classes are flawed. They should have flat + damage bonus from strength so you can you weapons mostly for their abilities and not just damage.
2 Likes