Having the fourth cube slot has made D3 fairly enjoyable again. I have been playing around slotting in just about anything that sounds entertaining into it just to see what crazy types of builds I can make.
I don’t care about leaderboards, or GR 150, or even min maxing.
I care about fun and this is what the fourth slot has given me.
I just wish it would become permanent in non-Seasonal (functioning exactly as it does now in Seasonal) so I could then take my time to truly enjoy playing around with the new variety on all my characters.
I don’t play NS at all, but I’d be okay with this. I love having more options. Aside from your trollish tone in your OP, I have to agree with the content.
I care. If powercreep affected all classes equally, it would not lead to further game imbalance. However, we know that the fourth cube slot benefit classes differently where necromancers in particular become disproportionally powerful.
Indeed, the 4th slot doesn’t treat everyone equally. Necros particulary benefit from it greatly. I already mentioned how basically every necro build now uses Reilena’s Shadowhook. That’s up to 4.3x flat damage multiplier, equaling 9-10 GRs. Other classes have their own damage multipliers but none comes even close to that.
Stacking damage multipliers, especially global ones like Reilena’s, is not variety. It’s just power creep. Bloated numbers.
As for that 9 cube slot nonsense…
Being able to choose a lot of things doesn’t add variety. Having a lot options but limits to what one can choose does add variety.
The only time i can see them doing this, is when D4 launches. To keep any hardcore D3 players to continue playing that game but now with the 4th cube slot active all the time.
I want that flexible forth slot. Exactly the way it is. For wizard players this equals a second weapon/offhand slot, meaning I can use Aetherwalker and still deal some decent damage. Yep, that’s all the reason I need to want it.
I personally think that the extra cube slot was an ingenious idea and huge plus for Season 22. Yes, I would love to see that 4th cube slot be permanent as it supplies so many more build variants. I love it, and it would be a huge bonus to game play and enjoyment, if this was to stay permanently.
As others have pointed out, having two weapon slots is a huge boon to necros. Two armor slots for Kanai’s may be a little more reasonable - plus, a lot of utility items are in fact armor slots. (unless you’re a wizard, then it’s slapped on weapons for no real reason )
And you fail to answer the most simple of questions: who cares?
And more specifically: WHY should anyone care?
Balance in D3 is a pipedream fostered by the illusion of non-existent competition.
It’s not an e-sport.
And the only way you could achieve true balance is have every weapon and every modifier result in the exact same effective DPS, so that every class does the exact same amount of damage no matter what gear they got on.
I care as I said already. I prefer balance. Powercreep as evidenced by the 4th cube slot makes balance worse not better.
Your argument that perfect balance is not achievable is accurate: howerver, balance can be better and bettet balance is achievable. The inability to be perfect should not be a deterrent from improvement or an excuse to make thins worse in my mind.
You can see this table that is slightly out of date to see the problems the cube causes where a single class account for >95% of all GR 150 solo clears.
Do you think there should be more equity for the other 6 classes?
Because it’s power creep. To be more specific, completely unnecessary power creep. It changes nothing! Do you understand? If you just bloat the numbers, nothing really changes. There is zero added diversity.
I care. As it has been pointed out, the 4th slot as it is now treats classes and builds unequally. It’s detrimental to the overall balance.
It does give more of a build diversity to pretty much every build.