So I’ve been gone from this game for a while - probably a year or more - and a friend of mine was telling me about the changes Blizzard planned for season 23. I’ll be honest, I was pretty excited. I saw the changes they made to firebird’s and I’ve been trying to theorycraft builds in my head for what I wanted to try building when the season started.
Then I finally went to look at some of my options and discovered the Etched Sigil changes that happened last year. And I just don’t understand. It was by far my favorite legendary in the whole game, and the change is so massive that it might as well have been removed from the game. I don’t like energy twister. Even if it becomes the strongest build, it’s not fun.
Aside from being absolutely heartbroken, I just want to understand why it was changed. As far as I can tell, the community at large was not happy about this. So why was it changed? Did any of the developers give us feedback on why they completely changed the item instead of just giving it a nerf or making a new legendary?
I know blizzard isn’t exactly known for having good customer feedback or for reading their forums, but I’m actually devastated by this. I want to know where I can find the developer’s notes for why this item had to be changed so massively. This legendary has been around for a little over 5 years now. If it wasn’t balanced correctly, it means that something else was wrong.
To make a long story short: No, Blizzard never did give a single explanation as to why they changed(/ruined) etchd sigil, even after all of the feedback/complaints that were given regarding the change.
As to why they made the change, well it’s anyone’s guess. However, I believe they did it as an attempt to curb wizard’s reliance on etched sigil, and by extension channeling itself. The problem however is that the method they went about doing this was perhaps one of the worst methods they could’ve chosen. I could go on and on about the many alternatives that they could’ve done instead, or about how deathwish was the bigger culprit behind wizard’s reliant on channeling (and still is); but quite honestly it was such a poor change that I’d rather not. All I can say is that I hope you still have an older version of Etched Sigil somewhere stashed away.
All I can say is that I hope you still have an older version of Etched Sigil somewhere stashed away.
Unfortunately, the group that I play with do strictly hardcore seasonal. Nothing lying around in stashes to use.
I just can’t even begin to fathom why their solution to “Wizards rely too heavily on this one item that’s been around for 5 years” was to nerf the item so hard that it might as well not exist? Why not, oh I don’t know… Buff existing items / sets / abilities?
3 out of wizard’s 4 secondaries are channeling abilities. We have 4 primary abilities and I think a total of 7 other damage-dealing spells (not counting archon). So considering that 3 / 11 non-primary abilities are channeled, it makes sense that some builds will rely on channeling. That’s 20% of all damage-dealing abilities. If the issue is “too much channeling” then the issue has been at the core of wizard since it was created.
Based on community feedback, is it not obvious to them that they took a large amount of fun from Wizards in an attempt to fix an issue that doesn’t exist?
You bet, we preached all that during the ptr over and over again… and got completely ignored. It’s a non issue for off seasonal players who still have a legacy item. You can even reforge it, since those items won’t change from their legacy state, but yes, seasonal players are a different matter.
I completely understand not wanting to make every build rely on channeling but they didnt even make up for the lost damage, no buffs to other legendaries.
Meteor is useless now.
Meanwhile Twister got a damage buff on Valthek last season - and it doesn’t even fit in the cube cause that’s where the Twisted Sword is already. facepalm
Items that dropped before the patch went live remain unchanged and are now called “legacy”… if you have an Etched Sigil from 4-5 seasons ago then it’s a legacy one. Unless they retroactively change it and as things stand that won’t happen. But you never know…
Only non-crafted set items are retroactive when there’s new changes (this only pertains to their set bonuses). Changes made to legendary items are rarely retroactive. In other words, if you had found an etched sigil before patch 2.6.10 had hit and kept said etched sigil, then that etched sigil would still have it’s previous effect. Of course this is mostly beneficial to non-seasonal players who happened to had found it. If you don’t have a pre-2.6.10 etched sigil on non-season, or you’re exclusively a seasonal player, then there’s nothing you can do since etched sigil is now exclusively an energy twister item.
Etched Sigil, was a source that could be searched for in a previous season. Like all other season drops and star helms, those season items are available instead of a faction of season only currency. Only active accounts in that season of play could search the item in question out.
The auction house option is still available for those who can contact the trade prince, otherwise that feature is blocked as if you could not enter trades. This restriction is removed on some accounts, or a feature available when unlimited auction trades are available. The restriction was put up, to prevent the generation of gold for experience, where players set a high bid to boost exp and resale top level accounts.
Your entire post is roughly 7 years out of date and should be considered misinformation now. There hasn’t been open item trading / auction houses in Diablo III since a couple of weeks before Reaper of Souls was released in 2014.