I’ve written about this problem in other threads.
Shameless Plug (Link Inside)
Scroll down to the “Items with a Purpose” section
[D4] Improving Itemization
I don’t see any one particular multiplier as a problem in and of itself. The trifecta/quadfecta problem existed because you could stack all of them on not just one item, but on every item.
I don’t think the solution is to remove crit chance and crit damage from the game. These are fun affixes that allow your character to occasionally get really big hits against enemy monsters. From a balance perspective, it is a player choice between doing steady, reliable damage and doing spiky, uneven damage. You balance around the average dps over a longer period of time.
The solution is to force a choice with multipliers. You do this by making most of your gear’s affixes scale linearly. You get 2 points here, 3 points there that all add to your total. But on rare occasions, you can weave in a multiplier. You can choose among various multipliers, but the game doesn’t let you stack them on the same item. The percent-based power gain is controlled.
- You can have attack speed, but you give up base damage and crits to get it
- You can have more crits, but you give up the attack speed
- You can have crits that hit like a truck, but they’re rare
This makes you, as a player, specifically hunt for those items with multipliers, but also value the ones that simply scale linearly and give you base stats because gearing for strong, consistent power without the multipliers is also a numerically valid choice.