The ability to confer legendary powers via essences onto Rare items, as shown in the December 2021 Quarterly Update and subsequently confirmed by Blizzard, indicates the undoing of the item tier system presented in the December 2020 Quarterly Update, which has been widely welcomed and applauded by the community. This has me worried and I would like to know:
- Am I misinterpreting the scarce information provided?
- Do you guys agree that Blizzard should maintain the 2020 item tier system?
- Is crafting Rares into Legendaries necessarily a problem for build diversity and customizability or not?
Item Tiers as per December 2020
The December 2020 Quarterly Update explained that Magic, Rare and Legendary items would each have different rule sets that enable well rolled instances of each item tier to have potential endgame value. While higher-tier items would generally be stronger than lower-tier items, they did not âwant to end up in a place where the right decision is to ignore every item that doesnât have a glowing orange sky-beam.â In other words, every drop should have potential value and no garbage items that are insta salvaged should be in the game to give the players busywork. Theorycrafting should be rewarded and build diversity catered to.
To make that work, Blizzard announced that Magic items could only roll two but potentially âthe most powerful regular affixes, while Rare items get up to five, and Legendary items have four regular affixes and one legendary affix." From the example they provided, setting 16.8% immobilize chance on a Magic item to 100% item affix potency, it would seem that â while being more numerous â Rare item affixes only had about 65% potency and Legendary item affixes 54% potency (from 11% and 9% immobilize chance, respectively).
Adding up item affix potencies multiplied by affix numbers, Magic items could achieve up to 200% regular affix potency, while 5 Rare affixes provide up to 327% and 4 Legendary affixes up to 214%. Assuming Legendary powers are balanced to the power of 2 max potency regular affixes, which certainly is the most tricky part to balance in this system, Legendaries would total up to 414% item power.
In sum, the relative total item power of each tier would look something like this:
| Item Tier | Max Affix Power | Total Item Power |
|---|---|---|
| Magic Items | 200% | 50% |
| Rare Items | 327% | 80% |
| Legendary Items | 414% | 100% |
This looks like a healthy balance to me which has a good chance of enabling endgame viability of Rare items, to the degree that you cannot make effective use of legendary powers for each slot, and also Magic items, to the degree you value some very specific regular affixes much more. I elaborate more on this below, but here I want to continue with the argument.
Changes implied by December 2021 Update
The December 2021 Quarterly Update seems to nullify the item tier differences between Rares and Legendaries by allowing Legendary Essences to be applied to both. As a consequence, one of these item tiers becomes superfluous.
First off, we probably have to take the âPowerpoint itemsâ showcased in that blog post with a grain of salt. It includes affixes such as â16.0% Strenghtâ (obviously misspelled and probably pasted over another affix they did not want to reveal yet that is indeed percentage based). It worries me, however, that both the (apparently one-handed) Legendary Axe and the Rare Amulet have the exact same roll of â16.0% Overpower Damage.â Maybe weapons of any item tier just roll higher on this particular affix than amulets do, however we also see in that blog post that Amulets seem to get an affix potency buff.
Be that as it may, having Rares actually roll exactly the same or probably even lower affix ranges than Legendaries would, in my opinion, be consistent with Blizzardâs confirmation that Legendary essences can be applied to Rares as well. This follows logically from assumption that Blizzard âlike the clarity of analysis afforded by clearly understood item tiers.â
If the 2020 item tier system remains intact, Rares would doubtlessly become the most powerful items in the game. We see in the pictures presented that adding the Legendary Essence does not replace but add the Legendary affix, without eliminating an existing rare affix. On a Rare with only 4 affixes in that case, but even if they brought maximum affixes on Rares down by one and also changed the roll range to be equivalent to Legendaries, the situation does not change much. Yes, you would still hunt orange skybeams until you found your desired Legendary powers, and even beyond that in order to upgrade to a better base perhaps for a different item slot, but so long as Rares can have better regular affixes, the real endgame chase items would be those Rare bases over the Legendaries themselves. If Legendaries roll exactly the same, the only advantage of finding a well-rolled Legendary for your desired item slot straight up would be to save the cost (if any) associated with the Occultist. In both cases, Legendaries may as well just drop at essences at that point. They become superfluous as an item tier apart from the legendary power. And since it will likely take you longer to perfect all desired regular affix rolls than to store sufficient Legendary Essences for upgrades, Rare drops outshine orange skybeams which is completely counterintuitive to the item hierarchy we have grown accustomed to. I am convinced that Blizzard will not go down that route.
The alternative is to actually have Legendaries roll higher affix ranges than Rares as they did in D3, which I believe is what they are going for here. The ability to apply Legendary Essences to Rares is essentially only a way to speed up the gearing process. Assuming that Rares drop more often than Legendaries, having finally found the Legendary power you were looking for allows you to use it with adequate regular affix rolls on a Rare instantly. You would continue to be interested in better or alternative rare bases for some time, but only until you found a well rolled Legendary for your desired item slot. At that point, since another rare base could never roll that high, Rares lose all their relevance again. To put it bluntly: D4 Rares become D3 Legendaries and D4 Legendaries become D3 Ancient Legendaries. The horizontally distinct and endgame viable item tier design is being sacrificed for a slightly extended vertical gear progression. To me, this follows logically if Blizzard wants to ensure that orange skybeams remain generally superior to yellow drops.
Maybe you can think of a more benign interpretation of the impact that transferring legendary powers to Rare items will have on the itemization system? I would be happy to hear that. Different affix pools for Rares and Legendaries could be a solution, and maybe that is what they go for with the new +Skill affix (see below). As for now, I have come to think that Blizzard gave up on their very promising 2020 item tier system with genuine strengths and weaknesses for every tier.
Keep Legendary Powers Legendary
The solution is simple: Do not let us transfer legendary affixes onto Rare items. Full stop.
As an alternative, it has been proposed to replace two or three existing regular item affixes on Rares when applying essences to them, either randomly or on selection. On selection would make gearing too easy in my opinion. Random selection may be better, but my reservations essentially remain the same: First, it would still seem too easy assuming Rares drop considerably more frequently than Legendaries. Secondly, I prefer to loot amazing items over pushing crafting buttons, it makes actual gameplay more rewarding. Last and most importantly, we do not need such a crafting option at all if Rares with 5 great affixes have value in and of themselves. This is really what the item tier design should be all about in my opinion.
Let us apply Legendary Essences only to other Legendaries. I do not mind that at all and actually think it is necessary to avoid stash space nightmares with the new random Legendary design. Moreover, it further serves to eliminate useless items from the game since well rolled Legendaries without a useful legendary affix for my build now gain a value of their own.
Let Rares be Rares, an item tier characterized by high randomness and customizability that are qualitatively distinct from Legendaries but potentially equally valuable.
My Take on Item Tiers
Before sharing my own thoughts on the importance of different item tiers, let me link a recent thread with many good arguments in favour and against Magic and Rare Items being endgame viable. Personally, I am opposed to an item design where decking your character all out in Legendaries is the optimal endgame choice for two reasons: First and most importantly, I believe this will unnecessarily restrict build diversity. Secondly, it trivializes theocrafting to a point where selecting some 10 legendary affixes from a pool of a few hundreds is really all you do. And then farm the desired regular affix rolls on these Legendaries, potentially even with a crafting / reroll option.
In the December 2020 item tier design, as the numbers in the table above illustrate, Legendaries would always be the most powerful items, so long as affixes roll well and your build can make good use of them all. That is really the gist of it. Do not make too many legendary affixes that synergize in terms of power. Lean more towards gameplay-altering effects that are mutually exclusive, at least where the power spike gained eclipses regular affixes. Such exclusivity I believe can be achieved by making sure that equipping such Legendaries comes at a notable cost.
Every build should ideally have a unique playstyle. Legendary affixes are more meaningful as regular affixes due to their greater impact on gameplay. In my eyes, you should be required to significantly change the way you gear or play to make them work. They can be a direct extension of the skill tree by enabling cross-skill interactions, or simply encourage more general gameplay patterns. They can also bestow new meaning upon regular item affixes thus directly impacting itemization priorities, and I like that because it naturally places a requirement on other item slots to provide sufficient of these regular affixes. However, this must still feel grounded in the affix quality itself to not feel gimmicky. Why would cooldown reduction provide a damage buff and resource cost reduction reduce your damage taken? Making Legendary powers work should always constrain our choices in some way, or at least some of them, and if they do, you need to offer a notable power gain in return to make it worth our while. These constraints and requirements are however also the best way to balance against combining too many of such powerful Legendaries on any given build. Make sure that not too many of Legendaries buff the same skills at a time, require the same gameplay pattern, or draw their power from the same regular affixes.
Magic and Rare items should not only be the fillers for Legendary powers, however. With their predesigned constraints and synergies, Legendary powers are prone to shoehorning us into cookie-cutter builds. Among the regular D4 affixes we have seen so far, I feel many are designed for much more than simple stat sticks. They also tie into gameplay, but enhance more general skill or gameplay choices (ranged vs. melee, AoE vs. elite single target, burst vs. DOT etc.) that do not prescribe a certain sequence of skills or stacking of regular affixes. I donât think such regular affixes are boring. Freely picking and combining skills that allow you to react adequately to different gameplay situations with exactly those skills that best match your gameplay and aesthetic preferences is already rewarding in itself. The upside of making builds without any Legendary power endgame viable (though probably not on par with those that use a good number of them) is customizability and build diversity. With the same max roll for stats on each gear slot, for example, there will be only so many stat thresholds you can achieve at a time. Sacrificing a Legendary power in favour of higher stat rolls that unlock an additional threshold allows for more build diversity and non-obvious theorycrafting that feels rewarding if you can make it work.
In terms of customizability, the recent introduction of +Skill ranks as a regular affix could be promising. In fact, I think they should not appear on Legendaries at all, thus making wholesale skill buffs only an option if you forego some more context-dependent buffs of the same skill found on Legendaries. Personally, I would also allow Rares to roll up to two different skill buffs in two separate affix slots, which would fit the theme of high randomness and customizability. You want to be a one-trick pony that heavily relies on a single skill? Go for Magic items, but be prepared that you cannot do a lot of endgame content without an optimized group. The role for Rares here would be to buff two skills at a time without having to build around the requirements of a Legendary Power, being able to tackle a wide range of endgame content in single player with whatever build you choose, although maybe not quite as efficiently as an endgame character that perfected their build and playstyle around at least some Legendary requirements. Lastly, I like the idea of Magic items as a convenient flex spot in your gear. If their rolls are considerably higher than that of other tiers and you can free up one slot for flexibility, you could switch in different blues to notable effect before tackling a particular dungeon, for example, without impairing the functionality of your current build.
Maybe I am getting this wrong. I know many warn that Legendary powers should not to be too specific and restrictive. Also, there will be Uniques which are designed as build-around items. However, I do believe getting rid of Magic and Rare items in endgame builds will significantly impact build diversity and customizability. That is what I feel is at stake with the simple question of whether Legendary powers can be applied to lower tier items.
On a final unrelated note, I do want to say that I like the overall direction in which the game is going and appreciate the developersâ efforts. Itâs great to see them return to a slower combat pace and abilities more grounded in reality, as also shown in the recently published gameplay footage. If it is true what the community read from the experience bar, that there is a maximum level cap and paragon points are restricted to 200, that would be very comforting to know. Expansions should add value by providing new classes and more diverse endgame content, not by power creep and increasing max levels. We will play reasonably short seasons and not a second-life MMO.
