Seriously. Instead of having legendary items drop from the monsters, they should just drop legendary consumable to upgrade the rare into a legendary item.
With this, the player will seek the best rare (which randomly generates multiple affixes) and use the consumable on it.
For example:
You found 1 rare item ( which have random name generator; Gloves of Unkind with the stat; Atk 345, Def 450, MS 20%, 15% IAS, and you have the legendary consumable “Tasker and Theo”. So you use the legendary gem on the yellow glove and now the Rare Gloves will be known as "Glove of Unkind [Tasker and Theo] which the stat of Atk 345, Def 450, MS 20%, 15% IAS and the new legendary power; Increase your pet IAS by 50%
This will solve the issue of the rare item being ignored because now you need a good rolled rare items to make legendary items.
No thanks. IMO, chasing rare gear for BiS would be really boring and underwhelming.
But for rare items perform better than legendary is not boring and underwhelming?
A way better way to balance this is having pros and cons for items.
Blues = Fewer affixes, highest values
Rares = Lots of affixes, not so high values
Legendaries: Middle ground, but with a Legendary Power
Mythic: No Affixes, 4 legendary powers.
Consumables: Adds only Legendary power, but randomly.
3 Likes
I don’t really agree, legendaries/unique are nice in d2 because they are reliable, in D3 they are a bit too powerful pure damage wise and that made them mandatory.
When I say reliable I mean you know what you get off you get. It might not be bis but should be like what casuals usually shoot for. The hardcore players will chase perfect rares to apply a legendary affix.
1 Like
If itemization is done correctly, the rare item will not simply be ignored as they are in D3. A player would carefully consider whether they want to use the rare or the legendary. I feel they that legendary and set items being obvious powerhouses was a huge mistake in D3.
As such I agree with Londrer in his views of how the magic tiers should be handled, though I think the consumable should have a large amount of different ones, each with a specific ability so a player could go try to hunt one down while playing instead of praying to RNGesus for the power they would like for their build.
2 Likes
IMO there are 2 ways to make Legendaries (i.e. Uniques) valuable despite making non-legendaries have the affixes they would
- Make them do MASSIVE shifts to powers
- Make them able to proc 2 legendary powers (first is your primary affix on the item, and the other is from the consumable, but to a lesser amount)
Examples for greater power shifts:
1 [Weapon]
- On Equip lose 20% of your angelic and ancestral powers
- +1 to Demonic power for every elite slained with this item
2 [Armor]
- +25 to All Resist
- +25 to all powers
- All self-heal procs are reduced by 75%
3 [Amulet]
- -25 Angelic power
- -25 Demonic power
- Every Ancestral power proc increases both powers by [5-8] for [20-30] seconds
YOU GET the idea… 
I guess it’s kinda “meh” for most people cause they (usually) don’t want to give up one thing for gaining extra other BUT
the place for such power shifts (if any in game) would probably belong to the Legendary items overall
2nd way to make Legendaries unique/viable would probably be to:
ALLOW them get enchanted with another legendary affix (only weakened proc by some %) so that you kinda end up with a 1.5 - 1.75 Legendary procs per legendary item in the super-late game via those legendary-affix enchantments overall
It is impossible for the rare to beat legendary as long as legendary has legendary power in D3, which is going to be reality for rare to beat legendary in D4 because rare will have legendary power now.
Hello there.
In my opinion the legendary affix legendary should not replace completely a legendary drop.
I think it is just a complementary way of making rares worth chasing and keeping in the late game.
Which I think is nice.
But replacing them completely… hmmm… just no.
There needs to be a cap on this power
“+1 to Demonic power for every elite slained with this item”
I meant every elite group lol… but yes, I didn’t try to balance, was just trying out to “expand” the options to other ways that Legendaries could work if other items could gain the same affixes they would’ve exclusively had… 
I don’t think they should remove legendary (unique) items rather remove legendary powers tied to skills from them.
That legendary power consumable system should replace them being on gear entirely. At least the ones that alter skills.
That opens up more diversity, since you are getting the legendary powers you want from one source (consumable), and your power/stat increases from another (gear in general).
Not tying gear to specific builds means people won’t be running around wearing the same gear even if they’re playing the same spec.
Then you can instead have legendary items be desirable for a different reason, having an extra affix or something like that.