Huh, no, quite the contrary, my example is exactly one where the rare item might be better (unlike the post I responded to).
Since the freedom in random affixes might beat the 2% additional crit on the legendary item.
then your example is just a bit weird because the rare item just rolled the exact same stats as the unique item but worse
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Yes, but the point is, the rare item could have rolled other affixes, that you would rather want, as my text said (using regen vs. CDR as the example).
The rare item could also instead be:
- 4% crit chance - less than what you can get on the legendary
- 10% fire dmg
- +1 fire skills
- 10% cold resist
- 5% attack speed
Which might be better than the legendary item, depending on how you value resource regen vs. attack speed, or whatever.
Or of course, the rare item could have all its affixes be something else entirely. Just using the regen as an example, since it is the one that is clearly very build dependent.
For some builds regen is a useless stat (same with CDR, and +attack speed could be a bad stat for any build that is low on resource). Whereas +fire skill and +fire dmg is always good as what is clearly meant to be an item for a fire build 
I think we are presenting some decent ideas to try and fix a system I donât want. I hope they just make Legendary items unique (with minimal variation). When I say âI found a Stone of Jordan!â, the first thing you ask should not be âWhat does it do?â
That doesnât feel special at all. The only thing special is a single stat, which can also drop as a consumable. I can see Mythics being more random, since they are super powerful and you can only equip one at a time. Legendary items should be unique, and more often than not, your go to gear tier. Of course, rare items should be viable and sometimes great for certain builds, depending on what they roll.
Really hoping they show some big improvements in the tiers/item design in an update soon.
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If legendaries always have fixed stats, that question will always have a single answer, even if you can also apply the SoJ legendary affix to another item.
My issue with that really is that it is build limiting. Like set items, you are defining what builds are possible (or at least viable) with the fixed legendaries.
Rare + consumable allows the legendary items to be fixed, as I strongly agree they should be.
While also allowing more customization and more build diversity by using other items. If we dont have that alternative gear path, then Iâd be much more wary of legendaries having fixed affixes.
I guess I might be getting confused with what you are proposing, but maybe it is the same as me.
Legendaries are unique (maybe with minimal variation on stats or something (Like Diablo 2)
Rares are totally random and can have legendary consumables used on them, but those consumables should be slightly less effective than the legendary ones, since the trade off is that you get to have totally random stats that could be amazing for your build.
Fairly close yes.
And Iâm sorry if it is confusing, seems clear enough to me, but Iâm not the right judge of that of course 
I just dont think the âslightly weaker legendary affixâ can work in all cases. For some legendary affixes it might not be possible to gradate its power. If it is an affix that is either/or.
Iâm saying, that you could get a similar effect by giving the legendaries some additional bonuses alongside the legendary affix, such as a slightly higher normal affix, or a different one than you can normally get etc. to balance it against the inherent âpower of random affixesâ.
Both of the above solutions could be used, depending on the item. Of course, handcrafted solutions takes more effort to implement, since someone at Blizzard would need to determine exactly how each legendary consumable should work then.
Maybe another more generic solution could be:
Legendary consumable: âAll scalable affixes on the rare item is lowered by 10%â?
So my example item from earlier would become:
- 6% crit chance => 5.4% crit chance
- 10% fire dmg => 9% fire dmg
- +1 fire skills => unchanged, cant be scaled (well, I guess it could but it would not feel intuitive )
- 10% cold resist => 9% cold resist
- 3 base resource regen per second => 2.7 base resource regen per second
(10% is just an example of course, might need to be more)
then probably a rare item should not be able to roll the exact same thing as a unique item
thats what makes them unique
not just being stronger
but being different and impossible for rare items
Which is part of what I proposed too.
Though if you go too far with the special affixes, you essentially just recreate the entire issue I want to solve ( = only having fixed affixes in combination with the legendary affixes, reducing the build diversity they can support).
But slightly higher affixes, or affixes you normally cant get in the item slot, both seems fine and more widely applicable.
Yeah, I dont think legendary items should have so few affixes. Not fun gameplay to make character building less complex by having very few affixes.
Legendary affixes themselves are part of what can make builds more interesting. I dont think it will lead anywhere good to make the choice of rares vs. legendaries be between having item affixes vs. having an interesting gameplay modifier (though it can be an additional choice, hence proposing a second consumable, which added 2 extra affixes to rare items).
As said earlier, another possible way to handle this, if we dont want to mess with the core of rare items (by giving them a legendary affix), could simply be to allow us to apply the rolls of a rare item unto a legendary instead, replacing the normal affixes of the item (kinda the opposite of Blizzards consumable).
Then we can still have ârandom legendariesâ which imo is needed for having more build choices. While still making sure that legendary items always drop with fixed stats. Which both gives them a more unique feel, and removes the stupid legendary RNG of D3 - you always know what you get.
Another way could of course be to simply let us reroll the stats on legendaries, similar to the D3 Mystic. However I really do not like that. It moves the âgameplayâ into town, clicking on an NPC.
I much more like the idea of having to find a rare item from monsters, with the affixes you want.
I think this is the main problem of Diablo 3, too much town gameplay.
its just a very core concept of balanced item design
affixes can easily be increased across the board
although i think they are enough like that, blizz already stated that they want to have more affixes on items
but not giving rare items a legendary power as a stupid ducktape solution
Completely agreed. I also hope weâre still able to choose male or female for each class like you can in D3. My wife and I both want to play a druidess.
On the subject of the MMO aspects, I really hope thereâs an option to shut that off. My favorite thing about all of the Diablo games is that you can easily play a game with a few friends, and not have anyone else intruding on your game. This is one of my favorite coop series.
Why would that change? As for the customization options at character creation, this was addressed at Blizzcon day one. All character will have gender options and full customization similar to other RPGs like skin tone, hairline color and style, facial hair style and color, accessories, scarring, and tatoos/warpaint.
I donât say this to be rude, but people really should read or watch the Blizzcon footage. It spells all this out clearly.
As for MMO aspects, there is just one a shared world, and this update clearly mentions they are working tuning how many and how often you see others outside of towns and world boss events. It seems they want very minimal interaction, whichbtells me it will not be anything like an MMO unless itâs a pretty dead MMO.
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I love all the updates so far!! I am very excited to learn about the character customization options coming in D4, since it was very limited in D3. Stuff like skin and hair color/style probably wonât be ironed out until later, I imagine, but I would love to see the progress! Keep up the good work!!
This is TERRIBLE cause itâs basically the very same thing, itâs kinda even worse cause it âhintsâ toward some lack of creativity I think⌠
Hereâs an example of what I feel the legendary should be:
- Beam of light Legendary affix: (âlowâ damage) Attacks that deal less than 4% target Max HP have a [25-35]% chance to set enemy on fire dealing 200 dmg/s and reduce spell armor by [10-15]% for 3 sec
- 10% fire dmg
- +1 fire skills
- [10-20]% cold resist
- 3 base resource regen per second
Rare:
- Critical hit chance [10-15]% (assuming there arenât ridiculous Crit multipliers like in D3)
- [5-15]% X dmg (could be any)
- +1 X skills (could be any)
- [10-20]% random resist [5-12% if all]
- 3 base resource regen per second
Difference/s ?, rares should diverge more in rolls, Legendaries should have a âthemeâ. Just setting things âon fireâ isnât enough for a âthemeâ IMO, should reward a certain âsubsetâ of playstyle/s a bit more than others but without being too specific for a specific/certain skill
Hereâs another (similar) for ex:
- The firecracker Legendary affix: Critical hits done by fire damage spread to the nearest enemy and leave a pool of fire on the ground for 5 seconds dealing [0.25-0.5, double vs non-Elites]% maxHP/sec damage for the duration. If a target dies in the pool, a fire elemental is born (lasts 25 sec)
- 10% fire dmg
- 1 fire skills
- [10-20]% cold resist
- 3 base resource regen per second
First one rewards âhybridâ gameplay, i.e. âcheap shotsâ followed by a âhard hitterâ, think of it something like fast small damage attack like disintegrate into a hard-crusher (like Meteor). The second one is slightly more abusable with AoE and much better and superior against summoner types. The rare can roll different types (other than fire, ofc. :P), and can have the basic âboringâ type of crits
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If you mean the legendary affix, it was not meant as a real affix. Just made for the example; something that interacts with crit chance and fire, for the other affixes to matter.
Since the argument was not about legendary affixes, but rather the normal affixes.
Agreed.
I think setting fire to things can be a theme, but it should be done in ways that relates to a playstyle.
I donât get why people want rares to compete with Legendaries is not like they have the same drop rate.
Legendaries wonât be mandatory on every build because lets say your build is focused on Teleport like in Blizzard example.
If you find rares with teleport skill modifier will go better with your build even if the other stats are crap compared to a Legendary item.
There should be a draw back for using rares, i donât know about Legendary power being used on rares, it should cost alot to do that.
Rares should have smaller values on stats compared to Legendaries, maybe in the future you find a rare with decent stats and skill modifier you want.
Pretty sure the only modifiers on rares naturally would be + to skill. While Legendaries actually modify the spell like making it do damage when you land.
From that perspective I can see Legendaries being better. But rates may have a chance to have a better set of affixes you prefer.