I agree that intra-build, most builds have little choice. Like you said, Multishot calls from DML and Yang’s, though there are choices in other slots.
I think you forget how truly little variety of items at the top end there was in D2. Like, most items were useless everywhere. And D3 has more statistics that matter. D2 really only cared about weapon damage and +skills, mostly.
Just preference. I think it looks too clustered, besides the thought of what on earth I would need 6 places to put gems/runes/jewels?
I would have to see a lot more on what is intended to go into a weapon with 6 sockets. Runewords were fine and I actually loved the looks of it. Not sure if anyone remembered things like ist’d ith weapons but that was even fine. I could not imagine having a legendary weapon with all the stats listed for said legendary then adding a full screen worth of random added stats from 6 other…”things” put in it.
Yes, indeed, but that was due to balance reasons, aka something that can be adjusted (or could have been adjusted). D4 definitely should do better balance than D2.
If they would be balanced much better, then there might be e.g. 8 different Best in Slot options for every slot for every build that all have different strengths and weaknesses and effects, so that you have to weight in which you personally prefer…
… while in D3, there basically is only one correct choice for a build, and since a legendary only buffs one skill, you rarely can use a combination of a spammable Secondary and a Support-Damage-Dealing Skill (e.g. Revenge, Overpower, Hydra, Avalanche, Rain of Vengeance, Sentry, Seven Sided Strike, etc) since that other skill is not getting buffed.
So D3’s itemization both reduces Item- as well as Skill-Diversity. That is why many people in the community have an issue with these.
Attack Speed, Casting Speed, Crushing Blow, Resistances, Defense, Pierce through Enemy Resistances, Faster Hit Recovery, Faster Block Rate, Elemental Damage, Life Leech, just to name a few and in my opinion both D3 and D4 should have much more of these and additional new ones on top.
I agree and I respect that.
Customization.
The idea is that you could only put two of the same runes and gems into a 2h weapon and only one of the same into a 1h weapon or off-hand,
That allows for additional customization.
I was thinking about things like or similar these (but it is not limited to such affixes)
However, I would abstain from adding things like 130% increased Critical Hit Damage to them.
I guess D3 can be said to have alot of different inter-build diversity, but little intra-build diversity, with exceptions.
Many of the factors you listed from D2 were checkboxes (enough hit recovery and resistances), and others applied only to some builds (-enemy defense, cast rate). Finally, some were plain old clunky (defense only blocking attacks rather than reducing damage, elemental damage not scaling with buffs as we discussed before, or crushing blow only appearing on a few items).
yes, this is fair to say.
I very much would prefer to have various BiS items available for each build, even if some of them are overlapping between various builds.
I think that Hit Recovery should be turned into a Stagger Mechanic for your Character, similar (but different) to what Bosses in D4 have.
Everytime you get hit, a certain amount of Stagger is applied on you and once the Bar is full, you get microstunned for ~1 seconds.
This would be separate from other forms of CC, but basically Faster Hit Recovery would get replaced with ‘+x maximum Stagger’.
I prefer D3’s Resistances over D2.
‘Pierce through Enemy Resistances’ should be multiplicative, not additive/subtractive.
I think it is good that Casting Speed and Attack Speed merged in D3.
In this case I also think that D3’s Armor is better than D2’s Defense.
For D4 I was hoping that the would go more into a direction that is similar to PoE’s Armor/Defense Systems, where Light Armor gives Energy Shield, Leather gives Dodge and Plate Armor gives Armor.
Maybe like
I also felt that Crushing Blow should have been a Generic Affix in D2, so that it also would be able to spawn on Rare and Magic Items.
I agree that it could also have been a bit more common on legendaries and RW’s.
Maybe something has changed but when I mouse over an avatar, it just lists that username, no BattleNet ID number.
Edit- Nevermind, I got it to work.