I’m going to talk about several different aspects of Gems here. Just so you don’t feel like you have to read all of it, I’ll put the important information in Bold, to skip all of the explaining and get straight to the point. To avoid making my posts longer than they already are, I only mention the stats for the Flawless Royal gems; obviously the previous levels would also be rebalanced accordingly.
The first thing I’ll talk about is Weapon Affixes. The only time you see anyone use something besides an Emerald in their weapon is when they aren’t intending to do damage with their attacks and damage-based abilities at all. The other gems’ bonuses aren’t as useful for their own tasks as the Emerald is for it’s task. They get used when they’re the only thing that will help. They should be buffed up to the point where they’re actually options that are weighable against the other options, rather than just something you pick because it’s the only thing that helps.
We’ll start with a Ruby, because it’s directly competing with the Emerald as a gem for increasing the player’s damage output. That’s a tough spot to compete in. If a player has built up the 55-75% critical hit chance that most players have built up, then obviously the emerald will be the best choice, as it should be. But if the ruby’s going to have a time in the game (besides leveling heroes to 70) where it’s useful, it should at least manage to be useful for players who haven’t built up so much critical hit chance and damage yet.
At 35% crit chance with +150% Critical Hit Damage, a Flawless Royal Emerald is kicking that up to +280%. Crits increase the DPS by 98% instead of 52%. 198/152 is 1.30, your total damage output has gone up by 30% of its previous value despite not having a lot of crit stacked. A ruby is adding +270 Damage. Let’s say your weapon hits fast and does low damage. That’s the situation for the highest percentage-based increase in damage output you’ll get from a Ruby, so if it’s not useful there, then where is it useful? So you’ve got a decent non-ancient Legendary weapon with 2380 DPS, and its average damage per hit is 1700. If the Ruby is adding 270 DMG to a weapon with mere 2380DPS weapon with 1700 damage per hit, which is highly favorable conditions for the Ruby to have a bigger impact, then the Ruby adding 270 Damage will increase the DPS up to 2760. That’s a 16% DPS increase. Even for a player with sub-par gear where the Ruby is more useful than it is later, the Emerald is still twice as effective.
I wasn’t originally going to suggest increasing the Ruby to the point where it could ever compete with Emeralds because I didn’t think the player base here could handle that, but I will suggest increasing it from +270 up to +600. Even then most decent builds will gain more from an emerald than a ruby, but it might find its place in a build that can’t crit that was previously impaired significantly by rubies being too far inferior to emeralds. It will also finally be slightly better than an emerald in extremely fast-attacking weapons that are used with an offhand; but if the player is dual-wielding, the emerald which buffs both at once will still reign supreme.
Next, the Diamond. Increases damage against elites by 20%. What good is +20% DMG to elites when an Emerald can easily make a bigger difference than that against everything including elites? If the Diamond is going to have a purpose, it needs make players more effective against elites than the Emerald, since they’ve just sacrificed a vast amount of damage against everything else. In most damage builds, an Emerald is increasing their Critical Hit Damage from 300-350% up to 430-480%. Let’s say 325% up to 455%. That’s bringing your Crit output up by 40%, and depending on your Crit Chance your total DPS is probably going up by 25-35%. Let’s say 28% for 60% CC. If an Emerald is giving you that much damage all the time, what good is a Diamond that only gives 20% sometimes? The Flawless Royal Diamond should give +40% Damage Against Elites. Even then, when the player uses a Diamond instead of an Emerald the player is giving up 28% damage against everything else to gain 12% more damage against elites. That’s not overpowered, it’s just beginning to be useful for specific situations. You might see some players start throwing a Diamond in one of their weapons when they’re dual-wielding, or both if they’re a less progressed player fighting Infernal Machine bosses who only needs damage against Elites.
Next, the Amethyst. 28,000 Life Per Hit. Not bad at all. If you want your weapon to increase your survivability, the Amethyst will do that job, and it’s very good at it. You don’t see it used often, but I don’t think it needs a buff. Dual-wielding with Flawless Royal Amethysts in your weapons will give you unparalleled healing. I won’t suggest buffing it until people use it, it’s already fine.
Topaz: +38,000 Thorn Damage. This is a tough one. A player really has to do a lot of building to get their thorns to be useful, but once they do, 38,000 Thorn Damage is a lot. Until that point, it’s totally useless. I don’t think there’s a good solution for that problem. Thorn builds have finally become a usable option, and there’s even more than one that works. The balance may not be perfect, but I don’t want to mess it up trying to make it better, so I will leave the Topaz alone for now.
Old Gems on Weapons:
Amethyst: +28,000 LOH
Emerald: +130% CHD (Typically 25-35% DPS against Everything)
Diamond: +20% Damage Against Elites
Ruby: +270 DMG (Typically 7-18% DMG in a Weapon)
Topaz: 38,000 Thorn Damage
New Gems in Weapons:
Amethyst: +28,000 LOH
Emerald: +130% CHD (Typically 25-35% DPS against Everything)
Diamond: +40% Damage Against Elites
Ruby: +600 DMG (15-35% DMG in a Weapon)
Topaz: 38,000 Thorn Damage
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Offhands getting one socket to put a gem in for a mere stat bonus is very underwhelming. There are so many useful affixes that can go on offhands. And then the socket just gives one normal socket? If it’s going to just give primary stats, then it should be able to roll two sockets. That still won’t make sockets a very desirably item on offhands, but at least it won’t feel like a complete slap to the face. Or, if you want a more interesting solution, I would like to suggest Offhand affixes for gems. This one isn’t easy. Here are my suggestions:
Plan A: Increase socket capacity of Offhands to 2.
Plan B: Add the following Offhand properties to gems (but don’t give them two sockets):
Amethyst: +10% Healing from all sources
Ruby: +8% Damage
Emerald: +7% Attack Speed
Diamond: -12% Damage Taken from Elites
Topaz: +10% to highest static Elemental Skill Damage (If tied, bonus is split between them)
This would make the socket a useful but not mandatory affix on offhands. On shields, which don’t have as many good affixes, it would even become a preferred affix to have. Some players may look at this as “Another affix we have to get on items, making it harder to get good ones”. The opposite is true, more affixes on an item to be desired means better odds that you get desired affixes on the item.
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The gems in Helms need some rebalancing. There just aren’t many valid choices for players.
I’ll start with the Ruby because it needs help the most. It currently gives bonus experience, but that bonus is reduced by 90% at level 70. Considering that players won’t have good quality rubies until they hit level 70, this isn’t helping a whole lot. If they are trying to level a new character afterwards, there are already a ton of options they can use to get that character leveled up faster. The ruby already has a tough time being useful as it is. It got the short end of the stick everywhere. About the only thing it does get used for is Strength for a Barbarian or Crusader in his armor. I get that you don’t want players to be leeching on public games with a gem in their helmet. You don’t want the highest level players to just be people who had teams that allowed them to backpack along for EXP with a ruby in their helmet. Here’s the solution I suggest: Let Rubies give their full exp bonus at all levels. Instead of reducing the bonus by 90% once they reach level 70, just reduce the bonus by 90% while they are in a party with players. Now the Ruby becomes a solo leveling tool. A player using a ruby in solo will have given up their helmet socket, the team bonuses, and the team to clear rifts faster, but at least they can try and make up for all of that with a +41% EXP gem in their helmet. Solo players have been wanting something to help them keep up; I think this is it.
The Diamond is already useful for some support players. 12.5% Cooldown Reduction is highly sought after in some builds. It’s fine.
The Amethyst easily proves its usefulness with +23% Life. That unparalleled bonus to toughness needs no buff, but it’s not overpowered either.
The Emerald’s +41% Gold Find is unecessary to most experienced players, but if you’re just speedrunning anything other than Greater Rifts, it can be nice to also get more gold while you’re doing it so you don’t have to save those dang Puzzle Rings for gold runs. With Gold Find being multiplicative and also helping get more gold from Boon of the Hoarder, it’s a useful thing to have. Finding more gold means not having to spend as much time with gold farming equipment on. Still, with Gold Find being so abundant, I think this should be increased to +50% Gold Find, allowing the right helmet to kick that up to +100%.
Next we have the Topaz. This reduces resource costs by 12.5%. With resource costs already being very well-managed by most players, this isn’t a very useful bonus. Resource cost reduction is definitely less valuable than Cooldown Reduction. I suggest that this be increased to 15% Resource Cost reduction, which would allow it to at least equate to 15% damage reduction for the Crimson set, making it a bit more comparable to the Amethyst for survivability at least in that specific instance.
New Helm Gems:
Ruby: +41% Experience (4.1% in a Party)
Diamond: +12.5% Cooldown Reduction
Amethyst: +23% Life
Emerald: +41% Gold
Topaz: +15% Resource Cost Reduction
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You probably thought I was done talking about Gems. If I’m not talking about Legendary Gems, what more could I possibly say? Go on to the next post if you want to know.
Belts. What better place to put a gem than on a belt? Yeah, I’m about to suggest adding sockets and effects to belts. If that’s too much for you, I get it, but here’s my idea for what gems could do in belts:
Belt Gems:
Amethyst: +30,000 Life Per Kill I am aware that items normally roll 6,000 LPK. That’s a secondary affix. This is a gem put into a primary affix that only holds one socket. How does that LPK stack up against Life Per Hit?
Ruby: Chance to deal +20% Area Damage
Emerald: +5 to Gold/Health Pickup Radius (This value just won’t go up with every gem level, it would go up every few levels until reaching 5)
Diamond: Attackers have a 50% chance to be stunned for 1 second. (Lower levels have lower chance)
Topaz: Enemies are slowed by 80% for 5 seconds the first time they come within 10 yards (starting at a lesser slow and increasing to 80% with each gem level).
Yes, I did think about how each of these values could be utilized by various builds that convert previously useless bonuses into useful effects. They still won’t be overpowered, but they will become desirable yet not mandatory bonuses for those builds.
