The Complete Series
Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - Witch Doctor
Part 3 - coming soon
Part 4 - coming soon
Part 5 - coming soon
Part 6 - coming soon
Part 7 - coming soon
Part 8 - coming soon
The Problems with Item Sets Currently
- They don’t provide players with a well-rounded kit
At this stage in the game, item sets are a bit haphazard with the skills that they utilize. They are often based on buffing multiple skills that fulfill the same purpose. This merely results in one of the skills being the most effective with the others being second-tier. For example, the Sunwuko set buffs Wave of Light, Tempest Rush, and Lashing Tail Kick. The result is that TR and LTK builds are not competitive, and the WoL build simply competes with variations of the same thing (LoD and Inna’s set).
Sometimes item sets are primarily based around a skill with glaring weaknesses. Some builds are weak against rift guardians (or require RG with adds), while others snipe elites but struggle versus density. For example, Impale Demon Hunter is such a niche build. It can only thrive against elites and only at a high enough difficulty where they aren’t one-shotting them (otherwise they can’t maintain resource). Likewise, since for every rift there is a rift guardian, it’s not tenable for a build to be weak versus single-target.
Sets consistently do not provide builds with the tools that are appropriate for the variety of content they face. This is design error.
- They rely on arbitrary mechanics to activate set bonuses that make playing them clunky and gimmicky
I don’t know if this is the devs trying to be creative or what, but so many sets just feel awful to play merely because the set mechanics are like jumping through hoops. Rather than these bonuses (and those from supporting legendaries) being, “Gain X ”, they take a form similar to “Do W to gain X for Y seconds.” You often must use a skill arbitrarily or your hero simply does not function. For example, Natalya’s set requires the player to cast Rain of Vengeance every 10 seconds. Not because it’s a good skill, they need the damage, or they have pulled a screen full of trash to AoE. It’s just press a button every 10 second or your character sucks.
The Zuni set for the Witch Doctor requires using a mana spender to proc pet damage. The skill doesn’t deal any damage itself, so there would be no reason for the build to use it other than the set forcing you to. The bulk of the army is timed as well, making the a so-called pet build unnecessarily pet and mana starved. Pets are constantly attacking uselessly as the damage proc wears off against different targets all over the battlefield. Their numbers are also constantly fluctuating as they die off. The set completely violates the fantasy that pet build players enjoy about the playstyle - where you get to kick back and just enjoy watching your minions destroy everything.
- Each build for a class ends up necessarily using many of the same skills on rotation for adequate toughness
Every Barbarian build uses Wrath of the Berserker. Every hero uses Epiphany, Vengeance, Soul Harvest, or Akarat’s, and so on. Add to that the numerous skills that are used to provide 5-10 second buffs that must be maintained (i.e. DR from vault, ground stomp, cyclone strike, resource generation, etc.). The result is that builds often end up with multiple skills on the bar that are there solely to be spammed in a rotation of cooldowns to maintain some necessary buff. There’s numerous problems with this:
- Classes are more homogeneous because they run the many of the same skills regardless of build
- Every build in the game heavily relies on cooldown reduction
- Heroes have to “charge up” before they are viable for combat. Your hero feels like junk until appropriately powered up by jumping through hoops. It also makes you particularly vulnerable to cheesy crap like elite pack stair ganks.
- It rushes players. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you not attack for 5 seconds? Oops your hero sucks now LUL.” Better go! Better move! Better attack! Don’t lose those stacks!
- These mechanics actually diminish the skills that they effect by making the skill macro or num-lock fodder. It essentially makes a skill a glorified item mod, providing a bonus that ideally you just want to have passively.
The Approach for Reworking Class Sets
Because of all these problem, item sets across the board are due for a rework. In this part, I’ll outline the general approach taken to rework the sets. In the parts of the series following, I’ll be exploring how I’ve reworked the sets for each class. The goal for each set is to ensure that each set is intentionally designed with a with a well-rounded kit of skills. Set mechanics will be simplified to provide more consistent damage and toughness, without the gimmicks. Legendary affixes and skill runes that provide defensive buffs will be removed, instead shifting greater defensive power to item mods for a persistent benefit.
Generally speaking, skills are pooled into groups representing the role they fill within a build. A build is then constructing for a each set by mix-and-matching skills from these pools according to the following pattern:
| Skill slot | Role |
|---|---|
| Primary | AoE skill that is the primary focus of set/legendary multipliers |
| Secondary | skill that deals about twice the DPS of the primary skill to single targets |
| DR | the primary skill that is incorporated into a persistent damage reduction effect |
| CC | support skill that is well-suited for use with the primary skill |
| Mobility | the auto-include usual suspects |
| Wildcard |
player preference |
By following this pattern, an item set rework will allow sets to avoid these problems and be more appropriate for the current state of the game. It will make for more well-rounded kits where each build has a more diverse and appropriate set of tools. Sets will be reworked to remove arbitrary and clunky set mechanics, so builds are more consistent in their damage, toughness, and playstyle. Finally, a rework will result in a greater diversity of skills. Each build will have its own identity that’s meaningfully different from other builds of that class, while maintaining offensive and defensive viability.
Stay tuned for the next part of the series where we will look at the first class to be reworked!