Would you rather see more legendary gems added to the mix considering many of the current gems are hardly ever used. Or, would you rather see new legendary items added with the special ability. Should they just add the special ability to current legendary items that do not have one? 
vs 
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Either way they will be all but useless unless they are better at complementing an existing set than the items currently occupying that slot. (or if another set is added which need complementary items)
I’d rather start with legendary items.
I don’t enjoy the grind of GRs to get gems - I can get the items doing anything, so therefore, more noticeable and enjoyable.
If I have to run 45 GRs just to get all the gems… less exciting. Especially since it means my build is going to be delayed if I don’t get the exact ones I need.
What if the gem could be used in a helm?
Then it would be better than the item already occupying that slot, but if it’s the only gem that fits in the head it’s just another mandatory item across the board.
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Before adding new gems I’d rather see some of the existing ones to be balanced and become more useful.
I’d like to see some of the existing legendaries with no powers to get a legendary power. However sometimes the item properties need to be taken into consideration. Here’s an example:
Blind Faith
Normal enemies no longer gain crowd control resistance. Elites, rift guardians and bosses gain crowd control resistance at halved rate.
Since Blind Faith always comes with up to 40% blind on hit, I was thinking that power could complement it.
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I can live with this. 
I don’t like how universally useful or useless the gems are. There’s a couple gems that appear in literally every build. A few more that get used for certain types of builds (e.g. ranged, pet builds, zdps builds etc.). And a few more that hardly every get used outside of some very niche scenarios.
So on the one hand, it would be good to add more gems. More diversity, right? Except I doubt it. Unless they really rethink the gem concept, any new gems will either never get used (cough Red Soul Shard) because they are too weak compared to existing options, or will simply replace one of the existing options.
So unless they do something radical, adding new gems probably won’t increase build diversity. You’ll just maintain the status quo, or slightly alter the most commonly used gems.
So I’d rather see them add legendary items or update powers. That’s far more likely to increase build diversity. Add/rework some powers to buff some severely underused skills that have fallen to the wayside. That would be my preference.
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I would do away with both and throttle the itemization. Above all, talent improvements should be implemented technically as paths, i.e. RPG, and not via items.
In RPGs, you grow in skill through your abilities and skill trees, specializations, etc., so everything that addresses the depth of the game.
Items as a basis to take, removes in the end more and more one at least, a pillar of the game and then pulls many other things after, which in the end, the whole game as a role-playing game, strongly damage and weaken.
I have never been a fan of giving items too much importance in a roleplaying game.
Up to a certain point, items make the game better, right up to the point where they are supportive. As soon as they gain the upper hand and the game runs on top of them, it gradually loses value and becomes incidental in the end. And thus you lose your basis for action, a functioning game world, and the player switches to another mode in his head.
Once that happens and you flip that switch, the game world starts to become incidental to you, which is the downfall for any RPG in the end.
An experience I could just make again in WoW from Classic to TBC.
Whereas I already in Classic WoW always slid along the border of this problem, because the game just wants to force that constantly. You have to actively steer against it in order not to slip.
But if that’s your main source of power, gear is secondary (or not at all), you don’t have an endgame, which I would say for WoW is the bulk of actual value to the game.
You need gear to matter for endgame to have purpose. No one would farm weekly for years if the only reward you got was a new look.
Edit/ I take that back, I’m sure some would do that, most wouldn’t though.
I prefer to give new powers to items that do not have, preferably crafted, most are terrible and of course, balancing blackthorne and other bad sets should have become a priority a long time ago.
Buffing less used gems to make them more popular choices or reworking them to be more useful with certain builds sounds like a better idea than just adding more.
That’s way too big of a change than what they’re willing to do to D3, but those suggestions are valid for D4. It’s just that it’s a super radical change to D3 that, to be honest, if they had time to do that I’d rather they just focus that time and development effort into D4. Not because the actual code/implementation would be difficult (I don’t think it would), but because they would actually have to bring out game designers to do some significant work on the actual design of these mechanics, including potentially lots of testing… And I think that effort would be wasted in D3 which is a fundamentally broken game.
I do think D3 should still be updated and worked on until D4 drops, but just to the level that isn’t detrimental to D4’s development.
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Agreed, that is why different teams are working on different games.
I would rather new sets for each class. Something interesting that might shake things up a bit.
They already did that.
Yes, I agree.
In D3 this is no longer feasible, if then in D4.
The problem with these end-game concepts around items is their suppressive effect on RPG mechanics in the actual game.
Unfortunately, you can’t close that gap, you can only keep one of the two alive and it automatically takes precedence over the other.
This is something we need to be aware of.
Either we serve an RPG world and its content, or we serve an end-game scenario and its values.
And both then have their own personal development and sequence.
If we play a basic endgame game, then the RPG world simply won’t be able to function properly because it doesn’t serve as a foundation, otherwise it would replace and supplant the endgame scenario.
If we play an RPG and this game world as content, then we don’t have an endgame game, but at most an optional method around an endgame.
But then a game world is available as a point of stimulus and demand for the player and he makes use of the RPG elements, crafting, talents, co-op group play, game mechanics or exploits the realities of the game world to confront and master the threat and stimuli of the game world.
However, this has a significant impact on how the game plays out. This affects, the pace of play, the feel of the game, the evaluation of the game world as meaning and purpose, the difficulty and flow of the game, etc…
How about new legendies and 3pc sets for each class… For those rrog 5 2 combos. Right now I think captions is the only thing actively being worn. Since Cain’s and sages emanate.
Nerf overperforming gems, buff underperforming ones. The game doesn’t seem in dire need of more gems when the ones already there are not better balanced.
Current solo push variant of Firebirds is 5 pieces of Firebirds, 2 pieces of Captain Crimson and 2 pieces of Auhild’s. H90/Frenzy Barb uses 2 pieces of Aughild’s.
Yeah I wasn’t thinking of auguilds. I think shadow uses them too. But I would like something like captions only instead of cdr. It gives ias. Maybe rework blackthorn’s out of meme state.