Move Legendary Gems to Cube

General Discussion
1

I had this suggestion on the old forums long, long ago, but I’ll remake it here.

We have a very wide variety of legendary gems, but highly limited number of actual gems used in the meta now. What’s more, the presence of legendary gems somewhat limits gearing and rerolling decisions since you absolutely have to have 3 jewelry sockets.

So, here’s my ideas to help abate this stifling meta.

1: Cube gains a new tab for Legendary gems, all Legendary gems are moved here.
2: You gain additional legendary gem slots via GR progression - I’m thinking 1 slot baseline, and then an additional slot for every 15 GR lvls you’ve done solo, giving players 6-10 gem slots to play around with.
3: With Gems being in the cube, you no longer have to track which character has which gem, you can just pick and choose.
4: With Gems being in the cube, Urshi’s and Augmenting would have to be a bit different. While increasing the lvl of your gem would remain the same, Augmenting could be done directly at Urshi - You can pick and choose from all ancients in your inventory and equipped, and directly upgrade them, rather then having to continually farm all forms of gems (Both colored and legendary).
5: With everyone having access to so many different gem slots, Blizz can once again add new gems without having to pigeonhole the gems into a specific build for them to be used.

Some minor changes…

Gem of Ease - Amount of XP gained doubled, since you can no longer equip them in both weapons. Getting the gem to 25 allows ALL gear to be usable by a lvl 1 character, rather then just the weapon.
Red Soulstone - No longer equipped on the helm, but having it in the cube still changes your head appearance. Also no longer stuns you, instead prevents you from using abilities for the short duration of time.

Here are some “bland” suggestions for additional Legendary Gems, since I’m not much of a designer overall.

1: Might of Diablo - Legendary gem that gives +500 strength, +25 strength per lvl. Lvl 25 bonus causes your amount of strength to ALSO be applied to dex and int.
2: Wisdom of Mephisto - Legendary Gem that gives +500 int, +25 int per lvl. Lvl 25 bonus causes int to be applied to dex and str.
3: Cunning of Baal - Eh, you know, just with Dex instead.
4: Hell’s Tenacity - +1k Vitality, +50 vit/lvl. Lvl 25 doubles HP.

4 Likes
2

If the cube had a slot for only 1 additional gem that would be more than enough, we do not need to add more legendary gems to the game, just tweak the ones we have to make them more useful.

1 Like
3

We may not need to, but I feel like there should be. Though I do not think we should move them to the cube, adding a 4th slot in the cube could work!

It would be nice to have a more intricate off weapon/jewelry choice to make other than main stat gems. Simple gems that can be equipped in any slot that offer a base 15% damage reduction, that increases up to 30% at level 50 which is the gems max. Do another that increases CDR by a base of 5% up to a max of 10% at level 50, etc…

Nothing game breaking, just another form of more interesting stat choices that help with gearing and provide more meaningful choices!

4

Blizz has shown that they absolutely suck at fine-tuning and balancing in their game. Thus, rather then just having it become the “4 BIS gems”, I feel it would be better to have “4 BiS damage gems, 2-3 defensive gems, 2-3 whatever the !@#$ you feel like gems” would be signficantly better for build variety.

Really, some of the gems just have outright design problems - Toxin, Wreath, Smite, Soulstone, and Pain Enhancer are only used in very specific builds, and when used, ONLY for their secondary effects, since the primary damage is negligible compared to the HUGE multipliers you now get on skill damage - For them to be buffed up to the point that the raw “+X% damage/Stat” gems would require redic numbers, which would then make them OP as hell for sets that directly boost your damage like LoN.

So, imo, a large number of gem slots would be needed - Not so many that you could get a majority of the gems equipped, but enough that you can get your sets BiS gems and then some utility/defensive.

Imo, the “mandatory” gems with this would become…
Powerful (Not much to do about this overall, since it’s just a raw damage boost)
Stricken (Imo, a change that doubles the stacking of Stricken, BUT only counts the highest stricken stack for damage would be needed)
Trapped (Unless your solo build has 0 CC)
Gogok
Estoric Alteration.

Then, of course, you would have build-specific damage gems (Enforcer, Zei’s, Taeguk, Simplicities).

Then additional defensive gems (Guard, Gizzard, ect)

Then, finally, utility gems (Toxin, Iceblink, Wreathe, Boon)

1 Like
5

I’m not sure if i understand the point of this idea. It won’t save any stash space since we can just socket our legendary gems into the jewellery in our stash. Keep all the jewellery together and the gems in the top row of that stash tab so that they don’t get lost.

Gems in the cube will allow is to replace the sockets on jewellery with a different, useful affix however. OP’s idea seems like a very unnecessary change for just that 1 small advantage though. We would be better of if Ramaladni’s Gifts worked on jewellery. We would get the same result; 1 extra affix on our rings/amulet, but now those Ramaladni drops will have become more useful and worth keeping.

I would also rather have a 4th cube slot used for level 100 legie gems than an unnecessary rearrangement of gem storage.

6

I like the idea of having the gems in a central pool for use by any character. Numerous times I’ll change a character only to remember I left my BOTT, for example, on the character I was playing. Then it’s exit, remake, unsocket gem, leave remake and then use gem. The cube is a form of common pooling. It doesn’t have to be the cube, but a common leg gem pool would be nice.

2 Likes
7

Eeeeeh. Nah. Colored stat gems are extremely pigeon-holed, with the only REAL option being what you put in your helmet - Topaz vs Diamond vs Amethyst, or Emerald for when you are just speed running rifts. Weapon is set in stone (Emerald, or Topaz for thorns build), and the only real choice on the rest of your gear is primary stat vs all-res.

Now, I COULD see gems on gear moving from primary stats to secondary stats - Diamond for, say, 3-4% CDR, Topaz for 3-4% RCR, Emerald for 3-4% crit chance, Ruby for 3-4% attack speed, and Amethyst for, say, 30-40% area damage, or something. However, it would have to be SMALL amounts since, with the change, you could have up to 9 colored gems on your gear (Rather then 3 being taken up by legendary), and this would result in the low lvl gems being kinda sad - Like +.1% CDR on a flawed diamond.

It WOULD turn it into a more interesting gear choice for jewelry and off-hand - Do you want a wider range of stats on your jewelry, OR do you want a lower overall amount of stats, BUT higher concentration in one stat?

1 Like
8

I should have been more clear with my post, but rather than having legendary gems in the cube, I feel they need to make more legendary gems that cap at level 50 that can be worn in armor.

This removes the boring bland +main stat we will all go with once geared, and the diamonds we use in hardcore when gearing.

Anything to make for a more interesting process of making decisions, etc… I would be all for it, so if they did make gems part of the cube and added a 4th gem, I would absolutely love it as well! I think doing your idea and then taking my level 50 gem idea and using that to rework the base gems is a good concept to work with!

I would replace the Emerald Crit Change with movespeed in your scenario. I think the base gems should become all about utility which can open up stat rolls on items, rather then having them currently be so defined.

9

With so many legendary gems, a Ramaladni gift to craft a socket on the bracer to equip one more gem would be a nice option.

2 Likes
10

The thing is, Movement speed just becomes +main stat via Paragon. In order for gems to have an affect on gear besides just being, as you said, +main stat or diamonds, they would HAVE to be either purely defensive (Armor, all-res, Life per hit, ect), or, well, things like what I mentioned. I feel that the offensive parts are all close together already, except maybe crit chance, but then it can become, what?

Really, the main purpose of these suggestions is 3 simple points.

1: Remove legendary gems from jewelry. Jewelry has the widest variety of stat options, and having 1 stat slot DEDICATED to a gem slot is just not good.
2: Allow for more legendary gems to be equipped, opening up some amount of build variety, and giving a small amount of powercreep.
3: Make Augmenting items significantly more streamlined.

1 Like
11

Gem of Ease is unique-equipped: https://us.diablo3.com/en/item/gem-of-ease-Unique_Gem_003_x1. This means you can only have one of them equipped at a time. You can’t have one in both weapons even now.

1 Like
12

Gems are gems, sparkly things that need to be worn. Maybe a season bonus could be a 4th cube slot so we get one extra gem effect, but should that effect be the secondary or primary effect? And if primary, should it be at the level of the gem when cubed?

2 Likes
13

It’s a good idea for a theme, especially if it was combined with the free selection cube idea, where the 3 normal cube slots can all hold powers for any cubeable power (any item type).
If it were up to me, i would include both bonuses of the chosen gem for the 4th slot. The primary bonus would always be at the value of a level 100 gem, since some gems are capped at 100 levels.

1 Like
14

Only one thing to add.

When I say a gem that gives movespeed, I am talking about going over the 25% cap. So no, it would not overlap with the movespeed in the paragon system, you would still want to hit that as always opening a boot slot for a little sustain, and then could choose to use a utility movespeed gem to get over the cap like several skills and items in the game already allow.

15

Easy, the gem should be max values if not an infinite gem, or whatever the stats would be at Gem Level 150 if infinite.

Your gems are gems, need to be warn comment has little value, as gear is gear and needs to be worn, but we have 3 gear items in the cube, so yeah :slight_smile:

16

Hrmm. In that case, it would likely become mandatory, since the ability to move faster is the ability to complete faster.

I feel that non-conditional movement speed on gear past the 25% gear cap would just blow everything else out of the water.

Also, it seems to me that you would prefer a more… stale, BiS ONLY kind of gems, just because you feel that legendary gems absolutely SHOULD remain a socket kind of things? Not because of potential power creep, or because that it would just wind up with the 10 best meta gems for everyone… But because you feel that gems should predominately go in gear?

17

Not really, the overall goal would be to introduce a multitude of new gems that offer choice. They messed up when they made gems and other items multiplicative rather than additive. That is precisely what makes picking damage gems so much more rewarding.

Again, the goal would be to have the current main legendary gems, rework them into 3 base tiers of offense, defense, and utility, and then create a “sub gem” category for armor slots that only have one primary ability and fall in the same categories as lesser options and are all unique equipped.

I would not propose having all gems in the cube in my instance, so the primary gem archtypes would still be in the jewelry, meaning that there is 6 slots for the new sub gems if created.

Not sure why it would matter whether it is in the gear or in the cube, once used they do not hold any space either way. Unless of course we are adding a gem storage in the cube and simply “activating” powers of our choice? Even then, what is more fun, having 3-4 legendary gems and a bunch of boring stat gems, or having 3-4 legendary gems, and several sub gems of various abilities?

I think most of us would be 100% happy if there were other options for our gear sockets other than + main stat. Couple this with an improved augment system based on the abilities, and you really change the game!

18

I agree that the colored gems should be changed, but still feel that having legendary gems attached to gear is just too stringent in terms of gearing. 100% having to have a dedicated stat is kinda meh I feel.

1 Like