Proposal for new patch - Socket Extravaganza!

Diablo II (2000) General Discussion
1

I would like for there to be another patch for Diablo 2, with the following changes:

  • Add Greater Socketing Recipe: Perfect Skull, El rune, Rare Jewel, Item.

    Adds 6 sockets to a normal item
    Adds 4 sockets to a magic item
    Adds 2 sockets to a rare item
    Adds 1 sockets to a set or unique item

    Limitations based on item type and item level apply.

  • Change Larzuk quest reward: same effect as Greater Socket Recipe, 1 use per difficulty.

  • Change runes to make them more exciting

    El - all slots: 25% enhanced damage
    Eld - all slots: 50% bonus to attack rating
    Nef - all slots: knockback
    Eth - armor : regenerate mana 25%
    Ith - weapon: 10 to max damage
    -armor: 25% damage goes to mana
    Amn - weapon: 15% FCR
    -armor: 7% chance to block
    -shield: 11% chance to block
    Sol - weapon: 10 to min damage
    Dol - all slots: piercing attack 25%
    Pul - weapon: 50% enhanced damage
    -armor: 50% enhanced defense
    Gul - weapon: 7% life leech
    Ohm - weapon: 666 to attack rating
    Cham - weapon: Freezes Target +5

    armor is referring to armor/helm/shield, except for Amn rune, where I specifically mentioned the shield effect.

  • Buff all jewel effects by 25%, except all resists, attack speed, requirements and max damage.

I’m proposing these changes because I think there are a few issues in Diablo 2’s item system that need addressing:

  1. Plenty of socketables, but no sockets. There’s only 2 ways to get sockets in your gear: A) get lucky and find an item that’s already socketed and B) get Larzuk to socket it. You can’t rely on option A. And option B is very limited, so you have to save it for really good items. So players pick up endless amounts of gems and runes and jewels but can’t do anything with them for most of the game.

  2. Magic and rare weapons are bad. The problem is that you usually want both damage and attack speed on your weapon. And you almost never find weapons like that. Even if you find a rare with great affixes, if it’s missing either damage or attack speed, it goes straight in the trash.

I think a generous socketing recipe would address both of these problems really efficiently. Socket deficiency would be a thing of the past. And God-tier RNG would no longer be required to find a good rare weapon, since you can cover a weapons weakness via sockets.

Below I will list my reasoning for the various changes.

The socket recipe: I chose ‘El’ to be in the recipe, because it can’t be cubed up, and it has a really useful effect. You’re going to want to socket it everywhere, but make sure you save a couple to do the recipe. I chose ‘Rare Jewel’ to be in the recipe, because they’re quite rare. This will keep you from doing the recipe every 5 minutes.

Larzuk: he should have the same effect as the recipe, so if you’ve been unlucky and didn’t find a rare jewel, you still get to socket your gear once in act5. That’s also why the recipe affects white items, to make it the same as Larzuk.

Jewels: some jewel effects are perfectly fine as they are (reqs, ias, all res, max dmg), but the other effects seem weak to me. So give them a little buff. I chose 25% because that brings Ruby jewel up to a maximum of 50% enhanced damage, same as the Pul rune.

Runes: the various buffs and changes are for 2 reasons - to tempt the player away from socketing only resistance runes, and to allow some more customization for your character.

El: Gets a very useful effect of 25% enhanced damage. Now you’ll actually want to socket it.

Eld: Again, a very useful effect. Not so useful in early normal, extremely useful in nightmare and beyond. Also helps certain exotic builds, like ranger paladin.

Nef: 30 defense vs missile is a joke. Will you notice it while playing? No. Will you notice it on the character screen? Also no. Having knockback in all slots could be useful or annoying, depending on your build. In any case, you’ll be noticing an effect.

Ith, Sol: 10 is a nicer and rounder number than 9.

Ith: I tried an ‘IthIthIth’ ringmail and it didn’t do much of anything for my mana problems. Hence the buff to 25%.

Eth: Never tried socketing Eth in my armor. 15% regen just didn’t seem worth it. Maybe 25% will tempt some people.

Amn: Most of the rune changes benefit attacking characters. I thought casters should get something too. I think 15% FCR is the perfect amount.

Amn: I thought block was an interesting effect. Doesn’t exist on jewels or gems, or as an affix. Maybe you can use it on a necro shield or something.

Dol: This is so piercing characters don’t all have to use Razortail. Makes self found ranger paladins more viable. Should help throwbarbs too.

Pul: You can farm it from hell countess. Which means that if you put in some directed effort, you can add damage to your magic and rare weapons.

Gul: 20% bonus to attack rating is a joke, so it’s gone. And we need some place to put 7% life leech, since Amn is taken. I figure Gul is as good a spot as any, since it sits right next to Vex(7% mana leech)

Ohm: It got it’s 50% damage stolen by Pul, so it needs a new effect. 666 to attack rating sounds like a good one. You’ll really really notice it if you socket it.

Cham: It’s the second rarest rune. Freeze target +5 should make it viable even on bows.

What I’m proposing here is not without precedent. Diablo 2 used to be extremely stingy with runes. And Blizzard fixed that with patch 1.13. Right now, Diablo 2 is stingy with sockets. Let’s get it fixed too!

2

You will likely never see this happen.

1 Like
3

Perhaps. But it’s better to let the devs know what we want than to say nothing. If they added only the Socket Recipe and nothing else, it would already make the game way better and add so much gear diversity. I want it!

I tried to pick the changes that would be easy to implement and not take the devs too much effort. The number one change is the recipe. It shouldn’t be too hard to add 1 cube recipe. Less important, but still kind of important are the runes. Changing their values shouldn’t be too hard either, but the devs would also have to tune the runewords to account for the new rune effects, that would probably be the hardest task. Larzuk and the Jewel buffs are kind of optional.

I can’t stop thinking about all the magical items I would make if I had the recipe. My number one would be Fools Gothic Bow of Amplify Damage ‘PulPulPulPul’

4

You know there already is a socket recipe for normal items right?

5

correction… what YOU want… ill have no part in this

6

Yes, those recipes add a random number of sockets. Larzuk always adds maximum sockets. Essentially, I want the Larzuk reward to be renewable, and about twice as powerful. That’s why the recipe would affect normal items.

7

I dont think they update this game anymore

8

This is what you as a D3 player want for D2.
There is no way this will happen in D2.

If it did, the game would suddenly lose 75% of it’s player base.

9

losing 75% of the player base means less lag, less issues, less bots, and less money spent by blizzard maintaining the servers.