S25 Proposal - Season of Exalted Items (Violet items)

General Discussion
1

4K Poster

https://i.ibb.co/7bv8ScR/exalted-items-4.png

Summary: Any skill can now deal damage at high level, solely based on itemization.

Bonus

  • New item type: Exalted (violet).
  • Exalted items roll very powerful affixes (Ex: +400% damage to all skills and +1000% to rune X).
  • Equipped with 13 Exalted items, an Exalted aura increases all your damage by 0.1% per Parangon Level.

Malus (Reset Balance)

  • Equipped with any Exalted item, any skill damage multiplier is now 100% weapon damage.
  • Equipped with any Exalted item, any set power or non-emanated legendary power is inactive.

Also

  • Your first Seasonal Challenge Rift opened grants you an Exalted item (per Class).
  • Your first Seasonal Greater Rift Level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 grants you an Exalted item (per Class).
  • Your first Seasonal Greater Rift Level 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 grants you an Ancient Exalted item (per Class).
  • Your first Seasonal Greater Rift Level 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 grants you a Primal Exalted item (per Class).
  • Exalted items are account bound and can only be dropped by monsters, chests, and destructibles, but do not require your character to be level 70 to drop.
  • Exalted items cannot be acquired through Kanai’s Cube, the Blacksmith or from Kadala.
  • Exalted items rarity drop rate is set between Ancient and Primal items.
  • Exalted items are dyed in violet and have violet visual effects.
  • Exalted items transmogrifications are unavailable from the Mystic.
  • Exalted items can be Augmented, Transmogrified, Dyed.
  • Exalted items cannot be Enchanted, Reforged, Traded, or pierced through Ramaladni’s Gift.
  • Exalted items can be equipped at level 1 and are always identified.
  • Exalted items can be equipped by followers (“all skills” empowers followers. They have their own aura).
  • Exalted items do not emanate.
  • Exalted items always roll [1 - 3] empty sockets if they are weapons or off-hands.
  • Exalted items always ignore durability loss.
  • Exalted items always roll [2% - 7%] Damage reduction.
  • Exalted items always roll a Tiers 1 Damage increase.
  • Exalted items always roll a Tiers 2 Damage increase (different type from Tiers 1).
  • Exalted items can roll a Passive Class Skill if they rolled any class specific affix.
  • Exalted items can roll a second Passive Class Skill if they are a two-handed weapon.
  • Exalted items bonuses and passive skills are summarized in your character sheet.
  • Exalted items can be shared among classes if they roll non-class specific affixes.
  • Exalted items have their own leaderboard.
  • Exalted items only drop in Seasonal play.
  • Exalted items will transfer to your non-seasonal character when the season ends.

Inspiration

  • D3 S24 Etherals, but without class legendary powers, without Ethereal power
  • Last Epoch T6-T7 Exalted items : https://tinyurl.com/zt38jfe5 (No legendary power)

Aura concepts

  • Without Exalted Aura: https://i.ibb.co/MCQzZz1/without-exalted-aura.png
  • With Exalted Aura (Triune of Love) : https://i.ibb.co/zFD2p6Z/with-exalted-aura.png
  • With Exalted Aura (SSJ Light Violet) : https://i.ibb.co/dgvkKv7/with-exalted-aura-2.png
  • With Exalted Aura (SSJ Dark Violet) : https://i.ibb.co/R7VN80p/with-exalted-aura-3.png

Rolled Skill Damage

+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
|        + XXX % Damage to         |    Tiers 1     |    Tiers 2    |     Rarity    |
+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
| Thorns                           | [100% - 200%]  | [50% - 100%]  | Rare          |
+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
| All skills                       | [200% - 400%]  | [100% - 200%] | Very Frequent |
+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
| Wizard / Barbarian / ...  skills | [200% - 400%]  | [100% - 200%] | Frequent      |
+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
| Primary / Secondary / ... skills | [400% - 600%]  | [200% - 300%] | Frequent      |
+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
| Skill X                          | [600% - 800%]  | [300% - 400%] | Rare          |
+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
| Rune X                           | [800% - 1000%] | [400% - 500%] | Very Rare     |
+----------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------+
  • These numbers are designed for Ancien items.
  • Normal and Primal quality will affect these numbers.
  • These numbers are doubled for two-handed weapons.
  • Any skill doing damage is now viable at high level, solely depending on your loot.

FAQ

Q: Can I mix legendary items with Exalted items ?
A: Yes, but:

  • Any skill damage multiplier is now 100% weapon damage
  • Any non-emanated legendary power is inactive
  • Any equipped legendary item deactivates the Exalted Aura

Q: Can I mix Legacy of Nightmare or Legacy of Dreams with Exalted items ?
A: Yes, but:

  • Any skill damage multiplier is now 100% weapon damage
  • Any non-emanated legendary power is inactive
  • Any equipped legendary item deactivates the Exalted Aura
  • Any equipped Exalted item substracts 750% Damage from LoN / LoD (Exalted items have no legendary power, so they do not qualify for LoN / LoD)

Q: Can I mix Set items with Exalted items ?
A: Yes, but:

  • Any skill damage multiplier is now 100% weapon damage
  • Any set power is inactive
  • Any equipped set item deactivates the Exalted Aura

Q: Why do you allow mixing LoN / LoD with Exalted items ?
A: LoN / LoD have a consistant and granular power increase. It can be balanced with minimal adaptations. You cannot get the Exalted aura if you equip any Legendary item, and any equipped Exalted items results in a loss of 750% Damage from the LoN / LoD perspective (Exalted items have no legendary power, so they do not qualify for LoN / LoD), and any skill damage multiplier is now 100% weapon damage. It is fair and balanced.

Q: Why equipping Exalted items makes Sets powers inactive ?
A: Sets are very different from to another. For example, Shadow’s Mantle 2p increases your damage by 6000% (with only 2 pieces !), while Inarius 6p increases your damage by 10,000%. There is currently no solution to balance these differences. This is why Set powers are deactivated. In addition, the objective of this proposal is to free players from manually, pre-conceived builds like Sets.

Q: Why equipping Exalted items makes Legendary powers inactive ?
A: For the same reason that equipping Exalted items makes Sets powers inactive. See answer above.

Q: Why skill damage multiplier is now 100% weapon damage ?
A: Your skill damage multiplier, runed or not, increases your weapon damage. The goal of this proposal is to make any skill usable in end-game with Exalted items. As a prerequisite, we need to flatten all the skill damage multipliers, so all skills are more or less equal in terms of raw damage output (but the side effects will remain). This is why, equipped with any Exalted item, any skill damage multiplier is now 100% weapon damage. Of course, damage multipliers from other sources like Exalted items still apply on skills and buff them. For more information on skill damage, feel free to read https://maxroll.gg/resources/damage-multipliers-thorns-explained#skill-damage

Reddit

  • https://tinyurl.com/hrf45ym7

–

NB: In early iterations ( https://i.ibb.co/cC387kk/exalted-items.png ), Exalted items were rolling class legendary powers, but after exchanging with the community, it appears that orientation does not meet the goal to liberate players from pre-conceived builds. In order to free creativity and improve build diversity, we had to remove legendary powers, limit the skill damage multiplier to 100% weapon damage, so any skill and rune is now somehow equal to another, and only itemization you loot will decide which is the strongest. To compensate, rolled skill damage on Exalted items has been greatly increased, up to 1000% if rolled on a rune, and you can now roll Tiers 1 and Tiers 2 Damage increase affixes. These powerful modifications make Exalted items carry immense power on their own. The Exalted Aura has also been adapted to gradually increase your power by 0.1% per Parangon Level (Ex: Parangon 300 gives you 30% increased damage, Parangon 500 gives you 50% increased damage).

2

That’s one way to break the game.

??? So you have to farm 13 (one for each slot) hope they are somewhat decent rolled… In order to get a very weak set bonus compared to lon/lod?

I understand why they did this for s24. The pain of trying to find a piece for every slot that’s rolls correct would be rough. To say the least

3

So in other words “exalted item” is entirely pointless unless you have a full set, and even then I would imagine any class set would still be better unless exalted items are vastly, and I do mean vastly superior to your run of the mill Primal in stat values.

4

Another direct but thinly veiled buff to Necromancer? At least you’re consistent but if you need tons of improvement and buffs to a class where everyone else simply trashing through content, then you’re not really having fun with it for real.

5

Yes, it can be a challenge suitable for an end-game mechanic.

You do have a point, I’m not fixed on that.
What do you propose ?
Add a small gradual bonus for each piece, but keep the grand completion bonus ?
If so, the line …

… could do the job.
Yeah I know the formulation is very evasive.
But the Etheral formulation was also very evasive if your remember.
https://us.diablo3.com/en-us/blog/23695733/season-24-%7C-ethereal-memory-%7C-now-live-7-9-2021

If they are supercharged, is it good enough ?

Note that you will be be able to make unprecendented combinations of legendary powers, just because of the new D4 itemization style that allows items to roll any legendary power on any slot.

Can you explain where do you see a buff for a specific class ?

No class should benefit more than another.

Classes that can equip only 1 weapon (Necro, Sorcerer, Crusader) shall have the same advantages as the ones that can equip two weapons (Barbarians, Monks, Demon Hunter)

Of course the legendary power is only rolled among the ones available for your class

6

Not the class that came to mind. Only class I though if was sader. But that would still be squishy. Without Perma akkarat. And no Dr built into the journey.

7

But you specifically stated that legendary powers would be restricted to slots they already occupy?

8

This ain’t it, chief.

1 Like
9

I indeed added some restrictions on item type (weapon/armor/jewerly).
I’m not sure I can allow weapon powers to roll on armor pieces and jewerly.
I mean it is surely doable, but wouldn’t it be a little bit overpowered ?

What would you change ?

10

In some instances, sure. But the whole system is pretty nightmarish to balance from the get go as there are vast discrepancies both from how good the various passives of classes are to how many legendaries there are that support the same or related skills.

11

If every item has a passive, then the character eventually, effectively, gets all passives… many of which are not even going to be very helpful or possibly counter-productive. Jewelry, helmet, and maybe offhand seem the better fit. Weapons should get two legendary effects, with the possibility to get “all skill damage” as an affix, ranging from 100-200% (it might be better to guarantee it - but it would need to be clear this does not stack with itself, so perhaps it becomes a legendary power.)

12

Okay I removed that condition

Legendary Powers rolled on Exalted items are related to the type of piece: an Exalted weapon/shield/source/scythe rolls a weapon/shield/source/scythe legendary power, an Exalted armor rolls an armor legendary power, an Exalted jewerly rolls a jewerly legendary power

So now there is no restriction.
You can build your character as you want.
If you go all-in damage but have zero defense, it is up to you, you are free.

I believe freedom was the whole point of Exalted items anyway :slight_smile:

It will be hard to have them all.
For example Necromancer has 20 passive skills, so in an ideal roll you will get 13 + 4 = 17 different Passives. But still, it will be extremely hard to achieve that ideal roll, since you will mainly focus on Class Legendary powers (I suppose).

I’m not against this, but since you can roll 2 hands legendary powers on any piece (following @Kargon’s advice), I believe it is already very powerful, nope ?

Yeah I think this would behave like Etherals on that point.
The original description in S24 patch notes was evasive but we still got that kind of affixes, and I had them in mind for Exalted items.

I added an example

As it can roll on any piece, this is powerful enough to maintain the grand completion bonus to “only” 5000%.

Thank you @Kargon and @DeadlyMouse for your constructive feedback.

13

Necros have the highest sustain with their LotD to the Corpse Lance, which is one of the highest hitting spells in the game.

The numbers don’t even get near the Sets available to the other classes’ Set bonuses of 30k%-50k% but surpasses Necromancers. You can’t tell me it’s not a thinly veiled push over for Necromancers only. Other classes won’t bother to use it anyway.
At least I don’t get it that way.

14

I love LE – but I would let EHG have their day – as their game is still in beta! Consider renaming these from Exalted to something else.

This concept seems like Ethereal meets LoN/LoD season. This might just be my own sentiment, but after S24 – I desire returning back to normal non-ethereal gameplay, but with revamped skills and legendary gear. Really hoping to relive 2.6.1/2.6.4, of course, without the insane outlier builds.

I’d like the next radical theme focused on procced damage, a reworked Blackthorne’s that nullifies all Skill and Area Damage for a tremendous gain in procced damage. To summarize all damage has to start from your procs, skill damage becomes a 0 multiplier.

Blackthorne’s Battlegear
2pc: Deal 5,000% more damage while this is your only worn set bonus.
3pc: Gain 50% damage reduction at the expense of your ability to deal area damage.
4pc: The magic inside of your legendary items and gems increases by 10,000% damage at the sacrifice of your skill damage.

Perhaps the Season could allow the set to not nullify skill damage, but on non-season the skill damage component gets zeroed out.

1 Like
15

They actually did a similar thing to this already… With Trials of Tempest or whatever it was. I doubt it could be a permanent change but this can work, not kidding.

16

LoD Mages, Sorcerer Explosive Blast, or Raiment of a Thousand Storms for Monks + Shenlong + Flying Dragon also hit very fast. There are lots of builds out there with massive hit dealing mechanics. Not specific to Necro.

It is not.
I mean, really.
It is simply a different way to play.
I designed it to be played by all classes.
But if you think there are incompatibilities with some classes, just raise them, no problem we will try to fix these ones.

Not all sets are born equal, from the beginning.
This is why we have leaderboards ranked by Class / Set / LoD.
Not an issue to me in that perspective.

Hehe.
First try was “Overloaded”, but it wasn’t near as sexy as “Exalted”.

Yeah I think this kind of “game changing” idea is refreshing and good to fight boredom and the season fatigue.

I previously had more or less the same idea to nullify regular damage with an item called “Hemorrhagic Shard”:

https://i.ibb.co/PMvc52w/Trag-Oul-s-Avatar.jpg

But when I presented it, players were lost, like “OMG how am I supposed to deal damage now ?”. They had hard time to understand that now they deal zero damage, because you know, 20 years of old reflexes and unchanged mechanics. Change management is hard. But keep trying !

1 Like
17

The problem with your idea is it doesn’t help some classes while helps others too much.

The DH for instance has one damage affix that doesn’t belong to a weapon and that Hellcat Waistguard. Everything else is defensive or utilitarian. And most of our weapons and off-hands either don’t have legendary affixes or do things like change spenders to generators with no damage increase.

In other words, it would be just like the LoN season a while back where DH’s got the shaft because we have no LoN builds outside of Rapid Fire and its about as lack luster as it gets.

So I say, NO THANK YOU!!!

1 Like
18

and having the top season 4 man 150 in 2 min 43 seconds not broken?
having to do better than a season 4 man 150 in 8 min’s or better to even get on the leaderboard isn’t broken?
having a streamer say lets keep something from every seasonal buff in the game some how, not breaking the game?
There is more I can point out, slamming the guy who posts is probably the wrong person to tell this.

2 Likes
19

I never played LoN/LoD with Demon Hunter, is that so bad ?
Looks like a general problem unrelated to that topic, though.
Are you sure no new build can emerge with a new combination ?

20

I never said “s24 4man aren’t broken.” Although season 24 does have the most balanced exp farming of any season to date. As far as choice goes.

And I’ll stand by my statement his initial post before edits would not have been good for the game. I like the idea don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have more free choice in what slot to have xyz legendary power. I just know if the average player has a fun and powerful theme. You’ll get the 18 hour a day crowd that will ruin it with too 1k clears in 4man being sub 8 mins

Imagine all the I don’t have etherial posts you’d see only now they need 12 additional slots worth of items.