That wasn’t a seasonal theme, it was introduced to all game modes at the same time and was permanent. It was a very nice buff for solo play though.
I dunno, after running a seasonal character on PTR, I’m dying for this season. Now I’m just hoping to luck out and get an early etherial, it was a blast wrecking T1 at level 15 on PTR. In fact, if I were to make a suggestion, I’d love to see an increased drop rate on them while being very low level, cause it makes early leveling really fun instead of a slog.
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Personally i like the idea since alot of ppl dislike to lvl 1-70. However at the same time it removes the challenge for the ppl who chase the transmog. I believe the idea behind the requirement to gather all the ethereals for the transmog was to give some ppl something to aim for after they completed season journey. Some ppl complained that they had nothing to do after 2 weeks.
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That’s why I tried to define both what a “perfect” one meant and to define what makes these items strong. If you’re defining perfect the way we do other items, i.e. all maxed rolls then that’s basically not happening in only 3 months with the right ethereal, legendary affix and passive. A perfect grandfather, for instance, would have to roll perfect on 7 separate affixes, the legendary and a passive. Odds aren’t even worth calculating.
They’re all strong, some stronger than others, but there’s few anyone can consider duds. But not all ethereals work with all skills and obviously the weapon skill bonuses in general are so large that you really want the appropriate affix for your build.
There are:
1/100 chance of any ethereal dropping
1/3 chance of the right ethereal weapon dropping (more important for some classes/builds than others)
~1/15 chance of the appropriate legendary power (this is often halved due to accepting the weapon you may have cubed)
Then…well, the math is already well out of hand before we even consider passives, of which most are looking for 1 of about 5 or so.
This is way, way harder than getting an ancient weapon. I don’t need an ancient weapon to drop. All I need is the weapon to drop (or be upgraded via the cube) and the bounty materials and souls to reforge it. With an ancient weapon you can pursue multiple paths simultaneously. With ethereals the best you can do is grind GR’s and hope.
In a limited time event, where the real benefit of ethereals is mixing and matching and doing things you normally cant do, is that really what we want?
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But pushing over and over gr with no point isn’t waste of time? Come on… Ethereals’ rng + low drop rate will keep us playing longer, so that’s a good point of this feature. I left all previous seasons after 1 week of playing… When you have all eq after few days what is a point farming same items but with different numbers? We need a purpose in D3 and this is a good start but obviously it is too late.
I think that’s the idea, too, but also wouldn’t be surprised if a low level farm strat wasnt the dominant method of obtaining these. On the PTR they popped very frequently at low levels, as if by design.
But doesnt all the 3 weapons work? If we just compare to their normal performance. Maybe its different for different classes. Like obv buriza best for GoD DH but the 2 other options are pretty damns strong and useable for GoD DH and still better than a normal ancient. The affix doesnt even matter that much for GoD since the 100% dmg makes it worth using anyway.
Getting a perfect one is all RNG, most ppl will be happy getting one with perfect affix. The passive is just a bonus. Alot of ppl doesnt even get a perfect primal.
Its obv easier since u can kadala etc which i stated. But finding one from drops is easier than finding a ancient weapon. Ppl will farm GR anyway as its the most efficient way to increase the power of your character.
Huh? What u mean? Doing things you normally cant do? Ppl will farm GR as they always do. Getting ethereal just makes them stronger or enables uncommon builds to be used.
I personally have zero problem with keeping Ethereals in season, they are the seasonal theme after all. I also don’t have any problem with making the transmorgs something that you have to work for. With all the power creep, completing a season is ridiculously easy. Heck, if I have to run classes I never have before, I may as well go after the all class set dungeon achievement.
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There are multiple build tweaks you can make, mostly because 2 hand or off hand affixes show up as 1 hand ethereals. These things being generically stronger I personally dont think is very interesting.
Yeah new builds. I think thats spot on what alot of ppl want? Developing meta around the theme. Ethereals switching things up, i think thats a good thing and something fresh.
Ethereal will give things to try out, things to hunt for, making older builds to see the light (scythe, starpact etc) and some meta builds stronger and since it be hard to get a rly perfect ethereal ppl got reason to keep farming the whole season and u wont need to spam bounties or sit in town spamming cube for a primal weapon.
On top off that there might be 4 different exp metas Rats, Birds, WoL, GoD. For me this could be one of the best seasons ever if not the best atleast for me. What else u want or what u expect from a theme?
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I don’t consider season 24’s “theme” as a normal theme. Seasonal themes have always been active and consistent. You can completely opt out of these seasons “theme” if one wanted to. Not so with others. This is more of a temporary itemization addition in celebration of D2R or dare I say a way to promote D2R?
It’s trying to do both. The power and versatility is simply offload to a temporary item rather than the cube or an effect or a clone or whatever. At the end of the day it’s just a different mechanism for a seasonal theme.
I do hope we see it cleaned up a bit, but also marketed better. They actually did a fair amount of work in making the items feel like D2 items but because they haven’t sold that idea it often looks to the player like questionable balancing through a strictly D3 lens.
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NO you are a wrong. The LoD gem was a seasonal thing and they turned it into the LoD gem. In other words, if the season theme is good enough to improve the game substantially they keep it. That’s literally the whole point of seasons to begin with. It’s to improve the game if people like the season enough/ Not all season themes are like this of course, the shadow clones are a good example of something that is just fun and would be too much to add to the full game since it’s not casual player friendly but the ethereal items are.
Ethereal items are here to stay. just like the LoD gem.
Yeah, this is looking like a season to skip. Drop rates seem to be pretty low on everything as well. The whole season just feels punitive.
Oh really?!
Please show me your 150 GR clear SOLO (NO META or any other GROUP run) in this season than come back to the forum, saying how the game has no challenges and is “too easy” for you…
To all the nay sayers to keeping the ethereals in non season, cause it’s a season thing only, please tell me what has been the last season theme (follower revamp) than?! 
By not allowing us to keep the ethereals, devs only show how they don’t care at all and completely ignore what the community wants, just like it was with the 4th Kanai cube slot, cause everyone was so afraid of the “so called OP necromancer”…
Lately devs are doing all they can to annoy the living cr4p out of every SOLO player in their community, constantly catering to bots, THUD, macro and Groups (META, Rat or any other) all the time increasing the gap between SOLO and GROUP players even further, by nerfing the most popular builds (usually to oblivion) and why, cause group obsessed balance “people” cry how the game is too easy for them… 
Change “SOLO” to “NEW”. Not every solo player find the game too hard. Blizzard did follower revamp and added new builds which does rly well solo. So its actually the opposite of what u think. They gave solo players more lately than ever.
LoD improved the game substantially by making a whole bunch of new builds viable.
Ethereals make existing OP builds even more OP.
Big difference.
Don’t make me laugh…
All they did is give SOLO players max 5 GR and easier, faster 80-100 GRs farming if you’re clearing GRs 100% SOLO and not the “Easy and lazy META way”…
Been playing D3 since release, so I know exactly how many things they (devs) messed up…
I bet that all the people crying about how easy the game is, cause all thy do is play in META all day long would have a meltown of epic proportions if suddenly GR would be unlocked by completing them SOLO first and the Torment difficulties would be changed to:
- T1 = GR 10 - completing T1 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 1-10,
- T2 = GR 20 - completing T2 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 11-20,
- T3 = GR 40 - completing T3 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 21-30,
- T4 = GR 40 - completing T4 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 31-40,
- T5 = GR 50 - completing T5 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 41-50,
- T6 = GR 60 - completing T6 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 51-60,
- T7 = GR 70 - completing T7 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 61-70,
- T8 = GR 80 - completing T8 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 71-80,
- T9 = GR 90 - completing T9 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 81-90,
- T10 = GR 100 - completing T10 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 91-100,
- T11 = GR 110 - completing T11 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 101-110,
- T12 = GR 120 - completing T12 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 111-120,
- T13 = GR 130 - completing T13 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 121-130,
- T14 = GR 140 - completing T14 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 131-140,
- T15 = GR 145 - completing T15 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 141-145,
- T16 = GR 150 - completing T16 normal rift SOLO unlock GRs 146-150,
All torment difficulties would have their %EXP and %GOLD values doubled and completing each Nephalem Rift would award much highier Experience and Gold than it’s now, same with GR…
I bet that with those changes made, all the people crying about the game being too easy for them would flood the forum with threads whining how they can’t faceroll GR150 in 2 or 3 minutes anymore like they used to in META groups, cause now you actualy would have to unlock GRs SOLO, instead of just creating a zDPS char and faceroll 120- 150 GRs easily…
To make things worse for Groups all monsters in 130-150 GRs would “enrage” after 3 seconds of encounter increasing their attack speed by 25% (per player up to 75% with 4 players) and elites would regenerate up to 3% HP per second (1% per player)…
To make it even harder for groups in 140 - 150 GRs you would get a 25% increased cooldown to all skills per player up to 75% with 4 players in group…
140-150 GRs mobs would also be completely immune to freeze, stun, chill, immobilize, slow etc. effects and only 1 pylon would have 25% chance to spawn, but no shield, power or channeling one (for both SOLO and GROUP players)…
All these changes would make GROUPS life a little harder and they would think twice before they start asking for nerfs again…
Unfortunately Blizz doesn’t give a d4mn about SOLO players at all…
They gave solo players alot more. Followers sure gave a lill speed with free FoT and nemesis. However GoD, FB, inna/WoL (even BS before nerf) are all great solo builds for speeding which been added the last couple of seasons. All of them do way above 100 gr even for solo only players.
And none of them are particular hard to play for speeds. So its just as ez to play solo.
Maybe u been. But u still not very good at the game.
First its the lazy way and then its all day long, im pretty sure lazy ppl dont play all day long. If u played all day long as solo u would be high paragon aswell. Some ppl dont like games to be ez and enjoys a challenge. If d3 keeps getting easier with every patch there soon be no challenge at all even for casuals. Isnt it better to struggle to beat the game so u can improve for every season and reach new goals? The ppl who find the game too hard should work on themselves and start improving.
U surely dont sound like someone who even beat 150 in a group or even played at higher GR.
U are aware of that there are solo players who ask for nerfs aswell? Alot of ppl want nerfs since some builds outperform every other build for that class or every other build in the game. Some builds beat 150gr solo with far less effort than other builds. Gr150 is the biggest challenge d3 has to offer. Its suppose to be a challenge for high end players and not the casuals. Solo players can beat it by playing 100% solo but not every player can and that how they want it to be.
They do. They just dont listen to ppl with unreasonable requests and lack of knowledge about the game. Some casual players want d3 to be more like super mario. And blizzard wants d3 to be challenging.
Yep as predicted you completely ignorred the suggestion and as for other arguments I played few times in METAs and hated it, always ended up with a massive headache after an hour or two…
Solo players clearing 150 GR hmm, if by SOLO you mean getting leveled in META groups by playing as zDPS and than with 3000-5000 paragon beating 150 GR usually abusing the season theme than yeah, not impressed…
Btw. just because some players didn’t clear 150 GR SOLO (by playing 100% SOLO GRS), doesn’t mean they’re bad at the game. Not everyone speed runs normal rifts or spends over 10h a day doing both normal and GRs, some people have something called live and aren’t obsessed with clearing the highiest GR each season possible, but it doesn’t change the fact, that you shouldn’t be allowed to do it or be forced to play in GROUPS just to be able to clear over 120 up to140-150 GR later…
Casual you say, well when GoD set was added to game I’ve been playing 4-8h a day whole season, done maybe 5-6 GRs with a friend, but got to 2000 paragon, by playing 100% GRs SOLO… Did those runs with friend or 2 random GR from pubs after I got 2000 paragon.
As for not knowing how to play in METAs, yeah maybe for you grouping 100s of mobs in one place or running from elite to elite and stacking as many elites and trash mobs in one place and usually with some random player in party using THUD is fun, but personally for me it’s not…
Followers revamp made farming 80-110 GRs and maybe for some persistent players even 120 GR or 130 GR easier, but it doesn’t change the fact, that each season, cause of people asking for nerfs we end up wit ONE OP per char while destroying the previous one or making it unplayable for pushing highiest GRs…
You probably also forgot how they broke they promise to updade the emanation list, by adding mre items this season too, but it doesn’t surprise me…
Instead of creating more powerful builds and actually giving us choices, nerfs limit build diversity, which has been proven already way too many times…