Lets put it honestly - Blackthorne’s set is garbage. It has some so-so useful effects but they are FAR lower than any real set for any character.
- +250 Vitality - laughable
- increases damage against elites by 10% (2 pieces) - ok but there are numerous things with equal bonuses.
- Reduces damage from elites by 10.0% - same
- +25% Extra Gold - laughable
- Character becomes immune to ground effects (4 pieces) - only this one is really valuable.
But! Game was initially designed this way so you can AVOID ground effects. So there is no real need to face them, this set protects you from a thing you don’t really need protection.
Even with ring of royal grandeur you need THREE slots to use this. This means you can not combine it with any real set. You can do this with Crimson which is VERY useful, you only need 2 stuff (belt and pants usually), but you can not do this with Blackthorne. So you will not. How many characters did you see using this set? I’ll tell you. Zero. It’s purpose is just to be wrecked by smith.
However! It’s drop chance is SO high that you keep getting it CON-STAN-TLY! Almost every portal gives you 1-2 things of this kind. We not gonna use it anyway, ok? Why spamming us?
What I suggest is restrict this set, so with royal ring you only need 2 things to get full effect. Vitality and gold effects may be simply removed, it’s garbage.
And lower drop chance for this set because it’s still junk. Everybody will still use Crimson, not Blackthorne.
Actually there is another way - up it, so it would become a real set of 10.000% something. But for real I’d prefer not to meet it in game at all. This one spammed me a lot already.
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I fear that one day Blizzard is going to redesign Blackthornes into something useful and I’m going to regret salvaging those ancient and primal pieces that have fallen for me.
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If they ever lost their senses and did such a thing, the old items wouldn’t change. They’d make you farm up new Blackthorne’s items anyway.
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Set pieces always get the new set specific bonuses but normal legendaries don’t so you don’t have to re-farm sets. The lvl 60 IK pieces I found in vanilla have been updated over the years as Blizzard has done numerous improvements to them.
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The best Blackthorn drops are Primal.
You get 15 souls for melting them!
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Yep, Blackthornes is one of the many items that while salvaging gives me a mental voice like Nicholsons Joker flipping through Vicki Vale’s portfolio… “Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap…”. 
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Blackthorne definelty needs a rework to be more useful.
There’s also the nearly useless belt/bracers set as well, Krem’s or something. Why aren’t these just turned into recipes so anyone who wants them can craft them like Crimson’s or Cain’s set items? My heart sinks when I see a green belt drop… best case it’s an IK or Tal Rasha’s belt but 80% of the time it’s one of the useless sets.
Since they reworked Captain Crimson and other craftable sets to be more useful, hopefully they give the same treatment to Blackthorne as well.
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I always save my primal Blackthorne’s just in case of this. I could totally see them making the set incredibly OP just to spite all the people who have complained about the set over the years.
This imo is a good cover if they can’t be bothered making them useful.
I actually like Krelm’s belt. I like the speed bonus on ranged characters while farming. Most people probably don’t so it’s a good solution for most of these niche sets.
Would be nice if they got these out of the drop pool. BT ammy’s are such a troll, making me think it could be that elusive perfect Traveler’s Pledge.
It’s quite useful for the Boss Mode conquest too due to runspeed.
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I think that you should get a full Blackthorne set when you reached Lv70 in Season.
Player: Finally! I reached Lv70!
Tyrael: Good Job, Nephalem. Now your real journey start here. Here is some gift from me to help you on your journey.
Player: Wow, 5 piece of Blackthorne huh?
Haedrig at his store looking at the 6 pieces of set items: chuckled
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Tyrael (shaking his head): There’s only 5 pieces in the Blackthorne set.
Player: Oh my bad. Sorry.
Tyrael: you reached lvl 70, now take this shi, my friend!
Hero: nope, thank you.
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There is never too much Blackthorne! 