I think we all know that most uniques are useless. From that list, many are build defining, but otherwise useless. With that said, IMO 1 unique is the best designed in the game
Fists of Fate - 4 out of 4 mods are super useful. They also have very wide range, but also means that not every class needs all 4. It also has a DPS mod, which is useful for all = the item that can work pretty much for any class (with some exceptions to some builds, obv).
I think we need more of such uniques. One could even argue, it should be an uber unique, since the tendency of those uniques to be very good for every class, such as shako, starless, tyraels, and shroud, for exampleā¦
I do so wish we had more of such uniques in the game, but I bet designing them is a real challengeā¦
1 Like
In the early stages when the original idea and vision was a slower paced game and combat was actually combat, many unique items were fine.
Theyāre simply out of date to what the game hasā¦eh āevolvedā into(?).
Yea FoF are quite nice(current iteration is certainly OPish and the old was much classier imo)
Super stats with incredible utility.
Thereās no going back to the days of innocence so they might as well update uniques.
eg Starfall Coronet
Nice item, good idea for a different time.
Now?
Players want to spam meteors not have a cooldown.
2 Likes
I have a hard time to pick any unique item by usefulness, but when it comes to fun I remember the early Eaglehorn was like a drug to play with. Back then it was Twisting Blades meta, so it didnt get much attention by the player base.
But didnt matter to me, it was too hard to put this bow and Penetrating Shot away. Watching the bouncing mechanic do its thing was incredible addicting and it required positional consideration. Affixes were good, and still are.
Unfortunately, the unique aspect only survived 2 seasons. The difference to now is that the chance to bounce was 80%, instead of 25%. I believe this was changed as it was a pain to the servers, but not sure about that.
Good thread btw.
Starfall Coronet and Blood Artisans Cuirass are by far the best and most thoughtfully designed uniques. Their rolls donāt min-max your damage. Their rolls tell you whether or not a build can even start to come together or not. Helpful for selling or salvaging items quickly.
They also donāt take slots of mythics that could be synergistic to their incredibly WIDE ranging rolls. 
The bar is low. The entire gear system needs an overhaul. Starting with removing aspects.
The problem is not their development, but the chosen design itself. With such a design, it is impossible to balance it at all.
They should have initially released 1 mythical item, 3 unique items and 5 aspects for each skill. If everything had been ready on the first day, they might have had something working. But itās a complete mess.
And by the way, because of their stupid idea with skins, the entire idea of āāthe appearance of the design of the pre-existing items is lost. They ruined their own work.
1 Like
In the early stages when the original idea and vision was a slower paced game and combat was actually combat, (many) NO unique items were fine.
One can experience the same nostalgic feeling by doing pit ot torment levels several tiers ahead of what their character is capable of. Or take a stroll naked through Nahantu. Those demons will eat your chacham or chachams and then pour some hatred into your Akarat Cave.
Slog.
Extra health white mobs.
Bugged replenishing barrier on every mob.
CC and Stupid Explosion Oneshots
Champions for EVERY pack hidden waaay in the back.
Remember? Sober yet?
1 Like
Battle Trance, hands down.
Ohh yeah. No forgetting those days.
Even normal non elite Bandit Brutes were dangerous.(Dual club guys).
Get knocked down and 1 or 2 others get on yaā¦no CC break skill = ya aināt ever getting back up.
I still wonder what possessed the designers to put the hardest CC in the open world just outside Kyovashad.
Iād say a majority of players first exited Kyo via the Northwest gate - it was closest and initial side quests took us that way.
Ran right into Khazra magi with ice turrets, brutes with knockdown, shaman with frost bolt and oh so many spiders chain freezing from 2 screens away.
I bet a not insignificant amount of Players just rage quit and said screw this as that was basically their introduction to the game.
You do not f with the Kjovashad Demonic Bratva.
1 Like
I hate Fists of Fate. I hate the whole āLetās add a random CC to your attacksā concept and their wide range of both damage and affixes, making most of them useless. I donāt mind the other CC, but from an aesthetic and class fantasy point, I donāt want to freeze mobs randomly and I wish we couldā¦ remove freezing from the CC options and keep the rest. Too bad a 290-300% one is kind of a BiS for many skills.
We need more valid options, especially for build agnostic gloves. We also need more class Uniques that do not have their modifiers specifically tied to a single skill. This is super lazy and limitative and really simply push builds to gravitate towards the āSpamming one skillā meta we currently have.
My sorcās build revolves around freezing enemies, auto-firing ice shards, and when they die, shatter goes off as well as a frost nova, chaining the whole thing. Terrible at bosses (shocker!) but crazy fun and great at AOE.
Penitents Greaves and Icehearts Brais are almost perfect for this build (icehearts are required) but here we see:
Penitents:
- Has movement speed, like it should.
- Chill slow potency and critical hit% to chilled kind of suck, but theyāre thematic, at least.
- Cold resistance is the absolutely a waste of an affix not just for sorcs, but for nearly all classes in this day and age, Iād imagine.
Imagine some joker thinking GA on cold resistance is worth something in trade. A perfect Penitent is still only a 3GA unique as far as Iām concerned. And getting this on your 12th MW is devastatingly useless.
Icehearts
- Life - Okay, need that.
- Ice Nova Size - nice and thematic as well. Can easily hit 100% with just this one item.
- Cold resistance - see above. Things I have nightmares about.
- Shatter echo damage - this might be good? Iām not sure? But a base roll of 4-6% even if it was multiplicative seems completely pointless. If this is working as intended, I canāt imagine what discussion led to that intention.
I know OP wanted to know what was best designed and I didnāt make that point, but I did also want to highlight some uniques used in an off-meta way.
EDIT: And here is what I would do to make them better.
Penitent:
Critical hit% to chilled ā +critical hit% to attacks that can chill/freeze
Cold Resistance ā Resist All
Icehearts:
Cold Resistance ā Intelligence
% to Shatter Damage Echo ā Shatter Size