I’m a little confused by the loot and item power figures, or what the purpose is.
We’re all conditioned to look at ilvl or item power and just conclude the item must be better, but so far I’ve found this value really doesn’t matter other than maybe pure armor or weapon DPS and is not very useful compared to the affixes themselves.
What I find most curious is that when I first transition to T4, I seem to find lots of ancestral in the low to mid 700 item power with high rolls and within 10-15 hours of play time replace all slots with pretty decent rolls.
But from there it drops off substantially where maybe 10% of the leggos and rares I find are 800+, of which all of them have much worse rolls on the ones have have any stats useful to me. I feel like I’m trashing a lot more 800’s because the stats are weaker than what I got at the start of T4.
So it begs the question, why would all these 800+ pieces seem to have worse stats than the earlier version? Is it just that the pool is smaller, so it seems worse, or is it actually worse? What’s going on here?
Item levels doesn’t really matter yea, minus weapons of course. So for armor go for the best affixs and don’t worry about item levels, if it’s ancestral they will all have the same range on affixs it’s dumb yea but ya know it’s blizzard lol
What you want is weapons and offhands to be as high item power as possible.
For the rest of your gear you want 724 item power or higher because that is the break point of the tiers of rolls. Meaning a 700 item power can only get to X amount of attack speed, but a 724 item power item can get 1 tier higher attack speed. Using attack speed merely as an example.
So either get items that are naturally higher than 724, or get them at 704, then upgrade them to 704+20 (5 per upgrade).
I’d have to look, but pretty sure most if not all of my gear is at least 724. But that’s sort of what I have figured out yeah, weapons matter most for the raw dps.
Hopefully they can fill the void with more upgrades in later levels in the future, cause it does feel bad just destroying everything because the stats are worse on an 800 power item than the 750 one I’m currently wearing. I agree with those complaints I guess.
It’s boring and bloated with garbage filler stats and overall sucks.
To answer your questions, item power only really matters for weapons. Anything 725 + gets the highest tier of stat rolls. For armor, like you said, it’s a marginal armor boost and nothing more.
The item level has nothing to do with the type of stats that roll, just the values. If all your 800+ stuff is looking worse, it’s just RNG.
So look for 800+ for weapons with good stats. For anything else, 725+ with good stats is fine. If you happen to find something with the same or better stats and more ilvl, sure take the little armor boost.
Legendaries are just rares with aspects so if you find a rare with good stats just put whatever aspect on it and it’s just as good.
Due to the nature of RNG, most innate legendaries will suck because it’s just a smaller pool than rares and they are the same thing.
Yeah they should had put in another tier at 800 or 824…
As you (OP) write the first few hours in IV is fun because you replace lot of gear but then you have 30(-40?) levels where you hardly replace any gear… Whats the point in running lvl 100 nm dungeons when the loot is the same as in lvl 35 dungeons…
I don’t think I replaced any gear after lvl 65-70ish… maybe the staff dont remember when i got it…
I think the problem here is the item range being this wide in the first place. At the early to middle parts of the leveling progression items do grow in power. After about level 70 or so this stops. The “old” stuff never goes away. It stays around and dilutes the loot pool.
The range should arguably become tighter. 600ish gear progresses to 700ish gear to culminate in 800ish gear. At each step of the loot progression you should find gear closer to a smaller target range. Once 800’s are routine most of the loot should be high 700’s into 800’s. The itemization and need to reroll affixes is enough to modulate drop acquisition to keep the hunt going (+2 potion charges… the dream stat).
If those mechanisms are not enough then the type of loot needs adjusted (type of affixes) or the range needs adjusted/expanded.
The secondary issue is bonuses across this range are too similar in value. An 800 power level item should provide more than a 700. In a lot of cases the gap is negligible. It’s questionable design and undermines the purpose of the pretty number.
Perhaps a third issue is risk vs reward. Item power level should scale with mob level (experience gains too…). It should continue to do so into NM’s, as sigils become higher. If I fight stronger mobs I should get better loot. That’s been a fundamental rule in RPG’s for… decades.
I have difficulty seeing how the current implementation is sustainable. Players are going to end up feeling as if they’re spinning their wheels. Chasing carrots while being unable to find any. Either that or getting lucky earlier and feeling like there is no reason to continue the hunt. The loot pool design feels… wrong.
Yes, I thought I was clear about that. To summarize: it should matter. But what I wasn’t understanding is that it’s a bracketed system, not just a linear scale. So if it stops at 724, but loot goes beyond 800, that doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
Weighted RNG.
Look at the most recent patch notes.
ANYTHING they Nerfed was a desired, meta Affix.
These will ALL be heavily weighted to sink to the bottom of the “chance to roll/appear Affix Pool”.
When you DO get eg. Vulnerable to appear on an item - I guarantee you that 90% of the time the Roll will be Base/near base Value.
I am positive that with the most recent patch “addressing and nerfing” optimal Affixes that they also added rng weighting to those very Affixes - not only for the reduced frequency in which they appear but most importantly - the reduced VALUE of the rolls of the Affixes themselves when they DO appear on an item.
Nearly everything I have found has been absoulte trash tier.
I’m NOT excluding 600’s and 700’s weapons! I look at everything to get an idea…a feel of what trends and values I’m personally experiencing or am subjected to.
Literally anything over 725 that isn’t a weapon is fine. The weapon is the only thing that matters for DPS purposes after 725. Loot in this game is a mess from the ground up.
I mean eventually you are going to run out of upgrades to find. Did you think you wouldn’t?
At some point you are full BiS stated and just fishing for small 1-2 percent upgrades. Every diablo to ever exist has functioned the same.
In fact most games that have any form of gearing work this way.
If you play WoW and get a normal raid belt, you now are trying to get the heroic version. It’s the same item just bumped up in power a little.
I guess I just don’t understand what you were expecting?
You could say ancestral don’t last long enough. However isn’t this a self inflicted problem because just like you said you went into WT4 in your low 50’s. Most people don’t get there until 65-70.
Even if you get into T4 at 70, you’re still basically using the same gear with not much upgrades for a full quarter of the leveling experience and beyond. Kinda feels bad.
The problem is that 800+ can rng drop at whatever level you entered WT4.
If you find something you like, it will be hard to find something with better stats just because you are at a higher level, because chances are you adapted a little to play with the gear you have. Or you spent money enchanting to get something you really like.
The drop system should have a weighted value on range of items that can drop at your level, making the upper bounds of that pool really low probability but possible.
This is how I feel about it. These people are burning themselves out trying to be MLG.
Normal people who are getting to WT4 at 70 aren’t going to have this feeling.
However if you start getting ancestral’s at 50. Yea by the time you are 70-80 you are probably going to be full BiS and hunting a 1 percent upgrade here or there.
Not sure exactly what they are wanting? Uncapped gear or?
I mean wanting more content isn’t a problem, but even then at some point you will be full BiS no matter what they add to the game.
Eventually you will be hunting for 27 percent crit instead of 26 percent.
Just how these types of games work. Then you can make an alt, keep hunting those rare items that aren’t going to come by after 3 dungeons, or find something else to do.
I just don’t really understand the complaint. It would be like skipping Normal and Heroic raid. Mythic raiding and getting full BiS and saying “Well there is nothing left and 2 months of the season still so this game sucks”.
To me it’s like what did you expect? You rush into the hardest content as fast as humanily possible. Then are surprised when you hit a wall.