Definitely make Rares useful in their own right. Legendaries are not fulfilling the basic “randomized” item type.
Definitely true.
Maybe Blizzard should change their motto from “Easy to learn, hard to master” (which they of course abandoned many years ago) to “Dumbing down all the way to the bottom”.
They really need to just give up their stubbornness and add a loot filter.
I am constantly amazed by the amount of thought and complex suggestions that go into some of these posts, like the OP’s post. I hope the D4 team puts as much thought into the game as the folks on this forum do!!
Here’s a simple idea:
What if Sets affected Paragon board instead ?, say something like:
Immortal King:
Hammer:
Chest:
Gloves:
IDK, feels like they need add another mechanic/feature in the game so that Set bonuses don’t overlap much
Maybe something like that ? 
imo there is no need for sets as long as we have aspects.
Literally same thing.
I feel like existing system works fine.
They just need a lot more utility oriented legendary aspects and uniques that can make more builds available, and players can do the trade off themselves and mix and match
If anything, add more tempering recipes so we can have more interesting utility oriented affixes and open up some temperinh opportunities for uniques too
Funny you mention this.
So they may end up doing more on the utility side, you never know.
Yeah, no matter what, I’m sure thats very accurate, that they have a lot of room to grow the game, in many directions =)
But unfortunately that is exactly what Joe said in the Campfire chat.
Better idea, just forget about set bonuses and move on…just what I think
Very rigid minds and major PTSD in this thread.
A set is just an additional requirement for receiving a bonus. It is on the itemization design team to make equipping them circumstantially appealing.
In D3, while there weren’t many choices, the few Jewelry set bonuses were done well.
The player picks between CoE, RoRG, SoJ, Zodiac, Unity, LoN Rings, Squirts, Hellfire, Flavor (before emanate), Ess of Johan, or some class specific jewelry like Krisben, Elusive, Band of Might, Justice Lantern, Karini, Emptiness, etc
The mentioned set bonuses did impact the actual gameplay too, they were more than an item slot requirement.
The performance of any combo was generally within 10-30% of another.
If well designed, stuff like this could work in D4.
Idea on sets:
Don’t let us choose wether we will use a set OR legendaries.
Implement a set-system on top of it.
Like Lost Ark did with the cards system.
So we can have some nice effects on top of our gear instead having either or… 
The developers made a pertinent point about power…you only get one ‘pizza’. The more the pizza is divided the less meaningful each element of power becomes. That then gets layered on top of all the options that might exist.
I have said it before and explained why - Set Bonuses are just not good design. Yes they have some Diablo nostalgia but they bring far too many downsides to itemization IMO.
I wouldnt really go that far. Sure there will be a point where youve min/maxed and 99.9% of drops are garbage but it will possibly come faster in S4 with the oversimplified loot.
The bricking of items in crafting will be the only thing that prolongs the loot hunt.
I made this choice as well. My idea was that set items could be aspects for uniques. This fits many themes with aspects already in the game. Uniques being weak and then they dont conflict.
Cain’s Legacy - Economy Set Aspect
2] - Summon Cain for 600-1200s after you gain a level. Cain copies all skills you cast at the same target for free and cant be hurt. When Cain kills an enemy that enemy can drop extra gold.
3] - Gain 20% more gold and XP in dungeons you did not die in.
4] - Chests have a chance to drop a high amount of gold and cursed chests have more enemies. Enemies hate Cain!
The Comet Icestar - Meteor Set Aspect
2] +1-2 Meteor skill
3] When you are inside a meteor strike restore 3-6% resource and health.
4] Your meteors now deal cold damage instead of fire damage, have a chance to freeze instead of immobilize, and make puddles on the ground for 3s. Wet enemies have a higher chance to be frozen.
Firebird’s Glory - Firewall Set Aspect
2] Firewalls that overlap spawn a hydra with 4 heads.
3] Spawn a firewall when you cast fire shield.
4] Your firewalls are twice as big (square shape) but deal 30%-50% less damage.
There you go. Some cool abilities and cant be all on one unique item. You get bigger walls but they do less damage.
The Gathering Storm - Lightning Storm Set Aspect
2] Lightning storm strikes that defeat elites reduce the cooldown on cataclysm and hurricane by 3 seconds.
3] Lightning storm has 20% bigger AOE while in human form and 10% faster attack speed in wolf form.
4] Lightning storm costs 5-10% more resource but has a 5% lucky hit chance to cast tornado for free.
Uniques could then be left with lower stats than other items but set aspects then can make up the difference. Everyone wins.
So when a set aspect drops as a green highlight and you click it then it just automatically goes to the codex. Once you find a max rolled lightning storm 5% more resource then you can just add the gathering storm to as many uniques as you need at best roll just like other aspects. Seems gud to me!
I like the idea of making unique items more valuable.
Last seasons my chest was full of unused uniques.
Offseason April Fools joke?
What’s wrong with doing this via any of the existing systems that exist/will probably exist?
All you actually need is a one unique item and the Meteor Icestar concept now born:
Icestar
Unique - two handed Staff
Intelligence
Lucky hit
Life on hit
Ranks of meteor
Unique effect: Your meteors now deal cold damage instead of fire damage and have a chance to freeze instead of immobilize
JOB DONE - no need to reinvent the wheel here.
Yet to see one good reason as to why Set Bonus add anything interesting or beneficial to the game - other than Nostalgia?
I was on a similar track in mind. Though I’d get rid of damage. I don’t think we need to add more sources of direct damage exactly. Like I’d love to see sets add an extra layer of game play.
While also being not a needed thing to have. This way you can have farming sets and not really feel like you have to have something effecting skills. Since they didn’t seem to keen on adding more to the skill trees, they could use sets as a way to add things we would normally want to see in the trees, like “Additional Projectiles”.
Gem Sets
Cosmetic - Set Gems would be assigned to a specific piece of gear. So say a 3p gem set. One can be put in a helm, sword, shield. When placed in they change the cosmetic look. Thus, keeping the cosmetic aspect of sets.
Effects - I think keeping 10000% damage increases or even lower increases out of it is very important. They already have many potential sources of damage adding another layer is not really needed. These effects should overall be relatively minor allowing for players to have more utility choices available like farming set options without feeling extremely obligated to have more skill oriented ones. Any damage they may get out of them should be negligible at best. I’d say the reason for choosing it over something else is that the effect just feels more fun to have or makes you alter how you might normally set up skills.
Example
Fireball Gem Set 3p
2p Shoot +1 Fireball Projectile 50% less damage
3p Lucky Hit: Fireball has a 20% chance to cast meteor at location of enemy hit.
This gives you an extra Fireball (With less damage) on cast and a new way to cast Meteor. This could even change to a 4p and could allow for another additional Fireball.
Fireball Gem Set 4p
2p Shoot +1 Fireball Projectile 50% less damage
3p Shoot +1 Fireball Projectile 50% less damage
4p Lucky Hit: Fireball has a 20% chance to cast meteor at location of enemy hit.
With this idea in mind we avoid adding large damage increases and simply change up how we might use Fireball and Meteor.
You could take this further and allow for sets to even alter how we use Class Features such as Book of the Dead or Rogue Specializations. Or even boost up basic skills a little to add more usefulness to them, not necessarily damage wise, but just their utility could be more increased. like boosting their upgrades to be a bit stronger. (Hemorrhage has a chance to spawn an additional blood orb.) something that would normally feel wasted as a temper, unique, or aspect.
You’re right with the unique thing. While I find most ideas for sets are trying to do exactly as you say. Most of the ideas can be summed up into a unique item. While most unique items also come with a damage boost attached. (I will point out that I am not for or against sets.) With that said, I think the possibility of the idea I laid out above could allow for sets to compliment uniques and legendary aspects further without wasting an affix, aspect, or a unique slot for an underwhelming effect like “Lucky Hit: Fireball has a 20% chance to cast meteor at location of enemy hit.” Now sure this could be a unique in itself with boosted damage on top of it. But having it in a gem set allows for alternate skill setups that might not have happened or be possible by having that effect as an equipped item instead. Now we can use icy meteors with fireball. Turning it from a pure fire build into a Fire/Ice Combo build. I’m interested how you feel about this since you seemed slightly ok with it somewhat in the quote below…
They have also said fairly recently that while right now they don’t serve much of a purpose except as a stepping stone into a higher tier item, they would like to give some kind of use to them one day. 
So maybe one day. Something I have thought about is having jewels come back and maybe they can let us turn blues and yellows into some extra stat socket items.