Suggestion - Gems in armor and jewellery: this is a proposal to make using gems more fun

Items and Crafting
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This is a follow-up to my previous thread about Gems in weapons: Suggestion - Gems in weapons: this is a proposal to make using gems more fun
TLDR: follow green text, proposal at the end :gem:

With the proposal below I want to take a look at how gems can be improved in order to provide players a choice by making each gem equally interesting. At the same time, I want to make it less appealing for players to stack a single stat or gem. This was harder than I thought.

Our current gems

in Jewellery

Gems in rings/amulets are doing this to a degree by providing stats that can compensate what my character is lacking. Downside is that they can become obsolete when all the gem stats are already maxed out, which is likely to happen at some point.
Here they are:

  • :red_square: Fire resistance
  • :purple_square: Shadow resistance
  • :green_square: Poison resistance
  • :yellow_square: Lightning resistance
  • :blue_square: Cold resistance
  • :white_large_square: All resistances
  • :skull: Armor

in Armor

Gems in armor had already several changes or stat swaps since launch. Whether they improved or not is debattable. But with the change to main stats they moved largely away from the defensive role, which I dont think was the right decision.
The following list is not meant to be an accurate history of changes. PTR effects are on the right side:

  • :red_square: max Life Strength
  • :green_square: Thorns Dexterity
  • :yellow_square: CC Dmg Reduction Intelligence
  • :blue_square: Fortified Dmg Reduction Willpower
  • :purple_square: DoT Dmg Reduction Barrier Generation
  • :white_large_square: Barrier Generation All Stats
  • :skull: Healing Received
There is a problem

caused by Runes

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With the introduction of Runes the available Armor sockets will take a hit (barbarian is the exception). The reason is:

  • I need 2 sockets like in chest, pants and 2-handed weapons to make runes work
  • I can have 2 sets of runes at a maximum

So if I dont have the option or build to put runes into a 2H-weapon, it leaves legs and chest, therefore I am left with a single armor gem in the helmet. Tbf, the mainstat gems are not weak, so this might be why Blizzard is fine with that.
But lets be real, runes will be Meta. So I wondered if there is a way to, well, basically protect gems from turning from an afterthought pre Season 6 into replaced content for many builds with VoH. Ultimately I want Blizzard to do more with them, not less.

with Mainstats on gems

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Lets look on what each mainstat does independent from classes:

  • :red_square: 150 Strength == 150 Armor (same value)
  • :green_square: 150 Dexterity == 3% Dodge chance (*0.02), 1.5% Crit chance (*0.01)
  • :yellow_square: 150 Intelligence == 3.75% All resistances (*0.025)
  • :blue_square: 150 Willpower == 4.5% Ressource gen (*0.03), 15% Healing received (*0.1)
  1. Armor is also found on jewellery skulls.
  2. All resistances is also found on jewellery diamonds.
  3. Healing received is also found on armor skulls.

You may notice that with a little tweaking, the main stat armor gems could completely replace the jewellery gem bonuses. Strangely, the Willpower from Grand Sapphire gives 15% healing, doing the same and more as the Grand Skull. This is probably an oversight by the developers.

What I see here as problem is that I dont think it is reasonable for gems to give the same bonus in two different categories (armor / jewellery).

and a solution for both

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Brainstorming for new gem stats made me aware of these problems and a solution for it. It is to remove the different gem categories between armor and jewellery. This means you can theoretically socket 8 Diamonds or 8 Emeralds or whatever for 8x times the stat. And it means that I only have to think of one set of new gems for this thread, phew!

But if you ask me, 1200 (1350 with shield socket) mainstat+ is a bit ridiculous. The mainstat gems are not bad per se, but there is plenty of Strength/Willpower/Dexterity/Intelligence on the Paragon boards. Same goes for resistances on jewellery. Imo as long as the all-resistance affix exists, there is hardly any need for single-resistance affixes.

Also important to me is seeing armor gems return to their defensive role, as we are already drowning in damage stats. And we are in an RPG after all, so I question where the damage increase is possibly coming from. jk

:gem: Proposal for new gem affixes :gem:

I quickly realised that there were not enough interesting (defensive) affixes in the game to compensate for the removal of the main stats. So I decided to invent them.
To make them more exciting and on par with runes they almost mimic legendary powers. And to keep each gem tier attractive at lower difficulties, it is important not to start the value too low.
Keep in mind that every gem is stackable to x8 and that the numbers are just a guess of how it could work.

This is my proposal:

  • :red_square: 5-10% Armor + while having Barrier it adds 20-25% of all armor to thorns
  • :green_square: 4.5-6% Dodge chance + dodging reduces Evade cooldown by 0.15-0.2 seconds
  • :yellow_square: 5-10 All resistances + Softcap up by 1-2%
  • :blue_square: (While fortified,) 7-12% of incoming damage is converted into damage over time
  • :purple_square: 1-2 Ressource Reg + max Ressource 10-20
  • :white_large_square: 5-10% Movement speed + moving X meters reduces defensive cooldowns by 0.5-1 seconds
  • :skull: Life automatically heals 5-7.5% over 1 second + potions increased by 1

These are my thoughts:

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:red_square: Imagine to have enemies get bloody hands trying to crack this nut. I know it is damage related, but thorns had to be in there somehow.
:green_square: I tried to come up with an alternative to the boots affix that reduces Evade cooldown in order to make it feel less mandatory.
:yellow_square: Resistance hard cap is 85, if you stack 8 gems you reach it.
:blue_square: Inspired by Endurant Faith gloves. The unique affix is basically a one-hit safety guard, which gives players more time to react. Very good idea and it might be something that Diablo 4 needs on a bigger scale. Can reach 100%.
:purple_square: Resource Reg is a stat that depends a lot on builds and skills. It makes sense to be a gem.
:white_large_square: I love movement speed because you instantly feel it. There is a sweet spot for every player and gems help to reach it. Also, players no longer have to be ashamed to run away from the butcher. It is for the tactical advantage after all.
:skull: I think the potion-like effect is especially helpful for beginners, players with a disability or for relaxed leveling. I also thought about increasing potion healing and duration instead. This would require the player to react but it is harder to understand in the tooltip.

I know that Armor and Dodge chance are stats you can get from Tempering as well. I would rather have it removed there.

Final words

I think with my proposal it is still quite rewarding to stack a single gem color, but it often does make more sense to mix them. All gems look fine enough to be considered in at least one socket.

I also suggest to add more gems over time. Peridot, Aquamarine, Garnet are names many people might have heard of. Other ideas are monster hearts / eyes that do something entirely different. I am very happy about the addition of runes btw.

Thanks for reading. Other suggestions are welcome.

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