Suggestion - Gems in weapons: this is a proposal to make using gems more fun

Items and Crafting
1

Inspired by this thread: New Gems are WEAK in weapons

In their current state I would not bat an eye if weapon sockets were removed entirely. A system is worthless if it does not benefit player engagement or the variety of choice. Customisation is fun and gems are perfect for that.

Our current gems in weapons

Right now we have:

  • :red_square: Overpower Dmg
  • :purple_square: Dmg over time
  • :green_square: Crit Dmg
  • :yellow_square: Basic Dmg
  • :blue_square: Vulnerable Dmg
  • :white_large_square: Ultimate Dmg
  • :skull: Life on kill

What I meant is that players usually dont mix these gems in weapons. They focus on exactly one damage stat and go all in. No choice, very boring.
Exception is the unpopular Skull, which, funnily enough, is on the right track as it increases survivability instead of damage. This is a choice, but certainly a weak one that could use some tweaking.

Proposal for new gem affixes (1)

Lets say weapon gems are more like this:

  • :red_square: Attack speed
  • :purple_square: Ressource cost reduction
  • :green_square: Crit chance
  • :yellow_square: Lucky Hit chance
  • :blue_square: Chance to apply Vulnerable
  • :white_large_square: Chance to reduce Ultimate cooldown by 1 second
  • :skull: Life on kill hit

To me this is a lot more engaging.

If you look at what gems are doing in jewellery and armor, you notice that they can provide what is missing in order to reach the maximum resistances/armor cap or to push stats over a paragon threshold.
My proposal does the same with offensive affixes to better your current gears weaknesses. And arguably more important, it is also very helpful when crafting a new build by giving a good taste of what to expect if you increase an affix like Lucky hit for example. Furthermore, it gives your alts a noticable head start with fully upgraded gems.

Personally, I would love to see gems being exactly like that.

Proposal for new gem affixes (2)

But what about this one class that has much more sockets available? Imo this is not a design problem, but a balancing problem. The devs said they consider it as the Barbarians unique selling point. I am fine with that and throw another idea in this thread: Why not make the Barbarian speciality (expertise) about gems?

Anyway, lets say weapon gems should be not that strong, but still worth a thought:

  • :red_square: Chance to Stun
  • :purple_square: Chance to Fear
  • :green_square: Chance to Root
  • :yellow_square: Chance to Daze
  • :blue_square: Chance to Chill
  • :white_large_square: Chance to Slow
  • :skull: Chance to Knock down (its just too fun to be left out)

Crowd Control is popular as a tempering affix, but could find a new home in weapon sockets instead. Some builds require them as condition to do damage. But overall they are nice to have in every combination. On live server and PTR they are spammed way to much, you almost dont notice anymore. This proposal wants to change that.

Thoughts about gems in armor and jewelry

I thought about putting them here as well, but as you can see, the thread is already getting too long. Imo armor and jewellery are in a better place. Still, they are kind of “unfun” and I have some ideas that I would like to share with anyone who is interested. This is the link:

6 Likes
2

Anything other than what we have. I mean does +20% vulnerable damge gem do something when you already have 2000% vul dmg?

Same thing with the innerant affix of weapon. + 20 vul on wand? On 2k vul

Both are useless

1 Like
3

I legit love this, it makes my D2 gene tingle. I can see this making early leveling way more interesting & fun, and filling gaps in certain utility stats in late leveling / early endgame (I especially like lucky hit & resource cost) while retaining potential utility in late endgame. Good job, I hope they crib from you.

Idk how the Barb/expertise idea would pan out, but something other than “all barbs 2H axe expertise” can only be an improvement.

One detail I’d insist on, is royal gems should either have a lower level requirement (say, 50), or none + make gems account-bound. Alts are the main beneficiaries, and alts should have a boost in these smaller areas, to encourage ppl to play more (rather than contrived time sinks for a single character).

3 Likes
4

This is an excellent suggestion. Just the idea of what could be done in comparison to the current system of “screw it they all suck ill go with +20% additive dmg i guess” … but its basically zero.

Make it fun! Make it matter more and focus on tiny dmg upgrades leas.

Thanks, op

2 Likes
5

Bonus points for the formatting. I will come back to read the whole thing later.

2 Likes
6

and your changes won’t change anything, people will still use the best gem and nothing but

7

Agreed about changes to gems. The small additive dmg is sub value for time investment to get the gem shards

8

How about a blue gem Adds flat frost dmg with a chance to freeze.

That would basicly fit in all builds for all chars.

Lets be real here. We don’t need more stats in a bucket. It’s already boring as hell.

1 Like
9

I was thinking something like that too, but instead of reworking existing gems, they can just some other stuff to add in slots with new interesting effects :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
10

Absolutely. Having new things to socket would be awesome. More gem colors are also a good idea.

Here is a list of minerals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minerals
And here you can see an overview of jewellery minerals sorted by color:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_mineralischer_Schmuck-_und_Edelsteine
It is quite impressive how many sorts of stones exist. WoW players will recognise many of the names, as each addon has brought another set to the game.

Of course, not all of them are rare or valuable, but then neither are skulls. (btw how do they fit into ring sockets?). So I allow myself to freely pick a few different colors:

  • :brown_square: Zircon (brown and other colors)
  • :green_apple:Peridot (light green, yellow green)
  • :ice_cube: Aquamarine (light blue)
  • :pig2: Morganite (pink)

VoH has a setting that is very fitting for introducing new socketable things. Maybe an amber with some random insect trapped inside that gives random stats. Or pieces of animal claws / body jewellery / ritual objects.

You see, I am having fun thinking about it and writing it down, haha. But the point of all this is to make the developers aware that there is a lot more potential in gems and that it is positive to have many of them in an ARPG.