The Elephant in the Room

PC General Discussion
1

Let’s just talk about what is considered a good design for an unique item. Most uniques are closely compared to legendary items with their behavior, with slight taste of their own self-profile. However this profile in most cases is based on normal damage or damage mitigation mechanics which are present in all other items as well. So it happens that Uniques does not feel much unique in the end.

Unlike diablo 2 where uniques were bearers of many important game changing affixes impossible to find in normal/magic/rare gear, like Ignore Target’s Defense, or Slows Target By, Crushing Blow etc… we have just the same stuff repeated with a different flavor.

Currently Diablo IV Uniques lack in these m “mechanical uniqueness”. Take for example Rage of Harrogath, Arreat’s Bearing, or Ring of Mendeln - these are pure normal items with somewhat bleak enchantments as effects, doing nothing but adding superficialness to their profile.

Same as if you take a bag of simple sand and “mix it” in different color glass cups, calling it amazing hundred-pronged coctail party Lilith ver.$, …I mean 4.

According to game design we should have had thousands of uniques…

  • Unique Weapons

  • Diablo 4 features a wide variety of unique weapons, each with unique attributes and legendary powers. For instance, the “Sword of Sanguis” is a unique weapon with specific stats and abilities. There are different unique weapons for various classes in the game.

  • Unique Armor

  • Like unique weapons, unique armor in Diablo 4 has specific attributes and legendary powers. Examples of unique armor include the “Druid’s Naulous Helm” and the “Sorceress’s Obsidian Ring.” There are various unique armor pieces for each class in the game.

  • Unique Jewelry

  • Jewelry in Diablo 4 includes rings and amulets that offer unique bonuses and legendary powers. Examples of unique jewelry include the “Ring of Royal Grandeur” and the “Amulet of the Stormcaller.”

  • Total Unique Items

  • According to the Diablo 4 game director, there will be “thousands” of legendary powers in Diablo 4, which will lead to a vast number of unique items. To estimate the number of unique items, we can consider the number of unique weapons, armor, and jewelry pieces per class and then multiply that by the number of classes.

  • Diablo 4 has five classes: Barbarian, Sorceress, Druid, Rogue, and Necromancer. Each class has several unique items in the categories of weapons, armor, and jewelry. For simplicity, let’s assume that each class has 20 unique weapons, 20 unique armor pieces, and 10 unique jewelry pieces. This would result in 50 unique items per class and 250 unique items in total for all five classes.

  • However, considering the vast number of legendary powers and Blizzard Entertainment’s intention to include “thousands” of them, the actual number of unique items will likely be much higher than our estimate of 250 items.

…yet why I am always feeling that my items are all the same from the start to finish?!

2

…source?

3

It’s call ‘balance.’ Blizzard doesn’t want every build to use the same unique. Sorcerer Tal Rasha comes to mind.
Opportunity cost is still a thing. Having to pick a legendary aspect over unique is hard but some unique have terrible affixes.

4

In season 4, picking a legendary over a unique isn’t an issue. Uniques simply aren’t adequate right now, and benefits gained are far outweighed by the tempered slots lost.

1 Like
5

Darn … ubers (mythics) are garbage compared with good GA items …

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Many of them are. Which isn’t a good situation. Mythics should be a good choice regardless.

7

TLDR so will assume based on title. I agree we should get elephant mounts.

4 Likes
8

Maybe, But still ok to level with.

9

Only via the cash shop.

10

Yes, with our stash and all the shop-keepers living on it.

11

When people realize that D4 isn’t remotely out of BETA yet, many fruestrations and suffering will disappear.

12

The elephant is still back in town in D2 waiting to transfer. That elephant is something like a Stone of Jordan, Bul-Kathos, Arreat’s Face, Windforce, etc… that makes the name “Unique” truly unique and not some regular garbage. In D2 you could play through the game and just know certain drops were worth picking up. In D4 we are garbage collectors hauling tons of useless crap having to sift through for that mere 3% increase in something useless.

The key to D2 was first and foremost making builds around skill points, and the value in items containing skill points made them all the more special. You could find in normal or nightmare extremely useful gear that would carry you through the game (do I need state the obvious example of Shako!) D2 we simply had usefel items to want to look forward to finding, and many of them could be found. If you did not find it, no problem as you could find many other useful items to trade. D4 just does not have a single item I MUST get for my Sorc, or Rogue, or Necro, etc. It is just too much RNG affixes on RNG items only to RNG Temper it to RNG Masterwork it. I just want to find a *#&$ Death’s Fathom and have fun…hence why I get bored of D4 quick and can return to D2 after playing it for 23 years.

2 Likes
13

Uniques are so bad, I’m tired of seeing them drop. It’s so bad I accidentally scrapped a mythic because I don’t even look at them before I scrap them.

2 Likes