So in the beta, as far as I know, blue and non-magic (white) items were only useful to salvage them, which was a bit sad to see. Rare (yellow) items were only useful temporarily, but eventually, the only thing you cared about was legendaries or legendary aspects, which you later put on these rares. The latter mechanic at least made rare items something to look after, because you wanted to combine the best of them based on dps or defenses with the best aspects for your build. That was decent, but it could be even better imho.
- I am thinking of d2 at the moment. For example, a simple white item with 3-5 sockets was potentially better than any rare item during leveling, if you put in 3-5 rubies for a fire damage build (druid) for example. Or, if you put in skulls for life leech, or sapphires for cold damage. The sockets were actually useful, and the gems provided real benefits early on. Finding a white item with sockets and potentially some added stats (+ 15% increased defense on armor, or + 15% increased damage on weapons) to make it usuable as a crafting base, made it really nice to look for these items as well in lategame.
- In d4, in comparison, the gems are imho kind of underwelming. What do they do in terms of weapons? Amethyst: + damage over time, Diamond: + ultimate skills damage, Emerald: + damage to elite monsters, Ruby: overpower damage, Sapphire: + critical strike damage tocrowd controlled enemie, Skull: + life on kill, Topaz: + basic skill damage. These bonuses work, but they only work under certain circumstances, that is, when a certain skill is used (e.g., ultimate skill, or crowd comntrol skill, etc.)
- While some of these mods are obviously very useful, I never felt exciting about socketing weapons in d4. I was missing some + raw elemental damage mods, or even the potential + raw physical damage (like jewels in d2), etc.
- Also, etheral items are really cool. In d2, etheral weapons do more damage than normal ones, but cannot be repaired. Etheral armors have more defenses than normal armors, but also cannot be repaired. They were one of the coolest type of items in d2. If for example you found a really good rare axe with a lot of physical damage, 2 sockets, etheral, + the mod that it repairs one durability every 35 seconds, you kind of hit the jackpot. All unique items in d2 could also roll as etheral versions.
But there was also a market for normal etheral items (like Shaft for instance), as they were commonly used in PvP and had to be replaced frequently due to the limited durability. - There are also jewels in d2, which can be used in sockets. They can have up to 40% increased damage, or raw added physical damage, which made them really interesting for pvp (in particular, there was also low level pvp, so a jewel with minor stats but a lower required level was still interesting for certain players)
- In d4, blue (magic) items were said to have larger stats or other bonuses than rare items. In the beta this was not the case. blue and white items were both simply there to salvage.
While I had overall a very good time playing the beta, I regret that there was no deeper itemization with respect to white, blue and rare items. What do you guys think? And is there any chance for jewels, runes, etheral items, more sockets on blue items than on rare ones, etc?
Item economy + a bit o’ item lore
