So this is my second season, or 2.5 if you will. I have been yelling at my screen for being a bad messenger!
This temper-your-item-so-it breaks game is not for the short fused amongst us and I suggest a change in way, the game does the tempering thing.
Right now all the blacksmiths in Sanctuary are having a stroke at the same time, so someone should call 911 to get help for them.
Either all of them are having a combined stroke or a rare case of being born with dementia, both of which are bad.
To get those poor souls the help they need, I suggest tempering works like this:
An(y) item in question has 6 different areas of things to develop, some of them are unavailable for this item. So far, so gooddy.
Once you ask your blacksmith to temper in category of your choice A, the new tempering method just goes down the 1-4 items on the list and you choose the item on the list, witch will invoke the wrath of Mephisto or whatever random number generator you want and randomize the role on the values for the item your build needs from oh yeay to oh man, meaning from the lowest to highest value for the entry.
Choosing the items in the list takes one attempt away and rolling the dice on the value takes another point of your 1-6 maximum possible attempts you can try until you run out of attempts or you find a scroll of “give me even more attempts for this item”.
That way, we don’t stress ourselves with weeks of tempering an item, only to throw it away 5 minutes later and look for a similar item, hopefully with better or similar greater affects to master-upgrade to 4-12.
Lesser stressed about tempering being the way it is, makes you more likely to stay positive and less obstacles in live means, you can get on with your stressful life of pit-leveling.