Why such hate against class Sets?

[Coldkil]

-snip-

I don't see the link with my quote and the relevance with sets - but i may be missing something. Can you explain more in detail? Thanks.

[zito]

Haven't played D3 in a while and I stopped because of class sets. I wonder if increasing stats on non set items would make class sets less mandatory. Then again...you'd have to massively increase them to get them on par.

You would have to increase them way too much to match set pieces to the point where set pieces will be garbage.

Sets just need to turn into more fun utility or be removed to not be mandatory. But blizzard doesn't want to do that with evidence of Necromancer getting sets based on what people play him as.....

[Gnosk]

Because they take an entire class and compress it into 2-3 skills. All those runes? All those varying gameplay options? Fuck 'em. You get to use this one only.

And god help us when it's on a gimmick skill like fan of knives (real) and traps (lol)

If LoN has taught us anything (well only for those that didn't know to begin with) people will always pick the most powerful builds/skills. So regardless of the items we use we will all be using an exact build because there will always be builds more powerful than others.

So even if we could use any item we wanted we'd still use the same items and skills as they are the most powerful.

The game is lacking very badly in skill choices. There is very few skills and runes to pick from and that (IMO) is a bigger problem than gear.

[Deleted]

I far prefered uniques and runewords from D2 to what D3 has. Sets should be imo second best to a gear composed of good/clever uniques (like in D2).

It also progressively turned from horror action rpg to epic action rpg.

[effs]

You would have to increase them way too much to match set pieces to the point where set pieces will be garbage.

Sets just need to turn into more fun utility or be removed to not be mandatory. But blizzard doesn't want to do that with evidence of Necromancer getting sets based on what people play him as.....

exactly that, any amount of power increasing sets will beat normal gear. Might as well have just made all items, set pieces.

[Coldkil]

And people would do the same in D2, if D2 demanded it in any way.

Like I've posted before, the big difference is that D2's scaling largely stopped very early. You never needed super optimized builds to complete the bulk of the content, but that content also just ended very quickly.

If all you wanted to do in D3 was farm...say...Torment 3 rifts, you could do that with pretty much any build, just like how you could kill Baal on Hell in D2 with basically any build.

This is an actually really good point. D2 "capped" really fast and you could do literally anything way before lvl 99 and with decent but nowhere to fully optimized gear. In D3 the opposite happens - you get decked in no time with really good gear (still not optimized but the delta between starter gear and full optimized is really small in comparison) having multiple difficulty levels to tackle up to infinite.

Maybe if there was less focus on super high GR levels, more builds would come out since you can zerg stuff only so fast at a certain threshold.

[Deleted]

D2 was never a "horror" game.

.

D1 was action-horror-rpg with a lot darker setting and mood. D2 was more actionny but it still had a very specific and brooding music to fit it while music and setting of D3 is high-epic fantasy through and through. ROS was a bit darker but still nowhere near D2 or more so D1.

[Tyrgannus]

Simple. With the exception of Legacy of Nightmare "sets", you could never complete all the chapters in Seasonal or get anymore near Torment 13 without them.

It feels very pigeon holed. In WoW at least you can do fairly decent dps without the BiS slot legendary and full set bonuses. Optimal, no, but still fairly decent.

[AeneasBK]

Out of curiosity, apart from upped drop rates (and leaving GRifts out of it for a moment) is there anything torment 13 rewards that torment 1 or 6 does not.

I mean the arguments about pigeon holing aren't wrong but there isn't actually any *need* to play at the highest levels. You can pretty much make any build that's available and play it effectively, you just need to be on a difficult appropriate to it. It won't be for everyone but I have a monk from a couple of seasons ago, I don't remember very clearly but turns out he could do Grift lvl 77 solo. I don't need every hero to be able to do the same; atm having fun bimbling about on t10 Grift 35 (? 40 maybe) with Talrasha's builds, just mixing up the combos of 4 elements across the myriad wizard skills. I know it won't ever be strong as my monk. It doesn't have to be though.

Seems people want Blizzard to provide 100+ builds that are all balanced with each other which to me seems ridiculous. Just have one build per class that is "FotS" for people who care to "compete" with, and leave the rest for people to have fun with.

[Deleted]

I really hate the class set system for most classes, unless I'm doing a build where one of them just fits. For the most part I try to get the set which increases all damage with X00% per ancient item (can't remember the actually %), when I don't have any other set bonus. It's the only way I can truely play what ever build I enjoy and just get a mixmax of ancient gear buffing those skills I want to use.

[Coldkil]

Out of curiosity, apart from upped drop rates (and leaving GRifts out of it for a moment) is there anything torment 13 rewards that torment 1 or 6 does not.

I mean the arguments about pigeon holing aren't wrong but there isn't actually any *need* to play at the highest levels. You can pretty much make any build that's available and play it effectively, you just need to be on a difficult appropriate to it. It won't be for everyone but I have a monk from a couple of seasons ago, I don't remember very clearly but turns out he could do Grift lvl 77 solo. I don't need every hero to be able to do the same; atm having fun bimbling about on t10 Grift 35 (? 40 maybe) with Talrasha's builds, just mixing up the combos of 4 elements across the myriad wizard skills. I know it won't ever be strong as my monk. It doesn't have to be though.

Seems people want Blizzard to provide 100+ builds that are all balanced with each other which to me seems ridiculous. Just have one build per class that is "FotS" for people who care to "compete" with, and leave the rest for people to have fun with.

This reasoning works until you count what you have actually to do in game and the reward structure. And i'm not talking about gear, since it rains down from the sky plus a free set each season that takes nothing to get.

Also worth noting: the plethora of difficulties in D3 is as redundant as it can be. You jump multiple levels with single drops and since Hard is the best speed/bonus for leveling from scratch then it's all going up Torment levels, you have already 4 difficulty levels that are completely unnecessary.

The only real reward/progression you can consistently have in D3 is Paragon. As i said, loot is not an issue since it literally rains.

Players stay hooked on a game if they can do something to get stronger - something that for example in D2 took a lot of time since it was all about gear (if you played self found). In D3 you have Paragon and Legendary Gem augments.

Unfortunately for us, both are strictly tied to GRs. Paragon because GRs are simply the hands down best source of XP; legendary gem augments can only be done with GRs. GRs are the end of all content you can do in D3 - bounties serve only to cube materials farming (and are run at t8 or so due to have them done faster).

So, you definitely want to push higher and higher GRs, because it's the only way to progress. And to push higher and higher GRs you have to pidgeonhole yourself into one of the best builds. That's simply how the game mechanics work.

You are right in saying that not every build needs to be the top, also because there's room for only one. But when your progression is tied to a infinitely scaling system the choice narrows down over time and you're naturally oriented towards one of the premade choices.

Running t10 or GR35/40 (while these numbers are EXTREMELY LOW to the point they're nearly baseline now) means only one thing: you're locking yourself down and just do less for zero reasons. No one plays for that - or better, one stops playing.


There's no competition at all. Those playing 24/7 100% optimize will beat you no matter what anyway. There's only competition against yourself, and the game doesn't offer much else atm. You simply won't play anything taht doesn't work because it's just not fun at all.


EDIT: also, GRs and ladders and pidgeonholing have not a lot to do with the sets issues. The core issue is that you have premade sets for premade builds and zero choice in playstyle, while it should be the exact opposite (you create a build and find gear to support it).

[AeneasBK]

Like I said it's not wrong; but the line about locking yourself down for zero reasons seems to miss the point; which is that the reason you're locking yourself down is to play different builds that aren't the top ones. Everything else I agree with.

It does strike me that in a similar way to WoW expansions, the power creep season to season is pretty chunky; in that, I pushed Grift 77 last season (well, thats the Grift available to me, if that means I only actually cleared 76, fine), which I can't imagine was even top 1000. I would assume that the top set this season is able to comfortable push Grift 80 (I'll admit I don't know) but each season with each additional mechanic (cube stuff, enhanced sets and legendaries) the power level that you describe as "baseline" has gone up a lot.

So if I want to level my 75 gems I guess I could go look that build up and make a toon for it but frankly level 75 gems are good enough (esp. considering what I'm doing at the moment). Or just farm up enough "stuff" to enchance all the ancient gear on my monk I@d imagine an extra few thousand dexterity would make enough difference I don't know. Maybe this is just the perspective of someone who isn't that competetive against himself.

[Coldkil]

I have a very similar view of the game actually. I'm not competitive at all even with myself.

However there's a major underline: everything in game doesn't make you feel you're gaining power; on the contrary, everything "less" you do makes you feel you're missing something.

Power creep due to sets inane bonuses make a difference so huge that you're hindering yourself multiple levels. Sets being baseline and free make T6 a new starting point, while it's actually kinda high in the difficulties list (and was the endgame at some point).

I think i can explain myself better with a practical example. Let's suppose all sets are deleted for some reason but LoN. Suddendly every character has a potential power creep equal between each other and independent from skillset. You can literally play with any composition at a more or less equal level - obviously there will always be the best combo/build, but a lot more others would pop up and people could simply choose between multiple skills based on what legendaries you find that boost that one skill/rune.

Instead we have sets that often provide even greater bonuses, and worst of all they have 2 core issues:
- they lock most slots in the inventory
- the bonuses provided are not "generic" but strictly tied to few skills

The reason is one and only: Blizzard pretty much immediately stopped balancing skills and devoted this task to sets. Which has been the worst choice they could have made.

It's not that you cannot play the game, both as an hardcore competitive player and as a chillout one; but as son you start you are put into rails that become stricter the more time you play it, until you're monorailing stuff in GRs because there's nothing better to do (independently from the difficulty/level).

The actually more interesting part is the one from fresh 70 to full set because you progressively unlock bonuses and use different setups depending on what you get. Since getting the set is piss easy and an extreme ramp up in power, you're going to sit into a preset build in no time.

If you like Natalya set, it's not a problem of choosing between fire, cold or lightining runes; it's a fact that you're going to use strafe/rov no matter what. Playstyle is deicded for you and you have 4 choices.

[AeneasBK]

However there's a major underline: everything in game doesn't make you feel you're gaining power; on the contrary, everything "less" you do makes you feel you're missing something.

I'm not sure a I fully understand this but it sounds a lot like "If you're not doing it on the hardest you can do it on, you're not doing it right" which is obviously counter to what you explained. Yes I know when I bimble about on t8 I'm missing out on tonnes more legendaries; and my paragon bar doesn't even move after half an evening. It's still nice to try things you've never tried before. I'll confess, I'd taken a 6mo+ break from the game and it may be that the chunk of incremental changes that I'm experiencing in one go is making things seem somewhat fresher.

Using my wizard to farm up gems of ease so I can have a 6-set lvl-1-requiring Rolands gear, always felt that it best represented the Crusaders "style". Hit them very hard with your shield and flail until they stop moving. Very hyped about the sheild glare weapon, figure its new. They haven't changed shield bash: POUND yet have they? That move was the tits back in the day for doing crazy large crits.

And yeah, rambling aside - you point out that t6 was endgame once upon a time. Seeing as droprates haven't been de facto nerfed as it were, its just the availability of better gear makes them seem nerfed, I dare say as long as I can rinse through t6 at speed, then the build is good enough, even if it can't infact get past GRift 35. Eitherways I think we're both reading from the same page and get where ea\ch other is coming dfrom I haven't yet "burned out" on what I'm doing atm at the lower difficulties; so can't gauge its "lifespan" maybe in a week I'll be bored of it and wanting to puch Grifts and find myself in the same pigeon hole

How did sets in d2 fundamentally work differently (out of interest)

[Coldkil]

I'm not sure a I fully understand this but it sounds a lot like "If you're not doing it on the hardest you can do it on, you're not doing it right" which is obviously counter to what you explained.

I know it sounds like that, but it's not that. It's just how the game is managing the progression of your character which is tied to climbing GRs on everything. There's no "right in D3 as there wasn't in D2, with the difference that in D2 you created your character/build and in D3 you're just playing a lesser difficulty for no changes whatsoever and a very likely cap in your progression.

There was a cap in D2 too. The difference is that lvl 99 was not needed at all, and "perfect" gear took a lot to get until you bought it, giving you actual reasons to play the game. You wanted your character to be better and better and your build as strong as possible.

In D3 you run GRs to get paragon/gems to run highr GRs and so on. Your character power reaches a plateu pretty fast and then its only "the more you play, the more passive dmg% you get". Literally Paragon could be a flat %dmg increase that raises corresponding the time you have played and nothing would change. But that's not progression, it's just some passive bonus you get for staying online and zerging stuff down for no reason at all.

In D2 sets were somewhat an option, but actual best combo were made by exceptionally good rares, legendaries, and crafted gear. You didn't need a set to make your skeletons hit for 50000% increased damage as a necro, you hunted for the right stat items through all the world. And you could do it anytime, anywhere.

I'm not saying D2 was varied in content - you ran the same stuff over and over because it was the most effective - but the way you played was completely in your hands. In D3 this simply doesn't happen, and it's a loss and a big problem.

[Super Kami Dende]

I feel sometimes keep a set bonus purely for numbers removes the excitement of testing multiple legendaries together.

There are a bunch of Legendaries I would love to use together for fun but can't since they either break set bonuses or never roll Ancient for LoN. Losing billions of damage for a "fun" build is disappointing.

Sets are fine, but overshadow 80% of legendaries in the game without LoN.

[Gadzooks]

If you like Natalya set, it's not a problem of choosing between fire, cold or lightining runes; it's a fact that you're going to use strafe/rov no matter what. Playstyle is deicded for you and you have 4 choices.

And, content is also designed around that - the special dungeons for each class require the build from the set. You may have played a different way leveling up, but to get that achievement, you have to play how they want you to. At least in WoW, there are different specs to choose from, for different playstyles.

And, it's more maddening, because up until you get the set, you can mix talents to match how YOU like to play. I like how the early game is set up - you can play around with talents and come up with a viable build fairly easily, and work it around your gear. You can make up for the loss of not having a great weapon showing up yet.

[Coldkil]

And, content is also designed around that - the special dungeons for each class require the build from the set. You may have played a different way leveling up, but to get that achievement, you have to play how they want you to. At least in WoW, there are different specs to choose from, for different playstyles.

And, it's more maddening, because up until you get the set, you can mix talents to match how YOU like to play. I like how the early game is set up - you can play around with talents and come up with a viable build fairly easily, and work it around your gear. You can make up for the loss of not having a great weapon showing up yet.

The set dungeons are actually (for me) the only thing that sounds right - tyhey're a static challenge that doesn't change for anyone and requires peculiar playstyle. It would be perfectly good if that playstyle of choice was an option and not the same thing you do anywhere else.

For the rest you're spot on.

- - - Updated - - -

I feel sometimes keep a set bonus purely for numbers removes the excitement of testing multiple legendaries together.

There are a bunch of Legendaries I would love to use together for fun but can't since they either break set bonuses or never roll Ancient for LoN. Losing billions of damage for a "fun" build is disappointing.

Sets are fine, but overshadow 80% of legendaries in the game without LoN.

The core problem is that Blizzard decided to balance classes through sets and not through skills, which lead to the current idiotic coefficients you see around. Not mentioning that ANY legendary that has a power based on "XYZ% weapon damage" proc is completely useless apart some rare exceptions - since the bonus is not multiplicative with the others it's automatically inferior by a thousand levels.

[AeneasBK]

Just gotta disagree with the last few posts I guess. We have too different an opinion on what constitutes viable.

- - - Updated - - -

The core problem is that Blizzard decided to balance classes through sets and not through skills, which lead to the current idiotic coefficients you see around.

I don't remember the classes being grossly unbalanced ... ever. Monks were "weaker" by popular opinion for a lot of vanilla; and WD were unpopular but still held most of the speed kill records, so weren't *bad* per se. I mean you're not wrong that they balance the sets against each other because yeah a GRift system whereby one or two classes can go 20 levels further than the others is bad. But its not as though they had never balanced the classes ever. Am I just really remembering things differently to the rest of the D3 population.

[Coldkil]

Just gotta disagree with the last few posts I guess. We have too different an opinion on what constitutes viable.

I don't remember the classes being grossly unbalanced ... ever. Monks were "weaker" by popular opinion for a lot of vanilla; and WD were unpopular but still held most of the speed kill records, so weren't *bad* per se. I mean you're not wrong that they balance the sets against each other because yeah a GRift system whereby one or two classes can go 20 levels further than the others is bad. But its not as though they had never balanced the classes ever. Am I just really remembering things differently to the rest of the D3 population.

We're not discussing about viability. Actually everything is "viable" up to GR75 gioven enough paragon/skill/setup - which is what 99% players aim for (and not even that tbh).

Also we're not discussing about class balance. Classes are all balanced well enough to make every one playable and a decent level and entertaining. But they didn't work on the skills, they worked on the related sets tweaking the coefficients to make one build on par with the others.

We're just saying that the itemization system sucks ass. Everything revolves around sets which are way too easy to get; you have no freedom in builds; nothing but GRs are worth farming for stuff you actually don't need if not to farm higher GRs.

And these are facts. There no much discussion about it. Wanna do an EA DH? You need Marauder set. Wanna do Cluster Arrow? Marauder. MS? Unhallowed Essence. Strafe? Natalya just because it's teh skill that resets RoV the faster. Melee DH? Shadow and good luck to you given the clunky mechanics.

Traps? Unfortunately for you no set for them so no way to make them playable. Generators? Well, they added a new belt next patch that makes Grenades work, but you need UE set (again).

LoN? Only Strafe/RoV is a decent spec. The rest is so behind that is not even worth trying.

That's the point. Maybe i'm not clear or we're not talking the same, but i see very clearly the issues.