Travis' new itemization blog mentions that many more Legendaries, if not all Legendaries, will drop in Inferno with monster level random affixes. If the static mods don't increase with them, we're going to have an enormous increase of crap Legendaries so it will be interesting to see how they deal with it. If you are upset with Ivory Towers, wait until you start getting 50 Vit 9% block Wall of Bones!

They've also established it's going to be for a future patch and not patch 1.0.8, so it's going to be a long time before we see this and well past any real chance of getting any significant playerbase back, but for the diehards it will be a very noticeable change.

Not all of them are going to be crap, though. So looking forward to Patch 1.0.9 or 1.0.10, which Legendaries could be awesome?

I think the main reason it is "far future" is because they also realise they can't just dump all legendaries with mlvl63 mods.

But I don't see many legendaries upgraded like this being good, since the fixed rolls becomes instantly junk, and you have to rely on the "random" attributes to be good.

Take any low lvl item for example. (I just opened the page and looked at the first item that was there)
Ziggurat Tooth, Legendary Ceremonial Knife
Fixed stats:
11-21 min dmg, 14-28 max dmg
82-91 Int
+107-198 Life/kill
5-7% Life
16-20% Gold
1 Random property


No matter what that 1 random property is, it still won't be a good item.

Yeh I didn't really get how that works... it's true that some of the lower level legendaries if they rolled monster affix would be awesome but most would still be crap. At least playing now you know what's possible to drop!

But anyway....I'll have an insanely high DPS buriza please so we don't need those pesky wizards on uber runs ;D

Well, yes. I said as much. I'm looking for ones that might have value. The list of ones that are crap is going to be longer than long. I'm wondering which Legendaries might end up useful.

Giant Skull may not always be terrible since it comes with a socket static and that static +Armor is going to be pretty nice with a base ilvl 63 armor. If the 2 random properties end up as high CC and AR, it will be legitimately usable, though not desireable.

EditL ninjax beat me to Buriza
What about the restoration of novelty Buriza? The damage will still be very low, overall, but the novelty of freeze + piercing will mean there's a market for them.

Edit: Ooooh, trifecta Magefists.

It's a shame Asheara's Lock and Cain's Set are craftables and not drops.

And LoL, Echoing Fury, will now rolls as a Demolisher instead of a Crag Hammer (5-15% boost to dps) and be able to roll up to 100% CD + Socket now instead of the paltry 64% CD + Socket it has now. That weapon really needed that boost so I'm happy to see it getting the attention it will deserve.

A lot of what we're seeing now should have been put into the game originally.

Thankfully we have a new designing manager, or what-ever his title is, thats willing to "dig in" and make the changes that need to be made.

Agreed that its "too late" to re-capture the masses, but it may bring some people back. We'll see ...

I'll leave these here Boj Anglers as well as
Steady Strikers

Posted by ecocd at 03/06/2013 06:01 AM

And LoL, Echoing Fury, will now rolls as a Demolisher instead of a Crag Hammer (5-15% boost to dps) and be able to roll up to 100% CD + Socket now instead of the paltry 64% CD + Socket it has now. That weapon really needed that boost so I'm happy to see it getting the attention it will deserve.

Echoing Furies can already roll 100% crit damage...Unless you're making a joke that just went way over my head...

Posted by NightCrawler9 at 03/06/2013 09:15 AM

Posted by ecocd at 03/06/2013 06:01 AM

And LoL, Echoing Fury, will now rolls as a Demolisher instead of a Crag Hammer (5-15% boost to dps) and be able to roll up to 100% CD + Socket now instead of the paltry 64% CD + Socket it has now. That weapon really needed that boost so I'm happy to see it getting the attention it will deserve.

Echoing Furies can already roll 100% crit damage...Unless you're making a joke that just went way over my head...

I clearly haven't be shopping the crazy expensive Echoing Furies. To be honest, I have no idea how they can roll 100% CD. Maybe they're already Demolishers. The last thing we need is Echoing Fury getting more powerful. I have a feeling this was why they fixed the damage bug on the Rubies, because EF didn't need to get that boost. I don't think they had to worry about DH 1H XBows killing the game balance.

I will be picking up some AR Boj Anglers...

If all of the Legendary Shields are bumped up to Sacred Shields, they'll get a huge bump in Block Chance / Block Dmg which is vital for shields. Crit Chance Lidless Wall could get some attention as an offensive shield since they get a lot of the resource bonuses you would lose on offhands and 7% IAS on a shield is pretty sexy. I know for a fact, CC versions would great for DH tanks and CM wizards could have a legitimate defensive option if they so choose.

The more I think about this, the more I don't see how it can be done in a practical way. Let's say they only allow the random mods to roll up to alvl 63. Those Legendaries have to be clvl 60 required or we'll end up with an entire item set of Spectrums and Hamburgers. But it they're not clvl 60, they can't have the same name, because the AH would be full of Legendaries with the same name, but one Moonlight Ward is clvl 20 and another (with much better stats) is clvl 60. vet players can get around it by setting a clvl min at 60, but new playesr could easily be confused and buy an item they won't be able to use for 40 levels.

So instead, they do like the sets, rename them all and give them new art. The Game Guide gets ridiculously cluttered with craptastic ilvl 63 Legendaries. Then it makes sense to re-level all of the base stats on them. But do you do that with the clvl 60 Legendaries where they're all really close to ilvl 63 mods anyway? And then you have to test them all internally, because a Sledge Fist with 41-50% damage, 65-100% CD and 170-200 Dex will be insane.

I think it's a great idea, in theory, but I don't see how there's any way to accomplish this in practice. I see them hand-picking a few Legendaries like Boj Anglers and Magefist, giving them new names, keeping their art and making them ilvl 63 versions of the earlier kind.

I really like the [Inferno] tag for the AH. It would probably take a lot of work on their back end, but the Game Guide could then have either a flag that an Inferno version exists or a second set of affixes that are specifically flagged "Inferno."

It could be a long PTR cycle for those items. I have a feeling the other classes would be pretty upset if they have their entire weapon economy destroyed by the Monk Manticore or the Wizard Dead Man's Legacy (two of their biggest itemization mistakes in the game).

Is this a good idea for the game? Everyone seems to forget that the original crappy Legendaries were intentional. One of the biggest criticisms of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 was the lack of variety of top end gear. Every single Javazon wanted Zeus Javs, for instance. By making Legendaries crap, everyone would have rares which means everyone would have a unique set of gear for themselves. Once Diablo 3 had that economy, every screamed bloody murder that the Legendaries were terrible and all anyone did was buy and equip rares.

So then they gave us powerful Legendaries and now everyone is whining that not only are Legendaries the only gear drops that have value and now even many Legendaries aren't even worth picking up.

The pendulum swung back as they introducing crafting and it's worked out really well by all measures. Practically everyone had Vile Wards except for the best of the best rare shoulders - a bit like how the top of the top DH's have rare 2H XBows. Now there are crafted rare shoulders and bracers running around everywhere, but the Vile Wards are still around, because they're still great pieces of gear. There's also still a fairly healthy market for Lacuni Prowlers.

So now they're diving deeper back into the rabbit hole. They're increasing the number of ilvl 63 Legendaries. Are they simply going to create and underclass of budget Legendaries? Take [Inferno] Steady Strikes? They could just be the poor man's Lacunis (and who needs those with 700,000 available on the AH right now). Or are they going to be IAS bracers with LoH instead of MS? Now people have to choose between IAS/LoH, IAS/MS, or High Base Stat on their bracers. Every hero or build might have their own choice.

That seems like a best case scenario to me. I'm just worried about the next Manticore or Dead Man's Legacy slipping through the cracks as they squeeze it into a patch release.

The way I thought they would probably implement it is keep the legendaries as they are now, but increase the range of what the items can roll. Like if you find a String of Ears on normal or whatever, it'll be what we have now, but if you were to find it in inferno it'd have inferno stats. Yeah you'll have a huge discrepancy between low end and high end of those items, but that's sort of how it is now too for some items, like Won Khim Lao's. That would get rid of the need of having more legacy items or whatever.

Posted by DHAdmin at 03/06/2013 04:33 PM

Posted by ecocd at 03/06/2013 04:13 PM

I have a feeling the other classes would be pretty upset if they have their entire weapon economy destroyed by the Monk Manticore or the Wizard Dead Man's Legacy (two of their biggest itemization mistakes in the game).

I think a refresh to the economy is needed and the fact old items may get replaced is not a bad thing. Overall it will create more options.

I think we need supplements not replacements. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you haven't spent much time playing as a DH. There is 1 viable offhand, period. That's it. You won't find a single player with anything else. Admittedly, there's some variety in mods that can be found on a DML, but everyone has a Dead Man's Legacy. They're even the best option when using a 1H XBow instead of Dual Wielding which is stupid.

Except for uber-budget rare 2H Xbows and stupid niche builds (which I personally enjoy), the Manticore is always the best weapon possible. I've run the math. You should never use anything else.

The double socket was a mistake and capping IAS at 17% for the DML would have fixed both items. It's annoying and Blizzard eff'ed up royally. No other class wants a Dead Man's Legacy or a Manticore.

They also stated that they plan on allowing you to modify current items through the crafting system. Will this allow you to modify legendary items also? Who knows but that could change a lot of things. Especially if you can add affixes that generally only spawn on legendary items. (For a high cost or something)

I took that to mean modify cosmetically like the dyes.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Can't find Lacuni's but still want those stats? Cool, try and get Steady Strikers. However the most interesting of all is going to be the new legendary items that they are adding.

If they were released at the same time, or we had a ladder reset, that would make sense. My point was that there's already a glut of crappy Lacunis so there's no market for the crappy versions of the Lacunis.

I mean Lacuni's are really cool and all, but let's say your a Witch Doctor who loves Zombie Dogs and pet builds in general. What if they add a bracer that increases the cap to the amount of Zombie Dogs you can have out at one time. Perhaps give your pets new abilities or something? Those are just quick examples. The point is, the idea that you might have a choice between that awesome trifecta item or an item that makes your build better creates more diversity while still allowing Lacuni's to be awesome.

Well, yes, but if we're inventing new Legendaries entirely there are 450,603 more great ideas we could come up with and I'm sure the expansion will have a lot of them.

Posted by DHAdmin at 03/06/2013 08:14 PM

With the ability to level characters to 60 extremely quickly

Not certain about that. I normally just play solo, so I guess with a high power friend it is much quicker, but I'm guessing it will still be a couple of hours to get to lvl 60. Thats a lot of run time wasted for 4 guaranteed legendaries.
*Edit. Just realised I assumed they meant act end bosses. I didn't include the the other 9 in my calculation.
Guess for 13 it might be worth it.


@ecocd. Sorry, only scanned your original post, not read it properly before I replied.
I wouldn't mind a Puzzle ring with better stats, but even the new system won't change that since nothing on that ring is random roll.

Posted by ecocd at 03/06/2013 02:09 PM

The more I think about this, the more I don't see how it can be done in a practical way. Let's say they only allow the random mods to roll up to alvl 63. Those Legendaries have to be clvl 60 required or we'll end up with an entire item set of Spectrums and Hamburgers. But it they're not clvl 60, they can't have the same name, because the AH would be full of Legendaries with the same name, but one Moonlight Ward is clvl 20 and another (with much better stats) is clvl 60. vet players can get around it by setting a clvl min at 60, but new playesr could easily be confused and buy an item they won't be able to use for 40 levels.

I thought the AH automatically already filtered your searches by your level; i.e., if you were only lvl 42 and you did a search for crossbows, only lvl 42 crossbows & below would show up. So I don't see how new players could get confused by buying an item that they won't be able to use. Or am I missing something...?

@eastdragon42 If you put in any minimum level at all, like the "compare to similar items" behavior, you get items starting at a min level going all the way up to 60. You're right that it might have been an overblown worry.

I just know they're going to try make "identify all" a gold sink. They give a little and take a lot.

One key part of this -
In exchange for the improvement in quality there will be a decrease in the drop rate for legendary items.

Also, note that they said they want any legendary you find to be awesome - so expect them to do something about low level legendary item's fixed stats - I expect they will be buffed if you get one to drop from a level 63 mob.

My belief is that, specific to the difficulty level, Blizz will have a range of stats for every legendary. They will scale up from normal to inferno. This as alluding to what @Anuiran is saying about how they (said legendaries) will be searched for on the AH.