DiabloFans

Reposting this from the official forum and keeping this separate from mannercookie's thread.

So this whole "Legacy items can no longer be enchanted" news got plenty of players riled up, understandably.

For the people who managed to miss everything:


There are many Legacy items that qualify as "disproportionately strong" when enchanted. These include:

- Chantodo's Will (innate APoC and high APS)
- Calamity (high IAS and crit damage)
- Echoing Fury (high APS if all you care about is DPS and not its annoying Fear)
- high-end trifecta or quadfecta jewelry pieces
...etc.

Of course, some level 70 items in the current Closed Beta can beat out enchanted Legacy gear, but that's the problem. Only some of the new items are good enough.

How come no one really uses Lacuni Prowlers in RoS? Because bracers like Warzechian Armguards (+movement speed on destroying object), Ancient Parthan Defenders (boosts damage reduction when stunning enemies), Reaper’s Wraps (replenishes resources through picking up health globes) offer the high base stats and the special powers to beat out generic stat sticks like Lacuni Prowlers, even when enchanted.

How about powerful items like The Witching Hour and Mempo of Twilight? Honestly, it's actually much easier to replace the latter. I personally haven't even used a Mempo my entire time playing the Beta. There are many desirable items that can replace it, especially those that aid in resource management.

But for The Witching Hour, the IAS and CD can be really, really difficult to give up. However, like for Lacuni Prowlers, there are quite a few desirable belts out there that players can see as viable replacements. Belts like Harrington Waistguard (+100% damage for 10 seconds when opening a chest/flipping corpse, etc.) are epic—try snapshotting this effect—and its high base stats can at least trounce the EHP offered from an enchanted Witching Hour. Then there's Razor Strop (deal 100% weapon damage within 20 yards upon picking up a health globe) that can add a ton of eDPS to your farming build when combined with other health globe items such as Ira’s Glass Of Life and Rakoff's Glass of Life (amulet and ring, respectively; enemies killed have a bonus chance to drop globes), Solanium (mace, critical hits have chance to spawn globes)... synergy!

Now, Solanium is a great item and can be used in very interesting ways as previously mentioned. However, it is very, very likely that it can be beaten by an enchanted Legacy weapon simply because it is a mace (low base APS at 1.20), it's Loot 2.0 so it cannot have high bonus weapon%, and it cannot roll crit damage. Let's say it rolled 2100 DPS, 700 main stats, and a socket to be generous. So now let's say the player has a fantastic Legacy Echoing Fury that he enchanted to 2500 base DPS to go with its 1.45 APS, 90% crit damage and socket.

Just comparing the two weapons on my current wizard set up, the enchanted Echoing Fury beats out Solanium by nearly 20% extra sheet DPS. No matter what kind of health globes build you're running, it's going to be really tough to replace the solid base DPS.

This is a weapons issue. When I was playing in the F&F Beta, I ditched my Legacy weapons almost instantly upon hitting level 70. Why? Because the weapons in the F&F Beta reached 3K+ base DPS. If that were the case in the Closed Beta, where enchanted weapons like Chantodo's Will and Calamity can only reach 2500 base DPS, players will have to think twice before picking which weapons to use. Do I go for the 3K base DPS Loot 2.0 weapon with the special power? Or do I pick the old enchanted Chantodo's Will for way less damage, but with better resource management?

Also, in the F&F Beta, main stats (str, dex, int) on Legendary items could reach over 900. Currently, in the Closed Beta, enchanting a Legacy Legendary item got you into the 400ish range. Which would you prefer? The old Legacy Natalya's set (+2 Discipline regen per sec) with 400 dex, little to no vitality (or 400 vit, little to no dex) on four pieces for the Disc regen, 130 dex and 7% crit chance bonuses? Or the Loot 2.0 Natalya's set where you can get 900+ dex and vitality across the board, AR or armor, plus the set bonuses of 250 extra dex, 20 bonus Disc, 7% crit chance, and a special Rain of Vengeance bonus? Yes, you can probably stay in Smokescreen forever in combination with Night Stalker running a Legacy Nat's set, but is it worth it? Perhaps? At least you'd think twice?

I say bring back the Loot 2.0 stats from F&F Beta and allow Legacy items to be enchanted, however, only to the levels they currently enjoy in the Closed Beta. That way, they will never be better than Loot 2.0 level 70 items in terms of raw power. However, you still allow players who want to bring in their old gear the freedom to choose how long they want to hold onto such gear before they inevitably (important: this must be the case) give them up for better items.

Worried about players getting stats that are way too high and tackling higher difficulties too soon? Well, just up the monster HP and boost their damage to balance out the increase in player power. Boost Loot 2.0 level 70 items up, or scale down how well Legacy items can reroll in comparison to the max stats on level 70 items. One or the other.

From my beloved wizard community:

What would the reaction have been if they buffed all RoS loot (and difficulty) to the point where a rerolled legacy gg WH, quint ring, etc. was complete garbage in comparison? Would it not have been the same?

Ah, but basic human psychology. Buffing/giving hurts less than nerfing/taking away. Humans are generally very loss averse. With "sunk cost," people also tend to "dig in" with losses and continue to try to recoup them, until they reach a psychological breaking point where they feel like "all is lost."

But yes, you are correct. The effective result would have been the same. The psychological hit though is much worse. It's kind of like the F&F beta where the drop rates were super high -- then they nerfed them to super low. People freaked out because it was a nerf, and it hit them right in the psychology.

Another observation regarding enchanting Legacy gear:

Enchanting Legacy gear doesn't necessarily only benefit the currently "GG geared" players. I play with all sorts of players. Elitists, family men and women, the working class, super casuals, players who dedicate 10 hours a day running the game, and players who dedicate 1 hour a week running the game.

When I was running the F&F Beta and the current Closed Beta, even the super casual players were able to "catch up" to me in terms of character "power" because of the ability to enchant Legacy items. They were then able to utilize the enchanted Legacy items to speed up the acquisition of Loot 2.0 Level 70 items and start their progression toward higher difficulty levels. These are players who currently have less than half my characters' DPS and EHP levels. Enchanting evens the playing field a little more, if that's a concern for players right now. If anything, highly geared players gain a little power, lesser geared players gain a ton of power.

Removing the ability to enchant Legacy gear leaves everyone where they are and the high end players still have a leg up on everyone else... again, if that's a concern at all.

For the people who stand by this decision, here's my counter:

I don't think players are concerned about their gear becoming obsolete. That's a given. We know Legacy items aren't meant to be competitive with Loot 2.0 level 70 gear. The recent news about being unable to enchant Legacy items is indeed a solution to ensure that RoS items will be the go-to items in order to make your characters stronger.

However...
This doesn't address the concerns players have about said Loot 2.0 level 70 gear. Most of them are subpar. Some are epic, great. But most are sort of in the, "Eh, I guess that's okay/cool, but not really" category. There are a few issues that have been debated for the last couple of months, especially in the official RoS forum.

So by announcing this recent change, you make Legacy gear obsolete, but you don't address problems with Loot 2.0 gear. If the change had been to address Loot 2.0 gear to make them more attractive and better, you still make Legacy gear obsolete, thereby killing two birds with one stone.

Like many others have said before me, had the previous sentence been true, this conversation wouldn't exist.