DiabloFans

Gonna take a break from running the Beta for just a little while so I can go back to Paragon leveling in live.

Anyway, here's the progress I've made so far after re-importing and wiping my characters for like the third or fourth time. I decided to play around with a cold-based Meteor wizard and I think it does a pretty good job for normal farming runs.

Rift Guardian took forever, though. Oh, well.

Here's a full uncut Nephalem Rift run on Torment II.

Gear:

Quote from gcbah

Wow, more and more first-posters gathering in this thread.B)

Yeah, I'll keep an eye on those. People are allowed to discuss whether a specific site is legit and ask around for insight from other users, but let's not turn this thread into an ad thread -.-

One feature that's gone without change leading into Reaper of Souls has been socketing and gemming. While we have seen the addition of a single new gem type things have pretty much been kept the same since the original release of Diablo III. Other than the few choices we have when deciding which gem to use in our helm or weapon (if they have sockets) there isn't much else to decide on. In every other slot we're left with only two choices, All Resistance (Diamond) or a gem type corresponding to our chosen character's primary attribute. There have been many suggestions from the community as to how the feature could be improved but most of these have been mainly asking for Diablo II style jewels and Runes. We know from interviews that the developers have experimented with adding jewels to the game but couldn't find a solution which they found adequate. I've been experimenting with a couple of my own suggestions to see how I could take the current bland system and rework it into something which would present us with new interesting choices. The goal was to make the system offer interesting choices while utilizing the current gems and and sockets we already have available in the current game. Before I start going through each of my ideas I would like to emphasize one important suggestion which applies to every single one, PRIMARY STATS NEED TO BE REMOVED FROM GEMS AND REPLACED WITH INTERESTING CHOICES. Choices such as the types we are presented with when gemming our helm or weapon, these should be applied to all item slots. Primary stats could be still used if needed, but instead of reading "+100 Strength" each occurrence could read "+100 Primary Stat" in order to work with all classes. I think this would go a long way in allowing the gem and socketing feature to be reworked. Keep that little suggestion in mind when going through my ideas

Legendary "Activated" Properties

The first suggestion I came up with is probably my favorite. The idea would be to rework some legendary items or introduce new legendary items with unique properties that could only be activated by using the required amount or combination of specific gems. Activating these properties would work in a similar way current set bonuses work, except they wouldn't follow any specific order and would only require using the correct gems indicated in the item's tool tip.

• Unique legendary properties are only activated when the gem requirement or combination is met. Requirements could be anything from 3 of the same type of gem to an odd combination of gems (1 Topaz + 2 Diamonds).
• The requirements take into account all gems placed in sockets shared across all equipped items.
• Multiple legendary properties on the same item can all be activated at the same time, as long as each requirement is met.
• Different items with gem activated properties would share the same pool of equipped gems.

Interaction Between Gems, Legendary Properties, and Skills

This concept isn't exactly new, we already see it present in skills such as the Crusader passive below: Finery (Passive) - Gain 70 resistance to all elements for every different color gem socketed into your gear.
If you have 5 different color gems socketed into your gear, you gain another 70 resistance to all elements. My suggestion is to bring similar ideas and properties to legendary items. Allowing our gemming choices to have a direct influence on a particular item either by modifying a skill or creating a more potent property would add so many new and much needed choices to socketing and gemming.

• Adding legendary properties to items which either modify skills or make the properties more potent.
• They don't necessarily need to promote stacking one single gem type, effects similar to the Crusader's Passive Finery could be used.

Matching Gems to Sockets

I'd like to make it clear before I jump into this suggestion that I don't think it's in any way the best solution for Diablo.This idea is direct spin off of the World of Warcraft's socketing feature. If each socket rolled with a random color corresponding to one of the already existing gem types we'd be given the choice to either gem the item to activate the socket bonus, or ignore it if we'd like to focus purely on the stats given by gems.

• Each socket would randomly roll with a random color corresponding to one of the already existing gem types.
• Placing a matching gem in each of the item's sockets would activate the legendary property or bonus for that item.
• Socket colors would be generated randomly but could be enchanted or "rerolled" by the Mystic.

How would you revamp the socket and gem feature going into Reaper of Souls? I honestly think there is a simple solution that would make this feature interesting by offering some unique choices that won't require a ton of development time. I'd love to hear some other suggestions from the community.