I’ve been thinking a lot about set design and the rationale behind it recently, and since there are so many set changes coming in 2.2, I figured now is as good a time as any to share. I’m sure someone has suggested this before, but I’ve not seen it suggested with a large explanation, so I figured I’d put it out there.
Currently most 6-piece sets only have 6 pieces, meaning your options are to wear all 6 pieces of gear, or swap in RORG and wear 5. This, to me, limits gearing options quite a bit, and in many cases makes RORG feel mandatory, as some legendary affix on an overlapping piece far outweighs the cost of a ring slot (cindercoat/Prides fall for live M6 builds). This type of issue may only get worse as more armor with legendary affixes are added to the game.
Suggestion:
I like the idea of keeping sets at the 2/4/6 bonuses, because then they can be powerful, as you have to take up 6 slots in order to get 3 legendary bonuses. The opportunity cost makes sense. What I don’t like, is that sets have so few pieces that gearing starts to feel very pigeon-holed. You have one set slot that you can choose to not use, and that’s at the cost of a ring slot. I don’t mind having to make choices (in fact I encourage designs to be that way), but I feel the current set up is just too restrictive.
The suggestion I have is to normalize the slots that sets come on, and then make each set take the same 8 pieces(gloves, shoulders, helm, torso, belt, pants, boots, bracers). I like this 8-slot set-up because each set becomes an “armor set”, making it thematic. . The goal of this is two-fold:
Allow more diversity in gearing combinations with sets
With the increased flexibility of sets, RORG may not feel required in some cases, though it will still retain it’s usefulness.
The idea here is that by having all sets use all the same slots, we know that the best a player can do for combining sets is to get the 4-piece bonus of two sets (or the 2-piece bonus of 3, if they so choose). So we know that the 6-piece bonuses will be mutually exclusive. We also know that if they choose to use the 4-piece bonus of 2 sets, they have to either use all 8 armor slots, or use 6 of them, and then use the RORG. This allows a lot of flexibility, but still offers the developers ways some knowns for balance purposes.
When the goal is to only use one set, the player has a choice of which set slots to fill, and which ones to put legendaries in, as well as the choice to give up a ring slot for an additional legendary in an armor slot. My hope here, is that as new powerful rings are added, RORG won’t feel so mandatory for all set builds, but offers the flexibility in case a player wants it.
As new legendaries are added to the game, the hope is that a group of legendaries should be able to compete with sets, so that players have options. Set’s could be the quickest path to power, and then as a player collects some of the rarer legendaries, they will have the option to forgo a set and build around a group of legendaries. This, in my opinion, would make the game fun for both casuals and hardcore gamers alike.
An Example
For this example, I’m going to use the current PTR version of the IK set bonuses:
(2) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients lasts forever
(4) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients' melee attacks deal 600% weapon damage in a 15 yard radius
(6) Set Bonus: The duration of your Wrath of the Berserker is increased by 0.25 seconds each time an Ancient deals damage
The first thing that would need to be done for my suggestion, is to change the pieces around, so that it matches the 8-piece configuration I talked about earlier. The IK boulder breaker (the weapon), can be converted to a regular non-set legendary (see BK set and BK ring for precedence).
There are currently 2 legendaries is the updated set slots that synergize with an IK build: taskers and the all-rune WOTB pants. In this model, a player will likely choose to wear both in conjunction with the set. To create more choice, more legendaries could be created that create competition. Let’s say that the following legendaries are created:
Torso : Call of the Ancients call’s an additional Ancient to fight for you.
Helm: Hammer of the Ancients deals x% more damage for each Ancient summoned.
Boots: While WOTB is active, generate X fury per second
Now, there is a lot of choice to be made. There are plenty of standard legendaries in the bracer slot that are helpful (reapers wraps, strongarms, Pathan defenders), there are barb-only belts and witching hour, there are the WOTB pants, taskers, etc. There’s always the option to use RORG and use 3 of these, sacrificing a ring slot for it.
At the same time, a build becomes possible without using the full set. A player could choose to use only the 2-piece bonus of IK (belt/shoulders), and then use taskers, the new helm, new torso, new boots, reapers wraps, WOTB pants, to create a build for which most of the damage comes from the barbarian, and the ancients are mostly there for the damage buff to HOTA, with some bonus passive damage.
There are a bunch of choices to be made here, allowing for a lot of interesting combinations. While I’m sure a “best build” for end-game would emerge from this set-up (because math always points to a best build), at least players would have options that look to be T6 efficient at the very least.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about set design and the rationale behind it recently, and since there are so many set changes coming in 2.2, I figured now is as good a time as any to share. I’m sure someone has suggested this before, but I’ve not seen it suggested with a large explanation, so I figured I’d put it out there.
Currently most 6-piece sets only have 6 pieces, meaning your options are to wear all 6 pieces of gear, or swap in RORG and wear 5. This, to me, limits gearing options quite a bit, and in many cases makes RORG feel mandatory, as some legendary affix on an overlapping piece far outweighs the cost of a ring slot (cindercoat/Prides fall for live M6 builds). This type of issue may only get worse as more armor with legendary affixes are added to the game.
Suggestion:
I like the idea of keeping sets at the 2/4/6 bonuses, because then they can be powerful, as you have to take up 6 slots in order to get 3 legendary bonuses. The opportunity cost makes sense. What I don’t like, is that sets have so few pieces that gearing starts to feel very pigeon-holed. You have one set slot that you can choose to not use, and that’s at the cost of a ring slot. I don’t mind having to make choices (in fact I encourage designs to be that way), but I feel the current set up is just too restrictive.
The suggestion I have is to normalize the slots that sets come on, and then make each set take the same 8 pieces(gloves, shoulders, helm, torso, belt, pants, boots, bracers). I like this 8-slot set-up because each set becomes an “armor set”, making it thematic. . The goal of this is two-fold:
The idea here is that by having all sets use all the same slots, we know that the best a player can do for combining sets is to get the 4-piece bonus of two sets (or the 2-piece bonus of 3, if they so choose). So we know that the 6-piece bonuses will be mutually exclusive. We also know that if they choose to use the 4-piece bonus of 2 sets, they have to either use all 8 armor slots, or use 6 of them, and then use the RORG. This allows a lot of flexibility, but still offers the developers ways some knowns for balance purposes.
When the goal is to only use one set, the player has a choice of which set slots to fill, and which ones to put legendaries in, as well as the choice to give up a ring slot for an additional legendary in an armor slot. My hope here, is that as new powerful rings are added, RORG won’t feel so mandatory for all set builds, but offers the flexibility in case a player wants it.
As new legendaries are added to the game, the hope is that a group of legendaries should be able to compete with sets, so that players have options. Set’s could be the quickest path to power, and then as a player collects some of the rarer legendaries, they will have the option to forgo a set and build around a group of legendaries. This, in my opinion, would make the game fun for both casuals and hardcore gamers alike.
An Example
For this example, I’m going to use the current PTR version of the IK set bonuses:
(2) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients lasts forever
(4) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients' melee attacks deal 600% weapon damage in a 15 yard radius
(6) Set Bonus: The duration of your Wrath of the Berserker is increased by 0.25 seconds each time an Ancient deals damage
The first thing that would need to be done for my suggestion, is to change the pieces around, so that it matches the 8-piece configuration I talked about earlier. The IK boulder breaker (the weapon), can be converted to a regular non-set legendary (see BK set and BK ring for precedence).
There are currently 2 legendaries is the updated set slots that synergize with an IK build: taskers and the all-rune WOTB pants. In this model, a player will likely choose to wear both in conjunction with the set. To create more choice, more legendaries could be created that create competition. Let’s say that the following legendaries are created:
Now, there is a lot of choice to be made. There are plenty of standard legendaries in the bracer slot that are helpful (reapers wraps, strongarms, Pathan defenders), there are barb-only belts and witching hour, there are the WOTB pants, taskers, etc. There’s always the option to use RORG and use 3 of these, sacrificing a ring slot for it.
At the same time, a build becomes possible without using the full set. A player could choose to use only the 2-piece bonus of IK (belt/shoulders), and then use taskers, the new helm, new torso, new boots, reapers wraps, WOTB pants, to create a build for which most of the damage comes from the barbarian, and the ancients are mostly there for the damage buff to HOTA, with some bonus passive damage.
There are a bunch of choices to be made here, allowing for a lot of interesting combinations. While I’m sure a “best build” for end-game would emerge from this set-up (because math always points to a best build), at least players would have options that look to be T6 efficient at the very least.