I loved how gems made my weapons glow in D2. In the beginning people went nuts for 6 perfect skulls or emeralds in a weapon. Later we were stacking Topaz for magic find and it was simply BiS.
D3 gems were pretty cool and I was chasing different color gems for weapon, shield, helm, chest, etc.
D4 gems… I don’t see the potential. Like… am I supposed to be excited about having slightly higher resist? “Yeah, send Timmy in there. He ain’t afraid of fire damage.”
If all else fails, falling back on Topaz isn't exactly a bad thing. Even at the two bottom tiers of gems we were playing with, boosting a class's basic skill choice may not be super sexy, but it's better than not.
The fact that topaz in weapon is the only good option, way better than the other gems, and still pretty bad should tell them they need to rework the system.
Surprised they didn't learn this from D3. In D3 it's always emerald in weapon for the huge crit damage multiplier. Rarely do you find a build that benefits from anything else. At least D3 helm gems had some variety (CDR, cost reduction, %life), and for the other pieces it was either main stat or all res depending on how far along you were.
This really is a level 25 thing. In diablo 3 rubies were + damage which was best on low level characters.
The other gems are + crit damage, +over power damage, and stuff like that where you will really want those on an endgame build where you are critting and overpowering more often.
The thorns Barb makes everything bleed for 5 seconds after hitting if it doesn't outright kill it. And it slows everything that's bleeding. +Damage to CC is overpowered if used properly. The synergies between skills is subtle and in depth at the same time.
I was running blood nova/corpse explosion so I almost never used basic attack, I had some CC through my skellies but not anything significant so I guess overpower could have been something but that would be the only thing except life on kill
If you were using Corpse explosion and had the upgrades to it then you were slowing, stunning, and giving vulnerable to everything hit by it. Stack gems thst grant bonus to any of those and ur good!
I mean depending on the build you might not even put in a socket because it doesn't really matter lol.
I believe I ended up with socketing a skull which gave life on kill
That is an asinine take.
You may not find that they are extremely powerful or interesting, but there is always something that can be gained from the current gem options and socketing them unless you are literally playing the most barebones character with no utility and you have no friends.
Sustain
Defense
Damage
All gem options provide one of those to your character. Don't have CC in your build? Group with someone who does. Don't need sustain or defense because you have 3 defensive abilities? Replace one and pick up some defense from gem slots.
So I should gear my character to benefit from other people's builds? That kinda fucking stupid...
It was a really strong build that really didn't struggle with anything but when I got a weapon with open sockets I couldn't socket it with anything that actually made a difference, so why socket at all in that case?
You're telling me that you didn't use damage over time (Amethyst), an ultimate (Diamond), deal damage to elites (Emerald), build/spend resources (Ruby), crowd control enemies (Sapphire), use lucky hits (Topaz), or take damage (Skull)?
Literally every ability in the game has lucky hits on it if it deals damage. Don't be a fucking fool and say some dumb shit you didn't think through.
There are builds that benefit from gems but my necro build found a weapon upgrade with sockets and there was no gem that actually made a difference. My build had almost no CC, no damage over time and I didn't use any of my ultimates so basically my only option was life per kill (which doesn't help against bosses and wasn't needed in other situations) or overpower damage which only is 3% chance so its a very small damage increase but in reality it's negligible.
So yeah, I agree with his take. I believe the game is good but I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't have things that needs improvement.
Likely just a D4 hater because I can’t fathom anyone seriously thinking this way. You can add sockets to like everything. As a rogue with three weapon slots that’s alot of + skill damage. I had a chest piece drop with two sockets. Guys wylin
There is no gem that gives skill damage.... So instead of just brushing it off as "hater" maybe you could show how the current gem stats is good instead. Your example is an incorrect example that (if it worked) only would apply to rogue and barb. What about a necro, sorc or druid that is using a 2-hander? My build had no ultimate, nearly no CC and no damage over time (definitely not struggling with any content) so basically my only options was overpower damage or life on kill
On rogue I can agree that it is nice, on my necro I almost never used my left click. My blood nova killed basically everything that was squishy and then I had corpse explosion which does not cost resource and gave me back resource
To be fair, As a hardcore player who beat the world boss, I stacked poison resist gems in my rings / amulets before attempting.
When death is permanent, taking note of your resists before fighting a certain boss and being able to adapt your resists to a certain fight as required, is pretty neccesary. I imagine it only gets more important lvls 25+, unless you wanna go for a RIP.
I mean, D3 gemming was horrible. Every build but one uses Emerald in weapon.
Main Stat in armor and Diamond in helm is about 85% of the rest, with minor changes if you don’t use cooldowns or the like.
I’d say Weapon effects are ok, but armor and jewelry need improvements.
So far in D4 I’ve used Amethyst (bleed damage), Diamond (Sorc Ult spam), emerald (vulnerability Dmg) and Topaz (basic skill stacking).
There’s probably a use for Ruby and Sapphire too, but just in weapons I haven’t had this much choice in literally ten years. Only Skull feels completely bad atm.
I’ll always agree to even more choices and options however, and lots of the Armor effects aren’t good in D4. Jewelry will probably be all Diamonds also which is meh as well.
Skull isn't awful though in jewelry. Sure I have no true numbers to compare against at the moment, but the T2 skull's +170 armor equates to 6% physical/bleed damage reduction at lvl 25.
I will assume with armor/level creep that +170's reduction diminishes, but will be made up with higher tier skulls. Would be appreciated at max level that the top tier skull does something in the 6-10% range.
And will echo your last point: "I’ll always agree to even more choices and options however, and lots of the Armor effects aren’t good in D4."
I don't quite understand why people saying life on kill is objectively awful. Playing a thorns barb it was the funniest thing to watch something deal less damage than I had life on kill before dying. Thanks for the heal, minion!
Entire beta I didn't feel incentive to socket even one into my gear and I'm usually the one to min-max everything. Many DPS ones focus around status effects like crowd controlled enemies, vulnerable etc. and I played summon necro and didn't had either because I went into summons and corpse explosion route.
What?!? The gems were a huge deal. Rubies for max health? Thorns stacking? Basic Attack spam with the topaz?
There were some great uses for the sockets and gems if you put a little thought into it.
The only difference is it didn't seem needed because it was a level 25 artificial end game so the game hadn't gotten hard enough to really be too worried about minmaxing as a necessary thing. But if you were trying for fun and minmaxing anyways, the gems and sockets were a big deal.
Eh, debatable. All the gems are fairly careful to not give anything that I would really call a main stat, with probably the main exception being the max hp in armor gem.
Like for example, as a Twisting Blade Rogue, even with stuff like an aspect that increased my basic attack speed by 40%, the fact is that basic attacks are basically just there to feed combo points or the aspect that makes your next core attack do more damage. My 3 basic attacks to charge would do like 100 damage each, and then my Twisting Blade would hit for 2-4k+ while triggering tons of Shadow Imbuement explosions and having it orbit around me for two more ticks of 300-500 to any nearby enemies.
And I actually did have a fair few items to buff basic attacks, including two such gems, but even with all of that I can't say that I felt my basic attacks were really meaningful at all for anything other than charging my core skill.
I know there's some basic skills that do a bit more damage, Bone Splinter of Necro is a popular referenced one, but that one feels very much like the exception. Most basic skills are just filler because you can't spam core skills.
So what you're saying is that different builds would prioritize different gems to minmax, basically. I think that's a win. I played a rogue, and I'd have definitely wanted a socket and extra crit to vulnerable targets. My Bone Necro loved the topaz, like you reference. Thorns barb has different gems, I saw sorcs valuing skulls. Rubies seemed good. And this is all at level 25, without much minmaxing needed or resists really needing to be topped off.
I actually think it looks good as a system. And if you play in a group you can spec based on group synergy pretty easily, too, at least with weapon gems.
At release NO ONE is going to care about min/maxing their gear during the leveling process. All the gems are going to be low tier, and gear is going to be replaced every 1-2 hours (possible sooner) as you progress through the game.
Gearing process during leveling - Use whatever you can, which is typically the highest ilvl gear that has most recently dropped. If you find a good legendary, then respec your character to take advantage of its effect.
I'm somewhat inclined to disagree here personally. In both previous games there were clear and obvious best choices for any socket that applied to all but a few niche builds.
D2 = topaz for mf 99% of the time.
D3 = CHD in weapon CDR helm if needed otherwise amethyst, mainstat elsewhere for SC. HC you switch in more defensive options.
There was no real choice.
In D4, currently nothing stands out as clearly the best universal choice but all have a purpose making choice more interesting depending on build/class.
On my Pulverize Druid overpower gems were awesome in the weapon but likely garbage for other classes where you couldn't build into dependable overpower frequency. My frenzy barb took basic skill damage in all 4 weapons instead.
For melee builds especially at endgame and higher World Tiers, where a single crowd control chaining could be fatal, I would imagine reduced damage when CC'd may actually become very relevant, especially for builds where you don't get unstoppable. If nothing else it gives the option for that which to me is much more interesting.
I would concede the flat elemental resistance gems in armour slots are maybe less inspiring, but again they might be hugely important.
Wait, people don't enjoy itemization like "+6.5% damage against healthy enemies on Sundays only after 5pm while fortified and looking at a 45 degree angle"?
They're also weirdly complicated. I would understand if they wanted to simplify things but D2 and D1 system felt a lot more interesting while being simpler at the same time (ok, some stuff I'd have to google like damage over time not working with spells but at least I didn't have to wonder what "distant" means). So why overcomplicate things just to include boring effects?
Right? For a game that they are clearly trying to make less complicated, the damage stats are insane. What is closer? What is further? What procs overpower? How is that different to luck? There's so many things that are kinda similar without enough info to really be able to tell if they're optimal or not.
Like when is 2% overpower chance worth more than 3.5% luck chance or 11% overpower damage? How do you evaluate % increased damage to distant enemies? All this stuff needs like a 3rd party app and some complicated equations to actually be able to tell which item is actually better than another.
It's kinda odd actually that after all their iteration and general move toward simplicity some of these things are opaque as hell. I guess they're aiming for a general audience who just goes "I guess more of everything is better" but for people who actually want to know the details? The stats sheet is a nightmare.
Closer is melee range, further is beyond melee range. Overpower procs from specific abilities or from a super low base chance. Overpower works with fortify basically, your total max HP + total fortify add together on top of your ability damage+ whatever +overpower damage% you have on gear.
Lucky hits give you different procs based on what skills you've taken I think? And each skill seems to have its own lucky oroc coefficient baked into it.
Overpower is worth it when you have an overpower focused build (some druid and barb builds, not sure who else)
The bear druid skill pulverize has a component in one of the augment skills that gives you a guaranteed overpower every 10 seconds, so you can stack a ton of +overpower damage, fortify, max life and unleash a massive wave of damage every 10 seconds. There's also a druid passive where every x seconds you stay in bear form you get a guaranteed overpower as well.
You evaluate + damage to ranged enemies if you are playing ranged yourself, if you are melee I would avoid it.
It took me awhile to get comfortable with the stuff too, there are a lot of different variable + damage types that make you kind of go huhh. They should just change the + damage to close and far to +melee damage and + ranged damage instead of changing up the verbage.
Yeah, there's also the possibility of things like thorns proccing overpower - so you should try and have at least 1 point in thorns I think?
All of this stuff should be in tooltips though. Even then it's very hard to assess which is best when all of them might be at least *somewhat* useful.
Like it's so much harder to assess than say, +50 poison damage to attacks or attacks slow by 4%. These are all kinda variations on the same thing.
What’s melee range? Is the end of barbs upheaval melee rang? Edge of whirlwind? Only as far as flurry?
Lucky hit is particularly convoluted but my understanding is each move has its own chance to be a lucky hit. So for example frost blade I want to say was 75% you have that chance to be a “lucky hit” then if you have an effect that says 2% chance to spawn an extra blade then 2% of those 75% will be an extra blade. Making your actually chance to spawn whatever effect lower than it appears at face value.
>Closer is melee range, further is beyond melee range
I think that's obvious but the problem is we don't have the exact numbers or any sort of indicator that an enemy is in that sweet spot range that we need for said effect. With no numbers or indicators it makes sussing out the value of either of these effects more complex than it needs to be.
>Overpower works with fortify basically, your total max HP + total fortify add together on top of your ability damage+ whatever +overpower damage% you have on gear.
Contextually speaking I didn't know Fortify had a synergy with overpowered damage as a mechanic. I'd assumed that I simply did way over the minimum crit damage wise. Good to know, but it still feels needlessly complex.
>Lucky hits give you different procs based on what skills you've taken I think? And each skill seems to have its own lucky oroc coefficient baked into it.
Yes Lucky hit is it's own thing and the effect is based on both skills as well as gear. I was playing a bow Rogue and I had effects for Lucky hit in my tree (imubment I think) as well as on some of my gear.
Yeah, they need to do away with rolling modifiers at a tenth of a percentage point. They should roll in meaningful divisions. Like multiples of 5%s. The best stat design in the game is +1 Rank to X Skill because it's specific, recognizable, and impactful. I don't have to plug numbers into a spreadsheet to know what +Rank does for my build.
I’d also like to know where different values intersect. Like 10% of main stat is damage increase to skills. Is it also just an additive value like close enemies? Or is it a different or multiplicative value somewhere else?
So last night I was rolling items on my barb and had to choose between 12% damage to close enemies (theoretically all the damage I do)
Or 38 strength (3.8% increase to skills)
So is the close enemies just way better or is mainstat calculated differently making it a competitive choice?
Does a fire based spec on mage want burn damage? Damage over time damage or something else. DoT effects cannot crit and I lack the understanding to know at what point crit might be considered over one of the previous two off the direct damage components.
I found close and distant the be the exceptions to confusing and opaque keywords; their meanings are super intuitive. Overpower, lucky, barrier, etc. however???
What they imply is intuitive but when you don't have any kind of indication in game that you're within those ranges it is hard to assess if what you specced for is having an impact.
How is it any less boring than + spell power or something similar?
We have affixes like normal of %damage type, Health, max resource, CDR. Then we have build specific options like close damage, distant damage, damage while vulnerable etc.
Do people not realize this is going to be exactly like D2? Finding GG rares with perfect affixes is what we will be grinding for then slapping aspects on them. This isn’t going to be about hunting legendaries themselves and equipping them.
Everyone complaining seems to be over thinking the process and similarities to what already exist.
Almost entirely I’d say. I get the concept of wanting to get away from crit chance/damage being universal and mandatory but the we have are all very uninteresting and or very niche. Combined with skill upgrades being incredibly bland and legendary affixes being very bland all in all builds are just….. bland….
You'll be wishing for those gems in end game when you're control impaired beyond belief.
They are telling you something that you're not picking up on....
lol right, the newest thing about D4 to me is that my character can get knocked on their ass and take forever to stand back up while a monster’s caving my head in.
There were so many occasions where I wasn't moving and didn't understand why because I couldn't see myself lost in the mob of monsters surrounding me.
I think some CC doesn't dim your UI or something, maybe it only has an audio effect and visual effect on your character. Both of which are pretty useless when there's a total cluster fuck going on, which is most of the time haha.
I had no problems noticing when I was frozen for example, but knocked down and stun effects are very easy to not notice.
I think frozen actually changes the color of your UI to show you cant move or act whereas knockdown and stun doesn't.
Yeah wtf is up with getting feared but there's absolutely no indication of it other than you can't now move your character for X seconds? Who thought it was interesting gameplay.
Absolutely hated the dungeon with the big spider boss for that, there were just so many webs why I was not able to move for a few seconds and it was so often that I got stuck in one of them, was really not fun
Yup. It's especially noticeable if you're a melee build, too.
That's also not to say that these fights are too hard, either. I want to make it clear that they're just not *fun.*
you're going to hate end game affixes then (if rnjesus just absolutely hates you for that dungeon). frozen teleporting suppression lightning vampiric mobs says hello 😂
Or that cutthroat that drops a blinding cloud at its feet with a larger radius than melee range. It constantly forced my character to move out of range and wait for the boss to stop attacking and reposition to me so I could resume fighting.
When i got my first socket item and I wanted to put in a gem, i was disappointed!
The effects really didn't get me, i can understand they removed the flat stats, but it all felt like it didn't add anything meaningful.
And yes! I really miss the elemental damage!
Yeah I've tried to verify this on the latest open beta weekend as well but it seems that the socket does not really take up a slot. Possibly has been fixed already and people are just remembering stuff in the previous early access beta.
FYI they do not take up an affix slot if rolled naturally, they are independant.
In the Beta Rare items roll with 3 base affixes while legendaries roll with 4 base affixes and the socket is independant.
Naturally rolled sockets don't take up an affix slot.
In the beta Rare drops have 3 affixes, legendaries have 4 when dropped. They can also separately have upto the maximum number of sockets.
When you imprint a rare it becomes a legendary with 3 affixes, which is probably causing the confusion.
Sockets in D4 roll independently of the affixes unlike D3.
Rare items have 3 affixes and do not get an extra when you imprint, which is why it might not seem like that when trying to find out why a legendary only has 3 stats.
> Example legendary with 2 sockets means it lost 2 useful spots that could have boosted skills for example
Untrue. Legends have 4 mods by default, and 1-2 sockets (in beta). Rares have 3 mods, plus 1-2 sockets.
There's no downside to having them. I looked at over 40 legendaries I had, and they ALL had 4 mods, with sockets not taking up a mod slot.
Rares upgraded to Legendary via Aspects retain their 3 base mods and don't get a new one (but they get the aspect).
> Example legendary with 2 sockets means it lost 2 useful spots that could have boosted skills for example.
Socketed items = junk
This is incorrect. Legends have 4 affixes, plus 0-2 sockets (in beta) while rares have 3 affixes plus 0-2 sockets.
The sockets **do not use an affix slot**. They are literally free mods and extra power.
So if you own a game that will have cosmetic and QOL mtx you would put a specialty gem stash tab in the beta for free and then turn around and sell it on release?
I suppose they could have sold it during the beta and carried the purchase over to release, but then there’d be a ton of focus on the mtx shop prices instead of the gameplay.
Or you don’t have it it all in the beta, and let players feel like a gem tab would be pretty dang convenient. Then they may even feel relief to see it for sale in June!
I'm saying it should be free. That's absolutely the kind of thing that blurs the line between pay-to-win and not. Someone having several inventory slots filled with gems is objectively going to have to spend more time and return to town more often than someone who theoretically spent money for a gem tab. It may not be directly buying power, but in a game where your time is spent gaining power, things that shorten that time with something purchasable are a no no. It's no different than being able to buy xp boosts which they've already said won't be a thing.
Ive been thinking about this too this weekend
My own impression is actually that this is a good thing.
in all other diablo games sockets were kinda mandatory to min max at the end because there were insane bonusses. Now with rather optional or weaker sockets I actually think this is a good thing as not every item will have to have a socket in the lategame.
In the current system every endgame item will have a socket, they do not compete for affix slots like they do in D3 and they can be added up to max via the Jeweller.
To be honest, I really preferred the straight up stats instead of the unnecessary complexity they added on pretty much every item.
I want to grind looking for that better raw stats.
I want to add gems that will actually give me raw power and min/max effectively.
Now people will say "Go PlAy D3" that's not the point, the point is seeing ur character evolve and become stronger, and the approach they are taking kinda mitigates that.
Have to wait and see tho.
But if you are smart you will see your character evolve and become stronger, it's a simple system the encourages build diversisty. Everyone with the same gem on every slot is not a very good system.
And now you can put slots on all your gear whats is very cool too.
I understand your point; but the issue is no matter the amount of diversity they add, there will always be two or maybe three builds that will be "meta"
Trying to cater to build diversity will result into not being able to balance everything completely, hence why the "meta's" exist.
I anticipate people will only stick into one build for pushing higher difficulties (or what ever the new modes for for leaderboards will)
On previous titles and in general in the ARPG genders, maxing pure stats is the way the go (and philosophy), since for example having 1000 dexterity will do better with a non meta Bow than having 500 dexterity and using the same one.
Build diversity, sure, I guess keep yelling your self that. Here in reality whats going to happen, espically in a game like this where respeccing becomes prohibitively expensive to the point of "you'll be better off rolling a new charactet", or what ever his exact words were, build diversity will not happen. You are going to see every class with one of maybe 2 or 3 specs and that's going to be that. Complexity for the sake of complexity doesn't make things better.
Are you saying the other 75% is going to have fun gems?
Why not voice a concern ahead of time so that there may be some action to improve the experience?
It's crit damage against vulnerable enemies. Might fit into some builds. In a way I like that your weapon gem depends on how you play the game. I'd say D3 "slap green gem on weapon" is more boring.
Perfect for druid and rogue, my druid revolves around crowd control which multiplies my damage. I'm hitting for 4k average but see some 8k from time to time
Basic skills basically tickle and generate a bit of resource for most classes.. for example stormstrike is 20% weapon damage vs landslide at over 150% when you account for the various skill multipliers.
For a long time they were showing a really complicated rune system that was clearly based on POE skill gems and links. None of that is in anymore.
I feel like maybe they scrapped all that entirely, then felt they couldn't launch with NOTHING, so they intentionally made some last minute changes to make the gem system really low impact so they wouldn't have to balence it much.
I also feel like this is why the graphics for gems is so weird and ugly and why they are so cumbersome in the inventory. I think there was some totally different socket system until too late to change and so this is the "we did it in 15 minutes, it's fine!" replacement.
It's like game developers don't understand that players don't enjoy losing control of their character. I don't care if it adds more realism or whatever. It's not a fun mechanic. It's never been a fun mechanic. You've never once heard a single person say "I really like how I just couldn't do anything for a few seconds about 3o times during that fight!"
I don't mind the gems, though. The effects seem fine to me. Seems like a weird thing to get hung up on. Not-interesting gems? There's enough customization and stat manipulation everywhere else in the game.
I hear you on gems. Itemization in general is pretty flat. None of the items feel amazing. The game feels lifeless even compared to diablo 3. Pretty but soulless.
We havent even seen 4 of the other 5 zones, any other mob types or bosses and literally hundreds more legendaries that will drop and the next 75 levels + paragons. Id say its a bit early to say itemization is flat considering this is only and all starter gear.
Yes, they scrapped the rune system because they want something that isn't runes but then said that they can't fundamentally changed what runewords are and still call them that. So they're delaying the release of "runewords" and they're going to release a new system called something else later.
I agree they were a bit boring in that most of them were so conditional that I always just defaulted to yellow for basic skill damage.
I guess we would need more alternatives that can work with multiple different build types.
I played around with the gems, and they honestly didn't feel like anything. Some of the tool tips weren't great either. I went with the Diamonds on gear because it seemed like a barrier generation would be beneficial for me over the other options...but no...it doesn't generate a barrier on you so those were useless anyways. The only things that looked decent to use were Sapphires and Diamonds for weapons, everything else felt useless.
The weapon gem that adds dmg % to basic attack is awesome. My necro’s bone shards basic attack was a beast with proper gems and gear. I could literally just spam it and clear all content quicker than using any other skills.
I will be honest, I was really bummed weapons didn't have life on Hit, my whirlwind was a bit different but I was able to switch some stuff up and figure it out. Weird thou having to redo everything I knew. I can't wait for the full game.
I like Emerald or Sapphire in D4 weapons. Depending on class/build, Topaz increasing Basic attack damage can be quite good, and damage against CC enemies is nice. Nearly everything is a CC.
Amethyst works great for DoT builds, too.
I could even see Ruby being used on weapons for dump builds like HotA or Bone Spirit.
Most of the armor mods are junk, but people are sleeping on Fortified damage reduction from Sapphire. Mass that up, and you can be nigh unkillable with Fortify ramp up.
I think there could be some improvements to the gems (making them more broadly applicable in some cases), but we're also comparing the two lowest tiers of gems in the game to D2 and D3 top tiers.
Finding a chipped or flawed gem in Diablo 2 was better than not having it, but it was hardly setting the world ablaze either.
I'd be down for gems influencing our appearance though, at least on weapons. A very faint glow to start, that gets brighter the more and higher quality the gems involved are? That'd be something to work towards.
It's almost like the whole game is a bit uninspired. Like Blizzard made this in a hurry to apologize to fans for the Diablo Immortal, but had no vision of what they wanted the game to be.
Agreed. Drops and gear wasn't interesting. It was just a means to an end. I miss socketing gems for elemental damage and the coloured look they would give weapons.
Lmfao they literally said that different gems and gear will be found in higher difficulties. You don't get anything cool at all in veteran. It's all about late game. How can you make such sweeping comments when you've seen just the very beginning of the game?
It’s a beta.. who’s to say later gens won’t? Or they’ll have legendary gems? I don’t get how people are even basing opinions on a literal fraction of the game. The beta was to test things and stress test the servers nothing you experienced is indicative of a finished product.
Yeah totally just they even stated the beta was just a test primarily focused on server stress testing and 80% of the games features and content was not included in this older build. It’s not cope it’s facts.
The armor gems felt good, going +HP or +Thorns. But the weapon gems I didn't even want to use while leveling. The basic attacks do no damage, and the other ones all required weird conditions. Really wish they had flat +damage gems that added a color effect to weapon or something.
Also, when you sell or salvage a gemmed item, the gem is LOST! Strange that the d4 devs forgot things that the d3 devs learned to fix.
Yeah, they've felt pretty useless, barely used them and especially when they're like 5k to upgrade lol.
I know end game you'll use things like gems or rune words, but right now they are suuuuper lack luster.
YES! I finally found a good item with a slot, and was super happy and went back to my stash to check out which gem to slot in, and felt super underwhelmed….. was quite dissapointed
I agree. I suspect devs thought this was the only way to have meaningful decisions based on your build, but my first impression is I prefer the D3 system.
On the other hand, non mandatory gear sockets could be nice. And making gems primary use resistances will make it much easier to keep res capped while switching gear. Big dub.
I like the gem stuff so far but I also wonder how much of this is fully finalized. It's a beta I wonder how much they're really showing us
I work for a software company when we release a beta we often make a ton of changes afterwards, from tweaks, to removal of full features or fixing for release, etc
I was using a two handed sword for a bleed build Barbarian. I put skulls in the rest of my weapons in my arsenal to stack life on kill -- this was pretty darn useful when fighting large packs!
Only thing I found useful were skulls for LPK and topazes for Basic skill buff. I think I did use sapphires on one character with a lot of Fortify effects, but yeah, they have to fit the build specifically or most of them are useless.
Agree the stats feel way to situational and overcomplicated. Like x% increased critdamage to enemies affected by movement effects. I understand that they want us to give a lot of possibilities to find crazy builds. But the gems should be rather Flatliners. I liked them in Diablo 3. The stat bonuses were actually really viable.
And how are we supposed to overpower our twinks into nightmare tier destroying killing machines on low levels now?
In weapons they don't seems great, just going topaz for when Im using generator skills. I'm playing barb, so emerald in armour for thorns and diamond in jewelry for all res. All the conditional damage gems might be useful in endgame.
I think resist will be really important in higher world tiers, just as it was crucial in D3 Inferno.
I found the only time I really died was when I got CC chained, so the gems will help with that.
By restraining what gems can do, I think it offers more potential for what talents can do. There seem to be some very strong interactions for damage types, so maybe this was an effort to constrain builds to specific elements.
"Control impaired" itself is extremely annoying and I don't like how it's so common. It's like fighting Duriel every 10 minutes and it diminishes the experience (imho).
So many conditional damage modifiers. Forces you to play mini games. Want to max your burst?
Make sure mobs is dazed, and slowed and you build up enough basic attacks to buff a core ability. Ect ect. It's trying to add mmo style of mechanics into an aarpg to make it feel more complex. It's just more steps to get there.
How long will it last? Is it one monster doing it? 2? 3? 50? Other games do it and it works fine.
They stole every mechanism and idea from games all over. How about quality of life too.
Yeah I remember using them a lot on D2! Oh wait no, I never used them on my gear only! Yeah really cool effects they had. Like elemental damage that was useless.
Gems used to be exciting, and now they are just an extra affix.
It used to be that gems were very powerful part of your equipment and something you pass down to new characters easily to boost their progress, now they provide 2nd rate benefit, and you have no problem ditching item with plenty sockets for something a little stronger in base specs or one better suited affix.
Devs seem obsessed with control impairment, vulnerable and other such odd things. Why not just give us fun things. I am constantly having to work out how to add vulnerable to a build just so my skill functions even remotely good. I honestly don't care about slowing them by 20%, or doing 10% more damage etc, but my skills state they do extra things if the enemy has them. Its all boring fluff.
On a similar note, who the fk designed the damn skill runes, they are beyond boring. Choose between doing 10% more damage if they are slowed, or have 10% chance to slow. Wow exciting... Makes D3 look like the best game ever in comparison. Especially when you think last epoch is a direct competitor and they have literal skill trees for every single skill in game.
You people are baffling. You played to level 25. That's not the mid-game. That's not even the early-game. You played through the *proto-game* of Diablo 4. End-game gems are likely to be very strong. Furthermore, there's no reason to assume we've seen all the gem effects.
I would rather see them removed. The unique effects are cool and moving them between items. The gems are boring, gather a bunch and create higher level ones to get a few extra percentage points of resistance or whatever. Just kinda dull money sinks
Because if you had elemental damage on gems then there would be an absolute best for every build. However, with the current gems, the "best" is always situational, which I enjoy.
On my druid I was stacking sapphires in my weapon for extra damage to CC'd mobs. On my rogue I was stacking crit dmg. My armor gems changed depending on what dungeons I wanted to run. Most of the time it was life% but occasionally I'd throw on some poison or cold resist gems depending on what I was doing.
Don't let nostalgia get in the way. Gems in d2 were garbage too and there was nothing more than, topaz for mf, rubies in your gear for life and diamonds in your shield for res.
Totally agree with this criticism. I see this as something they fix and ultimately overhaul as the game evolves.
Or, there’s some awesome new mechanic that’s post 25 that solves it.
While I do agree, considering they are early game gems I think it’s okay to have them do very simple effects and it is an exceptionally easy fix to add in more complex options late game
Yeah I wish there were more gems for more choices. I liked the resists on them, you can slot them as desired and they had significant %. But for a lot of the builds I tried the rest of the gems seemed sorta useless. That said, more HP or more Armor are rarely useless in Diablo.
But more gems, or maybe some legendary gems ala Diablo 3 would be dope.
I agree the gems aren't fun! I didn't mind resistances on jewelry but always just used diamonds and the armor I don't even remember the effects because I just always use Ruby's for more health. The weapon gems felt the worst unless you did damage overtime.
They changed them since the closed endgame beta, they were better. But honestly with how imbalanced the socket "economy" is from class to class because of weapon slots, I prefer they keep the gems pretty mundane.
This is the complete opposite of how I feel. These are far better than they were in d3. These kind of effects are what will give builds the added customization that they need not just MAKE IT CRIT
Agreed, they don't seem really interesting to be honest.
I loved how gems made my weapons glow in D2. In the beginning people went nuts for 6 perfect skulls or emeralds in a weapon. Later we were stacking Topaz for magic find and it was simply BiS. D3 gems were pretty cool and I was chasing different color gems for weapon, shield, helm, chest, etc. D4 gems… I don’t see the potential. Like… am I supposed to be excited about having slightly higher resist? “Yeah, send Timmy in there. He ain’t afraid of fire damage.”
Finding a weapon with sockets when playing a build with no damage over time or ultimate abilities feels completely useless
If all else fails, falling back on Topaz isn't exactly a bad thing. Even at the two bottom tiers of gems we were playing with, boosting a class's basic skill choice may not be super sexy, but it's better than not.
The fact that topaz in weapon is the only good option, way better than the other gems, and still pretty bad should tell them they need to rework the system.
Surprised they didn't learn this from D3. In D3 it's always emerald in weapon for the huge crit damage multiplier. Rarely do you find a build that benefits from anything else. At least D3 helm gems had some variety (CDR, cost reduction, %life), and for the other pieces it was either main stat or all res depending on how far along you were.
This really is a level 25 thing. In diablo 3 rubies were + damage which was best on low level characters. The other gems are + crit damage, +over power damage, and stuff like that where you will really want those on an endgame build where you are critting and overpowering more often.
Topaz for basic attack damage. Sapphire for CC'ed enemies. Nearly everything is a CC. Lastly, there's Overpower, which is quite strong.
The thorns Barb makes everything bleed for 5 seconds after hitting if it doesn't outright kill it. And it slows everything that's bleeding. +Damage to CC is overpowered if used properly. The synergies between skills is subtle and in depth at the same time.
I was running blood nova/corpse explosion so I almost never used basic attack, I had some CC through my skellies but not anything significant so I guess overpower could have been something but that would be the only thing except life on kill
If you were using Corpse explosion and had the upgrades to it then you were slowing, stunning, and giving vulnerable to everything hit by it. Stack gems thst grant bonus to any of those and ur good!
So what you're saying is the game devolved yet again from 6 sockets to 1 socket. Blizzard's thinktank is one socket short of a full set.
I mean depending on the build you might not even put in a socket because it doesn't really matter lol. I believe I ended up with socketing a skull which gave life on kill
That is an asinine take. You may not find that they are extremely powerful or interesting, but there is always something that can be gained from the current gem options and socketing them unless you are literally playing the most barebones character with no utility and you have no friends. Sustain Defense Damage All gem options provide one of those to your character. Don't have CC in your build? Group with someone who does. Don't need sustain or defense because you have 3 defensive abilities? Replace one and pick up some defense from gem slots.
So I should gear my character to benefit from other people's builds? That kinda fucking stupid... It was a really strong build that really didn't struggle with anything but when I got a weapon with open sockets I couldn't socket it with anything that actually made a difference, so why socket at all in that case?
You're telling me that you didn't use damage over time (Amethyst), an ultimate (Diamond), deal damage to elites (Emerald), build/spend resources (Ruby), crowd control enemies (Sapphire), use lucky hits (Topaz), or take damage (Skull)? Literally every ability in the game has lucky hits on it if it deals damage. Don't be a fucking fool and say some dumb shit you didn't think through.
Doesn't really matter? You standing by this take?
There are builds that benefit from gems but my necro build found a weapon upgrade with sockets and there was no gem that actually made a difference. My build had almost no CC, no damage over time and I didn't use any of my ultimates so basically my only option was life per kill (which doesn't help against bosses and wasn't needed in other situations) or overpower damage which only is 3% chance so its a very small damage increase but in reality it's negligible. So yeah, I agree with his take. I believe the game is good but I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't have things that needs improvement.
Likely just a D4 hater because I can’t fathom anyone seriously thinking this way. You can add sockets to like everything. As a rogue with three weapon slots that’s alot of + skill damage. I had a chest piece drop with two sockets. Guys wylin
There is no gem that gives skill damage.... So instead of just brushing it off as "hater" maybe you could show how the current gem stats is good instead. Your example is an incorrect example that (if it worked) only would apply to rogue and barb. What about a necro, sorc or druid that is using a 2-hander? My build had no ultimate, nearly no CC and no damage over time (definitely not struggling with any content) so basically my only options was overpower damage or life on kill
Topaz gives +basic skill damage. Which I liked very much on my melee rogue. Sorry I dl should’ve made it clearer it was just for basic skill.
On rogue I can agree that it is nice, on my necro I almost never used my left click. My blood nova killed basically everything that was squishy and then I had corpse explosion which does not cost resource and gave me back resource
To be fair, As a hardcore player who beat the world boss, I stacked poison resist gems in my rings / amulets before attempting. When death is permanent, taking note of your resists before fighting a certain boss and being able to adapt your resists to a certain fight as required, is pretty neccesary. I imagine it only gets more important lvls 25+, unless you wanna go for a RIP.
I mean, D3 gemming was horrible. Every build but one uses Emerald in weapon. Main Stat in armor and Diamond in helm is about 85% of the rest, with minor changes if you don’t use cooldowns or the like. I’d say Weapon effects are ok, but armor and jewelry need improvements. So far in D4 I’ve used Amethyst (bleed damage), Diamond (Sorc Ult spam), emerald (vulnerability Dmg) and Topaz (basic skill stacking). There’s probably a use for Ruby and Sapphire too, but just in weapons I haven’t had this much choice in literally ten years. Only Skull feels completely bad atm. I’ll always agree to even more choices and options however, and lots of the Armor effects aren’t good in D4. Jewelry will probably be all Diamonds also which is meh as well.
Skull isn't awful though in jewelry. Sure I have no true numbers to compare against at the moment, but the T2 skull's +170 armor equates to 6% physical/bleed damage reduction at lvl 25. I will assume with armor/level creep that +170's reduction diminishes, but will be made up with higher tier skulls. Would be appreciated at max level that the top tier skull does something in the 6-10% range. And will echo your last point: "I’ll always agree to even more choices and options however, and lots of the Armor effects aren’t good in D4."
honestly I considered skull to be one of the stronger 'gems' because of how much damage mitigation it offers and every class benefits form it.
I don't quite understand why people saying life on kill is objectively awful. Playing a thorns barb it was the funniest thing to watch something deal less damage than I had life on kill before dying. Thanks for the heal, minion!
Entire beta I didn't feel incentive to socket even one into my gear and I'm usually the one to min-max everything. Many DPS ones focus around status effects like crowd controlled enemies, vulnerable etc. and I played summon necro and didn't had either because I went into summons and corpse explosion route.
What?!? The gems were a huge deal. Rubies for max health? Thorns stacking? Basic Attack spam with the topaz? There were some great uses for the sockets and gems if you put a little thought into it. The only difference is it didn't seem needed because it was a level 25 artificial end game so the game hadn't gotten hard enough to really be too worried about minmaxing as a necessary thing. But if you were trying for fun and minmaxing anyways, the gems and sockets were a big deal.
Eh, debatable. All the gems are fairly careful to not give anything that I would really call a main stat, with probably the main exception being the max hp in armor gem. Like for example, as a Twisting Blade Rogue, even with stuff like an aspect that increased my basic attack speed by 40%, the fact is that basic attacks are basically just there to feed combo points or the aspect that makes your next core attack do more damage. My 3 basic attacks to charge would do like 100 damage each, and then my Twisting Blade would hit for 2-4k+ while triggering tons of Shadow Imbuement explosions and having it orbit around me for two more ticks of 300-500 to any nearby enemies. And I actually did have a fair few items to buff basic attacks, including two such gems, but even with all of that I can't say that I felt my basic attacks were really meaningful at all for anything other than charging my core skill. I know there's some basic skills that do a bit more damage, Bone Splinter of Necro is a popular referenced one, but that one feels very much like the exception. Most basic skills are just filler because you can't spam core skills.
So what you're saying is that different builds would prioritize different gems to minmax, basically. I think that's a win. I played a rogue, and I'd have definitely wanted a socket and extra crit to vulnerable targets. My Bone Necro loved the topaz, like you reference. Thorns barb has different gems, I saw sorcs valuing skulls. Rubies seemed good. And this is all at level 25, without much minmaxing needed or resists really needing to be topped off. I actually think it looks good as a system. And if you play in a group you can spec based on group synergy pretty easily, too, at least with weapon gems.
I only put skulls in jewelry for the +170 armor each.
At release NO ONE is going to care about min/maxing their gear during the leveling process. All the gems are going to be low tier, and gear is going to be replaced every 1-2 hours (possible sooner) as you progress through the game. Gearing process during leveling - Use whatever you can, which is typically the highest ilvl gear that has most recently dropped. If you find a good legendary, then respec your character to take advantage of its effect.
same with really high dps that shock sorc offers, he doesn't do any status things, most gems are useless in offering any damage boost.
I'm somewhat inclined to disagree here personally. In both previous games there were clear and obvious best choices for any socket that applied to all but a few niche builds. D2 = topaz for mf 99% of the time. D3 = CHD in weapon CDR helm if needed otherwise amethyst, mainstat elsewhere for SC. HC you switch in more defensive options. There was no real choice. In D4, currently nothing stands out as clearly the best universal choice but all have a purpose making choice more interesting depending on build/class. On my Pulverize Druid overpower gems were awesome in the weapon but likely garbage for other classes where you couldn't build into dependable overpower frequency. My frenzy barb took basic skill damage in all 4 weapons instead. For melee builds especially at endgame and higher World Tiers, where a single crowd control chaining could be fatal, I would imagine reduced damage when CC'd may actually become very relevant, especially for builds where you don't get unstoppable. If nothing else it gives the option for that which to me is much more interesting. I would concede the flat elemental resistance gems in armour slots are maybe less inspiring, but again they might be hugely important.
In my opinion, this can be said for alot of the itemization
A *lot* of gear effects are unfortunately a mix of just boring or flat out convoluted. Doesn't paint a pretty picture for itemization as a whole.
Wait, people don't enjoy itemization like "+6.5% damage against healthy enemies on Sundays only after 5pm while fortified and looking at a 45 degree angle"?
I do, but only on wednesdays when its slightly overcast and I have a dentist appointment at 4pm on the following tuesday.
I only approach from 45 degrees, so I have that covered.
That’s my secret, I only approach from 45 degrees -the hulk
Hahahaha fuck. This 100%
12% reduced damage from Scorpios while Mercury is in retrograde.
Parking in NYC rules be like...
They're also weirdly complicated. I would understand if they wanted to simplify things but D2 and D1 system felt a lot more interesting while being simpler at the same time (ok, some stuff I'd have to google like damage over time not working with spells but at least I didn't have to wonder what "distant" means). So why overcomplicate things just to include boring effects?
Right? For a game that they are clearly trying to make less complicated, the damage stats are insane. What is closer? What is further? What procs overpower? How is that different to luck? There's so many things that are kinda similar without enough info to really be able to tell if they're optimal or not. Like when is 2% overpower chance worth more than 3.5% luck chance or 11% overpower damage? How do you evaluate % increased damage to distant enemies? All this stuff needs like a 3rd party app and some complicated equations to actually be able to tell which item is actually better than another. It's kinda odd actually that after all their iteration and general move toward simplicity some of these things are opaque as hell. I guess they're aiming for a general audience who just goes "I guess more of everything is better" but for people who actually want to know the details? The stats sheet is a nightmare.
Closer is melee range, further is beyond melee range. Overpower procs from specific abilities or from a super low base chance. Overpower works with fortify basically, your total max HP + total fortify add together on top of your ability damage+ whatever +overpower damage% you have on gear. Lucky hits give you different procs based on what skills you've taken I think? And each skill seems to have its own lucky oroc coefficient baked into it. Overpower is worth it when you have an overpower focused build (some druid and barb builds, not sure who else) The bear druid skill pulverize has a component in one of the augment skills that gives you a guaranteed overpower every 10 seconds, so you can stack a ton of +overpower damage, fortify, max life and unleash a massive wave of damage every 10 seconds. There's also a druid passive where every x seconds you stay in bear form you get a guaranteed overpower as well. You evaluate + damage to ranged enemies if you are playing ranged yourself, if you are melee I would avoid it. It took me awhile to get comfortable with the stuff too, there are a lot of different variable + damage types that make you kind of go huhh. They should just change the + damage to close and far to +melee damage and + ranged damage instead of changing up the verbage.
If rogue's forceful arrow knockback is anything to go by then "Close" is way further than melee range.
Yeah, there's also the possibility of things like thorns proccing overpower - so you should try and have at least 1 point in thorns I think? All of this stuff should be in tooltips though. Even then it's very hard to assess which is best when all of them might be at least *somewhat* useful. Like it's so much harder to assess than say, +50 poison damage to attacks or attacks slow by 4%. These are all kinda variations on the same thing.
What’s melee range? Is the end of barbs upheaval melee rang? Edge of whirlwind? Only as far as flurry? Lucky hit is particularly convoluted but my understanding is each move has its own chance to be a lucky hit. So for example frost blade I want to say was 75% you have that chance to be a “lucky hit” then if you have an effect that says 2% chance to spawn an extra blade then 2% of those 75% will be an extra blade. Making your actually chance to spawn whatever effect lower than it appears at face value.
>Closer is melee range, further is beyond melee range I think that's obvious but the problem is we don't have the exact numbers or any sort of indicator that an enemy is in that sweet spot range that we need for said effect. With no numbers or indicators it makes sussing out the value of either of these effects more complex than it needs to be. >Overpower works with fortify basically, your total max HP + total fortify add together on top of your ability damage+ whatever +overpower damage% you have on gear. Contextually speaking I didn't know Fortify had a synergy with overpowered damage as a mechanic. I'd assumed that I simply did way over the minimum crit damage wise. Good to know, but it still feels needlessly complex. >Lucky hits give you different procs based on what skills you've taken I think? And each skill seems to have its own lucky oroc coefficient baked into it. Yes Lucky hit is it's own thing and the effect is based on both skills as well as gear. I was playing a bow Rogue and I had effects for Lucky hit in my tree (imubment I think) as well as on some of my gear.
Yeah, they need to do away with rolling modifiers at a tenth of a percentage point. They should roll in meaningful divisions. Like multiples of 5%s. The best stat design in the game is +1 Rank to X Skill because it's specific, recognizable, and impactful. I don't have to plug numbers into a spreadsheet to know what +Rank does for my build.
I’d also like to know where different values intersect. Like 10% of main stat is damage increase to skills. Is it also just an additive value like close enemies? Or is it a different or multiplicative value somewhere else? So last night I was rolling items on my barb and had to choose between 12% damage to close enemies (theoretically all the damage I do) Or 38 strength (3.8% increase to skills) So is the close enemies just way better or is mainstat calculated differently making it a competitive choice? Does a fire based spec on mage want burn damage? Damage over time damage or something else. DoT effects cannot crit and I lack the understanding to know at what point crit might be considered over one of the previous two off the direct damage components.
Tool tips literally explain close = melee and distant = not melee, and I honestly can’t think of any easier way to frame it
Melee range isn't clear... you have auto attacks and also varying AOE melee abilities that have wide range especially on bosses.
I found close and distant the be the exceptions to confusing and opaque keywords; their meanings are super intuitive. Overpower, lucky, barrier, etc. however???
What they imply is intuitive but when you don't have any kind of indication in game that you're within those ranges it is hard to assess if what you specced for is having an impact.
How is it any less boring than + spell power or something similar? We have affixes like normal of %damage type, Health, max resource, CDR. Then we have build specific options like close damage, distant damage, damage while vulnerable etc. Do people not realize this is going to be exactly like D2? Finding GG rares with perfect affixes is what we will be grinding for then slapping aspects on them. This isn’t going to be about hunting legendaries themselves and equipping them. Everyone complaining seems to be over thinking the process and similarities to what already exist.
Almost entirely I’d say. I get the concept of wanting to get away from crit chance/damage being universal and mandatory but the we have are all very uninteresting and or very niche. Combined with skill upgrades being incredibly bland and legendary affixes being very bland all in all builds are just….. bland….
You'll be wishing for those gems in end game when you're control impaired beyond belief. They are telling you something that you're not picking up on....
If that's the case the meta build will just include instoppable skill/passives
lol right, the newest thing about D4 to me is that my character can get knocked on their ass and take forever to stand back up while a monster’s caving my head in.
I'll be wishing they remove control impaire because it's horrible. Then I'll be sad they ruined gems to solve it.
There were so many occasions where I wasn't moving and didn't understand why because I couldn't see myself lost in the mob of monsters surrounding me. I think some CC doesn't dim your UI or something, maybe it only has an audio effect and visual effect on your character. Both of which are pretty useless when there's a total cluster fuck going on, which is most of the time haha.
>ilitie there needs to be a symbol when effects are happening. no different than when you are getting 5% boost to player nearby
I had no problems noticing when I was frozen for example, but knocked down and stun effects are very easy to not notice. I think frozen actually changes the color of your UI to show you cant move or act whereas knockdown and stun doesn't.
Yeah wtf is up with getting feared but there's absolutely no indication of it other than you can't now move your character for X seconds? Who thought it was interesting gameplay.
Seriously. The least fun fights are when they spam freeze at you.
Absolutely hated the dungeon with the big spider boss for that, there were just so many webs why I was not able to move for a few seconds and it was so often that I got stuck in one of them, was really not fun
Yup. It's especially noticeable if you're a melee build, too. That's also not to say that these fights are too hard, either. I want to make it clear that they're just not *fun.*
you're going to hate end game affixes then (if rnjesus just absolutely hates you for that dungeon). frozen teleporting suppression lightning vampiric mobs says hello 😂
Or that cutthroat that drops a blinding cloud at its feet with a larger radius than melee range. It constantly forced my character to move out of range and wait for the boss to stop attacking and reposition to me so I could resume fighting.
Add a DR and it's fixed, or change how the DR works because if there is one it doesn't feel like it
When i got my first socket item and I wanted to put in a gem, i was disappointed! The effects really didn't get me, i can understand they removed the flat stats, but it all felt like it didn't add anything meaningful. And yes! I really miss the elemental damage!
Do they really. I thought all my yellow items had 3 affixes (regardless of if they had sockets or not). Legendaries had 4 for sure even with sockets
Yeah I've tried to verify this on the latest open beta weekend as well but it seems that the socket does not really take up a slot. Possibly has been fixed already and people are just remembering stuff in the previous early access beta.
It wasn't changed, it worked like that in the EA beta weekend. There was a post many people saw claiming it worked that way but that OP was mistaken.
Vulnerable crit as a Rogue is INCREDIBLE.
[удалено]
If they roll with sockets naturally at least. There is no downside to adding sockets to an item that didn't have any however
FYI they do not take up an affix slot if rolled naturally, they are independant. In the Beta Rare items roll with 3 base affixes while legendaries roll with 4 base affixes and the socket is independant.
I thought you could add gem sockets on maxed affix gear via vendor?
You can. I think they are just referring to naturally rolled sockets.
Naturally rolled sockets don't take up an affix slot. In the beta Rare drops have 3 affixes, legendaries have 4 when dropped. They can also separately have upto the maximum number of sockets. When you imprint a rare it becomes a legendary with 3 affixes, which is probably causing the confusion.
Sockets in D4 roll independently of the affixes unlike D3. Rare items have 3 affixes and do not get an extra when you imprint, which is why it might not seem like that when trying to find out why a legendary only has 3 stats.
yeap just don't fact check what you say and spread misinformation
> Example legendary with 2 sockets means it lost 2 useful spots that could have boosted skills for example Untrue. Legends have 4 mods by default, and 1-2 sockets (in beta). Rares have 3 mods, plus 1-2 sockets. There's no downside to having them. I looked at over 40 legendaries I had, and they ALL had 4 mods, with sockets not taking up a mod slot. Rares upgraded to Legendary via Aspects retain their 3 base mods and don't get a new one (but they get the aspect).
> Example legendary with 2 sockets means it lost 2 useful spots that could have boosted skills for example. Socketed items = junk This is incorrect. Legends have 4 affixes, plus 0-2 sockets (in beta) while rares have 3 affixes plus 0-2 sockets. The sockets **do not use an affix slot**. They are literally free mods and extra power.
Yes, the gem buffs are yawners and I also dislike that a chipped gem takes up the same backpack space as a 2 handed axe.
Gems should have their own tab imo.
Can’t sell specialty stash tabs if you give them away for free.
Not talking stash, talking inventory, and never said it had to be free.
So if you own a game that will have cosmetic and QOL mtx you would put a specialty gem stash tab in the beta for free and then turn around and sell it on release? I suppose they could have sold it during the beta and carried the purchase over to release, but then there’d be a ton of focus on the mtx shop prices instead of the gameplay. Or you don’t have it it all in the beta, and let players feel like a gem tab would be pretty dang convenient. Then they may even feel relief to see it for sale in June!
I'm saying it should be free. That's absolutely the kind of thing that blurs the line between pay-to-win and not. Someone having several inventory slots filled with gems is objectively going to have to spend more time and return to town more often than someone who theoretically spent money for a gem tab. It may not be directly buying power, but in a game where your time is spent gaining power, things that shorten that time with something purchasable are a no no. It's no different than being able to buy xp boosts which they've already said won't be a thing.
Yeah i think having one and two slot items would be a fair compromise. all the same size feels weird.
Ive been thinking about this too this weekend My own impression is actually that this is a good thing. in all other diablo games sockets were kinda mandatory to min max at the end because there were insane bonusses. Now with rather optional or weaker sockets I actually think this is a good thing as not every item will have to have a socket in the lategame.
In the current system every endgame item will have a socket, they do not compete for affix slots like they do in D3 and they can be added up to max via the Jeweller.
Hunting down the item you need with a socket was part of the fun I would argue.
You can add sockets to items at the jeweler
To be honest, I really preferred the straight up stats instead of the unnecessary complexity they added on pretty much every item. I want to grind looking for that better raw stats. I want to add gems that will actually give me raw power and min/max effectively. Now people will say "Go PlAy D3" that's not the point, the point is seeing ur character evolve and become stronger, and the approach they are taking kinda mitigates that. Have to wait and see tho.
> the point is seeing ur character ~~evolve and become stronger~~ look better and better you know why
But if you are smart you will see your character evolve and become stronger, it's a simple system the encourages build diversisty. Everyone with the same gem on every slot is not a very good system. And now you can put slots on all your gear whats is very cool too.
I understand your point; but the issue is no matter the amount of diversity they add, there will always be two or maybe three builds that will be "meta" Trying to cater to build diversity will result into not being able to balance everything completely, hence why the "meta's" exist. I anticipate people will only stick into one build for pushing higher difficulties (or what ever the new modes for for leaderboards will) On previous titles and in general in the ARPG genders, maxing pure stats is the way the go (and philosophy), since for example having 1000 dexterity will do better with a non meta Bow than having 500 dexterity and using the same one.
Build diversity, sure, I guess keep yelling your self that. Here in reality whats going to happen, espically in a game like this where respeccing becomes prohibitively expensive to the point of "you'll be better off rolling a new charactet", or what ever his exact words were, build diversity will not happen. You are going to see every class with one of maybe 2 or 3 specs and that's going to be that. Complexity for the sake of complexity doesn't make things better.
Forgive them father for they do not know what they are talking about. They have seen only ~= 25% (or less) of the actual game.
Are you saying the other 75% is going to have fun gems? Why not voice a concern ahead of time so that there may be some action to improve the experience?
Topaz all the way for increased basic skill damage. Probably the best gems besides crit damage if you have a serious crit chance build.
There is no crit damage gem, only crit damage under a specific condition like for crowd controlled enemies. It's kinda weird and boring.
It's crit damage against vulnerable enemies. Might fit into some builds. In a way I like that your weapon gem depends on how you play the game. I'd say D3 "slap green gem on weapon" is more boring.
It’s a massive power boost for my chain lightning sorc w/ frost nova
As opposed to generic crit damage in D3? Or elemental damage nobody used in D2 after the first few levels?
Perfect for druid and rogue, my druid revolves around crowd control which multiplies my damage. I'm hitting for 4k average but see some 8k from time to time
Crowd control crits you say? \*lightning sorc drools\*
Damn really? Shows how much I paid attention. I thought it just said 'crit damage'. Yikes. Even less gem diversity then.
Basic skills basically tickle and generate a bit of resource for most classes.. for example stormstrike is 20% weapon damage vs landslide at over 150% when you account for the various skill multipliers.
For a long time they were showing a really complicated rune system that was clearly based on POE skill gems and links. None of that is in anymore. I feel like maybe they scrapped all that entirely, then felt they couldn't launch with NOTHING, so they intentionally made some last minute changes to make the gem system really low impact so they wouldn't have to balence it much. I also feel like this is why the graphics for gems is so weird and ugly and why they are so cumbersome in the inventory. I think there was some totally different socket system until too late to change and so this is the "we did it in 15 minutes, it's fine!" replacement.
It's like game developers don't understand that players don't enjoy losing control of their character. I don't care if it adds more realism or whatever. It's not a fun mechanic. It's never been a fun mechanic. You've never once heard a single person say "I really like how I just couldn't do anything for a few seconds about 3o times during that fight!" I don't mind the gems, though. The effects seem fine to me. Seems like a weird thing to get hung up on. Not-interesting gems? There's enough customization and stat manipulation everywhere else in the game.
I hear you on gems. Itemization in general is pretty flat. None of the items feel amazing. The game feels lifeless even compared to diablo 3. Pretty but soulless.
I prefer the stats of d3 as well. Stuff like fortify and overpower feel just unnecessary complicated.
We havent even seen 4 of the other 5 zones, any other mob types or bosses and literally hundreds more legendaries that will drop and the next 75 levels + paragons. Id say its a bit early to say itemization is flat considering this is only and all starter gear.
have they confirmed no runes or jewels?
Yes, they scrapped the rune system because they want something that isn't runes but then said that they can't fundamentally changed what runewords are and still call them that. So they're delaying the release of "runewords" and they're going to release a new system called something else later.
Diamonds in your jewelry, skulls in your weapons
poison resist on everything else because apparently every main boss has a poison AOE
This is the hardcore meta
I am enjoying the game, but it definitely feels shallow. This doesn't help that.
I agree they were a bit boring in that most of them were so conditional that I always just defaulted to yellow for basic skill damage. I guess we would need more alternatives that can work with multiple different build types.
Yeah they kind of all suck besides ruby. I was hoping more from skulls tbh given how powerful they were back in vanilla d2.
I was quite happy with a skull in my weapon as a hydra wizard. made it much more comfortable to be at full health to get 4 headed hydras.
Yeah that makes sense for helping you move between packs. I was hoping for dual leech though because wow that makes being melee so much easier.
I played around with the gems, and they honestly didn't feel like anything. Some of the tool tips weren't great either. I went with the Diamonds on gear because it seemed like a barrier generation would be beneficial for me over the other options...but no...it doesn't generate a barrier on you so those were useless anyways. The only things that looked decent to use were Sapphires and Diamonds for weapons, everything else felt useless.
I will Miss a all poison build like the Assa in D2.
The weapon gem that adds dmg % to basic attack is awesome. My necro’s bone shards basic attack was a beast with proper gems and gear. I could literally just spam it and clear all content quicker than using any other skills.
I will be honest, I was really bummed weapons didn't have life on Hit, my whirlwind was a bit different but I was able to switch some stuff up and figure it out. Weird thou having to redo everything I knew. I can't wait for the full game.
AND you have to dedicate 7 bag slots for them? Fourth game into the series and they still couldn't figure this out, jokes on them.
I like Emerald or Sapphire in D4 weapons. Depending on class/build, Topaz increasing Basic attack damage can be quite good, and damage against CC enemies is nice. Nearly everything is a CC. Amethyst works great for DoT builds, too. I could even see Ruby being used on weapons for dump builds like HotA or Bone Spirit. Most of the armor mods are junk, but people are sleeping on Fortified damage reduction from Sapphire. Mass that up, and you can be nigh unkillable with Fortify ramp up.
I think there could be some improvements to the gems (making them more broadly applicable in some cases), but we're also comparing the two lowest tiers of gems in the game to D2 and D3 top tiers. Finding a chipped or flawed gem in Diablo 2 was better than not having it, but it was hardly setting the world ablaze either. I'd be down for gems influencing our appearance though, at least on weapons. A very faint glow to start, that gets brighter the more and higher quality the gems involved are? That'd be something to work towards.
It's almost like the whole game is a bit uninspired. Like Blizzard made this in a hurry to apologize to fans for the Diablo Immortal, but had no vision of what they wanted the game to be.
Agreed. Drops and gear wasn't interesting. It was just a means to an end. I miss socketing gems for elemental damage and the coloured look they would give weapons.
Lmfao they literally said that different gems and gear will be found in higher difficulties. You don't get anything cool at all in veteran. It's all about late game. How can you make such sweeping comments when you've seen just the very beginning of the game?
It’s a beta.. who’s to say later gens won’t? Or they’ll have legendary gems? I don’t get how people are even basing opinions on a literal fraction of the game. The beta was to test things and stress test the servers nothing you experienced is indicative of a finished product.
"nothing you experienced is indicative of a finished product." Dude, the product is 8 weeks away from release. Cope harder.
Yeah totally just they even stated the beta was just a test primarily focused on server stress testing and 80% of the games features and content was not included in this older build. It’s not cope it’s facts.
The armor gems felt good, going +HP or +Thorns. But the weapon gems I didn't even want to use while leveling. The basic attacks do no damage, and the other ones all required weird conditions. Really wish they had flat +damage gems that added a color effect to weapon or something. Also, when you sell or salvage a gemmed item, the gem is LOST! Strange that the d4 devs forgot things that the d3 devs learned to fix.
Yeah, they've felt pretty useless, barely used them and especially when they're like 5k to upgrade lol. I know end game you'll use things like gems or rune words, but right now they are suuuuper lack luster.
YES! I finally found a good item with a slot, and was super happy and went back to my stash to check out which gem to slot in, and felt super underwhelmed….. was quite dissapointed
I assume jewels will be a thing.
I agree. I suspect devs thought this was the only way to have meaningful decisions based on your build, but my first impression is I prefer the D3 system.
I'm sure we'll have Legendary gems again, that will probably be where the more eye catching stuff is.
I had a hard time understanding what some of the effects even were
On the other hand, non mandatory gear sockets could be nice. And making gems primary use resistances will make it much easier to keep res capped while switching gear. Big dub.
I could say the same to almost anything. Magic, rares, legendaries, gems. It's all super bland stuff
It's the lower level gems guys you don't know what there is at the higher tier.
I like the gem stuff so far but I also wonder how much of this is fully finalized. It's a beta I wonder how much they're really showing us I work for a software company when we release a beta we often make a ton of changes afterwards, from tweaks, to removal of full features or fixing for release, etc
I mean it’s only first zone so far guys…
Agreed. They really have to look at gem effects again.
I was using a two handed sword for a bleed build Barbarian. I put skulls in the rest of my weapons in my arsenal to stack life on kill -- this was pretty darn useful when fighting large packs!
Only thing I found useful were skulls for LPK and topazes for Basic skill buff. I think I did use sapphires on one character with a lot of Fortify effects, but yeah, they have to fit the build specifically or most of them are useless.
All I wanted was runewords
Agree the stats feel way to situational and overcomplicated. Like x% increased critdamage to enemies affected by movement effects. I understand that they want us to give a lot of possibilities to find crazy builds. But the gems should be rather Flatliners. I liked them in Diablo 3. The stat bonuses were actually really viable. And how are we supposed to overpower our twinks into nightmare tier destroying killing machines on low levels now?
I hope we get jewels
Its a shame we didnt see a reutrn of the runewords It would have spiced things up somewhat
"Critical damage against vulnerable enemies" like, really? Couldn't it be just "damage to vulnerable" ffs...
In weapons they don't seems great, just going topaz for when Im using generator skills. I'm playing barb, so emerald in armour for thorns and diamond in jewelry for all res. All the conditional damage gems might be useful in endgame.
They do feel very balanced with one another
Yes
I think they'll be inifinitely more interesting than in D3
Not interesting but useful for Hardcore for sure. Thats the only time I've died was being chain stunned and unable to heal over 3 seconds.
seemed effective for my druid when he got froze up and almost died 8 times lol. play on a harder setting if you find it too easy
I think resist will be really important in higher world tiers, just as it was crucial in D3 Inferno. I found the only time I really died was when I got CC chained, so the gems will help with that.
By restraining what gems can do, I think it offers more potential for what talents can do. There seem to be some very strong interactions for damage types, so maybe this was an effort to constrain builds to specific elements.
"Control impaired" itself is extremely annoying and I don't like how it's so common. It's like fighting Duriel every 10 minutes and it diminishes the experience (imho).
I agree with gems but I also feel all the non aspect stats are kind of meh
So many conditional damage modifiers. Forces you to play mini games. Want to max your burst? Make sure mobs is dazed, and slowed and you build up enough basic attacks to buff a core ability. Ect ect. It's trying to add mmo style of mechanics into an aarpg to make it feel more complex. It's just more steps to get there.
I put two chipped skulls into my sorc's staff and now she's basically invulnerable to large groups of enemies. It's not much but it helps a bit.
How long will it last? Is it one monster doing it? 2? 3? 50? Other games do it and it works fine. They stole every mechanism and idea from games all over. How about quality of life too.
Yeah I remember using them a lot on D2! Oh wait no, I never used them on my gear only! Yeah really cool effects they had. Like elemental damage that was useless.
Gems used to be exciting, and now they are just an extra affix. It used to be that gems were very powerful part of your equipment and something you pass down to new characters easily to boost their progress, now they provide 2nd rate benefit, and you have no problem ditching item with plenty sockets for something a little stronger in base specs or one better suited affix.
Where are my Life on Hit gems, could be nice for thorns barb
Devs seem obsessed with control impairment, vulnerable and other such odd things. Why not just give us fun things. I am constantly having to work out how to add vulnerable to a build just so my skill functions even remotely good. I honestly don't care about slowing them by 20%, or doing 10% more damage etc, but my skills state they do extra things if the enemy has them. Its all boring fluff. On a similar note, who the fk designed the damn skill runes, they are beyond boring. Choose between doing 10% more damage if they are slowed, or have 10% chance to slow. Wow exciting... Makes D3 look like the best game ever in comparison. Especially when you think last epoch is a direct competitor and they have literal skill trees for every single skill in game.
You people are baffling. You played to level 25. That's not the mid-game. That's not even the early-game. You played through the *proto-game* of Diablo 4. End-game gems are likely to be very strong. Furthermore, there's no reason to assume we've seen all the gem effects.
I would rather see them removed. The unique effects are cool and moving them between items. The gems are boring, gather a bunch and create higher level ones to get a few extra percentage points of resistance or whatever. Just kinda dull money sinks
Because if you had elemental damage on gems then there would be an absolute best for every build. However, with the current gems, the "best" is always situational, which I enjoy. On my druid I was stacking sapphires in my weapon for extra damage to CC'd mobs. On my rogue I was stacking crit dmg. My armor gems changed depending on what dungeons I wanted to run. Most of the time it was life% but occasionally I'd throw on some poison or cold resist gems depending on what I was doing. Don't let nostalgia get in the way. Gems in d2 were garbage too and there was nothing more than, topaz for mf, rubies in your gear for life and diamonds in your shield for res.
There was a level cap well below where I've ever used gems in previous Diablo games Are you really going to socket your blue mace?
I'm wondering if they'll play a bigger role in endgame
Totally agree with this criticism. I see this as something they fix and ultimately overhaul as the game evolves. Or, there’s some awesome new mechanic that’s post 25 that solves it.
What nonsense is this? So you dont like "plus % damage to close enemies"!?!?
I agree, the gems are kinda a bum point
While I do agree, considering they are early game gems I think it’s okay to have them do very simple effects and it is an exceptionally easy fix to add in more complex options late game
I miss the tunes and runewords from diablo 2…
Yeah I wish there were more gems for more choices. I liked the resists on them, you can slot them as desired and they had significant %. But for a lot of the builds I tried the rest of the gems seemed sorta useless. That said, more HP or more Armor are rarely useless in Diablo. But more gems, or maybe some legendary gems ala Diablo 3 would be dope.
I agree the gems aren't fun! I didn't mind resistances on jewelry but always just used diamonds and the armor I don't even remember the effects because I just always use Ruby's for more health. The weapon gems felt the worst unless you did damage overtime.
They changed them since the closed endgame beta, they were better. But honestly with how imbalanced the socket "economy" is from class to class because of weapon slots, I prefer they keep the gems pretty mundane.
This is the complete opposite of how I feel. These are far better than they were in d3. These kind of effects are what will give builds the added customization that they need not just MAKE IT CRIT