Item suggestion - Orb that increases item level?

I was just discussing this in chat, and it seemed worth mentioning here.

So a while back, around level 20 or so, I was extremely lucky and I found The Searing Touch. Great unique staff that adds +2 to fire gems among a lot of other goodies. The item is great and my GF uses it on her witch char exclusively. The problem is, since I found it at such an early stage in the game, the item level is only 18.

While the staff works well for her, it can only have a max of 3 sockets. Now she's considering saving up a ton of orbs and buying a higher level of the same item on the market, but it got me thinking: What if there was an item, along the lines of Armorer's scrap or Blacksmith's whetstone, that could improve item level by +1?

It seems to me that an item like that wouldn't harm the game's balance in any way, and it would really help out those people who found a great rare early on but find themselves wanting to change it out because of socket limitations.

Sorry if this has already been suggested.

It would be very powerful for high-end gear.
Getting an ilvl 79 item of the base you want isn't supposed to be easy
So the orb would have to be rare/valuable enough to compensate.
In which case it wouldn't be useful for the purpose that you want it for, since it'd be cheaper to just buy a higher ilvl version.

+1

it would be better if item level and required level were more correlated so you couldn't twink (and therefore make any loot they find vendor trash) characters as easily.

Furthermore please display the iLevel on all items so we don't have to continuously type /itemlevel on absolutely everything :)

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taekvideo wrote:

It would be very powerful for high-end gear.
Getting an ilvl 79 item of the base you want isn't supposed to be easy
So the orb would have to be rare/valuable enough to compensate.
In which case it wouldn't be useful for the purpose that you want it for, since it'd be cheaper to just buy a higher ilvl version.

A simple way to do it would be to add 3 different types of orbs. Each adds 1 itemlevel but:

Scroll of Enhancing: Most common can be used to upgrade up to ilevel 33.
Shard of Enhancing: Uncommon can be used to upgrade up to ilevel 66.
Orb of Enhancing: Rare can be used to upgrade items above ilevel 66.


By trading with NPC vendors 1 Orb would be made from 10 shards, 1 shard from 10 scrolls. Scrolls would drop in areas below lvl 33, shards in areas 33-66 difficulty, orbs in 66+.

The orbs could affect the items base stats but should not affect the items random stats however.

Or conversely, the level you could achieve with the orbs could be capped so it's just enough to be able to put 6 sockets on an item without taking away from the end-game loot. It just seems silly to me that a unique item can end up essentially being trash later in the game because you found it at the wrong level.

For a lot of players, unique drops are an extremely rare occurrence as it is (personally I've only found 2 and I'm just shy of level 50) and it makes it all the more disappointing. Finding out that your sweet unique item is useless to the more advanced gem layouts (many of which are necessary depending on your class to be effective) can really take the wind out of your sails, and again it seems silly to have to re-buy your item because you just found it at the wrong time.

The orbs don't have to be super common or anything, but just knowing that there is an option other than what amounts to throwing it in the trash or selling it for next to nothing would make a lot of players - myself included - very happy.

Wow was I living in a dream world where unique items all came on preset, constant item levels and could not be found again at a different item level? I have never seen a unique advertised in trade chat for its item level, and all three voll's protectors I had shared the same item level and stats. One of us is severely misunderstanding the item level system and it honestly could just as easily be me since I have only ever possessed maybe 9 Uniques ever.

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dashgalaxy86 wrote:

Wow was I living in a dream world where unique items all came on preset, constant item levels and could not be found again at a different item level? I have never seen a unique advertised in trade chat for its item level, and all three voll's protectors I had shared the same item level and stats. One of us is severely misunderstanding the item level system and it honestly could just as easily be me since I have only ever possessed maybe 9 Uniques ever.

The stats don't change, but AFAIK when you find the item determines it's level. In the example of The Searing Touch that I found, it's only level 18, which means it can't have more than 3 sockets, however there are others I've seen on the market with 5 - 6 sockets, meaning they had to have been a high enough level to support that. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's the case.

you guys seem to completely forget, that should an orb like this be added, it'd have random effects.
Sure you could bump your ilvl 30 staff to ilvl 79, but you could just as easily drop an i'lvl 67 to ilvl 17

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Idioticus wrote:

you guys seem to completely forget, that should an orb like this be added, it'd have random effects.
Sure you could bump your ilvl 30 staff to ilvl 79, but you could just as easily drop an i'lvl 67 to ilvl 17

Not the way I'm describing. Think more along the lines of Whetstone, Armorer's scrap, GCP, etc. Each orb would increase the level by 1, the same way those items raise quality.