Why Unique Weapons are too Strong in PoE

Unique weapons bridge the gap between the reasonable player and the full retard 24/7'er who insists on having a 500 pds garbinger bow and +1 arrow signal fire every temp league and give the non super elite a reasonable goal post to aim for.

If anything, all other weapon classes should have strong contenders like bows do.
Why don't axes/swords/maces have something like opus, chin sol, windripper, lions, piscal's?

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Gems:
The added Lightning / Cold / Chaos / Ice Bite / Innervate / Immolate gems are very strong. Especially if you combine them (for instance Added Cold + Ice Bite). In itself that’s not a problem. One of the best things about PoE is that you can scale damage and defenses in many different ways. The problem here is that combined with unique items you can scale your damage purely of these gems so weapons become little more than “stat-sticks”.

Riddle me this: When was the last time you saw a bow build scaling flat elemental damage that utilized a well rolled rare bow with 300+ eDPS? The answer is most likely a very long time ago. Between Windripper, Voltaxic and even “physical bows” such as Death’s Opus or Lioneye’s Glare chances are they are better option the wast majority of the time.

Is this mostly thread a rant against death's opus which has already been nerfed?

I thought you meant elemental damage jewels when you said gems. I can't believe you think that Added Fire Damage is OP.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

I thought you meant elemental damage jewels when you said gems. I can't believe you think that Added Fire Damage is OP.

I specifically didn't mentioned added fire since it doesn't add flat damage. Added lightning / cold / chaos / Ice Bite / Immolate and Innervate are the gems I mentioned.

Again I wanna underline: I am not saying the gems are too strong. I am not saying they become too strong in combination with certain "stat-stick" uniques. The interaction between the two.

The solution I proposed is to lower the damage granted from Elreon enchants / flat damage on jewelry and gems and increase the damage from your weapon so it's possible to have a decent result with a Death's Opus or some other "stat-stick" but if you really wanna push your build for the best result you should get a rare with high flat elemental damage.

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_Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

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Frankenberry wrote:

Rare bow were superior before. Now unique bows are strong and easily accessible that GGG strongly discourages crafting of rare bows.

Yup new LG is pretty damn insane. Hard to justify in temp league self crafting when you can buy this bow for 10c and call it a day. I really miss it when Rares were the go-to, honestly they should bring back Hybrid master craft some day.

Honestly at this point I would welcome it. At least if GGG doesn't want to change their gems and uniques.

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Nephalim wrote:

Unique weapons bridge the gap between the reasonable player and the full retard 24/7'er who insists on having a 500 pds garbinger bow and +1 arrow signal fire every temp league and give the non super elite a reasonable goal post to aim for.

If anything, all other weapon classes should have strong contenders like bows do.
Why don't axes/swords/maces have something like opus, chin sol, windripper, lions, piscal's?

"

Gems:
The added Lightning / Cold / Chaos / Ice Bite / Innervate / Immolate gems are very strong. Especially if you combine them (for instance Added Cold + Ice Bite). In itself that’s not a problem. One of the best things about PoE is that you can scale damage and defenses in many different ways. The problem here is that combined with unique items you can scale your damage purely of these gems so weapons become little more than “stat-sticks”.

Riddle me this: When was the last time you saw a bow build scaling flat elemental damage that utilized a well rolled rare bow with 300+ eDPS? The answer is most likely a very long time ago. Between Windripper, Voltaxic and even “physical bows” such as Death’s Opus or Lioneye’s Glare chances are they are better option the wast majority of the time.

Is this mostly thread a rant against death's opus which has already been nerfed?

Well I would agree that the job of unique weapons is to gap the bridge between the "reasonable player and the full retard 24/7'er". However I think the gap has become to small and in some cases the Unique is superior to the rare option.

For instance try to compare a Doomfletch Prism with a 500 pDPS harbinger bow (I know it's two different item setups and thus to compare but still). Also as I write in my final thoughts it's possible to get a well rolled rare Harbinger bow quite cheap if a lot players are crafting and aiming for that 500+ Harbinger bow. Maybe not a 500+ Harbinger but instead a bow with 340-360 dps which should still be enough to have fun and clear the game.

And no - it's not really about Death's Opus. That bow is just a good example of a "stat-stick" weapon.

How about 2H weapons. Starforge and Atziri's Disfavour are more or less always the best option... As I wrote in my post there are 8 rare 2handers with a pDPS higher than 600 and almost 1200 unique weapons with a pDPS higher than 600... isn't that an indication that uniques are too strong?

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And no - it's not really about Death's Opus. That bow is just a good example of a "stat-stick" weapon.

Outside of opus, which unique weapons are being abused as stat sticks to make added elemental gems overpowered? The notion flat added gems are somehow overpowered is somehow hard to believe.

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How about 2H weapons. Starforge and Atziri's Disfavour are more or less always the best option... As I wrote in my post there are 8 rare 2handers with a pDPS higher than 600 and almost 1200 unique weapons with a pDPS higher than 600... isn't that an indication that uniques are too strong?

They are likely overpowered compared to the rng crapshoot called crafting. Starforge has unique properties that make it stand out where as atziri's lost a of flavor with bleed rework.

Unique items create complexity in the game and makes the game interesting. If uniques became useless and rares became the only way to make builds, it would kill build diversity and the playerbase because of how hard it is to get a good rare item. And rare items are better than uniques in this game, but they're difficult to get. 400-600dps 1h rares trump pretty much all unique 1h weapons so I don't know why you're complaining.

They should really dump the idea of a stat stick entirely. Hate that mechanic. Picking something to equip specifically because you can't 'use' it is simply counter intuitive.

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Why Unique Weapons are too Strong in PoE

I got 6 stash tab of junk unique saying otherwise.

While some unique might be ''build definining'', they need to be complemented with some pretty good rare.

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Nephalim wrote:

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And no - it's not really about Death's Opus. That bow is just a good example of a "stat-stick" weapon.

Outside of opus, which unique weapons are being abused as stat sticks to make added elemental gems overpowered? The notion flat added gems are somehow overpowered is somehow hard to believe.

Another example could be Lioneye's Glare gives you 100% chance to hit, 24% increased elemental damage, Far Shot and very high attack speed. All in all fairly high to compete with for a well rolled rare bow with high elemental damage rolls.

I am not even saying you should nerf Death's Opus or Lioneye's Glare. I am saying nerf flat damage from other sources so there is a real opportunity cost if you disregard damage on your weapon.

There are also other reasons why elemental damage is so good. For instance you can gain absurdly high increases to elemental damage from jewelry (opal rings, 40%+ increases on quivers, belts, amulets and so forth).

Another example that illustrates this (all though it's not a unique) is all the elemental spectral throw builds out there. Yes the weapon is almost always a rare but you the most important stats are not high flat elemental damage. It's attack speed because the main source of flat is elemental damage is not from your weapon but from your gems + jewelry. Same mechanic.

Really would it be so bad to lower the damage from these sources and raise it on rare weapons? It would bring back rare items to chase.