Why Unique Weapons are too Strong in PoE

"

Frankenberry wrote:

(TLDR: Too strong Unique weapons and flat elemental gems discourage crafting of rare items. This leads to a lack of chase items in PoE. Rare items are worse than easily accessible unique weapons. This leads to lack of longevity in leagues. Unique weapons are often little more than "stat-sticks" which feels odd.)

[...]

Or they could just make them all "meh" like Voltaxic is now.

Build-enabling mechanics could be opened up to rares via master crafting (this used to be done with leo/RF, now you have to spec a pantheon for it) But I think GGG would rather gimp popular builds made with such items (such as the infamous Bones of Ullr boots that don't even give you a skeleton anymore) than make builds more widely available. It keeps them in control, somewhat, of the power creep.

But more to your point, about weapons... 4/5 of the unique weapons are garbage, and the other fifth are generally used because of a build-enabling mechanic. Starforge is the most obvious exception. Starforge is OP, and it's allowed to be, because it's expensive AF.

It's all about keeping great power in few hands. When something really powerful becomes widely available (through the discovery of mechanical interactions, generally, is how this happens), the nerf hammer follows fast and hard.

I was very sad to see Emberwake die. It's only mediocre for the purpose they redesigned it to, and it used to be build-enabling (Oro's flicker strike, for one). Now it's, oh boy i get two ignites that burn really slowly, so i can't really make full use of the burn damage i spent so many points scaling without using some other jackleg mechanic, eating up a jewel slot. Nice way to crap on a formerly great item.

So stick around... Everything that is truly powerful in this game gets its turn on the nerf-anvil. UNLESS it's a rare, which kinda disproves your point.

I do agree with the original post, but what's the solution?

Obviously re-balancing of some existing weapons like doomfletch, disfavour or starforge, but that's fixing the effect not the cause.

Crafting is an integral part of poe! The whole currency-system is based on it, but you really need to encourage people to craft as well.

The process of crafting a good item isn't rocket science, but it's still quite complex for new players. Actually i do know quite some people playing poe for years and still don't really know how to craft something efficiently.

It's not being too efficient anyways, because of too strong unqiues doesn't help, true, but explaining people how to craft should be step one. I'd probably implement a good tutorial. Perhaps a questline with a blacksmith-npc explaing how to craft, while being guided doing it for the first time.

Unique weapons aren't too strong, it's the fact that the crafting system is so fucking convoluted for most players and that it's so RNG heavily based that it's absolutely worthless to craft unless you're just sitting on hundreds to thousands of stacks of Exalts. The only bow that cannot be outcrafted is Doomfletch Prism, but that weapon really only outdoes a Brood Twine if you're wearing an Abyssus, which isn't exactly ideal all the time. Everything else can, the issue is that doing it is fucking so hard it's ridiculous.


The easiest solution would be to just ramp up the currency drops so that people will actually use the items as intended, which is to craft, but that would drive all the stock market simulators with no lives crazy and make them whine to the heavens.

"

basta1982 wrote:

I do agree with the original post, but what's the solution?

Obviously re-balancing of some existing weapons like doomfletch, disfavour or starforge, but that's fixing the effect not the cause.

Crafting is an integral part of poe! The whole currency-system is based on it, but you really need to encourage people to craft as well.

The process of crafting a good item isn't rocket science, but it's still quite complex for new players. Actually i do know quite some people playing poe for years and still don't really know how to craft something efficiently.

It's not being too efficient anyways, because of too strong unqiues doesn't help, true, but explaining people how to craft should be step one. I'd probably implement a good tutorial. Perhaps a questline with a blacksmith-npc explaing how to craft, while being guided doing it for the first time.

Solution is quite simple - make physical/spelldamage mods appear more often on rare weapons. Costs for certain master mods (like multimod or suff/pref cant be changed) could be reduced too.
Then, there will be a lot more nicely-rolled rares to compete with uniques.

"

allbusiness wrote:

Unique weapons aren't too strong, it's the fact that the crafting system is so fucking convoluted for most players and that it's so RNG heavily based that it's absolutely worthless to craft unless you're just sitting on hundreds to thousands of stacks of Exalts.

It's not always true. For 1-h swords, most decent weapons are crafted. And all of those are crafted with one simple method:
1. Roll base item with alts until you get T1-T2 "increased physical damage".
2. Regal it.
3. (optional) try to remove junk mod with mastercraft "prefixes cant be changed" or Orb of Annulment.
4. Add remaining mods with "can have multiple master mods".
5. (optional) if resulting item has free prefix, try to slam yolo-exalt on it hoping for hybrid damage mod.

Trying to craft something better than "standard output" 300 PDPS rapier involves getting lucky desired mod at stage 1 or 2 or 5. Needless to say, it happens very infrequently, and rolling T1 %increased physical damage takes more than 5k alts in average.

This is why I don't understand how Lighty and Demi seemingly do it in a matter of minutes, routinely. Does GGG weight RNG for people streaming on twitch, to lure inexperienced players to stupidly dump alts and exalts on weapons that will never be worth anything?

That said, I think the introduction of annulment orbs was a step in the right direction, but they need to be a little more common IMO. Maybe on a par with Blessed orbs. I haven't dropped a single one yet, despite dropping 3 ex and 2 divines this league.

"

joachimbond wrote:

This is why I don't understand how Lighty and Demi seemingly does it in a matter of minutes, routinely. Does GGG weight RNG for people streaming on twitch, to lure inexperienced players to stupidly dump alts and exalts on weapons that will never be worth anything?

Demi has a mirror service. The system is designed to make the rich even more rich. And if you make 100 exalt per week, then of course you can craft hard.

He said that in spending 45000 Alterations on weapons, he hit Merciless 10 times. That is 1/4500 chance, which is probably the same chance you have. You just don't have 45000 Alterations.

EDIT: Also, no one drops 45000 Alterations. I can see people acquiring 4500 Alterations in a league if they really play a lot. Otherwise, those have to be acquired by trade. But trade doesn't magically produce currency, so if you get rich via trade, someone else must be getting poor. Which GGG is perfectly fine with, it seems, they love people who flip, scam, and price fix.

But get this: For the average player that really plays a lot, enough to acquire 4500 Alterations, GGG thinks it is good balance to hit - on average - one Merciless roll on a weapon, if the Alterations are exclusively spent on a weapon. Most likely, that weapon will then be bricked with either the other roll it spawns with, or if the Merciless spawns alone, it will brick on either the Regal or the Augment.

There are, btw, three Divination cards that give Merciless weapons: Merciless Armament (2h weapon, 4 cards), The Jester (1h weapon, 9 cards), and The Tyrant (weapon, 9 cards). I cannot recall ever seeing any of those cards. If you turn them in, chances are good that you will get Merciless [insert crap base type here].

Holy cow... so i guess those videos are heavily edited LOL

"

joachimbond wrote:

Holy cow... so i guess those videos are heavily edited LOL

Its just highlight videos. Those guys play pretty much 12 hours per day. And at least Demi flips a lot.

"

joachimbond wrote:

That said, I think the introduction of annulment orbs was a step in the right direction, but they need to be a little more common IMO. Maybe on a par with Blessed orbs. I haven't dropped a single one yet, despite dropping 3 ex and 2 divines this league.

??

Annulment orbs do not drop.

You collect shards of them when you kill harbingers, and 20 shards will form an annulment orb.
If you play the league to some extent, it's almost impossible not to get one.

"

MortalKombat3 wrote:

"

basta1982 wrote:

I do agree with the original post, but what's the solution?

Obviously re-balancing of some existing weapons like doomfletch, disfavour or starforge, but that's fixing the effect not the cause.

Crafting is an integral part of poe! The whole currency-system is based on it, but you really need to encourage people to craft as well.

The process of crafting a good item isn't rocket science, but it's still quite complex for new players. Actually i do know quite some people playing poe for years and still don't really know how to craft something efficiently.

It's not being too efficient anyways, because of too strong unqiues doesn't help, true, but explaining people how to craft should be step one. I'd probably implement a good tutorial. Perhaps a questline with a blacksmith-npc explaing how to craft, while being guided doing it for the first time.

Solution is quite simple - make physical/spelldamage mods appear more often on rare weapons. Costs for certain master mods (like multimod or suff/pref cant be changed) could be reduced too.
Then, there will be a lot more nicely-rolled rares to compete with uniques.

"

allbusiness wrote:

Unique weapons aren't too strong, it's the fact that the crafting system is so fucking convoluted for most players and that it's so RNG heavily based that it's absolutely worthless to craft unless you're just sitting on hundreds to thousands of stacks of Exalts.

It's not always true. For 1-h swords, most decent weapons are crafted. And all of those are crafted with one simple method:
1. Roll base item with alts until you get T1-T2 "increased physical damage".
2. Regal it.
3. (optional) try to remove junk mod with mastercraft "prefixes cant be changed" or Orb of Annulment.
4. Add remaining mods with "can have multiple master mods".
5. (optional) if resulting item has free prefix, try to slam yolo-exalt on it hoping for hybrid damage mod.

Trying to craft something better than "standard output" 300 PDPS rapier involves getting lucky desired mod at stage 1 or 2 or 5. Needless to say, it happens very infrequently, and rolling T1 %increased physical damage takes more than 5k alts in average.

Getting to 5k alts and then praying that you don't brick on a regal or aug is way beyond the average player's wealth.