New Item Rarity -- Divine

I've been contemplating a new item rarity that is somewhat a cross between a unique and a rare, or even magic item. The gist of it is certain very powerful mods (though not ones that would make endgame uniques obsolete) would have a certain chance to spawn on any magic/rare item. This chance would be extremely unlikely... A player who dumps 40+ hours a week into the game might find one or two in his lifetime. These powerful mods would change the item's rarity color, as well as the written mod itself, to red.

Like uniques, divine items would fit into the lore in a way. Each divine mod would be associated with ("blessed by") a deity from the world of PoE. Since to my knowledge we have no information on the deities of PoE, this would mostly be up to the devs. For an example, I will use a god from a pantheon I created (yes yes, you're a nerd, Moses) a while ago.



would become...

Rarity: Divine
Phoenix Road
Ancient Greaves
Blessings of Arkand
--------
Armour: 132
--------
Requirements:
Level: 48
Str: 82
--------
Sockets: R R-R
--------
Itemlevel: 64
--------
+84 to maximum Life
+34% to Fire Resistance
+31% to Cold Resistance
+38% to Lightning Resistance
Attacks made against human enemies have Culling Strike

Again, that's just an example -- I'm sure GGG can come up with better mods themselves. Basically the idea is to allow for very rare items with an extra predetermined mod... In essence a unique item with all the randomness that makes this game (and rares) awesome.

No thoughts?

Maybe?

All you're really talking is a higher tier of rarity/quality.
See: D2, D3, Borderlands, Torchlight, WoW, Almost every MMO and Duungeon Crawler really, etc.

There's nothing wrong with the idea, but the items would be intrinsically far rarer than the next most common quality level. Most people would rarely see an item of this quality and Joe Shmo who actually had a full set would completely outclass anyone else without it.

Again, nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but we can say this every time there's a new quality added "why not one higher"...

so basically it works like an Affix, except it's rare and gives off a neat color to the equipment involved.


1. When it comes to magic gear, either No magic or make the affixes show up far more often on Magic compared to Rare. It depends on whether you want the affixes to be very rare or if you want a sneaky way to make Magic more viable of an equipment choice. I lean for the latter as it sounds very interesting to end up with a weapon with one affix.. and a Divine that applies all of the weapon damage into physical spell damage for any spell.

2. Do not.. DO NOT allow ANY idea or currency or whatever to control when something gets Divined. No "Chance orb gets a 10% chance at divine" or "A rare Divine-creating orb!". It works exactly like an affix, so whatever you have to do to get that +life affix youwant is exactly how you get a Divine affix..except MUCH rarer.

So yah.. VERY +1.

"

Japhasca wrote:

Maybe?

All you're really talking is a higher tier of rarity/quality.
See: D2, D3, Borderlands, Torchlight, WoW, Almost every MMO and Duungeon Crawler really, etc.

There's nothing wrong with the idea, but the items would be intrinsically far rarer than the next most common quality level. Most people would rarely see an item of this quality and Joe Shmo who actually had a full set would completely outclass anyone else without it.

Again, nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but we can say this every time there's a new quality added "why not one higher"...

Why not? This is an aRPG. The entire POINT is to 'go one higher'. If, after Divines, people think up a way to go even HIGHER in a unique way then add that in too.


Also I like the addition I added in: Make it show up often for Magic, but super rare for Rares. That way, non-WinTheLottoLucky folks can end up with a Magic item that has a very useful Divine. However, if you want that Overwhelmingly OP Rare+divine then start sweettalking Miss RNG now and MAYBE she'll bless you before 2050.

Dood! The idea sounds awesome, +1!

What I am seeing is a tier of rares that can have an extra mod on them, where that mod is specialized. I support this idea, but I'll state that one might need to be careful. Things like "chaos damage cannot bypass energy shield" are really what give the best uniques their flavor. It's not super clear to me which of these mods should or shouldn't show up on rare items. Certainly, however, some would be "safe," so +1.

Nit: there is already a Divine Orb, and since it does not make a "Divine" item, I would suggest a name change.

That sounds like a really cool idea. While I may be in the minority with this thought, I believe the idea is best served by ensuring those "divine" affixes are situational in use, much like in the OPs example.

Thanks for the feedback! Some responses:

The idea wasn't really "just one higher level", it was more like a combination between the randomness of a rare and the fixed properties of a unique. Sure, a divine item could have the blessing of various deities, and you wouldn't know which one until you ID'd it. However, with all the planned uniques to be added to the game, you likely won't know what you're getting when you see orange text on the ground either.

The plan regarding magic gear was to have divine rarity as a secondary check. In other words, when the item's rarity is rolled and it determines magic or rare, there is then a second roll to determine if it will have a divine mod. The main difference between magic and rare divines would be in crafting. A craft item that ADDS a mod while keeping existing stats (augmentation, exalted) would keep the divine mod while one that resets mods (alteration, chaos) would instead wipe the divine mod altogether.

As for an "upgrade to divine" item, definitely not. However, I think it might be doable to allow divines to be chanced. Again, however, these would be RARER than uniques, and restricted by the above constraints added to crafting. Therefore getting a divine would be super hard and getting a GOOD divine would be even harder. That said, I'm still not sure if it makes sense to allow chances to add a divine mod while denying alteration/chaos to retain them. Obviously that can't happen, so if it's decided that one makes no sense without the other, then chances couldn't chance divine mods.

I agree that uniques should be kept unique, (or at least endgame uniques) though I don't think that every mod should be situational. I also like the idea of boosting one stat at the cost of another (akin to Doedre's Damning but in a manner that doesn't suck), or even flat out bonuses. I may add some more to the thread as I come up with them, though I've been addicted to TF2 merching lately so I haven't been on much... Anyway remember how rare these items are and again remember that you're mostly stuck with what you get on a divine. To pay that sort of a price, you'd think that the reward would be something special, no?

The name... I dunno. I'm open to suggestions but legendary is overused. Divine fit thematically with the blessing of a deity (blessed was another possibility, but that's an orb too). I suppose Sacred is a possibility, but it doesn't have the ring to it that divine does. I dunno.

very VERY cool idea! May I suggest the color to be pink :D
+1