Do Amulets need to be Rebalanced?

I was curious as to what people thought of the current state of amulets in game. Basically everyone I know prefers Onyx Amulets (besides Gold Amulets) over anything else for obvious reasons. 60 attributes is much better than 30 individual attributes...

Also, strength and intelligence amulets are much better than dexterity amulets due to the life + damage/mana + es vs accuracy + evasion. In my mind, even these stats are not balanced. Dexterity amulets should be able to give more attributes than either the strength or intelligence amulets.

You may be on to something here...

Strength and Intelligence amulets being better than Dexterity ones is not a problem of the amulets...

Yes I use onyx amulet on any build I make, unless at certain sage of my way to the end I find myself lacking those 10 points in certain attribute (that's usually one or two levels until I reach specific node in passive tree) or that amulet has far better mods than my onyx (but if the onyx had them, guess what would I use).

In my opinion nerfing onyx or buffing the rest is inevitable. I can imagine the one stat amulets giving up to 45 stat points or onyx amulet with maximum of 15 points as a result of this balancing.

Edit: I let alone gold amulets since their role is clear.

Onyx amulets are the strongest amulets, but to be honest, I don't mind the distinction in power level that much. In fact, I see the existence of onyx amulets as a bonus, rather than the single-stat amulets to be lacking in power.

Essentially the implicit property of an amulet is just another random property that gets taken out of a pool of possibilities. You're just lucky if you get the +to all stats bonus. This not all that different from how the non-implicit random properties of rare items work.

I would agree though that health regeneration mod of coral amulets (and as property on rares, for that matter) deserves a boost in power. 1 health/second regeneration is pretty much useless. Especially because it has no interaction with other stats that could make it more powerful.

I imagine the jewelry system will get an overhaul once GGG gets some time for it. The system isn't terribly compelling currently but redoing it is unsurprisingly a low priority.

The only "underpowered" amulet is the coral amulet, I think.

30 str/int/dex amulets are build enabling in the early to midgame, so they have a definite place.
30% mana regen is much stronger than you credit it for, as well. That's about 1.5 skillpoints worth of regen. So, if you're carrying mana regen skills a paua amulet could allow you to shift as much as two skillpoints into DPS. Or, on the stronger end of the spectrum, what if adding regen allowed you to take off RMC or mana leech, in favor of a support that adds DPS? Think about it.

What's the comparison?
onyx: 10 life, 4% melee physical, 40 acc, 4% evasion, 10 mana, 4% ES
vs
the 2 skillpoints you could invest in DPS rather than mana after you put on a paua amulet? 16% melee phys, or 8% haste.

Pretty clear to me.

I claim that as long as you don't need stats for skill support, and as long as you're keeping mana balanced in your build, a paua amulet is the strongest choice.

But then, there's a lot of people that don't play with balanced mana. People seem to prefer playing with excess mana / regen instead.

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Zakaluka wrote:

But then, there's a lot of people that don't play with balanced mana. People seem to prefer playing with excess mana / regen instead.

It's a bit off-topic to comment on this, but it's something important that I've learned in my recent builds. What I've learned is that mana and mana regen are such useless stats to boost. If you use proper potion management, you can always have mana available, even when spamming mana consuming attacks.

Overall, I think mana is an overated ressource mechanic that is just an APM sink. PPl who boost mana + mana regen are just lazy (I know I am). D3 did it better with ressource generation not reliant on mana pots, but really the perfect game would balance skills solely on skill/spell cast speeds, damage, and cooldowns. No "ressource" at all.

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Thalandor wrote:

It's a bit off-topic to comment on this, but it's something important that I've learned in my recent builds. What I've learned is that mana and mana regen are such useless stats to boost. If you use proper potion management, you can always have mana available, even when spamming mana consuming attacks.

Overall, I think mana is an overated ressource mechanic that is just an APM sink. PPl who boost mana + mana regen are just lazy (I know I am). D3 did it better with ressource generation not reliant on mana pots, but really the perfect game would balance skills solely on skill/spell cast speeds, damage, and cooldowns. No "ressource" at all.

It's not necessarily a matter of laziness. For a while I was using two +mana nodes to give me enough to use an additional aura, and the damage boost from that was more than what I would have gotten from any other 2 nodes. Even with "proper management", mana is not an infinite supply for everyone. When you get to a 6L skill that has 5 damage supports all increasing mana by ~150%, the cost becomes huge. You might say this is improper management, but their build might also be built around it, using a lesser skill for normal clearing and then that powerful 6L skill for damage bursts, and having more mana/regen means that you can burst for longer or for more often.

However, you're right that this does make Paua's 30% mana regen quite good, even at later stages of the game because it's a % bonus. If coral were to also give a % regen, even if it's just .6% or .8% that you'd get from 1.5-2 nodes, it would be a lot better later on without losing too much early use.


When it comes to comparing the stat amulets, you have to keep their available levels in mind too, as that's what white item stats are balanced around. +20-30 stats at level 5 is a huge bonus that can let you use gems you otherwise don't have the stat points for. Once you get to level 20 though, you should have enough of your main stat, and your build will take you somewhere near the +30 off stat nodes by the starting points, and you'll have picked up gear that will have various other stats. +20 all stats at level 20 isn't as game-changing as +30 single stat at level 5. You also have to look at the value of +all stats when you get to the late game, there aren't many builds that can use the full bonus of all 3 stats, most usually can benefit from 2. Blood magic marauders for example would get nothing from int and almost nothing out of dex (or nothing if using resolute technique), and a CI caster witch gets almost nothing from str or dex.

Because of this, the +60 total stats from onyx amulet is only worth about +40 of useful stats for most builds, or +50 if they're really lucky, and not all of those stats might be the "optimal" stat for your build. This brings it much more in line with being able to get +30 to the stat you know is best for you, although Onyx is still overall slightly more powerful, which is as I think it should be, being a higher base level and simply being +all stats. Perhaps the single stat amulets could be changed to +40, which would put them slightly ahead onyx, but that might bring up early game balance issues. (Onyxes also have the coooolest uniques, =D )

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Thalandor wrote:

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Zakaluka wrote:

But then, there's a lot of people that don't play with balanced mana. People seem to prefer playing with excess mana / regen instead.

It's a bit off-topic to comment on this, but it's something important that I've learned in my recent builds. What I've learned is that mana and mana regen are such useless stats to boost. If you use proper potion management, you can always have mana available, even when spamming mana consuming attacks.

I understand this viewpoint, but I feel it misses something. Yeah, it works pretty well, and it gives you fewer stats to balance. But I think you can gain far more by having just barely enough regen to never need a mana flask. Most people seek to make mana regen a non-issue in one way or another; I think the benefits of balancing it carefully, instead, are pretty huge.

Anytime you have excess mana, you could trade that resource in (in one form or another: flasks, supports, skillpoints, mods on gear) until your mana is just barely balanced. You come out ahead on DPS or defense by doing this. What if you could run with 3 perpetual diamond flasks, and never even want a mana flask? What if you could trade in your blood magic gems for DPS gems, gaining life regen in the process and trading in only one or two skillpoints?

If it cost me two skillpoints and 20 all-attributes to pull that off, it'd be a gain. In my build anyway. The same can be said for a tank with multiple granite flasks.

Balancing mana has tons of benefits. If I balance my mana carefully with clarity + manaregen, I can use five dps support gems for my templar's main attacks, and keep two or three granites on my belt. Most people that play against excess mana pull that off with a leech gem, blood magic or RMC, along with mana flasks. How much does that fifth DPS support gem gain me? I'm not sure yet, because I still haven't gotten there. I suspect it'll far outweigh the two skillpoints I spent on regen.

If I have three granite flasks on my bar, I can tank top end bosses for thirty seconds before even thinking about using my immortal call. With immortal call that's 48 seconds of tank time. And I don't lose life regen to blood magic, another massive gain in defense. In that build, that's my "opportunity cost" against building into mana regen: losing that 48 second tank time.

Alright, so now that I've driven this topic so far off the OP, not sure how much farther I should go with it.

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Thalandor wrote:

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Zakaluka wrote:

But then, there's a lot of people that don't play with balanced mana. People seem to prefer playing with excess mana / regen instead.

It's a bit off-topic to comment on this, but it's something important that I've learned in my recent builds. What I've learned is that mana and mana regen are such useless stats to boost. If you use proper potion management, you can always have mana available, even when spamming mana consuming attacks.

Overall, I think mana is an overated ressource mechanic that is just an APM sink. PPl who boost mana + mana regen are just lazy (I know I am). D3 did it better with ressource generation not reliant on mana pots, but really the perfect game would balance skills solely on skill/spell cast speeds, damage, and cooldowns. No "ressource" at all.

I don't use mana potions at all. I get my mana from mana leech support and clarity. I use my potion slots for 2 granite flasks and 3 Instant recovery HP potions.