The current socket color mechanics are frustrating and unnecessary.

The fact that you actually have to find gear and pay the market price is unnecessary as well, right?

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Septile wrote:

if you're melee you should definitely have some armor. So use dex/str armor. If you refuse to do so, then that's your fault.

I completely disagree with this. There are melee damage nodes at the Shadow starting area. There are health and evasion and ES nodes at the Shadow starting area. There aren't any armor nodes even close! How can you possibly say that all melee should have armor? If that were true, then the passive tree would be contradicting itself.

The system sucks tbh.

I gotta disagree on most points.

Generally on restrictions (such as socket color).

I do not think it limits build diversity. Restriction are not limiting build diversity, they are creating diversity. Without restrictions, people would run around in the same gear or in this case the same armor just rerolling sockets all the time and you would never be forced to actually using the blue socket for anything (and thereby create diversity) since you wouldnt have to.

There would be no point to having red/green/blue/ colors if the odds off getting off-colors where high. My LA dualist likes his astral, but getting them GGGRR is a pain, I admit, but it makes my armor valuable and DIFFERENT from other armors. I also have other armors with other color combos, since when switching to MF gear I need that blue socket. More armors, more choices to make, more diversity, that is a good thing.

Also, chroms are a good way for non-rich people to get higher orbs in this game since chroms usually continue to sell well throughout the span of a league. Demand of something is good.

The restrictions forces you down different paths which is good. Choices are good and a choice is only a choice when it cost something, like currency, dps, survivability, game time etc.

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jokomul wrote:

"

Septile wrote:

if you're melee you should definitely have some armor. So use dex/str armor. If you refuse to do so, then that's your fault.

I completely disagree with this. There are melee damage nodes at the Shadow starting area. There are health and evasion and ES nodes at the Shadow starting area. There aren't any armor nodes even close! How can you possibly say that all melee should have armor? If that were true, then the passive tree would be contradicting itself.

Yes, but nowhere in the tree is it dictated that the gems to be used should be multistrike, phys melee damage and lifegain/leach or whatever it was. That is not dictated by the tree, but by the user.

By choosing a shadow melee char you are by default selecting the pros of the shadow starting area with the cons of using many red melee gems. This is good. Otherwise he might as well have chosen a duelist/marauder.

And it is not like it is impossible to get those colors at all. Not easy, but def not impossible.

My belief is that socket color is currently slightly too harsh on off-colors. Key word: slightly. These threads invariably have people advocating even odds (1:1:1 ratio), and that idea is fucking retarded.

Having different gear be more likely to produce certain colors is a good thing, because it makes the game more predictable if you decide to stick to your "class expectations." Going Marauder, stacking Armour, and using a crapload of red gems? Easy time with Chromes for you. This is as it should be, especially when you consider racing, were doing whatever you want is harder and you are generally forced into class quest rewards.

However, there's no need to make the bias as strong as it currently is. For example, in order to have 6B as the most likely color combination for a six-socket pure ES chest, you don't need an 8:1:1 ratio; that's overkill. A 6:1:1 ratio will make it the most common (actually a three-way tie with 5B1R and 5B1G). Similarly, you don't quite need a 9:9:2 ratio for AR/ES hybrid gear; a 4:4:1 ratio is sufficient to make 3R3B the most likely outcome (with 4R2B tied with 3R2B1G).

Notice those are relatively minor adjustments; that's because the system really isn't that fucked. Some tweaking to make it less harsh would be nice, but it's by no means a priority.

I think the weighted RNG of the current system is most definitely unnecessary, and borderline retarded. Weighting towards the armor colors makes sense, but to the extreme that it happens in this game is awful. This is largely an issue for Evasion based melee characters, they get hit so hard on socket colors compared to everyone else. If there were green alternatives to things like Life Leech and Melee Physical it wouldn't be so bad, but truly, any melee, even a full evasion guy using a green skill, will want 3-4 red sockets almost always.

I agree that it limits build diversity, because I end up rolling armor-based marauders instead of making the more interesting evasion character I want to play, simply because blowing through 500+ chroms and seeing GGGGG and GGGGR 200 times each is retarded and unnecessary.

Alternate solution would be some actually good green supports, outside of Faster Attacks. Maybe something with life gain or life leech that works differently to the red gem.

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ggnorekthx wrote:

Alternate solution would be some actually good green supports, outside of Faster Attacks. Maybe something with life gain or life leech that works differently to the red gem.

This is inspiring me to make a new thread.

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Rugs wrote:

I gotta disagree on most points.

Generally on restrictions (such as socket color).

I do not think it limits build diversity. Restriction are not limiting build diversity, they are creating diversity.

https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+restriction&oq=define%3A+restriction&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i58j0l3.6606j0&sourceid=chrome&espvd=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Not to be a dick by linking to a google search, but that's exactly what a restriction is. And I agree with you that sometimes restrictions are good, but I don't believe that's the case with the socket color system.

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Rugs wrote:

Yes, but nowhere in the tree is it dictated that the gems to be used should be multistrike, phys melee damage and lifegain/leach or whatever it was. That is not dictated by the tree, but by the user.

By choosing a shadow melee char you are by default selecting the pros of the shadow starting area with the cons of using many red melee gems. This is good. Otherwise he might as well have chosen a duelist/marauder.

And it is not like it is impossible to get those colors at all. Not easy, but def not impossible.

Again, this is what I mean by limitations. It's obviously not dictated by the tree what gems I should use, but show me a decent physical melee build that DOESN'T use mainly red gems.

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Thalandor wrote:

I find that evaders not only get screwed on defense (evasion = one-shots waiting to happen), but get screwed on sockets as well. I mean, if you want to do any damage, red and blue is where it's at. So evasion users waste countless chromes to roll a majority of off-color sockets on their 5-6L chest.

I've had 0 armor in up to 75 maps so far with 3500 hp and I don't get one shotted.