I wish rares would make a comeback

[Grumpy]

I agree. Rares in LOD are almost all crap. I have found not one decent rare in LOD, and identify everything I come across.

In CD2 I found items like this -

Boots (stolen)
30 r/w
14 dex
14 strength
44 cold resist

Gloves (still have)
17 strength
13 Dex
Mana
Life
Resist
34 MF

These by the way are the best MF gloves I have ever seen in the game.

I found my own -40 Req 140 one hand damage Exec sword for my s/s baba in classic.

I found multiple boots with 30 r/w and 30 + MF in Classic....

Rare armors are 100% Useless now....

Circllets can be godly, but I would only use one with the following mods:

+2 Nec
30 R/W
20 FC
+ life....

Otherwise I use an 08 Valk (i found in 08) wing or Shako.

....finding one is not impossible, but it certainly feels that way.

Since I PvP, it eliminates rares in so many ways...one thing that is great for PvP nec which I have, is a +2 nec shield, with +3 bS, life resists....but with the use of Damage Reduce, you often lose the option of useing non-DR items vs many opponents...what with Stormshield, Shaft, Shako....

No rings are better for me than SOJ's, though on West I do use a Magic 10% FC, 101 to mana ring, which is nice, but not even rare....heh

I have never seen a good rare wand that comes close to that the stats of nearly ANY of the Uniques (Wizard, Suicide Branch, Carin Shard, or White (crafted))

I have kept only one pair of boots in LOD, and those just went to a mule, I would never use them.

Crafted items can be godly, my first crafted belt on West, first I said:), came with the following mods:

10 FC
20 Strength
54 Life
4 Life Replen
Mana regen
Light Resist

How can a rare even compete with that.

On east I was given this belt by a friend who crafted it herself:

7fc
17 Strength
50 Life
24 FHR

Once again, what rare can compete....

Crafted ammy's I have seen are great....though frankly in my long time seeking PvP nec ammy's I can't make or find anything useful whatsoever...I have traded for a few ammy's now, but I still don't have the 20 fc, 50 life, 50 mana +2 Nec ammy I'm looking for.

My point....as the original poster said, rares are almost obsolete. The game is item dependent...and the items are just less fun to look for, identify and use.

Running around the cow level look at how many rares no one picks up....

I wish rares would make a comeback, but after seeing the new items, I just can't imagine how it is possible.

[Brista]

Whereagles, that's a pre-LoD rare

They're a lot worse now

I believe we don't actually now what's happening in the rares pool. I suspect it will improve, I personally doubt it will match the uniques/runewords arms race

Still when we start at level 1 on the Ladder I bet we'd all be pleased to see a rare Quilted drop in the Den

[Occhidiangela]

Will be great armor for the Rogue you get in the next quest. :)

[Mikedok]

I have a suggestion on how rares could be fixed.

As noted, the biggest problem with rares is that rare weapons are garbage. The rares for the rest of the item types can at least still compete, so I will focus on the weapons with this post.

In classic, rare weapons would have to get a damage suffix and a prefix to be the best. It was a relatively rare occurrence that you found a weapon with the best prefix and suffix.

I think that the patch should re-introduce this. Allow a rare to spawn with damage suffixes and prefixes. Adjust the combination of affixes so that the best possible rare would be the same damage as a cruel magic weapon. If this was done the best rares would be better then magic only weapons because they could get more mods on them.

Finding this 'perfect' rare would be very difficult, so the cruel weapons would still be sought after. A cruel weapon would allow a casual player to complete (power level wise) with avid players, and the perfect rare would be the little step up for avid players.

Edit: Oops, in classic the best rare was a combination of two damage prefixes, not a prefix and a suffix. This doesn't change my idea. Just let rares spawn with more then one damage prefix, but not with more then two. Obviously exclude cruel from spawning on rares. Cruel plus another would be too much.

[Grumpy]

I don't think most of the regular rares can compete with the classic rares.

I agree weapons are the worst, but most other rare items are pretty much garbage as well. Especially for PvP.

[Brista]

I had a stray thought

One of the things that made rares so cool in Classic was that most of the affixes were available on either rares or magic items

/pure speculation mode on

Just suppose they bring that back

A rare with Cruel, Grandmaster's, Jeweler's, Of Quickness, Of Evisceration, Of Transcendence would make Azurewrath look like a soggy toothpick

Now that might be more than even Blizzard would contemplate doing but that is perhaps an example of what could be changed very easily with very little effort

/speculation mode off

My point is simply that we're looking at the new uniques and assuming rares are dwindling further into obscurity (at least I certainly was :) )

It makes a sort of sense that this would not be the case, that the affix pool improves to make crafting, tempering (if it's included) and rares more interesting

[Obi2Kenobi]

The reason crafts are better than rares is that crafts are rares, plus some other pre-fixed mods.