Are Rares realy useless?

[kandrathe]

I'd be more in favor of an equitable system of evaluating value, not just of items. That is, each affix would be assigned a usefulness rating as it related to each type of equipment. Affix's are chosen for equipment in a way that favors the best affixes for that type of item. I wouldn't preclude melee affixes from occuring on say wands, or orbs, but it should just be darn rare.

Then when you kill a monster a difficulty rating is established depending on that monsters level and abilites. IMO, harder monster battles should drop better treasure. The value of the drop is determined, each item that is randomly generated must meet certain minimum and maximum requirements in order to be dropped, or that item is re-rolled. Items continue to drop until the "Value" of the drop is met, or exceeded. Hell Bosses, and certain unique and super uniques should always drop the best loot in aggregate.

I would actually be in favor of having affix ranges be tied to mLvl, and or iLvl, and assigned according to a half normal curve. For example ED%, if the theoretical max is %300 ED, then in Normal difficulty, having 1-150% ED, in Nightmare that range would increase to 100% - 200%, and in Hell 150% to 300%. So in normal, you might have a 1/1000th of a chance to get 100% ED, but in nightmare it would be the lowest you could get. It makes sense then that in order to have a chance at the best equipment, one must take on the hardest monsters in Hell difficulty.