New 1.10 item

[WarBlade]

That depends on what you want.  Most of the new uniques in 1.10 were designed around giving odd abilities, themes, etc. without (hopefully) being either overpowered or useless.  However, a few of the items do stand out from the rest because there's a lot of pressure to have some slobber fodder in the patch.  Azurewrath is one of these "special" items, and it seems awfully powerful.  I don't think it's the end-all be-all of weapons though.

What I want (insofar as items are concerned) is no screwy progression of usability in the various catagories of items . . .

Belt Example 1.
The Normal Unique Belts are fine as they stand with varying degrees of usefulness that suit the base item . . . but there's also Bladebuckle.

Belt Example 2.
When dreaming up exceptional belts one tends to think that front-line weapon wielders with the high strength and all would have dibs on the heavier belts while the lighter stuff would suit the less physically robust characters . . . Yet the lightest belt is a meleer's delight (which is ok - some random elements are cool for variety's sake) and the strength requirement on Snowclash is ridiculous to the one class it grants skills for. :lol:

But the amulets . . . Oh now the amulets have a progression that I admire. ;) The amulets were done exceedingly well IMO.

Some (by no means all) of the goals of the patch included:
* providing a more interesting play experience (more variety, greater challenge)
* enough new rewards to peak the interest of all the players
* not nerfing anything
* not make it impossible for non-uber characters
* promote a greater variety in build styles

Some of these goals have mutually conflicting vectors and this patch has been anything but easy in the making.  When you've already given the players items like WF, how do you give them anything else to strive for?  If you do give them something "better" how do you make the game more challenging?  And if you do make the game more challenging, what happens to the players that don't have WF or "better"?  Anyway, most of these problems are pretty obvious to the people who read this forum.

Indeed they are.

Only one thing's certain: the patch will somehow manage to piss *everybody* off.

Oh yes. But that's old news. Take it for granted my giggling started last year when I read the line "Change the way skills interact" (or something like that)on diablozoo.net. I know this was early news and subject to change, but the underly ethos behind it was exactly the bit of unmentioned something that I had unknowingly wanted to see for a long time.

So, that probably doesn't do anything to answer your question.  Oh well ;)

Pffft. The question was rhetorical. I had no expectation of getting an answer.
But thanks for the response anyway. B)