Unique/Legendary gear Attribute Adjustment

[wariisop]

Hello everyone,

I want to discuss with both players and developers about adjusting the Unique/Legendary "bonus" skills that still take away available modification points from upgrade pool. First off I like the skills that are on some of these pieces of Armor and weapons, but it seems that the uniqueness is lost a bit by the hindrance of those special skill taking away from the upgrade pool. I will give several examples here:

UPW - Upgrade Weight

ARU-BREKR:

Speed: +1 move speed -- UPW 2
Ranged Deflection bonus: + 10 Deflection bonus against ranged weapons-- UPW 1
Preservation: +10 Defense while stunned, +10 Defense while proned -- UPW 1
Slash-Proofed: +3 Damage Reduction(Slash)-- UPW 1

^ Now, only one of these skill is NOT unique and can be upgraded normally but the armor is penalized for 3 points of upgrades. This means that out of the 12 possible points 3 points are unusable for normal upgrading. In this case this means the difference between going with Exceptional and an additional stat attribute or just choosing Superb later down the road with no stat attribute. This in some cases makes this armor weaker than a normal "Rare" or already "Upgraded" armor later on in the game when you can upgrade you gear to Exceptional or Superb especially considering being able to add 2 points of Int,Con,Mgt, Dex, Res, or Per. Here is another example.


SANGUINE PLATE:

Survivor: +2 Survival-- UPW 1
Spell Holding: Frenzy: Grants Frenzy 2/battle-- UPW 4

Now this armor has no skills you could normally upgrade on an armor, but it is penalized 5 points before you can even upgrade. This means you are basically limited to an upgrade of Superb and a Proofing, if you want to keep the armor that long. You again can't add a stat attribute increase without reducing the max quality increase to Exceptional which is a loss of +2 reduction bonus(this doesn't sound like much, but when you are playing on the hardest mode with only 1 character the entire game, it makes a difference). Now onto the weapons which are penalized even worse.


THE HOURS OF ST. RUMBALT

Annihilation: +0.5 Crit Damage multiplier-- UPW 2
Overbearing: Crits can inflict Prone-- UPW 2
Accuracy 3: +12 Accuracy-- UPW 3

Now none of these special modifiers can be upgraded to a weapon, but again 7 points is taken away from the 12 point upgrade option. To add more devaluation of such a legendary weapon, Accurate 3 is considered a Quality modifier that has to be removed for Exceptional or Superb to be added to the weapon. Accurate 3 can never be added naturally to a weapon so why is it counted against the normal upgrade quality skill? So this weapon again can only add Superb, which removes Accurate 3, and one additional damage type; Corrosive, Freeze, Burn, Shock or one favored enemy type EXCEPT Kith which requires 4. Now some may say that since Accuracy 3 is a quality modifier it should be removed when you finally upgrade to Superb as they cross over each other with Superb adding +12 Accuracy and +45% Damage.
But some unique weapons like the one below defy even that assumption.


DIAL EWN DIBITA

Accurate 1: +5 Accuracy-- UPW 0
Vicious: +20% Damage to Prone, Stunned, or Flanked Enemies-- UPW 2
Fine: +4 Accuracy, +15% Damage-- UPW 2

Now, this weapon has two quality upgrade modifiers but "Fine" one is take off when upgrading to Exceptional or Superb. This "additional" quality modifier may be the unique weapon type modifier, but it still doesn't follow the rules of other unique weapons, and this modifier is one you can upgrade yourself unlike Accurate 3. So, a weapon like this, which is obviously less unique than the weapon listed before it, can end up being more powerful simple because of the UPW subtraction system applied to "special" modifiers.


Now my proposal is this, remove the Upgrade point penalty for any modifiers the player can't actually add to the weapon, this includes removing Accurate 3 from the quality taken slot. That way, these "Unique/Legendary" weapons can be just as useful/powerful later in the game when you are able to upgrade all your gear to Superb and add the stat modifiers to your armor. It is somewhat disappointing that normal Plate Armor can end up being more useful than unique/legendary armor because of the ability to add all the upgrade modifiers.

Please discuss, politely of course. :)

[Texonater]

I am really hoping that for the expansion, they really spend more time expanding the loot pool. It's got some decent weapon choices, but really, most end game loadouts end up with lots of uniques. Expanding this pool of uniques would be ideal - More items with Spell holding/etc, more items with interesting tradeoffs (+stat -stat)... basically more unique stuff.

It would be great if I could feel the way I feel about loot in Pillars the same way I feel about loot in Diablo 3.

[exoduss123]

I was thinking of making such list as OP to every weapon that has its unique Enchants ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up enchanting progression of the item , and post it on Nexus forums , i bet some modder would fix it on spare time , could do it here just need to keep the list simple and i would gladly post it on nexus . Basically all the Unique Enchants should be either 2 or 4 Points ( atleast on weapons ) because all the enchants you can add yourself take's 2 or 4 slots and you got 12 total , For example Azureith's Stilleto's Spell Striking Jolting Touch takes 3 slots it could take up only 2 to be honest , and this is just an example if not to then make it 4 if people feels this starting weapon would be to overpowered otherwise ( which it wouldnt ) but 3 makes no sense in the end you got 11/12 enchanted dagger and cant do nothing to improve , also i hope developers going to fix Enchant Upgrading that if you got item that is 10/12 Exceptional you can upgrade it so Superb to make it 12/12 , now i find myself not enchanting Early-midgame items With Fine+ Lash but rushing level 8 to give it Exceptional + Lash because if i add fine early i have either to skip adding Lash enchant or i wont be able to upgrade it to exceptional. And i think when dev's designed loot system they whole intention behind this was that Unique weapons that you get early could serve you for whole game so Enchant Upgrading would just reinforce it more .

[wariisop]

I am hoping they consider this with the next update since I am playing the beta version. I really think it is holding the game back a little with uniques/legendaries being potential weaker than regularly upgraded weapons.

[wariisop]

Even the Endless Path weapon is REALLY underpowered because of the UPW points taken away from "special" modifiers.

[General Malaise]

You'll only ever be able to enchant 2 pieces of armour, and 2 weapons up to Superb, so not spoiling much. There are some Superb pieces in the game.