A controversial feature in the upcoming 2.1.2 patch is Ancient Items. Ancient Items provide approximately 30% improved stats. Currently, it’s not known which items will be seen as having the Ancient Item status outside of weapons. In addition, Ancient Items will have a very low drop rate (roughly 5-10% of legendary items dropped will have the Ancient Item affix). What does this imply going forward?
I look at Ancient Items as something similar to Warforged items in World of Warcraft, except that the stats are far better. The main thing that Ancient Items will do is provide a boost in progressing in Rifts. Theoretically, a person decked out in BiS type of gear with Ancient Items on paper ought to do 30% better in a Greater Rift just on the nature of the stat boost. So the current walls we’re seeing with high end players peaking at around 50-52 level Greater Rifts, given all Ancient Items, probably will anywhere between 5-15 more levels.
Another thing to consider is if the math on the updated stats for current builds will change because of the higher numbers. For instance, builds that might depend on attack speed or cooldown reduction might be able to switch a stat or two for something that they compromised on, leading to overall higher damage output or making certain abilities instant (such as Furious Charge)
Given the circumstances for these items and their reported rarity, the question becomes should we look forward to them? Much of the criticism circulating around Ancient Items has been that they were too easy of a mechanism to implement for what you get. There’s a lot of people who different upgrade mechanic beyond RNG for improving items like the old Runewords from Diablo 2. Instead, what we’re looking at is just a new item hunt with boosted baseline statistics. Those people who want to progress on seasonal leaderboards might feel shafted again because of the RNG factor playing into this system.
The real purpose beyond boosted abilities for Ancient Items is said to be for people who have managed to max out their characters and are looking for something else to help improve themselves. I think realistically the situation will not be as game changing as people might think. Since legendaries themselves do not drop that frequently, we will see far less Ancient Items overall. If anything, we’ll probably just see 1-2 appear over a very long period of time. It could be something like 1 out of every 50-60 T6 runs. The problem here is that it might take a while to find the specific upgrade on a current piece of gear you already are using. So unless the base drop rate of legendaries get boosted, Ancient Items ought to be a really rare occurrence.
For myself, I’m hoping that the Ancient Items properties will help engender new viable builds. Part of the problem I see with most current builds is that there are only a few viable ones and most require near complete gear to work. Part of it is the result of minimum stats required to become viable like cooldown reduction. Eliminating certain pieces so people can find a different piece of gear to replace the necessary item (say for instance the Leorics Crown), perhaps a different piece of equipment can be used that provides a new ability, especially if more legendaries get revamped in the upcoming patch.
At any rate, yes it’s an easy fix to help provide a quick boost. But patch 2.1.2 really isn’t a major content patch so if anything this just helps in the interim until a new mechanism like legendary gems comes into play.
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