How mod16 broke the artifact gear sets

theraxin

So, while in-game I pretty much get the unquestioned belief of Demogorgon set being the best DPS set and I can see people on forum who are just loath the set so much that they refuse to use, regardless of Power, I actually wanted to write an answer explaining why and how you can decide the best set for you. Which ended up just explaining why the new artifact set design is fundamentally flawed. So as a quick divider and for further discussion, let's overanalyze the hamster out of them.

So, before mod16, the sets had 3 variably significant part. They gave stats, including Power, the had a class-specific bonus percentage to Attribute and had a set bonus. And as a bonus, there was an easy conversion to Power from stats like crit on gear, so most of the stat you've got were in use.

After mod 16, almost all aspect got curbed down. Artifact gears lost Power as a stat, as well the stat conversion gears to Power. And you will reach a point where extra stats (except the HP) is useless. The effectivity of Attribute only gives now a 0,25%, so except niche scenarios, they lost all of their standing.

Technically, you can argue that ther newer sets can "provide Power" by letting you slot out a 0-1k Power artifact for a 3k Power, so there is a 500-3000 Power potential that you can get. But, that's more like an unintended side-effect of the artifacts getting tiered up to 300 IL and not at all relevant to the artifact gear sets themselves.

So, we got the bonuses left. And this is basically the answer to which set is better to your class:
You do the new ones until you don't need the stats and then change to the best set bonus.

This is a problem, because unless the developers decide to introduce class-specific bonuses and a diversity of effects or just starts a Powerspiralling, people can bet their sets will see use forever. They already started by buffing the mad mage set, which, in the end, 5%, so still not appealing enough.

My idea is to reintroduce Power, at least on the new tier sets. The Attribute thing I feel got completely broken by making the same Attributes give the same effects. And it did not even had the incentive Power before mod16, because set bonuses just almost always weighed more.

alphastream

All of the math is broken. The idea of companion gear vastly outperforming your gear is broken. The idea that a high rank enchant is outperformed by your companion gear is broken. It will only get worse as IL increases. As you said, once you hit the caps, then it all becomes meaningless anyway and its down to set bonuses and base damage and such. And still people won't be able to beat Tiamat or get through a random queue. Lol.