I am sure some folks have noticed that death crafts have been reduced. They were the hands down no-brainer option for weapon crafting as they had 3 very powerful attributes:
1. same %ED as other crafts
2. more IAS than other craft
3. more deadly strike than other crafts
To balance them against other crafts (as well as uniques), the %ED range was reduced.
There has been statements that this has made crafting useless. This is of course false and are often based on a lack of understanding on how crafting works. The first thing to keep in mind is that higher lvl characters and higher lvl items produce better crafts. I don't just mean that Moonstone crafts are better than Perfect crafts, I mean that...
At ilvls 1-30, there's a 40% chance of 1 affix and a 20% chance each of 2, 3 or 4 affixes.
At ilvls 31-50, there's a 60% chance of 2 affixes and a 20% chance each of 3 or 4 affixes.
At ilvls 51-70, there's an 80% chance of 3 affixes and a 20% chance of 4 affixes.
At ilvls 71+, there's a 100% chance of 4 affixes.
Affixes are important because they stack on top of the already guaranteed mods that you get from the craft. In other words, if you craft an ilvl25 you are likely to get a crappy craft with only 1 affix. If you are rolling a weapon, that affix may not be %ED and you will be very unhappy. On the other hand, if you craft with at an ilvl of 80, you are going to get a very powerful craft - even when using a perfect gem.
Even if you do roll with a high ilvl - you could still get a junk craft. Rather than 150% ED you could get 20% faster mana regeneration on your Maul. The difference that will make is profound. Crafting is a gamble - and an expensive one too. This is why Crafting is generally viewed as a Twinker's pastime and not something to rely on for your first few characters early in the ladder.
The last very important thing to consider with crafting is that all crafted weapons will receive 4 sockets. This allows for an easy additional 120% Enhanced damage just using 4x easily gambled jewels. This means that:
- Perfect crafted weapons generally start with 180%-200% Enhanced
damage
- Starstone crafted weapons generally start with 190%-230% Enhanced
damage
- Moonstone crafted weapons generally start with 220%-310% Enhanced
damage
This is more than comparable with rares/uniques at that level assuming that you get some sort of %ED from the weapon roll itself. A good roll on a craft will almost always outperform a comparable rare/unique - with one exception noted below. The exception of course is eth items. Since crafts cannot be eth - an eth rare will always be a better choice. This is why bowzons should probably always roll their weapons from rares rather than try to craft them - the cost/benefit ratio is much better that way.
Previously crafted weapons were over the top with their 4 sockets as their damage with easily socketed jewels ranged from:
- Perfect 210-240%
- Starstone 240-300%
- Moonstone 300-480%
With modest %ED on weapons, you were seeing 500-600% ED weapons being rolled. This created a real disparity between crafts and any other weapons and was balanced out.
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