Ranking the spoiled item sets, just for the hell (or inferno?) of ito

[beingmused]

The philosopher Martin Heidegger once believed that time was the horizon by which the being of Being reveals itself. One thing that is certain is that D3 is messing with my sense of time - this weekend has been particularly difficult. Time flies when you're engaged with the "now", but when you're constantly focused on something rapidly approaching, the present seems like an eternal obstacle!

And so, struggling to kill a few minutes, I figured I might as well rank all of the class-unique set items. This is utterly pointless without seeing the actual values of the items and the affixes, but we can at least talk about how good the guaranteed affixes are. But mainly this was just because I wanted an excuse to look at all of the set item spoilers, and I wanted to kill some time. So save your "tl;dr" or "things might be different from the guide!" or "without real numbers this is the most pointless thing ever done" posts. Because, yeah, I know.

Each class has both a 2 piece and a 5 piece set designed for them, so let's look at both. You can see these all here:
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/4107...iii-set-items/
Barb:

Bul-Kathos' Children (2p)
BK's Charge - 1h mighty weapon - 6/10. 3 of the affixes are great - holy damage, attack speed, crit damage. Knockback is iffy on a barb though. Maybe sometimes when you're overwhelmed you'd want it, but it seems like the worst CC chance on hit ability for a melee character.
BK's Guardian - 1h mighty weapon - 7/10. All 4 are good damage affixes this time (although I'm not sure how good Bleed is). If the random affix is a damage% increasing, then it would be amazing.
2p set bonus: max fury increase. 5/10. Increased resource is always good, but fury seems like the least relevant one to increase the max size of, since you always start off with 0. You still have to do x number of fury generators for each fury spender...but it does let you build more fury off of normal mobs to store for use against elites.

Immortal Kings (5p)
Will - helm - 7/10. +socket is VERY good in a helm, because helm sockets are much more powerful than any other kind. Magic find and damage reduction are also excellent. Gold find? Eh, maybe.
Crusher - 2h mighty weapon - 9/10. Damage vs. demons i love because that is a unique affix (not available on random items), and will probably be great for acts 3/4. Attack speed, barb skill increase are great. Min/max damage is good, but not as good as the elemental damage increases. And it has 6 affixes total, while almost all the rest of these set items only have 5. Indestructible is a wasted affix slot though.
Soul cage - chest armor - 6/10. Vit, damage reduction, and +all resistances are great (tanky barbs will love this set). Life regen I am not a fan of - even the max level of life regen affix doesn't seem big enough to make a difference for inferno health pools.
Detail - barb mighty belt - 8/10. Life, str, all resists, and a barb skill. High score only if the barb skill "increase" is a good one.
Forge - gloves - 6/10. Stun on hit is great, and str is good (why it is str/dex is weird, I guess you get a bonus few hundredths of a percent of dodge chance). Melee resistance is fine, but more life regen.
Pillar - boots - 6?/10. Game guide is missing one of the guaranteed affixes. Magic find and vit are good. CC reduction might be very good, or it might be an affix only PVPers will want. Hard to say.
Set bonuses - 3/10. They're mostly defensive - 2p is +resists, 3p is (more) melee resist, and 5p is +max fury and +life per fury spent. I really hate the life per resource spent type of affixes.

DH - Danetta's Oath (2p)
Rage - hand xbow - 8/10. Max disc and dam vs demons are both unique affixes I love. life steal and min/max damage are both great too.
Fury - hand xbow - 7/10. dam vs. undead is unique, but not as good as dam vs demons I suspect. Dex, min/max damage, and hatred regen are all great.
Set bonus - 8/10. Damage vs. elite AND dex - I love both of these.

Natalya's - 5p (apparently the gear of a famous assassin now helps demon hunters too)
Gaze - helm - 6/10. Fear on hit seems particularly good for DHs. Dex and damage reduction are fine. 2 randoms, where most of these set items have 1.
Redemption - hand xbow - 10/10. Most of these set items have 5 affixes, when crafted and rares top out at 6...but this weapon has 6, and the 4 fixed ones - cold damage, damage, crit chance, and attack speed - are all ideal.
Shadow - cloak - 8/10. 3 sockets, dex/vit, life, and a random DH skill? If the skill is good, this is a hard to beat set of affixes.
Mark - ring - 8/10. On one hand, any legendary or set jewelry item is interesting to me, since you can't craft them. Armor set items that are mediocre can easily be replaced by crafted items, but you have to rely on drops for rings/ammys. And attack speed and dexterity rock. But 2 points off for life regen!
Soul - boots - 8/10. +Movement speed and defensive as hell with +damage resist, damage reduction, +melee damage resist. Although +melee resist isn't as important for a DH as it would be for most other classes, since they seem built to slow and kite everything.
Set bonus - 7/10. 2p - + crit chance. 3p - dexterity. 4p - increase discipline regen.

Mage - Chandoto's Legacy (2p)
Guardian - wand - 8/10. When you're using a fast 1hander like a wand you want +elemental damage above all else. This has +fire, +attack speed, and +int. Also arcane power on crit which is weaker but not bad.
Seal - orb - 8/10 - +random wiz skill and +max arcane power are the real draws, life on hit and +life are great too.
set bonus - 4/10. +resist all is decent but can be gotten elsewhere, and life regen is bleh.

Tal Rasha's (5p)
Eye - orb (I guess they took the orb out of the D2 staff) - 7/10. +wiz skill is exciting, the rest aren't.
Horadric crest - Helm - 7/10. Magic find, damage reduction, Int.
Guardianship - Chest armor - 9/10. Magic find, damage reduction, attack speed. Attack speed is notable because you usually can't get that on chests, and the set bonus makes it incredible in this set...
Fine spun cloth - Barbarian Mighty belt (huh? ok, game guide...) - 7/10. Magic find, damage reduction, int. This set has a crazy amount of MF.
Adjucation - amulet - 9/10. Not only is it a set jewelry item, but it comes with a random +elemental damage bonus on it, and int.
Set bonus - 11/10. 2p - Fire damage. 3p - Cold damage. 4p - Lightning damage.
Yes, this breaks the scale for me. Because +elemental damage bonuses get added to the base weapon damage before all damage calculations, they have a HUGE effect on your offensive output. Normally the only place you see flat +damage mods of any kind are on weapons and jewelry, so any time you can get those bonuses "elsewhere" on unique or set items, you are gaining offensive potential that rares can't match. And this gives you three sources of that! It remains to be seen what the values will look like, but unless they are extremely small, this is an utterly bonkers bonus. And since those modifiers get better the faster your attack speed is, this set - using a 1-hander (if you're using the orb) and attack speed on the armor - REALLY takes advantage of them. Combined with all the magic find, this set is a real eye-opener.

Monk - Shenlong's defense (2p)
Endless Wave - Fist weapon - 8/10. Fast one handers want elemental damage and +attack speed, and this has both along with spirit regen. I think spirit regen is the best of all resource generating mods, since the monk tends to feel the most resource starved of all the classes.
Crashing Tide - Fist Weapon - 7/10 More lightning damage - yay! Life gain per spirit spent - boo!
Bonus - 7/10. Dex and spirit regen are both solid

Inna's Majesty (5p)
Splendor - Spirit stone (helm) - 9.5/10. +damage is NOT something you normally can find on helms, so I love it. Spirit regen, +random monk skill, and damage resistance as well? I want to give it a 10/10, but it only has 5 affixes....but I really can't see a rare helm ever being better than this.
Justice - 2h staff - 9/10. +min/max damage isn't as good as +elemental damage (at least from the affix tables), but adding dex, attack speed, and ANOTHER +skill to it makes this weapon rock.
Refuge - chest armor - 8/10. +res, damage reduction, magic find...solid stuff.
Blessing - belt - 9?/10. The question mark is because I don't know what "bonus holy damage" means. Does that mean that all holy damage is increased by X%?? (We see "bonus elemental damage" on 3 unique items, and on a few set items...but it is a VERY rare wording) Or is the game guide just phrasing +holy damage in an odd way? Either way that is amazing.
Glory - pants - 9/10. Attack speed and Movement speed are both not normally found on pants.
Set bonus - 5/10. 2p - Dexterity. 3p - Spirit regen. 4p - Life per spirit spent. The set bonuses here are total after thoughts, but the items themselves are so very good.

WD - Manajuma's Ritual (2p)
Cutter - ceremonial dagger - 9/10. Poison damage, int, and life steal are good...but magic find on a weapon gets bonus points since you can't normally get it.
Prize - Mojo - 8/10. Fear on hit is great for a WD, and it has a +skill. Is max mana good for a WD? Maybe if there is enough of it.
Set bonus - 6/10. Int is fine, but I don't like the mana gained per kill. Per Kill bonuses don't scale well with groups, and aren't nearly as good as per hit ones.

Zunimassa's spirit (5p)
Attunement - Voodoo mask - 7/10. Fear on hit and +skill
Ferocity - chest armor - 7/10. Int/vit AND intelligence boost - don't see a lot of double primary stat boosts.
Mojo - 9/10. A +skill and damage vs. elite, and this has 6 total affixes to boot.
Plague - Ring - 7/10. Resist all and Int. While I tend to like unique/set jewelry as explained above, this doesn't do anything standard rings can't do.
Journey - boots - 9.5/10. These, on the other hand, do a few unique things: +Poison damage and +attack speed.
Set bonus - 6/10. Mana per kill again. Maybe the Tal Rasha's bonus has ruined my expectations, but the 4-piece bonus of the other classes is always terrible, except maybe for the DH's discipline regen.

[raveharu]

It's fated that wizard pawns again with tal rasha set, just like back in d2.

[Andy2702]

Yeahyuhh!!

[OneMedicArmy]

If Inferno really is as hard as the guys at Blizz are claiming, all those defensive stats you're giving poor marks for might be quite useful.
Honestly I hope so.

[Dudzy]

Yea, i agree that unlike Diablo 2 defensive stats are and will be as valuable as offensive stats. With monsters doing insane amounts of damage in inferno your going to need a way to soak it up or deflect it away from you.

[beingmused]

If Inferno really is as hard as the guys at Blizz are claiming, all those defensive stats you're giving poor marks for might be quite useful.
Honestly I hope so.

Its not that I am not interested in defensive stats....but rather that the defensive stats I don't like are ones that can rather easily be gotten elsewhere because they spawn on almost every type of armor. I think things like damage reduction % is very good...and having a lot of +max life stats is necessary. But offensive stats (aside from your primary stat, which can show up everywhere) only appear on your weapon and jewelry, for the most part....so any time you can get those elsewhere, it changes what you're capable of doing a lot more.

As for things like regen and life gained per fury/spirit point spent, I just think those aren't nearly as good as other forms of defense. When you take damage it is going to be huge amounts at once. Having +200 life/second or conditional life gain in small chunks is nothing; you'd much rather have better CCs and damage reduction.

[OneMedicArmy]

I can see the reasoning behind that, though I'll reserve judgement on life/second and life/resource until I see numbers.
As to offensive stats on armor I think that mainly depends on playstyle. In D2 most people were aimed at maximizing damage and/or MF. Personally I always maximized survivability. It might kill slower, but it was nearly impossible to die with the right set up.

With Diablo3 removing the ability to portal back to town on demand, with enemies more easily able to prevent you from fleeing them/kiting them, and with battles against inferno champions that may last minutes; I think that anyone who tries to glass-cannon their way through level 60+ enemies will quickly find themselves loosing massive amounts of gold in repairs.

Then again, since Blizzard made and balanced these sets, they will most likely be viable in at minimum early Inferno, so possibly it isn't as lethal as previously stated.

[ramzaI]

I think the OP is undervaluing too much HP regen. You'll need at least one of this affix to be viable in any difficulty. The reason for this is because you'll want to always engage a group of creeps on full health, which is impossible without it. If you get health regen on each slot on tier 18, you heal 3000 each sec, minimun, what means you heal your whole health bar every ten seconds on inferno (probably).

[beingmused]

I think the OP is undervaluing too much HP regen. You'll need at least one of this affix to be viable in any difficulty. The reason for this is because you'll want to always engage a group of creeps on full health, which is impossible without it. If you get health regen on each slot on tier 18, you heal 3000 each sec, minimun, what means you heal your whole health bar every ten seconds on inferno (probably).

Yes, life regen does ensure that you're up to full health when you engage the next pack....but so do health globes, which drop after you've finished off a pack of elites. I don't think the "between battle" effect of HP regen is going to be that important.

Let's think about what kind of affixes help you survive an encounter with a rough group of champions. If each one can do 10k damage/hit (which is a lot lower than some of the damage numbers we've seen), then sure, you could use up one affix slot on each of your pieces of armor to recover 3k of that per second....or you could use those affix slots to increase damage reduction, resistances, dodge, armor...and prevent much more than 3k of that damage per second. Granted we're going to have to see how numbers shake out...but looking at the datamined amounts, I strongly suspect that other defensive affixes will be much more efficient at keeping you alive in those dangerous situations.

[OneMedicArmy]

There is the area of diminishing returns.
Part of the reason why damage reduction (and also resistances) are so great is that going from 0% to 50% decreases damage by half, and going from 50% to 75% decreases the damage taken by a further 25% off of the base amount, or in other words there are no diminishing returns for these affixes.
We also should consider the ability of different affixes or bonuses to synergize, like having +10 life and +10% life with 100 base life (121), instead of 10% twice(120) or +10 twice(120).
The most math-happy persons will probably end up with a mixture of every single defensive affix, just to maximize the synergistic effects.