Unique Item Rarity Changes

Every league we look at unique usage rates at various intervals. This, in combination with a lot of the other data we look at, helps paint a picture of general build popularity, balance, and perception of power. Every league, without fail, some uniques bubble to the top of the most-used list and stay there.

Item rarity is a complex, often counterintuitive system. Opinions about setting rarity change with data, and data changes with the meta, and the meta changes with rarity. With the launch of The Awakening we made a multitude of changes to item rarity, in addition to adding another 119 to the pool, which has noticeably shaken things up.

While we don't ordinarily comment on item rarity, in this case we probably should have, as the changes we made, although positive in the long term, messed with people's ability to reliably plan their starting builds. So without further ado, here's what got rarer:

• Aegis Aurora
• Alpha's Howl
• Andvarius
• Asphyxia's Wrath
• Aurseize
• Belly of the Beast
• Brightbeak
• Bronn's Lithe
• Carcass Jack
• Cloak of Defiance
• Crest of Perandus
• Divinarius
• Doedre's Elixir
• Doomsower
• Eye of Chayula
• Facebreaker
• Gang's Momentum
• Goldrim
• Goldwyrm
• Hyrri's Ire
• Jaws of Agony
• Kongor's Undying Rage
• Lightning Coil
• Maligaro's Virtuosity
• Mightflay
• Quill Rain
• Rainbowstride
• Rathpith Globe
• Rat's Nest
• Sentari's Answer
• Stone of Lazhwar
• Taste of Hate
• The Blood Dance
• Voidhome
• Wheel of the Stormsail

Here's what got more common:

• Heartbreaker
• Immortal Flesh
• Lori's Lantern
• Marohi Erqi
• Mortem Morsu
• Queen of the Forest
• Snakebite
• Thunderfist
• Vaults of Atziri
• Voltaxic Rift

Yes, the list of items that are more common is a lot shorter, but keep in mind that we introduced many, many more uniques in this patch which skews rarity. In addition made some changes to the overall rarity model to ensure that some uniques that were drifting into dangerously-rare territory would be more common.

We also changed the drop levels of many uniques -- some up, some down -- to better fit the new progression of the game.

EDIT: Added Lightning Coil, Cloak of Defiance, Queen of the Forest, Doomsower, Maligaro's Virtuosity to the list, as they also had rarity changes with 2.0.0

I don't get the point of making the leveling items harder to find like that really made no sense to me whatsoever.

A lot of my favorite uniques are a lot more rare :(

"

Qarl wrote:

...as the changes we made, although positive in the long term...

Better to say nothing than to project a sense of unfounded confidence, to be honest.

Good post, thanks for informing us!

What about Mors' Doon? Did it become rarer too?

I honestly find some of these changes a little perplexing but whatever, thanks for the list.

Just seems like they made every decent unique rarer, even ones that I thought were really rare.

Ah!ah!ah! Mors' mad kappa

Yet another change that will prevent 98% of players to be able to access a part of the game.