The FINAL Solution to +Levels

What are these images you ask? This is my answer to the title. But first a little preamble to the little question known as... Why?

I and quite a few others it seems find that +Levels is simply too powerful of an affix on rare weapons. IMO it should be either changed or removed entirely from them. This would open up builds to using unique weapons that really are quite interesting. The Earthbound staff, the Doomfletch bow, Spire of Ire spear, The Sentry quarterstaff, The Empty Roar mace. I can go on but the glaring issue with these uniques are that they don't have +Levels. Ergo they are for the most part dead uniques that no one will use other than maybe leveling in the campaign. Anyway...

BESIDES having +Levels completely removed, the solution I found is really quite simple.
Put +Level nodes in the Passive Tree. Starting on the 7th passive node, see images above for reference. From that 7th point every other passive node along the MAIN pathway will be a +Level node. Not to copy everyone's favorite meme Todd Howard but, "It Just Works." It doesn't screw up sockets and it fits all the way around the outside ring.
This solves the issue of +Levels being a must have on weapons and would allow unique weapons to ACTUALLY have a fighting chance to be used. Wands and staffs still have all the "Gain as Extra" and flat "Spell Damage" rolls that some Uniques don't, BUT with the +Levels in the passive tree, it will be a LOT easier for GGG to update the Uniques that don't have any damage rolls on them. Looking at you Lifesprig.

In total there will be 48 +Level passive nodes. Sounds like a lot. And it is, HOWEVER there is no reason to grab all of them because the cap skill level is 40, you get 21 from the skill gems alone already. You CAN get +Level from your Amulet but let's face it. You won't bother with it and can finally get something else on the Amulet OR even better, ACTUALLY be able to use a UNIQUE Amulet, which is a HUGE deal since there are a LOT of interesting Amulets but no one can use them because we need +Levels. Needless to say, this opens up a LOT of potential and I would love to see GGG take a step in this direction if not take it entirely. If they did... When it comes to give our characters just a little more ooOMPH... It would literally be only 2 points away...

cool idea, but!
there's too many of them if we keep the cap. Many builds are going for 7 jewel sockets or more, which would force over 20 of those new nodes.
Would feel bad to overcap to have your build.

I appreciate the proper feedback tho. Elaborate and with an actual solution proposal.

nope, thaks. You just suggest to make it even worse, we need to get rid of as many +levels as possible, not populate them into the ez accessable points

like every build would prioritize pathing to your yellow dots and capping before worrying about anything else. would be super cookie cutter pathing. you remember jewel sockets pre nerf?

Just get rid of the affix all together.
IMO it’s a lazy one anyway.

If you want to offer more levels have higher level gems be a thing that are attainable somehow via gameplay.

Id say just nerf it drastically and add power other than + levels back to tree.

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nope, thaks. You just suggest to make it even worse, we need to get rid of as many +levels as possible, not populate them into the ez accessable points

Sure. My suggestion here merely opens up weapons to better affixes which was my main objective. +Levels is and always will be a massive problem and I am all for them disappearing completely. BUT as stated. Mr. Rogers said that he wanted +levels originally. So this is merely me keeping it in the game whilst bolstering weapons to actually be more useable both rare and more importantly Uniques.

They all need removed and base damage levels adjusted to compensate. On top of that mana costs need a VERY serious looking at and adjusting.

I understand the idea but unless I am missing something super obvious from skimming through this post, would it not just force builds into taking as many of these as you can almost like jewels are already? Every build would follow the paths to get them on the tree.

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like every build would prioritize pathing to your yellow dots and capping before worrying about anything else. would be super cookie cutter pathing. you remember jewel sockets pre nerf?

I don't see your argument here honestly. It is literally the most basic pathing that the VAST majority of builds follow for basically half of their builds in the first place. All pathing is already following this so where is the cookie cutter pathing you speak of? And the jewel socket nerf was far too much. It was done to nerf the stat stacking builds, and not only did they kill the sockets but they double tapped by changing Gemling's Ascendancy nodes. Then triple tapped it by nerfing Ingenuity (deserved honestly).

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I understand the idea but unless I am missing something super obvious from skimming through this post, would it not just force builds into taking as many of these as you can almost like jewels are already? Every build would follow the paths to get them on the tree.

Not really honestly. Most builds path through at least 9 of these points minimum regardless. So assuming you corrupt your skills, that's level 21, +9 and you are at 30 already. Assuming they take away +levels from rare weapon affixes, this alone already makes up for that difference. Then keep the +levels on amulets, gloves, off-hands, prisms, corrupts, etc.
Just taking a spell caster for example, 30 base. +3 from amulet, +2 from Off-Hand, +3 from Prism. Now you are at level 38. Only two shy from the cap. More than likely you'd probably be spending some points to path to some crit nodes or something so you probably get the last two form that. OR get lucky with your corrupts. Getting to 40 would be easier and allow players to choose a utility affix or just simply more damage. OR more importantly simply use Unique weapons that actually change how things function. Which is the WHOLE point of Uniques. They are designed to be game changing.

So having the passive tree like this wouldn't be forcing what people would normally do. What is "forced" is what we already have in-game builds are required to have +levels on your weapons, especially for wands.