Wondrous Emporium…

[Delmuir]

As long as we're just exchanging anecdotes, I get useful merchant artifacts about half the time, and when I do they're typically endgame pieces that don't get replaced but also aren't anywhere near gamebreaking.

For the record, the robe that you described as "obscene" (+36% to all damage types and +34 to spell power and 10% to spell crit) sounds only "decent" to me. There are still a number of fixedart robes I would take over that.

I've no doubt that it's a distribution problem… and I'm sure plenty of people have gotten useful items. That being said, I'm not suggesting a change in the mechanics… just in the distribution.

As for the item in question, it also came with ridiculous stats and a few other things… if I recall correctly, it had +27 to luck and +18 to magic on top of the spell power increase. It also had a darkness affinity and darkness penetration in addition… maybe something else too like mind saves and an armor bonus that was large but I can't recall. It also had bonuses to crit multiplier heal mod… it was a lot of stuff.

I don't know what your standard is but that item, paired with the archlich set and a couple of other lucky drops between lvl 37 and 39 essentially double the power of the Necromancer over my normal endgame characters. It was doing a ridiculous amount of damage and was able heal so much such that I stood toe-to-toe with Atamathon at lvl 39 and beat him. No running… just stood there and blasted him for a dozen or so turns.

[Mex]

The merchant doesn't give items that are that much different from late game randarts on Madness, in case anyone was wondering.

Not that they extra rolls aren't welcome in case you have a slot that's lacking.

[donkatsu]

From a thread about what I assume was the necro in question:

By the time I was at lvl 50, Invoke Darkness was doing 960 damage and Rigor Mortis was doing 1300 or just under, I can't recall but it was slightly less than Impending Doom.

~1k damage is mediocre by endgame standards and if your previous characters were doing half of that, it seems more like they were underpowered rather than that necro being overpowered. By comparison, in Normal difficulty I had an Archmage that was doing ~2k Fireflashes. Currently my level 30 Summoner's Minotaur is doing 700 damage on a non-crit bump attack, and I've heard of offensive classes like Marauders or Arcane Blades or Reavers doing ~6k per turn or even higher. Rest assured it's not that the necro was gamebreaking, but rather that Normal difficulty is actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

That doesn't explain the reports of loads of useless items though. Have you tried generating things besides weapons or body armor?

[Delmuir]

~1k damage is mediocre by endgame standards and if your previous characters were doing half of that, it seems more like they were underpowered rather than that necro being overpowered. By comparison, in Normal difficulty I had an Archmage that was doing ~2k Fireflashes. Currently my level 30 Summoner's Minotaur is doing 700 damage on a non-crit bump attack, and I've heard of offensive classes like Marauders or Arcane Blades or Reavers doing ~6k per turn or even higher. Rest assured it's not that the necro was gamebreaking, but rather that Normal difficulty is actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

That doesn't explain the reports of loads of useless items though. Have you tried generating things besides weapons or body armor?

Someone noted that this isn't that strong an item for late game in Madness to which I note that this was done on Normal.

Now you're comparing Archmages to Necromancers… I'm just trying to express normal damage on a random build. Sure, IF I get super items then I can reach those kinds of damage levels but that's my point, in more than a year, that's the first time I've done so and I've beaten the game dozens of times in intermittent play. Although, I admittedly never do far portal or infinite dungeon.

That's the problem I have.

The game is eminently beatable with strong builds on classes like the Archmage and Necromancer with normal items dropping and having underpowered characters as you noted. However, a couple of strong drops and suddenly the game is effortless. That doesn't seem right. Then, some classes and builds struggle constantly… desperate for that one overpowered item.

I don't mind the variance of RNGs but 9/10 games I play put me in the same situation… then suddenly, I get gear that essentially breaks the game on normal. That's also why I don't play madness much… only when I'm the in mood to play one of the stronger builds. The variance on madness is crippling and maddening.

All I'm suggesting is that the nature of the drops in the game exist in a range such that they neither overpower a build nor simply be a waste.

There's been a lot of discussion about balance and not having items that are too tailored to one build or have builds that are item dependent… yet, that's exactly what we have here! A couple of ridiculous drops and virtually any build can be viable but you can't rely on that because the game is too difficult. Thus, you have to largely build up to the strongest builds and then, if a ridiculous item drops then the game becomes ridiculously easy.

How am I the only one experiencing that or thinks it's a problem?

As for items… yes, I generated quite a bit of different types of items, just to be sure and yes, they largely produced garbage.