Is Crafting Outclassing Loot?

Suggestion: Buff higher tier loot chests
Reasoning: Currently, most of the tier III and tier IV loot chests have been moved to inside caves and such, so their like mini dungeons which you can run to get some loot. Most of the arguments I see for this is that a pirate wouldnt hide their treasure unprotected, so the loot chests should be protected in caves. However, pirates also hide their treasure where people dont look, so it would make sense for loot chests to be hidden in the types of areas they used to be hidden in, although maybe less frequently. When the economy update came out, crafting became an extremely good way to get strong items which could be customised to fit one’s build. However, now that loot chests have been nerfed, using loot that you find is less of a viable option now, even though it should be just as viable as crafting your own gear or buying gear.

Points for buffing loot chests:
1. Crafting is too much stronger than finding loot now
2. A pirate would hide chests in hard to find areas

Points against buffing loot chests:
1. Crafting should be better than finding loot, since lootrunning used to be too op
2. A pirate would guard their treasure in a cave

(This list will be updated as people give more points)

 

lootchests are fine as is

 

In my personal opinion, I think loot chests certainly do not need any kind of buff, although I don't believe they deserve a nerf at all either. Because the caves that you can find them in usually don't take more than a minute or two to go through, having Tier 3 and Tier 4 chests packed with much higher quality stuff doesn't seem all that great. There's a lot of great equipment out there now, and I think the chances to find these things are common enough if you put the effort into it. Because of the ingredients in chests, things like Mythics will take a larger amount of chests opened on average, just because there's less equipment spawned, but the chances I believe are still the same.

I don't think crafted armor is going to completely rule out current identified equipment. However, I do believe that every build would benefit greatly from a couple pieces of crafted armor. This is because crafting that certain piece or pieces you need for a build to make it work extremely well is often better than trying to find a solution in identified equipment that "works okay."

For example, I'm currently making a new Loot Bonus set for my loot runs. Because I want to use Discoverer, I have to change something to give me more health. However, if I simply switch out my boots or helmet, or whatever else it might be, just to put on an armor piece that gains me more health, I damage my Loot Bonus and Walk Speed by quite a bit. Instead, I decided to craft Boots, a Helmet, and two Rings. The Boots and the Helmet will give me that extra health, but throughout all four pieces of equipment, I have about the same Loot Bonus and Walk Speed as was shared between the four pieces prior. (A little more of both actually.)

But yeah, overall I think crafted equipment is just best for flexibility, or if you want to try a completely underused style of gameplay, like Fire Archer, Air Warrior, or whatever else