this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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If I recall correctly that's how it's always been with Diablo. I've remembered each D3 season there was a different build for each class that would work really well. So while the content was always kinda the same, the game forced you to try other builds if you wanted to beat the highest difficulty level consistently.
Looking at how uniques work at the moment they always seem to affect skills directly, groups of skills, weapon types or damage types. So if you want a strong build you have to get uniques that stack well and buff the same kind of tools you want to use.
Logically you want to buff one damage skill to the extreme but since there sometimes are no overlaps and uniques are sometimes skill specific, you run into the issue, that a different damage skill just doesn't do much damage anymore. This concludes in you essentially having to use actives and passives from your ability tree that also buff your one "super-skill" or boost survivability. Since you're not restricted when it comes to buffs, the most logical choice is then to just fill all remaining slots with buffs or skills that activate buffing effects. Even mobility gets pushed out in high end builds for more damage.
I don't like it, but as soon as you make an effect that only works in one context, you have effectively ruined build variety because theorycrafters will just min-max the hell out of it. There probably is no good solution that helps build variety and at the same time makes uniques feel interesting and exciting. Because when everything is viable, unique effects will mostly just be stat boosts and thus boring.
So, I'll be a bit of greybeard here with a "Not ALWAYS!". But I'm being sorta pedantic in that...
Diablo 2 in version 1.09 and before were my favorite. The 1.10 patch was where Blizzard introduced "Synergies" to the skills as well as a boatload new Runewords (Enigma, Chains of Honor, etc.)
Prior to that, the balance wasn't perfect...but the "best" builds weren't stupidly above the rest, and everything sort of had weak points or blind spots. You could argue, and I'd agree, that the game perhaps didn't have as much content to explore at that point, but I enjoyed the game far more in that era than what came after.
In 1.09 you could feasibly do any build and still sort of enjoy the game. I had melee sorc builds, elemental paladins. My favorite PvP build was smite/FoH pally. But what came after? Hammerdins, Wind Druids, bonermancers galore. The game broke so many builds putting them miles above the rest. But instead of fixing that, blizzard leaned into it and released content that only very narrow builds could complete. Ubers? Without a smiter? Almost unheard of.
Itemization is also a big part of ruining that. I've always loved RPGs that have "Sets" and "Uniques" that are powerful, but the best is always a Rare (or equivalent such as crafted item). Sure the odds of godrolling the best items are astronomically small, but at least it lead to diversity. Everyone who just wants to play can equip the same gear as each other, but those who want to optimize need to work.
Yes, builds are always going to have a 'big hit' that you want to be boosted as high as possible. But the method of boosting doesn't have to be boring on its own. You can, for example, have other attack skills apply the debuffs.
This is what some of the other D4 classes do. It's also how I've built my class where Meteor is a very high damage method of applying immobilize which grants me extra crit damage and I then hit with charged bolts.
Ideally your 'boosting' skills are effective at clearing out trash and you only really need the full boost stack on elites.