Unlucky player snags Diablo 4 legendary that's so bad it feels spiteful: 'if you surround yourself with infinite enemies you could reach that 8 life per second'

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With drops like this, the Butcher is getting the last laugh over players that slay him.

A Barbarian fights off a horde of demons.
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Diablo 4's many high-tier drops were not created equal. Yeah, there are the Barbarian gloves that turn the game into a kind of euphoric slot machine, and there's the Necromancer gear that renders the Corpse Explosion ability completely ungovernable, but they're just one side of the coin. The other side has, well, stuff like this.

Greatest legendary known to man from r/Diablo

That, reader, is the Boneweave Helm of the Crowded Sage. Uncovered by a Diablo player who goes by LavusVincere on Reddit, the helm is a largely unremarkable bit of legendary headgear in every aspect but one: Its, um, Aspect. That's the text in orange next to the star, if you're not sure, and in this helm's case it reads "You Heal for 0 Life per second for each Close enemy, up to 8 Life per second".

Well, how generous. You might think you're missing something here, but you're not. This item really does seem to provide 0 healing per second per nearby enemy, meaning you're never gonna reap that sweet, sweet 8 Life per second even if you managed to surround yourself with a quadrillion enemies. When you think about it, pretty much every item in Diablo 4 has this Aspect, they just don't include it in their descriptions.

Or, in the words of Reddit user Jmadman311: "Just think, if you surround yourself with infinite enemies you could reach that 8 life per second".

There is a possibility that the game is simply rounding to 0 from some vanishingly small decimal number (0.1 healing per second, or some such), but that, honestly, might be even more insulting than the novelty effect of a flat 0.

The worst part is that LavusVincere acquired the item as a drop from the Butcher, the fiendish and rare (and occasionally large) enemy who only sometimes pops up to menace players. I would think a special encounter like that would be guaranteed to drop an item that wasn't, you know, risibly awful, but I guess that's why I'm not a famous game designer.

It seems to be a product of players acquiring the drop at low levels. LavusVincere wasn't even level 10 before he got his new item, making it particularly weak when he found it.

Which means that it could have been an even weaker drop, actually. A Reddit user named MamaMouser—playing on a level 1 alt—got an item with a very similar Aspect after a fight with the Butcher, but that one maxed out (such as it could) at a piddling 6 Life per second. Diablo 4, my friends: It could always be worse.

Joshua Wolens
Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.