Why do almost all unique attack weapons have to be terrible?

Hello everyone,

the league is winding down, so I thought I start a bit of a discussion about a topic that has been bothering me in this game for a long time. That is, as the title says, the utter unusability of pretty much all unique weapons in this game, due to them being vastley under-statted.

I'm specificall talking about weapons that are meant for performing attacks with them, so mainly swords, axes, maces, staves and bows.

Let me give a few examples here:First and foremost, bows. Bows were massively buffed in 3.16 making rare bows now roll 2h flat damage modifiers, instead of 1h values, alongside buffs to their base damage. But in the very same patch they nerfed all unique bows accordingly, to basically stay at the same dps value they had before. And that's while NO ONE was using any unique bows to begin with. So they just stayed unusable.

I remember a time when we played Bleed Bow gladiator, and before you crafted a good rare bow, you could use something like Lioneyes Glare or maybe Slivertongue as an okay early option. Now no one will even look at these anymore, since you can make a better phys bow with rog, probably on your very first try.

Mathils most recent build also showcases this very well. One of the new endgame bosses from 3.16 drops a bow (gluttonous tide) that has a DPS ceiling of ~375. That is AWFUL in an age where we can craft 1k+ DPS rare bows probably with under an exalt of investment.

Another example: Xoph's Nurture. Actually used to be the meta choice for Burning Arrow builds, because it offered a 7 link alongside some very competetive DPS, plus the upside of some healing potential. Well, the 7 link and the healing potential is still there, but the ~370pDPS that it caps out at just doesn't even remotely cut it compared to a rare bow. Hell you could straight double the DPS and it would barely even cut it.

Next example, and this one is the most personal to me: Swords. What the hell was the reasoning behind the Starforge nerf? It is the most iconic weapon that this game has, it has an amazing model, and it has an actually interesting effect with phys being able to shock. But the DPS is just so atrociously bad that once again you just can't justify running it pretty much ever.

Even before the nerf Starforge was far from the best sword in the game. It was kind of like a middle-of-the-road option for 2h sword builds. Terminus Est -> Starforge -> Rare crafted sword made for a very natural progression curve through the weapons. This has been completely nullified by the nerf.

For 1h swords we at least still have Paradoxica, a sword with an actual interesting effect that makes it worth building around. Actual good design, I hope it's not the next in line for the Starforge treatment...

Axes: Similar story as with Starforge here. Atziri's Disfavour is a very iconic item that many people have fond memories of. Once again, it was never really the best for any build, it always got outclassed by a really good rare. But now there isn't even a competition. It has actually been "buffed" in a recent patch, but all they did was to make it now drop from normal Atziri instead of uber Atziri. That changed absolutely nothing. It went from 0 usage to....well still 0 usage. Because no matter where it drops, it doesn't change the fact that it's still an absolutely awful item.

Maces: Tidebreaker is okay for certain builds, nothing else is even ever worth looking at for 2h. 1h maces actually got interesting options in Brutus' Lead Sprinkler and Replica Frostbreath. Like with paradoxica, actual good weapons that are worth building around. They're currently a bit held back by the general weakness of melee builds, but that's not the weapons fault.

Staves: Now this is a bit of a counterexample, cause staves are the one weapon type where the natural progression curve that I talked about earlier is actually still in tact. Hegemonies Era -> Cane of Kulemak -> rare crafted staff is a very nice progression curve to follow along if you're playing a staff attack build. Why can't we have that for other weapon types as well anymore? We actually did have it, and they decided to patch it out, for a reason I really can't wrap my head around.

That's about it for this little rant/discussion topic, and I'm curious to hear what other people have to say on it. Are you happy with almost all unique weapons being automatic vendor trash?

Edit: since I'm getting a lot of comments in the ballpark of "if a unique is BiS, that makes crafting irrelevant and the game boring", that is NOT, what i want, and thats not what this post was aimed towards either. Imo unique weapons should only very rarely be actual BiS for a build, and only if that build makes extensive use of that uniques specific nieche. Good example here would be replica dreamfeather for the armour stacker build.

What I do NOT want is that uniques are so far behind even the lowest tier of crafted rares that they are basically not even worth looking at. Bows show this problem very well. Even the strongest unique bows have around 400 dps, while even a very easily rog crafted rare goes way over 800. The difference is just way too big.