Set Items make up Item Sets; groups of similarly-named, consistently-themed items that grant the player additional bonuses when two (or more) of them are worn at the same time.
Item Sets will probably return in Diablo III, but only if the D3 Team can fix what they see as problems with the execution of the item type in Diablo 2.
- Diablo II Item Set information.
Diablo III Item Sets
The D3 Team has said that they want to include item sets in Diablo III, but that there are still some problems to surmount. Jay Wilson spoke on this point in August, 2010: [1]
- Jay Wilson: We understand the problems with item sets. We want to solve them. Set items are under work now, if we can't find a way to solve the problem it won’t be in the game. But we’ve got a couple of ideas on the table and we think it'll work out.
Diablo II Problems
Item Sets and Set Items were a nifty idea in Diablo II, but the execution was not perfect, especially in D2C, where Item Sets were generally underpowered and not worth wearing. There were no partial set bonuses in D2C; a character had to wear the entire set to receive any bonuses, and these bonuses were generally quite small.
D2X introduced much higher quality item sets, including ones comprised entirely of exceptional or elite items, some of which were comparable to the best Rare or Unique items. D2X also incorporated a variety of partial set bonuses, where characters drew extra bonuses for wearing two or more items of a set.
The main problems, though, of characters finding it too difficult to find some or all of the same set, remained. Jay Wilson spoke to this in a December 2008 interview with 1up.com. [2]
- Jay Wilson: There're still a few things that we haven't made decisions on yet -- set items, for one. I didn't like the way they worked in Diablo 2, as by the time you finally got a set together, you generally leveled beyond the use for it. So you might save them for alts, which is OK, but I'd rather that they be useful for you to begin with. We haven't really decided how we're going to fix that.
Green Items in Diablo III
Quest items have green names in Diablo III, making them look like Diablo 2 set items, at first glance. In the Blizzcon 2008 demo, King Leoric's Crown had to be found in the dungeon, and then used to awake the Skeleton King for the final battle of the BlizzCon demo build. This crown could not be equipped, just carried and then used to call the King's spirit back into his bones.