A couple ideas

[Sky]

i personally would jump at the opportunity, because it would save me from having to spend HOURS hunting DL25 for artifact lights; as i pretty much kill always every unique, i know i would eventually get it. Well .. within reason.
I wonder if this however creates a problem with higher Power-rating artifacts.

Like .. you don't want a situation where all the Dragon Armors are assigned to a unique. It's much easier to kill every unique, than it is to collect the higher D.A.s, Mage CL45 + Chaos Blast + Resistance and there is no unique short of Morgoth that can stand up to you, but getting the D.A. with the highest power rating is a much bigger effort that requires scouring dozens of greater vaults.

i mean ...

"Min Level 100, Max Level 127, Generation chance 19, Power 819, 11.3 lbs
Random dragon armor of power 819."


i'm not talking about FORCIBLY assigning artifacts to uniques;
during normal gameplay, if you are on DL60 and you find a unique, they will have rolled a random DL60 set of drops as per their description. If you kill the same unique on DL80, then the same applies but with depth DL80.
Every time you re-encounter them, if not killed, they would roll again randomly.

Instead the idea is to lock the unique to their native depth. Sure if you somehow manage to meet The Witch King at DL50, *and* you kill it, well congrats you get native DL80 drops. Unlikely though, but actually more likely that you get WORSE drops, as killing Bullroarer at DL98 doesnt do anything for you, you still get DL5 drops.
But, every unique in the game has their drops rolled at the start. So, new game, and the Witch King gets a set of DL80 gear rolled, whether that is artifacts or not, it's set for the rest of the game.
Because THERE WILL be artifacts in the whole list of unique's drops, the only way to find these is by hunting down and killing those unique; once idk, Ungoliant has an Arkenstone, there is no amount of scumming you can do, that Arkenstone will not generate on the floor.

[Pete Mack]

@sky--
But why do you hunt artifact lights so long? And why there of all places? At DL 30+ you will get way more stat potions and at least progress further in the rest of the game .

[Sky]

@sky--
But why do you hunt artifact lights so long? And why there of all places? At DL 30+ you will get way more stat potions and at least progress further in the rest of the game .

because RANDARTS. They almost always have additional bonuses that Standart lights do not have, essentially you got 1 extra "bonus stuff" slot.
My current "Star of Elendil" or whatever that i have right now is the same as any other Star, *except* that it gives me +2 CON bonus.

(obviously, i'm not considering when they come out reeeeeally overpowered, idk, Arkenstone +5 INT, HL, FA, Si)

[Pete Mack]

That answers the first half of the question, but not why you haunt DL 25 rather than 30+.

[Sky]

That answers the first half of the question, but not why you haunt DL 25 rather than 30+.

From experience, there are more drops of LF -6+ contending once you get past DL27. If you see LF 6-6 on DL25, it's very likely to be a light, there's only so many things that 6 could be. The deeper you go, the more stuff that can generate that will give it a 6 rating.

I've never seen a light generate a 7 on its own. They all tend to be 5 or 6.

I know from the artifact spoiler file lights should generate up to DL47, but it's RARE. Like, super rare. I mean, i've occasionally seen light generate on DL60, but this is about as likely as getting The One Ring. Remember that Nick did some code magic to fix the lights drop rate in 4.2 which does not exist in 4.1.3, i dont know the details but i know it's there.

[Pete Mack]

That sounds like the kind of experience that leads to confirmation bias. Since I usually play with standard artifacts, I mostly don't pay so much attention to light sources. But other than the Phial, I never thought they're particularly low level items