Unfortunately it is the only weapon option for cold primal strike that works in a reasonable manner.
Zantai cannot just take things you guys say for granted. Because hes a developer and we´re users.
You must apply for a job at Crate in order to gain trust like this.
What baffles me every time though is that things seem, at least to me, sometimes to not have been properly tested before releasing.
This is true. But from the thread where it started Zantai didn’t really say anything regarding this matter. It was just @Norzan. And while he was right that the weapon must be tested before declaring it’s OP, he also went the exact way as the others by directly disagreeing with them while also not providing any evidence on his claims. Tho it should be easy to see that the difference between winter king and soulrend in terms of SS is .17s cooldown in favor of soulrend while you get 18% passive, permanent RR on bane. Even if you don’t test it it’s easy to see which one’s better.
Also, I think the problem with this change (and other OP item changes in the previous patch, especially spite and anguish) is that there just aren’t enough testers who get to endgame. Crate themselves are now busy making a new game. And the only praets I know that still play this part of the game are valinov and fluff. Fluff is busy playing noctirn and valinov doesn’t seem to play cold SS. And other than SS what’s there to make use of that cdr really?
2 Likes
I actually did some testing on cold ss, but it was quite awhile ago. Unfortunately I haven’t put as much time into gd lately as I would like
Firstly, I’m not singling you guys out here, I’ve noticed the same way of thinking from others. (and maybe this isn’t the thread for this, but this did stem from a discussion with a playtester)
There are at least 6 of us who run Crucible, just off the top of my head. 6 out of less than 20 active playtesters already vastly over-represents the number of GD players who care about Crucible as endgame. Less than 3% of steam players have even cleared it once, and even out of those I doubt all of them consider it the standard for endgame and/or run it regularly (as one of those 3%, I certainly don’t, SR is endgame for most of my characters). Feel free to check the achievements on steam if you don’t believe me here.
We usually have dozens of builds, and hundreds of changes to test with every major update. A few singular item changes like this are bound to slip through. If Zantai waited for us to playtest every item on every build, it would be years between updates. And as Valinov indicated, sometimes we are simply busy with life (like anyone else) and don’t get around to testing all the things we would like to. I already had a Korvan Wyrm build and didn’t get around to testing it after the changes as I was busy with RL concerns.
2 Likes
Hey, man, I appreciate what you guys are doing and so does community. You are not getting paid, you don’t really have much say in the final balancing decisions and yet you get a lot of undeserved critisism.
But also, man, how did you guys let such obvious stuff as “Spite” slip through? Right after the precedent has been set with Rancor? Same with Bane of Winter King. Nightblade was notorious for its cold Morgoneth SS builds and Winter King was already a stronger legendary than Soulrend and CDR slips thru? Just trying to understand, not start another flame war.
Appreciated but it’s still not nearly enough to test everything. Even the community doesn’t have the numbers for proper tests because this game expanded so much with customization options. I think this game is harder to balance than, say, even PoE. But look at PoE tersters/community numbers and at GD numbers.
We try to be as helpful as we can. Most builders i know don’t have any agenda and only want to see the game balanced and diverse, even though their input might be skewed from time to time.
One important thing to know is most of frequent builders are grown-ups. This is a niche, complex, Diablo-like game appealing to 30+ year olds. Most of us have full time jobs and families. We know what responsibility is and we also constantly provide our feedback for free.
One might think we deserve some benefit of the doubt when we unanimously say “this is op” or “that thing is still bad”. But instead what we get is arrogant responses from some of praetorians and mockery from the developer. It’s repelling.
4 Likes
I’m going from memory here so I could be wrong, but I think Spite (and Rancor, for that matter) was tested and found to be quite strong, possibly OP, but only a few of us tested it and I think sometimes Zantai just wants a larger sample size, more opinions from those who do play endgame content, before making balance changes.
Winter King was just a matter of nobody getting to it for testing (as far as I know). There were a lot of other things to test, and some of the more prolific testers were busy. But as I indicated in my previous post, Zantai isn’t going to hold back a patch to wait on testing one item. Easy enough to change it back if something is off balance wise.
Thanks alot for your insights!
Also thx for this:
Now I dont feel like an outlaw anymore, having completed crucible just once in my life while reading in every 2nd sentence in this forum, not if but how fast some pilots can complete it.
1 Like
- No one let it slip through. It was brought to attention that it would be OP first thing when seeing the stats (it was enough to just look at it)
Zantai didn’t nerf it cause no one made a build on it. PB was being remade and also Rancor. Guess he wanted solid info which the community, through their desire to play it, offered…which leads us to nr 2.
- Testing means playing the game the way you want to (casually, end game, MC only, Cruci etc., with the builds that you want to play/test for yourself) and if you come across problems you show them. For example I don’t care in the least about Winter King (not even enough to look at the stats) so that i’d show any solid data to work with. Same with spite where it was only pointed out.
This topic discussed in the past before. Aside from glaring bugs that can be observed in testing, at the end of the day it’s the community as a whole that can give insight on every possible build. There is no need to ring the alarm all over the place. You see it, you build it, you wreck with it and then show it
This is why people shouldn’t be so quick on jumping at zantai on the first sign of imbalance that shows up.
Zantai may be blunt, or even a bit snarky at times, but he has made many changes based on community feedback.
Only other thing I’d point out is to remind people that not everyone’s native language is English. Things are not always going to come across exactly as intended, so there’s no need to take things personally or read too much into what people have to say.
I’m 23 and not married and i have less time for GD than some of you guys 
This issue goes way back AoM tho. And it all really started when the group of people (that you’re now a part of) started to throw insults st zantai because they didn’t like how he balanced the game. Every patch has been like this since then and it’ll never change till the final patch of Grim Dawn. Just think of it as our seasonal dose of drama.
It was inaccurate wording on my part. “We” as in “part of the community actively involved in endgame”. Regardless of my impression on fellow builders, i can’t be responsible for what any of them said and how they said it. And i’d like to be treated as a separate person, not “one of those who throws insults” at someone.
And yeah, it’d be great to have some personal trust on the matter of melee side of the game after months of posting melee builds. Not having people questioning your every word like you are a fresh account guy. I simply can’t post a build-proof every time i see an imbalanced change. If that’s too much to ask, it is what it is. I’m 32 and i will find other things to do in my free time.
3 Likes