In 1.0.7 Dreeg’s Evil Eye - main (and basically the only one) Acid and Poison spell has been buffed. Few A&P items have been buffed as well, for example Venosmpine Greaves that sucked a lot for any Witch Hunter because of the useless A&P resist now have whopping 12% elemental resist. Wow, almost as good as buff to Malakors and Octavius, right. Venomskin Legwraps have been buffed as well, 12% Elemental resist. Those pants have been solid already and becamse even better. But it’s not a game breaking change A&P builds were waiting for.
Dreeg’s Deception set. It has been improved. And honestly I haven’t tested it. But I still wouldn’t use it on my Witch Hunter. Same problems persist: caster armor with 0% physical resist, proc on the helmet still grants 100% skill distruption protection (Crate, HELLO, it has been said millions of times, DEE users do not need skill distruption protection, the have it on Possession, what the hell), set pushes us towards DEE spam gameplay, but weapon damage on DEE is atrocious, and DEE is good for Poison dots, not for spam. Weapon STILL has vitality damage as base.
Not going to comment on new Vileblade/Vilepact set, although I said it many times - ABB is a level 1 skill and building a whole set and whole build around it is less than desirable. It’s like making a set for Devouring Swarm.
Here is my current Witch Hunter caster build. As you can see, hardcapped DEE, Biting Blades Spam, almost every A&P Devotion, quadruple metric tonn of resist reduction, huge amount of defenses on a caster build (in-game armor is 1950). Here is how it does in-game: 10 minute Crucible 3 blessings/1 banner.. If I push damage any further with wonky Dreeg’s Deception set and play as DEE spam char I won’t make it past wave 154 probably. And that is a top poison caster build on a double resist reduction class. Barely making it.
My suggestions:
Dreeg’s set needs to be reworked completely
Venomspine Greaves are clearly meant for Witch hunters (6 skill points for Occultist and Nightblade). For the love of Chton, change poison resist into something else. Slow or Trap resist would be great.
Dreeg’s Evil Eye is still mediocre even when hard capped and buffed by item mods. Without the support of all A&P constellations and Biting Blades spam I am not sure it would even cut it.
Poison dots just don’t hurt. 140% Resist Reduction and ticks are still meh. I am guessing A&P monster’s resist is overtuned.
Hence the latest changes to the set/skill line, most of which benefited spam DEE and not transmuted DoT DEE. Only the base skill getting increased Poison Scaling in Ultimate Ranks is a buff targeted for transmuted DEE.
Can agree that the set could use some Phys resist and doesn’t need the Disruption resist, but offensively speaking spam DEE is now very usable and frankly kind of strong.
I don’t play poison builds mainly because of this.
Poison sucks, I made a twin brother of my cold blademaster but on A&P, it sucked in 1.0.6.1 and sucks right now even using freshly buffed MQ claws.
Mobs are heavily resistant to A&P where they shouldn’t be, tbh. That’s why it’s so hard to play A&P in current meta.
Ceno, man, have you read my post, have you looked at my GT link, watched my Crucible video? What DEE spam, with 20% weapon damage and a weapon which base damage is still VITALITY? This is “offensively speaking” your Witch hunter very dead at first serious wave, no offense, pun intended.
Octavius set was buffed and reworked. Markovian set was buffed and reworked, Deathmarked set was buffed and reworked. Malakor’s Infusion weapon was buffed and reworked. DEE set “rework” was like a last second bone that Crate threw at Witch Hunter’s table, set is still hot garbaggio, just less hot than it’s been before. How do you call this rework? This is a slap in the face, “here, we heard you thougt Venomspine Greaves have resists that don’t make sense, take this 12% elemental res and don’t spend it all in one day”.
I am honestly a bit furious with this, given how much A&P has been talked about and discussed in length here. Instead somehow already OP Tacticians get MORE SHIT, and Witch Hunters get trolled for a 100th time.
For possibly the millionth time, no comments I ever make on this forum have anything to do with Crucible. Don’t care/hate the gamemode, couldn’t care less about its balance except for when there is evidence of something overtly upsetting class competency on the higher-end of things. Spam DEE works wonders in Campaign, and to me, that’s sufficient.
Ceno, I could make a build with faction gear and it would work “wonders in Campaign”. You can’t be serious with that argument “Hurr-durr, gtfo with your Crucible min-maxing, it works in Campaign”. I don’t enjoy Crucible and I only play it to test my builds, because hate it or love it, it’s the ultimate way to test builds’ power and resilience before Shattered Realms.
There is a reason you see about 0 A&P Witch Hunters builds coming out in since Ashes of Malmouth, and the reason is simple: A&P just sucks. Or you think top builders and Crucible players won’t jump on an opportunity to make a build out of double RR class?
And this mantra “But wait for Forgotten Gods” doesn’t work for me anymore. A&P has been neglected by devs during the long ass period of Ashes of Malmouth, numerous threads have been made, experienced builders and players all chimed in with their expertise pointing out exactly what’s wrong with A&P. But then 1.0.7.0 and 1.0.7.1 comes out and already oupie Tacticians and Soldiers get more ridiculously oupie shit, and A&P builds get trolled again by a set that still offers 100% skill distruption protection as a proc to Possession using Occultists.
I can’t tell sometimes if you enjoy being abrasive for the sake of it or if you just really want to live up to the “mad” in your username.
You openly admit you haven’t played with the Dreeg set changes and completely overlook the Venomblade changes cause apparently it’s a “1 point skill”, but yeah, acid and poison builds are just so dead and overlooked. :rolleyes:
Edit: oh yes, and the Deathguard buffs…Nidalla’s relic buffs…Next time, please kindly do me the favor of reading the patch notes and trying the changes before you go off about how we can’t do our jobs.
That or Witch Hunters have notoriously low health pools and some DA problems which when posed against the high-OA and very-fast enemies of AoM don’t especially mix well. But sure, we can point fingers at damage type itemization if you like, even though my “assreaper” Acid Reaper was the first build I went public with post-AoM.
Listen, I’m not trying to be dismissive of the idea of Acid being underwhelming - I’ve been trying to get it buffed for ages!
But the arguments you’re raising in this thread aren’t exactly helping the situation because, frankly, they aren’t terribly accurate to the situation of Acid and Poison.
And I can’t tell if you are just ignoring all those A&P threads on purpose by retorting with “Ah you are being so mad” or you really think that it’s fine to ignore what all of the top builders with thousands of hours of playing the game combined and studying it inside out trying to say something on the topic of balance?
Do you really think I am just doing it for forum points or something or just to sound smart and quirky? Why wouldn’t you just listen, please? I have stated why Dreeg set is still bad, is blatently obvious, like that 100% distruption bonus or weapon damage being Vitality for a weapon damage spam build or set missing physical resists. What does Deathguard, a set that has been good from the start has to do with it? A set designed for an AoM class, not for Witch Hunter. Yeah, Nidalla relic change is great, but not game breaking, Deathguard set being good does not change the fact that A&P is currently behind in meta. Or should I just record a video of Dreeg’s Deception Witchunter dying again and again in Crucible or barely squeezing in 12 minutes with mad kiting?
So which of my arguments aren’t “terribly accurate”? You are making it sound like I made the thread with 20 hours of experience in Grim Dawn saying HALP I CAN’T KILL THEODIN ON NORMAL WITH MY DREEG’S EVIL EYE WITCH BLADE, POISON SUXX!
Short, unsatisfactory but totally serious answer: yes and no.