An idea for better Chaos support (Oathkeeper)

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

I have a small suggestion, to help with Chaos support. No need to rework the entire mastery, just one ability that would synergize well with any Chaos skill:

Vire’s Might

Awesome-looking charge ability. I have there a suggestion to make it slightly better for chaos support

Default (shown on stream, subject to change, I know):
Base (level 10): Physical/Piercing/internal trauma
1st Modifier (level 20): Adds trail of fire, extends radius, slow
2nd Modifier (level 32): Extends range, reduce reload time, bleeding, more internal trauma

Transmuter(level 15):
Requires shield or 2-hander
-15% damage
Knockdown
30% Phys converted to fire

My suggested changes:

Default:
1st Modifier:

  • Adds knockback (scalable ?)

Transmuter:
> Moved to level 25

  • Converts Physical to Chaos (effectively removes Internal trauma)
  • Removes knockback
  • Reduces all resistances by ~10% for 3 seconds
  • Reduces Ennemy damage by ~10% for 3 seconds
  • (optional, would be awesome) change the sound effect to some kind of terrific scream
  • (balance, not sure) Extends cooldown
  • (balance, not sure) Resistance reduction limited to Chaos, Poison and Vitality (Witch Gods elements)

Numbers for durations and percentages are here for indication only, not the fruit of intense thought.

The idea.
When you have the base skill, you have DoT and Knockback. Brute force style, kind of
When you transmute it, you have a demoralizing/debilitating effect. Something the Witch gods would do, underhanded, sneaky.

Thoughts ?

2

I understand that everyone is subjective when it comes to what they wanna play, and what dmg type. For example, I wish OK had more innate cold support(perhaps in the end it will).

But the above are a lot of changes simply to accomodate the desire to play a certain dmg type.

Bare in mind you might find mods on gear that convert a skill like vire from phys to chaos. If not, the above are still very biased to chaos dmg

3

4

Fair point.
Although, the current version of the transmuter puts the damage to Fire/Burn. One of the most used and overused damage type across all the masteries.
I did put Chaos, because I felt like it could support the current Witch God-oriented gameplay, and add a real chaos skill as well.
But you’re right, this could very well turn into a Cold one, and transmute Fire to something else, and you would have an ice-skating looking skill. Could be funny as well.

Anyway, I hope this transmuter gets changed to ANYTHING but fire or vitality

5

Well the original idea is very biased towards Fire damage. :stuck_out_tongue: It does make a bit more sense given the existing fire trail though, yes. I suppose either idea is as good as the other really, and considering the mastery’s main theme seems to be “Physical, Fire and Witch Gods” both would fit equally well. I’m more inclined to lean towards a Chaos transmuter though, simply because I’ve not seen any other Chaos skills in Oathkeeper so far, though as you said in the other thread I’ve not seen every skill yet, so that line of thinking could be massively flawed.

I guess its just too soon to say whether this is a good suggestion really, but at least its always fun to throw ideas out there. Well, to an extent.

And hey, Vire is a movement skill so whichever damage type we don’t get might at least pop up in a rune.

6

well blitz is sexist cause only phys dmg:p At least vire can do 2x types from the start

In the end it’s mods. Otherwise all masteries would be riddled with transmuters

7

This right here. Oathkeeper doesn’t seem to support Chaos now but some Infrequents could easily do just that. Same goes for other mastery skills too.

They know we’ve been asking for more support for Pierce, Acid and Chaos and so far have been delivering very well on the first 2 and a little on the 3rd. I would wait until we can see the full picture.

8

With the introduction of the Oathkeeper, the damage-type distribution across all the masteries is actually nearly perfectly even.

In fact, the one underrepresented in comparison to other damage types would be Aether, but I wouldn’t say that is the case by any substantial margin.

Where Chaos came up short was item support in certain gear slots, which is something we’re looking to address in Forgotten Gods.

9

In terms of having a presence in masteries, I guess you’re right. But in terms of skill-density for damage-type representation, Aether is much better off than Chaos:

Chaos:
	Sold:	Nothing
	Demo:	3 (and a half) modifiers
	Occult:	1 main skill, 2 buffs, 1 modifier
	Night:	1 modifier
	Arc:	1 transmuter, 1 passive
	Sham:	Nothing
	Inquis:	1 transmuter
	Necro:	Nothing
	Total:	5 (and a half) modifiers, 2 buffs, 2 transmuters, 1 main skill, 1 passive

Aether:
	Sold:	Nothing
	Demo:	Nothing
	Occult:	Nothing
	Night:	Nothing
	Arc:	2 main skills, 1 buff, 3 (and a half) modifiers, 1 passive
	Sham:	Nothing
	Inquis:	1 transmuter
	Necro:	1 WPS, 1 main skill, 2 buffs, 1 modifier, 1 transmuter
	Total:	4 (and a half) modifiers, 3 buffs, 2 transmuters, 3 main skills, 1 passive, 1 WPS

Keeping things dense helps by leaps and bounds with enforcing synergies for different masteries, even those that innately don’t do much for the damage type in question. That’s why Druids or Battlemages are so effective; they can get a lot of support for Aether from Arcanist, and then funnel that through Cadence or Primal Strike/Savagery, for instance. Meanwhile Sorcerer, which has Chaos representation in both masteries, is provably not a fantastic choice for Chaos.

This is all in ignorance of items, of course, but that’s mostly the point. Out of the box, Aether is much more usable in practice than Chaos is.

10

What does arcanist support for melee version of the above that Occult can’t. Both have flat dmg, neither has rr

11

Yes, a Chaos Witchblade/Conjurer is, on paper, roughly as effective as an Aether Battlemage/Druid. But that wasn’t the point at hand. The point was to establish the premise that the density of Aether skills in a few masteries outweighs the strength of representation in multiple masteries.

That Chaos Witchblade/Conjurer is also about as effective as an Aether Death Knight/Ritualist, if not outright less-effective due to Necro’s inherent RR. Where’s the alternative Chaos mastery for Soldier/Shaman?

12

Demmolitionist. But not for the above. But it’s there to be combined with others

13

'scuse me. I just stated something about Oathkeeper alone in the last Misadventures if I am not wrong, and it was that I think the overload of physical RR there is too high. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thought that I should say that and make you feel bad. :stuck_out_tongue:

14

If this happens and I can finally make a heavily armored frost knight type of character…drool…

15

It’s also about where the damage type appears in the mastery. Aether is found early in Arcanist and Necro and Inquisitor, but Chaos generally requires significant investment in any mastery bar to use, except the Solael’s passive.

16

I’ll keep this on mind.

17

I wasn’t paying close attention, but out of the Oathkeeper skills shown so far, is there Chaos damage on any of them?

18

A lot of physical and fire mainly, with a few acid transmuters. Nothing much in the chaos department, if anything at all.

19

Such bs. I’ve been requesting proper chaos support for years, and it still hasn’t happened lol.

20

Chaos damage is already everywhere in this game… there’s a crapload of devotions, components and gear that converts damage to chaos in the game, and I’m pretty sure more is on the way with this xpac, so yeah, no chaos garbage on this mastery, please.