And the Most Powerful Enemy in the Game Is...

[Seemann]

I’m not sure what type of character you’re playig but my Warlock takes way more damage from valdaran than aetherfire lol he would be dead if I stood still in front of valdaran during his burst before standing in aetherfire.

Yeah, I think that we and Nssheepster haven’t fought the same nemeses because even with good builds (2,2k DA, 1k+armor, 10k+ hp, overcapped resists) they are all able to strike a blow that remove more than 1/4 of your hp (and not almost never, at each encounter …)

CAN? Technically yes. DOES? No, almost never.

Counting an occasional item spawn doesn’t seem very reasonable.

But hey, I’m curious to see your build(s)

[Twan]

Yeah, I think that we and Nssheepster haven’t fought the same nemeses because even with good builds (2,2k DA, 1k+armor, 10k+ hp, overcapped resists) they are all able to strike a blow that remove more than 1/4 of your hp (and not almost never, at each encounter …)

But hey, I’m curious to see your build(s)

Hahaha indeed! Valdaran is one of the easier of the nemesis’s but that guy still packs a punch!

I’ll gladly share my build with you.

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53990

[Nssheepster]

Yeah, I think that we and Nssheepster haven’t fought the same nemeses because even with good builds (2,2k DA, 1k+armor, 10k+ hp, overcapped resists) they are all able to strike a blow that remove more than 1/4 of your hp (and not almost never, at each encounter …)

But hey, I’m curious to see your build(s)

You’re telling me in a single hit, every Nemesis removes 20% of your health? Really? One hit?

I have no idea what builds you’re making that that happens. The only time I came anywhere near that was with an insanely glass cannon styled Infernal Knight character, and that guy died to basically a strong sneeze.

Shrug. Maybe I just build overly tanky.

EDIT: Yes, shotgunning things can clearly remove 20% of your HP or more, but that’s hardly one hit, now is it? Aetherfire is one tick, 20%.

[Twan]

Not to argue but my highest damage taken on my warlock was about 6.2k and on my Spellbreaker I actually got hit for 12k (this was at Edge of Reality) :eek: but had my friend buffing me and an entire page of potions popped so I managed to survive ! I about crapped myself. I actually have it recorded lmao.

I’d love to have a build that doesn’t get murdered, are you using a shield or something? And could you share?

[Nssheepster]

Not to argue but my highest damage taken on my warlock was about 6.2k and on my Spellbreaker I actually got hit for 12k (this was at Edge of Reality) :eek: but had my friend buffing me and an entire page of potions popped so I managed to survive ! I about crapped myself. I actually have it recorded lmao.

I’d love to have a build that doesn’t get murdered, are you using a shield or something? And could you share?

That must’ve been one hell of a lucky crit on the wrong ability. Dang.

As I’ve mentioned in a few other threads, I tossed all but one character in preparation for the expansion. Last character is an AAR Druid I’ve been tinkering with off and on. I do intend to actually make a build guide for that one, but with the expansion forthcoming, I’m thinking I should wait to do so until that’s out. Optimizing right now is probably going to be fairly different from optimizing with 15 more levels, plus all the items and augments, maybe some new components as well… But if the tankiness stays the same, then the build guide should be pretty nice.

[Twan]

I tossed all but one character

I don’t even want an explanation, I’m wiping my hands clean of this thread.

[Nssheepster]

I don’t even want an explanation, I’m wiping my hands clean of this thread.

…? I wanted to start the expansion fresh. Is that so wrong, somehow? After you get tons of stuff and tons of characters, a new start can be appealing at times. I’m not about to, say, go D3 on it and restart every few months, but I’ve played a lot of Grim Dawn, I had a lot of junk kicking around… Now I don’t, and I can start again.

[mad_lee]

Good point about adding some green-ish creep on the sides of the screen when you are standing on the ground that deals damage for too long. I like Port Valbury (used to hate it), it’s challenging, but with right gear and preparation it’s very doable. However, I still hate those moments when I am fighting like 3 heroes and one aether tower and it’s an armageddon on screen and suddenly couple of aethersouls sneak into the middle of it all and surely I always start noticing only when my hp starts dropping by quarters.

It’s especially deadly when you are fighting like 5 aetherwarped trolls and 4 possed mages in a narrow building, there is no way to say if some aethersoul just creeped its way to you from upstairs or is it a spell from one of the enemies.

[PokerFeng]

The floor.

No, really.

I know this is something that gets kicked around here a lot, i.e. ground effect damage. To me, the issue isn’t that it exists. I like that it exists; it adds a lot to the game, and to the tactics, immersion, and feel of certain areas.

However… there are certain areas in which it is entirely too powerful. A 20% tick once per second that’s extremely difficult to mitigate, and which most characters don’t mitigate at all most of the time, is just too much IMO.

I play video games, especially aRPGs, to feel powerful, like I’m overcoming great challenges. When I fight a harrowing five minute battle with a major boss, and nearly die half a dozen times, only to just barely squeak by to victory, that’s fun! I feel powerful, and I feel a sense of achievement. If I fail, and die, I learn from it, and come back determined to succeed, and then I gain a reward.

When I then die to a couple of Heroic mobs simply because I happened to be on the damage side of a very fuzzy damage/no-damage barrier graphically speaking, and my power animation went off twice while I was trying to click somewhere else on the floor, because the floor can kill me in five seconds flat, no matter how awesome my character is… that’s not fun. That’s capricious. When it happens ten more times in a particular zone, and there’s nothing to learn from it since some of the enemies only spawn inside the damaging area, and won’t move out of it, and I’m playing a purely melee character… that’s enough to sap my motivation to keep playing.

That said, as I mentioned, I do like the mechanic. The interesting tactical challenge it adds to me, is actually achieved optimally by the lowest tick value (2% I think? Maybe 5%?). Namely, it disables Constitution healing, and largely negates my HP regen. So, in low-damage areas, like the early poisonous caves in Act I, I get to make a tactical choice: do I fight where I am and tough it out without regen and Constitution? Or do I kite the enemies to a clear spot and fight them there, even if it means spreading them out, and taking more ranged damage along the way?

20% per tick doesn’t have anything like that tactical intrigue, it just… kills you. Hard and fast. If this were a puzzle platformer, that’d be fine, but… it isn’t.

So…

A couple of possible solutions.

[LIST=6]
[li]Keep the high damage (even still percentile) but make it an appropriate type, so resistances apply, instead of its own unique type.[/li]
[li]Make clearer boundaries between what damages and what doesn’t.[/li]
[li]Add a mechanic to high-damage floor effects that allows for a delay or to cross undamaged, similar to the floor spikes in the Tyrant’s Hold.[/li]
[li]Add a gentle AI assist to make moving out of a floor damage area a higher priority than attacking in terms of user input (I know this one is probably the most work, but hey, it’s an idea.)[/li]
[li]Better incorporation of resistance to % Health Reduction into general items, skills, and Devotions, so that characters are more likely to have some in place without having to explicitly gear up for those specific sections.[/li]
[li]Significantly lower the highest tick value (about in half would be good; a 10 second reaction time with animations that can take over a second to complete in the way, is a lot more doable. To die in 10 seconds, I’ve made a mistake. To die in 5, I’ve maybe literally misclicked once, in a chaotic scene.)[/li][/LIST]

In case the fun/not-fun thing isn’t enough… consider that it’s a little bit absurd for a tanky character in full plate armor, designed to stand toe to toe with monstrous entities ten times his size, to die in exactly the same time as a glass-cannon mage in robes, to a floor effect. If I choose to play a tank, I want to feel tanky, not die just as fast as I do when I choose to play a glass cannon. It’s immersion-breaking on top of being unfun. XD

I like all of your ideas–as well as making moving smoothers