Btw is the Mad Queen really a super boss? I mean her text is Purple, not red. And so far all my builds could handle her easily on all difficulties, something I cannot say about Mogdrogen. Her life reduction/vitality/life leech aura is deadly and can kill you if you are not careful, yes, but she isn’t fricking invulnerable to damage like Mr. “here is your god now”.
It’s maybe a trope but it makes sense even in GD. Why else is Caster Armor in this game weaker in armor class than regular or heavy? Casters are not meant to go toe to toe with enemies. That’s what the many skills Arcanists have for freezing/knocking down enemies, or making themselves invulnerable for a while, are for. Same as D&D wizards have Stoneskin or Mirror Image.
Same here, and this was also a thing in Titan Quest. I remember, my first pet build (Dream/Nature) could simply not defeat Typhon and that was on Normal. I had to change skills a LOT to beat him. On Mythical/Legendary, pets became stronger (game gave them HP boost) and I could go back to my regular build.
In GD too, I did a pure Occultist build (when the game started and we only had 3 classes - did not want to use anything else) and not surprisingly, although I made it to the Loghorrean, I could not beat him with that build. Not everything works. This is always so in games which give you freedom to assign skill points as you like - same goes for Diablo II or Torchlight II.
Exactly this, thank you. There is a reason why two handed swords and axes do more damage than pistols, the latter are ranged and the enemy won’t hit back. Same is true about the armor and defense of such characters too or their melee skills. And this is also true of most ranged enemies too, if you think about it - Cronley Pyromaniacs aren’t much in melee, but they can do good damage before you get there.
They work well against some stuff, and not so well against others. Try killing Undead or Obsidian Ravagers with bleeding/poison, you will see what I mean. This was the same in Titan’s Quest too. Again, this is why I prefer this game to Diablo II where everything has the same resistance to every type of damage… so monsters feel same-y.
I have to ask did you even play a ranged build normal veteran mode or even past act 1? As it is frequently impossible to do just that due that due charge ability/high movement speed + cc immunity of many hard hitting, high HP mobs, bosses and nemesis that are frequently combined with a restrictive environment.
You’re forced to face tank as a ranged and spell caster build. If you add to that that these consist of some most difficult parts of the game for any build, then yes spellcaster/ ranged builds need to be just as tanky as any melee build.
Of course I did. My very first build as a ranged pure occultist was heavily Dreeg’s Evil Eye focused. I did have trouble - and complained here a lot - about enemies being too fast and catching up to me too soon, but after I got a new PC I realized it wasn’t that, it was my computer creating lag - I could not get past Cronley as his summons filled the screen and slowed down the game. With my new PC, my Arcanist (Panetti/Sky Shards/Storm Totem focus) has no issues with such enemies, and those who get close, that’s what those spells I mentioned are for.
I have been playing RPGs since the nineties, so for me casters being squishy in melee feels natural. In Diablo I too, I never tried facetanking with my Mage. Sorry if you feel otherwise - guess we just grew up on different RPGs.
SOME enemies can do that. Wendigos are super fast. Wraiths will disappear and appear next to you - not the same as Haunted Nobles using Shadow Strike, you can still hit them before they hit you, if you are fast. Wraithcallers will attack you via a ranged spell that also conjures a Wraith next to you. Behemoths and the fat but surprisingly fast Aetherial Gut-somethings (forgot the name) can use Charge like the Zombie fighters could.
But that’s only a small part of enemies. The expansion also gave us the slowest ever monsters, the Ugdenbog Golems are lumbering slow things. Carnivorous Plants cannot move and only shoot from afar. The Aetherial Aberrations, which replace the regular Walking Dead, are not much faster than those were. Imps despite being small, walk really slow.
And it’s not like this is new - Flesh/Ironside/Rage Hulks were incredibly fast with Charge despite their size too.
Don’t forget the new mages. The myrmidons and spell breakers are stupidly easy to dispatch of. I think their biggest strength is the heal ability but other than that they are fodder
While many hard hitting enemy types move very fast, they have slow swings and good telegraphs most of the time. It is entirely possible to stay in close range and only move a bit when they start to swing at you. Then they miss and have to walk again. That way you can avoid most of the melee damage with minimal time for kiting. That even works against large groups. You obviously shouldn’t just stand there and take the beating of course. Chargers tend to miss when you move away on “impact”.
Source: Close to 1000 hours on clock mainly playing ranged builds.
Fuckin’ long post mate (reading quotes and replies at the same time)
Okay, so
-I agree with your views here, not sure why you bothered typing this cause I am against nerfs to it
MQ isn’t a Super Boss, where did you get that idea
Mr. “Here is your God now” is me, Mogdrogen is a prick. Chthon and Dreeg are the only true deities
Not really, this is inaccurate as in most boss fights the bosses are in melee range or you have to be in melee range to hit them
Let’s not forget nemeses, in the new content closed spaces and charging enemies makes ranged gameplay even tougher
Even in vanilla GD, ranged builds were built tanky as shit to tackle things like crucible and nemeses
Not denying this, this is actually true for melee as well. The attacks are very well telegraphed and charging enemies are easy to spot. But this doesn’t mean ranged needs to be made of paper as we still have nemeses and closed spaces to deal with. Sylvarria is a joke if you focus only on her, but if you try to kite or focus on adds, you’re dead. There’s zero space to kite her, Marcell is hard to kite but not impossible, I consider him easy since his attacks were very easy to read.
I grew up with older ARPG as well (Diablo 2 and Morrowind in my case).
I don’t know about the mage in Diablo 1 as the only class in played in that game was the warrior.
But you don’t have to face tank with a sorcerer in Diablo 2 as unlike grim dawn you had plenty of ways to avoid melee contact that are lacking in this game.
I would prefer this not to be the case as it would add more variety to the game but for it seem unlikely to change as some reason crate has been vehemently against adding aground based teleport skills(this might be a engine restriction) or making bosses susceptible to even small amounts of cc.
Some of the ways you can avoid melee combat in Dialbo 2 that are lacking in grim dawn:
A ground Targeted Teleport.
A huge slow debuff in the form of cold damage that works nearly everything. The only exception I encountered was a rare Unique Monster in act V that if it spawned with Cold Enchanted gained a cold resistance so high it could not be pierced with cold mastery. All act bosses are susceptible to slow.
A freeze effect that literally froze them in place that worked on all of the normal mobs, even in hell mode if you invested in cold mastery.
A far higher movement speed cap compared to monster movement.
Less restrictive environments though less so on boss fights. The only real exception being the act 2 boss that was a bitch to ranged classes.
Many Spell that not only did more AOE dps compared to other classes but that also allowed you to kite without taking a massive penalty on dps.
There is nothing comparable to stuff like meteor, blizzard, frozen orb and chain lighting in the spell caster mastries. Only devastation comes close but that is heavily restricted due it’s large cooldown.
No one ever had a problem with them being fast or gap closing. Like you mentioned, there have been reiterations of these in old classic ARPGs. It’s the lack of counterplay to this that annoys people; when your toon is constantly subjected to situations where in you must take unavoidable damage then you add these monster trucks in those situations.
Take your own example as reference (Diablo 2)
At higher levels of hardcore ladder play, Teleport was made available to every class (later versions) to get out of sticky situations they didn’t want to be in and was originally used as a kiting tool to thin out hard hitting mobs and making it possible to fight against bosses in enclosed spaces. Teleport being later exploited as a movement/speed clear tool has nothing to do with it, as it was initially intended for safe caster play at higher difficulties w/ extra content.
Offscreen casting/shooting was possible (softening mobs, kiting the agro line). Something that GD chose to throw to the garbage bin.
What does GD give us instead: damage reduction and invulnerability skills, and the “option” to abuse the defensive devotions skills that grant near immortality.
As casters and ranged traditionals, we’re not even supposed to be in that proximity in the first place. In more classic reiterations, if a player dies in HC as ranged and caster from being closed out by melee trucks, vet players would say you deserved to lose your HC toon for not playing smart or not using your environment properly to control your agro. Don’t you find it weird that in this game, you lose your caster and ranged most of the time because you weren’t tanky enough to absorb the damage? The whole thing is a paradox, and why people still defend its validity is really beyond me.
The most OP aspect was it the sheer speed in which you could cast it and that it only required skill 1 point to do so.
Honesty I see nothing wrong with adding a teleport skill to grim dawn as a way for the more fragile ranged builds to get out of sticky situations, provided is has a cooldown that is long enough.
Currently the game is prohibitive difficult for a number playstyles which ruins build diversity.
This is almost exactly how I play. The post you are quoting is in response to Bustar who is going on and on about how easy Ultimate AoM is with a ranged character, because his all green geared DoT, tether, totem build, which kites and hides every fight, was able to do it.
My point was that you can’t do a lot of damage if you are kiting, on normal ranged builds. His was an exception, not the rule. Just because he made it with his unusual build, doesn’t mean most ranged characters can go in with all green gear and have an easy time, but he insists, because his Dot build can do it, every character will have just as easy of a time.
I am not even hiding. I am literally walking through the bog tanking legions of crabs, dozens of plants and even the golems. I am lazy so I don’t even mind being hit, I am not going to die anyway. Hiding, lol
The problem with your replies here is the nature of the build you’re playing. A DoT build is considered to be one of the most convenient build types out there
You can’t really accurately measure the difficulty of anything if you play a DoT build - unless you’re deliberately paying attention to every detail
This is the main reason why you don’t seem to understand why people are finding the content difficult (except chain stuns, not going to advocate for people complaining about that)
I watched a few minutes of your video. You were dropping totems, using tether, and hiding behind bolders to prevent any type of charge or ranged attacks.
I’m sure you couldn’t do that all the time, but that is what I saw in your video. As a DoT character, you have an unusually easy time at avoiding damage compared to any other type of character.
I’m not even saying the game is too hard. I’m saying your experience does not represent most others.
Currently the game is prohibitive difficult for a number playstyles which ruins build diversity. Some might claim that if your build can not survive in melee range long enough it means that your build is bad.
It certainly is so currently, but that is only so because the only reliable way the game gives you to deal with damage is to heal, to reduce and to have high enough health to take it.
The only exception to this would be pet builds or dot builds that do not need to stand still to do good ranged DPS.
The result is that that if your masteries lack defensive skills + stats you must use gear and constellation to make up the difference as the base game on ultimate was balanced with high defense + health in mind.
As an example try to play a dual wield melee witch hunter without spending most your points in Physique, it is nearly impossible as even some of the normal mobs will oneshot you due your low health.
In the expansion this is even worse. I feel it was balanced around a defensive builds with good defensive gear and constellation.
This means for mastery combinations with a lower defensive stats + skills to survive without dying every other encounter you need to have top of the line defensive gear + heavily invest defensive constellation.
While it still is possible to play with masteries with a fewer defenses the result is that the barrier to successfully play them is far higher both in terms of gear and builds.
While at the same time being inferior to a well build and decent geared build that has access to good defensive skills + stats as they do not need to make as many sacrifices in terms of devotions + gear just to survive.
Look at me though, I am literally running into everything. I don’t even try to kite that much except for the golems(you need to really suck to not be able to kite them as a ranged character). You cant chalk it up as me playing a dot build, a ranged character could do the exact same thing I am doing here.
This is the content you guys want to nerf or at least part of it. Something anybody who knows what they are doing will no doubt clear in maybe 2 weeks flat starting from scratch.
I am not sure people should complain about deaths w/o a certain level of defensive investment in characters
I have seen posts in recent days where people don’t pick Blast Shield or even Mirror of Ereoctes
I get people are trying to be “hip”, but w/o such things even vanilla would stomp you
Out of the box builds with unique concepts are getting penalized a little and that worries me a little, but I don’t understand why someone is complaining about deaths with almost complete disregard for defenses.
I saw your previous post and I do agree that gameplay of this game for casters when compared to DII does offer lesser options since you the latter offers some ways to avoid enemy contact. I am not exactly defending GD but DII existed during a period when games where highly imbalanced. I mean I love a good ENIGMA abuse as the next guy but currently implementing something like that in GD is nearly impossible as the current playstyle is the core of the game. And it’s not necessarily bad than DII, just different. There are people who prefer this and there are people who prefer Diablo II’s approach to the matter on casters
There is a reason why two handed swords and axes do more damage than pistols, the latter are ranged and the enemy won’t hit back. Same is true about the armor and defense of such characters too or their melee skills. And this is also true of most ranged enemies too, if you think about it - Cronley Pyromaniacs aren’t much in melee, but they can do good damage before you get there.
This was the same in Titan’s Quest too. Again, this is why I prefer this game to Diablo II where everything has the same resistance to every type of damage… so monsters feel same-y.