Bat constellation

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Bat constellation is a mess to be honest. While the proc is actually quite good and may rival Falconswoop in terms of single target (but only if you focus on pierce and vitality), other nodes just don’t stitch together. My analysis and suggestions come from the assumption that the devotion will be mostly used with Phantasmal Blades.


First node:
+15% Vitality Damage
+15% Bleeding Damage

Third node:
+24% Vitality Damage
+30% Bleeding Damage

The main problem here is that Bat doesn’t give pierce damage, at all. Even if the proc uses it. Best attack devotions actually give the %bonuses to the damage types that proc uses, so it’s safe to assume that the lack if +%pierce damage hinders the potential of this constellation. So my suggestion is to switch %bleed to pierce.
Also, bleed/vitality doesn’t conceptually fit the Bat, because this damage combo is Devouring Swarm and Bloody Pox. Would’ve made sense to have something like that on Rat instead. Pierce/Vitality fits better because it’s for Nightblade.

Next, second node:


15% chance to do ~120 Vitality Decay over 2 seconds

Vitality Decay, really? Come on, +%vitality decay is absent in masteries and is very rare on gear besides a few faction greens and high-end legendaries. Why it’s on an early devotion like Bat? Not to mention that Bat itself doesn’t provide with +%vitality decay. And even if we close eyes on this, a simple flat DoT damage node is just weak. I don’t suggest adding +%vitality decay to it, like it’s done with Rat, Manticore, Fox, Bull. I suggest flat vitality decay to be removed from bat.

Fourth node:


+30% Life Leech damage
3% attack damage converted to health

There again, a node that doesn’t fit well. I understand that it’s a Bat, but Life Leech Damage is even more garbage than Vitality Decay imo. It’s so irrelevant that it doesn’t even appear in character stats. Moreover, Bat doesn’t even provide with flat Life Leech damage. Personally I don’t see the reason why there has to be three devotions utilizing such an irrelevant stat (the other two are Ghoul and Vulture); coincidently, all three are mostly avoided by players, except for maybe Ghoul for it’s proc.

So how would a perfect Bat constellation look to me?


First node:
+15% Pierce Damage
+15% Vitality Damage

Second node: 
Increases Armor Piercing by 50%

Third node:
+24% Pierce Damage
+24% Vitality Damage

Fourth node:
+40% Bleeding Damage
3% Attack Damage Converted to Health.

Proc:
70% chance to pass through enemies -> 100%.
2

Cuz i’m BATMAN

3

Actually no life leech is really powerful especially when used with weapon damage AoE.
Take Vulture constellation with bat and early game you become nearly immortal against mobs and it still holds up well on late difficulties as well as not many things actually resist it

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4

I’ll give it a try.

5

Pretty sure Ghoul gives flat and % life leech as well, can’t remember but take that as well

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6

Ghoul only gives flat.

But to be honest, 6 points for sustain while I already have sustain from PB, Twin Fang and SoC is a bit too much. I can put them into Wendigo instead :undecided: And since Wendigo is a non-CD duration proc it can easily replace life leech.

7

I never said it was the most efficient I was just saying that it’s hardly useless and that it is powerful for what it is.

And it will do a much, much better job then wendigo in ~70% or so situations.
Plus it’s a dot so it stacks meaning a build that cycles through moderate to high weapon damage skills benefit massively so it can still be somewhat useful against single targets but as I said it really shines with AoE in mobs.

A good example is a maxed Calidors Tempest with transmuter with maul assigned to it

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8

Actually, that Vitality Decay node was supposed to be Life Leech / 2s, will be updated to the correct stat.

9

Its powerful early on but at later levels there are much better ways to get sustain since the flat amounts just don’t scale at all into higher level’s health pools.

10

That’s not true, think of wave of souls from boneweave or lifesteal nova from deaths hood
Both of those can still heal you massively even with little to no gear support when you’re surrounded
Life leech is just like that except you can get half decent heal on single target if you can cycle skills properly

Yes there is better ways of getting sustain just look at all the fall backs absolutely everyone uses, however that does not mean that life leech is useless or not viable.
Life leech is a very good sustain and can outshine typical sustain in some situations such as being surrounded by 6 flesh hulks 4 commanders and 6 of the ones that are just below commanders (a situation I ran into recently)

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11

I never said it was bad, you just can’t get the flat numbers for it to scale properly into late game like you can heal on damage and other sustain. Maybe you’re right and you can play tricks and set up scenarios where its good but why? Why not just get 15-20% dmg converted to life and be strong in any scenario?

12

Again against mobs the numbers scale just fine, life leech in mobs is the same as popping a potion but stronger in Ultimate.
And if you can cycle weapon damage skills properly it can be half decent against single targets.

That amount of ADctH require quiet a lot in gear life leech doesn’t require anything from gear as if scales pretty well on spirit

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13

I agree that the proc damage types and the node damage types don’t match up the best, but I think that your buffs would make bat a little too powerful for a tier 1 constellation. I use bat for my vitality conjurer and although I don’t get much from the pierce damage, the vitality and weapon damage are enough to justify its use and it increases my dps to a noticeable degree. I’m sure a small buff would be fine but I don’t want it to become falcon 2.0

14

life leech doesn’t scale with anything except +%life leech damage, and ‘total damage modified by’. not even all damage boosts it.

it doesn’t stack with multiple weapon damage skills either, only the highest % weapon damage skill (though it caps at 100%) will apply

15

Like what Most said, I don’t think you know how Life Leech scales, it doesn’t scale at all like you said, its only applied by your highest WD% up to 100% and the 2 stats it does scale with (see Most’s post) are rare on gear so you’re basically stuck with the Devotions, i.e. a very low amount for the HP pools in Ultimate.

16

I agree that my suggestion is an overkill.
Zantai had already said that vitality decay will be changed to life leech, so it won’t look that out of place at least. I still would like to see some pierce damage nodes in the constellation. As it is it won’t ever become falcon 2.0 because falconswoop’s power is that it fits every build, some better, some worse. Twin fang comes close only on builds that utilize both pierce and vitality.

What did you attach it to? Devouring Swarm?