Black Scourge pet needs some buffs

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
1

The lifetime of these bugs is too short. Bugs only live for 8 seconds, while cooldown is 3 seconds. Considering the low attack frequency for pet builds, it is so hard to keep the bugs at max numbers.

2026-03-22_151458

Lets see other temporary pets.

Black Scourge - lifetime 8 seconds, cooldown 3 seconds, 3 summon limit, 15% chance to summon, bugs have low health so easy to die.
Bonescavenger - lifetime 18 seconds, cooldown 4 seconds, 3 summon limit, 15% chance to summon, ghosts have high health.
Ghol Gloves - lifetime 18 seconds, cooldown 4 seconds, 3 summon limit, critical hit to summon, spiders have high health.
Black Hand - lifetime 15 seconds, cooldown 5 seconds, 3 summon limit, 50% chance to summon, moderate health.
Primal Instinct - lifetime 25 seconds, cooldown 2 seconds, 4 summon limit, 20% chance to summon, low health.

Easy to see that Black Scourge bugs have the shortest lifetime, and they are the hardest to keep at high numbers because of low health and low summon chance. Moreover, Black Scourge holds weapon slot, the most important and fiercely competitive slot. Weak bugs with low pet bonus makes Black Scourge underwhelming.

Suggestion
Increase their lifetime to 15 seconds to match other temporary pets, or 10 seconds with at least 25% chance to summon.
If possible, I hope to slightly increase their explosion range, maybe 3.5 to 3.8 meters.

p.s. Ghol Gloves need critical hit to summon, this is a bit strange. Few pet builds have enough OA and attack frequency to make critical hits.

2

don’t forget the most elusive one:

voidfiend (will of bysmiel amulet) - lifetime 5 seconds, cooldown 10 seconds, 2 summon/summon limit, don’t blink if you want to see 'em. :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
3

might be a little out of line, but, is 7 seconds more life really gonna “save” this stick? :thinking:
it’s carried entirely by the summons, has no modifiers, and… a small/perhaps “thematic” pet bonus in a bit oa and then chaos res.
Suppose the question really is, are the pets good enough to pick this still over X weap at 15secs?

4

Ain’t this item pets the suicidal ball of teeth that explode on death? Would be better if the rr shred is higher and it summons all at once when the skill triggers

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5

Yeah, these pets are the explodey ones, so they’re not meant to be a zoo-keeper esque pet build, but more offensively inclined builds such as temporary Blight Fiend bomber style builds.

I’m majorly hoping that this item gets some good skill modifiers once FoA comes out to lean more into the “constant resummon, but has major DPS if you can pilot it properly” theme that it’s designed for.

2 Likes
6

Based on what? Compared to what? With what results?

Black Scourge used to activate on kill, ie. they had virtually 0 uptime, so they went from never being up to being temporarily up. They were never intended to have 100% uptime. And they are meant to die to trigger their on death eruption.

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7

Blight Fiend bomber and Hellhound bomber, you can actively control their explosions when you reach their summon limit. And, with the help of cooldown modifiers, thier cooldown is shorter than 1 second, i.e., 1 bomber per second.

But for these bugs, you only summon 1 every 3 seconds. Considering low attack frequency, it may become every 4-5 seconds or even longer interval. And, as you cannot reach their summon limit, summon a new one wont make older ones explode, you must wait them another 4-5 seconds to die and explode.

In SR, we are repeatedly searching a group of emenies and stop to fight. In this cycle, you usually summon bugs during fighting, but they explodes when you are running and searching.

The above content is about the mechanism issue. Next, lets talk about the numerical issue. Explosion has 16 RR, but Ishtak 18, bysmiel hound 25, and Elemental Storm 32. 16 is lower than all of these commonly used devotion procs. And bugs’ explosion radius is 3 meter, Elemental Storm is 3.5 meter. Veilpiercer also has higher RR.

In terms of damage, 220-350 AoE damage seems ok, but one explosion every 4-5 seconds.
Skeletal Servant deals (140% WD + 270-343 Phys + 450 Vit)*2 in larger area every 7 seconds.
Salazar deals 130% WD + 476 Vit in larger area every 6 seconds.
World Gate deals 300 Phys + 600 Elem in larger area every second.
And chaos → X conversion is rare for pet builds. Only chaos pet can fully use its damage.

Finally, base pet bonus.
Black Scourge offers 7% OA and some chaos res. Oh damn, how low it is.
Salazar’s of Binding has 40% all dmg, 8% health, 7% OA and some vit res.
Even the set weapon, Beacon of Lost Souls, has 108% all dmg, 9% OA and some vit res. (Full set gives 3 skeletons + 1 hound)
Don’t let me list all pet weapons one by one, the base pet bonus of Black Scourge is definitely in the last 3 places among all green and purple weapons.

Fine, I get it, and I’m appreciated diverse designs. I can accept the short lifetime and low health. I even think it should be shorter to explode more often. But it needs higher proc chance. And their death eruption dmg, radius and RR are disappointing now.

2 Likes
8

“fwiw”, i tried modding the stick with 25% proc chance and 15sec duration, used the chaos skeles setup for quick test with scourge swap Cabalist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator (assumed it was highest potential scourge dmg) it was not an impressive improvement against the 7 dummies in Fort Ikon just saying :woozy_face: - void grubs’ dps was like 300k peaked at 400 for a brief moment with all buff procs rolling
without skill modifiers/higher stat bonuses or stronger pet proc i don’t think i see how this stick is supposed to be attractive, let alone compete with other pet build sticks

9

Just so we have a good baseline understanding, this is the build I use when talking about this particular weapon: [1.1.9.0] Chaotic Spirits - a Chaos Reap Spirit Hybrid Pet Build [SR80 Complete]

It’s 5 years old at this point and very outdated (this build was made long before things like Occultist getting Chaos RR and I had to get any source of RR I could get such as from the Conduit). I haven’t updated it primarily because I’m waiting until FoA comes out and seeing if this sort of build gets love.

Because it was dependent on things like constant Reap Spirit casts and Solael component, attack frequency was rather high, justifying the low proc chance. It’s not optimal, since high attack frequency leads to more aggro, but I like the “high risk, high reward” gameplay builds like this offer.

I am also hoping for things like pet Chaos → Fire / Cold conversion, the weapon to get skill modifiers, and appropriate skill bonuses (why is it giving +1 to Shaman skills when this item is custom-made for Cabalists). I’m assuming (hoping?) that we can get some cool Shapeshifter + minion builds, and this item would be great for a redesign candidate.