Blade Trap - No seriously, we need to talk about this

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
41

I assume that CC here stands for Crowd Control. I have to specify this since I am not sure to understand the point here.

The Crowd Control abilities in most games I have played so far are precisely to deal with… crowds, ie masses of regular enemies. They are most of the time pretty much the opposite of the abilities dedicated to bosses as far as I understood, which is why I am a bit confused by the approach of that discussion. In the old D2 days, there were the duellists, strong in 1v1s and weak in 1v+s, and the massists, weak in 1v1s and strong in 1v+s. This was all clean and clear and ready to go. Now confusion appears to be the new rule.

But if by CC we are talking here about abilities affecting the enemy’s behavior, then this makes more sense, but I would then suggest to change the term to something clearer like AI-affecting abilities or something like that.

I have no problem with game mechanics with abilities with different purposes: if it is clear enough, this provides the player with different options, which is usually good. But now we have that Blade Trap that some say provides little value against the monsters that are going to be dealt with anyway, and no value against the big ones where it could actually really shine. I am under the impression that there may be a misunderstanding here: the developers disabled its effects on the bosses because they fear the entrapment abuse, while the players may miss it more for its actual defense reduction debuff. If this is the current situation, I fear that this is probably not going anywhere, since enabling a part of the ability features and not another is not going to make much sense at the end.

The problem with most of those debuff skills is that there is no equivalent for the bosses: there could be AoE versions and single-targets ones, with AoE being effective against masses and 1v1 skills effective against bosses, but Grim Dawn is so much into putting a bit of every effects into every abilities that it ends up paying the price: some confusion with what is supposed to do what exactly and nothing really doing something much different than something else.

Everything can be fixed, and especially those things that we have ourselves broken. It is just a matter of willpower and creativity. This is what is for that organ that nature has put in our skulls.

But before stating what the skill should be, we have to make sure first that we really understand what it was supposed to be in the first place: I am personally not sure that that skill has ever been designed to be dedicated to bosses. Yes, it was first a single target skill I think, and since it features entrapment and defense reduction, makes it a right candidate against bosses, but since the skill has then switched to that mass entrapment function, I am no longer sure. To me at the moment it is mostly relevant in corridors, when the enemies arrive in lines, and you want to hinder their course by preparing your more efficient attacks, and that’s it. Not much more.

The only way to have this balanced is to have it back to a single target ability. If it can entrap everything in the game, and especially with such low cooldown and with piercing damages, it turn obsolete at least the half of the other abilities in the game. Everybody go NB > BT and trap trap trap trap trap trap his way up to the final boss.

No. Hence my suggestion to either have it AoE persistent to make it a good option against masses at choke points, or have it a 1v1 ability effective on 1 target at most at any time with low range and average cooldown and effective against the bosses. I can’t see any other way to have this more balanced, unless the ability is completely reworked to something else. I think that what makes that skill so hard to manage is its entrapment function. Maybe it should be switched with a more usual slow effect. Entrapment should be restricted to skills really not doing anything else, like the net. The entrapment+damage is a very sensitive mix in game design.

Sorry for the long post. I hope that this makes some sense.

42

Don’t take what Betatest guy says too seriously. He was on record as of a few weeks ago saying that pure bleed and pure cold damage builds are not viable :D. I think Drizzto would “slightly” disagree here. Other pearls of wisdom include believing that builds should not be able to build around a single damage type because it’s “OP”, and that only tanks are viable.

And yeah, CC in ARPGs is fucked forever. If it works on bosses it breaks the game, if it doesn’t it’s borderline useless. If you try to find a middle ground it’s usually inelegant, convoluted and not satisfying to play with. OFF sees use because it’s a low cost, high QoL skill that synergises well with the rest of Arcanist. Aside from that, I don’t see any other skill in the game being used for its CC component save maybe Grasping Vines on a handful of builds. And at least that one does damage to CC immune mobs.

43

I like using rotational skill builds occadionally. In those builds Blade Trap fits quite nicely. This skill is not for everyone.

A large percentage of the players create lmb roflstomp builds and are based on dps and speed. Blade Trap was designed to immobilize a large group of enemies whilst you focus on the larger threat. I personally don’t feel that it should work on bosses in it’s current form.

Trap skills in general are hard to balance and are only taken by niche builds or people that prefer that playstyle. So setting it down and luring enemies towards the trap will not appeal to everyone, but because the game has many “late spawns”, having Blade Trap function like this may actually work out.

44

CC is made for crowds, yes… Except we also don’t need it for crowds. That’s the issue. As for you magically balancing it… Generations of game devs and gamers have failed to do so. Forgive me if I doubt that you are suddenly the one, Neo, to do what no other has done.

45

My point is despite the addition of Inquisitor we still would lack diversity for trap builds

Currently they’re the only ones w/o a dedicated item set

CC skills like Sheep mentioned aren’t necessary

I’d still argue a Thermite Mine styled trap skill would be much better

Sure you could argue that not every skill is for everyone. And i personally love DPS Machines and Lol’kill builds myself.

But still one would atleast try out a pet build or trap build every once a while, even with varying playstyles or rotational skill builds. Blade Trap has minimal contribution
Like in a trap build i could simply clear stuff using Elemental Balance.

The position of the skill in the mastery line and the amount of skill points required makes it a very poorly designed skill

@Btw, Duck did you test out the new Apocalypse? I’ve been running some tests in Valbury
Sorry if this sounds off-topic. Just curious on what you think of the new apocalypse
Cause so far despite the reduced energy cost the problem still persisted that i was missing too much or rather the projectiles were missing too much

46

Lol I have several ways to make bt work. Lets use curse of fratility from occultist as the prime example. 1. Its not only a very usefull cc in the fact that it sloes enemy mobs down with a very large radius, it ALSO debuffs enemies damage type resistances, and lowers da significantly… A good fix would be to tac on movement speed to the skill, and or give bt the ability to reduce all mobs damage resis. It would be perfectly balanced due to the low range of area it can affect mobs and the amount of mobs it can affect. Thus giving it a wider appeal for players to want to invest in the skill, and opening up its viability for lots of builds… Makes sense?

47

Looks like a more practical approach.
Simply change its effect to slow & reduce certain mob stats would be a easy way to rework this skill.

48

Lowering the CC would sort out only if the debuffs were no longer tied to said CC. Actually, if right now, the existing blade trap debuffed without the target being CCed, it’d be insanely good.

49

Indeed.
Since it can be done with Flashbang, it should be able to work on bt, too.

50

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

51

I honestly don’t see a difference in 1.0.0.9. It just litters the screen randomly. It’s not a reliable source of damage but damage nonetheless.


At least I didn’t run into Valdaran this time.

But how does this differ from Blade Spirit? If anything it still makes Blade Trap useless because Blade Spirit can be moved around using “pet attack”.

I’m working on a Blade Trap Vitality build using Demonslayer’s Garb but right now I’m only level 59. Here’s a quick vid. But on Elite as expected it’s still just rofl stomping.

52

To be fair you almost had him last time
It was bad luck you died

There’s more actually, Blade Spirit doesn’t suffer from the same restrictions of being useless against bosses like Blade Trap
Also, BS is very reliable to proc devotions

We both now Elite can be cleared with Empowered Soiled Trousers Granted Skill :smiley:

Demoslayer Set is good but needs improvement, the bonuses to BT and BS are badly placed on a Phantasmal Blades Set

Good luck with Ultimate, i’d still say BT needs a major rework

OFF is an early game skill and syncs well with Arcanist skills like TSS or AAR or Demo skills like Mortar Trap

BT’s best use i’ve seen is with Phantasmal Blades. But considering how far it is in the Nightblade line i’d expect it to be better

Like i said earlier, i don’t want everything to work with bosses. But some skills do need some change to be appealing enough to most of the players

I like Sheep’s idea, as an extra Trap skill would contribute to diversity amongst trap based builds. Right now every trap build just seems to be built in almost the same way due to lack of skills and supporting items

53

Shamelessly quoting myself because I think this idea is awesome. It’s a unique way to make CC useful aside from just killing crowds, and the devs seem to have been pushing that skill in that direction anyway. They just need to buff the numbers.

Maybe make 100% ADCtH baseline on Devouring Blades, up to 200% for 12/12 and 300% for max rank.

54

When I first tried Blade Trap, I was expecting some sort of fence or barrier skill and I believe that is the way it should work:

-Blade trap creates a circle of blades around target point with the radius listed on the skill tooltip
-Enemies inside can’t get out
-Enemies outside can’t get in
-Ranged attacks and spells fly above the barrier (ignore the barrier)
-Enemies inside are damaged, debuffed and life leached (the stuff the skill already does)

This way the skill would be very unique and the CC would work against bosses. Since most bosses use ranged attacks, except Darius and maybe some other, it wouldn’t be OP. Of course the recharge would have to be raised to above 10 seconds and the debuff nerfed. Or the trap could have limited health that scales to skill and player level and enemies could destroy the barrier, but the initial area keeps damaging and debuffing whomever stays inside for the duration of the spell.

For people familiar with Titan Quest, this would be very similar to Briar Ward and Sanctuary. Briar Ward creates a barrier around you that melee enemies must break before they reach you and Sanctuary gives buffs to the player inside the area of the barrier even after the barrier is destroyed.
On the other hand, New Blade Trap would be cast on enemies, but still there is a very similar spell in the game engine already.

55

The radius would have to be very large, and you’d have to be IN the barrier for it to be allowed against bosses. If you could be outside the barrier, then you could, for example, lock Iron Maiden inside, and kill her at range while being in very little danger. I’m not really sure that’d sort out against bosses.

56

I like this idea as well

Never played Titan Quest, but i guess something like this would be nice

57

Problem with this is that in multiplayer your allies tend to be “dick’s”. There’s always that one friend in D2 who kept trying to trap you with bone prison. It’s funny the first time not the 50th. Barb’s and sorceresses could easily escape, the rest had to turn hostile or wait for the effects to wear off.

In GD it’s bound to get in the way and become a nuisance. There would be times where the Blade Trap would imprison the enemies and an ally. Wether done on purpose or by accident. Then there would be times where you would occasionally mis-click and trap yourself with enemies.

58

I have never heard about offensive abilities in ARPG that may affect oneself.

We should probably remove then straight away that Flash Freeze skill since it freezes the player each time he uses it.

Those are pretty unexpected allies or friends. Hopefully those friends are not around you with knives, because maybe they would then try to stab you, but that would probably be ok because you would then blame the knife.

59

So what do you guys think?

  1. Sheep’s idea to turn it into a trap based skill?
  2. Croc’s idea to turn it into a skill that traps enemy and allows us to leech off them. He mentioned something similar existing in TQ but instead of the enemy the barrier surrounded the player
  3. Just make minor adjustments to the skill?

I am in favor of Sheep’s idea personally, while croc’s idea sounds unique it sounds like a balancing nightmare
Sheep’s idea appeals to me since imo we could use more trap based skills in the game. Sure they’re not very popular but i’d never say no to diversity

60

Righteous Fire in POE does exactly that. In fact, that’s the entire point. You alight yourself with “Righteous Fire”, that burns you for a % of your life and energy shield. That burn is spread around you in an AOE, doing damage again based on your life and ES. The trick was to scale enough % regen to survive the burn, and then stack life, life, and more life, so that all your character was really doing was walking around, burning, and you were clearing maps.

Regardless. Cough. Sorry, tangent. Obviously I vote for 1, mostly because I think 2 just exacerbates the existing issue… Unless you trap the player casting it within it, which just makes it useless for a different reason, IE, GD has nothing that really runs away from you that would make it needed/useful.