Bloodlord Thalonis

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

Hi @all,
first of all, greets from Germany, because I’m new here;). Have played about 100 h of GD, so that’s not too much, I know. Therefore, I hope you won’t be too hard on me because of my beginner status.

My question is rather aimed at clarification than ranting, so that I can react. I just wondered, why I got one-shot just minutes ago by Bloodlord Thalonis twice in a row on a loot run (normal difficulty). Basically, that’s not a big deal, if the build is just not good enough. However, I followed the Markovian’s Destroyer Build pretty closely (see http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37429). By now, I am at lvl 58 and played through the game easily, just as the author of the thread (Mickelangello) claimed you would with this tanky build. Actually, Thalonis was harder than The Loghorrean but still not too much of a problem, when I slew’em the first times.

Hopefully, the thread is really new; I haven’t found something to precisely answer my question below via search function (search word: “Thalonis”). However, there are some similar threads about one-shots, maybe they relate to my issue somehow: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35488&highlight=thalonis (as an example… something about Zaria, who - prior to the 2 deaths against Thalonis recently - killed me the only time on Normal Diff, which was because I had some lag spikes and couldn’t react fast enough)

Now, finally ^^, my question(s):

  1. my resistances are quite solid, except for Chaos (21%), which is why I suspect that The Bloodlord does some serious Chaos Damage. Is that true?
  2. Consequently, can something this simple be the reason, why I got one-shot at full life (all of a sudden), when I never had problems before:confused:

Nroamlly, my primary source of information is the GD Wiki, where there is no explicit information about the damage types. However, in the “Public Opinion on Balance” thread in this very forum Avatar of Dreeg speaks about Thalonis (on page 3, that is) and I quote: “More explicitly, Thalonis and Bolvar, for example, have a telegraphed attack in which they create a massive projectile. That projectile bursts into tiny vitality waves.” My Vitality Res is at 65%, so I guess that’s not the point… Or is it, nevertheless?

Just to clarify, the game is awesome and I do explicitly NOT want to criticise game mechanics or design. More adequately described, I would like to improve my gameplay, so I am really grateful for some help on this issue!

Alright, that’s quite a long text for a first post; hope you don’t mind ^^

PS: One additional piece of information: I play 100% self-found.

2

At that level you really shouldn’t get one shot, at least in normal, but yea, your chaos resistance is REALLY low if you are farming cthonic enemies. It’s functional, and should prevent 1-shots, but you can take 4x less damage if you max it out.

And yea, Bloodlord is actually harder than Log at that level, tbh. Most of log’s difficulty is the adds he spawns, and his big low range nukes. In normal, that isn’t a big issue, although he really starts to pick up in Elite, and in Ulti he can potentially 1-shot you even through capped out resistances if your hp isn’t the best (His poison damage nuke can easily break a 10k damage hit up front, even through 80% poison resistance).

3

First your chaos resistance is low, second his telegraphed - shotgun or whatever attack can deal massive damage at close range. Beyond that he (or his bloodletters) can cast Spectral Misama on you, reduce your resistance even further.

4

Well, it is always wise to check grim dawn wiki for the skills that bosses use

According to this he has double chaos bold and as far as my knowledge goes that skill has hp reduction effect. Maybe you got hit by two of those at the same time. Although I was running that retaliation warden build and to be honest my hp didn’t even move at all when fighting him. With only 20% chaos resist

5

Well, first of all, thank you all for your helpful replies.

Well, it truly is and I did just that before writing (and you might have noticed, I actually wrote that, too). My question aimed at confirming that it IS the Chaos Damage, as I am working problem-oriented to be able to change something I did wrong so far. However, I am thankful for the rest of your answer because it adds to the depth of the discussion.
So, let me summarise the outcome, as I understand it, so far:

  1. The Chaos Res appears to be low -> Solution: Increase it.
  2. Gezas’ report suggests, it is not ONLY the Chaos Damage -> Solution: ?

Consequently, let me pose some follow-up questions:

  1. Do you have suggestions for components, augments, relics, gear etc. with good res? (PS: If necessary, I can give you a short information about what I run around with)
  2. There is no information about the Harbingers in the Wiki. Do they have some further main damage sources (they are, btw, the only “normal” enemies in the game, which can deal at least some damage to my char)? If yes, which ones are these? Chaos, Bleed, Vitality? Etc.?

Once again, thx for your help!

6

What I mean it’s chaos damage paired with health reduction effect of the skill. If i’m not wrong it can go as much as 30%? So if we assume that you get hit by that double bolt and both reduced your hp and did damage, then it is no wonder that you died.

Also i’m not sure if that guy has the possibility to spawn with energy burn weapons, since that thing can also kill quite fast

7

Well I’m not sure what you have at the moment, so posting your current gear and build will certainly help here. It seems you have been 1-shotted by his close range shotgun attack.

Just up your chaos/vit/physical resistance and you should be fine against cthonic enemies throughout normal/veteran. Too bad the resistance augment will only be avaiable from level 70 onwards so you will have to rely on components/gears here.

A simple solution to boost your Chaos resistance is to put a Sanctified Bone in your head gear. A Black Tallow in your medal and an Imbued silver to your weapon/shield could help to. This should boost it up to 70% chaos res, more than enough to survive Normal/veteran. Btw, Legion headguard is very good for leveling. Keep one with Sanctified bone for Cthonic fight and another onewith runestone for other situations.

For vitality resistance just stick 2x corpse dust to your rings.

A set gear I would highly recommend to any chars through the leveling process is the Praetorian set, the set bonus at 2/3 pieces are simply amazing. Normally I stick with the head and shoulder piece in all my characters from level 50-75.

8

I understand that and absolutely agree with you. Still, I wonder why it was no problem at all the previous (I guess) 5 times, I went there for a farming and now, 6th time, I went there, Talonis one-shoots me and I think “Well, that was somewhat unlucky, let’s do it again and be mopre careful.” But when I came back, it was just the same… 2nd consecutive one-shot :frowning: I should have added this as a third follow-up question. Sorry for that.

Maybe this is part of the answer to the question above…

9

Yeah, i once had to fight baltazar on normal veteran with energy burn weapon> Was seriously hard

10

Thank you a lot, that’s what I’m talking ‘bout^^

The Stats; my Res are the following:
Fire / Ice / Lightning: 40 / 80 / 40
Poison / Pierce: 80 / 63
Bleed / Vit: 68 / 65
Aether / Chaos: 44 / 21
Furthermore: Health / DPS: 9059 / 4160

How comes?
Weapon: Vampiric Assault Battle Axe of Alacrity with Severed Claw, because Dmg, Life Leech
Shield: Glacial Bernard’s Slightly-Chewed Buckler w/ Purified Salt, because Dmg, Res: Cold, Poison, Aether
Head: Legion Headguard w/ Dense Fur, because Health, Res: Chaos, Cold
Chest: Legion Chestguard w/ Antivenom Salve, because Dmg, Res: Poison
Legs: Demonbone Legplates w/ Rigid Shell, because Armor, Dmg, Res: Pierce, Vit, Lightn (and because Legendary:D)
Shoulder: Shrewd Fleshwarped Spaulders of Potency with Silk Swatch, because Dmg, Health, Res: Pierce, Bleed
Hands: Runic Bracers w/ Antivenom Salve, because Health, Res: Elemental, Poison
Feet: Dreadnought Footpads w/ Mark of the Traveler, because Dmg, Speed, Res: Pierce
Belt: Warding Assault Waistguard of the Badger w/ Molten Skin, because Res: Aether (24%), Fire
Ring 1: General’s Sapphire Band w/ Corpse Dust, because Exp, Health, Res: Vit
Ring 2: Preserving Topaz Signet of Butchering w/ Roiling Blood, because: Dmg, Res: Vit (34%)
Amulet: Rhowari Guardstone w/ Corpse Dust, because Dmg, Health, Res: Vit
Medal: Stanching Crest of Ruin w/ Roiling Blood, because Exp, DMG, Res: Bleed (46%)
Relic: Calamity, because dunno^^; I do not have great options at the moment, due to missing recipes I try to farm for with this char

I’ll check that; thanks for the hint. Maybe with the above gear given, you have some suggestions (?) For me, the weak points are: Belt (I use it mainly because of Aether and lack of alternatives), Component in Helmet (I’ll change this one first; Cold is at 80%, so saving here might be worthwhile; I’ll try the Sanctified Bone, as you suggest) and Ring 1 (don’t need too much Exp when farming, I guess)

Kymon’s Chosen is my Ally… Can you get this somewhere else? I haven’t found a Partial Component of this one so far. Maybe I should replace Purified Salt w/ Imbued Silver in Shield (or better put it in the weapon and tell Severed Claw go f*** itself?)

I have found the Chestguard only (but twice -.-)… I consider the Legion Chestguard to be better at this mom. But w/ more parts, I totally agree with your perception of the Praetorian Set.

11

Yours stats look solid enough for Veteran.
Honestly, I have never farmed Log that much, may be once per playthrough lol. But I do remember one of my toons got one-shotted by that Bloodlord before, so it does happen too.
You made a great choice choosing Kymon, this could prove very useful later on with their augment Kymon’s will (need revered status though). If you can get Revered with Rovers, that great too, they offer Mogdrogen Sanctity which is a very useful augment for rings.

I would recommend you to take a look at Kymon’s shoulderguard, it is amazing.

For belt, just do a window shopping and find anything that gives you flat HP/OA/DA. The same rule should apply to rings.

Black Tallow recipe can be bought from Kymon’s shop too.

Put Imbued silver to your weapon, on shield you should prioritize getting - shield recovery time/+block chance/DA.

Don’t bother with Aether resist, it’s fairly useless even later on, you can totally get away with minus Aether resist on Ultimate with some chars.
P/s: Don’t bother with the Praetorian chest piece, look for the head and the shoulder.

12

Thx, I had to do some adjustments over time, but it worked. However, most credit goes to Mickelangello and his amazing guide. I am trying to learn as many things as possible from those.

Maybe I should stop that and keep on playing on Elite to get progress (and better gear). I got 3 Legendaries (the Legplates were among them) in the first three runs but afterwards I had the impression that the quality drops down (i.e. the probability for Legendaries goes down; I’m a statistician in real life, so I know, it’s not a good sample to judge from^^)

Ah, nice, I’ll check those ones out!

That’s interesting. I thought it was pretty important. But I’ll try that!

Thanks for your input! I think, this puts my understanding of the gameplay
on a whole new level.

13

From my experience I can tell you that you should not farm that much in Normal/Veteran, just up your resist + HP and Elite is the way to go.

But you should really be well prepared for Ultimate, the difficulty will definitely go up a lot (though it has been severely nerfed these past few patches…). For me I will only stop to farm if I stumble upon a road block.

I remember FlyingPotato made a statistical research on where is the best place to farm (kudos to him!) and the final conclusions were that for best Legendary farming you should do the Treasure Trove Hunting at the Shrine of the Forgotten God, and best place to get Epic was the Twin Fall run. Nemesis in Elite was easy too, but I remember some guys said they are not able to drop any lvl 75 Legendaries.
If you really want to farm something then I could recommend you to go to the Hallowed Hill in Ultimate (should have 1 treasure trove and a few heroes). This is a lil bit slower but much more bearable than the conventional but super boring treasure trove hunting)

14

Righto… :slight_smile:
You spoke about physical res, as well. I’m at 16% at the mom. DO you think, this is too low? It might quite well be that I thought too offensive (if you reconsider my gear rundown, there is often a focus on dmg) and too few thoughts went into defense.

Truly! His work is awesome! If I find the time in the future, I will try to contribute a comparable dataset. But apart from this, it’s a good point of yours that my recent approach to farming was somewhat semi-good^^