Classes/Masteries Nerfs and Buffs thread

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

FG is nearing and while we’re all excited for Oathkeeper, pretty sure we could use some time for feedback on the existing masteries, which will pretty much affect how we also play the Oathkeeper once released. It’s no secret that some classes perform better than others while two of them are being left behind in the dust. However, aside from the usual Demo rants, there is no thread that I know of that directly addresses what the classes have that are very strong/weak, especially Inquisitors. I made this thread to voice out the things I think will be good for game balance in the upcoming expansion. I also encourage everyone to share their opinions on the current game balance and/or proposed buffs nerfs to the masteries themselves.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a game dev (and will probably never be one) so I won’t know anything about what numbers should be there. What numbers I’ll propose will probably be inaccurate, but you’ll get the idea that I think this should be nerfed and I want that buffed. Also, this is all based on high-level endgame so if there are arguments for Normal/Elite/non-geared ultimate then they’re welcome here.

Soldier

  1. Superfluff made some good points here. I agree especially on Warcry. Including Break Morale, skill is Basically Censure for physical with a cooldown, and around double the point requirement. Half the skill effects are either useless on Ultimate (Health reduction, Disrupt) or undesirable for most soldiers (Terrify on Transmuter). This skill is mandatory for most soldiers despite half of it being bad, due to the damage reduction. I suggest buffing it a bit and change the reduction to enemy’s health to simple flat physical damage, like what you see on Warborn mods. This still fits with the skill theme (making enemies weaker and angry at you) while not making you feel bad about the amount of points you spend on it.

I’d also love to revert the nerf on Shield Training but I think we should see how Warlord turns out before this.

Demolitionist

I know BWC isn’t bad, but as Demo’s flagship skill (along with Fire Strike), this seems to be not on par with main skills from other classes. Let me put it this way. Most of the other classes have at least 2 or more Primary skills you can build around that can be in a very good build. Soldier has Cadence, Forcewave, Blade Arc. Occultist has well, Sigil, Doom Bolt (very item dependent tho) and DEE which isn’t bad but like BWC, it’s kinda left out by others, then pets. Will discuss occultist later. Nightblade has PB, the WPS, RoS, SS and ABB aren’t that good but are passable. Arcanist is kinda complex but CT and Devastation all have top tier builds based on them. Shaman has Savagery, pets, lightning/Vit totem. Inq… Don’t even ask me about the most powerful mastery. Then finally Necro has RE, Drain essence, Skellies. Demo has Fire Strike then a VERY LACKLUSTER BWC. The rest (grenado, jacks, canister bomb) are all weaker. I suggest a damage or duration buff for BWC just to make it more competitive. This is a bit biased cause I’m a BWC fan, so for Grenado fans I guess you could use a buff too :p.

Occultist

  1. I think DEE is also in the same state as BWC. This was once the defining skill for Occultists but now Sigil outperforms it. This probably needs a damage buff/increased dots or a Dreeg set buff.

  2. Idk anything about pets but I heard Familiar is good while Hellhound is kinda lackluster. Pet enthusiats can comment more :slight_smile:

Nightblade

  1. I’ve seen a thread on this, but can’t find it: Blade Barrier just kills you rather than save you. I won’t be asking for you to be able to move while this is active but I propose increasing the Health Regen here considerably by changing values to %based healing instead of flat so that by the time the 3-second window ends even on a level 1 BB, you’ll have considerable life gain. Something like 10% per second on level 1, increasing by 2-3% per level until softcap and make it scale like shit after that. At it’s current state, you’ll need to pop potions when using level 1 BB at low HP cause you’ll die if you don’t.

  2. I think Nightfall needs some love. I don’t know how much damage it needs to be good but please do put some. Also, sleep is kinda bad. Freeze would be better but I understand that sleep is kinda thematic.

Arcanist

  1. IIRC, Crate revealed in a dev stream that Arcanist is sure to receive some changes. I myself can’t comment much on what Arcanist really needs but Pretty sure one of PRM or AAR should be buffed at the expense of devastation.

  2. Insert AAR fans rant here :slight_smile:

Shaman

  1. This mastery is probably the most balanced one right now, imo. With the rise of 2h during this patch, Shaman has become a frontrunner instead of being on the back foot due to 2h being shit. Also, pet builds are godlike right now so Shaman is a big winner this patch. Can’t really pinpoint what to change for Shaman right now. It’s not too strong, but not weak either.

Necromancer

  1. Necro’s main damage skills right now seems fine. BH, RE, DE all seem good. Pets are also good from what I see i videos. There’s a bit of overreliance on Decay but, imo that’s okay. I think we need to nerf Mark of Torment’s scaling past softcap, though. The duration should stay at 5 seconds after 10/10, to discourage Mark (and Mirror) + TD chaining. It’s not too popular right now outside of binders but it might come to bite us again once realms come. An okay nerf for Binders too, imo.

Inquisitor

And here comes the star of the show! The strongest mastery in the game. Also the incoming Paladin class is overhyped.

  1. Roons. Hagarrad obviously needs a nerf, The easiest way is to reduce the damage of the main skill, but imo Chillsurge should also be nerfed too. I think removing the extra projectile at 20/12 and reducing the dots will be fine. The strongest nuke in the game while also having the second best frostburn source is ridiculous.

  2. WPS, particularly Storm Spread. Currently it (and other similar WPS like Jaxxon) shoots twice the listed amount of projectiles both on DW and non DW builds. I suggest making it do as listed and shoot what’s in there for non DW while making the amount of projectiles shot with DW be 1.5*listed amount, so at 7/10 it’ll shoot 6, and at 16/10 it will shoot 7 or 8, depending on how you wanna round off. A significant nerf compared to the current 8 or 10 at 7/10 and 16/10, respectively.

  3. Censure. I believe Censure is currently fine as it is, but there are a good amount of people who want Censure nerfed. I’d say we can do it slightly. Just nerf the post softcap scaling on both the RR and the damage reduction.

  4. Inquisitor Seal. The numbers here won’t be accurate but I think Seal’s absorb values should be cut to around 3/4 of what it is right now. Skill basically makes anyone with lifesteal a full tank as it currently is.

  5. Horn of Gandarr has a dedicated set for it but I’ve never seen it being even remotely relevant. I guess it could use some buffs.

Please be abit harsh with the nerfs so that the Paladin fans would have their spirits a bit broken

That’s it for now! Will probably update the Op once there are new ideas around.

PS, If you think my ideas are bad, then please do tell me so I won’t have false hopes when FG comes :slight_smile: I’d appreciate some discussions regarding this matter.

2

I agree. Although I didn’t get the part about Storm Spread. At 7/10 it fires 4 projectiles, so what’s your suggestion, to nerf it or to buff it? Also, does it fire more projectiles when DW?

3

Storm spread currently fires double of what is listed in the skill. At 7/10 it fires 8 instead of 4, then 10 instead of 5 at 16/10. Doesn’t matter if it’s dw, g&b or 2h. I’m suggesting to nerf it (though it’s just being consistent with the tooltip) and make it shoot what is listed for g&b and 2h while keeping the dw advantage by letting them fire more. It’ll become like chilling rounds that fire 3x on g&b and 2h while dw fires 4x.

4

I’d just simply disagree on Soldier’s Shield Training revert. This particular skill is still strong as motherfucking heck. Shield is generally a tank item, and Crate didn’t want every shield build (that has soldier) be almost unkillable, and I agree with them. Even though I’d also want to have it reverted, there’s a huge reason to not do that.

About War Cry, it does reduce damage, therefore making enemies weaker. I’d rather want it to reduce DA instead of HP, but I don’t mind this skill at all. I usually use it only for DR and RR.

That’s about everything I can talk about, because other ideas are rather not touching me as I like stuff as they are. I could bitch a bit about Inquisitor though.

About Aura of Censure and Inquisitor Seal, these are fucking broken. Not just, the F word must be stated there. Aura of Censure is overloaded with stats, so is Inquisitor Seal.

Aura of Censure: Deals damage, disrupts skills, reduces damage, reduces resists, has a huge range (7 meters at 12/12). Basically, I’ve realized that my defense and damage is basically doubled whenever I use this skill. My FoI Infiltrator basically dies in like two hits from a random boss (I’m kind of exaggerating, just trying to say it’s paper), when I use AoC, everything changes and I can feel free to stay in one place and tank everything, because if a weak monster comes to me, it just dies by AoC, even when FoI is directed 180 degrees off the other enemy. I basically can go through monsters and eventually wait an additional second till stuff dies.

Inquisitor Seal: Offensive and defensive as well. Seriously, like wtf? You can’t even choose if you want to go offensive or defensive in this skill. If you play a squish, you just pick the whole skill without transmuter sometimes. Damage absorption is fine, I’d say, the skill is basically fine, but the issue is, this skill is way to effective in general. Nerfs won’t help here, you either destroy this skill or make it worthy only if you have too many skill points. Basically, look at this that way, you reduce the damage absorption to like 3/4, as OP said, and now you have 150 at level 12. Did you even do anything to that? I don’t think so, it still reduces massive amounts of damage. Remove the elemental resist, well few builds might have to be re-built, but that’s it. You remove the damage the seal deals, NO ONE will ever notice any difference. You reduce the summon limit to 1, who the heck cares? I’ll just put it under myself all the time and that won’t affect me at all. Reduce the summon duration to 5 sec to match the cool down? Nah, I’ll just pick at least 5% reduction to recharge and I am fine, I’ll pick Seal of Annihilation (some people might be butthurt about it and keep on asking to revert that since it doesn’t balance anything). I’ll not say anything about Arcane Empowerment here, because here you’ll actually get butthurt by anything. Pierce and elemental flat damage would be the only thing that would be super good to nerf, but then why would you, right? It doesn’t actually play such a big role anyway, we only care about the crit damage. Whoever has some spare skill points, they’ll add this skill a bit.

5

Greeeeeeen

6

  1. I think Warcry is fine as it is. Access to phys RR shouldn’t be too cheap. It’s Censure I’d rather see nerfed, if to make comparisons.

  2. DEMO: please oh please make Thermite Mines less clunky. It takes about 3 seconds before they hit the ground, split and activate which forces demo builds to play go with the mobs. I’d like to see more of a move in-burn them all-move out kinda play. “For 2-3 seconds” in the RR would be great.

  3. Don’t nerf inquisitor. Just remove him from the game. Problem solved.

7

I mean i like the idea of this class. Just remaking it would be a good option. :stuck_out_tongue:

8

Is it a bug that Storm Spread fires double the amount of projectiles, or some kind of in-built feature? Because skill descriptions in-game can be quite vague.

Rather than nerfing Inquisitor’s Seal, buff other classes defensive features. Although Aura of Censure is indeed a bit too strong: huge passive RR, huge radius, huge damage reduction and some damage/skill disruption on top of that?? A bit too much, either remove one of the features or buff other Exclusive skills.

Another thing that has to be nerfed is interaction of Inquisitor’s WPS and Brimstone from Demolitionist, especially if you have a piercing weapon. That shit is pretty unreal, it makes pistol and shield purifiers stronger than 2h Vindicator.

But again, rather than nerfing one class, bringing other classes on par with it might be more fun way to do it.

9

Remaking him to non-existence lol. Could do a backstory: before Grim Dawn, Aetherials had sneaked a slow acting poison into the Luminari cafeteria and now they’ve all died out without exception.

Seriously, though, the Censure buff was too much. Seal is OP and reinforces ranged gameplay as passive and stationary. Hagarrad’s only weakness is that it’s too flashy. Never tried the flames, though, but from what I hear this is the only major skill in this mastery that isn’t strictly top tier.

But I don’t wanna rant…

10

I’d think it’s a bug, but it’s been known since before 170 was released (when fluff posted his 2h purifier) and no one really pointed it out. It just came out in some discussions here and there. But since nothing happened, maybe it really is intended and will need a nerf instead of a bugfix(same outcome anyway).

I’m all for buffing weak classes but Inquisitor is too far ahead compared to the others, imo.

11

Agree to all of that! That just aint fair! Everyone should get a seal!

12

Hellhound is mostly fine. It would be nice to have Ember Claws turned into an automatic skill like the Briarthorn’s Cleave, and/or have it’s base damage bumped up a bit, but the real problem is the set requirement to summon a second.

Occultist is frustratingly far ahead of every other class in the game in terms of pet support. Curse of Frailty, Vulnerability, Blood of Dreeg, Aspect of the Guardian, Manipulation, Storm Spirit, and Hellfire are all amazing. I think the level of support provided by Occultist should probably go down a little, and every other class should have a little more pet support than they do.

Really solid pet class. I think this is in a great place.

Necro pets are by far the least well balanced of pets in the game. In a very narrow set of circumstances they are roughly as good as Shaman/Occultist pets, but otherwise they are much worse. The extremely limited pet build diversity involving Necromancers makes me not like playing the class.

13

I see Aura of Censure getting lots of hate (i lol at the ‘huge range’ its just a little more than melee range at 12/12) along with inquis seal. But how often do you really see them performing super well w/o sizeable chunks of lifesteal?

Aura of C makes it necessary to get in close. Inquis seal roots you basically in place. Both big drawbacks…its the lifesteal that lets builds overcome that.

14

There’s no drawback. They make you super tanky, and some ranged builds actually manage to facetank Lokarr without losing any HP. Not broken btw. The range is not “little more than melee range”, because it’s like double the melee range if I am not wrong.

15

Flesh hulks can punch you in the head from just outside of Aura of C range until its overleveled. I remember that very well from my mortar trap purifier because it was always dangerous to debuff them.

If they really aren’t losing HP that’d mean hes doing less than 450 damage a hit after all the non-seal mechanics are calculated. Is he really such a pushover? I mean hell most enemies that aren’t named Grobble can do that. I have to seriously ask because I’ve done Cruic plenty fought all Nems in campaign too but never actually bothered to do the Lokarr quest…

Also, you aren’t a Path of Exile fan by any chance are you? Because if their one shots huzza! cluster is your idea of balance that’s a whole different conversation.

16

Soldier

Need a minor tweak on dmg-loss WPS. Everething else is fine, I`m against buffs to War Cry.

Demolitionist

Demon fire need a buff! Either a dmg one or utility one. Also, i think spammable BWC must go - with awfully slow animation its just a pain to use it.

So suggestions:
1)Add %dmg reduction to demon fire.
2)Remove BWC transmuter, incorporate transmuted values intro main skill. Allow Ulzuin chosen passive to work on BWC.

3)Reduce CD on Canister bomb to 6 seconds.
4)Add flat lightning to Inproved casings.
5)Remove range of activation from Ulzuin wrath.
6)Increase projectile speed of Grenade.

Occultist

Terrififying gaze is in terrifiying state. Did anyone put some points in? Guess why? :stuck_out_tongue:
I also think that DEE transmuter must go away just like BWC transmuter.
1)Buff poor gaze with dmg, plz. Pretty plz, Crete, just do it.
2)Remove DEE transmuter, incorporate transmuted values to main skill, reduce CD on DEE to 1 second. - Most dmg on DEE come from DoTs anyway. A long CD is just a nuicance, rly.

3)Add 4 extra levels for Doom bolt, increase scaling from current 22/12 938/1288 to 1100/1499. Remove %health reduction. Add vitality decay to doom bolt at 1400/4 secons on 26/12 .
4)For the love of Dark Gods, give us some mana regen somewhere in occultist. Its such a pain to be a mana-pot addict junkie >_>

Nightblade

Blade trap. :undecided: Blade barrier. :frowning: Dunno how to fix them.

Arcanist

The Ray. Albertech Aether Ray of Regret. :furious: And cruel 52 Skill point joke such as PRM.

Necromancer

Soul harvest is Oupie. Reduce scaling to Lethal assault numbers.
Foul eruption, rly, Crete? :mad:

Iquisitor

Haggard is broken due to shotgun effect. Remove shotgun and its done. =)
I think Seal is fine as it is.
Suggestions:
1)Remove Shotgun effect from Haggard.
2)Reduce CD on Horn of Gangar to 4 seconds.

17

While I’m sure this is bound to be an unpopular idea…what I’d really like to see is the Inquisitor WPSs getting reduced %WD in favour of increased flat damage for the relevant damage types. Atm its far too easy to simply put a couple of points in each WPS regardless of your damage type, and when you have “+ to all skills in Inquisitor” gear equipped a single point in each WPS can get you pretty damn close to maximum activation chance and high %WD immediately. No thought involved, no choice involved, just put a few points in these WPS skills and BAM - significant damage increase and AOE all in one.

Nightblade can get away with having higher weapon damage on its WPSs, because for the most part those skills hit a very small number of enemies and require you to get up close and personal. Inquisitor on the other hand? Brb while I Storm Spread the entire room, from the safety of the opposite end of the room, Dagallon or not. :rolleyes: Of course, it ain’t as effective as shotgunning enemies (which is where most of the power comes from), but still…its a powerful tool nonetheless.

I feel like these Inquisitor WPSs should be more of a choice where you’re rewarded for having boosted the relevant damage types instead of auto “my gunner is awesome now” procs for anybody who picks up a gun, regardless of damage type. It’s very rare I see an Inquisitor gunner which hasn’t picked all three WPSs, which is telling.

They gave a similar %WD nerf to a bunch of overly-used-in-any-build devotions back in the day (I think - it’s been a while :stuck_out_tongue: ) and that worked out just fine - so why not this too?

18

BUFF GRENADO: do this by buffing items with grenado based mods. And for the love of god, give more items +skills to ulzuin’s chosen

BUFF. ULZUIN’S CHOSEN: IMO, increasing %chance CDR (make it 100% at 20/10) and introducing a damage penalty to it

BUFF THERMITE MINE: increase the AoE

CHANGE MORTAR TRAP: I think there needs to be more item options geared at converting the physical damage on it.

DELETE CANNISTER BOMB: give the demo a cool exclusive skill instead. This might make saboteurs better too.

ADD 10% PHYS TO FIRE CONVERSION TO HEART OF ULZUIN

Edit: regarding the inquisitor -
There are many viable ways of nerfing the inquisitor. The biggest problem with it is that it offers everything you could possibly want. Instead of listing out what it offers, it’s far easier to show what it doesn’t:

  1. Cast speed
  2. Movement speed
  3. Attack speed if you’re melee
  4. Cooldown reduction

That’s it. And all these things are so easily fixed.
The inquisitor simply needs to stop being a top tier pick for any and all playstyles.
Want to focus on runes? Great. Nerf the WPS.
Wanna be a gunner? Cool. Nerf RoH.

Regardless, I actually think the damage reduction of aura of censure needs to be nerfed. It’s by far the best exclusive skill in the game.

19

Respectfully disagree. Why can’t a class combo excel at ranged play over others? Purifiers have so much synergy it’s a no-brainer that they should rightfully be stronger when going ranged. Personally I feel Vindicators have more options for defense as well as being able to dish it out.

I cannot agree with this. Censure’s range is much higher than it looks. It’s great for ranged play period. There’s a lot of enemies late game that try to blitz into you anyway so playing ranged usually means you’ll be fighting at melee no matter what.

20

oh gods, dont u ever touch inquisitors guys. I havent even realized and see how it turns out being mated with OK and now you want to put it out of circulation. ?

ok ok all right nerf all you want but no matter what you do you can and will never put a good paladin down. :wink: