Could Doom Bolt Get Better Damage Scalling Please?

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
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So I’ve been fluffing around, making meme builds that make others go “wtf mess?!”, “ugh, that’s so badly done” and “what eldritch madness is this!?”. Because it’s fun and evil :3

And so finally got around to trying out physical Doom Bolt via converting it with Mythical Beronath Reforged and Myth. Gladiators Belt to get full 100% conversion for all chaos and vitality. But one of the things I notice with the 1st pass on it was how lacklustre 20/12 DM was. Like compared to Oblivion and SoC it was barely doing any damage in testing in SR34-35.

Mind you, I was using the SoC MI shield and focusing on SoC, but even stacking those didn’t work so well in terms of survivability. Simply because there’s a lack of items I can use to buff 22/12-22/12 Soc + Destruction damage output that don’t clash with conversion to physical.

And even with this:

DB still feels a bit lacking compared to say Devastation, it’s better thanks to the offhand + gloves, but even if I went all in on critical damage% and physical I can’t see it performing all that well. Plus it would be a total glass cannon and die in a stiff breeze.

And sans those DB damage buffing items, it’s going to be pretty lacklustre even at 22/12. Which frankly is kinda reflected in how DB builds have kinda disappeared from published builds the last year+ And if it is present in a build, it’s usually under the hard cap and only used to trigger a devotion proc. Though I’ll admit my memory is bad these days :stuck_out_tongue: And I’ve been focused on my own ever growing collection of mad, bad meme builds.

I do have a idea for a DB centric one though, using Myth. Fang of Ch’thon to add some weapon damage, but lacking global conversion it’s going to be a bit more jankey as it needs some sort of spammable skill as a main attack. And DEE isn’t fully convertible to physical either, nor has much in the way of supporting items to make it hit hard enough. And the Harbinger helm could also help, but DB damage output is heavily dependant on cooldown and then there’s the skill points issue…

Anyhow, looking forward to patch 1.2.1.6 at present, especially to see how it hits the spamulet changes for Aegis of Mehnir, but all my builds for it go for 26/16 for that first node, so should be fine. And who knows, I may even finally post a thread for one of my many meme and not so meme ones instead of just posting vids on youtube.

Probably not, because “ADHD damnit” :upside_down_face:

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you have 4 small sources of phys dmg there having to deal with armour btw
If Phys RE is anything to go by and its revoked status, i can’t imagine having half the dmg on sigil is much better vis-à-vis flat sources v armour :thinking:
So that might be part of what you’re feeling atleast
Almost guessing you’re also relying on it for sustain? so “just” swapping to dot DEE bomb or such trauma shenanigans might not help things along i suppose tho conversion is possible

Maybe it’s one of those things that just have to “wait”/benefit from FoA charges to really shine. Then Sigil points can be dumped elsewhere too for trauma or less armour impacted stuff

or idono, DB EoR Spinner? :sweat_smile: like the "what the insashkor am i doing"version Sentinel of dunefiend dervish :woozy_face:

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Quite some time ago I also tried physical DB, with Inashkor. Focussed all items on it, sheet dmg was great, and I thought “one big nuke - must be perfect for physical, considering armor rules”.
Though, indeed, dmg was so underwhelming - could not figure out why.

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After the armor change with converted phys these converted phys builds are just dead. Greater build diversity…

Only phys AAR is good and Spellscourge as well.

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I think certain buffs to DB, like increasing flat/crit/area, are long warranted.

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the acid part is which is kinda enough, i find my sentinel fun to play and it has some punch. (not trying to detract from your overall point)

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Huh, that gives me some evilish ideas really :stuck_out_tongue:

But yeah, might just drop Judgement for transmuted DEE as that will hell with survivability by reducing enemy damage.

Did try out a devotion path to Vire, but it wasn’t as good as Oleron path for this build of mine.

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your setup can full convert with corruption btw, (what i meant with conversion being doable)
ofc it’s now a “shitty” melee stick, so might not feel that awesome to use wps modifier AA/AS stick for raw conversion on caster :sweat_smile: :woozy_face:

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Is that needed?
Not too long ago someone made a build with phys doom bolt that went to SR36 or so:

:thinking:

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According to gt link The_mess provided, I think it’s about physical DB dmg is fragments, and each gets reduced by mobs armor/physical res. So even it’s 200k dmg on sheet, the dmg is splitted to 1/3 or even 1/4. Should change the calculation.

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Exactly, looking at the physical version of a skill for balance purposes is a bit misguided. They’re always going to be weak(er).

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Ah right, the item skill modifiers are handled seperately as well…
So maybe the “simply” need to be way higher in order to have the desired effect.

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The most annoying thing about Doom Bolt is its small radius and sometimes (and by sometimes I mean very often) when a mob is directly hit, it does not deal double damage as it should, I believe the area of this double damage is very small, which is why it is not registered correctly. ll of the above is very noticeable on the spam version with Conduit.
This build for example Conjurer, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Outside bossing this build suffers in all other game scenarios.

The simplest solution is to expand the area of double damage to the entire DoomBolt radius in order to minimize hit registration errors.

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I have an example when @banana_peel kind of remade my Chaos DB Pyromancer WITHOUT Doom Bolt and got very similiar results in the end. And his build got the upside of being much less piano because it doesn’t have to frantically press doom bolt every 0.7 seconds.

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I have made a cold spam doombolt build and what i’ve found is that the damage isn’t that great and I wish the AOE would be bigger.

That’s the build : Witch Hunter, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
I miss some skill points but that won’t change much, at best I can have another 70% damage
I kind of stop the build a while ago

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how do you even sustain on that thing? :thinking:
also now i’m thinking of using ex Winter King sword because of the wd mod to db :sweat_smile:

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I tried to max “damage converted to HP” combined to the added “80% weapon damage to doom bolt”.

I dunno how bad or great it would be in SR but the build has decent armor (2.8k) and decent physical resist (27%)

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Except it’s using Touch of Chaos as it’s main attack, and as all the Rah’zin stans know, that is fluffing powerful :stuck_out_tongue: In fact I’d say it’s doing a massive chunk of the actual damage output of that build. With DB of course doing up to 1/2 of it, provided it crits.

Also helps it has 40 flat -RR for physical damage, which is a massive bonus to damage output. More than making up for Solider’s lack of -RR% skills.

Ironically that build is in my bookmarks :upside_down_face: I’m going to blame my ADHD addled memory for that stupidity lawl.

Anyhow, it’s also exploiting all the stuff that buffs DB cooldown and adds some damage. Where as stock DB at hard cap is still pretty sad damage output wise for a nuke. Come to think of it, the best example of a better 1 node nuke skill would be Reap Spirit, which many of us have found does solid damage at the soft cap without items buffing it’s damage output. Hardcapped, with damage+ buffs, it’s a fluffing monster.

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Deeeeerp.

I forgot completely about that Axe. Mainly because I was focused on using Beronath, Reforged to make all the SoC damage into physical. Which includes the fire damage.

Anyhow, invested to 12/12 on the 2nd node of Judgement and it’s doing a bit better now too. As it’s more likely to get the red crits even on bosses. Still, SoC + Oblivion are doing a lot of the damage.

Also, swapping out Judgement for transmuted DEE does work survivability wise, it’s just a lot slower, since Judgment tends to draw everything in for a DM strike.

Edit - oh noes, brain has a bad idea, send help, namely physical DEE etc. Helps.

Edit 2 - yeap, Corruptian does actually help:

Looses some sustain from the the lack of any conversion on Destruction’s fire damage, but the added physical -RR% on CoF helps a lot. Also more casting speed helps as well, and now all the added acid damage from BoD is converted.

Testing out myth. Chausses of Barbaross at the moment. Not as good as the other ones sadly :confused: That extra health + investment into cunning helped a lot more than I thought. Also tried going with Ulzaad and dropping Phoenix, and well, it went the way you’d think it would.

Does help DB hit harder, but that cooldown is a major pain in the rear. Especially for a T2 devotion that’s the only source of a temp buff to physical damage…

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Imo, DB should get better damage scaling and added radius scaling with rank. Also some of the minus cd affixes from Chaos gear should be baked into the skill itself.

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