Damage stack for Wind Devils and Blade Spirits, and their Modifiers

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

I found it strange that damage of Blade Spirits can completely stack with each other, while damage of Wind Devils can only partially stack. And this cause Modifiers of the same numerical value perform completely differently.

Blade Spirits
Blade Spirits have two skills:

  1. Whirling Blades - aura, damage stacks for both flat damage and DoT damage.
  2. Blade Eruption - passive skill, damage naturely stacks.

And the two skills stack.

Modefier for Blade Spirit will affect both skills, so the actual value is 6 or 8 times of its paper value.
For example, if I have 4 Blade Spirits. Mythical Herald of Amatok provides 90 Cold Damage and 240 Frostburn Damage over 2 Seconds for each Blade Spirits. So the total damage is 720 Cold Damage (= 4 * 2 * 90) and 1920 Frostburn Damage (= 4 * 2 * 240).

Wind Devils
Things are different for Wind Devils. Wind Devils have two skills:

  1. Howling Wind - aura, damage does not stack for either flat damage or DoT damage.
  2. Mealstrom - passive skill, damage naturely stacks.

Modefier for Wind Devil will only affect skill 1, the aura, which is not stackable. Skill 2 won’t be affected. So the actual value is equal to its paper value, no matter how many Wind Devils you have.
For example, The Cyclone Set provides 50 FireDamage and 1-100 Lightning Damage and allows one more Summon Limit. As the damage doesn’t stack, the total damage of 4 Wind Devils is only 50 Fire and 1-100 Lightning Damage.

Other Wind-Devil-like pets (Sand Devil from Azrakaa’s Epoch, Cinderwind from Cyclone Effigy and Cindertouch) have the same mechanism, i.e., their damage from their aura doesn’t stack. Aura of Servant of Empyrion is the same, unstackable (their base attack stacks).

The difference means if Wind Devils and Blade Spirits have Modefiers at a same paper value, Blade Spirits can actually benifit 6 or 8 times of Wind Devils.

Suggestions:
The mechanisms of Wind Devils and Blade Spirits should be the same. Make damage of aura of Wind Devils stackable at least (Res Reduce unstackable, of course).
If also make Modifiers for Wind Devils effective for both skills, that would be even better.
Otherwise, value of Modefiers for Wind Devils should much higher than that for Blade Spirits.

4 Likes
2

Agreed. Same thing for Thermite mines.

3

correction, Cinderwinds stack

it’s pretty straight forward, blade spirits/cinderwinds use an attack aura, think Whirling Blades from Seal of Blades component
Wind Devils, Thermite Mines, Inquis Seal, Guardians, Sand Devil use debuff class aura, think Aura of Censure from inquis

so it’s essentially following the similar basic rule we have of “same debuff don’t stack”

oh yea, little commonly missed part about wind devil mods just applying to aura; most conversion mods to wind devil wont convert Maelstrom, only conduit does,
(all conversion mods to Blade Spirit converts aura and Blade Eruption)

4

yea, you are right, I made some mistakes.

I had knew it from Grimtools Pet Database.
But I feel it somehow unfair. Damage Modifiers for Wind Devils are most around 100 Damage, and the 100 damage is actual 100, no matter how many Wind Devils you have.
On the contrary, for Blade Spirits, part of Modefier are also around 100, and a few reach higher to around 200 (Chillwhisper Set, Mythical Herald of Amatok, Scarab Shell, Gildor’s Pulverizer). As they stack, so the 200 damage can be magnified to 1200 (3 Blade Spirits) or even 1600 (4 Blade Spirits). Such a huge gap.

Therefore, Blade Spirit is a strong core skill. You can construct builds around it.
Wind Devil can hardly be the core, and is just an auxiliary tool for Res Reduce.

Azrakaa’s Epoch is another victim. It could be used in many Bleed builds if stackable. But now unstackablity makes it uncompetitive and useless.

5

guardians, thermite mines, inquis seal aside, it actually becomes weirder when you think about it
Wind devil is a 16pt investment for no dmg stacking, with maelstrom being a separate 12 investment for stacking
blade spirits is a singular skill investment to get everything
*i’m not counting in raging tempest since i think it’s fair that gets its own cost similar to guardians and mines also being a pure RR cost
but 16pt main devil node for no real dmg boni seems strange compared to basically the other dmg pets like mortars and guardians, totems, and ofc spirits
if it’s not stacking it might as well just get merged raging tempest into main node anyway to make the point investment make slightly more sense :smile:

6

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