Damage type Conversions - Best use?

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

Im planning a new build for FG and had questions about damage type conversions. I was concerned about diluting my build with gear that converts damage from one type to another. Lets say my build is a Physical based damage char and I have gear that converts 25% to acid and poison. Does the conversion happen AFTER all my physical bonuses from gear, devotions, skills etc ( so the poison and acid is bonused too) or does it happen BEFORE, thereby limiting the AMOUNT of all my physical based gear, devotions etc to that damage type?

If it is the latter then what is the best approach to using damage type conversion gear? It can destroy a build if you do it wrong is my assumption. If I want to use the conversion gear in my char example then I would want an even mix of Physical/Poison Acid gear, devotions…and even the mastery selection? Maybe its just a can of worms I really dont want to open. Im not a mad scientist when it comes to builds but if someone has some rock solid guidlines as it pertains to my concern Id appreciate the tips

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http://www.grimdawn.com/guide/gameplay/combat.php#q20

3

My suggestion when you first start tinkering with conversions:

Convert auxillary damage into a skill-line which is heavily beefed up with modifiers.

Classic example: octavious deathknight with gladiator’s distinction.

4

Thanks for the link. If I got this right:

Damage conversion TO a specific skill-- example:

  1. 100% physical damage converted to Fire damage to Forcewave. That is now fire damage and will NOT get bonuses from all the physical gear I have.

General:

  1. Damage conversion - all damage ( not applied to a specific skill) is nothing more than an opportunity to hybrid a character. Unless you select an ideal mix of two damage types…in all your devotions, gear, skills, and mastery just right…its a recipe for a weak character.

Did I get that right?

5

Im not familiar with that build. I am going to use the Octavius set though. Im am gearing up for an Octavius Warlord using Forcewave and Ageis of Menhir…if I can fit Aegis in. Soldier has so may skills Its gonna be hard to know what to choose. I ran across a Pestilence of Dreeg amulet and it got me thinking of this whole poison/acid thing…pairing it with the Agony mace and maybe selecting one poison devotion like Manticore. Basically staying a physical build but having a little dynamic. But even a little diversion can mess up a build so thats why I posted here.

6

I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. :confused:

Damage is damage is damage. I could make my demolitionist go pierce damage for example with bladetwisters and m. pack of treacherous means.

While this seems smart on paper as I can perhaps pair it with a nightblade, it doesn’t mean that it can actually be translated into reality.

You need to pair the damage types intelligently, while simultaneously accumulating skill modifiers which can actually make use of the now-converted-damage-type

7

EDIT: It’s worth mentioning that this is the reason why most builds tend to focus on only 1 damage type.

For example, if I’m building a lightning vindicator, I can benefit from gear which gives +lightning/fire damage bonuses AND from gear which gives +lightning/cold bonuses.

It also makes accumulating resist reduction, and planning your devotions a lot simpler.

So I’d exercise caution with building a dual-damage character if you’re unfamiliar with game mechanics.

By all means though, go for it if that’s what you want. :smiley:

8

Ok, so for example if the Agony mace gave me my physical I need and gives poison as a side benefit it would be…idk…acceptable? I was just concerned with how many other skills and devotions I should augment the addtional damage type with without diluting the char…especially the bonuses. Physical and poison/acid arent exactly similar so… Your vindicator example seems easier to hybrid so maybe its not such a stretch or sacrifice when it comes to the devotions etc…

As a side note on this conversion stuff I was thinking about using the Justice gloves for Forcewave to fire but now that I know my physical bonuses wont convert with the fire thats out. I just never messed with damage conversions and learning about it now

9

If you’re using agony, you want an acid build. Nuff said.

10

Generally speaking, as sir spanksalot said you want to concentrate on one damage type.

Now, there will be many cases where going for one damage will automatically give you another damage type. A few examples out of my mind :

  • Fire strike Demolitionnist skill gives you lightning damage in addition to fire if you take Static Strike down the path
  • Toad devotion gives you aether and vitality flat and %
  • Using the Necromancer’s WPS skills gives you vitality and cold damage, even if you’re doing pure physical with your weapon
  • Lots of spells deal dual damage eg. Callidor’s tempest deal Fire and Aether

Converting those side damages to your main damage is a good idea (eg. the vitality from Reaping Strike to physical with Gladiator Distinction) belt because you will have a lot of %bonuses and RR (Resistance Reduction) to support that damage.

It’s not worth supporting a side damage such as taking %Aether gear to increase the small amount of Aether damage you’re doing with Toad. If damage is really small (such as with toad), even conversion might not be worth it depending on how useful the gear is beside conversion.

It’s never worth splittig your damage into multiple damages on purpose because you’re better stacking RR for a single damage than trying to deal multiple damage types in case you face a monster with high resist to your damage (eg. don’t try to convert part of your fire into cold just for fear of “fire immune” monsters, stack more cold RR instead).

Generic conversion on gear exist to convert damage that doesn’t come from a skill for which a transmuter exists. If i don’t have an item that converts all of the fire damage from Callidor’s Tempest to aether, i’m still better using gear with 50% Fire to Aether than no conversion at all. It’s also possible to stack such conversion to 100% or almost.

11

Thank you and Spankalot for taking the time to reply. This community is really fantastic. Here is a grim tools build I just put together with the gear I have utilizing a little poison and acid element. I dint add any augments or components to the gear…its just gear, devotions, and a quick skill allocation mainly. 3 attack buttons and the rest toggled skills or summons. I threw in the Deathstalker relic for fun since his damage types fit all around. Gonna post this in the theory crating thread to get some feedback as well.

Octavius/Forcewave/Aegis…with a little poison and a little buddy to adventure with…lol

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62axgxXN

12

Okay. So let’s do a quick rundown of the build and conversions so you can understand why this isn’t a good idea. And when I say ‘not a good idea,’ I mean it’s not the best way to maximize damage.

Of course if you want to do this for the fun of it, go for it. :slight_smile:

So agony does 94 - 193 physical damage. Let’s say 100 - 200 for ez math.

15% of this gets converted to acid. So you deal…15 - 30 acid damage, 85 - 170 physical.

Now, let’s look at your set items, you see how they all give you massive bonuses to physical damage?

For ez math again, let’s say you have 2000% physical damage bonus, and 100% bonus damage to acid.

This means that the 85 - 170 damage from agony is multiplied by that 2000%, while the 15 - 30 acid damage is multiplied by 100%.

If you HADN’T converted the acid damage, you’d be multiplying 100 - 200 damage by the aforementioned 2000% instead.

Now look at the FW skill-line itself. This 15% acid conversion also affects every single physical damage in that skill line.

As such, by using agony, you have essentially robbed yourself of 15% of your DPS.

Factor in the difficulty of getting acid resist reduction in your devotions as the devotions you’d need to unlock to get it won’t benefit physical damage, and you’ll soon understand why most players don’t do dual damage.

I, however, personally love doing dual damage types. So keep at it!

13

Cool…I was just seeing if I could add a little dynamic by changing three items…essentially the weapon, amulet and relic. Originally I had the Doom relic, Markovians Distinction amulet, and The Pummeler weapon. My skills and devotions the same. Those items kinda make it consistent again.

14

Don’t get me wrong, it is possible to do double damage types. It’s just incredibly tricky, and you can’t expect it to be a top tier build for all the reasons this thread has mentioned.

But they can still be very powerful builds in their own rights.

15

Hello, I wanted to jump in for clarification to make sure that I am understanding conversion correctly.
As I conclude from the Combat Guide (I can’t link to it as I am a new to the forums), there are two avenues for conversion: a skill Transmuter, and equipment.

Let’s first look at Transmuters:

  1. If a Trasmuter is used, that conversion will happen first, before any equipment is considered.
  2. That conversion only applies to the skill being transmutted.
  3. The new type of damage cannot be further converted via equipment.

As an example, I would like to look at skill “Guardian of Empyrion” in the Oathkeeper, which does both fire and physical damage. If we take the Transmuter skill “Scion of Dreeg”, 100% of both damage types the Guardian deals will convert to Acid and Vitality damage respectively. That damage conversion (physical to vitality) will not affect other skills, such as “Righteous Fervor”. In addition, the newly converted acid damage dealt by the Guardians can not be further converted in any fashion, but the acid damage will be affected by modifiers.

Now, we consider Equipment:
From the guide “if you have an amulet with 10% of physical damage converted to fire, that means that 10% of all physical damage you deal (regardless of source) will be dealt as fire instead”. However, if there had been a (hypothetical) Transmuted skill that turned 100% of cold damage into physical damage, the newly converted physical damage would NOT then have 10% of its damage changed to fire, as damage can only be converted once.

Further, On gladmark’s build, s/he uses Agony (15% Physical converted to Acid) and Pestilence of Dreeg Agony (10% Physical converted to Acid). So here we see that 25% of all physical damage (that had not been Transmuted) dealt will become acid damage. That will affect all physical damage, from FW (and every skill on its line) , Aegis of Menhir (and every skill on its line), etc… Am I correct is assuming that

  1. the conversion from Agony affects more than just the damage dealt by the weapon and;
  2. that the conversions are additive.?

I am grateful for any help and advice you can give a new player to the game!