Deathmarked and some other melees affected by 1.3 changes

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
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I’ve been slowly testing melees that have been buffed or nerfed in the current test patch. I was doing Ravager of Flesh kills to have some idea about build’s pure single target damage (and also tank to some degree) and running SR to see how build fares with different Souls distribution.

Deathmarked Dervish

1.3 changes: massive buffs, like set proc becoming automatic and flat buffs to wps

Grimtools
Ravager 33 seconds kill
SR 30-31 4:33 run

Very solid melee that still suffers from all of the typical single target monster melee problems despite recent (welcome) buffs. It’s single target focused and even if procs make aoe feel a bit better than on Pierce for example it can still feel muddy in terms of clear, especially with new Souls balance in SR. Tank feels all right. Also for some reason it’s hard to find enough OA/hp/sometimes cc-res on it no matter what devotion map you choose.

Suggestions

Feels like unless endgame becomes more friendly to melees like this one in general there are only couple of ways you can go about this one so it becomes competitive:

  • Making AQC multitarget
  • Increasing Lethal Assault duration to 30-60 seconds (relevant for any build using ABB just for LA buff or Bone
  • Throwing a bit of hp and stun res on the set

Belgothian Blademaster

1.3 changes: lost 6-9% crit damage (depending if you have Harpy or not)

Grimtools
Ravager 41s kill
SR 30-31 5:02 run

Overall when done right somewhat solid. Really hard to play in SR/Crucible without Markovian Stratagem medal, aoe is very minimal. Still can get swarmed sometimes. Crit damage nerfs hurt a little. Resistants like Kaisan can be really annoying on it. Single target damage still feels a bit underwhelming relative to the stats and min-maxing.

Suggestions

I feel like set giving MA arc and targets as a set bonus would work well together with this medal. And this medal having % Pierce damage would help a lot. Another cool thing would be making Execution multitarget on this set. Otherwise it’s hard to compete with hybrid builds and with casters with strong single target damage. Oh and hp is really hard to come by on this kind of build.

Mad Queen Claw Acid Melee Dervish

1.3 changes: Transmuter on RF now converts Fire to Acid too

Grimtools
Ravager 40s kill
SR 30-31 4:59 run
Put this niche melee together to test Acid RF changes. Solid build for the lack of support it has, multiple procs help with aoe, single target damage sometimes slows down a lot (because of resistants or because of the damage type, hard to say). Slathzaar slows down a run a lot (as you can see on the video)

Suggestions

I think it would be cool if Mad Queen Claw gave skill bonus to Belgothian Shears - wps it directly boosts with a mod, because there are no +Belgo Shears bonuses anywhere on Acid gear. Also would be lovely to see any bonuses to Oathkeeper on it.
Of course pressing ABB every 8 seconds is no fun at all.

Warborn Blademaster

1.3 changes: Less armor on monsters, more RR on Asssassin’s Mark, more Crit to Oleron’s Rage.

Grimtools
Ravager 53s kill
SR 3:59 30-31 run
Yes, Blademaster. During our top20 testing it was pretty close to more supported Death Knight and Warlord in terms of performance despite not having any support from the set or RR on Nightblade. Reason: it can stack obscene amounts of %damage that makes Physical damage overcome monsters’ armor better which balances out lack of RR. Plus a lot of Nightblade’s perks that contribute to build’s success here.
Build feels much better than most of the “classical” Nightblade melees for farming.

Suggestions

  • As any Physical auto-attacker ADctH is really hard to come by. And especially for Cadence that always had patchy inconsistent sustain. Adding some to the set or some Physical devotions would help.
  • Somehow Physical builds are still punished disproportionally by Reflected damage in Main Campaign. There is a whole thread about this with some good suggestions here

Pierce Melee Dervish

1.3 changes: lost 6-9% crit damage (depending if you have Harpy or not)

Grimtools
Ravager 37s kill
SR 30-31 4:29 run
SR 30-31 5:30 run

My old project, a build that I try to improve little by little every patch. This is a version that was in our top20 testing. Single target monster, solid tank and that’s it. Included two SR videos to show how much variance it can experience. Hard to do much when most of your damage is single target.

Suggestions

  • Multitarget mod to AQC to Derma Slicer
  • Higher duration to LA

Cold Nex and Ortus Sabouter

1.3 changes: tiny buff to FS tooltip

Grimtools
Ravager 39 seconds kill
SR 30-31 5:12 run

Feels the same as before - damage feels good but clear somehow doesn’t despite well rounded single target and aoe damage. ABB + Mines is just not great qol plus sometimes it’s difficult to even press abb*. In SR video you can see how much debuffs it has to eat upclose and how much it slows it down. Also similiar to Deathmarked this build will cost you a small fortune: Alkamos rings plus really good greens to have enough OA and hp.

Overall the theme of melees being behind continues from the previous patch. Game is extremely unfriendly to this archetype. It’s no wonder that’s the only actual melee build in our top20 testing that made it to honorable mentions is DW Crystallum Archon with multitarget Savagery. Imo stuff like pressing Bone Harvest or ABB just for buff brings autoattackers down a lot.

I will try to test more melee builds affected by 1.3 changes as the test patch progresses and add them here.

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These builds all look to be within range. Game is friendlier than ever to melee builds. That is not the problem.

It’s builds performing above this that are the issue.

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That’s not my experience with melees.

How come if “game is friendlier than ever to melee builds” top20 went from 11 pure melees last time to 0 this time around? How come Avenger builds went from top10 to not even being among 70 builds tested? Or how come Belgothian Blademaster, Grim Dawn’s poster boy for melee, never came close to any of the power rankings, despite having bonkers OA/damage numbers and fully loaded wps pool?

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Compare your top 20 lists and it’s abundantly clear that the expectation for a “good” SR clear time has shifted. V1.3 changes aside, it’s absurd that now there are not only builds with sub 4-min clears, some can do that on AVERAGE and not just with a lucky run. Looking at melee clears in v1.2.1.6, they are not suddenly slower.

This needs to be course corrected, not by making dramatic (or even impossible) changes to melee, but by trimming the top back within reasonable range. You will recall that we tried a change to monster behavior several updates ago to reduce the “spazzing” that’s been complained about, and the reaction was vehemently negative. So this is how the game works, it can only be worked with.

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that would be nice. I think replacing +2 to BoD with +2 to BS is a good idea.

I also have a question about the proc, does it mess up with wps? I mean, if one has 100% wps chance, does the proc activate at all?

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The proc on Mad Queen’s claw has nothing to do with default attacks or WPS.
It can trigger on any crit, even spells and other procs.

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I have a question regarding this statement:

Do you have the average clear times for Avenger builds and other physical builds in general?

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as if, grim dawn never gave me a hug.

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I’m gonna say, all the builds you listed here have good single target damage, after I watch these Ravager videos. However, in SR and CR, how FAR and how WIDE your damage can reach are always very important factors. This is also the reason why physical RtA DE is a terrible ravager killer but a fine SR runner.

That is also the reason for this. Some Pierce/Bleed Nightblade in “top20” has RoS or BladeSpirit as a supplement for AoE. “Pure” melees just, don’t have such aid. I’m not here to argue against the souls distribution change. I think the change is okay. Yet the souls distribution changes aggravated this symptom of “Pure” melees.

Average sub 4-min is indeed not acceptable. Some of them has got proper nerf (I mean you, Hellborne). Good job for that. I want to note that nowadays maybe top 50 or even top 100 builds are 4:30ish - 4:45ish SR runner, and despite some super fast OP thing, the speed difference is not wide. I could say, after devs put in much effort version by version, game balance is getting better and better. Also this means that, if something is 5:00ish or even slower, it may be far from a decent interval. I’ve read what Mad_Lee suggested here. Hardly any or none of the suggestions is simply damage increase. Some of them is making the build not that “pure” melee, and some of them is making the buids easier to play (duration of LA and Soul Harvest). I’ll be grateful if you devs can consider it carefully and I assume we need more information of these builds’ performance. Average SR or CR time, for example.

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This I 100% agree and summarizes my experience with similar builds to the ones posted. Single-target damage is totally fine, but you need to go a bit too much out of your way to circunvent the lack of AoE clear, which in turn ends up reducing your single-target potential (like taking extra Blade Spirits, changing devos, etc.). While some compromise when adjusting a build is to be expected, there are some changes that could make that process a bit less punishing (namely AQC could use some more targets mods on gear, and % pierce damage on Markovian’s Stratagem medal, to name a few).

ABB, while related, it’s almost a separate topic; it has always felt a bit wonky to use (unlike Bone Harvest, probably because BH doesn’t require to point a target and can hit from range even with melee weapons, and not to mention that ABB sometimes randomly misses?). I don’t think something can be changed to the animation or anything like that, so some additional time on it’s buff, LA (12-16 seconds, so 4-8 seconds over the current duration, doesn’t seem too out there imo), would help casting it less times per fight, improving the overall playability of those builds.

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You have to take into account that along with general power creep our SR running meta also leapt forward from the previous top20 to the current one. Even SR itself is not the same - incoming Physical damage nerf and following Phys res rebalance had a huge ripple effect on tankiness of a lot of melee builds. Same melees that in the previous top20 had obscene amounts of phys res.

That’s not really the biggest problem. Problem is that they are less competitive than almost any other build type. Their risk/reward/gear price ratio is just not there. Melees are considered to be on the squishier side, ask hardcore players or @RektbyProtoss. And then gear price can often be very steep. You need three good greens plus Alkamos rings plus correct conduit with correct res for Deathmarked to work as well as it works on the video in my post.

So then maybe melees deserve more compensation for that monster behaviour that they have to suffer so much from. Like giving them LA/SH that you have to press only once a minute seems like not so much of a power creep, rather a big qol buff that will at least make the experience on most melees bit more pleasant.

Honestly I don’t remember, I think it was closer to 5 minutes and above for both. It just didn’t feel worth adding to the testing.

Exactly.

That certain build is like 40% melee I think 60% pseudo-pet damage/dots. Pure melees never seen such damage output in GD I think.

Exactly

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Except ranged, right? So basically casters are best atm?

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Rather all kinds of hybrids.

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Approaching this from a more neutral perspective, I’d like to share some thoughts on my overall experience with melee builds in comparison to the other archetypes.
Most direct damage melee builds (especially cold and pierce ones, phys being a totally different category, while vit is totally absent) have big issues compared to the other playstyles because they eat up all the incoming damage, debuffs, cc storms etc. This aspect alone would be a big reason for them to either have bigger damage compared to other playstyles, or easier access to better defensive stats (raw HP, DA, dodge, avoid) compared to the other playstyles.
Direct damage melees only source of sustain is life steal (very few exceptions can incorporate regen like Avenger, or some form of passive sustain like some chaos builds or fire builds, but these are very rare exceptions) and this stat itself is directly linked to the amount of damage they can deal. Now imagine all those DRs, OA shreds and fumbles incoming… All that damage goes to dust and the only way to somehow mitigate these cases is by stacking HP up to 25k (very few melees can do that, most are not even close) and DA over 3k (ideally 3k after shreds, highly unlikely).
At the same time direct damage melees get more heat coming at them than most other builds simply because their AoE is limited to some close semi-circle. While other builds have better sustain because they can simply kill a big part of the incoming pack before all mobs attack them, direct damage melees gotta jump in that pack and eat all the hits and debuffs.
I could probably write a whole thesis about why melees are not in a good spot right now but…
TL;DR
Melees need easier access to better defensive stats, and this niche itself should be differentiated from other playstyle by having higher damage since their AoE is limited by default.

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I feel like a lot of thoughts here will be different when the Ascendant mode will be a thing. Melee might shine more in that game mode

I could be wrong, we will see

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Pretty much all this.

Add to that:

  • A lot of debuffs are short range auras or persisting ground effects
  • A lot of debuffs activate after an initial cooldown of 2-3 seconds.

Which means if you have to close the gap without a movement skill or take too long to kill, at close range you are punished in more than one way.

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Aetherwarped cleaver would be a nice place to put a phys execution mod, since that niche doesn’t exist yet.

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You made me look at its brother, Aetherscorched Cleaver:

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And oh boy, who is this thing even for? What kind of Physical Arcanist is using a one-handed melee axe?

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the “perma” mirror meme, that’s about it i think :thinking:

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I’ve played two setups presented in this post on 1.2.1.6 version, and wanna share my experience with them. I play without any mods or tools, so it was a journey on it’s own.

First I tried Warborn BM, as you may know from this post, and was kinda squashed by phys reflect. For main campaign can not really recommend (although with Titan Plating and Owl I’ve stopped dying, but still need to be careful around reflect mobs), but SR is whole different story. This build have nice concentrated AoE, while maintaining heavy solotarget punch. Also MI mod on War Cry helps with trash and healers cleaning. I played this setup with not so optimal greens, and because of that tried only SR 26-27, but probably will return to it later so maybe will update this feedback.
Even with far from optimal greens this setup runs very nice and smooth, probably should be even better in 1.3, totally can recommend for SR farming.

While crafting boots for Warborn BM suddenly got bis warboots for Belgo BM, so decided to swap and try it out, especially since i wanted to try Belgothian set for a long time now. Aside of bis Intrepid Warboots I also managed to farm best in slot affixes for Derpapteran Slicer, so this setup is actually quite close to the mad_lee’s grim tools.
Aaand… ew.

Clearing SR on this build feels like I’m cleaning the dirtiest toilet in my life with a fork. Very good, sharp and durable fork indeed, but that’s still a fork. AoE is just nonexistent here even with Markovian Stratagem. I’ve encountered the exact problems, what romanN1 mentioned and instead of having a good time on almost fully geared and optimized endgame setup, I had this fork of the build. Surviving is very hard, because mobs are often wiggling and this build sustains through lifeleech. If mob pack have healers, good luck finding them, because you don’t have any AoE which can kill them with collateral damage. Also visuals is just doesn’t here, you don’t see what you even do now, while in the middle of the pack. Can’t say there’s no pros at all, pheumatic burst kinda saves the day on sustain side, without this skill, would be much worse. Another good side of this build - at least it doesn’t have a chore with something like ABB or BH (same with Warborn BM).
All in all, can’t really recommend this solotarget focused melee, honestly, it really needs a bit better AoE (for example in Dermapteran Slicer) to be at least decent in endgame modes.

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