“Difficulty of Last Two FG bosses”
So let me get this straight. This is a complain about the Difficulty of Ultimate, a “difficulty” which is meant to be challenging in the first place to further down the two last (End)Bosses, which by the way is also meant to be challenging, to further down the Expansions which also kinda is made with being more challenging in their mind.
Oh f**** boy…
I don’t want to trade with the devs and work in this job, because it really raise the question at what point the Game is to be allowed for the Core-Players to be Challenging, when it’s not even is allowed for the last two bosses for the probably last expansion in the last & hardest difficulty (as well the outcry here abut secret / celestial bosse). I would’ve understood if they Boss would’ve totally wrecked newcomers on Normal and than open such topic, but this is simply madness…
additionally, see my post above. I’m more than willing to send you my sabo and you can test it to your heart’s content.
There is a difference between challenging, and straight up BS, especially on Korvaak. Fighting him on elite, without a pre-approved cookie cutter, without even the revered faction gear can and will either lock you out of dealing damage at all (plinking away fruitlessly a few times every ten-twenty seconds with a ranged autoattack, depending on your circuit breakers or active defenses), or lock you in the constant threat of being oneshotted/combo killed with little in terms of what you do against him.
The idea that you can magically deduce what damage he does and that knowledge helps is both true (okay you can look at the damage type SFX you’re getting hit with, if you are willing to die several times just to test what you keep dying from), and false (literally everything deals tons of physical damage, and physical damage is the main portion of the damage you take.
The notion from @TankPet that a random dw blademaster has it easier, meaning everyone should have it easy or else they are just bad, is ridiculous. Blademasters have %armor, %resists out of the ass, while DW NBs get practically free 11% phys res to their kit, AND they are naturally suited to take heavy armor. They literally take anywhere between half to two-thirds of the damage that anyone else would take, and they have better nonleech healing on demand than any nondw-nightblade setups.
I’d also LOVE to see where in the game (not in Grimtools-Monsterdb) it’s spelled out that the primary damage Kymon’s arena lava gouts do is just stat-indepenent percent life reduction.
while i partially agree that Blademaster’s have it a bit easier doesn’t mean they are op. And when i look into your shared sabo build im like ??? what the heck. this jack of all kinds shit doesn’t work mate you’ve points scattered everywhere, then it looks like a caster build which doesn’t fit sabo necessarily well because the skills of the classes take too many different damage types and skill modifier to PB basically renders all the points spent post the initial one in flame touched useless as these % increases do not apply when conversion takes place (during PB’s active time thanks to your weapon) and i never understodd that particular item modifier anyways
the blademaster i mentioned focussed on full piercing damage (the MI weapons have 50% pierce ratio made into 100% via blades of nadaan devotion) with a lot of wps procs the points were spent that way and made up for enough easy dps freeing up the Gear to cap defenses etc. the heal on demand from PB wasn’t even neccessary i just used it because i wanted to keep the speed buff up also which % armor increase do you mean? that from field command? that’s the last skill i would max i leave it mostly as 1 point enabler for Squad Tactics and go for Scars of Battle instead ( % armor increase has weaker itself automatic when not even at 100% armor absorption) and increased armor absorption isn’t somethign completly soldier exclusive
and if you think the dual blades phys resist in nightblades puts blademaster on the stronger side then why not the heck do a DW sabo with fire strike line instead of all the caster abilities that don’t match nightblade with a questionable 2H? things like that are supposed to fail against certain bosses in Elite/Ultimate becasue they just not good / do not make sense.
Oh man, don’t get me started on that now. SR stackable buffs debuffs coming from multiple bosses and minions, now that’s something I’d really like to see addressed. You could have 150% all resistances, 5k armor and 3.5k DA and burst down in a second during those random damage spikes. If there’s anything I want the devs to look at… sigh
I have killed Elite Korvaak with level 65 gear and less with a wide variety of builds while i was level 93, that means he was level 90+. Melee, ranged, casters, pets and so on. His attacks are extremely telegraphed and easy to dodge and his attacks are on a rotation. You don’t need to die once to learn his rotation, it’s quite simple. I have actually never died once against him, between Veteran, Elite and Ultimate.
You say Saboteur with the best gear pre-endgame sets but that’s such a vague description of the build. What about your OA/DA? Resistances? Devotion path? Damage type? There’s so much more beyond gear. Saying it’s not cookie cutter doesn’t meant anything, i have killed Korvaak with many builds that aren’t used by a lot of people.
Or arcane. I’m managing ok, but it’s surely way more unpredictable and stressful than I’d like to have in hardcore. You can’t just farm SR half asleep with a tanky build like in other games. But that’s ok, GD is different by design and I get it. Still, some kind stackable buff, debuff and damage normalization would make things much less spiky and unpleasant.
many heros/bosses/nemesis etc. would loose their iconic being though inside of SR. I would at most consider changing the way their effect’s stack if there is already a similar type of buff debuff active, like having the strongest buff it’s effect reduced for aslong as there are the other kinda alike effects. that would still somewhat contain their identity without making them too strong when you face multiple bosses/heros/emesis at once…
That’s exactly my point. The cumulative effect of all debuffs should be reduced. Either by having the strongest one overriding the rest or using a formula that reduces similar types down to a certain percentage. Lots of possibilities and it’d been successfully done before in so many great games. No need to reinvent the wheel.
It’s right up in this very thread. also, not pre-endgame sets because sabo has none of that. (unless you mean that it’s a budget build before endgame sets come to mind. Endgame set obviously exists for this character, it’s rimetongue)
Other than that, I guess I could take a few videos, splice them together if you want to point out piloting errors or something. Or alternatively, upload the save file here if you desire a more hands-on experience.
I’m saving this for the next time some clueless guy starts praising the depth of customization and what you can do in this game. Until then, … umm… I’ll try not being a dick, But:
It’s not a “jack of all kinds shit”, it’s a caster, it’s focused on cold damage, it took fire devotion skills that it converts to cold damage, it also converts demolitionist fire damage (or burn) to cold, while bringing the full suite of resist reductions (Veil, Thermite, Rumor). Flame touched is taken because the other option would be ABB+Lethal Assault, for even less OA, pitiful amounts of %cold, and flat damage which I can’t use.
As for your understanding (or lack of) of soldier, just in comparison:
Scars of Battle is BEYOND stacked. It’s cheap, you can max it in 5-6 hard points, gives you stun res, freeze res, and armor absorb. That’s at least two components saved (I don’t see people taking freeze res components at least, else it’s three components saved.) Demo has none of that.
Field command is also stacked when it comes to the ever important OA/DA. it’s 30% more point dense than Flame Touched-Temper(assuming +2 to all skills), even without the armor boost. Said armor boost also stacks multiplicatively with having high armor absorb, which every soldier has because scars of battle is THAT good.
Decorated Soldier too, with ele resists and slow res.
So thanks to your utterly stacked statline, you are free (more than ANY saboteur in fact) to use up your freed up component slots for other things. You are free to put points onto Squad Tactics, which actually synergyzes with ALL your damage, unlike Flame Touched / Temper.
As you well evaded the topic i was goin about: Yes Soldier is a bit stacked but for a Class that is supposed to be tankier on it’s own already those stats are rightfully there since it’s also a class that mostly stands right in front of the enemy and has aside from Cadence nuke’s if they crit every 3rd attack only very limited damage gains so Squad tactics is perfectly fine as it is.
My Point was you already play a class combination that is heavily restricted by gear and in neither of those 2 you weren’t really utilizing their build-in defensive tools let alone the not maxed “heal on demand” as you call it which is the first thing i’d do if i was playing a more glassy combo like sabo.
again those devotions do not convert their specific % bonus which are essentially wasted devotion points. only the flat damage gets converted and as far as i know only if the said spell has atleast a weapon component and then only convert the amount matching both % weapon ratio and % conversion, i don’t see a weapon component part in any of those demolitionist skills.
Canister Bomb doesn’t provide any absolute needed utility like RR aswell so it’s already better not taking that but the phantasmal blades in nightblade instead since that skill has a very high % weapon component and also build-in ADctH down the skill line which is like a god tier stat to have against korvaak after the usual resist capping / overcapping the ones the enemy is about the debuff.
and because you play on cold damage during pneumatic Bursts buff, magi and ulzuin’s torch are completly wasted points.
Shadow Strike on a caster themed build and even maxing nightfall ???
1 point vindictive flame ???
maxing flash bang instead of it’s skill mod searing light ??? (but again complain about enemy damage)
Temper maxing over blade trap??? ( you need less OA when you take even more enemy def ability away and as i said earlier the % damage increases are already wasted because of conversion)
so yes it IS a jack of all kind of things, you want to play cold but refuse to take the proper working skills/devotions with it until you have the gear to make other Skills work (as you mentioned the legendaries) and then again i kindly repeat it, those things are bound to fail in ultimate at some point.
Don’t blame errors in your setup on the boss being overpowered which is simply not true…
I don’t agree with boro, but all of this is nonsense.
Shadow strike is nice for mobility, although nightfall max is a little odd
1 point of VF is because his build doesn’t scale much with cast speed outside of chillspikes. It’s not a good build, but it doesn’t rely much on attack or cast speed, hence no VF investment
No one (no min-maxed build at least) maxes searing light because it scales terribly
Blade trap doesn’t work on bosses because of their high trap resist, so it would be useless on these two bosses
It’s also incorrect that conversion doesn’t work on skills with no weapon damage. Magi and Ulzuin Torch proc will both be converted to cold damage, alongside any source of fire damage boro has
It just baffles me that some players have so much trouble with Korvaak to the point of demanding a nerf. Are we even playing the same game? If I had to rate Korvaak in terms of difficulty I’d put him a little below Theodin, who has a lot of nasty bullet-hell attacks and the assistance of colossi and fatbois.
To fail to defeat Korvaak you must have a fatal flaw in your build or your piloting skills must be kind of crappy. A boss being easy doesn’t mean that he can’t be dangerous if you play totally brain-dead, not even bothering to dodge his attacks.
My melee DW aether spellbreaker with 11k HP can defeat Korvaak in ultimate with little to no problem. It’s a build that by the standard of the builders of this forum may be considered a meme build.
So… maybe those complainers could try to look at how their builds or piloting skills could improve instead of directly blaming their struggles on the devs?
the % increases which are quite some points do not do anything on conversion builds that convert away from the type they grant their bonus on since conversion is calculated first with the base numbers (except for the own skills mods that grant % inc. to their initial damage type)
shadow strike for the mobility is just a 1 pointer then with at most the cdr from justifiable ends
VF on only 1 Point has such little effect that the point looks wasted
he was complaining about korvaak hitting too hard and the next thing aside from reducing damage is making the enemy not hit, that was my point with that.
Yeah completly forgot the trap resist on bosses but doesn’t that only apply to the cc part of the skill? i mean -% enemy defense ability is juicy to have
if you’re already playing something very restricted by Gear you can’t just generously put your points anywhere you like and his Setup just looks like that without focussing on the true needs of the build
Note that this…creature…is the ‘raw’ character as last shared in Ashes of Malmouth and has not started Forgotten Gods. Rules: No taking any additional skills or changing your gear! And no respeccing! (duh)
Edit:
Edit 2: You’ll have to do some…err…editing with GDStash to get it to work. Its quest stuff is fucked and you can’t get to FG normally.
I’ve replaced the above save file with one that has the riftgates and access to Korvaak unlocked.
It’s still totally borked, but should suffice for your self-imposed challenge.
On topic of this thread. I feel that Father Kymon and Korvaak are both in a great place and, as some have mentioned, fall in line with other bosses over the years that players initially were upset about but eventually took a moment to study the mechanics and improve.
In addition, Ultimate difficulty is, well…ultimate, so expect things to be challenging without BiS gear.
Hello Toapeiron, it’s me Sun Monster, the original poster. I think you misunderstood the original post. I did not demand a nerf, I asked for a nerf. I gave what I thought were reasonable suggestions to make the last two boss battles a little easier. Reasonable people can disagree on this without resorting to name-calling, can’t we? For example, I find Korvaak much, much harder than Theodin simply because Korvaak has those awful flame pillars that take up half the small arena, so I think it’s much easier to kite Theodin. That doesn’t make me a better or worse Grim Dawn player than you, it makes me a different Grim Dawn player than you.
“Blaming my struggles on the devs” is a fair, but harsh, critique of what I said. I’m merely suggesting small changes that I think will make these two battles a little more reasonable because I find the difficulty curve between the rest of the game and FK and Korvaak is way too steep. I think there’s some room for adjustment here. Ultimately, this is a subjective measure, a judgment call on a video game; so the fact that some of you seem to take offense at this is absurd to me, but we all have our crosses we must bear.
I’ve been playing this game awhile and when I first got to ultimate FK and Korvaak, I hated them. But, I also hated ultimate Theodin, too - untilI figured him out, and I can handle him. If I’m lucky I won’t die at all fighting Theodin. I see these hypotheses about ultimate FK and Korvaak:
I just haven’t figured out the right way to fight these bosses.
I suck at this game.
The bosses are overpowered.
All of the above
A combination of #1 and #2 above.
A combination of #1 and #3 above.
A combination of #2 and #3 above.
I first went with #1. It’ll take awhile, but I’ll get there eventually. I’m ruling out #2 because I can get this far. I’m even finding the nemesis battles reasonably tough, but I’ve been able to beat the ones I’ve come across, so I think I know what I’m doing. After seven characters all having the same difficulties - characters that use builds I found in the GD Compendium, and with some BIS gear, and all getting bitch-slapped around like a newbie, I’m beginning to wonder if hypotheses 1 and 3 might be what’s going on. That’s why I started this thread.
Some of you are going to want to reply to me with some variation of “Sun Monster is a crappy player who’s using the wrong build, wrong gear, and who can’t handle ultimate so play something easier.” Please don’t waste your time or mine with that sort of response. I’m a gamer trying to suggest small fixes to a game he loves.
Hello Crate Developers,
If any of you have read this far into the thread, please take this as constructive criticism. Yes, I do think about ragequitting because of FK and Korvaak. But I’ve put in a lot of time into this game because it’s a goddamn masterpiece as far as I’m concerned, and I want to finish it with all my current toons, and then make some new characters with the Oathkeeper mastery. One of the most frustrating things about these battles is that I can’t yell and scream at the screen the way I want to when my wife’s at home. You did a great job. It was suggested that I’m making demands on you. I’m not in a position to demand anything from you - but if you’re opening that door, then I’d demand that you get to work on Grim Dawn 2.
i mean -% enemy defense ability is juicy to have
