[Discussion] Improving 1H Blade Arc in 1.1.6.0

It’s no secret that 1H BA is in a terrible place and is probably one of the worst skills in the end game.

I’d like to initiate a discussion on how to better improve this skill so that we can crystalize a solid suggestion for Z’s 1.1.6’s thread.

Without further ado, I feel that BA needs a transmutor which only applies to S&B specs.

I can see this transmutor being viable as a defensive option, or as an offensive option.

  1. Defensively: Maybe have the transmutor act as a mini overguard, granting 15% shield block chance/recovery. This would certainly help out the already skill point starved spellscourge set &/or targo set.

  2. Offensively: Add 15% AS to BA, and add shield damage to BA. Perhaps even give it a small 10% total damage modifier to boot.

What do you guys think?

Just to understand it:
You want Blade Arc to be usable for S&B, right? Because for DW, such a transmutor wouldn´t really help, imho.

Yes, I think it kinda fits the theme of 1H BA.

I also think DW BA might be OP, though I’m not closed off to that concept.

I was under the impression that BA scaled with CS and not AS. Did that change at some point, or you suggest the AS for AA fillers in between transmuted BA?

I think BA should hit with the shield too giving the fact it have two full sets supporting S&B Blade Arc play style.

And the skill itself it’s 2H one and despite not dedicated gear Pierce and Cold versions outperforms 1H with dedicated sets/weapons like Spellscourge, Vitality and such.

Do you mistake it with Forcewave? Imho BA always scaled with AS.

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My bad. I was actually refering to blade arc. Apparently the notion it scaled with cast speed, isa misconception I’been carrying around since my first character a few years back, but I haven’t touched the skill since then. Weird thing is, I am pretty sure I did my research back then. Well, the brain works in mysterious ways! Sorry!

If BA worked with DW it will be OP, now that it’s got the same animation speed as 2h. The attack speed advantage will surely surface if that’s the case.

If we wanna make s&b blade arc work, then there must be a shield exclusive mod, since if a good mod is placed outside a shield then going dw will still end up being better due to weapons being better stat sticks. The second problem is that shield builds really suck in terms of damage if you’re not retal. I don’t think adding shield damage on the skill is gonna help alot. It needs to be something better. More weapon damage, or more flat phys. Something like that.

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nothing to apologize for

glad this thread could help out a little <3

but this would make it similar to DW BA though…except that one weapon would be a shield

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How about transmutor that buffs damage/OA after succesful block and debuffs DA of enemies hit by BA in the next BA attack? Some more crits could improve SnB Arc.

Is blade arc prone to Fumble? If yes, fumble immunity could be the answer. Turn it intro a spell and scale out of CS like FS?

Agree with a lot of what is said here.

BA is just odd to us in the fact that as a spamming skill it’s underwhelming. As a dot, it’s pretty good but typically dot builds don’t need a shield and are constantly moving and may be better served by a non shield off hand.

Spanks idea about a extra transmuter is great. Haven’t the slightest clue of what it should look like due to possible engine issues and our bias on meme stuff.

My most immediate idea takes from everyone though I don’t know if the engine can do it. If possible place a transmuter that adds an on demand buff with a cool down/duration that allows the skill to be immune to fumble, add a huge amount of damage at the loss of the use of the shield during that period. So no block.

So during that duration you could place several reapplies huge dots or spam the living hell out of it at the cost of the shield but it would require the shield as the off hand to activate.

This might be a terrible idea but we would like to look outside of just adding plan vanilla stats like flat damage and find unique ways to improve the game.

Great ideas though everyone.

Both are unnecessarily difficult solutions. Adding shield damage would probably involve some coding work rather than tweaking numbers. Mini-overguard should be possible, but you’d need a buff icon for it (like Deadly Momentum).

And this is the most simple one, just a bit ugly.
The non-ugly solution is to further increase flat physical damage on Laceration. You can’t expect 1H BA to be good if Laceration has less flat than Deadly Momentum (which is even further boosted with %WD, unlike Laceration’s flat).

Haha, no. Unless 2H BA is suddenly shit now.

I don’t think it’s good to add shield damage to skills that don’t have a shield strike animation, because it makes them non-intuitive.

I believe this is undoable without remaking whole skill system in GD.

I’m pretty sure fumble/IA affect spells. Only damage-dealing debuffs like Bloody Pox and Word of Pain are probably unaffected.

Actually no, when shit hits the fan DoT builds do take shields, especially if they are inflicted via melee range skill like BA.

No, this is probably impossible without redoing the whole skill system in Grim Dawn.

Eh, AoE spells are clearly not affected by fumble, Like CT. And Forcewave.

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so what’s the gameplan then dragon?

EDIT: Also, my suggestion for the overguard-like transmutor is for it to be a permanent buff, not a temporary one.

So no icon would be needed for it

Strange. Not sure about FW, but I’m like 99% sure I’ve seen the floating “fumble” text when I spammed CT the other day in Aldritch room.

Basically this:

Plus boosting specific skill modifiers on 1H legendaries/MIs.

So basically you take 1 pt Blade Arc, take “transmuter” and never use BA again?

would this unfairly buff 2H BA

i didn’t think of this :stuck_out_tongue:

It would, but you can simply cut the %wd mod on Gutsmasher to compensate.

EDIT:
just for comparison

ba1

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To be fair, 1-handed weapons scale better on applying non-weapon damage than 2-handed weapons do (due to low attack speed) so while they would benefit, they would benefit less than 1-handed weapons do.

Eye of Reckoning’s Physical/Fire/Lightning damage or Markovian’s Advantage vs Zolhan’s Technique etc. are well-known examples of this.

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not with a shield. it’s hard af to get AS on spellscourge

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