Faction rings discussion

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
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Continuing the discussion from V1.3.0 Playtest Changelog:

Out of all the changes, this one stood out and took me by surprise.

I assume the 38 is the minimum roll and it would roll around 55-60 on a high roll.
The old 4% high-roll results in roughly 70-80 points of DA gain, ~100 points of OA gain for the few of my builds who use any of them.

But… why the nerf tho?
Very few builds actually use these, and pretty much only when there is no other option to hard-cap a mandatory skill.
Even in Beginner specs they are typically placeholders for better options, that are simply less reliable to farm (and therefore, hard to recommend for a planned build).

The stats on most faction rings are overall not exciting, the ones listed are the better ones and they still see very little use.

Frankly, buffing some the other faction rings a little seems more appropriate than this small nerf.

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don’t changelog notes usually represent the middle? :thinking: - or am i brainfarting on that one

but yes, overall similar notion/puzzled as initially raised in Lees bleed thread Pure Bleed builds that got hit by recent nerfs - #2 by Gnomish_Inquisition

*i get general crit meta nerfs, (even kinda agree) and i get the perception of free items shouldn’t be super powerful,
but these are hardly “super”, also stuff existing feels like it should “be” or have reason to use, even if it includes a free faction ring worthwhile at end, and not be “least appealing as possible, in case it might be used successfully”

also, this isn’t so much me wincing over “dead builds” or losing half oa/da on a ring will break budget kits or the few endgame setups they were used in
Just that it seems strange they are the target and not other avenues of “OP” builds OA/DA, when those rings perhaps should get more appeal, or atleast don’t need to have general appeal reduced (also if free purchase)

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As far as I remember, you’re correct, they’re the average.

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Maybe this is just the first installment of a more wide-ranging OA/crit nerf?

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oh no that’s already happening in the changelog :sweat_smile: so that’s not the issue/surprise
it’s more like taking already not super appealing items and making them even less appealing, because some builds are stacking OA/crit like crazy (eg why nerf %da if crit meta is the issue)

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stacking OA / Crit and Damage types :stuck_out_tongue: I mean these Pierce Hybrids

If it were up to me, I wouldn’t touch OA / Crit and simply nerf these builds specifically which are strong for obvious reasons:

  • DE got super buffed and got RR

  • Voidsoul being almost spam yet a cooldown TDM build at the same time, also got RR

  • Deathguard got Acid RR too

  • RoS Blademaster - because the skill got buffed hard

etc. etc. so that my meme builds with high OA / Crit don’t suffer :stuck_out_tongue:
but ofc it’s up to the devs how they want builds to look

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Longer analysis of lvl 90 faction rings and amulets:
(Leaving out the medals because they are all pretty bad)

(Also sorry in advance for the overuse of the word “garbage”, it’s just a description of where the items belong, not meant as an inflammatory rhetorical device).

Coven Defender Seal
Only reason it’s not fully garbage is that is has life leech on a ring that you can just buy. It’ll fix a temporary hole, sometimes.
For a purely defensive ring: Resistances are very low & no HP is weak.

Coven Storm Seal
Actually good ring, but outclassed by well-rolled Gollus’ ring or more relevant purples.

Coven Sky Seal
Good. Sometimes seen on budget TSS or FoI.

Coven Blade Pendant
Garbage. Blade Arc has Mogara’s amulet, the attack speed is wasted on the other skills, low resistances and irrelevant DA.

Coven Darkener Pendant
Good budget option for acid Nightblades. The pierce roll is irrelevant, vitality damage would be more fitting, given the Bonus to DEE.
No OA bonus will always hold this item back from seeing endgame.

Coven Manipulator Pendant
Garbage item all around.

Wendigo Conjuring Seal
Placeholder item until you get Bloodsworn ring with the pet roll you want, nothing more.

Wendigo Warped Seal
Garbage.

Wendigo Sky Pendant
Pretty weak. Placeholder maybe for budget TSS, but no OA bonus disqualifies it from endgame.
Nightblades looking for Shadowstrike have better options (e.g. Ellena)

Wendigo Vile Pendant
Garbage. No relevant skill bonus, and more leech is quite redundant for vit builds.

Malmouth Aetherblaze Seal
Fine ring for budget CT arcanists, but lacking resistances and having %energy is … weird.
Energy issues are rare for lvl 90+ arcanists.

Malmouth Arcane Seal
Fine stats but resistance and HP values are low for a ring with no OA.

Malmouth Blade Seal
Top 20 ring, nerf immediately.
(Stats are fine, but if there was any green ring to cap Blade Spirits, you would never see this ring)

Malmouth Defender Pendant
Garbage item.

Malmouth Stormbinder Pendant
Garbage.

Malmouth Warped Pendant
+1 to Arcanist with a relevant damage type, cast speed, relevant resistances.
Hmm I wonder why nobody ever uses it… oh that’s right, no OA for an OA-driven mastery.

Bysmiel Chilling Seal
Garbage. All the pet items here are just pretty bad.

Bysmiel Vile Seal
Fine ring, but the single resistance and low HP makes it hard to justify the slot.
And on a physical build you will really feel the lack of OA.

Bysmiel Champion Pendant
Garbage. Soldiers have a better option in Mogara’s & Bloodbriar’s, no physical build will want an amulet with zero OA.
The flat phys is laughable.

Bysmiel Veiled Pendant
Never seen anyone use this, seems to be a very small niche item for players making a budget Krieg-set build.

Dreeg Blade Seal
Garbage.
Pierce and bleed builds really want OA and have better options, in particular Cronley’s Ring seems to far outclass this, and even Cronley’s doesn’t see that much use.

Dreeg Venom Seal
It’s somewhat okay for budget Ritualist/Cabalist, but Bloodsworn ring with some pet resistances would be better.
In general, having a pet item without pet resistances is rough to fit, especially if the pet bonus is as mediocre as it is here.

Dreeg Arcane Pendant
Garbage. Never seen anyone use this item, Demo and Nightblade both have far better green options.

Dreeg Venomspine Pendant
Weird overlap with Coven Darkener Pendant.
Again, the pierce damage on this item is out of place.
No OA, no HP, otherwise fine as a placeholder.

Solael Stormfire Seal
This item is fine. Low HP but it’s a decent fit on a budget.

Solael Warped Seal
This item really wants casting speed and some more HP. Other than that it’s mildly okay.

Solael Stormfire Pendant
The reasons you never see this item:
a) Fire Strike builds would much rather have +1 demo skills
b) Stun Jacks has Ulraprax’s Sting and would rather see +2 to Full Spread anyways.
Perfect example of an item that has decent stats, but no actual use-case, not even as a place-holder, so it goes into the garbage.

Solael Void Pendant
Another useless item that pet builds wouldn’t ever touch.

My conclusion

Overall, I get that these items are not supposed to be Best-In-Slot fits.
But the vast majority are so bad I would never even consider them.

They were very mediocre when they came out, with some standing out as “decent” - in a game where well-rolled greens were rare.
Then the game has power-crept around them, while they never changed.

I mentioned this before:
Epic faction items are pretty useless.
Out of ~120 lvl90 faction epics, there’s barely a dozen that are worth the iron bits.

So seeing a nerf out of the blue (heheh) is a bit odd.

Just my 2 cents on this topic, I am sure other people have varying opinions. :+1:

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I sometimes use this to hit 24 savagery on elemental dmg savagery/upheaval builds, like my Veilkeeper druid, but it’s depressing to use this instead of one of my well-rolled Gollus rings. What I really want is Blazerush/Veilkeeper to have better access to Savagery bonuses. Amulet/pants/gloves/boots don’t offer any options for this, apart from a pair of bleed gloves.

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Not to be a cynic but it does feel like that nerf is specifically targeted at the one ring with no alternatives that also happen to be used by the second build on the top 20 list. With other rings included being thrown in for good measure.

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In terms of devotions, yes. But maybe OA affixes are going to be tone down as well. I suppose it’s pointless to speculate - we’ll know soon enough.

By itself, it does seem odd to nerf some of the crappest items for a gear slot.

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Well they might become eligible for Ascendancy in FoA.

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I don’t think every epic item is getting ascension option. And it wouldn’t make sense that faction epics get ascended.

On the topic: I agree that most faction rings are utterly useless even as placeholders. Nuking the only useful ones feels wrong to me. None of those 4% OA/DA faction rings are exactly staples of endgame jewellery. They are usually used only when you need those skill points.

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The correct term was Awakened, not Ascended. My mistake.

I guess you’re saying it wouldn’t make sense because why should a faction vendor sell the Epic version when he/she can straight up sell the Awakened version directly.

I guess you could also ask why should faction vendors sell any endgame Epics at all given that they can sell endgame Legendary blueprints.

I suppose the answer is that the player can get endgame Epics slightly earlier at level 90 instead of level 94 and also that Epics are cheaper and don’t require mats to acquire.

There is also the case of someone playing without FoA, whereupon mats to Awaken an Epic wouldn’t be possible to acquire.

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Yeah that puzzled me as well. 32 and 38 are avg values so you are actually losing a ton of stats from this nerf. Not sure what even prompted the change, this is one of those things that we would really want to hear from devs. Those rings were at a good place being a big help for budget builds.

Maybe there’s an idea to eventually completely rule out epic items for endgame? But that would leave so many high level items as just “leveling gear”, seems strange.

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I just think Awakening is gonna affect limited amount of epic items so it feels special. Faction epics probably won’t get awakened. But also designing a legendary version for every blue item is a lot of work.

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To do it properly? Yes, of course.

But what I noticed from previous Misadventures is that Zantai kind of took a “shortcut” and simply boosted the existing numerical values on the Epic, then added some skill modifiers on top of that. But that could be just a “first pass” and Zantai or his minions could eventually make them more differentiated/varied/sophisticated.

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Even that requires a lot of work, like drawing a new look, designing new skill mod, etc. Plus if you do it for everything it stops being special.

Disclaimer: I am speculating, no idea how it actually will happen

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pow joked over time Z’d work through the list of epics and eventually awaken everyone :smile: Grim Misadventure #193 - Wake Up! - #32 by powbam

if FoA gets FG levels of changelog intervals, i’d almost imagine that actually being a possibility

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I’m not sure if I’d look more forward to this game getting patches for 10 more years or actually getting a grim dawn 2

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Highly doubt Grim Dawn will get Significantly more patches after FoA. Their priority will be spent on making Grim Dawn 2 and of course FF and their upcoming RTS and Horror game.

However, you can continue to play Grim Dawn for many more years to come, after all, there is no way you can ever complete Grim Dawn if you really try different ways to play to game and/or around certain items, like fashion, MI, and cheese builds and so on.

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