[Feedback] Deathguard Reaper

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
#1

As the topic state, the intention is to bring up feedback on the current state of exclusively acid reaper using the Deathguard set. Me and @afanasenkov26 provided 3 videos with completion rate in crucible, SR being out of discussion due to its current state.

First video reffers to the build as the sets intends us to make it, focusing on SS and BH:

[PT] Critt’s Deathguard Reaper - YouTube

The completion rate is 1 out of 8 runs finished due to its squishyness (lack of HP on acid classes and lack of phys res on acid gear) and clunkyness (not enough cooldown reduction to provide a smooth experience)

Second video reffers to going for BH focus, stacking as much damage for it as possible. Run was made by @afanasenkov26
Quote:
image

Deathguard Reaper 4:43 run (BH focus) - YouTube

Struggles to output damage despite the huge poison added to BH for the fact that BH on dw specs only uses main hand damage, the amount of poison on this setup is not encouraging at all, that includes the duration too, and again…cooldown reduction is not enough.

Third and last video reffers to going for full yolo damage and SS focus, adding damage along from BH and lethal assault

[PT] Grey’s Deathguard Reaper (yolo setup) - YouTube

Out of 7 runs only 1 was finished, the damage is slightly better, but not amazing due to so many acid resistant mobs, clunkyness is present due to having to rotate through BH and ABB to ensure SS hits as strong as it can, the general gameplay is extremely stressful and the squishyness is not missing either despite the setup being as well rounded as possible.

Conclusion

There are several aspects to be improved on the upper mentioned build, some ideas being as following:

  • 10% cdr mod and 120% acid damage to HoS (either on set or Reaver Hunger amulet)
  • flat poison on daggers and poison damage with increased duration
  • Health and energy leech (build really needs it, especially outside of crucible) on manticore devo, health on scorpion, health on yugol, health on shoulders (acid builds in general severely lack HP)
  • WD% to BH mod on blades instead of crit%, the crit damage is useless because the build doesnt have enough OA to throw out that crit half consistent and again, only main hand damage on a low flat dagger
  • replace the pierce to acid on armor with cold to acid (this will ensure more DoT from nightfall which again, the build severely lacks)
  • acid damage % added to Reaver hunger amulet
  • Maggot String could use a +3 to dread instead of wasting, since it already has +3 Possession for Occultist.

Hopefully this setup will get to see the light!

Best regards,

EDIT Also i noticed that most endgame sets also have a full set proc (some have a proc on either weapons, or helm, or both). Maybe also adding a proc could help bump this build a bit.

5 Likes
#2

deathguard seems to be a bit forgotten, as for now …

and yeah, it’s all like I said in that quote. deathguard dies from everything. I died at waves 160, 170, 161 because of meteor, 165, 156 even because of some mad shotgun etc.

Build desperately needs defense, at least HP increased/added aswell as some CC-resists could be added too.
damage-wise, it’s not terrible but I deffo agree with this

and will probably suggest increasing the flat CD for BH on helm to -0,8-1 sec.

2 Likes
#3

This can sit there, SS part of it fine I guess but I also provided some feedback in the thread for other parts of Deathguard and acid builds generally. I also made a Deahtguard Oppressor with Wendigo Barb but it’s mostly AA focused so it may not help the topic. But I think set can use some %increased acid damage duration for DoT stacking.

2 Likes
#4

The set lost its identity a little bit with new conversion on SS acid daggers.

The mods on the full set are just dull. Overall the set at this point doesn’t bring anything special to the table, custom setups are superior.

I’d suggest to make it a BH or SS spam set. Turning a cd skill into spam has been a goldmine of refreshment in the last year or two. Neither BH nor SS had their spam versions yet. Maybe it’s time? Cause boy the acid dmg type needs some variety in endgame builds.

-cd or +%wd to the skills could also work but it would be a wasted opportunity to make smth fresh.

7 Likes
#5

i was going to suggest making it a spam BH set, then saw banana already suggested it :sweat_smile:
probably not gonna be OP on 1h, and since it’s still single class RR that’s probably also not gonna blow things out of the water
spam SS i’m all for, probably gonna be a balancing nightmare, but i love SS, and if it’s gated off on a full 4p set might be too hard to go nuts with outside a dunefiend blade or riftscourge slicer

is it possible that Deathguard is sorta a “relic of the past” and deserve a little do-over ? :thinking:
-giving the set unique feature like banana suggested doesn’t sound bad :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

anyways, for me, “post FG deathguard”, one the other issue was, if i wanted to do acid SS, why not just go Dunefiend and get better support both directly and in the class supported? - no biggie since multiple sets supporting same approach is fine
1h boneharvest probably also doesn’t feel like it has big enough impact, on a single RR class, with all the highly resistant buggers around…
is it intended?/if it’s intended to be a “hit 'n run” type set, why doesn’t it have more poison dmg?

usual general acid build plea aside; “please Z, moar resist+CCres & HP/OA/DA etc etc” aside (not really, please don’t ignore and gief)
some stuff could be incorporated on the general acid front devos etc, and some could be plopped in direct on the death guard set
so you don’t need a million cunning dump or physique to still just reach glass tier HP DA and barely enough OA to utilize the built in crit mod

my first post FG Deathguard reaper was so squish it couldn’t clear SR65, and the set was discarded because of how bad it felt at the time - contra dunefiend dervish/witch hunter which felt awesome immediately
doodles i’ve made since never felt right on the reaper front, so it always ended up as a dervish or witch hunter instead; and then i’m back to “why not dunefiend etc” :man_shrugging:

i feel it’s kinda sad when the set feels better “picked a part” than used as a whole, or is so much behind it makes you question “why wouldn’t i just go dunefiend, or venomblade or XYZ”
other acid sets just feels better to me, deathguard feels too lacking, - and it’s compounded too much with general acid build struggles on top

*i actually spent a bit of time trying to dig out my old deathguard reaper and couldn’t find it - turns out it was converted to a meme instead, that’s how little i cared for it :sweat_smile:

edit… wow… that turned out to be a lot longer than intended, for something that’s basically TLDR: “what the other guys said!” :point_up: :no_mouth:

6 Likes
#6

Spam BH has been a dream of mine since before even the Db and aegis conduits were added… So plus one from me

2 Likes
#7

Adding more to table. A nice idea i had today and with some tweaks here and there it came to life.

1 succesful run out of 12 and probably the luckiest of them all. Trying more i could finish like 2 more around the usual 5min average.

NOTE Despite softcaping Merciless Repertoire, Hardcaping Dread, and picking up all the flat poison damage in devos that i could, the dots are still around 150k. Funniest wave i had i was facing benny, aleks, zantarin and maiden. Took me a whooping 40 seconds to clear that wave going full yolo. Too many acid resistant enemies…

Another idea that came up to me, Deathguard full set bonus makes BH to hit with both hands and gives it a 50% chance to 100% cdr (ar add acid damage to iceskorn gloves and + to dread)

2 Likes
#8

my full support please mr z

1 Like
#9

Spam SS for me here :wave:

I’d be happy with either though.
That’s a great idea

1 Like
#10

feelsbadman.
resistant nems like Ben/Zantarin take a shitload of time to kill on single-RR acid.

1 Like
#11

ran into Zantarin on SR76 with acid resist mutator among others
wow
like wooow, that’s just horrible now
one thing is dealing like 0 dmg to him, but trying to play whack-a-mole forth and back with his summons trying to get some leech in before your dots/aoes kill them is just horrendous to boot
*and that was while also encountering Aleks and Benji on the same run/muters which felt “peachy” compared

this was the build btw if anyone was interested Reaper, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

it feels absurd how low the dmg feels in effect,
i have melee builds with half the weapon dmg that feels like a blender through things, incl their resistant counter enemies…

1 Like
#12

For the love of whatever, give this set Stun Resist already while you’re at it.

1 Like
#13

Agree with OP. It’s a glassy set without any damage to show for it.

Also i’d like to add something regarding Nightfall. Most SS builds are starved for points, but even when invested in Nightfall doesnt seem to have any impact at all. I tested this Spellbreaker Spellbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
with 16/12 nightfall:
4:35
4:34
4:25

5/12 nightfall with points in elemental awakening instead:
4:09
4:40
4:35

Small sample size but i’ve come to the same conclusion before, both on acid Dervish and some Spellbreaker with Nightfall hardcap. I can’t really notice any difference between 1 point and full investment.

2 Likes
#14

Tested after current updates. The build is overall a bit more durable, but still has big issues in terms of damage output. Performance is the same, realistic setups having an average situated in the 4.40-5.00 interval. Looking forward to see some tweaks in the damage department as it is really needed. Clunkyness due to the lack of cdr remains the same.

1 Like
#15

Coming back with another iteration on the topic.

From the start, the setup is 100% UNREALISTIC. The idea behind it was to stack as much OA and crit damage% i could without sacrificing damage and resistances. I totally ignored HP and DA on this one. The reason i went for this is to see if the build scales better via fhe crit dmg on NJE and especially the crit damage mod for BH on the blades. Sadly the outcome wasn’t too bright either along the other setups. The clunkyness due to lack of cdr is still there, the poison damage ticks are still very low, resistant enemies feel like a troll against the build, and most importantly, despite all those mods, BH still tickles even with this high chance of landing a crit.

Conclusion

Saying this again, blades need flat acid and flat poison to them, duration included, bone harvest and SS need cdr to make their usage less clunky, and last but not least, because BH only uses main hand to damage, it really needs a weapon damage % mod. To avoid overstacking mods on the set i reminding again that blood hunger amulet can use the acid damage% and OA, iceskorn gloves can use the acid damage % too and some OA, and the set cold to acid global conversion needs to go up to 100% if we wanna see some decent dots happening. In its current state, highest dot I’ve seen after applying all sources was 170k.

EDIT If there are any concerns that buffing BH might result in creating a disbalance besides DG oppressor builds, i’ll just leave these old samples here.

1 Like
#16

Not sure what kind of clear times you’re hoping for.

Not going to go crazy trying to bring everything under 4:30 higher, but there’s no reason to add more things to the busted list.

#17

I’m not hoping for clear times, i’m hoping for quality of life improvements, fluid gameplay, less clunkyness and an actual dot playstyle from this particular build like the bonuses imply :smiley: . It would be a shame not to bring it to the level where its actually very pleasureable to play simply because the idea behind the set is great and it looks awesome too!

#18

I don’t think it’s bad at all, with fordprefect’s setup I do sr 75-76 consistently, without deaths most of the time. Took a while to learn how to play it though since it’s so squishy, but once you realize how much damage you can take, it works ok.

#19

Ok, so i tested the current state of the set and as far as i noticed, the performance in terms of average times is not affected at all, but consistency is far better than what it used to be, so… Hooray! The only thing left to fix about it is its clunkyness caused by the fact that there’s a moderately big window in which you dont basically do anything, mainly caused by the lack of cooldown reduction. My suggestion would be, as i mentioned before, to add acid damage to Blood Hunger amulet and a mod that reduces the cooldown on shadow strike by - 0.1 or maybe even - 0.2. This way the damage issues would be fixed on realistic setups, and that little extra bump to the cooldown reduction will make the gameplay alot more fluid, and you wont be forced into turning the setup into a glass cannon shadow strike kitester. Looking forward to this change and will post more videos on more realistic and plausible setups if it occurs.
TL;DR its slightly far from done, but its going in a finally good direction!

EDIT This suggested change to the amulet will also open up new build possibilities and some bumps for builds like acid cdr oppressor and radaggan cabalist, which are not in a pretty good spot atm due to the several acid resistant mobs, and last but not least, will be a good bump for vitality SS reaper (would be finally a dream come true).

1 Like
#20

Reaver’s Hunger amulet is not getting acid damage, haha.

It has no place on it except to support a very specific conversion scenario. You could maybe make the argument if acid Sigil also worked with it, but it has a conflicting amulet already.