[Feedback] Forcewave and Primal Strike

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Forcewave (Rending Force) -

[spoiler]Now Forcewave by no means is a powerful single target skill, it is however good enough imo and has a pretty decent AoE. I won’t request for buff to skill values rather I want you guys to look into its modifier “Rending Force”

Basically the modifier is kind of odd. It has flat Pierce damage on it. That doesn’t really fit there. The modifier should have physical damage. Anyone interested in Pierce Forcewave any Sinister Prefix sword or that Epic 2h Sword can be used due to their high % Armor Piercing values. In fact despite having innate Pierce damage on the skill Pierce Forcewave is impossible w/o Sinister sword/Epic sword.

Replacing the Pierce damage with Physical would be a decent damage boost to the skill. It’d still not be in the same ballpark as broken but it’d be much better to use as it’d improve not only Pure Physical Forcewave but also conversion based Forcewave builds[/spoiler]

Primal Strike (Not talking about Torrent’s Single Target issue :p) -

[spoiler]I mean it, I won’t bring up Torrent’s Single Target issue even though whatever you guys did to that modifier is rather arbitrary but I don’t think at this point I can say anything new about that particular issue

Anyways, Primal Strike is pretty underused be it ranged or melee. Even Ultos builds (optimized ones) don’t use it as a nuke

So in its current state PS is a poor Nuke and is also a poor LMB skill (Thunderous Strike). I can see some skill mods to support it but the skill’s extreme gear dependency makes it even more undesirable especially since one of the skill mod has been pasted onto an MI that never drops

So there are two possible ways to solve this:-

1. Make PS a good nuker-

This would solve both its purpose as a Nuker and would help Thunderous Strike as well as buffing values on the base skill would be an indirect buff to Thunderous Strike builds
Unfortunately this would probably lead to a lot of headache that’d end up with nerfs to Ultos builds.

2. Buff Thunderous Strike builds-

For this you need to reduce the damage penalties on the transmuter. This is the solution I’d recommend as it’d leave Ultos Savagery builds untouched and would still add build diversity. People wanting to use PS usually pick the transmuter it’s rare to see the skill being used for nukes so this solution is therefore much more desirable imo

No the above are two routes for buffs, but the skill line could use some modifications as well

1. AoE-

PS’s single target is undeniably nothing but donkey shit. And the skill is advertised as an AoE skill. Unfortunately it isn’t very good at that either

  • 2.5m radius is way too low, it should be higher than that (I can’t suggest a value :undecided:)
  • The number targets Torrent can hit isn’t too stellar it’s 7 targets at max Ultimate rank. Torrent’s damage isn’t so OP that increasing number of targets would make it broken so it should affect 10 Targets at max ultimate rank[/spoiler]

2. Damage Types-

-Physical Damage

Now every Lightning weapon has high conversion value on it so converting that flat physical damage isn’t an issue and therefore for Lightning PS builds this isn’t an issue
But that flat Physical damage is bad news for other damage types. Imo it should be changed to full Lightning, and before you think about it then “no” it won’t make the skill broken. I am not even lying the skill is indeed this weak that even after focusing all of its damage into a single damage type we can’t improve its single target potential (and I’m fine with that)

-Bleeding Damage (Storm Surge)

Really? I mean I get it Shaman is Vitality/Bleed/Lightning class but I don’t think that is enough reason to shoehorn every damage type into every skill. We already have Savagery and WPS at our disposal for Bleed
Moreover the value of Bleed damage on Storm Surge is laughable so the best thing to do is change all the into Electrocution.

The buffs I suggest won’t make PS broken but it might improve the skill, let me put it this way maybe if you consider these buffs and they actually make the skill half decent w/o having to rely on MI skill mods then people might finally stop asking for Torrent to affect Main Target

2

_totaly agree on rending force, always felt like “unsure” skills points spent here, the flat piercing always felt “useless” there

_cant add more to PS issue, never used it infinal step of lightning build, using both savagery and PS as nuke is just a huge waste of point to barely make it work, at the end it just slow your dmg output when holding down savagery.
the 2nd solution you offer is the good one imo, atleastto me, using either savagery OR primal strike

3

Rending Force adds pierce damage to support pierce Forcewave builds (with 2-h sword). Forcewave itself is already a strong skill (look for build in my sig), replacing pierce damage with physical can make it OP.

About PS - you’re right that it’s too weak. But changing all its damage into single damage type is a “too cheap” trick, actually. in GD, many strong skills deal several damage types - for example, Drain Essence deals Aether/Vitality, CT has Aether/chaos, etc. Usually, players use certain items to convert damage into one type. There are items to convert physical into lightning, and lightning into physical too. Primal Strike just should be buffed, it’s just too weak numerically, that’s all.

4

Outside the crit bonus that modifier doesn’t add much

If that is an issue then the value should be adjusted
As for Pierce Forcewave that isn’t much of a reason as regardless of whether Rending Force has flat pierce damage on it Pierce FW builds still need to use Sinister Swords, so changing that Pierce damage to Physical won’t change anything for Pierce Forcewave. It’d would be a buff to other conversion based FW builds
Currently that flat Pierce damage is a DPS loss for non-Physical and non-Pierce FW builds. If anything it buffs the skill a little and won’t break anything

I agree with you but the reason why suggested is because it adds to build diversity

For Physical damage I can understand it being there and for Lightning PS it doesn’t make any difference as they have high conversion by default.
For Aether PS builds, this is a big problem as w/o Arcanist they can’t achieve optimal conversion values.
By changing all Physical to Lightning it’d help other PS builds as well hence contributing to build diversity

That Bleed Damage isn’t needed there, it’s like Vitality damage on Disintegration in base game, totally useless.
Bleed is a DoT so it is easy to build around but due to the lack of gear and the low returns on Bleed damage there is virtually no reason for anyone to pick Storm Surge for any Bleed build. So basically that Bleed damage is just bringing down the power of the skill as nothing can convert Bleed (unlike the Physical damage)
In this case changing it Electrocution was suggested cause that makes the most sense to me, naturally they can take the AAR approach and add some other damage type but the question is which one

5

RE: Thunderous Strike

Yeah I was looking at it today (because I’m working on a Physical-damage PS build) and in crunching the numbers it actually seems extremely piss-poor nowadays. A 26/16 PS/TS build has less % Weapon Damage than any default weapon attack modifier (at comparable skill ranks) (other than Troll Rage (I think?)). Let that sink in. And that’s ignoring the multiplicative aspect of a default weapon attack modifier when coupled with a WPS.

That -38% Total Damage Reduction is way the hell too punishing. Half that would make it about on par with other default attack skills, if WPS weren’t a thing. Arguably, TS should have more effective % Weapon Damage than other sorts of skills since the % WD is more of a highlight for 2H weapons than flat damage is, and 2H still needs all the help it can get.

Also agreed with AoE. Explosive Strike gets a 3.4 meter radius at 12/12 but a 26/16 PS gets 2.5 meters? Come on now.

I don’t know if I see a reason to remove the Bleeding Damage from Storm Surge. I understand your point, and certainly Storm Surge would be a lot more attractive if it all became Electrocute (right now it’s a one pointer at best) but if Bleed can ever be converted to/from in the future, it could be nice to have it there. If we could convert the Electrocute to Bleeding, that’d be neat. I guess that’s too hypothetical/dreamy, though…

Thanks for the thread to hijack. I was going to make one and then saw yours. :smiley:

6

An unfortunate truth :cry:

I’d kill for this but yeah it’s way too dreamy. For now I’d rather have that Bleed damage removed from it

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Some numbers:

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I`m curios, how dmg penalty is applied? Before or after calculating weapon dmg? Cause in second case that penalty drop effective WD to basic autoatack level.

9

I believe it’s after. To my knowledge, % Damage Modification is the final tier of damage amplification (affecting even flat racial damage).

10

Or get rid of the transmuter and remove the CD from the skill altogether

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I mean given the fact that everything has 500,000,000% Stun Resistance it probably wouldn’t be a problem. :^)

12

Crate added Pierce damage to Rending Force specifically to buff PIERCING Forcewave builds, while not touching PHYSICAL Forcewave! Adding physical damage buffs both, and physical FW is already very strong, while piercing one is significantly weaker.
You want to make an already powerful skill/build even more powerful? That’s not how good approach to balance works!

Does it matter? AB = BA, since that “total damage” penalty is multiplicative wit everything else.

13

Does it matter? AB = BA, since that “total damage” penalty is multiplicative wit everything else.

So it does affect %WD? That’s explain why transmuted CT does shitload of dmg (288% effective WD) and also explain why transmuted PS perform so poor. Heck, its inferior to Olreon blood component in untransmuted form!

14

Wait, how does total damage penalty affect the weapon damage? I thought PS transmuted at level 26 has 250% weapon damage.

15

Well, actually 225. -75% WD with a 300% base.

And then the Total Damage Penalty takes effect.

16

I always mix up the weapon damage penalty of Thunderous Strike with Frenetic Throw. :rolleyes:

But it’s technically 225% after the total damage penalty?

17

Nope. its 139% ouch.

18

AFAIK first 75% weapon damage is substracted from your 250% weapon damage (16/16), making it 175%, and then total damage is applied, further reducing it to 175*(1-0.38) = 108,5%. Quite poor indeed. The bullshit amount of flat is supposed to compensate it, but apparently it doesn’t.

IDK why you compare it’s AOE to Explosive Strike. Explosive strike is only 30% weapon damage, burn and chance for flat phys. While Primal Strike has it’s full damage being AOE.
Being satisfied with native AOE I don’t get Torrent, maybe 1 pt at best. If AOE is to be improved to 3.5m as you suggest Torrent woudn’t even be worth 1 point. The only case when I would had considered it is Vortex of Souls, but if you say Torrent no longer procs on every enemy pierced then it’s all the same.

Technically 16/16 forcewave has 102% weapon damage and ~175 flat phys, while 16/16 PS has 108% weapon damage, ~150 flat phys and ~100 flat lightning, but since forcewave is cast-speed based so unaffected by huge 2H attack speed penalties, as well as being a ranged skill, FW is overall the better pick.

19

Some numbers that look like a good starting point to me:

Range: would say 4m at 16/16, going up to 5m at 26/16, could start at 2.4m at 1/16 and rise 0.1m with every point spent

Damage: Thunderous Strike penalty at most 20% (exact number can be fine tuned, this is a good start I feel), the bleed damage … not something I will confess to understand, just make it electrocute or something that can be converted at least

Misc: Torrent targets could go up by 2-3, or perhaps add a second chain at a suitably high level

Primal Strike is one of those skills I want to build around but there’s always something better to try out first. Maybe in another 20 or so characters…

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Funny enough but despite all the issues Primal Strike is still my most used Shaman skill, because it’s just superb for levelling the fresh 2H character. While extra 50%+ weapon damage plus access to WPS on Savagery will in the end make PS lose appeal early on it’s AOE and extra 250 flat damage make Savagery, Cadence and even Firestrike choke from envy.

And Arbiter suits PS to a T, which is very nice.