Great nod towards Witchblades but mods are still a bit useless. Savagery mod feels totally useless here. In Bleeding department Gutsmasher is light years behind Rancor, Guillotine and even Gutripper. In Physical Department it’s simply no good for Savagery because it does not convert any of its Lightning damage. And there is already a dedicated Physical Savagery two-hander - Avenger’s Crusher. So overall Savagery mods feel redundant on it.
Now, on to the actual Witchblade support. Here are damage tooltips comparison between Gutsmasher and Leviathan on a Witchblade
Gutsmasher:
Leviathan
Again, even with +2 to Occultist and Chaos to Physical conversion Leviathan edges it because of its phys res and better proc. Add to that that attack speed with Bloodrager set (only viable set for phys two-handers atm) will be capped regardless and Gutsmasher feels redundant again.
Another thing, Gutsmasher’s proc doesn’t feel strong at all. In fact, I can hardly feel it in Crucible where it should be felt the most and it feels like a Wave cast from Leviathan is more useful (although most players dislike having an extra spell on their melee builds and would prefer it to be a proc).
Suggestions:
Change Savagery bonuses into Blade Arc bonuses. Make it something like 10-20% weapon damage/+flat phys to Blade Arc. Change skill bonuses accordingly.
Change proc to something on hit. On death and especially corpse explosion feels like a completely unreliable mechanic for a melee in Grim Dawn.
I believe it will finally land Gutsmasher an identity and purpose.
+1. BA support makes a lot of sense.
My other suggestion (for Avenger’s Crasher)
In addition to mad_lee’s suggestion, replace +4 Savagery with Avenger’s Crasher’s +4 Brute Forse. (If possible, move the Savagery mod to Avenger’s Crasher at the same time.)
This change reduces the need to earn + Savagery in other parts (gloves and medals), increases the range of equipment options, and can compensate for some of the power of Avenger’s set that is currently lacking.
Another idea is to change Savagery mod to Cadence mod (same as Mythical Reaver’s Claw mod), taking into account Phys WB combined with Rah’Zin’s set.
Indeed. Sentinel EoR physical (targo) + bleed + hybrid (bloodrager) could be ok. Maybe SR set, too. OK has decent RR for both types, and not unreasonable for max base EoR.
EoR is a channeling ability. The damage won´t stack.
You need different sources for stacking up, ideally WPS. So Smite or Judgment (as a nuke) might be good.
I played Archon in whole Ultimate Camapign and tried EoR. It´s really clunky…you can use EoR only for a really short time and then back to Savagery.
Savagery bleed doesn’t stack too but it’s strong. The reapplication speed of EoR is great since it lands you a lot of chances to get that highroll dot. The problem is the weapon damage is still too low.
I DO like a proc on gutsmasher however. If he are not powerful how he must to be - well, maybe change the activation condition to “on crit” (maybe 50%, if 100% are looking too big number)
As for archon/warlord supporting - maybe change EoR to some WPS, like smite
P.S. gutsmasher are tend to be phys/bleed weapon, but don’t have any flat bleed in his base at all
Like Explosive Strike has two transmutations,
Solael’s Witchfire needs one more that converted Vitality/Chaos damage to physical up to 15~20% on level 3. Maybe this would be a solution for physical builds that use Leviathan, Gutsmasher and the likes. Also adding vitality to physical on Leviathan seems redundant, people would choose Gladiator’s Distinction no matter what.
[edit]
Surprising to see none of any accessory has n%… converted to physical damage.
