Leave Fabius alone. Let the man be dangerous in at least one area of the game.
Agree, unless you play a burst dmg char which is capable of dealing massive burst in seconds, otherwise its a pain for DoT and single-RR char. I prefer their healing skill has constant digit numbers rather than % value, 1 cast and a Nemesis fully healed, which is bs.
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Being dangerous I wouldnt mind at all.
Being extremly overtuned I do.
Think I’m okay with his base level which is indeed scary and often the hardest test in a run, what I dislike is running into him a few times in a 75-76 and him going from reasonable tough kill to oh god not a chance due to his gear spawns. He can see stuff otherwise sr85 capable builds when spawning with the right gear to amp up his defenses and damage
I’m personally on the fence on several of the things you mention.
Healing champs - you can always just go clear another pack instead, and even though they definitely are annoying, I’ve never found them to be anything more than a speed bump, they’re not an actual threat. And yeah, Blazehart and Burnheart next to each other against elemental characters…I’ve met some of these guys with around 180 % elemental res just on gear in campaign. No point fighting that. That IS an option.
Crystals and ground effects - again, you’re not wrong. They can be bullshit. If you’re trying to see if your character can do 75-80 within timer, and you manage to climb shaking and sweating to 79 on your 5th attempt only to then have to dance in Necropolis between crystals and tornadoes while kiting a Fabius…yeah, not a fun way to lose your run. But most of the time I find these to be more of a test of piloting rather than build. Where enemies challenge you on toughness, resists, dps, ground hazards test you on mobility and tactics (is it worth risking this cluster or should I spend a few seconds going around through a different corridor?). Maybe reducing these ground effects by, like 15 % in quantity might be reasonable, but I wouldn’t want them heavily nerfed in terms of threat.
Briggs boys: they are definitely noticably more dangerous than your regular hero, but considering you deal with nemeses on a regular basis in SR, I think they’re fine as is.
What I do agree on is Fabius. His existence essentially creates a whole new toughness requirement all by itself. You need phys res, sufficient health, % absorb if you have a way to get it (even if it costs you 50+ skill points to get only that), overcapped pierce and overcapped bleed just to deal with him. If you can’t tank him, you essentially have no future in SR, and given how difficult he is to kite, that means you have to build all your casters and ranged characters to last. I would even go so far as to disagree on him being ok outside of SR. I recently finished a character that required a major defensive overhaul because Fabius was somehow capable of one-shotting them in Campaign despite the character already doing Bourbon clones and Lokarr deathless before that. And it’s not like this was my first rodeo, I farmed him plenty of times on plenty of different characters. And he still surprises me with his sudden burst.
Iron Maiden is punishing, but she tends to wear you down over time rather than one shot you if your defenses are reasonable…unless you’re a kiter/summoner…then she’s a toughness measuring stick too. Reaper is very unpredictable, as most of his damage comes from one specific proc that tears your DA apart, but he is at least kitable. But Fabius has three states: he’s either on your ass, invisible or invulnerable. If he’s invulnerable and you placed ground effects and debuffs on him, he reflects those on you and you die the next time he SS’s you. If he’s on your ass, you not only have to deal with him and his allres debuff (he’s like the only enemy that forces you to overcap bleed and pierce), you also have to deal with the Blade Spirits that do a fair bit of damage in their own right. If you kite to lose the Blade Spirits, you get Shadow Striked. So it’s either tank him, play a burst nuker and kite like a maniac, or don’t do high SR. Mostly just because of him, with Iron Maiden just a step or two down in the danger rating.
Unfortunately I don’t think there will be any traction gained. Some of the prevailing arguments I’ve heard and can reference on this forum is that you can “meme” your way through SR 65.
Pretty sure there is even a video of a full lokarr set doing 75 right?
Not saying I disagree. Most immediate issues:
That stupid Microsoft clipboard garbage where it shows 2 figures, one arcane mob and the player, also really ignorant. If you can’t avoid an arcane orb 1 v 1 you have larger issues. Seeing that made everyone in a 5 mile radius around the poster lose about half their remaining brain cells…yeah it’s that dumb. This is a dead horse though. I won’t advocate for changing arcane orbs. Just easier time identifying them in all the visual garbage (since it appears no other changes will occur)
You cannot leech traps which is why I ultimately disagreed with the HPS changes. Did I see an over all buff to sustainability, sure. Without targets to leech, nope die about 25-28% faster. Best solution, make traps killable like Kaisan’s crystals.
Healing mobs: best to string them out…separate them. This isn’t a viable option for CR because of timers but I am 100% certain it won’t affect SR. You will still finish in time.
Fabius; don’t change. SR has build guidelines to following to succeed which are different from CR. If the complaint is a DA issue, sacrifice for it or I guess you can show Crate that numbers need tweaking.
Mutators: at this point they are (for me) ignored because they don’t do much to slow me down or if there are enough bad ones, alt f4 (bad in terms of making the play experience slower then I am willing to play at). I would rather have mutators like PoE map mods that add loot or some such based upon the ones you choose.
It’s meh at this point overall. I won’t stop playing I like this game too much. Nothing compares.
Lol no, it’s hard to separate them in crucible cause of the limited area. Best way is to blitz them from the very start of the wave so you kill them before they can use their heals.
So on topic, as a non SR player what’s the general consensus on SR viability with builds? If you can do SR 90 easily without healers while you can’t do SR 75 with healers is it SR 90 viable? I see comments like “just dodge those healers” but if every build dodge healers on SR wouldn’t be better if healers just didn’t exist in there? My perspective is every different cause I’m used to cruci where you have to fight everyone.
Which maps? Are runners using the same maps? Are they willing to use a larger map to string them out? There are larger maps, they do vary in size. Let’s be honest here, everything in centralized around that timer. If not for competition then for sustain in banners and such.
Back on topic. As I said I string them out. They come in groups. Run them around terrain and burst them down. Most times I am finishing the run with the timer in literally the same place it was when I started the run, i.e typically 7.5 minutes @ SR 65. Can I run higher, sure. I do 65 out of efficiency.
However the issue we can avoid, where you can’t, is that they can be ignored. There are typically enough mobs to fill the progression bar without them.
Also, we aren’t buffed with banners and such and I can do whole runs without seeing a shrine or see one when it would do so little good for the amount of run that is left.
Not sure what the “SR” community census is for what’s considered viable. We aren’t restrained by time IMO and since I build almost exclusively meme 65 is very doable with most builds I consistently play.
As it stands, I just nemesis hunt the map. They give the most progress and I avoid arcane mobs in large groups because I can’t see the orb all the time or if the map is good I will pull them and string them out through door ways where I can corner hump the door to avoid line of sight. I don’t pay attention to healers. If a group isn’t dying I move on and drag them. When they are strung out they start to die from collateral damage as they can’t heal everything or I finish the progress bar and they all die.
To be honest if you gonna keep arcane out of CR, dump healers too. They are in the same boat of “annoying” to me. Meanwhile dump traps in SR or let me kill um.
I will chime in a +1 and point out that Fabius in SR is like no other Nemesis I’ve had to deal with.
Iron Maiden hits hard, but is typically a stats, resistance, and regen check (to offset the Internal Trauma + Bleed). Reaper has that stupid WPS that shreds 30 flat RR, and I advocated for removing that because tying that much RR to a random attack is just stupid.
Fabius? Especially with the timewarped mutator or whichever one gives them CDR? He’s stupid. The Blade Spirits are invulnerable, so you can’t leech from them. When you try to kite the Spirits, Fabius is invulnerable, so you can’t apply DR or any other debuff spells on him. When he finally comes out of his Shadow Strike, he immediately goes to Blade Barrier, or Pneumatic Burst for the healing factor. I don’t mind the numbers being dangerous. I do mind that there’s such a short window for me to actually hit him, and having no way to hurt the Blade Spirits so you have to take that and the gamble that he doesn’t Execute you.
I just want a longer window of vulnerability. A window of time you can try to fight him before the Blade Spirits come out. So that he doesn’t go Shadow Strike - Blade Barrier a second from each other. A way you can kite him without him Shadow Striking every 2 seconds. This would be much better for me than a numerical nerf.
I don’t get what you’re saying here. If your build is able to kill healers before they can start that chain healing, then you do that no matter the map or the timer. It’s just the easiest way to deal with them.
But again, offtopic. Sorry mergo. No more cruci replies in this thread from me after this.
Okay 
/10 char
I don’t know about nerfing Fabius, he seems to be alright. I honestly have way more trouble facing Grava with all my builds. My Ultos Warder with no damage reduction can kill him at SR 65-66 and 70-71 (75-76 not unlocked yet) without any issues. So can my other builds. Grava meanwhile is a huge bitch.
But speaking of SR, I hate the level that you get sometimes with the ‘heroes of the mine’ or whatever they are called. They aren’t the problem, the fire bombs/mines constantly going off hurt very bad. If you can’t find a new pack of enemies, you’re going to die. This is honestly so damn annoying, dying to a feature of the map, not enemies. Please consider tuning the damage burst from these volcanic things down a bit.
Highlight the area where the fissures erupt. Traps are okay under SR 85-90. But problem is you can’t see shit in the middle of combat, and there is no indication a fissure can go off. Or add a distinctive sound so that the player knows they gotta move and not die to gameplay injustice.
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Just a kind reminder that Fabius still feels over the top even in the current 1.1.9.4 playtest version of grim dawn.
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He does. I’ve been doing a lot of SR lately, for testing and other purposes and well.
I really think he should be brought more in line with the other nemesises (nemeses?), because there’s basically no counterplay against him unless you’re lucky enough to be playing a class with Mark of Torment/Mirror etc. Oh, and Aether Cluster of course. But you can’t kite him otherwise you just get shrekt by his SS.
Again none of the other nems feel as terribad as Fabs, because you can either kite them (Reaper, Kaisan) or they don’t hit as hard (all the rest).
4 Likes
fun fact, on my cold RE conduit playtest he bursted me to death with MOT up on him.
17k hp just gone with him having wendi mark on him, re + bat under him, ill omen applied too… downed me in 1 second.
thats how stupid he is at times. 
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Kind reminder that Fabi & other bs is still out there. 
*Reaper laughs with his major slow-inducing Wraiths. Good luck if you don’t have capped Slow resistance!
I’ve mentioned Fabius before as well. He really is the worst on casters who don’t have a ton of leech capability. I mean, it’s nice that casters have an actual Nemesis since melee tends to get hit with the brunt of Nemesis BS, but a Shadow Strike + Critical hit Autoattack can easily burst anyone down who doesn’t have a way to out-leech the hit.
Coupled with the Regen nerfs, and healing casters have a much harder time against Fabius (and Maiden, if you don’t have the regen to counter her 1.5K trauma ticks).
Thankfully, Fabius is trivial with pets. Even Cold pets who have to hit though his hardest resistance. At that point, Moosilauke is the real Nemesis for those builds.
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