[Feedback] On pierce strength

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

the time matches the current gamemode record

During the 1.9 version we had an ongoing discussion on discord on whether or not pierce dmg type is the strongest/too strong in general. People’s opinion vary a lot on the matter so they are free to present their own thoughts. I’ll express my vision based on the myriad of casters and melee builds i’ve tried.

  • Is pierce too strong of a dmg type right now?

For me the answer is rather no than yes. The answer is vague because the question, if you think about it, is not definitive and poses risks of speculations.

In GD the build is defined not so much by the dmg type but rather by the amount of synergy between the items and skills it is able to aquire.

  • So how can you justify saying pierce is not OP with such clear times?

We must look at all the fastest builds, compare them and isolate the strong points - how much does it have to do with dmg type (basically constellations and enemy res profile).

These are the fastest pierce builds consistently pushing sub4:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWeew0N - Infiltrator DW + Spirits
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVAaaYlV - Infiltrator caster + Spirits (very squishy)
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYrr072 - Dervish RF + Spirits
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVljo9XN - Infiltrator Reaping Arc + Spirits

You can notice certain similarities that are carried over to other fast pierce builds: huge cunning, high ranks in Blade Spirits, very similar items. Also you might notice that one of the builds is missing the conversion belt which will be nerfed for melee in the upcoming patch.

There is no doubt in my mind that cunning dump is the prime reason for such clear times. Specific pierce items, affixes and contellations allow you to stack up to 3000+ cunning with fantasy green items.

And this cunning stacking is exactly what breaks the initial balance of pierce dmg type. Because lower enemy pierce res was always balanced with pierce rolls on items being lower than of other dmg type. But with 2500-3000 cunning you not only compensate that disadvantage, you also tripple-dip your pierce dmg output by having more %dmg, more OA and more consistent constellation procs. In comparison, spirit dump on magic dmg type builds only increases your % dmg, stat investment is much more balanced for magic dmg types.

Suggestions: replace % cunning on Cutthroat’s prefix with % bleeding dmg; replace flat cunning on of Amarasta’s Flurry suffix with flat DA; review other flat cunning sources for pierce builds.

Secondary reason is Blade Spirits. The skill saw several nerfs until at one moment for some reason it gained +50% dmg at 24 breakpoint. This is rather unhealthy. It calls for building around this breakpoint, limits diversity, makes the builds look the same, jeopardizes the Nightblade’s identity as a melee mastery.

Even still, for other dmg types Spirits are not as demolishing. But in here comes synergy with pierce - bleeding and BoW. Spirits have high flat bleeding component which is lost on cold, for instance. In pierce builds it plays a significant role. In the first of the listed builds you can only see two % bleeding dmg items. But with such high cunning total % bleeding dmg is not negligible. Also BS are an incredible BoW procer because they enter the enemy hitbox and shotgun it.

Suggestion: remove bonus summon at 24/16, increase dmg scaling but not for bleeding flat.

As for MI items for pierce, they are just good, nothing extraordinary. Rather they serve as a base for strong affixes.

  • Why pierce is not OP, again?

The strongest pierce platforms do not feel like they “invalidate” the content and its mechanics. They are very fast in Crucible but require precise piloting and they are nothing special outside of it. Even if you look at the Grim sheet and sort by dmg type, pierce has no point advantage, furthermore, it lacks devirsity a lot.

Also we must keep in mind purple builds with more realistic items: what is the performance of Belgo? Runebinder? Rimetongue? Goredrinker? Nothing to write home about. Even Belgo with fantasy items barely passes Crucible survivability check while having nothing on the top timers.
Blind Assassin is smth that stands out but mainly due to BS and bleeding support.

All in all, any universal pierce/Nightblade/cunning nerf will only destroy the regular (legit) builds while only slightly damaging the fantasy setups.

  • What was the point of this feedback?

It’s natural that after all the fast runs there will be nerfs. My goal was to help isolating the nerf targets so that innocent builds won’t be harmed. Also i really want for conversions to stay and even expand. Yes, if you remove ALL elemental to pierce conversion from the game, the fastest builds will be killed. You can then proceed and remove ele conversions for other dmg types. But conversions is the main source of creativity in the game at this point and removing them will only make people want to play and build less.

13 Likes
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I think the main problem is Blade Spirits. Nerfing the skill itself and buffing the gears that mod it/gears that focus it might fix all those.

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Based on the builds that have been forwarded my way, I would surmise that Blade Spirits play a larger part in the imbalance than you give them credit, so while I agree that the rank 24 summon limit increase may have to go, I’m not sure it requires compensation.

I’ve mentioned this before in the Reaping Arc discussion, but Pierce having OP fantasy greens has kind of always been its thing and I am reluctant to make drastic changes because someone stacks up 8 impossible items.

I am especially reluctant to make changes to attribute bonuses on gear that can impact someone’s ability to keep their gear on post-patch. I would sooner adjust the % Pierce damage gained from Cunning than cut existing Cunning bonuses, but even that I’m not certain is a necessary measure.

In v1.1.9.2, the Cutthroat prefix has its % Attack Speed bonus removed. In light of recent input from the community, we’ll also be removing the rank 24+ summon limit increase on Blade Spirits. We will also add a summon limit increase modifier for the skill on a couple more exotic gear choices to compensate for the change, which would not benefit these builds.

11 Likes
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Due to the fact that updates nowadays come slower since the game is nearly complete. May I request for people who are willing to test (I’ll test myself if I have time tho I don’t have much GD time anymore really) this. I mean just summon 2 spirits instead of 3 while keeping 24 or 26 points then play it and compare.

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I’d also wanna point out this and consider maybe buffing legendary pierce sets&items in some way.

for example:
Targo Set - may be used for pierce BA with nadaan, but except %damage set gives nothing to do with pierce which is kinda odd.
Runebinder - weak set with poor stats and defences, never used as 5-part being. Runes, both elemental and pierce, are cancerous to play (like the rune gameplay is late for 2 years now).
Goredrinker - I posted feedback about it recently. Set has no impressive damage, poor stats (phys res, DA, cast speed), barely survives in Crucible no matter with or w/o WC and if survives, shows like 5:40 timings.
Please take this into consideration. Pierce has super-strong affixes and greens but legendary sets are not in a very good place now.

Also, for pure pierce with 1 RR (tactician, blademater) Kaisan is a nightmare because of his gross pierce resist.

1 Like
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If I remember right, this coincided with the Blade Spirit Conduit changing from +1 summon limit to the Fire conversion it is now and builds (like some of the Pierce Belgothian ones that also used the Azrakaa relic) and players for them were asking for it back.

Saying that though, it was strong back then and it’s still proving to be strong so I’m in support of it getting cut from the base skill and moved to more specific damage types/builds.

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If anything it’s way stronger on pierce right now compared to before the conduit change, while it’s mostly worse on cold. Before it’s not really feasible to get BS to 24/16 so while you had 3 spirits they weren’t that strong while now Will of the Blade + Reaper pants + 1nightblade helm and relic and it’s gucci.

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a lot. Pierce has the lowest res across the board (albeit phys and its armor schedukens) and potentialy the highest damage due to beforementioned OA, crit and % damage stacking from the very same source (cunning). Not to mention that, imo, pierce has the best itemization & most convenient devo route. The issue is lack of diversity, that’s absolutely true, but the same can be said about acid or chaos.

agreed.

it was the other way around.
and you even say it yourself that other BS builds, even Chillwhisper that has frostburn on it (!) doesnt come close. Quite obvious that the issue isnt them, but the damage type.
To support my point: the very same caster infil as in the op, but BS are 1 pointed. Still doing 4.07 and that was the only run i ever did. According to your logic, build would fail miserably w/o its main damage source, but no. Only 12 secs slower. I still kept them because of the BoW interaction though.

huh?

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(missing aforementioned 3.45 caster)
leaving other damage types to you as a home excise, but they dont even come close, lol.

Doing just fine:

heavy pierce set that tries to be bleed oriented and failing at it miserably. what can go wrong indeed.

imo the easiest solution would be to separate %damage gain from cunning to be %pierce and %phys and decrease the former, while also nerfing the cunning from pierce affixes.
Also BoW could use a nerf due to its shotgun potential on BS and RoH.

4 Likes
9

Good afternoon (Evening) accidentally got into this topic of discussion and I want to say a few words. Why are the nerfs of this or that skill or type of damage occurring based on the feedback of the build collected in the GDStash program? You perfectly see and understand that such green things and in such quantities cannot be legally obtained. If you cut the piercing damage, people who collect in GDStash will not suffer and will draw a different imba build, but on a different skill and type of damage. Ordinary players who get things legally will suffer. Please take this into account. Thank you in advance) Sorry for my bad english

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4 Likes
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He already mentions and questions this if you read what he said carefully once again:

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but still they want to remove one spirit

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Let Zantai decide what happens. At the end of the day, what changes is down to him and the rest of Crate, not anyone else.

1 Like
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I completely agree, if you remove 3 spirit on 24/16, then such types of damage as fire, cold, bleed will suffer. Such fantastic feedback should be removed and do not waste time on them, since players are already engaged in drawing, and not playing the game. At the same time, they ask for nerves

2 Likes
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I have not pumped this build yet https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2EEE932 :disappointed_relieved:

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If these builds need adjustments to compensate for the nerf, then adjustments can be made afterwards in other places. Lets not act hastily and start throwing more buffs or nerf considerations around until we know the full state of the game after the patch notes come out. And again, he already mentioned:

1 Like
16

If they will remove one spirit but add it to specific gears and sets what will be different? You get extra spirits on cold(or any other damage possible type) but melee pierce builds won’t get to utilize that.

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The author can try to pump this assembly from scratch and find such things, and then repeat the result of the crucible? Preferably recorded on video, so that there are no questions :rofl::rofl:

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What is the point of comparing 3k cunning builds with regular ones that can reach 1.5k at most?

Here’s MY pierce Infiltrator that I DIDN"T GDstash: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2Gggok2

As you can see, it doesn’t even reach 1.4k. And build has 2.8k% damage in total, which is pretty much in-line with other damage types that don’t do cunning/spirit dump. For some odd reason I didn’t notice it being “overperforming”. It does okay, but that’s about it.

Same for Blade Spirit. Fully converted 26/16 Spirit deals 479 flat, so in case of my build it does ~14k. That doesn’t sound OP much. Mortars deal more flat damage, and also have items that provide even more, but they have 3 summon limit. They also got quite a few items that increase their summon limit (up to 6 I believe). Guardians also got 3 summons, and they can be pretty strong too if you are willing to invest in them.

6 Likes
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The most stacked chaos, aether and vitality builds have higher %dmg, lightning and cold can have it higher too.

Acid has valid (and different, not stricktly inferior) builds for Dervish, Sentinel, Oppressor, Cabalist, Witch Hunter, Warlord. Haven’t seen Reaper but Deathguard AA or SS should be decent.
Chaos has Witch Hunter, Saboteur, Deceiver, Pyromancer, Warlock, Mage Hunter.

Pierce has a bunch of samey Infiltrators, some Blademasters and that’s about it. Everything else is either solo NB or an inferior version of Infil/BM.

Pierce has half or full bleeding support, as i said. It’s a big reason why it’s better than for cold. Another reason is BoW synergy.

Aether has combined score of 109.4
Pierce has combined score of 97.2 and has much more samey builds listed
The table is not updated but it has both aether and pierce scores missing.

Bad example of a build with extreme dmg stacking (and extremely low survivability) and the timer is still far off the BS version. BS absence is more noticeable on more realistic builds.

While being Infiltrator with 3 hardcapped spirits. I’d have guessed.

edit: forgot pierce FS. but it’s just FS which is bonkers for mutiple dmg types.

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I think it does. After all, it’s a 50/50 NB skill which requires 16 points investment and gear compromise. Removing 1 summon is a straight up 33% dmg nerf. I don’t think the balance of it is THAT bad. Most builds, especially legit ones with reasonable % dmg, will go back to using it as a free procer.

1 Like