[Feedback] Wendigo Totem

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Wendigo Totem is a good supporting and healing skill, my favorite too. The problem in that skill is, it is good at any level till level 30, if we leave it at level 1, it falls off after level 30 and needs few points in order to help us stay alive. Maxed (12/12), it is a very good skill till levels 70 - 80 (depending on your build and what you build). When focusing on damage only, and totally ignoring resists *, on a Pet Ritualist it is good till level around 75, Warder on the other hand can pull it off till 80. You can literally sit in a wave of monsters, even if there’s a boss, two heros and couple of normals and not worry about you dying. This works out till level 70 - 80, where then you have to spend a potion or run away, sometimes. It again gets better if you manage to get at least 15k+ HP or maximize your resistances. At level 100, with full build and maxed resists it doesn’t do much. This skill should not be something that makes you immortal, but does so till level 70 - 80, as I already said, then at level 100, on most builds it’s just useless.

Let’s check Blood Pact now. This upgrade of Wendigo Totem provides damage and a bit of ADCTH. The damage values are weak, we could even say it’s a joke. If we desire to base our character on either bleeding or vitality decay, we can pick it up because it offers increased duration to these particular damage types. However, aside of that, we could pick it up only for the ADCTH. The problem with that is, that there’s only a decent chance of getting the heal, and only 20% of our damage (skill level 12/12).

Why is the Wendigo Totem not picked up anyway by many tanky characters, which can benefit from the healing anyway? Wendigo Totem doesn’t provide enough healing or additional stats by Blood Pact, therefore it’s way better to waste an item slot and get a ADCTH item, which would not work good enough on bosses, but would provide good additional stats. If we don’t want to waste any item slots, we can seek for better healing skills in our builds, for example Siphon Souls, Menhir’s Will or Blood of Dreeg.

What does Wendigo Totem do good in it’s current state? The skill is very good on pet builds which don’t have access to Blood of Dreeg, because it’s capable of healing even 10k HP per second if your pets are tanky as fuck (have very much HP).

Why do you think Wendigo Totem’s heal is too weak? Let’s take as an example a character that takes only 20% damage from any source (not counting % HP damage), and has 10k HP. We get damaged by Kubacabra for 12k damage, but we of course reduce it to 20% due to our resistances, so we get 2400 damage per hit, and Totem heals us for 5% + 500 HP, so we heal back 1000 HP. Let’s say Kuba manages to hit us 5 times in 3 seconds, we’ll lose 12k HP, but heal 3000, so we’re almost dead anyway. This way it’s better to focus on something that would provide ADCTH, because even if Kuba has 85% life leech resist, we can still heal a portion of it. So, if we manage to get some source of 10% ADCTH, and our skill will hit 20k damage per hit, we can pull of a 2000 healing per hit. That’s even more than Wendigo Totem. Now, if we can’t get any ADCTH, we can pick up some health regen, which will most of the time be weaker, but will not require us to stick close to something. A 400 HP per second regeneration would be even stronger than Wendigo totem, because we could run away and still heal our health if our HP potion is on cooldown. If the target can jump to us by any means, HP regen is weaker, so is ADCTH, but still works way better than Wendigo Totem.

The skill tree issues could be solved by changing the values of the healing or remaking (not fully) the upgrade, Blood Pact. My idea is to get rid of base healing, which can be absurd and increase the percentage value. You can have level 12/12 of this skill at level 11, where it would make you immortal, healing you for 500 HP every second + a percentage (5%). Remove the the base values or lower it to [10*skill level] and increase the percentage healing to 8 - 10% at level 12. Further it would increase to 12 - 15% at level 22/12. This would eliminate immortality at low levels, where you can even have -50% in a resist and still take no damage and increase the usefulness at higher levels. Now, Blood Pact could have removed the percentage of giving you 20% ADCTH (12/12 level) and instead give you 6% ADCTH unless you stay in range. Another idea for Blood Pact, the skill could not grant any ADCTH at all, but instead increase the range of the skill to 10 meters or slightly more. This would allow the player to run away if they’re low at health and heal up, if the oponent can’t stun or move towards us very fast by any means.

*I have been also using Lokarr set till level 94 on my Warder and still managed to heal up my HP no matter what situation, till level 80.

2

I like your blood pact suggestions, but your math of the main skill is a bit off.

First, having 10% ADCtH and hitting for 20k damage against Kuba will not heal 2k health. Like you mentioned, he has life leech resist, so it will heal a very small portion of the final 2k number. It will heal 300 (assuming he does have 85% life leech resistance). Life steal can only happen if you’re not stunned/frozen/fumbling/missing, so it has very clear downsides as well.

Second, no shaman should ever have only 10k hp because Heart of the Wild exists. The lowest HP I’ve ever had as a shaman was 12k, and that was a ranged caster shaman. Melee shamans will have huge amounts easily exceeding 15k, especially since Brute Force now gives flat HP.

Third, Wendigo Totem REALLY shines in the crucible, where a single blessing can easily push your HP to over 20k minimum. Freezes and stuns are everywhere there too, so a passive and reliable heal is an absolute godsend.

3

My thoughts on the matter:

-Wendigo Totem making you difficult to kill for the first half of Normal isn’t really an issue as multiple other skills are capable of making it a joke as well. Even then though, mass healing won’t save you from one-shots via crits or nukes/quick bursts so a suitable amount of defense is required to recover from harsh blows.

-On endgame builds, I would say you are examining it in a vacuum. For example, Vitality Conjurers do not just rely on Wendigo Totem, they get superb sustain from pairing it with other sources like Wendigo Mark or Sigil of Consumption.

-I’m not sure if you address it but the main draw to Blood Pact is the flat Vitality damage, everything else is secondary.

I would say Wendigo Totem is fine where it’s at. It does best supporting other forms of defense rather than being relied on. At the very least, there are other skills I would see improved before it.

4

Yes I forgot to reduce the healing from 2k to 300, my bad.
I have a Trickster (not Korba) with 10 or 11k HP.
You can still die in Crucible when Wendigo is healing you, though.

I mean, if Wendigo Totem itself heals for a small amount, why is it there in the first place? Why not just remove Blood Pact then and add its effects to Wendigo Totem? Maybe even remove the healing at this point. There are plenty of builds (maybe even all?) that never add more than one point to Wendigo Totem because the heal value is too weak. Finding one build that relies on Totem would be pretty hard, not talking about Blood Pact now. Sure, Vitality builds like that skill, but they never pick the Totem itself, but only the upgrade. Though I think Wendigo Totem is weak, I don’t think it should be buffed straight up in the skill, but more items with modifiers for it would be even better than that.

You’re saying it’s not a problem when it’s overhealing you through the normal difficulty, I unlocked nemesis status with Undead at normal, and in SoT I fought Moosilauke, which could not damage me nor my pets at all due to the heal of Wendigo. Same happened in Elite, at level 68, I only lost 80% of my HP due to forgetting to re-cast the skill and he managed to hit me few times with his skills when I was freezed. The big deal about this situation is that I had a weak gear, which was at level 35 on average, because I could not find any good pet items and didn’t bother wasting time on checking merchants.

Also, Wendigo Totem should support your health regen, not make you immortal. It should affect you in a way, but it doesn’t affect anything on most builds. The only builds it affects are Vitality builds, Bleeding builds (but even though many people don’t care about it at this point) and builds with much HP, which are rare. Sure, you can pick up some HP items and then increase it further by 30% due to the shaman HP buff, but then again, if you play a tanky character, you probably have other source of healing and if you play a damage oriented character you have a stronger heal (most likely) in ADCTH (which doesn’t affect bosses that much but you will still be able to shred the bosses before your potion goes off cooldown).

Some changes (not necessarily direct) to the skill are needed, in my opinion.

5

If you experienced similar stuff on Ultimate then it would matter, otherwise it doesn’t. Totem seems fine in its current state, a little point investment gives good returns benefiting point starved end game builds changing it based on early game performance is a horrible decision as it ends penalizing end game builds for no reason

6

I’m not entirely certain I understand what you’re asking here. I assume you basically want to bake Blood Pact into Wendigo Totem?

I would say they are seperate because Wendigo Totem and Blood Pact serve different purposes. One heals you and is supportive while the other optionally adds Vitality damage and a chance of life steal (though I will agree that this should just be flat life steal than a % chance).

There are plenty of builds (maybe even all?) that never add more than one point to Wendigo Totem because the heal value is too weak.

Are you sure on that? A decent amount of Shaman builds will if they have the points available/aren’t getting their sustain from elsewhere. It’s a pretty common skill.

Sure, you can pick up some HP items and then increase it further by 30% due to the shaman HP buff, but then again, if you play a tanky character, you probably have other source of healing and if you play a damage oriented character you have a stronger heal (most likely) in ADCTH (which doesn’t affect bosses that much but you will still be able to shred the bosses before your potion goes off cooldown).

Some changes (not necessarily direct) to the skill are needed, in my opinion.

The way I see it, assuming you are going up to 20 in the Shaman tree, Wendigo Totem is a 12-point max investment (out of your 224 points remaining) for 5% + 500 health per 0.5s.

On a standard character with 10 000 health, this amounts to 2 000 health regen per second or 20% of your health per second. However, I will admit that because Shaman builds are generally more healthy than other builds (due to Heart of the Wild), the effectiveness of this does go down the more health you have so the way it restores health might need looking at.

As I say, it is not something to rely on solely but when paired with other forms of sustain or defense (such as damage absorption/reduced damage taken), I would say it works well for the investment. This is again assuming you are not getting your sustain from elsewhere but I would say it is a decent option nonetheless.

7

Right as you said, a decent amount of Shamans will pick it if they have points for it, otherwise they won’t even touch it.

Wendigo Totem heals per second, not per 0.5 seconds. I doubt I am blind, because I’ve never seen it heal twice a second. Eventually it might heal double the stated amount per second.

8

Unless I’m missing something/been misled, it is intended to heal every 0.5 seconds apart according to the tool tip:

9

I likes some of your thoughts about wendigo totem itself but I sorely dislike everything about blood pact.

10

Why is the Wendigo Totem not picked up anyway by many tanky characters, which can benefit from the healing anyway? Wendigo Totem doesn’t provide enough healing or additional stats by Blood Pact, therefore it’s way better to waste an item slot and get a ADCTH item, which would not work good enough on bosses, but would provide good additional stats. If we don’t want to waste any item slots, we can seek for better healing skills in our builds, for example Siphon Souls, Menhir’s Will or Blood of Dreeg.

Is this a joke? Because all of my Shaman builds had a taste of Ravager’s power and enjoy it at 12/12 minimum, from DW phys/lightning Trickster I made two years ago to my most recent 2H phys warder (which has 130k dps at lowest with pretty high amount of ADCtH). For just 12 points it’s a very impressive sustain.

Siphon Souls is the damage type locked skill, while WT is for every build that facetanks.

Pretty sure WT outperforms BoD with a high margin if it’s not one of the rare builds that overinvest in HP regen.

Comparing WT to Menhir’s Will is just lol.

Edit: also wtf is about item slot? AdCtH sources almost never conflict with +skills on gear. And you shouldn’t care for ultimate levels in WT anyway. They are good as freebies but that’s it.

11

It has cooldown of 0.5 sec, but I never saw it heal twice a second. I always thought it heals twice a second, though, but then after I used it for a while, I saw it just doesn’t. Unless I am a blind motherfucker.

The fact that you always pick it doesn’t mean everyone does. I always try to get it too, because I like being tanky, but the heal itself is way too weak later on.

Blood of Dreeg (at least I think you mean that by saying “BoD”) is way better because it heals you instantly and also grants HP regen. I doubt you’re killing a boss for longer than 15 seconds, unless you’re a tank with totally no damage, then I can believe that you fight with it for longer. You do fight a little longer with Nemesis monsters, but you don’t really lose that much of your HP at once (assuming your defenses are okay), so one heal every 15 seconds is better, since if you’ll be shotgunned by a Nemesis you can get that back immediately, Wendigo Totem won’t assure you that. Not saying that Wendigo should heal the same amount that Blood does, but you get the idea, if you are not tanky, Totem is way worse because it won’t help you by any means in a hard fight. I will exclude super bosses, because they’re super.

I never said anything about adding items that grant ADCTH and WT bonusses. I also never said about anything about items that grant ADCTH and WT bonusses. The thing I meant is you sometimes will have to sacrifice an item for another item with ADCTH.

12

Checked a few shaman builds I know. I admit you’re right - many don’t pick it or only invest 1 point and let +skills do the rest. Puzzling. :rolleyes: I guess I’ll have to do a few tests.

13

You are right, I was thinking about it the other way around and made the assumption that it would cast Mend Wounds every 0.5 seconds rather than being restricted to doing so every 0.5 seconds.

While this does hamper it’s output more than I anticipated, I still don’t think it’s too shabby for the investment.

After looking over how the flat health portion effects it’s effective healing as well, it seems like the flat portion reduces effective health returns with higher health pools. I also think you are right that it should be rebalanced to pure % health.

I do agree that it could be improved but I also think it is workable as it is now and that there are many other skills/topics that deserve higher priority over it.

Wait, really? :eek: I know Fluff’s recent Avenger doesn’t use it but I remember seeing it in several posted builds over the years. It basically used to be a staple survival skill for Shaman like Blood of Dreeg/Pneumatic Burst. The main reasons I remember to not pick it were on kiting/fire-and-forget builds like Mortar/Totem Elementalists or DoT builds.

14

It seems like you’re ignoring crucible (again) and super-bosses here, and those shouldn’t be overlooked. There’s no way Blood of Dreeg’s total healing over 15 seconds can match Wendigo Totem unless you have absurd investment in Health Regen or a dangerously small HP pool.

I’d argue that in campaign, Blood of Dreeg is very useful for the reasons you already stated, but Wendigo totem absolutely has its uses as well. If it’s made any stronger, it could easily be overpowered in the crucible because HP pools are generally much higher there.

15

Fluff’s avenger - not skilled
Fluff’s cobra - not skilled
AdamNavel’s avenger - 1pt +4
mad lee’s Ultos druid - 1 pt +4
Chthon’s Crit Striker - not skilled
Weyu’s Railgun - 1pt +4
Jajaja’s hybrid warder - 9/12
Thrasheur’s WK trickster - 12/12
Recent bleed BK warder by Excelsiar - not skilled
x1x1x2 bleed bloodrager warder - 15/12
Ptiro’s DW Vit ritualist - 9/12 WT and 22/12 Blood Pact
Chthon’s Maelstorm - 13/12
TzTz’s builds - checked a couple, 12/12

Looks like it’s more of an exception to invest a lot into WT. No idea how I missed this trend.

16

I don’t mean to straight up buff it. Just change the values a bit, therefore it’d be buffed but not buffed directly. The skill itself could even stay as it is right now, but some items should need to have some modifiers to it. We only have two, if I remember correctly, items that increase something in this skill, this is one vitality based sword that increases the healing by 2% and one scepter (again vitality if I am remembering it correctly) that increases the duration of the Totem by 5 and reduces cooldown by 3.

If Crate just went full fun mode and added a ring with increased spawn limit by 1, this skill would not need any kind of buffs at all, but that might be even OP because of that. We could just get two of such rings and heal 15% of our HP each tick if we managed to get enough cooldown reduction or if we picked the scepters I talked about that reduce the cooldown by 3 seconds. Imagine having no cooldown, big duration and massive healing. I mean, I’d like that, no doubt. :stuck_out_tongue: Overall, increasing the spawn limit via items would work, but it would be also needed to restrict it to a weapon (because of the scepter I already talked about) and it also would need to have reduced healing, at least.

The reason I don’t pay attention to Super Bosses while talking about that is that if we focused on them too, we could make it good/strong vs. them and OP vs. everything else, so if we just ignore Super Bosses, we can balance it way better (no skill should decide if we can kill a super boss or not, equipment and playstyle should).

I simply keep forgetting about Crucible, and still, I think about reducing early healing and increasing percentage healing, which would affect both, Crucible and normal game mode. I doubt any of the changes I listed (except for limit increase) could make it weak or OP in the Crucible.

17

Seems like a mixed bag to me, some are willing to cap it which are probably the ones I remember, some like jajaja’s Warder dump leftover points into it, some only 1 point it whether that’s due to a lack of skill points or because a 2-3% per second heal is worth it for that amount or something else.

So it’s not a no-brainer like Blood of Dreeg/Word of Renewal but is still a consideration for most Shaman builds.

18

Mixed bag you say?.. Well, maybe it is. But it blows my mind that crucible enthusiasts like fluff and mad lee mostly ignore it but TzTz whom I know for dw builds with low hp gets 12/12.

19

With very strong CDR it could, although probably not on a per-point basis.

20

It really depends on personal playstyle and the build itself. I don’t know if mad lee will want to get totem on his druid but ultos druid is a very point heavy build with mirror, maivens, overload all maxed on the arcanist side and also a lot of investment in the shaman dmg skills. On fluff’s case, he’s moving towards glassy builds with a shitton of damage as of late. In my bleed warder, I just wanted to squeeze out every inch of heal I can get due to the harshness of 0.4 crucible. I actually don’t like that skill too.