Figuring out what stuff actually does

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Despite having read quite a bit about the game, including the “mechanics” articles on the wiki(-ish) sites, I keep realizing new things as I play, things that make me want to respec, or reroll if I haven’t put too much time into a character. That’s probably unavoidable, but I’d like to avoid it as much as reasonably possible. Based on that, some of you probably know the sorts of things I’d like to hear about. There might be questions I don’t know to ask yet.

Specific Example:

Consider Flame Touched and Vindictive Flame; both are Demolitionist skills. For Flame Touched, the icon looks like a flaming blade, and part of the description is, “imbue…with a living flame that augments attacks….” Based on that and what I’ve read:

  1. “9 fire damage” will be added to each “weapon attack” (what it’s called where you map it to an action bar button) and anything that deals damage based on “main hand damage” (not sure about off-hand and shield).

  2. The % stuff will apply to everything the character does and procs that deals those types of damage.

Accurate? (I know that the numbers change as you put points into the skill and that I haven’t mentioned everything about the skill.)

I’m confused about Vindictive Flame. “Stun target” might mean that it can stun each opponent in the AoE, but if it’s actually a centered-on-self AoE, “3.8 meter target area” is poor wording. The action bar button would presumably toggle the ability on and off, so how do you choose a target? It’s “vindictive”, so maybe anything in range that attacks you is a target? “Fire Retaliation” is mentioned separately though, so I guess the rest of it isn’t a retaliation, doesn’t target based on the character being attacked. Or maybe it does, and the fire retaliation is separate, not part of the cooldown. It’s the last thing mentioned, and maybe, as with many games, indentation and spacing aren’t used when they ought to be to indicate what is and isn’t part of a proc, cooldown, combo, etc. The description also has “100% chance of activating”. Okay, but when? Whenever you do anything that targets something, as long as it’s off cooldown? Well, if it’s like that, maybe it would be the same as what does and does not proc devotions, like puddle AoE ~ticks counting as separate attacks, unlike DoT ticks.

I want to hear about anything that will make it easier to figure out this sort of thing, or explanations of tricky stuff that you’ve already figured out. Sometimes, even if you unlock an ability to test it (but you shouldn’t have to), it’s not easy to figure out precisely how it works.

Thanks.

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Both skills are auras that you activate once at the start of your session or that you recast, if you have lost them…

I think you got Flame Touch right - see also Flat vs Percent Damage

Vindictive Flame is an aura that also retaliates. The permanent buffs are Health Regen, Total Speed and global Fire Retaliation (not to be confused with the following :wink: ). The trigger to activate the AoE retaliation effect is you being hit. Targets receive damage and might be stunned. The modifier adds a ranged effect, which heals you and has a chance to knock enemies down.

IIRC - could not find a quote from the devs - indentation is not possible in tooltips. Would be neat though.

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Thanks for the link. I’m shocked that that page is so detailed. The first thing I checked on the official site was the masteries, and those pages are extremely vague. Because of that, and because a lot of games leave things up to the wikis, I figured the whole site would be similarly useless, and I didn’t look at anything else.

Thanks for the explanation of Vindictive Flame. I decided to mention it just to shed light on my overall question, but it turned out to be a much better example than I realized at first. By the time I finished writing the post, I was wondering about it, specifically, too.

If indentation isn’t possible in tooltips, then in their next game, they should use something else instead or also. Maybe right-click a skill to open a window that explains it reasonably well and maybe even includes links to explanations of relevant mechanics. Games like this should have the equivalent of a Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook. I get that they want some time sinks, but they should not include having to figure stuff out that could instead be made clear through reasonably good writing and formatting.

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To be clear, for anyone else who sees this, I’m still interested in my overall question. The stuff I wrote about the two specific abilities was to help explain the bigger-picture question.

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Yes, the Combat page is pretty good. Local and Global Modifiers and Skill Types is another source worth reading. You might find it a bit abstract at first, so refer to it later when you have a better overview.

Crate has a large toolset for their (mastery) skills so that each of them is unique even if there are similar skills. But this also makes them somewhat confusing.

  • Turbo-charge your auto-attacks with default attack replacers and WPS is helpful for weapon focussed builds.
  • When an active skill comes with modifiers, then check if some of them are Secondary Skill Modifiers.
  • Counter Strike (Soldier) is the other aura (from a mastery) that works like Vindictive Flame.
  • The question with auras is, if a flat damage number buffs your weapon damage or if the aura damages enemies directly - see Spectral Binding (Necromancer). The base skill does the former, whereas the modifier has a radius and does the latter.
  • Other than that the description can clarify things, which cannot be covered by the basic list of stats. Or check out What are you doing? Visual examples of skills and Skills granted by items.
  • Miscellaneous
    • Transmuted Forcewave (Soldier) scales with cast speed.
    • Upheaval (Shaman) cannot trigger anymore, if your WPSs have a total chance of 100% (or higher).
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Mechanics Guide 1

Mechanics Guide 2
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=86B50E1BA0EAB821!146166&authkey=!AMbqibmMzge55r8

Search the GD Discord, you can quickly find replies about specific mechanics: https://discord.com/channels/119758608765288449

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