To balance something as complex as this game is super difficult because of so many variables and potential usages, but it is a worthwhile pursuit and I applaud the devs to undertake it in the face of criticism. Unintended consequences can always be addressed in a later patch if need be provided there are valid arguments.
Concerning +1 to all skills on items, just like the poster earlier who mentioned Stonebinder Cuffs item from TQ, they reduce build diversity because such items are just too good. If an item has it, then it should be in conjunction with penalties to make builders think twice about blindly incorporating it, eg, double cooldowns, or reduction in attributes like -10% physique/cunning/spirit, or -100% armor on the item so you risk a critical attack killing stroke by a boss, or something else creative but penalising.
edit to make explicit I am referring to +1 to ALL skill items. +1 to a class I think is acceptable as long as its rare
While I’m totally in favor of creative out of the box theory rafting, I fail to understand how this approach could be ruined by a change to two items. It’s even more contradictory with Night whispers which is more creative now than ever.
There are two cases when it outclasses all alternatives:
One is when the other, specialist options get outclassed due to the power of +1 to all skills combined with other stats.
The other is when NO OPTIONS EXIST for many mastery combinations. This is definitely the case of empowered essence of beronath and saboteur, which gets supplanted by infiltrator, purifier or even spellbreaker on both it’s damage types, at all levels of gear.
To continue on the second point, there are 36 mastery combinations in grim dawn. Some get relevant gear without much effort at all levels of play (Infil, purifier, warlord, even deceiver and mage hunter), while others (warloCK, Sabo) are forced to play with items made for the other combinations that already have stronger synergies to boot!
yeah, but the thing is: There IS saboteur support.
Harra’s set and to a lesser extent, the Rimetongue set. But as it stands, much of saboteurs rely overwhelmingly on +1 to all skills or ultra-generalist sets like shattered realm to get through the day. (And if they don’t, they are literally worse versions of builds made on other mastery combinations)
Just the Cadence hit. Everything on the Cadence line (extra damage, extra targets hit/pierce chance, conversion from skill modifiers/transmuters etc.) only takes effect on the Cadence hit. Deadly Momentum’s buff is only given to your character on the Cadence hit but because it gives global stats applies to non-Cadence hits and other skills.
And you can still do that. Plenty of items or sets still enable creative approaches to builds and 1.1.6 opened up many more possibilities with changes to items that no one used before like Earthsplitter or Crimson Spike. I myself like doing weird or bizarre builds and still find ways to put some together with varying levels of “design intent” or support from the developers on gear.
@Contragor Like I mentioned above, you still have options for a player pets character with the new Blade Spirit Conduit.
And +1 to @Contragor, the beauty of this game for me is creating very strong yet off-beat specs that are much less obvious than your usual Ulzuin’s Demolitionist or Belgothian Nightblade.
Sure, some items have a buttload of stats and became a go-to item for too many builds, but quite often it happens because dedicated items offer absolutely joke of a mod and irrelevant stats.
And again, there is not a single build the devs don’t know. I’m gonna put a link to the evidence:
How many super duper builds are actually hidden in the chinese forums and without any chance of nerf by Crate. I wonder why?
However, each time you see a topic like “Strongest Melee, 4:05 & SR 100 GUARANTEE§§§” in Class & Builds, it’s a good indication that you must stay away of the build, the skills & the legendary set.
I just respec my AAR Clairvoyant because some guy on this forum got insane damage with GDstash green items and Crate had to nerf that. Thank you very much, that’s not annoying at all.
Question was how many unique changes pets got to compensate for the loss of +1 to all skills from Cataclysm book. Maya’s answer “none” might have been a bit on the abrupt side but it was quite accurate. Those pet builds that used Cataclysm received a net value of ZERO unique changes. (Cataclysm wasn’t BiS on every pet build, just mainstream conjurers and some ritualists)
And even if they did receive a million unique items, as long as those items can’t help rank up in pet skills, it will all be ignored in favor of those that can. Namely - Arcane Wastes, Hallanx Head, Chthon Orb. Nerf them all? Or maybe give some +1 shaman/occultist to Gate of Memey Worlds - adjust stuff if needed - and have a unique change that actually works and makes people excited about it? Just a suggestion…
Lack of offhands for pet builds that were forced to use Cataclysm was one of the biggest problems in GD itemization. And this problem has not been solved.
All the items and builds are put by Crate quite obviously. But real performance depends on building/piloting skills. And there are lots of builds that are really counter intuitive and no way you can predict how strong they can be. Like the original Spanks PB Blademaster which abuse conversion/cooldown mechanics of PB and weapon. Your main damage - pierce was converted to something else but then you stack other damages flat and convert them into pierce. So you have unexpected powerful build. Contragor’s retal/passthrough build is another example.
About titles like strongest build evha, that’s attracts nerfs quicker than honey to flies
That’s why I try to present my real build’s capabilities and not just pretty looking results or exaggerated titles. But it’s not bad idea to not take seriously make believe greens full offensive builds, they’re purely for showcase.
Removing the +1 to all skills on Cataclysm’s Eye was still necessary in that case as it was just providing a band-aid for all of those builds.
What should be done now then is going through all of the pet builds effected and if they’re found to be unviable following tweaks and playtesting, suggest replacements or replacement changes to existing pet off-hands or other items to compensate for Cataclysm Eye losing the +1 to all skills.
And why would you do that? AAR still works very well. Afaik still the strongest spellbinder.
Please don’t complain about every nerf. It takes away attention from comments that might actually lead to something constructive. Some nerfs are good, are needed, and AAR nerf was definitely top 3 on that list.
So was Morgo nerf and Spite nerf. Cyclone still needs some, imo.
I’m not saying it wasn’t. My only comment is that Cataclysm was used because of lack of alternatives. There’s still no alternative outside Blood Orb of Chthon. Even with the conversion buff turned off, it’s still probably better than anything else for generic conjurers. So, basically, it boils down to a stun res nerf to pet conjurers.
I’d have to agree with the notion of the underlying problem with the change to the Cata set in regards to pet builds.
Using items for “off label” uses is the very essence of what an ARPG is. This, of course, is a very biased opinion on my part since I only ever build that way.
I think a good passing of all pet off hands should be done over the next few patches would make headway to see what can be done to compensate.
More importantly, because of the Cata set change, I think the changes that were done to the procs all those patches ago needs to be reverted. We now have to give up an ammy, off hand, and belt for a non competitive proc and +1 skills…when I could get procs, +3 to various class skills, and other skills by using other items. The procs just don’t make up for that.
Again this is a biased opinion of course.
Due to the seemingly thematics of the set, I would love to see those 3 pieces turned into a proc fiesta. Lots of procs for wearing the whole set. That’s all it does. 3 stat sticks with lots of procs on the set bonuses.
I think the lack of variation on pet off-hand can be lessened with another item (relic or pants?) that make them enable to DW melee or ranged, since no DW enabled item that also buff pet stat.
Perhaps moving the Mogdrogen’s Ardor ability to the base item, and give the relic a passive ability to use DW melee or ranged? Something like this
Why i love generic items like Harmony pants, Magelord boots or former Anguish belt, is exactly for this reason. They are all band-aids. They allow to create builds on unorthodox platforms starved with stats and skills. You know, like fire Nightblade, for instance.
I guess this is where some players like me and the devs have complete opposite perspective on the game balance in aRPG: i don’t think it’s unhealthy to have generic items as BiS in some concepts. In my opinion, they exist for this purpose exactly.
I was really excited by 1.1.5.0 changes to blue items as it’s shown lots of love to generic items. Now these changes are slowly beeing reverted.
The only thing i’d really like to know is what happened to the Anguish belt. Just by looking at it prior to release of 1.1.5.0 you could tell it’ll find its way into some class-combos that don’t have good +1/+2 skills belts. Hence the intention was to allow for such builds to exist.
So why just one patch after that it was decided to remove the belt from the endgame completely? Not just fix the proc and nerf it, but outright remove it? Final Match was nerfed to a healthy state btw.
