Grim Dawn Version 1.1.8.0

[Kaiketsu]

Ravager is one of my favorite benchmarks for my builds. He’s pure, raw physical DPS (mostly) with some magical attacks here and there - and easily accessable right away, no need to beat levels or waste resources. If a build can’t scratch Ravager, it’s very likely also incapable of completing SR80 and going through Crucible 170 without doing some stunts. A build that can actually kill Ravager has can still be brutalized by some SR70+ bosses, like Rashalga. Hell, IIRC Rashalga on SR60 does around 500k already with her burst whereas Ultimate Enraged Ravager can at best crit you two times in quick succesion for around 150-200k.

OFC Rashalga was never meant to be facetanked without Overguard (and on high SR - probably wasn’t meant to be facetanked at all), but it’s just to illustrate that Celestials, even though powerful, are not the top of what you can encounter, damage wise.

Wildblood also can’t even scratch Crate of Entertainment, IIRC. The AOE nature of vines would mean multiplying crates rapidly and the -70% damage debuff applied by crate’s auto attack means you are overwhelmed quickly with your DPS (and thus life stealing) reduced vs. a legion of magic-spamming boxes. Even freaking AAR builds can kill Crate with proper skill and gear. Just for comparison, you know.

Wildblood Ritualist was overpowered, but whether he needed that many nerfs is debatable. The “global” vitality nerf hit him hard already.

However, I do admit that devs shaking things up (especially stale metas) are doing the game a favor in the end since it breathes in new life into the gameplay. Whether we like the nerfs or not, and since they also buff things, new opportunities arise. My Warder is not going to be SR100 viable, because pure melee just isn’t viable there, period, but he’s a lot more fun to play. And he’s so. Stupidly. Durable. Love it.

[Crittrain]

Ravager is one of my favorite benchmarks for my builds. He’s pure, raw physical DPS (mostly) with some magical attacks here and there - and easily accessable right away, no need to beat levels or waste resources. If a build can’t scratch Ravager, it’s very likely also incapable of completing SR80 and going through Crucible 170 without doing some stunts.

I wouldnt imagine you play crucible much then , I got builds doing sub 4 or close to it that will go splat as soon as ravager looks at them.
You build for one or the other , Being able to do them both (Cruci Sub 5 , SR70+) without changing anything should/will definately get you the hammer.

[Monceaux]

Ravager is just a life leech check, or a cardio check for kite builds. Many builds can do SR85 or 90 just fine and die to Ravager’s first phase. It is by no mean a good metric for builds.

[Kaiketsu]

Many builds can do SR85 or 90 just fine and die to Ravager’s first phase. It is by no mean a good metric for builds.

Maybe they could go deeper if they were strong enough to beat Ravager?

I am no expert at Cruci by any means. I just like characters that have “do it all” power. Not being able to scratch Celestials usually means I become not very interested.

Interesting point about building for one or the other, since my Wildblood Ritualist would comfortably beat both C170 and Ulti Ravager without sweat (or Aether Clusters for the matter). He was among the better do-it-all builds, Crate of Entertainment being his only real Achilles Heel.

[Retal_Abuser]

Wildblood also can’t even scratch Crate of Entertainment,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2BqsX4XYP8&t&ab_channel=ArcaneUndo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxGjleYY38&t&ab_channel=ArcaneUndo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHhfI5nitko&ab_channel=ArcaneUndo
Now tell me they were all capable because it was bleeding variants.

BUT: I agree that the nerfs to vitality were too much and that’s coming from someone who never bitches about nerfs.

[Shadowpast]

Wildblood: anyone have current clear times. Did it lose 30 sec, 1 min off CR times? It would still be sub 6.

I think the biggest issue is what is the hardline Crate has in terms of performance in certain areas as the community setting benchmarks isn’t the official stance of the company that makes the game.

This gives the appearance of random targeted nerfs that cause community outrage because the lack of an explanation. Sure you may not owe them one but it helps people to understand.

Until a hardline statement of the boundaries of performance is set, there will always be issues with changes like Wildblood. And when I mean set, they are set by Crate.

Of course setting hard barriers also has its drawbacks which I won’t get into but are clearly evident.

When controversy type changes occur (which can be evident from the responses on the forum or discord) a simple explanation as to why goes a long way.

Was it sustainability?

Here is the issue I am finding. Due to the randomness of deep SR I am building a certain way in order to counter this and stay alive. As such, I find the sustainability that vitality damage procs provide to trump the clunky alternatives that I am provided with. When I mean clunky I am speaking to giants blood, dryad, etc which lack a strong degree of consistency provided. So I find myself converting vit to my damage type to survive.

Lps is also viable with good piloting and non melee but there is a huge degree of damage sacrifice to maintain decent levels. Some mastery combos allow for this sacrifice but not all.

I also have a dislike for melee ADCtH because you can get nuked in fractions of a second the moment you hit a fumble debuff or cc’d even with 80% res.

As such, casters have moved into this mode of king (especially vit) because they inherently are capable of avoiding the difficult issues I have outlined above.

Now you can make all the clunky stuff work but you have to jump through a lot of hoops and it is just simpler to go this route. And when you are playing HC in SR 60, testing is kinda hard without dying. Guess you could test in SC.

I don’t necessarily agree with the Wildblood changes. It is a symptom of a bigger issue which is hard to fix without homogenization…which is clear in my early statement that 0.5 cd off dryad (on paper) seems to make little difference and the other heals don’t last long enough or work in a reliant fashion. They may save you for a moment but when you are fighting in a box being cc’d with 4 bosses being waylaid by unfavorable mutators…you need consistency to fight the rng. I also wish it was easier to use consumables…I would pay for a dlc that added a consumable bar where I didn’t have to swap to a second tap (which is full of buffs anyways) or open inventory that blocks the screen to use them.

Anyways, I could be wrong but that’s what it looks like to me.

[Kaiketsu]

Now tell me they were all capable because it was bleeding variants.

More like it was my laziness to properly explore Wildblood vs. Crate of Entertainment due to getting discouraged. I did find reliable builds against CoE anyway, so I never went back to correct myself.

Thanks for the vids

[iOnlyPlayPetBuilds]

When can you actually visit the new areas and do the totems?

I just started completely fresh and went south of devils crossing immediately and there was no way to repair the bridge (didn’t have enough materials or iron anyway since i’m level 1 fresh)

[medea_fleecestealer]

Whenever you find them. No limits - apart from that one bridge and getting into East Marsh.

[iOnlyPlayPetBuilds]

They patch says totem monsters you faced from some forgotten gods dungeon area, since i’m starting fresh will the monsters be different?

[medea_fleecestealer]

The new monster totem has different foes, yes.

[BlackrazorNZ]

To me, the underlying problem with the OP survivability and damage of Wildblood wasn’t the damage modifiers on the set, it was the short cooldown and therefore layerability of the skill itself.

I would have thought a more beneficial change, both for balance and for not having to spam a skill every second to survive, would be to increase the damage of Grasping Vines (via the base skill and the Wildblood set), increase the ADctH from the Wildblood set modifier, and then increase the duration and cooldown of Grasping Vines so that you can never have more than 2 stacks layered.

[Dioarchet]

Have only gotten it up to 11/20, but it looks like it gains 1% per level, so its should cap out at 30.

Any update? -30% doesn’t seem enough to me. Many sources of pitter patter damage (like from augments) will still be 70% absorbed.

[RektbyProtoss]

Wildblood also can’t even scratch Crate of Entertainment

Uhhh… It’s one of the safest crate killers I’d say.

Bleed version can still do it as @Retal_Abuser has shown https://youtu.be/j2BqsX4XYP8

Edit: sorry for the repost didn’t see the vid already got posted.

[Maya]

Uhhh… It’s one of the safest crate killers I’d say.

A random Birb looks on with utter disgust at having to use consumables and Aether Clusters for Crate fight

“Craaw… caw Caw…” it cries as if to voice its disappointment to what it just witnessed before flying away to get drunk on ice-cream

[Biostasys]

Disintegration: removed % Aether and % Fire damage

I didn’t see people notice this. Can you explain why the change?? Ever since AAR receiving the change to pierce targets, patch afer patch, the skill recieves nerfs over nerfs. Why not remove the skill altogether? or at least if you want to, reduce the buff granted by Disintegration by idk, 50% at 12/12 and 100% at 22/12. With this at least the loss is at 50%, contrary to what you are doing right now whis is 100% killing it. This will kill Fire, Lightning, Elemental and Aether AAR variants it will be unplayable.

Before this change I was leveling a Fire and Aether AAR. I’ll feedback this change, but I’m not optimistic about it

[Duchy]

All those AAR builds are definitely not a #deadbuild.

[gutten_morgen]

I understand the reason you worry, but as i check up in-game stat, aether AAR spellbinder and fire AAR sorc are still strong as hell, with DPS still higher than 220k with permenant buff, and still clear crucible or sr7x safely. Remove %dam in Disinte actually got a great utility, since you dont need to mod conversion skill to get full dam. AAR now only got flat dam, so you only need global conversion to make it work

[Evil_Baka]

This will kill Fire, Lightning, Elemental and Aether AAR variants it will be unplayable.

You do realise the change is just a loss of somewhere between +200-350% damage off of around +2500-3000% damage as a ballpark estimate (factoring in the bonus to Spirit and any temporary buffs like Clairvoyance for Clairvoyant as well).

And this is only for AAR, gear or devotion procs that also contribute a substantial amount of any builds damage would have to be nerfed separately (assuming any did receive any). I’m not saying it’s not small but I highly doubt those builds are “unplayable” afterwards.

[romanN1]

In Duchy’s defense I didn’t find it clear what you were actually trying to say. You were saying it’s funny that people who don’t post runs complain about fast builds but then saying that fast builds only represent a cherry picked run by a practised pilot. What were those two lines of thinking leading to, in tandem? I’m confused.

Im saying that some peeps complain of a build’s “OPness” based on a cherry picked run from a pilot that did hundreds of them, but if you actually request them to try running the toon they wont come even halfway close tot that result, and in some cases, they wont even stay alive to finish 151-170.