but as a pure caster, such as someone who spams DEE or the arcanist spells… do you really intend to hit things with staff attacks (if we had them), or would you just cast your spammy spell, like DEE or Arcanists laser, or the replicating missile?
Answer is “YES”. This is how current skill system works. I even use my melee weapon to hit enemy in some builds because it’s impossible or ineffective to use caster skill.
Caster weapons are doing something different… a completely different damage type that is unmitigated by armor.
Why do you need a ranged attack? I mean if you do, just grab a gun. How is it any different than a staff?
Why do you need scepter when you can take casual mace? Armor? Damage by pistol mitigated by it too. Physical damage of mace is not increased by spirit? Same with pistol. What else? If they decided to make melee magical weapon they force themself to make ranged too.
Or they need to stop make stupid changes with such skills like fireball. And add casual weapon components to vendors because most builds very depended on them.
Also it would be good if they add ability to enchant components to buff only skill on it. Because before b20 level 1 fireblast was too weak at 19 level. And usually you cannot get level 2 fireblast at 20 level (you have not enough ingridients).
Or they need to add weapon damage to this skill. But this will return again to weapon problem. I cannot place fireblast II to melee magical weapon. So I have to use pistol. With physical base damage. Of course it’s not big issue but why some skills can use magical base damage of weapons and some cannot? I do not see logic right now.
Many components require weapon of specific type. Some builds very depended on component skills. So if my component requires ranged weapon I lose precious magical weapons and forced to increase cunning.
If they want to force some builds to use physical or piercing damage in their builds than it would be good to add more dedication. For example, Fireblast should add physical and fire damage with % of weapon damage. So fire should usually combine with physical damage. And it would be normal that flintcore bolts can be placed only on guns. And so on. There are a lot of work needed to be done then.
Answer is “YES”. This is how current skill system works. I even use my melee weapon to hit enemy in some builds because it’s impossible or ineffective to use caster skill.
I disagree, caster skills are fine as they are. I have no issues with my DEE build.
Why do you need scepter when you can take casual mace? Armor? Damage by pistol mitigated by two. Physical damage of mace is not increased by spirit? Same with pistol. What else? If they decided to make melee magical weapon they force themself to make ranged too.
You take the scepter over the mace if you want to deal magic damage or skill bonuses.
If you want a ranged attack, you take a gun. It’s a simple as that. Maybe there is no magical ranged gun yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out completely.
Or they need to stop make stupid changes with such skills like fireball. And add casual weapon components to vendors because most builds very depended on them.
I agree with the weapon components on vendors, though they already exist there, so I’m not really sure what you are talking about.
Or they need to add weapon damage to this skill. But this will return again to weapon problem. I cannot place fireball II to melee magical weapon. So I have to use pistol. With physical base damage. Of course it’s not big issue but why some skills can use magical base damage of weapons and some cannot? I do not see logic right now.
Weapon damage for components, maybe. Partially weapon damage, but not completely. If you dedicate it to weapon damage it becomes boring and scales poorly until you have a nice amount of damage, so then it’s only good on someone with two weapons or a two hander. I don’t think that’s a great idea.
The staff attack casters had in TQ wasn’t unique, it was just a bow with different art. Currently you can shoot “fireballs” from a gun / crossbow or go pure spells. Isn’t the point of a caster to cast spells?
In Grim Dawn, I wanted to make more true casters instead of another ranged weapon user with different art that occasionally flung spells. We’ve specifically created spell attacks with no-cooldown and lower energy cost that are meant to be used as primary attacks. All caster oriented primary attack skills are ranged, so adding in a magical damage ranged weapon would just compete with that as a new source of scalable ranged magical damage. It would also be redundant with guns / crossbows and, as a ranged weapon, the magical damage would need to be less due to the inherent advantage of range. The melee caster items are meant to be used primarily for augmenting caster skills. However, there are various buffs and auras that could be combine with a magical damage oriented melee weapon to create interesting hybrid melee builds. So, I don’t see how build diversity has been diminished.
So I mean, if you don’t care about the weapon art and just want to make a ranged weapon caster, grab a gun / crossbow and there are many interesting caster oriented builds you can create around that.
If you do care about the art and really just want to pew pew with something that looks like a staff, well, fair enough… I’m sorry this particular design decision doesn’t appeal to you but for better or worse, we all have different tastes and there are always going to be creative choices that appeal to some while displeasing others. :undecided:
Hoho, you probably won’t see it because it’s not there anymore. I was going by the cunning tooltip. It used to say: Bonus physical damage x% + y. Well this y is gone now, don’t know when it left us, sorry for the confusion, should have checked first, apologies all around.)
We’ve specifically created spell attacks with no-cooldown and lower energy cost that are meant to be used as primary attacks.
Game has one (!!!) good spammable skill from masteries. Maybe Stun Jacks is not bad but I afraid to even try it with transmuter (because of randomness of this skill)
B19 had zero good spammable spells from masteries. If you wanted to make game this way you made some mistakes when you moved to this direction.
The melee caster items are meant to be used primarily for augmenting caster skills. However, there are various buffs and auras that could be combine with a magical damage oriented melee weapon to create interesting hybrid melee builds. So, I don’t see how build diversity has been diminished.
Are you going to fix problem with components? I really do not understand why some components can be placed on melee weapons but cannot be placed on ranged. And vice versa. This greatly reduce “build diversity”.
For example, I’m going to play BWC+Firelbast+maybe some other fancy fire things. I do not need gun in my hand. But I forced to use it to place fireblast component.
Another example, I’m playing by Fire strike pyromancer. I do not need any attack skills from components. I have enough damage from fire strike. I need just buff my casual attack. I decide to go for fire damage because I have %bonuses from skills+high base flat fire damage+%weapon damage will bypass armor. But I cannot place component with aura to maximize my fire and burn damage. I forced to use ranged component with useless fireblast II which inflicts less damage than my fire strike (moreover I have not any items with casting speed). Of course as result I will not place such component.
In b19 before very strange change to fireblast, it was possible to make build where basic autoattack was fireblast. But it was hard to find complete fireblast component quickly. This problem occurs with many other builds which autoattack depends on component (for example, slam or shield slam). I hope something will be done here too. For the sake of “build diversity”
PS And it would be good to replace Demonfire with something useful
I think if GD devs went with the approach, one melee oriented magic type weapon: Scepter ( for those who want to go for melee magic hybrids or Battlemages ), and one ranged oriented magic type weapon: Orb, Staff, Gauntlet whatever ( for those who want to use basic ranged magic attack ), would be the best decision.
Both of these can use spammable “left-mouse-button” spells, or go for non-spammable spells if they choose to do so. There would be no penalties in weapon statistics and the choice would be left on player to choose what type of magic user he/she wants to be.
This way, you can kill two stones with one bird.
In a current state, if non-spammable left mouse button caster wants to go ranged, he needs to go for either pistol or crossbow. If there are new magic type pistols and crossbows, with similar stats as current Scepters and Daggers ( base magic damage and % boost to magic ), then there will be no penalty for these players ( they will benefit from Spirit the same way as melee magic users ). However, something tells me, this is not the case.
As for the argument, staffs that shoot fireballs or whatever does not fit the lore… I can understand that, and its fine. Afterall, you ( devs ) are the ones in charge here, however, the system works in TQ, it works in other games too… and it is fun.
If you ever decide to implement ranged caster weapons, I am confident enough to say, there won’t be 10 pages of thread posts where people will argue whether you made a right or wrong design choice.
If we want ranged elemental weaponry, would ensorcelled guns/crossbows not be thematically appropriate? or as an alternative perhaps damage conversion could be added to the various types of amunition (Flintcore bolts ect.)
If we want ranged elemental weaponry, would ensorcelled guns/crossbows not be thematically appropriate? or as an alternative perhaps damage conversion could be added to the various types of amunition (Flintcore bolts ect.)
Game have 2 types of pistols and 2 types of rifles for each tier. But they have not any real difference. Small difference in damage range and piercing amount. But this difference is very low. Moreover game has crossbow which have good piercing damage and why we need second rifle I cannot understand. It would be very easy to change one type of pistol and one type of rifle to inflict magic+physical damage instead of piercing+physical.
Most simple. Make caster range weapons. Easiest way is to modificate current pistols and rifle with some magic damage. It can be possible with adding innate conversion stat. Reduce cunning requirement, add spirit requirement. Nothing needed to be done except some changes in database.
Component refactoring. We need spammable skill of each magic type. Right now we have acid from DEE and lightning from stun jacks. Also I can get chaos from component and in previous build fire+cold. Aether will have arcanist. One component had vitality damage but it’s too rare.
It’s more difficult, it’s needed to change components rarity here (chaos bolt only after 20 level? what?). Add more versatility. Give more scaling.
Force some type of damage to combine with other type of damage. Most obvious is fire+physical, cold+piercing (maybe chaos+vitality). So player usually will increase both of them and physical and piercing damage on pistols would not be a problem. But we have other combinations like fire+burn and I suppose making viable build will become a pain. It’s hardest way to balance.
I suppose developers should prefer second way because they want caster to cast spells but not shoot with pistol. Ok. Why did they add cooldown to fireblast? It looks like they see game more different than they speak.
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