Guide: Recommended stats for end game

You are exaggerating…again.

I think most of my builds don´t have more than 2.500/2.600 Armor and less than 30 % Physical Resistance. And they don´t die at every sneeze.

Which shows exactly what you play. 2.6k armor and about 30% is on a dmg focused build is STRICTLY TOP TIER, man. Most builds do not even have 2k armor and struggle to get 15% phys res. Most builds in the game. Not most builds in the forum.

Bloodrager got 12% phys res on the set AND 65+6% da AND 700+6% health AND double res on every piece. It’s a VERY tanky set compared to the average. One of the most top tier sets in the game (even after the nerfs). I’m talking about the NON-TOP-TIER builds. Radaggan, Runebinder, Rimetongue (that was on one of the best dw melee builds once - John_Smith’s N&O), even freaking Venomblade (that was said to be one of the best sets ever and now is just CRAP), etc. Or non-set builds. Or gimmicky/creative builds. Or blue sets like my all-time favororite Silver Sentinel. You play them lately? They are hardly playable anymore. Sure you can clear crucible with them (eventually). But you’ll die a lot, get one-shotted by everything, can’t dream of SR beyond 65, get frustrated, see that times are crap on everything despite the squishiness, rage quit, etc. No reason for anyone to ever play anything but top tiers.

If you think I’m exaggerating take a peak in the trading thread and see what people are looking for. Same pieces to same top-tier sets, EVERYONE. Or they stop trading because once you get SR set you really can’t get any better in Grim Dawn. Constant nerfs to masteries instead of gear and heavy environment buffs are changing GD from the aRPG praised for stunning diversity to a game of a handful of playable builds and tons of trash.

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Some builds definitely have lower values, it all depends on the boots. :wink:

I took a look at your Dervish and if you had chosen (just as an example) Sailor´s Guide instead of Eel (and skipped 5 % Crit from Torch) you would have 3 % more Physical Resistance. Much? No, but a start.

You are right that Dervish (or better: The Masteries) lack a certain amount of defense. You only got the DA from Consecration/Shadow Dance and the CD of Resilience is too long to really invest many points in it. My Dervish didn´t survive well, too…because of this reasons.

Blue Sets/Blue items get an overhaul with 1.1.5.0. Adoomgod is collecting feedback for a lot of items to make them better and open up more build diversity.

I always went for Sailor but since Egellon slow res is no longer such an issue. Eel has 2% dodge/deflect, bunch of da and pierce res which is more useful than the res from Sailor so it’s not such s downgrade. Sailor got that sweet freeze res though… but I’d have to give up not on 5% crit from Torch (I didn’t take the 3rd) but 5% oa. This is too much.

Ofc I could drop Merciless and pump up Dual Blades. Or drop Fervor to 16/16. Or give up on maxed ABB. And I probably would do one of those if DB gave 1% phys res for 1p beyond 5/16 or at least gave some acid dmg. But as is the defensive gains to offensive losses are too little.

And it’s not that now VB pays for dmg with increased difficulty - as it used to. I pilot VB pretty well and honestly it is close to impossible now to clear 170 without Courageous Tincture, greens or Aeon. I also played a couple of Runebinder setups lately. And Silver Sentinels. Same thing. Then I decided to screw that and made an SR set dervish. Conclusion: no reason to play anything else. It’s not a good trend, imo. And even if I’m exaggerating that’s how I feel, and that’s not irrelevant how players feel.

I took this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2E4dM7N and you still get the OA.

As for Blue Sets:
I don´t mind blue items (my Trickster uses 2 of them). But strictly speaking, they are no Endgame-Sets.
That DB doesn´t give enough bang for the bucks…well, I said that when the change was made. :wink:

So, am i inadequate with my AAR build? It has ~10% phys res and feels OK due to armour and flat absorb. And it doesnt uses sets you’ve mentioned. Phys res isnt as great as you claim. And i;m fine with that. If you make phys res better (remove phys res reduction, etc), there would be too large gap between builds, who get phys res for free, and all others.

Veil of shadow reduces enemy OA, which is the same as adding DA to yourself, no?

Yes, almost. OA shred is not multiplied by +x% DA so flat DA is economically better. +10 DA translates to +11 DA when you got +10% DA from gear and devos. -10 OA shred is always -10 OA shred. (However, -x OA shred reduces the efficiency of enemy +x% OA bonuses but these are rare.)

Also, the PTH formula and the resulting values such as crit chance and crit multiplier or total dmg multiplier (this only kicks in when oa-da difference is huge) are dependent not only on the difference between DA and enemy OA but also on the level these values are at. Uhh… I mean… 3k DA with 2.5k enemy OA is not exactly the same as 2.5k DA with 2k enemy OA. Close enough though. The exact formula is in the official Game Guide.

But it has… let me count… 6 rare affixes. I know you put some magic affixes there too but Thunderstruck Alex pants of Kings is like 2-3 drops in 100,000. Such items don’t really exist in a legit game. So such builds (in my very humble opinion) should not be a part of a balance discussion.

Besides, All resistance overcaps are 60+% so you almost never go below 80%, armor is 3+k, you got 440 flat absorb most of the time on top of 21% absorb and 18% dmg redux. This hardly disproves my claim that phys res got too essential to be attainable TO AVERAGE BUILDS.

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What’s wrong with an item with 1 rare affix? Those arent hard to get at all. Rather, they’re standard items in endgame - you dont even pick up yellows there.
About pants - that was just my luck. I indeed got that double-rare in legit way (despite your claim). And no, this build doesnt requires that double-rare combination. 1 rare affix with stun res is enough. I might lose ~4% DPS, but that’s not critical, considering i dont even have Glyph of the Storm witch, that boosts DPS far better. On other hand, my boots and weapon has absolutely useless prefixes, and my offhand has ~30 itemlevel. Not counting sub-optimal mods on many items. And still i have 50+ all res overcaps and 3.3k armour (GT doesnt count crafted armour bonuses and above-average %armour rolls) And i made those videos even without one great unique ring for that build (which means DPS loss).

And 25% damage absorb on top of that 50% of the time…
But why do you think, that average build would feel tanky only with 20-30% extra physical res? He might be tanky VS some enemies like Reaper or Kupacabra, but others would still crush him. Physical res wont help much VS physical shotguns, for example

To add to this, this is where things like reliable DA shred comes in very handy. I.e. SBoE

…Maybe not? :stuck_out_tongue:
EDIT: TBF, it’s a kiting caster

Don’t forget adcth

@BOG - IMO, the real reason why your AAR caster is so tanky stems from a multitude of factors:

  1. Insanely high overcaps which would take an average player ages to find (I’m guessing you’ve invested hundreds of hours into this spec?) <— Not that there’s anything wrong with this, just an objective observation on my end

  2. Light’s defender + damage reduction + %absorb

  3. Adcth from AAR.

1 & 2 work together to minimze the amount of damage taken, and 3 let’s you leech back up your health

@Nery: I want to demonstrate what I mean by positioning + knowing your enemy, and using it to outplay situations which would normally get you killed (this is my favorite thing about naked crucible)

  1. I get pounced by an unnoticed father kymon.
  2. I know this is followed up by his deadly shotgun, so I MoT immediately to stand my ground
  3. I know his pounce CD is on a 7s CD, which is about the same length as MoT, so I blink out immediately when MoT ends
  4. I chose to blink onto the ledge because I know he’s immobile for 1s after landing, which will result in kuba bum-rushing me, allowing me to use the dumb ape to body block kymon.
  5. I know the only way kymon is going to attack me is if lands his pounce, so I’m counting down the seconds in my head. After 6 seconds, I blink away again - right as he’s about to pounce. You don’t quite see it, because he died from biting blades.
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Hundreds of hours? ATM, i’ve spent 113 hours on it, starting from scratch (deleting save folder), and i’ve had gear shown in the link at the time of 90 hours. You’re seriously underestimating drop rates, if you spend hundreds of hours to get THAT, you must be incredibly unlucky. It’s intended to be beginner-friendly build, after all.

I stand corrected. Drop rates must’ve improved significantly since I last played legit self found. I’m guessing the introduction of SR must have sped up that process tremendously as well.

EDIT: @BOG - Out of curiosity, did you find all the pieces of light’s defender within those 90 hours? Or did you already have them waiting for you on some other character?

Guide updated!

  • Corrected some controversial stuff
  • Fixed some typos
  • Added armor absorption to armor section
  • Added new sections: Damage, Damage mitigation, Resistances reduction and Pets.
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You say it as if it’s hard…
Obvoiusly, i’ve done it myself from scratch. I played that char legit only - starting from clear save folder, no cheats, no “save-load” before crafting, etc.
You can reforge set pieces into other pieces of the same set, you know? First i found shoulder or gloves - dont remember - and reforged that piece into chest. Later i’ve found helm recipe and crafted several helms (they’re relatively cheap to craft), picked one with the most armour (+14%), converted others into chests, rerolled several times and picked the one with best rolls. All that prior 90 hours, yes. I was able to farm SR65-70 even before i got that helm, after all. And Crucible 150 Gladiator.
Indeed, drop rates were buffed in FG, especially for green items.

Not every. Retalliation builds dont need it - they use retalliation damage instead of “normal” one. Pure Pet builds stack damage for pets, not themselves.

I think the clearest way to explain the relationship between %damage and flat is with math because I’m asian.

In fact, fuck it. Let’s do out the entire damage formula while we are at it. Feel free to omit any variables if they aren’t relevant.

Some acronyms…

  • APS = attacks per second. This is affected by speed, and different skills have different hitrates (i.e. EoR vs Cadence)
  • TDM = total damage modified (e.g. FW’s transmutor)
  • FDC = Flat damage on the character (e.g. flat damage from augments)
  • FDS = Flat damage on the skill (e.g. AAR)

So…for any attack:
[ (FDC * %WD) + (FDS) ] * %damage * TDM = Sheet 2 damage value

Sheet 2 damage value * APS = Sheet 1 damage value

Note: Sheet 1 damage value is actually higher than the actual DPS of the character, because any DoT damage is multiplied by your APS value.

e.g. If AAR does 50 flat damage + 50 DoT, and has an APS of 6, then the sheet 1 damage will show a DPS value of 600, when in reality, it should be 350.

As you can see from the above, flat damage and %damage have a direct relationship to one another. So IMO, both are equally important.

It depends on which one you need more.

If I have 3500% chaos damage, and 100 flat chaos, stacking flat damage here makes vastly more sense, and vice versa.

Other things you can include into the mix if you want a more accurate value:

  1. RR: Suffice to say that once you get an enemy’s target into the negative range, RR behaves in the same exact manner as TDM.
  2. OA - i.e. PTH and PTC values.

EDIT: All things being equal, %damage is more important than flat, because that shit benefits procs and FDS

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@sir_spanksalot it’s good to be thorough but I just don’t feel my guide is the correct place for explaining the complete game mechanics. Malawiglenn have guide for that.

Plus I don’t understand math and I am not Asian :smile:

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The TL;DR version:

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OK, I will add your lite version. Of course have to search for synonym of “shit”

Edit: Added!

You could just drop that word entirely. :stuck_out_tongue: