Happy New Year! Let's Talk V1.1.9.5/6

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
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It’s 2022, the year ___ is finally viable!

It is very likely that v1.1.9.5 will be focused solely on bug fixes, particularly for Xbox, so database changes will probably fall in v1.1.9.6.

We don’t have a particular theme in mind for the next set of changes. The conduit update came a bit sooner than initially planned, but it was ready, and now it’s out there! If you have feedback about those, we’re happy to hear it.

Our overarching goal remains the same: to increase the variety of viable builds in the 4:30-5:30 Crucible range, SR70-90 in the Shattered Realm. I think it’s important to remind the community to be honest about these expectations. We are not going to buff builds because someone ran a 4:15 Crucible clear. Realistically, probably 80% of builds are 5:00 or higher, 20% are 4:30 and 1% are less. It becomes abundantly clear where the average lies and where the outliers are. A build clearing Crucible in 5 minutes is going to get practically as much use out of the Blessings as a 4:30 build; and not like those players GD-Stashing gear for their tests care about loot efficiency anyway, so let’s not call something dead because of a few seconds.

It’s never fun to see nerfs, and we’ve consistently made an effort for every patch to have buffs vastly outweigh the nerfs, but approaching nerfs as somehow unhealthy for the game is simply not going to get you anywhere here.

If you wish to help us achieve our goals, please share your personal experience with builds and provide your results! Let’s see what 2022 brings to Grim Dawn.

Some things on our radar:

  • Before you sharpen the pitchforks again, v1.1.9.4 Rah’zin Set changes will be reverted. While the update saw the set shifted more towards the center of builds, it was understandable that the change was seen as tone-deaf considering other builds, even some in the same category, are more viable. We cannot realistically get around to every build every update, but in this case I think a more cautious approach was the superior choice.

    We also have to be honest with ourselves. We will never realistically create an ecosystem where all builds fall within the ideal range, not in our lifetimes anyway. Reeling in outliers will always be the goal as those create unhealthy expectations and make otherwise perfectly fine builds look “dead”, but some edge cases are best left alone.

  • Physical builds had some major shake-ups recently and I think we’re still seeing the full extent of what that generated. I would say physical damage performance may be borderline too good overall, but we will continue to monitor it.

  • Likewise, Fire AA builds saw some sizable buffs lately and there are now some concerning cases that may need to be toned down as a result. The goal here is not to beat down fire damage as a whole, but to be surgical about the examples that are doing too well.

Feel free to post any builds you’ve been working on that you feel could use a bump. Note that we may not agree with every suggestion, particularly suggestions for How a build should be buffed.

Please don’t make suggestions about changes/redesigns of core skills. Unless you enjoy screaming into the void for therapeutic reasons, in which case carry on. At this point, class skills see extremely minimal, if any, changes.

The most valuable information to provide would be a GrimTools link and where you feel the build struggles, whether that’s survivability or damage, and whether you are testing your performance in the Crucible or the Shattered Realm.

Please be considerate of others posters and, as usual, set reasonable expectations for what a build should be capable of (an indestructible vitality build probably shouldn’t be pushing sub 6 minutes in the Crucible, nor does a 5 minute build need buffs).

Following the guidelines from the Posting Feedback thread applies:

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I will probably not post too much this time as I’m quite short in build ideas for now.
Though, this one I’d like to see getting more attention:

acid vines are like the only way to play GV except Wildblood (okay, there are also pierce GV with Gutripper) but they lack ADctH mods which results in bad sustain. Also damage is not good cuz in the end it’s solo-RR acid and acid has 4 (four) resistant nems.
I think adding like 8% LL to GV to the shield and like 12-15% TDM to the conduit will make the things better a bit. If the build becomes sth like 4:45-5 mins but sturdy af, I’ll be absolutely happy about it.
for now, it’s squishy 5:30 one that dies 9 times out of 10.

the second moment is Light Defender set. I played this build recently

and if you look at it carefully, you can see whooping 0 phys res at ALL items (except off-hand where it was severely gutted too).
I suggest to add like 5% phys res on shoulders/chest and maybe some more armor absorb, so it will be a bit similar to Justicar one.

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I will be checking most of my toons again as well.
There were some that were in need of some love - busy testing weekend inc. should I have the time.

I 2nd that.
My suggestion would be a different one tho.
Imo 10% phys. res. or so as 2 or 3 piece set bonus would be welcome.

There also were a bunch of other sets as well that IMO lacked phys res and/or life.
Gotta look into that again as well. :eyes:

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I second putting 5% Phys Res on the Light’s Defender Chest.

Since our resident bird isn’t here to bring up pet topics, I’ll do my best to advocate for pet buffs. Most of the pet builds I’ve played with are in a good spot - maybe a small Flame Touched buff to get Pyro pets to have <10 minute Crucible times, but for the most part, pets are in a good spot.

Except for those exploding Blight Fiends. I know they’re designed to have a max of 3 out there, but with the long cooldowns, the start-up animation, and the time it takes for a Blight Fiend to approach an enemy, there’s effectively only 2 Blight Fiends at any given time, and at that point, you may as well go Ghol’s to have 2 permanent Blight Fiends.

Ideally, the exploding Blight Fiends should have 3 up for a considerable length, so I would love seeing the temporary Fiends to have a longer life time in exchange for a longer cooldown. That way we can put CDR reducing mechanics like the Blight Fiend modifiers in the Rotgut medal + Time Dilation to good use, or even make use of Oathkeeper’s Path of the Three to get even more cooldown and give pet Oppressor a cool little niche.

Sadly, I’m not in the 5 minute Crucible club, so I wouldn’t even be able to tell you which of my builds need improvement. It’d be nice if someone tested my Chaos Grenado Pyromancer in Crucible, as that’s one of my favorite builds, and I have no idea how it compares to other options like Cold Grenado.

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:partying_face:

That’s fair

Fire AA options as is are not very strong. There are several outlier builds that can see some target changes, but in general fire melee/ranged is still vastly inferior to fire casters.
The strong builds that i can remember are:

Double fire Dagallon Purifier, abuses pass through. Suggestion - as always, consider removing pass through from all individual guns and add it to select WPS (one for each mastery, maybe some granted skill as well). That way you can artificially tone down the pass through outliers and drastically bump the ranged variety at the same time.

Permascension Paladin. This one doesn’t have high melee output, rather it abuses inherently strong fire procs combined with high passive rr%. I wouldn’t touch melee part here because it’ll just stop being melee.

Justicar with Balzeheart and Kilrian mace Shieldbreaker. Decrease wd% bonus on the mace and that’ll do it. It’s only justified because Korvaak medal now also has wd% bonus to FS.

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S&B Lightning Archon Archon, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.4) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

It’s okay for a meme concept, but really struggles againts Grava and IM at 75-76 even with neutral mutators. I believe shield melee builds can use some love without buffing physical shattering smash or retaliation builds. For example safeguard can provide %all damage. And Crystallum swords are underperfoming even after all these buffs. Doesn’t matter if it’s Archon or Trickster; I don’t know what needs to be done.

Lightning SS Infiltrator Infiltrator, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.4) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Well I probably can’t play with this one but damage is a bit dissappointing. 1,8 CD SS

Please add %100 physical>Lightning on SS conduit, it should help Crystallum setups aswell. Or maybe Stormrend gets SS mods? Since it’s not anyones favourite item and can use some appeal.

Grava fight at 76 boss room, good mutators; takes almost a minute to kill and build has %23 racial damage…

S&B Cold Oppressor with Cold BH Oppressor, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.4) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

DW Melee Fire Purifier Purifier, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator This is a theorycraft; but I don’t see this being better than Shieldbreaker version just for %4 Health and 18 flat fire mod on WoR. That mod should provide something more to become a build definer. Same setup with Shieldbreaker is already in a good place.

DW Acid Blademaster Blademaster, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.4) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator Hardly does SR 75-76

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Pretty much this. Build also needs some heavy greenery to work properly.

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Would be nice to see some reverted savagery mods for ultos set but with 1 additional target and built-in 0.2 cd to upheaval as @banana_peel suggested some time ago-we could do some tests with different builds and classes like ultos warder/archon/druid and ofc veilkeeper druid to give a feedback. It’s always possible to revert all changes back in a short time if that will work “bad” if I may say so

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I’m no builder, I look for posted ones that utilize the tons of legendaries I’ve built up in my stash the last 4 years. A lot of the legendary off-hands seem to be unused by any of the builders I’ve seen, I’ve searched diligently and noticed they just aren’t used, 1-handed ranged seem to be in a similar position.

Anyway, maybe it’s too time consuming to do much changing to increase their popularity but it’s a shame that so many interesting items are ignored by builders, maybe in favor of greens, but it could also be that I’m just not seeing their use.

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Sounds like a reasonable start for 1.1.9.5/6 :+1:

Some kind of middle ground in the “useless - op af - useless” circle that Ultos Savagery went through in recent months sounds great.

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I’ve found some niche cases that are least worth discussing:

  1. Chaos Phantasmal Blades. This isn’t the prefix just added in 1.1.9.x, this prefix has been here since the start of Forgotten Gods. Nether Edge has built-in Chaos damage, and yet every single piece of equipment that has points to Nether Edge converts AWAY from Chaos damage. At this point, why does Phantasmal Blades even have Chaos damage if it’s only going to be converted anyway? I wouldn’t even begin to describe where you can get the points, but this stood out as a big “why is this even here?”

  2. Vitality Decay is just in a bad spot. Build for reference
    I mainly play it in SR, and goodness, killing resistant enemies takes ages to do. Vitality Decay Grenado sounds like one of those things that sounds cool when you say it, but then you realize there’s barely anything supporting it. A big help would be giving resistances to the belt and pants, as they are some of the only ways to get Dread up to 22/12, but leaves resistances barren.

  3. May we have Elemental to Acid conversion for pets on a weapon please? Pretty please? That Blightshard amulet is really lonely as the only source of Elemental to Acid conversion for pets.

  4. Outside of Physical / Fire, I haven’t seen Forcewave discussed much at all. The last that was discussed about it, it was in need of a lot of buffs (video courtesy of banana_peel). Neither Lightning nor Elemental Forcewave are discussed much at all, and Cold Forcewave - despite the conduit - is nonexistant.

  5. One other item I thought of: would you please introduce global Lightning to Cold conversion to Mythical Shard of Asterkarn? And some cast speed to Codex of the Eternal Storm? It feels awful to try and create a full Cold Wind Devil, and not even have the ability to fully convert the Codex’s included skill. There are other options, but they all break the main focus of Cold Wind Devil. It would also be nice to include Cold damage to Eye of the Storm as well. Cold Shaman is well represented by items, but basic stats like Cast Speed are so bad that the feeling is practically unplayable.

It would also be nice to have Maelstrom at 22/12 without reaching for anti-synergetic items. There is Malmouth Arcane Seal, but that is clearly for a Savagery/attack focus, so no cast speed there either. No matter what you try to do, you try to cap Maelstrom for Cold Wind Devil, you end up with 0 cast speed.

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As far as increasing build viability I feel Badge of Mastery should get the same treatment as conduits. Make one crafting pattern for each mastery. Call them badge of x like the conduits. Would go a long way to finding those extra skill points to cap stuff.

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Hello.
Is it possible to change Darkblaze source active Unleash chaos?
Atm it’s absolutely weak skill being part of Damage dealer set it has damage even lower than 1 AA.

Proposal: change into passive with low DPS (builds with this set already have enough dmg) or active like Valdun’s rifle Fragmentive round, with plenty of shots and WD included.

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Our overarching goal remains the same: to increase the variety of viable builds in the 4:30-5:30 Crucible range, SR70-90 in the Shattered Realm.

You have upset all the Cairn bandits :disappointed_relieved:

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Will there be a possibility for some additionnal QoL improvements too ?

I systematically use Merits and start all my new characters directly in ultimate, which leads to the following (minor) issues :

  • not being self-sufficient in material drops for the next character : it’s nearly OK now for ugdenblooms, thanks to the latest drop rate increases, but aether crystals still need to be farmed, another global reduction in the number of said crystals required for crafting would be welcomed
  • warrants are absolutely needed to reach high infamy level with opposing factions in a single playtrough, and farming those can be quite frustrating : would it be possible to increase the drop rate of warrants ?

And, on a completely unrelated topic, could you please change the cold resistance of ice crystals and put it in the same range as the cold resistance of Moosilauke ? In the current state, fighting Moosilauke with a cold melee build is a royal PITA …

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quickly tested cold PRM mh again

out of 3 runs finished only 1 in 5:27, also died at 160 against Fabius/Alex and at 170 against Fabi/Maiden

build feels bad.
made already a feedback thread about it [Feedback] Cold PRM (or PRM itself) could get a bump, it would be super-good if some changes are implemented like full cold conversion on PRM

also Allagast MH: Mage Hunter, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.4) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

I ask for the same still: replace 2-part resist bonuses with sth more useful than resists build has in plenty. I personally suggest giving it %hp and phys res.

also it would be cool to finally see Eastern gloves getting cast speed. this is quite crucial for allagast as you have a low-cd skill, almost-no-cd-Box and filler skill. pressing this rotation with low/medium cs results only in dps losses.

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I hope whatever nerf on phys doesn’t hit retal as collateral damage again, or at least phys retal gets compensation. As it stands now, the only phys retal builds that fall on 430-530 cruci balance range are spam aegis and retal DE. None of those two builds can do SR90 when built for crucible. You’d need to have a specialized build for one of the two modes to do well in one.

For other retals like stoneguard they never ever do well in crucible in the current game patch no matter how much you make it cruci focused and I think stoneguard is the only one other than the first two mentioned to have the capability to be good in high SR.

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Can we expect to get some improvements to the console version other than bug fixes? I think this thread covers most of the things that would greatly improve the experience. There’s also some pretty major slowdowns on Xbox One at times, are there going to be more options to increase the fps?

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Some suggestions for Relic Improvements:
Blademaster’s Talisman & Plunderer’s Talisman: There were a lot of buffs given to dual-wield enabling items like Korvaak’s Brand, but these relics are effectively out in the cold. Nobody considers these options when enabling dual-wielding, especially with how costly it is to give up +skills. I would recommend heavy buffs to both these WPS so that anyone trying to DW weapons (melee or ranged) would at least consider these relics if they want to use their belt / relic for something else.

Necrosis: Can we have a general %All damage buff like we did for Urobrook’s Reaping? The multi-damage RR is excellent for classes that are tight in RR abilities (especially for dual-type damage builds), but limiting the damage type to Vitality hurts it more than it can help. Vitality to X conversion is pretty abundant anyway, so giving it a %all damage would make it a much more viable relic.

Scourge: Scourge is in a weird spot. Limiting it to Cold damage makes it so that it’s often beat out by a Nightblade relic. Having it as a melee nuke makes it an inferior version of Urobrook’s Reaping. Turning it into a WPS would make it directly conflict with items like Blademaster’s Talisman. Lastly, the Cold damage type makes it directly compete with Yugol’s spin-to-win relic. The only thing that could salvage it if it was somehow made into another movement skill so people can combine it with their movement runes for maximum zipping.

Reckoning & Avenger: I would really like for one of these to become a Shield WPS. Shield WPS are really limited to Shattering Smash in Oathkeeper, and there are multiple Shield options that are meant for non-Oathkeeper classes. It would be really nice to see a Shield WPS somewhere, whether it’s a relic or one of those main shield items like Mythical Sanctus Crest. Something that makes it worth it to go Sword & Board.

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Non-set RtA RF performs better than stoneguard in SR pushing, actually, because of maximum all resist. However, non-set RtA RF is extremely bad at speedrun, especially when you meet mage bosses.