Hardcore mode and Shattered Realms!

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
16

Well, SR is optional and you know what the mechanics of it are. The devs know of it and the randomness is intended. They don’t consider it as weak points but as the defining feature of SR.

While that does hinder consistency of builds, without the randomness, atleast in my opinion it would just be another crucible.

That said, personally, I wish that they would replace the Boss chunks with special SR boss maps where SR only bossfights occur, like say the one with Gazer Prime.

I would agree with you on the point that there is a certain amount of luck involved and if the RNG gods are against you, even the best builds will fail.

17

Well, without seeing your builds it’s hard to say why you seem to be having so many problems when others don’t. Use grimtools to upload your characters then post the links here so we can see them and try and figure out what’s going on.

But SR isn’t meant to be safe for HC characters. It never was and never will be. Tweaks to balancing are still being done, but it’s never going to be a case of a HC character surviving no matter what it faces in there. Zantai’s already said that eventually the balance will get so skewed that even trash mobs could kill a character if you go deep enough.

18

You can’t pretend SR to be a safe space for your HC characters up to shard 75. The “mandatory” shard for completing the SR quests and getting the SG set is 55. A decent build should be able to reach that point with little effort. Anything above that yard is under the players’s own discretion. You would get a good point if the game gave you a quest to reach something like 80 shard to get a reward that’s too good to miss (like another skillpoint), but it doesn’t. There must be a point where the player is on his own. No one is forcing you to push that hard in the shards.

19

Valid point. Here you go - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVAgQmwN
I had two of these. One RIPed in SR 25 boss room. What’s wrong with this spec, beside my seemingly terrible piloting skills?

20

This summarizes the problem and further supports my statement:

Now, based on the feedback from the SC players so far, I have to make an important clarification.

There’s a huge difference between a farming spec and a pushing spec. Obvious isn’t it? The farming spec is supposed to be low risk, while the pushing spec is, well, for braving the high level SRs. It gets far more pronounced in HC, as you don’t wanna farm your gear with a build that fails 1 time out of 10, - not going to be efficient at all. Again, - duh… While in SC you can easily speed run 60-65 instead of say 75-76 and even if you die once every 15-20 runs, it doesn’t slow you down too much. See where I’m going? Hardcore would force you to drop lower, but in the current SR design, you either drop all the way to 15-30s on most builds, or simply skip the SRs (one of the best farming choices available) altogether.

So, due to the randomness of huge damage spikes in boss rooms, the HC farming spec is unreasonably low compared to that of SC. Now, as much as I dislike mentioning other games here as a comparison, D3’s GR (Great Rifts) design is optimized to eliminate atrocious damage spikes (some exceptions exist, but even those reflect mobs are easily manageable by every single build). This allows bridging the gap between the farming and pushing GR levels, so that HC players have a decent chance to farm high GR safely and efficiently.

Now, based on my personal experience with SR in HC, as well as some feedback posted here on the forums, there might be a very simple fix for both the SC and HC players. All Zantai has to do is make those boss rooms bigger, so that we can always have the option to engage bosses one by one. Make aggro abuse available for everyone at all times, why not? Those who complain about it, usually post their success videos running around in circles waiting for their DoTs to do the job. Much better?

Anyhow, I’m gonna leave it here for now. Once I have more free time on my hands, will start adding SR vids with all my builds just to provide more evidence for the Devs.

Thank you for the feedback, Guys!

21

That is a crucible focused spec. Obviously it isn’t going to do well in SR.

If a build could do Crucible in 5:40 and also did SR 75+ easily then it will simply get nerfed. Pre-nerf Warlords were exactly like that for example.

22

You forgot the superboss-thing. :wink:

There are some builds which can do both with a few changes. And even they can have a problem in Shards 75/76 if they got a nasty combo of bosses.

23

After getting Grava, Kaisan, Ana and Slathablah in SR 80, I no longer talk about superbosses now…

24

Actually I have a separate spec for SR in that guide. But it’s still not good for SR75, not because it’s Crucible focused (I usually tend to make universal good-for-all specs), it’s because it’s a spam-caster. Some builds are just naturally not good for SR and there is little point in trying to make them work there.

25

I see. But now that you are here, let me borrow your expertise if I may. Since I don’t really know much about builds outside of pets, are there any class combinations (not particular builds) that perform terribly in SR regardless of how you build them? Like, can’t even do SR 65-66?

(I am guessing that Warlock, Defiler and Battlemage might be the ones if any, but curious)

26

Actually Battlemage can farm 75 in some specs because of how tough you can make it. But in general weaker auto-attackers like Reapers or some Spellbreakers, any caster that can kite and do damage and not die while kiting. Definitely Defilers and Elementalists and Pyromancers and Druids - all those classes are going to struggle in most specs.

27

I see, good to know :blush:

28

Now imagine that with all this disparity you are trying to farm SR in HC. Not to push high SR but just to reliably and efficiently farm gear. And that’s my gripe with the current SR design, it’s just not balanced for HC. Like, I can farm SR 45-50 with my retaliation warlord 10 times in a row and then on the 11th get insta-gibbed by a couple of bosses just because the combination of ground effects, mutators and abilities creates significant damage spikes, sufficient to kill a tank outside his ascension/overguard window.

And since you mentioned the Battlemage, would you be able to suggest a specific build for higher SR? I’ve tried making Spellscourge tank but failed. Also made one around Yugol’s blood, converting acid and cold to physical damage, but the damage is not even half of that of the Warlords/Paladins.

29

Well, this is only my opinion, but:
Hardcore Mode isn’t ideal for farming especially not in SR. A good HC build should finish Shard 50 because it marks the end of campaign (in SR) but otherwise farming in HC I would take easier and less deadly spots like SoT.

30

The only Battlemage I would suggest is something like a Warborn Warlord with a Siegebreaker with with all kinds of defenses you can muster. And funnily enough I am guessing the most safe way to farm with it would be with EoR.

That’s why all the top builders dislike Shattered Realm, it’s random, it’s a wall for a lot of builds and class combinations and even with best Shard farmers you are bound to die occassionaly due to randomness.

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31

SoT and BoC become useless once you have acquired 90%+ of the items and are hunting for something very specific. At that point it’s either cruci 150-170 or SR 45+. A typical 45-46 run takes about 10 min and nets me around 8-10 legendaries. I still get occasional blueprints there too.

Yeah, that’s why I wanted to make use of Voracious Reach (Yugol’s relic). If it could get at least 100-150K DPS… It doesn’t work, the relic got nerfed lol. Maybe it’s time to revisit my EoR warlord.

32

I have tested Acid Yugol’s Relic Witch hunter and it’s beyond horrible. EoR Warlord is indeed a godly spec, I wonder how stupid op it is with a shield.

33

Let’s find out. I have this one ready to roll - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVAgQmwN
What Devotion changes would you suggest?

34

All right, here is the build I propose for Hardcore.

I have changed some items too, those boots were pretty awful, imo, it’s better to sacrifice a ring slot rather than a boot slot. Barbaros are a must. Changed gloves to get more trap resistance. Changed devotions to more defensive ones. Not sure if that mana is enough. If not, then one Bloodied Crystal is to be changed for Ectoplasm (and less Cunning/more Physique). Or Arcane Spark instead of Tainted Heart.

35

I’ll give it a wirl. So, no shield in the end?