I dream of a 2H ranged build that would be as efficient as S&B… But as it is, it means introducing massive boosts to all these weapons (save for The Witching Hour…).
Witching Hour isn’t OP anymore
I’ll admit I feel leery about anything that’s supposed to be stationary for even a little time…and kiting. I want to be constantly moving and attacking. Simultaneously. And yes, I realize that cursor technology precludes this. Blame the shmup player in me. (Think Raiden, Strikers 1945, Sky Shark, etc.)
I’m curious whether melee+shield primacy extends to campaign bosses—Loghorrean, Shaper of Flesh, the FG boss. I know they have far more attack routines than “run up” and “strike”. So I’m wondering how many other bosses have attack routines that don’t require melee range.
It does not. Some purifiers (adkong’s comes to mind) just ran up to lokarr and slapped the shit out of him.
Alien Syndrome on the Wii was like a hybrid arpg/twin-stick shooter. It was a hell of a lot of fun. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing on PC was kind of that way too. I’m fine with Grim Dawn’s control scheme, but it would be nice to see more games like those.
Now that I think of it, are bosses immune to being snared?
Meanwhile, I’m definitely in favor of making hybrids more viable. Mostly in memory of my favorite D2 build. Namely a Druid armed with summons, Fissure, Hurricane, and…a bow. Despite the same basal attack I started out pelting Quill Rats with being a mainstay (not that it bothered me; saved energy!). I didn’t progress past Nightmare Act II, true, but that had more to do with my attention flagging elsewhere than any difficulty. I don’t think I’d being an artillerist…well…Druid, or even Vindicator, if the game’s mechanics would kindly become hybrid-friendly.
That said, I do remember that before I got a good number of at least Spirit Wolves, faster goons would still make it to melee range. Now I wonder if having to be in melee range at times is actually a “feature” of the genre, rather than a “bug”.
This was the build that made me realise how shitty my builds were at the time 
Stronghold Purifier is/was(?) on the same level (Lokarr under 20 seconds).
Bosses are CC immune.
I hope you can feel me rolling my eyes at you across the infinite expanse of cyber space
I think the best way to fix this problem is for crate to tone down the incoming physical damage and this would balance out differnt play styles and make ranged/caster/2hander more comparable to S&B witout nerfing S&B.
I believe the high incoming physical damage is the reason why a shield is pretty much mandatory in the highest level of gameplay. In my ranged/caster builds, i try to make them tanky as possible to survive in 80+ shards, but it starts to become very difficult (if not possible) to survive without enough physical damage mitigation.
I’ve tried a lot of different ways to overcome this, but still have yet to find a consistant method. High DA/high physical % resist/high armor/higher sustain/higher absorb all don’t really work. Having a shield with a good block chance/high block recovery rate beats all other forms of damage mitigation.
NO. Definitely not!
Tone down physical damage and the disparity between S&B builds vs. other builds will become greater.
So you are saying other builds mitigate incoming physical damage better than S&B builds? Why would it inrease the disparity?
It would increase the disparity because the threshold S&B builds would need to meet to become ‘invincible’ would be lowered, thereby allowing them to moreso focus on damage.
Really high amounts of armor does work(like 5-6k unbuffed and 7-9k buffed)
But such high amounts of armor are only attainable by retaliation builds without gimping your damage (and other needed stats)to oblivion.
Exactly this. Lower the physical damage dealt by enemies --> Lower the need for armor stacking --> S&B builds become more dps-y.
Then compensate lowering incoming physical damage by raising other types of damage that shields don’t work well versus. Like dots, higher number of smaller magic damage, etc.
Would that work? That way S&B has to build more magic defenses which they aren’t as good at.
Or add 1k armor to Hydra and Oklaine’s lantern)
Shields mitigate all forms of damage. Including DoTs. The only exception to this rule is on-floor effects like kuba’s blood pools.
As for building magic defence, every build is good at building magic defence.
This is why every top tier build has overcaps in their resists.
Or add 1k armor to Hydra and Oklaine’s lantern
This could work. Still though, Melee DW would suffer.
EDIT: You would probably need to add armor to kraken as well.
2nd EDIT: My suggestion is for there to be a total speed &/or OA penalty past a certain armor threshold. It makes sense to me. You’re not going to be able to attack as efficiently if you’re encased in a block of metal
DW are designed to suffer)