How Vire's Might builds feel currently

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
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Sentinel of the Three Sentinel


SR 30 run

Couldn’t really finish the run. Damage against non melee foes is just non existant. Set is really almost unplayable without spam Aegis conduit. Vire’s Might tooltip goes up to 130-150k Acid with 0.8 cooldown which as you can see from the video is nowhere near enough: Volcanic Stride does nothing for retal builds and to reach low cd you have to take non retal items.

Suggestions:

Something has to be done with Vire’s part of Sentinel of the Three set. RtA bonus is nowhere near enough, there are no speeds anywhere on the set or in retal devotions (and Vire requires attack speed). Maybe set needs flat cd to Vire, maybe like three times as bigger RtA bonus, but in its current state it’s just not really playably.

Rotgheist Sentinel


Crucible 150-170 “naked” ex 4:28 run
Ravager of Flesh 1:10 kill

Recent revamp of Nigthbringer weapon opened up quiet a few build possibilities. And Rotgheist Sentinel works really well with it. Now Vire on this set does not hit that strong.
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As you can see, DEE is a real nuke here, while Vire, having 1.5 cd is more of a support, utility, devo proccer. On a plus side Volcanic Stride is not useless here as it gets converted globally by the set/weapons/supporting items. Gameplay is awkard: you need to stack a lot of attack speed for it to feel okay and then hard cap on Vire itself feels like a meh investment given how tame damage is scaling on this skill.

Suggestion

Because Rotgheist is all about dots - add %tdm to Vire’s Might to the set and like +1 second cd to it. That can make it more interesting. Or you can go the opposite direction: add flat cd to the set and more Volcanic Stride points so it can play like Vanquisher.

Overall Vire’s Might support in GD is a bit whack: main Vire’s set Vanquisher lacks speeds, there is no good way to play Physical Vire’s Might (only amulet that helps it has phys to fire conversion) and scaling on the main skill itself is pretty poor. Skill is mostly used as a one point wonder. Maybe this test patch is a good testing ground to revamp this skill a little.

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Vire is one of the hardest skills to build around. Volcanic stride stacking needs both very precise skill cadence and very precise enemy grouping. And the reward is just not there, because the erratic enemy behavior can’t ever guarantee you dmg - they just bounce away from the Stride.

It’s not in the scope of this patch, but i really hope smth about Vire will be reworked in the future. Volcanic Stride IMO should be completely revamped, made into smth completely different. It doesn’t work with the game’s enemy behavior and, as it’s considered a projectile machince gun, it gets you murdered by Mqueen and Valdaran.

Aside from that, the base Vire dmg is still very low for the amount of cdr you can usually get on it. It’s a 28 to 40 skillpoint WD skill that hits much weaker than Blitz, weaker than a lot of WPS and is harder to play.

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“volcanic stride not working” and needing to be totally change has got to be one of the most tunnelvisioned blinded by speed meta takes in recent suggestions.
It’s completely true it carries a mechanical high risk against projectile counters, (so does bwc etc), and i’ll be gross and say, pop a cluster and stop complaining the skill is broken/useless/bad/"whatever exaggerated detractor word"i’m putting in your mouths .

enemies “bouncing” off the trail as a skill interaction/mechanic issue is just too much of a peak timer chasing sentiment of a relatively irrelevant interaction in “real” play.
Stride is fun, it’s entertaining, and it “felt” good, i say felt because apparently its dmg got nerfed, twice? in recent times. And armour bypass fix meant it became entirely useless on phys skater combined.
The trail is “deceptively” wide
image
and will hit groups of enemies “fine” even if they are not outright standing on it
That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be even wider or get area scaling on certain higher/near hardcap ranks

But being an issue in enemy “behavior” i can only fathom to be a remote thing when we’re constantly pushing the lower limits for clear speeds, wanting groups even ever tighter clustered, preferably static too, and the aoe comparison is basically Callidor reach these days.
At a certain point you have to ask if your perception of the game interaction and needs for meta changes isn’t too clouded by numbers vs fun and acceptable.

Downside stride has is Crate not wanting to make modifiers for secondary effects, making it hard/impossible to scale outside ranks and base skill/VM CDR.
Dmg wise it can be fine, effect/“mechanic” wise visavis enemies it’s fine, mayhaps with some unique outlier/exceptional case scenarios ie Valde/MQ

Heck if stride suddenly got RATA SotT might actually feel better over night vs just making it another generic "cut the CD in half"type fix :sweat_smile: - since that will never happen it’s ofc an extra meaningless hypothetical comparison to try and make, but the point is stride itself can/could be a tool to make VM builds better, and not something to just dislike and cut from the game as the VM skill “solution” instead.

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Prefacing a wall of text with how “meta nerds high on speed are at it again” is not the best way to engage with the OP, nor is it contributing to the balance discussion. This post is not much different from usual: you try a few builds with a skill, skill feels bad, you report it.

This game has a serious flaw with enemy pathing that prevents player to control the battle. Devs tried to fix it, it did not work well. It is what it is. Some skills just suffer from this flaw more than the others, and devs try to address that too. Ranged gameplay improved a lot since big reduction to Impaired and Fumble, FoI has improved a lot since the cone expansion and rotate speed increase, etc. etc. Volcanic builds suffer from it a lot and feel frustrating to play in terms of results to effort ratio.

Both me and lee are way past the age of pursuing any sort of agenda for “pushing the limits of clearspeed”. We want to help the devs to make a balanced game where every skill is playable in its unique way and none of them feels like you are handicapping yourself in a loot based game. Portraying us as some naughty scheming kids is insulting.

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this is actually my point, and not Lee’s OP
hence me arrogantly mentioning “real” play, because aint no way “Kuba bouncing” type feedback = fundamentally change/rework/cut Stride has any impact outside that 1% of gameplay and 1% of 1% player’s gameplay/“top gang” :smile:
That’s why the stride remark specifically is, imo, way out of touch and completely unnecessary suggestion, or as the cool kids said in the days of yore “this aint it”

SotT lacking vire dmg i’m not even touching on, because when the set in current day balancing is literally carried by a non-intended item, spam aegis, there’s def some scaling differences there. (how to fix that without also buffing aegis version is ofc another headache)
Whether the good or right solution is flat cdr, i’m not gonna go into besides it sadly being the generic fix that works for most things in the game.
And i even stipulate to why, because part of Vire’s dmg, stride is unscalable so can only be secondarily scaled via CDR to the main skill. When that’s already the case it definitely then also doesn’t help to nerf that dmg x2 because 1 build(Vanq?) was made great with the help of some neat support skills.

Whenever your “solution” is to fundamentally alter a potentially fun and or otherwise working skill, “just cut it and turn it into something else” you should really ask what that overall need is based on.
And i guarantee you, the “not hitting enemies because pathing” is not remotely the mechanical issue of Vire/Stride outside perhaps a dozen or two players, so that makes it a very narrowminded “rushed” jump to conclusion oversimplification fix to be the consideration to make.

When you are not chasing speed, and don’t have a determined mandate for 74 enemies lining up/enemy cointeraction, pathing and ai behavior acting neat and nicely and always controlled, Stride is more than perfectly suitable mechanically, even if it may have some dmg scaling issues.

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Again with the insults. And i’m the “toxic elitist” after that :upside_down_face:

Saying that we propose changes for “a dozen or two player”, after having 5+ years of experience in playing, feedbacking and interacting with devs, is invalidating all our feedback.

Enemy behavior is a fundamental aspect of the game that affects all players (who reach endgame with high density at least) regardless of the skill. It affects everyone, even if not everyone notices it. But experienced players can notice it and report, how it affects the performance of certain skills.

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narrowminded is not an insult or a slur
it’s a statement to a position made by from a not broad scope of the game or players consideration, “narrow”, ie examples of 1% or a dozen or two effects, which is indeed narrow or small consideration based on something as vast as GD, and an entire game existing outside crucible or even the difference of sub 4 sr vs 6min sr
And stride is mechanically more than fine functioning for that 99% aspect, and might just need some modifiers and or dmg considerations to get back to ex fakeuisher levels again

it’s not, it’s a “drink a cold glass of water” reminder and remember these things in GD also exists/not everything is this 1 tiny zone of operations you guys play in, so something that effects you to a huge degree might be relatively irrelevant to everyting else, which then matters which it’s a massive alteration like ex taking Stride as not working and just changing it into something else.

I have a profound deep respect for your guys’ efforts, experience, skill and feedback. But, that doesnt’ mean sometimes clouded suggestions isn’t made, when only living the game 1 specific way/based on only that 1 tiny zone of operations.

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Although my Physical VM Paladin build is a little bit older (made it a few years ago and haven’t updated it since) it still holds up, just did a SR32-33 run and plays just fine :person_shrugging:t4:

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To break this wall of text let’s put some evidence in.

What did i do?

  • I took lee’s build above
  • Removed Vire dmg completely, reduced it to a movskill
  • Took Seal of Blight
  • Did not change anything else in gear, so i don’t even have cast speed maxed for optimal performance
  • Got a build that is 1) faster 2) safer to play 3) feels much better and easier to play

So the 2nd strongest set Vire support in the game gets demolished by a component skill on an unoptimized build. Excuse my narrow mindedness, but i see an issue.

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To be fair your don’t explain much here.
If you do 32-33 in 10 minutes, can we consider it as being fine ?

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Small update: Ravager timer on this mock build is 1:12. So the same as with the skill that should perform the best against a big stationary target that eats all the Volcanics correctly.

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i don’t see how it’s the mechanical issue win/“stride requires a revamp” you think it is :smile:
seems like a plain and simple dmg scaling dealing
“you get the same dmg using 1 less button on a passive vs an active skill with higher attack frequency”
so, you replaced 1 for another, yes, that’s usually how things work?
it doesn’t speak to Stride being mechanically fundamentally broken and requirings changing, it means trading dmg skills does what trading dmg skill does. - aside from then not being solely about stride, it’s then also not changing the addressed part about being a 1% game applciation issue, “because this is still about peak endgame SR” :sweat_smile:

almost like if stride did more dmg/dps and or had modifiers to increase its scaling, it would do even more as the passive dmg right now, making it that more attractive as less buttons.
ie back to the notion of being a scaling issue, and not mechanical unsuitable for the game as a whole

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I didn’t take the time, I’m not a “meta nerd high on speed at it again” :stuck_out_tongue:
But yeah the build is slower than it could be if there was another item that reduces VM cooldown while not converting phys dmg to something else.
But that’s not that much of a concern to me since I don’t really care about meta clear speed.
The thread title suggests it’s about how VM builds currently feel, and this one feels fine imo, it can clear fairly high SR (within the farming range) in a relatively safe manner (gotta be careful around Valdaran though) and is still fun to play despite its relatively slow clear speed compared to other builds.
So yeah if clear speed is the only metric you care about, please disregard my post and put the build on the list of unplayable garbage :wink:

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Look, it was banana’s suggestion to alter the nature of Volcanic Stride. And although I see his point and mostly agree with it, I think you can fix it other ways. So with all due respect, let’s stay on the topic and discuss how Vire’s Might can be helped.

To me it just looks like a meme build with no damage. Any videos of its performance? Because I suspect this kind of build has kind of output that is beyond the scope of this discussion (I said “good way to play Physical Vire’s Might”, no offense to meme powered builds). Like you have 1.7 cd Vire with very little flat from masteries, barely modded and a couple of item proc spells. If anything, your example might just add to my argument.

This example shows it perfectly.

Vire builds are just really awkward to play. And Volcanic Stride does have an absolutely insane hidden punish against Valdaran and Mad Queen. But to me the worst thing about it is that it’s a skill within a skill so tdms won’t work on it.

Again, would be helpful if you post a video of 30-31 clear. On paper it looks not just slow but slow to the point of being completely uncompetitive. Like okay, physical Paladin with Censure that zaps around is “relatively” safe (unless you run into MQ or Valdaran and make a mistake of sliding under them), but you have spent a 2h weapon slot and metric ton of skill points to do something a build based around one component skill can do.

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yes, like i said earlier, it would be swell if Z would start consider modifiers to secondary effects like that, because it would make scaling/changes and bonus addition much simpler while also being entirely target controlled on select sets/items

Without cdr, to vire, i’ve no idea how to scale VM “good”
(and with lots of cdr i personally feel it adds clunk)
ofc easy base scaling can also just be to stride, more dmg, more area at higher ranks. But it still ties it into the overall skill limitations “cdr or no cdr”, if VM items is otherwise proper support “to warrant building around”, and then some will benefit “exponentially” like id’ imagine Vanq boost not being tolerated?

from my personal messing around there are 2 things i don’t want to see
Chance CDR, feels horrible on on VM, flat or fixed % must be the way if so.
Preferably no conjunction with pinpoint target skills, i messed around with RE Vire and Aegis Vire long time ago(i think roman gave me one too?) and aside from “the lulz”, the target operation difference i had to admit was absolutely horrible on QoL feel.
It made any issues with Valde/MQ projectile retaliation etc dwindle by comparison :sweat_smile:

Someone gave me a dot, goredrinker? VM, didn’t like it. I don’t know how to build around VM with dot on the skill itself to make it “proper” where it doesn’t feel dmg waste compared to other cheaper investments. You get WD competition, but not enough vs other really high WD skills, and you get a strangely lowish amount of dot per point on the main node i think it was.
Leading me to think the only 2 ways of building around it was direct flat dmg and or stride, both which dps benefits back round to cdr.

I personally don’t mind slow cd skills nuke, but vire just doesn’t feel like it hits hard enough for that even if it can hit hard with a shield.
And then you sit wondering, why take this skill instead of blitz, or “anything” that might scale overall better for the same 28-40 points.

Mechanically i think stride is fine, as per the OT debate :sweat_smile:, but when the only way to scale it is CDR, it becomes a bit problematic in general variety/availability terms, but then also basing build dmg inclusion.
Outside smacking every single possible VM itemization/build setup down to 1-1.5sec cd, i do think boosting stride scaling/ranks/area etc or simply adding modifiers to Stride itemization can be the solution to wider VM being better.

Based on how decent fakeuisher felt back when meta criteria was a bit more laxed, but also armour bypass made it work really makes me thing there is “simple”/unique scaling potential there, which might then translate/benefit multiple VM setups without being uncontrolable on all.

But i guess it’s about as fundamentally/radically a mechanic change considering secondary modifiers, as it is to “nuke” stride itself :sweat_smile:

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Just double the Volcanic Stride damage and its fun again… We would have fun builds with different color of the stride… I always wanted to try a cold one…

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“problem” is, even tho stride has FX change now, it doesn’t actually carry conversion change unless you get the same global conversion
*technically this is not a complaint for me, because it makes ex levelling VM much easier without having to worry Skybreaker helmet screws your stride dmg :sweat_smile:

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Then the skill is just useless… Needs to be improved.

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I don’t know what “meme” means to you, I’m guessing anything that doesn’t meet your (from my point of view) extremely high standards? In that case the build is not “good” indeed and needs at least lower CD on the weapon and/or other items, and whatever else is needed to make it “good”.

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I have a Sentinel using the Three set and Vire’s Might primary that just hit 100 and just beat Ashes of Malmouth (still have to do Forgotten Gods story) and so my components and augments are still in shambles since I haven’t done any Ugdenbloom farming. SR 30-32 still feels good despite the incomplete gearing - typically hit the bosses with 8:40 left on the timer and clear the bosses with about 6:40 remaining.

Hybrid Retaliation Build: Sentinel, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

I did five runs to get a baseline - the biggest threat to the build is not being able to see nemesis mobs in the middle of the acid explosions. Benn’jahr has pretty high acid resist which is tough and I need more reflect resist because the guardians of Empyrion keep hitting Fabius when the blade barrier is up. Seeker shard went down in two shield cycles. Inarah meteors messed me up because I didn’t know what they did, but the second go around went way better. It’s a bit fragile in case of double pull but Blood of Dreeg keeps the build topped off.

Still need to cap out Vire’s Might which is kind of tough to do on acid gear. Acid doom bolt conduit could be subbed out for a Putrid Necklace for full fire to Acid conversion but I like the turbo acid bolt.

I don’t have the PTR to check out performance compared to 1.2.1.5 and am excited for the reduced energy costs on Occultist and bigger Doom Bolt.

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