The point of the thread is to showcase the relative amount of solo target dmg drop in affected WPS, Ravager timer itself is irrelevant, it’s just a resistant target with consistent health that hits back.
I don’t care if I wake up tomorrow and see that Ravager has 100m health instead of 32m. Why can’t people operate in relatives and percentages, I’ll never know.
Avalanche was overperforming for DW because of 4 hits. That’s it. SS was already a mid skill.
We spoke about direct heavy damage nerf to all builds in melee ( builds that used affected WPS) and items pre FoA , if you are not sure what’s this thread about do some research ,because this is not the right approach,nerf will kill a lot of Btier builds together with OP ones
Bah, you call that slow? It’s still sub 5 minutes 
And with terrible FoA shards with low enemy densities and some rather slow boss rooms. So it’s performance is frankly perfectly good enough. I just think you’re too used to uber fast builds.
Now could Upheaval use less of a nerf? Sure and yes the difference shown here does point that the nerf went a bit overboard because this should be more of a 4:30 average build. Though I’d have replaced the Blastsheild duration affixes for more OA, since OA over 4K leads to more crits and while points could be moved into Flashbang for 210 DA shred, the loss in damage/survivability might not be worth it compared to more OA.
Anyhow, guess I need to look at my old Upheaval builds, though they are yet to run the FoA campaign to the point they can ascend items and shift the affixes, because I’ve been busy with everything else…
So my argument is invalid because I can run the gamemode fast? Won’t be the first.
Every uber fast build is nerfed, and a lot of them I report myself. Uber fast is 3:00-3:10 average in 30-31. The gap in dmg between those builds and this one can’t be put into words.
Ok, so I tested a “regular” build, as in an honest to god old and trusty phys SnB Warlod, with the new tech of WPS chances and a new awakened shield. This is not a random build, but an optimised and expensive toon with good items and BiS or near BiS affixes. Here’s performance:
For context. I’ve made over 100 builds since FoA launch, including AoE casters and wacky concepts, and can’t remember a single one with over 1 min of Ravager timer. Should all of them be nerfed? And this is a build catered towards fighting a solo enemy.
SR performance is abysmal for a build with 3 teleports and charges to Blitz. Similarly profiled builds were clearing 30-31 before FoA in 4 mins average.
I could make a similar build with Upheaval but can’t afford spending more time on this for now.
Keep in mind this is banana. His 3min SR builds I run 4:30. His 3:32 naked CR200 zakull before the patch I ran around 4:15. You can only compare timers between your own SR/CR runs or you get into skill level comparisons. 4:50 SR for banana is very slow.
Ravager is a different (even compared to other superbosses) cause all you do is sit and press your skills. You can even build it to tank the energy drain so there’s even less skill expression.
Guys i think you are missing some points.First the nerfed WPS are with rather big AOE damage.I dont think you can compare for example Smite with Shattering smash(which gives you btw huge source of RR) . So even tough i dont like nerfs i think there were some WPS’s far superior to others.Why noone is building WPS builds around Feral Hunger but everyone is going for Upheaval?You want single target damage you take Smite.You want more aoe and utility you add Shattering smash.Ofc you can go for single WPS with the % chance from items and Ascended affixes but you cant have all you want in one skill.
… these wps hit the main target twice, they have more ST dmg from that, and that’s the part that is now mega reduced compared to before
And ST/main target dmg matters in this game… - limp dmg “but with aoe” doesn’t matter as much, that’s exactly why you don’t see anyone ever cry feral hunger/1h zolhan busted either… Heck shears and whirling has aoe and hits the target twice too for full dmg, and they’ve never been claimed busted for it either, yet somehow it’s now detrimental to a singular wps that’s functioned that way for 7½ years and always had its full dmg numbers based off that interaction and every past changelog nerf/buff feedback stemming from that…
And it matters especially compared to dw wps, because these 2 wps is the only moderate wps interaction for non dw that gives you a slight comparable dmg to what every dw wps does - and this nerf then happened because Avalanche specifically was only a problem for dw on top, Smash was never a problem in the history of the game and had always had these numbers for it and was never considered in the same state as dw Avalanche, but just regular… - just like every other dual hit wps (smite w shield, shears/zolhan/whirling/bursting round dw etc)
Honestly, this is will be a controversial opinion, but yes. This game definitely need some huge balance pass after FoA because power-creep went too far into player direction.
Sir lets also keep in mind all those tests are done with Min-Maxed setups - which would take 50-80 hours at the min to farm and assemble.
Those are Peak performances both from Gear side but also player/pilot side.
When doing such massive swing the pendulum tweaks, please consider the wider community and player impact.
Not many actually would come close to getting a build to “Peak” condition in the first place.
It would also probably help for more targeted feedback if you could share at some point what is your vision of “the standard” for a build?
Just you dont know it. We have tested some Feral Hunger builds and found it even better than Upheaval ones.
What is the expected single target %WD for a WPS anyway (after summing up all the number of hits)?
This. If we’re talking aoe, the nerfed wps aren’t really that much better. Smash and Avalanche do have better coverage but it’s not like the damage is that great on aoe, considering the double hit property only applied on single target. Upheaval aoe is basically the same as feral. And feral has better weapon damage at base (and maybe with mods too but didn’t look too much at it) while also having better animations.
Consider this basic aa setup, which is what is baseline for wps point distribution if we didn’t have increased wps chances: Reaver, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
It’s 635% for DW onslaught reaver (pre-nerf everything). It means before the patch it’s gonna be higher for real builds considering you have skill mods and such. And even higher for builds getting 100% wps. In this test patch it should be a lot lower but it’s harder to calc when I don’t have pc access.
Also for 2h it’s lower cause no double hit.
Game balancing should be done on a clean, bug-free game. The
“leave-double-hitting WPS bugged” is sunk cost/scotch tape approach to me. We are still in playtest.
Also, it is kinda unfortunate that most WPS discussions have devolved into WD and multipliers; it seems that WPS utility serves no purpose for these types of discussions.
It would be very helpful for the sake of discussion, to provide feedback on a plethora of “wacky casters” vs WPS performance. I browse the usual YouTube channels, and 9/10 (non-pet) powerful builds are AAers/WPS. The few casters were based on Onslaught, which was also nerfed by a big amount
what “utility” does wps serve in your pov?
as far as i see their entire existence is to be multiplier one way or another, and since flat scales like ass generally(unless crazy high, eg ascension affix change briefly) WD is just a natural part of that discussion, as it acts on the DAR too (and flat doesn’t).
If you want to compare it to something else/“caster” related, compare it to the utility of skill modifiers, which are also in someway just dmg bonus utility in various ways(generic bonus dmg/crit, multi target/aoe or frequency increase/spam).
Sorry, can you ELI5 for me how you got to 635%?
It’s basically summing the WD% of each WPS x number of hits, then taking the average and multiplying it with onslaught WD% right?
A WPS that provides 45 physical reductions boosts all physical attacks and spells. I would call that a utility.
The comparison part was directed to OP, who suggested sharing caster builds performing similarly/better to SS.
P.S. The above were general observations. My point was that debug, then rebalance is the correct pathway. How much? I haven’t played enough to make suggestion.
The previous reply omitted some details. Feral Hunger is the best SnB WPS (not 2h), even better than Smite, and Far beyond all others. Its aoe damage is higher than single target damage of Shattering Smash. As for 2h, Upheaval is benefiting from another bug, making it unparalleled aoe.
Avalanche, I don’t know if there are any other bugs here, but it is the best Shield and Gun WPS. Its aoe damage is even higher than the total damage of 8 Storm Spread bullets.
the main aspect of smash is still dmg
You’re not taking smash for RR unless you’re also using it for DAR and wps and physical dmg; as it doesn’t apply to any other smash build.
So it having RR only lets you skip a devo that you just normally otherwise include, while still only applying to physical (the RR doesn’t get converted with mods) - so now that you’ve “lost” that utility, what does that do for the rest of the skill or rather the core of it, now its base MT interaction is halved on chaos/vit/acid/fire smash?
(likewise it always had that RR In this episode of WPS saga: "fixing" stuff takes a very weird turn - #8 by Huesitos, meanwhile again still never considered busted in the last 7 years despite dual dmg + RR for phys, so there is no “utility” change there either, just dmg/multiplier detraction, for everything including non phys)