[Mod] BenoBalance

Grim Dawn Modding - Projects
1

The more you love something, the more you see the cracks in it.

Download Link

Dropbox Mirror

Hello and welcome to another episode of “Ceno makes small balancing changes to Grim Dawn over time until they grow into a project far bigger than intended!”

Maybe this mod will go the way of Cornucopia, which is to say, it will be abandoned because Zantai will take ~85% of the changes here and put them in the base game. For now, though, this is a mod like many of my others - intending to make small changes here and there that promote endgame diversity without greatly upending overall game balance.

There won’t be new game content or changes to existing game features here. If you’re looking for those, consider my other mods, such as Bounties Unlocked or Grim Armory (which includes Bounties Unlocked).

This mod is open-source and may be merged into any other mods, provided you credit me for its involvement.

v0.2.0 - Mastery Buff Skills

Inspired by agreement with mad_lee’s thread on the mastery self-buff auras like Word of Renewal or Blood of Dreeg, this mod has performed the following changes:

  • The following skills have had their durations increased to 3600 seconds (one hour): Pneumatic Burst, Blood of Dreeg, Word of Renewal, Rallying Cry. Remember to take frequent breaks while gaming and rest your eyes/stretch your legs approximately every hour!
  • Item Skill Modifiers that previously improved the durations of these skills no longer do so. In all such cases, they instead provide +30 Health Regen. This affects the modifiers, not the base items, meaning there is no stat variance here.
  • The following Potion Modifiers have had their durations increased to 3600 seconds: Draculus, Phillom, Terrobullum, Ventorus. TDM Potion Modifiers are unchanged due to their drawbacks potentially being things a player may not want up forever, and the likes of Occulorrum and Primordis are timed as they are for the Secret Quest.

Congrats, @mad_lee, you got me to waste MINUTES of my life on this.

Prior Changelogs:

v0.1.2

Download link above is up-to-date.

Next Target - Idk Man, Something

2 Likes
2

nice, I’ve thought about this at one point too. Glad to see it happen.

3

Removing -RR% from rings is an excellent idea here (except Judicator’s set should keep the 20 RtR).

Hopefully Z just axes them all since so many rings get tossed in the trash and don’t see the light of day. Sad!

4

Sets like Judicators or Invoker’s Elements/Will were not touched.

1 Like
5

Reminds me of a certain gear type that locks down half your equipment slots from level 1 to 100 due to being as good as legendaries.

6

V0.1.2 has been released featuring buffs to the ring procs that were formerly used for Resistance Reduction. These buffs are not intended to make the procs dominant again, rather to grant some options for interesting choices for buildcrafting.

7

V0.2.0 has been released, targeting temporary Mastery Buffs for QoL purposes.

Prior Changelog

Version 0.1.2 - RR Rings

RR Rings have been killed.

  • Curse of Crushed Resolve (Cursebearer Ring) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 50 OA Reduction (stacking)
  • Mark of the Blade (Bladetwiser Signet) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 80 DA Reduction (stacking), increased Piercing and Bleeding Damage by ~33%.
  • Combustion (Combustion Band) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 45 OA and DA Reduction (stacking), increased Fire Damage by ~33%.
  • Mark of the Stone Thane (Mark of the Stone Thane) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 80 DA Reduction (stacking), increased Physical Damage by ~38%.
  • Mark of the Fallen (Signet of the Fallen) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 15% Outgoing Physical Damage Reduction (nonstacking), increased Vitality Damage by ~33%.
  • Merciless End (Band of the Merciless) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 120 DA Reduction (stacking), increased Bleeding Damage by 33%.
  • Eternal Haunt (Band of the Eternal Haunt) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 8% Total Damage Reduction (nonstacking), increased Cold and Aether Damage by 40% and 33% respectively.
  • Hellfury (Hellfury Band) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 100% Reduced Health Regeneration (stacking), increased Fire Damage by 45%.
  • Venom of the Black Matriarch (Ring of the Black Matriarch) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 15% Melee Fumble Chance (nonstacking), increased Poison Damage by 45%.
  • Widow’s Bite (Widow’s Bite) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 180 Defensive Ability Reduction (nonstacking), increase Vitality Decay Damage by 38%.
  • Curse of the Void (Voidheart) - Replaced Resistance Reduction with 15% Outgoing Total Damage Reduction (nonstacking), increased Chaos Damage by 50%.
Explanation

No Ring provides stacking Resistance Reduction anymore (other than Chillsurge/OFF-type Rings). Yes, this makes the rings that did so in the past notably weaker than their peers, because they were balanced around having that resistance reduction. The next update (could be in an hour, could be in a week, whenever I decided to sit and think on it) will address bumping up the affected Rings/their procs to make them competitively appealing in such an environment.

“But Ceno,” you ask, “doesn’t this also result in a buff to enemies?”

I’m glad you asked. Yes, it does, which is why I’ve also reduced enemy resistances across the board (except for Lightning, which had no RR Ring option), in Elite and Ultimate (+Ascendant) and at all playercounts (did you know enemy resists scaled with multiplayer playercount? I didn’t!) by…7.

“Why 7?”

There were three possibilities with building a character in the past. Either you used no RR Rings, you used one RR Ring, or you used two RR Rings. Not all builds/damage types had two RR rings available to use, and even for those that did, there was no guarantee you’d necessarily opt to use both…or, in extreme cases, any. To achieve a balance between these three realities without upending overall gameplay, I chose 7.

Some pre-existing builds will do slightly less damage now. Some won’t change very much. Many alternate options will be created as competitive choices.

That’s the goal.

8

Please make a version with sunder removed and I will download it! :laughing:

9

Woah, didn’t expect that. Might try it out.