OP things_

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
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This will be an aggregator topic for overperforming things in the endgame, whether it’s a piece of gear, a mod, a set, a skill, an interaction - on the player side, - or on the enemy side - abilities, spawns, scaling, etc. Will also include underperforming (UP) section, but for smth obvious to keep the topic tight.

It will be based mostly on SR30+, Crucible 181-200 and Ascendant Mode challenges/target farm. It will be structured loosely at the start but I’ll try to have some order as we go. Will add new things and scrape the old if they are irrelevant.

The new expansion eradicated the previous game’s balance and vastly increased the scope of the game, so we need as much data as possible. If you want to submit an OP thing, try to support it with clear evidence, same for UP things, or when contending an entry point.

The topic will be, of course, heavily affected by personal opinion and experience of myself and my fellow toxic swamp members, including but not limited to @afanasenkov26 @grey-maybe @mad_lee @nofika4u @romanN1 @x1x1x1x2 . You will have to agree or disagree and get mad, everyone is welcome.

OP THINGS

  • Form of the Beast.
    Provides a ridiculous bonus. This bonus alone makes a lot of non-AA builds pointless without wearing a furry suit. Even if your build focuses on the dmg type or is built around a set that is not supported by Berserker, you often end up breakeven or better off taking Berserker for Form of the Beast alone.
    Chillwhisper Veilwalker is on par on dmg and better on tank compared to Reaper, despite on paper having half of the build cut off.

Tbh I really don’t like that beastform can use any abilities, it doesn’t look right when a mighty wolf starts spitting out grenades or spinning around in a T-pose with EoR. I think beatsform should focus on the beast abilities, and Form of the Beast should only buff them, not act as a cheatcode that makes humans inferior to furries.

  • Zakull’s set has completed a full circle.
    We had a dedicated cold SS set, Morgo, produce the fastest build in the fame at the beginning of FG, and now Zakull has made the same in FoA. The set gives full SS conversion, charges, 5(!) onslaught stacks for free, doesn’t occupy the weapon slots to allow you to get your cdr. The result is obvious - by far the fastest build in the game is Zakull’s Reaver or Spellbreaker (no TSS involved).
  • WD multipliers stacking for AA builds.
    When I forst looked at all the %chance for WPS among the ascended mods, I thought that’s just absurdly OP. But having it marinated a bit, changed my mind. I don’t think that allowing the player to stack up to 100% of one WPS itself is OP, and multiple build I’ve done already prove it. What is in fact OP is stacking high chances together with very high WD% multipliers. When you have a 200% WD attack and manage to stack your WPS for average of 300% WD on DW build, you effectively get 1200% WD each autoattack. The best showcase for it I probably have so far is Jarldin Archon that sports 155% WD * 1.15 * 1.18 * (290% * 2) = 1220% WD worth of solo output spam, making a competitor Avenger Archon obsolete.

Side note. Now I really don’t want to see %chance for WPS in ascended modes nerfed. They seem like overall in a good spot providing a very good bonus for a very high price. But a lot of %WD bonuses from the mods and from the new equipment do need to be trimmed down. What needs to happen is the review of the ascended modes lineup overall. There are some comically low bonuses, like there’s a 8% bonus to Cadence on the magic armor pieces that you would not even want on a Cadence build. What kind of a jest is that?

  • Ixall’s null in Crucible.
    Basically ruins the new 20-wave. It’s just not fun. There’s no clear telegraph, the model is small, the boss is fast, has two phases both of which have null, and if you magically dodged the null in all that 200th wave mess, be ready for Valdaran to teleport you back into it. And if you have a very high dmg build and try to focus Ixall from the wave start, the 200th wave can spawn two of them. There’s just no justification loot-wise in playing the mode compared to Ascendant with anything but 10-20 builds, when this Ixall’s null is in it.

These are just some obvious things for starters, more to come later, including UP section.

14 Likes
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I think I said that long ago but I don’t like wereforms being just tdm skins for berserker builds. they don’t alter gameplay much, you can skip 1 of 2 their skills and then just ride on that free tdm and w/e you get alongside with it.
there should be another incentive to play as a furry, not only free damage.

by far the worst nemesis. null is fast, often point-blank, in 2nd phase it’s a null barrage (gl dealing with 2 of those). not mentioning other annoying nems as well.

other than that, I played mostly mid or weak builds that deserve a buff. especially compared to all those zerkers.

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Full set bonus

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I thought werewolf being able to use eor was a bug cos of the t pose spinning :sweat_smile:
And fully agree on FotB. It shouldn’t be a blanket buff to every build in a fursuit, it’s not even an exclusive skill

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bruh, that’s fn nuts :sweat_smile:

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I think Valdaran needs a bigger mention than what’s already said. Idk if that’s just me being bad at piloting but right now it doesn’t matter if you got double ixall, Valdaran has to be your first kill in wave 200 EX, precisely because of the swap. Probably the only exceptions are 1. pure ss zakull, which can just zip onto the closest boss and burst them 1 by 1, though with that much mobility it’s still safer to go for valdaran. And 2. Cindeborn (archon) who doesn’t really give a fuck what’s coming and can just sit mid the entire run (exaggerating but probably not).

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Sorry if this is a very basic question, but I’m not following this.

Where does the 118% come from ? (is it meant to be the 1.08 from the charges multiplier?) and why is the 290% multiplied by 2 ?

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Expecting Zantai set to be nerfed, cute.

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charge scaling and might of bear tdm

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OK, so the 1.18 is might of the bear (which I totally forgot about)
So… where are the charges then ?
(And that “x2” in the end?)

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1.15 is the charges, GT might have been changed and lost a savagery item then i guess
formula is the same, the value is just slightly smaller if it doesnt’ have the last charge level

upheaval x2, same as avalanche and smash wps effects - or just regular wps if you dual wield ofc
*the way those wps works are sorta like a secondary effect ala explosive strike, you strike target for full dmg, and X effect happens (explosion/wave) that strikes the target again. Only main target gets hit twice tho (“trigger” hit and effect hit)

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Still, won my funniest comment of the week award.

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looks inside - is a Veilkeeper

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*veilwaker

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*Veilwalker

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whale talker

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Literally the entire selling point of Dreadnought. What else would you even play on it.

Agree on FotB - it’s just lame that every single non-AA class is incentivized to go furry.

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fixed, thanks

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Underpowered - Skill - Blade Barrier: I played a retaliation witch hunter with the new Briarthorn Shield, and the skill mechanic itself needs a rework because after adding sunder to the game, standing still without any action for 3 seconds is dangerous; by the end of the skill’s duration, debuffing and damaging pools are stacked under the player, and if a boss hit with sunder during blade barrier, sundered effect is active at the moment the invulnerability ends. Seems that entering the invulnerability animation depends on cast speed, which sometimes forces you to take damage because the character takes damage before the invulnerability starts. What could be improved — remove the cast animation (as was done with soldier’s war cry) and upon the skill ending, grant some kind of effect (area damage reduction, player absorption shield). Also, it wouldn’t be bad to add a unique effect to this skill, like reflection or partial reflection of sunder to the enemy, because at the moment, blade barrier is an inferior version of mirror of ereoctes.

Overpowered - Potion Modifier - Expulsimum: This modifier offers 30% Reduced target’s damage for 4 seconds over a 9-meter area (more DR than 12/12 Soldier’s War Cry). I dont know what exactly can be changed but now it seems like an obvious choice compared to alternatives. Overall I don’t like this type of power creep (requiring more buttons pressed), but in current patches it seems more prevalent. Would be great if more modifiers were added which act like circuit breakers (for example activating below 70 percent health) and reduce the effect power as a tradeoff.

Overpowered - Item - Ascendant’s Portent: +1 to all Skills is already great, but adding +4% Max All Resistances and Nullification mechanic makes it kinda too good. Lowering All Max Res to 3% will probably help.

QoL Changes Needed - Skill - Thermite Mines: This skill is mechanically awful to use and desperately needs a quality-of-life overhaul. I mean the real problem is that this is a skill elemental builds are forced to use because of -%rr, its not like it is Blade Barrier where a large part of the community just skips the skill beacuse of its drawbacks.

2 Likes
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+1.

UP nomination:
some retal shields lacking phys res. Damn there seem to be phys res% here and there on a lots of shield and 2H weapon and even offhands, but there remains some old/new retal shields without even a cent of it. Zolhan’s Revenge and the Final Stop has 0. Turrion’s Reprisal has 0. Sentinel set has 14 but chest armor has 0 (when generally heavy chest armor has 5) so in fact the shield has 9. Bloodbound Guardian has 0. Spectral War Shield has 0.
Lacking phys retal generally exists in a lot of physical retal builds, if they don’t use Colossal Fortress. When enemies’ damage has increased badly, these builds also need some more tankiness. Now stacking DA is much easier than before for non-retal builds but for retal builds it’s still not easy and not wise. I think we could have 14 on Zolhan’s Revenge and the Final Stop, 8 on Turrion’s Reprisal, 8 on Bloodbound Guardian and Spectral War Shield as much as Colossal Fortress.
Devs did remember to give the new Dauntless 14 though… :thinking: