Just a little rambling question before I eff back off into the void for another year…
I’m trying a great Jajaja Warder build, which will have an absolutely obscene amount of HP. The question I have is because of this build, but is more of a general gameplay build.
Some builds wind up with a monster load of HP and DA
There are some good procs that land 100% on crits.
Do I absolutely need to sock all attribute points into Physique? What are the advantages/disadvantages of socking 10 or even 20 points into Cunning? With +%OA gear, doesn’t this add up to a decent chance to land a crit? My definition of decent would be 1-2% improvement. I think that’s significant, esp in crucible.
You do not have to put all points into Physique. It’s just more common, as most builds need more HP and DA. Cunning gives more OA and physical damage (includes pierce, trauma, bleed). Spirit gives energy, energy regen and magical damage.
What’s the specific over/under on those 10 or 20 pts? How much HP can I lose? DA? What’s the return on those 10-20 pts in Cunning?
Most builds I see shunt it all into phys for end-game heavy gear with stacks of resist and whatnot on it. I would think that with some chars (Warder, Blademaster, Witchblade), Phys would get high enough to equip all that gear just through the masteries. Not so?
Overall, Cunning seems to be an underused attribute. If end-game strategy is only about having HP/DA stacked as high as possible, doesn’t that seem a little one-note?
There are good builds which put all points into cunning. It is a case by case situation. If you need OA, and have plenty of HP and DA, then put points into cunning. But most builds need more DA and HP. How much you get varies a lot based on your +HP%. I’ve seen it only add 1500 HP, and on others more like 2500.
Out of curiosity (and apologies for typos, wrists hurt today), which builds fall that way? I can only think of 1 blademaster build I’ve seen with high cunning spend.
dedicated casters seem to be a dying breed, for better or worse, and most of those I’ve seen with minimal spends in Spirit and none in Cunn.
other ARPGs have used ‘spirit’ analogs as the source for ablation. E.g., if Maiven’s efficacy was linked to a Spirit stat, it would make you tankier (as such).
Here is a build I’ve been working on. I believe I spent about 20 points into cunning because as you can see, I have a lot of Hp and DA, but my OA was weak. (It may have been up close to 40 points worth). Grimtools
I appears to have 28 points into cunning, but I might put in 2-3 more to hit 2800 OA. That number just looks better to me.
If your build deals “corporeal” damage types (Physical/trauma, pierce, bleed), you can put some points into cunning, trading defence for offence at good ratio.
But if you deal “magic” damage types (all others), then it’s “physique or GTFO”.
“Magic user, eh? The last thing yer gonna want is to hit the books. Better off hitting the gym so Skroughtum the Unclean can’t one-shot you like a balloon full of nitrous”
Blame crate for making Spirit stat too weak and completely not worth any point investments (beside gear requirements, of course), even for builds that make good use of energy regen and magic damage.
Cunning is OK, for builds that use corresponding damage types, it’s a good offensive alternative to physique.
Unfortunately, the Physique meta will not change any time soon. I suspect Crate has to rework the stat system from the ground up to make this possible.
What would that look like, in an ideal game? I was awfully fond of how forgiving and flexible Titan Quest was with the stat allocations. Sometimes too forgiving, in that you could often get away with not spending the attribute points at all.
Well, first of all, we have to understand, that AoM and Crucible content are literally pushing people to invest in Physique more, than any other stat. The benefits it provides are extremely crucial - Health, Regen, DA. All excellent defensive build components. So if the game would be more balanced, perhaps people would consider something else.
Next, Cunning is oddly specific. I’ve seen very few builds using it, for OA and pure damage. Naturally, builds like BM are using it the most. They kill stuff, before stuff kills you - a simple, but effective philosophy. Unfortunately, outside of this, mixed builds, or those, which specialize in another thing, are basically non-existent, since Physique is, again, provides much better survivability.
Spirit is downright garbage. It has very diminishing returns. It would be logical for Casters to use it, but nope. The content is brutal and thus, they need Physique. They pump damage and mana from other sources.
As for ideal game, I honestly don’t know. Perhaps they have to change the entire game balance based on the fact that DA is often more important then OA.
So, it is a ‘false choice’, as only one of the choices consistently rewards character development.
Below is idle rambling and in no way reflects an opinion that Crate should make these changes. I’m just rambling about design. The Physique dump is a small critique in an otherwise A game. (that’s probably why little idiosyncrasies stand out, non?)
It sounds like the solution would be to give the other stats more influence on defenses. I’m not an expert on the mechanics of GD, by any means. But lets try a little abstract thought experiment:
Tie DA to both Physique and Cunning
Tie cunning to a % chance to dodge
Tie Spirit to Resist % per non-physical source
This ignores class skills. Ideally, I would think that damage mitigation/ablation skills would also be tied to the stats, e.g. ‘Blast Shield’ might become more effective with higher levels of Spirit.
Would you agree that Cunning loses some priority because (high damage) crits aren’t valuable? The whole thing that lead me down this rabbit hole of thought is wondering about the value of cunning when you have skills that proc 100% on crit. (therefore, why not put 20 points in cunning for a Warder so that lightning explosion thingy goes off more often).
I don’t think it is likely that attributes will change from this point on. It would be a huge amount of work to implement an attribute system that favours every stat equally at this point for GD. Something like stat gain from cunning and spirit being multiplicative instead of anddditive for example. Doing this would not only require going through every skill and rebalancing them but also every item, monster and the devotion system too. In a nutshell, everything would have to be looked at and redone.
As much as I would like to see this happen, so physique isn’t the best stat for 90% of builds, I think we would have to wait until Grim Dawn 2 comes out (if at all but hopefully). This would give crate the chance to look through everything from the bottom up and with a new game engine. I think part of the reason why the attribute system is the way it is, is because of what Crate inherited from Titan’s Quest and limitations with the game engine. I could be completely wrong on this point though.
Oh, I agree. Crate shouldn’t/won’t/can’t change attribute meta at this point. Sorry if I was unclear about that above.
This conversation is more an abstract thought experiment to talk about what has been ‘good design’ that we’ve seen from other games, or what kinds of changes would make a game ‘feel’ a bit less rigid.
All they’d have to do to change it, is to make cunning and spirit’s damage boosts non trivial. That’s basically how it was with Titan Quest. Your damage stat added a lot of damage.
I agree that the damage from C & S (esp Spirit) should probably be less trivial. Tho other half of what I’m seeing though is that Phys is the only stat improving defense, and defense is key for endgame.