These days I was interested in RATA Blitz and I searched it in the forum. I saw someone complaining that RATA Blitz being horrible to play. Thus I tried it myself and come up with some ideas.
First of all, Mythical Crest of Winter Fortitude is the only thing that gives RATA to Blitz, so with no doubt it’s the core item.
There is 4 types of retal damage that is officially supported - physical, fire, lighting, and acid. I tested physical, fire, and acid. Dawnseeker will occupy amulet and shiled, so it’s hard to reduce the CD of Blitz. Dawnguard only occupies helm but there is no lighting retal affixes for Warden’s Fortress. Thus I didn’t conduct a test on lighting RATA Blitz. Let alone Cold retal which is hardly supported.
In theory, RATA Blitz deals 50% x 2 RATA per hit, so if its CD can be reduced to less than 2s, it will be a middle to lower level RATA core - not too strong, but still useful.
The first one I tested was fire RATA Blitz:
GT link: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVAx8L72
Video: https://youtu.be/EzAXqkq4c3Q
6:05 SR 75-76
Its damage is quite low because RATA Blitz is not a strong retal core skill but fire retal has the characteristic of low sheet retaliation and high RATA%. In fact I’ve used acid2fire conversion to put on as much sheet fire retal damage as possible. The result tells me that RATA Blitz only fits high sheet retal damage types - physical and acid.
Then the second one I tested was acid RATA Blitz:
GT link: Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.0.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Video: https://youtu.be/silycN495WY
4:28 SR 75-76
The Sentinel set give very high RATA to Vire’s Might, so this one is a triple-RATA-charging build. Though Warlord is not good at acid RR, with very high sheet acid retal damage the build has not-bad damage output. Only those bosses with very high acid resist are hard to handle.
The third one I tested was physical RATA Blitz:
GT link: Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.0.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Video: https://youtu.be/qZerOto19TQ
6:21 SR 75-76
Since there is a phys2cold conversion to Blitz on the medal, the only way to play physical RATA Blitz is to use ele2phys conversion. However, here comes the problem - physical retal damage converted from other types is reduced by armor, and so is its RATA. Therefore, conversion based physical retal is much weaker than what it looks like. Though this physical RATA Blitz has over 200k sheet physical retal damage, it’s just so-so against melee enemies and horrible against ranged ones. With much much higher sheet retal damage and more RR support, this physical RATA Blitz still does not have a better performance than the weak fire one.
This is why I said it’s awkward - it was intended to be a cold RATA choice, but it turns out only suitable for acid retal.
And here is my idea: remove the phys2cold conversion on Mythical Crest of Winter Fortitude, and added some % Cold retal damage modifier to Blitz to it. In this way, the medal can be a none-damge-type-limiting RATA blitz core item and also helps cold RATA Blitz. (The cold RATA Blitz can only be constructed with global fire2cold conversion, which is very easy with Mythical Chains of Nightfire and Chillheart )
As the verification of my thoughts, I loaded a mod which reduced the phys2cold conversion to 1% (Sorry, but I’m not a good modder. This is all I can do.) and did some extra test.
The first is non-conversion-based physical RATA Blitz:
GT Link: Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.0.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Video: https://youtu.be/Kus1U-AHsBY
5:44 SR 75-76
Though the sheet phsical retal is lower than the ele2phys one, since these “original” physical retal damage is not reduced by armor, the real performance is better. It’s neigher too good nor too bad now.
Some of you may have a question: will this medal help to push Physical RATA RF to a higher level where it should not be on? To answer this question, I also did some test:
Physical RATA RF Warlord 5:15 SR 75-76 (no mod)
Video: https://youtu.be/mv-fT3jO6kM
GT Link: Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.0.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Physical RATA RF Warlord 5:22 SR 75-76 with moded RATA Blitz (phys2cold conversion reduced to 1%)
Video: https://youtu.be/7OAGr4LULDg
GT Link: Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.0.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
The damage diference is very small. The one with the RATA Blitz medal (no phys2cold) is a little better against ranged enemies but a little worse against melee enemies because of lower sheet retal damage. Overall they are almost the same.
Another consideration is: will this affect non-RATA cold Blitz? I searched in the forum and as far as I know, no one used this medal for cold blitz conversion. They were using Mythical Herald of Amatok and Alkamos’ Scythe. I guess it’s because Crest of Winter Fortitude offers too few properties aside from retal and skill modifiers, so I think it’s okay to make it a none-damge-type-limiting RATA blitz core item.
Thanks for reading.