So many outdated builds

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

So basically if you want to do any kind of true endgame content like sr,cr or celestials there are only 2 builds that are viable: tanks(usually warlord) or pets(usually conjurer or cabalist).

Anything else is at most times squishy and leans on kiting. The only classes that are usually deathless breeze through sr 75 76 are these 2-3 classes I mentioned and about 70% of the time those are the ones I see online in serious sr runs. And if you’re lucky and get 2 super tanks or pets in team along with anything else that doesn’t die on first impact, you will just destroy sr, which is good ofc, but more variety would be even better.

Casters are kiters unless built specifically to be tank casters, then they are a little more durable kiters lol.

Considering there is not that much new builds being made due to lack of builders, hopefully crate won’t nerf even those few fun and truly strong builds we have like they did to spellbinder.

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While I do agree with you with most of what u said, from what I heard, is that devs wanted to make it so that 75 76 feels deadly not buttery smooth for most.

Yeah… pet builds and retal warlords now somehow managed to break that rule because they seem to survive pretty well on their own. There have been very numerous changes to both of them so that these classes are somewhat on par with others but as you see it’s very hard to do so. :stuck_out_tongue:

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yea no…
you make it sound like you speak from a standpoint of knowledge, which you apparently aren’t :man_shrugging:
have you even seen the build compendium “recently” like even in just the last 5 patches?
you make it sound like “kiting casters” is bad, when it’s “what they do”
by nature most casters can’t really lifesteal, and most/lots of their skills are on cooldown, which means there isn’t much leaning towards them just full on stand ground facetanking 24/7 like they’re an AA blademaster/dervish/oppressor whatever
also might sound like you have a misconception about celestials
but if you go into the the compendium or general build section you will see numerous builds, that aren’t just warlords/cabalists/conjurers that is posted as doing sr 75 (or higher)
pretty sure almost all, if not all, of MadLee’s last goodbye builds had both a meta cruci time, sr75+ clear, and and "+all/[everything]"tag
Ford doing sr 85 and ravager builds etc
Mergos posting “meme” builds that clear everything
…
glad i’m not a forum builder putting in lots of effort for making varied endgame builds, just to get lowkey dissed like this as if ones builds didn’t exist…
:neutral_face:

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I’m not dissing anyone, actually thank goodness we have guys like madlee and fordprefect who are putting out builds and I thank them for it.

However I’m just reporting what I saw for the last 6 months of playing mostly sr with random people. And what I saw was tanks,retal,pets usually doing most of the work. I’m not saying that there is no other class/build that can do deep sr, it can, just not as smooth and easy as already mention ones.

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Say, what?

Let’s see, builds that can go SR75-80 deathless without much sweat…that I’ve personally played (very small sample size)…in the last year (small sample size of a small sample size).

Bleed Conj (no pets in sight), TSS Druid, PB Witch Hunter, Barrelsmith Purifier, Fire AoM Paladin, spam ABB Spellbreaker, Fire Mortar Elementalist, Harra Sorceress, Fire Strike Pyromancer.

Well what do you know, zero pets, zero warlords in sight, not one of them your typical frontline tank.

So what exactly are your criteria? If doing “any kind of true endgame” means walking through SR80+ with half your brain tied behind your back or wiping Celestials out of existence in under 60 seconds then yea, the list is gonna be short and exclusive (but definitely not exclusive to just summoners and Warlords) . But if your criterion is comfortably farming SR75-76 and having some more tense encounters towards 78-ish then I love to break it to you but you can do that with most anything. If you’re building off of what you saw randos play online then…well, they call those builds cookie cutter for a reason.

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Of course, 75,6 need to be deadly, but few can breeze through while many others can’t. Never saw caster or ranged hard carry team like retal,tanks,pets.

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Yes yes, plenty of classes able to run 75 76, most of them not even close to breeze with lets say pet conjurer with 2 buttons or retal warlord with 0 buttons.

I’m not saying they are bad,weak or not fun, just not comparable in terms of power.

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and why do you think people play those?
because they are easy, safe, and “famous”/advertised or recognized as such
one of the most common thing for people that play these types of game or most games in general, is to go look up “what’s the “best” build”; then they copy it 1:1 or as best as possible and just roll with that for the most part
it’s simple, easy, safe and effective, and generally people are “lazy” and want something they know/is guaranteed to work or pay off
it’s sorta like how Forcewave Warlord starter is “loathed” by players that actually played it after a while, but they picked it because was told it was easiest/safe leveling and strong and tanky
then you have a subset of people that divert from that and still stick to meta builds, but go outside the “top 5 starters”
and then you have a smaller subset that play their own thing or whatever they think is fun from other games (fire mage/lightning sorc whatever type stuff)
just because you don’t see it “Much” or even at all in MP doesn’t mean those builds doesn’t exist, aren’t made or extensively tested/prepared; it just means (those) people don’t play it, or potentially that they stick to the playground with safety-rail type stuff

again i invite you to look at the build section, maybe even sub to it so you can see new builds posted and when they posted, or just take a skim/browse back through the last handful of patches and see the numerous builds posted or updated because a patch brought it back to life or made something new endgame viable
variety is definitely something GD doesnt’ lack :sweat_smile:

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But what you’re suggesting is essentially moving the goalpost. Obviously characters that are outliers in power or resilience that perform very comfortably even at SR80+ are gonna munch their way through SR75-76. But that’s not the desired standard GD sets for itself. This isn’t PoE where the intended gameplay is to make entire screens explode with a click.

The only way you “fix” this discrepancy in build power levels is you either
a) crush the cookie cutter builds. Which is gonna be real popular with all those randos you saw online and there totally aren’t gonna be other cookier cutter builds that will take their place. Something will always be the best and the “mainstream” will always flock to the strong/easy/popular thing like Inqui above outlined.
or
b) you shift more and more builds to a place where they feel comfortable in content that’s supposed to be crushingly hard. Which just devalues the hard content (see Diablo 3 as an example of that)

There are plenty of options to play and have fun with in GD. If your ideal standard for this game is for you to indiscriminately breeze through all content with anything you touch, where exactly would the fun come from? IMO, ARPGs are only fun when they’re hard, when they’re a challenge. The moment screens start exploding at the mere sight of you is where the game turns bland. These “outdated builds” as you called them are actually the builds you’re supposed to be playing. The superbuilds like warlords and summoners are the outliers. Shift your perspective.

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My Desolator Purifier did not have any problems in 75-76 in 1.1.9.3, taking bosses 1 by 1 makes it trivial now.
It may be another story after nerfs to Desolator.
Everybody is not happy to hear it, but i insist the only true measurement of build strength is ability to take down Callagadra, Crate and Ravager.
Any damage type can do 75-76 now if assemble properly and with all required items in place so you just enjoy crushing down your foes.

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I can’t disagree with you, I don’t doubt there are monstrous builds that aren’t aforementioned builds and classes, but also at the same time I would guess these builds take way more skill to play effectively which again makes you right about people lazily choosing easiest and strongest. But thats kind of my point, easiest maybe shouldn’t be the strongest(cause piloting warlord and spellbinder isn’t the same) but well, as long as its fun im in.

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So you are basically telling me to recalibrate my way of fun to whats fun to you. For example I find farming fun to certain extent, after that virtual hard work I want to roleplay myself into an unkillable godlike monster of a character that yes, breezes through most if not all content in a game.

I have no problem with some always being stronger than others and being outliers, and I should have reelaborated my op to clarify that I sometimes find it silly that most powerful outliers in terms of power are at the same time easiest to play like pets while more complex caster builds need more skill to play effectively but are at the same time weaker.

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it’s not just about strongest+easiest piloting, there are several strong and simple piloting builds,
auto attackers, melee or gunners,
builds that get their “tankiness” by other means than just a million armour, like spam sigil builds or high lifesteal builds,
stuff with different layers in the Order of Defence system, where you might be lower on the dmg side, but are super “tanky” because you have loads of absorb and damage reduct

“problem” is, aside form people being “lazy” or too casual to bother digging deeper or deep enough to pique their interests, is; pets+retal was downright broken to the max OP, and obviously this spreads around “hey this is the max ez mode build”
that doesn’t mean it’s the “best”, doesn’t mean retal or pet in the current patch 1.1.9 is the same as it was back in 1.1.5, loads of balance changes have happened
are they still strong, sure, are they in the same broken OP state as before, not exactly, are there other equally good safe and simple builds, yes
they just haven’t had the benefit of 2 years of automatic advertisement because it was everything that got passed around whenever someone new started

still these days on the discord you will have new people/beginners joining, and their first question is “what’s the best/strongest/easiest” build; and that’s what they are interested in, no more no less, turn the brain off and auto pilot - and that’s fine
and for that part retal/tank warlords and pets still decently fits the description, and FW warlord or pet conjurer is definitely still among some of the simplest leveling builds
doesn’t mean they are the best, strongest or most enjoyable - and that last one is a factor (imo) many sometimes appear to forget or neglect
i often straight up try to steer them away from endgame retal, suggest maybe they look up a primal strike warder instead to potentially at least have some fun (if they are in to lightning stuff ofc)

imo there isn’t much more boring if you slavish stick to ancient “meta”/word of mouth builds; in a game with so much variety - it’s like playing javazon or lightnign or frozen orb sorc in d2, who wants that these days?
the fact you can make, level and endgame clear Grim Dawn in “meme” builds, allowing you to do silly stuff/have fun how you like, is one of my favourite aspects in the game, you get to play your way, because it’s possible, also even the meme builds that doesnt’ even reach meta status

one of the more recent super enjoyable meta builds i tried was Lee’s version of pierce spam Aegis (my own sucked too much), and it’s simple, safe and strong and so much fun (imo)
^but you can’t level as it, and it’s not something that’s advertised in every breath as retal of old or pet builds, so how many people know it exists?

instead of yelling out to the forum that there isn’t enough variety or “endgame viable” stuff, maybe yell out to those (boring) warlords and pet builds in MP; that there is an ocean of interesting and awesome builds awaiting them on the forum instead - and help spread the existing variety around instead of perpetuating the stereotype builds of 2 years ago :grin:

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Those things kinda go hand in hand though.

If you have a build that is very skill intensive, real piano lesson to play, you’re not gonna see a lot of people online playing them because they either don’t have the reflexes/knowledge/skill to play these builds effectively, or they simply don’t feel like putting that much work into playing a build if playing the game is something they do to relax or they do it for long periods of time (when is the last time you felt like playing a piano build for 5 hours straight and felt happy with your decision after those 5 hours?). Also, if you’re judging from what you saw online, to put that metric to bed, one of the reasons you might not see too many of the funkier builds out there is because many people, if they choose to play coop with random people, don’t want to risk being the weaker one in the party. So you only see them playing their best build. Doesn’t necessarily mean the other builds out there aren’t “good enough”, even if they aren’t necessarily “as good”.

Also, if a build is extremely skill intensive, there is something “wrong” with it. Not the best way to say it but what I mean is…there’s a specific rotation you need to nail for that build to perform. Or there are specific windows you need to hit, keep your eye on the cooldowns for your survivability options etc. In other words, a skill-intensive build generally falls apart if not played right, which means it leaves you with a feeling of fragility or weakness because you have to put in all this work to make it do really busted stuff. Builds like Warlord or summoners do get to have it easy specifically because they’re so powerful. They don’t have to worry if their War Cry isn’t exactly on time or they put some of their pets out of position, they don’t have to sweat 4 different survivability mechanics. They’re naturally strong due to what the mastery combinations offer, so the player doesn’t get to feel these nuances in gameplay as much as they would if the entirety of their success hinged on a few timely button presses.

Edit: to provide a concrete example, though not from GD, one of the most powerful builds in D3 currently from what I hear is Twister Wizard. The build abuses a snapshotting behaviour in the game combined with a specific rotation of cooldowns to set up insane amounts of damage. If you pilot it incorrectly, miss your rotations, screw up the snapshotting trick, the build is close to unplayable. At its best it’s up there among the 10 strongest builds (all of which are easier to play) and at its worst it doesn’t even bear mentioning as a build. Which build is gonna leave you feeling really powerful? The one that makes you sweat every second and every button press or the one that just stacks damage on Hammer of the Ancients and spams it until everything is dead? My money’s on the easy one.

And as an aside, summoners are powerful yes, but they actually do have a lot of those nuances skill-intensive builds have, because if you’re slow on reactions or misjudge a fight you can find yourself very quickly dead the moment the enemy switches aggro from your pets to you. You’re constantly dancing on a razor’s edge cause the moment a nemesis or superboss decides to go for your throat, and you don’t have your shit ready, you f’kn dead. In that aspect Warlords and their kin (supertanks) are kinda in a league of their own.

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15

To be honest, I don’t really understand why this SR/Crucible metric exists in the first place. I mean, I know it’s used for balancing and such, but… why care if build X can do SR95 in the hands of player Y with Z gear? Far as SR is concerned, it’s practically endless, so sooner or later any build will hit THEIR wall that they can’t get past. For some it may be SR40, for some it will be SR150, so if they buff the former, it might also buff the SR150 one as well because they might be using same item(s), etc. And vice versa. Balancing all possible builds in existence is one hell of a mess, so why bother? The game is pretty much polished at this point, unlike, say, Torchlight 2 where some stuff is broken OP and other stuff is meaningless.

Anyway, just as an example, I was playing some Ludrigan Vindicator over 2 years ago. It was so fucking squishy, SR35 was my limit, I shit you not. But that was in MY hands, with MY gear and MY skill/devotion points allocation. Maybe another player could reach SR80 no problem just with better piloting alone, or with some of their adjustments.

Either way, that’s the whole point of such games, is it not? You kill stuff, get better gear, make your character stronger, get better enemy knowledge and thus progress further (or improve clear times if talking about Crucible). One day you’ll inevitably reach a limit of your character’s power and hit a brick wall. That seems like the whole point to me? In the end of the day, all that matters is if you’re enjoying yourself playing said build and beating monsters to death with whatever means necessary.

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Yeah for sure, like 1 build and that alone was broken as heck. xD

you all make good points yes, can’t deny that… but gotta small niche of a feeling this OP title should have had called different, something like… “why do people play warlords N conjuers in MP all the time in shatered realm 100 or a bit higher?”.

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“why do people play warlords N conjuers in MP all the time in shatered realm 100 or a bit higher?”

You are kind of right, I didn’t mean specifically warlords and conjurers, more like a playstyle - tanks are more effective than squishy ones, even in damage output. I’ve seen plenty of death knights,some warders and paladins etc that were beasts,some even on par with warlord. Even saw one reaper build, class that is squishy by nature that somehow had 4k armor and both OA and DA a little over 3k. Didn’t die once during several runs. Of course these stats aren’t the only factor however I was slandered once for having a melee char with DA less than 2500.

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Is retal warlord even decent at this point? I can’t imagine it’s clearing at anything like current potential speeds from tons of crap last above, or posted in the builds section, which can also be done plenty safely.

Sounds like OP lives in some weird open MP server bubble where people play outdated cookie cutters (although pets are still great at SR afaik)

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Nu, in MP pvp they destroy everything by just standing but that is broken af too so, I guess we shouldn’t talk about it at all. Some hungry pet might eat it, dunno.

skip to like 24:40 u will see how impressive those meaty maggots are against de retal warlord, I don’t really think any other build except maybe pets could do it, but highly doubt it. This took me a simple 4 word google search.

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Sure retal maybe not that good anymore, some other people say otherwise, but it sounds like you don’t play mp at all.