Some thoughts abount Bloodbound, enemy variety and aetherial nemeses

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
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Edit: turns out, there is indeed only 1 Bloodbound nemesis. I thought Shriek was one of theirs. Fraud faction isn’t beating the allegations with this one.

TLDR: Bloodbound are a massive disappointment and barely a faction. Yet they get to have 2 nemeses while aetherials don’t.

I expected them to be what Vanguard was to Aetherials, and I ended up disappointed. Let’s examine some previous DLC enemy factions.

Aetherial vanguard. Has almost zero overlap with base Aetherials faction (except some early obelisks and a few errant cows). It has the following unit selection:

Imps
Elemental fodder guys
The not-reanimators
Fat guys
Wurms
Fucking myrmidons
Those immobile beacon things
Behemoths and titans (while they behave mostly the same, models are sufficiently different)

That’s a faction, allright? Sure, various fodder mobs don’t do much, but they do something, and they offer at least visual variety. On top of that AOM gave us a wide selection of beasts - beast faction can’t stop winning overall, each expac including FOA gives them excellent additions, so I won’t use them as a comparison point. What I will use are:

Random cthonic additions just thrown in for fun, consisting of winged ctulhu, wingless ctulhu and servitor bugs. 3 whole new units.

A supplemental wendigo faction. While technically not a full enemy faction (quite optional with Barrowholm, in fact), they still consist of regular cannibals (with their fucking healers), small turned, fully evolved wendigos and spirits. 4 distinct units. And, as of now, 2 nemeses. Cool stuff.

FG and the eldritch horrors then. Those have:

Mommys
Eldritch ghosts
Living armor
Living statues
Dogs
Stone birbs

Then we had a whole-ass subfaction reserved just for the second half, with:

Chosen
Fat guys
Gargoyles
and Korvaak spawn

That’s a lot of units and 2 nemeses. Sweet. They even had their little gimmicks like statues coming to life, ghosts appearing from armor etc etc.

Now let’s look at Bloodbound. While it can be argued that the main focus of FOA are beasts - beasts got great roster in every expac, and will be long maxed when we get to FOA areas. Bloodbound are the proper new enemy, they are what we’ll come to farm. Implied main attraction consisting of:

Human fodder. Not even fun fodder, like basic bloodsworn with their little summons, or fucking aetherial human units. No, just humans. They don’t do anything.
Omens. Those are cool, I appreciate a big unit not blitzing into our face.
Birbs. Pretty cool unit too blitzing into our face. THE END, THE EEEEEEND.

And that’s it, that’s the Bloodbound roster. 3 units. Less than wendigos. Same as just random AOM additions. Sure, there are occasional cthonic mobs around - but they are not Bloodbound. Corrupted beasts also don’t qualify. “Oh, but necromancers already reused units from other factions” - yeah, guess what, necros aren’t a proper faction. They are half-a-faction with their other half being chosen. And that’s what Bloodbound feel like, except there isn’t another half.

And it’s such a bizarre issue to have. I’m pretty sure there were bloodbound drangols mentioned in lore, and we just had a facelift for them. But they just aren’t there. Boy do I hope to see them in the upcoming roguelike dungeon.

Could have had a brilliant case of asset reuse and throw some Bloodbound werewolfs and wereravens at us. There are chaos models for them, they exist in lore - where are they? Could have had basic bitch humans turning into doggos, would be cool with no extra modeling work required. That would already be 5-6 distinct units, feeling like a faction, if a smaller one.

And yet, for some godforsaken reason, those absolute frauds have 2 nemeses, fully distinct from main cthonic forces. Unlike aetherials and vanguard who, despite being completely different and fully sized, get to share Valdy and Alexander.

I really hope to see some future update just giving more units to bloodbound and 2 more nemeses for aetherial forces. Was a really disappointing aspect of expansion for me. Our main villains are lame.

4 Likes
2

No need for Bloodbound in FoA. We have maps full of beavers! :smiley:

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I actually like beavers, lol. They split other beasts pretty nicely (though overall faction mixing on the maps is weird). Wouldn’t say no to them getting some sort of caster.

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I wouldn´t say no for them to be removed from the game! Beavers! They are Jar Jar Binks of GD.

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Who’s their second Nemesis?

I count…

Human cultists
Dranghoul cultists
Birds
Heralds

Seems on par with old factions.

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…wait, they don’t have the second one?

furiously GDstashes max negative rep

I saw the new guys in Crucibe so far, which makes them hard to identify by faction. That’s why there’s an uneven number of nems in grimtools, huh?

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Yeah, about dranghoul cultists… Where are they? I’m absolutely willing to bet they don’t appear on the final mountain climb, I’m reasonably certain they don’t appear in dark citadel or dread wastes. Not in Voldur river pockets, that’s for certain, I’m parked there right now.

I’m sure they have jolly good time partying in that locked off roguelike dungeon - but they aren’t really mixed into the faction, are they?

Edit: yep, there they are. A pocket in Kruu’Sul crags, perfectly isolated. I’m sorry, Zantai, that doesn’t count. And that still puts them barely on par with Wendigos.

2 Likes
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A Bloodbound dungeon seems likely and might flesh them out more?

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Yeah, but their basic camps would still greatly benefit from having chaos doggos.

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I’m gonna disagree with the human aspects of the Bloodbound just being “human fodder” that don’t do anything. I’ve been doing a lot of Yurra runs trying to get the Heathen’s Decree blueprint to drop, and even that little bit of Bloodbound camp you have to run through to get to her can be pretty explosive. And they have good enough variety between Berserkers, Doomsayers and Ritualists (though I’m a bit annoyed by the nomenclature, some are Kurn Bloodbound, some are Bloodbound, why the different naming?).

I think the main problem with them is there don’t seem to be enough of them. An almost complete run through of FoA with a merit on (did as much as I can before you have to do the expansions to proceed) has only yielded me like 9000 infamy. If you want to farm rep with them you have to confine yourself to a few specific strips of land that are sandwiched between animals and chtonics. The Dranghouls, which IMO have the most interesting enemies among them, are mostly shoved in a corner, a few appear outside of the walled off area but not nearly enough to give them the chance to shine. The Kaw’Hranaak are a fairly rare sight, which I guess makes sense lore-wise, but they’re interesting enough that I wish there were more of them too. It’s possible things get better in the Bloodbound Bastion and Drang’Gal Fortress (if you can even get in) but by that point you’re done with the expansion’s content. Wish the Bloodbound were a bit more…central, given the threat they’re supposed to pose. Their bosses (Gruldir, Yurra, Blackheart) are dope though.

2 Likes
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Honestly prefer the Bloodbound over shit like the Eldricht faction. Honestly, the Eldricht are my least favorite faction in the game.

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I think the Bloodbound are an upgrade on the OG Bloodsworn, in terms of looks and sound. Would like to see more of them

1 Like
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The thing is, they don’t really do much. Berserkers do that fancy little spin. That’s it.

And yes, that’s a universal problem with human enemies, but. You get to learn damn well what archmages, elementalists or mirmidons do. Bloodsingers too. Dreadlords aren’t anything fancy, but once you see them raise a small revenant army, you get their drift. Hell, basic bloodsworn have all their little nifty summons and demons raising from their dead corpses.

There actually is a variety of fodder enemies in the game. Bloodbound just aren’t part of it.

You know who else has variety and noticeable abilities? Assorted groble shamans. 50 shades of recolors, and each has something creative to drop on your head. The void ones spawn rytlocks, absolutely adorable.

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As with everything in life no matter the hobby or fandom, new is bad and old is good.

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I specifically listed the faction rosters I’m comparing against. I think I made my point well enough.

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I do find it a bit odd the Bloodbound Dranghouls and Void Clan Grobles don’t pop up more during the climb up the mountain.
Maybe they were considered to be a bit too much alongside the Omens (who, being Chthonic fiends and not mortal cultists, strike me more as an addition to the Chthonic faction proper rather than the Bloodbound cultists), the Hranaak and also all the Chthonic units from AoM and the base game.

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I wouldn’t complain about more (void) grobles around the place. Slaughtering them mindlessly is one of life’s guilty pleasures.

2 Likes
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You could add just a bit of variety by having the wights on the Roof of the World spawn with more chaos gear and have one of them be a boss from that void-summoning clan that started the whole Cthonic summoning in the first place. It would explain why there’s a random pocket of undead in the middle of the Bloodbound zone and give the last zone more of a crescendo feeling at that.

1 Like