so, pretty much the title.
from the very release of the last 3 SR sets I’ve seen like 1 or 2 builds with Goredrinker and they were mediocre at best (and this fact itself should aware one of sth wrong). But nevertheless, I went to test it myself and see, how good or bad Goredrinker is. Actually, I can’t say the set is awful but could be buffed for better performance.
let’s begin.
- The set design seems a bit similar to Bloodrager’s one - a hybrid pierce-bleed set sthat supports both damage types well. And here’s the first problem - bleed damage on Goredrinker is almost non-existent to be at least a decent support. I’ll post some calcs later, but here’s the point. While Bloodrager has:
- higher flat bleed values
- two procs with huge % bleed values
- supports skills with naturally high bleed numbers (BA and RoS),
Goredrinker
- supports skills with naturally low bleed damage and classes that don’t have much bleed sources: Cadence hits rather hard so bleed doesn’t work well there, VM is the only bleed source for Paladin and WoP has no natural bleed at all.
- has lower flat bleed values and no procs to increase % numbers
- also set has almost no OA/DA bonuses and CC-resists.
- Let’s move to builds i’ve tested/have known data about.
the first one is the most obvious one is Tactician with 2x Reavers. GT: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYrdOX2
Despite mentioned issues with bleed damage, the build struggles from:
- inability to hardcap Cadence itself. neither set nor weapons give + skills to it so it’s impossible to get 26/16.
- awful cast speed. this is crucial as Tactician has and active RR that you need to cast 4 times per wave and lose some time. I also dropped WC as because of low CS you can sometimes miss a cast of it. Though in SR WC is necessary as in SR85+ you just get shredded w/o it.
- low stun resist and not super-good phys resist.
- poor AoE. even with reavers I was forced to take Azrakaa’s relic to get some more AoE and only then timing dropped below 5:30. Before they were like 5:46 and close to 6.
the best run of mine is 5:09, though the build is squishy and not very consistent.
@grey-maybe also tested a ranged variant of it: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWelOdN
don’t have a vid but according to grey, it was slightly below 5. very slightly.
- Bleeding Paladin.
not much to say about it. Paladin has 1 (one) natural bleed source and it’s VM, which is absolutely not enough as bleed relies mostly on number of sources. Bleed RR on WoP doesn’t help as 20% RR for 0 is still 0.
well …
what can be done to improve the set?
Defensive part:
- add some DA bonus to set pieces, add some phys res (like 4% on shoulders and chest), add stun resist. HP is okay.
Offensive part:
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add +skills to Cadence itself to Reavers or (better) to set pieces so players should be able to hardcap it.
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add some flat/%OA bonuses as Tactician and Paladin are low on it even with high Cunning dump.
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the most important part: considerably increase bleed damage on the set so it could be played as a naturally bi-damaging thing. Increase flat values, maybe add some damage-boosting proc on set or helm/ add flat/% bleed on some aura like Filed Command/Conviction.
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for VM: add -cd mod … but still, as long as VM is the only source of bleed here, Goredrinker Paladin would remain a very meh build.
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also it may be good to change the conversion on set to ele->pierce from just fire->pierce.
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small addition: increase %armor piercing on Reavers to 50%, as current 45% value looks at least odd. this will help the damage a bit too.
Please write what you think about the set and builds around it and share your experience with it.