I liked the idea of spammable Phantasmal Blades and wanted to build something cool, but it appeared that only two damage types are available for the task - vitality (through Frenetic Throw modifier) and pierce (Spite sword), as only they have full cooldown reduction. Why is that? The game has nice items and sets that support different kinds of Blades (Chaos through Conduit of Night Whispers amulet, Cold through Harra’s Set and Speaker for the Dead offhand etc). But this modifier conversion ruins the build idea completely , because huge part of the damage becomes vitality.
My suggestion is to remove the conversion from Frenetic Throw modifier and relocate it to dedicated Demonslayer set (for example, or Grobble Death Effigy). It would open new build possibilities and fun interactions with already existing items . What do you think? Thank you for your attention and have a fun time.
Just because Frenetic Throw converts your Piercing damage away does not mean you are locked into doing Vitality damage. You have other options like Cold with or without the transmuter that has a ton of item support including a set going for it. Chaos as a secondary support skill has been tried before as well. Bleed also makes a neat source as well etc.
That’s how PBlades builds generally work, you get like 5 damage types on the skill line, you pick 1, convert as many of the others to it as you can and ignore the rest.
Agreed, it does not mean using only Vitality or Pierce spam. But, as I said previously, main damage type becomes less effective because of the modifier (or you have to use Blades with cooldown). Double conversion is not possible. It inhibits the build effectiveness even further imho.
Still possible to make builds around converting large amounts of Heart Seeker and Nether Edge’s damage. Skill modifiers like this one even with Frenetic Throw allow 50% of the Piercing damage to convert to Cold which with a lot of the other Vitality/Chaos converted over is still significant when you’re throwing out 5-6 projectiles 3-4 times per second.
Bottom line really is: you’re not going to convince anyone to remove Frenetic Throw’s conversion on the grounds of it ruining non-Vitality builds without trying those builds and proving they are unviable (and even then, changing the conversion is not even remotely the right way to fix the problem).
Not unviable, but less effective. For example, similar skill modifiers, like Tremor and Thunderous Strike or items like Amarastan Crusher, that make skills spammable, do not have any conversions. Why does Frenetic Throw? You get unconvertable part of Vitality damage while you could have it converted to the damage type of your specialization. That is the point I do not understand.
The skill itself with talents has many damage types, is that a problem? Full Pierce conversion makes skill too OP? Could you explain, please? I just want to understand .
Anyway, it is just a suggestion. I do not take the laurels of a build master, and may be wrong in obvious aspects.
+1 from me. I always found vitality damage kind of boring so frenetic throw converting the pierce damage to vitality feels like a let down to me. I mean, yeah, you can focus on other types of damage, but it will never top the damage you get from the pierce converted to vitality.
Up till now, Frenetic Throw builds other than Vitality have been balanced around the conversion being there so removing the conversion is going to necessitate changes if it gets removed all of a sudden. Just seems like making work for the sake of making work to me because what do you get out of it at the end?
Something you’ll learn if you go deep in theorycrafting is that you never need to take full advantage of everything on a skill. You take what you can get and if it’s enough, then great, but there will be times where you take along a source of damage or an item has skill bonuses to a mastery you won’t use and so on that you just ignore because there are other things on the same skill or item that interest you.
Ok, let us assume that the conversion was removed and assigned to, for example, Demonslayer set as 4-pieces bonus, or Grobble Death Effigy, or Spectral Arbalest (dedicated items, without variants imho). All existing items now can convert Pierce to “Damage_Type” fully, as their bonuses imply, and do not need cooldown reducing bonuses. So remove them too. And… that is all? Frenetic Throw already has necessary damage adjustments and energy reduction bonus for spamming and not making it overpowered. Correct me if I am wrong, but are there any cons or other hidden balance mechanics?..
And it is completely fine, when the damage you cannot convert (or partially) is added to your skill, like flat values. But it is the conversion that spoils the game mechanic for no obvious reason. It is especially strange when you look at similar talents (previous message).
It is up to developers to decide what mechanic and in which way it should be implemented, of course. But this… I cannot find any logical explanation except “ignore and accept as it is because it was from the beginning”. And this is frustrating. No offence meant.
Groble Death Effigy and Spectral Arbalest would be the best to keep it as a levelling option and to keep both 1-handed and 2-handed Vit spam as options as well.
Any other non-Vitality, non-Spite spam variants would also get a straight buff that has to be considered.
I can’t explain it either but I just feel it is one of those archaic decisions that has taken root for the longest time and has had a lot of choices made around it over the years with it in mind. I’m just being cautious because removing the conversion now could undo a good chunk of that for what I think is very little in the way of gain.
The way things have developed up until now mean non-Vitality/Spite spammers work with Frenetic Throw’s conversion in mind, so I don’t think a wrench needs to be thrown into it. I suppose what I am saying is don’t try to fix what isn’t really broken by this point.
Green MIs with amazing suffixes can compete even with legendaries. But this is for another topic.
I meant “-0,x Seconds Skill Recharge to Phantasmal Blades” modifier. It would become useless if you could just take the talent.
Yes, of course. But will it make such builds insanely powerful or just more balanced?
For me, it is a strange decision for a skill modifier with all available item options that conflict with each other. Nonetheless, it was accepted and adapted. Maybe there was an explanation from developers about this archaic decision?.. Also, it seems that it is more simple to create a new item with duplicate skill modifiers like Spite and make nerfs/buffs around them than talents. Is that an answer? A good talent with inherent flaw, an amazing ability with obstacles . Anyway, the suggestion was given. At least, I saw some opinions about the matter. From other forums as well. In most cases, they are the same as yours, @Evil_Baka.
These would still have use on builds that want to use it without the transmuter as a cooldown nuke, no reason for any of them to be removed.
I or anyone else cannot say offhand without testing those builds with the change to Frenetic Throw.
Eh, Spite is a Legendary weapon, the playstyle it enables isn’t playable until Level 94 whereas Frenetic Throw as of now enables Vitality spam PBlades as early as level 4. If the conversion were to be removed, I would argue that it would have to go on a Monster Infrequent so that it is still playable from early on to end game just as it is now.
Indeed. I just thought I’d give my impressions on the matter as well. At the end of the day, the decision on whether it gets removed or not isn’t mine and if it does happen, I have faith any concerns I have will be worked through and it’ll be an all around improvement.
I’m going to jump in here and say that I emphatically agree with this suggestion. The problem I see is this…do many, or any people build around this skill WITHOUT frenetic throw these days? I personally have no desire to and it doesn’t seem like many others do.
Ok you can make it a cooldown damage dump but thats not going to be the main skill of your build.
So, given this assumption what we are left in is either vitality based frenetic throw as a main skill to build around, or it being relegated to damage support.
All of this severely limits build possibilities for a skill that (with 3 nodes to pour points into) should be a mainstay with many possibilities to build around and it just doesnt have that.
Part of grim dawns longevity, especially for veterans revolves around conversion builds and non standard class combos and this skill (the nightblades only mainline 3 node skill not revolving around melee btw) just disallows that.
I’ll give an example of a skill that works exceptionally like this - forcewave. I have built this skill under so many different damage conversion/class combos and they all play a bit different and bring a lot of interest and replayability.
The removal of the conversion on the transmuter would allow many different builds/class combos to be built around this skill and would definitely be worth adjusting some items around in my opinion.
That’s the thing with many skills in Grim Dawn tbh. Not many people build cooldown versions of Forcewave, Blade Arc, Stun Jacks, Callidor Tempest and Primal Strike too. Literally the only exception is Blackwater Cocktail.
I still see some theorycrafted that do. Cold variants, Acid variants, I’ve seen Chaos considered in the past as well with the Conduit. Most of them aren’t serious builds but it’s still considered a possibility.
Well of course not, you can’t make a skill with a 3 second cooldown and very few ways to reduce it your only skill . Several builds often have enough skill points that they can comfortably take a 2nd or potentially even a 3rd cooldown damage dump alongside it as well so why not?
I would’ve agreed with you on Stun Jacks and Primal Strike in the past but those have since got more options that people are experimenting with them some more, even if the builds themselves don’t get openly posted.
Blade Arc is an oddity as from what I can tell, Rhylthar prefers spamming it for Bleed.
The other skills you mentioned still get some use as cooldown skills, even if it’s only 1-2 specific sets like Octavius for Forcewave.
and afaik, Grim Dawn is about to get “finished” just some more fine tuning to do. Removing skill modifiers would take lots of additional balance to do.
, because huge part of the damage becomes vitality.
. What do you think? Thank you for your attention and have a fun time.
. Several builds often have enough skill points that they can comfortably take a 2nd or potentially even a 3rd cooldown damage dump alongside it as well so why not?