I think distance is all that matters…from the video this char sits miles away occasionally casts some buffs/debuffs, in that case the swarm would be attracted by the pets than the char, also the timing of casting would be important maybe?
buff in taunt mech is really a “buff” 
We both worng,it is not jajaja’s build!look again,its Drizztos build warborn witchblade,the BUILD is in the JAJAJA`s thread.Here is the link:
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showt…=42424&page=70
at #700
We are testing it right now.
trickster solo gladiator crucible
this is my original,and favorite build actually
Sweet, that was a nice smackdown for me! But do you think every combination of masteries, for example, can accomplish the same feat? Is the game balanced enough to let every reasonable build out there repeat your results (give or take some differences in struggle/times) provided they have the skill (or if you played their build for them)?
If so the game feels incredibly well-balanced to me (I didn’t think it was against its content) and if I was wrong about that, I keep coming back to my negative reaction to nerfs and buffs to a game that’s already well-balanced.
I could just be confusing build balancing issues with player skill issues (something I’d happily accept), but then so would everyone who thinks anything is OP. That would be another reason to take it easy with the nerfs (my original request). We might be confusing OP for just an amazing player, and underpowered for just someone who is playing really bad. All these cases could just be a problem with the player, not the balance of builds and content, and nerfing and buffing might just be punishing good players and rewarding bad players.
Again it makes no sense to nerf and buff if it’s a player skill issue, not a balance issue. The players who are struggling should just practice more with their build and get better at the game in that case, nerfing and buffing would just be screwing with things in that scenario. Someone who has no struggle with Mogdrogen and kills him super fast might just be an incredibly good player using a build that’s not blatantly more powerful than anyone else’s. It just seems that way because he’s so incredibly good at the game. Amazing people make difficult things look effortless to other people, and that’s not a reason to reach for a nerf.
If I’m wrong about the game being imbalanced to the point of making it impossible for many builds to clear its most difficult content regardless of player skill, then that’s reason to be very reluctant to nerf (nerfing away builds just because we confused them as OP because the player is so good). If I’m right and the game is anywhere near as imbalanced as I thought to where so few builds can beat its content regardless of skill, then that’s another reason to be reluctant to nerf (nerfing the very few builds that can clear the content regardless of skill, when more builds should have a fighting chance to clear that content provided they are being used by great players).
I think you’re looking at it in the wrong perspective. Side content is not compulsory and whilst it divides players it adds longevity.
Let’s pretend Modgrogen was removed from the game and Crucible waves stopped at 100. No arguments here. Pretty much any build could beat the entire content. Right? But now you’ve pincered yourself. There’s nothing left to do except create a new build. What’s there to strive for? Why would you farm for a double affix green? You’ve just taken away the reason to grind.
Actually we’ve started to really converge in terms of mindset!
One of my suggestions is make it take much, much longer to reach the level cap. I believe that was one of the keys to make Diablo 2 maintain the “illusion” of balance and not feel beaten to death even after 2 decades had passed. You had something to grind for even if your level 92 character was equipped with BiS in every slot. There were 7 more levels to gain, and that would generally require months and months of grinding. If something seemed impossible for your build at level 92 but not some other builds, maybe it would become possible at level 99, so you had something to work for even with that build instead of giving up and trying another build or quitting the game after just getting tired of it.
Assuming BiS or close for a given build, it’s a very different feeling if your build can’t solo Mogdrogen at level 75 (can’t survive or can’t kill him even after an hour) vs. level 85. Reaching level cap is a part of what destroys the incentive to grind to make your build better (the other is collecting BiS gear). Do this too quickly and players lose incentive to continue using that build.
If players believe a very diverse range of builds can solo gladiator or kill Mogroden in a reasonable time provided they grind enough with their chosen build, then they have an incentive to keep on grinding. If they believe it’s a matter of skill and there’s nothing underpowered with their build, then they have an incentive to get better, improve reflexes, understand enemy patterns, etc. If they believe only some borderline OP builds can beat the hardest content, then they have little incentive to keep grinding with a build that isn’t one of those few builds.
It’s a matter of player beliefs and perceptions and maintaining the illusion of possibility for a wide enough range of builds – that’s where the point of continuing to play after endgame for a given build lies to me besides just farming gear for another build to use. It could be a mere illusion, it doesn’t actually matter that much to me if it was impossible for many builds to clear content even if they reached level 99 if reaching level 99 took ages and gave them incentive to keep going and playing the game with that build.
If it seems impossible for their builds, then they lose incentive. We’re totally desiring the same goal – the incentive to keep playing and playing the game forever and without just building new characters over and over.
Imagine if Diablo 2 made it so easy to collect gear and so easy to level up that everyone was level 99 after a couple of weeks of release with 10 different characters. That would not only break the illusion of balance (balance to me is an illusion to maintain) because it would make it too obvious too quickly (quickly is a key word) which builds are superior to others, but it’d much more quickly take away the incentive to keep on playing.
I hope they never, ever, make getting to 85 take months or just take weeks. It’s perfectly fine the way it is.
I would honestly stop playing the game if that happened. It’s the reason wh i quitted so many MMORPGs. It takes forever to reach level cap.
We both worng,it is not jajaja’s build!look again,its Drizztos build warborn witchblade,the BUILD is in the JAJAJA`s thread.Here is the link:
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42424&page=70
at #700
We are testing it right now.
I’d agree given the mechanics of Grim Dawn if you just suddenly made it take ages to reach level cap, and I also can’t stand the grind of MMORPGs (I hate World of Warcraft, EverQuest, yada yada boring endless grind) but you ever play Diablo 1 or 2?
To me there would need to be a whole lot more adjustment besides just making it take ages to reach level 85 (or 99 or whatever if the level cap gets raised) including content/difficulty/reward adjustments.
In D2 you didn’t feel the need to quit because it took a whole 5 days of grinding and farming to get from level 91 to level 92. You were already generally quite godly and hell-viable at level 80+ and already just farming and having a great time usually (just gaining some exp on the way). It didn’t feel like an endless grind to just get to where every fanatic was at as with the case of a lot of MMOs. Your character was already far, far past the point of being able to equip everything, and as far as I recall enemies didn’t scale to give you better drops at that point. 80+ was already endgame and typically viable, the remaining 19 levels is just something you can gain on the way as a bonus and mild incentive as you farm Mephisto for the thousandth time while collecting exciting loot.
It just gave you more incentive to keep going and become even more powerful even if you had BiS, and if your particular build was a bit imbalanced towards underpowered (maybe Assassin, but I hated Assassin so much that I can’t say for sure) and was struggling in hell, it gave you the feeling that you could at least grind and level up a bit more and maybe have a chance.
I think you are also looking at it from wrong perspective. Side content = End game content for RPGs… Since everyone who is a little bit more than casual, you want to finish all and so game needs to balanced for end game content too. Also side content affects main content which also makes it important
The second i walk around in BIS items and i can kill everything in the game besides Avatar of Mogdrogen (this asshole requires too much specific shit to make me bother killing him) i just quit the character. There’s nothing left to do with it and some measly stats and skill points isn’t going to make me continue. So i’d rather reach level cap before that happens. Also, i prefer much more to farm at max level.
It’s the reason why i stopped playing my Spellbreaker in TQ. She’s level 64 and the cap is 75. And yet i can kill everything in the game really easily, so it’s pointless to continue.
I unfortunately never played TQ – makes me feel a bit like an outsider here since GD is like its spiritual successor.
But I can understand how undesirable it is to be in that scenario where you had too easy of a time clearing the content way, way before level cap. Maybe that’s more of an issue with balancing and certain builds being too blatantly OP in TQ though, dunno. It’s not a feeling I think anyone who played Diablo 2 had when they beat all the content at level 85 and were still leveling up when they were farming and collecting really exciting stuff.
So i’d rather reach level cap before that happens.
While I understand your scenario fairly well, the one I was painting was one where a build reached level cap and grinded for ages and still could not accomplish this goal. That leaves no more room to power up to fulfill that goal besides abandoning the build or just being content that it’s not good enough for some things. Sometimes I think that’s okay to have some builds that utterly fail against some content, especially if bad choices were made in the process of creating and leveling it up. That can sometimes be an incentive to go back to the drawing board and start a new character which can be exciting as long as there are at least enough viable options to clear all the content.
Diablo 1 & 2 were my whole thing and I get nostalgic each time I think about them. But besides just the fanboy side of myself speaking, Diablo 2 in particular was outstanding in a rather objective way in terms of its accomplishment within the game industry. I cannot think of a single game like it that had such a massive user base (except for MMOs with subscription models) for well over a decade actively playing. Maybe X-Com/UFO had a bit of a cult following but nowhere to the precedent of Diablo 2.
Some of the ingredients that I think made Diablo 2 so successful for so long I find in Grim Dawn, and there are some things Grim Dawn does that I think surpasses Diablo 2 (the character build options and procs astound me), but some I feel are absent especially around the endgame. Those absent parts seem capable of being alleviated to some extent which is why I’m so noisy. I just want to see GD popular forever.
It seems to me like if the game pits certain builds against impassable obstacles (even as side content) while letting everyone very quickly reach level cap, it’s not an ideal formula to maximizing the freshness of the game for years and years to come.
Because they’re soldier hybrids? Hold LMB to win types?
This game actively encourages you to make new characters. This was carried over from Titan Quest, which does the same thing. The game doesn’t want you to spend months or just weeks in the same character, it wants you to try another builds.
That’s the part that shines to me and surpasses Diablo 2 and why I think you have to have enough healthy variety of viable builds for all content especially in Grim Dawn (including content from DLCs and expansions they introduce).
Diablo 2 to me was impossible for players to exhaust even after a decade because it gave tons of endgame incentive to keep farming and discovering items and continue playing the same few characters. It was nowhere near as strong as GD in giving players lots of maneuvering room to try new and creative build ideas.
GD to me feels impossible to exhaust as long as there is incentive to keep creating endless characters, as long as those creative build ideas seem worth exploring (seem like they could be really effective ideas). It doesn’t seem to give anywhere near as much farming incentive, but it does give even more incentive to create new character after new character.
I don’t want to see GD become like Diablo 2 to be clear. I’m trying to accept it as a very unique and different design and working with these differences. For example, given GD’s focus on creating new character after another and trying endless build ideas, one of the weaknesses to me is its emphasis on questing. Questing actually starts to get repetitive after new difficulties and new characters a lot faster than anything else. It’s tiring to, say, kill Milton Hart for the 1000th time while your quest log is filled with all sorts of things to do in act 1 that you already did countless times over, and I actually think GD would be better off de-emphasizing quests to some extent in future content. Kill stuff, level up, test the viability of your build. Some minimal questing makes sense to me, not endless hoop jumping and running all over the same maps repeatedly.
Perhaps there are enough viable builds for all content – maybe there are thousands upon thousands of builds that can solo gladiator and kill Mog in minutes. I don’t get that feeling so much based not only on my experience (which is admittedly limited) but observing others, but maybe it’s a player skill problem as pointed out.
If that’s the only problem, we just need to get better to beat all the content. If it’s not, the only thing I’m worried about is that the game will start to get exhausted too quickly if too few builds can do it. Too many players will start converging on the same ideas at some point with the desire to solo Mog or beat gladiator, I believe. When they realize there are too few viable options to do it, I think the game is already growing stale for many because at that point the game won’t offer the sense that there are so many cool build ideas to try, as so few will actually work against the hardest content.
Personal opinion here.
I hope the devs read this and DON’T NERF the Avatar of Mogdrogen and the Edge of Reality’s Boss (the boss’s health bar drops easily, it’s the numbers that get you imo)
I can understand many players have a “completionist” mentality and want to beat everything, but these two challenges should remain the way they are. Sure it might be disappointing to people who spent hours creating their builds but it’d get too boring if all builds are equal. All though, correct me if i’m wrong but pretty much all builds can clear EoR right?
And no i haven’t beaten him on Ultimate, i gave up on Elite after getting him down to a little below 50%. It’s great to brainstorm to come up with builds to kill this guy. While it’s remarkable someone achieved such a great kill time, but a nerf is necessary.
P.S
IIRC, it was a Chinese player who killed Mogdrogen on Ultimate for the first time using a Demon-Slayer’s Life Ender Phantasmal Blades Build. Props to the Chinese community for coming up with ways to kill the ascendant.
it is not jajaja’s build!look again,its Drizztos build warborn witchblade,the BUILD is in the JAJAJAs thread.Here is the link: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showt...=42424&page=70 at #700 HE hit 287k damage with one hand on one strike！And kill two Moosilauke the Chillwind in 15s,and cant be frozened with out Forstshroud Ointment(we copy the BD.his Frozen resistance only 46%).
If he is not a cheater,then i think he is a god.We are still testing it ,and we can`t reach 200k damage with all buffs.
To me nerfing him would be terrible. That’d be dialing down the difficulty level to just try to allow everyone to beat him. It’s an extremely heavy-handed way to achieve some reasonable sense (illusion) of balance and highlights something horribly wrong. That’d be like the equivalent of a super buff to every single build and skill and item in the game, it is heavy-handed and not even thinking about how builds work.
Sure it might be disappointing to people who spent hours creating their builds but it’d get too boring if all builds are equal.
Totally agreed there! I should really emphasize that this is not the point I’m trying to make. A totally balanced game where a drunkard can just randomly click on skills and devotions would be absolutely horrible and boring if he got a character that was as good as someone really paying attention.
To me this game needs imbalance to work. It desperately, desperately needs imbalance. It’s for build designers who love to try build ideas in a hope to borderline reach OP (which again is incompatible with the idea of nerfing unless it is extremely OP). But I emphasize the “illusion” of balance which is the sense that there is no quick end to your character’s progression if a carefully-crafted, well-thought out build is struggling with the content, and that every reasonable build made by those paying attention (which should come in a very large variety even if they’re only 10% of the build ideas out there) should be viable for all content (DLCs included).
It’s all with the idea to improve the variety of the builds we see. If only a handful can satisfy the completionist mentality, then all people who have it will end up using the same handful of build ideas and probably getting bored very quickly when they realize there aren’t so many ideas that actually work. This game thrives on seemingly endless build options to create character after character around. However, for anyone with a completionist mentality or one whose goal is to create the most effective build they can, those options narrow to very few if only a few builds can complete all content.
Of course I realize that not all people are into the game for creating characters and builds. Some might be into role-playing and the lore and the story, e.g., and the types to stop playing after beating normal difficulty or something like that. But I think a large portion are build designers with a completionist/efficiency mindset, and it’s not so compatible to wet their appetites to have a game with content only a very narrow range of build ideas can complete even if we assumed an infinite amount of time allowed to grind.
it is not jajaja’s build!look again,its Drizztos build warborn witchblade,the BUILD is in the JAJAJAs thread.Here is the link: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showt...=42424&page=70 at #700 HE hit 287k damage with one hand on one strike！And kill two Moosilauke the Chillwind in 15s,and cant be frozened with out Forstshroud Ointment(we copy the BD.his Frozen resistance only 46%).
If he is not a cheater,then i think he is a god.We are still testing it ,and we can`t reach 200k damage with all buffs.
Well this is getting so off topic that i guess i can comment as well. I agree with oleron here that level cap is too easily achievable and i really hope they change that in the expansion which is on its way. My last character took about 30 hours to get to 85, and i consider myself as a total noob in this game. It’s really too fast, if they raise the level cap at some point it would be awesome to actually have to WORK for that max level.
On the other hand, i’m the kind of person that doesn’t care if i can achieve everything on my characters, hell i don’t have nemesis on all factions on any of my characters, haven’t even tried to beat modrogen, haven’t even beaten mad queen. And that is after about 350 hours. What i liked about D2 and what i now like in GD too is farming for gear.
In d2 i sold my stuff to buy something for my pvp character, and in GD i play self found so i get to try new builds whenever i find something nice like more than 1 piece of same set.
This really works for me, but what i’ve heard about bosses like modrogen, it usually takes way longer than 3 min to beat if i’m right? Somewhere between 15 min-1 hour? I don’t know but if some build can do it 10 times faster than others (with both wearing bis gear) i’d call that an issue and i hope it gets fixed. Player skill can help you to certain point, but it is a fact that your pets/whatever the source of your damage is, will not be doing much more damage whether you are experienced or not. At least not in this scale.