The current state of Dread: looking for player impressions

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
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Pre-1.3.1 the Dread suffered from a bug where its Cadence discharge strike could carry over to a different attack with no telegraph and kill people out of nowhere. To address the issue, in 1.3.1 the Dread lost its Cadence mechanic altogether and now uses its skills on cooldown. Alongside that, the scaling of enemy OA and damage in ascendant mode has been tuned down but the boosts received from the Ascension Altar have been increased slightly. All in all, it seemed like the Dread has been fixed. Deaths out of nowhere should be mostly gone and with the scaling of physical damage and OA going down, crits causing damage spikes should be less common and the average hit should either be weaker because of less phys damage, or about the same due to the increased Ascension Altar offering numbers. Then, on stream, this happened:

A death to a normal autoattack. I don’t have the build link for the version I was using during the stream anymore, but you can see the defensive stats at 1:37:32.
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Health looks good, the build has consistent DR on the boss from the relic, phys res and armor could be better but not catastrophic. No Amplicorum in sight. But, the defensive ability could be better. “Ok, maybe it was a crit,” I thought. So I tanked the build up to this. I don’t think in this second iteration anybody would argue that this is a squishy build. The health pool is kinda ridiculous, the DA should make the build nigh-on uncrittable, phys res got better, armor got better.

With this second version of the build, I’ve fought the Dread 4 times on 5ash Ascendant. 3 times successfully. 1 time I died. To an autoattack. Exactly the same way as in the video above (happened off-stream so I don’t have footage sadly). No other enemies interfering, no debuffs, no area modifiers that increase enemy damage. From full 26k health to dead through 24% damage reduction from one normal swing. In this tankier state, the build has been hit by the new wave attack and lost barely 1/3rd of its health. An autoattack simply shouldn’t be able to kill it, but it did.

So, I’m looking for other people’s experiences with the Dread post-1.3.1. Have any of you experienced similar inexplicable one-shots? Do you feel like the Dread is behaving as intended? Are your builds with reasonable levels of takiness having as good a time fighting 5ash Dread as before? Cause to me it feels like something wonky is still going on. And I don’t think the above level of tankiness should be the expectation for a build. Which, in the end, still wasn’t enough to make the build fully safe. For reference, before the patch this was my comfiest Dread farmer. He jumped for joy whenever the Dread spawned, it was dead in like 80 seconds, posing no threat outside of its telegraphed swings (unless the Cadence bugged). I’d be afraid to take the build out for a spin against 5ashes Dread now if 26k health, 3k DA and 24% DR isn’t a safe place to be.

So, am I alone in this? Or is 5ash Ascendant now reserved solely for the supertanks?

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i’ve only fought Dread once since (not counting Cruci), and don’t think it counts(not melee :sweat_smile:), but, assuming there is no difference, should be simple enough to check in spawning Dread over and over in Custom mode to test both the attack or Altar increase vs defence :thinking:

*i thought Coincident(adoomgod?) said what killed you in that clip was something specific tho in the bug thread?

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That was a different clip, where I walked back into the new wave attack which has a linger effect, not knowing it was different from the old red claw swipe. This was an autoattack and killed a much tankier version of the character.

Never touched Custom mode so I don’t even know how I would go about spawning the Dread.

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idono, i’ve no clue about discerning non big telegraphs :sweat_smile: i’m not like the others that can decipher every twitch.
But custom mode test might make it reliable, atleast got me curious enough to copy the farm char and see if it’s toast if nothing else

well that went well, died to stomp after running into old goo pool :sweat_smile:

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Marcus are we sure this is just an AA :thinking:

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there some might fancy FX going on there

unsure if related, also since i’m just running mixed settings, but i’m not even getting any attack that visually looks like that

edit. i can’t fight dread in custom mode :sweat_smile: i’m to used to having ½ as keybind, but it brings up the console everytime and blocks me

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Why does it look like it was its dash attack and not an actual basic attack? That little speed up when it starts running looks like the startup animation for its dash attack. You were just far enough for it to use it.

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it’s set to long distance in GT, but i’ve legit no clue how far that means for Dread, and i don’t remember where to look for it in db :sweat_smile:

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That’s my Leap+Maul from Dire Bear going off.

According to GT that charging attack hits for less damage than any of the Dread’s other attacks so that one of all attacks should definitely not be one-shotting. Also on the not recorded kill against the tankier version of the same character, I was standing right in the Dread’s face for at least 5 seconds when the autoattack kill happened so in that case it was definitely an autoattack.

As for distance, that can be deceptive as all hell, cause e.g. Iron Maiden’s Sunder Blitz is set to long distance and you don’t have to go far at all for it to start.

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ye i’m getting nothing useful sry, bumbling around too much/dying to basic stuff.
There legit was 1 moment that seemed like it could be something, which was when i had stopped recording from too main fail takes :sweat_smile:
Only thingy that got me mebe puzzling, assuming not weird charge (which funnily enough seems hard to trigger deliberately somethings), dread has 2 left hand attacks, the normal arm and the fast red swipe. (contra the big slow swipe from right hand)
Only thing i wondered if mebe those are getting mixed up sometimes perhaps, but legit impossible to see wth is even happening on my end :sweat_smile:
Aside from that, me bumbling around eating red swipes to the face or chewing red goo balls like bubblegum, the acid Thane seemed kinda fine tank survival wise. But like i said, you can always just copy it to custom mode and check before you go “live” :scorv:

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Uh anyway, back on topic…

Yes, I’ve been “one-shot” by the Dread’s swipes. On a character with 43% phys res, 2900 armor, overcapped resistances, 20K+ HP and 3250+ DA. However, I play with ascension modifiers (more damage, %OA) so I’ve been chalking it up to extremely lucky 1% crits, but who knows.

What really bothers me is that the game does NOT register the swipe as a one-shot. My “most damage taken” stat says 17k and previously this was 13k. Definitely not enough to kill me in one hit but sometimes he deletes me with a single slap. Look at your most damage taken stat. If it’s not a high number, then maybe the swipe is somehow hitting multiple times at once?

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game can be weird with char dmg sheet, specially on overkill dmg i learned, posted a bug report about it once too

*Swipe is meant to hit hard tho :sweat_smile: that’s why it glows red

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I am also facing the same problem - decently tanky characters get oneshot from a single swing that looks like an auto attack.

Somehow melee characters really have a rough time against the dread due to this fact. It is really tanky so you need alot of dps uptime, but its hard because you constantly have to get out of danger because you can’t take hits.

For ranged builds on the other hand, the fight is very safe and almost trivial. The attacks from the dread have a long animation time, if you run a few meters back you can fire away all that you have, then let it follow you, you dodge the attack and fire again. Reliable dread kills for me only come from ranged characters (and pets that is).

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From my experience, the encounter is mechanically intense and genuinely rewarding once you memorize the attack patterns, but visual clarity is still the biggest issue.

With multiple ground AoEs and skill particles cluttering the screen, telegraphs for the hardest-hitting mechanics often get obscured. This makes the fight feel significantly more punishing for melee brawlers who have to stay in point-blank range, compared to mobile ranged or kite builds.

Giving the high-impact abilities clearer wind-up animations or sharper ground indicators would make the challenge feel much fairer.

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The character’s max damage taken is 27000, which is enough to kill the tanky version of it from full. So, no multihit bug, at least, but assuming this is truly coming from that one autoattack, that doesn’t seem reasonable. That would mean every melee has to dodge every Dread swing to be truly safe. Not the red swipes, not the spit. Every autoattack. Or, if it was a crit, it would mean you need over 3050 DA. Considering I wasn’t even scaling enemy OA through the altar, it was just 5 ashes, that too seems like a big ask (I’m also debuffing enemy OA with Huntress).

The only other big swings the character has taken that one shot it were the new red wave when I saw it for the first time. Could be it, but looking back it is strange to me that it was able to one shot the 23k health version of the build, because I have accidentally walked back into it on the tankier version and it only took like 3rd of my health. So, seems a weird jump, even for a crit. The only other attack I can think of is Benn’Jahr’s sunder stab, which took me from full to dead on Bastion of Chaos. I’ve also died to the nova explosion bug twice but not sure that counts as a single hit.

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yes, that’s already the case if you happen to get 1500DA shredded by Dread :sweat_smile: (not that you were/no goo pool ofc)
*i’ve no idea/can’t see what two of the debuffs are, so unsure if relevant/one of the mobs around did like a combo debuff :thinking: (blue dread -150 aura, foot slow mutator, two inbetween is?)

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Don’t you mean 1600? 150 from aura, 1450 from pool.

Not sure what the other two debuffs are, but I am sure nothing else was interfering on the unrecorded 26k health version when I died to the Dread off-stream. It was just me and the tentacly boi and one autoattack.

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ah yes, i just always does a 1500 mental (forgot the 1)

ye i saw you wrote that, hence it still being weird/worth for us to check out and try confirm. Mostly just because “crit” might have explained it on the initial char, then curious if those 2 could contribute a variable (since you have OA shred on the toon too negating aura already, kinda)

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Basically just get 4k6 DA or “playing touhou” against the Dread if you’re playing melee :slight_smile:

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To begin with, there’s definitely something off - look at it on the clip or on the second picture Gnomish posted. This ground effect looks like a lingering “post sunder”, and he hits you straight up after he finished his sunder attack. It doesn’t look like a genuine auto attack, but rather like a bug.

His aura shreds DA so you are kinda in the crit zone. Anyway, even if it was a crit it shouldn’t delete +20K HP char with decent stats. If OA/DA formula works correctly (which I doubt for reasons), the critical hit will be too low to oneshot.

His auto attack also actually deals quite a lot of damage for whatever reasons. I’ve been hit for +10K, with high DA and moderately high armor. Also the first time I read he was also bugged, I just started fighting him only with ranged chars, and also with super high DA because better safe than sorry. I don’t trust the hotfixes.

Currently I’m sitting at +4.5K DA and he tickles me outside the misses. This fixed Dread for me.

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Marcus said that was his own skills happening to animate off right at the moment of death

*potential caveat is i don’t know how Dread’s enrage buff works. If it’s actually 50% or if it’s “moved” because of it’s dying threshold being moved from 0 to 15-20% too (ie if enrage is actually at 65-70% display instead :thinking:)

base damages (according to GT)
1098-1468 Physical Damage (15% Chance of +10% Physical Damage - i’ve ignored this because no clue how it works/additive or multiplicative or individual/specific or combined)
445 Physical Damage
592 Vitality Damage
40% crit (min crit = +50% then)
11% physical
224% vitality
lvl 112 Dread has 1320 cunning/spirit for +538,8%phys dmg and 614% magick
(*caveat again being some forum speculation attribute dmg scaling formula might not actually work the same for enemies as player, but no one ever posted an actual formula from the database to the contrary)

1468 + 445phys x6,5 (assume game rounds up from .498) 9.540 + 2.892 physical (two values because individual armour check)
592 x9,38 = 5.553 vitality
x1.5 crit
14.310 & 4.338 phys *0.76dr, *0,86res -2459ar for 6.894 + 376 phys
8.330 vitality *0.76dr, *0,17res for 823 vit
total 8.093 dmg AA

even with a 25% tdm from enrage, (or the 10% phys chance as multmod), unless there is some missed info/scaling in GT, like AA is actually an instant triple hit “because 3 claws per arm” :crazy_face: the dmg values just don’t make sense to be just a white dmg attack/auto attack

FX being leap+maul, something is still pretty fishy, or tentacly :thinking:

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