Ok guys, I “only” have been playing GD for 540 hours since 2017 according to Steam, which isn’t crazy for an arpg. But the little amount that I played made me realize HOW HORRIBAD the balance is.
Let me start out:
Soldier is inherently broken. It’s by far the best class due to versatility. Most of the top tier classes are a main Soldier/ anything. Blitz is unmatched for movement, Forcewave Tremor for early level speed farming. Nothing can match these two early level combos.
Melee/caster vastly outperforms ranged DW - and even worse with 2H ranged. Have a look at most of the crucible fastest run. Where is the 2H under 5:00 ?
2H Ranged is garbage bad (I heard Valduun weapon got buffed? 2019 buff for ranged…). Due to most Grim Dawn enemies being melee/ tanks, you should kite as a ranged. But they are faster than you, and a lot of packs are chargers. Also against Bosses, their freeze/slow resistance is too high so that they’ll get into melee range no matter what, at a very fast speed, with no desired modifier helping you.
Having to kite means you don’t hit your enemies, while the melee/ tank with a bit less dps does: You can divide your dps by 50% as he hits 50% more than you.
Physique attribue still reigns supreme. Because this is a tough game where you can easily die, the only goal is, obviously, to not die. So cap your res and get as many hp as possible. dps is secondary in this game, because dying removes a lot of xp and thus a lot of what your dps did.
I like the game but gosh, people saying it’s varied say that because the game is not competitive. If it was, the build number would get to a dozen at most, and 80% of the classes wouldn’t be played (BattleMage, Saboteur, are trash tier for example).
You don’t lose xp at level 100, so dying doesn’t remove xp.
Also, my nearly 70 builds that encompass all masteries in the game and that do endgame really well will continue to do so. And more than half of them aren’t even Soldier.
Vire’s Might would like a word.
There are none because under 5:00 minutes builds of all types don’t exist. Because even just getting under 6:00 makes them prime candidates for nerfs. The only under 5:00 minutes builds that can exist are the legendary builds that apparently some people hide at all costs from Zantai, but i think they only exist in legends.
there is a 3:30 auramancer (if you speedup the game 3x).
I think OP has a point though. Look at this constellation! Clearly no balance!
Less jokingly, we are still missing control/interrupt style gameplay, (to some extent), and some warlock archetypes (Firelock, poisonlock, chaos AAR is never spoken about either, or aar warlock in general.)Clairvoyant works better on binders than on warlocks too, it seems, and didn’t fulfill the promise of returning warlocks to glory.
But besides that, balance is in an upward, or better yet, an evening out trend.
So, anyone want to bring up thematic builds that should work but don’t make it to endgame, and want to see beefed up?
I want to highlight this part because not only was it less obnoxious than the rest, it’s a actually good point that really doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Movement augments were a step in the right direction but the game overall doesn’t really give you the chance to not facetank everything. Especially in the expansions, most enemies are huge, fast, have a lot of hit points, spawn in large numbers and resist slow/stun effects (hell, a lot of them can slow/stun YOU); there’s simply no way to deal with them beyond build for defense so you can withstand a half dozen 30’ Fleshwarped Curbstompers or whatever all shoulderchecking you at once.
Also I apparently am not able to go into any balance discussion, of any kind, without mentioning -rr and how it’s an unfun mechanic that’s almost impossible to balance, so lemme go ahead and do that here.
Hi, @Ganishka . Thanks for your feedback. Though I agree that in a way the game is losing balance as of late, I can’t say I agree with what you brought up as support for your argument.
90% of what you wrote is either untrue itself or true but supported by arguments that make it sound silly.
Soldier always provided easy access to defensive stats. But the problem has nothing to do with Blitz or Forcewave. The problem is the game got much harder and non-soldier classes became less desirable unless providing alternative defensive synergy.
DW is not vastly outperformed by melee/casters because dw is melee. But it is true that nightblade got a few serious and imo totally undeserved nerfs.
2H ranged are quite strong now but reserved to purifier class. Look up Valdun and Desolator.
Physique does not reign supreme. Many builds do cunning or even spirit dump.
I totally agree with the last statement. If the game got competitive it would be not a dozen builds but probably one: some kind of SR set solution. The number of builds capable of handling most endgame content dropped somewhat. For me personally it dropped dramatically as my favorite builds were so called glass cannons that are not not viable anymore no matter the piloting.
I don’t disagree but his argument is total bullshit. If this game ever becomes competitive then balancing approach would be totally different. You wouldn’t even see the game like this if it became competitive
It’s in human nature to be competitive. That’s what we are doing with our builds. Before SR and Crucible people put BoC clear times in the threads.
But game isn’t necessarily balanced around competition, for the reason is single player game. You don’t have loot boxes, season resets and rankings. I would like to see even more builds/archetypes being viable in SR/Crucible but with that kind of OP attitude will make this accomplishment even harder.
I mean you know what competitive means in gaming terms. It’s when the game itself promotes competition by having stuff like player ratings and/or leaderboards.
Well yes, that’s competitive game. Grim Dawn by default isn’t. Of course we as players love to impose ourselves challenges and compete. But game balanced can’t be the same as games like PoE or something like that.
Oh goody, I love juvenile threads.