…this thread has 0 balance
Dreeg
Balance must be maintained.
Not gonna lie. I thought this was satire when I read the original post at the top
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He feels that way, for a reason. It’s his personal experience with the game based on some 500+ hours. And some of his conclusions are similar to mine (5.5k hours and 50+ builds). People take aim when their baby is under fire. By baby I mean the balance, you and other Praets are striving to uphold and protect. I get that. It’s a noble goal. However, some people see this from a different angle. If you don’t play the hardcore mode, don’t push high SR and other endgame content there, but mainly focus on softcore crucible builds, - we may have totally different opinions about balance. And you can throw arguments like:
- High SR is not meant to be pushed in HC. You have been warned.
- Balance is currently in the good place for HC, because we have a few praets who can confirm that based on their experience.
- I don’t play HC and don’t care, softcore is doing great.
Even if focus on softcore exclusively, I have a lot of feedback (nobody gives a damn about my feedback, but I will keep providing it regardless).
Battlemages have been around forever and yet they still occupy Tier 0. And yet warlords got nerfed a month after some people realized that they were OP. Some builds keep getting slapped 2-3 times a year even though they aren’t even OP. Is that the balance you want to uphold? If you are ok with this state of affairs - then my religion analogy is spot on.
Another reason for the aforementioned analogy is the level of response, very quick to judge, very aggressive. Yes, Ganishka was in your face with his statement but only because he’s really passionate about the game and wants it to get better. So, clash of two passions? Or passion vs religion?
And yet, somehow, during this long constructive and positive discussion, people are [deliberately] ignoring the elephant in the room - balance and competition.
There is no balance, no matter how you look at it. It’s very relative to the metrics you use. The game is somewhat balanced around crucible. But if you really want to know how deep this rabbit hole goes, all you have to do is introduce ladders/seasons. And the balance is gone. Because it never existed to begin with. It’s a perception of balance. Drop Diablo 3 game difficulty down to torment 6 max and see how many new builds emerge. You will get Retaliation + Pet + Tempest Rush Monks along with another hundred viable (all of a sudden) builds on the same day. It’s all about criteria.
So when someone states that, based on his experience, the game has zero balance, and even provides valid examples (and yes 2H ranged are currently in a better shape than a year ago, but that doesn’t mean he is off by a mile, especially so with regards to classes like BM), you should at least entertain the idea that maybe there’s a grain of truth in that statement. It’s not coming from a praetorian but from a legit user with some hours sunk into the game, plenty to start getting an idea of what’s going on.
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Don’t forget about Multiplayer bro. We have lost too many chars due to those positive auras cancelling each other. MP is out of balance for sure. Other than that I agree about competitive aspects and lack of balance in general. But I don’t really think it’s a big deal in a mostly SP game with no global economy and ratings. Asking too much. I’m longing to see a hardcore viable 2H ranged build that can be used for reliable SR 40-60 farming. Or any kind of viable battlemage lol. Poor battlemages.
They want the same thing everybody else wants…
They just make easy targets cause they have an extra title on the forum.
The only difference between Praetorians and other players us that they help is iron out gamebreaking bugs before the patches go live. A good number of Praetorians doesn’t even give a damn about endgame, and recruiting them was a deliberate decision.
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Grim Dawn excells through the wide variety of thoughtful integrated game mechanics. If u knew what all got sharpen and fleshed out in terms of gameplay/item/skill decision u wouldnt even dream of to complain like this.
So in such a spectrum, looking at the extremes (forcewave early,this that etc) and cancelling anything else out of your view could lead you to statements like this thread.
Without any judgement, condition/playtime/circumstance…
Exploring the game in its wholeness would easily justify some stuff being complained. So lets not freak out on thinking soldier is op (those aspects you described are what soldier is, i mean… thats the living archetype of how it is designed, its not bad, just how it is 
)
Soo chillax injoy the ride and abuse the op-ness in a good way 
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Although I think diablo 3 sucks on a lot of fields (vanilla campaign, childish atmosphere, very few variety, set forcing you to play how the developers want… and so on) it is by far the most competitive.
The reasons are simple: leaderboard with access to gear vizualisation, timed challenge rift, and so on.
I think Grim Dawn should add such a mode, like a timed small shattered realm with a defined build from the community, AND an open version where any build can be played. Would allow to easily spot builds that are overpowered for example.
The GD foundations - minus the graphics - are amazing, just some details that can be improved.
They make easy targets because they flock every player trying to express his/her opinion based on his/her personal experience. Somehow, in every similar thread, it’s the praetorians who respond first, jump the gun and start the flame wars. At least this is my subjective impression. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame them, even if it may not always seem that way. I actually have a lot of respect for the work being done. That doesn’t mean that they are always right or that I have to agree with their points of view just because some of them have invested 11k hours into this game (kudo’s by the way, I’m only half way there lol). Also, as you have said, many of them don’t give a damn about endgame. But many of us, players, do give a damn about endgame. Same goes for different modes including HC.
But let me try and be more positive and provide some constructive feedback here. Let’s take baby steps and fix battlemages? How about just that? Maybe make some of those epics synergize with the physical devastation or blade arc so that both builds become cruci viable? Same goes for 2H ranged builds. All it takes is a couple of good blues to make them tanky enough to earn a good spot in your middle line.
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Then everyone will start complaining about nonexistent build diversity and how this season everyone is playing warlords or purifiers. And Zantai will have to work hard every season to rebalance things and give chance to other builds next round. Same as happens with Diablo 3, PoE and similar games.
the world needs your birbs. send them all over around and inbetween lol Maya 
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I hardly ever respond to these types of thread and if i do as often as you say i do, you are gonna have to come up with evidence if i actually do. Because the way i see, this is grossly overexaggerated just in order to make praetorians look worse than they truly are.
It’s really a crime to, i don’t know, counter argue? The point of the forum is for discussion and if you post a thread with arguments that people disagree with, expect people to disagree in the posts below.
Really, the problem here is that instead of discussing the arguments we present, you instead have to twist everything into a “you against us” narrative.
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Name the last time a Praetorian that doesn’t rhyme with wowbam started a flame war.
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Yeah, I’m not sure it’s fair to pretend they’re all named powbam. 
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Maybe it’s simply because they are already heavily involved in the game, and like any group of people, some are more opinionated than others.
And on the subject of Battlemages, most of us agree they are underpowered. In fact, one Praetorian in particular reminds Zantai of this pretty regularly.
You mean they aren’t already? 
Last three comments are the proof 
…of what? That we exist?
Good, I was getting worried there for a sec.
Haha, no. Of jumping the gun. Regardless of whether you are right or wrong.
Generally it’s not jumping the gun when someone overtly accuses you of something in a thread of 140 posts with dozens of people in it.
If you want to make bold “PRAETORIANS ARE EVIL” posts, yeah, expect some objections. But we’re hardly the ones to be ‘starting’ the flame war in that circumstance.
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