Well all my shield build are doing so…
And dont get me wrong I dont complain or care about it Im just telling that Crate is killing the game because as a benchmark they are using top notch geared builds and taking dps from something that already didnt shined in that department…
Would really like to comment on that nerfs found in test play footage but it kinds of leave me wordless atm.
It’s not the magnitude of change, it just doesn’t make sense at some point.
You do not find a problem with a few builds being both incredibly tanky and also outputting really high damage? There has to be a trade-off somewhere, but right now that is not the case for shield physical builds.
If it is a fact that only a handful of (shield) builds can reliably complete Gladiator Crucible, then isn’t that actually a problem? Isn’t that something we should address?
Along with adjustments to some of those builds comes an overall increase to most mastery buff skills, new options for increasing Defensive Ability for most characters through Devotion and Legendaries and a slight reduction of Physical damage dealt by monsters.
I do enjoy reading how the meta is Witchblades/Blademasters (and to some degree Commandos), but when that’s looked into it’s an outrage. Sort of like when people complain the game is too easy, but don’t you dare nerf my characters.
I completely get it, nerfs are not fun, but sometimes the top needs to be shaved off to bring it in line with the rest. When things are more equal, we can look at what everybody struggles with (ex. top end Gladiator Crucible) and make changes so it’s a more enjoyable experience for everybody.
(Also, if I had a dollar for every time we’ve killed the game over the years or someone got upset over a changelog before jumping into the game, we’d be rich! Richer than astronauts!)
In any case, the patch is almost ready for release, you can view the full changes here and do your theorycrafting before trying it out for yourselves:
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50647
oh well seems i underestimated the worst scenario after all. 
Slight nerf
That sounds a bit weird to me, does that means no shield build (or any build) should have access to a reliable crucible farm ?
I guess there are two possibilities:
It says “The Crucible is a cruel place where even the mightiest heroes meet their match.” in the game guide after all.
-OR-
I would prefer the first option. Game’s getting boring without a “That’s too difficult” mode. I remember the first time I got to ultimate and I was dying all the time… That was actually the most fun part of the game. Where’s the fun if I can farm everything with no problem? That’s what Diablo3 is for.
I fully agree with that there should not be 2-3 builds viable at the hardest game content - the more builds viable the better for everyone.
However its completely unwarranted that magnitude of gut wrenching beating you give you all weapon procs, Markovian set (hello its useless now) as well as Belgorthian.
You guys kind of removed all the Life leech from weapons and Devotions - why? How does this accomplish more build variety? How will my WB S&B or BM heal themselves - its one thing reduce completely different to make it nearly extinct…
I really appreciate all the work Crate does as stated numerous times, you are brilliant at game design, lore etc but you really make bad decision when it comes to “balancing” this gem…
Still Love you though - cant wait for the Expansion but all the above nerfs are totally unneeded.
We’ve made mistakes in the past, and we’ve always owned up to them.
We are not infallible. I think the jury is still out on this patch though.
Well, I’m glad the love is still there. 
Well that will always remain. 
Unless you guys decide to not make Necromancer the 8th Mastery
I completely agree that Markovian set was broken, because it gave god level of survivability and also enough damage to rival glass cannon builds. Now Markovian set no longer has teh damage, but why did it ALSO lose the tankiness of Overguard?
None of the bad end-game sets got any substantial improvement. Iskander’s was already the best caster set due to phys resist and it lost a bit of that to compensate for the other buffs. Dreeg set is the only one to recieve a minor buff in the form of 20 Aether resist and some crit damage. But hey, now you actually get to see exactly how overcapped your Acid&Poison resist actually is while you get murdered by everything else!
ye we still love and all other team members ima point out some of my thoughts about current condition of s&b builds
1) am i the only 1 who thinks CADENCE itself was the main problem?
lvl 16 %428 weapon dmgunmatched dmg richer than astronauts
one of easiest skill in game to push 26/16 with tons of items with +cadence
deals %500 weapon damage?richer than whole galaxy now at 26/16 with juicy 312 flat physical damage ???
i dont think you find the real problem, temper shield training and such was not that much of a deal at all compare to this cadence madness. show me something which can come close to %500 wep dmg pls…
2) haunted steel and all other devotion life leech nerfs? i mean seriously
why the hell haunted steel converts phys dmg to vitality ? when there is already 1 more component doing that? not everyone playing s&b cadence…
i really dont like this solution, but lets see…
3) i really dont think cooldown adjustment on overguard and blast shield means that muchor ideal solution, any decent GD player can get 1 item with gildan arcanum suffix and can reduce all his cooldown my immense amount… or can just wear albrechts ring who cares useless stats on it +%70cdr chance +80 oa is way more than enough…
but overall, blast shield nerf was needed and i am happy to see it anyway.
4) falcon swoop nerf also doesnt needed imo, even grasping vine casters was using it, or other bleed builds… how many times its gonna nerfed… but w/e its minor thing…
5) shield training flat phys removed ? i mean, what about forcewave builds?what about blitzkrieg builds?
completely removing it is overkill imo. shield that boost your damage and attacking with shield was first thing in arpg i saw in titan questi guess skill was pulverize i am so old to remember
now you simply kill the 1 of the most signature thing of GD ?
not a fan, but i can accept… lets see before we totally judge. it has kinda its own logic tho, you wear shield to protect yourself if shield also adds dmg to your arsenal it might be too much. so i partly agree about this.
this is my humble opinion and i might be super wrong to talk before experimenting the patch, tho i am kinda super confident about cadence part itself from my arpg experience.
and i guess balance team thinks casters are fine in current state of GD but s&b builds were op and thought to shave them off to caster lvl, with these nerfs and life leech things. i dont feel like i am %100 agree about this…
but lets experiment 1.08 as far as i see crate balance team reads forums and listen player thoughts. so i am not that worried about game
ps: i have 1 s&b cadence guy and i kinda never play it after i hit lvl 85, so this is not a classic ‘OMFG MY OP BUILD NERFED cry me a river’ post, idc them and i find them extremely boring but w/e…
just general thoughts from me
500% Weapon Damage once every three hits (+ two instances of 100% weapon damage) is comparable (albeit slightly better) to overcapped Savagery over the same number of hits.
It doesn’t affect them. Forcewave and Blitz use the Shield’s damage when used with a shield, and Shield Training’s flat Physical was applied to your mainhand, not your shield.
500% is better for DOTs, but the real reason why cadence became so good is/was Deadly Momentum, not cadence itself.
Agreed, though the number of items with +Cadence can’t be ignored. It is far too easy to overcap Cadence (and then some), freeing up many skillpoints that other builds don’t have access to. Cadence as a skill is fine, but Cadence as a whole needed (and still needs) a look at.
I’m pretty sure this is at my request in the closed forums, which I made in support of the game as a whole, not targeted to nerf s&b builds. There is already one component to convert Phys->Vit, you’re right…however, there are - for most other damage types - two (or more) components to convert Phys->X, with Vitality being an odd one out and having no higher-end component support.
TL;DR that’s a buff to Vitality characters, and is not a targeted nerf to s&b characters.
show me one cadence build which has lower than %160-180 aspeedmost has +185 to 200 ez anyway
every 3 hits to deal %500 weapon damage not gonna hide the reality of %500 wep dmg per hit which can be applied super duper fast with reasonable aspeed
also keep in mind that, ALL occultist,demo,nblade,soldier itself has access to aspeed buffs which will naturally get min %20-25 aspeed from classes alone…
and highly doubt savagery can come close to or match/dance with cadence absurd amount of dmg output… hope and glad i am wrong anyway
well i know shield training flat phys adds on main hand damage, i was trying to poing out build diversity, and shield training nerf surely gonna effect them more than cadence… losing shield training flat dmg would be minor dps lose for cadence builds tho still noticable…
i still claim that cadence is not fine at all, listed the reasons and i will be happy&glad to see i am wrong but dont think so sorry.
well w/e i am wrong or right doesnt matter, hope game gets in good shape and will be balanced sooner or later… lets wait and see.
i highly agree that and when i saw it on forum first, my mind started to think many vitality builds, always wanted to make notched bone char…
since AoM is boosting vitality now, there will be tons of new build ideas around.
or lets say hope people will realize or catch the some new synergy or the new tweaks. make new builds goes on…
i hope you are right here , and dps lose will be minumum or lets say your partly trade some of your phys dmg to survivablity. but surely its gonna effect all other melee builds negatively aswell lol…
lets see
It just so happens that i’ve read all misadventures, nerfs etc. I’ve agreed with very many of them and defended them here on the forum. Many/most of them made sense and weren’t too extreme.
But this time it’s different. The commando was far from over powered or immortal in crucible. You just managed to make it boring. You are not the ones playing the builds for thousands of hours.
And I just saw you preview. If the nerfs to menhir’s/deadly momentum and shield training weren’t enough you also severely nerfed MArkovian set flat phys damage bonus and made the CD reduction on Markovian a bad joke. Even with the nerfs to skills i intended to at least update this build. Now that i’ve seen the preview I won’t touch this build. Be it as it may. You simply went too far
If the entire success of a build hinged around the 5-piece set bonus of a god tier set, does that not mean the set bonus was too impactful?
Seems like now we’ll have room to make adjustments to the playstyle that will benefit players of all skill levels rather than just those who collect an end-game set.
A lot of people that posted here were self found beginners. Part of the fun on this build was it’s reliability through all stages of game play.
The success hinged on 5 pc set bonus only as far Crucible was concerned and even then you can die. There were no guarantees.
Actually you are missing the biggest nerf which is imo Targo’s Hammer WPS down from 76% to 35% + 0.1sec cooldown