V1.1.9.1 Discussion

I think everyone is in agreement that ludicrous setups that use majority or all Epics/Legendaries are grounds for nerfs like the Desolator setups but it’s been a consensus for a long time that setups based on multiple double rares that the average player may never see are exempt due to how difficult it is in putting such a build together and that a build that uses such rare equipment deserves to feel powerful.

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I know that, and that’s not even related to the point I’m trying to make. I was responding to the sentiment that smart loot could be reduced in effectiveness to allow for wacky builds like piece arcaneweaver.

For the record smart loot was already changed in a hotfix after several complaints that nothing but Puncturing Dermapteran Slicers of Spines drop in the ant cave

+1 to that. AA replacers are even less in vanilla, so a Cold themed one would be a very welcome addition. Maybe it would outperform Cold Cadence and Savagery, but that’s more an issue with lack of conversion items in good ol’ vanilla GD.

Valdun is a really interesting case study in “what function is a set supposed to serve?”

  1. Is it supposed to be one of the strongest versions of a build?
  2. Is it supposed to serve as a beacon which tells new players “this playstyle is worth building toward, and here is one way to do it”
  3. Is it supposed to be endgame viable?

Based on what we’ve seen in this topic, no version of Valdun meets criteria #1, and only Valdun purifiers/tacticians satisfy criteria 2 and 3. Sadly, valdun commando would be a “noob trap”, sending a message to new players that this playstyle is worth pursuing only to be stonewalled by the likes of enemies such as Kaisan.

My personal opinion is that sets should satisfy criteria 2 and 3, so I’m not sure what it would take for commando to get there, but I’d be all in favor of buffs that would help this happen

At no point did I specifically use the arcaneweaver as an example of what could use a change. But when you have an MI with an item modifier for a skill and that skill can be converted like 4 different ways (talking just about skill-specific conversion, not accounting for just general damage conversion), smart loot promoting one route above all others kinda runs in the face of build variety. Not every Groble Sky Effigy user wants to go lightning. Not every Fleshwarped Platemail user is looking for phys retal. Not every Ascended Vestment user is going for elemental Panetti. Not every Pulsing Shard user is looking for Aether, hell, half of them are probably converting to something else.

Sure, making changes to this will allow people to go hog wild on some items and wind up with Pierce Arcaneweavers. Good for them. It’ll also help a bunch of “off” builds to come together much easier and would promote brewing up odd combinations for conversion-focused builds.

It’s a small point to make but Inquisitor didn’t exist in vanilla whereas Valdun does so back then it was built with Commando in mind. Granted the game has changed drastically over the expansions and years, mastery RR was also more scarce with Nightblade as the only source of Pierce RR back then.

I’ve discussed buffing Valdun Commando in a mock-up build test but it boils down to:

  • Give it another +1 to Soldier to equalise the +2 Demo/Inquisitor on the set (which happened though at a cost I didn’t ask for)
  • More damage in Soldier somewhere whether that’s flat Piercing damage or Fire/Chaos->Pierce conversion. Could potentially also buff Tactcian like Rekt mentioned further down depending on where it gets placed (e.g. Field Command vs Oleron’s Rage).

True but you did reply to a post that replied to pierce arcaneweaver which made me think you’re pertaining to that too.

I’d rather have that than not have lightning affixes on my sky effigy for my lightning totems build. I don’t know how long you’ve been playing but I hope you’ve never lived during those times when it would take hours to farm just to get lightning affixes on your sky effigy.

If you really wanna use items outside of their intended use then feel free to do so. But you have to pay the price by farming harder.

The question will always be “how much should smart loot be effective?” And I don’t think it’s going to be worth it for Crate to still experiment with the droprates when the final major patch has already arrived.

As a vanilla player, Valdun is a pretty good set for commando in terms of stats but nearly all of the piercing damage on it goes to waste since commando has no pierce RR. There’s also no conversion from Fire or Chaos to physical/pierce, so damage is lower than some of my builds with fire twin guns.
Maybe adding pierce RR to Valdun’s Clip will make it better?

As a foreword, it isn’t possible to add -x% RR to this with how the engine works. It would have to be flat or perhaps x% reduced.

Imo legendary sets should satisfy this with one exception: If there’s another legendary or MI that serves the same purpose/build and occupies a slot of that set. So silverbolt being better than full valdun is okay, it’s competition after all. But desolator? Hell no. It’s supposed to be a fire gun. I’m not saying this to nerf desolator btw. If you nerf that gun it’ll be the end of all 2h fire ranged builds. Buff valdun.

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Well, it’s the intended use that I have an issue with. Storm Totem has a transmuter right on the tree, so does AAR. I have yet to see a chaos-focused Pulsing Shard. After specifically looking for Sky Effigies (which, btw, drop in a very narrow area of the game) across 10 playthroughs of the game + few days of farming runs, my grand tally is 3 Vit Effigies. Why does lightning Storm Totem get its Sky Effigies rolled perfectly and Vit Storm Totem has no suitable offhand (not even Valguur helps)? Vit Storm Totem is no less part of the tree than Thunderous Strike.

I’m not saying get rid of smart loot entirely. But broadening it a bit to at least include some of the common skill conversions, transmuters or even things that are right there on the item (Fleshwarped Platemails and Colossal Fortresses keep rolling phys retal when something like a Commando could easily use both for a fire retal build) would definitely be nice.

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Then take your issues elsewhere, not on smart loot cause it’s not the problem. And even then there has always been a disparity between transmuted skills. The only skill I can think of that has a transmuter where both versions of the skill perform around the same level is AAR. And that’s because black flame is a strong set. Maybe DEE, in the sense that both versions are garbage.

Even with smart loot filtering fire retal here there isn’t a yellow fire retal affix. Of course it’s going to be rarer than phys that has both a yellow and a green affix.

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In fact, a lot of 2H rifles feel very weird in vanilla.
The Adversary: the WPS on it makes it seem like a rifle meant for autoattacking but it has no attack speed, nor conversion. Built both physical and fire versions, both lack conversion and deal sub-par damage for a 2H Legendary. The cunning boost helps with Phys dam but not with fire. Maybe with Elemental to Phys conversion it could make a stronger standalone rifle?
Gutripper: autoattack rifle with no attack speed.
Raka’Jax: PS rifle with no attack speed. I built it with Savagery and the lack of AS is even more noticeable.
Thunderclap: another PS rifle with no attack speed. The Heavy Ordnance bonus is also rather weird, considering this weapon does not have Energy or Health Regen of any kind nor +all skills to Shaman or Demolitionist. A way to make it more unique could be to swap the +4 to HO for a +4 to Torrent or give the rifle +1 to Demolitionist and Shaman to make it more of a summoner weapon.
Sparkbolt: weird rifle. The bonuses look good on the surface but lack of casting speed makes it inadequate for Stun Jacks spam and lack of AS likewise does not benefit autoattacks much. It also lacks bonuses to Canister Bomb, in case it was supposed to be a Barrelsmith-esque caster gun. I really do not know what to make of it.
Most of these weapons are usually overshadowed in practice by a common rifle that rolls with +% Damage and +%Attack Speed affixes despite the otherwise huge boons they give. It’s kind of a shame, because they seem like they could help unorthodox builds perform and feel better.

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Other items:

  • Most 2H weapons meant for Primal Strike all lack Attack Speed. Lightning 2H weapons in general lack attack speed outside of Ultos’ Stormseeker, making it the best Lightning 2H weapon for anything requiring casting or attack speed in spite of other weapons being more tailored to the skill you might want to use.
  • The Scythe of Tenebris could be given attack speed too, so that it can be used both as a statstick for Doom Bolt spammers and as an actual melee weapon, since there are few Chaos 2H weapons for melee.
  • Whisperer of Secrets or Mask of Delirium could be given a +1 to all Nightblade skills. These two helmets are rarely used (at least to my knowledge) and this bonus would make them a viable choice for Pierce Nightblades, especially since the only other vanilla helmet that gives +1 to Nightblade is part of Venomblade and converts elemental to acid.
  • Abyssal Mask could use better resists and maybe a +1 to Occultist/Shaman skills. It’s already a niche piece of gear and the abysmal resists+no mastery bonus make it unlikely to be chosen over most other options.
  • Thread of Mortality: I think I’ve never seen anyone use this amulet. At least the Mythical version has a lot of +skills, the normal one is basically the equivalent of a green ring with Dread Lord prefix. Sure, it gives huge +% Maximum resist to Vitality and Chaos, but it’s not really enough to justify losing possible +1 to your mastery, more damage, DR, CDR, Energy and a ton of other much more useful stats.
  • Doombringer: please, buff this amulet some way. The granted skill is not worth the lack of +skills, +all skills, resists and flat damage. 10% Crit Damage and a fairly minor increase in damage do not justify this choice. More resists (Elemental, Poison, Pierce…) and maybe a DA %bonus would go a long way in making this more appealing, I think.
  • Vileblood Mantle: could use a bonus to some Nightblade Skills. Like +2 to WD and AQC. Or Dual Blades. Or maybe +3 to Savagery. Or maybe +3 to Tenacity of the Boar. I dunno, I don’t really see the use of this item for both Blademaster or Trickster, which most benefit from Pierce and Bleed bonuses.
  • Boneweave Girdle could use a bump too, it’s outshone by the Stolen Dreams belt in almost every way, and only has a +3 to SoC and Devouring Blades (which is pretty useless since there’s no Entrapment RR in vanilla) to make up for it. More OA/DA and maybe Pierce/Elemental/Aether resists could help, definitely.
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So, about casting speed on Radaggan? You need it on piano casters and you need it even more on channeling casters. Now, there’s this weapon called Decree of Malmouth which fits surpirsingly well with this set. Here’s a vitality FoI Vindicator draft just to demonstrate how bad casting speed is:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GnGw6N

None of supported masteries have %CS in them, Radaggan doesn’t have it. It also doesn’t help that Decree of Malmouth also has no casting speed on it.

I managed to scrounge up some %CS from devotions and components, some is found on gear. But even if you get some sick double rare off-hand (Demonic of the Cabal) you’ll be sitting on ~170%, which is not terrible, but still there’s a lot of room for improvement.

So, adding ~10% CS somewhere on the set would be a good idea maybe?

Radaggan + Decree is actually a build I’m currently working on. Yeah some cast speed on that or the weapon certainly wouldn’t hurt. Having an FoI weapon without cast speed kinda kneecaps the potential of that thing.

They might consider raising the attack speed of the misery swords, they really are very low.

https://www.grimtools.com/db/es/items/8891

Aura of Conviction is now extremely difficult to hardcap. It was removed from Timewarped Walkers (which makes sense, Aether/Chaos). It can now be found on:

1 faction chestpiece (+3)
1 gloves (+3 but converts to non-pierce)
1 blue pants (+2, somewhat lacking pants otherwise)
1 offhand (+2, very generic)
1 MI axe (+4)
1 ring (+2, barebones faction ring otherwise)

and the usual yellow armor roll and green caster item roll. Looking at this again as I try out goredrinker set, which blocks the chest piece. Basically just rolling with + inquisitor for a small bump and calling it because from the limited options it’s not worth the tradeoffs to get to hardcap scaling. Would love to see this show up in a few more spots

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Me as well.See above.