Also, what about buffing Shard of Belgothian? Make it useable at lvl 90+ and buff its base stats by quite a bit, as I feel there is almost no reason to use it.
My thoughts on cata set based on my most recent build using it
Build link and small description on video.
It uses full conversion to cold for the following damage types; lightning and fire, then almost 100% on chaos and aether to cold. The damage feels pretty good, but the build feels pretty squishy. (Even more noticeable in Sr) I crafted with a % armor bonus to try to offset the lowish physical resist. Outside of inq seal you can die very easily, and sometimes even inside of it.
My thoughts would be to add some of the following;
- Add small 4-6% phys resist to the offhand or 3 piece
- Give the full set proc build in adcth 8-10%
- Bonus casting speed on the 2 or 3 piece bonus.
It is a situation where it feels almost there. The other time I used the set was on trozan druid for the access to % dr. But that build is better served by filling other options. Doing some of the above would make cata set a more appealing option to choose from. The idea of adding another skill point to the 3 piece bonus would be neat as well since you do give up a lot of potential skill points/skill mods by using those three slots.
3 Likes
i feel like “in general” there is too few AAreplacers not depending on mastery, and too little access to them at lower lvls, Mistborn yaaaay…
then you have the issue of something like Shard screwing over some builds, because it’s the only one available, and far from powerful enough to make up for its downside of converting into elemental(for non ele builds)
most obvious example could be trying to make a non belgo pierce infiltrator especially as ranged.
you are basically forced to pair inqusitor and ex nb with an AAreplacer Mastery, or pray yourself lucky that a “fixed” AAreplacer existed for 1 specific purpose ex runebinder/rahzin
This one was requested before, but I’ll try anyway: Darkblaze Source misses % fire and burn damages while providing vitality to fire conversion. This makes it more strange considering every other Darkblaze piece has % fire and burn. This amulet can be used with Ember’s Calling for example, on fire Saboteur, or some fire + chaos hybrids.
Also want to point out that Ember’s Calling shoulders miss % burn damage =)
3 Likes
Cough Runebinder’s Gem cough
1 Like
Hm, what about it? Missing % pierce damage? Runebinder’s chest “lost” % burn damage too. It’s a weird set to be honest. But at least it doesn’t have conversions to damage type it doesn’t support XD
Yeah I cant do SR 150 anymore garbage spell
8 Likes
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYpvbeZ this is the build… i tried making it as balanced and realistic as possible without sacrificing all of its damage. the problems are as follows:
- terrible casting speed makes it awkward and annoying to cast devouring swarm
- you get CC`ed by trash mobs because you don’t really have CC excepting trap and slow res.
- i really wanted to try and make brutallax version work hoping that it will solve survivability issues for trickster but sadly it doesn’t
Conclusion: it really needs CC res (freeze and petrify) along the devo board. I couldn’t finish an 151-170 run with it from 10 tries, despite having the decent stats seen in the GT link.
Honestly most builds can do SR 75- 76 and i think it’s quite balance when it you think about the total experience the game is providing you (ie. able to kill Lokkar + farming SR 75+76 is enough to enjoy Grim Dawn as you can level up your alt’s faster and get legendaries).
1 Like
Do you even lift?
4 Likes
AAR pretty much useless after nerfs 
srs, how many acid AAR do we see sub 4 now? or sr125+?,
piercing AAR basically got gutted with all the arcanist nerfs, and no amount of clayvoyant buffing is gonna fix that
and bleed AAR is just in the most hopeless state it’s ever been since bleed relies on crit and that was canned…
i think it’s pretty obvious by now Z just don’t want AAR to be used endgame - otherwise surely we’d have have a black bubbly Yugol FX AAR transmuter 
4 Likes
Albrecht’s atrocious ray?
5 Likes
Roll back all AAR damage nerfs since at least 1.1.5.
Revert piercing ray change.
Call game complete, final patch.
7 Likes
Gaining the ability to pierce targets was the thing that finally caused people to stop complaining that AAR sucked. Do we really want to go back to the time that AAR kepts getting buffs over and over, but still sucked?
The alternative is people getting repeatedly mad at it getting nerfed patch after patch. Nobody wins here 
Honestly i would take a skill getting nerfed over and over because at least it means it’s in a usable state even after getting toned down. Unlike a skill that gets buffed over and over but still sucks.
3 Likes
Is there a chance to make Burning Void WPS from the Seal of the Void use shield as well?
I don’t think it would break any S&B chaos builds but it would make shield damage matter a bit more.
It already uses both weapons when dual wielded both melee and ranged.
Any thoughts?
Here is Infiltrator that I’ve been working on:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zB5992
The current problem I face is the low OA/DA despite maxed word of renewal, pneumatic burst, and shadow dance. The build also rely heavily on devotion to get physical resist. My suggestion is to change the Mageslayer 2 set bonus from elemental+aether resist to 10% physical resist + OA/DA.
Damage side it’s good enough with at least 50% elemental RR and 2k% ele damage, although energy sustain must come from the scale leech.
has -190 OA shred on VoS though. And 158 OA shred on FoI
1 Like
Can agree on aether and elemental res on Mageslayer. See, most elemental items already provide a bunch of those resists.
Every elemental constellation also provides ele and aether res: Quill, Scholar’s Light, Rhowan’s Crown, Magi, Hyrian, Blind Sage, Crab, Harp, etc.
A lot of rare elemental affixes also provide same resists: Devastating, Resonant, Runecarved, Tempest, Thunderstruck, Of Arcane Balance, Of Destruction, Of Maiven’s Wit, Of Scorched Runes, Of Squalls, Of the Winter Storm, Of the Sage, Of Wildfire, Of the Flamecaller, Celestial, Enchanter’s. Maybe some others that I missed, but you get the point.
Moreover, Arcanist, Nightblade and Inquisitor already provide aether AND elemental res. This way a lot of elemental builds end up with more elemental res they’ll ever need. Covering acid res on them is a bitch though.
Acid builds have quite the opposite problem: lack of elemental res, but acid is grossly overcapped.
1 Like