Both builds do pretty good damage, especially since the recent buffs, I do around 6:00 crucible for me (a good player can probably do less), clear SR80+, but I run into the same issues with both character.
If you want to deal actual damage, you need to go Attack Seru+Blind Sage route, however this route gives little to no sustain and very little tankiness in general. Both builds are too squishy to do Ravager reliably. Asking for adcth on arcane currents is probably unreasonable, but some armor or more health would be welcome.
Gearing: Living rings are pretty much the only option for rings on this class and honestly the bonus to word of agony on living ring feels so out of place. Very few elemental builds use WoP, and for those builds this bonus doesn’t really make a difference. Can we make this a bonus to Steel Resolve or Vigor instead?
Aura of Censure in general. The %damage reduction always feels really low. The melee version has to use Ill Omen, but I would prefer having the elemental shred mod from the weapon on siphon souls, remove a button and have AoC reduce damage more significantly.
Null Field is virtually useless. It’s the worst transmuter in the game : the penatly is harsh and the bonus isn’t really impactful. Surely there’s a way to make it more interesting without making it OP? Give it dodge chance too? Grant %armor instead?
agree on this. AoC itself is pretty weak all in all. also I don’t like the Ill Omen mod as it’s an extra button and in Crucible mobs bounce as mad, which results in slower clear times. I’d suggest moving the RR mod either to SS or AoC since they’re used already in this build.
There are few things remaining to fix but they are glaring. Several skills at their baseline are still incredibly weak and are not worth playing even for flavor purposes.
Demolitionist:
Spam BwC doesn’t provide nearly enough dmg and utility for a spam skill with no inbuilt sustain. The only semi-competitive spam BwC build in the game is RtA
Suggestion: buff animation, add leech mod to some generic item
Spam Stun Jacks is very weak. It cannot compete with the best skills for solo dmg, it has very bad AoE in spam version even with Light’s Defender mod
Suggestion: increase area, decrease area punishment for transmutor, reduce cone of fire
Ulzuin’s Wrath. Outright disfunctional skill. Doesn’t work against targets in melee range in a game where 60%+ of enemies get into melee range with you in a few seconds
Suggestion: Enable melee range hits, reduce dr scaling as counter-balance
Occultist:
Sigil of Consumption. Worst damaging skill from any mastery in the game. Works in two instances (Radaggan and Trozan) that have the base dmg of this skill multiplied by 4-10 times
Suggestion: drastically increase all baseline stats, reduce Trozan and Radaggan mods accordingly
Dreeg’s Evil Eye. Kinda works with few dmg types, again with absolutely insane mods. Has one competitive build with one set. Absolutely doesn’t work at all for RtA even with absurd defensive stats
Suggestion: Baseline WD value needs to be drastically buffed, it will positively affect leech for all dmg types, including RtA
Bloody Pox. The only use of this skill in the game is Fevered Rage for few retal/warlock builds. Zero damage even with heavy mods, bad utility because it is a target cast that needs to be manually applied to multiple targets to properly spread
Suggestion: heavily increase both dot parts of the skill, including mods, add area to cast
Nightblade:
Ring of Steel. Very weak skill for damaging purposes, even as bleed and even with huge mods. Has one single semi-competitive pierce build that reduces base cooldown fro 3sec to 0.7. And is still weaker than its DW counterparts. Even Korba in minmaxed version has this skill at 1-1
Suggestion: buff WD scaling, add off-hand hit to the base. It’s mind-boggling that all 3 Nightblade’s active damaging skills hit with one hand
Arcanist:
Callidor’s Tempest
Just a very weak skill at its baseline. At hardcap and converted, provides dmg similar to filler skills.
Suggestion: Buff WD scaling and dot scaling. Reduce transmutor cd by 1 sec.
There are other skills that are underperforming. But the listed ones are in the worst state
Yeah it’s a thing since the mace supports it. But CT damage is quite disappointing overall to focus on as only damage source. Getting a lightning>fire conversion mod to CT on somewhere else than off-hand would be good.
Yeah it’s a meme I know but somehow it performs better than DW Lightning Savagery Trickster. For ABB one, more ABB points and even ABB modifier that suits lightning builds would be good.
But since there’s no character limit, we can also talk about Crystallum builds. One I linked above Trickster, other is Archon one Archon, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Both perform mediocre. I think Crystallum should support WPS in addition to Savagery instead of SboE and Ascension. Ascension mods should be changed with Smite, SboE use is kinda obsolete so it can be changed with Whirling Death mod.
It doesn’t provide any ground breaking Bleeding damage on Warcry. Using it on physical bleeding builds is obsolete since Bloodrager fills the amulet spot. Pierce and Vitality Bleeding builds are only proper options(Blood Knight and Goredrinker also fills the amulet spot). So the amulet should be build definingly good.
Blazerush; it needs physical&lightning>fire on Savagery mod. Conversion mod of Upheaval is kinda unnecessary. There are items that provides global lightning>fire but the main goal of the build is stacking OA so that just not add up.
Damage wasn’t good so I had to change into this Dervish, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Adding ABB provided more damage than VM and increased lifesteal. So increasing the flat damage on would be good and maybe even adding some frostburn damage.
Also let’s remember cold judgment feedback I provide a while ago;
Damage is good if you prefer Torch route but the defense and sustain was terrible so I had to balance it with Empyrion route. Anyway what I’m asking is some Judgment modifier. Either add Fire Judgment mod on the weapon or buff the complete set Justicar mod, preferably with some burn damage.
2H Melee Cooldown Primal Stike
It’s still bad. I know it’s hard to buff it without buffing range versions that already has good CR times.
For the last; Mad Queen Claws it got some buffs which are good but the problem still remains. Purpose…
Dervish has Venomblade Set, Misery Swords and even Venomlash which all are really good.
Witch Hunter has Venomblade Set, Basilisk Claw which are also better than Mad Queen setup.
It’s a classic weapon, drop is not easy to get, Boss is hard to challenge for casual players. I don’t know what it can be, adding Soldier support is suggested before and didn’t happen but it should have a build definer feature even it’s a meme. Acid Cadence is logical since there are gear support aswell. Acid FS might also work since there is a conduit. Acid Savagery would be more meme but atleast something. Acid Rune of Hagarrad maybe?
Anyway these are my opinions about different gears and setups. Feel free to quote me and share your opinion on those matters.
I planned to write one topic with suggestions, but I kept putting it off. Let me speak here.
The idea does not concern specific builds, but the whole archetype: a pistol-and-shield. Although, in 1196 ranged builds received a major change concerning 100% passthrough, I thought about how to increase the number of pistol and shield builds. For example, in one not very successful game (Wolcen) there is a mechanic when you equip both a pistol and a shield, an auto attack is replaced by a shotgun: a smaller radius, but a wide cone. So here are some ideas:
Warden.
Warden Krieg is famous for his shotgun attack, and his shield only has 1 modifier (hence 2 free slots). Therefore, I suggest adding at least cold to aether conversion as a modifier for Chilling Rounds. In this case, the Shield can be paired with Rutnick’s blaster.
Bloodsworn.
The Bloodsworn Repeater also only has one modifier for doom bolt, which limits the number of builds that can be used. And here I propose to add a modifier that converts damage to chaos for any WPS with a single shot, for example, for Markovian Advantage and add +2 projectiles. In this case, such a pistol will become a ranged analogue of Naren Kur’s blade.
Ugdenbog
The Ugdenbog Repeater is very strange pistol: it has a modifier for Aegis of Menhir (also only one slot) - spells that scale from casting speed, but with a built-in attack speed bonus. Yes, you can also add a WPS modifier with or without +2 projectiles to the pistol, which will increase the variability of its use.
Dreadchill Mythical Dreadchill Mark medal boosts melee Necrotic Edge by increasing the attack cone and the number of targets. For ranged, it would be nice to also add +2 projectiles.
Watcher Watcher of Erulan is pistol oriented shield can also get at least one more WPS modifier
Since I did not touch builds, maybe other players can join and share own experience with pistol and shield builds.
Tri-elemental builds are outdated. Quad-elemental (Elemental+Aether) is a Future!
Since this topic was ignored by devs (or not, according to Fleshwarped Casque buff), it seems that base War Cry is going to stay non-useful without specific items. Well, at least look at one of them - Krieg’s Mask.
Its -1 sec modifier is just not enough to warrant picking it over mentioned Fleshwarped Casque, even 5p Krieg set offers nothing amazing (just some flat Aether Damage, flat RR to Reckless Power - which is easy to get from other sources and thematical, but lame Krieg’s Wrath ). I have two ideas:
Change current modifier for War Cry to -3 sec for Krieg’s Mask to put it in line with alternatives;
Or add -2 sec modifier for War Cry to 5p set bonus so that taking full Krieg would be an option.
As a bonus - please consider increasing flat RR duration on Krieg’s Wrath to 5 sec to match its cooldown. As of right now it looks redundant.
Brought this up late in the last patch cycle, the itemization and “why” around pistol and shield is really limited right now, and without introducing mechanics or new WPS that I think are outside of scope, it’s basically just buffing some numbers to the moon. Some of the items saw buffs but those were effectively negated by rebuke and other flat sources being toned down slightly near the end of patch as well.
The only 20%-1% results range gun and shield builds right now leverage Stronghold set
has set wps that’s a shotgun, so full projectiles with single gun
shotgun wps work great with firestrike brimstone spam (but not very well with other AAs without passthrough)
has big flat stack on shield, belt, and set bonus to bridge the gap of only one weapon
and even this only has great results when going firestrike purifier or shieldbreaker. Paladins are definitely a tier lower
At this stage of the game I don’t know what kind of identity could be carved out. More shield wps would be welcomed by all but none of them work on ranged anyway. In theory you trade off the damage of a 2 hander with the defense of a shield, but in practice killing faster wins out for both offense and defense, especially since most classes can’t take advantage of a shield defensively beyond the listed stats (and that’s mostly phys res anyway).
Simplest approach is probably tossing the aforementioned horse steroid damage numbers on the ranged shields (wrathguard, watcher) and couple of medals that specifically support gun+shield and call it a day. Maybe a recolored WPS on a shield or medal since gun and shield is also locked out of the item WPS options. Or more defense on the gun bonuses on those shields to make them immortal but slow
I would like to see Templar with Rutnick’s Blasters be made viable, right now this is the best build I could come up with and the damage is incredibly lackluster Templar, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator . I would suggest adding an IEE modifier to the weapon alongside RF bonuses. The WPS on it also seems really weak.
Another build I’ve always struggled to get right is melee vitality Trickster. This is the best I could come up with, but the damage is always really low. Trickster, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator . Skill points are also an issue. Maybe add pierce to vitality conversion to some gear, add bonuses to all skills to both Bloodrender and Death Omen and add vitality damage % to Massacre relic.
Also I have been asking this for a while, but I would like to see fire → cold conversions for Thermite Mines added to both the Rimetongue and Harra sets, solely for aesthetic purposes. They’re the only thing that look out of place during gameplay.
Finally, something to add about balancing going forward: There’s plenty of gear that need buffs but wont ever show up in a grimtools link, because they’re so weak they can’t even be used for anything. Some niche items like Arcanum Electrollis could be given interesting modifiers to open up new build possibilities, which is what I want the most from GD updates.
So here are a few of my builds that have issues i belive :
Blightlord Oppressor:
I made a topic for this recently, and even though i improved it a bit with some devotion tweaks, -as with most cooldown casters in GD which i don’t play much- this build needs sustain. I never understood the health regen nerf, it was never even remotely OP and it is extremely hard to build and it could be a great alternative for sustain on certain characters. One character i have with HP/regen -a Mortar Purifier- is very fun.
TLDR : I would like either Ravenous Earth or Guardians to have lifesteal, also RE spawn animation is too long in my opinion. Starts firing too late.
EDIT : Also i would like to ask (i might be wrong) isnt this just inferior version of Vitality RE / Guardian Oppressor with Pandemic? You can have 1.4 sec cooldown RE with +1 sec duration and you can have 5 Guardians with Word of Solael off-hand with vitality version.
Vitality Primal Strike Ritualist:
This is simply the most squishy build i’ve ever played in my life. I’ve tried to plan this several times in past -a Vit PS character with Rotgheist set- and always failed to make a decent looking one until this. This one i could barely manage to overcap resists and have decentish OA (had to dump Cunning) and stun res only thanks to my lucky Serenity and Gloves. Still has no phys res or any kind of absorbtion.
The squishiness of this build is next-level, died instantly twice to Ramzul on SR 65 (literally one-shotted) as my first SR experience. Not sure what can be done here but Rotgheist set might use some heavy buffs like Deathguard set maybe.
DW Melee Cold Reaper:
Here is an experimental build of mine with 2 Spectral Battle Axes, which should have been performing much better than it is currently i belive. Has great damage but not as crazy as i expected (A lot of other builds with much less WPS points can deal higher numbers). While this is not as bad as the PS build above, this build was also crazy squishy. Was an instant bummer as soon as i started SR65 like that one. I could barely manage to get ok OA with this as well.
Honestly i don’t know what could be done with this build without bloating those cold items with stats, but one can hope.
You need 1 point in Celestial Presence for the rr from the hood and the amulet to be effective. Build should be a lot better with just that adjustment.
I would like to figure out some environment issue. I suggest to nerf ALL healer monsters in SR, probably by adding a healing penalty, for the reasons below:
Players’ damage is higher in CR than in SR, because we have buffs and towers/banners.
Monsters’ health is about 150% higher in SR75-76 than in CR, making the 24%/80% health restored rediculous in SR.
These result that in CR, it’s easy to kill the enemies before their second healing while in SR it’s very hard.
Particularly, the groups below should be paid more attention to:
Monsters in this group always appears in packs of 3 or 4 (except Torraxsteria). They always heal each other, and they buff each other with incredible damage absorption and elemental resistance. What’s more, they even wear gears! It’s very hard to kill even one of them if you are playing an elemental build or a build with lower damage (Retal builds included because these enemies are all mages).
Monsters in this group always appears in packs of 3 or more as well. All of them have a 25% damage reduction skill. All of them could buff each other with very high elemental and physical resist. They are very hard to kill. What’s more, they either have very strong slowing skills or Vire’s Might, making it very hard to flee from them.
I remember that early in v1.1.6.x to v1.1.8.x, there are not as many healer monsters as now in SR. Now these healer enemies are overflowing. I suggest limiting these disgusting s**t.
This guy pointed out the biggest problem in the entire game. Healer packs in SR’s are complete and utter non-sense. Every nemesis spawns with an army of healers behind them as well.
If you wish to help us achieve our goals, please share your personal experience with builds and provide your results! Let’s see what 2023 brings to Grim Dawn.
Okay then! I have little interest in mastery or buffs, though I think I did once hear my following suggestion irked you in the past. Apologies if so, and apologies if not.
I think games like this get longevity out of the support and passion, which is certainly here, but that goes for the other devs… the modders too… There are some great mods here that I think should potentially be defacto implemented, if people want. That would do a service to people who really helped made the game for so many people, and to your game for years to come. But either way, I think the two mod limitation should be done away with.
And yes I mean the usual suspects, such as Grim Internals, Rainbow Colours, maybe Grim UI, maybe a cam mod. Plus xbox fans can enjoy the glory too!
You might think, people are entitled to use them anyway. But maybe not in an update or two where they are potentially EOL and incompatible, and the modders have burnout.
I’d also suggest mod compatibility with crucible. This is the bit I’m sure I heard you were dead against once, when I was trying to get mod compatability between Grim Internals and Grim UI (and succeeded by encouraging the collaboration/discussion, which our main lady amply fixed; my greatest contribution I’ll make here, no doubt ).
I am aware that there is now of course a GI “fix” for using it with Grim UI, but it’s not completely bug free, and prone to update failures.
As somebody with ADHD, these thee mods are absolute godsends, and I doubt I’d play this incredible game if not for the leeway they gave me. Stats boggle me, but these mods absolutely alleviated what for me is a completely debilitating ailment.
Cheers for the good times so far. Please consider again to let people mod at will into the future!
I’ve been finding that Witch Hunter Chaos SS struggles with RR compared to other similar builds.
For instance:
Rah’Zin gets -25% from the set and usually wants the Harbinger head over Ember’s Calling
Builds that don’t need the conduit can use an amulet for -8% to -15%
Ember’s Calling get a nice -28% from the set
If you use Rah’Zin or Ember’s Calling on Chaos SS your SS level is way too low.
Virtually all chaos builds that can use 1h melee want a Fang of Ch’thon for the RR, but Chaos SS really needs it because it doesn’t have a lot of other options.
I think maybe moving some more of the Chaos RR from Ember’s Calling to the helmet would go a long way for helping here. You’d get more options opening up for melee weapons (Voidspires, more Bloodlord’s Blade’s, etc.) and you’d make up some of the RR difference.
The RR deficiency is really noticeable with resist modifiers in SR, and trading out a second Bloodlord’s Blade for a Fang hurts the smoothness and speed of the build a bunch, since it’s already missing flat cooldown reduction on SS from items and can’t max out Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends.
). I have two ideas:
).