V1.1.9.8 Discussion

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
301

This. Who cares if build X or Y is too good for SR or Crucible? Can you do all the content you want with a build weaker than that? Yes? Then what’s the problem? I assume most of us aren’t here to play the most optimul build that farms content 2 minutes faster than the rest. In fact how many of us contributing to this discussion even care about farming anymore, when we’ve probably had 15 of every legendary in the game? That is not to say the game should balance around experienced players who don’t care about farming, but rather, why balance around farming efficiency and nerf Octavius when it would just be to the detriment of the people who actually care about farming efficiency? Octavius or any other build being fast and good isn’t hurting anyone. More concerning is if the game indicates through items that a certain build is supported and should be possible, but then you put it together and it sucks.

On that note, it has been mentioned before but got buried by all the Octavius stuff: spam BWC is in need of help. The casting animation is way too slow for what the skill delivers on damage, and while it has great utility (flat RR, OA reduction and DR all in one) and does wonderfully on trash AoE clear, it’s just not really there on DPS, and is a pain to sustain, both in terms of health and energy (I went Sorcerer anticipating energy issues and even then I had to go mental on energy devotions to keep casting). Infernal Champion doesn’t provide anything for health regen and the lifesteal option on main skill is out of the window as well, so it’s forced to sustain off of Bat, no part of which is in the correct damage type, so that eats a good part of the inventory to convert for mediocre results. Moreover the best weapon for BWC, Herald of Blazing Ends, has a phys base so the %WD aspect of Bat is also diminished in effectiveness. Spam BWC is by far the sweatiest 3/5 build in SR I’ve played. It barely eeks out an over 50 % success rate in SR75-80 runs within timer and does so kiting its little heart out to a heart-attack inducing rate almost every step of the way past like SR77. Either BWC needs at least a pittance of lifesteal on it, or something like Mythical Tome of Atonement could use some damage conversion changes to at least make Bat a more effective option, if that’s the route we’re supposed to take with the build.

I’ve also circled back to my 2h Chaos Reaping Arc Deceiver to do some reliability testing on it for SR and despite the various refinemens I’ve put on it from TQFan’s suggestions way back, it’s still awful. Mythical Wrath of Tenebris suggests that a 2h Chaos Deceiver should be a thing but it’s just woeful, the combo doesn’t provide anything of worth for AoE and is just not that great on defense, what with all the Inquisitor Seal setup and being forced to stand in place among ground effects cause if you move out of Seal you’re splat. At first I thought it might just be Reaping Arc failing me on AoE but no, even a Howl of the Wendigo Blad Arc Witchblade feels better than Deceiver because while it might be glacially slow (unlike Deceiver), at least it’s sturdy and defensive. Not sure what to do with that though, cause the Deceiver combo is just inherently iffy on melee. Maybe if the Harbinger bonuses applied not just to ranged so the helmet and gloves do some more work?

3 Likes
302

say what?, the set pretty clearly supports a warlord approach, so there is no way that shouldn’t be utilized or be allowed

that’s my choice, that has nothing with avenger or warlord and being cunning greedy etc - but the hp pool also has nothing todo with whether the set has too much phys res

because it’s possible, because the set supports it and the approach/avenger warlord is actually good despite what you think (even if my setup version is a bit less optimal/more greedy than ex Banana’s)

i thought this was Grim Dawn where we intentionally allowed build freedom and supported multiple build approaches, and never demanded that items/sets should only be used for 1 specific build

2 Likes
303

It supports Warder and Archon. It doesnt automatically mean it supports Warlord just as well.

304

yes it does, quite literally

2 Likes
305

You’re imagine things, the +1 to Soldier on the mace and the Zolhan support is not there.

Also, Warder is not Soldier + Shaman, it’s Shaman + Shaman.

4 Likes
306

I’ll look into it, you got me interested. If you say it has no AoE then I’ll try the Chaos WoP conduit with all (or all except the 1st) nodes maxed for AoE. As you say, the build will need to be tanky enough to stand in the Seal. I actually really like this skill and not very mobile builds in general in contrast to other players so I’ll try to make it work.

On the topic of what a set is supposed to support or not - this is not true. Chillwhisper is very good for Infiltrator and there’s is no Pierce → Cold because you can get 100% easily with 1 Spectral Blade, the gloves and the rings. You can respond - I don’t want to be forced to wear these. You’re not, you just lose the conversion - that’s called a compromise. And I think other players are fine with that - and i.e. build more towards Frostborn damage from what I’ve seen. I could agree Chillwhisper might not be optimal for Apostate but this is because of the nature of Drain Essence which is a channeling skill and doesn’t intertwine well with a short cooldown spell like Rune of Hagarrad. And needs to cast Ill Omen too. I haven’t played this variant though so take it with a grain of salt.

1 Like
307

it’s pretty simple, if a set has support for 3 masteries, even if the original intention is to only support 2 of their class combos, it will still end up supporting 3 classes regardless
the question isn’t even whether or not it supports (nor if it was the intention), but if the support is big enough to make the 3rd combo work as well as the first or second, and in some cases, like Avenger it works splendidly (and works even better if not going the greedy wps approach like me)

3 Likes
308

Also saying Chillwhisper is made only for Reaper is odd when that set made Infiltrator completely busted, to the point both Hag and Blade Spirit ate a bunch of nerfs.

Don’t know how the situation with Infiltrator and Chillwhisper is at the moment, but i highly doubt it’s in such dire straits that it’s somehow overshadowed by Reaper on that set.

1 Like
309

If built tanky it’s one of my best builds in SR 75-76 (although I prefer a similar custom one which is even sturdier). Can Shadow Strike into a group of 10 heroes and won’t go down. Moosi, Grava, Fabius, Reaper, Alex, Iron Maiden… - all can be facetanked w/o issues. Here’s some gameplay Chillwhisper Infi SR (I died at end against Mad Queen - I miscalculated or had too little Acid overcap - 16). Ravager is not a problem but seems to be missing ~10% Phys res to be able to take Callagdra. Reaper is a better choice for her.

1 Like
310

projectile attack spam while her red aura is up, i doubt 15 more acid res would have saved you there :sweat_smile:

311

Dunno, my other similar build can take her Adv Moosi MadQueen Grava - YouTube but it is sturdier. Maybe a variant with Ghoul would be better here which helped me against Rashalga in other builds. Cannot say for sure because Mad Queen is pretty rare in SR, I meet her once at best throughout my tests usually.

312

I wanted to suggest this for a very long time but always somehow forgot. I know skill changes are off limits but I was thinking at Breath of Belgothian. Can it be turned from a 1 pointer to a 3/3 giving 20-40-60 hp regen and also the same amount of energy regen? Reason behind this suggestion is encouraging dw casters since most of them rely on an offhand for energy regen, or at the very least increase the health regen as it is and also add energy regen. Cheers!

313

I am all for tri-elemental builds buffs to defensive options, especially in its devotions. The top tri-elemental builds are too glass cannon and have very little options for defensive devotions since they feel forced to heavily invest in purple and green devotions to get Seru and Sage. Their damage is also not that great to make up for it, so it always feels bad playing tri-elemental instead of focusing on fire, lightning or cold. Seru feels pretty bad and is a pretty hipster t3 devotion. Maybe give it some phys res instead of the DA?

1 Like
314

I believe the main problem is that tri-elemental build loses a RR source compared to single-element ones (as they cant get Widow, Murmur and Solael’s Witchblade without sacrificing too much). And their itemization is pretty limited too, as any single-element build can use both its own element and tri-elemental gear, but tri-element build has to use tri-elemental gear only.
And Seru/Blind Sage arent so good because the only thing their procs offer is damage. They dont have sweet RR like Ultos, or damage reduction like Light of Empyreon, or OA reduction/miss like Arazkaa, or life leech res reduction like Rattosh. It’s just plain boring damage we have everywhere, and it isnt that high even.
I’d rather like to “sweeten” Seru and Blind Sage proc with some extra, like OA/DA reduction, fumble/impaired aim, resist reduction, etc.

2 Likes
315

so can we get some passthruu for ranged RF builds

316

HoS is also an absolute waste of stats on the set and the supposed playstyle. It doesn’t support cold. It’s extremely hard to plug weapon damage into Drain Essence, and the set actively converts away from vitality, while mutated DE converts from aether. And the skill bonuses to it are also bordering on non-existant. So AoC ultimately comes out on top, even if it’s also hard garbage.

I fundamentally disagree with the premise that interrupting DE to cast RoH “doesn’t intertwine”. I’m currently finishing my run on Clairvoyant Spellbinder. The core of the set is the support for AAR and 2 short CD nukes - Doom bolt for Warlock and Reap spirit for Spellbinder. To both the set even offers a chance of 100% CD reduction - so yes, there absolutely are channeling builds that interrupt the channel for the nuking. And it’s quite fun to soul punch the shit out of mobs from time to time. Surely RoH isn’t any more obtrusive that RS. And DE is even better suited to interruptions, as it sports way bigger DoT than AAR.

As for the whole idea of “using Chillwhisper on the wrong class”, I’d like to make an argument here.

Let’s look at the sets available to Reaper.

Chillwhisper, naturally. It’s clearly visible what the set offers to the class combo.

Morgoneth. A set that I absolutely love on Reaper, focused on SS. A set that is also widely run on Spellbreakers. There are also variants with it on Archons, Witch hunters and Ritualists. Seems like the set can be run on more than one class perfectly fine, even when drifting away from SS focus.

Deathguard. I have no clue about this set, I haven’t played it. Seems tailor-made for Reaper with its skill support. However, I see it also used on Dervish just skimming through the grimtools.

There may probably be more set-based builds for Reaper, but I’m going to stop at reaching 3. Because now we will look at sets available to Apostate.

Bonemonger. Set so omnipresent it absolutely dominates Apostate and Opressor builds. I’ve even seen it used on Paladins, and personally used it on gunsilnger Purifier at some point.

Radaggan. Widely run on Decievers as well, which I’m considering at the moment. So clearly there’s more than 1 class to play this set on. It’s also worth noting that Inquisitor offers absolutely 0 native support to vitality or acid. Way less than what Necro and Inquisitor offer for cold. Yet the set makes it work.

And that’s it. There’s no obvious third set to run on Apostate. Maybe there is something less obvious, but Chillwhisper is absolute garbage here. Unlike Ragaddan which brings the same class together for a rather unorthodox damage combo. Unlike Reaper, which enjoys 3 obvious sets supporting it, all fine and dandy.

So what else Chillwhisper supports? Infiltrator? Does it though? Does Infiltator benefit that much from amazing modifiers to RoH on the set, especially the energy cost reduction? Does it somehow benefit from amazing aether to cold conversion on chest? Maybe from the 2-set resist bonus? No, it doesn’t. For Infiltrator it’s almost purely a Blade spirit set.

So, the bottomline, is that Chillwhisper is just a shit set for a shit class. It has absolute junk for stats - you can just remove several lines from it tomorrow, and nobody who plays it will even notice. Unlike sets like Morgoneth or Bonemonger, it barely supports one class, and for Apostate it’s WAAAAAY worse than Radaggan, which deals with equally problematic damage combo way better.

And, honestly, I half-hoped that somebody more competent than me would come up in this topic and give their perspective on actually playing the set on Apostate. Guess nobody plays it after all. Maybe I should just cheat it up to 100 to see if it’s as miserable as it looks on practice.

317

Some time ago I tried Wyrez’ Chillwhisper DE Reaper. Tweaked it for max dmg. Kicks ass as I´ve never seen before in a channelling character. SR80, no problem. Better single target dmg than any AAR or EoR build, and I´ve tried them all.
Just saying - it’s not shit at all.

318

I’m specifically referring to Apostate here. There are many sets that support 3 classes in a playable fashion, and Chillwhisper isn’t one of them.

My “testing” through crucible so far also showcases energy balance somewhere between “unsustainable” and “gods why” territory.

319

well it certainly intertwines worse in comparison. People always prefer fewer skills when having a channeling filler in comparison to other types of filler. But don’t mind me, I didn’t say it’s unplayable

I haven’t played it but since both Cold Chillwhisper DE Reaper and Hagarrad Infiltrator are totally playable (for me personally they’re good) it’s hard to think a combination of both of these (each a bit weaker perhaps than in these standalone builds) would be bad. Especially if interrupting DE with Hagarrad is not that bad.

Also - the Grim Dawn community of builders is not that big and some builds might not have good guides / videos on them. Doesn’t mean it’s instantly trash.

Btw I’m not saying to not buff it if other players feel like it needs some.

320

Again, it mostly comes down to horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE stat budget. Reaper and Apostate on otherwise copypasted build will see a difference of about 400-500 OA and 300 DA. Then you start chasing casting speed.

I’m just off my crucible attempt with the build above. Which probably is suboptimal, but I utterly failed to find better gear in the database to improve it.

It got oneshot on sigil at wave 98, without blessings. The health swings wildly all the time.

The energy management, even with Royal jelly extract, is completely miserable. It hinges entirely on Viper energy leech, which is a terrible hullmark on its own.

The damage is mediocre. It’s entirely reliant on RoH DA shred, and that, in turn, runs into all the traditional problems of rune placement.

Overall, it’s miserable to play. Visually cool, and quite smooth compared to some of the garbage I’ve run. The AOE is decent. But with the lack of damage, survivability, and lack of any ability to patch them - it’s terrible. Even stats for gear turned out to be a struggle.

If I actually had any theorycrafting credentials and experience, I’d assume the reason both Reaper and Infiltrator variant are viable (other than stat distribution) is due to Blade spirits, which are entirely passive and get more buffs from it than the damn DE does. Unlike the joke that RoH support is on this set.

Seriously, please make Chillwhisper Apostate a thing. It has potential to be cool, the core gameplay is nice, and the argument “oh the set isn’t just made for it” is so fucking dumb in a world where Bonemonger exists.