V1.1.9.X Discussion - Endgame Viability

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

With the past success of patch discussions, I’d like to get the conversation rolling for the future.

I’m leaving the build number as a mystery as we may actually end up doing a small update prior to the console port’s release to reach version parity between the two, so we’ll see where this discussion’s changes will end up!

Now that the dust has settled on 1.1.9.2, we’re going to review what went well and what didn’t. A few things ended up overbuffed, not the end of the world, but all in all build variety went in a great direction! Physical damage went through a significant transformation and is now in a much better place.

As always, we are interested in reeling in the overperformers and helping out the builds that may need a bump. This generally means that we are happy if things fall within the 4:30-5:30 mark in the Crucible, and SR70-90 in the Shattered Realm. This is a large range, and there may be outliers that fall outside of it, but that largely depends on the gear/skill involved and how the build performs in general. In an ideal world, a very safe build is not going to be dishing out the same numbers as a glass cannon, and likewise a glass cannon is hopefully not pushing SR 100.

If you wish to help us achieve those goals, please share your personal experience with builds and provide your results!

Feel free to post any builds you’ve been working on that you feel could use a bump. Note that we may not agree with every suggestion, particularly suggestions for How a build should be buffed.

The most valuable information to provide would be a GrimTools link and where you feel the build struggles, whether that’s survivability or damage, and whether you are testing your performance in the Crucible or the Shattered Realm.

Please be considerate of others posters and, as usual, set reasonable expectations for what a build should be capable of (an indestructible vitality build probably shouldn’t be pushing sub 6 minutes in the Crucible, nor does a 5 minute build need buffs).

Following the guidelines from the Posting Feedback thread applies:

12 Likes
4

I don’t mean to take up unnecessary space here, as my issues with Grim Dawn is hardly ever about end-game build variety since i don’t even push builds to their limits. But since you asked, maybe following can use some buff against physical attacks: (Not that i expect every build to be durable against every enemy or anything but still)

Blightlord Oppressor: Oppressor, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
This is a pretty strong and fun build that i recently revisited and made few tweaks. There might be other people who pushed this far but from my experience, big physical enemies like Iron Maiden is by far the biggest offenders to this build. I didn’t even bother pushing this beyond SR67 or something.

Chillwhisper Reaper: Reaper, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Didn’t revisit this build for some time. It was great at lower SR’s and it’s quite powerful. However this build in particular have no Physical Resistance options at all unless you go dual wield (which i personally dont want to do) I’m not gonna even bother fighting beefy physical boys with 5% phys res.

5

I have recently been tinkering with this Spellbreaker, Chillwhisper Cold Devastation, Ring of Steel, Blade Spirits, Chill spikes build and while it looks decend on paper, the gameplay actually isnt, sadly.
In my opinion what’s holding this boy back is the lack of some more DA on the set, the meager uptime on devastation and the lack of overall flat & % cold damage.
My suggestion here would be to give the set some more DA & buff the cold dmg.
Also a buff to the cold devastation conduit would be rly welcome here, maybe give it the “diviner treatment” and add some more cdr & duration to it.
Same goes for the acid conduit version of devastation as well, this one could even use some more levels to it cuz the suppert for it just doesnt exist outside of “dream greens” that just wont ever drop.
Here’s a Templar, Acid Devastion, Acid Purge build I made recently and even with the stashed “dream greens” this build was doing barely alright at best.

Tl;dr:
IMO Devastation Conduits are in dire need of a buff & barely have any support unless ur willing to stash “dream greens”.

1 Like
6

I’ve post this build on public test but I’ll post it again.

Battlemage Spellscourge: Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Spellscourge is a tanky sets for a tanky combination. I push this build to 80 thought with enough patient it should also be able to finish 85, while CR time I’m struggling to reach below 7m. Problem that I face is only half of aether damage is converted to physical on such setup, a problem that may not be faced by other specific Blade Arc weapons, and this setup have many flat aether source (weapon augment, weapon flat, and fabric of reality).

The reasons for me to use that dagger instead a dedicated BA weapons like Targo because BM is a skill point starved combination, and that dagger also give 360-480% physical at max roll with lower flat damage. I also use that belt for the same reason of+1 Soldier skill, and using the Legionnaire belt will drop the last point on laceration due to unsupporting skill bonus.

My suggestion would be 1 of the following:

  • add 100% Aether damage converted to Physical damage on Blade Arc as 4p set bonus or on the Mythical Grasp of Unchained Might, or
  • add global 50% Aether damage converted to Physical damage on Spellscourge Deflector and increase the Laceration bonus to +3, potentially also help other builds that need to convert aether to physical that not using Inashkor off-hand, or
  • Boost the Mythical Legionnaire’s Triumph global Aether damage converted to Physical damage to 40-60% and swap the +2 to Internal Trauma to +2 Laceration, I doubt any shield forcewave build gonna use this belt especially on Battlemage. Looking at the belt again, it really synergize with Spellscourge set if only it have Blade Arc line support.

TLDR: Basically all the suggested change is to convert all aether damage on Spellscourge Blade Arc.

7

I have a bunch of things/builds to say about, so let’s start.

  1. cold PRM MH - Mage Hunter, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Made a separate thread about it but will list some major problems here.
  • split cold/lightning damage - add 100% li>cold conversion to offhand, same as move RR from box to WoP. not gamechanging buffs but will result in better damage and better QoL.
  • Fabius/Cuba are a wasted run, both in Crucible/SR.
  • Resists on supporting gear can be changed to pierce/bleed/acid instead of aether/chaos/ele, as mage hunter has naturally a lot of it.
  • PRM skill feels underwhelming in both Crucible and SR but especially against single-targets (like humans with small model).

  1. melee fire paladin - Paladin, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Also made a separate thread about it. what I really ask about is to change a bit the mods on swords so they’ll make more sense for melee and the build can compensate a bit global fire/burn nerf. otherwise it’s fine.

  2. Allagast MH - Mage Hunter, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Tried it today to see how it can perform.
    Best run was 5:04, other up to 5:32. Can’t say the damage is terrible but set has some other problems.

  • set bonuses. vit/chaos resists are not needed here even in the worst case scenario, so it would be fair to replace them with ele/bleed or just with 120% li/aether damage.
  • low HP and 0 phys res. the latter became a real problem after global phys res nerf on off-hands that got no compensation. I suggest adding like 10-12% HP bonus to 3 pieces and maybe 8% physres as well, or give at least 4-5% on shoulders/armor.

  1. SJ Purifier - Purifier, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Lost 6% of phys res with no compensation. Imo, it would be fair to give at least some phys res to set pieces.

  2. Goredrinker Tactician - Tactician, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Damage is fine, though resists are quite tough to fix. I suggest replacing vitality res on both ammy and armor with pierce/chaos ones.

8

I suggested long ago adding +1 to all skills to the shield, so maybe I’ll suggest this again. Neither it will break anything cuz no one uses the shield w/o set, and give Spellscourge a bit more point freedom.

also I guess that bleed resist on shield could be swapped with some phys res or helath bonuses get bumped a bit.

but basically I’d like to see flat RR on BA increased to, say, 30: no points for WC and break morale, also no access for native -% RR …

1 Like
9

Hi, I would like to bring attention to the state of the Amarasta’s Blade Burst bonuses on the Targo set. I recently made a build documenting my experience with it, among other things on a Targo Blademaster, here: Targo 1H BA Blademaster.

Basically, the big problem is that… well, even with the boosts to ABB on the set, and buffs to them in recent patches, the skill is still woefully inadequate. It is impossible to use both ABB and Blade Arc (the spam version of the latter) together in one build, as would seem to be an intended possibility of the set, without the build’s performance tanking.

I took some recordings of dummy kill times with this build to illustrate this point. The only difference between the two setups below is that the first one does not take ABB at all, while the second fully hardcaps it, whilst also wearing an Ilgor’s Curse medal I had to (theoretically) boost ABB damage further. I use a Royal Jelly Extract in both to boost energy regeneration, which is needed on dummies.

Dummy kill without ABB:

Dummy kill with ABB:

As you can see, the setup without ABB not only kills the dummy faster, but also with substantially less energy issues. 26/16 points invested, for an actually worse outcome than not taking it at all does not seem quite the best.

In case it comes up here too, taking ABB with just one point and maxing out Lethal Assault does not result in anything resembling a performance increase for this, either. I can do a recording of that too if needed but didn’t want this post to get too big.

I would suggest bumping up the flat damage to ABB on the set further, at the very least. As I also noted in my thread, simply buffing %weapon damage does not seem enough for it because the base weapon damage on a 1-handed build using Targo is so low in the first place, it does not make much difference for non-cooldown-reduced ABB.

8 Likes
10

Another thing came to mind:

Applying devouring swarm mid fight vs bigger groups of enemies (which is basicly most of the time in endgame) feels horrible.

Swarms AoE is way too small.
I would love if it would spread out like Pox or for it to have a greatly increased AoE.
Currently it’s this small:

Instead having it something like this would be greatly appreciated!

7 Likes
11

What if, instead of traveling in straight line, DS works like the elemental storm devotion proc? It loses the passthrough mod but have same size as that proc. The current DS duration now become how long the swarm persist in area, but if the enemy leave the area, they no longer debuffed.

12

All I see if this happens is people will be asking for thermite buffs again cause this just seems like a better version of that.

13

We are not redesigning skills. Please keep the discussion on topic.

14

Cold Cataclysm Set Sorcerer

The +2 to all skills for Cataclysm Set helped, but also had a nerfs of a thousand cuts that definitely hit the build hard. This was one of the builds that relied on Seal of the Skies, since the main damage dealer is Trozan’s Sky Shard, which is a cooldown skill, so a filler skill like Seal of the Skies was great for leeching back health. Additionally, the Health Regen nerfs hit the build hard, as Sorc has few ways of healing itself outside of procs like Giant’s Blood.

Anyway, fighting Nemeses like Fabius and Moose in SR75-76 is just brutal. I am of the belief that with the immortal Blade Spirits popping up so often, Fabius is a bit overtuned, especially for casters like Sorcerer who don’t have instant heals.

Dreeg’s Evil Eye non-set Sentinel

Trying to make the best use of this weapon, and even with decent weapon damage & 40% CDR, it’s not enough to handle enemies (especially Fabius who loves disappearing and hitting for 15K, making it impossible to kite him). It’s hard to say what I can do to beefen the build up to survive more hits; more health here and there on Vestments of the Great Guardian seems like the best way to do it, since it’s a rarely used Chest item.

15

Use Oleron’s Blood and shoot them with your crossbow for a whooping 20% DR.

16

M. Skybreach Bulwark shield enables lightning Aegis of Menhir, but it is almost not supported on other gear. The only way to hardcap it with reasonable equipment is to use green Vine Rings with almost impossible to get affixes (since lightning is not a native damage type for Vine Ring). This skill still can be a good supportive addition:

CD caster with shield: Archon, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Semi-autoattacker with shield: Archon, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

The builds look quite solid, but it would be great to get some bonuses to AoM on the related gear.

17

Physical Tactician: Tactician, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

SR video uploading, was 9:xx for SR75-76

It’s not objectively awful but is really a much weaker alternative to Deathdealer x2 Tactician, which is already a weaker alternative (although still in meta times so whatevs). The gun used to be handy to complete pierce conversion on Tactician or RF Paladin, but with Unchained Might gloves getting full conversion, it’s left out in the cold. Inquisitor WPS on cadence white shots don’t hit hard enough even with the elemental conversion that was added later. One use maybe if you don’t have Kuba pants to hard cap deadly momentum?

Anyway, basically Deathdealer > Havoc in almost any end game gear situation, which makes me sad. Not having additional passthrough shots ala DD WPS is far more impactful than the ele conversion it gets, as ultimately non-FS ranged is nearly completely dependent on having passthrough to be competitive.

5 Likes
18

Off topic. Not crucible related. Not really balance related either. A buff that has been asked for probably years? Can we please get a movement speed increase on some slower pets? Examples being Black Grimoire of Og’napesh, Blightshard Amulet and Dirge of Arkovia (he is big makes sense he is slow though) I didn’t use Hysteria crab while leveling this time around and instead went straight for savage relic instead. I think the crab is also slow if I remember correctly.

Them being slow just makes it feel lack luster IMO. These aren’t considered the best pet items of their class by a mile and there’s just flat out better alternatives that feel better. Heart of the mountain for example. The yeti is big yet he is so fast. I personally think this is the best pet in the game as far as granted from an item. I would never use the mentioned pets outside of leveling with them. Actually already replaced my blightshard amulet with sovereign ruby of domination (just found it while leveling) because the pet is so slow and likes to attack walls. I would have like to kept that pet but I just can’t do it the pet just falls so behind.

Coming from someone who only plays pet builds.

If not, may I ask why?

19

so, I did some more testing with Allagast and want to share results, thoughts and suggestions.

the spec I used: Mage Hunter, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

best run is 4:55, more average are sth like this. going sub5 is really hard despite quite good TSS damage.

the build has a bunch of problems, so let’s go/

  • very cancerous rotation. you have TSS with 1,8 sec CD, a filler skill and Box with 0,4 sec CD. And this is just awful. probably you can see on vids as I mash the button but game just refuses to cast TSS.
    also extra radius to TSS is kinda useless as it’s main purpose is to nuke enemies and this mod (iirc) just increases the spread of projectiles.
  • low HP. with -hp mut it has like 16,5k HP in buffed crucible - less than some builds have w/o buffs. and this is not really healthy to me.
  • one of the biggest problems lies in class combo itself, AoC is mandatory for taking, and it has really BAD radius - very well seen when you fight, e.g., Calla and you need to stay right before her to apply the RR from AoC. it also blocks star pact with CDR but w/e.

what I suggest doing?

  • set bonuses for 2 and 3 parts are quite meh. I suggest replacing 2 part bonus with just 120% li/aether/e-cute damage, as on other TSS sets. vit and chaos resists are not needed here even in worse case scenario.
  • as 3-part bonus I suggest adding like 10-12% HP and 10-12% of CS. This will make playing the build less cancerous and safe.
  • add phys res (4%) to armor or shoulders. Trozan and Iskandra have phys res aswell, so I guess Allagast may use some too. For AoC … dunno. Maybe add like +4m radius to scepter so it would be a bit better to play.
4 Likes
20

One build that I’ve been somewhat disappointed by is Vit totems. I went with the Dark One Set as it seemed like the only viable support for Wendigo Totem, then squeezed in what I could in the Storm Totem department. While the result wasn’t completely catastrophic and was able to clear SR75-80 within timer after several attempts and some shrine hunting, it is FAR from comfortable.

Getting cast speed is difficult given its absence on the gloves and both viable weapon options (Decree of Malmouth or Soulbearer). Therefore, trying to squeeze in any casts in between totem plants for supplemental damage yields very little, and any slow modifiers make even totem planting an ordeal.

Worse still though is the damage. The build does relatively decently in chunks. Totems don’t follow you around as other pseudo pets do so getting your damage up and running takes a while as you move from area to area, but against trash the Storm Totems have decent-ish reach despite short placement range and double Wendigos do well at keeping you alive despite the poor phys res. The single target, though, is woeful. The aforementioned low cast speed makes it difficult to make up for the totems’ DPS shortcomings and with Vitality being as heavily resisted as it is, fights against something like Kubacabra take ages, and any enemy that forces you to relocate frequently, e.g. Kuba, Kaisan, Grava, also does a number on your damage output since you have to start building your totems from scratch over and over.

Improvement along any of these axes would be welcome:

  • increasing the Storm Totem damage modifier on Decree of Malmouth
  • adding a damage modifier for Wendigo Totem to M. Soulbearer
  • adding cast speed to either of the above weapons and/or Dark One gloves
  • reducing the CD on Storm Totems so that they’re easier to get up and running after relocating
  • improving resistances on the Dark One set, gloves in particular are quite short on those, shoulders too
  • any extra phys res wouldn’t go amiss, though I understand that for a build with access to this much healing and % healing increases (especially in the case of Archon), too much additional phys res might result in near immortality
3 Likes
21

I 2nd that, using vitality storm totems for added “damage” on this Druid, Diviner Set, Vitality Devastation + Vitality Storm Totems.

Not only do these totems still have a high cooldown (IMO a slight flat cdr bonus of -0,5 to -1 sec to the vit transmuter or some items aside from the effigy would be very welcome! Looking at you Valguur Set!) but their dmg also feels fairly bad.

Also as Marcus stated the dmg uptime on them isnt all that great when you have to move around & replant them.

Proper vit totems also could use some more love in terms of overall support.
The only items are the already mentioned Decree of Malmouth, M. Celestial Stone of Halakor (which has another +1 to it which isnt rly useable for vit totems cuz of said lack of cdr) & the Valguur Set which only adds little flat and +1 while the other parts of the set actually add some rly nice bonuses to SS & Sigil. I wont even mention sky effigies cuz getting a decend vitality one to drop is extremly unlikely to happen… unless said sky effigy would get adjusted to also have vitality damage.

Also another thing I forgot to add:

Barrelsmith bois could rly need some love in terms of casting speed & energy regen with them is a real damn pain in the butt.
You are basicly pigeonholed into sorc. :frowning_face:

1 Like
22

+1 for cast speed and energy regen on Barrelsmith, even without a filler skill those stats are lacking, I can’t imagine spamming Chain Lightning or AAing on the side

2 Likes