Veilkeeper Set / Heart of Theodin Marcell + Fleshwarped Strikes

I have a few questions / suggestions about these items.

Making an Aether Druid build with the Veilkeeper Set (and Lucius Bladearm for that matter) feels somewhat mediocre, since you dont get any RR from either of your Classes nor WPS. In my opinion there is no reason to go for an Aether Druid if you could go Aether Ritualist instead. So why not add some ARR to IEE to compensate for example?
Also having so much power gated behind your Arcane Will proc feels somewhat odd. Why not swap the increases for Arcane Will to Maivens Sphere instead?
The flat lightning damage Bonus also doesnt make all to much sense to me either. Wouldnt it be much better for any build if it was aether damage instead? You can always use the Mythical Storm Shepherd to convert all of your aether damage to lightning damage afterall.

As for Heart of Theodin Marcell and in particular Fleshwarped Strikes my Question is why you dont get any AOE? Such as a 3 Target maximum to Fleshwarped Strikes. Clear (and single target) doesnt feel all to hot.

As a sidenote, why is there no Aether Damage Dot? Like Vitality Decay? Always sucks a little that you cant convert Dots into an Aether Damage Dot.

Iam not a balance expert and maybe some of my suggestions are outlandish. Its just that melee Aether Damage builds feel somewhat weak to me (but what do i know).

Thanks for your enlightenment :slight_smile:

aside from mechanically not being doable, on the balance front then you just make aether binder stronger, so i’m guessing that’s why shared mods like that is limited/trying to factor in the other potential build using the modifier too.

same as above probably
aether binder and aether reaper would be affected too, and likely a greater concern than offbrand niche/“meme” intetion of aether druid

probably same reason chaos has no dot, and bleed isn’t tied to pierce, engine and dev decisions/thematic or “not everything has to work the same”

recent quote from a highly experienced player:

which leads back to the mention that buffs/effects like the questioned one that has wider or universal application then keeps other build consideration in mind since those would be affected.
so it’s “hard” to just blanket buff something another/already stronger class can then also dip into and take advantage off (like iee modifier or stronger fleshstrikes binder/reaper et al could use)

The set doesn’t work very well for intended combinations other than aether Binder currently. Cold to aether conversion makes Binder and Ritualist heavily favor aether, and some aether Ritualists are alright with it too. I think, the only way to fix the set for working with aether Druid or lightning Ritualist/Binder, without buffing already strong builds, is to add some 15% aether rr to Wind Devils and 15% lightning rr to Spectral Binding.

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Thanks for some clarification :slight_smile:
I did not really take into consideration that my suggestions could effect other builds too.
I was mainly thinking about the class combinations: Shaman + Arcanist and Shaman + Necromancer.

I have only tested an Aether Druid so far and thats where I felt the lack of RR alot. So -15% aeither rr to Wind Devils would help alot I think.

I want to test an aether Ritualist next. It looks much better on paper since you will get the spectral binding buff at all times, plus you get the aether WPS from necro which also get boosted by the set and obviously good RR from Necro. But than again, the -15% aether RR would also effect this build. And this build should be much stronger to begin with, right?

I just think that the Arcanist side of the Veilkeeper set is simply to weak. No RR, no WPS and IMO worse set bonuses?

ye it’s those small interactions/variation considerations Zantai keeps an eye on sometimes that we might not otherwise pay the same attention to

Blade-arm example is probably a decent one, it got changed to buff inquisitor “specifically”, likely so already strong Aether Binder didn’t benefit the same but apostate/mage hunter etc exclusively got the dmg
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i like it for lightning upheaval regen druid
nothing mindblowing, but feels decent in terms of tankiness and assembly easy/doesn’t require full custom greens like otherwise regular upheaval druid did

I mean, didnt they just re-add the 40 flat damage to Reckless Power back to Blade-arm?

The lightning Druid version looks much better than Aether, I agree. I havent really looked into which weapon to use. Temporal Arcblade and convert the damage into Aether? Or mythical Stormreaver?

i probably wouldn’t go aether as druid, even if less OA/have to make up the OA elsewhere necro RR is probably more valuable
I went with Evoker for ranged “just because”, i never actually compared which is better for melee, reaver/ultos or fancy double rare korvan halberd, but i’d guess reaver is plenty fine even if dot and not flat dmg

Veilkeeper Druid is fine in my opinion. I play as Aether/Lightning with stacked Regen and Upheaval just deletes.

Original Build:

Updated for more Attack Speed and Health:

You also get necrotic edge and reaping strike as well, both of which get roughly 200extra flat aether damage from the set. Maybe you arent supposed to go for an aether druid afterall. But that leaves me wondering what to do with blade-arm.

I basically played a full Aether Version and felt as if i didnt have enough RR. I will give a Ritualist a try next. 2 extra WPS and RR but less crit.

this was my version of aether upheaval Ritualist at the time Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator, i don’t remember how it landed at the time (wasn’t in the trash folder so couldnt’ been totally horrible by my “standards”)
Not gonna remotely pretend it’s “the optimal” setup, you’d need someone like banana/lee/roman/nofika etc that tests things more thoroughly than i to determine that :sweat_smile:

*the reason i’m not using the veilkeeper boosted necro wps is because it’s an Upheval build, and regular wps detracts from upheaval if/when wanting Upheaval to be the main proc

Oh, so it doesnt proc of WPS? Didnt know that …

ye it’s because upheaval is special/not a normal wps
So the attack checks for wps first, if wps happens then upheaval can’t happen (regardless of crit happening)
So high wps pool with secondary investment/"1point"upheaval is fine
but if you’re aiming to maximize upheaval chance wps investments then detracts. (still need bunch of OA for crit ofc)

Okay thanks for explaining… I didnt know that…

Well if that is the case is it not better to play around Blazerush in the first place?
Something like this I guess: Elementalist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator ?

yes, but that’s an entire different build/set than veilkeeper ofc :sweat_smile:
Blazerush elementalist is very cool tho [1.1.9.8 - 1.2.1.0] (2H Melee) It Bonks - Blazerush Elementalist [4:30 Crucible] [SR75-76] [All Celestials]

The Veilkeeper Set mainly caught my attention because of the Upheaval and Spectral binding stuff. But since I now learned that Upheaval doesnt proc of WPS I am not so sure what to think of the set anymore. Basically I have not THAT much time on me to play GD and iam contemplating wether I should go for a Blazerush or Aether Keeper Upheaval build. I would think Aether does is tankier and fire does more damage?

if you’re not appealed by the Upheaval interaction you can just make regular AA wps with feral hunger+necrotic+reaping strike maxed and 0pt upheaval or afterthought upheaval (since you don’t get 100% wps you get a wee upheaval chance and a few points easily brings it over softcap+10)
It’s been a hot minute, so i don’t remember which was better, only that i also really liked Afanasenkovs elementalist.
I think my aether ritualist might have been more rudimentary defensively so def some tradeoff there in terms of dmg aside from single RR. I’d almost venture a guess that blazerush can easily be set up to trade slightly less dmg while still getting a bunch of regen simply because Elementalist is double regen class, ie still able to get a ton of/similar veilkeeper’ish defence on blazerush mentalist if concerned, while then also having lots of dmg from double RR etc

I have heard that both Boots of Primordial Rage and Albrechts Duality will get some RR on its procs. Not sure if it will be flat, -% or reduced % but it should help Aether builds regardless.