Sorry Z, I apologize if I’ve been yelling. Wasn’t my intention. If you want a list of set which needs a buff, give me some time please.
Let me check with the vets and come back to you so I won’t miss out anything.
I think you misunderstand.
I don’t need a laundry list of items/masteries/skills/damage types/puppies/etc you think need buffs.
I need your perspective on particular builds you’ve played, where they struggle and why you think they struggle. Leave the particulars to us.
Ok, so, how should I put it, Agrivix…
No, kidding, seriously, this is a list of the latest:
- Set of the Three
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Ok for warlord but its main intent (I think) - sentinel - struggles.
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Set should support different skills that already have retal added, vire might is not a good idea here. Right now set works best with skills it doesn’t support (best results were Aegis + Fervor). But not to end up with everything supporting Aegis I’m thinking Judgment…
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a splash of cdr on the shield would be really nice OR better yet some flat cr mechanism (like Markovian, Eternity or Belgothian relic - but less powerful)
- Octavius set
- just kidding :eek:
- RahZin
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I can’t say I have a specific vision for it but it would be nice if it was a little bit more multifunctional. Chaos doesn’t have a set except that AAR and Darkblaze and they are all about occultist.
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25% chaos rr to CoF, please. No. Not “please.” Categorically DEMAND
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or make the rr independent of occultist mastery so that other combinations are encouraged except witch hunter.
You asked so I’m answering even though it’s not the thread to do it
why not add chaos rr to base CoF, but with a significant chunk of it in ultimate ranks?
I’m not fond of sets.
They typically consist of pieces that fit well together even without bonuses, and then you get those, so usually a set piece is best combined with other pieces of the set.
Why even have that many item slots if you fill half of them with 1 or 2 sets?
That said, build enabling items I am a fan of.
Especially whacky combinations.
Why not Bleed/Aether?
Ok, even I don’t know how to combine that, but maybe have a relatively small set or two that provide support for 2 or 3 damage types and can be made to work by equipping fitting items in the other slots - but not all types at the same time?
Okay. So:
1) Deathguard Cabalist
I’ve tried playing it as an autoattacker. I’ve tried playing it as a caster: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/vNQrwdp2 (this is a rough GT of what I did).
Right off the bat you’ll see how difficult it is to patch resists because the set offers little in the way of that. OA, and DA are also pretty awful. The only way to patch this up is with:
> Unrealistically rolled greens
> Forgoing acid based devotions which cripples the build because you lose %acid damage
> As I’ve said before, pierce to vit conversion on deathguard does nothing, and in fact hinders the skill because my chest piece now can’t even convert 25% of that to acid.
> I’m also forced into the deathstalker relic if I hope to be able to deal respectable damage because of a distinct lack of acid RR.
I’ve played this character several times in the crucible, desperately trying to love it, but no. It was a rather painful experience.
Bone harvest felt significantly weaker than ravenous earth, and ravenous earth was mediocre at best.
It struggles because you’ve given so much by way of poison damage to BH , but you give it a modifier to reduce its cooldown (i.e. -0.5s CD on helm).
This is antagonistic. What real benefit do I gain from the poison damage if I’m going to be spamming BH frequently?
Conclusion - Acid bone harvest serves no purpose. Best thing about DG set is the vitality to acid conversion on the daggers, and the cold to acid conversion. I can see how/why this would be attractive to the reaper, but alas - you lack a solid attack replacer to truly capitalize on it.
To add insult to injury, the only %vit damage to be found in the deathguard set is in the shoulder piece, the chest piece, and the 2 set completion bonus.
The result is a mediocre set which looks deceptively attractive/promising, but fails miserably to live up to its expectations.
With the introduction of righteous fervor skill modifiers to the vileblade set, the Deathguard set will indubitably fade into oblivion.
This brings us to experiment #2
2) pure acid RE cabalist
Since RE is doing all the heavy lifting, BH has no use for me.
So, out of curiosity, I GDstashed what I deemed to be the most offensively geared acid/ravenous earth build imaginable, using 3 highly unrealistic greens to shore up resistances - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrj9g5Z
To my surprise, this build performed worse than my DW ravenous earth cabalist - http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77301
Sure, it’s sheet damage was higher, but the absence of the dark one’s proc made it so much more fragile, preventing me from facetanking enemies.
What use is stacking damage to RE, if I can’t hold my ground long enough for it to take effect.
And even when I could (e.g. under MoT), the damage wasn’t significantly greater than a vit-based RE cabalist despite stacking ~130 more damage per projectile.
Ergo - the impossibility of gearing for such a build, coupled with its lackluster performance makes it irrelevant.
3) Deception of dreeg set
I’ve personally never played this character as there is absolutely no reason to. Just by looking at the set/skill itself, it is reasonable and possible to conclude that it simply CANNOT work.
It splits itself in 2 antagonistic halves in almost every single way imaginable:
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You have a dagger with vitality damage as its base damage type, despite the set giving significantly more bonuses to acid damage.
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A huge proportion of the damage from DEE comes from poison, and yet the set bonus grants casting speed.
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The only real benefit of spam casting DEE lies in vile eruption, but this skill node grants more vitality damage than acid damage, thereby rendering the inherent acid-biasedness of the set pointless.
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This same flawed logic can also be applied to the %WD component of bloodburst itself, as the base damage of my dagger is vitality.
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I can’t even use 4 of the 5 set items by replacing the amulet with the conduit of eldritch whispers which converts all of my acid damage to vitality damage because I’ll lose my casting speed. Something which the dagger SORELY lacks (edited)
There are 2 feasible solutions to this zero sum game:
a. Use the m. blood orb offhand.
However, by doing so, I’m now denying myself of the groble effigy which would do so much more for the skill.
And even IF the blood orb offhand proves to be successful, I’ll be piloting a vitality build. NOT an acid one.
b. Use the sentinel.
This might actually work since the OK is the only other class with both acid/vid RR.
HOWEVER, it would now be a hybrid build capitalising on both acid/vitality damage which again goes to show that acid damage is poorly supported.
This also brings me back to the original point I made: It’s absurd that the witch hunter - the mastery which epitomises acid damage - is being outclassed by the sentinel.
I’ll get back to you on pierce damage (most probably tomorrow as writing that was tiring), and I’ll ask Rhylthar &/or user_name to do one for bleed as I don’t know enough about that damage type.
EDIT: The distinct lack of solid acid based casting weapons, 1H or otherwise, also renders seal of shadows useless. The best way to use seal of shadows right now is to convert all of it to chaos using fang of chthon, rah’zin’s chest piece, and the darkblaze amulet. And we are once again deviating away from acid damage.
Bloodrager
Great set. Best used on Trickster. Doesn’t have any Nightblade support. Could really use some defensive buffs to Nightblade tree since it already has great (one of the best in game, and best DoT damage in-game) damage. As a set in-general could use Racial bonus versus Undead.
Korba
Mentioning it because it has bleeding on it. We had this discussion, but please, put defensive stats there instead of that stupid useless Bleeding damage.
There is literally only 1 high performing bleed-set
yep and it’s high performing on a class combo it wasn’t meant for.
I am just posting in a format Zantai asked for: experience with the builds that I had.
Let me stop you right there.
I am not looking for grimtools analysis. I want your personal in-game experience with a particular build.
Anecdotal feedback has no value to me.
Okay, then discard my last point.
Regardless, my first two points hold true.
EDIT: I think it’s safe to say that I’m a pretty decent pilot. I’ll whip up an DEE build trying to focus on acid spam casting. I’ll GDstash BiS for every single slot, and I’ll record it in action. Perhaps that’ll shed some light on the matter.
yep and it’s high performing on a class combo it wasn’t meant for.
And the high performance is not because of the set alone (though Set-Bonus is quite good) but the support Trickster gains via Mythical Bloodsong (double) and Mythical Belgothian´s Sigil (often double).
Try to find another good ring for Bleeding e. g. for Bleeding Warlord/Archon. 
Can you please say which in-game experience would be good?
Is it about Campaign, Crucible, Shattered Realm (or any combination)?
I have 2 Bleeding Warlords, 1 Bleeding Archon and 1 Bleeding Conjurer which I could (not excessively but still could) test e. g. in Rogue Dungeons, etc.
I’m probably not as decent as a pilot or builder as you but I tried it and it was really bad.
I felt it didn’t do enough damage and wasn’t as strong as I want defensively.
Hopefully you’ll get a better result than me.
It’d be awesome if you could attach your character file somewhere so I can download it. That way I won’t have to GDstash it from scratch.
I tried to put an DEE spamming Witchhunter together some months ago and it worked… okay…in Campaign.When I added the transmutor, DEE was much more damaging and had a way better performance, even with full casting speed gear. DEE spam just has no damage and a weird damage type mix.
Spamming DEE has always been weird, what’s the point of all that poison then? Would be better if there was little or even no poison on the skill and the transmuter added a lot of it along with the cooldown extension. I don’t have any idea if that would even work, but it seems logical.
Which was my point about the DEE set. That being said, I think Z’s request for non-anecdotal feedback is extremely reasonable. So that’s what I intend to do.
Ah well, some non anecdotal evidence from me then as well. My DEE spam build is a warlock (I know) and I haven’t seriously played it since before AoM came out. Not worth much, but it’s the truth, the skill is in a weird place and there’s many other more enjoyable things to do with this game.
Okay. So confirmation from 3 different people - seems sufficient to me. Unless Z himself wants more, I’m not going to bother going through the whole shebang of recording this video then.