What are the advantages of playing a spellcaster in Grim Dawn

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

What is the appeal of playing a spellcaster in Grim Dawn? The answer “because you want to” does not really cut it for me. In most other games casters trade protection for the ability to rain fire and destruction on their enemies from a safe distance. In Grim Dawn the first part is certainly true, but the second part is not. Honestly, the whole system appears to be designed for the get-go to screw with every aspect of playing a spellcaster.

On caster armor and attributes

  • First of all you start off with the worst armor. Casters wearing robes is as cliche as it gets, but I suppose trading the Plate for some Robes can be worth if the spells deliver…
  • Then comes the energy management. Since casters are using spells and not attacks they are forced to pay more energy by design, hence all the crappy armored robes have added energy regeneration on them. Essentially a caster trades protection for the ability to use his attack.
  • Next comes the stat destribution. Tanks get to put points in Physique, which gives them life and DA. Fair enough. Non-spellcaster attack characters invest in Cunning which boost their damage both directly and indirectly via OA. Now lets look at casters. Their Spirit attribute boosts their damage, but instead of useful OA or DA we get energy. Ugh.

CC Effects

  • CC effects are useful on all character archetypes, but naturally the squishies characters tend to get the most usefulness out of them. Not in Grim Dawn. CC effects are just as available on non-casters as they are on casters. As an added benefit all difficult bosses are immune to CC, which leaves facetanking as the only option. Naturally casters are screwed the most by this due to having the weakest armor.

But wait, it gets even worse…

  • Since casters in GD traded all the good stuff other archetypes get for the sole benefit of being actually able to afford the cost of their spam ability they are left to discover that their abilities are actually weaker compared to that of the other archetypes. This is mostly to how important %weapon damage is.
  • Useful debuffs like “Reduced Damage, Reduced Resistance”, as well as “Attack Damage converted to Health” are completely useless to a caster because they either have no %weapon damage attached to their abilities or that % is really low. These debuffs add a disproportional amount of damage, character survivability and overal quality of play due to their exclusiveness.


Surely casters must get something good after these negatives

  • What casters DO finally get is high numbers of flat damage on their abilities, which theoretially should allow them to do more damage. But this does NOT allow them to actually do more damage than other archetypes simply because the numbers aren’t large enough and because %weapon damage debuffs contribute a disproportional amount to a character’s damage output.

To exacarbate the problem abilities which have a cooldown are almost equally useful to casters and non-casters alike, which allows other archetypes to cherry pick the best abilities without having to worry for high energy consumption that much (due to CD).

So a Grim Dawn caster is basically pigeonholed to wear the weakest armor in order to pay the energy maintainance of a spell-type attack that is inherently weaker than the autoattack of a heavily armored character.

So I ask again - we all know what are the disadvantages of playing a caster.

But where are the advantages?

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You don’t need to waste like 15 points on the worst stat, “spirit” to wear jewelry … !!! :stuck_out_tongue:

3

Instead you get to do that for offhands :rolleyes:

4

Then don’t play a caster if you find them weak.
You don’t need to wear robes as you can get energy regen on any type of gear or accessory. You can also get energy regen from devotion tree and some skills.
You can also get plenty of added armor from components, skills and devotion tree if you do wear a robe.
The %weapon damage benefits for non casters is a big advantage tho. I’ll agree with you on that.

5

it still is a legitimate reason :wink:

First of all you start off with the worst armor.

Then comes the energy management.

true to a degree, energy management is also something some melee / ranged weapon builds have to consider however

Next comes the stat destribution. Tanks get to put points in Physique, which gives them life and DA. Fair enough. Non-spellcaster attack characters invest in Cunning which boost their damage both directly and indirectly via OA. Now lets look at casters. Their Spirit attribute boosts their damage, but instead of useful OA or DA we get more spirit to spam our abilities.

I have always argued for Spirit giving half the OA of Cunning :wink:

That being said everyone puts most points into Physique, so it hardly matters from a stat point distribution perspective…

CC effects are useful on all character archetypes, but naturally the squishies characters tend to get the most usefulness out of them. Not in Grim Dawn. CC effects are just as available on non-casters as they are on casters.

as available yes, and for the actual CC part as useful, for the damage part they are not to the same degree however, making the entire skill less useful for meleers as the damage part falls behind

Since casters in GD traded all the good stuff other archetypes get for the sole benefit of being actually able to afford the cost of their spam ability they are left to discover that their abilities are actually weaker compared to that of the other archetypes. This is mostly to how important %weapon damage is.

%weapon damage is not important at all, I agree that BiS casters fall behind BiS meleers (and would like for this to not be the case), but on a regular playthrough with self-found gear I hardly see them falling behind

Useful debuffs like “Reduced Damage, Reduced Resistance”, as well as “Attack Damage converted to Health” are completely useless to a caster because they either have no %weapon damage attached to their abilities or that % is really low.

only if the debuff were to come from your weapon rather than a skill, which it frequently does not

Surely casters must get something good after these negatives

my self-found casters keep up with (in fact they outperform) their melee ‘colleagues’, they have so much life sustain from their spells that they hardly ever get killed, while the meleers fall short in that regard. Kill speed wise they also easily keep up.

In addition they can have their spells go off while kiting at the same time, this is never true for meleers

I am actually thinking of using them to farm for the meleers a bit :wink:

Granted, they all are at the end of Elite difficulty (just reached Fort Ikon), but the casters are a lot sturdier than the self-found meleers at this point.

Casters are a lot less gear dependent, which can be both good and bad (they do not suck as much with bad gear, but they also do not own as much with BiS).

Would I like them to be on par even with BiS ? Sure, but until then they can definitely hold their ground

6

I actually keep thinking about this and comparing the way Grim Dawn devs have chosen to handle class and archetype balance with the way other devs have handled class/archetype balance.

And to be brutally honest, it’s kind of seems like Crate basically didn’t learn anything from their predecessors’/competitors’/peers’ mistakes and triumphs, sometimes.

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-Yet end-game casters sometimes outperform LMB builds.

-Look i don’t disagree this game hates casters, but the problem isn’t as bad as most of the community is making it out to be.

-90% here don’t have end-game gear (not talking about MIs) and with completely unoptimized builds try to farm Ultimate and get wrecked. GD is all about gear, even the toughest of melee builds require good gear to survive. Heck even the almighty BMs require some MIs.

-Even after good gear it comes down to optimization, people try to take on some nemesis bosses with laughable DA values. Casters can easily get 2k DA w/o compromising too much.

Maybe so but you do agree that some BiS casters can outperform BiS meleers right?

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…Like? I mean, do you have specific builds in mind?

The fact that the problem is there in the first place is what gets me. Most other ARPGs (hell, RPGs in general) actually end up with MELEE being the “strong in early game, significantly falls off in power compared to casters in late game” option. Crate’s managed to, well, not EXACTLY turn it upside down but something close to that.

>Be player.
>Have no BiS gear.
>Try to farm to get BiS gear.
>Can’t farm, because you don’t have BiS gear.

I’m sure you can see the problem here. I mean, yes, I know there are plenty of areas that are doable without BiS gear but these are arguably also the least lucrative. (and in the case of Aspirant-level Crucible, they’re only getting LESS lucrative.)

While it’s true that casters can get 2k DA without TOO much of a compromise, the fact is that 2k DA doesn’t go nearly as far as it did in, say, 1.0.0.6. Not to mention the obvious issues with making one stat so incredibly important and at the same time making it significantly easier for certain archetypes to rack up significant values in that stat without any meaningful sacrifice at ALL, while another archetype finds themselves being forced to sacrifice what should give them their niche just to keep their heads above proverbial water.

Again, which ones do you have in mind? I suppose maybe the CT Sorc (though that build got a drubbing with the nerfbat).

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CT Sorc, PB Spellbreaker (Shotgun + ADCtH), DEE Caster (WH or Warlock, preferably WH), Obsidian Tremor Shotgun Pyro.

These are some builds off the top of my head that can out-perform some melee builds.

Lol, i felt it on my first character. I remember back in D2 we could make “naked” casters pretty powerful. Here i tried that and a stupid zombie one-shot me :slight_smile:

I understand your problem but in such situations i make a farming character that isn’t gear dependent. I found Warder and Witchblade to be less dependent on gear.

-The only class and i mean the only class that has DA scaling is Soldier.

-Besides it other melee characters have to sacrifice stuff to get good DA.

-Also, i don’t think i agree with your point regarding sacrifice, you don’t give up too much. Heck with more DA i get more staying power which contributes to my effective damage.

-I care more about killing my enemy not getting 100k Sheet DPS and then getting wrecked by the enemy breathing at me. But that’s just me.

-The damage/OA/or anything you give to get more DA is usually so minimal that the DA increase is much better.

Also, sorry to go Off-topic with you but in a separate thread you said you found retaliation boring. What aspect of it? The time it takes or the fact that it fails vs. ranged or that you don’t press a single button?

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It’s a multi-fold problem, honestly. All three of those are definitely contributing factors, the time taken in particular being a significant one.

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maybe, my builds are not there yet and I do not really look at other people’s builds, so this is just my impression from being on the forums, not experience.

So far my casters are holding up, but BiS Ultimate is still a way off

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It’s not as if casters are bad in end game. You can do virtually all content outside of Mogdrogen with them. However relative to melee they are disadvantaged in just about every way imaginable from offense, defense and utility. A BiS melee build is able to brute-force any content whereas a BiS caster often has little choice but to kite. Combined with their natural utility disadvantage this creates a huge disparity in effective DPS.

One thing I’ve noticed from my experiences in testing is as content becomes harder the disparity between caster and melee builds actually decreases. This is because facetanking becomes less of a reliable option and as a result it shrinks the gap in effective DPS.

13

Shaman and Nightblade both have fairly decent innate DA access though. Nightblade has both Veil of Shadow (-OA on enemy is as good as +DA on self) + second node of P-burst is up to 75 DA and 20% dodge/deflect at 12/12. Shaman’s Tenacity of the Boar is a DA boost that gets to 70 if going a Savagery build, with overlevels on it bringing it close to 100.

Demo and Occultist both have access to -enemy OA, although the Occultist’s -enemy OA debuff is tied to one of the worst skills, if not the worst skill, in the game, Bloody Pox. As such, it is never really put into use.

Arcanist is the only class that has nothing to reduce enemy OA, or boost their own DA.

14

I miss unique mage skills like Ternion attack, that was one crazy caster

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I have yet to see the first melee guy ever who can clear any dungeon faster than my warlock, who can solo anything, often on his own while the other 3 players in game are somewhere else. Anything does mean anything.

But then, my melee chars, while viable, are not megaOP brutalizing machines like my casters.

Maybe I am just not quite a good melee player.

And maybe the OP is not quite a good caster player.

I don’t find casters underpowered. And btw, I have seen quite a few “my tanky toon can’t complete PV because it’s lacking DPS to kill the end boss” posts.

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I have yet to see the first melee guy ever who can clear any dungeon faster than my warlock, who can solo anything, often on his own while the other 3 players in game are somewhere else. Anything does mean anything.

So your warlock already did a gladiator crusible, yes?

As for me. I play only in HC mode. So i found out that Trozan-Druids are good for farming normal/elite and fast going to ultimate. BUT. If you dont have BiS items(like I don’t have) then you will die on ultimate. Not fast. Not nessesary. But you will. Because you couldn’t farm good places. And Hive have not best droprate for legs.

I burried two chars, now thinking of making another class.

Honestly, I miss for times when i could clean SoT on elite(elite, Carl!) and always got 1-4 legs for it. Now… now it unposible. You need now 1-3 runs to get 1 leg. And it’s if you lucky.

So I think that droprate of legs on elite/ultimate should be improved.

17

My IK commando caster has a shield and tanks everything, LOL. He does slap some mobs for Viper and energy leech though. He has 30 regen/s but after a few slaps with his weapon he’s good to go on energy again. It’s sad how if you just put a shield on something combined with Menhir’s Bulwark, Shield Training and Overguard and you’re good to go. I added Time Dilation as well for more Overguard goodness. He has about 30 points in physique and 10k health, so really I have the option of taking any stats I want. In the end I’d rather just go for physique or cunning though because they are way better. Spirit sucks.

Someone mentioned that melee have to deal with energy too, but it’s so incredibly easy to deal with when you’re attacking with weapon damage.

IMO casters are actually easier to use when you’re just starting out in Ultimate. DEE witch hunter or vitality conjurer both can take down nemeses with bad gear. I did it myself. If I think about something like trying to farm ultimate with a CT sorc or any kind of warlock with bad gear then wow you’re going to have a rough time.

As always though, it just comes down to Crucible. Castsers struggle there because they don’t have enough survivability (with some exceptions).

18

In Elite? Or Gladiator? Would love to see a build or video.

Casters have terrible single-target DPS and simply can’t touch the 200k+ crits that many endgame melee builds dish out. Pet builds and (maybe AAR builds) are the only casters that can come close in that department, but they come with a plethora of problems that are basically trivial for melee builds.

%WPS skills are clearly the most optimal path in current endgame. IMO, flat damage skills should scale much better at overcapped levels since it requires very specific and difficult equipment investment to get there, especially when you’re talking about 6-10 levels overcapped. And the reverse should be true for %WPS skills since they already scale extremely well from stacking multiple additional bonus sources available at endgame; they should be subject to more significant diminishing returns, just like debuffs already do after the 1.0.0.7 patch.

You can’t max-overcap 5 different flat damage abilities, but you can easily apply your high %WPS value to any number of skills and devotion/item procs. Crate already lowered %WPS component of several devotion procs recently, so clearly they recognize this problem - and they should continue to address this if they’re serious about build diversity. %WPS is just too versatile and effective across the board, and melee builds are the main beneficiaries.

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Im surprised no one say anyting about %atk dmg goes to health. Take lifeleach away from atackers, and youre notice that they arent so much better that casters. When 1007 hit, most ppl whined about how unplayable they Opieopie 100500 dipies blademasters became :stuck_out_tongue:

20

PB and CT casters have access to life leech. PB can shotgun your enemy and yet both builds while being stronger than most melee builds pale in comparison to the strongest ones… So yes life leech is important but it’s not the only thing that keeps melee builds alive.

I didn’t even notice life leech not working on my builds (not even against Rashalga), people did whine but taking it away doesn’t put a melee build on par with a caster.

Then again i run circuit-breaker builds which is why i don’t rely on ADCtH for sustains and can afford my health bar going down w/o worrying about dying.

Even if i don’t consider any one else’s build i have some self-made casters that out perform some melee builds.

I guess BiS is off. My strongest caster while outperforming most melee builds still pales in comparison to my strongest melee build. I personally still prefer casters though.

Stay away->attack Mogdrogen->keep dodging while simultaneously casting->get him to below 50% health and watch him three shot your build to oblivion :slight_smile:
Don’t mean to go off-topic but does this guy have any weakness i can work around?