Yes, I meant weapon attack, sorry for abusing terminology. The very point that I was making was that grim tools numbers aren’t going to correspond directly to actual damage. I thought it was fairly obvious where the number 36% was coming from. Assuming all other variables are equal (yes, a very big assumption), a dual wield sentinel (discussed earlier in the thread and the subject of the post that I was replying to) will strike with its weapons 36% more frequently than a sword and board sentinel. However, weapon attack in grim tools shows a 50% higher number. So, all other things being equal, which I know is not going to be true, a dual wield character will deal 36% more melee damage. Actually, I think that might be being charitable to dual wield because of the AoE from shattering smash and the fact that the shield gives physical resistance and armor that the dual wield character might have to find elsewhere. But that’s very complicated. It’s simple to say that the grim tools screen is misleading and that a sword and board sentinel does less damage than the dual-wield version, but not as much less as grim tools suggests.
How much more “shield effectiveness” do you need if the shield is already making you immortal?
These are good points. At an abstract level, offense is more important than defense. The faster you kill things the less damage you take. So defensive choices have to be very powerful to feel worth it. But at the same time, people make a lot of good abstract arguments, that are then proven wrong by an unexpected combo. Ranged attacks have design issues in Grim Dawn that make them weaker than casters or melee, but people still post very strong ranged builds. As someone who’s not plugged into the “crucible 150-170 in under 7 minutes or bust” mentality, who isn’t a long time poster here and who treats posting trends with some skepticism, I want different view points coming from specific experience. You provided that, but people are also claiming shields are good, so forgive me if I don’t take your post as gospel.
How about Overguard + Absolution relic timing, plus a shield with “of barricades” suffix? That sums up to a 100%, although not with 100% uptime, but can be made close to.
We obviously talk about a different game. I’m taking about SR85 and naked Crucible. There, nothing makes you immortal. And you’ll be more likely to survive on build such as Stormreaver (just did 86 no death) than Octavius even though Octavius got much better defensive stats. Down there you’re gonna take damage no matter what. And that damage gotta be healed up.
Also, on Octavius, it’s hard to survive the trip to SR85+ on the other side of the screen. You know, you, the player. Surviving mentally. We’re talking 5-minute Seeker of the Damned grinds, invincible healer mobs, immortal Kuba, running in circles in the boss rooms for ages, etc.
You must have gotten sth wrong.
No it’s not. Most important is the balance between the two. In current GD (1.1.2.4) this balance is kinda ruined for S&B. Offense was nerfed, and defense was nerfed. Defense got too expensive, and to get it you gotta sacrifice more offense. Then, offense gets so low is actually affects the defense, making it worse that not having it!
It’s not abstract. It’s tested. On Octavius. The most survivable setup I managed kept shield stats at the minimum (1p in Shield Training and 7/12 on Overguard) and did maximum cunning dump. The more I invested in shield stats the worse it got.
Sure, possible, ofc. But that’s… an acid warlord? There’s even a set for it - Sentinel of the Three. I didn’t make a warlord out of it but I can tell you it’s gonna suck big time. Anyway, the set uses a shield.
I haven’t played S&B in ages, so I can’t fairly tell you which is better than the other. But here’s some things to consider:
It’s all a matter of personal preference. I’ve been corrupted by the likes of @superfluff, and am a DPS fiend. Thus, I’d always pick DW.
You calculations are impressively thorough. Which is great! However, you’re missing some crucial elements.
a. What you’ve calculated is DPH (damage per hit), not DPS. The difference between the 2 is attack speed. Generally, DW gives greater AS.
b. You should also consider the WPS DW has to offer if you want to be super thorough (e.g. from korvaak’s brand)
That being said, DPS is also very much influenced by how reliably you can actually dish it out. For example, I may have a sheet 1 DPS value of 9999999999999, but may never succeed in killing anything because I’m always forced to kite, or am dead. As always, it’s a balance between offense/defence. I’ve said this before on several posts, and I’ll say it again - you gotta kill fast enough to not get killed, and survive long enough to kill.
Regarding the defensiveness of the shield, it’s mostly a stat stick as far as I can tell because of your inability to raise block recovery. Personally, I wouldn’t be so hopeful.
Another thing regarding DW is that flat damage from stuff like ring augments applies to BOTH weapons, making them twice as valuable as when going S&B.
EDIT: As ya has pointed out, balance is key in GD. This is why you’ll see me yammering about “balance points” when it comes to specs. A min/maxed spec is one which has simply found its optimal balance point.
I think he’s going for a sentinel, so he doesn’t have OG. Also, absolution relic has been nerfed (reasonably) harsh. So unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be a very reliable solution.
Truly, in most cases, for shields - it’s soldier or bust
@ya1: I was thinking about what you said about tactician…I dunno if I agree mate, because I don’t need kalastor to apply flat IT when I have FW. Or am I missing something?
Isn’t shattered realm not really supposed to be balanced by that point? I still think it’s valuable feedback but can only be taken to mean so much.
That is not what is meant by an abstract level. Exclusive of specific data, offense is better than defense. Would you rather play a character that killed everything instantly, but died in a single hit, or a character that could never kill anything at all, but could never die? And the faster you kill enemies, the less damage you take, but defense has no such corresponding effect on offense. This was one of your own premises, then you disagreed with it to argue with me. That’s just being contrary.
With a very casual exploration in grimtools, both setups can hit max attack recovery, but sword and board doesn’t have 100% uptime, since it relies on barbaros pants. But I didn’t thoroughly add components and augments, make sure resistances are overcapped, make sure OA and DA are good, etc. since it was really just exploratory. I did, of course, take the WPS from korvaak’s brand into account. The sword and board setup has higher damage per hit in grim tools but a non-negligible amount of its damage is chaos because it uses a bloodlord’s vengeance and gets flat physical damage from safeguard that gets converted to chaos damage by abomination. I could get high %damage to chaos, but no resist reduction on either class, so that would make that part of the sheet damage less powerful than it appears. At any rate, if I don’t get distracted by something else first, I’ll probably try both setups, though I’m only passingly interested in crucible or true endgame content, so I may or may not make it there.
The cost for maximum shield is very expensive in skill/constellations and it seems to be an exercise in futility and frustration. Like finding the end of the rainbow. Grind, craft, buy. You built a pet rock that’s useless.
Because of so much floor AOE crap bosses toss down that you CAN’T block, and all the other ticks/dots/statuses from being a turret-target, I found shields in this game very underwhelming and counter productive.
EVENTUALLY, you will get unlucky and all your cooldowns will be on when you need them.
So mega DPS timed kill epeen still rules here. Kill fast, kill faster. Post on YT and get bragging rights.
Resistances really matter and that’s nothing to do with shields. Non-tanky classes have resist/restore buffs just as good as solider. i.e Arcanist: Maivens Sphere. 20% ABSORB.
Adding insult to injury, the Overguard (best sheild skill) mod takes away another 1/5h of your already non-existant dmg. That shield comes with taxes and more taxes.
Also, shields do NOT scale well for later levels. Even with modifies/multipliers with end-game, I find solid hits can still take you down 30%. But IMO, it’s the dots/status that eat at you faster than regen can save you.
So it’s really just easier, cheaper, faster to make a pewpew and stick & move/kite and avoid the bubbling dot death. DPS in this game is cheap and gear/game choices will really steer your into the DPS fast lane if you like it or not.
So just my opinion, jump on me if you want to bois, but if you’re into sword and board. Find another game…
I hear you.
Got a 100% recovery warlord and made my peace with the low trauma dmg.
Then, visiting SR65, Sentinel came. And what can I say. I was 1on1 with him and he killed me. 1 time, 2 times, 3 times. My build was really solid and I would have forgiven any other char being beat by Sentinel - but not my S&B 100% build. I will not touch a shield in this game anymore as well.
That is my opinion. I made 2 block/recovery builds and both sucks. I would say this was mostly because of the cost of KEY shield constellations (like others have pointed out).
If you’re implying you can get the nodes, well, you’re right…
But my useless pet rock comment is in regards to what you have after picking all the crap constellation nodes to make this happen.
Like so many said before in this thread, and after.
Block/recovery shield just isn’t worth it. There is much cheaper for much better.
So I 100% stand by my post.
