Before I start if you aren’t aware Witch Hunter is Occultist/Nightblade; both of them being classes that (in my opinion) are reliant on phys res to mitigate phys damage. Really do not feel that the physical res destruction that this class received was warranted, especially when wearing the dunefiend’s set that also lost 14% phys res. I understand that the physical damage of monsters was brought down and whatever, -5 at max on aspect of the guardian? fair enough. whatever. -5 at max dual blades? yeah sure whatever most people don’t max dual blades anyway so it’s mostly just the phys res scaling that slows down a bit, for most people its probably just like -3 or something like it was for me. Dunefiend’s set bonus getting replaced with 14% health? i mean, man, thats an insane swing in power like sure I gain 2k health but that was a quarter of my physical mitigation. Just gone, and not like that 2k health makes up for the loss.
And on the newest update we feel removing another 2% from dual blades and aspect is neccessary? Seriously? What is going on that I’m missing please inform me. Fairly certain that Witch Hunter isn’t the physical mitigation king (cough oathkeeper and solider) of Grim Dawn. But my character definetly feels a lot squisher though it seems Dunefiend Witch Hunter is one of the main targets of these nerfs. Maybe there’s something there I don’t know but I can definetly feel damage spikes in just trash mobs with my prismatic diamond regularly proccing when before this change if I saw diamond proc it was because I was fighting literally just zantarin or something, (being a shadow strike character sometimes I just teleport right into the middle of the shotgun and eat 10 projectiles at once, yay shotgunning). Usually in SR80 I would only have to press pneumatic burst because its duration is about to be over, now I’m pretty much pressing it off cooldown.
Definetly do not think that Dunefiend (at least on Witch Hunter, seems pretty fine on dervish tbh) was a strong or overperforming set, especially when using it for shadow strike which ends up getting +1 second cd, which really makes me not want to play it somedays in favor of going some other route with instead a sub 2 second cooldown on shadow strike.
Maybe I’m stupid but this whole patch doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me as to why its happening. Never thought I was playing a physical mitigation god and I sure as hell aren’t playing one anymore.
On a positive note thanks for adding phys res back to stoneplate (when the update releases anyway) the boots feel extremely useless without it to me. Also thanks for not removing phys res from zantarin shoulders, I’ll take what I can get I guess.
Also hey if would be nice if zantarin wasn’t so anti shadow strike.
Anyways, back to sitting on grim tools with my Witch Hunter for hours on end until I have another brain blast. Thanks for reading.
I tend to agree with others that further nerfs to phys res on NB / occultist in the next iteration of the playtest are unnecessary. I understand why some reduction was done the first time around for balance purposes, but I think that what was already done is sufficient.
I understand removing the phys res bonus for Dunefiend to an extent because of phys res being removed from a bunch of places. That said, I don’t think Dunefiend should be a zero phys res set. Maybe there’s a compromise like giving the chest 4-5% phys res or halving the phys res bonus. That seems more reasonable.
you do realize, these doesn’t deal any phys dmg right, so these changes have literally 0 impact on this case/example? @_@
learn his skill… aka “don’t just shadow strike in blindly” - then you 100% avoid what you experience (yes it’s 2 fixed mechanics you can control)
for whatever reason, boots getting phys res back seem to have equated to dual blades/BoD phys res compensation, not really sure why how, (on appearance)
maybe something happened after first changelog, some dual blades/BoD showcase on a class/build that made it seem necessary even if not considering boots reversal - Z doesn’t often voice his reasonings, so you’re just free to speculate
Best thing you can do is probably showcase it in a video or such, so he can see just how much this hurt or specially compounded in the case of WH and +Dunefiend
i can try record a full, tho my potato doesn’t seem to really appreciate that
*on a personal note, unsure if placebo, to me it really does feel like there is a difference on 75 vs 80 now, so the impact might be less for your Dunefiend WH on 75 compared to 80 the way it seems to have felt for my chars atleast
i feel like even before 1.2.1 this was an issue for many sets that was oriented towards NB/Occ inclusion, and if such a set didn’t have phys res it basically/frequently screwed over any “off-class” usage, like chillwhisper apostate; 0 phys res build…
yes Dunefiend might be able to be used as sentinel/dervish too, but it doesn’t change it was already in relative squish avg mitigation territory before patch on WH, because didn’t get the same HP bump etc
I dont have a Dunefiend WH but I had a similar experience on my Rah’Zin’s WH. Since I thought that this is mainly due to class specific phys res nerf, i tried my Belgo Infiltrator and it feels unchanged while both builds loosing about the same amount of phys (~30%) res and gaining about the same amount of armor (~200).
The Belgo Inf. has ~ 700 more armor in general and that is what i thinks makes playing WH in SR feel less safe. My N&O Sabo also lost the same amount of phys res but gained way more armor ~ 800 and it feels way safer now.
I Think in order to compensate WH sets should get some amount of flat armor, either in the set completion bonus or attached to BoD / PB.
i playtested it in response to the 1.2.1 patch and the dmg is suprisingly uneffected. The main reason for it is that it provides lots of HP + OA , ASpeed, relevant skill boni and a lot of flat fire dmg.
And also the alternatives are rly bad. Mythical Black Star of Deceit is the next best thing but it makes you significantly less tanky and the build already has enough leech + the 15 flat RR is rly underwhelming
A well crafted Nimble/Watcher crest can be definetly better but as of now i dont have one.
ye, but that’s my confusion, why use it “for fire dmg”; if you lose more cold dmg because of it
*i know you said it added tankiness, but seems like would easy to make up tho
even if you maxed rolled shoulder+belt, you’d still get a net dmg loss from conversion
if you want to see actual evidence for that medal performing well, lets move somewhere else with this, scince the thread was not created in order to discuss my WH
But i am well aware of the medals draw backs, i am well aware of the alternatives and i have playtested almost every possible alternative and this seems to be the best choice.
i feel like you’re still missing my point?
i’m not questioning the “performance” →
that’s it, you’re hurting the dmg hence my confusion
if you picked it for tankiness, that’s fine; doesn’t change my confusion picking something hurting you dmg wise, since that was the consideration/question
“you’re taking a dmg hit”: but you’re doing so voluntarily because you feel it helps survival, which you then prioritize more than the dmg loss, simple; doesn’t change it’s a dmg loss - just that the dmg loss might not be important to you then
Yeah I know I was just using zantarin as a character performance comparison, I know he does 0 phys damage was just saying fighitng zantarin was the only time my diamond would proc vs. now it procs pretty regularly
