Worst and/or Most Useless Abilities and Skills (poll)

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

This is in reference to my previous post: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66051

The skills outlined are as follows:

  • Ulziun’s Wrath
  • Blade Trap (Disputed)
  • Summon Familiar (Disputed)
  • Foul Eruption (suggested by Ptirodaktill)
  • Olexa’s Flash Freeze (Not explained in detail as yet)
  • Ill Omen (suggested by CaptainObvious + Ptirodaktill) - (disputed as one pointer)
  • Veterancy (suggested by Tycho)
  • Harbinger of Souls (suggested by Marney)
  • Primal Bond (Not explained in detail as yet)
  • Upheaval (suggested by Marcus)
  • Aura of Censure (suggested by Chthon)
  • The Big One (suggested by Flying Potato)
  • Overload (Not explained in detail as yet)
  • Ice Spike (Not explained in detail as yet)

Just added a list of 10 with my personal selection.

Let’s vote and see what happens.

EDIT: It’s multi-choice so pick as many or few as you wish.

2

Just to clarify Aura of Censure isn’t useless, it is only bad for its status as an exclusive. It could honestly use some buffs

Harbinger of Souls is good for Vitality Decay builds only, since those builds aren’t popular around here it rarely gets picked. It’s not useless

Ill Omen and Overload are one pointers. Overload is a 1 pointer when you have some +skills to support it and Ill Omen is a 1 pointer when you have skill mods related to it or for Devotion binding so again far from useless

Veterancy is good for Cunning focused builds but the HP regen values on it could us a buff

The Big One is in a weird spot. I am not sure simple buffs would cut it, usually by the time TBO goes off the trash mobs are dead, on bosses I don’t see much effect. They could replace TBO with a modifier similar to Endless Flame which is a “passive buff” that adds % Crit damage and modifies Trap damage by x%

Ulzuin’s Wrath is horse shit

OFF and Blade Trap are intended to be CC skills but to be perfectly honest that’s no excuse for them to be useless against bosses. Flashbang and Ill Omen also have CC effects but they are useful for other stuff, I see no reason why Blade Trap and OFF shouldn’t share this behavior.

Primal Bond is in a weird state, despite the %damage absorption it isn’t very useful. Imo since Shaman has no OA/DA source outside Tenacity of the Boar, they could turn the aura to give us % Defensive Ability and flat OA (basically Reverse Master of Death)

3

Thank you for the feedback. This is why I added the fact that they can be seen as worse or useless. I suppose it depends on the individual on how they will class the skill.

I agree with all the points made and can make things move forward. My prediction will be that Uzliun’s Wrath will be the highest vote.

Want to get some kind of graph from the community (at least the forum users) to reach consensus on skills that need attention.

4

Most of these are just only used for niche or specific builds. Harbinger of Souls and Aura of Censure come to mind as examples of this.

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5

I also agree with this. Although it’s fine to have skills for nice or specific builds, they should also encompass a scope of utility to other builds.

Then there are the worst offenders that are ignored in their niche or specific build ( looking at you Ulziun’s Wrath ).

So I’m leaving it up to the posters and voters. They are welcome to use the initial thread as a guideline or ask here if they are uncertain.

Edit: To add onto the example, let’s take Aura of Censure:

Even builds that would completely benefit from this skill prefer to take Aura of Conviction simply because it’s a superior choice overall. The niche/specific build that the skill is designed for favors a skill designed for a different playstyle because that skill is the better option. This is a problem.

6

Okay, again. Could someone explain to me why Aura of Censure is so bad? I’ve been looking at it on paper and playing around with it and it looks really good.

7

I think if AoC didn’t have %phys resist on it, it wouldn’t be such an obvious choice, despite the flat damage. You also get resist shred with Censure. Maybe some balancing is in order but I don’t think that makes Censure useless in the grand scheme.

Same with Harbinger, it’s a pretty extreme DPS boost, as well as an insane amount of adcth, if you’re not worried about vitality res and a good chunk of OA you get from MoD. Again, I think “utterly useless” doesn’t quite apply.

Much worse offenders out there.

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8

It’s bad because its main feature is elemental resistance shred. This is ample throughout any build that needs it (whether through skills, components, devotions, etc).

It has a single focus on fire/burn yet it reduces elemental resistance in a mastery that focuses on elemental damage. It can easily increase that damage range to include all flat and dot elemental damages.

It’s a melee aura in a build that encourages ranged gameplay(gunslinging or trap using). That said: it can be used in any build fairly well that exploits this quality.

The final nail in the coffin is that you would 99/100 want the stats that Aura of Conviction provides over Aura of Censure. It will be a flat offensive and defensive increase, point for point, over Aura of Censure.

9

It’s not that bad, but it’s placed at the end of the skill tree as an exclusive skill where it competes with the likes of Conviction, Menhir’s Bulwark, Possession and many others that have both great defensive and offensive bonuses. Censure’s defensive bonus suck compared to Conviction and the others listed and the RR, which is the main selling point is just on par with Night’s chill, something you can get very early in the tree. I’d even say that Veil of Shadow + Night’s Chill is better than Censure in terms of benefits.

10

Perfect. Thank you for the explanation.

11

This is how I view all the exclusives

1. Occultist-

-Possession- Tailor made for Chaos, Vitality and Poison builds
Damage absorption and skill disruption make it useful for other build types

2. Soldier-

[spoiler]
-Oleron’s Wrath- Made for Internal Trauma and Pierce builds. %OA makes it very desirable for other build types

-Menhir’s Bulwark- Only used by Shield builds but supports it’s specific playstyle very nicely by giving fuck ton of bonuses which includes flat damage, HP regen, Damage absorption and Life reduction[/spoiler]

3. Arcanist-

[spoiler]
-Reckless Power- Tailor made for Aether builds. Attack Speed and Casting Speed make it useful for other build types. It also has some oddly placed Burn duration

-Star Pact- Tailor made for Frostburn and Cold builds. CDR makes it useful to almost every build[/spoiler]

4. Shaman-

[spoiler]
-Stormcaller’s Pact- Tailor made for Electrocution and Lightning builds. %Crit bonus makes it desirable for other build types

-Primal Bond- Tailor made for pet builds and bleeding builds. Very rarely picked by other build types
Could use some modification

>Keep pet bonuses intact
>Add Flat Bleeding damage
>Replace damage absorption with %DA
>Add flat OA [/spoiler]

5. Necromancer-

[spoiler]
-Harbinger of Souls- Tailor made for Vitality decay builds. ADCtH, Casting speed and attack speed should make it desirable for other build types but they dont.
Honestly the should consider increasing ADCtH and improve AS and CS scaling to Reckless Power levels

-Master of Death- Intended for Pet builds but is used by almost every Necromancer due to immensely good bonuses[/spoiler]

6. Inquisitor-

[spoiler]
-Aura of Conviction- Made for Pierce and Elemental DoT builds. Flat OA and Physical resistance make it desirable for other build types

-Aura of Censure-Intended for Elemental builds but doesn’t get picked often due to lacking defensive bonuses or even offensive bonuses (well RR is technically a form of offense)
I am not sure why it’s a damaging aura. Auramancers are pretty much cheap gimmicks now that the Aura Devotion binding bug has been solved.

Consider re-doing it into something like Vindicative Flame/Spectral Binding-

-Applies -RR over 5 seconds to enemies
-Give it flat elemental damage
-Add %Elemental damage bonuses[/spoiler]

12

This is the only issue I have with it; nine times out of ten, your build does not want to be in Censure range. If the radius was something like 10-12 meters and didn’t scale, we could talk.

Worst skill, for me, is either Drain Essence, Flames of Ignaffar, or Ulzuin’s Chosen. DE is a significant noob trap with really strange damage types. FoI has no range to it, has zero item support for its transmuter, and is very difficult to itemize for the Burn.

Ulzuin’s Chosen is Ulzuin’s Chosen.

13

The only thing bad about Drain Essensce is the shit scaling/item dependency, the crappy Uro set and zero item support for Gravechill. Besides this the ADCtH makes it pretty good. Aether DE and Vitality DE are pretty solid builds

As for FoI, making Tainted Flame work is much harder than Gravechill atm as for the skill itself. It’s a ray skill with a short range but can hit more than one foe in close range and has innate fumble chance & % weapon damage. Not sure why you consider something like that bad, especially when Cold FoI and Fire FoI are very good

14

Because it gets amazing sheet dps but is quite literally a channeled melee skill that does piss-poor damage all the time. My FoI build managed to get 240k sheet dps but dies to a single mobpack in AoM before it can kill anything.

FoI is the literal definition of a disparity between theorycrafting and practice.

15

That’s a shame because I was so excited to try and get a Hardcore FoI build to work. Thought I was just bad at it (this might still be true) but it felt a bit gimped throughout the experience.

So you think FoI is unusable in its current state as a competitive Ultimate skill?

16

If the keyword is competitive, then yes.

FoI, like everything else, is capable of clearing Ultimate. It just takes a while and is not what I would classify as ‘fun’.

17

I’d much prefer OA/DA bonuses to Mog Pact and possibly Oak Skin.

18

Well I do play Grim Dawn to have fun after all. I suppose my biggest caveat with FoI is that I really enjoy the concept of a flamethrower… it’s just clunky to use and I know I can do more damage with, say, a firebolt component skill.

19

So after 24 votes (at the point of this response) 50%+ think that both Ulziun’s Wrath and Blade Trap are bad.

Wonder if there’s anyway to improve these skills?

I’m curious as to what Zantai has to say about all this :stuck_out_tongue:

20

" Working as intended"