I can concede that, i think I have once or twice already. I did try several versions of a commando rifleman though, and either it was a Demolitionist with few soldier buffs or a Cadence Rifleman, and someone said it works but i found it slow and painful. Effectiveness is easy enough to judge in that way. How close to death do you get before all the zombies are dead and how fast can you kill them?
For Normal/Veteran yes, beyond that, not so much. The farther in you get, the more important other criteria than damage output become, and in the 1st difficulty you can ignore those without any repercussions.
Even on veteran i find it important, the resists and up to a point the defensive ability seems to make a bigger difference than armor. This is why I add “how close to death do you get”. Its easy enough to have half or more of your health gone in an instant on some mobs and bosses. Some moments are pretty brutal and death is not unheard of. A noticeable jump from Normal at least.
Veteran is still easy enough to get away with any sort of sloppy build, even if it is more difficult than normal. That will not be the case in higher difficulties.
Agreed, resistances do get some importance, I was thinking resistance reduction and so forth. Normal/Veteran does not require you to really think about your build, almost anything works.
I definitely would not recommend leveling through Veteran/Elite as a Cadence rifleman. Sounds utterly painful. That’s not to say it wouldn’t work later, as both Valdun’s and Harbinger builds could attest. But for leveling Fire Strike is almost undoubtedly better. The Burn Damage on Explosive Strike melts enemies (pun intended) and there’s good itemization for it at lower levels (Hellmaw Shotgun).
I don’t presently know what the current course of the thread is, but I do feel an apology is in order on my front (and is a few days overdue). Unfortunately, I generally suck at making them. 
I definitely overzealously singled out one of your side comments - though I still may disagree with it on a core, fundamental level - and haphazardly opened the door to a flame war. That’s on me, and I thank you for enduring it and remaining on the forums to discuss your ideas. I’m also greatly distressed by my comment about my mod; my intentions were as Zantai described, but using the project for argumentative gain or to construe it in such a way that may be interpreted as you had is highly unprofessional of me. For the above, I am sorry.
Early on in my modding ‘career’ I came upon advice not originally intended for me.
I’ve spent the last few days mulling over the above and the original notions of your thread.
On the topic of weapon restrictions, it’s a notion I’ve struggled with and argued over for several years now. Some such suggestions of mine have found their way into the game (Pneumatic Burst no longer has a Weapon Requirement). I once thought - and on occasion continue to think - as you do: that weapon restrictions are all arbitrarily defined and serve no greater purpose than to ward off player creativity. For what hand-of-god reason is my character functionally prohibited from using so-and-so skill with such-and-such weapon? There are some skills whose restrictions I’d like to see removed; Devastation and AAR chief among them (I really want to use 2H with both of those), or at the very least altered (I’d settle for them requiring a Caster Implement or an Offhand, rather than just an offhand).
Primal Strike is not one such skill that I have an issue with. I’ve been thinking about why I have this contradictory opinion.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are several reasons this conflict exists for me:
- One reason is a bit personal: I (mostly) play melee. The vast majority of my time in Grim Dawn is up in an enemy’s face, and so I don’t understand the minutiae and points-of-view of caster players. This is not to justify Primal Strike’s weapon restriction, but instead serves to debunk my own argument for the removal or alteration of the weapon restrictions on Devastation/AAR. How can I reasonably provide feedback beyond a gut feeling or intuition about these abilities which I rarely find myself using? Answer: I can’t. Crate is better off ignoring me and listening to others on these fields.
- I appreciate the uniqueness the weapon restriction creates. The skill can feel different from other skills because of the gear it imposes upon you, inherently changing the way your character plays and progresses. Primal Strike requiring a 2H weapon means that my character is going to be built for power, not speed (which is not a balanced tradeoff yet, but it can be eventually). It means I’m going to run into energy issues while simultaneously lacking the defensiveness offered by, say, a shield. Because of these sacrifices, the skill is allowed to possess more power, which greater augments the aforementioned power vs speed paradigm.
- Not specifically to Primal Strike, but I appreciate that weapon restrictions in general can promote creativity. They can hamper it too, of course - e.g., arbitrary hand-of-god shit if such a restriction is misplaced or implemented poorly - but I think Primal Strike gets it right. Primal Strike creates problems - energy regeneration issues, lower defensiveness (see point 2) - but, in solving these problems, the creativity of a player is allowed to flourish. On the other hand, Devastion causes no problems for anyone and AAR only marginally does so - a bit of a defensive issue in needing to stand still to cast it - while creating a “setback” of high energy costs that a caster offhand happens to mitigate. I find AAR’s case particularly more egregious here because, ultimately, its restriction is in fact totally arbitrary, if mildly thematic (because something something casters read books right?).
I agree with this too, but I think that in cases where barriers aren’t arbitrary as described in points 2 and 3, the two can work in tandem. Problems are created by some restriction, and players have a limited pool of resources to solve them. If they do, kudos to them! Well done. This is character development at its finest, hearkening back well earlier than the days of video games.
Edit:
And I apologize for snidely dismissing your accomplishment. Having tried my hand at a few simple seeming edits for Skyrim I understand it’s not a small task. The tools might be different for different games but i can imagine the level of involvement and the potentially resulting headache and frustration can be similar. You didn’t cause the flame war you just sort of walked into the fire. It was a side comment made earlier that had some thinking i was saying one thing and some thinking i meant another and me having too much time on my hands that day and feeling compelled to defend and respond to everything. I try to ignore ugly comments, but I am a smart ass too and its very hard to bite this acidic tongue sometimes. I don’t think that was your intention, and i apologize for the reaction.
Hell yeah! lol now to get Grava to do the Hulk out about me on stream… while he’s drunk. Just set him in front of a screen of the forum on camera and feed him powbam classics. I’m all over the map, bro, go get you some. Alot of my best work has been deleted by overzealous Zantai tho (I swear that zentai is cutting off the oxygen flow to his brainium). I’d be dying laughing over here. Grava is awesome.
/Someonegetmeanautographasap /brbineedmoarcoffee
It occurred to me that maybe having a pilots licence worth of hours in the game is precisely why some of you are comfortable with the kind of asymmetry I am describing that makes certain aspects of the game so uncomfortable to me as a new player. You watched it grow and change, and no doubt your input helped to shape the game into it’s current form. So it has evolved into something that is more than partly by and for you, the ancient ones. Those kinds of asymmetries are there to keep your interest after having mastered a baser version. It would be like launching Oblivion on the Xbox with deadly reflex or oscuros oblivion overhaul integrated into the base game.
Perhaps, in a roundabout way. While alot of the older forum-goers and contributors, and Praetorians surely have at least a little influence in shaping the game, from what I have seen Crate, by-and-large, operate exclusively on what they consider as doable/workable etc… then from there they (may, or may not) apply player feedback if they deem it necessary. In some rare cases over an extended time period they may change tactics as their minds have changed on something (component completion bonuses is one such example).
Probably why Serimert made the statement he did concerning me (being more objective) is because I do tend to focus much, much more on early game Grim Dawn than (some of) the other testers and he is correct that in such matters I tend to be more objective about it and try to approach it from the view of someone just playing the game for the first time (as best as I can considering the circumstances). Much of my behind-the-scenes feedback inevitably concerns some aspect of this while testing.
As for specifically in regards to your “thematic” concerns, I have to say that the reality is that such things generally don’t influence my thinking of a game as much as it does some people. It’s usually only the hardcore roleplayer types who absolutely must have everything to the “T” in their minds to fit whatever they think is required for “immersion”.
I am definitely not that type of roleplayer and in all honesty I get boggled by people that get all into roleplay when it comes to Diablo-likes. It’s a gamestyle that emphasizes gameplay and action far above roleplay. And from where I sit GD has hands down the best freedom in the genre when it comes to build variety.
True. It certainly doesn’t need to be at level that would be required for a more role play oriented game. Grim Dawn undoubtedly aims to be a little bit of both though. Some keep suggesting that there are no skill sets, no “Ulzulin” skills, no “Ordinance” skills, “Stromcaller” or “Wildcaller” skills, etc. To my perception the game itself contradicts the insistence that they don’t exist. They are scattered about the tree but still grouped by theme and damage type and the kinds of spells and abilities representing the group. They are re-enforced by names and themes of item sets. What doesn’t always exist is a thematic harmony when you try assemble a character around those themes. And this is the crux, a new casual player will want to.
Almost feels like way back in an earlier version the skills were intended to be organized this way and someone said(just as an example, i have noted several, and of course its just conjecture) “we have cadence, brute force and savagery all 2h skills…that seems too ordered and symmetric and predictable, having just the main weapon damage skills restricted like that, lets change it to primal strike so it will be different.” And an asymmetry was born, for the sake of differentness and no other, that broke a theme that had already been planned and organized, and pushed certain combinations of builds out of the theme.
And by the way, to be sure the pilots license thing is a joke not a jab. For sure I have sunk many, many…many hours into various games. I wish i could turn off the counters on steam sometimes.
No worries, I didn’t take it as such and there have been others to try to “burn” me for it (in much worse fashion) but I just laugh. I have a house, job, wife, kids etc and to put in the slightly racist fashion of my mother, “I’m grown, white, and over 21 and I can do as I damned well please.”
I feel this is directed at me… by no means do I dispute that masteries have themes of skills, they obviously do. What I meant is that just because a group of skills deals the same damage type does not mean they are meant to go together, they might very well be alternatives to each other, which was the case here, you have a 1h skill and a 2h skill and a third one you could take in either case.
Almost feels like way back in an earlier version the skills were intended to be organized this way and someone said(just as an example, i have noted several, and of course its just conjecture) “we have cadence, brute force and savagery all 2h skills…that seems too ordered and symmetric and predictable, having just the main weapon damage skills restricted like that, lets change it to primal strike so it will be different.” And an asymmetry was born, for the sake of differentness
this never happened (not that you said it did) and I doubt any were designed like this.
What good is symmetry if all it means is you have to pick one out of x functionally equivalent skills that all use the same weapon type. It makes a lot more sense to offer similar skills to different weapon types than to the same one…
No, not directed at you specifically at all. I actually forgot who said it, i think more than one person did.
As for symmetry. Not suggesting equivalent skills should be restricted to using the the same weapon type, but rather have the restrictions apply to the main weapon damage skill. Each restricted skill can be restricted to a different weapon, but the restriction applies to the main weapon damage skill. That sort of symmetry, to me, is functional. It restricts possibilities in an ordered and even way. It defines a class and a play stile for the primary class without biasing the remaining choices in any direction. If one(main weapon damage skill) is chosen the other is off limits (simultaneously), but you are still free to choose one or the other and all of the support skills.
The arbitrary asymmetry appears where a restriction applies to a spell other than a main weapon damage skill. Primal strike in the present case (or forcewave, blitz in the soldier case). Which one is the main weapon damage skill might be up for debate, but I would consider Savagry the main weapon damage skill of the Stormcaller skillset and Primal Strike a support spell.
It would be possible to construct a systematic asymmetry across all of the classes that pushes possible sensible choices around the classes as though they were arranged in a ring, but that would necessarily exclude many possibilities.
Forgive me if this sounds obtuse. It is Set or Group Theory. It is a simple mathematical fact that the more restrictions you lift, the more combinations are possible. If restrictions are applied they have to be done in a structured way if you are to preserve the maximum number of sensible outcomes. By having three restrictions in soldier, two in shaman, and one in Nightblade and the restrictions on Ulzulins Chosen, the outcomes are heavily biased toward melee builds and result in conceptually (and sometimes functionally) unsatisfying ranged and magic builds, several of which i have pointed out. (one of the unsatisfying outcomes could be fixed simply by shifting the two handed restriction from Primal Strike to Savagry, which makes sense.)
not sure I understand. So each mastery has one main weapon damage skill that is restricted ? If a mastery has two ‘main’ weapon damage skills that are restricted to different weapon types, then how is that different from what we have right now ?
It restricts possibilities in an ordered and even way. It defines a class and a play stile for the primary class without biasing the remaining choices in any direction. If one is chosen the other is off limits (simultaneously), but you are still free to choose one or the other and all of the support skills.
which is pretty much what we have now as far as I can tell, or maybe you need to be a bit more specific here
Primal strike in the present case (or forcewave, blitz in the soldier case). Which one is the main weapon damage skill might be up for debate, but I would consider Savagry the main weapon damage skill of the Stormcaller skillset and Primal Strike a support spell.
and we are back where we started
the two are both main skills but for different weapon types, your ‘Stormcaller skillset’ does not exist, you made it up.
It is Set or Group Theory. It is a simple mathematical fact that the more restrictions you lift, the more combinations are possible.
agreed, the less restrictions you have, the more options you have, not exactly complicated
If restrictions are applied they have to be done in a structured way if you are to preserve the maximum number of sensible outcomes. By having three restrictions in soldier, two in shaman, and one in Nightblade, the outcomes are heavily biased toward melee builds and result in conceptually unsatisfying ranged and caster builds
Not all masteries are equally suited for caster builds, nor are all masteries equally suited for melee or ranged builds. That is not the intent. I am not even sure that is really sensibly achievable without making everything very ‘samey’.
Possibly. The maximum number of outcomes occurs when there are no weapon restrictions. Then outcomes are only limited by what can be made to functionally to work together. So I would not suggest adding more, such as adding wand restrictions to an Arcanist skill for instance.
I do not see a case of a mastery having two main weapon damage skills, but like I said that might be debatable. I see a case of a class having two masteries or distinct skill sets, the Shaman, and in some ways, not entirely but some, the shaman is a redundancy of the soldier class. Thunder shaman could just as easily be built by having those thunder skills be Arcanist, and by having the resulting class be dependent on the order of choosing of the primary and secondary class. Thus Thunder Shaman is a subtype of battlemage. But that is beyond the scope of this discussion. Suffice to say, having Brute Force 2h and Savagry 2h is functional, since the two skill sets barely intersect.
I said in full, “The arbitrary asymmetry appears where a restriction applies to a spell other than a main weapon damage skill. Primal strike in the present case (or forcewave, blitz in the soldier case). Which one is the main weapon damage skill might be up for debate, but I would consider Savagry the main weapon damage skill of the Stormcaller skillset and Primal Strike a support spell.”
So yes, you are correct, that is what we have here. An asymmetrical restriction on a support spell (primal strike), that should be on the main weapon damage skill (savagery)
I respectfully disagree that it does not exist. Intentional or not, when you have 5 skills based on Thunder and associated with a mastery called Stormcallers pact, and 5 skills themed around nature and physical damage a mastery called Primal Bond and there is little to no intersection between the two, then whether it was intended or not, they are grouped together into distinct sets. And as I said, those groupings are reinforced by gear with similar themes and titles, and further indicated by the Lore.
agreed, it is not. and the argument is not circular, i have excluded the circular possibility as unworkable and undesirable for purposes of this discussion.
But this does bring us back to one of my earlier points. Difference, asymmetry, just for the sake of not being “samey”, is arbitrary, and that is why we are having this discussion. That’s the problem. One restricted soldier skill would be sensible, three make it impossible to take soldier and be anything but a fighter or battle mage of some type. If the mastery is unsuited for a build then it should be how well it works that makes this determination, not a wall keeping you from trying. How do you know what could arise when the restriction makes it impossible to find out? I have at least two builds in mind, that I think would be fun, that aren’t melee, but need forcewave and blitz. The restrictions push everything else out except melee.
This thread helped me spot a bug. I tried to make a dual wield Trickster build using Savagery. The plan was to build up charges and gain flat damage bonuses and then use Shadow Strike for the finish.
Long story short. The flat “electrocute damage” on Storm Touched does not apply. I tested this pretty thoroughly but if someone can confirm I’ll post an official report in the bug forums.
I can see a boost to my physical, lightning and bleeding damages when using Shadow Strike, but electrocute remains the same.
I’m not sure (to say the least) if dots are multiplied by % weapon damage beyond 100%.
Is it supposed to boost the weapon always passively like Flame touched or is it supposed to only apply on savagery strikes? If I read correctly the toggle auras buff the weapon but if it appears in a skill line it applies the buff on use of the skill only. Or do the charges act as a temporary aura buff?
Savagery charges need to remain up for the electrocute to get added to SS. Also for SS Electrocute try Spark of Ultos