KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Sykar]

Well, certain monsters are immune/resistant to certain dmg types, so there's that. Chaos and Aether are the only magical types that don't have a dot.

Different resistance types beyond 3-4 are just flavor. I don't remember if the different DoTs did anything special either, apart from just being, well, a DoT.

Not sure I can agree. It sure makes a noticeable difference when I am on my AAR character or on my melee Spellbreaker for example. The AAR character struggles more with enemies of the Aetherial faction, especially Flesh Hulks. My Spellbreaker on the other hand eviscerates them quite well but struggles with undead noticeably in comparison due to high pierce and cold resistances.

Agree or not, it's the truth. What ArchAngel said is true, that the only damage type that has a mechanical difference is Pierce. Otherwise it's all mechanically the same, just pick which flavor you like the most, kind of. The damage types are superior / inferior based on how the resistances / immunities have been spread across the monster roster. As I remember, physical is one of the best types purely based on the fact that there aren't many enemies resistant to it and how easy it is to access items / skills that lower physical resistance. Aether is one of the worst damage types since there are so many enemies that resist it and there isn't easy access to ways that can lower Aether resistance.

Not like that is any different in any other game and often makes even less of an impact. Case in point: D3.

Kinda sad to compare Grim Dawn with Diablo 3 which is one of the low points of the genre. Diablo 2 did the different types of damage better since they all had some kind of mechanical difference. Lightning was highly random, fire was reliable, cold reduced movement / attack speed, magic is the least resisted damage type, poison was purely a DoT and physical is the most self explanatory. In Diablo 2 you could really feel the damage type as it had a mechanical impact on the game. In Grim Dawn the type of damage you do only impacts on what gear you want to collect to increase the damage of your choice. Resistances matter a bit less in Grim Dawn as well since Crate just stacks a 2-3 different types of damage per skill so that you'll never be resisted completely, which could've been the case for a poorly built character in Diablo 2.

That does not change the fact that mechanically they were the same as Grim Dawn. What does it matter if the damage range is low or high? Magic damage was resisted and physical damage was rolled against with AR and armor similar to OA and DA here. Fundamentally nothing reallly different. Many cold spells also slow/freeze here as well, Arcanists OFF or Tozans for example or the Nightblade's Ring of Frost Transmuter, etc.

 

[Hobo Elf]

That does not change the fact that mechanically they were the same as Grim Dawn.

But that's already a false claim. Try playing Diablo 2 and you'll see how wrong you are.

What does it matter if the damage range is low or high?

One has a more reliable but mediocre output of damage, the other one has a chance to do between 1 and 1000 of damage? It changes the way you play since the other one is just gambling and you can never truly know for sure what will happen when there's that much RNG at play.

Magic damage was resisted and physical damage was rolled against with AR and armor similar to OA and DA here. Fundamentally nothing reallly different.

It matters that Magic damage encounters less resistance than any other type. That already alters the way you're going to engage the game and how you plan your character build. You're less likely to encounter a monster who is a hard counter to your build. This was a major part of Diablo 2 character building, trying to figure out how to get around the mobs with immunities to your main source of damage. Nothing like this exists within Grim Dawn. Damage reduction only exists to buff your damage, not to get rid of hard counters.

Many cold spells also slow/freeze here as well, Arcanists OFF or Tozans for example or the Nightblade's Ring of Frost Transmuter, etc.

Those are properties tied to the abilities and not the damage type itself while in Diablo 2 the type of damage has a unique property in itself. Nightblade's Phantasmal Blade does Cold damage (and 4 other types of damage), but it doesn't slow down enemies. Neither does the passive attack Execution which also deals Cold damage. In Diablo 2 if you stack elemental damage charms or gear, for example, on a Barb, then he'll also gain these qualities tied to the damage types in his attacks, regardless of what skills he uses. Stack enough Lightning damage charms and your damage range will become as random as it would be on a Lightning sorc.

 

[Aeschylus]

Nothing like this exists within Grim Dawn. Damage reduction only exists to buff your damage, not to get rid of hard counters.

This isn't entirely true (assuming you mean resist reduction). There's at least one enemy type in the game that's basically immune to any given damage type if you don't have any reduction and heavily rely on one type.
I'd agree that the differences between damage types are largely cosmetic if taken by themselves, though I'm not as quick to discount the frequently paired secondary effects. Stuff like slow, stun, etc. is generally tied to certain damage types (though not a universal property) and are resisted via separate, harder to acquire resistances and so do lend some broad flavor to the different types, even if they're mechanically separate.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Having quite a bit of fun with my new Necro, up to lvl 30 now. Summons are finally starting to pack a punch and the lvl 30 mastery wraith kicks ass. I'm debating whether to go soldier for cadence or occultist for more powerful pets - the occultist pet talents take forever though.

I'm actually taking the time to read through the logs etc. and the story isn't completely awful like in other games of this type (barring Diablo 1). The Arkovia story is quite decent, in fact.

Definitely Occultist. Death Knight apparently has poor synergy.

Give this build a try http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56793. Flame torrent on skeletons is incredibly powerful, but may get nerfed.

I went through a lot of the constellations manually trying to find the good pet ones, but it never occurred to me that flame torrent would work on summons - why would it? Damn, it's a cheap constellation too. Gonna get it asap.

 

[udm]

Digressing a bit here, but I remember reading somewhere that Ashes will be the last major content update by Crate. Does anyone have a link to that? I'm still holding out hope for more mobility skills within the game.

 

[Aothan]

Dual Pistol Nightblade / Inquistor is actually pretty crazy now that I have Relentless Assault and Deadly Aim maxed out.

I'm thinking about a similar build assuming that is the increased attack and move speed bonuses from Pneumatic Burst, Ranged Expertise and Word of Renewal combine. Nightblade also has a number of interesting defensive skills or tactics to assist with damage avoidance or mitigation, including Shadow Strike to teleport around groups. Looks like the synergy could make for a very involved but also effective class, for the most part that is how I want to try to develop the Inquisitor's playstyle. I'll also keep my present Inquisitor primarily focused on casting abilities, with enough increases to elemental damage types Word of Pain and Storm Box make for an effective area of effect combination whilst also having a focal component for the stronger units in each group of creatures

 

[Great Deceiver]

Alright, Flame Torrent seems very OP on skellies. I'm breezing through content 7 levels above my toon (I'm 40 atm).

As an aside, I've encountered a nasty bug earlier today. Posted on the official forums and everything - everytime I slotted Flame Torrent to a skill (any skill), as soon as my skeletons attacked anything, the game would crash - sound would continue to go on, but the video would freeze and there would be a spike in HD activity. I could alt tab and kill the game process, so it wasn't a complete hang, but it was a reproducible occurrence and happened every time. In addition to that, my character model was fucked (the armour I had wouldn't show, as in parts of the model were simply invisible; unequipping and reequipping the armour would make the model go back to normal. As if that wasn't enough, I wasn't getting any item drops beyond yellow items. This isn't a placebo, I actually tested it - I played for over 10 hours and not a single green+ drop. Not even from one-shot chests (Exalted Chests), which have at least a blue item guaranteed on them. It was fucking weird as shit.

I had tried everything - verifying game cache, running the repair.exe tool, uninstalling and reinstalling, compatibility mode, etc. Nothing seemed to fix it. As a last ditch effort, I deleted the entire Grim Dawn save/config folder that's stored under the Documents/My Games folder, manually deleted the Steam game folder and installed to another drive. I recovered my saves from the cloud and - sure enough, it worked perfectly. First drop I had was green/blue, and I've played for a few hours and everything seems fine now, including the Flame Torrent crash and the weird model clipping.

This was extremely strange. I can only surmise it was some sort of registry/seed fuckup. Not to say everything is 100%, the character now has old quests that I've completed (like kill Warden) in the quest log, and they can't be completed (I tried). Story is progressing just fine though, and as long as I don't display those redundant quests in the UI, I'm satisfied.

Weird as shit.

 

[Emmanuel2]

Decided to join in on the theorycrafting fun being done in the forums where people post fully decked out characters to actually test if it works.

If anyone is curious about how a Vitality caster Cabalist (I hate summons) fares against hard endgame stuff, mainly Gladiator Crucible 140-150, it works amazingly well. As for Ultimate itself, just running around should be enough to kill most trash while elites would at least warrant a CoF debuff.

EDIT: New link to character. (Previous build was for a different character) Rarely would you have to pop a potion and you don't even need a panic button/buff potions/aether shard, though for Gladiator 140-150 you'd need the Health Blessing tribute option just like every build attempting the dame thing, you won't need anything else.

Can facetank Iron Maiden, Moosilauke AND Valdaran (plus the 5 mutators) at the same time. The clear time was around 6 minutes due to the Shar'Zul spawn at 149 and the Iron Maiden + Moosilauke at 150. Prior to that, around 125, it facetanked Fabius and Iron Maiden.

As for the Mad Queen, just run around her while casting Sigil + CoF whenever. Should be down around a minute.

 

[Sykar]

That does not change the fact that mechanically they were the same as Grim Dawn.

But that's already a false claim. Try playing Diablo 2 and you'll see how wrong you are.

What does it matter if the damage range is low or high?

One has a more reliable but mediocre output of damage, the other one has a chance to do between 1 and 1000 of damage? It changes the way you play since the other one is just gambling and you can never truly know for sure what will happen when there's that much RNG at play.

Magic damage was resisted and physical damage was rolled against with AR and armor similar to OA and DA here. Fundamentally nothing reallly different.

It matters that Magic damage encounters less resistance than any other type. That already alters the way you're going to engage the game and how you plan your character build. You're less likely to encounter a monster who is a hard counter to your build. This was a major part of Diablo 2 character building, trying to figure out how to get around the mobs with immunities to your main source of damage. Nothing like this exists within Grim Dawn. Damage reduction only exists to buff your damage, not to get rid of hard counters.

Many cold spells also slow/freeze here as well, Arcanists OFF or Tozans for example or the Nightblade's Ring of Frost Transmuter, etc.

Those are properties tied to the abilities and not the damage type itself while in Diablo 2 the type of damage has a unique property in itself. Nightblade's Phantasmal Blade does Cold damage (and 4 other types of damage), but it doesn't slow down enemies. Neither does the passive attack Execution which also deals Cold damage. In Diablo 2 if you stack elemental damage charms or gear, for example, on a Barb, then he'll also gain these qualities tied to the damage types in his attacks, regardless of what skills he uses. Stack enough Lightning damage charms and your damage range will become as random as it would be on a Lightning sorc.

Magic damage was only available to Bonemancer and Hammerdin. Both Bone Spear and Bone Spirit offered far less AoE damage than any build a Sorceress for example offered. That there were few resistant or immune is completely meaningless considering that the mechanics are still the same.
As to damage range, so what? All it does is make your damage output spikey and nothing else. It changes nothing mechanically. Also what you just said applies to Grim Dawn as well. You play through the campaign but for farming you go to areas which play to your strength. If you are Vitality/Chaos caster you would be insanely stupid to farm Cthonians who often have high resistances against those damage types. Same goes for a Nightblade with focus on piercing/cold damage going to places like Steps of Torment with a high density of resistant undead would be idiotic. Sure it can work, unlike D2, but why would you do that for farming purposes unless it is a personal challenge?
In D3 it does not even make one iota of a difference. The element yo specialize in is solely defied by spell/rune selection and works exactly the same everywhere. As to D3 being a sad example, it is still the most popular among the Hack&Slay games, like it or not. What is worse physical and magic damage are resisted exactly the same so it does not even matter which is which, armor is the same as resist which are mere damage multipliers and nothing else.

You argue that CC on cold spells is assigned to them in D2 but Crate was pretty consistent giving freeze effects to cold spells exclusively and many cold spells slow.
And yea some cold damage does not slow. So what? I could also say it was kinda silly you could slow anything and anyone with a single small charm who has 1 point of cold damage as well as any cold Sorc with a full blown Frozen Orb or Blizzard. Not that it matters when it comes to damage and damage mitigation again and for all that matters the main reason that Cold Sorc was so popular had nothing to do with CC but with Cold Mastery on top of Fire being screwed over hard by having the most immune mobs and highly resistant mobs while having a vastly inferior Cold Mastery making dealing with critical areas like CS almost if not outright impossible.
Lightning could break most immnities but either needed a LR Necro staff or an Infinity. Both were exceedingly expensive to either obtain or maintain so they were not really an option for the average gamer.

Decided to join in on the theorycrafting fun being done in the forums where people post fully decked out characters to actually test if it works.

If anyone is curious about how a Vitality caster Cabalist (I hate summons) fares against hard endgame stuff, mainly Gladiator Crucible 140-150, it works amazingly well. As for Ultimate itself, just running around should be enough to kill most trash while elites would at least warrant a CoF debuff.

Link to character. Rarely would you have to pop a potion and you don't even need a panic button/buff potions/aether shard, though for Gladiator 140-150 you'd need the Health Blessing tribute option just like every build attempting the dame thing, you won't need anything else.

Can facetank Iron Maiden, Moosilauke AND Valdaran (plus the 5 mutators) at the same time. The clear time was around 6 minutes due to the Shar'Zul spawn at 149 and the Iron Maiden + Moosilauke at 150. Prior to that, around 125, it facetanked Fabius and Iron Maiden.

As for the Mad Queen, just run around her while casting Sigil + CoF whenever. Should be down around a minute.

Pretty cool build, I'd prefer to go with Lizard instead of Eel though.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Magic damage was only available to Bonemancer and Hammerdin. Both Bone Spear and Bone Spirit offered far less AoE damage than any build a Sorceress for example offered. That there were few resistant or immune is completely meaningless considering that the mechanics are still the same.
As to damage range, so what? All it does is make your damage output spikey and nothing else. It changes nothing mechanically. Also what you just said applies to Grim Dawn as well. You play through the campaign but for farming you go to areas which play to your strength. If you are Vitality/Chaos caster you would be insanely stupid to farm Cthonians who often have high resistances against those damage types. Same goes for a Nightblade with focus on piercing/cold damage going to places like Steps of Torment with a high density of resistant undead would be idiotic. Sure it can work, unlike D2, but why would you do that for farming purposes unless it is a personal challenge?
In D3 it does not even make one iota of a difference. The element yo specialize in is solely defied by spell/rune selection and works exactly the same everywhere. As to D3 being a sad example, it is still the most popular among the Hack&Slay games, like it or not. What is worse physical and magic damage are resisted exactly the same so it does not even matter which is which, armor is the same as resist which are mere damage multipliers and nothing else.

You argue that CC on cold spells is assigned to them in D2 but Crate was pretty consistent giving freeze effects to cold spells exclusively and many cold spells slow.
And yea some cold damage does not slow. So what? I could also say it was kinda silly you could slow anything and anyone with a single small charm who has 1 point of cold damage as well as any cold Sorc with a full blown Frozen Orb or Blizzard. Not that it matters when it comes to damage and damage mitigation again and for all that matters the main reason that Cold Sorc was so popular had nothing to do with CC but with Cold Mastery on top of Fire being screwed over hard by having the most immune mobs and highly resistant mobs while having a vastly inferior Cold Mastery making dealing with critical areas like CS almost if not outright impossible.
Lightning could break most immnities but either needed a LR Necro staff or an Infinity. Both were exceedingly expensive to either obtain or maintain so they were not really an option for the average gamer.

Now you're just doubling down. Is it hard to admit on the internet that you are wrong? About a minor thing like this? Especially when everyone else pretty much agrees that damage types in Grim Dawn are just flavor, whereas in Diablo 2 they are less so?

And yea some cold damage does not slow. So what?

Because that was the whole point? Or did you you already forget while going on massive rants? There are 7 different types of DoTs in Grim Dawn, 5 of those are magical, and they all do the same shit. Why do they exist? Does it create more depth when you have that many DoTs? Not really. If you use Storm Totem with the Shaman and take the modifier to convert its damage to Vitality, does it change the way the skill works? Not in the slightest way. What about Sigil of Consumption with Destruction? If you have gear that increases your Fire, Vitality or Chaos damage, does it change the way the spell works? Nope. Damage types are purely for flavor. It would've been interesting if dominant damage types brought in some little gimmick debuff of their own. Then stacking so many different types of damage on a skill could've presented some kind of tactical choice to the player, rather than just being a lazy work around for hard counter enemies.

 

[Haba]

Oh boy the final boss in the expansion. Bring more potions, boya.

"It's not even my final form!"

 

[Lacrymas]

Link to character. Rarely would you have to pop a potion and you don't even need a panic button/buff potions/aether shard, though for Gladiator 140-150 you'd need the Health Blessing tribute option just like every build attempting the dame thing, you won't need anything else.

.

Wouldn't Uroboruuk's set be better for this build instead of Valguur's? Valguur's gives too much bonuses to Siphon Souls, which you don't have. Also, the Impurity relic instead of Solael's Decimation, or even Eldritch Pact/Uroboruuk's Reaping (though the active ability on UR is useless in this context}?

 

[Sykar]

Magic damage was only available to Bonemancer and Hammerdin. Both Bone Spear and Bone Spirit offered far less AoE damage than any build a Sorceress for example offered. That there were few resistant or immune is completely meaningless considering that the mechanics are still the same.
As to damage range, so what? All it does is make your damage output spikey and nothing else. It changes nothing mechanically. Also what you just said applies to Grim Dawn as well. You play through the campaign but for farming you go to areas which play to your strength. If you are Vitality/Chaos caster you would be insanely stupid to farm Cthonians who often have high resistances against those damage types. Same goes for a Nightblade with focus on piercing/cold damage going to places like Steps of Torment with a high density of resistant undead would be idiotic. Sure it can work, unlike D2, but why would you do that for farming purposes unless it is a personal challenge?
In D3 it does not even make one iota of a difference. The element yo specialize in is solely defied by spell/rune selection and works exactly the same everywhere. As to D3 being a sad example, it is still the most popular among the Hack&Slay games, like it or not. What is worse physical and magic damage are resisted exactly the same so it does not even matter which is which, armor is the same as resist which are mere damage multipliers and nothing else.

You argue that CC on cold spells is assigned to them in D2 but Crate was pretty consistent giving freeze effects to cold spells exclusively and many cold spells slow.
And yea some cold damage does not slow. So what? I could also say it was kinda silly you could slow anything and anyone with a single small charm who has 1 point of cold damage as well as any cold Sorc with a full blown Frozen Orb or Blizzard. Not that it matters when it comes to damage and damage mitigation again and for all that matters the main reason that Cold Sorc was so popular had nothing to do with CC but with Cold Mastery on top of Fire being screwed over hard by having the most immune mobs and highly resistant mobs while having a vastly inferior Cold Mastery making dealing with critical areas like CS almost if not outright impossible.
Lightning could break most immnities but either needed a LR Necro staff or an Infinity. Both were exceedingly expensive to either obtain or maintain so they were not really an option for the average gamer.

Now you're just doubling down. Is it hard to admit on the internet that you are wrong? About a minor thing like this? Especially when everyone else pretty much agrees that damage types in Grim Dawn are just flavor, whereas in Diablo 2 they are less so?

And yea some cold damage does not slow. So what?

Because that was the whole point? Or did you you already forget while going on massive rants? There are 7 different types of DoTs in Grim Dawn, 5 of those are magical, and they all do the same shit. Why do they exist? Does it create more depth when you have that many DoTs? Not really. If you use Storm Totem with the Shaman and take the modifier to convert its damage to Vitality, does it change the way the skill works? Not in the slightest way. What about Sigil of Consumption with Destruction? If you have gear that increases your Fire, Vitality or Chaos damage, does it change the way the spell works? Nope. Damage types are purely for flavor. It would've been interesting if dominant damage types brought in some little gimmick debuff of their own. Then stacking so many different types of damage on a skill could've presented some kind of tactical choice to the player, rather than just being a lazy work around for hard counter enemies.

What is the difference between magical, poison, cold, fire and lightning damage in D2? Flavor. They use the same mechanics for scaling and that there are few mobs with magical resistances matters zilch since there is also no way to reduce magical resistances while there are a few for poison and elemental respectively and even for physical damage.
High damage range is also just flavor since the average turns out to be similar to fire. Cold slowing a little is nice but mechanically matters zilch for damage. It helps a bit with kiting but once you acquired enough gear you will stomp anything anytime anyway outside of Ubers and the occasionally nasty elite pack.
This is really nothing but nitpicking in the end. Would it be nice if they were bit more distinct? Sure. Is just slapping a few debuffs on them really gonna change anything? No, not really.

 

[Emmanuel2]

Link to character. Rarely would you have to pop a potion and you don't even need a panic button/buff potions/aether shard, though for Gladiator 140-150 you'd need the Health Blessing tribute option just like every build attempting the dame thing, you won't need anything else.

.

Wouldn't Uroboruuk's set be better for this build instead of Valguur's? Valguur's gives too much bonuses to Siphon Souls, which you don't have. Also, the Impurity relic instead of Solael's Decimation, or even Eldritch Pact/Uroboruuk's Reaping (though the active ability on UR is useless in this context}?

Shit, I think I linked the wrong build. The one I linked was a failed one, basically it had a shitton of survivability (that also gets shredded due to no absorption, etc.) but no damage.

This is the successful one.

The Badge of Mastery bonus is a remnant of experimenting between Bone Harvest vs. other skills for some kind of damage while others are on CD. Feel free to change that to something else, Divinity for survivability, or some %vit medal.

Bone Harvest managed to crit for 270k with full point investments (minimizing Ravenous Earth but keeping the 20% reduced damage), but ultimately was clunky due to not being able to target the ground.

 

[Aothan]

I think at least intuitively rather than superficially differences between the various types of damage are, to some degree, realised through a more gestalt-like method, that is through how skills functionally operate and thus apply (distribute damage i.e. focal and radius area of effect damage compared to single targets within a range and so on) and furthermore how in regard of thematic aspects skills which belong to a type of element are usually arranged prominently in some masteries more than others (which also in turn produces additional reciprocal effect). Extensions of these damage 'forms' can to some possible extent be discerned in how characters specialise with different combinations of items, as well as how encounters emphasise different vulnerabilities or even tactics between classes, skills, and thus playstyles. Not to try and too casually elaborate too fine a point here but for these reasons it may be said intrinsic differences thus follow Grim Dawn's holistic combinatorial format rather than discrete designs found in other systems, in this way Grim Dawn's design is allowing for players to determine for themselves what sort of character concepts they have in mind and in what ways and to what extent they want to emphasise these character aspects

 

[Hobo Elf]

Magic damage was only available to Bonemancer and Hammerdin. Both Bone Spear and Bone Spirit offered far less AoE damage than any build a Sorceress for example offered. That there were few resistant or immune is completely meaningless considering that the mechanics are still the same.
As to damage range, so what? All it does is make your damage output spikey and nothing else. It changes nothing mechanically. Also what you just said applies to Grim Dawn as well. You play through the campaign but for farming you go to areas which play to your strength. If you are Vitality/Chaos caster you would be insanely stupid to farm Cthonians who often have high resistances against those damage types. Same goes for a Nightblade with focus on piercing/cold damage going to places like Steps of Torment with a high density of resistant undead would be idiotic. Sure it can work, unlike D2, but why would you do that for farming purposes unless it is a personal challenge?
In D3 it does not even make one iota of a difference. The element yo specialize in is solely defied by spell/rune selection and works exactly the same everywhere. As to D3 being a sad example, it is still the most popular among the Hack&Slay games, like it or not. What is worse physical and magic damage are resisted exactly the same so it does not even matter which is which, armor is the same as resist which are mere damage multipliers and nothing else.

You argue that CC on cold spells is assigned to them in D2 but Crate was pretty consistent giving freeze effects to cold spells exclusively and many cold spells slow.
And yea some cold damage does not slow. So what? I could also say it was kinda silly you could slow anything and anyone with a single small charm who has 1 point of cold damage as well as any cold Sorc with a full blown Frozen Orb or Blizzard. Not that it matters when it comes to damage and damage mitigation again and for all that matters the main reason that Cold Sorc was so popular had nothing to do with CC but with Cold Mastery on top of Fire being screwed over hard by having the most immune mobs and highly resistant mobs while having a vastly inferior Cold Mastery making dealing with critical areas like CS almost if not outright impossible.
Lightning could break most immnities but either needed a LR Necro staff or an Infinity. Both were exceedingly expensive to either obtain or maintain so they were not really an option for the average gamer.

Now you're just doubling down. Is it hard to admit on the internet that you are wrong? About a minor thing like this? Especially when everyone else pretty much agrees that damage types in Grim Dawn are just flavor, whereas in Diablo 2 they are less so?

And yea some cold damage does not slow. So what?

Because that was the whole point? Or did you you already forget while going on massive rants? There are 7 different types of DoTs in Grim Dawn, 5 of those are magical, and they all do the same shit. Why do they exist? Does it create more depth when you have that many DoTs? Not really. If you use Storm Totem with the Shaman and take the modifier to convert its damage to Vitality, does it change the way the skill works? Not in the slightest way. What about Sigil of Consumption with Destruction? If you have gear that increases your Fire, Vitality or Chaos damage, does it change the way the spell works? Nope. Damage types are purely for flavor. It would've been interesting if dominant damage types brought in some little gimmick debuff of their own. Then stacking so many different types of damage on a skill could've presented some kind of tactical choice to the player, rather than just being a lazy work around for hard counter enemies.

What is the difference between magical, poison, cold, fire and lightning damage in D2? Flavor. They use the same mechanics for scaling and that there are few mobs with magical resistances matters zilch since there is also no way to reduce magical resistances while there are a few for poison and elemental respectively and even for physical damage.
High damage range is also just flavor since the average turns out to be similar to fire. Cold slowing a little is nice but mechanically matters zilch for damage. It helps a bit with kiting but once you acquired enough gear you will stomp anything anytime anyway outside of Ubers and the occasionally nasty elite pack.
This is really nothing but nitpicking in the end. Would it be nice if they were bit more distinct? Sure. Is just slapping a few debuffs on them really gonna change anything? No, not really.

You're wrong, you've been wrong from the very get go and I've already laid out my case with all the proof. You keep going in circles because you don't have a case. I've already established, somewhat, what damage types mean in Diablo 2 and what they mean in Grim Dawn. You find it incredibly uncomfortable to be wrong, but you are. You're just going to have to live with it.

I think one thing I didn't touch upon enough about damage types in Diablo 2 is that they matter a lot vs the player as well. Does the lightning enchanted enemy hit you for no damage or is he going to bring you on your knees with the next attack? You don't know, but you better be quick to react when it does happen. In Grim Dawn it doesn't really matter what damage they do. You just need to have a good spread of resistances, but otherwise it doesn't matter if you take fire or acid damage, it's all the same.

 

[Emmanuel2]

Pretty cool build, I'd prefer to go with Lizard instead of Eel though.

Why Eel? I'm really curious to know the answer as for a long time I thought Lizard is generally the better than Eel (+120 Health after scaling with the build above).

They both cost the same amount of points, you get a bit of defensive ability (47 is pretty good IMHO), movement speed and pierce resistance that makes augmenting a little bit more open. Not to mention that extra primordial point.

 

[Sykar]

Pretty cool build, I'd prefer to go with Lizard instead of Eel though.

Why Eel? I'm really curious to know the answer as for a long time I thought Lizard is generally the better than Eel (+120 Health after scaling with the build above).

They both cost the same amount of points, you get a bit of defensive ability (47 is pretty good IMHO), movement speed and pierce resistance that makes augmenting a little bit more open. Not to mention that extra primordial point.

I guess for your build I'd prefer Lizard over Eel because it gives you a little more health to compensate for spike damage and some extra health regen to go along with all the other regeneration to recover more quickly.

Eel I use mostly on character who have some avoidance stats and maybe even Hourglass, like on Nightblade for example. /shrug

 

[Gentle Player]

Chaotic_Heretic, here's the build -> http://www.grimtools.com/calc/b28qayyV

Your major damage is Storm Totem and Drain Essence, Devouring Swarm with Will of Rattosh + Spectral Wrath debuffs the mobs with -110% Vitality resistance, so there's no fear of immunities/resistances. Some people say it's good to have Mark of Torment as well, but if you can survive without it it's fine. If you want to take it, however, I don't know where you can get the points from, I guess it's up to you to decide. Will of Rattosh can also be bound to Grasping Vines, as I've heard it has a good proc rate, but that has to be tested. If you can prevent mobs from one-shotting you you are basically unkillable and can facetank scores of mobs.

Blood Pact is a complete waste for a casting build; I should drop those points and put them into Heart of the Wild, which is one of Shaman's best skills.

 

[Lacrymas]

You'd be surprised how much you stay inside the aura radius with this build, so no, it's not a waste.

 

[Renevent]

Damage types in Grim Dawn also vary in output as well. Many lighting skills and bonuses, for instance, are far more spikey have have greater lower and upper bounds. It's not to the same extent as D2, but it's def there and different damage types do have some functional variance. There's some other changes between damage as well, such as certain damage types ignoring armor.

Anyways absolutely loving expansion so far. I have a necro/occultist to level 72 and am at the end of Elite and will probably hit legendary tonight. Necro class blows away the necro in D3, so much more fun. The new act is pretty awesome as well. Lots of cool mini-bosses as well and it has a nice difficulty. One complaint I have though is I haven't seen much if any of the new class specific items, though I expect that to change once I hit legendary.

 

[Gentle Player]

You'd be surprised how much you stay inside the aura radius with this build, so no, it's not a waste.

But the flat Vitality damage and Attack Damage Converted to Health only apply to weapon attacks, so the only thing you're benefiting from is a measly % boost to Vitality.

 

[Lacrymas]

Attack Damage Converted to Health only apply to weapon attacks

I'm not sure about that. Its wording is consistent with magical attacks that drain health, so why wouldn't it affect magical damage? If it doesn't affect magical damage, which I'm skeptical about, then Harbinger of Souls would also not affect magical damage, making it also measly.

 

[Emmanuel2]

From the Game Guide:

"Life Steal

Percent of Attack Damage Converted to Health is a form of life steal available in Grim Dawn. It functions differently depending on whether you find it on equipment or on a skill. When on equipment, life steal applies only to your weapon attacks. If you use a skill with % Weapon Damage, that component of the skill benefit from the life steal. In either case, only the direct damage is considered for life steal. Damage over Time, such as Bleed or Poison, does not trigger it.

When found on a skill, Percent of Attack Damage Converted to Health applies to all of that skill's direct damage."

 

[Lacrymas]

Well, Blood Pact and Harbinger of Souls are auras, not equipment. If they don't work on magical damage, then I can safely drop them and go for more defensive abilities.