Agreed, but I wouldn’t stop at 2-handed maces. I would like to see all 2-handed weapons see a significant buff to raw damage (looking at Grandfather, Executioner’s Justice, Cranium Basher, etc…)
yea. but any significant boost to swords and axe bases would also boost grief. so you’re sort of back at starting point if you do.
Buffs to base damage would mainly benefit weapons with ED%, Grief would only be buffed marginally. Let’s compare a perfect Grief berserker axe to a perfect eBotD berserker axe.
Currently in 2.4.3:
Perfect Grief BA:
(24 - 71 base damage) + (400 damage) = (424 - 471 final damage) or (447 average damage)Perfect eBotD BA:
(24 - 71 base damage) * (1.5) [ethereal] = (36 - 106 damage) * (5) [400% ED] = (180 - 530 final damage) or (355 average damage)
Let’s say 2.5 buffs all elite weapon base damage by 25%, just as an example.
Perfect Grief BA:
(30 - 88 base damage) + (400 damage) = (430 - 488 final damage) or (459 average damage)Perfect eBotD BA:
(30 - 88 base damage) * (1.5) = (45 - 132 damage) * (5) = (225 - 660 final damage) or (442 average damage)
Before and after:
Grief
(424 - 471) → (430 - 488)
447 → 459 = ~2.7% increaseeBotD
(180 - 530) → (225 - 660)
355 → 442 = ~24.5% increase
Not to say that weapon base damage buffs is the ideal or only way to help melee or that 25% is a good number (I just used it as an easy example), just giving an example how it’d help close the gap between Grief and other melee weapons.
Regarding the original post, I wouldn’t mind to see Spirit nerfed (I think Enigma is fine considering its price, Grief I’d rather see other weapons juiced up to be more competitive) as long as existing ones can be retroactively nerfed as well.
If that’s not feasible then I’d rather we don’t have a 1.08 Valkyrie Wing situation in D2R where legacy items are more powerful and basically unattainable for new players.
2 Likes
Nerf everyones arm please they attack monsters and its not fair they have to die.
Nerf every character so theu cant breath and loose life over time
Their you go my drama added
How to nerf:
Grief’s 400 dmg to 150min-250max dmg
Enigma add -50% To Maximum Mana or Cannot be repaired
Spirit -10% Damage Reduction
Lol.
yea guess so. but what about after added skills, gear, auras and that 185.6% ed against demons on grief at max level. wouldn’t the demon ed alone put average damage to ~851 before even starting to look at other things added. and you got that venom proc. it just doesn’t look like the other weapons could catch up.
Damage to demons/undead is always treated as off-weapon ED% even when it’s on the weapon, so it just sums with other off-weapon ED% from strength/dex bonus, skill bonuses, ED% on armor (Fortitude), etc.
2 Likes
Grief is possible in the fastest and most common Phaseblade base - which doesnt require repairs. It has huge amounts of IAS - ignores defence and further reduces defence. It has deadly strike (which is huge) and also the bonus to demons.
There is no rare, no unique, no runeword that competes. The minimum damage is crazy. and yet it is relatively cheap to make.
Nerf the git - then buff base damage of weapons should that be the answer.
2 Likes
Let rare weapons roll fools + 500%ed and magic weapons to 600%ed, while you increase the base weapon damage by 30%, then you can still adjust Botd and others to max 550%ed and you would have alternative weapons to grief PB. Rework very underused items like Grandfather so that it always drops eth with indestructible and maybe adjust the %ed and it might be useful again.
And out of nowhere, melee become more competitive.
While you are at it, adjust the Attack Rating scaling and allow up to 98% hit.
P.S.: Unique weapons should always roll indestructible in my personal opinion, but that’s not a must have.
2 Likes
It would probably still be GG lol.
Tell me one unique shield that is better?
Spirit pushes all the overpowered caster classes.
Imho, it should be completely removed.
Grief should be two-handed weapons only.
1 Like
What I think needs to happen for melee is:
#1 Increase base weapon damage
Increase base weapon damage for elite weapons, especially 2H weapons (I think normal/exceptional weapons are fine where they are at, maybe exceptional could use a small increase). How much exactly, I’m not sure. Probably somewhere in the range of 15-25% but that’s just my feeling, it’d probably be best to do it on a per base basis.
#2 Increase durability of base weapons
Increase the durability of some base weapons. You’ve got elite axes and swords with 24 durability that just fall apart too fast for quick attacks like Frenzy, Zeal, Whirlwind, Fury, etc. I think 40 durability would be a good minimum baseline, or allow weapon durability to be increased somehow (maybe a cube recipe or allow Charsi’s imbue reward to improve the durability of non-imbueable items). Mainly a QoL improvement similar to the quiver and throwing weapon stack increases in 2.4.
#3 Reduce Act Boss block chance
Reduce the block chance of Act Bosses (and maybe Ubers) because it’s already hard enough to hit them with their high level and the way Attack Rating is influenced by diminishing returns.
Andariel has the lowest block at 40% meaning you can only ever have a 57% maximum chance to hit her with a physical attack (assuming 95% chance to hit which would take an insane amount of Attack Rating and/or defense reduction) with no way of counteracting that (excluding use of skills that always hit like Smite/Impale/Lightning Bolt).
It only gets worse, Duriel/Mephisto/Diablo have a 50% block chance and Baal has a 55% block chance, giving you a maximum chance to hit of 47.5% and 42.75% respectively. It just sucks that you whiff so many hits with no way to counteract it while casters happily cast away and always hit their targets even when they’re underleveled.
I’d drop Andariel from 40% down to 30%, Duriel/Meph/Diablo from 50% to 40%, and Baal down from 55% to 45%.
Having said that, I wouldn’t mind if they buffed bosses a little to compensate. Allow Duriel to charge once again, allow Mephisto to float over the moat and either increase his melee damage or his charged bolt/ice ball casting frequency, allow Diablo’s Lightning Hose to hit targets in melee range in Nightmare/Hell and increase his frequency of casting bone prison, and fix Baal getting cheesed by slow.
#4 Buff set and unique weapons
Buff set and unique weapons. Many of them simply don’t have enough damage or bonuses to compete with runewords that are more easily acquired like Honor, Insight, Obedience, Unbending Will, Oath, etc.
The very rare set and unique weapons need buffed too to compete with late game runewords like Grief or eBotD. I want to see the Grandfather and Doombringer be used, Stormspire and Steel Pillar, Earth Shifter, Astreon’s Iron Ward, etc.
Not to say that every single set or unique has to be buffed or useful because some just won’t be, there’ll always be underused or never used items and that’s okay.
3 Likes
some people have suggested before to increase the durability bonus significantly on superior items.
All good ideas. I still feel Grief would be the chicken-dinner, even in those circumstances and therefore requires a nerf. But those things you mentioned would indeed ‘fix’ melee.
I for one would love to use a socketed eth Grandfather, and an amazing rare even more so. Yes.
Nope but if really really really wanna nerf would be changing the runeword to mid tier rune.
Nope, melee is ald a sub class in this game compare to caster. Even with current grief, u still cant match up with caster in terms of dmg.
Also nope, cause u ald use the 3rd & 4th highest rune for this runeword. If really really really wanna remove the abv than change the rune to lower tier HRs.
Wrong wrong wrong
Data is against you yet you keep pushing that lie lol
Oh you mean the data that YOU posted with a majority number greater than a change number? Yeah you really are a feeble minded kid whos only playbook is deliberately misinterpreting to help feed their narative.
Not my fault if you can’t read data
Strawpoll.com/yaj32pu4h
You are the minority mate
You posted the data pal… Or are you recalling things differently? Seems to be the GenZ playbook as well when you get yourself into a jackpot, just lie your way out
Just play classic istead.