I’ve been testing different setups for the new GoD build (don’t want to just copy the leaderboards), and thought Dawn + Calamity w/ Marked For Death - Grim Reaper might be a good way to get more Area Damage into the build. I did some searching and from what I read there was a Calamity nerf back in 2019 that made it unusable, is this still the case, and if so can someone explain why it is no longer usable?
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It applies on every hit, but only after the damage is calculated. If there’s multiple enemies around, it’ll hop between enemies, but the damage will always be calculated before it moves.
E.g. first hit = no mark up, damage is dealt without bonus for mark, mark is then applied. Second hit = mark up on first enemy, damage is applied to different enemy so no bonus for mark, mark is moved from first enemy to second enemy after damage is dealt. And so on.
It’s worse than useless, because in most practical situations, it’s always applied to a new enemy after damage has already been dealt, so you’ll pretty much never get the damage bonus from the mark. It’s terrible now.
EDIT: Also there’s reports of a bug where using Calamity prevents momentum from the 2p GoD bonus from stacking.
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Man that is a huge bummer, it would have been so good if it worked the way I thought it did. Thanks for explaining.
I was wondering the same as there is one person using Calamity on the Americas LB.
I’ll never forgive them for nerfing Calamity. I have a sweet Ancient Calamity with 3.7k dps, and they broke it. Still ticks me off every time I see it in stash.
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Well I’ve been doing some testing with it, and it’s definitely more damage than running Balista. I am seeing multiple marks at a time, not sure if that’s due to there being so many arrows flying at a time. Another thing I noticed is that it is activating the AoE circle of Grim Reaper, so I am getting the area damage increase from that. Overall I’d say if you can survive without Balista, Calamity is a fine choice.
there’s definitely been a bunch of patches since this video was made, but not a single patch has addressed Calamity, so I’m pretty sure its still valid but here yea go:
since the change in 2.4.2, calamity breaks MFD, except for MFD-VoD
is hebalon still around these days?
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I just tried it and it looks like it still skips between targets.
It seemed like I could stack Momentum just fine though, so not sure what those bug reports were about, e.g. DH Gears Set Not Stacking Momentum When Calamity Is Equipped
I’m definitely seeing multiple Marks at a time though, unless they’re switching so fast it just appears like there’s multiple ones active at a time. I’m also def seeing Grim Reaper rune get proc’ed, and seeing a nice spike in DPS when there’s density in the circle, stuff just melts.
So far my highest clear is a 106 in 5:45 with 16k main stat.
I don’t think that’s multiple Marks at once though? I think the animation takes a second to fade. If I shoot once and then wait, I see the mark fade from all enemies except the last. If it wasn’t skipping targets, you’d see it persist on several enemies. I think it just takes a second for the visual to fade out.
Ok, I’ll do more testing and pay closer attention to whether the marks are fading away.
That said, is it expected that it’s procing the Grim Harvest rune?
No, I don’t think it should be. If the damage was still being dealt before the mark was applied, there wouldn’t be any damage to spread.
It would require more in-depth testing to check that.
It’s possible it was ninja-changed in a patch at some point and no one noticed. It could be only still allowing a single mark active at a time, but applying the mark before the damage is dealt on each enemy. That would mean Grim Reaper should still work.
I can tell you I am 100% not pressing the Marked For Death skill and am still getting the Grim Reaper circles. It does make me think that either this was ninja patched, or there’s some weird interaction occurring due to Strafe spreading the Calamity procs.
I don’t think you’re understanding what the others are saying.
Yes, you will see the circles, but they change target based on the last mob hit, making the damage buff very inconsistent. Before the Calamity change, it didn’t do that and worked on every target and lasted it’s entire duration. What you may be experiencing is the strafe projectiles triggering mark on a target while HA’s slower projectile may pierce a target that happened to be marked for that split second. It is really inconsistent however and often times the damage doesn’t register (look at the video tastysoup posted).
At the end of the day, even if calamity was fixed and worked like it did before, the damage is only 15% additive, which in reality is more like 11% after factoring your HA skill bonuses. There are better options for sure.
Also, re-read the grim reaper rune. The damage is spread evenly in the radius, making it worse the more mobs happen to be in the circle. This is bad with density as you’re dividing 15% (~11%) amongst 10+ mobs, watering down it’s effect greatly.
Kudos to you for wanting to experiment and not following the crowd (not being sarcastic at all btw). Theorycrafting is fun, it just happens this time it doesn’t pan out.
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Well even if it’s just 15% additive, that still makes it a higher DPS option than Balista, just much weaker than the Odessey’s End variant. I’ve tried the Odessey’s End variant, and just don’t care for the playsyle, so looking for alterative DPS options. If you know of any better options I’m all ears.
I did a bit of pushing and was able to take down a 115 in 12 mins w/ 17k main stat , that was with very bad maps and mob types (didn’t feel like fishing).
Not if if the shield provided by ballista helps you to have more squirts uptime for 100% multi. It’s like day and night IMO.
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Not really. That 15% is on paper, but with HA rolls, that’s around 11%. Not only that but since it’s very inconsistent in terms of if your strafe HA actually hits the marked target before it switches randomly, you’d be lucky if that happens at least half the time, but lets give it the benefit of the doubt.
Lets say your HA happens to hit a marked target half the time, that turns that 11ish% to around 5ish%. Then you have to slot another skill on your bar to even get the grim reaper effect, thus also losing out on a skill. This 5% is negligible, less than 1/3 of a GR bump. Simply having wolf on your skill bar is worth more than Calamity in terms of DPS (barely though) and you don’t even need a weapon slot for it.
On the other hand, fortress ballista allows for more toughness and much better sustain, so you can hang out in oculus circles a bit more often which in turn gives you more damage. Because of this, Fortress is a better overall option for both toughness and opportunistic damage.
If you want a good option that isn’t being utilized much, slot dawn/ninth quiver, and cube leonine bow. Slot bola freezing strike on your bar. Use bolas every now and then to pull mobs together, since HA works much better when mobs are compacted.
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I’ve tested Squirts with Balista, for speed runs I can keep it up 100% because everything dies so fast, but for higher GRs, I can’t keep it up consistently enough sadly.
Jep, I’m still here. I did a few quick checks with the Calamity on the PTR, and it is still not working.
As an addition to DiEoxideE’s reply a screenshot, proving he’s right:
http://dh-deluxe.de/files/images/other/gevatter-tod.jpg
Calculation:
24,905 damage (main target)
* 15%
/ 4 enemies
= 933,93 ~934
=> Grim Reaper is a rather weak option and not worth it.
I’m not using Calamity there, just MfD. With Calamity, there would be no effect at all.
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Thanks for the info, I think I have my answer, cheers!