You know why I don’t have an issue with Grief? Because the game is SO heavily biased towards casters…especially early on…that this weapon actually gives people who like playing melee an actual chance to reach the endgame content and be able to farm efficiently and even then not as good as the best caster builds.
This has been the state of D2 for 20 years tho. Melee has always sucked dongers. Compared to casters anyway. It's why the only commonly built melee doesn't even melee with a damn weapon, they use their shield, which requires no accuracy at all -.- I've said this before and I'll keep saying it. the purist cult of the D2 of 20 years ago are the reason the game sucks now as a remaster overall IMO. If I wanted to play D2, I would just load up D2. But having a newer and more balanced D2 with similar old school mechanics would have been FAR more interesting to me then just copy pasting the game with a new coat of paint.. Just facts.
@@Am4t3r4su Far more interesting to you, sure. I think it's obvious they wanted to keep the game as close to the original as possible. That's what a remaster is usually supposed to do. Some QoL updates along with graphics update. Would it be cool if in the future patches introduced some balancing etc? Sure, maybe, but it's a slippery slope.
The +371 dmg basically counts as +371 minimum damage *AND* +371 maximum damage In regards to the 31-35 base dmg of a phase blade, this is equivalent to a 1196-1060% enhanced damage respectively
The problem lies with the base damage of 1 handed weapons. highest average damage 1 handed weapon with 6 sockets eth is 71.25 if you have a perfect base and a perfect outcome (415% botd) thats a base damage of 295. That means the worst possible roll for Grief is still way stronger than any one hander in game.
You'd think the numpties who cooked up the various runewords woulda given even half a seconds thought to how their own game calculated damage and then realized how entirely OP Grief is...
@@aliebrubaker7473 The real problem is the amount of purists who play d2 all day and throw a fit whenever their game is modfied in the slightest. There was actual outrage at being able to telekenesis a red portal in d2r. Imagine the outrage if they started buffing/nerfing stuff.
@@kennethgriffin5761 The example you just gave was outrage towards a buff, and I can see where the outrage comes from. A great many people have been wanting the speed gap between sorceress and other classes to be less severe and they got yet another time saving benefit for pindleskin, mephisto, and ubers, three of the most farmed areas in the game. It's an impactful change over the course of tens of thousands of runs. I enjoy it, but it's a shame that the first balance changes widened that speed gap before doing anything else, especially with the changes to cold mastery.
@@Oddigan while i do agree with the telekenesis stuff you are however overreacting with cold mastery. its not as broken as people are being led to believe. try playing cold sorc and you'll see what I mean.
@@kennethgriffin5761 why play D2 if you don't want to play D2 rules, gameplay, and mechanics? D3 exists, go play that or some other game then. I'm not even a "purist" but i know what the difference between a remaster and a remake is. Imagine if blizz changed the rules, gameplay, and mechanics of Broodwar. Might as well play another game.
Woohoo for the Amazon Basin shoutout! I was a member way back in the day, and it was a fantastic community for the info and guides but most of all for the absolute blast we had in private games with no worry about griefing or having to deal with jerks in any way shape or form
That would make the video interesting.. Instead let's hear the theory how Grief is op because its cheap, and you can have it without living in the game..
@@Sickklow had that weapon 15 years ago, and OK it was a very nice and powerful one, but not as awesome has the theorycraft says after playing a bit around it. Also, those runewords! (grief, botd, infinity on merc..) kind of kills some of the greateast other items and Runewords in the game, Wich is a bit of a bad things IMHO.
I did some playing around on a Zealot in SP, I found an ethereal Death berserker axe gave me the fastest clear speed. Grief and BotD were VERY close, but I still had a higher clear speed with Death.
So, if i got this correctly... You are claiming that seeing it used would provide more value to the theory behind it. I don't entirely disagree, but if the WHY is in the theory, then showing it used is completely irrelevant. Dude does like his own voice though. Pro tip: most videos on UA-cam don't have or need visual support. It's YOU that needs it. Think on that
There is a lot of truth to that, but it also gave a new dimension and interest to the game, trying to collect all these high runes to make these weapons/armors etc. If these runewords were not that good no one would have cared about finding a high rune.
Hi Mr Llama, long time fan. Grief is undoubtedly powerful, but as someone who plays almost exclusively zealer I still find that the damage you do is nothing in comparison to a highly geared Sorc and Javazon, especially when you talk about Players 8. Maybe its a problem with zeal being underpowered damage wise, but I do think that if you talk about nerfing grief you have to talk about nerfing the casters that can just annhilate everything on screen on Players 8 without even being remotely in danger. Im with you though it sucks that almost any melee weapon you find, even the rare ones, just dont matter. Id really like to see them rebalance the damage on melee and bows. Ive thought about it for the past few years and I think a buff to the base item damage is the way to go. If you doubled the damage on elite bases, grief does not get significantly stronger, but other runewords and uniques do.
I remember when 1.10 came out and everyone was fawning over these huge eth BOTD weapons. The eth zerkers and CBs. Took people a while to realize how strong grief really was in comparison.
@@jprec5174 Yeah but that's fury werewolf, theyre a weird melee to begin with. And even then, grief lets you put on like a stormshield or something which is pretty insane.
I would love to see some more uniques added that are better than the rune words. That way you actually have to farm for that great weapon or item. I think it's cooler to have that unique item then just building a word.
Eh. It’s all relative. Grief is good not only for it’s +damage in melee builds, but also because it’s cheap and easy to make. Meanwhile an enigma is extremely broken, but most people won’t even see a ber rune unless they trade for it. Similarly, most people won’t see every unique in the game. Took Llama 3 years to get a mang songs. The item affixes are really weird on uniques. Reminds me of classic WoW where some attributes on items made 0 sense in the scheme of who’s using the item. It’s an interesting conversation to have. Should there be a “BiS” list that everyone can work towards and be done with gearing a character? That’s kind of what runewords are. Should there never be a “BiS” but tons of side grades for niche content so you’ll never truly be done gearing? That’s kind of what uniques are. I think Diablo 2 does a good job of toeing the line between runewords and uniques for the majority of the game. There are just a few outliers that everyone complains about, but really it only affects the end gearing scenario for toons.
I'm a tad confused as to why explaining this is so indirect and complicated. I've always just looked at it as a flat addition to the base weapon you see in your inventory. That grief is basically a 402-406 one handed weapon to me. This also does not conflict with any calculations you try to run EDIT: To be clear on why Grief is the best melee weapon: One handed weapon with fastest swing speed Average damage that competes with the strongest TWO-handed weapons Decent offensive mods And you can tack on shield of your choice for even more stats and flexible builds Smite is the only notable build with a clear flat damage mod boon so much so that it is clearly BiS. But this is a mostly unimportant point when explaining why grief is the best weapon. It simply has so much flat dmg that it outperforms every other melee weapon despite their huge base weapon damage and base weapon ED
@@zilverheart Probably referring to smite. Smite is kinda it's own thing and the explaining of flat dmg doesn't need to warp around it tho Everything else applies to flat dmg just as it would to base weapon atk after enhanced by weapon ED. Gee what a mouthful
Gotta get that 10 minutes in for the UA-cam algorithm. Videos that could could be 2 minutes long but extend to 10 minutes is like dealing with a meeting that should have just been an email.
Did you guys watch the video even? He says Fortitude. Fort gives 300% weapon damage and is applied after the +damage. So thats (400 weapon damage x 300%) from 2 items
@@pwnulater I was obviously just making a lighthearted joke and also anyone who's been playing for 20 years has found a tal armor before this release so that's clearly not relevant
@@pwnulater You stance seems to hinge upon the idea that I didn't know this is a remake of a 20 year old game...which is pretty silly. Have a nice day.
You'll grind one area for ages and find nothing, then do 1 run and get rich. I found my only white monarch of d2r on the ground in someone else's cow level. Everyone else was leaving and I was grabbing gems and other stuff people left behind (and somehow got 34fcr on my spirit)
keep on farming, you'll get something you can trade for some decent runes at some point. My fav spots to farm are now chaosrun, trav and act5 dungeons. Cow runs are super good to get lots of kills fast, witch will give you more runes (since runes does not care about MF). When you get that shako everything will get easier.
So I'm sure this will get lost in the billions of comments, but I'D BE SUPER CURIOUS to know what your opinions are on runewords in general. I feel like there's a lot of stuff like Grief that exists in the game like how body armor at nearly every level of the game is negated by them. Stealth for early game, Smoke/Lionheart/Treachery for mid levels or Duress even, and then Fortitude/Chains of Honor/Enigma eclipses the late game armor for basically every class in the game. Also White wands for Necromancer just negating what would be some otherwise very powerful weapon choices. I found a Boneshade on my barb and it's like... why wait until level 79 to use this thing when you can just use White at level 35 in a +3 to bone spear wand instead AND it's a better item anyway? The runes aren't even that rare either. For level 35 sure, but they drop like hotcakes just running around on Hell. Is it good that you have these set goals to work towards where you can be guaranteed to make a powerful item, or does that detract too much from what would be some otherwise great loot moments?
Neat! So based on the order of operations, that +371 Damage is equivalent to a +1124% Enhanced Damage modifier, at least in the case of that Phase Blade. Pretty nuts
Depends. Berserker Axe Grief is the best for Barbarians, but the Phase Blade is best for Paladins. Phase Blade is best due to being unable to break and having a fast swing speed to get IAS break points easier makes it great for Paladins, as you need the dexterity for block rate anyways. Berserker axe's are better for Barbarians due to the increased range, and slightly higher damage output.
The only "math" you have to do is this - "Is 400-405 damage better as a starting point than 150-180?" Yes. Yes it is. The calculation is the same after that, so if you put in a bigger number at the beginning, you're going to get a bigger number at the end ;)
“Dolor” en español. La mejor arma de todo el juego. Siempre hecha en “la espada gradual”. El secreto de su increíble poder es ese +400 al daño, sobre todo al mínimo, característica que ningún otro arma tiene. Lo mejor de lo mejor.
The only balancing feature of this runeword was the fact that it was Ladder Only. Ladder only runewords tended to be both easier to make (costing lower level runes) and very powerful. Which makes sense to give your characters a boost in the limited time that you had on the ladder. It was still crazy overpowered, but now striking even that limiting factor... it's now both easy to acquire and available to all characters..
One important thing that people often don't understand, the damage + modifier is adding that amount of damage to BOTH the minimum AND maximum weapon damage. So when comparing a grief zerker to an eth botd zerker, the eth botd does have a higher maximum damage. However, grief will have a much higher average damage output because the weapon's minimum damage is so high from the damage + mod.
I think the main takeaway is that damage works like a snowball rolling down a hill. All of the extra steps after the 'flat damage' as it is called, are just percentage steps. So if you start with 100 and add 5 steps which add 20% damage each, you end up with around 250 dmg. That's 'only' 150 damage added by those modifiers. Now, if you start with 450 damage, you are already at a higher damage output and you still get some of these damage modifiers and then it just gets insane. The first analogy is like a small snowball which you roll down a hill, if you roll it a bit further, it won't get much larger. The second analogy is like starting with an already huge snowball, it doesn't need to roll far to become big, it's already big.
Also i think you forgot to mention the effect on min damage. If you have low min dmg shield on smiter or 24-74 berserker axe, your flat +dmg applies to the min dmg so your %dmg amplification works on that too. Which ofc makes your damage much less random. Thanks for the content MrLlamaSC, we all love you
In other words, to get a phase blade to 400 damage you'd need 1112%ed (min damage on a pb is 31, max is 35, avg is 33, 400/33 = 12.12, in other words 100% + 1112% enhanced damage)
Unrelated, but are you going to post the Hell portion of your Bowazon guided playthrough? I was looking forward to it before D2R dropped and I know it's been ages.
Bow is so hard to use, but still fun. My bowazon/FA is 90 with windforce, 11k+ AR, good gear and still has issues at times, I don't know why it feels so much less impactful than other classes.
Yep i roll with edeathz on a zealer or a botd in general. The only time i use grief is on weird ass physical/elemental hybrid builds like a bearageddon firestorm build.
Yeah but it's not a one item wonder grief by itself is good but definitely not broken. It relies heavily on other super expensive items and some not so expensive. Fortitude has the biggest impact and really is what makes the weapon best in slot. Next are items like laying of hands, steelrends etc (other sources of off weapon Ed) and even with all that stuff you don't clear ANYTHING faster than skill based characters like sorc hammerdin and trap assassin. Your damage just can't match these classes. Even if you run fanaticism, pride on Merc (for concentration) and might from Merc. Triple auras can't even balance the damage disparity. You'll do like 5-6k per hit on say a dealer and then even if you hit just one enemy (for 5 hits total) we are looking at about 30000 per zeal. This only works if single target in a multi target situation you split the 5 attack between up to 5 monsters keeping your DPS the same however You clear speed is reduced substantially couple this with the fact that melee can miss and you have an even greater disparity in effective DPS and clear speed compared to casters. Casters can cast at high speeds and hit many enemies at once multiplying thier DPS into the 100s of thousands. Even aoe melee can't make up for this a whirlwind barb can hit a max of 8 monsters per dmg tick. This might get you to say 48000 per tick at like 3 ticks per second this is 144000 dps that can miss and casters can hit like 10 - 12 monsters at a time all at once for like 30000 (meteor) this is like 360000 dmg in a burst after 3 seconds while also shooting 13k fireballs that can hit like 4-5 mobs at once and be cast very fast like 2 casts per second that's 12k x 6 (3 seconds worth of fireball) 72000 dmg x 4-5 mobs hit = 308000 dmg from fireball ending with 360000 dmg from meteor so a total of 668000 dmg / 3 seconds 222666 DPS. Res comes into play so reduce by like 25% and you have roughly 167000 DPS for a total of 501000 dmg dealt in 3 seconds. Zealers, ww, fury, frenzy, etc just can't compare. And casters like sorc trap assassin hammerdin dont even require high runes for thier dmg output, sure enigma helps them move faster but you can get other cheaper + skills armor like skulders and such or treachery. The more I talk about it the more I convince myself that grief is just not that op, it's good yes, not the best in all cases though ( last wish comes to mind ) and it certainly does not equalize the clear speed or damage disparity even with all it's supporting items. Leave grief alone plz
@JunchTheHero Yeet lol it's a comment section meant specifically to talk to others if you didn't want to hear our arguments and thoughts on a topic then why the hell are you scrolling the comments. Some people just don't use logic and lack objectivity in thier perception. It must be actually hard to be so railroaded by your own mental ineptitude.
@@IstanaghVlandis I mean you wrote such a long comment and it's all wrong. Grief is the best whether you have fortitude or not. 430 to 435 damage range on a one hander cannot be beat.
@@SantanaK6 yeah sry for the book, and get ready for another one. It feels like people are calling for grief nerfs. I just don't get that. endgame weapons are supposed to be good in fact they are supposed to be so good as to beat out all other weapons. As I said there has to be a best in slot somewhere, whether that's grief or Botd or whatever, now listening to people talk about grief it's like they are saying, "I'd rather have my endgame character be weaker and less capable." Why would anyone want this especially for melee with all it's inherent downsides as I mentioned. In a largely pve game such as diablo 2 clear speed is king and melee loses out in this regard for the afore mentioned reasons but you want them to be weaker still, not only that but you want thier potential to be nerfed...just doesn't make sense. On another note, people keep quoting the min/max damage as too high but it just isn't. The scaling works differently for melee skills than it does for caster skills and melee skills have far less synergies to help with this. You see things like +560% (self) damage on a high level fanaticism but this means almost nothing when your weapon is shit. Even with grief fort pride laying of hands etc. These large percentages won't drive the damage anywhere near casters who on the other hand get comparatively massive base damage on thier skills + loads of synergies and all they need to do is stack +skills to bring thier damage to godlike levels. +Skills is easy and cheap to attain. Melee must either rely on the host of shit uniques in the game or ridiculously unlikely odds in the case of rares or grind forever to get the high runes needed to make the powerful runewords that can push thier damage into the same realm as casters (but not really cuz they still won't compete). Sigh I just don't get it, I mean do the math for yourself or better yet build the builds yourself and perform an objective comparison and you'll see. As an example one cast of blizzard can take out whole groups on the highest difficulty and against the strongest (regular) mobs all from a safe distance while a ww barb has to spin 3 times through the same pack to take them down (when you try it you'll see) all while being swung at by the surrounding mobs. Another easy to coordinate comparison can be made with a simple Baal run. Get a group together and have the melee do the work one time and the casters the next and just compare the time it takes casters to clear vs melee. It's really as clear as day. There is a reason casters are used to do the work in this setting, thier DPS just can't be matched by melee. But I guess go ahead and nerf melee into the ground. While you're at it just go ahead and remove melee skills from the game so people don't have to waste thier time playing a class/build that will always be subpar pvm in comparison to a caster. I say pvm because pvp is a different monster altogether and most times in pvp it just boils down to who got the first hit, mainly due to the low total health of players. In a case like this it may seem grief is op however at the level which you can use grief pretty much all skills do enough damage to completely wreck another player because even completely decked out and bo'd/oak saged you might have like 6k hp (extremely high) but the damage characters deal is massive so it will make little difference. this is also why people prefer low level duelling over endgame duelling, the duels just last longer and are able to have a kind of back and forth feel to them as opposed to one sided slaughter. Now all this said I don't think casters OR melee deserve nerfs to either thier skills or thier gear I simply think that either way you go you should end up very strong in the endgame without a ridiculous amount of time needing to be invested and without relying on stupidly low drop rates of high runes or incredibly narrow odds of rolling gg rares. those that do invest the time and effort to attain these drops/high runes deserve rewards like grief, last wish, pride, infinity and enigma etc. they deserve all the awesomeness that comes with them. So in closing don't nerf endgame items instead buff early mid and late game progression items so that players feel a steady rise in power and ability throughout the game ending it with a truly strong character no matter if you played melee or caster. Do this and the gap between the power levels of progression items and endgame best in slot items will seem like less if a leap up. THEN in the endgame, the pursuit of that godly gear (for those so inclined) and the power of those gg items should be something truly worth the time it takes to attain. And ffs buff the mobs most of them are just too basic to pose a challenge.
I remember back when I got my first grief for my fury druid (rolled 396 damage, 38% AS) and was like hmmm I'm told this is good but idk if it will be, lets try it out. I just crushed in melee pvp games it wasn't even fair.
When I made my first Grief, I was a bit disturbed that the character screen showed up a rather low damage value. That's due to a bug in the character screen for which probably its +dmg is added after applying off-weapon %ed. Is that fixed in D2R?
I formed a BotD for my Zerg Barb on an Eth Berserker Axe, and the damage was good. Then I formed a Grief on a Phase Blade, and the damage just went through the roof. I wasn't 3 shotting the mobs anymore, I was literally one-shotting everything! Not to mention the Ignore Target Defense, which means you don't need attack rating at all versus almost all mobs. This weapon is nuts for just a single Lo rune...
Which armor do you combine with grief on your zerk barb? Im currently running with trechary for the ias, but I hear mr Lama mention fortitude... is that a much better option?
seems to me like they knew what they were doing when they created Grief... they created a equalizer for players and of course players that hated the idea gave a lot of... grief.
Even with that weapon, physical builds do less damage than elemental/magic damage builds except for one specific situation: crushing blow on bosses. I'm annoyed when people complain about how strong grief is because yes, it's better than other melee weapons, but that's how strong it needs to be for melee to be relevant. Despite how strong grief is, most melee builds are extremely inefficient compared to casters when it comes to high density clearing, especially at high player count. I'm a little worried when llama sends this type of message because a nerf to grief would put melee builds in an even worse spot than they currently are.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but that’s more a problem with the base design of melee. Personally I’m fine with both grief and how melee/casters work, as it sort of gives them a niche. Melee are the boss slayers while the casters are the add killers. Simply a difference in huge single target to big aoe. Casters win out 99% of content because sorceress exists and getting to bosses is a large portion of the boss killing grind.
@@johnathanwright5216 and the craziest part is besides ubers, casters are arguably better boss killers than any melee. For example the javazon can destroy P8 baal faster than a fully geared smiter. Some sorc builds are also extremely fast boss killers with static field + infinity, and the hammerdin destroys P8 diablo at least as fast as melee characters do - with proper hammer positionning pre spawn he can kill him in a few seconds. My favorite class is barb but I've played a ton of paladin, sorc and zon. His strong points are everything but his damage. FCR breakpoints, vita scaling, dual wield, find item, BO without CTA, and other minor stuff like howl. He specializes in P1 difficulty, because he has amazing tools but his damage is simply underwhelming even with grief. The only areas where he can be efficient at high player count are stuff like key running and P8 chaos seal popping, because he's skipping all the mobs and stacking crushing blow to kill a single target reasonably fast. Nerfing grief would need to be balanced out with a big buff to melee damage in general, which would require big changes to the game, beyond the scope of a remaster imo. I have a few solutions in mind but I'd prefer if D2 balance was left untouched. That's another debate but I have strong arguments against balance updates for diablo 2.
@@suddenzenith5186 Just curious what the arguments against melee balance would be? I agree with all your points. I think Project Diablo 2 really did a good job of rebalancing without huge spikes in changes or feel. Barb is one of my faves too, and each new barb I make I'm reminded of the pain in killing mobs in Hell diff without godly gear.
Easiest fix for this misunderstanding would be if the game displayed the +400 damage on the base weapon. If people saw a Berserker Axe with 424-471 damage they'd shit a brick. That's a huge increase in average damage over even a perfectly rolled Ethereal Berserker axe with Cruel Masters Mechanics, quickness transcendence slaughter w/ two Ohm runes in it... so 550% enhanced damage on an Ethereal.
Lama if you see; Your thoughts on dual wield grief on the standard barbs frenzy/ww, or 1 grief + something else? Always went with dual grief for the most part.
Definitely don't nerf or remove Grief. Yes it is OP but this runeword is the single reason why there are still viable melee builds existing out there. D2 is already a caster game, and nerfing Grief will basically make melee builds practically unplayable. The best solution is to buff other melee weapons so melee builds can have more high-end melee weapon choices other than Grief
Hear me out though... Colossus sword is avg damage 91, BOTD gives up to 400% ED... so on an ETH BOTD Colossus Sword: (91*1.5) * 5 = 682.5 avg base weapon damage, which is a lot more than that 431-435 on grief, right? not to mention all the other nice things that come with botd. I've never tried this but it does seem like a LOT more damage than a grief. yes i know 2-handers aren't exactly meta, just curious if I'm wrong on the math here.
Well maybe you can just translate it in to enhanced damage so people can understand. Like in that picture, you phase blade has ~30 average base damage, so +370 damage will be equals to 1200% enhanced damage, that simple.
Some asshole dev made this runeword on purpose to fk the game up. That's how they hid the ridiculous %ED. Just made it look like a simple damage addition calculated at the end when it's actually added to the weapons base damage.
dude, my fury druid is lv75 and can't even farm in hell while my 73 frost mage who didn't even got spirit shield soloed hell baal already if they can't give melee a good starting nor middle game, at least let them keep the endgame if they nerf grief they better nerf frost too
No PvM build is strong with melee unless you are running Ubers. AoE elemental and magic are just too powerful and they even work just as well on bosses for the most part.
@@adamconte3906 I got my ribcracker and I barely made it out through act 1 while my mage just spam her lv22 frost orb and ggez or should I farm a ethereal one and place a zod on it?
I Think the only way to make "tweaks" to the game without entering a slippery slope would be adding a simple thing like only allowing 1 of each runeword equipped, forcing people to not use 2 spirits & 2 Griefs and creating other interesting combinations.
Its as simple as this: - A perfect eth 415ed/53ar botd ba berserker axe has: 185 to 545 dmg. (185+545)/2 = 365 average dmg. - A antiperfect 350dmg grief pb has: (30+35)/2 + 350 = 382,5 average dmg. As well as 20% deadly strike, and the ignore defense and -25% defense of enemy (which is half in pvp). If grief was a perf 15ed/3ar/400/40 berserker axe it would be: (27+81)/2 + 400 = 454 average dmg. Base dmg ofc scales with other enhanced dmg multipliers like: Skills, statbonus, auras and offhand ed%. (AllMinDmg + AllMaxDmg)/2 + (1+((Skillbonus+Statbonus+AuraBonus+GearEnhancedDmg+DmgToUndead-demon)/100)) * (0,17 if pvp) * (1-(EnemyDamageReduction%/100)) - EnemyDirectDr - MdrOverFlow If curse such as amplify dmg (-100% enemy DR) or Decrepificy (-50% DR) u just add this in the EnemyDamageReduction section. Not to mention grief adds dmg to undead as well. Its also worth mentioning that grief dont add to kicks of assassin, neither does deadly strike or dmg to undead/demon. Only wolf of bear May benefit from other wepons due to the way their attack speed are set, as well as their big bonus to polearm attack speed. On my pvp wolf i use botd ba over grief pb, both has same ias breakpoint, but i need the +2 rangeadder from ba, and the 30stats for life more, as rabies is better.
@@mattmichael3310 he's a PvP player. BvC = Barb v Caster. Anyone seriously thinking they should remotely balance D2R around PvP is silly, given 10% of the playerbase or less have any real interest in it. Likely sub-5%
Thanks for great content MrLlama! It's been a while since my last adventure in vanilla Diablo2, good to have a channel like this to relearn stuff long forgotten. Is Phase Blade the best base item for it, or are there any alternatives? Gotta know what to look for when farming.;)
I find that Grief underperforms on 8 player compared to Death and Last Wish, sure your 'flat' damage is much higher, but ultimately crushing blow is more consistent and Grief forces you to use G-Face instead of Crown of Ages or Andys for +35% speed. Even my Tesladin with stormlash will outperform Grief in clear speed, that some extra 100X800% damage is nothing when you casting static on 20 enemies in 8 player, and the lightning damage alone is 8 times higher than physical damage with -100%. Best on paper, but technically not the most practical.
Any Runeword in PB could be used by far more chars hence it is easier to trade away when not needed anymore or w/e kind of reason. Also PB do not have durability so it won't break, so no repaircost, and no breaking midfight. Lower str requirement but higher dex. The average damage for one-hand use it is like 15 more for Colossus Sword but being much more slower. Also (even if it's counterproductive to use two different weapon types) PB can be used with Beast RW. But: if you really want to build a Barb with Swords and really like the Last Wish then go for a Colossus Sword and Sword Mastery. Either you use it as an one-hand or two-hand, just play the game as you like. Same counts towards Grief. Edit: just got noticed that Colossus Sword have a max sox of 5, so good luck with building LW with it :D. Colossus Blade on the other hand has 6 sox and is a little bit faster and little less average dmg.
True, but you had to make it with a Ladder character or else trade for it after the ladder which would drive the price up. Still doesn't balance it but it did make it a bit tougher to get.
i made my first grief last night and rolled 397 damage and 40% AS. Needless to say I'm pretty pumped, especially after watching this vid. Ubers wont stand a chance >:}
For a smiter, the attack speed buff doesn't actually matter. That being said, you need a 6% increase to attack (might be 8?) to hit the next break point. Just being in a phase blade gets you to the second highest.
a phaseblade and an ias jewel in the helm will cap you out. need one attack speed item somewhere. you notice the difference if you don't run 20ias on gloves or one 15ias jewel. i like draculs and ias jewel in a gface. can also use the gloves that gives 350% demon dps, but you need a lifetap wand then.
@@AwesomePossum1987 noted. i have plenty of the jewels and a life tap wand so could sacrifice dracs for the demon damage and socket my gface. not a bad idea to speed things up.
@@Ryujin1980 are you sure? it gives damage when you have % damage on armor. Like fortitude gives. I thought the % damage to demons would not work if it was on a weapon but it does work on gloves??? I dunno 100% though, i might just be wrong.
Anyone else notice teleport is way different than in the past? You used to be able to hold the mouse off the edge of the screen and it would bring you as close as to where you were clicking as possible. Now if you cast off the edge of a tile it just won't teleport you at all. Completely changes sorc play (for me at least)
@@Stavroization It wasn't a problem with monsters, I don't think I've experienced that. Turns out I falsely remembered legacy d2 teleporting you as close as possible to a container/breakable/door when you moused over it. Instead, it just never allowed you to teleport. Had wrist pains awhile ago so I lost the habit of wiggling my cursor while teleporting to prevent this from happening.
@@Stavroization it feels pretty broken now, i wouldn't mind if they put a max distance you can teleport in one shot. It's just really terrible when you think you're about to get away from a monster mob but you just hang out for a couple extra casts
He has complained in the past about Enigma too, especially compared to the rarity of things like Tyrael's Might, but runewords (even others like Fort and CoH) just blow it out of the water.
Fuck tyreals might. Rarity should not equate 1:1 with how good it is. In fact, having the most rare item in the game be BIS would suck since no one would ever get to use it
Pretty sure he doesn't like many of the rune words. Not necessarily because they're so op but because they completely negate ones ability to use other items. I.e. every caster uses hoto with a spirit shield.
One correction to the simplified version: It's (A(B+1)+C)(D+1) When it says 'enhanced damage' it is +x%. So, to the base you must add it the x%. So it's 100% (the base) + x%, that makes it (100+x)% or simply (1+x) times.
The annoying thing about Grief is that your damage is not displayed. So you don't know the damage you do and you can't compare it. You just "know" that you do a lot but how much exactly you can't be sure. I hoped they would fix this in D2R because frankly it's stupid to not show it.
Uh, he didn't even explain it lol. %ED is still the same as +damage in the formula, they both get multiplied by all your other %ED on gear. It's just +400 damage to a one hander is unreal compared to any other option. No one hander has that kind of damage, whether grief had +damage or %ED to get that crazy damage, it doesn't matter.
My Perf Sup EBotd is better for my Zealer... for me, and my character and my build, buuut that doesn't at all mean Grief isn't flat out better, it just means its better for and too me, and a lot of people don't realize that, they will just flat ignore facts to think that their opinions and feelings are pure fact, but def not in a lot of cases
Whirlwind Barbarian drops about 10% DPS changing from a second perfect Grief over to an eBotD, but gains 15% life steal, 7% mana steal, utilitizes the -% poison res from Grief for the Poison Novas from eBotD as well. I happily trade 118k damage for 108k with a lot more sustain. eBotD gives + vs undead instead of demons, which is really nice in areas like The Pit or Ancient Tunnels.
Only if you care about them. The solution stares people in the face - if you don't care what others think and don't play to compete online, just ignore runewords (or at least the blatantly OP ones). I do that and just enjoy the cool uniques that drop. The game was not designed for people to rush through /p8 content with ease and is perfectly playable without runewords. Hard to explain to irredeemable min-maxers though.
For hitting with the weapon, the minimum that LW on your barb would hit is 435 (ED + lvl 17 Might). Grief is 402 (31+371). LW hits harder. Then you have to factor in CB vs -25% target defense. It isn't as clear which is better.
So, my barb is out of this world now with a grief and a rare champion sword. The rare got 260-310dps total, 270ed, 150flat ar, 189% more ed to demons, 176 more ar to demons, 5 life leetch. It's insane when i add grief and the +350% demons dps gloves. The damage is out of this world to demons and prob higher than any other character
Hmm, the real reason Grief is so strong is because the +damage is added to both the max AND the min weapon damage, so the average damage is much higher.
Think about what you just said. Yes, raising the minimum damage raises the average damage, but so does raising the maximum damage. Grief does both to an incredible degree. Your comment is like saying, "the real reason 3 + 4 is larger than 1 + 2 is because you add 2 to the first number!" Yeah, mate. And also because you add 2 to the second number. That's how basic math works :P
The problem isnt Grief, it's melee. I watch javazons sorcerous poison necros obliterate whole zones in minutes sometimes without even getting hit. Don't nerf grief, fix melee.
You are right indeed, thats why i really liked Project Diablo, where they add some AoE to melee attacks and nerfed some of the OP weapons. Grief got toned down but is still a solid weapon there.
Yeah I mean D2R have you tried melee? I don't advise it. You will get desynced all over the place and even using whirlwind half the time your character stands still then teleports a second after it's finished... Really poorly handled so far. Then again they can't keep the servers up it seems
What makes grief a power house is actually the ignore target defense. I play frenzy barb and have thoroughly tested every single weapon combination, and by far the best weapon in the game should be Death, but due to the lack of ignore target defense it misses so much and feels lackluster. Death+g-face+gore rider+highlords gives you 100% crushing blow and 100% critical strike. No other weapon can achieve double 100%. Best weapon combo is grief+lawbringer over dual grief.
Ok. Let me get this. Does it mean that the "adds damage" modifier is comparably strong? Does that mean that azurewrath which adds +250-500 magic and +250-500 cold damage is better? That's not true at all in everyone's experience. I'm really confused why, though.
I absolutely love the depth of D2 items. Grief has always sat on top of the mountain but we true long time players know.. it's the best, but it's not.. the best. know what i mean? Love you Llama.
Care to explain why grief is not the best? I think I might know some of the answer - for two-handers it's really not that good. Also beast is a thing, but is there something else I'm not aware of?
@@realitycheck908 You mean something that drops with godly mods like fools and cruel and eth + self-repair, etc. Will it really be better tho I wonder... Also an axe like that probably dropped in the history of diablo 2 like twice.
funny thing, Eni is bis for soso too. 2 skill , mf and str for that monarch goes from eni so u get a huge chunk of stats for life or mana if es + max life + % dmg reduction, its sick.
I don't get it. So assuming the formula Llama presents: ((A*B)+C)*D A = (31+35)/2 B = 1 in the case of grief C = 371 D = 300 (we assume the character is using fortitude armor and nothing else) Grief damage comes out to the following: ((33*1)+371)*300 = 121.200 Instead we hypothetically assume that Grief added 371% ED instead of +damage, we get the following outcome: ((33*371)+0)*300 = 3.672.900 I obviously don't understand why the + damage is superior to %ED, what am I getting wrong here.
I guess it's due to the fact that 371% ED on the weapon falls under the category of D and not B, even though it's explicated as "the enhanced damage from the rest of your gear NOT the weapon".
thanks for the video and explanation again !! i can understand the statement and the fact that as a "purist" this grief destroy any other item but the point is diablo 2 in general is hard and diablo 2 is extremely hard for melee character its why having a way to have a very good weapon quite easily for some little bit more casual players is "ok" . it would be much problematic if that powerfull runeword would exist for casters (no hoto is not as strong for caster as grief is for melee) and honestly while ur waiting for the Lo rune(and the 5 sockets phase blade) especially if ur solo self found it will take enough time that u can enjoy ur find along the way
I'm of the mindset that games should not be geared for the casual players. Top end gear should always be the hardest to obtain and the most prized. Thats the allure of a game like D2.
Come as you are, as you were As I want you to be As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy Take your time, hurry up The choice is your, don't be late Take a rest as a friend as an old memoria Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach As I want you to be
You say any melee but everyone tells me Werewolf Druid doesn't play by the normal rules. Would you recommend it for Werewolf Druid over say Ribcracker or Tomb Reaver?
@@tomtomasz9798 No it doesn't. Runewords in general have completely nullified 99% of unique weapons and armor, sets and gems etc. The only thing worth picking up now almost are runes. Its ruined what diablo is about, period. This video alone proves it. Look at Enigma. The only class not wearing enigma is sorc.
@@OrphanCrippler1 99% of uniques and set were trash before runewords came out. Not to mention all of the duped and hacked items available back in the day. Call grief op as I have lvl 70 nova on my sorc.
@@OrphanCrippler1 kinda but kinda not, even without runewords like he said 99% of them will be useless. The same uniques being used now will continue to be used and people will move back to rares for a lot of other items
Hello my friend can i have a question? Grief is good u say but, what about VS my dual DJINN SLAYER ATHAGAN is base weapon in game is unique and stats, 83-148 damage, +215% ED, +144% damage to demons, +262 attack rating against demons, ADDS 250-500 FIRE DAMAGE. so my question is: this 500 fire damage is better like grief 400 damage no? So that adds 500 fire damage is too before pecentuage damage and its too on hand damage? So fortitude or laying of hands upgrade % this 500 fire damage too? So this djinn slayer athagan is betterl than grief? Thanx for answer
So based on this grief only surpasses the ave damage of other weapons, but not the max. So to “fix” grief they could change the added to added max Then they’re free to buff base damage of all weapons so that melee has a variety of options Edit: or they could greatly buff the min damage of other bases to bring those weapons to griefs level which accomplishes a similar goal without power creep
The damage from Grief is... insane? That definitely seems like it should be nerfed a lot, especially for the cost to make it which is next to nothing. I hope that Blizzard considers doing updates to the game. Just add a new version to select like they did with adding a vanilla D2 option to resurrected. There's so much opportunity to expand and change this game in amazing ways that would be equivalent to editing a text document. lol
@@visbaluz Yes I really think they should make a splash damage jewel like in PD2. Melee's only problem is AOE, they just can't stand up to spell caster builds.
I would take a huge nerf to Grief any day. If you nerf Grief you realise that suddenlt you can run like maybe a dozen different setups that all kickass. Take a Frenzy barb. BOTD, Beast, Doom, Death, Death Cleaver, Schaefers, Stonecrusher, Stormlash, Astreons, Grandfather, Kingslayer, Oath, Runemaster (eth 5soc), Last Wish, Rare ethereal weapons etc. You'd still have a best setup but currently Grief dumps on all these setups, and they all kickass. You can solo Ubers with Schaefers + Stonecrusher combo and static field procs can take phys immunes to 50% HP in an instant, but those weapons are considered worthless because Grief is relatively cheap and so much stronger than anything else. BOTD was the king, but only by a small margin, when Grief came along it left everything else in the trash. So im all for nerfing Grief, hope they do for the ladder.
For anyone who sees this, though. You do *not* need to spend a Lo rune and use Grief to comfortably do any Ubers (I know Llama isn't saying you do). I use an Oath, far cheaper, and do not die with the standard smiter setup. Super clean full uber clears. Grief is best, but far from necessary. For any other character/purpose however yeah go get one.
Man this vid comes out today, im missing a Lo rune, bam..Lo rune, and my first Grief ever. Also got my first Jah ever the other day while watching some of your streams and grinding some D2R. Llama luck is real. Lmao Now I refuse to go farming / mfing without some of ur content on in the background 🤣🤣🤣
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You know why I don’t have an issue with Grief? Because the game is SO heavily biased towards casters…especially early on…that this weapon actually gives people who like playing melee an actual chance to reach the endgame content and be able to farm efficiently and even then not as good as the best caster builds.
This has been the state of D2 for 20 years tho. Melee has always sucked dongers.
Compared to casters anyway. It's why the only commonly built melee doesn't even melee with a damn weapon, they use their shield, which requires no accuracy at all -.-
I've said this before and I'll keep saying it. the purist cult of the D2 of 20 years ago are the reason the game sucks now as a remaster overall IMO.
If I wanted to play D2, I would just load up D2. But having a newer and more balanced D2 with similar old school mechanics would have been FAR more interesting to me then just copy pasting the game with a new coat of paint..
Just facts.
@@Am4t3r4su Far more interesting to you, sure. I think it's obvious they wanted to keep the game as close to the original as possible. That's what a remaster is usually supposed to do. Some QoL updates along with graphics update.
Would it be cool if in the future patches introduced some balancing etc? Sure, maybe, but it's a slippery slope.
@@notme377 :)
@@totalymew I'm nervous
Agreed! This actually makes my dream of an endgame Frenzy barbarian seem obtainable =).
The +371 dmg basically counts as
+371 minimum damage *AND* +371 maximum damage
In regards to the 31-35 base dmg of a phase blade, this is equivalent to a 1196-1060% enhanced damage respectively
Yup. The dev that made grief needs to be slapped
And that doesn't even take into account that, unlike regular enhanced damage, this also applies to kicks and smites.
@@Tyrian3k doesn't apply to kicks
Omg... I gotta get this weapon soon! 😣
The problem lies with the base damage of 1 handed weapons. highest average damage 1 handed weapon with 6 sockets eth is 71.25 if you have a perfect base and a perfect outcome (415% botd) thats a base damage of 295. That means the worst possible roll for Grief is still way stronger than any one hander in game.
You'd think the numpties who cooked up the various runewords woulda given even half a seconds thought to how their own game calculated damage and then realized how entirely OP Grief is...
@@aliebrubaker7473 The real problem is the amount of purists who play d2 all day and throw a fit whenever their game is modfied in the slightest. There was actual outrage at being able to telekenesis a red portal in d2r. Imagine the outrage if they started buffing/nerfing stuff.
@@kennethgriffin5761 The example you just gave was outrage towards a buff, and I can see where the outrage comes from. A great many people have been wanting the speed gap between sorceress and other classes to be less severe and they got yet another time saving benefit for pindleskin, mephisto, and ubers, three of the most farmed areas in the game. It's an impactful change over the course of tens of thousands of runs. I enjoy it, but it's a shame that the first balance changes widened that speed gap before doing anything else, especially with the changes to cold mastery.
@@Oddigan while i do agree with the telekenesis stuff you are however overreacting with cold mastery. its not as broken as people are being led to believe. try playing cold sorc and you'll see what I mean.
@@kennethgriffin5761 why play D2 if you don't want to play D2 rules, gameplay, and mechanics? D3 exists, go play that or some other game then.
I'm not even a "purist" but i know what the difference between a remaster and a remake is. Imagine if blizz changed the rules, gameplay, and mechanics of Broodwar. Might as well play another game.
Woohoo for the Amazon Basin shoutout! I was a member way back in the day, and it was a fantastic community for the info and guides but most of all for the absolute blast we had in private games with no worry about griefing or having to deal with jerks in any way shape or form
would be nice to see a "demo" where you leave town and hit a couple things, or take down a boss
That would make the video interesting.. Instead let's hear the theory how Grief is op because its cheap, and you can have it without living in the game..
@@Sickklow had that weapon 15 years ago, and OK it was a very nice and powerful one, but not as awesome has the theorycraft says after playing a bit around it.
Also, those runewords! (grief, botd, infinity on merc..) kind of kills some of the greateast other items and Runewords in the game, Wich is a bit of a bad things IMHO.
I did some playing around on a Zealot in SP, I found an ethereal Death berserker axe gave me the fastest clear speed. Grief and BotD were VERY close, but I still had a higher clear speed with Death.
So, if i got this correctly... You are claiming that seeing it used would provide more value to the theory behind it. I don't entirely disagree, but if the WHY is in the theory, then showing it used is completely irrelevant. Dude does like his own voice though. Pro tip: most videos on UA-cam don't have or need visual support. It's YOU that needs it. Think on that
@@jameshaulenbeek5931 that is entirely dependent on the roll for the damage you get on grief
I remember feeling this way about all of the runewords when they dropped back in the day. Completely cancelled out most rares, uniques, sets and gems.
1.09 is the true Diablo 2 redpill. Peak of the game right there.
idk, it feels good finally getting the runes to craft a good item with semi-guaranteed properties.
There is a lot of truth to that, but it also gave a new dimension and interest to the game, trying to collect all these high runes to make these weapons/armors etc. If these runewords were not that good no one would have cared about finding a high rune.
@@cgerman yawn
@@realitycheck908 with butchers pupil. Eth lacerator. Or eth zakerons 2 soc with 15 40 and Zod
Hi Mr Llama, long time fan. Grief is undoubtedly powerful, but as someone who plays almost exclusively zealer I still find that the damage you do is nothing in comparison to a highly geared Sorc and Javazon, especially when you talk about Players 8. Maybe its a problem with zeal being underpowered damage wise, but I do think that if you talk about nerfing grief you have to talk about nerfing the casters that can just annhilate everything on screen on Players 8 without even being remotely in danger. Im with you though it sucks that almost any melee weapon you find, even the rare ones, just dont matter. Id really like to see them rebalance the damage on melee and bows. Ive thought about it for the past few years and I think a buff to the base item damage is the way to go. If you doubled the damage on elite bases, grief does not get significantly stronger, but other runewords and uniques do.
meh, play diablo 3 then
@@poopflavoredlollypop What an idiotic comment. Sorc main fingers typed this
I remember when 1.10 came out and everyone was fawning over these huge eth BOTD weapons. The eth zerkers and CBs. Took people a while to realize how strong grief really was in comparison.
Because botd is still badass. Grief is just stupid. A 2h ebotd is still better for a fury wolf than a grief.
@@jprec5174 Yeah but that's fury werewolf, theyre a weird melee to begin with. And even then, grief lets you put on like a stormshield or something which is pretty insane.
For months I was seeking for a Lo Rune. Today... My search continues. xD
i found a lo on my very first hell andy kill. that rng
yep beauty of this game :) , when u forgot about lo - ull find Ber and Lo ;) if u focus on finding lo u will find shiet and ull get tired;D
@@tomtomasz9798 no?
@@evilfatsh1t ehh not my first but I got a Lo like day 6 of release off hell Andy
Pindle dropped me a jah
I would love to see some more uniques added that are better than the rune words. That way you actually have to farm for that great weapon or item. I think it's cooler to have that unique item then just building a word.
Eh. It’s all relative. Grief is good not only for it’s +damage in melee builds, but also because it’s cheap and easy to make. Meanwhile an enigma is extremely broken, but most people won’t even see a ber rune unless they trade for it.
Similarly, most people won’t see every unique in the game. Took Llama 3 years to get a mang songs. The item affixes are really weird on uniques. Reminds me of classic WoW where some attributes on items made 0 sense in the scheme of who’s using the item.
It’s an interesting conversation to have. Should there be a “BiS” list that everyone can work towards and be done with gearing a character? That’s kind of what runewords are. Should there never be a “BiS” but tons of side grades for niche content so you’ll never truly be done gearing? That’s kind of what uniques are.
I think Diablo 2 does a good job of toeing the line between runewords and uniques for the majority of the game. There are just a few outliers that everyone complains about, but really it only affects the end gearing scenario for toons.
I've been watching your content for a long time, but you rarely fail to educate me or at least refresh my memory about this game.
I'm a tad confused as to why explaining this is so indirect and complicated. I've always just looked at it as a flat addition to the base weapon you see in your inventory. That grief is basically a 402-406 one handed weapon to me. This also does not conflict with any calculations you try to run
EDIT: To be clear on why Grief is the best melee weapon:
One handed weapon with fastest swing speed
Average damage that competes with the strongest TWO-handed weapons
Decent offensive mods
And you can tack on shield of your choice for even more stats and flexible builds
Smite is the only notable build with a clear flat damage mod boon so much so that it is clearly BiS. But this is a mostly unimportant point when explaining why grief is the best weapon. It simply has so much flat dmg that it outperforms every other melee weapon despite their huge base weapon damage and base weapon ED
Its even better tho because its not "on weapon" damage but flat + damage so it applies even to even more sources
@@StriKe_jk like what?
@@zilverheart Probably referring to smite. Smite is kinda it's own thing and the explaining of flat dmg doesn't need to warp around it tho
Everything else applies to flat dmg just as it would to base weapon atk after enhanced by weapon ED. Gee what a mouthful
Gotta get that 10 minutes in for the UA-cam algorithm. Videos that could could be 2 minutes long but extend to 10 minutes is like dealing with a meeting that should have just been an email.
Did you guys watch the video even? He says Fortitude. Fort gives 300% weapon damage and is applied after the +damage. So thats (400 weapon damage x 300%) from 2 items
Mr. Llama is my favorite grief counselor. Thanks for always being there when I need you.
no wonder it's called "grief".. enemies in 5 acts report you for griefing.
I think the comparison between Grief and EBOTD CB/Zerker would really show your point and the contrast. 👍😌
Damn, someone from the devs made "Grief" the strongest effect in the game.
says something about working blizzard lol
Congrats on finding the tal armor. I've been looking for one for the longest time ever!
Games only been out like 4 weeks though
@@michaelbellamy5861 it's been out for like 20 years
@@pwnulater I was obviously just making a lighthearted joke
and also anyone who's been playing for 20 years has found a tal armor before this release so that's clearly not relevant
@@michaelbellamy5861 sure you were buddy, sure you were.
@@pwnulater You stance seems to hinge upon the idea that I didn't know this is a remake of a 20 year old game...which is pretty silly. Have a nice day.
"Grief is cheap" he said...
I want to cry when hell cows drop me a shael at best...
Yeah.. i love this game, but at the same time....
Found a Vex in Hell cows a couple days go. Just keep at it.
Gotta grind. Male goals like "100 cow runs" and keep track of what you got.
You'll grind one area for ages and find nothing, then do 1 run and get rich.
I found my only white monarch of d2r on the ground in someone else's cow level. Everyone else was leaving and I was grabbing gems and other stuff people left behind (and somehow got 34fcr on my spirit)
keep on farming, you'll get something you can trade for some decent runes at some point. My fav spots to farm are now chaosrun, trav and act5 dungeons. Cow runs are super good to get lots of kills fast, witch will give you more runes (since runes does not care about MF). When you get that shako everything will get easier.
Very informative and intelligent video! Always enjoy going Llama school when you post these videos
So I'm sure this will get lost in the billions of comments, but I'D BE SUPER CURIOUS to know what your opinions are on runewords in general.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff like Grief that exists in the game like how body armor at nearly every level of the game is negated by them. Stealth for early game, Smoke/Lionheart/Treachery for mid levels or Duress even, and then Fortitude/Chains of Honor/Enigma eclipses the late game armor for basically every class in the game.
Also White wands for Necromancer just negating what would be some otherwise very powerful weapon choices. I found a Boneshade on my barb and it's like... why wait until level 79 to use this thing when you can just use White at level 35 in a +3 to bone spear wand instead AND it's a better item anyway? The runes aren't even that rare either. For level 35 sure, but they drop like hotcakes just running around on Hell.
Is it good that you have these set goals to work towards where you can be guaranteed to make a powerful item, or does that detract too much from what would be some otherwise great loot moments?
Neat! So based on the order of operations, that +371 Damage is equivalent to a +1124% Enhanced Damage modifier, at least in the case of that Phase Blade. Pretty nuts
Depends. Berserker Axe Grief is the best for Barbarians, but the Phase Blade is best for Paladins. Phase Blade is best due to being unable to break and having a fast swing speed to get IAS break points easier makes it great for Paladins, as you need the dexterity for block rate anyways. Berserker axe's are better for Barbarians due to the increased range, and slightly higher damage output.
@@Selet101 and 2 hand spear botd. I am barb spear
Breaks to fast in anything but a phase blade imo. Not worth the inconvenience
The grief comes from all the math I gotta do figure out how the weapon works.
The only "math" you have to do is this - "Is 400-405 damage better as a starting point than 150-180?" Yes. Yes it is. The calculation is the same after that, so if you put in a bigger number at the beginning, you're going to get a bigger number at the end ;)
“Dolor” en español. La mejor arma de todo el juego. Siempre hecha en “la espada gradual”.
El secreto de su increíble poder es ese +400 al daño, sobre todo al mínimo, característica que ningún otro arma tiene.
Lo mejor de lo mejor.
The only balancing feature of this runeword was the fact that it was Ladder Only. Ladder only runewords tended to be both easier to make (costing lower level runes) and very powerful. Which makes sense to give your characters a boost in the limited time that you had on the ladder. It was still crazy overpowered, but now striking even that limiting factor... it's now both easy to acquire and available to all characters..
You can make ladder runewords in non ladder d2r
One important thing that people often don't understand, the damage + modifier is adding that amount of damage to BOTH the minimum AND maximum weapon damage. So when comparing a grief zerker to an eth botd zerker, the eth botd does have a higher maximum damage. However, grief will have a much higher average damage output because the weapon's minimum damage is so high from the damage + mod.
I think the main takeaway is that damage works like a snowball rolling down a hill. All of the extra steps after the 'flat damage' as it is called, are just percentage steps. So if you start with 100 and add 5 steps which add 20% damage each, you end up with around 250 dmg. That's 'only' 150 damage added by those modifiers.
Now, if you start with 450 damage, you are already at a higher damage output and you still get some of these damage modifiers and then it just gets insane.
The first analogy is like a small snowball which you roll down a hill, if you roll it a bit further, it won't get much larger.
The second analogy is like starting with an already huge snowball, it doesn't need to roll far to become big, it's already big.
Yeah i dont think many people misunderstand this concept
@@davio14 dude you really typed out 3 paragraphs because you think you need to explain multiplication?
@@Bajonkas xD
wish there was a world where grief damage applied to boots for kickersins.
Play Path of Diablo
Eh, kick suck for pvp and might as well use a lacerator for pve.
Or world where there is no 1 ultimate BIS armor for every class.
@Matrick yes… they do.
@Matrick
I've played this game since online beta in 2000 but it has nothing to do with the fact that having 1 bis armor is poor design...
Also i think you forgot to mention the effect on min damage. If you have low min dmg shield on smiter or 24-74 berserker axe, your flat +dmg applies to the min dmg so your %dmg amplification works on that too. Which ofc makes your damage much less random. Thanks for the content MrLlamaSC, we all love you
In other words, to get a phase blade to 400 damage you'd need 1112%ed (min damage on a pb is 31, max is 35, avg is 33, 400/33 = 12.12, in other words 100% + 1112% enhanced damage)
Unrelated, but are you going to post the Hell portion of your Bowazon guided playthrough? I was looking forward to it before D2R dropped and I know it's been ages.
Yes I will get the hell part done
its annoying as soon you hit Durance of Hate... and everything after..
Love bow! Just starting or finishing on normal mode. Would love to see this
Bow is so hard to use, but still fun. My bowazon/FA is 90 with windforce, 11k+ AR, good gear and still has issues at times, I don't know why it feels so much less impactful than other classes.
@@VersanGetryx less scaling and half effectiveness on deadly and crushing.
I have a crush on eDeath because of this, I also agree with your points on grief pb. It’s just too easy, 1 item wonder
Yep i roll with edeathz on a zealer or a botd in general.
The only time i use grief is on weird ass physical/elemental hybrid builds like a bearageddon firestorm build.
Yeah but it's not a one item wonder grief by itself is good but definitely not broken. It relies heavily on other super expensive items and some not so expensive. Fortitude has the biggest impact and really is what makes the weapon best in slot. Next are items like laying of hands, steelrends etc (other sources of off weapon Ed) and even with all that stuff you don't clear ANYTHING faster than skill based characters like sorc hammerdin and trap assassin. Your damage just can't match these classes. Even if you run fanaticism, pride on Merc (for concentration) and might from Merc. Triple auras can't even balance the damage disparity. You'll do like 5-6k per hit on say a dealer and then even if you hit just one enemy (for 5 hits total) we are looking at about 30000 per zeal. This only works if single target in a multi target situation you split the 5 attack between up to 5 monsters keeping your DPS the same however You clear speed is reduced substantially couple this with the fact that melee can miss and you have an even greater disparity in effective DPS and clear speed compared to casters. Casters can cast at high speeds and hit many enemies at once multiplying thier DPS into the 100s of thousands. Even aoe melee can't make up for this a whirlwind barb can hit a max of 8 monsters per dmg tick. This might get you to say 48000 per tick at like 3 ticks per second this is 144000 dps that can miss and casters can hit like 10 - 12 monsters at a time all at once for like 30000 (meteor) this is like 360000 dmg in a burst after 3 seconds while also shooting 13k fireballs that can hit like 4-5 mobs at once and be cast very fast like 2 casts per second that's 12k x 6 (3 seconds worth of fireball) 72000 dmg x 4-5 mobs hit = 308000 dmg from fireball ending with 360000 dmg from meteor so a total of 668000 dmg / 3 seconds 222666 DPS. Res comes into play so reduce by like 25% and you have roughly 167000 DPS for a total of 501000 dmg dealt in 3 seconds. Zealers, ww, fury, frenzy, etc just can't compare. And casters like sorc trap assassin hammerdin dont even require high runes for thier dmg output, sure enigma helps them move faster but you can get other cheaper + skills armor like skulders and such or treachery. The more I talk about it the more I convince myself that grief is just not that op, it's good yes, not the best in all cases though ( last wish comes to mind ) and it certainly does not equalize the clear speed or damage disparity even with all it's supporting items. Leave grief alone plz
@JunchTheHero Yeet lol it's a comment section meant specifically to talk to others if you didn't want to hear our arguments and thoughts on a topic then why the hell are you scrolling the comments. Some people just don't use logic and lack objectivity in thier perception. It must be actually hard to be so railroaded by your own mental ineptitude.
@@IstanaghVlandis I mean you wrote such a long comment and it's all wrong. Grief is the best whether you have fortitude or not. 430 to 435 damage range on a one hander cannot be beat.
@@SantanaK6 yeah sry for the book, and get ready for another one. It feels like people are calling for grief nerfs. I just don't get that. endgame weapons are supposed to be good in fact they are supposed to be so good as to beat out all other weapons. As I said there has to be a best in slot somewhere, whether that's grief or Botd or whatever, now listening to people talk about grief it's like they are saying, "I'd rather have my endgame character be weaker and less capable." Why would anyone want this especially for melee with all it's inherent downsides as I mentioned. In a largely pve game such as diablo 2 clear speed is king and melee loses out in this regard for the afore mentioned reasons but you want them to be weaker still, not only that but you want thier potential to be nerfed...just doesn't make sense. On another note, people keep quoting the min/max damage as too high but it just isn't. The scaling works differently for melee skills than it does for caster skills and melee skills have far less synergies to help with this. You see things like +560% (self) damage on a high level fanaticism but this means almost nothing when your weapon is shit. Even with grief fort pride laying of hands etc. These large percentages won't drive the damage anywhere near casters who on the other hand get comparatively massive base damage on thier skills + loads of synergies and all they need to do is stack +skills to bring thier damage to godlike levels. +Skills is easy and cheap to attain. Melee must either rely on the host of shit uniques in the game or ridiculously unlikely odds in the case of rares or grind forever to get the high runes needed to make the powerful runewords that can push thier damage into the same realm as casters (but not really cuz they still won't compete). Sigh I just don't get it, I mean do the math for yourself or better yet build the builds yourself and perform an objective comparison and you'll see. As an example one cast of blizzard can take out whole groups on the highest difficulty and against the strongest (regular) mobs all from a safe distance while a ww barb has to spin 3 times through the same pack to take them down (when you try it you'll see) all while being swung at by the surrounding mobs. Another easy to coordinate comparison can be made with a simple Baal run. Get a group together and have the melee do the work one time and the casters the next and just compare the time it takes casters to clear vs melee. It's really as clear as day. There is a reason casters are used to do the work in this setting, thier DPS just can't be matched by melee. But I guess go ahead and nerf melee into the ground. While you're at it just go ahead and remove melee skills from the game so people don't have to waste thier time playing a class/build that will always be subpar pvm in comparison to a caster. I say pvm because pvp is a different monster altogether and most times in pvp it just boils down to who got the first hit, mainly due to the low total health of players. In a case like this it may seem grief is op however at the level which you can use grief pretty much all skills do enough damage to completely wreck another player because even completely decked out and bo'd/oak saged you might have like 6k hp (extremely high) but the damage characters deal is massive so it will make little difference. this is also why people prefer low level duelling over endgame duelling, the duels just last longer and are able to have a kind of back and forth feel to them as opposed to one sided slaughter. Now all this said I don't think casters OR melee deserve nerfs to either thier skills or thier gear I simply think that either way you go you should end up very strong in the endgame without a ridiculous amount of time needing to be invested and without relying on stupidly low drop rates of high runes or incredibly narrow odds of rolling gg rares. those that do invest the time and effort to attain these drops/high runes deserve rewards like grief, last wish, pride, infinity and enigma etc. they deserve all the awesomeness that comes with them. So in closing don't nerf endgame items instead buff early mid and late game progression items so that players feel a steady rise in power and ability throughout the game ending it with a truly strong character no matter if you played melee or caster. Do this and the gap between the power levels of progression items and endgame best in slot items will seem like less if a leap up. THEN in the endgame, the pursuit of that godly gear (for those so inclined) and the power of those gg items should be something truly worth the time it takes to attain. And ffs buff the mobs most of them are just too basic to pose a challenge.
I remember back when I got my first grief for my fury druid (rolled 396 damage, 38% AS) and was like hmmm I'm told this is good but idk if it will be, lets try it out. I just crushed in melee pvp games it wasn't even fair.
When I made my first Grief, I was a bit disturbed that the character screen showed up a rather low damage value. That's due to a bug in the character screen for which probably its +dmg is added after applying off-weapon %ed. Is that fixed in D2R?
No its not fixed
I formed a BotD for my Zerg Barb on an Eth Berserker Axe, and the damage was good. Then I formed a Grief on a Phase Blade, and the damage just went through the roof. I wasn't 3 shotting the mobs anymore, I was literally one-shotting everything! Not to mention the Ignore Target Defense, which means you don't need attack rating at all versus almost all mobs. This weapon is nuts for just a single Lo rune...
Yeah I wish I just waited on making botd to get grief sooner.
Which armor do you combine with grief on your zerk barb? Im currently running with trechary for the ias, but I hear mr Lama mention fortitude... is that a much better option?
@@jakoblarsen8505 do something cheap like treachery or duress, you can get fort later obviously as it's another lo rune.
seems to me like they knew what they were doing when they created Grief... they created a equalizer for players and of course players that hated the idea gave a lot of... grief.
Even with that weapon, physical builds do less damage than elemental/magic damage builds except for one specific situation: crushing blow on bosses. I'm annoyed when people complain about how strong grief is because yes, it's better than other melee weapons, but that's how strong it needs to be for melee to be relevant.
Despite how strong grief is, most melee builds are extremely inefficient compared to casters when it comes to high density clearing, especially at high player count.
I'm a little worried when llama sends this type of message because a nerf to grief would put melee builds in an even worse spot than they currently are.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but that’s more a problem with the base design of melee. Personally I’m fine with both grief and how melee/casters work, as it sort of gives them a niche. Melee are the boss slayers while the casters are the add killers. Simply a difference in huge single target to big aoe.
Casters win out 99% of content because sorceress exists and getting to bosses is a large portion of the boss killing grind.
@@johnathanwright5216 and the craziest part is besides ubers, casters are arguably better boss killers than any melee. For example the javazon can destroy P8 baal faster than a fully geared smiter. Some sorc builds are also extremely fast boss killers with static field + infinity, and the hammerdin destroys P8 diablo at least as fast as melee characters do - with proper hammer positionning pre spawn he can kill him in a few seconds.
My favorite class is barb but I've played a ton of paladin, sorc and zon. His strong points are everything but his damage. FCR breakpoints, vita scaling, dual wield, find item, BO without CTA, and other minor stuff like howl. He specializes in P1 difficulty, because he has amazing tools but his damage is simply underwhelming even with grief. The only areas where he can be efficient at high player count are stuff like key running and P8 chaos seal popping, because he's skipping all the mobs and stacking crushing blow to kill a single target reasonably fast.
Nerfing grief would need to be balanced out with a big buff to melee damage in general, which would require big changes to the game, beyond the scope of a remaster imo. I have a few solutions in mind but I'd prefer if D2 balance was left untouched. That's another debate but I have strong arguments against balance updates for diablo 2.
@@suddenzenith5186 Just curious what the arguments against melee balance would be? I agree with all your points. I think Project Diablo 2 really did a good job of rebalancing without huge spikes in changes or feel. Barb is one of my faves too, and each new barb I make I'm reminded of the pain in killing mobs in Hell diff without godly gear.
Easiest fix for this misunderstanding would be if the game displayed the +400 damage on the base weapon. If people saw a Berserker Axe with 424-471 damage they'd shit a brick. That's a huge increase in average damage over even a perfectly rolled Ethereal Berserker axe with Cruel Masters Mechanics, quickness transcendence slaughter w/ two Ohm runes in it... so 550% enhanced damage on an Ethereal.
I thought that too, but the +Damage modifier adds also to Smite Damage, so it would not be the same. Anyway, it's still silly.
Lama if you see; Your thoughts on dual wield grief on the standard barbs frenzy/ww, or 1 grief + something else? Always went with dual grief for the most part.
If something needs to be removed, that is Spirit. It's sad how many items became obsolete because of it
The shield is used for end game. But the sword is only for mid game
just balanced... thsi thigns all need a little nerf
I think it would be okay if they just added some new uniques to compete with it. And maybe some new crafting recipes or rare affixes.
Dropped a chromatic ire the other day...
S tier staff but against an occy + spirit ? Meh.
Grief and spirit are way too cheap for what they do
Just throw a zod into the runeword to increase the level lmao
Definitely don't nerf or remove Grief. Yes it is OP but this runeword is the single reason why there are still viable melee builds existing out there. D2 is already a caster game, and nerfing Grief will basically make melee builds practically unplayable. The best solution is to buff other melee weapons so melee builds can have more high-end melee weapon choices other than Grief
That's simply not true. My fury druid with Ribcracker is a beast.
they just need to put a cooldown on teleport.
@@NauticalPhoenix eth upgraded ribcracker is the sickest item in d2 and nobody is gonna convince me otherwise lol
I did not forget to like and subscribe. Thank you for clarifying the effects of grief.
Hear me out though... Colossus sword is avg damage 91, BOTD gives up to 400% ED... so on an ETH BOTD Colossus Sword:
(91*1.5) * 5 = 682.5 avg base weapon damage, which is a lot more than that 431-435 on grief, right? not to mention all the other nice things that come with botd.
I've never tried this but it does seem like a LOT more damage than a grief.
yes i know 2-handers aren't exactly meta, just curious if I'm wrong on the math here.
Well maybe you can just translate it in to enhanced damage so people can understand.
Like in that picture, you phase blade has ~30 average base damage, so +370 damage will be equals to 1200% enhanced damage, that simple.
His Professor probably told him to show his working out.
Some asshole dev made this runeword on purpose to fk the game up. That's how they hid the ridiculous %ED. Just made it look like a simple damage addition calculated at the end when it's actually added to the weapons base damage.
@@brandish4952 Seems more likely that it was a dev who had no idea how the calculation worked and just made up random stats lol.
@@dandymcgee I thought that too
dude, my fury druid is lv75 and can't even farm in hell while my 73 frost mage who didn't even got spirit shield soloed hell baal already
if they can't give melee a good starting nor middle game, at least let them keep the endgame
if they nerf grief they better nerf frost too
No PvM build is strong with melee unless you are running Ubers. AoE elemental and magic are just too powerful and they even work just as well on bosses for the most part.
If they nerf frost they have to nerf cold immunes too. Otherwise, no way !
fury druid xD
Get some crushing blow on your druid and it will probably be faster than sorc
@@adamconte3906 I got my ribcracker and I barely made it out through act 1
while my mage just spam her lv22 frost orb and ggez
or should I farm a ethereal one and place a zod on it?
I Think the only way to make "tweaks" to the game without entering a slippery slope would be adding a simple thing like only allowing 1 of each runeword equipped, forcing people to not use 2 spirits & 2 Griefs and creating other interesting combinations.
Not many builds uses two copies of the same runeword.
Is there some trading site or discord or anything for this game or not?
Its as simple as this:
- A perfect eth 415ed/53ar botd ba berserker axe has: 185 to 545 dmg.
(185+545)/2 = 365 average dmg.
- A antiperfect 350dmg grief pb has:
(30+35)/2 + 350 = 382,5 average dmg. As well as 20% deadly strike, and the ignore defense and -25% defense of enemy (which is half in pvp).
If grief was a perf 15ed/3ar/400/40 berserker axe it would be:
(27+81)/2 + 400 = 454 average dmg.
Base dmg ofc scales with other enhanced dmg multipliers like:
Skills, statbonus, auras and offhand ed%.
(AllMinDmg + AllMaxDmg)/2 + (1+((Skillbonus+Statbonus+AuraBonus+GearEnhancedDmg+DmgToUndead-demon)/100)) * (0,17 if pvp) * (1-(EnemyDamageReduction%/100)) - EnemyDirectDr - MdrOverFlow
If curse such as amplify dmg (-100% enemy DR) or Decrepificy (-50% DR) u just add this in the EnemyDamageReduction section.
Not to mention grief adds dmg to undead as well.
Its also worth mentioning that grief dont add to kicks of assassin, neither does deadly strike or dmg to undead/demon.
Only wolf of bear May benefit from other wepons due to the way their attack speed are set, as well as their big bonus to polearm attack speed.
On my pvp wolf i use botd ba over grief pb, both has same ias breakpoint, but i need the +2 rangeadder from ba, and the 30stats for life more, as rabies is better.
If they remove grief they gotta buff melee builds in some other way. Maybe make CB scale with player count.
Yea… buff a bvc, how could that possibly go wrong….
@@lucrative6477 huh?
@@mattmichael3310 he's a PvP player. BvC = Barb v Caster. Anyone seriously thinking they should remotely balance D2R around PvP is silly, given 10% of the playerbase or less have any real interest in it. Likely sub-5%
@@rathenn6959 that's what I assumed. But what I suggested only affects PvM.... as far as I know player count has no impact on PvP.
Thanks for great content MrLlama! It's been a while since my last adventure in vanilla Diablo2, good to have a channel like this to relearn stuff long forgotten.
Is Phase Blade the best base item for it, or are there any alternatives? Gotta know what to look for when farming.;)
PB is the best because of the attack speed of the weapon plus the fact that it’s indestructible
Intro to your videos is so good. Love the content
I find that Grief underperforms on 8 player compared to Death and Last Wish, sure your 'flat' damage is much higher, but ultimately crushing blow is more consistent and Grief forces you to use G-Face instead of Crown of Ages or Andys for +35% speed. Even my Tesladin with stormlash will outperform Grief in clear speed, that some extra 100X800% damage is nothing when you casting static on 20 enemies in 8 player, and the lightning damage alone is 8 times higher than physical damage with -100%. Best on paper, but technically not the most practical.
I agree. LW CB is insane against bosses where Grief wins vs mobs. Which was evident when killing bosses for torches. Duriel is destroyed by LW.
Last Wish is one of my fav Runewords but it better should be as it‘s stupidly expensive😂
but, why would you "last wish" a phase blade on a barbarian when you could put it in a colossus sword??
Barb merc do more damage with a 1 handed weapon.
Any Runeword in PB could be used by far more chars hence it is easier to trade away when not needed anymore or w/e kind of reason. Also PB do not have durability so it won't break, so no repaircost, and no breaking midfight.
Lower str requirement but higher dex. The average damage for one-hand use it is like 15 more for Colossus Sword but being much more slower.
Also (even if it's counterproductive to use two different weapon types) PB can be used with Beast RW.
But: if you really want to build a Barb with Swords and really like the Last Wish then go for a Colossus Sword and Sword Mastery. Either you use it as an one-hand or two-hand, just play the game as you like. Same counts towards Grief.
Edit: just got noticed that Colossus Sword have a max sox of 5, so good luck with building LW with it :D. Colossus Blade on the other hand has 6 sox and is a little bit faster and little less average dmg.
PB doesn’t have durability. Slightly smaller damage with no repair cost.
So that other characters can use it. It's so hard to make, you aren't going to make one for each character
Guys we might got r/wooosh'd. Colossus Sword does not have 6 sox hence it can't be Last Wish.
Colossus Blade is the 6sox base then.
I just started playing again since Resurrected was released but when I used to play 10+ years ago Grief was still OP because of the +damage.
True, but you had to make it with a Ladder character or else trade for it after the ladder which would drive the price up. Still doesn't balance it but it did make it a bit tougher to get.
Last wish also has CB so isn't that arguably better for say, an uber smiter?
You can get like 70% CB from other sources
The thing is, melee is still less good than caster, so it doesn't need a nerf.
Barbs need to be buffed bad in terms of damage output
@@dawdaw_ nah barbs are fine. You can easily get a 20k damage ww with the right gear.
@@digitalsimulacrum9259 just need a mal pul lum to make a decent melee character.
@@digitalsimulacrum9259 just a fort and a pride merc
i made my first grief last night and rolled 397 damage and 40% AS. Needless to say I'm pretty pumped, especially after watching this vid. Ubers wont stand a chance >:}
For a smiter, the attack speed buff doesn't actually matter.
That being said, you need a 6% increase to attack (might be 8?) to hit the next break point. Just being in a phase blade gets you to the second highest.
a phaseblade and an ias jewel in the helm will cap you out. need one attack speed item somewhere. you notice the difference if you don't run 20ias on gloves or one 15ias jewel. i like draculs and ias jewel in a gface. can also use the gloves that gives 350% demon dps, but you need a lifetap wand then.
@@AwesomePossum1987 noted. i have plenty of the jewels and a life tap wand so could sacrifice dracs for the demon damage and socket my gface. not a bad idea to speed things up.
@@AwesomePossum1987 But the Bonus dmg to demons dont aply when you use Smite
@@Ryujin1980 are you sure? it gives damage when you have % damage on armor. Like fortitude gives. I thought the % damage to demons would not work if it was on a weapon but it does work on gloves???
I dunno 100% though, i might just be wrong.
Can you please make a video comparison of grief, botd, death, lw, and beast (maybe for wolf, frenzy, zealer) …thank you so much:)
Anyone else notice teleport is way different than in the past?
You used to be able to hold the mouse off the edge of the screen and it would bring you as close as to where you were clicking as possible.
Now if you cast off the edge of a tile it just won't teleport you at all. Completely changes sorc play (for me at least)
That issue combined with the fact that mousing over any object will stop you mid teleport has really made it feel clunky.
This is because of the increased screen ratio. In beta it was like you described and it was really broken.
@@Oddigan pretty sure this had always been a thing, at least with monsters. That's why you hold alt while teleporting.
@@Stavroization It wasn't a problem with monsters, I don't think I've experienced that.
Turns out I falsely remembered legacy d2 teleporting you as close as possible to a container/breakable/door when you moused over it. Instead, it just never allowed you to teleport. Had wrist pains awhile ago so I lost the habit of wiggling my cursor while teleporting to prevent this from happening.
@@Stavroization it feels pretty broken now, i wouldn't mind if they put a max distance you can teleport in one shot. It's just really terrible when you think you're about to get away from a monster mob but you just hang out for a couple extra casts
Holy fuck I forgot how expensive Last Wish is. And it's not even the best on top of that.
Very expensive lol
You don't like Grief, but you can't live without Enigma...
yep
and static field
Enigma is annoying. Teleport is so strong in this game that not having it just feels bad. Sorc gets huge advantage just for having the skill
He has complained in the past about Enigma too, especially compared to the rarity of things like Tyrael's Might, but runewords (even others like Fort and CoH) just blow it out of the water.
Fuck tyreals might. Rarity should not equate 1:1 with how good it is. In fact, having the most rare item in the game be BIS would suck since no one would ever get to use it
Pretty sure he doesn't like many of the rune words. Not necessarily because they're so op but because they completely negate ones ability to use other items. I.e. every caster uses hoto with a spirit shield.
One correction to the simplified version: It's (A(B+1)+C)(D+1)
When it says 'enhanced damage' it is +x%. So, to the base you must add it the x%. So it's 100% (the base) + x%, that makes it (100+x)% or simply (1+x) times.
Man you churning out videos. Love em! Just found you but these are so awesome.
The annoying thing about Grief is that your damage is not displayed. So you don't know the damage you do and you can't compare it. You just "know" that you do a lot but how much exactly you can't be sure. I hoped they would fix this in D2R because frankly it's stupid to not show it.
Uh, he didn't even explain it lol. %ED is still the same as +damage in the formula, they both get multiplied by all your other %ED on gear. It's just +400 damage to a one hander is unreal compared to any other option. No one hander has that kind of damage, whether grief had +damage or %ED to get that crazy damage, it doesn't matter.
Thanks for the tip (or shall I say - dark secret X) Easy detail to miss - really good tip / explanation.
Hey Lama, very informative content! Do you have any thought on hybrid smiter/zeal?
just put on grief and there's no difference. Grief auto-enables both skills.
@@michaelbellamy5861 I mean skill point distribution wise, do I split remaining skill points for Zeal and Sacrifice?
It’s always cute when people argue something is better than Grief for physical melee builds
Kick Sin.
last wish? i played, but i played odd builds. rift walker, Hunter, dt barb
My Perf Sup EBotd is better for my Zealer... for me, and my character and my build, buuut that doesn't at all mean Grief isn't flat out better, it just means its better for and too me, and a lot of people don't realize that, they will just flat ignore facts to think that their opinions and feelings are pure fact, but def not in a lot of cases
Whirlwind Barbarian drops about 10% DPS changing from a second perfect Grief over to an eBotD, but gains 15% life steal, 7% mana steal, utilitizes the -% poison res from Grief for the Poison Novas from eBotD as well. I happily trade 118k damage for 108k with a lot more sustain. eBotD gives + vs undead instead of demons, which is really nice in areas like The Pit or Ancient Tunnels.
@@Thelonous Agreed, plus, EBotd imo, is the most awesome melee wep runeword, not necessarily damage, just in general
Runewords really screwed up the drops in D2
It was just a casino, now it's a casino with slot machines.
D2 classic is still a option
Only if you care about them. The solution stares people in the face - if you don't care what others think and don't play to compete online, just ignore runewords (or at least the blatantly OP ones). I do that and just enjoy the cool uniques that drop. The game was not designed for people to rush through /p8 content with ease and is perfectly playable without runewords. Hard to explain to irredeemable min-maxers though.
This is exactly why I hate 90% of runewords... they just make EVERYTHING obsolete.
it's not just grief, it's a lot of other runewords and balacing choices that crap all over the rest
Now do Enigma lol
"Teleport"
[end video]
For hitting with the weapon, the minimum that LW on your barb would hit is 435 (ED + lvl 17 Might). Grief is 402 (31+371). LW hits harder. Then you have to factor in CB vs -25% target defense. It isn't as clear which is better.
So, my barb is out of this world now with a grief and a rare champion sword. The rare got 260-310dps total, 270ed, 150flat ar, 189% more ed to demons, 176 more ar to demons, 5 life leetch. It's insane when i add grief and the +350% demons dps gloves. The damage is out of this world to demons and prob higher than any other character
And then hammerdin say hi ;)
Hmm, the real reason Grief is so strong is because the +damage is added to both the max AND the min weapon damage, so the average damage is much higher.
That's the cherry on the top, exactly.
Think about what you just said. Yes, raising the minimum damage raises the average damage, but so does raising the maximum damage. Grief does both to an incredible degree. Your comment is like saying, "the real reason 3 + 4 is larger than 1 + 2 is because you add 2 to the first number!" Yeah, mate. And also because you add 2 to the second number. That's how basic math works :P
The problem isnt Grief, it's melee. I watch javazons sorcerous poison necros obliterate whole zones in minutes sometimes without even getting hit. Don't nerf grief, fix melee.
You are right indeed, thats why i really liked Project Diablo, where they add some AoE to melee attacks and nerfed some of the OP weapons. Grief got toned down but is still a solid weapon there.
Yeah I mean D2R have you tried melee? I don't advise it. You will get desynced all over the place and even using whirlwind half the time your character stands still then teleports a second after it's finished... Really poorly handled so far. Then again they can't keep the servers up it seems
Finally someone with a brain. Llama cries about Grief but plays the most OP class in the game that doesn't even need items lol what an irony...
What makes grief a power house is actually the ignore target defense. I play frenzy barb and have thoroughly tested every single weapon combination, and by far the best weapon in the game should be Death, but due to the lack of ignore target defense it misses so much and feels lackluster. Death+g-face+gore rider+highlords gives you 100% crushing blow and 100% critical strike. No other weapon can achieve double 100%. Best weapon combo is grief+lawbringer over dual grief.
Ok. Let me get this. Does it mean that the "adds damage" modifier is comparably strong? Does that mean that azurewrath which adds +250-500 magic and +250-500 cold damage is better? That's not true at all in everyone's experience. I'm really confused why, though.
I absolutely love the depth of D2 items. Grief has always sat on top of the mountain but we true long time players know.. it's the best, but it's not.. the best.
know what i mean?
Love you Llama.
Care to explain why grief is not the best? I think I might know some of the answer - for two-handers it's really not that good. Also beast is a thing, but is there something else I'm not aware of?
@@realitycheck908 You mean something that drops with godly mods like fools and cruel and eth + self-repair, etc. Will it really be better tho I wonder... Also an axe like that probably dropped in the history of diablo 2 like twice.
pre 1.10 Fury Balrog blade was best for a 1 handed barbarian in pvp
Enigma is the definition of unbalanced, best in slot for almost everything except sorceress.
Even sorc can use it sometimes xD
i wouldn't put it on my barbarian unless i'm travelling and throwing my fortitude on my merc
funny thing, Eni is bis for soso too. 2 skill , mf and str for that monarch goes from eni so u get a huge chunk of stats for life or mana if es + max life + % dmg reduction, its sick.
I think even an enchant Melee Sorc with some lightning skills and dual dream runeword would murder things.
Ehh i dunno, i feel that barbs have a bettet bis armor
I don't get it.
So assuming the formula Llama presents: ((A*B)+C)*D
A = (31+35)/2
B = 1 in the case of grief
C = 371
D = 300 (we assume the character is using fortitude armor and nothing else)
Grief damage comes out to the following: ((33*1)+371)*300 = 121.200
Instead we hypothetically assume that Grief added 371% ED instead of +damage, we get the following outcome: ((33*371)+0)*300 = 3.672.900
I obviously don't understand why the + damage is superior to %ED, what am I getting wrong here.
I guess it's due to the fact that 371% ED on the weapon falls under the category of D and not B, even though it's explicated as "the enhanced damage from the rest of your gear NOT the weapon".
thanks for the video and explanation again !! i can understand the statement and the fact that as a "purist" this grief destroy any other item but the point is diablo 2 in general is hard and diablo 2 is extremely hard for melee character its why having a way to have a very good weapon quite easily for some little bit more casual players is "ok" . it would be much problematic if that powerfull runeword would exist for casters (no hoto is not as strong for caster as grief is for melee)
and honestly while ur waiting for the Lo rune(and the 5 sockets phase blade) especially if ur solo self found it will take enough time that u can enjoy ur find along the way
I'm of the mindset that games should not be geared for the casual players. Top end gear should always be the hardest to obtain and the most prized. Thats the allure of a game like D2.
You could say that enigma ruined things the way grief did. Tired of seeing builds with enigma.
Bye Felicia
Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
The choice is your, don't be late
Take a rest as a friend as an old memoria
Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach
As I want you to be
Is this for hammerdin too or frostsorc? Or just for barb?
You say any melee but everyone tells me Werewolf Druid doesn't play by the normal rules. Would you recommend it for Werewolf Druid over say Ribcracker or Tomb Reaver?
Runewords quite literally ruined the game
depend which class u play. Its broken design where 1 class can naked farm hell and other one strugless forever in nightmare ie. pala and sorc vs barb.
@@tomtomasz9798 No it doesn't. Runewords in general have completely nullified 99% of unique weapons and armor, sets and gems etc. The only thing worth picking up now almost are runes. Its ruined what diablo is about, period.
This video alone proves it. Look at Enigma. The only class not wearing enigma is sorc.
@@OrphanCrippler1 99% of uniques and set were trash before runewords came out. Not to mention all of the duped and hacked items available back in the day. Call grief op as I have lvl 70 nova on my sorc.
@@lucrative6477 Crappy attempt at justification.
@@OrphanCrippler1 kinda but kinda not, even without runewords like he said 99% of them will be useless. The same uniques being used now will continue to be used and people will move back to rares for a lot of other items
Grief, Spirit... or how to totally break a game balance. I would have been so happy if they had rebalanced game in D2R.
Fix teleport...
@@sixmillionsilencedaccounts3517 agree. With a consistent time delay between cast for exemple.
Hello my friend can i have a question? Grief is good u say but, what about VS my dual DJINN SLAYER ATHAGAN is base weapon in game is unique and stats, 83-148 damage, +215% ED, +144% damage to demons, +262 attack rating against demons, ADDS 250-500 FIRE DAMAGE. so my question is: this 500 fire damage is better like grief 400 damage no? So that adds 500 fire damage is too before pecentuage damage and its too on hand damage? So fortitude or laying of hands upgrade % this 500 fire damage too? So this djinn slayer athagan is betterl than grief? Thanx for answer
So based on this grief only surpasses the ave damage of other weapons, but not the max. So to “fix” grief they could change the added to added max
Then they’re free to buff base damage of all weapons so that melee has a variety of options
Edit: or they could greatly buff the min damage of other bases to bring those weapons to griefs level which accomplishes a similar goal without power creep
"Let's remove grief", they said... "Let's remove mana potions from vendors", they didn't said...
The damage from Grief is... insane? That definitely seems like it should be nerfed a lot, especially for the cost to make it which is next to nothing. I hope that Blizzard considers doing updates to the game. Just add a new version to select like they did with adding a vanilla D2 option to resurrected. There's so much opportunity to expand and change this game in amazing ways that would be equivalent to editing a text document. lol
Is the +damage direct damage? Or does it scale with synergy's? I'd it saying it adds that damage to weapon base damage or is it direct?
What place u use for trading in d2?
Careful with these videos, man! Next thing you know they will decide to nerf our sweet Grief 0_0
The intro is him saying it is one of his least favorite runewords because it is op
@@McBurgle All the more reason for Blizz to nerf it! Let's not please XD
I'll take a nerf to BS runewords if they balance melee , every day of the week.
@@visbaluz Yes I really think they should make a splash damage jewel like in PD2. Melee's only problem is AOE, they just can't stand up to spell caster builds.
I would take a huge nerf to Grief any day. If you nerf Grief you realise that suddenlt you can run like maybe a dozen different setups that all kickass. Take a Frenzy barb. BOTD, Beast, Doom, Death, Death Cleaver, Schaefers, Stonecrusher, Stormlash, Astreons, Grandfather, Kingslayer, Oath, Runemaster (eth 5soc), Last Wish, Rare ethereal weapons etc.
You'd still have a best setup but currently Grief dumps on all these setups, and they all kickass. You can solo Ubers with Schaefers + Stonecrusher combo and static field procs can take phys immunes to 50% HP in an instant, but those weapons are considered worthless because Grief is relatively cheap and so much stronger than anything else. BOTD was the king, but only by a small margin, when Grief came along it left everything else in the trash.
So im all for nerfing Grief, hope they do for the ladder.
For anyone who sees this, though. You do *not* need to spend a Lo rune and use Grief to comfortably do any Ubers (I know Llama isn't saying you do). I use an Oath, far cheaper, and do not die with the standard smiter setup. Super clean full uber clears. Grief is best, but far from necessary. For any other character/purpose however yeah go get one.
I made my first Grief but dont know what build to use on it lol, gonna level something up to put it on - suggestions?
Man this vid comes out today, im missing a Lo rune, bam..Lo rune, and my first Grief ever.
Also got my first Jah ever the other day while watching some of your streams and grinding some D2R.
Llama luck is real. Lmao
Now I refuse to go farming / mfing without some of ur content on in the background 🤣🤣🤣
Shhhh .dont tell them the trick !!😂
@@redakumaproduction Damn your right. Im gonna crash the D2R trading market prices with this info....🤦♂️.
Lets keep it between us 😳 lol.
I'm playing WW barb right now. Should I dual welding it and how stong it's gonna be? Thanks
Thank you very much for the explanation!!!
Well thank you for venting! Glad I could be an ear!
Don't forget the lvl 17 might aura of the second formula. It ain't only the flat damage dealt, might aura probably doubles it.
does the might aura from last wish apply to the act 3 merc? because if it did, that would be pretty awesome.