Patch 2.4 Grim Ward

Blizzard wrote:

• Radius baseline value increased
• Now also Slows and increases Damage Taken for nearby enemies
• Find Potion synergy added: +5% Damage Taken per level

...with “

Grim Ward”, we are adding a new functionality and synergy to give more reason to use the skill...

Does anybody actually use this skill post-2.4? Are there non-barbarian characters that want to be supported with

Grim Ward?

Although I spend >99.9% of my D2R time playing in public games, I don't recall ever seeing anyone use

Grim Ward. I've never once had another player ask me to cast

Grim Ward when I'm on my barbarian, but people will ask for other skills like

Battle Orders when it's not active on them.

I used it on my

Shout barb in tandem with my brother's bowazon, the -120% physical resistance would make his Multishot absolutely shred cows and stuff in Worldstone Keep.

I've also used it on my

Travincal barb when I was running them on /players3 (I've since switched to p1 since it's more efficient), it costs a corpse but allows you to kill the rest of the Council minions much faster.

If I make a throwbarb I'm sure I'll use it on him too, at least until I get

Lacerator.

DarkMaster wrote: 2 years ago

...the -120% physical resistance would...

While I haven't actually even tried

Grim Ward since 2.4, is it actually -physical resistance? Or -resistance in general? Or just +dmg?

-res would be pretty massive at 120% actually since that not only gives it more +dmg than something like amp dmg but it'd also take out phys immunes quite reliably. Even more so if it isn't only phys in which case it'd beat the hell out of Infinity and lower res and whatnot as well.

Though the fleeing aspect would still be annoying AF. And makes me wonder whether the +dmg/-res part would even affect mobs that can't be sent running (i.e. does it work on bosses?).

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

DarkMaster wrote: 2 years ago

...the -120% physical resistance would...

While I haven't actually even tried

Grim Ward since 2.4, is it actually -physical resistance? Or -resistance in general? Or just +dmg?

-res would be pretty massive at 120% actually since that not only gives it more +dmg than something like amp dmg but it'd also take out phys immunes quite reliably. Even more so if it isn't only phys in which case it'd beat the hell out of Infinity and lower res and whatnot as well.

Though the fleeing aspect would still be annoying AF. And makes me wonder whether the +dmg/-res part would even affect mobs that can't be sent running (i.e. does it work on bosses?).

It is indeed -physical resistance% (I've looked into skills.txt, it reduces the same "damageresist" stat as Amp Damage), it functions identically to Amp except it can't affect targets that can't be feared (so no champs/uniques/bosses/oblivion knights, etc.). It only affects physical resistance, that'd be nutso if it affected all resists haha.

The flee is somewhat annoying but at high

Grim Ward levels the enemies tend to be slow enough where you can attack them and put them into hit recovery before they get too far, at least that's my experience with

Frenzy and

Whirlwind.

War Cry also works fairly well since they'll be stunned of course.

The +enemy damage taken on

Grim Ward is actually -physical res so you can break physical immunity. But it is only 20% with +5% for every point in

Find Potion.
I use it with every barb I play since I always already have

Find Item and

Grim Ward is just one point then.

DarkMaster wrote: 2 years ago

except it can't affect targets that can't be feared

That's a shame.

Thanks all for the input. It's so unfortunate that the physical resistance reduction can't be applied to fear-immune monsters like uniques and bosses, because those are some of the targets where it would be the most impactful.