Grief: Why is it so good?

Here's a topic title that if taken out of context, would be very strange indeed. Anyway, obviously we know a Grief

Phase Blade is basically the best 1-handed weapon in the game, even better than many 2-handed weapons. I understand that the +3-400 damage on it is taken into account before many other things in the game, thus making it even better. My question is, how is it better than something like

Baranar's Star,

Azurewrath, etc, that stack multiple elements of damage totaling far more than Grief? For example, my

Azurewrath is 114-129 One-Hand Damage, 250-500 Magic Damage and 250-500 Cold Damage. Is it simply because Grief's damage is calculated before all other damage?

It is so easy to multiple the flat 340-400 physical damage:
1% each str
skill bonus
aura (might/fana)
40%ED Jewel

For element damage, you are limited to 5/5 facet and some runeword/unique times

I think another thing to consider is that there are a lot of harder hitting elemental options, but there are few baseline physically immune monsters. What good is 10K fire damage with all the fire immune monsters (without a sunder charm, of course)? There is also the "prevent monster heal", which isn't trivial fighting bosses or Stone skin elites.

In a VERY simplified form, damage output is calculated as such:
((AB)+C)D
A is weapon base damage
B is the enhanced damage on your weapon
C is the +min/+max damage (this is where Grief's flat damage is calculated)
D is the enhanced damage from the rest of your gear and skills, not the weapon
Remember your order of operations.

So, a perfect rolled Grief will have an effective damage of 431-435 BEFORE all your stat points, skills, auras, gear enhanced damage, crushing blow, deadly strike, added elemental damage, etc is calculated.
Tangentially, this is why those 3/20/x small charms are so good. Their +3 dmg gets calculated in 'C', exactly where Grief's damage is calculated.
A perfect rolled Last Wish will have an (AB)+C value of 116-131.
The math just doesn't lie.

Leaker416 wrote: 5 months ago

I think another thing to consider is that there are a lot of harder hitting elemental options, but there are few baseline physically immune monsters. What good is 10K fire damage with all the fire immune monsters (without a sunder charm, of course)? There is also the "prevent monster heal", which isn't trivial fighting bosses or Stone skin elites.

Prevent Monster Heal does not work on bosses, but the -25% to Target's defense does, another reason why Grief is just SO GOOD. Plus the fact you get it for the low price of one

Lo rune. Compared to Last Wish, which is 3

Jah, 1

Ber, 1

Sur, and 1

Mal....just can't compare.

just try to play with high level

Enchant for yourself and youll see how much actually theese big elemental numbers worth, with no ED and all the res to

Pierce through

This video by Mr. LlamaSC breaks down how damage is calculated and why Grief is so good *cough* broken? *cough*
Start at 2:13 to ignore the fluff.

I just wanted to give a few practical examples so I'll be adding them as I make them in maxroll.

Disclaimer, I made these characters very quickly. They are not to be taken as the best geared or stated examples of these builds.

Starting with a

Zeal paladin: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/ds530ep4

Azurewrath gives us 14,530 DPS. Pretty good. But then we switch the weapons to Grief and we get 48,919. Absurd in comparison. That flat 300 damage get amplified by the skills so much.

Zeal Barbarian: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/q75h0efw
Dual

Azurewrath gives us 12,327 DPS.
Dual Grief is 36,419

IMO, the flat damage is the main thing, and everything else is icing on the cake that makes it absurd. Fast attack speed, ignore target defense, reduce target defense, everything else just takes it to the next level.

Edit. I forgot about how the damage is added to

Smite.

When you make a smiter

Azurewrath doesn't add any of its magic or elemental damage, however the physical is added.

Smite with

Azurewrath is 6,185

Smite with Grief is 26,803
And ho boy - you feel that when you're smiting

Diablo Clone with and without Grief lol

Sorry guys, i need to jump in here on the damage effectiveness accuracy.

Grief’s physical damage is so effective because the +damage applies regardless of the weapon’s base damage spread.

A

Phase Blade’s base damage is what 31-35, so regardless if the hit is on the lower side or high side the damage output will range from 431-435, then all the +% damage from off weapon ed, skills, ect

This effectiveness happens at the same “time” as on weapon ed (from an order of operations stand-point), but ed is multiplicative, not additive.

So for on weapon ed like an ebotd (in anything other than a

Phase Blade) has a much wider spread for the base damage. Say 36-106 base damage, then +400% ed, giving it 180-530 damage, then all the +% from off weapons, skills, ect. An ebotd

Berserker Axe has better max damage, but way lower min damage, giving it’s average damage output as 355 compared to 433 of

Phase Blade Grief.

I think we should stop saying +damage applies first, when that’s not really true. +damage is additive equally to both max and min damage, while on +weapon ed% is multiplicative to both max and min damage.

Edit: you could say +damage is applied before +Ed% if the weapon has both - but Grief does not

Hope i explained that clearly!

Good point nate!

Nate2.0 wrote: 5 months ago

I think we should stop saying +damage applies first, when that’s not really true. +damage is additive equally to both max and min damage, while on +weapon ed% is multiplicative to both max and min damage.

Generally, the "+dmg applies first" statements (correctly) describe the fact that the +dmg on Grief is added directly to the base weapon damage (or

Smite damage or whathaveyou) 'first', i.e. before any %ed from Fortitude, auras, skills, stats and all that jazz.

That's a very critical point as to why it is so good. If +dmg didn't come first (i.e. before any other %ed) and it merely added a flat 400 dmg to the final numbers, it'd be kinda bad.

Though yeah, the other part making it so insanely good is indeed the simple fact that the +dmg equally applies to both, min and max. There's plenty of weapon choices that beat Grief in terms of max damage. But very, VERY few (and only in certain build combinations) that can beat it in terms of average damage, let alone min damage.

Very interesting indeed. I know some of the crazy hidden stats behind this game, but that I did not know. It's almost hard to believe that Blizz even created a rune word with this +damage stat that has so many broken qualities. My question then is, what's the point of these other massively expensive rune words like BOTD, Last Wish, etc? I suppose they're just novelty items for the bored or rich. I felt this way about Fortitude and to a limited extent, Enigma as well. Why would I want to go for anything else when I can grab a

Lo rune and make either Fort or Grief relatively easily? Enigma is a bit tougher, but still not as bad as many. Thanks to all for the Insight, it is appreciated.

I'll let other wealthier players chime in on EBOTD and Last Wish. But you might find these videos interesting to give some history and comparison of runewords and uniques through the game.

vectorViridian wrote: 5 months ago

Very interesting indeed. I know some of the crazy hidden stats behind this game, but that I did not know. It's almost hard to believe that Blizz even created a rune word with this +damage stat that has so many broken qualities. My question then is, what's the point of these other massively expensive rune words like BOTD, Last Wish, etc? I suppose they're just novelty items for the bored or rich. I felt this way about Fortitude and to a limited extent, Enigma as well. Why would I want to go for anything else when I can grab a

Lo rune and make either Fort or Grief relatively easily? Enigma is a bit tougher, but still not as bad as many. Thanks to all for the Insight, it is appreciated.

They still have their uses. Some pair Last Wish with Grief (instead of dual Grief) for the QoL aspect. LW definitely helps with survivability. The Merc on my GF barb uses LW/Grief precisely for that survivability aspect. As long as Wagluf doesn't get stuck behind a wall, he pretty much can't die.

Frenzy with LW will cause

Fade and

Life Tap to proc pretty much constantly.

BoTD also has dual leech, and 30 all attributes. Neither LW nor Grief have either of those things.

Then you also have folks, myself included, that are just so sick of using Grief for everything that we use other things JUST for the variety! I'm so fed up with always using A2 Mercs that when I made my gold find barb I went with something else, even if it was worse. And I've loved my tends-to-die-when-he-gets-stuck-behind-walls-in-

Travincal Wagluf, since the moment I equipped him and that first

Frenzy went off. He was so cute running around like a chicken with his head cut off.

Yea, sorry got a little excited there. Much respect to Mr llamasc but in his vid he didn’t go into the details as much as i expected he would. but he did lay everything out for the viewer to take the last few steps.

D2r is such a complicated game!

There’s still some melee builds where Grief isn’t best in slot - anything elemental (for a

Vengeance paladin Grief straight up doesn’t work), or if you’re looking for a specific effect from a runeword (Doom, Crescent Moon) or chance to cast, also once you start getting into the big 2-handers the +%ed starts to overtake Grief.

a well rolled astreon’s iron

Ward is arguably better for a smiter than Grief. For an act 5 mercs some say an

Eth upped

Headstriker with an

Ohm or 40/15 is better than Grief.

I’d probably be in the BOTD and Last Wish are more trophy/speciality uses - but they are still fun! (I can’t wait to find an

Eth Berzerker

Axe to make it into a botd!)

Some PVP leagues don’t allow Grief on melee chars because it’s so OP.

Yeah GM Melee Bans pretty much every runeword weapon outside of botd, and any rare or unique with: Any weapon with poison damage
Any weapon with more than 200 total elemental damage
Any weapon that casts an elemental damage over Level 5
Any weapon that casts amplify curses ( same with any armor )
Any poison on gear

I personally Lament Grief myself though I do use it along with others to mix things up.

That first video is very interesting and I must agree, Grief, Spirit, Enigma, Insight and Infinity are simply too good. Although I don't think rune words should be abolished or something, I do agree with Llama's assessment of removing the

Teleport from Enigma. I also believe that Spirit and Insight are simply too good for what they cost, which is essentially the item you will put the runes into. And finally, Grief being basically the best 1-hander and even better than many 2-handers is a bit silly as well. Not that this will happen, but they could nerf these in some way and I wouldn't complain.

Try playing offline, or going ssf… you might change your mind!

Nate2.0 wrote: 5 months ago

Try playing offline, or going ssf… you might change your mind!

Although I totally understand why people do this, I can't, as to me a huge part of the D2 experience is other players and the social/trading aspects. The game would not be nearly the same to me without that.

Nate2.0 wrote: 5 months ago

Try playing offline, or going ssf… you might change your mind!

Oh I have done ssf both the the very first days before the expansion and early expansion too and I get that Grief feels like a godsend if you can make it, but that causes you to flat ignore all of the other drops, and we already have a "one ring" in the soj and a "one class" in the hdin but making that for the melee category is a hard pass for me personally Grief kind of feels like a band-aid fix for melee. I loved the old school rare weapons and actually still use some on some of my expansion builds even though I know there not bis technically. Im personally partial to flails as a real weapon type (and not just because I'm also a castlevania fan but that doesn't hurt either) and you cant say this little guy isnt sexy:

Melee in general though needs a LOT of dev-love. I tried out a

Werebear druid with

Maul (pure melee) went through all the hassles to get him leveled up (still went elemental for the level-ups because melee level ups are a snooze fest first hint there)

I didnt get to far into playing him before I wondered why I was after the fact, I mean all I really had was a self-buffing normal melee attack, even the wolf has a worse

Zeal in Fury that's still better then this honestly. Fireclaws is a single target that can one shot monsters, and

Vengeance is a single target that can one shot monsters. Now if they were to add a something like a AOE hit to

Maul similar to a cleave effect, I think there would be more of a reason to make one outside of just the not interruptible which is nice but its not distinct enough it feels too cookie cutter as is. Plus thematic speaking its realistic too, if you think about it...If you were to get

Maul hit with something at that weight and mass and your in a group the fringes of it get away sure but everything in that 40 degree cones getting laid flat, and they need to make up the shockwave nerf anyway (I am still salty about that).