Gruthkul's Pelt: Remove 'Spell Skills Disabled' (or something)

I'm a big fan of the concept that Gruthkul's Pelt tries to follow. It's a decent defensive item (High HP/Regen) with a solid DPS boost at the cost of restricting you to attacks and disabling use of auras and heralds. It synergizes really well with Blood Magic and makes a lot of builds that sacrifice DPS for survivability feel pretty good.

But with a lot of these new changes in the past few patches, it's been pushed further and further into a state of uselessness.

The first time I felt this was with the introduction of banners and their classification as spells. While I'm not a huge fan of reserving life when it's my only form of EHP, the old mortal conviction meant it would only be 5% at worst, and with the Champion ascendancy it could actually be 0 and might be a viable addition to duelist builds. Being classified as spells however meant having to look elsewhere for the high regen and HP that Gruthkul's gives, and while that's not impossible by any means, it feels like banners are kind of meant to be used with a build that Gruthkul's would be meant to be played with.

And now with many of the new skills and how they've been introduced. When 'guard' skills were introduced I was under the impression they would be treated a bit like warcries when they received their changes (they're not 'spells' and can be used with Gruthkul's). I was pretty disheartened to see them still have the spell tag making them unusable. The same goes for the new movement skill, Dash, which can't be utilized since it's a spell.

Furthermore, the change to Mortal Conviction comes as a pure nerf. Without the 15% hp bonus, it's actually completely useless and leaves the build lacking in a big chunk of life it previously had available. Moreso than that it honestly just makes me really sad I can't use the new Pride aura, which seems pretty perfect for Gruthkul's type builds.

I understand that if you turn off 'spell skills disabled' people could easily just not take Blood Magic and end up stacking auras while gaining the 100% increased bonus from Gruthkul's, and maybe that would be too powerful, but let's be real, it's pretty much nothing compared to many of the offensive bonuses granted by other powerful combinations available right now in other ascendancies/parts of the tree. There could be other routes as well (make 'guard' skills available by removing spell but still triggering off of triggers etc.) but unless I'm wrong, the powercreep provided by just allowing auras with Gruthkul's wouldn't be such a game-changer that everyone and their mother would be using it.

+1

As I consider it, an idea comes to mind:

Why not remove "Spell Skills are Disabled"

And add "Mortal Conviction"

Now that Mortal Conviction doesn't provide 50% less reservation, this could make for some interesting interactions with attack builds. You're still limited to one aura, but you could also keep mana open (no Blood Magic) for use with heralds and banners.

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ToBeSomebody wrote:

with a solid DPS boost

The dps on the chest is dogshit, 100% increased physical damage is not that big of a deal compared to flat damage.

BTW it s spell counterpart got:

Divinity grants 20% increased character size, 50% more elemental damage, 20% less elemental damage taken, and immunity to curses.[1] Divinity duration cannot be modified.

like WTF, 100% inc damage is nothing compared to that.

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Head_Less wrote:

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ToBeSomebody wrote:

with a solid DPS boost

The dps on the chest is dogshit, 100% increased physical damage is not that big of a deal compared to flat damage.

BTW it s spell counterpart got:

Divinity grants 20% increased character size, 50% more elemental damage, 20% less elemental damage taken, and immunity to curses.[1] Divinity duration cannot be modified.

like WTF, 100% inc damage is nothing compared to that.

'Solid' as in 'clearly not the best.' Divinity is much more damage and the chest piece that provides it is much more rare. I'm not trying to argue that it gives the most damage; if anything, I appreciate the input as it lends more to my point about the drawbacks of Gruthkul's being too great.

It hasn't aged well, that's for sure. I think part of the reason for disabled spells is the life regen would make doing RF pretty easy. But with so many utility things being spells, there needs to be a better solution.

I think Gruthkul's Pelt should not prevent auras (or other mana reservation skills).

“Your spells do no damage” would seem more appropriate. Even add increased mana reserved if they wanna go that route.

Edit: I mean spells dealing no damage is sufficient since it’s already there.

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demon9675 wrote:

“Your spells do no damage” would seem more appropriate. Even add increased mana reserved if they wanna go that route.

That's the thing: That is already on there.

"Your spell skills deal no damage.
Your spells are disabled."

Back when this item came out that made a bit more sense. Hatred was much stronger and while there were some other, better damage options than "100% increased global physical damage" it also came with some good regen and life too, making it probably too competitive.

Now, it prevents a massive amount of content from being experienced for what seems like a negligible trade-off. The 5% regen is very big, don't get me wrong, but it's the only thing that could be called 'OP' on the chest piece. Every other positive stat is 'Ok.'

I like the suggestion about increasing mana reservation costs, too. If you can't put Mortal Conviction on the chest piece, perhaps just jack up reservation costs a lot and keep the 'spell skills deal no damage.' If it still seems too strong with the ability to curse, add in a line about curses ("100% reduced curse effectiveness").

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ToBeSomebody wrote:

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demon9675 wrote:

“Your spells do no damage” would seem more appropriate. Even add increased mana reserved if they wanna go that route.

That's the thing: That is already on there.

"Your spell skills deal no damage.
Your spells are disabled."

Back when this item came out that made a bit more sense. Hatred was much stronger and while there were some other, better damage options than "100% increased global physical damage" it also came with some good regen and life too, making it probably too competitive.

Now, it prevents a massive amount of content from being experienced for what seems like a negligible trade-off. The 5% regen is very big, don't get me wrong, but it's the only thing that could be called 'OP' on the chest piece. Every other positive stat is 'Ok.'

I like the suggestion about increasing mana reservation costs, too. If you can't put Mortal Conviction on the chest piece, perhaps just jack up reservation costs a lot and keep the 'spell skills deal no damage.' If it still seems too strong with the ability to curse, add in a line about curses ("100% reduced curse effectiveness").

Right - I meant no damage was a sufficient downside. And agree with the rest.