Anvil is not just good, it’s almost mandatory! Proc is amazing for damage, stun, ADCTH and many weapon effects (energy leech, damage and resist reduction, etc) just try it and you’ll see.
Also, Tyrant’s/Of abyss mods on weapons are mandatory for crucible. Reducing enemy damage is too sweet.
And i didnt overleveling Cadence/Blitz. Both are 16. I overleveled Blindside (to get sweet DA reduction, so much need with my devotion setup), Overguard (to get better block/absorb/regen), and put few points in Scras of Btlle to cap stun/freeze resist. My only non-maxed resists are Bleed (irrelevant cause it’s quite weak and DoT only), Trap (have 57%, and can have more with crucible buffs) and Skill Disruption. The latter two are annoying in Crucible, but they werent fatal for me so far.
IDK about Gladiator, BTW, but both in Challenger and Aspirant i’ve managed to survive Zantarin’s “red shotgun”. In both, i lost ~60% HP, when was hit by that shit. Painful, but not fatal at all.
As someone who has been farming 100~150 gladiator for about a week with this build and fine tuning everything i can, I can confidently say that it really doesn’t matter if you choose to max cadence or blitz. You will not be able to tell the difference. I personally get Fighting Spirit to 12 though.
Anvil, like MortalKombat has stated, is a must have in my opinion. It’s just that good.
As for buffs, I can get to 130 reliably without any, but having full buffs and defense structures makes a HUGE difference. One particular buff gives 50% or 60% Health, and without it, I have gotten one shot a couple times. For reference, my lifetime highest damage taken was 11000 ish, with my non crucible buffed hp is 13000 ish, when buffed, I go to 18000 ish (don’t know exact numbers right now).
With all buffs, I can facetank around 80% of the stuff from 140~150, with the biggest danger being reflect mobs. Reflect really hurts like a mofo. The only other stuff I would really worry about is probably Zantar I think he’s called? He’s like a skeleton caster nemesis guy that takes a huge dump on your resists, and also has the potential to one shot you with that shot gun thingy.
As for leech and kiting, I personally roll with 4% leech and the Ghoul proc, and I find that comfortable enough for me. The mobs that you can’t tank, are the ones that are chunking your health down in 2-3 hits, and I really don’t think adding more life leech or standing there and brawling it out with the guy is going to do you ay good. I recommend you kite and engage smartly. No point in dying on something like 145 wave and not getting rewards.
Lifetime highest dealt damage was 250000 ish. This build is one of if not THE best for crubible farming in my opinion. Big thanks jajaja
Solael’s Witchfire…does it really need 9 points? Is this just for the IAS?
I have zero points in it atm 'cause I feel they are better used over in the soldier tab.
Ok ty Norzan.
So if we were to have, for example, 130% ias or more w/o solael’s…is there a soft break-point we do not care about solaels…I’m wondering.
Something that keeps eating me in this build is why are we going witchblade? I know -res the end all means to pile damage, but its truly worth it?
I do understand blood of dreg is also amazing (the blood of the guardian I find it meh but thats just me, I guess im undervaluing stacking phys resist) but thats about it as I think solaels witchfire is mostly wasted
Rally CoF and blood of dreg better than say, all the good tanky stuff you can pick on shaman?
I’m just a pawn in the game of Grim Dawn (my Grim Dawn IQ is below 40…functionally retarded) but the answer is ‘yes’. CoF and BoD are much better than any points in Shaman for this build.
As I posted recently I did remove points in Solaels and moved those into the soldier tree to stack up a few skills there a bit. But ~10% ias is pretty nice too, sooooo…there’s that. I just didn’t want to blow 9 points on it and anything less than that seemed like even more of a waste.
Well, I just beat Elite with my physical Witchblade. Currently level 72.
It’s my second character in Grim Dawn and my first hardcore character, so I’m pretty happy with my progress so far. Will just have to see how hard the difficulty spikes in Ultimate, now.
Going Occultist, Solael’s Witchfire gives 15% IAS for 12 points (grim calc is wrong, it says 11 points for 15% IAS, in game is 12 for 15%) which is insane for the investment, along with Curse of Frailty which is a 40%ish physical resistance debuff that has a HUGE AoE, and Blood of Dreeg is a buff that gives 100 poison resist and 12% physical resist that has 100% uptime and can also be used as a heal in tight situations.
Going Shaman, Wendigo Totem is a 5% hp heal per tick (2 seconds per tick? not sure) which is nice, and…Heart of the Wild which would be 10 points for 34% health (points over that is only 1% health increase). That’s it. Our set already caps us on pierce, so Oak Skin is useless. That means only 20 points invested in Shaman mastery.
Even if you are only comparing tankiness and take out CoF completely, Occultist still wins imho. I would trade 34% health and the totem for 15% IAS and resists any day. Go Witchblade.
Yeah I agree with both your assesments, still I do feel were underutilizing the second class option a bit too much but meh, Ill give it a shot either way I want a witchblader for a few other builds
Solael’s Witchfire should always be at 12. 15% IAS for 12 points is just insane, maybe even OP.
If you really want more points to play around with in Soldier, I would suggest you take 15 out of Blood of Dreeg. I personally almost never use it for the heal, and 15 extra points for 100ish OA is not worth it to me. 15 points should be PLENTY to play around with.
Yeah I agree with both your assesments, still I do feel were underutilizing the second class option a bit too much but meh, Ill give it a shot either way I want a witchblader for a few other builds
We are utilizing it much more than if we went Shaman Give it a shot. I don’t think you will be disappointed.
Still leveling my new soldier with most points into physique. When i reach max level i will try a witchblade . I tried it a long time ago but my commando was at that time more tanky for my feeling.
Blood of Dreeg is a good skill, however the investment in Aspect of the Guardian seems a lot (17 mastery points and 12 skill points). Is it worth it i wonder ?
12 points for 100% poison resist and 12% physical resist buff that has 100% uptime is more than worth it. I can cap out my poison resist with 1 antivenom salve and a little help from devotions, not to mention physical resist is probably the hardest to get and probably most helpful resist. (purely damage reduction wise of course)
The points that are not really that worth it in the Occultist side, is probably Blood of Dreeg. 16 points gets you around 130 OA, and like 28% heal, where as 1 point there has 10 OA and 10% heal. I don’t use Blood of Dreeg as a heal, rather as a buff to my resists thanks to Aspect of the Guardian.
Solael’s Witchfire, Aspect of the Guardian, and Curse of Frailty should always be maxed, with at least 1 point in Blood of Dreeg imho. (by maxed, I mean 12,12 and 10 respectively)
Some people have asked about my setup, so I’ll post them here. http://imgur.com/a/izdb8
This is standing in town with 5 toggle buffs (Solael’s Witchfire, Counter Strike, Menhir’s Bulwark, Field Command, Void-Ward Aura from Imbued Silver on shield) plus Blood of Dreeg.
Blessing of Ulo in crucible will give me capped stun and trap resist, and 73 freeze resist, Main Campaign is just too easy to bother capping them.
I know that 2xDread skull is more dps than the 2xVicious Jawbone, I just like having the pretty 2k OA on paper
http://grimcalc.com/build/UE3rXRi
This is my skills with no gear. Depending on your gear choices and luck from rolls on relic/badge of mastery, it probably will look different than mine.
http://grimcalc.com/build/6DPGd3e
This is my skills with gear on, also includes attributes and devotions. My Oleron’s Wrath has +1 Deadly Momentum and +1 Squad tactics. My Badge of Mastery is +3 Cadence +2 Blitz. Depending on gear and especially weapon type, everything will probably be different from mine as well. For example on the devotion side of things, if you use an axe, you should obviously take out points from Rhowan’s Scepter, if you use a ring with life leech, you probably don’t need the points in Ghoul etc.
Main things to note that will NOT change based on gear or devotions or whatever.
Make sure Menhir’s Bulwark is at 22. Max Shield training and Deadly momentum. Don’t care how many plus skills you have in those, just max them. Max either Cadence or Blitz, depending on preference. I maxed both because I have the points. Just keep in mind that you may not if you use a green weapon. Don’t go overboard with Fighting Spirit and Squad tactics. Squad tactics’s efficiency tops out at 7, 1-7 is 1% IAS each, after that its 2 points per 1%, Ii brought mine to 12 because I had some extra points. Fighting Spirit would be fine even if you only have 1 point in it. Fill out the three key skills in Occultist, SW, CoF, and AotG. Keep these things in mind and move stuff around accordingly.
@jajaja: could you please post the build without +skills? I went trough all items equipped to substract the +skills but on grimcalc it stills says -35 skillpoints or something.
Edit: oh well forget it, I think I forgot the + all skills on soldier from the set bonus…
I’d rather maxed BoD - it’s 100% uptime OA+regen and on-demand heal - while Fighting Spirit has 33% uptime in best scenario. Also, i dont think that Solael’s Witchfire and Squad Tactics are worth your points. It’s just 1% AS bonus per point, and a large portion of your damaging skills dont use AS even (Blitz, Anvil, Falcon and other procs). AS may look good for “paper” DPS, but it isnt as good in REAL combat.
Fair points, I agree 100% on Fighting Spirit, I said in an earlier post that 1 point in it would be sufficient. As for the other points, I don’t really think it matters at all tbh, we are talking about 15% all damage + maybe 10% IAS vs 100 flat OA and a 12% increase in a heal that I already stated I rarely use. Really won’t make much of a difference, and I like a little more IAS since I am using a mace.
Just an opinion. You don’t have Assasin’s mark and it would complement this build really well. You do have Oleron’s devotion which is also based on crits but you have really low OA.
I’d really pump Blood of dreeg and get assassin’s mark. You may loose some attack speed or sheet Dps but you will get Quality over quantity multiplied by Targo’s hammer also.
I have tried Assasin’s Mark, and I don’t really think it is necessary. My kill speed is already very fast without it, hum…how should i say this…I mean that I really couldn’t tell the difference in having it and not having it even when it was bound to Cadence. That’s why I don’t take it and save myself some useless prereq points along the way.
The reason I dropped alot of OA (I originally was using 16 BoD, as well as full Chariot devotion, had around 2200 standing in town) was that I get a ton of it in crucibles from the buffs. I think I’m in the 2300s with crucible buffs running, and I thought that getting more IAS or crit damage with devotions would help me more, but honestly? I don’t feel a big difference between them. I would say, go with whatever you like, be it more OA or whatever, because the end results are pretty much the same. Your kill speed won’t increase or decrease much.
edit: I will say this though, since dropping Chariot, I lost 10 Vit resist, and I had to put a Corpse Dust on one ring to compensate for resist, but losing 1x Ectoplasm REALLY feels worse. I am considering getting back Chariot, even if it means dropping some %crit damage just so I can get 2x Ectoplasm. This build can feel like a mana hungry vampire sometimes.
