[1.0.0.6] Warborn Gunslinger Commando - The Pistolier

Ving · December 12, 2016, 9:49pm

Edit 3: Added character sheet screenshots for 1.0.1.0 - 04/07/2017
Edit 2: Updated for 1.0.0.7 - 14/01/2017
Edit 1: Updated based on discussion.

I bought Grim Dawn after seeing a couple of Gunslinger Sorcerer videos on youtube, and that was the build I used on my first play through. I love Gunslinger builds

This build uses the two soldier pistols, Deathdealer’s Sidearm and Havoc (or 2x Deathdealer’s for extra +Soldier skills), along with 3 pieces of the Warborn set. Of the many Gunslinger builds I’ve made, this one has the best kill times, as well as good survivability, and is fun / engaging to play due to the positional nature of ranged Cadence and the shots passing through enemies - if you get a group lined up just right they all go down in a few shots.

Video: Fabius 30 sec kill (The weapon switch & Blitz at the beginning of the fight were unintentional…I panicked! :D)

GrimCalc base and devotions:
https://grimcalc.com/build/1008-16dxZ4
GrimCalc with +skills (+4 Solider, +1 All) and devotions (updated):
https://grimcalc.com/build/1008-MDhf0t

Character sheet with Cadence / Deadly Momentum (1.0.1.0):

Or a slightly more defensive set-up with Hallowed Ground & Signet of Readiness (1.0.1.0).

Devotions
Acid Spray - Cadence
Assassin’s Mark - Zolhan’s Technique
Falcon Swoop - Blackwater Cocktail

Acid Spray attached to Cadence gives very high up-time. It’s more reliable than War Cry / Break Morale and much less energy intensive. Damage reduction comes from Blackwater Cocktail and Oleron’s Might (from Oleron’s Blood weapon component).

Assassin’s Mark has a 15 second duration, so triggering it via Zolhan’s, together with the build’s high attack speed, also gives very good up-time on single targets.

Falcon Swoop provides much needed AOE and boosts single target damage. If you have a dense pack Falcon Swoop will normally trigger multiple times per BWC cast (and often does on single targets as well).

You can also swap Crane for Dryad if you want, in which case attach Dryad to Flashbang.

Attributes
Enough Spirit to equip rings and the rest into Physique. I currently have 8 in spirit which allows me to equip Cronley rings if needed.

Gear
The 2nd ring, pants, and boot slots are flexible. Use whatever you have to a) cap resistances b) boost OA and damage.

Click here to view equipment configuration

Weapon switch…
Main Hand: Warborn Gavel to maintain the theme, with Haunted Steel & Outcast’s Bastion, or weapon of your choice.
Off Hand: Siegebreaker with Purified Salt & Outcast’s Bastion, or shield of your choice.

Weapon switch is only used for the following purposes, due to the limitations on skills requiring a melee weapon:
1 - Using Blitz for movability
2 - Triggering Menhir’s Will as a last resort

I personally never use Melee for actually doing damage when playing this build, but you can play as more of a hybrid build if that’s your thing.

Gameplay:

Throw in a Flashbang to debuff and confuse mobs.
Choose a spot where the mobs are lined up for Cadence / Fighting Form to pierce through them and start firing.
Throw down a Blackwater Cocktail in front of the approaching mobs to trigger Falcon Swoop.
On heroes and bosses use Blackwater Cocktail on cooldown and keep the Flashbang de-buff up. Use Oleron’s Might & Bloodthirster as necessary to mitigate damage and life-steel.
Use weapon switch, as discussed above, for mobility or a last resort health boost.

Ving · December 12, 2016, 9:50pm

Reserved for future use.

edisonian · December 12, 2016, 10:23pm

Nice build!

Can I ask: is the overleveled Oleron’s Rage really giving you that much? Since you are mostly dealing physical damage, wouldn’t War Cry with Break Morale be useful? I suppose it doesn’t stack with Manticore but it’s more reliable and affects an AOE rather than relying on a proc chance.

Also, 1 more point in Vindictive Flame will give you 1 more % total speed. So worth it!

Norzan · December 12, 2016, 10:41pm

This my personal opinion, but always leave Oleron’s Rage at level 12. It scales horribly in the ultimate levels with only plus 3% OA and Movement speed at level 22 compared to 12.

system · December 12, 2016, 10:50pm

Nice, but how do you do without maxed resistances?

JoV · December 12, 2016, 11:20pm

Bro, dont get me wrong but you are messed up with this

Why R scepter in devotions? It works only when you have mace equipped
Why Blitz? You cant use it w/o melee weapon Disrigard this I see you are changing weapons
Why menhirs will? It doesent work wile you are ranged.
Over leveled Olerons rage but not a single point in field command and squad tactic.
You are wielding pistols with high AP value but relying on phys internal trauma armor and mostly phys devotions.
If you are relying only on phys dmg you dont need manticore, break morale is much better. Its hard to build efficient phys dmg range character cuz good part of your dmg is converted to pierce due to all guns having nasty AP value
With this setup you need war cry. I see you use BWC transmuted to lower phys dmg, but with high armor you have and some low resistances phys dmg is not the one you should be afraid imo.
For Cadence build you dps is remarkably low. Specially cuz you maxed whole line, anything less than 35-40k is low for cadence builds imo. 30-35k you can easily achieve with fire strike and get some nice aoe.
Watched your video, are you pistolier or hybrid build?

I hope you dont mind me being plain honest about this :undecided:

Gl

Edit: Red text

Ving · December 13, 2016, 3:51am

Thanks for the comments and insights, guys.

Reason for maxed Oleron’s was just trying to eek out as much damage as possible for testing purposes.

Regarding resistances, the tankier first version I made, with different devotions, had much better resistances. It seems that going for Manticore is not the best route, so I’ll look at improving the resistances when I fix the devotions.

At the moment I’m still trying to work out how to max the damage by testing against Fabius and also the dummy. It seems there are a lot of things that can be improved, so I will do some more testing and update the thread accordingly.

JoV, I will answer your post separately so I can post inline

Ving · December 13, 2016, 4:44am

Thanks!

I’m not a theory-crafter, I’m a tinkerer, which is one of the reason I made this thread - to get some insights from people who know the game mechanics better. So no problems

Oops! I never noticed that, just copied from another physical damage char. D’oh

I always have Blitz on any Soldier char for maneuverability…mace and shield on switch.

Yup, same as above, I have a mace and shield on switch and was experimenting with it to trigger Menhirs for those “oh shit” moments. Can probably move those points elsewhere.

Sorry, that was an error in the Grim Calc…they are at 9 and 12 respectively. I’ll update the link.

The weapons have Physical Damage and Physical and Internal Trauma modifiers, I just tried to match the Damage types in gear and devotions, hence Warborn set seemed to fit well.

So how does AP work then? I assume you are referring to the Armor Piercing modifiers on the weapons, which are 33% and 25%.

Here is the Cadence tooltip:

Is the damage conversion to pierce shown here? In which case pierce is only 16% of overall damage. Or is the AP pierce conversion done AFTER the figures in the tooltip are calculated?

Yeah, like I said, just experimenting at the moment and trying to improve dummy and Fabius kill times. The resistances got screwed when I changed devotions to get Manticore. Dropping Manticore and taking War Cry / Break Morale will mean I can fix the resistances. That along with overall damage reduction which will make him much tankier again.

Well, the funny thing is I have tried a lot of FireStrike builds and whilst they have good AOE they’re not really that great for single target. Although the sheet damage on this char looks low, the actual damage seems pretty good, possibly due to the gun procs?

I’ve never made a pyro gunslinger, which I understand is the highest dps Fire Strike variant, but I did tests with sorcerer and commando, which have sheet dps of 45k - 50k, and the fastest kill times were around 1:40s for dummy, and getting on for a minute on Fabius.

The best times I have managed on this character are 1:10s for the dummy and 30s for Fabius. Again, not sure why that is.

A Pistolier who will use whatever he needs to to get the job done

No no, I appreciate it. Aside from just copying builds on the forums, this is the fastest killing character that I’ve made. The fact that I screwed it up so much means that hopefully it can be improved. So thanks for your input!

Not sure if the piercing issue can be overcome though?

Ving · December 13, 2016, 5:27am

I changed devotions and re-skilled to max War Cry and over-max Break Morale. Dummy kill times went up by 10 to 15 seconds.

Possibly because Manticore is up constantly, but War Cry only has a theoretical max up time of 66%, probably less when you factor in rotations and cast times.

It also ends up being unmanageable from an energy point of view, even with Scales.

Any ideas?

JoV · December 13, 2016, 6:36am

Biggest difference aside from up time is that manticore drops all resistances for 30 and war cry just phys resistance.
About AP, you have low pierce dmg not because you dont have much of that dmg type but because you have low modifier for it (ie. your armor, devotion setup dont suport pierce with +%)
It works like this: with every hit portion of your phy dmg is converted to pierce (33% and 25% respectfully, if I remembered correct AP values for havoc and death dealer sa)
So with low pierce modifier you are losing tremendous amounts of dmg. You can calculate it by dividing pierce dmg with pierce modifier and than multiply it with phys modifier. Difference you will get is total amount of dmg lost with every single shot. High AP values on ranged weapons are main reason that phys dmg is somewhat underdeveloped for going ranged :undecided:
Best thing from devotion energy regen vise is TOLs healing rain, aside from being best defensive proc overall. But if you find manticore more efficient there is no reason to drop it at all.
Edit: try to up your pierce modifier by taking unknown soldier or something like that it will improve your dmg. Also US will improve your ADCTH and I see you are relying heavily on it.

Ving · December 13, 2016, 11:25pm

JoV:

It works like this: with every hit portion of your phy dmg is converted to pierce (33% and 25% respectfully, if I remembered correct AP values for havoc and death dealer sa)
So with low pierce modifier you are losing tremendous amounts of dmg. You can calculate it by dividing pierce dmg with pierce modifier and than multiply it with phys modifier. Difference you will get is total amount of dmg lost with every single shot. High AP values on ranged weapons are main reason that phys dmg is somewhat underdeveloped for going ranged :undecided:

Best thing from devotion energy regen vise is TOLs healing rain, aside from being best defensive proc overall. But if you find manticore more efficient
there is no reason to drop it at all.

Edit: try to up your pierce modifier by taking unknown soldier or something like that it will improve your dmg. Also US will improve your ADCTH and I see you are relying heavily on it.

JoV, thanks for the explanation.

I messed around with devotions and took all the ones with Pierce modifiers, and I also tried changing to Pierce gear as well, e.g. 3pc Valduns. The increase in dps was not as dramatic as I expected, but the main problem is that both HP and resistances (and possibly OA/DA, can’t quite remember) dropped significantly with Valduns. Going all Pierce just doesn’t seem to be practical with the gear that is currently available, unfortunately.

Healing Rain isn’t possible to get whilst keeping the damage boosting constellations, but I dropped War Cry anyway as Manticore performs better so energy isn’t such a problem…or at least, nothing that pots can’t solve. Damage reduction comes from BWC and Oleron’s Might instead, and resistances are also now slightly better. (I also didn’t enjoy the rotation with War Cry in there…too many things to cast every few seconds.)

Norzan/edisonian, regarding the suggestions about over-maxed Oleron’s Rage: 22/12 vs 12/12 = 9.7% sheet dps increase (plus the additional OA), so I definitely think it’s worth it.

All in all I’m happy with the way the build performs at the moment, and it’s a really fun character to play, especially due to the positional nature of ranged Cadence and piercing through mobs. It’s not a Crucible build, but it’s great for general farming.

I went back and tested my Fire Strike 2H Commando against the dummy and even though it has > 2x the sheet dps of this char its dummy kill times are consistently around 25% slower for some reason (also played around with devotions and skills to max -rr).

Anyway, updated the original post and grimcalc, will add full gear description later.

Thanks for all the help so far…still open to suggestions for improvements!

Ving · December 13, 2016, 11:34pm

Yup, this is sorted now too

JoV · December 14, 2016, 5:53am

Any time:)

Cant judge for commando tbh, but tried pierce setup of my DW pistols BM with valdun and similar equipment, withouth using veil of shadows/nights chil and blade spirit/blades of wrath combo it needed 1.15 on dummy. With using those two things dummy kill is down to 53 sec and its not jet finished build.

If you are interested you can check how it looks like here:http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48700

Superfluff · December 14, 2016, 5:56am

If it’s of any relevance i tried DW Warborn gavel on my commando and got a 50s dummy I think. Not too bad, expected a bit more.

JoV · December 14, 2016, 6:01am

I made an error with dummy kill times, they are lower than I posted, need to check it again :undecided:

P.S. Im sorry for going of topic

lordthai · January 14, 2017, 1:32am

Why do you got blade spirit? You are commando, right?
Where does it come from?

Ving · January 14, 2017, 2:29am

Indeed, it’s a Commando so no Blade Spirit.

If you are referring to the video, then that belongs to the boss.

system · February 8, 2017, 5:53pm

Reserved for future use

Giallo · March 5, 2017, 11:59am

Hey Ving I made a similar build as well. Mine is even less spells used and I made a Warder, not a commando.

Auto attack and kiting are mechanics that are super fun for some people.
The build is not that strong we know but It works in ultimate and I think is awesome to kite and shoot, I prefer this physical build more than the fire strike one

Ving · March 7, 2017, 6:01pm

Hey Giallo, I’m not sure if I ever tried a Physical Warder Gunslinger. I’ve tried most classes, but I think only Commando, Witchblade, and Blademaster for Physical. I have a Lightning Warder Gunslinger, and actually that build is pretty tanky, largely due to Wendigo Totem. I haven’t tried it against all Nemesis, but it can face-tank Fabius without any problems. I’m sure you could do the same with a Physical Warder build.

I find it a bit boring though, as the dps output isn’t huge and there aren’t many skills to use.

I enjoy the build in this thread, and also the Gunslinger Sorcerer, actually because there are more skills Other than the main attack most of the skills are defensive, and if you get the timing wrong you can die (depending on the boss). I enjoy that kind of edge of your seat gameplay.

I’m not really a fan of kiting as such though, but that depends on your definition. I don’t mind ‘repositioning’ or ‘disengaging’ while they have reflect up or something, but I don’t like the idea of ‘running around until cooldowns are up’