I. Forewords
Greetings, here I am sharing with you my most favorite build in Grim Dawn. It is not the most overpowered build you ever seen, but it is quite a fun, simplistic and straightforward build, suitable for both beginners and veterans alike.
Disclaimer #1: though suitable for beginner, it is hard to complete this build on first play through, as it is slightly dependent on luck whether you can find the best weapon to use.
Disclaimer #2: playing this build might cause distortion in game difficulty perception.
Disclaimer #3: I will call Adcth life steal, because the name and acronym is stupid
II. Build concept
This guide assume that you have Crucible DLC and know the basis of the game. Crucible is used to farm the first 10 devotion points. If you don’t have it, the build will be much slower.
This is not a popular build, mainly because the weapon is very hard to find. But if you happened to find one on another char, you can start playing this build.
There are only 2 unique 2h weapons that work for chaos damage: Scythe of Tenebris and Obsidian Juggernaut. However, both items suffer from the lack of attack speed bonus or life steal. What we really want is a Demonic Obsidian War Cleaver of Voracity. Now that is really the best weapon to use for this build, with high conversion, attack speed and life steal. But if you can’t find it, feel free to use a lesser version, such as Void-touched Obsidian War Cleaver of Alarity. Both of those can be farmed in Bastion of Chaos elite or ultimate from the Obsidian Juggernaut/Tyrant, AND be bought from the vendor in Bastion of Chaos (I bought mine).
This build intend to abuse the power of chaos/vit damage on occultist skills combined with high multiplier from Cadence, as well as self sustaining with life steal while putting up a high defense. You are looking at nearly 2500 DA 2h build that can still reach 2500-2600 OA on top of 20% life steal (or 5% against certain bosses). This is also a highly flexible builds that you can shift things around to fit your liking.
Cadence scales much better with high attack speed, that is why I don’t use the unique weapons, despite they give much higher raw damage, their overall DPS isn’t that good.
III. Skills and Gears
One grimtool speaks a thousand of words: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/aZqKe62d
This is my current gears and skills, and by all means can be improved, a lot. My shoulder still has crap affixes, and my pants aren’t exactly stellar either. But hey, where’s the fun if you have every pieces of best gears right?
- Skills in-depth:
SOLDIER SIDE:
Main attack skill, Cadence, is maxed. It’s a given. We don’t need deadly momentum because it only gives physical damage bonus, and we will use skill points elsewhere. 1 point into fighting form the increase Cadence number of targets.
Scars of Battle is VERY important in this build, must max.
Field Command is maxed for OA/DA bonus.
1 point in Blitz for mobility and trash clearing
A few points in Menhir’s Will as a safety mechanism when mobs spike too much damage.
OCCULTIST SIDE:
Possession is a nobrainer, it gives tremendous amount of Chaos/Vit bonus as well as some resistances and absorption. Must max
Wel max both Solael’s Witchfire and Second Rite. The reason being they give high bonus to the build, as well as the much needed flat damage. With Cadence high multiplier, more flat damage = goodness.
Get a few points in Curse of Frailty, mainly for the duration increase.
Get enough Aspect of Guardian for the resistance, then get Blood of Dreeg as high as possible. We don’t really need the healing, but it’s good for emergency. What we want is the huge OA bonus. Keep it up all the time.
Other skills are just sprinkled to use, feel free to adjust them as your liking.
DEVOTION:
The good part of this build is that you can go for 3 defensive devotions: Sailor’s Guide, Eel and Solemn Watcher, and those pave the path to the biggest chaos/vit damage constellation Dying God. We also pick up Fiend and Solael’s Witchblade for more chaos damage and resistance reduction, as well as Manticore for reason I will mention later. And note the single node in Empty Throne, that is intended as well.
Devotion bindings:
- Flame torrent —> Blitz: easy AOE trash clear. Flame torrent has base weapon percentage so it helps the life steal as well
- Eldritch fire —> Curse of Frailty: I’m always a fan of binding damaging celestial power on Curse. You can kill a group of trash literally by telling them how weak they are
- Acid Spray --> Cadence: we want it to trigger on the target we are hitting. The build relies heavily on life steal to sustain (no behemoth, no regen constellations). But many bosses are pretty much immune to life steal, so Acid Spray is here to fix that.
- Hungering Void —> Solael’s Flame: this is only meant to be used on hard bosses, normal heroes and elite mobs pose absolutely no threats to you (Crucible included)
- Ghoulish Hunger —> Any aura: it’s another safety mechanism. You don’t really have to use it, but I like the fact that Ghoul constellation gives some extra life steal percentage.
You can also optimize the devotions by replacing Sailor’s Guide with Lizard for an extra point, remove 1 point from Manticore, remove the single point from Empty Throne, plus 4 points from from Ghoul, there are 7 devotion points you can spend at will (for example get life steal and more attack speed from Revenant). But I will not do that until I have better gears.
- Gears in-depth:
I won’t say much about augments on armor, because it is to fill in the missing aether and pierce resistances only
Weapon: Demonic Obsidian War Cleaver of Voracity with Symbol of Solael and Potent Essence of C’thon. This is the best you can get. However, you can also use the Potent Voidbeast Powder augment, though it gives a bit less damage, +45 OA is good if you are lacking
Head: Eldritch Gaze with Leathery Hide. This helmet gives good Chaos bonus, +1 to Occultist skills as well as some resistances and a WPS, no complaints. However, Clairvoyant’s Hat is also a good alternative for the +skills. Component Leathery Hide for more HP and stun resistance
Chest: Devil’s Cage Hauberk with Chains of Oleron. Similar to the helmet, this chest piece gives good chaos bonus and all the fire resistances you need. Chains of Oleron for more OA, because everyone needs OA
Shoulder: Stalwart Iron Maiden’s Shoulderguard of Incantations with Silk Swatch. No I didn’t actually farm Iron Maiden for this, I found this in Crucible reward. You can use Fleshwarped Pauldron as alternative, any affixes is fine, be it resistances (as long as it is not fire resistances) or OA or DA. We need to use those for the +3 Cadence bonus. Silk Swatch to cap pierce resistances
Pants: Seraphim Solael-sect Legguards of the Eagle with Scaled hide. Again with a sub-optimal item. But it does gives me enough to cap elemental resistances. Try to get any affix that complements your resistances (for example, of Solael Malice, of Nature’s Bounty, Demonic etc). Scaled hide to push armor absorption to 100%, if you don’t like it feel free to use any other component
Hands: Voidsteel Gauntlets with Consecrated Wrappings. It gives chaos damage, +2 to Cadence, good attack speed bonus, what else can you ask for? Add Consecrated Wrappings for more speed and chaos damage.
Boots: Voidwalker Footpads with Mark of Mogdrogen. Here I’m just getting lazy to find a better pair of boots. This one give chaos/vit damage, good move speed (gotta go fast) and a good protection proc. Feel free to replace it with any better boots you can find. Mark of Mogdrogen for even more move speed and HP
Belt: Sash of the Bloodlord with Rigid shell. Though the stats are really good, what I love about this belt is the life steal proc. If you cannot find this one, Cthonian Thread Sash is a good alternative. Rigid shell to cap lightning resistance
Amulet: Peerless eye of Beronath with Aether Soul. While +1 all skills is hard to pass, this amulet also gives really high flat OA and crit damage, as well as a very good active skill. If you cannot find it, Warp Shard is a good alternative as it gives flat chaos damage, chaos resistance and very high life steal. Or you can use any green amulet that give those options. Aether soul to add the needed aether resistances.
Rings: A pair of Cronley’s Signet is a must. Corpse Dust is added here. They give the much needed pierce resistances and attack speed. While any pair of affixes that can complement the build is fine, I highly recommend getting the of Alacrity suffix to add more attack speed. Corpse Dust is used mainly for the 3% HP bonus, but the resistance and regen are nice too.
Medal: Badge of Mastery with +3-5 Cadence bonus, Aether Soul added. Since Cadence scales really well, we want to add it as high as possible, and this is the only way. I’ve never had a +5 cadence badge though, so don’t aim for it, +2 or +3 works fine. Aether Soul for the needed Aether resistance, if you don’t need it (with god roll on your pants) then replace it with Arcane Spark.
Relic: Solael’s Decimation is the best in spot, period. Great damage, OA bonus, +1 to Occultist skills as well as the retaliation proc. But while progressing, you should start with Calamity, then Sacrifice, then find this later.
IV. Leveling and Combat
Start with Soldier mastery, you can use either Blade Arc or Cadence + Blitz combo to get through early level. When you are comfortable with Soldier (i.e. 40 points in mastery) then you can start adding Occultist. Rush for Possession as soon as possible, then add to Solael’s Witchfire and Second Rite. You should have a pretty solid build at level 50-55 (when finished Normal/Veteran mode)
The hardest part is the first 40 levels where your resistances are lacking and Cadence add too much physical damage, making damage reflection super painful. But once you can switch to chaos damage, you can pretty much ignore those Skeletal Knights.
The combat rotation is very simple (I cannot handle anything more complex, pardon my noobness):
- Open by casting Curse of Frailty on group of mobs
- Blitz in (85% chance of Flame Torrent)
- Aim for the biggest one in the group and whack away
- ???
- Everything dies
In case of harder group of mobs, for example a bunch of Cthonian Tyrants, cast Peerless gaze to further reduce their OA, then whack away. With Prowess trigger from badge, you can safely sit at 2500+ DA while they have -100 OA, making them hitting you less than 70%, which further reduce their damage (check combat guide http://www.grimdawn.com/guide/gameplay/combat.php, PTH Threshold 1: 70)
No trash/elite/heroic mobs can stand 1-2 rotation that combo, even on ultimate. But in case of something harder, activate Solael’s Flame to trigger Hungering Void and proceed to destroy everything. I always use Hungering Void for the hard bosses only (the ones with purple-ish name)
But there is one thing that you absolute need to remember: This build has ZERO regen capability. You rely on life steal to sustain, you will live as long as you keep attacking. But that also means if you stop attacking, you die. Getting stunned = death, getting frozen = death. In this build, stun and freeze resistances are more important than any other build, thus explain all my weird choices in components and devotion.
V. Dungeons tips
Steps of Torment:
You can face tank everything, the death room included. As for Alkamos, be sure to have high stun and cold resistances. Alkamos damage is not that high, but when he stuns you, you cannot life steal and die
Basition of Chaos:
The only place that will threaten your life is the gate guardian at the end of Field of Despair, mainly because he has an entourage of Cthonian Bloodletter/Harbinger that take a good chunk of your HP when they die and explode. Protips: Drain all their energy, they won’t explode.
As for Shar’Zul, he doesn’t do a lot of damage himself, but his Wind Devils are another story. You cannot life steal or kill them, and they deal great amount of damage. Be sure to stay away from the Wind Devils, and Shar’Zul should be a walk in the park
Port Valbury:
You can face tank pretty much everything, including the Flame of Valbury, the 3 watchers and that big bald dude I never remember the name. As for the final 3 bosses, lure Van Aldritch to this spot and kill him, this way you don’t have to deal with the poison puddles by his 2 henchmen. After that go in and kill those 2. Councilman Garl has an annoying rotation of healing + Maiven so it will take a while to kill him, unless you have high life leech resistance (using Demonic prefix)
Nemesis:
You can face tank Valaran, Benn’Jhar and Moonsilauke. I haven’t met others on this char. They take a while to kill for obvious reason. You can activate Hungering Void, fight until it expires, then retreat and wait for its cool down and engage again, just to be safe.
VI. Crucible tips
Coming soon …