[1.0.1.1] The Wendigo - Fevered Rage Vitality Conjurer and Hardcore God

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

[b]Contents:

[ol]
[li]Introduction & History[/li]
[li]The Build[/li]
[li]Pros & Cons[/li]
[li]Analysis[/li]
[li]Final Notes[/li]
[/ol][/b]

I - Introduction

Vitality caster has been an infamous build in Grim Dawn’s history for a while now, for it’s ease of access to build and survivability, but sheer lack of damage. But today, I say no more! Thanks to 1.0.1.0’s insane buffs to both Storm Totem and Bloody Pox (which included flat vitality!), a new breed of Vitality Caster has been born: The Wendigo! This build, instead of centering around Sigil of Consumption for damage, prefers to use Conjurer’s array of ADCTH to be used solely for sustain while the Vitality Storm Totem does the damage. Thanks to the insane array of defensive options Conjurer has access to, the build can safely use the Fevered Rage transmuter of Bloody Pox to amplify its damage across the board, something Vitality Caster has had tremendous trouble with in the past.

My personal experience with this build has been great. I have always enjoyed Vitality Caster’s gameplay, but lamented at the lack of raw power behind it. I can say with confidence that is no longer the case with this particular build: I’ve taken it to beat Wave 150 Gladiator on Hardcore a few times now and it’s pretty solid. I’ll try and get a video of that later, but for now have this Iron Maiden clip that took me a year to upload because of my awful internet:

Fevered Rage’d Iron Maiden

II - The Build

Xa7JISt.png997×633

KYeQDHS.png996×634

Grimtools link: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2B0PbZA

Head: Light’s Defender Helm (Leathery Hide + Mankind’s Vigil)
Shoulders: Light’s Defender Epaulets (Scaled Hide + Bladeward Powder)
Chest: Light’s Defender Plate (Kilrian’s Shattered Soul + Outcast’s Warding Powder)
Hands: Light’s Defender Gauntlets (Unholy Inscription + Bladeward Powder)
Legs: Stonehide Dreeg-Sect Legguards of Menhir’s Wall (Scaled Hide + Outcast’s Warding Powder)
Feet: Voidwalker Footpads (Mark of Mogdrogen +Bladeward Powder)
Belt: Girdle of Stolen Dreams (Rigid Shell + Mankind’s Vigil)

Ring 1: Thunderstruck Gollus’ Ring of Nature’s Bounty (Ectoplasm + Survivor’s Ingenuity)
Ring 2: Incorruptible Gollus’ Ring of Readiness (Soul Shard + Survivor’s Ingenuity)
Amulet: The Peerless Eye of Beronath (Arcane Spark + Survivor’s Ingenuity)
Medal: Mark of the Forbidden (Aether Soul)
Relic: Solael’s Decimation

Mainhand: Fang of Ch’thon (Symbol of Solael + Outcast’s Deathtouch)
Offhand: Orb of the Black Flame (Purified Salt + Outcast’s Deathtouch)

Devotions Explanation:
Dying God is a must in any Vitality build so I got it here - it’s HP/sec cost is laughable considering how this build can easily pay for it with the blood of its enemies.

Manticore is for the (flat) resistance reduction, something that is incredibly important for any build in Grim Dawn nowadays.

Aeon’s Hourglass is the interesting one. The Chinese lightning builds all run it to get another Storm Totem up quickly and get a few other nice copies of whatever at little cost thanks to the fact that Spear of the Heavens and Hourglass have very similar devotion costs. This build has the same idea since we take Dying God: An extra Storm Totem out sooner and more Sigils of Consumption are not to be overrated, not to mention the other great stats Hourglass offers. If I’m going to be real here, my experience with the devotion is pretty good.

Everything Else is for sustain. Who knew!

III - Pros & Cons

[quote=]Pros:
-Incredibly Survivable. As long as you’re not asleep at the wheel (and even if you are), it’s virtually impossible to kill this build.
-Incredibly Survivable x2. No, really, you can facetank a Fever Rage’d Iron Maiden with this build, it’s tanky.
-Amazing AoE. This build is pretty much entirely AoE-based, so cleans through legions like a knife through butter.
-Pauper Friendly. Without gear, this build is still going to get you through Veteran to Ultimate, and possibly up Challenger in Crucible.
-Cast All The Things! With an array of 9 spells to cast, this is very much an interactive caster build.
-Procs Galore. If you like walking through a room and being mildly confused what’s killing everything before realizing it’s you, this is for you.[/quote]

[quote=]Cons:
-Low Stun Resist. If you don’t like the idea of being stunned or frozen for long periods of time (and not mattering), this might be frustrating.
-Lack of Mobility. If you enjoy fast-paced Nightblade type builds, this is definitely not for you!
-Liability in Multiplayer. This build tends to get your friends killed thanks to Fevered Rage. However, that’s a pro for some people (like me).[/quote]

IV - Analysis

Damage:
Storm Totem: The main source of damage in this build is in fact the newly buffed Storm Totem (with Corrupted Storm, obviously). While everything starts to do a lot when you involve Fevered Rage, this is the real kicker to the build, and Time Dilation lets you place them quicker than you would otherwise.

Sustain:
Sigil of Consumption: Almost the namesake of older Vitality Conjurers, this is one of the best sustain skills in the game despite being hard to utilize. This build utilizes it better than any other, and it goes very nicely with Time Dilation as well.
Wendigo Totem: A decent source of damage, but mostly a fantastic heal on a stick, Wendigo Totem is another namesake of this build. Make sure it’s 15/12 if possible, it’s another breakpoint above 12/12.
Passives: Between Blood of Dreeg, Mogdrogen’s Pact, and Wendigo procs, you’ll be swimming in passive HP regen.
Devouring Swarm: While the major function of this skill is the resistance reduction, do not underestimate the amount of life this skill can get you when shot at a crowd. If you have all your totems down, Bloody Pox is spreading, and Sigil is on cooldown, spam this skill.

Resistance Reduction:
Devouring Swarm: 62%
Curse of Frailty/Vulnerability: 30%
Symbol of Solael/Solael’s Flame: 10%
Manticore/Acid Spray: 25% (flat)
Total: 127% Vitality Resistance Reduction + Fevered Rage = one happy camper

V - Final Notes

I would like to specifically thank Ceno for not only helping me with my build when I first asked for help, but also for encouraging me to go further with the Vit Caster archetype. I would also like to thank DaShiv for his insights on ADCTH and Sigil of Consumption, Pox for encouraging me to incorporate Bloody Pox into the build, and TomoDaK/Barnacle_Ed/kidpid for helping me fine tune this thing into what it is now!

2

Reserving this post for leveling guide!

3

Not going Critconj? Lame.

4

I have that build on hold actually! Still trying to find a way to get the vitality % modifier up while maintaining OA and crit damage. Quite a hard balance to make when Shaman is such a stat-starved mastery.

5

Amazing build !

Fevered Rage’d Iron Maiden, wow so brave ^^

Last time I simply got scared with Fevered Rage’d Darius Cronley when playing with old version Bloody Pox.

New Bloody Pox + New Vitality Storm Totem + Sigil of Consumption + Lower CD = Fevered Rage’d Iron Maiden :smiley:

6

Nicely done. I had a similar idea in mind but with less focus on Storm Totem (hence completely different gearing for a different purpose).

A few of the things i did that you might want to consider are taking a Plaguebearer’s Master’s Spellblade, Pestilence of Dreeg (with the Plague of Shattered Souls) or swapping a weapon augment out for an Essence of Ch’thon (for the % reduced resistance). You already have a good amount of resist reduction and these all depend on whether you want to sacrifice stats from elsewhere such as OA for more or not.

Edit: I’m not sure if it you use it actively or not as it’s on your video’s skill bar but you missed Solael’s Flame from your resist reduction count.

7

Oh shoot, I did miss Solael’s Flame in the thread, will add that now!

Also, those effects are only added to %weapon damage attacks, which this build doesn’t actually utilize, so it would be all for naught. Also, Essence of Ch’thon is fairly bad at proc’ing and works like Viper in that it applies last and doesn’t bring resists below 0%, so it’s fairly useless if already have a bunch of RR. Also only procs off of %weapon damage as well.

8

should be a good build

9

This looks wicked sick, man, great job.

I am leveling Occultist atm as my third character, wanted to make Doom Bolt conjurer, but now I’ve seen your build and I honestly don’t know which road to go :slight_smile:

Few questions:

  • What would be best alternative gear setup if I don’t have green pants/rings?
  • Do you use Storm Shard from Light Defender’s set?
  • Isn’t Kilrian Shattered Soul component kinda wasted for your build? (all you get is effectively little vita/vita decay boost, everything else in this component seems useless to you)
10

If you’re facetanking or close enough to an enemy to take advantage of Wendigo Totem, it only takes a melee swing every now and then to apply the reduction from Master’s Spellblade for instance. Essence of Ch’thon is a % chance of applying it so is less valuable but again, it’ll make that swing more effective every now and then.

Speaking of Essence of Ch’thon, you are right that it applies last but that doesn’t necesarily mean it’s bad, especially in this case when it is rather accessible. The lower you reduce your enemies resistance, the more effective it’ll be because it is multiplicative. If you reduce your enemies resistance below 0 (and you should most of the time with the huge amount of resist reduction Vitality has access to), it’ll do an ok amount alongside your % sources.

For instance, say you have an enemy with 50% Vitality Resistance. Your normal amounts from Devouring Swarm, Vulnerability, Acid Spray and Solael’s Flame will lower it to -77. If you then apply Essence of Ch’thon’s effect, it would apply as -77*(1+(15/100)) = -88.55, ~-89 if i’m not wrong. A decrease of 12%. Enemies with a lower resistance lead to Essence increasing in potency.

It depends on how often you would use the default melee attack as a 15% of proccing it is probably not high for this build but I’d argue that it shouldn’t be ignored/should at least be considered, especially as you don’t lose much from your current weapon augments.

11

-Ah, that’s difficult to say. Light’s Defender’s is a great set all around and just use what you have to shore up resistances, not sure specifically what you could use, but if you have to do some wonky stuff go for it.

-No, never. It does lightning damage which isn’t really helpful, and you’re usually too busy spamming all your other abilities to even bother (up to 9 abilities to constantly use).

-KSS had a proc on it if you didn’t notice and it’s quite nice. It also has some vit %modifier so that’s also nice.

edit: I will be adding a leveling guide in a day or two so I hope that should help when I get it up!

12

Thanks for the answers, might try it out if I don’t get all the gears for Doom Bolt conjurer!

I still think that Kilrian Soul is wasted on your build, proc is for melee tanking and kinda weak, %vita is meh gain, Chains of Oleron would be better imo

13

Really cool build but holy sh*t at the 2 double rare MIs…could you please post a grimtools of what this guy looked like when you just hit level 85? Or was he twinked from the beginning? I’m assuming you aren’t able to beat Fevered Rage Iron Maiden in anything less than BiS gear until I hear otherwise :wink:

14

You can quite easily do it w/o bis gear. Face tanking fevered maiden isn’t that difficult, killing her super fast while tanking is the real challenge

15

edit: I will be adding a leveling guide in a day or two so I hope that should help when I get it up![/QUOTE]

Looking forward to seeing your guide. Vitality has always seemed to be the red-headed step-child of Grim Dawn ( you rarely see vitality only equipment or skills–it’s usually always paired with poison and chaos).

I did ‘enjoy’ watching your Fever Raged Iron Maiden video. I’d love to see other videos of this build in action.

Good job!!

16

I still have a vit melee conjurer lying around somewhere - going to try and redesign it according to your design and try it out! Thank you for sharing

Questions: Why not Revenant and Gallows? Either I am counting wrong, but I think you can do without Solemn Watcher & The Hound, and get Gallows and Revenant instead? It would trade in a bit of defense for offense/more life steal.

Looking forward toying around with this!

17

Nice build/guide!

It basically combines the lightning totem tank and doombolt vitality caster builds!

So the use of the light’s defender set is pretty much just to max out the storm totem plus armor benefit of heavy plate?

18

Do you have a grim calc links without + skills? I cannot tell how many to put into each.

19

Hold Ctrl + Shift in the skills menu.

20

There are two problems with this idea at the moment.

  1. Gallows is a 4 DP constellation while Hound is a 3 DP constellation. This means you will have one less point to put into Revenant.

  2. If you drop Hound and Solemn Watcher to take Gallows then you’ll end up being short one point of the Blue Affinity you need to unlock Aeon’s Hourglass. You can make this point up by putting a DP into Crossroads, but then you’ll lose another point from Revenant.

In summary, you can replace Hound and Solemn Watcher with Gallows and Revenant, but you’ll only have three DP to put into Revenant.

When the expansion pack adds five more DP, you can drop Hound to take Gallows while keeping Solemn Watcher, and still have 4 points to put into Revenant.


I don't know where ForgottenKane is with that leveling guide, but I think I have a good Devotion Progression here based on his build link.

[spoiler]Crossroads (Green)
Bat (5)
Remove Crossroads (Green)
Viper (4)
Lizard (3)
Wendigo (6)
Rat (4)
Manticore (5 - skip back leg) (End of Normal)
Eel (3)
Solemn Watcher (5)
Dying God (6 - skip bottom right)
Hound (3) (End of Elite)
Aeon's Hourglass (6)[/spoiler]