[1.0.2.1] DW Witchblade Chaos Gunslinger

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

I’m fairly new to the game, this is the first build I’ve worked on from end to end. Didn’t seem like any recent builds were using Mythical Voidsteel Gauntlets, so I decided to ram them into the Gunslinger build I was trying to get working (Tactician at the time) and see what I could do. The resulting damage seems to be pretty impressive.

This is what things look like when buffed up in combat.

Build: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYPEKJZ

Note: I don’t have Hungering Void bound to Volley in-game, it’s bound to the second Burning Void, but the grimtools calc won’t allow me to do this, so I just put Volley in it’s place for purposes of showing the buff’s effect on damage.

I wouldn’t really recommend leveling with this, as the key items aren’t available until significantly later in progression.

Still not 100% sure on all of the picks, the rings seems like they could potentially use improvement, or at least the Entropic Coil. But it’s the best I’ve found, so that’s what I’m using currently.

Pros:

  • Really good DPS, single target and AoE (thanks to 2x Seal of the Void)
  • Only a few really key items (pistols, gauntlet, medal, relic), the rest is for stacking chaos damage % and resistances
  • Not paper thin tanky, given the ability to life steal and defensive bits (static charge, gaze, war cry, hellhound, blood of dreeg), it’s probably one of the tankier DW builds
  • Always fun seeing 500k+ crits

Cons:

  • Getting the right affixes on green items can be tedious, but multiple seem to work
  • Resistances are pretty tight, need components and augments in place to be able to deal with Ultimate

Skills:
Pretty straight forward buffs+Cadence build with 3 active use defensive measures. (gaze, war cry and blood) The Hellhound will occasionally act as a distraction and end up dying, but he’s mainly there to stand at your side as your blast everything down from range. (and keep the Hellfire buff on you)

Solael’s Witchfire is a crazy big DPS increase with stacked chaos damage %. With my current setup, I’m getting a flat 3551 Chaos Damage added to attacks. Combine that with the devotion buffs and things can really get out of hand.

Multiple sources of RR… Voidheart, Exterminus, Black Star and Eldritch Fire. (Solael’s Witchblade devotion) Only downside is they all proc on chance, rather than on demand, but it also means you just stay busy shooting Burning Voids and moving. :slight_smile:

Gear:
Couldn’t find any set that would work with this setup around Voidsteel Gauntlets. Had two Havocs early on, then realized the stats and RR from Exterminus would be a worthwhile swap out for one Havoc, since I was already hitting max Attack Speed and 26 Cadence without the second one. Most item choices are there for skill benefits, chaos damage and resistances. Rings/chest/pants/boots/shoulders are probably all flexible slots, but I think those are the best options available.

Devotions:
I’ve re-done these like 10 times since I started and fairly sure they are what they need to be now. Energy regen from Raven and Candle (this is pretty important), Tortoise to keep you alive while Ghoulish Hunger kicks in, Witchblade for the primary RR procs and Dying God/Abomination for the top tier damage boosts.

Outro:
Started with a glass cannon idea and have tried to involve as many defensive measures as possible to make gameplay not feel squishy. Damage is very good, doesn’t feel too squishy and seems somewhat unique in terms of what these masteries are typically being used for.

Thanks for reading, hopefully this build isn’t actual crap in the grand scheme of things, I’ve only played a few different builds myself.

2

This is what I´m looking for, seems a incredible damage build, I will try when I finished my commando Build… Thanks…
Only One question, how did you get lifeleech in this build?..

3

Very nice build for the first time, man.
You don’t need those 3 points at Solael witchfire modifier, you already have 100% phys to chaos convention.

4

Well, that was a bit of an extrapolation on my part. For the elemental cadence modifier, I know (I say know, but I just mean “have read”) it only applies to the third hit, so the first two are still physical, so I kind of assumed the gauntlets would work the same way and should probably mitigate that DPS loss a bit. If I’m wrong, then yeah, definitely should put them into something else… just not sure how to figure out if that is the case.

5

Really cool build :slight_smile:

Im not sure and it should be tested but I think you made good choice with putting those 3 pts in consecrated blades, both of your guns are phys dmg based and I doubt that gloves are converting weapon dmg also.

When speaking about guns, did you tried with this one instead of havoc? It would probably give less on paper dmg but maybe more preferable chaos dmg?

6

Consecrated blades works not like a common modifier, but like a Conversion on Equipment and Buffs. And groves conversion applies to the all Cadence damage. It’s easy to test, each damage type has his own animation. You can see chaos animation even when hit by 2 non Cadence hits.
So CB and Darkblaze Incinerator are useless there :smiley:

7

I had not tried that one, but I do know that when I dropped the second Havoc for the Exterminus, I did notice the loss of the ADCH. Not sure how well things would play out without that 6-7%, but I do know it’s moderately hard to make up. I could get 3% on the gloves, but the devotions are extremely tight and I don’t think I could fit Toad or Bat in. Also means I couldn’t get those last 2 points of Cadence in either.

Could swap out one of the Seal of the Void for Seal of Blades, but I get so much mileage out of those 2 Burning Voids, I don’t know what I would replace the other Devotion proc on other than Whirling blades, which would only really work out a third of the time. (that’s about how often things get into melee range) Though, that may not be a huge deal considering that Hungering Void lasts a full 20 seconds.

Definitely something to test, I kind of assume this build is only like 80-90% complete simply out of not knowing all of the available items.

8

Yea if its like that you are right. Even easier to check is just by looking at cadence dmg tool tip breakdown, if that is the case he shouldn’t have any physical or pierce dmg in the mix.

9

The gloves also give flat chaos damage, so I’m not sure you can actually make an attack with them equipped and not deal chaos damage, regardless of how the interaction with the first two hits of cadence works. But, I can just test and do some simple math…

OK, testing done. The third hit is doing like 13 times more damage than the first two.

10

11

But I was wrong about gloves convention, it applied only to 3rd hit. Sorry for misinformation.
Cadence tool tip also shows only 3rd hit damage.

12

Cool, all cadence phys including weapon dmg is converted :slight_smile:

Yea, but again its huge to have all cadence dmg converted to chaos.

13

Does this mean that weapon damage gets boosted by physical damage bonuses (like the +712% I have) and then converted to chaos, where it gets the 3,141% chaos damage bonus applied? Or are you just saying that it’s huge to ensure as much of the physical damage is converted at all times? The latter is kind of what I was aiming for, at least.

14

The latter, but maybe even former is partially right. Your dmg will not be boosted by all 712% you have to phys dmg but maybe that ~130% to phys dmg on fighting form does boost it.
Im not sure how it interacts with gloves, does dmg first get modified by % to phys on FF and later converted or it first gets converted, but its could be easy calculated since you have all values.

15

Gloves work like a common modifier, Discord for example. At first you get bonus from Fighting form, then convention to chaos, after 3,141% chaos damage bonus. All that applied only to 3rd hit. 1st and 2nd hits stay physical and get convention from Consecrated blade.

16

Interesting, here is an unbuffed side-by-side of without gloves and with gloves.

The math doesn’t make any sense to me. :stuck_out_tongue:

Chaos Modifier without any buffs is +1,966%. If it straight converted that physical damage to chaos and then modified it, it should definitely be much higher.

Edit: Also to note, +2 Cadence on the gloves which explains the small discrepancy in non-chaos/physical damage.

Edit 2: I think what it’s doing is base weapon damage (which in the left side of the pic is being modified by physical) is being converted to chaos pre-physical/piercing damage modifiers, then boosted by the chaos damage modifier, which explains the difference. Definitely not double dipping then.