About the Build
So I’ve been playing Grim Dawn since open beta (off and on I’ll admit) but I fell in love with dual-wield melee characters from the inception. Back then level 35 Nightblades were king.
A lot has changed and when the Arcanist was introduced I decided to try something some might call, well, stupid. I wanted to make a dual-wield melee chaos/vitality Warlock.
It was rather successful up until The Hidden Path was introduced and I found myself unable to do much with it and shelved the character at 85, soon after taking a long long break (1+years).
Ashes of Malmouth brought new items that made me think I could revive Crispy the Warlock.
While doing a self-inflicted torture task of recording 100 SoT runs I was able to find the Belgothian set and my sad, masochistic wheels started turning.
Back in the day I was using a Fang of Ch’thon and the new version converted piercing to chaos…hrm…
…so I came up with this:
With only auras the character stat sheet look like this
With temporary buffs from Blood of Dreeg and Hungering Void we have this
Devotion Path
+1 Crossroads Eldritch
+5 Eye of the Guardian (Guardian’s Gaze on Curse of Frailty)
+1 Crossroads Chaos
+5 Vulture
+1 Crossroads Primordial
+4 Sailor’s Guide
+3 Behemoth (Giant’s Blood on Maiven’s Sphere of Protection)
+4 Empty Throne
+3 Hawk
+7 Chariot of the Dead (Wayward Soul on Possession)
+5 Solael’s Witchblade (Eldritch Fire on Sigil of Consumption)
-3 Hawk
-1 Crossroads Eldritch
+3 Eel
+3 Hound
+3 Lizard
+6 Aeon’s Hourglass (Time Dilation on Chaos Strike)
-1 Crossroads Primordial
-1 Crossroads Chaos
+7 Dying God (Hungering Void on Belgothian Strikes)
Playstyle
Rarely do I feel myself in danger. I will Chaostrike into the melee, drop a Sigil of Consumption and then spam a few Cuses of Frailty on large packs to spawn a massive amount of Eyes from Guardian’s Gaze.
Guardian’s Gaze along with the proc from Eldritch Pact does very impressive AoE and most things melt quite quickly.
Leveling
Honestly, I like to level characters the way I intend for them to be played. I had 0 issues going melee from the get go.
Start Occultist and basically rush to Possession, picking up 1 point in every skill you’re going to use along the way. Then finish up Blood of Dreeg and then Solael’s Witchfire.
At level 25 you can equip a dual wield Relic on the cheap and it all snowballs from there. Chaostrike will carry you through almost all boss fights in the early to mid game before your gear starts to flesh out.
I played solo self-found and had little issues just mixing and matching while ensuring to prioritise resistances.
Only go into Arcanist once you find you’re missing stat points.
All stat points go into Physique save for a few that you’ll use for cunning to wield your weapons. I manage with 2 because I have high rolls for cunning on my gear, but 3-4 might be required with lower rolls, but you can change that later with a potion once your gear changes.
I’ll include a detailed guide of how to spend points as you go along with a devotion guide at a later date if there’s interest in the build.
Viability
Now it’s true, Warlock has the lowest health and physique of any 2 class combinations and really I am gimping myself in a way, but the idea of overcoming the shortcomings along with using chaos (a seemingly under-represented damage type for melee in my opinion) was too much of a challenge to pass up.
I wanted to do it my way, and damn it, I did!
I’ve completed the entire campaign and expansion along with the first secret boss on my first try. The second secret boss along with the Mad Queen are stalemates, so I need to figure something out there.
0 Chance on Ravager sorry. He ate me for breakfast while laughing.
Nemesis:
Moosilauke - Easy with Antifreeze
Benn’jhar - Easy, just move a little
Fabius - Just move off a bit when he shields, but overall easy
I’ve not tried the other Nemesis bosses yet, I still need to farm some rep.
I’ll update as I clear things.
I do apologise for no videos but I’m stuck on using a laptop that doesn’t record very well on quality since my desktop exploded.
In Closing…
This is my first build that I’m making public, so I expect a lot of criticism and that’s ok. I hope someone can find a way to make this build even better.
The boots, pants and left ring are all items I need to replace with Stoneplate, Better Solael & a Double Rare Gollus, so there’s a lot of grinding left to go.