[1.0.4.1] Bleed Witchblade Butchering 170 Waves of Crucible.

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Introduction

DoT builds have been meta since the new crucible waves were added. the first ones to show up were the fire builds with BWC and the trauma Octavius build. I wondered how the build that literally just does DoTs do in the new waves so I repurposed my Physical Witchblade to a Bleed build. Was really fun and satisfying to play while clearing the new crucible at great speeds. Sent the build to Zhuugus and got featured in his thread but I got some new setups after more testing and would like to share these ones.

Why Witchblade over Warder

  • I don’t have a warder and I have never played warder
  • Witchblade has an instant heal, which I consider better than a Wendigo Totem in Crucible.
  • Easier to cap resistances with Aspect of the Guardian

I think Warder will still work. I just don’t have one. Even 2H bleed might do it.

The Build

1.0.6.0 UPDATE

Took a more offensive approach for this build. I still have 2 setups, a more offensive one and a defensive setup. Both now use Grasp of Unchained Might and Mark of Consumption (was previously Colossal Grasp and Mark of Divinity).

Defensive Setup: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lNkg4BbN

Offensive Setup: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZoGmXvZ

Difference between the two setups is just the exclusive skill but it changes a lot. Offensive Setup gains around 300 OA, some IT and capped movespeed in excahnge for 14% Damage absorb, regen and flat phys. Clears 1-2 min faster than defensive setup (10-11 min for offensive, 12min for defensive) but with defensive setup you almost don’t kite. Pick your poison.


Offensive setup char sheet with permanent buffs and Blood of Dreeg

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Offensive setup clear pic @ around 11 mins. will probably upload a 160-170 video tomorrow if I can

The older setups, aside from the DA setup are all still very viable. Check them below! also contains a no MI setup.

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Character sheet for setup 1. Taken with permanent buffs and BoD up.

UPDATE: Added Markovian Setup 4

Setup 1 - The ‘Original’ Setup
Grimtools: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62a6EAbV

This is the the setup posted in Zhuugus’ thread but with arcane spark instead of tainted heart. Pants is the only MI but is a double rare. Pretty sure you can achieve the same results with an Ordered prefix, though. Ancient is just BiS. You can also try going for Stormtitan Treads on boots and have another suffix on the pants but I prefer the slow res on Boneshatter Treads. Also, Chains of Oleron can be used on chest if you hate being trapped by Benny.

Skills are pretty standard. The flex points are spent in capping Counter Strike for more bleed but it’s just personal preference. This clears 150-170 with 3 buffs and no banner in 15 to 20 mins depending on mutators.

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Setup 2 - No MI Setup
Grimtools: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0wBvE2

I know there are people there who just don’t have the time to farm MIs and/or don’t just create items from nowhere and good news, this can be built with no MIs. It’s a bit harder to play, and while there’s theoretically little to no DPS loss, you lose quite a bit of armor which results in a slower clearspeed. Cleared with this in about 22 mins with 3 buffs no banners. Could’ve played better in this screenshot though.

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Pants is changed from the MI to Really Great Pants. Chausses of Barbaros can be used but I needed an excuse to use Really Great Pants. Stormtitan treads is also used to compensate for the lost Stun resist. This can also work without Spirit investment due to the pants.

Setup 3 - Chinese DA Worshipping Setup
Grimtools: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BkpbKV

After ABCbarbecue posted the chinese builds thread with a lot of DA worship, I decided to try the build principle and got to the above setup with 4.5k DA. More MIs in rings because I did not want to deviate much from the original setup but I’m pretty sure you can do this with vendor rings if you’re more creative. Medal is mandatory though, as well as the stalwart prefix.

The thing with this setup is that while it isn’t slow as seen in the screenshot below, I feel really slow when I played this. The good thing though is that it FULLY FACETANKS (almost) EVERYTHING, except in 170 where I had to be careful with Zant Shotgun and in some cases where I had to reposition for better Blade Arc hits. Don’t think it can fully facetank some dual nemesis combos like dual Alex or Reaper though.

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Setup 4 - Markovian Madness (credits to Superfluff for the original version)
Grimtools: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZorBOEV

Many of you should have already known about Superfluff’s Markovian Madness build back in 1.0.0.9. Here’s the link of you don’t know it. The build was proof that Bloodrager isn’t the only set that can do Crucible for Bleed builds. I initially wanted to use Markovian for this build but decided to see more numbers so used Bloodrager instead. Tried Markovian just recently to guarantee that the link I was giving to user The Mogdrogen is capable and decided to add the link here too as an update.

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Closing
We’ve been posting too much shield (and cadence) builds recently. Someone post an offhand caster Kappa.

Thanks for taking the time to read! Have a good day (or night in my case).

2

2H Bleed Warder

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So I finally got a warder and I chose to go with a 2h version of the bleed build. After weeks of trying, revising, failing, giving up, moving on to other builds and getting back to this again, I finally arrived at what I can say a competent setup for gladiator 170. Unfortunately, this is not as smooth as the s&b version (the witchblade, never tried s&b on warder) and you will havesome trouble if you’re not caredul, even with the great-ish stats this build has on paper.

Pros:

  • 2h melee (I mean, who doesn’t love that?)
  • Bloodrager supports warder better
  • better relic proc and adcth in general
  • higher (theoretical) dps than s&b

Cons (which apply to all 2h melee in general):

  • kinda squishy - even with 4.5k DA, this felt squishier compared to the 3.5k DA s&b version.
  • awful attack speed - this is a big deal because you need savagery stacking and this leads to not delivering full damage potential
  • uncapped movement speed and slow res is a big deal (will be explained later).

Grimtools - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YZe1k7kZ


Char sheet with permanent buffs, no tenacity and savagery charges.

Skills and Devotions:

Most are pretty standard as far as Blade arc builds go, I got Feral Hunger to 10/10 and Zolhan’s/Markovian’s to 5/10 cause WPS just works well with savagery and Feral Hunger adds bleed and ADCTH. Took points from CS to those three, CS becomes less powerful cause 2h isn’t as tanky as s&b. Vines is mainly to get more chances to proc Blood spines which is a great help for sustain.

For the exclusives, I actually tried all three. Primal Bond seemed the best fit for bleed but it didn’t really add much to survivability. Stormcaller’s Pact was what I really wanted to make work and it produces really wonderful numbers (got ~800k tick once) but you end up too squishy and RNG dependent. Some times I’d die at 154, sometimes I breeze through everything till 170. But it’s like 90% bad 10% lucky so I dropped Stormcaller’s Pact. Oleron’s rage was my last choice and it turned out to be superior to the other two. OA bonus means I can build more defensively and the movement speed is huge. From what I have observed, the lack of movespeed is the greatest weakness of shaman-based 2h melee builds. You’re not as tanky as a shield build, you don’t have consistent circuit breakers like arcanists (druid has but still only one compared to sorcs and spellbinders 2) and you’re slow as fuck. Oleron’s rage fixes the movespeed issue and even then if you got low rolls (like me), you’ll not have maxed movement. Still it’s good to have it.

Devotions is just the same as the witchblade. You can take a more offensive route and get Kraken but it lessens your chances at 170. I don’t think the devotions can also be done more defensively without sacrificing Mogdrogen. I bound Rend to Savagery and Acid Spray to Feral Hunger cause both swarm doesn’t proc them enough and vines are a PITA to cast all the time.

Crucible 170

Cleartime for 150-170 using this build is from 19-23 mins depending on the arena, mutators and spawns. Big arenas like Crucible of the Legion is best for this build cause the big guys don’t clump as fast as they do in smaller areas like Dead or Void.

For the gameplay, I think that playing more aggressively is best for this build. This is something that I can’t even do cause I’m used to kiting but your main source of survivability is ADCTH, some facetanking is advisable even against very dangerous nemesis combos.

Closing

I like this build a lot, despite all its flaws in crucible. It’s not as easy as s&b bleed wb, but still challenging enough to play while providing a decent cleartime, if you clear. Thanks for reading this post.

3

Nice to see update of Drizzto’s pre-expansion build. Good job, x1x1x1x2.

4

You are right. Witchblade is better :stuck_out_tongue: CoF quality of life is amazing. Nice build:)

@ Korsar. It’s also a bit of Markovian madness in there:p

5

Shield, LOL !!!

I’m leaving guys, no need to reply. :rolleyes:

6

Thanks guys. And yeah, while Bloodrager was Drizzto’s build, Fluff’s Markovian build was also a big inspiration for this one. In fact, I initially wanted to go Markovian so I won’t change gears from my physical one but I wanted to see more big numbers so I switched.

7

But u see how Savagery is bad in comparison to Cadence when u’re using a full set that benefits it and u don’t even use the skill or the class. :rolleyes:

8

While this is just your usual Cadence bitching, I’ll address this truthfully for those people curious about the Cadence/Savagery comparison.

I’m taking Cadence not because of Cadence itself. Look at the grimtools, it’s a one-pointer ffs. It’s Fighting Form, which is the second best Bleed source in the game after Blade Arc. I already explained why I took Witchblade instead of Shaman above and that does not involve Cadence at all. I even think that using Savagery might yield higher numbers overall because of the stacking buff that will also apply to your Blade Arc/Counter Strike hits.

9

The reality is that this would happen due to Savagery mods on helm for example. CoF rr is higher than swarm so it comes out kinda even .

Warder has just a bit more OA from tenacity which helps.

Savagery works at it’s best with 2h unless trickster

10

Not really, if you do not have the mastery you obviously cannot have the skill. So if you want to make any argument it would have to be Occultist vs Shaman - and that cannot be made either as he repurposed an existing char and had no Warder.

If he had Shaman mastery instead of Occultist and still went Cadence, then maybe you would have a point

Time for you to leave as you promised.

11

So in the end it all comes down to BoD heal and aspect resistances versus Wendigo sustain, Blood pact damage and Tenacity stats.

12

Good choice picking Cadence for Bleed. It’s bleed potential gets overlooked too often.
Nice build

Btw just noticed
Is 20 point CS better than points in Cadence?

13

What a bloody display! :cool:

14

totally. It’s why it can clear trash so well with BA on VS. Mad mark used it for the same reasons and relied on it a lot. It’s a good choice no doubt

15

Aside from what Superfluff said, I tried maxed Cadence and had energy issues so I immediately noped out. Blitz fans could put it there but I personally don’t like using Blitz everytime it’s off cooldown and not having the mobility when I need it.

Also, CS is the third best bleed source in the game after blade arc and fighting form.

16

I know CS is good for bleed but you have plenty of flat damage on your hands which should work well with Cadence which is why I asked

sigh
Yeah that really kills the mood. Thanks for the clarification

Did you try Markovian Madness in the expac at all. Or did you purge most of your save files like I did? :rolleyes:

17

I had a thought but it’s redundant at this point i think. A bloodthirsty pit axe would be the dream(especially with the new mod it has) but this build posted is more than enough. You can slap on mark, or a combo of eldritch gaze+Benn shoulders+ chest/ammy from rager and works very good too

18

Nice catagory Chinese DA worship… (except me I guess ~~)

:p:p:p

19

You’re an offhand player so you’re the exception :p. Serious question, other than offhand builds (which imo, would need to sacrifice too much to get those da levels), do most crucible builds in your community get those levels of DA? Cause I think it might just be a coincidence that you shared 3 DA worshipping builds at the same time.

20

Here is some similarity of all high DA builds that they all have solider/inquisitor in their class. Without military conditioning and field command, it will be hard to stack up max DA no matter hard you try. And there’s 2 more conditions for those who has a preference to get this much DA level. Melee fanktank type of build would tend rely on DA given these classes normally has no good life regen skills. Higher DA goes, lower chances to get hit. And there’s type of players who can move their finger tipes around no more than 4 active skills , too much would sort of “disabling” them. Resorting to DA is their one only option.

However, most DA players are not satisfied with status quo. All using DA as a way out is very limited to cretivity of builds. But how difficult it is in Crucible 151-170 is the true limitation to all. Hope devs can figure out better way to return fun to us.