Leveling with shield has never been entertaining so I pretty much am stuck with Oleron
Of course Deadly Aim is the better of the two investments. I don’t think you need Break Morale at level 50, RR isn’t that important at that level imo. Assassin’s Mark covers the needs for veteran/early elite
Crits are kinda shit with soldier +assasisin until mid elite unless you have oleron. Break morale is not necessary but sure is fun for steamrolling. I was giving tips from a shield play perspective:)
Hey Fluff, have you tried a gun version of this with like havoc/deathdealer sidearm+ watcher of erulan? It just crossed my mind after having the shield drop and it kinda looks good for a ranged crusader.
I think i’ve seen someone having posted a grim tool like this around. Wouldn’t it be Jov’s gunner but with watcher instead of DW? Sounds good anyway.
Yeah basically like Jov’s gunner. Just replied here cause JoV’s already inactive. It should work, like most shield builds do 
Hey, Superfluff! Now I’m doing a Soldier. hehehe
Just wondering, why not even a single point in Markovian’s Advantage? 2/3 of the times you use Cadence it can trigger, sounds ok for 1 pointer. Unless there’s a secret reason why…
Yes, it messes up animation with 1h or 2h (only Dw is fine). I use MA 1h only with Markovian set because the mods make up for that:)
Didn’t know that. How does it work? I imagine the same does not happen with Zoltan.
Hello Dear people of the Grim Dawn,
As a new player of Grim Dawn I began reading and researching and came across this build and it looked like one I would enjoy. Ive been leveling through normal story mode and so far I like the build a lot…so far. I have reached lvl 83 now and am playing elite difficulty going towards Malmouth.
I keep getting my ass handed to me by bosses and larger groups of monsters (5+) and its no more fun playing. I have to skip most of them or switch to a ranged weapon and kite the hell out of them, which I dont really want to do since I have chosen a melee build for a reason. Also it just takes forever to kill stuff!
Can anyone with a lot more wisdom about this build help me out finding what I am doing wrong?
Here is the Grimcalc for my current situation: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62aw8vDZ
I would apreciate any help. Thanks!
ok, I need 3 posts to be able to provide links so here`s no2
…and sorry for the spam. here is no3
Can you show us your character by importing it with grimtools calculator? There’s an option in the top left to do so. You want to import the .gdc which can be found:
Steam Cloud: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata(numbers)\219990\remote\save\main
Local saves: Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save\main
Hey. Moved skills around for more hitting power and RR. Max steel REsove and Shield training next.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BOqyJV also moved devotions for power
You will need resistances. Vit res is dangerously low. If you wanna level in Bastion of chaos cap fire/chaos/vit res. You can use this strategy of focusing on certain resistances for a specific area until you get better gear. You do need a better weapon and higher lvl. Get a mace to activate rhowan devotion. a Superior mace of alacrity will do. Craft or buy.
I am also new to GD but I know from experience that Sword and Board builds dealing weapon damage is rough as a first build in any game since you don’t have access to high-end weapons where most of the damage is coming from. So I was considering a caster instead which focuses on skill damage and not weapon damage. But I went with a two-handed Death knight under the device “kill stuff before it kills you” as a first build. I am very happy with it. So no advice from me since I am also a n00b just wanted to give my story 
For Ultimate, you ideally want all of your resistances capped (or at least the ones relevant to what area you’re in).
-Drop down to Elite and grind your reputation on a few factions up to Revered so you can use Armour Augments.
-Some of your gear don’t have much/many resists either (such as your rings), look for replacements for some of these. Rare affixes often provide a nice variety and it is recommended by this point to move your item filter up to Rare minimum.
Thanks for the reply. since I am already playing elite diff and still having a lot of trouble progressing I cant go further down. All my resists are capped except vitality. I dont have any suitable gear to cap everything without losing too much damage or healthpool. Unless youre telling me that e.g %physdmg isnt important.
I already have outcasts, coven, kymon and holmstead on revered but none of the augments they offer help me out at the moment.
I just want to progress normally through the story mode and not farm any particular area until I reach the end on ultimate diff.
Thanks for the quick reply. I will look into your changes and see if I can apply them. Are you certain about 0 points in inquisitor seal?
I dont yet plan on farming a specific area. I just want to finish the story mode first and progress normally until I hit the final boss in ultimate. I realise that this makes it more difficult gear wise as I have to be prepared for a lot more situations.
Unfortunatey I havnt found a better weapon since lvl 65…all of the ones I have show a significantly lower amount of dmg on the tooltip. I fear that loosing all that damage will result in even slower killing speed.
Sorry, but what does RR stand for?
thanks again for taking the time to help me out
My mistake, thought you were on Ultimate but I misread what you said :rolleyes:
There are diminishing returns on it - the higher it goes, the less impactful more of if it becomes. At a certain point, more damage becomes less important.
More than that though, as I said, Rare prefixes like Formidable or of Soulwarding offer both damage and resistances, you want pretty much every piece to be providing both and possibly other nice stats. As an example, here’s the gearing I have on a similar-levelled character currently going through Ultimate where I have only been looking at Rare and up items from ~Level 10 or so? Everything is self-found by this character (including the belt) except for the relic.
This is more or less how I go about gearing at any rate.
Resist reduction.
I guess what youre saying is that more damage doesnt mean anything if you drop dead every 2 minutes? Because mathematically more should be more and since monsters get bigger healthpools with increased difficulty more damage seems to be fairly important to me.
I have also adjusted my skills to what fluff suggested. I was at least able to kill Jarnaxia with some effort so improvement there. Thanks! Still getting destroyed by the endboss at the rogue dungeon in ugdenborg… Cant remember the name right now.
Also Iam wondering: fluff suggested to put almost all skillpoints in the soldier path. This like i said was a big improvement but where is the point in combining and skilling another class then if soldier does it all by himself?
Have a powerful day!
You are still leveling and in need of gear.
End game is steel resove for extra Flat damage(extra flat damage is never out of fashion), extra %crit and OA from DEadly aim and Inquis seal. With OVerguard and Inqus seal+warcry you can withstand anything the game throws at you provided you have good resistances. that is the appeal of Tactician. They are very hard to kill. Back then Crucible was far more unforgiving than it is now and making and making a build that can fully face tank without DA abuse nonsense was difficult. That was the purpose of this build, to defy that difficulty.