How to do it all, Ravager and no buffs and banners gladiator 170
First build I posted on this forum was Blademaster. It was my final triumph in overcoming problem called ’not having Dethmarked shoulders’ and thus not being able to make proper Dethmarked Blademaster and I wanted it so badly. By the time I got those shoulders Detmarked became totally nerfmarked, worst set in game, not worth even trying to build around it and my dream of making Dethmarked Blademaster was all but shattered.
In mean time game moved on bringing new content, challenges, classes and above all new possibilities. I never got a chance to fulfill my dream of making DM BM but at least now I can make BM that looks like it.
Average kill time for Ravager of minds is 6.30 mins
About the build
This build is nothing new, noting fancy but it’s, like one forum member recently wrote, rare jack-of -all-trades build, in meaning that it can efficiently do all 3 mayor things of GD, finish main game with fast pace, facetank and kill Ravager, conquer 170 wave of gladiator cruci. To achieve all that carefull balance between offense and defense has to be applied. For offensive part build uses Beronath sword to convert cold dmg from lethal assault and execution, elemental dmg from amy and devotions to physical gaining in that proces nice amount of OA from LA. Defensively it relies on high dodge and fumble from shadow dance and CoS, DA and considerable amount of phys resistance, HP and armor.
First play trough 100-170 Due to really nasty 170 wave I lost mylty.
Pic of the build with constant auras DM and lethal up
Grim calc: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2gejagZ
Ofc build can be tuned to became even more efficient for each part of GD separately, ie you can use this setup for even safer Ravager of minds encounters or take more offensive devo route for main campaign. But like I already wrote, its more than fine even w/o any changes.
Attribute points
Spirit just to meet requirements rest in physique. Ofc if you decide to go more offensively, and for main game I do recommend to invest some points in cunning.
Devotions
They are highly defensive with emphasis on armor HP and DA. I almost shed a tear when I had to unlearn my favorite devotion Hawk and invest those points in Targo HP nodes, but imho that HP from Targo is essential if you want to successfully finish no buffs and banners cruci. For main game, route with Hawk is more optimal.
Gearing
Warborn set, Beronath sword are of uttermost value. Rest can be modified to your liking. Make sure to get some ADCTH from gear its needed.
What can you do with this build
Absolutely everything this game has to offer. All nemesis, MQ, superbosses, 170 wave cruci. MQ and all nemesis are joke, for reference I let MQ hit me for more than 2 mins w/o hitting back and she hardly moved my HP bar.
About Ravager
Common thinking on this forum is that Ravager of Minds is hardest Ravager incarnation to kill, though I highly doubted till now I wasn’t sure. Now since I killed, with presented build, all 3 incarnations of Ravager (copied files before I summoned Ravager and made 3 different chars from this build JD1, JD2 and JD3) I have to tell you that for this build Ravager of minds is easiest to kill. Before I elaborate why, here are some interesting info’s about Ravager overall:
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What ravager will be summoned seam to be random and is not conected to person you chose to sacrifice. Although Im not 100% positive about that here is my reasoning: people on forum told me that to summon Ravager of minds you need to sacrifice Tyvald Hollows. By sacrificing him I got Ravager of flesh, Ravager of minds was summoned when I sacrificed female.
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All Ravager incarnations have same base stats (HP, OA/DA, resistances, atc speed) and identical attack power containing of about 90% physical dmg and about 10% elemental, vitality or aether dmg depending on Ravager incarnation. So no big differences.
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Thing that makes major differences between Ravager incarnations are their secondary attacks, here I will point out major differences.
Ravager of Minds - Secondary attack that can slow your atc speed for 70% with 3 sec duration and 6 sec CD, and another one that reduces your DA by 240 for 3 seconds with 6 sec CD.
Ravager of Souls - Ground AoE attack that makes you 100% fumble and Impaired Aim thus making him unhittable for 6 sec duration with 6 sec CD.
Ravager of Flesh - Ground AoE that leach 169 energy per sec with 5 sec duration and 6 sec CD.
Builds with less than 3.2k DA when under DA reduction from Ravager of minds will be surely crited by him and his attack has innate 30% crit dmg thus it will be devastating. I think that was the reason most people thought that Ravager of minds hit hardest, but truth is that he reduces your DA and lands critical hit. This build is way above 3.2 k DA and thus uncritable for Ravager of minds so he is totally facetankable and easiest Ravagar incarnation to kill.
Ravager of souls fumble attack when applied (sometimes he does that a loot sometimes not even once, my best guess is that is connected to your positioning and probably RNG) will force you to move from it before continuing fight thus will break your attack pace. But with little bit of practice it’s not so hard to overcome it, so thats make Ravager of souls 2nd easiest Ravager incarnation to kill.
By now you know that hardest Ravager incarnation to kill with this build is Ravager of flesh and here is why: when he uses his secondary attack you have to move in order not to be totally energy burned but even before you get out of its AoE you will probably lose around 200-400 energy. That’s maybe not so big deal for builds with high energy regen, but for this one, that needs careful energy management, is devastating. So it’s not just that it will break your attack pace and force you to move, it will, in some situation, leave you totally crippled before energy tonic gets of CD. If that happens only thing you can do is to run around waiting energy infusion from tonic, and believe me that’s more than irritating.
When fighting Ravager with this build
I used Ravager of Minds as bencmark for this. Like stated earlier you need around 6.30 mins to take him down with this build and its 100% facetanking. Kill time is significantly slower than with DW phys WBI posted earlier but fight is much easier and much more forgiving specially if you use dedicated Ravager of minds setup but even if you don’t you will die only if you make some serious mistake. Most important thing is to keep him under effect of warcry and CoS all the time. Due to your high innate dodge, DA and CoS fumble effect he will miss a loot. Counter only heavy hits with PB or tonic of mending, let ADCTH do its job with weaker ones. If both of your heals are on CD and you get hit really hard use BB. For reference in most fights I didn’t used BB.
Since this build, like DW WB, suffers from low energy regen and you can’t leach energy from Ravager use energy regen elixirs. You can find which ones I used in DW WB thread.
With this build its much easier to put Ravager down than to finish no buffs and banners 170 cruci.
About 170 Cruci
When doing it w/o buffs and banners its hard, but doable if you play wisely. It will force you to be ever vigilant and kite a lot on harder waves, especially waves 160 and 170. Your main enemy are fumble and DoT ground effects so if you get caught by one move from it. If you decide to go with buffs and/or banners is much easier and faster, you can facetank almost everything. Also for buffs and banners runs I suggest changing devo route by dropping Targo and taking Hawk.
In closing
Like I mentioned in begging of this guide first build I posted on this forum was Blademaster, pierce, all to cunning, fast killing, assassin type. This one presented in this guide is also Blademaster but beside the name and dualwielding it almost doesn’t have anything in common with first one I made, it physical, all to physic, not so fast, tank type, one could say total opposite from the first one.
Between those two Blademasters I made many other builds, some good ones, some not so good ones, I’ll let you judge about them, but with this one, I made full circle, closing it from opposite direction.
Its saddens me to say but after so much time I think that I came to an end of my Grim journey. This game doesn’t have anything to offer me anymore to keep me going, noting new, noting challenging, noting interesting. But don’t get me wrong this game is great, maybe the best one I ever played, with so much interesting stuff and things to do, but not for me, I did it all and repeated countless times. If there was some reset button in my head that would made me forget and let me enjoy again in all those good things I would press it without hesitation, that how good it was.
And it wasn’t just the game, great guys like Drizzto, Fluff, Chthon, TomoDak, Jajaja and many others whom I had the honor and privilege of meeting and getting to know made this journey much more pleasurable and enjoyable.
Big thanks to you all and to Crate guys who made all this possible.
Have fun 
Peace out!
