[1.0.6.0] Faceroll aether Battlemage & Death Knight (no MI, s&b, cdr, 25min gladiator)

I think he means Krieg set builds have gotten a little too popular lately. No one seems to be interested in exploring other gearing options at all. What he says is true btw.

And as for Haunt suggestion, with the recent changes to Haunt what I suggested isn’t mandatory but it does help a little in some ways
Although due to LL RR nerf your current relic is almost equally good

For anyone looking at this and the Death Knight version and noting the similarities, I’ve leveled both to a decent level, and I have some findings that may be relevant for you if you’re trying to decide between them. Note that for their late game I’m working entirely off of what Zhuugus says about the builds. He knows them best in that department. Also note that for both builds I leveled with full Lokarr, Hermit Legguards and Potions of Clarity with crucible for the first 11 devotion points.

After working with them both, I’d call Death Knight the one easier to level by far. The free HP, OA, AoE retaliation damage, and physical RR from maxing Spectral Binding/Spectral Wrath early is an absolute boon to leveling. The Battlemage here feels squishier and less damaging at those early levels before you can start putting legendaries on them to shore up their weaknesses, which can leave the less patient among us to give up on the venture.

However, I personally am sticking with the Battlemage, and here’s why. Zhuugus’ clear times with this no-green MI build are astounding, and seem to indicate that this build has what I call “hypercarry syndrome” (if you’ll pardon the League of Legends reference). In other words, it’s something that suffers early in order to build to a massive payoff. If that’s your bag, which you can tell from my leveling gear above that it absolutely is for me, then Battlemage is for you. Zhuugus wouldn’t have made this build if he thought the Death Knight outperformed it in every way, after all. Note that I leveled both as close as possible to how Zhuugus recommends in this build, which others may not agree with. There are plenty of ways to level an arcanist and a soldier and other ways may provide far better results. I haven’t tested them.

Any chance of a list of gear that could be more easily crafted or purchased from vendors so I could gear up enough to farm Krieg with this guy? I would really love to try out the build but lack the gear.

His words didn’t sound like that. They sounded like I made just another copy-paste mediocre build on a popular class. And the truth is I’ve seen no battlemages that come close to this one in power level. Moreover, over all these years of Grim Dawn I’ve seen only 1 really strong battlemage (long ago) and he was abusing overpowered Targo’s hammers.

I agree that Krieg set is attractive because it’s an end-game set which you know exactly where to farm. Less goddamn rng involved.

But how do you know what people are choosing and what builds are they playing? I can only see if a build has lots of views on the forum, thus I conclude it is popular. Like yours or Superfluff’s blademasters or pet cabalist by Reapersgaze. They have lots of views. Death knight builds don’t have that much views, how do you know people play them a lot?

Well, that may indeed be the sad truth - death knight is easier to level - all because of that physical RR on spectral wrath.
I made a battlemage build because it is one of the wekest mastery combinations and coming with a battlemage build that rivals top tier builds is really pleasant.:slight_smile:
I appreciate your feedback. Here are some hints about DK in comparison with battlemage (I’ll hide them, so the devs will never know):

Both DK and Battlemage can clear gladiator under 25 min buffed. I am talking about the DK from my compilation of builds thread. I don’t see how you can build a DK without a least 1 green MI with stun res - well, technically you can drop the medal and take epic one (Vanguard star, Mark of fierce resolve), but that would obviously lower the damage.
Their OA and DA are the same, DK has a lot more life (but doesn’t have Mirror nor Maiven’s). With 2 perfect MI DK has 19k life and Battlemage (without MI) only 12,5k. Doesn’t matter really, since they both stomp everything.

I’m sorry I can’t help you with vendors. I always used the gear I found myself. The only advice I can give you is to try Forcewave with Tremor with a 2-handed weapon if you somehow struggle with Cadence and Blitz (thanks to Actuanpanda for this advice). In that case, since it’s a spell, prioritise cast speed, not attack speed.

Obviously this is capable of beating mad-queen on wave 147? Or is it just luck if she doesn’t spawn?

I have the deathknight version, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to kill her with it. (And I’ve farmed Lokarr with the DK, gotten ravager of minds to around 25% and killed avatar of modrogen)

Pretty much if she spawns on wave 147, its a loss with the DK. Unless I am missing something… which might be the case.

Not sure I want to invest the time in leveling this if it doesn’t offer anything over the DK.

For all those who wondered about Elemental Balance and crit damage.
I’ve tested it, taking points from Mirror and putting 1 point into Ishkandra and making Elemental Balance 12/12. Dummy kill time with this setup is actually 1 sec more, so I was right in the first place: Ishkandra messes up dps with its conversion, so you loose all the bonus damage you get from Elemental Balance and you just waste skill points as a result.

Yes, you are doing it wrong. Rashalga is beatable with any strong build. Go to my compilation thread and read crucible guide. In short: you fight with her only when she doesn’t have her red aura on. As soon as she glows red you run away. Red aura amplifies her damage like 10 times, no one can facetank it.
So, just a bit of kiting and she will perish. Even glass cannons can do that and DK is a tank.

If you already have DK then it’s indeed no need to go for battlemage - they are very similar in gameplay. Both are equally strong with bis gear. If you want something new, you can look for it in my compilation thread (link in my signature).

If you have any skill with projectiles, turn them off. Her red aura is triggered by being hit by projectiles.

I agree with that last part. Battlemage is just a fun combination (not to mention that I have a name literally reserved for Battlemages in games, so I jumped at the opportunity to use it). I think you knew I wasn’t trying to critique your build, after all me critiquing a build of yours or Chthon’s or Superfluff’s would be like my grandmother criticizing Tom Chilton’s driving, but just in case I do wanna stress that my post was for newbies who were trying to figure out which to level. It looks like I was close, but the Death Knight may be closer at the top end than I was expecting. Still, I like the flavor of Battlemages more, so I’ll stick with this.

Nullification decrease MQ kill times a lot =) Dont be greedy, put one point here =)

Not maybe. FW is miles better for leveling than Cadence.

Are you serious?

There is no need for sarcasm. He is correct.

Wrong. Retaliation builds can all facetank her, if built right. Actually, many decent melee builds can do it, of they are careful and not using any projectiles skills.

He’s been writing the same thing in every cadence thread, he’s not wrong but he’s not helping anyone either.

Well, we know for certain that Mindwarp and Krieg will be nerfed in some way in the future patch, so we can live with that, I think.

I hope Zantai keeps some cool head and doesnt gut Mindwrap and Krieg set - these are the ONLY viable options for a Battle Mage.

Also BM is not OP in any way - there are at least a dozen builds which are much better performing that this one (Krieg Death Knight included) but just because some of the are not posted on the forums (to avoid being nerfed into oblivion - looking at you Pierce Dual wield builds…) people think BM is OP lol…

And I’ll continue.
The game has like 100 abilities and it´s always cadence, shield or both in 80% of the builds in this forum since 2015.

I checked Op list of powerfull builds.6 S&B 1 Cadence shoota . Out of 34 builds. Your math is off =)

This looks really strong. I have been running a similar Battlemage setup, but I had not thought of using tempest. I wil try that, since it appears to help clear speed significantly. What are your thoughts on Myth. Phantom Thread Girdle? The 130+ OA+Aether Damage do feel very powerful. Are the +flat physical damage on olerons reforged just too strong in comparison?

Imo they either need to revert krieg set to the old version that supports battlemage more and create a set for dk (is there another good dk aside from krieg?) Or nerf krieg for bm, keep the dk bonuses and make spellscourge viable. I personally prefer the second.

The popularity of Krieg builds is not because it’s super broken. The reality is that most sets are near impossible to complete if you don’t trade or are willing to farm crucible pretty much 24/7. I am just shy of 1400 hours and some items still haven’t dropped a single time, while i could play minecraft with the abundance of meatshields, burrowitch butchers. etc. Krieg set on the other hand can be farmed in a reasonable time frame. And that farming takes place in a variety of places that make grim dawn so great und not in a braindead slugfest that is the crucible. The set feels strong, as an completed endgame set should and maybe the combination of offence and defence needs some SLIGHT adjustment, but again people use ist because its a set you can actually acquire!

I’d say don’t worry too much about Krieg and Mindwarp nerfs. My guess is the possibility of it being very severe is rather low.

This indeed might have had a significant part in Krieg DK’s popularity.

I just took a look at the first three pages of the builds section and there was maybe around 3 Cadence builds (this one and two Jov builds) out of 20 builds.

Besides constant complaining, your math is also way off.