[1.0.6.1] Spellbinder, Bane of Celestials

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

I have been playing exclusively GD for two months already, half of this time playing a Spellbinder, and I think it’s about time to introduce myself on this forum by posting two pretty much decent Spellbinder builds - anti-superboss one and anti-trash (i.e. Cricible) one.

  1. Anti-boss build (anti-Ravager, more specifically).

(self-buffed + potions)

Damage: Aether
Active Skills: Callidor's Tempest (untransmuted), Devastation, Sacred Strike (component), Haunt (relic), Siphon Souls, Ill Omen, Mirror of Ereoctes, Mark of Torment, Clairvoyance (set bonus).
Passive Skills: Reckless Power, Spectral Binding, Iskandra's Elemental Exchange, Maiven's Sphere of Protection.
WPS Skills: none

– Grimtools –

This build kills Ravager of Flesh in 2:57. Well, I know that Vindicator kills Ravager even faster… but, as far as I know, so far nobody have killed it using Arcanist-based spells faster than this (correct me if I’m wrong).

Why does this build rock so much against superbosses? First, it has absolutely stable cycle of protection: 6s Ishtak + 3s Ereoctes + 5s Torment; former two have cooldown of 14,2s, so basically they cover 98,6% of fight time. Second, there are two more layers of protection: 27% damage reduction of Ill Omen + 22% permanent damage absorption from Maiven (oh, and 1500 armor with 100% absorption + 7% physical resistance help as well). Added together, these layers let you do the thing more suited for metal soldiers with shields: stand still and facetank boss for the whole fight as mage. Third, this build can have 90-100% Fire and Chaos damage converted to Aether (which grants LOTS of bonus Aether damage from Fabric of Reality and Fiend). Fourth, this build has total 39 (Spectral Wrath) + 35 (Widow) + 18 (Sacred Strike) + 15 (relic) + 15 (ring) + 10 (Agrivix bonus on Siphon) = 132 RR to Aether, which drains Ravager’s resistance down to a deep negative value. Well, not really 100% of uptime: Sacred Strike has just 85% chance to activate Widow - however, usually people put Widow on some kind of DoT, which grants just 66% uptime of the bomb. Add 8% RR to Life Leech from relic (basically, 1,8x more Life Leech than without it), and you get my point. Oh, and I could not care less about RRs to other types of damage, as 97% of my char’s damage is Aether. Note that this build has no Hourglass (which is just loved by many spellbinders): it grants great boost to Devastation, but the latter is not that good against a single target (about 60% of its meteors simply miss) - that’s why I chose underrated Spear instead.

But, of course, a build without Hourglass won’t do much at the Crucible, so there is…

  1. Crucible build.

(self-buffed + all blessings, no potions)

Damage: Aether
Active Skills: Callidor's Tempest (untransmuted), Reap Spirit, Devastation, Haunt (relic), Siphon Souls, Ill Omen, Mirror of Ereoctes, Clairvoyance (set bonus).
Passive Skills: Star Pact, Spectral Binding, Iskandra's Elemental Exchange, Maiven's Sphere of Protection, Arcane Resonance (component), Whirling Blades (component).
WPS Skills: none

– Grimtools –

To be honest: this build IS dangerous - there is no Mark of Torment and no Nullification, rather low defense with minimal investment in Siphon Souls - just -119 total to enemy’s OA (well, -284 with Widow and Seal of Annihilation, but you can’t really count on the latter two having 100% uptime). Careful ones can easily drop Imp and replace it with Solemn Watcher (all you need about defense); though, this build as it is clears glad Crucible 150-170 in 7:59. Well, not some alltime high, I guess… but still - it allows you to accept ALL blessings and then clear arena trice before they wear off, fully regaining all Tributes spent. I think it’s good enough - I’m not an arena pro after all, I prefer celestial benchmarks.

Thanks for inspiration and advices during polishing of these builds go to Deimos and Polo4ka - but, well, these are users of another GD forum (Russian one). Or maybe this forum too, who knows? hehe

2

Honestly, that’s a very weird Spellbinder spec. If you want to play CT spam binder, there is a whole set and it does what your build does but quite a bit faster. Then, why bother with Sacred Strike at all? For additional RR? You could have same kind of RR with full Agrivix and use Chaos Strike - much stronger nuke, especially given chaos to aether conversion on your char. And with that much RR already I think RR from Sacred does little to nothing really. So I would use Chaos Strike anyway for bigger damage and added mobility.
Why not use Ravenous Earth for damage reduction? It’s so much better, and it procs Arcane Mines insanely well.
Also, you have mentioned your Crucible spec is “dangerous” because it has no nullification. So why not drop 1 point in it to have it at 6/10? Same with Mark of Torment, you only need 4 points to get it to 6/10 (after that diminishing returns kick in).
Last but not the least, why did you pump points into Inferno?? You have zero Burn Damage support on your gear, it’s a complete waste of skill points on a Spellbinder.

Sorry if I sound harsh, it’s an ok attempt for 2 months of playing experience, but you can get so much more out of a Spellbinder if you just tweak some stuff here and there.

3

I think it’s nice to see more CT/Dev Spellbinders (who can get enough of those? hehe)

If I am correct now, the attack damage converted to health will only work if you attack with and have the component in weapon, so the haunted steel on off-hand is not useful(?) here.

EDIT: if you as a reader are amazed by the performance of this build, keep in mind (it will reveal later in this thread) that the poster did play the build with a macro-scrip (a milder form of bot) that make sure that skills are cast in correct time, drinking potions, etc. Thus, take the performance of the build with a grain of salt.

4

Offhand is the exception. Seal of blades is in full effect here.

5

ah good to know! Thanks

6

Yep, everyone at out local forum said the same - it’s not like builds people used to, but it does goddamn work :slight_smile: Just because I didn’t simply copypaste builds of more experienced players, but instead did my own calculations.

This, plus also I need a REAL activator for Widow. As I’ve said above, normally people use some kind of DoT for it, but DoTs have just 25% chance to activate it per second, i.e. you will have barely 66% uptime of the debuff. I, on the other hand, spam Sacred (which is once per about 3,25 sec - 3s cd + 0,25s hit animation), which has 85% chance of activation, plus bomb is active for 4s - so I have 87% uptime of the debuff. With Reap Spirit I could have got 100% uptime, but I didn’t have any spare points to reach it in the anti-ravager build (though I did in arena build).

Agrivix is crap, to be honest. Clairvoyant gives a) lots more %aether, and b) lots of convert from chaos to aether, which does really boost my final dps by a lot! Well, Agrivix gives you convert from vitality to aether - but then again, do you see much vitality damage in common spellbinder builds?

Yep, this is even better activator for devotion, I agree - but then again I would lose 18 of permanent RR (which is much like +18% to my TOTAL DAMAGE!) Also, it is not even “stronger nuke”: it does 270% weapon damage (31k in my build) plus 4k extra chaos damage (read: 4k extra aether damage), i.e. 35k total; though, Sacred does 350% weapon damage, which is 40k damage as it is (without even [useless] elemental damage bonus).

Then you just don’t know how does RR work… When you hit a mob with 0% resistance to your damage type - you hit it for 100%; but, when you add 18 RR (or rather -18% RR - does not matter in this case) - you hit for 118% of your damage.

Erm, did you notice that Sacred is used against Ravager only? What MOBILITY you are speaking about, then? :))

Because a) it stays for just 3s compared to 5s of Ill Omen (so, the more often I cast debuffs - the less often I cast offensive spells), and b) as you can see on video, I don’t use damage reduction against trash mobs (because of the same reason: I’m safe anyway, so I don’t waste extra valuable time).

Problem is: I don’t have any spare points in my arena build. Hell, I do not even have points to finish Mental Alacrity, so I enter arena with 186% cast speed, and fight with with 196% (having Hungering Void perma up)! But, well, you can take this build and weaken its attack power for yourself, if you feel like need for more safety, of course.

Also, do you see any free quickslots for nullification / torment on video? :wink: Actually, this is the main reason I’ve sacrificed defensive skills: to free slots for way more important defensive elixirs.

In the anti-ravager build, you mean? It still gives +154% to my primary attack spell; more damage = more life leech, and without it I was simply dying soon after Ravager was getting enraged. I could have put 6 of these points into Elemental Balance, though - it would give me much the same damage / healing boost, so it does not really matter.

Tweak, you say? I was tweaking this build for more than two weeks, about 10-12 hours a day (my first kill of Ravager was at 20th Oct). But, if you think that it’s so easy to tweak and improve it - do it, please, and show me how do you kill it in less than 2:57! :wink:

7

Manticore /10chars

8

Ughm… care to explain, please?

9

Greeeeen. I don’t really have comments for the rest. I do note that you’ll have a good tine with mad_lee. You look like the similar type as him when it come to building :slight_smile:

10

Hell no, I build my stuff differently. Also, when it comes to a cookie cutter char like Spellbinder, it’s easy af.

@Witcher

I have never leveled a spellbinder, but I was one of the first pioneers who used Agrivix set on a sorc, here is myvery old guide (a year ago, sounds crazy, lol) I started using it before it got buffed.

When it comes to Spellbinders, I recently tested a spec I threw together for couple of steam friends. It’s an easy Agrivix spec (that you called “crap”) that doesn’t need green items, here are the results. As you can see, quite a bit faster than your spec (and I am a shitty pilot, could be even faster).

Now dick measuring contest aside (because I don’t think there can be any contest here :p), yes, Sacred Strike’s RR is additive, but it’s not 18% damage boost. After all the RR you have applied (cba doing math, can someone do it, please), I reckon it would be much smaller, more like 5% damage boost versus most targets. And if you want as much RR as possible you could just spec into Manticore + Time Dilation versus Ravager.

And I do understand that you worked on your build, etc. etc., don’t think that people here are trying to put your build down or smth, it’s just both me and x1x2 got lot more experience in GD and with making builds in particular, so we won’t just give you shitty piece of advice to spite you or to make your build look like shit or anything.

So just don’t neglect us outright, man, stuff like Ravenous Earth instead of Ill Omen or how to activate Mines on Spellbinder has long been discovered and tested.

EDIT: just look at the amount of Arcane Mines proced by RE in the videos from the post I linked.

11

No…what I meant is he’s similar to you in the sense that once you post a build, you have the utmost confidence in its optimization and it would be hard to make you budge. Well, that’s just what I felt looking at both of you in this thread :stuck_out_tongue: no harm intended.

Anyway, he’s right on the 18% increase with sacred strike. Ravager has exactly 103% aether res, which is also his RR before sacred strike. I agree with trying out manticore setup tho.

12

Nah, I budge all the time and always listen to the advice as long as it’s sound. I even credit people in my guides. But yes, I often come off as a stubborn ass :). Well, if his RR exactly matches Ravager’s aether res, then yes, you are right (and he is right). But that is if you have all source of -%RR applied on Ravager all the time. Especially when he can miss Arcane Mine proc because he bound it to Sacred Strike.

Anyway, I’ve made my point: build could be optimized further if OP wants it. But also, Spellbinders have been figured out long ago imo, I don’t see why you need to invent the wheel here when there is old af “Spellbinder Rei” guide made by Ptiro, and there are like 5 Agrivix guides yours included.

13

Why does everyone have to play the game the way you choose to do? There’s room in the world for more then 1 spellbinder.

14

I always tell everyone to play however they want and to enjoy the game. However, when you post a guide on a public forum, comments, both praises and critisisms are to be expected. Nothing more to it, really.

15

I am pretty sure that thousands of people were doing it, but did not bother writing about it on a forum…

16

Some people just wanna share what they have done and are not looking for advice for optimization (that often leads into the discussion “you should do like I did”, “no do what I did I was playing this build before you were born” “no do what I did because I am a GDstasher” …

I am not saying that this is the case here, but build posting and discussions are often infected by e-peen measurements.

17

:confused: Don’t think i’ve ever seen this one before lol

18

This crucible setup isn’t bad (except no MoT and RE for some reason, weird devotion bindings and the relic) - nice job. Classic full Agrivix + WotA is still much better but Clairvoyant… is fun. Matter of taste.

19

Ouch… posting answers like that, inside the quote - makes really hard to reply :frowning: but ok, I’ll copypaste.

Yes, you are right… here - shit happens, to me as well. Though, now probability theory comes and helps me.

My (anti-ravager) build: 85% chance to trigger the bomb, once per 3,4c, bomb stays for 4s. I basically means that in most cases (i.e. 85% cases) I’ll have 100% Widow uptime; in the rest 15% cases I’ll have to live for 3,4s until I hit again. Though, as previous bomb was still up, target stays w/o debuff for just 2,6s. This basically boils down to: (853,4 + 150,6) / 3,4 = 87,6% uptime.

Now, your (or, rather, common) idea to put bomb on a DoT: every sec you have 25% chance of activation (version 1.0.6.1!!! yes I know it was 56% in v1.0.6.0, but it is long gone), assuming that bomb has no cooldown. What is the chance that new bomb is NOT activated while old bomb is still active? Obviously, 0,75^4, or 0,316, which means 68,4% uptime. Though, the bomb actually HAS cd, which is always more than 1s (i.e. you have zero chance to activate next bomb next tick after previous bomb), which removes 1/4 of dice rolls: 1*0,75^3 = 0,422, or 57,8% uptime.

Do you understand? Yes, I might have unlucky hits, too. But AT AVERAGE I’ll have WAY more RR debuff uptime than anyone who puts Widow on any DoT (be that Omen, or Earth, or whatever). This is, of course, assuming that you fight a single target (superboss), because a DoT on swarm of trash mobs is completely different matter (and completely different numbers - there might be really “quite a big chance at 100% uptime”, even though each instance of the bomb will affect just part of mobs).

Yep, almost everyone at our local forum uses Agrivix with their SB… yet nobody of them managed to kill Ravager in less than 3 min :slight_smile: 3,5 min - yes, 3 min - no way! Because (sorry, but I repeat) Agrivix IS crap compared to Clairvoyant. Let’s compare just chest and shoulders (because you can use amulet and incredibly powerful book in both builds).

Agrivix totals: 2x87% Aether, 5% Spirit, 40 OA, 5% cast speed, convert from Vitality, 2 to useful skills (Callidor), 5 to secondary skills (Inferno + Blood Boil). 5% Spirit is about 35 Spirit in my build (equals to 16% more to Aether). 3th and 4th set boni bring you: 32 flat Aether (very good, equals to 5 points into Fabric of Reality), 16% cast speed (semi-good: overcap anyway), +3 to Callidor (semi-good because of the same reason).

Clairvoyant totals: 2x34% + 63% + 87% Aether, 48 Spirit (i.e. 22% Aether), 140 OA, convert from chaos, +3 to useful skill (Devastation), +3 to semi-useful skill (Reap Spirit). 3th and 4th set boni: +6 to useful skills (Fabric of Reality + Spectral Binding), -10% cd (semi-good, because of random), +1 to all skills (very good, but can be compensated with another scepter).

Summary!
Agrivix: 190% Aether, 40 OA, 21% cast speed, 10 (important) skill points (including 5 bonus, equal to 32 flat Aether).
Clairvoyant: 240% Aether, 140 OA, -10% cd, 9-12 skill points (depending on build).

See? Why would one trade 50% Aether, 100 (!!!) OA and -10% cd for just 21% cast speed? I mean, Ravager does not slow you down, and I have 200% cast speed (cap) anyway! Now add convert from Chaos (tons of flat damage from Fabric and Fiend), and you realize (I hope) how much does Clairvoyant RAWK :cool:

Of course, Agrivix has RR as set bonus. It basically means that one can throw away Sacred strike, and use some… say, Wrathstone (100% Aether) instead. BUT!!! Clairvoyant gives you second “mana potion” - which is WAY more important than 100% Aether, because you will have to sacrifice Spear (180% Aether, 40 + 5% OA) then, and take Bard’s Harp instead - otherwise you simply die manaless!

… so? What’s wrong with green items? You just want to see all things of the same color just for the sake of eye appeal? Well, relics will break it down anyway! :wink:

As I told in the start post, I’m not an arena pro, and my arena build might be not really perfect. What I’m pretty much sure about, though, is that my Ravager build is the best (or at least one of the best)!

Proof?.. My sources tell me the opposite.

Yes I have tried it. Time Dilation forces you to drop Spear (no devotion points to take Ishtak otherwise, and the latter is 100% important). Then, there are just no REAL activators for Manticore :frowning: When I say “real” I mean “hitting several times per second”, like auto attack or Callidor. Well, you can of course drop Fiend - but it has absolutely greatest damage potential (assuming that you can in melee range). No cooldown, 2 (!) projectiles which always hit - geez, this is a cheat! With 100% convert from Chaos to Aether it is better than Spear, better than Rattosh and like 3x better than Imp - you can’t just throw it away… for the sake of what, ability to replace a single component and win 100% Aether?

But I think I get your point: you want me to drop Ishtak, not Spear. Now look… Hourglass has 16s base cd, which will be reduced down to 11,4s. At first it procs and gives you instant fresh mirror + mark…and what then? 11s cd! New Mirror + Mark will let you live for 8 sec more (IF you are lucky, and it procs when both are on cd already - not before), but 3 secs without absorbs against enraged Ravager means 100% death.

Well, guys… I mean no offense either, but I just have to say a harsh thing. Yes I’m open to advices, BUT! to accept them, I need either of two things:

a) talker must bring some solid math, because this is the language I understand;
b) I must trust him because of external reasons - for example, him being Crate Entertainment developer (yes I won’t trust even PR department leader)… or him having video of killing Ravager in less than 3 mins :cool:

Sorry, guys, but so far you didn’t bring either of these with you. No offense, once again, but that’s a fact.

WHY the heck does it have to match? My tests show me perfect examples of target resistances going negative (thus making me do way more damage). Moreover, Ravager himself does more damage with it second strike than with its first one (because of 25 RR to everything, phys res including). Do you have any proof, once again? Any posts by developers concerning RR?

Ehhehe noo… matter of POWAH :slight_smile: At least vs Ravager and other celestials.

20

Good post.

Few things though:

Ravenous Earth got 48% chance to proc mines. And each cast is guaranteed to proc at least one mine. With 34% cooldown reduction cooldown on RE is 2 seconds. With Star Pact it’s even less. Here is “math” for you: a video demonstration of how effective RE is for proccing mines. As you can see it always proc one mine and procs 2 mines 75% of the time. In Crucible where it’s crowded RE guarantees 100% uptime of Arcane Mines proc. And Ravenous Earth does damage reduction.

Clairvoyant is one of the most powerful set in game, I even made Defiler look good with it. My point was that Agrivix is as strong and stronger for CT spam. It has been proven multiple times, see x1x2 thread with sub 6:30 runs done with Agrivix set (and that is without Anasteria hat).

Ravager kill is a solid achievement, Clayrvoyant might be better than Agrivix here because of CDR and mana regeneration feature (can’t leech mana of Ravager). But Ravager kill is a gimmicky achievement that requires a gimmicky build, nothing to add here.

Regarding resist reduction math, I really can’t arsed to do it, but I will try to elaborate on what I meant when I said that rr from Sacred Strike has diminishing returns. For example, if you do 200 aether damage and monster has 50% Aether resist, he will recieve 100 aether damage. If you add Sacred Strike rr (18%), he will now absorb only 32% of that damage so you will damage him for for 136 aether (200 - 64). That is 36% damage boost! Not even 18%! Now, getting closer to my point. If you have -100% resist reduction, monster with his resist reduced to -50% will receive 300 damage. If you add Sacred Strike RR here (18%), he will have resist reduced to -68% he will receive 336 damage. Difference between 300 damage and 336 damage is 11%. You see what I am saying? Just 11% damage boost. Now you can compare those 11% to damage boost from Wrathstone. I am not saying Wrathstone would be better, I actually don’t know, but it depends on monster’s resist. My point was and is that with a mass amount of resist reduction Spellbinder has 18% from Sacred Strike is not that big of a damage boost versus a lot of mobs (again, might be bis against Ravager, but that’s not the point), and it definitely does not translate into 18% damage boost overall.

Also, I wouldn’t rely on Ishtak too much, it’s proc is surely getting a nerf hammer in the next patch, it’s way to op.