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.
I am pretty sure that thousands of people were doing it, but did not bother writing about it on a forum…
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.
Don’t think i’ve ever seen this one before lol
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.
Ouch… posting answers like that, inside the quote - makes really hard to reply 
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 
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 
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! 
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 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
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 At least vs Ravager and other celestials.
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.
True. Which, still, means 0,52^4 = 0,073% chance that you won’t get new mine while previous one is on, or 92,7% RR uptime. 5% more uptime, but at the cost of casting the debuff more often (I cast Omen once per 5s or so - to make sure boss is 100% weakened - but you will have to recast Earth once every 3,6s or so). Also, you will need more skill points (1 into Earth + 12 into Decay), while I need just 10 into Omen - to receive less effect than me (eq gives +4 to Omen, which results in 27% total dmg reduction, but just +2 to Earth and Decay, which gives 26% reduction). Well ok, Decay protects from all kinds of damage, so the latter argument might be moot… still 3 points into debuff is 3 less points into either Inferno or Elemental Balance. Maybe you are right, and maybe not… I’d say these are interchangeable options.
Though, any way you can’t throw away Sacred (because of RR), so why not use it as activator as well?
Dude, you’ve got 4 (!) targets there! You can’t expect as much while having just a single target (superboss).
Well, there is a major problem with crucible… it’s not as much about math and build as about tactics and reactions. I.e. not as much about brain as about spinal cord. The latter is not my strong side, I admit, so I don’t use arena as a build testing platform. I use it to farm eq only hehe. But even then sometimes it’s worse than campaign… for example, I’ve killed Anasteria during 169th wave hundreds of times, yet haven’t got her hood. NEITHER hood, not even blue one! Either “designed” 6% drop chance does not work there, or American random is just so much evil random 
I can add: this is a kill which requires almost 100% skill abstraction. I.e. it’s your character fighting, not you (as it SHOULD be in any 100% RPG, IMHO). With a decent set of macro bindings it’s your build that matters - not your ability to press buttons. So, I think, this is better way to test builds than Crucible: you can borrow someone’s build and enhance it with your skill, you can’t borrow someone’s skill, can you?
Indeed - told you, math is my preferred language! Though, problem is: Ravager has 103% resistances So, even in case we assume that I have RR set described in the start post (39 (Spectral Wrath) + 35 (Widow) + 18 (Sacred Strike) + 15 (relic) + 15 (ring) + 10 (Agrivix bonus on Siphon)) 100% up (which is not true because Widow does not have 100% activator, and ring RR needs some 10 hits at average to be reactivated again), it’s going to be difference between 103-114 = -11% (without Sacred) and -29% (with Sacred). This basically means Sacred still adds 129/111 = 16,2% bonus damage: definitely not a thing to throw away easily, eh? In reality it’s going to grant you even higher bonus (because of Widow having just 87,6% uptime and ring RR having about 75% uptime).
We have a saying here, which could be translated like “don’t die before death actually comes”. Let’s wait till addon is released - maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.
Why not, as I said, Ravager builds are very gimmicky and work well only versus Ravager.
Because of how many projectiles RE has, it always procs on one target. You can test it yourself if you don’t believe me.
Well, for better or for worth Crucible is an ultimate testing platform for builds, for now. And with Agrivix Binder with Star Pact you don’t need reactions. I facetanked everything, did like 6 runs, and died zero times with Star Pact spec, and I was playing Agrivix Binder for the first time in my life. It’s literally impossible to die with it, even if you mess up rotations of your mirror/mot/TD/mirror.
I never used any macros, and I did kill Ravager with mymelee Infiltrator. Very far from 100% skill abstraction I should say. Requires a very focused piloting unless you have an over-the-top tank and precise skill rotation. And again, all it does is it tests a certain Ravager build’s viability against Ravager, nothing more. Nowhere else would that spec be effective or even good, nowhere else would you juggle your skills and potions and tinctures like a mad man. It just proves that this particular Ravager’s spec is effective against Ravager. That’s it.
Again, my point was that Sacred Strike is borderline useless anywhere but in your specific Ravager build. You did your homework there, props to you, but again, outside Ravager kill Sacred Strike would be suboptimal on any Spellbinder spec.
Not sure what saying it is (I am Russian too), but Ishtak is bound to get nerfed, mark my words. It’s a broken mechanic on high cdr builds that let’s a lot of squishy unbalanced builds work just because they have CDR (referring to a lot of Chinese builds that exploit that devotion hard).
Gladiator builds can be seen as gimmick builds too since they require the blessings to work. Why does every build posted here be measured in Crucible metrics?
Because it’s the ultimate farming content and thus an ultimate metric for a build. And Gladiator builds without blessings rip Main Campaign content a new one with minor adjustments or with no adjustments at all. How else would you measure Grim Dawn builds?
No far from all gladiator builds can even touch Ravager…
I agree, there is no argument here. I said it many times, Ravager builds are very specific gimmicky things that are only good Ravager fights. No ravager build can touch Mogdrogen. And most Ravager builds will be slow in Crucible. But because Ravager and Mogdrogen are just tiny tiny parts of the game, while Main Campaign and Crucible are what the game is, and Crucible builds crush Main Campaign, Crucible is an ultimate test.
Personally, I don’t like Crucible, it’s too stressful and tilting for me, but I realise that it’s the standard when I am making a build. It’s gonna change in FG tho.
Crucible is a DLC bought by about 15% of the ones bought GD in total. What you meant is that “Crucible is the game for the 10-15 people who regularly post builds on this forum”. More people have access to Ravagar, Mogdrogen, Lokarr, etc than crucible.
Anyway, you are not English native speaking, but “gimmicky” can be considered “derogative”.
“Derogative” is when you tell a person who’s been learning English for all his life and lived and studied for few months both in States and UK what “gimmicky” really means. 
I just don’t see the point you are trying to make. Yes, it’s a DLC, yes, few people play it. So what? According to steam statistics only 2% or something like that even complete Ultimate, so are we going to measure build’s effectiveness by its Elite clearing timers? It’s obvious that guides that are posted here are made by bunch of nerd-enthusiasts like myself, who just love this game and love to min-max. And all of the builders will agree with me that Ravager’s kill timer is not in any way a measure of build’s greatness, because how can it be if you tailor all your gear/skills/devotions just for one single fight and then not only that but you chug and juggle potions like crazy.
Can you farm Ravager? Not really, you kill him once or twice, get couple of his helmets, and that’s it, you disassemble your ravager build into something else. Can you farm Crucible or Main Campaign? Ofcourse, that’s what you do, you farm them and you build for them.
This is just a silly argument really, I feel like I am repeating very obvious stuff and you are just trying to argue with it for no particular reason other than you don’t like min-maxed crucible builds or something.
I did not mention farming at all… I just “ask” for more diversity than the regular gladiator stuff. Like I would be very interested in reading about builds that facetanks Kuba in 20 seconds but will suck in gladiator. Or builds that can eat Aleksander’s meteors like milk and cereals but still not go far into crucible
Gonna get this into Port Valbury tomorrow and facetank Aldritch and his two friends (all 3 at once) http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78280 (I am pretty sure it can’t, but it can do crucible in 9 min. C’mon not even overcapped resistances, are one supposed to drink fire res potions in MC?! )
@RE procs on Arcane bomb: it’s 48% per projectile, and Re produces 3-5 projectiles per second, which amps tje chance to around 86-96% per second. Not the exact math cause only one bomb can proc per second but I can’t calculate without a calculator 
I do recognize that this will only be possible in a setup with manticore (+TD+Spear, maybe DG), which brings us to the next topic.
@Manticore setup: this should require a skill point redistribution, mainly using star pact instead of reckless power. With good rolls on items, (idk what your rolls are on cdr) you can get as much as 45% cdr, and accompanied with overcapping Mark of Torment, you could get your Mirror+Mark to around 8.5 seconds, with just around 1 second downtime WITHOUT TD, meaning TD will just be for emergencies. The question now, is the loss of CT dps (from reckless power) worth it? Changing your Devo setup to Manti+TD+Spear+ DG loses you flat aether, % aether (you don’t lose significant CS cause dying god) but you gain cdr (huge dps gain for devastation) and crit damage (dying god). Which one nets you better dps? Idk. No math can answer that cause even if you calculate everything, testing results might say otherwise. Please note this isn’t a “hey, your setup sucks and this is better” thing. It’s more of “have you tried this? Maybe this is better”.
@crucible being technique and skill oriented: LUL, I’d believe you if you were playing defiler but binder? Eh. Seriously it’s only true for low tier to mid tier builds. But for the best builds it’s more about finding the right skill synergy, the comfort of your bindings.
@ravager builds being gimmicky: Honestly I prefer the game being this way. Ravager builds are exclusive for ravager, Mog builds exclusive for Mog, and cruci builds are exclusivr for cruci. But with how easy (relatively) crucible is now, and the fact that it gives you the best farm, then it’s not a surprise that cruci builds are standard. Hopefully realms will fix that. There will surely be a rift between good cruci builds and good realms builds. Realms will most probably be a good farming area so having 2 very good farming sites will hopefully make builds more diverse.
Hey, man, most of my builds facetank and decimate foes like Kuba and Alexander, especially Alexander, because his Meteor can’t one shot any of my characters (thus I leech back to full hp before his next meteor). Check out my latest build, for example, aether Defiler: in a Crucible video I catch meteors from TWO Alexanders and it’s not a big deal. Aldritch from Port is a bit of a different animal, some builds facetank him very easily, but a lot of melee builds will naturally struggle to facetank them all the way because one of the couniclman debuffs you with a huge fumble/imaired aim. Here is an example of one my weaker Crucible Gladiators just decimating the trio.
90% of Gladiator builds faceroll Main Campaign content, and it’s a fact. There are also plenty of less Gladiator focused builds in the compendium, thing is, even if you sacrifice some offense to farm Gladiator, you still destroy Main Campaign as fast as most offensive builds. Difference in speed when farming Main Campaign is how fast you can teleport and if your damage needs some time to ramp up, but those things depend on masteries and damage types.
That’s what I’ve said: in this exact build vs exact target (celestial) you can not just throw away Sacred and replace it with something more powerful - there are just no things which are more powerful (except for Agrivix wisps, yes - but you have to sacrifice WAY too much to kill Ravager in Agrivix, way more than a single weapon component).
If you don’t want to talk about “gimmicky Ravager build”, then probably we have nothing to talk about. Celestials are the only benchmark I find worthy. Geez, everyone and their grandma can complete Crucible (even if it takes 12 min from 150 to 170), but just 0,07% (yes, 7 players out of 10000) have gained Steam achievement for killing Ravager! Note that the achievement is granted for killing it at ANY difficulty (i.e. you can kill normal Ravager with lvl100 char, and gain it)… now imagine the number of players who managed to do it at Absolute! 1 out of 10000 or so, I bet.
Just tested on a lone dummy. There were 53 procs per 2 minutes (a proc per 2,26 sec), which is even less than expected (120*0,48 = 58 procs); and indeed there was no 100% debuff uptime (recorded it to make sure). I was recasting Earth once per 3 secs or so (I didn’t care to set up macro for the sake of test, and I can’t manually use abilities once per exactly 3,6-3,8 sec).
So basically you’ve ignored completely the part where I was talking about skill abstraction… Yes, you might complete Crucible faster than me (I’m not surprised - many players do). But, does it mean that your build is better? Not necessarily. It might as well mean than your reflexes are better, that you are better at tactics, at kicking mobs out of corners (so they die together with the rest, not wasting extra of your time), and so on.
Without macro’s - indeed. While using them - it’s all about your build. That’s why I say it’s the best way to test builds. Also this is the reason why I suggested to create built-in-game macro creating interface in another thread.
And you still kill it way slower than me
It is perfect against any melee boss. The only way to waste hits of Sacred is to fight some caster like Anasteria, who move a lot and try to run from you rather than towards you. Thanks godness, most bosses are melee - Avatar, Lokarr, Clones, Theodin, half of Nemesis, and so on, and so forth…
Не подыхай прежде смерти
There are extremely few builds which can actually have 100% stable tank using Ishtak… I’d say they are just Spellbinder (6s Ishtak + 3s Mirror + 5s Mark) and Reaper (6s Ishtak + 3s Blade Barrier + 5s Mark) who can cover 100% of [30% reduced] cooldown with some kind of absorbs rotation. The rest just rely on luck… sometimes they survive (and then they happily run to youtube to brag about it), but in 95% cases superboss eats them w/o much trouble.
Speaking for myself, I would never play a luck-based build (dodge build etc). And I’m well-feed with my Spellbinder already, so I won’t really cry if they nerf Ishtak… I don’t use it with my other chars anyway (nor plan to). Too long cd, too small uptime. It would have been way better if it gave just some 13% absorb (or rather physical resistance, which is almost as important), but for 100% of its cd. Or maybe 20% absorb for 8 secs of 12, like Tree (it’s more or less easy to gather -33% cd, even without Star Pact). Too bad Tree has such a useless proc…
This exact build can touch Avatar. And even kill it. Without even changing much of eq. In case you’ve missed it, the build has 106% Lightning res overcap. Boo.
Exactly what I was trying to tell him!
/me raises his hat.
Then just try it on a lone dummy (at Homestead). I just did.
No, it is not, obviously? Look, you can not stack Sacred and Manticore, can you? So all this theorycraft is about getting rid of one component and replacing it with another one. Which one? Wrathstone (+100% Aether)? Not worth the loss of Reckless alone…
I do. No, it does not. The best kill I’ve seen with Spear + TD + DG was 3:35… while my one is 2:57. And I’ve even said why (in the start post): too much sacrifices to buff Devastation… and the latter misses 60% of its meteors when you have to fight a lone enemy. That’s why it’s better to survive due to Ishtak, get RR from Sacred and damage with Reckless.
Lol, no - I’ve been playing with real items and was doing real tests. Though, I’ve seen examples like this: I find some way to improve my dps by 18% (say, add another RR item)… but my total 150-170 time gets reduced by just 7s (1,5%). Moveover: I’ve seen people having builds worse than mine (less hp, less mana, way less flat damage, way less %aether, just a bit more OA) which complete Crucible faster than me. Why? Because of player skills, not build, obviously.
Lone dummy is bad target for RE. Dummy is very small after all. RE shotgun procs instantly on big targets like Ravager and it’s superior proc machine in crowds of enemies.
Geez, everyone and their grandma can complete Crucible
Loool, no.