[1.0.6.1] Starkadr, the cursed Pyromancer [chaos 2H ranged] [Concept build - UNTESTED]

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my concept build!
First and foremost, the most important part of the entire build: BIG thanks to mad_lee who was kind and patient enough to review ealier versions of this build, to provide advice, insights and explanations on game mechanics. Trust me, the first version of this build, before his revision, would have been one of the absolute worst builds ever posted on this forum (it might still be, but it has improve VERY significantly since then).

Introduction
I am very clearly not as familiar with game mechanics as many of you guys, but I badly want to post a build of my own creation anyway. At the very least, your feedback will be invaluable to me, and I want to learn as much as possible before the release of Forgotten Gods.
Why Starkadr? Well, people knowledgeable in norse mythology will have recognised a familiar name. In short, Starkadr was a hero who received many blessings from his patron Odin and many curses from the other gods. Among others, he would always be victorious in battle, but hated by the people, he would be rich, but have no possession, etc. Very applicable to this build as it stands I believe.

Why concept build? Why untested?
Well, as you will see below, the build requires some pretty hard to get items, and I am not a GDstash user, so it made the test phase kinda hard to perform. That being said, I built this guy up and got whatever best I could find instead of the nigh-impossible-to-get items. In MC it rocks, but I am struggling to even finish 150-170 (although my poor piloting may have something to do with that, in addition with not having the right items).
This is also an invitation to anyone who can get the items and test him (with or without GDstash) to actually give it a go. I am actually very curious how this little guy performs in the Crucible.

General concept
Well, it is getting harder and harder to find ideas that have not already been posted here (and arguably this one is not entirely new either). So I thought, there is a shortage of chaos builds in the compendium, and there is a shortage of 2h ranged builds. Let’s do both at once!
The core of the build is the Harbinger set (again, not new) and the Blood Sigil of Ch’thon that allows us to convert a whooping 70% fire damage on Fire Strike to chaos (how great is that?), giving us a pretty solid auto-attack skill. Fantastic OAs and DAs to complete and partially make it up for the natural squishiness of the Pyromancer, and there you go. Of course, the boosted Doom Bolt is definitely a major feature here. I can imagine the gameplay being more or less “run around, debuff, shoot at things, and crack a Doom Bolt in the big baddy’ colon!”.

GrimTools:
GRIMTOOLS

Conclusion:
Cause, yeah, I am not sure what else to say in the sense I have not played him and I do not know enough about the game mechanics to go in long informative rants on how to tweak it.
So, I am counting on you guys to fill this part :slight_smile:
I have the feeling this build is not going to perform very well, but I am definitely looking forward to understanding why! So don’t hold it back, just fire!

2

Thanks for giving me a shout out. Might assemble this in GDstash and give it a whirl some time later. Everything looks fine from the first glance, except you gotta bind Doom Bolt to Time Dilation. It ensures a double doom bolt cast. Although, as I told you when you were asking me about what direction to take with the build - I wouldn’t invest into doombolt here since it’s very energy consuming and it’s better to focus on a stuff that helps us survive as an autoattacker (like 6/10 Searing Light for example).

3

There’s no way anyone will play this outside of GD Stash. It’s unrealistic to expect one double-rare MI, much less five. Just throwing that out there.

One thing I noticed about the build is that your Aether resistance isn’t overcapped at all. It’s really important in crucible and in large portions of MC. I’d suggest switching one Bloodletter’s to Warding (on your ring probably).

4

You don’t need all those double MIs, and you won’t be able to farm items like that without using editor.
Settle for a rare prefix and a decent suffix for a realistic build.

I wouldn’t pump Doom Bolt either, the damage you get from the WD% is good as is and saves on Energy.
You already have RR from Doom Bolt modifier, so you don’t need the BWC one.
With the saved points you should overcap Solael’s Witchfire, and cap Flashbang line and Vindictive Flame.

My thoughts at a glance.

5

Thanks for your feedback :slight_smile:
So I revamped the skills as you suggested:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lNkWM1RN
(@mad_lee: yes, you are correct, I will definitely bind Time Dilation to DB, however for some reason my browser would not let me right now)

I was quite reluctant to pump down my awesome overcapped / supercharged DB, but when I saw the bonuses I would get from the lines you suggested, I can see what you said x)
There is always this noob temptation of pumping like crazy into something that looks shiny, without thinking the build more… hollistically.

Regarding the gear, to be honest I could not find decent enough replacements (although in practice solid greens seem to do ok at least for the legs and boots), and I am very much open to suggestions, so feel free to let me know. There are 4 double rare at the moment, including 2 MI. So yeah…