[1.0.7.1 - 1.2.1.2] Frostblaze - DW Melee Fire/Cold Nex & Ortus Pyromancer - 52% WPS

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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[This old build has been updated to v1.2.1.2 (10/26/24). Please refer to the link below to find the most up-to-date version.]

[The information following is old as has been kept as a reference]

Here I present to you my very first forum build.

Yes, this is a build for an often overlooked DW melee class combo, the Pyromancer. There are only 2 DW melee Pyromancers in the Build Compendium and both are Chaos builds.

Using a combination of Nex/Ortus, Elemental Harmony, 3pc Iskandra’s and 2pc Justicar, this build makes for an enjoyable DW melee Pyromancer with decent clear speed (200% AS). Defense is pretty good with lots of Health (class combo gives you almost none), massive OA reduction (up to -441 OA!), 34% Physical Resistance, 2400 armor with 95% Absorption and 10% ADCtH.

Bonus: This build has only 5 buttons to press!

Grimtools: Pyromancer, Level 100 (GD 1.0.7.1) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Screenshot with passive buffs, BoD and Iskandra’s Prism active:
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Here’s the tooltip breakdown on FS damage with all buffs active:
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Gearing Breakdown:
Nex/Ortus Sacred Harmony – It’s the best thing since sliced bread. The key features are the healing procs, the RR proc, the Acid conversion for BoD as well as the Chaos conversion on FS (SWB & Possession), which is the most important feature for Pyromancer + Seals of the Void. In my opinion, this set should also give +1 to Occultist and add some interesting skill mods for Occultist skills.
Elemental Harmony – These rings are great for the proc and added flat Fire/Cold damage, but your class has to work with them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Iskandra’s Unification (3pc) – Great for this DW melee build as it gives a bunch of +% Elemental Damage, -% Cunning for the weapons, massive Health, 16% Physical Resistance, flat Elemental Damage and 22% Physical to Elemental Conversion.
Justicar Guard (2pc) – Gloves and shoulders are excellent for what they provide. Fire Damage, AS, Huge Health + %6 Physical Resistance takes the cake.
Mythical Legwraps of the Tranquil Mind – Spirit, OA and a nice Slow proc.
Darkblaze Ammo Belt – This gives even more Health, OA, %Damage as well as +skills that really come in handy.
Mythical Stormtitan Treads – More Health, Movement Speed, Reduced Stun Duration and the nice -10% Damage proc.
Mythical Direwolf Crest – Necessary to DW, plus tons of OA, good resistances and a WPS proc.
Ignaffar’s Combustion – Flat Elemental, great stats plus the RR proc helps even if this is an Inquisitor relic.
2x Seal of the Void – Absolutely necessary to give the Pyromancer some needed WPS skills. The +8% AS is great and the Chaos Damage (from both component and WPS skill) is fully converted when using FS to Cold Damage. This makes the Burning Void skill become all Fire/Cold Damage and is quite nice for a class combo that doesn’t have any inherent WPS.

Unfortunately, this build does not have a movement skill. It’s not as bad as you think since we have 135% Run Speed, but the added movement skills with FG expansion should help out. I tried with Korvaak’s Deception for the movement skill, but the loss of -%RR hurts even if it’s 10%… Trading a Seal of the Void for a Riftstone would be a DPS loss since we can’t covert the Chaos Damage.

Devotions:
Devotions were chosen to provide some damage procs (Blizzard + Meteor Shower), a bunch of RR as well as some needed Defense with Ghoul, Solemn Watcher and Revenant. Devotion bindings are optimal for procing purposes and for gameplay smoothness. Blizzard procs like clockwork when bound to BP!

Crucible:
I don’t play Crucible except to get the first 10 Devotion points, so I’m not sure how it prevails in there. I would think just fine, but it won’t have the clear times of a Trickster, Purifier or Spellbreaker for sure…

Final Thoughts:
I had fun making and playing this build as the Pyromancer is not a class most people will play or post on the forums. This build popped into my head when I read the patch notes with the changes to Nex/Ortus. I think these changes were excellent to increase build diversity with all the different class combos that work with the set.

Unfortunately, I think the RR on the Nex/Ortus proc is a tad high and should probably be half the value. Also, as I mentioned before, I think this set could use some Occultist bonuses since Saboteurs and Pyromancers and maybe even Witch Hunters could use these swords with the Elemental theme. The only downside for Witch Hunters is they don’t get the Chaos Conversion from the swords on FS…

Hope you enjoyed the build and let me know if there are any changes you would make!

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A pyromancer build I can get into. These swords are monsters

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Interesting build. Could you record or tell killing times against Mad Queen or Gargabol? Or some general playthrough thru something like Ancient Grove?

Also since your main focus is fire isn’t it better to ignore chaos wps and just put two enchanted flints for massive flat fire instead?

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I believe the flat chaos would be converted to cold because of the fire strike mod, right?

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Like Chaos from conversion caused by components - no, I think it wouldn’t. Flat chaos on components themselves - yes. But, this build doesn’t support cold as much as fire.

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I had looked at something similar.

I’d be tempted to limit Occultist to 32 points (is Possession that critical? - absorption% comes second last? in the order before blast shield). I think you could swap a bleed augment to make up the chaos shortcoming. Frees up a lot of points for other stuff and still keeps a fair bit of health.

BWC could do the same thing as Pox (+DA via -mob OA), but also can give some extra type damage and some pys damage reduction (which is first in the reduction order). You could consider swapping to BWC even though you wouldn’t likely put anything into Agonizing Flames, rather just the other 2. Although Pox is easy to work with due to the spread mechanic.

Good to see another pyro build listed. The proposed FG changes to Demo could potentially boost this build too (Vindictive, BWC, but TM will likely remain clunky)

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Per my testing in another thread here it the Chaos is fully converted. However, the Seals do convert some Physical to Chaos that can’t be converted.

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showpost.php?p=687810&postcount=12

I tried doing a BoC run and Shar’zul certainly took about 50% longer to kill with the Flints. Even though I have more Fire than Cold %Damage, I think it’s better to be dual element against monsters like him.

I killed the Mad Queen in about 12 seconds, so none of these OP 5 second kills. Gargabol is a pain with his high Fire and decent Cold resistance, so his both phases took about 30 seconds total?

My DW Aether Defiler kills these bosses much faster, but they don’t have much for Aether Resistance…

I’ll make some more runs and time myself some more.

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So I may have just learned something… the seal of the void WPS chaos damage is converted to cold because it falls under the fire strike as the auto attacker? Even though the chaos to cold mod is only in the fire strike line? Sorry if I am misinterpreting this, conversions can be confusing sometimes.

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@happyhamster1 Thanks for the info, I’ll check that out as an option and play around some more.

I went with BP since it stacks with the sword reduced OA debuff and the instant cast is nice. The throw speed with BWC has always bugged me. TM are kind of annoying, so I purposefully avoided them.

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Yes, FS converts it since it’s an auto-attack replacement skill. :cool:

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That’s pretty neat. That opens up a lot of doors, lol

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Can’t fault you for avoiding current TM, yes.

Ahh, the BP -OA stacks. Forgot about that. And I missed the boots so you’ve got -10% reduction anyways.

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So I spent the night trying various combinations that as suggested and this Fire/Cold setup remains the highest damage version. I was tested by overall DPS max numbers with GrimInternals as well as timing killings of Shar’zul, Garbagol and MQ.

Going full Fire w/ 2 Enchanted Flints, full Fire Devotions and 16/16 TM which is allowed by going 32 in Occultist, you lose ~2k Health & ~40% of total damage! Just going with 2 Flints you lose ~20% damage.

So the key as I mentioned is the interaction with the Nex/Ortus swords making the Burning Void WPS become Fire/Cold and hit 3 targets 169% WD + that flat Fire/Cold damage. Those 3 targets translates to 3 Explosive Strikes as well, so it’s even more damage and a much smoother application of RR with Rumor bound to FS. I went with Rumor over Eldritch Fire on FS because of the -96 OA debuff to provide a more constant defensive edge.

Being dual element helps with resistant monsters as well.

Thanks for the suggestions and I hope the Nex/Ortus set and Elemental Balance set won’t get hit too hard next patch!