Build updated 28.02.2019.
Foreword
(Feel free to skip this part)
Hello everyone!
Whenever I play a game, that allows even a smallest build diversity, I’m tending to chose a harder, non-meta path for my characters (99 resistance bow-only run in DS PtDE was left unfinished, but one day…:rolleyes:). Of course, in a game, where one’s success rate in end-game content is so heavy gear-dependend as it is in Grim Dawn (and in aRPG-gerne in general), I had no choice, but to level a few characters to provide some good gear for my future experiments.
But before it happened, I was stuck on veteran difficulty, creating dozens of characters lvl50 and lower and leaving them unfinished just cuz I wanted to try this, and that, and then something else… In such a manner I lost hundreds of hours without any real progression.
Now I want to catch up with the community and so today I’m introducing my first build. Yay!
The Build
Stat sheet. Only permanent buffs+blood of dreeg active:
Blade Arc damage.
Stat sheet & Blade Arc damage w/ Hungering Void and Fire and Brimstone.
The core item of this build is Eldritch Gaze - and it is the only item in the game, that directly supports our build. The rest of the gear is a mishmash of items, suitable in terms of getting enough damage, capped resitances and OA/DA.
Some words about itemization.
Despite being the only one item to support chaos BA, Eldritch Gaze makes us free from the need to stack damage conversion and concentrate on other stats. Let’s make a quick checkup on our gear.
Armor
Head: obviously Eldritch Gaze
Shoulders: swapped Benn’Jahr’s Pauldrons to Elite Malmouth Void Pauldrons because overcapping Possession is far better, than overcapping Blade Arc
Chest: swapped Mythical Devil’s Cage Hauberk to Mythical Doomforged Breastplate
Gloves: Mythical Grasp of Unchained Might is totally BiS atm because of the 30% WD to Blade Arc. If you don’t have one - look for anything, that has high attack speed and phys/chaos damage
Pants: swapped MI to Mythical Demonbone Legplates
Boots: swapped Mythical Runeguard Greaves to Mythical Final March
Belt: swapped Lunal’Valgoth Waisguard to Darkblaze Ammo Belt
Weapon & Attire
Weapon: personally I consider Mythical Obsidian Juggernaut being BiS right now. Albeit missing attack speed and OA, it gives +2 to Occultist and provides some precious RR, wich I’ll speak of a bit later. If you lack this magnificent mace in your collection, a possible way out is to use a Mythical Scythe of Tenebris (don’t worry, chaos conversion applies earlier, than pierce) or a well-rolled Obsidian War Cleaver
Rings: swapped Judicator’s Seals to a Voidheart+Mythical Entropic Coil combo. MOAR RR!
Amulet: Darkblaze Source - the first item (apart from our helm, wich is a musthave), that I strongly recommend to use in this build. Acid>Chaos conversion to Blood of Dreeg works as a great source of flat damage
Medal: swapped Mythical Sigil of th Bear King to Blood Sigil of Ch’Thon (yup, NOT the mythical one, the proc will give us more damage). A Rylok Crest with good rolls still might be a good choice if you’ll max fighting spirit.
Relic: swapped Necrosis to Eldritch Pact. Overall good stats and a nice proc
Components & Augments
Here you are free to do everything you want as long as armor absorption is 100% and resists are capped. The only advice is keeping Survivor’s Ingenuity on your jewelery, wich is obvious in most cases and ofc stick Symbol of Solael and Potent Essence of Ch’thon to your weapon, CUZ U NEED MOAR OF DAT RR:rolleyes:
Skill Tree & Devotion
The skill tree is pretty much clear and straightforward. What needs to be explained:
3 points in Menhir’s Will - just to feel a little more safe
0 points in Fighting Spirit - I don’t think it works like a one-point-wonder, not worth it right now (but could shine with the right items)
Devotion.
Sooo, we are gathering every single offensive chaos devotion (except Abom, cuz he sucks in MC).
Guardians Gaze is bound to Bloody Pox and Flame Torrent — to Curse of Frailty. Those to skills are far more better, than Blade Arc for proccing devotion skills even on single-target.
In the previous setup I had Manticore, but it seemed to be a great loss of points, that could give us more chaos damage. Even considering the RR, it’s better to spend those point somewhere else.
Resistance Reduction
Yes. Again. As if not too much was said before. Occultist lacks innate chaos RR in his own skill tree, while having one of the best physical RR debuffs in the game. It’s rather funny, but I hope Crate will do something with this issue in FG. Anyway, I’m not going to whine about it, as even today’s state is not totally hopeless. Right now in this build we have:
-35% from Eldritch Fire (devotion)
-15% from modidfied Curse of Frailty (modded by weapon)
-10% from Solael’s Flame (weapon component)
-10% from Curse of the Void (ring)
(-70% total)
15% RR from Potent Essence of Ch’thon (weapon augment)
10 flat RR from Terrify (War Cry mutator)
Still not that bad, I guess
Gameplay
Everything is pretty simple. Run into a bunch of mobs, push all your RR buttons, spam Blade Arc, repeat till everyone’s dead. Build has enough health regen to use Hungering Void as often as you want. Most of enemies are facetankable, will add further information upon testing corresponding encounters as well as Crucible. No videos added, cause my PC is trash.
Conclusion
Even not being overpowered immortal god, this build is still fun and simple to play. ADCtH and AoE spam gives the smoothness, though it’s not a fast clearer. It’s far from perfect and not fully polished, but anyways, here’s my first posted build, so I’m waiting for critisism. Thank you in advance for your attention!
Edit
All credits to Ptirodaktill, because THIS performed much better. I only tweaked 1 or 2 skillpoints and devotion-bindings. Thanks a lot, cause this example helped me to learn more about game mechanics.
What should be mentioned, is that the build got less tankyness after making all the changes, but with all the procs, fires, eyes flying around, it looks pretty impressive for a lower-tier build. Now I’m waiting for FG to rework it another time and — who knows — maybe some day Blade Arc will shine amongst the strongest.
