Some background on this build: This is not a complete build by any means. It’s pretty rough around the edges since i just came back to play Grim Dawn after a hiatus. On my second day back my non-purifier dagallon char went from borderline playable to unplayable, so I decided to try something else with 100% pass through along with the Dagallon Helm.
Some reasonings behind the build:
-Firestrike’s line is maxed out to take advantage of pass through
-100% wps chance with a similar reasoning.
-From my understanding, explosive strike applies to each bullet (correct me if i’m wrong), meaning that both Jaxxon and Storm spread’s 8 bullets do a lot more damage when viewed as one attack in comparison to other forms of wps. All of them procc brimstone as well.
-Flat Chaos damage from gloves as well as brimstone are converted using Dagallon’s helm into Fire/Lightning
-rr is an issue, which is why the shoulders and boots are chosen to overcap Censure to maximize rr (as well as damage reduction)
After some playing through the game, i’ve more or less come up with the following conclusion:
Pros:
-Damage, especially against mobs.
Cons:
-It’s pretty paper.
-rr is still somewhat of an issue. Even with overcapped Censure, elemental storm and Ignaffar’s Combustion put me only at 83% rr. Thermite mines puts fire/lightning to up to 107%, following which there would be 20% elemental reduction from devotion. Damage type being spread out into 3 means that the damage will never drop to ridiculous levels, but it also means that one or more of them would be resisted heavily in most nemesis matchup.
-Stun resist is kind of low.
-Playing this toon can lag the game pretty badly on large mobs. each storm stpread/jaxxon’s lucky shot tend to lead to a gazillion brimstone spreads across the screen.
Radaggan is pretty much just for censure, although i think it’s kinda changable. Harbinger’s grasp’s is mainly for the chaos flat damage, which does get converted from Firestrike’s damage conversion to Fire/Lightning. As well as the cunning requirement drop.
Regarding dropping the cold part, i did think about that, but was trying to see whether i could build an elemental build. In any case i’ll take a look at it again. it’s seems a lot easier to build in that direction imo.
Shadowflame mantle gives a WPS and +4 to brimstone. Another +2 to brimstone with non-mythical blood sigil, and an amazing proc which gives a butt tonne of flat chaos/fire damage.
With dagallon chest piece, you add 16-30 fire/lightning damage.
EDIT: Also, soft cap explosive strike, and hardcap FS
I’ll test the jaxxons a bit more. I am still unclear on the interaction of Jaxxon/Storm spread with explosive strike/static. if it’s working as in per bullet as from one of the threads from earlier, Jaxxons might turn out to be BIS.
From first glance it has been pretty good in general play, but i suspect it might just be the brimstone speeding up the play. Will test on the dummy later.
Are u referring to the mythical invoker rings (about 220% fire/lightning combined) or is there some other rings out there i’m missing that adds to 200%.
Assuming each projectile procs explosive strike, i’m looking at (28%+30%)*8 =464% weapon damage alone on each wps proc on jaxxon’s, at 24% total proc rate… Assuming my current build (not sure about WPS calculations for shadowflame).that’s a rather size-able increase in damage that i think wouldnt be topped by the 10% increase in elemental damage. I could sub the rings with the invoker rings now for testing since i have quite a few sets of them sitting around
Edit: Just noticed that each ring adds only either of fire/lightning and then elemental. Adds up to about 220%, so about 10% of total damage as mentioned. made a mistake earlier on that being 290%.
After some testing on the dummy(Homestead single dummy) :
Tested with permanent buffs as well as word of renewal, deadly aim active. Seal not active (overall damage% is now lower, should favour invoker rings) Thermite mines not used.
Ran each at 5 times or more
With jaxxon’s rings:
~19-22seconds dummy clear
With Invoker Rings:
~28 seconds dummy clear. Even had Meteor proc 3-4 times on the fastest run and it still took 25 seconds.
Quite definite from the looks of it. The worst times from jaxxon’s still ended up better (24 seconds) than the Invoker Ring’s best time (25 seconds)
Was quite surprised at the result myself. Was actually worried that i wouldnt be able to tell if the timing is too close.
A breakdown of the WPS issue i’m having right now. I’m having 110% chance for WPS, which basically means my damage is getting gimped. Looking at the wps damage output in terms of % weapon damage (since arcaneweaver gives a buttload of weapon damage)
Firestrike level 19’s weapon % is at 129% multiplier. explosive is at 14/12 with 31% multiplier.
In order of highest damage to lowest to single target:
20% chance:
Storm spread: (33%81.29 +31%*8) = 588.56% Weapon damage
Bursting round and burning void appears worse than actual, since with pass through, the overlapping explosions from both of them results in multiple hits of each shot assuming each monster is next to each other. 2-3 overlapping would be enough to create damage from a weapon damage POV. Shadowflame is a best of both worlds scenario with both multiple hits as well as AOE on hit, meaning that it triple dips into explosive strike/static while having a chance to further multiply via overlapping explosive area.
From the looks of it the best way is to either drop one of the jaxxon rings, or drop seal of the void. I’m inclined to not drop jaxxons since the brimstone procs as well as the single-target shotgun damage is through the roof. Burning void’s explosive target is limited to 3, which can limit its damage overlap potential. Moreover, i’m not sure about the firestrike-wps conversion interaction (does burning void’s chaos damage get converted from firestrike’s conversion? I still dont have an answer to this)
I don’t have most of the gear yet, but I’m trying this build out and i really like it so far.
If you do/did end up dropping Seal of the Void, perhaps Seal of Resonancemight be a good alternative?
Could clear lokarr, etc. Didnt fare too well in the shattered realms or celestials though. The item selection is optimized around not maxing out brimstone, because i found that anything over the current level of brimstone basically dropped the frame rate so much that my dps is halved.
The weapon is gdstashed, because i got those affixes on the OTHER freaking ugdenbog MI rifle drop from the barrowsholm boss, so i got pissed enough that i just gdstashed it instead of farming another 100 hours for it. Pants could be replaced by other stuff, i think the BiS is probably Kuba’s with Thunderstruck/Kings or something along those lines, but i dont have it and dont intend to GDstash it.