[1.1.1.1 - 1.1.5.2] Dreeg's Acid Fisting - Venomblade Dervish - Caster/Melee Hybrid High Dmg Setups (c+) (sr+)

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
,
1

UPDATE FOR 1.1.5.2:

13757155238421200896_20191220125352_1
13757155238421200896_20191220125352_1.jpg790×502 235 KB

(with all buffs, PB, LA, Asciension)

GT (nogreen): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/d2j3rvlV (crafted with 3xslowres, 2xphysique; recommend some stunres for SR)

Here’s my latest VB no-green setup. I wanted to see if the new Shuroth ring is worth it, and it is. Some other item changes since last patch got me more physres and in general more damage at the cost of Ascension but screw Ascension. The change to Yugol devotion was spot on. Next step: get acid some cc res.

Word about devotion bindings. I found binding stuff to Fervor isn’t good as the build does not use it 100% of the time. Spreading ticking skills like Plague of Rot, Aether Corruption or Bloody Pox are better for low cooldown low chance devotions like Guardian Gaze.

.
.
.

UPDATE FOR 1.1.4.2:

9779783740120104960_20190919194938_1
9779783740120104960_20190919194938_1.png792×504 631 KB

(permanent buffs only, no Ascension)

GT NO GREEN: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7eJGJN (crafted with 2 x slow res, 2 x physique; recommend 1/2 x stun res, 2/3 x physique)

GT GREEN SUICIDAL: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/1NXmKqL2 (crafted all slow res)

Endgame got ridiculously hard in GD and 25-30% phys res is minimum for any serious consistency. (RANT ALERT!) Yet Crate don’t seem be bothered by the fact that most builds can’t dream of such values, and players aiming at endgame are therefore limited to a few top-tier builds. This once proud and beautiful build has to swallow its pride and take Courageous Tincture to survive despite (what used to be) good defensive stats (except phys res).

Still, it is one of the fastest cleaning dual wielding builds. The idea to make up for the Nerfs To Everything Nightblade And Oathkeeper was to employ the rightmost part of Abomination with <60% chaos to acid conversion from Pestilence of Dreeg and Venomtongue shoulders.

For an alternative, a bit weaker dmg-wise but way more solid due to Aeon and 100% Ascension I recommend this setup by Dmt: DOOMBABY - DW Dervish, superboss killer (c+)(SR+)(g3)
.
.
.
OLD BUILDS from 1.1.2.4:

I proudly present to you, first of his name, conqueror of crucible and 75 shards, lord of 1.1.2.4 kingdoms, breaker of records…

KING VENOMBLADE

GRIMTOOLS NO GREEN SETUP

YOUTUBE CRUCIBLE OF DEATH WITH 3 BLESSINGS AND VANGUARD BANNER IN 5:35

YOUTUBE royally unbelievable SHATTERED REALM SHARD 75 WITH BENN’JARR (top da shred), CRUEL (60% crit dmg), BRUTAL (+50flat and 6% oa) AND WEAKENED (-15% health) MUTATORS

Credits go to Dmt. I took some good ideas from her. (You were right, Forbidden Medal is with %dmg and ranks is after all better than Direwolf).

Apologies go to thejabrixone. I was supposed to be testing his Misery dervish. Instead, I stole his devo setup to improve my own dervish.

GRIMTOOLS SUPERGREEN SETUP and YOUTUBE CoD 3b/VB 4:58 RUN
.
.
.
OLD BUILDS from 1.1.1.1:

GT (NO GREENS Crucible farming setup) and 6:13 Crucible Run (CoD/3b/VB)

GT (NO GREENS balanced setup)

GT (GDSTASHER setup) for SR but also 5:40 Crucible Run

GT (GDSTASHER offensive setup with Meteors) and 5:22 Crucible (CoD, 4b/VB)

INTRODUCTION

This is the first build I’m posting in FG and I’m not sure about the etiquette. Since Shattered Realm is the new mode of measuring a build’s worth I decided to put this information right here. This is not an SR build. It’s a classic Crucible flash-farmer with the amount of juice carefully measured to provide easy triple runs - and a shot at quadruple for the best of us - and enough defense to make it happen with decent consistency while still providing a challenge and a thrill.

Needless to say it conquers main game with ease - with exception of celestials - if you know what you’re doing.

VENOMBLADE DERVISH

First, shoutout to thejabrixone for this. Inspiration and some buildcrafting solutions come from there. Also, thx for pointing out Radaggan shoulders which I totally overlooked at first. If you did it sooner you’d have saved me a lot of shuffling augments and components.

So, acid dw dervish… what about it. It murders. My new favorite toy. In 7.1 this build would have shamed N&O (maybe;)). I’ve had some performance issues since 1.1 so it’s “just” 6:13 in the vid but you can “feel” the sub-6min power when you diminish enemy health bars. Defense is lacking - classic glass cannon. You can and probably will die with it if you ever decide to take a spin. My consistency is about 80% only but I believe that, now in FG, this is the price to pay for speed. Fervor dervish is rather weak defensively when not using a shield. Even stripped of all the armor bonuses, witchhunters are much more solid with phys res (AotG), dmg red (Possession) and oa shred (Wasting). Offensively, though, dervish is king.

HOW THIS WORKS

The first time I looked at the new Venomblade I pondered, go ABB or Fervor? You can - and should - do both. Not having fully modded ABB on your autoattack button feels weird at first and suboptimal with all the jamming (untransmuted Octavius fans that dared dabble in Deadly Momentum know what I mean… but this is worse because ABB needs a target). But imo it’s totally worth it to hybridize. With major cdr on the nukes better prepare for fingeraches. Best way to play this is to bind Fervor to LMB and ABB to RMB but I’m too used to having mobility on my RMB.

TWEAKS

The items in the inventory in the picture are what I tested (and the blue acid gloves I accidently dynamited when trying to remove the component). Current setup turned out to be best balanced for speed and consistency whilst not using any greens. For GDStashers the obvious upgrade would be Thunderstruck Zantarin shoulders of Kings which would free some points from Lethal Assault, Shadow Dance and Consecration to be rightfully put where they belong that is in NJE for more poison stacking, Clarity of Purpose for the magic oa, or maybe WPS. Clarity gives a very nice boost and I would siphon points from Merciless there and back but no real difference in performance.

One Ravager Eye is advisable. I’d love to hear some advice regarding the low crit dmg. Dying God doesn’t fit here even if to drop Yugol.

FEW Crucible 1.1.1.1 TIPS

  • Alex at 161 seems to spawn with a weird toughness buff so you can no longer hope to kill him before the healers arrive. Go to him to draw the healers in but attack guys from southeast, make a curve towards the healers while avoiding meteors and kill them together with Alex

  • Sometimes healers from 161 show up during the fucken trio wave. So check the northeastern spawn zone first. If its them move back south to draw them in and return to kill them while also dealing damage to the trio. If not then go back to the middle and mash like always.

  • Korvak shows up in place of Theo sometimes at 169. Unlike Theo who’s usually ignored by most builds and eventually dies from collateral dmg sometime in 170, Korvak is to be downed fast high priority. Before Anasteria, even.

  • Kymon can be problematic with his puking attack. Certainly one of the new bosses to especially watch out for.

  • New nemesis is sad. At least for this build. I thought it was a hero at first. Sometimes he shows up in place of Kuba.

  • Runes. Are. Mighty. Always use the teleportation one with any useful debuff (Dreeg’s Vector here fits perfectly). Leaping runes are shit. You miss out on 3-4 strikes due to the animation. Retreat runes are interesting and they got some very nice debuffs but I suppose it’s more of a SR thing.

GENERIC NiGHTBLADE LEVELING TIPS

I don’t usually post leveling guides because there are just too many different ways to do that. And as long as you cover the basics every each one of them works. But per request, here’s what I usually do.

MASTERY. I level single mastery first in case I change my mind and decide to go for a different class (like in case Zantai goes into another nerf frenzy;)). I put on Lokarr set and I rush the mastery bar to full picking up one point in everything catches me eye. If I start to feel weak or drops are shite I slow down and pump more points into main dmg skills (here ABB/LA). Mastery bar is king at low lvl as it gives you health. Once I’ve done that I usually max main dmg skills and get auxiliary skills to where I need them at the moment. I wait with the second mastery until I’m 100% sure what my build will be in every detail (in grimtools).

GEAR. Lokarr set and Avarice of Andronus amulet are my best friends. They support my one-point-in-everything leveling style. For this build you want to level acid devotions asap so going acid from the start is preferable: Rift Scourge Slicers are pretty good but I’d use whatever drops and has any acid and attack speed on it. But the key to surviving main game at low levels is resistances so it’s priority #1 when sifting drops.

Drops sometimes dictate what I use to level. If I drop a good Rift Scourge Slicer I might decide to pull points from ABB and do a few levels with maxed Shadow Strike. If I drop a nice Ugdenbog Repeater I might just pull everything from nightblade, pick that oathkeeper, grab any shield from the vendor and check out Aegis. The point is to have fun.

DEVOTIONS. As for devotions there are two approaches: go for blue (Sailor & Eel) first to cap run speed for faster clears or go for the procs so that they start leveling sooner. I usually go for Ghoul first. Then run speed. Then follow the route to T3 trying to pick procs asap (here especially Rumor and Manticore)

As always all questions and comments - positive or otherwise - more than welcome.

Attachment: 12337914704553836544_20190330190141_1.jpg

2 Likes
2

Nice one! !

3

Nice build ya_

I don’t think there’s any fixed etiquette in terms of how builds/guides should be formatted. IMO, it’s just as fine to post a build aimed at MC or crucible just as it would be for SR.

Also, did you try the mark of the forbidden medal?

Adds flat damage to RF + has an innate fumble proc which could save you skill points from CoS.

Tangential request - can you post all crucible findings on my crucible guide? I’m going to need to update it and could use the help of all the cruci pilots in gathering data

4

Perhaps we should have a discussion thread sometime soon regarding new build tag formats to include SR in the build compendium(s)?

5

Thx.

@ Sir Spanksalot

I decided to put my inventory in op pic with most of the items I tested (EDIT I just noticed I had the exact same number of mana and health pots in my inventory in that pic - what’s the chance of that!). Forbidden Mark is close but in the end imo big racial vs Reaper and Kuba, good 12% worth of wps, more oa and some minor flat but for both Fervor and ABB is better. And thx to Wolf CoS is so high for one point. But many choices here were dictated by res, too.

You’re free to copy paste anything in your guide.

6

I always forget about racial bonuses. Very very nicely done ya!

7

Really nice build and interesting ideas!Love dw melee and Dervish class looks strong,gloves and belt is cold,medal is pierce and legs are physical.I wonder whether Tranquil are good here?

8

You can run with Tranquil pants and Stormtitan boots which gives you big health, big stun res and a splash of dmg reduction. In theory should be tankier. But its nightblade after all. He needs that dodge in crucible. And every scrap of phys res is golden. Acid doesn’t have great green affixes so even some impossible Solael-Sect or Kuba pants might be inferior to Barbaros.

But yes, low global % dmg was a concern because of the rainbow gear. Had to go for Yugol over Revenant which I didn’t like at first.

9

This is a very solid work. I don’t think Dervishes are meant for SR pushing anyway. But fast farming Crucible like that is not really worse way in terms of getting new gear then pushing high shards.

My only advice is to either push the build into 4 runs territory or beef it up a bit so it becomes maybe 30 seconds slower but close to 100% consistent.

10

i cant not use acid meteors, but still build looks good :smiley:

Do you intend on seeing how far dervish can go in sr?

11

With no potions not far. It still got quite solid DoT - if you watch my vid you’ll see I usually leave enemies when they’re at 1/4 health - so a tactic of SS->ABB->RoS with Tainted Eruption->escape rune might work for a while once facetanking no longer does but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Anyways, loot wise though Crucible is still king.

I’m busting a pimped out Octavius now and it’s godly. I’ll check out how shards work for glass cannons later.

12

Good job Ya_!
I am still not quite sure on the def mechanism of this build though because one pointer on ascension line doesnt seem that meaningful.
How about invest more to resilience? at 8/12, it can act like a mini ghoul or something.

Also, from your video, RF is not that good on proccing guardian’s gaze. You only had 1 or 2 orbs active most of the time. In WH, it has more than 5 orbs active most of the time by binding it to bloody pox.
What about switch the binding to GoE? The damaging aura it had may make it proc GG more. It havent test it though. You still can spare one point in blade spirit for more proc machine, but in my experience, it’s still not good for proccing Guardian’s gaze.

13

I could push Ascension to 13/12. For 11 points it would give me dmg abs of Seal at 9/12 and only with 65% uptime. Pass. Resilience at 13/12 seems more reasonable. It offsets enemy da shred and boosts max res (only that 34% heal increase is sad, Ghoul gives me an equivalent of 500% heal increase). The only problem is it procs together with Ghoul too often. Pay 11 points to have another little half-Ghoul during your Ghoul? Another problem is I’d have to butcher the whole Merciless Repertoire and still get only one of the above.

Path of Three alone is not enough to carry those oathkeeper buffs. You need proper cdr. I was actually thinking about Belgo relic but resistances and da were too tight. And I’d have to butcher Merciless.

I believe the build is at this sweet glass cannon spot where giving it more defense at the cost of offense actually makes it die more often.

EDIT: good point with the Guardian Eye. I was testing on the dummy and Fervor was best but in battle it is really bad, I see now. Will change.

14

Hi, I’m new to the game and have a question about your devotion layout.

I looked at your devotion section but I can’t figure out the path to spend the devotion points. Can you explain in order to put the points? Especially I cant find the way to get the first red affinity.

Thank you in advance and sorry for the noobish questions.

15

Nice to see a pure cruci build even after FG. IMO, cruci will still be best farming area for many chars unless you have the patience and time to push very high realms. I for one still love cruci and the new changes. Especially Korvaak at 169 making it the hardest wave atm (cause 170 tricks have been figured out for a long time already).

16

You gotta find an NPC with a “Soul Guide” tag. He’s in Devil’s Crossing and later in Coven. Or in crucible. There, you can refund skill points (for iron bits) as well as devotions (for aether crystals and iron). The key to making endgame devotion setups is to refund unneeded devotions once you accumulated enough affinity points.

Example. Here, you go red, Ghoul, Jackal, blue, Sailor, green, Hawk, Candle, Manticore, Eye, Scorpion, Rat. At this point you have enough affinities for everything else (Abomination, Rumor, Yugol) but you’re missing two points. You get them by refunding crossroads red and green.

17

Hello, i’m not good with making build in Grim Dawn. I try to play with your build and i really like it. I want to ask, is this build viable for normal game? Or how can i make it for normal? I know Crucible is a mod. Should i change something in this build for normal game?

18

I think the build should be more than enough for main campaign, but perhaps ya_ can confirm that too. :slight_smile:

19

I haven’t died in main game but it’s definitely not a hardcore material.

To optimize for strictly main game I would probably take a Leathery Hide (head component) or give up on slow res and take Stormtitan Treads (boots). And maybe one Ravager Eye (weapon augment from Barrowholm). But even as is it didn’t have any trouble clearing everything save celestials in my game - and it was one of the fastest - but I can’t say that 11k health is perfect for main game unless it’s a binder or inquisitor.

21

Seriously, I dunno… I don’t feel qualified to answer this question. I leveled solo nightblade for this long ago. With Lokarr set all the way to 94. Standard ABB on my left mouse button till 55, then Beronath Shard, some WPS, some one pointer RoS for the fumble and SS for mobility/proccing Rumor. Ghost swords of alacrity (I went for cold so that I can test solo Deathmarked once I’m done but for this you wanna level acid devotions from the start so I guess some Rift Slicers would be good). I’ll update op with gereric nightblade leveling tips now