1.1.1.2 Whirling Sand Dervish

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

-Preface-

I am not a great build designer nor a great pilot. With many SR 75 capable builds others post I personally cap out a lot lower in the 50s solo. So take that into account when I say that my piloting of this build similarly caps out for myself in the 50s solo. That out of the way…

-The Build-

Did you hear Dervish and spin to win and think to yourself Whirling Dervish? Did you ever think to yourself the only reason I want to stop spinning to win with EoR is to spin to win in a different way with RoS? Did you ever think to yourself wait a minute, Blade Spirits also spin, and the new relic creates spinning sand storms, and I know a pair of spinning boots so I can spin even more? And finally did you ever think to yourself I’d like to make all this spinning pierce damage because spreading out the damage between physical and multiple elemental types is dumb? Well then I’ve got the build for you.

Whirling Sand Dervish

Like any half decent Auramancer/EoR build this breezes through the campaign and through trash levels of the Shattered Realm by merely existing. A mobile death field spitting out more damage procs. RoS is your nuke for targets that don’t melt instantly. Defensive options let you push past solo boss encounters or hairier mob situations like a single nemesis and 5 hulks/titans on you.

But at least in my hands the build is not particularly super boss capable nor does it do well versus nightmare SR situations like Kaisan, The Mountain, and Kymon all at once which crop up with distressing frequency in high SR. Do note that the build is SR 75 capable in multiplayer since you can tank a threat or two while your buddies handle a threat or two of their own.

-Fundamentals-

The key thing I wish to showcase with this build is using the Shattered Realm unspecified set as a prop to hold up what is otherwise a lightly supported build. Power gamers and builders will likely wish to cut the flavor entirely, and I will discuss possible cuts later, but some of the fundamentals to the core of the build may inspire other builders.

There are a lot of damage conversion items tied to weapons, rings, belts, and medals. There are a lot of skill modifiers tied to weapons and gloves. The Shattered Realm set leaves those spots open while supporting all damage types, giving a generous +2 to skills, and nice defensive options. So with that in mind I glued together elemental to pierce conversion (and full physical to pierce) with a couple of RoS modifiers with the SR set for a RoS pierce nuke and an unspecified filler pierce skill while the nuke is on cooldown which in this case is EoR for flavor reasons.

The end result of all that flavor is the elemental damage on spin skills like EoR and Blade Spirit or flavor items like the boots all becomes pierce. The pierce EoR serves as the proc machine for Azrakaa the devotion and Azrakaa the relic creating more layered pierce damage in a manner similar to auramancer builds.

-Immediate Improvements-

Nadaan’s Reach can go up to 70% conversion and Bladetwister can get up to 30% so with good rolls you can cut one Bladetwister for a Belgothian’s Sigil.

Someone better than me can probably work out a component and augment system to get a Prismatic Diamond into the helm and still meet the resist needs.

A Callagdra helm with that Diamond and a god tier Kaisan’s Eye are probably better than the SR helm and neck and cover the same defensive bonuses.

-Removing the Flavor-

The boots and the relic are trash and serious builds should not look at them. Blade Spirit should be a 1 pointer. EoR is probably wrong and this should probably be either a Blademaster with Cadence as the between RoS skill or more interestingly an Infiltrator with WoP/Death Sentence for additional pierce RR and a Yugol’s relic to continue spinning to win.

-Conclusion-

If you are looking for a fun campaign/rogue dungeon/mid tier solo SR build that pulls its weight in higher multiplayer SR you may enjoy this build that has all the spin and all the sand you could ever want.

But perhaps more importantly to build creators, the SR set is actually a lot better as an unspecialized set than you might think at first glance and can prop up lightly supported builds to respectable (but not god tier) performance.

2

I really, really, really like the creativity of this build. It’s refreshing to see someone post something that they truly enjoy because it’s fun. :slight_smile:

Just a question - have you considered DW’ing reavers, and trying to do an EoR build?

That way you’d be spinning as well. <---- Ignore this.

EDITED: What I meant to say was - that way you could benefit from the phys res of dual blades

You can take pack of treacherous means + bladetwister for nearly 100% elemental --> pierce conversion.

Regardless, nice guide!

3

I actually hadn’t. I think I lost sight of them being so fixated on new expansion items and some thread I read which claimed that EoR with a 2-hander was superior to 1-hand options (but the math was beyond me for verifying).

Dual Blades for the phys resist and perhaps almost equally important Breath of the Belgothian is definitely tempting.

On the flip side one thing I didn’t mention about the Nadaan’s Reach is that it also features hefty CDR which the Reavers don’t. Higher uptime on Resilience, Ascension, and all the defensive devotions is also very nice.

4

Looks like a fun and creative build. Thanks for posting!

5

Really nice build.

Is Blade spirit that good ? You could chunk some points to get some more passive defence or more crit (divine mandate).

6

The answer is yes and no. For most folks the answer is no which is why I acknowledge it should be a 1 pointer under the removing flavor section.

But the reason for my personal yes is a crutch for my poor piloting. I react too slow to shotgun bosses like Zant, Mad Queen, or Gargobol with his fissures to catch the animation tells and get out. I only dare engage after I see their skills go off and then get out early to wait for another window. So that leaves me with a lot of dead time standing outside of melee range on this otherwise melee build. At the same time I also play a lot of pet builds so maintaining proper positioning to have them continue damage while I am out of shotgun range is something I can do so I am not purely twiddling my thumbs. Getting them up to 16 makes them semi-respectable damage instead of being wet noodles as a more standard 1 point devotion proc only skill.

7

So the relic proc…because there is no %WD on the nados you aren’t converting the physical to pierce correct? I know it’s used for the theme I’m just looking for confirmation

8

To the best of my knowledge there is no conversion for the physical part. Part of my reasoning for labeling the relic trashy fun instead of serious.

9

Creative build. You could do much much better with better skill distribution, something like this. Also, those boots are really holding you back - I understand you want their proc, but their stats are pretty bad and you are missing out on potential Phys res/DA in that spot.

Also, Bloodied Crystals are much better than Runebound Topazes nowadays.

10

With belgothian’s slaughter relic, I think the CDR should come up to be the same

For BS - you might want to look into m. will of the blade.

11

Looks like a very fun and interesting build! Well done