[1.1.3.1] Non set DW Pierce Blademaster

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Introduction

Blademaster is one of classical classes in the game. It have traditions in dual melee and dealing piece damage. Usually your bread and butter is Belgo set. Also nice setup was posted by x1 using SR set. But I want to try idea without any set support. Technically I use one set piece, the chest. Also usually the goal is to empower Nightblade WPS , but here I want max Cadence and DM to see the damage.

Build

Grim%20Dawn%202019-07-15%2005-29-20-57

  • permanent buffs and DM

GRIM TOOLS- https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZP7B6PV

OK, so managed to reach 25 Cadence and 22 DM. Also use Ravager gaze, dual Reaver. Actually with extra piercing from amulet is option to use weapon with lower AP, but decide not to try the blue Axe, that is reaking of nerf. Relic is Serenity, +1 all skills and circuit breaker proc.I am not fond of pierce relic for some reason. Maybe Doom is possible, due to bonus to Soldier. Pants are ugly, but +3 to Deadly momentum is to big of bonus to pass.

Devotions, sadly don’t have much procers to utilize offensive setup. Anyway went with Oleron, Azraaka and Ulzaad. No place for Ghoul, which is unfortunate.

Crucible

Without Ghoul, build is little bit weird. Health bar is not moving most of the time, but when it does you are close to death. Deaths on higher waves blew my good time runs sadly, so 169 or 170 is better to use Aether cluster and save yourself from big damage numbers.

Toughest nemesis is Grava for some reason, Kaisan isn’t problem on 154, but can create additional problems in 170. Of course 169 is hardest wave other than nemesis spawns.

After I died in my faster run, here’s miserable 7/05 run,it should be 15-20 seconds faster by me, it has potential probably with better piloting to go 6.25 or so.

VIdeo from 170 :arrows_counterclockwise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHMLXz1s2Wc&feature=youtu.be

Conclusion

DW Blademaster is cool concept, it deals damage and is cult classic. That build shows the versatility of the class. It’s not the best Crucible build, but not bad either.

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I don’t know what to say, Nery, seems like a third best Pierce BM after Belgothian and SR set ones. Maybe self-found players who don’t have Belgothian of SR set can play it (if they kill Ravager, lol). I guess spec is solid-ish (except the lack of Prismatic in head and Oleron in devos), but I also guess you are desperately waiting for the new patch too :slight_smile:

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It’s the thought that counts, not the strength, says the author of weak build :slight_smile:

I don’t want to post Arcanist or Demo, because am waiting for changes. Blademaster is solid combo.

I am not a fan of Oleron, but BM usually needs AoE and probably is better devotion than Unknown Soldier.

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It shreds without AoE just fine actually. Build is not weak, it’s just kind of like an alternative to an alternative to Belgothian BM which also might be its identity, why not.

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Oleron + Azrakaa is better than Azrakaa + Blades of Wrath setup in my testing with SR set. On paper it’s pretty much the same but Oleron setup has a bit more DA. Guess a tier 3 proc is better than a tier 2 proc.

Also, if you’re tanky enough you won’t need a prismatic diamond.

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Why not all three ? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Couldn’t really see your devo setup cause I’m on mobile :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yes, often that’s my problem,too. I went Azraaka, Oleron, Ulzaad, Blades of Wrath, skipped the Unknown soldier.

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I am not sold on Oleron. First of all, it’s Azraaka + Uknown Soldier + Blades of Wrath (+Ghoul) versus Oleron + Azraaka and no Ghoul. Secondly, you guys are proccing neither Oleron nor Azraaka effeciently to justify having two T3 on hit devos with short cd in your setups.

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I think Nery got the wrong choice of devotion bindings. What you want is Blind Fury on Cadence and Assassin’s Mark on Blade Spirits for constant proccing of your AoE. Assassin’s Mark lasts for a long time so it doesn’t matter if you don’t proc it all the time.

The point of Oleron+Azrakaa setup is that Azrakaa is the better devotion but Oleron has the better proc, so you get both of them. You either skip Blades of Wrath (in my setup) or Unknown Soldier (Nery) here. I can’t speak for Nery’s setup but in my case Blades of wrath isn’t really the best AoE proc anyway. Shifing sands is better in that regard even if you don’t proc it every 0.5 seconds. The same comparison can be made between blind fury and blades of wrath. Blind Fury is simply the better AoE devotion compared to Blades of Wrath even if you don’t proc it every second. Blades of Wrath is better single target than both tier 3 procs tho so there’s the upside of going that way. The problem is, when luck strikes, even shifting sands/Blind fury bound to a WPS will proc everytime while even with your best luck Blades of wrath will only proc once every 2 seconds. The best times for oleron setup is better when that happens, while.on average it’s pretty much the same.

I’m not factoring in ghoul here cause it all depends if you can handle not having it. I’m totally fine without ghoul on the SR setup.

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Interesting, but do you use pet attack with Blade spirits ?

Ghoul is good, I can fit in of course and give up other stuff, so maybe needs more testing. Problem is I am not that good of pilot and also currently am playing rarely. But you made some very good points.

Oleron is a lot better for pierce than for physical builds, at least that’s my observation.

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Isn’t that dps loss? You gotta use pet attack. And even then it takes a while for Spirits to lock in and start rolling for a crit, slowly. It doesn’t matter Assassin Mark lasts for 18 seconds. Nothing can live that long. It’s all about how soon it procs.

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For Shattered Realm it’s better to have offensive devotion bound to your main attack, but for Crucible you definitely want Assassin’s Mark on your main attack for faster runs.

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@Nery and @ya1 I don’t use pet attack. But which do you prefer? Near instant RR which doesn’t do any damage and only needs to be procced once while your damage skills don’t function properly or having proper functional damage skills (which can be either Oleron or Azrakaa) while your RR is delayed by only like a second?

There are two usual scenarios in crucible: mobs or bosses. When facing a horde of mobs you don’t need that much RR. They vaporize even before most builds apply full RR. An exception is Infiltrator which applies full RR immediately which is why it’s the best class in the game. Against bosses, yes you want full RR immediately. Assuming around 20% crit chance (3k OA generaly hovers around that figure) and that DW hits count twice, binding mark to autoattack at max attack speed has around 83% chance to proc RR at least once per second. If you bind it to blade spirit and we only count the first attack of each spirit You get 56.88 chance (not very accurate) per second assuming blade spirit attack speed doesn’t scale the same as player attack speed. That’s better than RoS rumor already and that’s not counting the blades of wrath attack that they do.

This isn’t just pure math btw, my tests on the SR blademaster as well as the pierce EoR Dervish show faster times on average with mark bound to BS.

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Mine and @John_Smith runs in Crucible tell different story, AM bound to auto-attack yields faster results. Blade Spirits are by no means bad for that purpose and time difference is not that significant really, but for speedrunning you want AM bound to your aa. Reason is simple: Blade Spirits can often lag behind when you are rushing/shadow striking Bosses/Nemeses on big waves.

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I dunno. I only really did the math to see if there’s something supporting my test results. I can’t post my vids too for examination cause I deleted all of them when I stopped playing (they were taking up too much space).

I guess I don’t move around too much and my blinks are long enough for spirits to teleport that the travel time isn’t much of an issue.

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Hellow , i just started this game and i am completly newby , i want to fallow your guide but i do not know where to alocate atribute points , i am lvl 40 now and used all atribute points in cunning .
Also i cannot see the devotion points u used , witch constelations did u use ?
Thnx in advanced for reply .

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For leveling check this guide [DW melee] Beginner's Forgotten Blademaster