[1.1.4.2] 2H physical Battlemage +90 SR/Celestial + Crate/75-76 easy farm

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Introduction

Hello, I’ve made some meme build but results were decent for build like that and I couldn’t find concept like that so I’ve decided to post it. It’s 2H physical battlemage, safe and solid 75-76 farmer able to fight gods (well, one god - Ravager who I use for my dummy and survivality test, others didn’t try) and push deep shards (91 record). Nothing top tier but I have fun playing it.

Build
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNY5eQXN (few cosmetics changes from Mad_Lee’s suggestions.

Leviathan + Warborn helmet are core of this build. There is no better weapon for us (maybe some godly rares?) and helmet provide CDR for war cry which is one of the cores too. I use warborn armor + shoulders too because of set bonuses but it can be changed for Titan Pauldrons and Dread Armor of Azragor, results are good either. Krieg’s parts are viable alternative too.

I’ve tested few devotion routes (dying god, empyrion, combinations of these etc) and this one gave me best results, Hourglass is great because of reduction for many dots + slow/reflected dmg reduction and cdr for mirror.
Vire provide good bonuses and reduced target’s phys damage which is good during some miliseconds war cry effect off.

For basic stats - physique only for armor requirement, rest for cunning, we need high OA on 2handers like that to survive and do any damage, especially we are battlemage so lack of RR.

Craft gear for stun resistance but it’s okay even without it, works very good with 40-50.

Performance
91 shard reached (no pharma) but it’s not very easy (till 87 where i lost timer, after scaling become brutal for us, not hard before). I had small map + grava’thul fiesta all last shards so I’ve decided to stop. With pharma including some lifesteal/armor oils maybe it’s possible to go 2-3 shards higher till being outscaled but I am a little bit burned out so no ambitions for total tryharding. 75-76 is walk in the park, very hard to die here and most boss combos can be facetanked all at the same time without agro abuse and kiting, only gravathul/kaisan/kubacabra can force us to kite, avoid pulling all if they are here for easier experience. Consistency is 100%.

bm91
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Ravager killed a little bit under 5 min with 0 pharma used but skills have to be timed without mistakes, it’s all about ghoul/mehrir’s will/hp potion/mirror cycling, always instantly cast war cry and use Hourglass reset smart, avoid it when mirror cdr is up. With pharma (especially life steal oils) it’s easy fight.

nopharmaravbm
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Some skills like manticore/ravager’s curse visible on screen because I forgot to unbind them after testing other setups.

Update: Managed to kill Crate boss with setup tweaked for him: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RVvxkopN
Use Titan Pauldrons for max petrify resistance (very helpful), Mark of Divinity for medal (no aoe, great abs proc), changed devotions (turtle, crab, no Vire because aoe), 3 points into Terrify to disable boxes, Markovian only for proccing Ulzaad, few points into Menhrir and Conversion for CC resistances and more heal, rune of displacemt (no aoe), disable seal of blades (aoe) and tons of pharma.
Tactic: at start position his back to the wall to fail his jump, DPS as much as you can before hp potion -> dps more-> use mirror -> dps -> use AC -> dps all the time -> lure him a little to the start and attack when you can -> go to the main hall and kite him around stairs, always position his back to the wall before engage with hp potion and mirror, repeat till he is dead. We can facetank him a lot because of terrify from warcry, fight took around 5 min, first try after tweaked setup.

bmcratekilled
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Everything, I am open for suggestions, regards.

6 Likes
2

Great job man and people say that battle mage was dead

1 Like
3

Hey,

Couple of questions:

  • Why not even a point in Fight Form? Surely hitting two targets instead of 1 is worth 1 skill point
  • Why Counter-Strike? Does it really give anything to this build? Seems like a 1-point investment, there is stuff with much better returns we can invest in here
  • Why not invest some into Arcanist mastery and get 1 point into Fabric of Reality? Some stat boost and a some valuable racial damage
  • Markovian’s Advantage is a no-no for two-handers. Animation is slow and it brings your performance down. Zolhan’s is the answer
  • Bone in chest seems like a better choice than Chains. We can get OA elsewhere and we don’t need trap res. Some more Chaos overcap might be useful tho (as well some more damage against half of the enemies you encounter, meaning better health returns).
1 Like
4

Hey,

Corrected it fast before your post (new gt link), I’ve attempted Crate boss (almost killed it lol) and forgot to fully respec. It was used all the time before.

I have no knowledge if it’s good or not for this build, I don’t know full mechanics of this skill so decided to softcap it. How can I check if it’s worth to use/even max?

That’s good point, if counterstrike is not worth putting points in it can be take.

I thought before that Zolhan makes our animation slower and Markovian is better, thanks for remind :grinning:

That’s one thing I’ve considered, can be true and good choice. Chaos and pierce res higher overcap is not worth for SR from my experience (at least focusing on it).

I will correct these things.

1 Like
5

I honestly have no knowledge of how good Counter-Strike is without item support or retaliation focus. My guess it’s not worth more than 1 point.

That is for dual-wielders. It’s honestly very confusing and I have no idea what was the rationale behind dividing Soldier’s WPS like that. Maybe @Zantai can answer this?

6

Maybe someone here has some experience with CS mechanics and I will give advice if it’s good here or not, then I will make next change here :wink: Thanks for advices.

7

You can always test it yourself. Shards are not good testing grounds but still, make a run with 16/16 CS, 1/16 CS and 0/16 and try to see the difference. If difference in performance is minimal, leave it as one-pointer.

1 Like
8

Tested, that’s right, 1 point into CS is enough. Difference is only a little bit visible vs white mobs but still majority of damage comes from cadence so some raw stats and additional racial damage > maxed CS. Corrected already.

1 Like
9

I would recommend putting more points in Arcanist to drop a 1pointer into Fabric, also, softcap Elemental Balance, that would help the build a lot.

Also, I am not sure if 12/12 Mirror is absolutely required here, because it scales very poorly after 7/12

10

Got 1 point into Fabric already, 1 point from Maiven and few points from Menhrir can be took to Elemental balance for 75-76 farming but 10/16 Menhrir was game changer in higher push and Ravager fight, % heal was very noticable and couldn’t kill him before investing into it.

Mirror 12/12 is imo worth it, I had many moments where that 1 second cooldown saved me, Ravager fight with no pharma and +85 shards for example.

11

then take points from War Cry, imo. Soft cap is where it’s at.

1 Like
12

12 Elemental balance/14 WC/9 Menhrir should be okay, more crit and still good damage reduction/heal, thanks.

1 Like
13

Interesting…

Have you considered using targo set instead? I feel like converting all that elemental damage in the arcanist IEE skill line will give you a butt tonne of IT damage.

P.S: Always nice to see builds from you!

1 Like
14

Forgot this set even exists but I think it can be viable for chest + shoulders as alternative - but not a helmet, we lose too much, +1 soldier/attack speed and cooldown for WC which is core for us because of damage reduction and RR all the time if casted instantly of cooldown. Hourglass wouldn’t be enough because of it’s cooldown. Next thing is, we lose +1 cadence from shoulders and we have ugly 25/26 skill. We have basically no elemental damage, whole arcanist tree is used for OA and damage absorbtion so we can even lose some damage I think.

15

there’s actually a tonne of IT damage in overload

e.g. 12/12 overload gives you 3x the DoT than 12/12 oleron’s rage if you can convert it.

16

Well, hard to say what would be the final effect in terms of min-maxing, it’s very viable choice for sure but we lose some flat damage/armor/attack speed from warborn set too so I don’t know if it’s better or not :grinning:

17

You’re probably right. It’s just my wishful thinking, really. :stuck_out_tongue:

Still, great battlemage!

nice to see a top tier BM

1 Like
18

Thank you, BM is actually very good class for shattered realm (farming + pushing) and celestials(probably bad for CR because of lacking of RR and other offensive side), especially SnB version with some greens (#2 tank after retal warlord).
It’s okay in DK version too but for realms it’s outclassed by BM because of defensive side.
There is probably not much build variety but this class is not as bad as people says, at least in SR :grinning:

19

Would you mind if I PM’d you a retal warlord I’m doing up for a HC challenge? I’d love your feedback

20

Sure, played some retals before and pushed it to 100 so maybe I will know something :grinning:

1 Like