[1.1.4.2] The Dark Archon - Full Vitality Acid Purge/Totem Archon - No greens ~6:15 gladiator 170



Introduction:
Shout out to @mad_lee for his Conjurer, @sir_spanksalot for his Ritualist, and @Nery for his Cabalist. Also thanks for always being open to giving feedback/helping polish builds.

I’m here to bring a sick vitality Archon to the Dark One family. This build uses high mobility in combination with damage sources which are cast and forget in nature to clear pretty quick. This also allows for damage to continue when the need to kite arises… Although through high adcth and the solid healing from wendigo totems, this build offers strong staying power as well. As long as ascension is up or ghoul is off cooldown you can with relative safety charge in, and cast a fully converted acid purge to really up the DPS.

The Build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2E4gOmN
The goal was to get as many +all skills as efficiently as possible. The avenger belt really helps in this regard by giving us +1 to both mastery. The dark one set makes wendigo totem into a fairly solid damage dealer, as well as providing good healing… all and all the great support skill it should be :slight_smile: This build features full acid to vit conversion as well as very high chaos to vit conversion. It makes the acid purge + guardians gaze combo a very strong source of dps for the build. The build does suffer from low elemental resists, luckily we have 6 pieces of gear that roll with elemental resist. (hope for high rolls) The lowish over cap is somewhat covered by the proc from wyrmscale greaves. They also proves good stats and +2storm totem which allows for the 7 target max.

Video:

https://plays.tv/s/MQhxOJHMD9Rg

This is a run with neutral mutators @6:15 time. You can see I lose some time on 151 (~6seconds) to mobs getting stuck in the spawn, and lose a bit more on 162 by getting chain disrupted like a noob :stuck_out_tongue:. This most likely represents close to an average run. The leeching mutator and the negative cast speed mutator really hurt the performance of the build. I almost finished a 7:15 clear with the following mutators leeching +15%vit res, voidmarked -25% cast speed, shattered -10%total damage… absolute worst mutators I died halfway through 170 vs Valdaran, Moosi, Grava, and Kuba. Favorable mutators for the entire run (Marked +8% total damage and Poisonous -8% vit res) would probably lead to a slightly sub 6 min clear.

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Check out my other grim dawn videos @ https://plays.tv/u/Valinov. Also feel free to question me about anything you see there.

7 Likes

How potent are levelled guardians?

Hard to say, but after looking it seems they only gain about 160 vit damage from the skill point dump so it probably would be best to use them elsewhere… the DA shred from judgment looks promising

1 Like

I personally think guardians are only worth getting if you can get several of them.

The one time I experimented with them was on my blightlord shield breaker, but that was ages ago.

Shame that the offhand which increases the max limit of guardians doesn’t let you convert its acid damage :confused:

yeah the one downside of acid or vit builds trying to use guardian is that due to the skill conversion you arent able to make their damage type uniform… but it was the only way to make the RR type changeable

Jabby has tested this. It actually does.

So with blood orb, your guardians are doing pure vit damage

odd… this would be the only case of this working in the game. Damage cannot be converted twice… which is why the flat piece damage on spam PB rancor piece builds is wasted

But if it is somehow being converted then guardians for sure are worth it.

according to jabby, guardian’s transmutor works differently in that they basically summon a different set of guardians. Not so much that the damage on guardians gets converted.

Which is why the debuff they apply changes

in that case they definitely are worth taking… that actually would help explain some of the vit decay getting so high

although a link like this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLn83dN looks pretty great too… 12/12 clarity, 10/10 haven, and 3 overcap on oak skin.

1 Like

i should revisit my shieldbreaker again.

+1 summon limit to guardians, and dawnshard gloves was awesome

Especially because I coupled it with mortars.

#theOGmortarspec

1 Like

:heart_eyes:

Same thing for storm totem. The transmuter spawns a different model and cuz of that you can actually convert the vit damage on the vit totem to another dmg type afaik. Just like with Guardians.

2 Likes

How durable would you say this is vs the Conjurer and Ritualist? I’ve done the Conjurer and it’s basically facetank city (he has extra sources of healing though).

You need aditional pylons

1 Like

nice build

Conjurer is the gold seal when it comes to durability. The OA shred from pox, the extra %absorb on possession, and the healing from sigil lead it to be being nigh unkillable without making a significant piloting error.

I would say archon is slightly above the ritualist or at least on par… it is very close. The higher %damage reduction offered by high lvl decay combined with Mark of torment is very strong. Archon gets extra bonus healing (kind of a big deal with so many sources of healing), CDR, and Ascension with pretty good uptime.

aCdPJH

I wonder if that offhand really converts damage on guardians since it’s a transmuted skill already?

After rektby mentioned the things about the transmutor summoning a different model, that jogged my memory. They do summon an entirely different version of the skills. Thus the damage should be convertible.

1 Like

No Wendigo devotion :cry::cry::cry:

Also, that Guardian investment seems questionable. Someone from our Discord tested Guardians damage and it was meh even with item mods and additional summon. Maybe it’s worth investing into passive stuff like Clarity of Purpose and Shaman mastery bar. Or maybe try Judgment for DA shreda, although it’s another button added to the piano mix.

But solid build nevertheless, first one to properly utilize that Acid Purge. Great job!

1 Like

Hmmm, figures. The offense and theme (acid rocks, love the devotions) of this build are still very attractive. Acid Purge doing work.