[1.1.4.2] Ulzuin's Barrelsmith - Skyfire grenadier reborn (6min buffed/bannered clear; 9min naked)

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
, ,
1

Original concept by:

  1. PlagueMirth: Unimaginative Grenado + Canister Bomb Spam Purifier

  2. @Adam_bomb: [1.1.4.2] Ultos and Ulzuin's Chosen: Hybrid Lightning Bomber Elementalist, 8min Crucible 170, SR76+

Sorry mates, didn’t mean to not credit either one of you, I just didn’t know a similar build had already been done

Shoutout to:

  • Nery for brainstorming with me. Your suggestions led me to think of different augments to fix energy issues
  • Crate for the letting us 20/10 ulzuin’s chosen in a very natural manner
  • Mad_lee for suggesting bat

image
^Before all procs, buffs, and banners

Original GT (buffed/bannered): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZo61J9V <-- 5:50 clear with input from mad_lee
Recommended buffed/bannered GT: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/mN438rYZ <-- ~6:05 clear
GT (naked): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZPOedGV
YT (3 + 1): https://youtu.be/MFEOWzN5CLM
YT (naked): https://youtu.be/H_DY3E75EmE
YT demonstrating spammability of explosives: https://youtu.be/iaJNuvyk8No

Preface

This is one of my few builds which isn’t designed to run naked crucible. Of my 20+ attempts, I succeeded once.

Now naked viable. However, I still wouldn’t recommend it. The -25% HP mutator makes it a nightmare because I was forced to give up typhoon powder augments for arcanum dust.

As for buffed/bannered runs…the build is designed to stack CC res, and have high overcaps on resistances naturally so that you can bypass Ulo’s buff, and use ulzuin’s buff. Why did I design it this way?

  • We are muhfucken ulzuin’s chosen, of course.
  • To compensate for OA loss from taking 3x typhoon powders. I’ll explain the rationale for this below
  • For better energy sustain so we can get better weapon augments. (For MC, use dreeg’s foresight instead).

LOL. Inquisitor with no seal and 11/12 deadly aim?

  • Without sufficient plus points to inqui mastery, seal is kinda worthless. Furthermore, needing to stop and cast it every few seconds decreases DPS. This spec is also meant to be a a glass cannon. You aren’t staying in one place for long to justify seal’s skill point investment.
  • 11/12 deadly aim because I can’t help myself but want to hardcap all my other skills. Feel free to take points away from flametouched, vigor, or thermite mines if you really want to 12/12 deadly aim.

Why not use another mastery then?

  • Because of word of renewal. I really like the on demand heal.
  • That being said, I think a pyromancer may work equally well (if not better) here. I might test this one day.

Devotions

  • Offensively, eldritch sun was the key piece to solving this puzzle. Juicy HP gain, huge OA, 90% to all damage, and DA/OA shred? Was definitely worth giving up 17 more RR by going crown.
  • Defensively, mad_lee perfected the build by suggesting I take bat of giant’s blood, which in turn allowed me to get ghoul. The combination of the 2 results in absurd sustain.

Itemization

  • Gloves: Gauntlets of Ignaffar again really shines here. It allows you to hard cap both high impact and shattering blast.

  • Relic/rings/pants: The goal here is to 22/12 high impact. BiS would be a korvaak’s deception with +1 to high impact so you can use the items displayed in the GT above. Alternatively, you can…
    a. swap out stormwitch ring for reign of ice and fire.
    b. Roll with a green Kuba pants with +3 to high impact.

  • Medal: Kymon’s medal is clearly BiS here. You don’t need the affixes that I have. The only reason why I chose them was for energy, OA, and casting speed. That being said, I think ‘of the gildam arcanum’ is BiS simply because you have that 5% chance of 70% CDR. I’m not sure how it interacts with ulzuin’s chosen, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. That being said, after some testing, the difference (if any) isn’t very noticeable, so any decent affix works well here too.

  • Ring augments: Personally, I feel people gravitate towards skyshard’s excessively. Typhoon powder (imo) is HUGE for casters with no (or very low) %WD skills. It gives the same amount of %lightning damage, 70 DA, 350 hp. That’s a massive 1050 HP just from augments alone. Doing this fixes the biggest weakness of this build - getting oneshotted without allowing blastshield to proc.

Stat point distribution

  • Personally, I invested in physique just to meet the 1035 requirement for pants. Everything else was dumped into spirit for damage and energy.
  • That being said, going for a full physique dump might be more practical.

Piloting tips
It plays like a classic hit-'n-run spec. The goal here is to unleash death and destruction before bailing. You should never be in the same spot for more than a few seconds.

  • Thermite mines/aether corruption/FB
  • Hammer away at the hotkeys for grenado/CB
  • blink out when they both enter their cooldowns
  • Use blazing eruption, while kiting
  • Rinse and repeat

Closing words
I did a quick search in the forum looking for a similar build, but didn’t come across one. So apologies in advance if this is a rehash of a previously done concept. I’ll gladly credit the original author in this post if there’s one.

6 Likes
2

Fuck yes, I’ve been wanting a top tier grenado build for ages!!! Who knew it’d be this good? Of course a large amount comes from canister. But holy cow!

I think Valinov sent me a SR set version a while ago: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2p6v8aZ

3

So this is an original concept then?

And yes, canister bomb is awesome because of fat DoT ticks. Bring a nem low before focusing on another one. Let them DoTs finish the job for you.

@adoomgod - BWC looks like an awesome pick here, even with just 1 point + transmuter. I might try a run with that.

4

Another excellent showcase!

So Korvaak devotion, that’s interesting. I get why you didn’t invest many points in Inquisitor mastery, since this is very point hungry build. And it’s normal thing, since you want to max 2 offensive skills, Ulzuin chosen, Censure for RR. For energy regen you can try a cheap solution - Royal jelly extract, in quick builds you need to apply it just once before starting wave 150.

About the concept, there was posted excellent build with Ulzuin set, but with off hand. Also I tried with SR set. The set is good btw, but you can’t hardcap Ulzuin chosen. But if you play SR you have more points in Inquisitor mastery. Playing Elementalist it’s interesting idea here, but Idk. Inquisitor automatic RR and damage reduction from Censure is QoL.

5

Problem with elementalist is the lack of heals. Even with giant’s blood, I find myself struggling to maintain a safe amount of HP.

You also lose out on damage reduction. :confused:

It might work, but it isn’t for me.

Any chance for the link to the ulzuin set w. offhand?

6

You certainly came back with a BANG here @sir_spanksalot! :smiley: Great build with lots of bombs to throw around.

1 Like
7

Yet another purifier build… but, wait, it uses grenado! Nice!

The comment about purifiers is just an observation, not a complaint. Much better than the days of non-stop builds with soldier mastery.

And also nice use of eldritch sun.

8

Here you are! HERO OF SCIENCE AND MAGIC - bi elemental grenadier (c+)(SR+)(g4)

Yes, Elementalist is weak defensively, you need like 1k flat regen before DG in order to shine. Plus both of your RR sources required pushing keys.

1 Like
9

Im confused as to why people keep going for wyrmscale gloves. Grey magi does seem like a great pick up though, I must admit.

I wonder if I tanked up a little more (i.e. more physique, defensive shoes, etc.) it’ll be able to take on crucible naked?

But I kinda like the build as it is. It’s quite common to see 800k crits pop up on nems. I’ve killed aleksander in 1.5s before.

EDIT: I get it. Dude uses courageous tinctures/aether clusters.

10

Just don’t tell her a dude and you’ll be fine asking about consumables. :rofl: I used aether clusters too in SR, expect when I am playing something really tanky or am having easy Nemesis. Just play SR to high levels and meet Shattered version of Sentinel or Anasteria :grin:

As gloves, Wyrmscale are good, that OA and proc with WD-juicy.

11

So SR+ means 75-76 but with consumables?

As for the gloves, if you really wanted a lightning pair, I wonder if cindertouch would be BiS?

EDIT: also 22/12 shattering blast is a must IMO.

I made a skyfire purifier a long time ago using light’s defender, and veretragna, avyctes, and hammyhamster and I got to discussing the mechanics of shattering blast.

The conclusion we arrived at was…

^This was confirmed by avyctes as well.
In ultimate levels, investing in shattering blast increases the %chance of dealing bonus phys damage by 1% as well as adds flat fire damage. However…

21/12 = 84% chance of +340% phys/IT damage.
22/12 = 90% chance of +350% phys/IT damage.

Then there’s also an increase of 62 fire damage to grenado.
I really wonder if giving that up is worth the proc and %lightning damage.

12

Spanks with another one! Good job!

I would argue, however, that finding 8 points for Deadly Aim would help the build quite a bit. I would also ditch Giant for Bat in devotion since it doesn’t seem that you have a lot of regen stacked.

13

Where would you take the 8 points from?

Bat is an interesting choice for sure. There’s something I’ve been wondering about, and you probably know the answer to it - how does the CD on prismatic rage actually work?

For example, I’ve noticed that for grey magi’s proc, the 8s CD starts to tick down while the proc is active, meaning it has an effective downtime of 4s.

Is this the same for prismatic rage? Or does it work the same way as blastshield (minus the possible benefit of %CDR)?

14

I am not sure tbh, it feels like cd starts after the proc stops. Bat with Stormbox is pretty nutty. You can trim points of something like Blast Shield and Flame Touched I guess? 10th point of Vigor seems like a waste for sure.

15

If I make those changes, I’ll probably need to get storm titans or runeguard greaves just for the HP. It’s definitely worth testing though

16

Didn’t think this set worked so well. Really like the build. Nicely done!

And here I am doing spam bwc while you are having fun

1 Like
17

How is BWC spam? I only realized recently that the burn doesn’t stack. So is the damage gimped?

18

I did around 5:35 runs. It’s good actually, but squishy and demanding. Could use Censure and WoR on it heh.

19

What about just putting Bat on Aether Corruption?

20

Only nice vs mobs, but bosses. not so much. SB is better