Hi, Im sorry to bother you, but may I ask where the 75% life leech resist come from? I have almost the same setup (I used your build) but my life leech resist is still -25% which is pretty dangerous on hc. Apart from the black matriarch ring and the medal I have all the items, but they dont seem to add life leech resist. Am i missing something?
Clarity of Purpose modifier of Ascension skill gives Life Leech Resistance.
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Thanks ever so much! I was so focused on the gear I didnt even think to check the skills!
I’m trying to learn something about the Soldier skills - why no Zolhan’s Technique or Markovian’s Defense to shorten the timer on Overguard? I may know the answer to the 1st but have no clue as to why Markovian’s Defense would not be taken.
I don’t think Markovian’s Defense is needed. You have modifier to it but -18% damage penalty, haven’t tested whether it’s worth it.
Zolhan is straight DPS loss for builds outside of 2H melee. Shattering Smash and Markovian’s are good enough WPS skills for this build.
Thanks Nery. Didn’t expect a reply 8 minutes later.
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next question: why no warcry for RR?
Warlords are point hungry and I have flat RR from Scales and damage reduction from Empyrion. Also build was made pre-buff of War Cry. Now… I still won’t use it 
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Hi Nery, I would like to know, did you level this build? How? At lvl 50 aprox? Any idea? Tnx before hand
Just level with forcewave, it’s the easiest way to level soldier builds.
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what Piaro said, here is a leveing guide if you are new-ish 
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Or even better, Ceno’s Blitz guide :
Closer to the build albeit slower.
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This build viable as of 1.1.9.0?
I copy what I wrote under “FAQ” in my beginner build compendium
Patches in Grim Dawn does not work the same way as in say Path of Exile. Even if a guide is 3-4 patches old, it is still 95%-100% accurate. Given that the purpose of these build guides are to help you get a char to start doing end-game, you should not care about it being ”old” or ”outdated”. You can also just ask in the thread for that particular guide if there is some important item or skill change.
What is more relevant is if the endgame - Best in Slot (BiS) geared builds that are often presented last in these guides are updated and viable. But the leveling and budget gearing part is as mentioned 95%-100% accurate and relevant.
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Zolhan is straight DPS loss for builds outside of 2H melee. Shattering Smash and Markovian’s are good enough WPS skills for this build.
I’m confused as to why Zolhan’s is a straight DPS loss. Looking at WPS for my character:
- 28% Chance (16/12 Markovian’s Advantage)
- 17% Chance (3/10 Smite)
- 23% Chance (7/10 Shattering Smash)
- 24% Chance (8/12 Zolhan’s Technique - from a single point, +3 from medal, +1 belt, +2 set, +1 weapon)
That adds up to a 92% chance of a WPS proc which is below the 100% threshold. If you drop the 24% chance don’t you lose the extra procs thus lowering your overall DPS? Or am I missing something?
The discussion is a bit older and there were some changes in between - but not all WPS animations are (or at least were) of equal length
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Ahh, that makes sense. Are all the WPS animation times the same now? Or is Zolhan’s Technique still slower?
honestly, dunno - especially in the S&B case
So I just tested it against training dummy. I was below 100% WPS chance in both scenarios. Here was the character, including all damage except for the summon empyrion (they were unsummoned). My Character
Scenario One:
- Includes 24% Chance of Zolhan’s (8/12).
- Time to kill training dummy: ~0:58
- Time to kill training dummy 5 times including reset invincibility period: 4:58
Scenario Two (unallocated single point in Zolhan’s - did not reallocate to anything else):
- Does NOT include 24% Chance of Zolhan’s (8/12)
- Time to kill training dummy: ~1:02
- Time to kill training dummy 5 times including reset invincibility period: 5:16
So taking Zolhan (with +7 skill) resulted in approximately a 6.5% damage boost (4s/62s) single target.
I did some hand calculations and I think Zolhan SHOULD result in a 22% increase (maybe a little less with other procs) because the damage difference between a proc and no proc is about double.
As such, I think there is still an animation difference between Zolhan and not having it. I think if you have a lower skill level it may result in less DPS. For my particular build though and one point, its worth the 6.5% damage boost especially because it adds AOE.
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the comment about Zolhan WPS you talked about was almost 2 years ago. Even the original build was from patch 1.1.6.2, without any updates recently from Nery. In that time, Zolhan was a bad WPS, just like Amarasta Quick Cut. Slow animation/ cannot work with dual- wield weapons. There are multiple patches from that time until now, and IIRC, a lot of changes had been made with WPS, like buff to WD, faster animation, work with dual-wield, pass-through… (include Zolhan’s Technique). So there is no surprise that now Zolhan is much better than before, you can play with or without it what- ever- you- want.
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