[1.1.8.1-1.1.9.0] AlkaMorgoneth - Soulrend + Morgoneth's Armor Reaper SR 65

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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So, Morgoneth was bored and decided to go to the Steps of Torment and borrow Alkamos’ scythe…

Screenshot_552 alkamorgoneth

Thanks to @RektbyProtoss’s Soulrend Reaper guide for giving me an idea on how to build this. [1.1.4.2-1.1.9.0] [HC] Soulrend Reaper - a classic in a Guardian's armor ft. easier to build setups (SR65+, vids)

Grimtools link for 1.1.9.0 update (minor changes)

Grimtools link: updated for 1.1.8.1 (Morgoneth pants and boots)

Since all of Morgoneth’s items (yes, including Nightbringer) dropped for me and the Magi haven’t dropped ANY of their rings, I decided to build a “Full Morgoneth” set build. I can’t figure out how to fit Nightbringer into the armor pieces, so I used a Soulrend instead. This was really just for the flavor/meme, but it turned out quite decent for me.

STATS

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character sheet with permanent buffs + Pneumatic Burst and Lethal Assault, damage is from Shadow Strike

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breakdown for Shadow Strike and Bone Harvest with Lethal Assault up

Gear

Weapon: Soulrend, core of the build.

Head, chest, shoulder, gloves, pants, boots: all Morgoneth’s items - Only the head, chest, shoulder, and gloves are the actual set pieces of the “Armor of the Eternal Night,” but the pants and boots also give relevant stats and skill bonuses, as well. Also, it’s the theme of the build. You can replace the pants and boots; there are better choices for performance.

Rings: Prime Ring of Morgoneth and Mythical Band of the Eternal Haunt - the Prime Ring is the obvious choice for theme reasons, and the other one is mostly for the -10% Cold RR. I’ve tried using Alkamos Rings, but those are better with high ASPD builds, and the skill bonuses are not used in this one.

Amulet: Mythical Night’s Embrace - more Cold RR and great bonuses to the build. I was thinking about using the Bone Harvest Conduit for Necromancer, but Shadow Strike is really the main ability with the build.

Relic: Serenity - +1 all skills is just great, and the circuit breaker is a huge plus. You might see in the Grimtools link that it has Physique/Cunning/Spirit completion bonuses; I just haven’t gotten a %DA one :frowning:.

Belt: Gargoyle Waistguard - +1 Nightblade skills, Vitality to Cold conversion. I just got lucky with this “of the Winter Storm” roll. You could go with any affix to fix resistances mostly. You can also use Mythical Spellbreaker Waistguard and change resistance augments on the armor.

Medal: Mythical Dreadchill Mark - very relevant bonuses, especially to Night’s Chill and Soul Harvest

Movement Augment: Rune of Amatok’s Breath - this just fits the playstyle very well: you Shadow Strike in, use other skills, Amatok’s Breath out, repeat. You could also use the Glyph of the Northern Ram if you haven’t found Amatok’s, but it’s without the Freeze effect.

Devotions

Tier 1
Ghoul - up to proc only, no need to complete
Spider, Quill, Toad - good bonuses, mainly for affinity. Toad also has ADctH, which is a bonus.
Empty Throne - CC resistances, works well with the build

Tier 2
Kraken - must-have for two-hand builds, bonuses are too good to pass up
Murmur - cold resistance reduction
Rhowan’s Crown - flat Elemental RR
Harvestman’s Scythe and Bard’s Harp - my solution for energy problems with this build

Tier 3
Leviathan - I just like to use this proc in the build, works well with all the procs that the items give

I originally copied RektByProtoss’ devotion path leading up to Leviathan, but the main issue with my build is energy since Shadow Strike and Bone Harvest eats it up very fast.

I’ve tried using only Harvestman’s Scythe but it still wasn’t enough, so I dropped Blizzard and went with Bard’s Harp. I could also drop Leviathan altogether, but I want to use the proc since none of my characters have used it yet.

You can definitely use other devotions if you like.

Performance

To be honest, I really didn’t expect this meme build to perform at all outside of the Main Campaign. But to my surprise, it does a decent job in other places. The highest crit I’ve seen so far is 400k+ with Shadow Strike.

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Who wore it better? I thought I was going to have problems with Morgoneth, but this can facetank him even without using Mark of Torment.

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Lokarr takes around 1-2 minutes. Do not facetank him with this :joy: ; just Shadow Strike in, other skills, Amatok out.

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The biggest surprise to me is it can actually clear SR 65-66 without dying. Don’t tank all bosses, of course.

Other Celestials/Superbosses: well, there’s other builds out there. :slight_smile:

Crucible: I don’t really run Crucible, but it could work with a better setup.

Final Thoughts
Soulrend + Armor of the Eternal Night is the core of the build, and you can definitely change other items and devotions to improve performance. My only goal was to use all Morgoneth items together with Alkamos’ scythe as a theme/meme build, and it turned out good for me.

6 Likes
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Where are you guys finding these belts? I’m working on getting morgoneths helmet and haven’t seen any rings except for the cold magi one, its decent. JUST got soulrend to drop. I’m pretty new to the game and have got my reaper to a pretty nasty spot doing a DW deathmarked build but would like to build around Morgs armor and soulrend.

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Astral fields, and also drops from shattered Realm now and then.

1 Like
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Has anyone tested a gg rolled ellena’s amulet vs Night’s embrace? Im always conflicted about which one to use for shadowstrike builds.

Also any reason of choosing blizzard over elemental storm?

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I don’t see it but anyway why Ellena’s over Kaisan’s Burning Eye?

Maybe he has X Reduced Target’s Resistances somewhere but I can’t find it :thinking:

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Ellena can roll CDR on top of flat cold damage.

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Kaisan can roll it too. With cooldown maybe it could be stronger (cooldown is a really strong stat) but really hard too say without testing in my opinion. And killing dummy wouldn’t be a good way to test it because it has low Cold res.

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I would’ve chosen Ellena’s Necklace if it still had the -RR to Veil of Shadows but it was removed in Grim Dawn Version 1.1.7.2 Hotfix 2. tqFan’s suggestion of Kaisan’s Eye could also work but depends on affixes.

I somehow remember that there was a Flat RR in one of the item slots that’s why I opted to remove Rhowan’s Crown; I’ll update it later, thanks for pointing it out.

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Get Slithscale pants. Absolute BiS for 99% SS setups. Need to max that cooldown reduction via maxing NJE.

Morgo boots are also meh. Get the regular Amatoks. Slow res is crucial. Since you execute SS through the autoattack button, any delays on finishing the autoattack animation = precious fractions of a second lost on SS cooldown.

2 Likes
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I am working on a non-meme version of this, thanks for the suggestions.
The pants and boots are there only for the theme of “full Morgoneth armor” even though they are not part of the armor set.
My mouse setup is ABB on left click and SS on right click since my playstyle is hit-and-run. I’ll try the SS on left-click.

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Update for 1.1.9.0:

New Grimtools link in the main post.

  • Changed pants and boots as per @ya1’s suggestions. Maxed out Shadow Strike line.

In-game stats (all toggle buffs + Pneumatic Burst, damage is for Shadow Strike):

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SR 66 boss room (forgot to turn on damage numbers):

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you should get rid of all 3 points in ring of steel. they barely do anything (not even a procer) and 1 more button to press when you already need to spam ABB and BH for bonus (thats what i hate when playing reaper, 2 buff for a short duration but they are huge). and 1 more point in Breath of Belgothian (they only work for dual-wield bonus). really love the devotions, since it provides a lot of energy regen. all SS build i saw in this forum only play in crucible with buffs, and personally my time with cold SS is awful since mana regen is a big problem

2 Likes
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28% fumble is pretty good, don’t you think?

1 Like
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it can help to improve survivability- yes. but spamming a lot of button you need to keep everythings up is making gameplay awful. and if they have huge AOE and DA shred + impair aim like Flash bang- they will be definitely worth. the build is squishy as only 12% physical res, will those 28% fumble can save it?

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Thank you for noticing, I probably forgot about it since I used dual-wield to level this character. I put the point to Merciless Repertoire since the Poison damage is converted to Frostburn via the set bonuses.

This is the reasoning for still taking Ring of Steel despite having enough Devotion proccers. I find that RoS cooldown fits ok with skill rotations.

I don’t find this melee-piano playstyle awful. It makes the gameplay feel more active in my opinion.

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Check out this devo maybe? https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2maQEm2

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I have tried this devotion path on the first time that I built the character, but the build eats up energy fast and this devotion setup has very low energy regen, even with consumables. I could see this working on Crucible with the buffs but not anywhere else.

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I think you missed Arcane Spark component in the medal in @ya1’s link. It’s a game changer for Energy Regen.

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I’ll test it out, thanks for the input.

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@teppieteptep check out this version of mine I was playing around with
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/L2JYqO4N
_Reaporgo.zip (1.5 MB)

It’s GDstash glass cannon ofc but this totally destroys timers. Despite all the nerfs to nightblade, cold, morgo, this should still be one of the fastest builds in the game. Sadly I can’t get myself to speedrun this game anymore

He’s right. Even with Spark, two maxed nukes with cdr is too much for main game. But imo the devos are optimal for frostburn so hate to change it just because of some stupid energy regen. Can use of insight affixes, and/or mark of illusion and arcane will on jewelry. Also could change Throne to Owl actually. Don’t need the Throne, really.

1 Like