[1.1.8.1-1.1.9.7] Aether Rutnick Blaster Paladin - Ravager, Mogdrogen, SR 90, Crucible 170

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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rutnick paladin stats 1
With permanent buffs and Ascension up

rutnick paladin damage
RF damage

Mark of the Dreadblade buffs in 1.1.9.7 caught my eye, and reminded me of this old build.

This is the first build I shared on the forums and it was getting a little outdated, not to mention it was not well optimised, at least not to my current standards in terms of build.

So I thought of what I could improve and it turns out it was quite a bit.

1.1.9.7 GRIMTOOLS CLICK ME (Recommended version)

Now using a proper Oathkeeper belt and Gauntlets of Ignaffar to reach 24/16 Righteous Fervor. Gloves may seem like an odd choice over Krieg and since you can reach RF cap with Veilwarden bands, but elemental conversion from Magelord is too important here, and attack speed from veilwarden isn’t needed at all. Also changed pants to hard cap Arcane Empowerment and get better stun resist. Rebalanced wps to hard cap smite without going over 100% proc chance.

Anyway let’s talk results: Cut Ravager kill time and Crucible run time by more than a third. Also reached SR 90 without much issues, can probably go deeper but I’ll leave that for someone else to grind.

Not that amazing dps, but not bad nonetheless for a 1h gun build

Videos:

2:02 Ravager kill

SR 90 boss room Not the easiest room, but still plenty of time left on the clock.

6:59 Crucible 151-170 run In case you wanna sit through 7 minutes of embarassing piloting. Can facetank wave 170 + Korvaak just fine though.

Older videos and GT link are below.

**Old build discussion and videos**

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In game, permanent buffs, Word of Renewal, Inquisitor Seal, Consecration and Ascension

This build revolves around the new Rutnick Pistol introduced in patch 1.1.8.1. The Watcher of Erulan adds some much needed tankiness and a nice skill modifier to Smite on top of the modifiers from the Bonemonger set. The Magelord rings allows us to cap Inquisitor Seal and convert about half of the elemental damage from multiple sources to aether.

1.1.9.0 Update: This build got slightly buffed in the last update. Rutnick’s gun got a flat damage bonus and Hydra got 10% attack speed now. Attack speed is now slightly overcapped meaning Shattered Reality affix on gun is less essential than before. Aura of Conviction bonus is now replaced by Death Sentence on boots, doesn’t change much for us really.

1.1.9.0 Updated and optimised build: GRIMTOOLS
Thanks to @grey-maybe and @fordprefect for their suggestions. Reallocated some skill points and attributes.

Early version of the build displayed in some videos: Grimtools

Apparently grimtools does not display the physical resist buff on the shield properly: it only shows an increase to physical resist of 10% instead of 18%. Phys res in game sits at 64%.

Went back to kill Ravager to test the changes, I killed him a lot faster:

1.1.9.0 Ravager in 3:20 [1.1.9.0] Rutnick Paladin vs Ravager of Flesh - YouTube

Older videos

Ravager kill: Rutnick Aether Paladin vs Ravager of Flesh [GD 1.1.8.1] - YouTube

Avatar of Mogdrogen kill: Rutnick Aether Paladin vs Avatar of Mogdrogen [GD 1.1.8.1] - YouTube

SR 80 Boss Room: Rutnick Paladin vs SR 80 Boss Room - YouTube

Crucible 161-170 (around 6 min): Rutnick Paladin vs Crucible ~6 min - YouTube

I tried Crucible twice with the update. Could hardly do under 10 minutes. SR performance is more or less the same.

24 Likes
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Interesting choice with the shield, had only tried DWing and that didn’t turn out amazingly (wasn’t tanky enough).

Doesn’t the -15% aether resistance reduction to guardians from the bonemonger hood only apply to celestial presence?

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Yup, you need a point in Celestial Presence for the RR mod on the helm to work.

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Hot damn I thought the rr was applied from the attacks of the guardians. Are you sure about this?

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Yup. People checked in the game files and it applies to Celestial Presence and not Guardian itself.

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Damn I gotta find 19 points somewhere.

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The build kills Ravager. You don’t really have to find those 19 points.

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Too late, did it anyway! Still kills Ravager!

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hey dude nice! Will you post the physical build too that I “helped” you with? :slight_smile:

Perhaps you can update the GT too, now when you have a build that actually uses the GoE RR from helmet.

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Just updated the picture and the GT link.

And yes I will post the physical paladin soon, I want to record Ravager and Callagadra kills first as I didn’t do it the first time. (Ravager took forever since silly me picked the one with the fumble pools). Your help was much appreciated :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the forum btw, glad to see you here as well :slight_smile:

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From 1.1.8.0 Patch Notes:

I thought this was already fixed so that the RR is applied on the Guardians and not requiring Celestial Presence, or I am understanding this wrong.

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I thought that just means that it was not applied at all, there are also conduits that adds RR to GoE, but you still need celestial presence for it. -x% RR you need a ticking skill to apply, like an aura. And without celestial presenense, GoE has no aura and hence no way to apply -x% RR

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A good build overall, but are you sure that you need that much DA? Looks like an overkill even for Ravager.
Apart from that, i’d recommend pushing storm spread to 7/10 for additional projectile and trying to get of shattered realm affix instead of of abomination

Edit: 6 mins for 161-170 though

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of shattered reality :wink:

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I find the wording of “-XX% RR added to Guardians of Empyrion” to mean that the RR is applied to each hit that the Guardians do and not from Celestial Presence. I prefer the wording to be “-XX% RR to Celestial Presence” so it’s clear that you need to get that specific node if it’s intended to be that way.

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it has been confirmed long ago mate. the only way to mod RR for GoE is from their aura, not their basic atk. and there cannot be a description mod to a skill’s node, not the base skill itself, for example “100% lightning dam converted to vitality to AAR” will not be intened to be that way, since the node AAR give you 0 lightning dam, so you want it to be “100% lightning damage converted to vitality to Disintegration”?? thats what the game’s mechanic, you learn some news everyday

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You can not apply -x% RR with single hits, has to be a ticking skill

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The thing about Celestial Presence is it gives the Guardians an aura, which doesn’t affect their base stats in any way. Disintegration adds Lightning damage to AAR, so the beam now has that together with the flat Fire and Aether damages. It’s clear that you need Disintegration if you want to utilize Lightning to Vitality conversion since the base AAR node doesn’t have any Lightning damage.
Also, I know how the mechanics work; it’s just that the wordings are sometimes misleading unless you go deep into researching how it actually functions.

I never knew about this until you mentioned it, thanks. I guess the intention was that you are forced to spend 18 + 1 skill points just to modify RR for GoE, if you’re not using the base RR that Celestial Presence gives.

Anyhow, I am amazed at the use of Watcher of Erulan. I know that this shield is good but never thought about combo-ing it with Rutnick gun.

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It is coded deep into the Grim Dawn engine. Many ppl have cried over that Soldier and Arcanist skills should get -X% RR, but they have no such skill that could even make it possible (well OFF the freeze CC makes its almost impossible to apply to any meaningful mob)