[1.1.9.0] Rah'binger Witch Hunter wins the game: SR75+, Celestials, Crucible consistent <6 mins, 9.5 sec dummy, 3.8 sec MadQueen. All on the same 0 green build


Hello, warriors

I’ve been playing melee builds exclusively and now i’ve settled with my favorite one.

The concept isn’t new, the core of the build was used many times. The credit here goes to @afanasenkov26 who had a build on it for 1.1.3.1 (and updated it). Seeing weapon dmg value on it back then inspired me to make a 0 green version of it last patch and now - to push it to new heights.

1.1.9.0 Update

The build became harder to play in Crucible (as is any pure melee) because the mode has so much crowd control now you can die from interruptions even with CC res all capped.

<<< 1.1.9.0 GRIMTOOLS >>>

1.1.7.0 Update

Thanks to sweet WPS buffs, the build was able to achieve new heights in single target demolition:


<<< 1.1.7.0 GRIMTOOLS >>>

I don’t suggest to play with such spirit dump, safe play will require full physique dump.

_Z buff chaos pls.zip (1.6 MB)

1.1.6.0 Update

Rahbinger%20sheet
<<< 1.1.6.0 GRIMTOOLS >>>

_Z buff chaos pls.zip (1.6 MB)

(dps is in Touch of Chaos, all permabuffs + devo buffs with 80-90% uptime)

<<< 1.1.5.2 GRIMTOOLS >>>

The Build

Melee in Grim Dawn isn’t easy. Monsters get very angy when you stand right infront of them. The only way to handle it is to kill them before they get angry. This is what we’ll be doing.

You’ve probably heard of different ways to take care of your defenses: high DA and armor, high health pool, saving abilities like Ghoul, skills with Fumble. We don’t care for any of those. We will leech.

These two points are what defines our build and will get us all the way to beating the whole content:

  1. Kill fast
  2. Don’t ever stop hitting things

If you are feeling ballsy, spirit dump for more damage is absolutely possible for this build and despite extremely low DA it will not hurt you too much in Crucible and <SR75. Because if you are killing things even faster, there is a smaller chance to get into trouble in the first place.

Pros:

  • Few buttons to press. Only one buff (LA) and one debuff (CoF)
  • Real melee feel :crossed_swords:
  • Unparalleled single target dps :zantai:
  • Smooth, blink-like gameplay

plus

  • 0 green items required: 10 craftable items with 5 blueprints and 3 pieces of jewelry which can be replaced with no major losses
  • One of the easiest pure melee builds to make sustainable Crucible completions with pretty good speedrun times
  • One of the few no green melee builds outside of SR set to go far past Shattered Realm 75-76 (and to reliably farm SR, of course)
  • Flexible gear, attribute distribution, skill choice and devotion map to fill the defense gaps if needed
  • You can choose how safe are you going to play without too much time loss: no kiting required, you either kill stuff 1 by 1 or gather everyone together on one spot

Cons:

  • Small AoE
  • Have to actively use both movement skills because buff consistency depends on them
  • Can’t stop mashing stuff - leech is our only survival tool

Gear

Probably the best thing about the build is it has 7 crafted items as BiS options. A perfectly rolled double chaos-green Bloodlord’s Blade can only match the Fang here.

Another quirk worth mentioning is the relic. It doesn’t have chaos dmg or any utility but it allows us to keep two big dmg buffs up 85-90% of the time.

Rings are obvious but not mandatory, medal can be green or Blood Sigil.

The boots-pants part is where we have more freedom. Our goal is to cover slow and stun res, at least for Crucible. Even with 6 crafts it’s not an easy task because some of the crafts aren’t cheap. But you can always go for Tranquil + Final march combo for 80% slow res right away and craft everything else for stun.

BiS options here will be double rare Kuba pants and crafted boots with appropriate affixes to cover CC res. This combo is used in a fantasy version of the build which has several world records for single target dmg. And no green version performance is actually not far behind. More on that in the Performance section.

Leveling

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This is an endgame build so no thorough leveling guide here, sorry. But here are some tips.

Witch Hunter is not the easiest class to get to lvl100 - no autoattack or AoE skill worth having as main attack.

I suggest to focus on the Occultist on early levels. Max out Possession, Aspect of the Guardian, Second Rite and Phantasmal Armor to get the res bonuses and have more flexibility in leveling gear. As the main damaging skill you can use Phantasmal Blades or Sigil of Consumption.

We need to reach lvl94 and get a faction two-hander Spite. It converts chaos and vitality dmg into pierce for PB and we have plenty of both.

Once you get Spite you can pretty much finish the MC ultimate in faction gear, it’s that powerful.

If you don’t have items to complete the build you can farm SR or Crucible with Shattered Guardian set and Spite. Maybe you won’t be able to finish shard 60 to get SR set on the first try. But with such powerful weapon you’ll get there eventually.

Performance

Update 1.1.6.0: added Celestial fights, an up to date Crucible run and a triple run, Shard 85 gameplay

The build is the ultimate single target destroyer so dps performace comes first

MadQueen 3.8 sec:

confirmation of the items used:

https://youtu.be/zUm6HhMzRGc

Dummy 9.5 sec:

Callagadra kill:

Ravager of Souls kill (the worst version of the boss for melee):

Avatar kill (took much longer than it should’ve for unknown reasons, this should be a 2,5 min fight):

Crucible run, 4:45 ingame time (5:00 real time):

Triple Crucible run. For the purposes of stress-testing, Aleks’s meteors, Kymon’s shotgun and Mad Queen rage buffs weren’t being dodged.

1.1.5.2 UPDATE 2:
Crucible run in 4:23 (4:34 real time)

UPDATE:
Crucible 151-170 masterful 4:48! by @Plasmodermic using this alteration for more AoE: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YNnxd3dV

Crucible 151-170 5:39

Crucible 151-170 5:55 without Blade Spirits (all dmg is from melee attacks):

Couple of notes about Crucible gameplay

151-170 completion comes very easily even with the spirit dump. The only thing you have to do is to single out bosses at the start of the new wave. You’ll rarely find yourself surrounded by multiple bosses because every single target dies so fast.

Important waves here are 162 and 169. Mad Queen buff and Anasteria RR debuff are among the few things that can theoretically kill us. Kill them both at the start of the respective waves.

When chasing speedruns, you collect bosses instead of singling them out. With this build you can tank 4 bosses, just like in the old days of Crucible.

Overall the Crucible consistency (with physique dump and careful gameplay) is over 90%.

Shard 85:

Shards 85-90 is where the limit of the build is because in higher shards you’d get oneshotted by heros and it’s just a pain to go through. 75-76 looks to be easily farmable within the timer. Its very fast as well.

Feedback section below is outdated, was addressed by the devs in 1.1.6.0

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As much as i love the build i can’t help but admit, overall it’s way above pretty much anything you can assemble in chaos melee and probably needs some small adjustments in terms of single target.

Suggestion: reduce Touch of Chaos base WD to 125%, chance of +400% dmg to +300% dmg. Add ABB or RoS mod somewhere: +2m target area, + to base skill. It takes care of over the board single target and adds at least some AoE to the build with no access to AoE in the AoE based game.

The bigger problem tho is not the build itself but rather overall poor chaos itemization. Melee is funneled into Harbinger + Rah’Zin set combo, only thing that can even dream of coming close is Darkblaze Fire Strike. Things aren’t much better in ranged and 2H. The solution i see here is adding more X -> chaos conversion to nonset pieces of gear. If chaos dmg is bound to have low support from the masteries, let it have more creative support from the gear.

Also the only relevant 1H chaos weapon is Fang. Might do smth about that in 1.6.0.0 as well.

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I saw those Lokarr and MQ kill videos, they are pretty sick! But I have no idea how you are making it go up to Shard 85 and farm Crucible consistently with it. I am more than aware that damage is life for a build like this, but it looks like it’s one misstep from getting critted into oblivion, no offense.

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This is my type of build, I might try it out to see how fast it can go.

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G-g-g-GOD DAYUUUUUM.

Look atchu go - snappin’ necks, ‘n cashin’ cheques.

Love the build!

image

^Also…dat swag points

@banana_peel: with your garbage DA, are you reliant on pharma?

And will nerfing touch of chaos unnecessarily make other chaos builds suffer?

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Originally i played with physique dump and then made spirit dump just to see what’s what. Not much has changed for Crucible, i was surprised myself. I even wanted to make a triple run just to show that it’s pretty consistent that way. But my garbage rig can’t afford that. 2nd and especially 3rd run have no fps whatsoever. And as i discovered low fps significantly lowers your AS compared to the game speed (will probably make a post on it as well).

The build does punish for mistakes badly. You must develop a dedicated 151-170 pattern to mitigate potential problems, like finishing 161 and 168 close to buttom right or hiding from the meteors under the arc. That said, from over 10 of my 3x run attempts i haven’t died in the first run. Even with the spirit dump the build feels more tanky than half of other builds i made.

_Z buff chaos pls.zip (1.5 MB)

No pharma was used in any instance, including single target tests.

Touch of chaos as a part of 4-piece set. This set is just too strong compared to any other chaos melee option. And nerfing it makes sense in a way that the build bypasses some of the game mechanics: some potentially strong enemies don’t even get a chance to use their abilities if you roll Execution or Burning Void several times (like what happened to MadQueen in that ridiculous kill).

So nerfing Touch of chaos is the best option i see here. This autoattack is extremely powerful, it forces you to go 4-piece.

the only real alternative is FS imo, but that’s better as a ranged attack.

So, wouldn’t touch of chaos be the only chaos melee option?

Might impact the rah’binger deceiver / pyro

Or @hilly’s DW chaos 'lock

I don’t think it deserves nerfs, man. You have built for damage, and damage you got. But it’s still not nearly as fast as fastest autoattackers that are out there. Don’t ask for nerfs prematurely :slight_smile:

By the way, you can do a tiny bit of min-maxing: put a couple of points in Aspect of the Guardian to change 10% poison res augments into something else.

EDIT: And I am totally trying out that save folder you posted!

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i’m guessing the fastest is belgo?

this seems competitive though

This is true glass cannon!

Playing Afanasenkov WH I didn’t come even close to dying but with that DA it will be self nuke scenario all the time, really glassy build :wink:

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Belgo is much faster than this, because some foes are stupidly resistant to Chaos. But then Belgo himself usually carries around extra magazines for Valdun.

That’s why i suggest AoE compensation for it. But it’s not the first thing in the nerf line, of course. The name of the char stayed the same, after all. :smile: Just sharing my thoughts because i played this thing a lot. Enormous single target but no AoE, it’s a little bit unbalanced even for a flavour kind of build.

How much do you think the single target damage will change with a less “greedy” spec (like with at least 2800 DA)?

Speaking of which. Another set with an OP 4-piece completion reward in a form of a stupidly strong autoattack. I like autoattacks and i wish there were more of them in the game. I just dont like when they are OP and hidden behind the wall of complete sets. Goes against creativity.

7%

To clarify. Without spirit dump the build is still under 6 mins. It’s -300% dmg when you have over 4k%. The spirit dump is made more because “i can”.

I have made first successful run and it’s 6:30. But I think I was fucking up with DG/Abom. activation. Reallocatoted some skill points, I mean 9-12 Shadow Dance but 15-8 Whirling Death, come on, man :slight_smile:

Investing 7 points over the cap into Whirling death probably yields you like 1 second of your Crucible timer. Investing into Execution beyoned 5-8 even less. This stuff has been tested A LOT on a Belgo specs that have higher weapon damage modifiers and wps weapon damage modifiers.

Gonna try a bit more now.

Agree with @mad_lee. Rah’Zin deserves even some more buffs and tweaks, no way nerfs.
You’ve made a glasscannon, so here are the results.
A more balanced spec like mine will go slower and clear in “normal” time.

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Tbh i’m still not sure how autoattack and WPS values interact. From my (albeit much smaller) experience WPS points do help. Whirling death is maxed because its the only multitarget skill.

If you are going for speed i suggest to cap Blade Spirits. The difference in clear times is noticeable.

Not Rah’Zin but chaos. Chaos needs items to play with. And more support from the gear. But the latter is unlikely.

So my results, did three runs, but with Ulzuin’s buff (4+3), so more DA and moved skill points a bit (soft-capped Anatomy and Shadow Dance at the cost of Whirling Death, so even more DA).

1st run: 6:31, but was fucking up Abomination/DG activation, was getting used to the build
2nd run: was going really fast, wave 160 I gathered together Reaper, Kuba and Valdaran and just couldn’t outheal the incoming damage, got splattered, time of death - 2:45.
3rd run: was going pretty fast again, few close calls here and there. Than wave 170 comes. I safely kill Korvaak first. Blink at Grava. Incomes Alex’s meteor, can’t react, eat it, proc Ghoul, Grava is dead, back at full hp. But then Valdaran and Alex teleport at me at the same time and wreck me from full hp to 0 in like 0,5 seconds. Time of death - 6:01

So overall, sure, it’s glassy, maybe not as glassy as it looks, but almost no room for mistake, although less glassy than glass cannon Clairvoyant AAR with no defenses.

I would recommend soft-capping Shadow Dance, Anatomy of Murder and maybe Veil of Shadow. You can take points out of WPS. Gonna lose 2-3% of your damage tops, but consistency will be much higher. As I said, overcapping wps has almost no gain at all. You can test it with dummy or Mad Queen or Crucible.

Peace!

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