[1.1.9.5] Bone Harvester Vitality Blood/Death Knight, 1Mil+ Crit on SR

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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#1

Xavier
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GRIM TOOLS : Death Knight, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Nobody wants to play with me :’(
Hello everyone, this is a showcase for one of the first (my 2nd i think) character in GD. For all the years, it suprised me that i almost never see anyone playing Blood Knight set, at least as a 2Handed Bone Harvester. So here is mine… I won’t keep this long, ill just mention my thoughts on this character and why it is probably the most fun i’ve ever had.

Build utilizes Blood Knight set + Ghol’s Reach gloves for powerful and low cooldown Bone Harvests. Between cooldowns, you have the medal skill: Reaping Arc that deals quite decent damage. Few updates ago, this skill has it’s cooldown removed and since then its basically your basic attack now which also saved me several skill points back then (I was using this before that patch too)

The Pants; Reaper’s Legguards and blue ring; Band of Wandering Souls are good choices to keep Soul Harvest hardcapped at 22 points. Remember that the last couple points of Soul Harvest are much stronger then usual so it is a good idea to use these 2 to keep it hardcapped.

While the weapon; Korvan Reaping Halberd with its massive 110% WD to Bone Harvest bonus seems the obvious choice here, i was actually using an “Eldritch - Spectral Warmaul- of Decay” for years. There are a couple reasons for this:

First, a good Korvan Reaping Halberd is extremely hard to farm, because it doesn’t drop from heroic monsters that otherwise drop the other colored versions of this weapon. Remember that Heroic monsters are much more likely to drop MI’s with Rare affixes. But with the next patch, Zantai replied to my post and said he will apply these weapon to heroic monster pool so we are good.

Second, Spectral Warmaul actually makes Siphon Souls a very easy to apply, 8 second lasting (instead of 3) -12% RR skill that has a big AoE too. Since BH is not my only damage i thought i would just keep this item. Note that this setup requires you to equip Prime Ring of Morgoneth to keep Bone Harvest hardcapped so there is a downside for that. In my calculations, even with the loss of -12% RR, Bone Harvest still has about 23% more Sheet damage and it is better especially for instant thrash wave killing.

Some PROS / CONS

  • Very fun and easy to play, can kite if necessary
  • Theme wise feels great, feels like a true Death Knight (subjective)
  • I saw 660k+ BH Crits in campaign, and 1million+ in SR
  • Big hits can hurt, despite having massive lifesteal. Pay attention in high content
  • With Hungering Void, you can’t make use of your Constituion much

Thanks for reading. Happy hunting.

EDIT:

  • Replaced War Cry with Ill Omen (i still hate Ill Omen though) to gain full damage reduction uptime and more spare points. Maxed out Counter Strike.
10 Likes
#2

Vitality Blood (Death) Knight is definitely a thing. Great job here! :+1:

2 Likes
#3

Add me, I will gift you this one, it’s not perfect but better. Cheer bro

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2 Likes
#4

Good job but I don’t think this setup is suitable for DK since you don’t invest Counter Strike nor using any important soldier skills except Menhir’s Will. Soldier provides good stats and armor yes but Cabalist provides much more damage like this Cabalist, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator and I made a Vitality BA-BH combination with DK like this Death Knight, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator but Cabalist is better ofc.

2 Likes
#5

Ritualist with the weapon can have 12 seconds of Devouring Swarm with a massive 65% RR extra. Should probably the best choice for damage. I don’t know if i should invest Counterstrike, the skill doesnt seem to do much but i might be wrong. What do you mean im not using any important skills? Which ones im missing?

#6

I meant you don’t use any build defining skills in Soldier side like Blade Arc, Cadence, Forcewave etc so as support mastery, there are better alternatives for damage. Yes for example you can use Savagery in Ritualist instead of RA, you’ll have WPS aswell, good amount of extra RR, massive health from Mogdrogen’s Pact and Wendigo Totems. Cabalist provides extra RR, DA shred, AS, phys resist, good amount of vitality flat and %vitality damage and you can also utilize some chaos flat by using green necro belt.

It’s good for defense, helps sustain a lot.

#7

I see. Besides the obvious damage advantage, i don’t think there is an abolute better secondary class here, but the reason im DK is that i simply started this character years ago and just went with this build. I would probably go Ritualist but im almost sure you can’t afford to have Savagery + WPS, you will lack skill points.

I like Soldier because of the standard Armor, DA, Menhirs and mostly Blitz + DA Shred here personally. I think Ritualist or Cabalist can push higher content better probably though.

Your cabalist version is actually good alternative though.

How’s counter strike good for defense? Because of lifesteal the set provides?

#8

Something like this should work Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

It has innate lifeleach + some weapon damage so it provides good amount of passive leech and AoE damage, when combined with Scales you’ll get two different passive leech will help your survival while you can’t hit.

#9

Besides Cabalist and Ritualist obviously having better dps, DK is still great for blood knight set, so gj with the build!

Btw why warcry over e.g. ill omen, which has full uptime on DR?

1 Like
#10

Hey thanks. I thought about ill omen but first, im a lazy player and prefer the War Crys massive aoe and second, i just dont like ill omen and similiar spreading abilities i sometimes even btch about them in your streams.
Edit: Still, ill omen saves me a few skill points so i might try it actually.

#11

Ford Perfect are you on XBX, PS5 or PC if your on XBX can you please power level me up to at least 60, then when or if I’d get elite mode unlocked could you please bring me up to level 94 in GD and that’s if you’ve got time It’d wouldn’t matter when you’d can do that and all, I knw you’ve real life stuff to do like everyone else does too thanks ahead of the time, one last thing I’m trying to level up in the DK build you’d did sometime back but idk when you’d did that build and all too, peace out also take care then.

#12

I’m on PC sorry.

#13

thanks for telling me at least I’d asked 1st before assuming that someone was on XBX yet the SCEA console huh.