[1.1.9.6-1.2] Forcewace Trauma Witchblade: All Celestials + SR90 - 1 million damage internal trauma crits

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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This is the followup to my Solo Soldier build. While many other class combos can complement the concept, I thought Witchblade was the most fitting because of the the minimal investment on the Occultist side and the range on Curse of Frailty.

If you’re looking for a hard-hitting DoT build able to easily take down the hardest bosses in the game, this build is for you.

1.2 Update
Octavius received different tweaks over the last couple patches. First the “flat” internal trauma was moved from the helm to the shoulders and the 3 piece bonus was change from flat IT to flat physical. In 1.2, that flat physical is getting removed as well.

Tldr, Octavius helm is rather useless now compared to Chosen Gaze. Sheet IT damage is slightly lower than before, but we got crit to compensate so it’s not really losing any damage.

Also, I improved devotions for more crit damage and a couple other details in skill allocation and components.

This makes the build a little bit squishier and since Shattered Realm scales a bit harder now, SR 90 is pretty sketchy. 85 is perfectly doable still if you have room to kite in boss shard. If you want to push SR, you should use a different build anyway. Still does its job of disrespecting Celestials as well as before.

1.2 GRIMTOOLS (recommended)

1.1.9.6 GRIMTOOLS

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Forcewave sheet damage with Overguard and Ulzaad proc

rahzin setup crits
some juicy internal trauma crits

Dummy kill in one combo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsxTmce_IUY

**Skills, Attributes and Devotions**

This is a full cunning dump build. Spend enough points in occultist mastery to match jewelry spirit requirements and enough points in veterancy to meet armor physique requirements. Rest is pretty straightforward.

Devotion page is a little different this time, mainly because we can use Curse of Frailty to proc Bull Rush, which is useful to clear trash mobs. It’s important to grab all the “flat” internal trauma available because it scales quite a bit. Completed Crab for the elemental resist this time.

**Gear**
  • The core of the build is Earthsplitter + Grey Knight for total damage modifier.
  • 2 piece Octavius gives everything we need for the build. Make sure you have a good flat IT roll on the shoulders
  • Chosen Gaze with whatever cunning or physical affix is BiS now. Ideally get aether resist on it.
  • Thanks to @The_Coyote for reminding me that Rah’Zin’s gem exists. Clearly the best option here although it makes it harder than using Avenger of Cairn to properly overcap resistances.
  • Double physical rr rings, nothing to see here. High poison roll on Black Matriarch can be useful because of the conversion from the belt.
  • Bob Ross pants is once again the best option for a physical build.
  • Belt is very hard to get, but in reality any “Resistances Ugdenbog Girdle of Supremacy” will do.
  • Boots have to be Earthshatter if you don’t have “of Supremacy” on belt, otherwise any physical boots will do.
  • Relic could be Deathstalker, but +1 soldier is too much value in my opinion + doomforce is useful to proc dryad.
**Celestials**

All Celesials were done without any pharma except health and energy pots.

1.2 videos

1.1.9.6 videos

**Shattered Realm**

Chunk 3 and boss room showcase. Farming range is comfortable but the lack of DA starts to show in deeper shards.

**Crucible**

With such high cooldown on forcewave, I don’t see how this could perform well. Maybe I’ll do it later, for science…

**Leveling Guide**

Use Forcewave

**Common questions**
  • Isn’t DA a little low? Yes, but given the amount of physical resistance and armor, critical hits have not been an issue for all reasonable content. Lack of DA becomes apparent in later SR shards and against big DoTs.
  • Don’t you need more sustain? Not really. Forcewave does so much damage than even a single cast through a pack of enemies can heal you significantly with only 3% lifesteal. Dryad+Blood of Dreeg also go a long way, as long as you don’t mindlessly facetank anything you don’t need to.
  • Do you really need that much OA? Yes because DoTs need high crit chance to really be effective.

Have fun and remember to say no to reflect mobs if you don’t have double titan plating.

Cheers!

------------------------------------Bonus hardcore build!!!------------------------------------
In Season 4 of the Grim Dawn Community League I made a Battlemage with the same concept. Less damage than SC Witchblade above, but more survivability and more utility. Beat every vanilla + league superbosses without breaking a sweat.
GRIMTOOLS
No season exclusive item was used.

21 Likes
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I think this is an ideal build for people who want to enjoy the landscape of Cairn - one strike and you have around 5 seconds for sightseeing before having to go to work again.

A bit more serious, I think it is an interesting concept - and well done. And it certainly has it niche. So Thank you for the build :slight_smile:

edit: Is there another build that has one alpha strike dummy kill potential?

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A massive bleed comes (bloodragers endless frenzy + wantons carnage + some big chad carnage weapon) to mind… works a bit similar to internal trauma, ofc not as quick but I think that would work.

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I’ve tried several in the last few days

Numbers-wise, the closest I got was with Bleed blade arc,
SS Dunefiend, stacking Poison damage also gets really close. Both are glassy and struggle with AoE.

I could get 2-3 others to about half or 3/4 what @Crab_Turtle_2112 's build puts out per strike. Rakajak Primal Strike Druid and Cadence Guillotine Bleed Warder (this one is particularly good, I might post it later)

Tried Bleed Vire’s might, but it didn’t scale as high

I still have to try Callidor’s tempest with Vanquisher set, and Aegis of Menhir :slight_smile:

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Probably many. I suspect poison DEE can get the job done, although it will be a paper character compared to this.

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Good job, i thought about this build but i was lazy to plan it on grimtools. I’m gonna plan a version of this with Pummeler for less cooldown FWaves

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What if you shot 100% Passthrough Cooldown PS into 4 dummies near Fort Ikon in previous patch.
Or get lucky in the same scenario (3 passthroughs) in the current one.

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I don’t know. Electrocute PS with Raka Jax should be able to pull some good numbers, but even with superior WD it doesn’t have %total damage mods. And flat electrocute is hard to come by compared to IT.

Bleed PS somewhat also works but it’s kind of a meme [1.1.9.6] Solo shaman crate kill - YouTube (ofc conjurer or archon is better but this was just an experiment).

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I got about half of what you did with it. (I’ll post a link when I get home)
The biggest hurdle by far is the lack of flat electrocute.

There is 1 pair of gloves, one faction helmet, 1 1-handed gun, and 3 2-handed weapons, that’s it.
there is one jewelry augment, but no weapon augment.

In masteries, only shaman gives you access to some, and there is literally zero in devotions.

Not even Eye of the storm gives flat electrocute :frowning:

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Cool build. Could add some dots from Brutal Shield Slam since there’s room in rotation.

How about warlord? I checked gt and there’s points for the basics. You trade 12% phys res and 10rr for a big bunch of health and da from physique, good flat (there’s that 50% chance for trauma flat and a lot of phys flat), reflect res, one more proccer (important imo, assassin mark on Forcewave is meh with that cd, and can take Maul devo), mobility. You lose some cunning but get %phys. Did you test?

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I didn’t test warlord. Of course it would work just fine since solo soldier also does, but guardians leash range is pretty annoying when you have to kite.

The reflect resist you don’t care about because 2xTitan Plating+Owl+Medal is already enough. Maul is pointless for IT, idk what I would give up to get there anyway honestly.

I agree assassin’s mark on FW is not ideal since you can’t guarantee it will proc on the first hit but then again it doesn’t matter all that much. Duration is pretty long anyway, getting it once in a while on big targets is enough, small targets die even if it doesn’t proc. (Although it’s part of the reason why I didn’t bother with crucible if I’m completely honest).

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20220720211634_1

Suffice to say it’s clearly not enough to get the same kind of results.

Someone may be able to push this a bit more though, I’m still learning this game.

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Confirmed :slight_smile:

Sheet damage isn’t too impressive
DEE psn dmg

but DEE has 163% crit damage.

DEE crit dmg
DEE crit dmg879×358 46.2 KB

So variance is pretty high as you can see.

Feels a lot weaker than grey knight forcewave though lol.

I suppose I’ll do some proper testing and make a dedicated thread in a while.

Oh yea and don’t hit reflect mobs cause you get poisoned for like 40 seconds :rofl:

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Looks a lot like PS Warder: about half the damage, but high crit compensates somewhat. Great work :slight_smile:

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Might be a noob question, but I’m wondering why grey knight shield instead of 4 piece octavius with the shield?

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While Octavius set gives -1 cooldown and some goodies (trauma) in forcewave yes, logically you would say it’s pretty good but how /Crab_Turtle went is pretty logical too… basically “Grey Knight” shield gives hellofa damage in a hit which keeps on going meaning after u hit enemy u can simply run around instead of wearing full Octavius and being forced to hit more often.

It all comes down to your playstyle - you either like many small hits or big boi chad hits. :wink:

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This is forcewave damage with my best rolled Octavius shield fw damage with octavius
I didn’t put on seal of might but you can see the point. IT ticks will be much lower with that setup. Full Octavius would be worth it if you used 2 of the supported skills.

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I’ll share something interesting for me but maybe obvious for others.

I’ve calculated that these mods are multiplicative not additive.
Meaning you get (100%+60%) x (100%+120%) = 1.6 x 2.2 = 3.52 multiplier which is 252% more damage
instead of 100% + 60% + 120% = 2.8 multiplier which is 180% more damage.

The formula for sheet trauma damage for a character wielding the sword and the shield is:
78 x FW% x (100% + sheet_trauma% + cunning_trauma%) x 3.52
78 is from 390 / 5 → :shield: dmg/s

[edit] I confirmed this by testing it on dummies.

That means Grim Tools incorrectly displays the following:
image
(should be 252%)

Which is consistent with the test I made for CT: Total Damage Stacking

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Wow that’s actually a big drop, when i was comparing the two shields (including the 4 pc bonus) i didn’t see much difference aside from the total damage modified by 120%, is it that stat that’s making this huge gap or is it something else?

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It more than doubles the FW damage whereas Octavius mods for example adds 500% Trauma damage which is good but you already have 4k% damage on the build so relatively it’s a decent but far smaller gain. Or the flat Internal Trauma to FW is not scaled by FW’s 325% Weapon damage like flat damage not from mods. Well Octavius Shield also has higher damage on it but I guess these all together are still worse than the doubling mod.

2 Likes