[1.1.9.6] Vitality Death Knight

There already existed a few builds that used Edge of Death + Blood Knight set however they seemed to focus on Cadence + Plagued Edge as the second weapon. Since Cadence/Deadly Momentum in these builds are not maxed out, I don’t think it’s a good idea to it over Beronath’s Fury considering that the second best feature of DK (after Soul Harvest) is the weapon pool.

Build: Death Knight, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Gears are achievable (double rare on belt isn’t necessary). It can face tank Ravager unchanged/no pharma: [Grim Dawn] DW Vitality Death Knight vs Ravager - YouTube

That was the first attempt, sloppy fight because I forgot which button Mark of Torment was on until I got slapped around. Despite not having much in RR as a Cabalist, having high OA and DA reduction from Markovian’s Advantage means it can deal consistent damage and leech consistently against Nemesis and Ravager.

Note this isn’t really a Bone Harvest build, non-Reaping Halberd BH is quite disappointing. As such the boots and gloves can be taken out for about anything else depending on taste. It was nice in the Crucible though, otherwise clicking every single enemy down is a chore. I’ve had ~5:30 runs in Crucible 150-170 with 4 buffs, not gonna upload those since I think everyone is expecting sub 4 minutes run these days and I don’t have the steering skills to do that.

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Nice build

Have you tried using Direwolf crest for dual wield so you can free up your Relic slot ?

I always wonder what is the point of omen? Is it really worth to dump 10 points into it? It has a low duration and just adds another button to spam. The proc can be found on the boots as well.

Why not max dread instead and also there are 2 left over points in the grimtools.

Nice build though. I will try it out if i have the belt.

Harvester of Death transmuter for Bone Harvest only works with 2-handed weapons.

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Damage reduction is a very powerful debuff. It not only lowers received damage but reduces the duration of debuffs on you (If Ill omen is applied first) Damage reduction is just like damage absorption, but better

The damage on it is almost irrelevant.

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  1. It says reduced damage by 25% for 1 second. Is that reapplied during the 5 sec duration or is it simply only 1 second no matter what.
  2. Is that one of those things that is highly resisted by anything in the game? Like the debuff that reduces monster health by a percentage…

does the RR from both weapons stack as grim tools is saying? each one gives 18 rr for 5 secs but on grim tools says 36 rr for 10 seconds… i dont think it stacks right?

The %DR is refreshed each second with the damage ticks. Damage Reduction is not resisted so it is a powerful debuff that you always want to incorporate. Health Reduction is an attack that is highly resisted and doesn’t work on bosses.

GT stacks these erroneously - I’m sure it’s a pain to code it correctly. They do not stack in-game.

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@RxJunkie is right on the money

if you want to explore this ability, check this list out:

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Have you tried using Direwolf crest for dual wield so you can free up your Relic slot ?

Since the only skill that needs overcapping (Soul Harvest) is already maxed out, I didn’t feel like a +1 skill relic was going to be very important. There’s a consideration to use Deathchill + Direwolf (or Korvaak’s) instead for just raw damage, but I think Blademaster (with +12% cthonic damage roll) + Dreadchill mark (+40% weapon damage mod) edges out better.

Thanks, this was left over from trying Reaping Halberd.

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Oh neat how was Reaping Halberd in your tests ? I’ve been testing with this Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator setup for the super lucky MI I got, it can kill Ravager but not consistent facetank like ur build(Probably the degen from DG or 2h base speed is too slow). But it can do SR, CR 170 pretty well(although the lack of CC res is disturbing).

Your devo setup with Abomination is interesting since the lack of degen is a good alternative for lack of crit.

Hungering Void degen is definitely not the culprit. It would take a minute for it to drain your health whereas you can see the OP recovering full bar of Health instantly. I’m not sure if lower Base Attack speed matters because you still managed to reach 200% AS in your build.

Maybe you could add Ghoul + Aether cluster and that, together with properly rotated Bloodthrister and Mark of Torment would help you. Also 10/10 Omen.

Reaping Halberd is a lot nicer in the Crucible (it just clears swathes of enemies in a single cast) but it definitely has issue with Ravager since your damage goes up and down too much. Looking at your build I don’t think it’ll reliably facetank Ravager because: 3K OA (Ravager can lower this further, you’ll have like 10-20% chance to miss so you can miss your leech cycle, Soldier is very nice here because it has a boatload more OA and can shred DA via Markovian’s Advantage), only 62% chance to proc a WPS (you can’t crit with this low OA so Upheaval isn’t online) meaning that your damage is very inconsistent, missing a leech cycle after the boss hits 50% health is going to mean your death.

I’ve died too much with Vit Ritualist so I think while the damage is high it takes too much effort to play for me. Soldier having a bit more armor, status res, passive damage on counterstrike and reliably hitting anything even with DA malus makes it much more comfortable to play in Crucible/SR.

Edit: also your Signet of the Fallen won’t proc on Ravager because of the low OA too, so your damage potential is lowered.

Yeah I can kill Ravager(of Minds) with it (no Aether cluster but I did use some pots) which is not bad but I was just wondering if it can reach this builds level. Most of my deaths were during Hungering Void uptime, what happens is degen can lower your health to a lucky oneshot before your next attack sometimes so I think mabe its not the right play. HV should def beat Abom for general content tho. Ghoul is good but I wonder if Golemborn can reach a similar effect since I usually leech to max anyway and phys res is the main draw.

200% on 1.89 will still be much better than 200% on 1.5 for leech no ? I mean its definitely enough for most content but I feel it could be kind of a limiter for smoother Ravager facetanking.

Good points, I’m still farming for better rolls on belt, maybe can push more OA/DA there. Overall DK is definitely more tanky but I generally gravitate to Glass cannon anyway. Just an idle thought, I wonder if its possible to max LA + Soul Harvest for possibly bigger numbers on the BH.

Also my char is based on 24 Savagery for the max charge(Bcos sweet MI gave the idea) but I wonder if ditching that and focusing on BH would be better overall. Its extremely point intensive but max Blood Pact could also boost dmg…

You can get use band of wandering souls in place of the savagery ring and get a “lucky” (i.e. gdstash) +2 to soul harvest on your medal. Personally I don’t use Savagery on my Ritualist and instead use Reaping Arc to save skill points + max Soul Harvest with x2 band of wandering souls.

Hmmm… Here Nery facetanks Ravager with Bone Harvest focused build [1.1.5.2-1.1.6.2] Bone Appetit! Vitality CDR Bone Harvest Oppressor - massive damage, Crucible 170/SR 75/Ravager no consumables

with Hungering Void and no auto attack.

Not sure, 2-handers start with lower base attack speed (I mean the starting % in Grim Tools that you increase to 200%) though so you are able to increase it more by going to 200%. But on the other hand it’s not as much lower as the number of attacks is lower so maybe this thing doesn’t compensate fully.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, DW and 2h are different for sure and DW have bonus number of attacks when they hit with both hands from time to time for example.

I like Reaping Arc on Blood Knight too.

The degen is 1% of your life per second, would that allow Ravager to kill you? That doesn’t seem right. Yes most of your deaths were during Hungering Void because it’s up most of the time with 20s duration and 28s cooldown in your case. That must have been something else. Ravager has DoT damage.

However you could have some devo tweaks for continuous healing because i.e. Fangs are hard to proc on single target. Whereas Wendigo OP has provides constant healing.

Worth pointing out that Nery’s build uses Judgment to shred DA which is very important unless you want to die to 10-20% chance to miss. Shaman has no such tool though.

Hmm… yeah maybe focus more on BH and adding Wendigo totem(blood pact) and using Savagery only for buff or just ditching it might be better, I only went this route because this MI felt perfect to cap both but perhaps its just not as good. I might try to make one when I get a decaying of voracity or some such though oppressor like Nery seems much more optimal.

That’s a good idea though I don’t like using GDstashed rares so much(Only use it to dupe lvl 100 chars for testing)

Yeah I was thinking Ravager’s DoT + HV DoT was a bit too much pressure incase I miss and don’t leech Tho that’s prolly more of a low OA problem. I initially wanted Wendigo but its too many points for too less affinity and also makes movespeed rough losing jackal.

Weirdly I managed to get a kill with no pharma, I just swapped to 2x Irrah’s blood instead of Wraith’s scream, it was prolly just luck tho since I then got 1 shot by the wave you can see in the pic.

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I think Dying god is much more better than Abomination, the proc Physical → Chaos may mess up your dmg type.