[1.1.9.7 - 1.2.0.3] Principle Unshakeable - S&B Fire Blitz Justicar Warlord [sr+][vid]

Greetings! :slightly_smiling_face:

It is time for another build of mine. I had great doubts about posting it, the results did not satisfy my expectations. But maybe someone will like the idea, who knows? So, what is the build about?

S&B Fire Warlord. Sounds great! But it is Grim Dawn and Fire means “one of the worst damage types” (only slightly better than Lightning). Too many resistant enemies and the most dangerous Nemeses - Grava, Iron Maiden, Fabius etc. To play Fire/Lightning outside double RR class is just horrible (according to my experience). But the skills and devotions look amazing indeed :smile:. Maybe it is pretty tanky thanks to shield archetype and Warlord class? Not much, to be honest. Warlord is points-hungry class, too much sacrifices and compromises needed. Now it sounds not that great, right? :rofl: Do not worry, the build is not that bad. Just again, do not expect much.

Let us start the discussion!

1. Grimtools link.

Mostly defense-oriented setup - Dryad, Tortoise, Phoenix - with Ulzuin’s Torch and Magi devotions for damage. Ghoul, Revenant - usual stuff for melee WD-oriented builds.

2. In-game character stats.
1.2.0.3_FBJW_general_stats
general stats, only passive buffs are active. Damage Per Second is for RF

1.2.0.3_FBJW_Blitz_breakdown
Blitz breakdown

1.2.0.3_FBJW_magic_stats
magic stats

1.2.0.3_FBJW_defense_stats
defense stats

3. Gear/Build explanation.
Damage, survivability, sustain, skillpoints - we need them all. Some gear may appear an overkill, but believe me - the build really needs it.

  1. Core items.
    Set. Justicar Guard. Heavy Fire set for Blitz, Forcewave and Judgment that has Demolitionist “support” for no reason (+1 on helmet and no modifiers to any of Demo skills, seriously?). Gloves have no %Fire Damage :grin:. Only up to 6% Phys Res for a whole set, for masteries that have no Phys Res whatsoever :face_with_raised_eyebrow:. Is it Fire version of Light’s Defender? So many questions. But it does its job anyway, converted Blitz (S&B) has good damage, proc is also nice. Even -15% Cunning on chest helps. It needs defense bump for sure (and real Demo support).
    Weapon. Soulblade. Actually great slot for Fire RF, converts it fully (Armor Piercing does not apply) and gives it huge lifesteal. Also has global ADCtH and even +2 to Smite (which is also fully-converted). Good weapon.
    Amulet. Bloodbriar’s Thorn. Huge -0.9 sec modifier to Blitz, +15% Crit Damage to it, +3 to Blindside. Look for Acid/Bleed/Aether/Stun/Freeze res and OA first - for all armor and jewelry MIs.
    Shield. Fleshwarped Defender. Has -0.5 sec and 18% DR for Judgment - important, redundant conversion to it. Yes, I have triple-rare one, but it is completely legal. Vendor-farm it in Port Valbury, also there are a lot of enemies with this shield. Basically you need %Phys Res on prefix and %Fire Damage on suffix. Like Durable of Scorching.
    Medal. Wendigo Glare. Damage modifiers to SS and Blitz, skillpoints and %Crit Damage.
  2. Mandatory items.
    Ring 1. Gargabol’s Ring. +3 to RF and much-needed %Bleed Res, Physical/Fire affinity.
    Ring 2. Combustion Band. Standard Fire RR ring, especially important on single RR classes.
    Pants. Hellforged Legplates. Heavy Physical/Fire slot with up to 7% Phys Res, big DA, %Acid Res. Proc is just another portion of damage, does not hurt.
    Relic. Serenity. +1 to All Skills - important for points-starved classes like Warlord, %Aether Res and circuit-breaker. Look for resistances similar to MIs.
    Belt. Gargoyle Girdle. +1 to Oathkeeper, %Petrify and %Chaos Res. Conversion may be useful if you want to use Seal of Blades (but I still recommend two Seals of Might, helps agains Iron Maiden much).
    Boots. Emberstone Threads. Provide +2 to Blitz to hardcap it, %Fire Damage, %Phys and %Acid Res. All is good, everything is needed.

Craft with Reduced Stun Duration (bonus is provided by Malmouth blacksmith in Steelcap District).

About Resistance Reduction. Total amount is ~82% (-27% from GoE aura, -8% from Combustion Band proc, -23% from Solael’s Witchblade constellation and flat 24 from Revenant constellation) plus 20% from Viper constellation, so it may vary. Not great for Fire, but this is what we can get. As I said - Grava, Iron Maiden, Fabius - are all hard to beat (but not impossible, use your defensive skills smartly). Also SR Gargabol can be dangerous, any heavy Physical fighter hurts much. Yeah, for S&B it is quite glassy :sweat_smile:.

4. Gameplay.
Blitz into crowds, use Judgment to reduce enemies damage and proc stuff (also pulls monsters to you, synergises well with Blitz and Justicar procs), RF in-between for sustain. Overguard/Ascension for defense, Violent Delights for disengage/faster battlefield movement when there are no enemies to charge into. Nothing difficult.

5. Videos (original setup used).
Mad Queen.

Kra’Vall.

Lokarr.

Morgoneth.

SR 75 full (the build is damaging but fragile, so be careful).

Avatar of Mogdrogen (old video) (very hard on Phase 2, hits like a truck, so no facetanking. Potions are in the video, no Aether Clusters, occasional healpots. Also I took out Veterancy skillpoint and placed it into Markovian’s Defense for better Overguard uptime).

Ravager of Flesh (potions are in the video, no Aether Clusters, occasional healpots and Courageous Tinctures, kiting out of blood pools and broken sunder attacks. Hits hard, leeches mana like crazy).

Callagadra (potions are in the video, no Aether Clusters, occasional healpots and Courageous Tinctures, kiting).

No Crate kill (are you kidding? :laughing:).

Well, there was my S&B Fire Blitz Warlord. “So much wasted potential”(c). We need a lot of skillpoints for it. The damage is sometimes great for a shield-based build, but defense :expressionless:…

Thanks for reading, your feedback is always highly appreciated. Until next time!

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Make Warlords (in GD) even greater! And do something about Fire/Lightning Damage type!

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Good job, testing and celestial kills! I appreciate the effort.

If you want more defense you could take the Reduced Target’s damage jewellery augment.
Unless you have it somewhere already and I don’t see it.

Also imo on Fire build like that, if one would like to feel more safe, the Chariot + Throne is imo a trap (that I fell into before)
OA / CC can be always fixed somehow with cunning dump, different items, crafting, affixes etc.

I like Turtle + Phoenix combo instead Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
(2 remaining devo points can be spent differently than last node of Torch and 1 node of Throne,
I didn’t think about it much. Or maybe 2 points in Sailor’s Guide.)

I recommend trying it out to see if you feel a difference.
Btw Shattering Smash (in contrast to Smite) is actually an ok proccer if you need one.

Also 1 Haunted Steel can be taken for another, besides Ghoul, and controllable increase in ADCTH if needed.

// my experience from testing other Fire builds (Justicar Warlords and Shieldbreakersa and some other sets) that I needed to make more tanky so might not apply here

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I have already, on my shield. 18% Reduced Target’s Damage for Judgment.

Why? These are good devotions that provide exactly what the build needs.

Other items maybe, but Cunning dump just for OA? Well… desperate times call for desperate measures sometimes :thinking:. Although I would prefer not doing that.

Turtle without %CDR is not that great. And even with it, not something decisive. I would like Phoenix too, but it requires so much OA to be worth taking. Barely 3.000 OA effective is not enough for Celestials.

Not a big fan of that component, used only in my Blood Knight DK. But I might try it.

Because you cannot get what they provide elsewhere. Anyway, I didn’t want to discuss it too much. I’m simply reporting that I felt a noticeable difference after changing a devo like yours to the one with these shields. Also adding Turtle to a build with no cooldown was something I was very glad about in some other build. I just recommended you to try it out. Obviously it’s build specific.

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Not quite right, I have MIs with CC stats and resistances, but the ones I use have %Fire Damage on them or have useful affixes (like Wendigo Medal). Unfortunately they are 84 lvl and have useless affixes like “of Frostbite” :smile:. I will keep in mind your ideas and try them for sure. Thanks for feedback!

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Tbh your build looked tanky enough for me already from the videos (facetanking these high Fire res nemeses) so if you didn’t write about the defense I wouldn’t even respond. I couldn’t do that on a Guardian / RF Shieldbreaker and needed the the things I mentioned. They are definitely meh against Ravager but maybe they could help with Crate at least.

I need to take it back. I tested it again on two builds and it procs just like Smite and not that well (1 Twin Fangs/ 3s)
It was either my imagination / rng or maybe it was fixed somehow in 1.1.9.7 (not very probable).

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Hi! :slightly_smiling_face:

The topic was updated, a variation with Phoenix and Turtle devotions added. Better survivability thanks to Phoenix Fire, Turtle does not have much impact but still nice to have. Yeah, OA is not great, but we have nice 1.1.9.8 buffs in the future, so Stun and Freeze resistances can be replaced with much better stats.

Greetings!

This is 1.1.9.8 build update:

  • Reduced monster % Fire Resist by 2% on Elite and Ultimate difficulty
  • Justicar Guard Set: added 155 Burn damage / 2s modifier for Judgment
  • Alladrah’s Phoenix: added 15% Freeze Resist and 30% Burn Duration
  • Magi: added 15% Freeze Resist and 1.5 Energy Regeneration. Removed % Fire Resist.
  • Revenant: increased % Health to 5% and Health to 250
  • Solael’s Witchfire: increased Defensive Ability to 40
  • Ulzuin’s Torch: added 20% Stun Resist and 6% Health. Removed % Fire Resist.
  • Smite: sped up the 1h-ed and dual-wield melee animation hit frame by 20% to match comparable WPS skills. Average DPS of this ability remains unchanged.

The build was adjusted accordingly, just some affixes on MIs shuffling. The GT link was updated (Phoenix/Turtle one). Have fun!

Hey, I just started playing grim dawn and I’m wondering where to get the soul blade? I can’t find the information

Hi! It is a random drop.

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Hello! :slightly_smiling_face:

It is 1.2.0.3 updating time!

  • Increased Monster % Life Leech Resist. This makes % Attack damage Converted to Health less effective. On Ultimate difficulty, this is roughly a 30% reduction against an average boss. Defensive/healing abilities and Constellations have received a buff to compensate for this change.
  • Candle: reduced Energy Regeneration to 2.5
  • Dryad: reduced Energy Regeneration to 1.0
  • Ghoul: increased Health Regeneration to 16 and % Health Regeneration to 30%
  • Raven: reduced Energy Regeneration to 1.0 and increased Lightning damage for pets to 9
  • Dryad’s Blessing: increased Healing scaling with rank
  • Ghoulish Hunger: added % Increased Healing (Forgotten Gods only) and added % Cast Speed
  • Phoenix Fire: increased Absorption scaling with rank
  • Fighting Spirit: reduced Cooldown and Duration to 5s
  • Markovian’s Advantage: increased base % Weapon damage by 15%
  • Menhir’s Will: increased % Heal and Health Regeneration scaling with rank
  • Overguard: increased base % Shield Damage Blocked and base % Health Regeneration to 50% and increased Energy Cost scaling with rank
  • Zolhan’s Technique: increased base % Weapon damage by 20%
  • Ascension: increased Energy Cost scaling with rank
  • Smite: increased base % Weapon damage by 15%
  • Shattering Smash: increased base % Weapon damage by 15%

Not much buffs and new features :laughing:. But GT link was updated nonetheless - included Dryad for extra healing, because of life-leech nerfs, and defense. Also added new videos except for Mogdrogen.

Stay safe!

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I just wanted to say that love this build. It may not be the best, but its fun and it fulfilled my desire for a tough, firey character that’s fun to play. Its also the first build i ever completed from the forums, which had reignited my passion for this game.

Great job!

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