[1.1.9.7 - 1.2.1.5] Principle Unshakeable - S&B Fire Blitz Justicar Warlord [sr+][vid]

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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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.
1.2.1.5_FBJW_general_stats
general stats, only passive buffs are active. Damage Per Second is for RF

1.2.1.5_FBJW_Blitz_breakdown
Blitz breakdown

1.2.1.5_FBJW_magic_stats
magic stats

1.2.1.5_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. 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 my case - 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.
    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!

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

1 Like
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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

3 Likes
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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.

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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!

1 Like
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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.

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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).

1 Like
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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.

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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!

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

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Hi! It is a random drop.

1 Like
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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!

1 Like
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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!

2 Likes
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Hi! :slightly_smiling_face:

The 1.2.1.6 patch has arrived … for Steam. But as a proud GoG user, I have time for updating rest of my builds up to 1.2.1.5 until July 9 :sweat_smile:. No worries, they are ready, just need to write topic changes. Let us continue then.

1.2.1.0 patch.

  • Shields now reduce incoming damage greater than your Shield Block Amount by 100%, up from 70%.
  • Magic Prefix - Durable: reduced % Physical Resist to 10%
  • Rare Prefix - Infernal (shields): reduced % Physical Resist to 6%
  • Component - Seal of Might: replaced % Physical Resist with 8% Armor on the granted skill
  • Wendigo Glare: reduced Physical damage modifier for Shattering Smash to 100
  • Dryad: reduced % Physical Resist to 3%
  • Ghoul: increased % Attack damage Converted to Health to 5%
  • Revenant: added 60% Vitality damage, 60% Aether damage amd 20% Stun Resist. Increased % Health to 6%. Removed pet bonuses.
  • Turtle: added 80 Armor and 8% Armor. Removed Health and % Physical Resist.
  • Ulzuin’s Torch: replaced % Health with 120 Armor
  • Meteor Shower: increased Burn damage scaling with rank
  • Phoenix Fire: increased Burn damage scaling with rank
  • Raise the Dead: increased Damage on the summoned pets
  • Field Command: reduced % Armor scaling with rank to 20% by rank 12, 30% by max ultimate rank
  • Military Conditioning: increased % Physique scaling at ultimate ranks to 28% by max ultimate rank. Reduced % Health scaling to 20% by rank 10, 32% by max ultimate rank.
  • Haven: reduced % Health scaling with rank to 20% by rank 10, 32% by max ultimate rank
  • Resilience: reduced % Physical Resist scaling with rank to 10% by rank 12, 15% by max ultimate rank
  • Summon Guardian of Empyrion: reduced Burn damage scaling with rank

1.2.1.5 patch.

  • Judgment: increased Internal Trauma damage scaling with rank
  • Summon Guardian of Empyrion: added 20s Cooldown to address a Dot stacking exploit related to spamming resummons on the skill. Summoning Guardians now summons all of them at once.

Pretty heavy nerfs in %Physical Res department :slightly_frowning_face:. To have some semblance of order, I changed my great double-rare shield for a simplier one. Good rolls on it though - 14% Phys Res is maximum you can get for Durable prefix. So I do not complain… much :laughing:. Also threw away Seals of Might and use two Voids instead for more WPS, got a little bit of skillpoints to use. And despite Turtle nerf, I did not change devotion tree, an occasional bubble does not hurt in melee. So yeah - only some components/skillpoints reshuffle, gear and devotions are same. The build holds for now. But who knows what will be next. GT link and screenshots were updated.

Until next time!