[1.1.9.7] 4+ Grenado builds, for when you need even MOAR Grenado!

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Grenado requires very heavy skill investment to be the centerpiece of a build, requiring 3 nodes in its main ability and additional points into Ulzuin’s Chosen. Ulzuin’s Chosen is a rare bonus, typically sticking to Fire / Lightning equipment. If you are looking for the absolute best use of Grenado, I have taken the liberty of collecting the most fiery Grenado standards:

Lightning Grenado: Monceux’s Barrelsmith Elementalist

Fire: Supertolik’s Adversary Shieldbreaker

But what if you want MOAR? Well I have MOAR! 4 Grenado builds, in fact, in an effort to find Grenado’s strengths and weaknesses. I will be showcasing them from strongest to weakest: the first 2 are genuine build showcases which you can use to farm SR for loot. The weaker 2 builds are more meant for feedback; as much as I poured effort into them, I couldn’t find a way to provide even reasonable results.

Now let’s throw some grenades to the face!

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Mark of Ulzuin Pyromancer
Damage Type: Chaos

Over 3 years ago, Chthon made a Chaos Grenado Pyromancer which was then virtually untouched outside of a few theorycrafts here and there. Being able to throw bombs in the face is a neat skill to have, and the Conduit changes in 1.1.9.0 brought us some neat conversion to Chaos as well as a new Chaos Canister Bomb.

[1.1.9.0] Chaos Grenado Pyromancer GRIMTOOLS

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Chthon’s build focused primarily on getting as much damage on both Grenado and Doom Bolt as possible. I have decided a different route and made it more a caster bomb fiesta and included increased radius Thermite Mines, BWC with 21/12 Demon Fire, and Canister Bomb to help round out the times where Grenado and Doom Bolt are on cooldown. With many different skills being used, I take on Scales with fully converted Vitality to ensure Energy is not a problem, and fully converted Fissure helps with single targets who stand when Grenado + Doom Bolt are exhausted.

While Chthon’s build uses the Fang of Chthon for the Piercing to Chaos conversion and the RR proc, my build heavily relies on Demo skills; Grenado, BWC, Thermite Mines, and Canister Bomb all play a role in this build. So instead of going the standard RR route, I use the combination of Mythical Grim Fate and Infernal Knight’s Headguard, as they both grant +1 to Demo skills and give extra radius to Thermite Mines. The Conduit, Voidheart, and the Sash of the Bloodlord together provide 100% Fire to Chaos conversion, while the belt and off-hand combine to bring us 100% Vitality to Chaos, which is mainly useful for Scales and Bat leeching.

Defensively, Fiend’s Resolve provides additional Physical Resistance with 100% uptime. It also provides a small heal, which works well with Dryad’s Blessing and Blood of Dreeg. Ghoul also provides a quick 18% Physical Resistance to help give you enough time to escape particularly vicious Physical hits.

This build is able to handle both Crucible and SR80, though I had to fight Reaper with the Chaos resistance mutator in SR80 and it was absolutely brutal to fight. I eventually prevailed without dying, but Reaper with 95% Chaos resistance is like fighting Ravager, so I’d avoid running SR with the resistance modifier if at all possible.

Here is a Crucible video of 07:25, and that’s with fighting Reaper & two Benn’Jahr’s in Waves 160-170 with the Chaos resistance modifier, so it has a lot of potential for more expert players to bring this time down.

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The Refrigerator Shieldbreaker Grenado
Damage Type: Physical

What’s this build like? Imagine putting William “The Refrigerator” Perry in Grim Dawn and give him grenades.

JAN 2022 Update
Sadly, Mikhail’s video no longer exists for Physical Grenado, and with the new Physical Damage changes in 1.1.9.2, the Defiler Grenadier was simply no longer reliable. So instead, I took it upon myself to make a Shieldbreaker Grenado with the same “Perry the Refrigerator” strategy of barreling over everything and occasionally throwing Grenades.

[1.1.9.4] Physical Grenado Shieldbreaker GRIMTOOLS

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Shieldbreaker needed more of a point investment than Defiler, so I replaced the amulet with a Kaisan’s Amulet for CC resistances and valuable skill points. Warrior’s prefix can be any affix with Physical damage. As skill points were tight, I removed BWC from the rotation and picked up Scales to help with the constant zooming + occasional luck multiple Grenado toss. The massive amount of Crit + points in Shattering Blast means that there’s a non-negligible Internal Trauma component that helps beat down stragglers.

But seriously, I had 4 Nemeses following me (2 Kaisans, Fabius and Kuba), and I simply went about my business and threw grenades and beat the level by aiming for killing the trash + hero mobs. It’s absolutely ludicrous what this build can tank in terms of damage.

20K life, 4K armor, and 37% Physical resistance tends to help with that, I suppose.

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I was too late on the trigger for SR76, but the time at the end was over 9 minutes long. SR75-76 is going to be a breeze no matter what sort of monsters + mutators are involved.

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Since Mad_Lee has technically solved the Pierce Grenado conundrum, I wanted to present an original concept to the Grenado family.

In the meantime, I would recommend Mad_Lee’s Rimetongue Purifier which has much better Grenado usage. Plus it doots, can’t have a build without a decent dooter.

Intorducing - the Aether Grenado Defiler!

1.1.9.7 - Aether Grenado

I went with the Defiler again as Necromancer provides all I can ask for in terms of Aether damage: 2 Aether damage-improving buffs, Ill Omen + MoT for damage absorption with enemy damage reduction, passive RR, and a Weapon Damage skill that I can use to leech health.

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The Aether damage is pretty darn good, and Dryad’s Blessing bound to Reap Spirit helps keep the sustain at a decent enough level. The lack of DA is definitely an issue, even with Siphon Souls to help mitigate that, but I’ve beaten SR75-76 enemies I had no right to beat like Iron Maiden. Considering Reaper is here to ruin your day, I’d propose it as a SR65-66 capable character, as it can do SR75-76 without dying, but requires some extreme skill to pass some of the harder Nemesis enemies.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s some of the most harrowing 11 minutes I’ve had to sit through with any GD character:

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Defiled Divinity
Damage Type: Vitality Decay

Pure DoT builds are hard to make without heavy use of player-scaled pets to stack multiple DoTs on the same skill. Other Vitality Decay builds have been attempted, most recently with Evil_Baka’s Storm Totem / Siphon Souls Valguur’s Ritualist, but DoT builds typically stick to Bleeding builds or the occasional Burn build.

This build attempts use pure casting abilities to apply Vitality Decay DoT damage, while using Reap Spirit as an Aether damage ability for enemies who are highly resistance to Vitality damage. Thankfully, the Clairvoyant’s Set gives heavy bonuses to both Vitality and Aether damage, as well as abilities like Necro’s Harbinger of Souls and the Rattosh devotion, so the dual damage is not as off-the-wall as other combinations.

[1.1.9.5] Vitality Decay Defiler GRIMTOOLS

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The Clairvoyant’s Set provides a big boost to Necromancer’s Reap Spirit; while nearly nobody uses it for the DoT aspect, Reap Spirit has the highest Vitality Decay DoT in the game, and the Clairvoyant’s Set gives an additional DoT modifier to it. Where the Demo class comes into play is 100% Fire to Vitality damage alongside multiple Burn skills that are converted into Vitality Decay. Here’s the list of DoT abilities in order of damage:

  • Reap Spirit: 1,010 Vitality Decay per second + 200 from item modifiers = 1,210 flat Vitality Decay
  • Reap Spirit (Weapon Damage): 136 flat Vitality Decay (from Grimtools) * 300% Weapon Damage = 408 Vitality Decay
  • Grenado: 378 converted Internal Trauma (from off-hand) per second + 280 from item modifiers = 658 flat Vitality Decay
  • Bone Harvest – Dread: 446 Vitality Decay per second at 22/12
  • Blackwater Cocktail: 58 converted burn damage per second + 100 from item modifiers * 2.65 multiplier from transmuter = 419 Vitality Decay
  • Rune of Blazing Ends (Medal Augment): 400 converted Burn damage per second
  • Meteors (Devotion): 205 converted Burn Damage per second
  • Phoenix Fire (Devotion): 116 converted Burn Damage per second

That’s a total of roughly 3,860 flat Vitality Decay damage – very close to the 4K flat damage that is typical for DoT builds. Unfortunately, Vitality is the most resisted damage type in the game. Sadly, there’s no devotion abilities that give Vitality Decay, so we make the best of the converted Burn damage from Meteors and Phoenix Fire. The most I’ve seen is roughly 285,000 against Valderan in the SR boss room. Considering how much piano this build is, I wish I’d see higher damage numbers, but it does the job.

1.1.9.5 buffed the Word of Solael offhand by giving it flat resistance reduction. While it’s sort of redundant with Demo’s BWC with agonizing flames, having reliable RR at all times is crucial to getting your DoTs to tick. I swapped a few equipment pieces - most notably getting rid of Aetherreach for more Vitality damage and points to Shattering Blast. It is now much more reliable in SR75-76 than it previously was, so I’m going to declare it, “finally viable.”

Blightlord’s Set is still better for Vitality Defilers, though.

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Looks great but do you have a functional cold grenado?
Ive tried the one by rektbyprotoss while the damage was good it was just too dependent on ulzuins chosen procs,
Is there a cold grenado with a sufficient CDR
I dunno instead of demo and night to try demo and arcanist?
Thank you im advance for your advice guys :slight_smile:

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I have not tried Cold Grenado yet. I was never good with Sorcerer because I never feel like I have enough sustain to handle the heavy hits, and you are going to get hit eventually. Besides, Arcanist is also a point-heavy class, especially if you’re taking all 50 Mastery points to take Star Pact.

There’s enough equipment synergy to attempt Cold Grenado + RoH Purifier, but my first draft came up with awful stats - no OA & DA, little sustain outside of WoR. With 100% Fire to Cold conversion, the devotion options open up a bit (Ultos 180% Cold + Torch (for OA), Ultos 180% with Leviathan (for better energy + Phys Resist), Leviathan + Blind Sage (more offensive) or Attak Seru nodes (if you need DA)), but you need multiple procs to ensure you’re getting enough damage while getting the proper resists and stats.

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It’ BOOM BOOM :scream:

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Thank you for youre feedback.
If by chance you can post me here a theorycraft of it.
Ofc if its no hassle :slight_smile:

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Maybe a variation of rektbyprotoss build with offhand would give you more cdr (~10%+). Something like Arcane Wastes Offhand for reduced RR Grimtools: with AW offhand and dev tweaks ? I went with a more conservative dev path due to the loss of the DW…with more regen and energy.

It would rely on regen more than consistent health leech like with rect’s build, except when ghoul is active. OA would need a boost from a useful affix on the MI ring and possibly the relic. Since Vindictive can now reduce the targets damage, you probably will be ok without BC to do that.

As Tpom stated, skills are tight and OA and sustain are concerns. DA is not so bad as Veil effectively gives another 130. Blade Spirits are almost max and converted.

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This seems very decent and thank you for your help.
But a dumb question sorry,
Wouldnt it be better to use the rimetongue helmet for the bigger AoE of grenado, more damage on top, 2 set piece bonus and +1 demo.
With items we would have over 100% fire to cold conversion, so im wondering how badly would the helmets 100% fire to pierce on grenado affect it?
Or would it completely ruin it?

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Rimetongue helmet converts fire to pierce at the grenado skill level, which comes first. So all that fire of grenado would be converted to pierce damage. Conversion can only happen once for any particular damage.

You could test the game-play and see if the loss of that damage conversion is worth the AoE and other benefits. :man_shrugging: Single-target damage would be inferior.

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Rimetongue is getting some changes next update with the conversions moved elsewhere/removed so it may well be the case the helmet becomes more appealing then.

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Cold Grenado + RoH Purifier - Theorycraft only

RoH on a good short cooldown + Grenado + Blizzard + near fully-cold Meteors should be good damage overall, but I worry about getting enough DA and sustain to survive incoming damage spikes. Sadly, there aren’t any good bonus points for Shattering Blast - otherwise, I’d recommend Ravager’s Helmet + Galesclice medal to keep the 50% Fire to Cold conversion while also having an opportunity to increase your OA / DA.

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Really dig the Baldir’s Grenado Defiler build explanation. That animation of William Perry sets the stage perfectly lol.

Interested in trying this out. Just finished building a “budget” gaming PC so I can FINALLY get back in the saddle playing online and participating more actively in the forums once again. Looking forward to trying out this and many other builds that have been shared since ive been out of the loop.

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Could this work ?
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/aZq0WpAV

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After the rework on Rimetongue set, Ive tried the cold build again and it works great :grinning:
Edit highest dmg is 811,763

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Hello friends me again,
Quick update on Cold Grenado
So after the recent patch changes ive chamged the medal to Aggressive Kymons badge of Attack and the damage has jumped massively, from 750k highest damage to that sweet 1Mil.
This build was fun but now its amazing.
Sorry for phone screenshot.

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Is that Ravager kill with your Grenado build? Was it super difficult or did the kiting make it a lot more bearable.

Update on the Grenado: thanks to the new Physical damage going through Armor change, the Defiler Physical Grenado is now obsolete, and I replaced it with a Shieldbreaker version. It’s much more tanky and much more offensive than the Defiler version, and runs through SR like a complete breeze.

Sorry for the Defiler fans. I really wanted to make that class have something, even if it’s a small niche.

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Well the build is capable of killing ravager, but ive needed to kite him quite a bit, but its not too long if you have the patience.
The build is tanky enough due to blast shield and chariot and blade trap for leech. Grenado damage is excellent in a combination with chillspikes.

I havent taken ABB and LA but you can feel free to change as you please but this is my setup.
Hope this all can help.