Kraken’s value is so high it’s a must have on any two-handed build (except pets). There are no exceptions here. It’s especially valuable for Bleeding builds, since crit damage is the bread and butter of dot builds (not with 2891 OA of course). But also 4% physical resist, 120% to damage, a lot of hp and speeds. And you need speeds on a build with RoS, Swarm and Phantasmal Blades mixed with auto-attacking.
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Ooor - and I know I’m really reaching here - you could just give that elitism a break and let people build however they want. Just a thought.
I’m not calling these “guides” for a reason, and it seems to me like you understood that reason, so I’m not sure what exactly the point of your post was even supposed to be other than being an elitist. If all anyone takes away from these is “man, if he’s getting decent results with this crapshoot of a build, I can only imagine what someone competent might be able to do”, that’s fine by me. What’s not fine by me is people with attitudes like yours, who choose the express them the way you do. Remind me why it is you got banned again? Doesn’t seem like you learned the lesson.
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You do realize you are posting in “classes and builds” making them look like legitimate guides. You even have a post with the collection of your “non-builds”. Players who are looking for guides to follow are unlikely to read your wall of text to see if those are real builds or overviews or something else. And some of those players won’t understand the difference. Like it was demonstrated here, @Serafim_94 just didn’t know that Kraken is mandatory, he thought your build was “dope”.
You are trying to get personal thinking that discussing my persona or attitude or why I got banned instead of actually trying to discuss a build with a person who is talking about your build in the forum section called “Classes and Builds”. Why the hostility? Why not engage into an actual build discussion? You are treating this forum section like your personal blog, mate, it’s a forum about builds, you post a build here, there might be some discussion involved.
It’s fine, I don’t optimize my builds anyway. Have some truly fucking terrible setups back from AOM that I just like to play.
A dope looking build is a dope looking build. As long as it doesn’t become my 4th “DW AA nightblade go brrr”, I’m happy.
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I will refer you to your own post.
If this is how you choose to open a dialogue about a build, it’s not a discussion I’m interested in having. In fact it doesn’t even look like an attempt to open a discussion, it looks like you’re just taking an opportunity to dump on others. And, sorry, I don’t care who the fuck you are, I’m not taking that crap from anybody. You can disagree with the way I build and we can have a civil discussion about it, as I have had with many others on my threads. Or you can act the way you just did. But then don’t pull a surprised picachu face when people respond to you in the exact same manner you chose to talk to them.
What your opinion is isn’t even remotely as important as the way you choose to express it.
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Let’s take a pause on…whatever this is that’s happening here. Thanks!
EDIT:
A reminder to everyone involved with emphasis on a couple things…
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Except this build show’s it’s not 100% needed all the time. Sure, the build’s not uber optimised, but given how it performs in SR75-80, it seems fine without Kraken. Which is no surprise really given GD’s flexibilities when it comes to builds.
Hell, I didn’t think taking all the specific element RR devotions would work on my elemental cadence BM and yet it did. Just needed some tweak gear and skill points wise before it could handle SR75-76 consistently. Is it slow? Yes. But that’s down to the lack of -RR% skills in both masteries and not much in the way of items that provide elemental -RR%.
Anyhow, I for one love the fact builds like this can work despite all the things that seem on paper wrong with them. For it’s a testament to the dev’s design and balancing skills :3
Except that you can crawl thru SR on a classless character, does it mean you don’t need classes in GD in order to win? And you can further extend this “argument” justifying just about any build decision. Like can X build that uses physical damage get thru SR without Assassin’s Mark in devotions? Maybe. Does it mean Assassin’s Mark is not 100% needed all the time? Can you take off your battlemage’s boots and complete SR without them? Probably. You see how we can now stretch almost any decision regarding any build.
Except we do have a semi-empirical (dependant on pilot skill and experience of course) measure of how well a build does - clear time for SR75-76 + kill times for celestials. And what Marcus has made here doesn’t crawl, it carves through SR very well despite it’s flaws-on-paper.
My BM build on the other hand though takes about 15 minutes to do SR75-76, which is why I don’t rate it highly, but from 20+ runs does well enough. But that’s still faster than a build/classless run that has to play very conservatively to clear SR75-76 and be within the timer.
As for the boots - sure, as the proc they give was never key to the build, I was just looking for physical resist + the other resists and +skill points and Runeguards fitted the needs.
While vis Assassin’s Mark - depends on if you have other sources of -RR% for physical as physical resists aren’t that high on enemies, but ultimately it’s going to depend on what you need Devotions wise. However it’s definitely a “must have” for pierce based builds, especially for celestials that can rock 80%+ pierce resistance, along with bosses in SR/CR.
yes, and 2H builds that skip Kraken tend to do worse than those that don’t. I am a bit tired explaining this very basic thing, not sure why you would trust Marcus judgement over mine when it comes to Grim Dawn builds, but you have a right to do so.
That was a trick question: you can’t skip AM on a physical build.
/rolleyes
Except I model that taking Kraken wouldn’t actually reduce clear times for this build, which I am actually going to try out with my tester+ save, since it allows me to get other devotion procs to max levels.
As for AM - 
I model if your build otherwise has enough -RR% or flat RR for PR you might get better returns on investment damage wise taking Maul. Of course, the devotion points AM gives does make it very easy to take for devotion paths for physical builds. As yellow and purple (sorry, lethologica ate the correct terms) points are oft required for higher tier devotions in that area.
Then there’s the fact some physical builds aren’t going to rock enough OA to proc AM as well, but those are going to be weird builds to begin with. Since most of us see the utility DPS wise of crits, hell, my BM relies on them to stay alive and kill bosses in a sane time lawl.
By the way - the main issues this build faces are Arcane heroes, as due a lack layered circuit breakers, it can die very fast.
Overall though, it plays pretty well, good clearance speed, goes through bosses like a obsidian blade through flesh and is fun overall to play, which justifies the rating you gave it. The main things holding it back are a) mobility, needs moar and b) only has 1 circuit breaker, so beware Arcane heroes.
About the only thing I’d change is to put a point in Shadow Strike for increased mobility, might take a crack at the devotion path to add Ghoul, because it’s a literal life saver when the shtf and see if Kraken can’t fit in as well. But first, moar SR runs.
Also freeze resist is such that while it can live without them, probably a good idea to pop one when fighting Mookins, as chain freezing is his thing.
Anyhow, thanks once again for making a pretty awesome build! Which I suspect will be what my ancient trickster build adopts as it’s endgame version 
Hmmmn, messing around with the devotion map, it seems to be impossible to pick up Kraken and Mogdrogen + Unknown Solider at the same time without sacrificing Scales etc. Scales is definitely needed for it’s flat -RR + sustain, while the other 2 significantly increase DPS. Even picking up Ghoul reduces total DPS, since you need to pick up Toad instead of Falcon. Which is par the course for how devotions seem to work as there’s always tradeoffs present.
So it’s a bit of stretch here you say Kraken is a must, because unless you’ve got a more optimal devotion path, it’s doesn’t seem possible within the current devotion point limits with nerfing bleed DoT DPS.
Circuit breakers won’t help you against Arcanes, at least not the ones bound from devos. If you get dispelled = no buffs = no defensive devo procs. So this build has all the circuit breakers it can have for that (Diamond, Blade Barrier). But this of all builds shouldn’t have issues with Arcanes either way because the vast majority of the damage is DoT, if you see an Arcane you can just apply your Bleeds on it and then run around like an ostrich on speed until it dies, if that’s what you feel is necessary to not get dispelled. But you’ll eventuallly learn the feel of the timings on the dispell (though some heroes are a bit iffy on that because their timing is different) and just duck away when you suspect it’s about to go off, that way you don’t miss out on any damage/healing.
Shadow Strike is an option if you find the mobility lacking, but the leap is actually a better engagement option cause unlike SS it has an AoE and applies bleed. So it’s essentially another AoE tool like RoS. You’d much rather engage with the leap to get those bleeds ticking than use SS because of that. And if you choose to combine both, i.e. engage with SS, apply your Rend through RoS and then use the leap for maximum damage, you’re possibly running the risk of the leap not being ready when the initial cooldown on enemy abilities expires and you start taking some heat. The earlier in the engagement you use the leap the earlier it will be able to get you out of trouble.
As for Freeze, 70 % is plenty for Moose unless you park in an intersection between the projectiles of all 3 crystals. And since the build features 2 craftable items you can supplement it through that as well if you still find it lacking, though crafting for stun res is better here, that’s the one that needs the help more.
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without having played Marcus’ exact setup, but having played similar and other bleed/dot builds and pierce/bleed hybrids i’m gonna say it’s a non issue.
which i’d dare be semi-arrogant and say is build wide/not unique to dot builds.
Marcus mentions that circuit breakers wont help since dispelled no ghoul proc anyway, and that’s indeed sorta pointing to the key aspect of arcanes: you’re not supposed to be Nullied at all.
“any” build/most builds would struggle getting nullied and ex surrounded, circuit breaker devos wouldn’t help there really, with the 9.8 exception of giant’s blood/wayward soul on Blast Shield (this wont work in 1.2 anymore since blast shield now get nullied too).
This is the very reason why you’re supposed to either nuke arcanes, or avoid them, (key aspect in that ofc detecting them to begin with), and in this particular case/bleed Trickster it’s actually easier since you have both distance and kite potential to solve that.
^one of the biggest advantage bleed builds have is being able to dot up and move on and things die behind you, so nulli balls should really never be a big deal/threat because you have a big advantage in mobility potential
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You come from a position of speedrunning/ hyperoptimization. It’s a respectable position, and I don’t think anybody is going to argue against your knowledge of the game. And thank you for clarification with Kraken - I have precisely 0 experience with bleeding builds (didn’t even know Rancor exists), and assumed multiple application sources will be of more value.
Thing is, GD doesn’t require hyperoptimization to have fun with it. It’s not competitive, and it’s not POE where your clearspeed directly translates into your ability to even attempt content. That’s why I find GD that much more appealing. It allows suboptimal stuff. It allows you to sacrifice efficiency for theme without becoming inviable. The only build I theorycrafted in my life is, even by my relaxed metrics, garbage (and way behind this one in raw efficiency) - but it’s garbage that’s fun to play. That’s a different approach from what you do, but I’d guess it keeps a lot of people in the game.
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Right, couldn’t reply last night, because my brain decided it was time-to-not-be-able-to-process-worbs.
Anyhow, thanks for the advice, as I usually try and facetank everything instead of running away when I should and forgot nullification was done via a slow moving projectile. So by repositioning I can finally avoid getting nullified, mostly. But due be autistic I oft get a bit overloaded and focus on the wrong stuff lawl.
As for circuit breakers - I usually set Ghoul to skills like Pneumatic Breath or Blood of Dreeg etc, which means if I get nullified I can just hit the button for those skills and get the proc back. Which has proven a lifesaver when gumbying it up in SR testing stuff
But yeah, now to up my SR game and git gud lawl. While my mules lament the tsunami of shoulders and pants coming their way.
Seriously, I’ve got so many nemi shoulders I might need a 2nd mule for them at this rate. And I’m only grabbing the ones with 3 or more resists to damage types + 4% or greater physical resistance O_O
use item assistant, gdstash or… there is another stash tool for stash swaps i keep forgetting the name tho
Got some boss kills to add:
Mad Queen:
Completely facetankable :3
Lokarr:
Not facetankable sadly, but that’s because this build doesn’t have high fire resistance, even with a fire resist pot. Not as big an issue though since it can hit and run.
Screwed up recording Burbon, but it’s an easy, relatively safe and quick fight. Did use pots of course. Also hit Morgoneth and that was a facetank fight too. Will record them later™ because I got crap sleep as per usual…
/bump
Due to feeling too tired to do the shit I’m meant to do today I took this out for a quick spin through SR80-81. The low overcap on elemental resists is a problem if you get debuffed, but otherwise provided you isolate certain nemesi from enemies that can debuff you, you’ll be fine. Just remember this build isn’t a tank and you can’t stand in and facetank everything.
Just most things 
Also - due to the patch there’s 2 overcapped points in Savagery that can be put to other uses, so I put 1 point in Blade Barrier, because I Am A Gumby and 1 in Pneumatic Breath to up OA and healing a little bit.
But otherwise, this build looks like from my 4 runs pretty reliable for SR80-81 farming, got within the timer 3/4 times and only ran out of time due to trying to fight Valdaran while my resists were debuffed and died 4 times before I got the hint 
Ate a few sunders too and still managed to survive.