[1.1.9.8] The Blind Spirit - SR85 HC - Immortal Pierce Retaliator

[gargabolo]

Hi, I’m back (had not logged in for 2 years) with a new hardcore viable build. Its not a full budget build but it is on a discount.

This build is basically about 4 invincible blade spirits and one of them is the player character.
The idea is to pile up all ‘blade tornado’ abilities and all active abilities are on greatly reduced cooldowns.
The player has maxed out blade barrier with a cooldown of 8.4 sec + -1sec from relic proc, so can be invincible around 40% of the time.

PERFORMANCE

The build converts 100% cold and fire retaliation into pierce and attempts to max out pierce retaliation with arcane empowerment and devotions. There is also a good amount of non-retal dmg from spirits, auras, movement rune and ring of steel, enough to destroy a target dummy in 1 minute.

SR85 was completed deathless without any elixers, oils etc and nightmare mutators: -Health and -health regen on player and OA on mobs. Timer ran out after 3 chunks and one boss. The worst boss encountered in SR85 was Kubacabra. I also ran into Aleksander on SR80 and he never felt so powerless since you could simply eat his meteors with blade barrier. A really fun build against projectile bosses.

In softcore this build is likely capable of SR90 or more, but I don’t care to test it. I roamed around for a few chunks and died.

Infiltrator, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

CHOICES

-The build is not focused on WPS but has one point in every WPS skill because you get so many bonus points its nice extra dmg between ring of steel cooldowns
-I put one pointers in blade trap, because I found it a useful accessory, however the build doesn’t really need this skill. word of renewal was also left out to reduce buttons.
-While Ring of Steel is most thematic, the build can also focus on shadow strike or CD phantasmal blades instead, as long as you choose a movement rune that complements the chosen skill well there isn’t much difference in dmg. It’s only about slight variations between single target vs AOE dmg and what debuffs you like to use.

LEVELING

starting from level 1 you have a glass cannon class and no way to convert elemental to pierce, therefore I recommend to take various defensive devotions first that are going to be removed later. Here is an order that works well and keeps up building solid defenses:

turtle, dryad, eel, ulo, ulcama, harpy, harvestman scythe, assassins blade, blades of naan, remove harpy, scholars light, chariot of death…

you can temporarily exchange dryad for assassin if you want more damage at this point, when you have reasonable elemental to pierce conversion proceed:

remove dryad, alladrahs phoenix, remove scholars light, messenger of war, remove turtle, menhir.

SCREENSHOTS

This is where my timer ran out:

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

sry, but i don’t understand this

@gargabolo

Pierce Retaliator

@gargabolo

cold and fire retaliation into pierce and attempts to max out pierce retaliation with arcane empowerment and devotions

no procs

all procs

there is like no retaliation here, even with all procs activated
why even “bother” with such focus in retal when it then results in so very little here/in the end?

maybe i should clarify, there is en emphasis on trying to retal, resulting in a fraction of “useable” retal (compared to other retal builds)
and still ends up with regular or less normal bonus dmg, than regular or half retal/rata builds

so it’s like, less+less dmg, “deliberately”, for some reason @_@, hence my puzzlement

[gargabolo]

there must be some bug with grim tools since it doesn’t show the conversion from the rings, the belt and the set and the calculation goes wrong, i don’t know why.

I noticed one mistake, ulcama and ulo were unbound in my upload file, but i don’t think this is related

highest pierce retal i have seen was 40k + 25k physical (not sure that included inquisitor seal buff)

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

conversion not being displayed doesn’t change the values tho
and it’s the values that are low, 400-500% retal is just way way too low “on it’s own”, combine that with low flat retals and it will just result in low and lower final retal
usually for a “retal” build you’re looking at like 1500+% bonus retal, before procs, with like “minimum” 100k sheet flats, before procs
so even if it’s like a half rata orientation it gets “atleast” half that, and this doesn’t even get close to that, even with all procs up on top
so that’s just, super low retal apparently, and doesn’t seem like it’s then remotely worth the direction?
and then it ends up sacrificing regular bonus %pierce dmg for it still so that ends up lower too

a bit “cheesy” since easy bonus dmg build type, but as comparison, “avg” acid retal build, no procs

warlord and phys retal, no procs

[gargabolo]

I think you are looking at it from the wrong perspective, the build is a combination of

-retal during blade barrier
-auras and maxed out blade spirits
-player dmg

the dmg of the build overall is very good, it just doesn’t look like a build you are used to.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

yeye i get that, my point is, “is the retal actually helping/worth there”, at all? since it just seems like it might actually hold the thing/stats back a bit “overall”

seems like either the retal is costing (a fair bit) regular dmg, or the retal focus isn’t (big) “enough”, because the retal dmg ends up low also, so is it sorta a hindrance in the end more than it benefits as is

[gargabolo]

well first investing in blade barrier heavily is kind of a hardcore thing, and from that perspective i don’t think the build is suboptimal

for softcore I would probably remove points from blade barrier, but then the medal starts to look less appealing and when you exchange medals, you get a very different build, since they are build defining, so I think for this specific gear this build is a natural result.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

not dissing the blade barrier approach, i know it’s been done very successful before, even killed ravager
supposed i’m suggesting/asking, if the retal investment is “big enough”/shouldn’t it be bigger to really benefit the build/blade barrier investment ?

[tqFan]

I don’t mind the build, Blade Barrier focus, etc a tanky Blind Assassin but I agree with that Retal doesn’t do anything here and focus on it might be hurting the build here and there, i.e. Messenger of War devotion.

[gargabolo]

I can see how you could do more retal dmg with blade barrier if the phys-retal was converted to acid or cold, since it cannot be converted to pierce and it would probably involve another partner class. but this build still has some benefits over that:

-if your max dmg is during blade barrier, gameplay is a very repetitive rhythm of constant blade barrier
-for this build you do best dmg outside blade barrier but still decent dmg during blade barrier so it is more fun to play I think, you also have lots of flexibility with active skill choices.