[1.2.1.2] The Green Ranger: Fleshwarped Carbine Aether Battlemage (SR80+)

[Uncle_Mac]

Idle stats without Arcane Will or Fighting Spirit

Edit #1: Changed GT link to reflect adding the Discord transmuter. The 3 pts were removed from Fighting Form since only 8 needed for max pass through (see Gnomish’s posts below). Changed the main character stats pic also.
Edit #2: Fixed for real this time : )

Grimtools

Hi folks,

This is a Cadence build using the Fleshwarped Carbine MI and Krieg set. I had put together a version of this over a year ago and now got around to tweaking it. It’s a pretty straightforward setup that has a surprising amount of AoE thanks to all the various aether effects constantly firing off.

Build is solid through SR80. 85 is doable but starts getting dicey with big physical hitters. Ravager & Calla also achievable but messy. Lots of kiting. I didn’t record for that due to length but there are screenshots in the vid section.

Build Explanation

Physical to Aether conversion and flat damage on the conduit and medal. Carbine and Magelord rings converts all elemental. Lack of Aether RR% is made up for with big racial damage modifiers to Aetherials, C’thonics and Undead.

Gameplay is dirt simple. Find target. Shoot Cadence. Try to group and line up mobs as best you can to take advantage of Cadence’s pass through. I use Aether Corruption from component and also find Krieg’s Wrath (stomp) useful but they are not vital to performance and can be dropped for less buttons to push. Use Mirror and Nullification where applicable.

“Aetherfire of Alacrity” carbine is optimal to cap attack speed and not too difficult to farm but the trick will be getting a high roll on the “20% Chance for xx% Aether damage.” The one used in recording this toon has 943%. Fantasy gun would likely be “Aetherfire of Shattered Reality.” Best areas to farm the gun are Port Valbury, Homestead/Rotting Croplands and Necropolis.

Devo route is a typical northern aether spec. Flat RR is covered by the completed Krieg set. I don’t use Korvaak’s Eye here because I found it to make the build generally perform worse. Ranged Cadence needs enemies lined up to be most effective, and Korvaak’s petrify effect works against that. Also, build already has a lot of OA so the extra DA shred isn’t needed.

Leveling

For newer players, leveling with Aether Cadence would be doable starting with a level 35 gun BUT not optimal for sure. Most of the AoE comes from the end game gear. Forcewave, Blitz and Panetti’s are all popular leveling options with good early game gear support.

I’d recommend referring to the link below to find a beginner’s guide to reference:

Beginner Build Compendium - 91 guides for AoM & FG expansions

It’s been 3 years since the last Tactician in the compendium. And 5 years since the last Elemental build. S.E.P_Ralf kindly fixes that with HC Beginner tri-elemental arcane tank tactician Elemental Tactician S.E.P_Ralf 1.2.1.2 However [914hp4]

Videos

Full SR75-76 run (6:45)

Grim Dawn: Ranged Aether Battlemage SR75-76

SR80 run

Grim Dawn: Ranged Aether Battlemage SR80 run

Crucible run (5:08)

Grim Dawn: Ranged Aether Battlemage vs. Crucible 5:08 run

Ravager kill

Callagadra kill

Thanks for reading. Until the next one

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

small tip

should net you a wee bit more total aether dmg despite the 50% phys loss (since you don’t have that much phys dmg in total)

default setup

with transmuter

[Uncle_Mac]

Shoot, never considered discord. The last time I even touched that node was forever ago.

I’ll try it out later.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

i think it got buffed recently or something ?
i remember when it happened i went over couple meme cadence, and some of them gained that small bit of extra dmg at no real loss,
so seems like it might be ok now for some builds that can spare 3pts these days

[Uncle_Mac]

You’re right, it’s better. From in game just now:

Original with Deadly Momentum up

New w/ Discord (took the pts from fighting spirit)

Sweet, thanks @Gnomish_Inquisition. I’ll edit the GT.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@Uncle_Mac

took the pts from fighting spirit

i hope you mean fighting Form, since you only need 8 in that for 100% passthrough

[Bas]

@Gnomish_Inquisition

should net you a wee bit more total aether dmg despite the 50% phys loss (since you don’t have that much phys dmg in total)

How does that work? Is that because of the +18% total damage?

[Uncle_Mac]

@Gnomish_Inquisition

@Uncle_Mac

took the pts from fighting spirit

i hope you mean fighting Form, since you only need 8 in that for 100% passthrough

Yep, forgot about that too. Force of habit I guess. Typically I just dump points into it for bleed/trauma characters : )

GT properly updated now.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

yes
TDM is a final multiplier/not just dmg addition like regular % modifiers (fighting form),
it then also gives some flat elemental, which Uncle_Mac 100% converts to make up for some of the flat phys conversion loss,
but most importantly there are only 3 sources of phys dmg in that build, the rest is aether or ele etc being converted into aether, so losing half of that initial phys vs boosting all the other is then a net gain here
*it wont always be like that ofc

[Wyatan]

I had something along those lines back in 1.9.6:

Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

The main differences:

• I focussed on maxing the Arcanist Aether damage skills (Reckless Power, Fabric of Reality) instead of exploiting the elemental => aether conversion
• I invested heavily into the Soldier’s weapon pool skills: Zolhan because it yields more Cadence strikes, Markovian for the debuff

For 1.2, extra skill points would have to be found to raise Fighting Form to 8 (4 had been known to be enough since the beginning, but some idiot had to open their big mouth and make a fuss about their “great discovery”).
The new total damage % added to Discord is interesting. It does waste a lot of the Deadly Momentum bonus damage… maybe skip DM altogether and invest into Arcane Will instead?

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@Wyatan

Zolhan because it yields more Cadence strikes

it does not
when it’s ranged it has to be volley class wps specifically, it’s not about the wps having passthrough
*volley = chill rounds type not storm spread type

[Wyatan]

Maybe it’s changed.

But I did test it at the time on grouped dummies, and confirmed Cadence => Zolhan => Cadence, as opposed to for instance Cadence => Markovian => Normal Autoattack => Cadence.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

hmm that would be new discover then
i will have to recheck if you’re right

[tqFan]

Cadence counting enemies hit in that Zolhan pass-through? Wouldn’t that be too annoying to implement?

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

you’re right, it does work on multiple passes, just not single target
interesting

@tqFan

Cadence counting enemies hit in that Zolhan pass-through? Wouldn’t that be too annoying to implement?

don’t know if it’s counting each individual hit, but it does fast charge when hitting multiple, but not on single target unlike volley

*feral hunger does the same btw
seems like a new/change in passthrough wps from before?

[Wyatan]

It’s not new.
I had first observed it with Chilling Rounds and attributed it the “volley” part: that’s multiple attacks, so “duh, of course it counts as several attacks”.
Then I observed it on Zolhan’s and went “uh ??”.

So I checked the forums, and it was discussed.

It may have been forgotten, but it’s not new.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

ye but i don’t remember any discussions about bursting round, smite, necrotic edge and feral hunger fast charging cadence on ranged, “and only on multi target”
and they all do now, hence why i’m saying it’s new because i don’t recall ever hearing that, quite the opposite
chill rounds/volley fast charges even on single target, which always made kinda sense since it’s doing actual multiple attacks (like quick cuts just for guns)

or to put it in another way; I distinctly dont remember smite+zolhan warlord = 100% insta/machine gun cadence https://imgur.com/a/bcXiaV2

and it’s behaving exactly like my volley meme now, a meme i made because nothing else fast charged the same

[Wyatan]

Well, one thing that’s changed since then is that pass-through was added to a lot of WPS.

I’ve been playing GD since the beta. So things I remember and consider common knowledge may have been forgotten and rediscovered several times by different “generations” of players (or no longer apply ).
I believe the discussion I’m refering to about that mechanism was in the context of someone posting a Cadence 2-H build and being derided for investing so heavily into WPS. That person insisted it yielded more Cadence hits and that led to people testing it (thus confirming Zolhan while infirming Markovian).

But it’s pretty hard to find old topics. Especially since I have no idea how far back that was.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

aye, but passthrough change was not that long ago, update 9.6 or something, hence why it standing out a bit more imo

[Uncle_Mac]

@Wyatan

I had something along those lines back in 1.9.6:

Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

The main differences:

• I focussed on maxing the Arcanist Aether damage skills (Reckless Power, Fabric of Reality) instead of exploiting the elemental => aether conversion
• I invested heavily into the Soldier’s weapon pool skills: Zolhan because it yields more Cadence strikes, Markovian for the debuff

For 1.2, extra skill points would have to be found to raise Fighting Form to 8 (4 had been known to be enough since the beginning, but some idiot had to open their big mouth and make a fuss about their “great discovery”).
The new total damage % added to Discord is interesting. It does waste a lot of the Deadly Momentum bonus damage… maybe skip DM altogether and invest into Arcane Will instead?

I vaguely remember that. The pass through on FF was bugged and was actually double the tooltip chance or something?

Interesting stuff on Zolhan/Markovian interaction with cadence. How did you go about testing it yourself? I’ll play around with dropping DM and moving some points around to WPS just to see how much it affects the damage.