[1.2.1.4] Thor, but not an Avenger: 1:09 Ravager, 1:32 Callagadra, HC Viable, Melee & Ranged Lightning Druid (switch bug to be fixed soon?)

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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ThorNotAvenger
ThorNotAvenger512×512 329 KB

No, Thor. It’s a weapon switch bug.

Build v1.9 (Grimtools)

Ravager 1:09, face tanked 1 Sunder burst
Ravager 1:11
Callagadra 1:32
Callagadra 1:44, no max Arcane Will

This build was intended to replicate the Hardcore survivability (and damage) of the top 1 Avenger Warder while having the option to switch to ranged on the fly.

Compared to the top 1 Warder, here are its pros and cons:
(+) Ranged & Melee option (Left 4 Druid) that is super fun
(+) High uptime Arcane Will (8s duration, ~3.4s cd)
(+) Higher effective DA due to above and Korvaak proc
(+) Mirror & Nullification
(+) ~9% higher Physical Resistance
(+) Much higher regens (5803 often, 11526 on Giant’s Blood, and Ghoulish Hunger as backup)
(+) Much much higher base and effective OA with +119% Crit Damage
(+) Flashy lightning graphics and skills, you wouldn’t fall asleep while farming SR (I did with Avenger Warder)
(-) 1 less dash skill
(-) 16% less Damage Reduction (War Cry vs peak Mythical Open Hand of Mercy)
(-) No Menhir’s Will
(-) No 100+ Armor procs
(-) Slightly less Attack Speed (except on Ghoul proc)

[I’ve tried similarly having a ranged option in Warden, but the DPS of Korvan Wyrm is sadly just less than half of Evoker of Elgoloth’s]

Now, what is the problem?
Well, there’s this annoying bug where, despite the Ultos’ Stormseeker not having any effect on the Wind Devil tree, swapping your weapon from it makes the Wind Devils disappear.
Both it and Evoker of Elgoloth have 0 impact on Wind Devil (or + to all Shaman skills) whatsoever, but switching between the two deactivates the pet tornadoes. Doing the same thing with a different melee weapon (i.e. Voldrak’s Crusher) doesn’t have this bug.

I really hope this bug gets fixed so that I could happily play Left 4 Druid <3
Hopefully Zantai remembers before the next update…

…swapping the weapon without the set bonus active does seem out of place as that should not register as adjusting skill points in wind devils. We’ll take a look at that one.

For now it’s still playable with just the axe, but sadly you wouldn’t be able to accumulate 9 Savagery charges via the crossbow (unless you’re ok with the Wind Devils disappearing whenever you switch to it).

[There’s a very high chance I would happily make a full guide of this once the bug is fixed, assuming nothing is heavily nerfed.]

New Alt Build:
GRIMTOOLS
(+) Stronger Rifle (needs more cunning) albeit double rare
Mythical Champion of the Light, albeit with a weaker dps, is a bug-free tanky melee alternative while Ultos’ axe is still bugged.
Ravager 1:10 face tanked with rifle (but can’t tank Sunder)

Updates
v1.1: Added cheap Primal Strike to make room Korvaak’s proc in Wind Devil for the juicy indirect 130+ OA & DA, more OA from Seal of Corruption and Stormcage Legguards, and Spellward Powder. All thanks to @mad_lee :slight_smile:
v1.2: Now has 2 versions, the first having higher dps and high level Primal Strike and the second without Primal Strike and Elemental Storm but being a lot tankier with lots of DA and Ghoul devo, reliable vs Ravager and Calla
v1.3: Combined into just 1 version, as turned out 88 more Spirit allowed the Hardcore version to match the earlier version in damage while still being very reliable vs Calla & Ravager.

v1.4: Added Arcanist Mastery to get level 3 Conversion (Slow Res capped), minimized Oak Skin, put Giant’s Blood proc on Arcane Will
v1.5: Maxed Arcane Will, minimized Nullification, Oak Skin up to 7
v1.6: -4 Storm Touched, +3 Oak Skin, +1 Nullification, replaced 1 Dreeg’s Omen with Mankind’s Vigil to overcap Aether & Chaos res
v1.7: replaced 1 more Dreeg’s Omen with Mankind’s Vigil
v1.8: replaced all (4) Dreeg’s Omen’s with +16% Health total augments, +4 Storm Touched, -4 Oak Skin, changed ranged component to Hell Bane’s Ammo, added alt build with stronger ranged weapon (double rare)
v1.9: replaced three 4% Health augments with Dreeg’s Omen’s, 5 points of Spirit turned into Physique (no more accidental armor unequip unable to re-equip), now close to flat 17k HP

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Matching Avenger’s damage shouldn’t be too hard but I don’t think this build can match Warder’s tankiness. Difference will be lack of consistent high value dr (War Cry) and consistent direct leech (higher weapon damage, consistent wps proccing instead of reliance on Upheaval crits, more weapon damage).

But your spec with Ultos Axe can be a valid build for sure especially if you scale that OA some more (Korvaak’s proc should be mandatory here).

And weapon switches will always be funky in GD I am afraid.

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Considering that it requires a crit anyway, you should bind Hand of Ultos to upheaval and arcane bomb to savagery instead of the other way around.

Cool build BTW :slight_smile:

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consistent wps proccing instead of reliance on Upheaval crits

True. I felt this. With how wide of a range the randomness of Upheaval’s dps is, sometimes I feel like a Celestial with all those heavenly crits, while sometimes I question myself for even making such a build.

(Korvaak’s proc should be mandatory here).

I thought of this too, but there were 2 problems, or so I thought:

  1. I already use 3 of my most reliable skills for the 3 RR procs. The only one left is Wendigo Totem which is slow and unreliable as heck (but perhaps Korvaak’s skill proc is so easy to hit with anyways to compensate).
  2. All the other devotion points were too juicy or outright impossible to remove, such as the +Aether Resist & Offensive ability from Spear of Heavens, and everything else which is all required for others. But on second thought, perhaps Korvaak’s skill is absolutely 5x better (or more) than +5% OA and + Aether Resist?

Anyways, I really appreciate the insights and constructive criticism. I learned a lot. You have my thanks.

And weapon switches will always be funky in GD I am afraid.

I really wish they fix such bugs/engine jank. Roleplaying Left 4 Druid with a melee and a ranged weapon that mesh so well together (soften enemies up with the ranged and get to 9 Savagery charges with it, then go for the kill with the painful Axe of tankiness) is too good to miss, at least for me personally.

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unironically, because of upheaval mechanics ultos on sav and arcane bomb on upheaval is actually/probably better :sweat_smile:

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Thanks for the tip and the appreciation.

Hmm I did some tests on this. Surprisingly, Upheaval, even though requires crits to work, somehow procs Arcane Bomb WITHOUT CRITS, and it felt like 25% of the time. Seems like the Upheaval check is considered a skill execution despite not proccing, and therefore procs Arcane Bomb even without crits.

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Really ? Why ?

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Omfg I was 1 minute late hahaha. Thanks for the unintended validation (or I’m the one who validated coz my reply sent later, lol) hahaha

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upheaval triggering doesn’t actually mean upheaval is critting, and upheaval would need to crit to trigger Ultos
meanwhile, since widow is just a hit requirement, every sav hit has chance to trigger widow, because every non wps hit is counted as upheaval initiated despite upheaval not having actually been triggered
(basically as long as no other wps occurs upheaval acts like cadence/just like how cadence can trigger devos on the first 2 hits)

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Well, forget I said anything then :sweat_smile:

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I think you’re misinterpreting the conclusions of that thread. Upheaval behaves as if it’s slapped onto every basic attack or replacer, it just “doesn’t do anything” unless you crit. So, if you bind an on-crit devotion to Upheaval, every time Upheaval procs, it triggers the on-crit devotion. Upheaval’s damage itself doesn’t have to crit for the on-crit devotion to trigger, it’s not double layering the proc chance like that. So putting Ultos on Upheaval gives you guaranteed Ultos proc with every crit of your attack. Deputy is right, putting them the other way around is better.

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what i am saying/what the thread is saying is
with widow on upheaval you have 25% chance to trigger widow, “just like if it was on sav”, because the non wps hits are counted as upheaval

since upheaval, when triggered, deals 2 separate hits, a sav hit and an upheaval hit, that’s where the potential mixup can happen for crits
but with upheaval on widow 0 mixup can happen

at most it would literally be identical chance :smile:

*but since an actual upheaval hit separates in 2 (ie one can crit while the other doesn’t), i’m rolling with the other

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Actually in this case it is literally identical :smiley: So I was wrong that Deputy was correct, it doesn’t matter which way you assign them, it works out the exact same way. Just the way you were interpreting the thread was wrong, or at least the way you wrote it was wrong:

This part was incorrect.

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what i mean is
when sav hits, and doen’t crit/no upheaval is triggered, you get 1 hit/1 instance of dmg
when upheaval is triggered, you get 2 instance of dmg, 2 separate instances of hits, one being the sav hit the other being the upheaval hit
(this is super noticeable on dmg conversion the way upheaval works)
and you’re not guaranteed that both separate/individual hits crit

so when ultos is on Upheaval, it would need both the 2 instances to crit, teh way i’ve understood the separate dmg application hits atleast, since otherwise Upheaval itself isn’t actually critting

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That’s not how it works. Whether or not Upheaval deals damage is irrelevant.

Think of it like this. You have your attack, in this case Savagery, and you have Upheaval. When you fire, your projectile carries Savagery on it, and it carries the potential Upheaval proc on it as well, the moment it is fired, regardless of whether a crit will end up happening or not. When that shot lands, it counts as both a Savagery landing and as an Upheaval attack landing, so it has a chance to proc stuff tied to Upheaval.

If you bind Widow onto Upheaval, and you fire your Savagery, and it doesn’t crit and therefore doesn’t proc Upheaval, an attack that has Upheaval tied to it will have still landed, even if Upheaval itself did nothing. No damage, no explosion, nothing. But Widow will still trigger with it’s usual 20 % chance or whatever it is. Go try it in-game, I just tested it. Arcane Bomb was proccing on dummy even though no Upheaval triggered.

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So when you make a critical hit and upheaval does damage, it can hit a crit or not separately?

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because it’s a regular hit trigger, so upheaval doesnt’ need to do anything
but ultos is a special condition/“requires more than just a hit”, it requires an actual crit to trigger first

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yes
it’s sorta like explosive strike works on fire strike, just in pseudo wps form

you hit target, that’s sav, if upheaval is activated because sav critted you then get like an “extra” hit from that hit on the target

similar in effect/interaction to how you see explosive strike happen on single target using fire strike
(also similar reason upheaval requires special conversion and isn’t converted through just AA conversion unlike normal wps)

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No, just go and try it. Bind Ultos onto Upheaval and go plink away at a dummy. Every time Upheaval procs, it will trigger Ultos. The only times it won’t is if it’s on cooldown. I have a character built on this shit, she has literally no AoE and just relies on crits to get it. Her Ultos is NOT triggering only when Upheaval crits. It triggers when my Savagery crits. Like I said, Upheaval essentially latches onto all your basic attacks, whether it itself ends up triggering or not is irrelevant for its ability to proc devotions. This applies to both on-hit and on-crit stuff. Binding an on-crit devo to Upheaval gets you a devo proc any time Upheaval triggers.

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Sorcery! You’re reading my reply as I was typing. :smiley: (I was going to ask exactly this)