- [Melee] [1.2.1.5] Experimental Beginner-Friendly Physical Fire Strike Shieldbreaker, SSF, HC (Cripptid)
- Damage: Physical, Trauma
- Active Skills: Fire Strike, Judgment
Budged version: 100
Non Budget Version: 100
Introduction
Hello everyone, today, I want to share one of my experimental unconventional GD builds with you. These builds are often labeled as weird, bad, unoptimized, or unusual by others, but I have a deep appreciation for them nonetheless. Not every character needs to be an overpowered Conjurer or Warlord. I enjoy experimenting with different builds and classes to see what unique outcomes I can achieve. If you consider that you can improve the build, then you can recreate it and modify it as much as you want.
I love doing Solo Self Found Hardcore runs, when you don’t have any resources, items or blueprints, you have to improvise or use whatever you get or whatever you can farm.
These limitations add a new layer of difficulty and thrill to the game.
The build
Today’s topic is Physical Fire Strike, i was intrigued by the Kilrian’s Skullbreaker in a physical oriented build, and as a big Fire Srike fan i knew what to do. To amplify the strength of the Fire Strike, i decided to dual-wield Kilrian.
Even thought this is a Beginner-Friendly build, creating this character proved to be quite a hassle, so i would not recommend it unless you want an unconventional character/build.
Synergy between Default Attack skills and Techniques
Skills like Fire Strike(Demolitionist), Savagery(Shaman), Righteous Fervor(Oathkeeper) or Fleshwarped Strikes granted by Heart of Theodin Marcell, Beronath’s Fury (Granted by Item) Shard of Beronath are all considered Default Weapon Attack skills.
They empower your basic attacks. Most of them just grant extra damage.
Techniques also empowers your Default Weapon Attack, for example the
(Soldier) has 2x Techniques: Markovian’s Advantage and Zolhan’s Techniques,
(Nightblade) has 4x techniques Belgothian, Amarasta, Whirling Death and Execution.
(Shaman) has 2x Feral Hunger and Upheaval.
(Oathkeeper) has 2x Smite and Smash
(Necromance) has 2x Reaping Strike and Necrotic Edge
Whenever you attack, you have a chance to perform a special move, one of the Techniques you have learned.
If you use a Default Weapon Attack, the damage from the Techniques is added to your Default Attack, just like the Technique perks like Striking multiple targets at the same time or Piercing enemies if you use ranged weapons.
When you dual-wield weapons, and you DONT have any Techniques, your damage is NOT doubled, when you attack, you first attack with your Right weapon, then Left weapon and then have a chance to perform a rare quick attack from both weapons.
The synergy happens when you dual-wield weapons, and you HAVE techniques, when a technique triggers you strike or shoot from both weapons at the same time.
If you have 4 techniques, each 25% chance to trigger, ALL your attacks will become a Technique attack.
For example in my final build Experimental Beginner Physical Fire Strike Shieldbreaker, SSF, HC i have 4 Techniques
2x Techniques granted by the component Oleron’s Blood,
1x Techniques from the Medal Mythical Korvaak’s Brand
1x Smite from (Oathkeeper)
Combined, i have 72% chance to trigger one of those techniques, whenever i attack i have a 72% chance to hit with both weapons at the same time.
But the Fire Strike skill has one major flaw, it deals 4 types of damage, Fire, Physical, Lightning and Chaos. In order to make the skill viable, we need to find a way to convert the majority of the damage to one damage type.
Other players already explored this topic and they decided to use the Mythical Beronath, Reforged which fits perfectly converting all damage to Physical, but as a SSF HC player, relying on a random drop like Beronath is risky, it might drop or not. Additionally, the Beronath sword steals one weapon slot, i want to have the modifier from Kilrian’s Skullbreaker %weapon damage to Fire Strike.
I don’t have many options, the only items that converts elemental to physical are The Spellscourge set, Targo’s Craft set and the Ardor of Octavius, but they only grant ~60% elemental damage conversion to Physical.
Then i have noticed that the Baldir’s Regalia set offers 100% Fire damage conversion to Physical. It’s not perfect, because ideally you want to level the Static Strike too and convert it’s Lightning damage to Physical, the damage granted by the Static Strike should not be underestimated, if you manage to convert it to physical you basically get ~200 flat physical damage (at level 19 its 77% chance to inflict 250 lightning damage, so lets say 200 or so).
The Baldir’s Regalia set, even though it’s also a random drop, it’s Epic, and it has high chance of dropping from the Totems. You just need to get 3 set pieces, even if they all are identical, they can be transfigured into other missing pieces at the Inventor either in the DLC’s or Crucible.
If you get extra unlucky with the drops, you can pick up any 2 Epic set pieces and transfigure them into random Epic Set items, you just need Iron Bits and Aether Crystals, on average you will spend 1 million bits and ~ 200 Crystals to get 3 Baldir’s Regalia set pieces, if you have duplicates Transmute them into set pieces of the same Set, its a bit more expensive and requires Eldritch Essence.
Budget gear
As mentioned before, the build uses x2 Kilrian’s Skullbreaker and the Baldir’s Regalia.
To be able to Dual-wield weapons, we need the LVL 25 Bladesworn Talisman sold in the Devil’s Crossing.
Later, we can upgrade the Bladesworn Talisman into the Bladedancer’s Talisman, the blueprint for Bladedancer’s Talisman often drops randomly but if you got unlucky buy it from Hyram, his blueprint stock refreshes every time you enter the District, just wait in a different zone for 10 seconds or so.
If during your gameplay you will randomly get the Korvaak’s Brand, Direwolf Crest, Mythical Korvaak’s Brand or Mythical Direwolf Crest do not sell them! They allow you to dual-wield weapons and grant a technique, its extremely valuable items, especially the Mythical versions.
If you found one of the medals, you open your relic slot, the Bladedancer’s Talisman is nice and all but something like Serenity or Annihilation is better because of +1 to all Skills.
If you aim for a budget build, use the Balthazar’s Crest dropped from * Nicholas Balthazar [Map], Chains of Ordas dropped from * Watcher Ordas [Map], craft the Stoneplate Greaves and the Plagueguard Grips.
As for the jewelry the Gargabol’s Ring dropped from * Gargabol, Heart of the Wild [Map] is a good choice, just like the Kaisan’s Burning Eye or Kaisan’s Eldritch Eye dropped from Kaisan, the Eldritch Scion Eldritch Nemesis.
You can also farm the Solael-Sect Legguards from the * Guardian of Solael [Map], its a solid choice but if you want more physical resistance the Rimeguard Chausses or the Stormguard Leggings are solid too, you just need the randomly dropped blueprints for them.
My Budged version: 100
Affixes and Suffixes for your MI's
You will become much stronger if you have fitting affixes for your green gear.
Let’s start with the weapons:
the Kilrian’s Skullbreaker: the ideal affixes are Physical oritented affixes or affixes that grant attack speed.
Ideal Prefixes:
Ideal Suffixes:
or of Alacrity, Alacrity is a magical affix which only grant attack speed, but its extremely valueble.
Your rings and armor arent much different, you want to get bonus Physical damage:
best ring Prefixes:
best ring Suffixes:
best armor Prefixes:
best armor Suffixes:
Neutral affixes that grant OA/DA or Health are valuable as well, especilly affixes that grant health:
Low Level Grimtools snipets
The items i have finished the game with:
A more refined BUDGET version of it:
The version i ended up with after farming some legendary items:
High level gear you might use in your build
After some farming i ended up with these items:
but the game offers plenty good Physical oriented items like:
Justicar Guard set and the Mythical Beronath, Reforged with Mythical Direwolf Crest could make a great physical oriented build.
Decent Gloves your might want to use:
Mythical Grasp of Unchained Might
Krieg’s Grip
Mythical Sandreaver Bracers
The Crimson Claws
Decent Boots:
Krieg’s Boots
Mythical Boneshatter Treads
Mythical Earthshatter Treads
Mythical Stonetreaders
Mythical Windshear Greaves
Decent Pants:
Mythical Demonbone Legplates we have lots of DA so we dont really need Demonborne, but you can use it if you want to.
Mythical Dread Knight’s Legplates
Mythical Hellforged Legplates
Mythical Rimestone Legguards
Good Rings:
Mythical Combustion Band
Mythical Ring of the Black Matriarch
Good Amulets:
Mythical Peerless Eye of Beronath
Mythical Avatar of Order
Mythical Thread of Mortality
Low level gear you might want to use during leveling
If you get elements of these sets, stash them, if you get duplicates you can try transmute them, they are all valueble due to +1 to all skills bonus:
During my leveling i got lucky to get 3 pieces of low level Baldir’s Plate, i transmuted them and made the full set:
I used the level 65 set to level almost to 100.
the low level items that are useful for the same reason, +1 to Demo:
Fiendleather Girdle
Chosen Cord but you have to side with the Faction: Kymon’s Chosen
Warmaster’s Pride
Empowered Warmaster’s Pride
Avatar of Order
YT run Playlist
TLDR: The Physical Fire Strike Build proved to be quite reliable during the leveling, but falls short vs strong enemies like Celestials, killing Nemesis is fine as long as you are cautious.
If you want a more reliable Physical Fire Strike try this non Budged build: Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
I havent tested the non budget version yet, i might do it later, so far i tested only the budget build, it can kill Dungeon Bosses, Mogdrogen and Nemesis quite easily with some moderate levels of caution, but cannot do the celesitals like Ravager, Callagadra.