- [Ranged] [1.2.1.5] Beginner-Friendly Fire Grenadier Pyromancer Hardcore, SSF (Cripptid)
- Damage: Fire, Burn
- Active Skills: Grenado, Canister Bomb, Thermite Mine
Introduction
Hello everyone, I had a craving to role-play as a fire grenadier, it was one of the first builds, if not the first, I had ever played on Hardcore.
Additionally, I decided to make the run slightly harder by making in SSF, HC and Beginner-friendly. That means that in my final LVL 94+ build I will not use any random dropping Mythical LVL 82+ items on purpose and just use items you can get from monsters (MI’s).
The Build
The first class is of course the Demolitionist, the main skills used are Grenado and Canister Bomb, supported by Ulzuin’s Chosen.
Details
Optionally you can play only with Grenado skill omitting the Canister completely, you can use Ugdenbog Flamethrower to empower Grenado futher and use Flintcore Bolts Greater Fireball or Seal of Destruction Stormfire when the Grenado is on cooldown.
I did not want to skip the Canister Bomb, I wanted to role-play as a complete grenadier that uses all of his arsenal.
The Thermite Mines skill is also mandatory for the Elemental Resistance Reduction it applies, it’s recommended to level it up to 12-13 to have -25%-27% elemental resistance reduction.
The game features many enemies immune or resilient to different damage types, getting as much resistance reduction is recommended.
The Vindictive Flame skill is also crucial for this build as it grants Health Regeneration, HP regen buffs are quite scarce in the Grim Dawn, maxing the skill is advised.
The Flashbang is also a quite useful skill, the Fumble debuff it applies makes enemies miss 50% of their attacks, i believe there is no need to explain why it’s so good.
The Blast shield an excellent safety net against sudden death. I have only invested 1 skill point in my build because my character is quite durable as it is, but you can level the skill to level 8, 10 or 12 depending on how durable your character is.
The 4% maximum resistances it grants will reduce the all incoming damage by 20%, (your character must have maxed 80% resistances, without the buff you take 20% of the damage, with the Blast Shield you take 16% which translates to taking 20% less damage).
Damage absorption will bolster your survivability by quite a bit for 4 seconds, at level 5 Blast
Shield absorbs 300 Damage, you can get hit by 10 000 enemies but if the damage they deal is less than 300, you will receive 0 damage.
The Flame Touched aura grands good damage and OA, but as mentioned before the Demolitionist is skill point hungry, especially if you have decided to use Canister Bomb like me, you will likely not have sufficient points to level it.
Class Selection
I decided to play as a Pyromancer, but the game offers many fitting classes, let's break them down.
Pros:
The main reason why i have picked Occultist is that it makes me MUCH more durable, i receive 19% less total damage, i have more Health Regeneration and 10% physical resistance. 10% might sound insignificant, but when your character has 8-9% physical resistance in total, the 10% bonus would double your physical resistance. Blood of Dreeg is a good healing skill that can save your skin.
Cons:
Occultist does not have +%Fire damage bonuses, you are sacrificing a bit of damage to become more durable.
As an option, you can pick the Oathkeeper.
Oathkeeper Pros:
More +% Fire damage from Mandate and Ascension, slightly more HP from Haven, more Damage absorption from Ascension.
Oathkeeper Cons:
The class is as skill point hungry as Demolitionist, it is advised to omit Canister Bomb if you took the Oathkeeper and simply prioritize empowering the Grenado.
The class is squishy, Resilience is unreliable as it procs when you are below 66%, it’s short and the buffs not significant.
Without high Physical Resistance, the damage Absorption from Ascension will not be enough to keep you high HP, so what if you have 130 Damage absorption if you get hit by 7000 physical damage revenant or troll.
No HP regen bonuses.
The next fitting class is Inquisitor
Pros:
More +%Fire damage from Ranged Expertise, Barrier, Steel Resolve.
More Armor, more Heath, more DA, +6% Max Movement Speed.
Damage Absorption from Inquisitor Seal.
Has +%Health regeneration while under the Barrier.
Aura of Censure reduces the enemy damage.
Word of Renewal is an excellent healing skill with low Cooldown because of the modifier.
Cons:
Skill point hungry, but the buffs are worth it.
No physical resistance bonuses.
The other classes you can select do not really fit, Shaman is decent, it has -% elemental resistance from his Wind Devil, but it primarily deals Lightning damage. Soldier specializes more on Shields and Two-handed melee weapons. Arcanist is fine but lacks Resistance Reduction. The other classes specialize on different damage types and play style.
Build Pros & Cons
Pros:
Decent HP regeneration, you can reach up to 3k base HP regeneration with decent Gollus rings.
Perfect for Hit and Run tactics, applies good Burn damage.
Quite resilient for a ranged character.
Cons:
The +%damage could be better, I opted for an Occultist to bolster my HP regen and survivability.
Item reliant, you will have to spent quite a bit of time to farm Green MI’s to get fitting Elemental or Fire Affixes.
The Itemization
The main weapon used is Fleshwarped Incinerator it’s one of the few weapons that support Canister Bomb, ideally you would use the Mythical Mask of Infernal Truth and the Shard of the Eternal Flame as well, but it’s a Beginner-Friendly build, this helmet and the amulet is a random drop and there is no guarantee that you can get them.
The best way to get a powerful Fleshwarped Incinerator is to buy it from a vendor in the Port Valbury dungeon, you can enter the Dungeon, preferably at level 100 to roll lvl 94 Incinerator, find the Vendor here and check for his offers, try to buy a Weapon that has a lot of +%Fire or +%Elemental damage.
Canister Bomb and Grenado deals no Weapon Damage, as a result you dont care about Flat Fire damage affixes like Searing, it’s also not really dependent on your cast speed, try getting a Triple Rare gun with lots of % damage, if you are extra lucky you will get the Of the Flamecaller affix that has +4 to Canister Bomb.
Use this trick, you can check for vendor’s offers, if they are bad just exit the area here, wait for 15 seconds and then return to the vendor, his stock will change, do it until you get the weapon you desire. Just like i did in this video.
Works with every Vendor, do it to purchase the Kymon’s Badge too, you can acquire this medal from a Vendor in the Blood Grove.
As a temporary item, you can use the Fettan Mask +1 to All skills is extremely useful as Demolitionist class is skill point hungry, after killing the Ravager you can use a better Ravager’s Dreadgaze. The Fettan Mask is always located in one spot inside an urn located here. Only the level 75 Fettan mask grants +1 to all skills, getting the mask on Normal is not worth it.
You can use the Vilgazor’s Heart as your amulet to empower the Grenado, you can farm it from the boss in the Malmoth DLC here, ideally you would need to use the Mythical Gauntlets of Ignaffar, but these gloves drop randomly, you can use a neutral Emberguard Gauntlets with Fire or Elemental oriented affxies, to craft them you will need to learn the Blueprint, it will naturally drop from the enemies as you level.
If you still don’t have the Blueprint farm Totems near the Twin Falls or Devil’s Crossing for an hour or two.
The Korvan Armor is a good choise because it empowers Canister Bomb and has a global conversion Pierce → Fire, Half of the damage Canister Bomb deals is fire, so having this conversion will increase its damage. It drops here from the armored ghosts.
I chose the Dreeg-Sect Legguards for it’s +% Health regeneration, but Solael-Sect Legguards or Bysmiel-Sect Legguards will work well too.
Especially the Bysmiel-Sect Legguards, because it has innate Health bonuses. You can farm these pants in the secret areas related to the Hidden Path quest.
Or if you want to maximize the damage output you can use the Kubacabra’s Legguards for +3 to High Impact.
Gollus’ Ring is excellent for HP regeneration oriented builds, the boss that drops the ring is here, near the Homestead.
The other ring you can use is Gargabol’s Ring it grants +3 to Grenado, with this ring your Grenado reaches the maximum level 26, you can get it from the dungeon boss here.
The best belt i believe is Chains of Ordas it grants +1 to Demolitionist, it drops from the Ordas boss in the Port Valbury Dungeon. You will likely need to beat him multiple times to get Fire oriented affixes.
Relic: I chose the Conflagration, cheap and reliable, +1 to Demolitionist and Fire bonuses. You can buy the blueprint from the vendor here.
Constellations
The main Constellations are Torch, Solael’s Witchblade (mandatory), Kraken, Magi, Behemoth.
The optional are Haverst Scythe, Hydra, Crown.
I have picked Hydra for it’s +10% Maximun movement speed.
The Scythe helps with both Mana and HP regeneration.
Details
Fire oriented Characers are quite flexible in the choice of the Constellations.You can play more Defesively and pick defensive oriented Turtle, Crab, Hyrian, Phoenix or Behemot and maybe even the Tree of Life to become an ultimate unkillable meat shield. But this will tank your OA.
A rough example of how this might look like: Pyromancer, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator.
In this version you will likely need to use the Cocktail for Agonizing Flames Flat resistance reduction debuff.
I chose a more Bruiser-like build: Pyromancer, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator where i use Schyte and Hydra for regeneration and extra mobility. This version boasts decent OA.
A more aggressive build, let’s say a Purifier, could disregard Health Regeneration, use 2 Gargabol’s Ring for +3 To Greando, to heal himself he could simply use Word of Renewal and maybe a Dryad, and invest the rest of the devotions into Fire and OA oriented constellations.
Something like this: Purifier, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Components
When choosing the components, it is important to raise your Armor Absorption to 100%
You can use either of these combinations:
- 1x Scaled Hide (Pants) + 2x Living Armor or Sacred Plating (Shoulders + Helmet or Chest armor)
This way you have 100% armor absorption and you have 1 free slot, either helmet or chest armor, if you can go more defensively and insert a Prismatic Diamond into the helmet to have a safety net when hp drops below 50% or you can go more aggressively and insert a Kilrian’s Shattered Soul into the chest for extra attack speed or Chains of Oleron for OA and entrapment resistance. - 3x x Living Armor or Sacred Plating (Shoulders + Helmet + Chest armor) + Ancient Armor Plate (pants)
This version fits characters that lack resistances.
As for the rest of the comonents you can use Bloodied Crystal (rings) for armor, DA and bleed res, Seal of Annihilation (amulet) for attack speed, Arcane Spark for Disruption Resistance, Disruption is rare but if you like venturing into Shattered Realms then its a good idea to have atleast 24%.
The rest of the slots can be filler with Ugdenbog Leather and Spellscorched Plating for the resistances you lack.
Augments
Just pick Fire or elemental oriented augments, as mentioned before Grenado and Canister deals no Weapon damage, so we can disregard flat bonuses.
You can either use Potent Solael’s Vision, Potent Ravager’s Rage, Potent Malmouth’s Heart, i have used the Potent Dreeg’s Foresight for +8% HP bonus and damage.
Ring slots are a bit special, it’s a good idea to pick either DA or OA oriented augments like Arcanum Dust, Irrah’s Soulfire, Forgefire, Osyr’s Wisdom. It’s a good idea to have more than 3000 OA and atleast 2900+DA for a comfortable gameplay.
Grimtools Links
Leveling
1020
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50
60
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80
90
100 half-finished
YouTube Leveling
Leveling 1-100 Supercut
Mogdrogen, Lokarr, Clones kills
Ravager, Callagadra
i know i know … 7 minutes kills are slow, but i would rather be slow than dead 