[1.2.1.6-1.3.0.0] Paladin of Rattosh: fast SR 30-31, SR 36, Celestials easy to gear sword and board Vitality melee Oppressor

[mad_lee]

Credit for this blursed meme goes to suaixtix and @Legrad (original)

Foreword

I created this sword and board warrior during 1.3 testing. Decided to try in 1.2.1.6 to post it sooner and it works just as well there. Currently there is a distinct lack of truly complete pure sword and board melees and this snb melee checks all the boxes for me.

The build

<<<< GRIMTOOLS >>>>*

*Craft for Freeze resistance

Shielding the oppressive questions

So what’s so special about this one? Looks really scrappy.
It’s a mighty melee leech tank with very satisfying single target damage and respectable aoe, high mobility and qol and affordable gear. Does all content pretty easily. Plus huge style points for actually utilizing a shield.
Okay, I scrolled down to watch the videos, where is damage coming from?
High resistance reduction with very fast application, very high flat damage and %damage modifiers and solid wps pool.
What about the gear, do I need exactly those pieces?
More about gear alternatives in gear section.

Gear/skills/devotions/levelling

Core items are weapon, shield, helmet, chest, shoulders, medal and belt. They give key skill modifiers and conversions that make the build. Amulet is most certainly best in slot but in theory it can be something else. However it’s hard to beat Theurgist’s Bolvar’s Pendant (yes, try to get Theurgist on it, should be pretty easy too) in this slot. Everything else is flexible. You can use any rings with damage and required stats/resists, for example Bysmiel Vile Seal(s). For pants slot you can use Reaper pants, gloves can be any good crafted pair (or even some legendary ones), same goes to boots. Try to get similiar amount of hp/oa/da and overcaps.
Devotions cover all bases, Fiend is fully converted and procs passively, Skeletons provide high flat rr (yes we have two unstackable source of it, but Mark of Dreeg is great for initial instant application), Wendigo is Wendigo, flat on Abominable Might is fully converted.
Skill points are pretty straight forward. Don’t put more than one point into Necrotic Edge is this is the wps we don’t want to proc more than 18-20% of the time.

This is the endgame build. It works as advertised once you equip required gear at character level 100 and repeat my grimtools as close as possible. For levelling/beginner guides look at this forum.

Gameplay

Straightforward in Shattered Realm - just kill stuff. Grouping up bosses has limited value since our arc is not that big. Use Mark of Torment to reflect Sunders for faster kills.
Ravager of Flesh can be fully facetanked with one Soul Shard component in ring (instead of Frozen Heart). Stand inside his model so you don’t get touched by his OA debuff. Other Ravagers can be killed by kiting their Ghosts/Totems.
Callagadra is somewhat easy, just keep attacking and have cluster/MoT ready. Can use extra Bloodied Crystal in your ring (instead of Frozen Heart).

Stats

General (with Ascension, Soul Harvest and Abomination up)

Videos

1.2.1.6 Ravager of Flesh 35 seconds kill

1.2.1.6 SR 30-31 4:03 run

1.2.1.6 Callagadra 55 seconds kill

1.2.1.6 SR 36 3:11 run

In Conclusion

Hopefully snb melees get more love across the board (lol) in FoA.

[banana_peel]

Got clickbaited by Paladin and it’s just another Oppressor. Reported.

[TheJoelker]

the Occulant feels like its having an identity crisis

a shield that supports nightblades who’s (probably) best build it doesn’t even scale the damage for

nonetheless, it actually works and works well

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

Paladin Oppressor

sword-and-board

must be rough competing with the YT algorithm these days since this much clickbait got deployed

[Tanykov]

Life is so simple. Mad_Lee creates/recommends build;

I recreate; tons of fun; win.

Rinse and repeat.

[Neph1]

It seems testing rolled back to 1.2.1.6 after the 1.3+FoA combo release announcement.

Having watched the SR30-31 and SR36 videos, it seems absurd to reach such extreme single-target damage using a non-phys dagger without any build-related skill modifiers, two half-hard maxed WPSs, and a shield.

I would never spend time testing such a build, kudos for discovering it and believing so much in flat damage lol

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

3wps hits with shield, check the shield’s base dmg, it also explains using the dagger (rare conversion type)

[Neph1]

It’s 4 WPS if you include necrotic edge, but I left it out on purpose since it has minimal contribution.

I was thinking that Occulant also had minimal contribution since a) there is 54%+30% max poison to vitality conversion (unless i missed another global) and b) the 100% physical to acid Occulant modifier cannot be transmuted again from acid to vitality according to Guide – Gameplay – Combat – Grim Dawn and my understanding at least

(quote: No matter where the Conversion occurs though, it is only applied once. What this means is that if your skill’s damage is converted to another damage type via Skill Conversion (ex. a Transmuter or a modifier on equipment), then its damage cannot be converted a second time via Global Conversion.

There are 4 conversions to vitality going on:
Fire to vitality is completely converted
Chaos to vitality is completely converted (although relevant only for abominable might)
physical to vitality)
Acid to vitality mostly converted (84%)
And physical to vitality mostly converts if you add all globals from items and Occulant transmuter (if double conversion works).

All in all i wouldn’t even consider this build to work as good as it does, hence the kudos

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

i am super confused
what does the conversion on occulant matter?
Occulant is base acid, that’s the WD portion, that’s the part that matters, that’s converted to vit, ie it’s more than the equivalent of a base phys weap

safeguard/rebuke is just a bit of small flat on top, which is still 50% converted on Smash hits, and 100% converted on all others, but still kinda irrelevant to what i’m addressing there.
The point is, shields’ base dmg is often misjudged/undervalued, they often have some crazy high amount of base/flats, making them like fat maces of their own.
And occulant then has shield hit wps which is kinda necessary/not many around (most item granted wps will not scale shield dmg), so until those shield wps gets added in FoA it makes sense to use occulant now/on v1.3 "non-FoA"version

[Neph1]

Noted, I initially didn’t observe that Occulant’s WPS is adding its inherent shield damage (170 acid damage).
So, to my current understanding, damage sources are (ignoring necrotic edge, dreeg’s gaze,…), in order of impact:

-28% chance for Smite: WD+ shield base damage & shield flat damage (both of them not fully applied, but with max 84% vit to acid conversion efficiency) + skill transmuters + soul harvest + physical damage from flat physical bonuses of Safeguard/Rebuke (not sure if the last 2 or/and the physical flat damage of Smite are 100% converted to vitality when passed through RF helm modifier or the global physical to vitality conversion is applied

-25% Occulant build in WPS, similar to above, with different skill modifiers

-28% Shattering Smash: No shield base damage added, just the flat shield damage (which is 67/100 - not inconsiderable) + flat damage added by the Occuland modifier (again 84% efficiency) plus the rest of the bonuses mentioned above

Tbh, I would never consider building around Occulant build-in WPS, even knowing that shield base damage is added, not because the noticably high base shield damage is being overlooked, but 'cause I haven’t managed to cook a satisfying (for my liking) build that utilizes a weapon/offhand/shield innate cast/WPS ability as a main/secondary source of damage to an effective degree.

It is, of course, highlighted that the specific Occulant WPS works synergizes very well with Oathkeeper

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@_@

wps = wd = full shield dmg if it hits with shield (smite/smash/occulant hits with shield)
i’m not quite sure why you think smash doesn’t add shield base dmg? smash is all shield, x2
(you can’t just attack ignoring base dmg but native hand flats, no skill/attack work that way afaik they are one and the same in application)

[Noksion]

Hey, thanks for a cool build.
I was looking at all the fiendscale jackets, cursebearers and crimson spikes in my stash and considering just vendoring them for nails, but not anymore, hehe.

@mad_lee

and have cluster/MoT ready

What’s MoT?

[Neph1]

I initially mentioned, “to my understanding”.

What I read and understand is:

-Typical WPSs WD (e.g. markovian advantage)
Do not add shield base damage unless said so (clarifying that shield base damage is the one below the block recovery property. Flat damage shown above the other properties,if present, is added).

-Occulant WPS.
Mentions that it is a shield technique (meaning that you have to equip shield and melee to unlock it). Mentions shield damage added to the attack, meaning you get both main hand weapon and shield damage. Tooltip states that multiplier is 140% Weapon damage, not specifying if it applies to main hand and shield sum (i suppose it works that way).

-Smite.
Mentions it will also strike with the shield, meaning you get both main hand weapon damage and shield damage. Tooltip in screenshot says 125% main hand damage, I don’t understand if the multiplier for the shield is 125% or 100%, i would guess 100% fixed. Worded a bit different to the Occulant tooltip.

-Shattering smash.
Mentions that it is a shield combat technique (meaning that you need a shield to unlock the skill bonuses, not that you hit with the shield if we want to be consistent with the wording of the previous WPS wording).
Mentions main hand damage 80% (at screenshot’s level 1). Does not mention that shield base damage added to attack. Does not mention striking with the shield as the previous WPS.
Does not mention shield damage multiplication factor (is it 100% fixed or the same as main weapon damage). Does not mention smash is “all shield x2” as you said (didn’t get exactly what you were saying tbh). Nowhere in the tooltip is it mentioned that shield damage is added in some way.

After googling, some posts mention that smash adds indeed shield damage, although nothing in the tooltip AND description implies so. “Prowess with shield that the force of the blow resonates through the earth and sends an additional shockwave through your initial target” may very well hint at the debuffs, not added shield damage.

As you said " @_@ "

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

shields dmg is added means at minimum shields dmg is added, ie base dmg +native flats (that’s how weapon dmg/added works)
On the technical side of things, “usually”, weapon dmg is applied by the hand that hits/animation tied (not universal for ex spells)
Smits hits with both hands when shielding, ie you’re effectively dual wielding/same as when dual wielding
Smash “truly” hits with shield, so mainhand dmg is not applied afaik (tooltip will only list offhand ingame when mh+shield is equipped), but it sorta strikes twice (technically it hits once with shield which triggers like a “wave”'splosion causing a secondary hit to MT and those around, ie MT gets 2hits others hit 1x by aoe)
I didn’t check tooltip for occulant ingame last time, but animation wise Occulant strikes with shield last i looked, which could mean either it’s technically MH dmg that’s just “added”(this means something different than truly hitting), or it’s like invisibly hitting/applying MH hit in regular fashion.

The distinction between “added” might depend on the skill vs regular hitting(true animation tied). Ex being Vire’s might “adds” shield dmg, doesn’t actually hit with it, same way Eor “adds” offhand dmg but doesn’t actually truly dual wield hit/scale. True hitting/real dual scaling would mean you double dip all global flats(12 flat on ring applied equally to left+right hand giving you 24flat on dual hand hit).
If it’s just “added” it means you get just base dmg+hand specific flats (ie base+170+flats on comp/aug), and 1x global flats via ex MH in the case of EoR/VM.
I know at minimum occulant adds MH dmg, because it scales whatever dot was on mainhand weapon. But i didn’t check exact dmg numbers whether it actually scaled globals twice/true double dipping. - and while i don’t know for sure, i don’t think the game does/“can” not scale the hand being attacked with, it wont really matter in terms of base/native dmg, only for double dipping globals, ie either way you’re getting all of Occulant’s listed flats applied.

yellow is right hand hand specific flats, green is left hand/occulant hand specific flats (globals = flats on rings, buffs, rebukes/safeguard, devos etc)

[Neph1]

Alright.

Firstly, the tooltip changing from main to off-hand damage based on equipping the shield can be a bit misleading for a lot of new (and older…) players.

Secondly, just checked the animation, Smash seems to be hitting the ground, but I was not able tο detect a 2nd damage instance, neither visually nor damage/damage pop-up wise. Tooltip says nothing. Description hints at it, but is very rough.

Thirdly, Occulant strikes indeed with the shield. If you get double global bonuses similar to dual-wielding with Smite AND Occulant WPS, I would say that Occulant is a bit overpowered?.. Or maybe some other shield abilities would need love too, my beloved Hyrian in particular.

TLDR: Occulant good, Occulant with Oathkeeper even better.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

https://imgur.com/a/0CLPHJq
2dmg numbers, no dot (i modded trauma out and naked/not having any dot items)

animation wise you can also see what happens, striking the dummy direct with the shield on the downward hit/“groundpound”, hit then creates the wave, that causes the second dmg
basically explosive strike on firestrike but in wave form/upheaval
(except not a secondary effect as i recall and it receives dar benefits/conversion etc and dont’ need global - but been a while since i confirmed that with GI/DPYes)

[Neph1]

That’s some nice, hidden, quirky behavior. Not so well documented though.
Thanks for testing, Shattering Smash may be well worth investigating and building, even in non-phys. builds.

Do you have any hidden mechanics for Judgment too? Because, excluding Justicar, i have failed to bring this damn skill into 1st/2ndary damage source spotlight

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@Neph1

Shattering Smash may be well worth investigating and building,

it’s why smash is/was good, and why there has been someone who made every smash build under the sun ages before Occulant even got wps (tho i don’t recall his aether smash etc got Lee’s approval at the time)

@Neph1

Do you have any hidden mechanics for Judgment too?

yes
it sucks

[banana_peel]

Wait where’s my credit for the idea of trying the shield with other dmg types?
Reported again, now to authorities.

[mad_lee]

Happy that my builds can still positevely surprise people. Yes, Shattering Smash hits twice with the shield (one melee hit one wave). Occulant and Smite wps hit with main hand and shield simultaneously as far as I know.

@Noksion

What’s MoT?

Mark of Torment!

@banana_peel

Reported again, now to authorities.

At least you didn’t become a Praetorian yet!