[1.2.1.6] Classic dual wielding pierce Blademaster. SR 36, Ravager\Mogdrogen\Callagadra, Crucible Gladiator 150-170

[NeoWolf]

Hello everyone, very long time no see you, GD community :). Glad to back. This is a build I’d like to share. It’s a good old classic autoattack pierce blademaster though Belgothian set.

Main features: it’s kinda tanky for duals build - 35% fumble attacks from CoS, around 20% phys res, 5000 armor, 24%+ dodge, 84% res, 20k hp, couple of emergency procs from gear, some lifesteal, some regen, dmg reduction from claw prefix - it’s all show really good results even in hardest fights.

Also the build have good damage - mostly due stacking a lot of bonuses for 22/12 Markovian Advantage, but all the others wps attacks got some bonuses too. And yea, this is a crit build, so DA reduction from Markovian Advantage really fits here.

Take note that actual dps are much higher due to wps attacks.

Grimtools link:
Blademaster, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

(devotion progression included)

Asassin’s mark goes to Belgothian’s Strikes.

Blacksmith bonuses: craft 1-2 pieces with stun reduction, the rest with critical damage.

Perfomance:

Mogdrogen
Good old Mogdy becomes a bit more dangerous, but still nothing special. Overcap lightning res for +80% (or all elemental for sure) and avoid his sunder cloud and all should be fine.

Ravager

Screen

Took around 2 min. This battle is a bit shitshow (mostly due to his game design at the moment), but once you learn the pattern, you can even easily farm him without deaths. Avoid staying in bloody boils for too long, they drain energy up to zero, avoid sunder attacks (save dash for that, use your movement skill to get away from blood boils). Stay close to him, otherwise he will launch that nasty projectile attack and then oneshot you. Always keep fumble attacks debuff from CoS on him. No oils or cluster needed.

Callagadra
As usual. Kite sunder and dust attacks, don’t stand at one place longer then few seconds. Safe and relatively easy, but may be a bit long.

Shattered realms
35-36 shards are fine for some challenge, 30-32 for comfy farming. Don’t recommend to go higher then 36 shard (still possible though), especially if there 3 or more mobs damage modifications. But to be honest, I don’t recommend do that for any builds nowadays, except most broken ones.

Crucible

Screen

Didn’t check the time, but seems beatable.

[mad_lee]

Hey, gratz on posting your first build.

Belgothian Blademaster has been done to death and there are few things that you have done right here but also few things that you could’ve done better. For example:

• Heavy pants are bringing your whole build down without giving you much value back. Best fit would be Solael pants for that extra adtch that scales survivability really well on this one, ideally with some cunning/physique on them or/and health
• Heavy armor focus is an outdated way to do your builds after the last couple of patches. Incoming physical damage has been rebalanced so stacking that much armor is not doing much for your build
• This Slow Resist is really low and can get your melee build killed. You should really look for capped slow/freeze/stun res on your auto-attackers/channelers/spam-casters especially when your sustain depends on your attacks
• Squad Tactics has greater value than Military Conditioning or Field Command overcaps. It should always be soft capped on most Soldier builds.
• Your damage is your survivability. Not only it scales your leech but killing dangerous targets faster is the best defense a melee like that can have. Your spec gives up damage for “safety” in too many slots (relic, amulet, Titan Plating instead of Sanctified Bone plus Ghoul in devos). So what ends up happening is that you gain more passive defenses for the price of sustain and faster safer fights.

Here is how I did Belgo BM recently:

Blademaster, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

You can choose to use Serenity or Avenger of Cairn amulet here or maybe boots with phys res if you want to facetank Calla, but in general more aggressive focus works much better for melees in my experience.

EDIT: Also note the wps distribution in my calc. Much stronger wps pool with four high rank wps amounting to 100% rather than having ~119% total wps chance which dilutes chances of your stronger wps (plus if you do it my way only 24% of your wps pool is single target and it’s Execution).

[NeoWolf]

Oh wow. Hard to argue with such experienced builder, but I’ll try =). First of all - I played with this setup a lot, and it shows a very good results in general. Not like I am get a couple a test runs and post it here (although it may looks like it).

@mad_lee

Heavy pants are bringing your whole build down

Well, you are not wrong, but I also wanted to do Blademaster build without a ton of green stuff. Solael pants gives more life leech, sure, but it won’t helps in situations where life leech are not so effective (like fight with Zantarin in SR36). And this brings to couple of other things:

@mad_lee

Heavy armor focus is an outdated way to do your builds

@mad_lee

Your damage is your survivability. Not only it scales your leech but killing dangerous targets faster is the best defense a melee like that can have

What I tried to achieve - it’s being not so squishy while keeping some damage and crits. Fights already are fast enough in my opinion and relying on safe procs and pneumatic burst from one side and damage and life leech from another (like semi-tank\semi-damager). Yes, it’s like trying to sit on two chairs at once. But hey, it works :). At least for me. But I get your idea too.

Also about armor - in SR36 and above the share of non-physical damage increases greatly, that’s true. But absorbing physical damage as much as possible still allows you to reduce incoming damage in overall. It also helps in fight with Ravager and with many other situations.

@mad_lee

This Slow Resist is really low and can get your melee build killed

Hmm, didn’t see such problem for all hours of playing, never dies from being slowed. Probably 3 movement skills + dash and total survivability allows to neglect that, both in Crucible and Shattered Realm. Run speed overcap (like 135% (+25)) still affects here or not?

@mad_lee

Squad Tactics has greater value than Military Conditioning or Field Command overcaps

The build already have attack speed cap with Belg strikes bonus, so it don’t benefit much in this setup.

@mad_lee

four high rank wps amounting to 100% rather than having ~119%

Generally speaking, you are right, but here is the thing: ~2\3 of all attacks here is Amarasta, Execution and Markovian: every one of them gives incredibly strong damage which I prefer under small aoe while clearspeed still very good. So it’s not such big of a deal in that particular case. Yours setup, once again, have different logic: stacking base damage a lot and relying less on wps in general while bursting exacly MA into heaven as well.

May be I should try something average between yours setup and mine later .

[mad_lee]

@NeoWolf

but it won’t helps in situations where life leech are not so effective (like fight with Zantarin in SR36)

They definitely will help in a situation like that. Just by virtue of wearing lighter pants with you can have both more %damage to finish him faster and potentially more hp to sustain more damage.

All while Physical resist/heavy armor of Barbarros doesn’t help against Zantarin at all.

@NeoWolf

But absorbing physical damage as much as possible still allows you to reduce incoming damage in overall. It also helps in fight with Ravager and with many other situations.

No, I am afraid you missed my point about incoming physical damage: it’s not as prevalent as it was before that’s why armor overstacking has much worse returns nowadays. You can easily kill Ravager with this build with much less armor/phys res. You can attempt Ravager of Flesh with your spec and compare it to the performance on the video.

@NeoWolf

Hmm, didn’t see such problem for all hours of playing, never dies from being slowed. Probably 3 movement skills + dash and total survivability allows to neglect that, both in Crucible and Shattered Realm. Run speed overcap (like 135% (+25)) still affects here or not?

It’s not about movement, it’s about your attack speed getting slowed down. You attack slower > you land less hits > your sustain goes down + you take longer to kill.

@NeoWolf

The build already have attack speed cap with Belg strikes bonus, so it don’t benefit much in this setup.

Even if you have an overcap it’s easy damage plus extra attack speed which you can turn into overcap (somewhat useful against slow debuff) or it can allow you to take of Spines on Derma Slicer instead of Alacrity.

@NeoWolf

Generally speaking, you are right, but here is the thing: ~2\3 of all attacks here is Amarasta, Execution and Markovian: every one of them gives incredibly strong damage which I prefer under small aoe while clearspeed still very good. So it’s not such big of a deal in that particular case. Yours setup, once again, have different logic: stacking base damage a lot and relying less on wps in general while bursting exacly MA into heaven as well.

I am afraid you are totally misunderstanding my point again and how this stuff works. On my setup Markovian Advantage - by far the strongest wps here has 30% chance to proc. On your setup it has ~25% chance to proc (30%/119%). It’s simple math and you are just losing out on extra MA procs (as well as on extra Execution procs) because you have diluted your wps pool with low rank single target AQC.

[NeoWolf]

@mad_lee

it’s not as prevalent as it was before

But it still prevalent . I even see the difference between like 4500 and 5000 armor in SR for example.

@mad_lee

You can attempt Ravager of Flesh with your spec

I already do that, screenshot in the OP. With no oil or clusters.

@mad_lee

It’s not about movement, it’s about your attack speed

I see. Didn’t notice much affect though.

@mad_lee

I am afraid you are totally misunderstanding

I know how wps working, thanks, no need to explain. My point is: MA, Exc + AQC = 25% + 20% + 18% = 63% of all attacks. And AQC have three strikes at once so it have good damage too. And after all, the difference in couple of % not so significant in real gameplay like it looks on paper. Your base damage has more impact on total result, that was my point.

[mad_lee]

@NeoWolf

But it still prevalent . I even see the difference between like 4500 and 5000 armor in SR for example.

I am just reporting what me and other builders see while we are extensively testing builds for this new upcoming top20. Phys res stocks are down. If you feel difference between 4500 and 5000 armor, that’s your experience, sure.

@NeoWolf

I already do that, screenshot in the OP. With no oil or clusters.

I mean the video, screenshot is not telling me anything about build’s performance, videos is at least showing something.

@NeoWolf

I know how wps working, thanks, no need to explain.

But then you say the following

@NeoWolf

And AQC have three strikes at once so it have good damage too. And after all, the difference in couple of % not so significant in real gameplay like it looks on paper.

Which tells me that clearly you don’t fully understand how wps are working in this game and it’s fine not know, it is a bit tricky. You keep mentioning AQC like it’s a good wps here but it’s simply not. It’s fully single target and pretty mid at these ranks and with just one Derma Slicer. It also lessens your actual stronger wps %proc chances.

[NeoWolf]

@mad_lee

I mean the video

Too old, too lazy for this shit, sorry. But fell free to check it if you want. I kill him dozen of times, of course not so quickly as your setup. But I get your concept, I already said this.

@mad_lee

You keep mentioning AQC like it’s a good wps

You will never take my AQC from me, you monster ! I know what it split into three pieces and it crit maybe one of them, but still. Strange what you say nothing about Belg shears - this wps on this lvl not very shining too and didn’t have such aoe like whirling death.

@mad_lee

and pretty mid at these ranks

And your suggestion - which level it should be with one Derma Slicer?

[mad_lee]

@NeoWolf

Strange what you say nothing about Belg shears - this wps on this lvl not very shining too and didn’t have such aoe like whirling death.

When you take it to 14/8 it’s pretty all right. Arc + targets add to this build’s aoe (most of its aoe is your wps arc really).

@NeoWolf

And your suggestion - which level it should be with one Derma Slicer?

None here. You just don’t take it as it’s going to be your weakest wps by far. Idea is to focus on multitarget wps and limit single target ones to Execution because multitarget wps are your only real means for aoe and clearing groups reliably.