[1.2.1.6] Master of None: 4:00 Crucible Gladiator 150-170, Shard 36, Celestials lightning fast farmer Pierce melee Blademaster + Bonus Build

[mad_lee]

*Guide pic is still up for debate

Foreword

Enough with the big leechy and tanky Vitality casters (1,2,3), let’s give people something more spicy! Blademaster, a forgotten vanilla class that doesn’t really excel in anything (even best Belgothian is Infiltrator). Supposed to be a master of blades, instead ends up being master of nothing. Well, this change…

@Zantai

Ring of Steel: now hits with both hands when dual wielding melee weapons.

…has given old chap Blademaster one build to be really proud of.

The Build

<<<< GRIMTOOLS >>>>*

*Craft for slow resistance

Ring of steely questions

Wasn’t it done before?..
Many times. In fact, I did it myself some ages ago.. But this update to Ring of Steel mechanics changes everything.
Those greens!..
Actually easy to get. A lot of gear alternatives too. More about it in Gear section.
Doesn’t Infiltrator do it better too…
SHUT UP

Gear/skills/devotions/levelling

Core items for this build are double Servitor’s Slicers (it’s important to get one with Tyrant’s prefix, thankfully it’s in the bias pool here unlike on Derma slicers), Briathorn amulet and Mythical Grasp of Unchained Might gloves. Everything else can be some other combination of items. For shoulders good alternative would be Moosie shoulders or even Iron Maiden shoulders. For pants slot well rolled pair of Solaels is very much preferred. For ring slots Orissia and Belgothian Sigil also fit the bill. However I believe that this combination of items is optimal.

Build barely has any skill points to spare. Every invested point matters. There is only enough to cover your main skills and some crucial passives. For devotions I tried few things but eventually ended up doing Ghoul together with Belgothian relic. That final touch made tank feel satisfactory for me.

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

Fly into the crowd preferably using Blitz (because of the huge DA shred), press RoS, press Cadence, kill everything, move onto the next target. Build has excellent mobility and some serious dps. Tank is enough to facetank 2, sometimes 3 bosses in SR 30-31.

For Ravager of Flesh fight just dodge sunders and have Cluster ready. A somewhat easy fight.
For Callagadra it might take a lot of attempts as even with really good gear odds of winning this fight are about 50%.

Watch videos to learn how to play the build.

Stats

General (with Inspiration up):

Ring of Steel damage (with all damage procs up)

Videos

Pierce RoS Blademaster vs. Ravager of Flesh 48 seconds kill

Pierce RoS Blademaster vs. SR 30-31 3:35 run (one short room)

Pierce RoS Blademaster vs. Crucible Gladiator 150-170 “naked” ex lucky 3:53 run

Pierce RoS Blademaster vs. Callagadra 1:03 kill (~50% succes rate)

In Conclusion

Stay tuned for some bonus builds because I am too lazy to write seperate guides for them…

Bonus Build: Pierce melee Dervish

Made it few patches ago and never got around to posting it. Last of the dying breed: pure single-target focused melee, complete opposite to RoS Blademaster. Very satisfying levels of single target pop + respectable tankiness + a lot of mobility - this build is very fun to play. I tried to make gear as affordable as possible, only Tyrant’s Derma Slicer is going to be hard to get, every other green has easy affixes and there is a lot of flexibility because of how many greens build has. Callagadra fight is very hard and has lower % success rate.

<<<< GRIMTOOLS >>>>*

*Craft for stun/freeze resistance

SR 30-31 4:46 run
Ravager of Flesh 35 seconds kill
Callagadra 53 seconds kill

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@mad_lee

The Build

<<<< GRIMTOOLS >>>>*

*Craft for slow resistance

that’s a nice ritualist you’ve got there (same GT as drainmaster btw)

[mad_lee]

Fixed. So tired I feel like I have been drained by the drainmaster.

[tqFan]

@mad_lee

Ghoul together with Belgothian relic.

good to know the cooldown reduction is actually working because I have some Beginner build with Ulzaad, Behemoth and this relic and thought I will need to test it if I play it

@mad_lee

f someone @Ceno comes up with a better guide pic I will use it I promise

I have this. Definitely too much but the weapons have the same shape and are not lame like in the OP

[The_Mess]

@mad_lee

but eventually ended up doing Ghoul

Blasphemy!

Mainly because it’s been a very long, long time since I’ve seen Ghoul on high performing melee build like this

Also is likely going to theorise a nerf when he eventually sees this build XD

[Toxophilix]

Awesome picture indeed. A self-portrait?

[mad_lee]

Nice drip, but I need something not made from in-game graphics.

@tqFan

I will need to test it if I play it

Pierce RoS BM FINAL.zip (1.5 MB)

if you wanna test it on this build

@The_Mess

Mainly because it’s been a very long, long time since I’ve seen Ghoul on high performing melee build like this

True, Ghoul fits cooldown casters with tid-bits of weapon damage more than it does melees nowadays. However here it was the thing that made the tank work for me. I tried a lot of different devotion maps, even tried Dryad here. Ghoul was thing that did it.

@The_Mess

Also is likely going to theorise a nerf when he eventually sees this build XD

Don’t think it deserves a nerf. It’s not a careless tank like some of the very top builds are. This kind of damage comes with a price tag. Plus nerfing Blademasters just feels wrong, doesn’t it?

@Toxophilix

Awesome picture indeed. A self-portrait?

A portrait of my lazy sourcing of pics from chatgpt

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

did you try turtle+dryad over ghoul ?

[mad_lee]

@Gnomish_Inquisition

did you try turtle+dryad over ghoul ?

Don’t remember if I tried Turtle together with Dryad, but Dryad didn’t work well here - no cdr, no big healing effects and hp pool is not that huge to capitalize. I found out that binding Blades of Wrath to RoS is best for dps and leech. And Ghoul just works well here as a fail safe. It’s also a bit crazy that 3k armor 19k hp and 3200 DA melee needs so much to be consistent.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@mad_lee

It’s also a bit crazy that 3k armor 19k hp and 3200 DA melee needs so much to be consistent

maybe some stuff got an offensive stealth buff to compensate for lower phys dmg

[Bas]

Nice build!
If only that first one had more suitable weapons…

[That-Individual]

@mad_lee I saw something like this on the Chinese forums. Less attack speed than your version, but a ton more OA. More emphasis on RoS. Might be interesting to test a middle-ground between this and yours.

[mad_lee]

Looks good but a bit over the top, especially the second one, and no ring of steel anywhere! But still pretty cool.

@That-Individual

@mad_lee I saw something like this on the Chinese forums. Less attack speed than your version, but a ton more OA. More emphasis on RoS. Might be interesting to test a middle-ground between this and yours.

Oh yeah, that spec probably has faster clear with that damage and OA, but it has fantasy-tier gear, so it’s hard for me to say anything about it really. Personally, for the last couple of years I am only interested in putting strong builds together within the constraints of more or less realistic gear. I find doing fantasy gear setups boring. Some find doing them fun.
But I think it does make sense to have Cadence levelled as it is a nice filler between your RoS casts. At 18/16 it actually leeches well plus with more targets in Fighting Form you apply Assassin’s Mark to packs faster. And then pushing Nightblade bar just to get spirits is worth less than levelled Cadence imo.
Also Belgothian Carnage relic works really well with RoS (you get a double cast every 4.5 seconds) and then resetting Ghoul, Inspiration and Ulzaad’s Decree has certain value here.

[Bas]

@mad_lee

Looks good but a bit over the top, especially the second one, and no ring of steel anywhere! But still pretty cool.

Yeah I know Fighting AI is hard

[That-Individual]

To be fair I don’t think the build I linked suffers much from swapping the fantasy double-rares to single-rares. Like I said, I might try a middle-ground between the two builds and see what that feels like. Either way, it’s an exciting time to be playing Blademasters!

[mad_lee]

@That-Individual

To be fair I don’t think the build I linked suffers much from swapping the fantasy double-rares to single-rares

Well not much, but when you are playing melee your damage is your sustain and your survival. So maybe that build somewhat compensates for the lack of Cadence and Belgothian Carnage with just much bigger RoS damage. Once you lose quite a bit of it from going from fantasy to realistic gear it might not work out as well. But do share results if you gonna try it. You can compare it to my build, save is few comments above.

[The_Mess]

@mad_lee

True, Ghoul fits cooldown casters with tid-bits of weapon damage more than it does melees nowadays. However here it was the thing that made the tank work for me. I tried a lot of different devotion maps, even tried Dryad here. Ghoul was thing that did it.

Heh, know that feeling with my endless tinkering of my own builds Hopefully though this build helps with other more melee focused builds to help recognise Ghoul is an option, under certain circumstances of course. Because that cooldown really hurts it’s usability.

[The_Mess]

@mad_lee

It’s also a bit crazy that 3k armor 19k hp and 3200 DA melee needs so much to be consistent.

Well, without being able to use more health regen skills and the fact it lacks a shield, that’s not entirely surprising. Mind you, I try and stack plenty of adcth on my shieldless builds anyhow for that reason or chuck a haunted steel on the main weapon if I can’t. Always made a big difference in SR34-35, but then I am a gumby pilot who makes lots of mistakes

Bit of a shame though Turtle isn’t as good as it used to be, since historically Turtle + Dryad + that relic’s proc should have worked to make it more tanky.

@mad_lee

Also Belgothian Carnage relic works really well with RoS (you get a double cast every 4.5 seconds) and then resetting Ghoul, Inspiration and Ulzaad’s Decree has certain value here.

Hmmmn, this gives me ideas for my double chillheart RoS builds, since the interaction with it and RoS should help with the massive cooldown increase it gets with the modifiers and interact nicely with Start Pact’s CD boost. But I need to do shit first and not get drawn back in the theory craft mines

Edit - yeap, that relic helped a bloody lot :3

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

It can now do SR34-35, but that requires very, very good piloting and counterplay, because it’s still as squishy as hell. Did get health up to 14k though from 13.5K, so I’ll call that a win.

But yeah, the adjustment of RoS to use both weapons means it now deletes enemies really, really easily. It’s just painful to balance around focussing on it if you don’t have weapons that give +1 to all a mastery’s skills, leaving you starved for points.

[Nery]

Some insane times in SR and Crucible, even super bosses. Ross might like dinosaurs, but RoS likes them Ravagers.

[mad_lee]

Added bonus build Pierce melee Dervish