[1.2.1.6] Physical AAR Battlemage, Ravager, Callagadra, SR 42+

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Physical Albrecht’s Aether Ray Battlemage

Physical AAR Battlemage actually works and is fun to play. Build is enabled by Mythical Inashkor’s Head. For sustain the build uses amulet for ADCtH to AAR. It also has good defenses - Maiven’s Sphere, perma War Cry, Turtle, Crab and converted Scales (by the belt). Build also has high armor, DA and good CC resistances. It all makes it quite tanky. It also uses Mirror of Ereoctes and Nullfication when needed. Total physical RR is up to -98 %. Build also has high OA for good applying of Assasins’ Mark and crit damage on AAR. Base DPS is nice above 400k. Some damage also comes from the cunning dump. It is the most enjoyable AAR build. You use only two skills - AAR and War Cry and that’s it… Thus nothing interrupts you all the time like with other piano laser builds because War Cry doesn’t interrupt AAR. I wish more AAR builds would have so smooth gameplay like this one. Damage to humans bonus on relic is a must for high SR. This build can clear SR 38-39 fine and if played well even SR 40-41 most of the time. You can even finish SR 42 within the timer if you play really well.

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

Download
_Albrecht the Mighty Battle.zip (1.3 MB)

This build is just a template. Customize it to your own liking.

AAR with passive buffs only
albrecht

SR

In SR 38-39 I finished 5 out of 5 times within the timer. Don’t do anything too stupid and you will be fine. If you die you can still make it in time.

In SR 40-41 I finished 4 out of 5 times within the timer. If you die you will be on the edge with the timer. Fabius, Iron Maiden and Reaper are dangerous but manageable with good timing. Destroy Aleks’ crystals ASAP or move away from them. Fight Kaisan away from his crystals and avoid his pools. You will need some space with him. Avoid nemeses in the first three chunks.

In SR 42 I finished 3 out of 5 times within the timer. Avoid big physical hits. Fabius, Iron Maiden and Reaper are tough and you must manage your skills well. Avoid nemeses in the first three chunks.

I was not able to finish SR 44 yet because Iron Maiden kept popping up… But I think that it is possible on a lucky run.

Celestials

Ravager of Minds can be killed without pharma. It is slower. Avoid null and sunder.

Calagadra can be killed without pharma. It is slower and you have to reposition yourself constantly. Tank only for a few seconds and avoid tornadoes and sunder.

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That’s an indeed correct set of items for Physical AAR BM. I have couple of questions: so you are binding Maul to Deathstalker for speed and because you don’t need leech from it, right? Also, what devotion setups you tried that lead you to this devo setup? Was goal grabbing three points in Obelisk? Because you could grab quite a bit more of %damage there.

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I want to use as little skills as possible and Deathstalker was left for it… I had Vire first but it had less % damage and armor. I tweaked it to this one because it was the best result in SR overall. It wasn’t the goal to grab it at first but it worked out the best in the end. Also energy regen was a pain to solve… Especially for Celestials and Iron Maiden…

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If it works for you the best I can only recommend trying Watcher instead of Turtle (do you really need a fail safe with that much passive beef) and then Stag instead of Scarab (Stag getting armor instead of phys res next patch).

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Is Watcher without proc better than Turtle? DA is already high. Stag will work well with the new patch.

I like defensive skills and always go for them instead of more damage.

I will test something like this with the new patch Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

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Really build dependant. I rarely take Turtle nowadays actually, I prefer to invest into strong first line defenses rather than to rely on this fail safe. Turtle is still good with cdr but on your build I feel like you are not proccing it much with such beefy defenses. But then when you are proccing it it’s gonna be a situation that probably got too hairy that you shouldn’t get into in the first place (like pulling multiple bosses at SR 36) and your hp is gonna go down quickly after it regardless. Rather invest into more DA.

Oh, also forgot to say that on your initial calc you are not using old Soldier’s formula 7 in Scars + Ancient Armor. Would help your build too since can drop Frozen Heart for something better (that Frozen Heart is a bit of an eye sore on a battlemage of all classes).

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I think Turtle will give more armor as well. Only depends whether the 200 DA will make more difference or not… I am inclined more to the Turtle… Never enough fail safes and high SR is quite random with its dangers…

I wanted to cap those CC res.

Ancient armor is indeed an option I was considering it but in the end didn’t wanted to move points and resistances. With Watcher it would work better. I will have to try it with the new patch. But I am not much sold on giving up Turtle.

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Don’t be inclined - testing it is the only way to know when it comes to such small differences.

Understandable that you needed freeze res cap however it’s just a suboptimal ring component especially on a class that has freeze res in both masteries and also benefits a LOT from flat armor form Bloodied Crystal.

As I said, I really don’t know what’s better here but on paper at least I would lean towards Watcher and in-game I would just compare how both feel.

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Turtle’s proc isnt only circuit breaker, it has low CD, so it works as extra health pool which you dont need to recover.

I would change chest to some greeny one (may be double rare) for even greater % phys modifier.

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This could work… Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
I will test it . But it is practically impossible for something like this chest to drop…

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I was talking about some physical oriented greenies, you are having disentegration + 14 and AAR +10, so you can take some points from conversion and take Fleshwarped Platemail - Items - Grim Dawn Item Database, or that Galakros Singed Plating - Items - Grim Dawn Item Database with good properties.

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No. Energy regen would suck.

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I doubt it, you are having ulcama + 246 energy regen.

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It needs to be this high. You have only 5k energy (effectively 4k) and it goes down against single target bosses. So regen is an absolute necessity. AAR takes 526.1 per second… There are Scales and some absorb and leech but you still slightly lose energy as you attack and in a longer fight may need to use one potion. But mostly not. And with lower regen you would probably deplete it fairly quickly. If anything it still needs slightly more regen for fights like Iron Maiden. You need to use one potion with her close to the end of the fight.

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That’s a nice build, but if you were having trouble clearing SR 38+, a suggestion I have is you could go with Nature Guardian devotion for 25% and Menhir’s Bulwark instead of Oleron’s rage for those extra damage absorptions, pair that with a gollus ring that gives +3 to Bulwark instead of combusion band (but you take out Turtle though,). You deal less damage, but at least survive a bit better especially on Fabius and Iron Maiden with .

Also, why go with Maul instead of going with Oleron’s Rage for the devotion? I personally find Oleron more useful since it hits enemies who weren’t hit by the AAR. And if you were to fight Crate, you could always bind it to Deathstalker so you can use AAR for Assassin’s Blade. (haven’t tested it out on SR 38+ though)

With Nature Guardian: Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator (thought about this for SR 38 which is safer personally. You could go turtle, but you need to take out Scythe devotion)

Here’s a setup I thought about: [Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator]. Note, I have a green chest since I like all my resists to be at least over 50%.

And also, I would put a titan plating and either solemn watcher, lotus or crane for that reflect damage resist. since I find that reflect damage is the most dangerous.

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you might want to check the orange text on that skill :wink:

maul is basically mandatory for any phys dmg build particularly with multi “small” flat attacks, - otherwise each AAR tick just gets reduced a lot by enemy armour (and as a bonus it also applies a leech buff in aoe, tho that doesn’t heal with deathstalker here ofc)

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Aww, that’s too bad, but I still think Nature’s guardian does help in SR 38+ with that damage absorption

Very interesting since I figured Maul wasn’t really consistent by Deathstalker being really slow which is why I love if they buffed deathstalker’s run speed (as well as nemesis/blood knight).

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You lack armor absorption, have some double rares there… Armor is considerably lower… You have lower RR, less minus armor… Just worse… +50 res is not necessary…

I have zero problems with reflected IT damage… And you have Mirror at your disposal… Nature’s Guardian is always an option but the build is quite tanky as it is. I never fight Crate. It is just tiresome to get to him at all…

This is the best version I have tried out so far… Arcane Will works really great with AAR. It might be an SR40 build now. I will test it more when patch comes out on GOG…
Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Edit - so I tested this build and it is SR 42 this patch… Build was buffed by changes I made, AAR crits, lower armor absorption on enemies, lower enemy phys damage and bonus on relic started to work…

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Hello, first time poster here. Just thought I’d add my own take on physical AAR.

I went with 4 Krieg set parts and somewhat different devotions, leaving me with a bit lower dps, but very high health. Bards Harp and Tree of Life make sure that the energy regen keeps up as long as I’m getting hit.

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Heh, good build is goooood.

Anyhow, got me to redo my old Physical AAR Spellbinder based off one that was part of an mp set for pushing deep SR and made it better:

Mythical Decree of the Five actually worked far better than Beronath and going with the full Krieg set meant I no longer need to grab Scales for flat RR. Still levelling it and trying out bindings, but the finally point allocation is basically more into cunning and the rest into Elemental balance for some much needed OA.

But yeah, total DPS is only around 310K for AAR and Krieg’s set also gets in the way of boosting OA up further

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