Vitality and pet-focused 2h Death Knights have repeatedly been GD projects of mine since I first discovered Mythical Guardian of Death’s Gates. What can I say? I guess I have a penchant for builds that are typically written off for lacking appropriate amounts of RR. While it probably won’t set any records when it comes to the most common metrics for build performance, I’m pretty happy with how this one came out, especially given that it’s my first real attempt at an “all content” build.
Grimtools: Death Knight, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Namadea’s Eye version: Death Knight, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Save file (somewhat outdated):
_Dakk.zip (622.0 KB)
Build highlights: 15 player-scaling summons, ~113% vitality RR, 3000 OA before procs/DA shred, ~54% leech, ~3600 armor/36% phys resist, Blitz/Rylok movement.
Gear:
The Blood Knight set offers strong damage and adcth bonuses, a reliable source of -%RR, and two player-scaling pets, among other things. Weapon choice ultimately came down to what felt best for Counter Strike and Bone Harvest - I did test with 2x Mythical Edge of Death and a Blademaster’s Talisman, but I believe this combination would probably be better suited to a non-set build, in part because the set-modified skills here deal only main hand damage. The remainder of the equipment mostly speaks for itself, perhaps with the exceptions of Prime Ring of Morgoneth, which is admittedly here solely because I wanted to summon tentacles alongside my skeletons, and Krieg’s Grip, which is target-farmable and shores up a few key stats (in addition to providing a solid on attack proc). The build does use a ridiculous MI in the medal slot; it dropping was part of the reason I started building for vitality player damage in the first place. Other rolls will work, but “of Butchery” is a highly preferred suffix given the vitality damage bonus and elemental resistance. If your prefix does not have chaos resistance on it, you may need to adjust augments accordingly, depending on the base item’s chaos resist roll. For the belt, shoot for an “Impervious” prefix.
Skill tree:
Aside from investing in Bone Harvest and Counter Strike, I’ve opted for a Cadence/unoptimized WPS package on this build. The bulk of the build’s damage comes from the set-modified skills and pets, so Cadence is really just the best thing to be doing in between Bone Harvests/Rylok/Necrosis spam. The Blood Knight set also has a nice attack speed bonus, and the build is attack speed capped with either Hungering Void or Prismatic Rage up - I believe this makes the Cadence investment worth it over maxing Dread and adding a few value points elsewhere. Maxing Dread is also worthwhile. The Namadea’s Eye version of the build uses 2 points in Cadence, 3 more points in Fighting Form, and maxes Dread. AoE is slightly stronger and single target DPS is similar.
Devotions:
I went into devotions planning on using Revenant for the extra skeletons and Rattosh for much-needed -%RR. Dryad was taken for Callagadra: adcth + Behemoth wasn’t quite doing the trick, and the Dryad proc seems to push the build just over the line of being able to facetank everything except Calla’s sunder. It’s possible that Bat isn’t necessary, and there are a couple of valid paths that avoid taking Lion, which is probably the weakest constellation here.
Callagadra changes: Bind Dryad to Cadence and Rattosh to War Cry for a smoother experience. No other changes necessary, but a few Dreeg’s Omen on belt/boots/gloves slots wouldn’t hurt. 3114 DA is the benchmark you’ll need to hit for complete immunity to crits with Necrosis up, but usually the combination of Seal of Annihilation, Rylok, and Nazaran will compensate well enough if you don’t want to swap augments.
Ravager of Flesh changes: Arcane Spark on the amulet for better energy recovery if you get tagged by one of the leech projectiles. If your positioning is good you likely won’t need to make the swap.
Take these videos with a few grains of salt - I am far from the best pilot in the world.
Callagadra kill:
Ravager kill:
A very average SR30-31:
SR36:
As always, thanks for checking another one out. Be well.
