[1.3.0.8] The Raging Boner - Chaos Spam BH [SR40] [All Celestials] [No Asc. Affixes/TDM Pots]

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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:damage_chaos: Chaos Spam BH VEILWALKER :damage_chaos:

:damage_chaos: Chaos Spam BH CABALIST :damage_chaos:

Introduction

The year was 2026. In the wild wastelands of post-FoA release, the concept of balance has been thrown out of order. WPS stacking and TDM pots run rampant across the land, leaving the poor builds of yesteryear in the dust. All hope seems lost, that is until the arrival of…

The Raging Boner!

(get it cause it’s a BH build that’s also a berserker)

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Stats with Soul Harvest active

Pros

  • Massive screen-wide AoE coverage
  • Good single-target damage
  • Can kite and hit enemies from very far away
  • Easy to play, mostly a 1-button build
  • Decently tanky, 27k HP with 23% Physical resistance
  • Clears all content without ascended affixes

Cons

  • Berserker is probably going to eat some nerfs (though we can also play as Occultist)

The Concept

Grul’Thunn’s Cleaver is a new MI added in FoA that enables spam BH by reducing its cooldown by 3s. However, it also converts all of your Bone Harvest damage to Physical, which seems like a puzzling choice at first for this build.

Awakened Lokhor’s Folly is a new set that adds +1s cooldown to BH, but in return grants it +125% TDM which is an absolutely massive amount of damage.

Ghol’s Reach meanwhile reduces the cooldown of BH by 0.8s. For normal spam builds this is useless, but in this case, since we have an extra +1s from the Awakened Lokhor set, it actually lets us “spam” BH again with a 0.2s cooldown. This is slightly slower than full 0s cooldown spam, but we make up for it by having extra TDM from the Awakened Lokhor’s set. In total, this would equal

0.7 (Grul’Thunn) x 2.25 (Lokhor) = 1.575

In other words, we’re spamming a 505% WD skill that’s 57% stronger than the normal cooldown version. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, the conversion is a bit messy. All of the Cold and Vitality damage gets converted to Physical, but the unconverted Physical damage on the weapon gets converted into Chaos from the Awakened Lokhor’s set. It ends up being about 50/50 Physical and Chaos, which is tricky to build around.

Conduit of Undying Whispers is our best solution here, specifically the Chaos BH prefix. This converts 100% of the Cold and Vitality damage to Chaos, so it ends up being split evenly with Physical. It’s not perfect, but we get half of the flat damage back this way, on top of some additional flat and a massive +5m range.

Gear Choices

Grul’Thunn’s Cleaver - Mandatory. This one will probably take some rerolls to get since it’s normally a Physical damage base. However, both Plaguebearer’s and of the Abyss are very important to this build since it’s where our flat RR and DR comes from.

Awakened Lokhor’s Folly - Mandatory.

Conduit of Undying Whispers - Mandatory with the Chaos BH prefix. Suffix can be any resistance, as long as you can balance it out with the rest of the gear.

Ghol’s Reach - Recommended. Can also use Mythical Iceskorn Talons instead if you don’t have them, but Ghol’s is vastly superior for this build due to the extra BH modifiers and levels to Soul Harvest. The lack of casting speed does not matter, as this build is already bottlenecked by the 0.2s cooldown.

Ghol’s Mark - Optional. This is mostly here for the +3 to Soul Harvest, so any rare/MI medal with the Wraithbound prefix can also work here.

Mythical Combustion Band - Recommended. It’s an RR ring that supports both Physical and Chaos, making it ideal even if it doesn’t provide any skill bonuses.

Voidheart - Recommended. Another RR ring, this time only for Chaos damage.

Reaper’s Legguards - Recommended. Use whatever affixes you need to fix your resistances/stats. There are no other leg options with bonuses to Soul Harvest, so if you use another piece here, you will need to find another source of it, such as another Wraithbound prefix on the belt.

Stoneplate Greaves - Optional. These are used primarily for some extra Physical resistance + stats, so any other pair of boots can work here as long as they provide what you need.

Calcified Sash - Optional. Also used as a stat stick, so these can be replaced with any other belt that fits your needs.

Aurora - Recommended. There are no good Chaos damage relic options for Veilwalker, so a generic +1 to all skills relic is the best choice here. Serenity can also be used if you don’t have it or if it fits your resistances better.

Performance

All fights were done without the use of consumables, TDM potions, or ascended affixes. I switched out some HP augments for resistance on Ravager and Mogdrogen, but otherwise the gear in the video is the same as the GT link.

SR 40 (Full Timer)

Uber N’erf (3:42)

Callagadra (0:47)

Crate of Entertainment (0:14)

Ravager (0:39)

FoA Mogdrogen (1:14)

Vanilla Mogdrogen (0:43)

11 Likes
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Finally a guide without 10000 ascended affixes but still doing high SR.

2 Likes
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How would you level this? Are you planning a every 10 level grimtool? Thank you for your time! I love necromancer builds. :slight_smile:

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I’m probably not doing a leveling section because I don’t really level characters anymore unfortunately. I don’t have as much free time as I used to so I mostly use GDStash to test out builds, since it’s the builds and the synergies that make the game fun to me.

As for leveling, you could probably just go with any Necro/Berserker leveling skill, like skeletons or werewolf, and then just respec at 100. For example, Wight’s Frost Channeler is a new MI that converts skeletons to Cold damage for double RR and guarantees archers on top.

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You could probably just dual wield Bonescythes and level as vitality

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S tier build @orion_epsilon !
for me the strongest veilwalker build and fun to play
hope it doesnt get nerfed on the next patch

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Finally a Berserk without bullshit onslaught gimmicks.

There, I fixed your post.

1 Like
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Added Cabalist variant. Damage is comparable to Veilwalker (~2m tooltip DPS), but OA/DA and crit damage are slightly lower. Can adjust Cunning/Physique ratio as desired if 2.7k DA feels a bit low, although the effective DA against bosses will be +198 higher because of Siphon Souls.

Cabalist is also much tankier than Veilwalker thanks to the damage absorb on Possession and the extra Physical resistance from BoD. Overall, it still feels incredibly strong to play and is a solid choice for players who are looking for a bit more durability.

EDIT: Regarding 1.3.1 changes, Veilwalker version loses TDM from FotB but gains +% all damage which is still decent since the build has split damage as well as somewhat low % damage values compared to other meta builds. Also gained some extra crit damage from Everwinter, which is a nice bonus. HP is a bit lower because of Aurora, but it’s still the best relic (though Serenity is pretty close now too, so use whichever one is better for resists).

For Cabalist, the build is completely untouched. Switched Aurora to Solael’s Malice and dumped Physique instead. This version now has 3k base DA with more HP and comparable damage, at the cost of a bit of Physical resistance from switching off of Aurora.

Overall, the build is just as strong as before, and may be poised to be one of the new top builds in 1.3.1 as many of the other meta builds got hit quite hard. Cabalist is now probably better than Veilwalker, but it’s still a Veilwalker build in my heart (because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to make the joke).

4 Likes
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is there a point of gear/levels where a swap (playing veilwalker) feels comfortable early or is this an all or nothing build because of the conversion mechanics?

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You really need 94 for this build to work since the build relies heavily on the synergy between the Grul’Thunn’s Cleaver, Awakened Lokhor set, and Ghol’s Reach. You can still play spam BH with either a low level Grul’Thunn’s Cleaver or two Bonescythes while leveling, but the damage will be a lot lower.

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got it, thanks!

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Is this build still good in playtest patch

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The build is still good yes. Cabalist is untouched, Veilwalker loses a bit of base damage from FotB but gains some crit damage from Everwinter so it sort of evens out.

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Some time ago I played around with the Lokhor set and and 2 Boneschythes, doing a vit build. That way the bonescythes convert physical and cold to vit, so the Lokhor set does not mess up the conversion. This is the state I left it in: Cabalist, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator, it is far from optimized, I was just testing if the concept is worth refining/optimizing.

I kind of abandoned the build due to lack of QoL/automated trash clearing mechanisms, though this is just my personal feeling (in truth I have not yet found a super outstanding build that is head and shoulders above the rest). What I really missed is the “Massive screen-wide AoE coverage”, not sure if I have unrealistic expectations from poe 2 or simply the conduit’s 5m makes the difference (11m cone vs 16m cone feels like a massive difference, probably like double the area covered considering the geometry).

Now you inspired me to revisit the build, thanks for posting this!

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It’s true that double Bonescythes don’t mess up the conversion since they convert to Vitality damage. However, the main issue with that setup is that Bone Harvest only hits with your main hand, so you would be doing significantly less damage at a baseline, not to mention the -TDM penalty is greater with double Bonescythes.

Also yes the 5m range on the conduit helps a ton in terms of AoE coverage.

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That’s correct.

However, the first image is after hitting a dummy (soul harvest and dying god active), the second is just standing in Kurnhold. This is without any meaningful optimization, and probably “bad” items in some slots. I did not go anywhere near SR 40, but while playing the build the damage did not feel low at all, anything I hit with BH melted quickly. My problem (again, my perception) was that it was not comfortable hitting them, quite often I missed a couple of baddies from a pack, apparently the 5m range from the conduit makes huge difference. In the meantime I did a quick check in grimtools, and did not find any item that can boost the range so I guess that’s that for the scythe version.

Side note: I know you purposely did not use ascended affixes (kudos for that too!), but for the cabalist, I really like the extra absorption for possession, stacking that can really help tankiness (you can get 40-50 absorption with those). Also, general affixes (extra hp, OA/DA, CoF extra RR etc., even resistances) can help a bit, and it is not super costly to get one of the useful affixes (like getting all the % chance to be used for a single wps is a lot more expensive), and they don’t make or break the build, but can possibly help with gearing.

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What kind of ascended bonuses would you go for?

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For Cabalist, damage absorb on Possession is the best affix by far, and the ideal setup would have it on every slot.

For Veilwalker, more OA is really good since you get tons of crit damage now.

However you can also just use whatever you get since ascended affixes are just extra bonuses for this build.

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Wassap @orion_epsilon ,do you have any idea what ascended bonuses should we aim for this build? thanks btw!

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See the previous post. Ideally Possession absorb for Cabalist, OA for Veilwalker. Or just whatever you happen to roll that’s useful.

1 Like