1,500 hours (ever since I got it in 2016) is a really freaking long time to be playing one game, but Grim Dawn has had me hooked for seven years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I played it for 3 more years for an even 10. Grim Dawn (and its wonderful mods, thanks so much to @ASYLUM101 and @Grimer and @Ram for their fantastic work) and its Grimtools website have led to countless days theorycrafting and testing builds and ideas, and I appreciate so much that it’s still seeing work to this day.
Onto the build: For this milestone, I settled on one goal: to make a somewhat viable build using the Mythical Herald of the Apocalypse amulet. It gives bonuses to Devastation, Mortar Trap, and Judgment, and I wanted to build around one of these concepts. I tried Mortar Trap Commando. I tried Mortar Trap + Judgment Shieldbreaker. I even tried a Infernal Brimstone 24/16 RF + 22/12 Blackwater Cocktail Shieldbreaker that looked great on paper but got completely rekt by Grava because every Fire Melee toon gets rekt by it. Ultimately, I decided to stick to Devastation Arcanist and all the pieces just sort of clicked together.
I couldn’t get Apocalypse to be fully fire like in my Infernal Brimstone builds, but Devastation being almost completely fire makes up for it. There is the matter of what to do when Devastation and Apocalypse are on cooldown, but there’s transmuted Callidor’s Tempest which provides some AoE damage and procs Dryad’s Blessing for sustain, and Thermite Mines + Blackwater Cocktail supply the build’s RR. Between Eternity and Aldanar’s Vanity (which I really took for the skillpoints but the proc fits well with the build), Devastation and Apocalypse can be spammed rather easily, leading to tons of destruction in an AoE area.
Obviously, small targets like Fabius and Iron Maiden are hard to hit, but outside of taking a bit longer than usual, I have not noticed anything lethal about them. They are dangerous, yes, but not lethal.
Q&A
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Isn’t this build just a worse Pyran’s build?
Probably, but the Pyran’s build can’t afford to use the Apocalyse amulet and I couldn’t get any better results with another type of build (I really wanted the Infernal Brimstone Shieldbreaker to work, but again, Grava). Besides, thanks to all the cooldown reduction skills like Eternity, you cast Apocalypse more in this build than in other builds. Plus you get to use Anasteria’s Devastation, which is pretty cool -
What’s this build’s sustain?
Little bit of health regen from Vindictive Flame, Dryad’s Blessing bound to Callidor’s Tempest, and overall just keep moving and don’t be afraid to spam Mirror to keep your Health up. Having Mark of Divinity circuit breaker helps a lot with this build. -
Why do you take the Elemental Balance rings?
50% of Cold is converted to Fire (you can also take the Pyran’s chestpiece to convert more Cold to Fire, but I wanted the Aether to Fire conversion more), so the ring procs become 75% Fire. Plus it covered resistances in a way that other rings couldn’t for me. -
You’ve been playing for 1,500 hours. Why are you so bad at this game with your 7-9 minute Crucible runs?
Man, I don’t know. I’ve gotten under 5 minute runs with Grimarillion modded characters, so it must be the limitations of the builds I create. I’m far too anxious to join the 2300 DA cunning / spirit dump club, I don’t know how that wizardry leads to such incredible Crucible times.