[v1.0.2.1] Forcewave Tactician - Gladiator farmer

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

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S&B Gladiator Crucible farmer focusing on Forcewave and Internal Trauma damage, using the new Octavius set. Performs really well both in Crucible and Campaign, and a safe bet for Hardcore. MIs not necessary.

Pros:

  • Relatively easy to gear, works without the set pieces (up to ultimate Malmouth), or any MIs, can easily clear Challenger Crucible to gear up.
  • Good mobility, through Blitz and capped movement speed.
  • Can kite with low cooldown Forcewave if necessary.
  • Overcapped resists, 14% damage absorption, 40% physical resist, large health pool and a shield.
  • 45% + 30 flat physical resist reduction.

Cons:

  • Really spammy, this is not a relaxed, laid back build.
  • Mediocre damage without the set, makes ultimate campaign painfully slow (you are still nearly invincible).
  • Mana issues.
  • Not flashy :slight_smile:

10/24/17 update: Ditched Counter Strike, Inspiration moved to Word of Renewal, reduced Vigor to 5/10, Scars of Battle to 6/8, maxed Blitz.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/62avaGEV

[v1.0.2.1]Video 130-150 Gladiator clear

BiS gear: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLJlR6N

Without MIs: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2By9mwN

Gear in video: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/4ZDM9mWN


In Crucible, with standard buffs and procs.

BiS Gear:

Head: Visor of Octavius - Sanctified Bone/Wendigo Lifescent Powder (Barrowholm) - Craftable
Shoulders: Pauldrons of Octavius - Sacred Plating/Wendigo Lifescent Powder (Barrowholm)
Chest: Platemail of Octavius - Chains of Oleron/Venomguard Powder (Rovers)
Main hand: Stonefaced Mutant Bludgeon of Fervor - Seal of Blades/Coven’s Terror (Coven of Ugdenbog) - Vendor farm Hyram in the Steelcap District.
Offhand: Bulwark of Octavius - Seal of Blades/Coven’s Terror (Coven of Ugdenbog)
Hands: Mythical Colossal Grasp - Restless Remains/Wendigo Lifescent Powder (Barrowholm)
Waist: Mythical Reforged Chains of Oleron - Enchanted Earth/Wendigo Lifescent Powder (Barrowholm) - The non-mythical version is craftable.
Legs: Ancient Solael-Sect Legguards of Reptilian Resilience - Scaled Hide/Wendigo Lifescent Powder (Barrowholm)
Feet: Rampage Stoneplate Greaves of the Dranghoul - Mark of Mogdrogen - Craftable (possibly…)
Amulet: Conduit of Warring Whispers - Seal of Annihilation/Survivor’s Ingenuity (Devil’s Crossing) - Craftable Completion bonus: Poison & Acid resistance, 210 Burn damage over 3 seconds to Forcewave
The completion bonus is converted to physical damage (internal trauma) by the set helm and chest.
Ring 1: Mythical Open Hand of Mercy - Runebound Topaz/Survivor’s Ingenuity (Devil’s Crossing)
Ring 2: Mythical Closed Fist of Vengeance - Runebound Topaz/Survivor’s Ingenuity (Devil’s Crossing)
Medal: Mythical Mark of Kalastor - Tainted Heart - Craftable
Relic: Doom Completion bonus: +1 to Internal Trauma and Blindside

Attributes:
Enough Physique and Spirit to meet gear requirements.
Seal of Annihilation on amulet gives 20 spirit, you can use a Living Armor component somewhere, equip amulet with Seal, remove Living Armor to save a few points. Physique depends on how many points you have in Veterancy.
Put the remaining points into Cunning.

Devotion bindings:

Assasin’s Mark => Whirling Blades (Right hand) - move this to Forcewave if it gets nerfed.

Blind Fury => Whirling Blades (Left hand) - move this to Cadence if it gets nerfed.

Targo’s Hammer => Menhir’s Bulwark

Inspiration => Counterstrike

Fist of Vire => Field Command

Devotion explanation:

Bard’s Harp seems to be an odd devotion to take, as we are not focusing on Pierce or Elemental damage, however the build has severe energy problems, and unless you want to pop mana potions on cooldown, Inspiration is necessary. Also, it helps to overcap resists and gives OA/DA half of the time. All in all, this is a quality of life devotion, and does not have a major impact on the build’s performance.

Vire, the Stone Matron is taken for it’s strong defensive bonuses, the proc itself is average. It does offer some extra CC, and the damage works on bosses, even if they won’t get petrified. Not bad, not great, but you will miss it if you choose a different devotion route, you will also have some issues with capping resists.

Oleron is taken for it’s strong damage bonuses, and for the proc. The physical resist reduction is nearly useless, as it does not stack with Break Morale, but it offers some minor RR while Warcry is on cooldown.

Anvil offers 320% IT damage, deals some physical damage on it’s own, and has a chance to stun. Simple, straightforward, cannot be replaced in the build.

Assasin’s Blade is taken for the -32% physical resist, the node bonuses are useless, but the proc itself greatly amplifies your damage.

The rest are taken to meet affinity requirements, unfortunately the devotion path is not flexible at all, every point counts.

Alternate devotions (with Ghoul and Rhowan’s Scepter):
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/p25WlRmZ

Devotion Path:

+Crossroads Ascendant
+Anvil
+Crossroads Order
+Assassin’s Blade
+Crossroads Primordial
+Eel
+Bard’s Harp
+Shieldmaiden
+Empty Throne
+Wolverine
+Oleron
+Sailor’s Guide
+Panther
-Crossroads Order
-Crossroads Primordial
+Vire, the Stone Matron

Skills:

Forcewave - Our main skill, deals a lot of burst damage and applies a strong internal trauma dot. Max this and Internal Trauma to ultimate levels, Rending Force can stay at 12/12.

Cadence with Deadly Momentum - Filler in your rotation, Deadly Momentum provides some extra damage, and the third hit applies a greatly amplified internal trauma dot.

Blitz with Blindside - Mobility, DA reduction and another internal trauma dot . This is the skill to drop if you want more survivability by maxing Menhir’s Will, or more points in the Inquisitor Tree.

Warcry with Break Morale - Reduced enemy damage and physical resist, unfortunately does not have 100% uptime.

Overguard - Defensive cooldown, don’t treat this as a circuit breaker though, you can still die easily, even with this up. Use it to mitigate upcoming burst damage.

Word of Renewal - On demand heal with great bonuses. You can drop Vigor, but in Crucible it’s a godsend against Moosilauke. Steel Resolve takes care of your Aether and Chaos resists and adds some damage.

Inquisitor Seal - Flat damage absorption and health regen, place it when you are taking too much damage. Combined with Overguard and Menhir’s will, you are pretty much invincible. Regarding Null Field, I did not choose it, because of the reduced casting speed, which affects everything we use except Cadence.

Doomforce (from relic) - Extra source of AOE damage, you can drop this if you feel that the build has too many buttons already, your single target damage will not suffer too much.

Leveling:

The build relies heavily on the Octavius set bonuses to deal damage, so unless you got a bunch of epics and relics stashed to support a physical sword and board build, you will have slow kill times, especially in the expansion areas (while being mostly invincible). For this reason, I suggest that you level using 2H transmuted Forcewave + Blade Arc. An alternative devotion path is also advisable, as the end game build has a lot of shield bonuses, which are useless for 2H builds

Suggested barebone leveling build with 29 devotion points spent:
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZoXBkBN

In closing:
The new Octavius set is quite strong by itself, combined with the resilience of sword and board soldier builds, plus the strong internal trauma/physical support through non-set pieces and devotions gives us a Tier1 Crucible farmer. The build also does well in campaign, with capped movement speed, strong burst damage, and even better sustained damage. This is the first character I leveled up to 100 in the expansion, and so far I’m very satisfied with it. The build is also easy and fluid to play, though the spammy gameplay due to the short cooldowns may not be for everyone.

2

Good guide, I am only lvl 50 with my Tactician and needed some guidance. Been playing pistol/shield and using overguard, word of renewal and inquisitors seal, pretty invincible but slow. Still the first build I’ve actually finished the first difficulty with, with 170 hours of playtime. Tactician is definitely my niche.

3

It’s very interesting build… 200k trauma dots, tons of survivability. It’s like warborn tank, but stronger i think. Facetanking Lokarr about 90% of combat time. “Incredible. Simply incredible” :slight_smile:

4

Given that you’re a melee tank and going to be taking hits, have you tried scales over harp?

ETA:

Digging through my bookmarks, this is where I ended up after a few iterations when I saw the octavius set and decided to play around with the numbers. I haven’t set components or augments yet, so I haven’t really adjusted for final devos either. Bear could go, but I’d like to keep targas. I feel like bear or Oleron’s is pretty needed just for ‘all the rest of you trash get out of my way’ given Forcewave’s limited arc of coverage.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/4VxALkeZ

5

Do you think cadence is even necessary. What if I just put those points to scale damage higher andore WPS/passives?

6

I’ve not really crunched numbers, but I doubt anything else you could put the points in would beat the universal Deadly Momentum buff…at least not in a consistent/reliable way.

Made a twink char with Grimstash to try this out and killed the Kupacabra(sp?) thing, its actually pretty fun to play for a pure melee build. I’ll probably level one up in the near future. I’ll just kind of assume by the time I finish it the Whirling Blades thing will be nerfed and I’ll need an Oleron’s Blood for replacement lol.

7

Was watching the crucible video. I don’t have crucible so I don’t know what “mutators” or buffs you are given when you are fighting in there, but I’m guessing the damage in the crucible video is considerably higher than your average damage.

Still if you manage to do 200k trauma dots as one of the above posts claim…

again makes me shake my head on how the devs think this dot shit is balanced. Non dot spellcasters or regular melee builds and even pet builds take 50min killing a mob with the new aom healthpools but bleeds are ticking for 300-400k a sec 2shotting nemesis bosses and ppl think its balanced. wtf? am i missing something? someone please explain.

Why bother with anything other than dot builds if bleeds of all kinds are this dumbshit OP?

8

This build gonna get hit after seal of blades nerf. Oleron procs are helping you a lot

9

Well, you know, for now it’s really hard to surprise or impress me, but this build are deal with it.
Congrats to make such a good build.

10

Right? It gets a little silly especially with that lighting build from Jajaja hitting like 400k electrocute DoTs. I’m bored with shaman though, this build is different enough to be appealing to me.

Anyway, testing in the xpac content I was hitting 120k-150k ticks…def not bad (imo) given how tanky this thing is.

11

Crucible damage isn’t considerably higher, if I recall correctly the buff you can buy is 25% plus the extra OA and crit damage from the banner. The build still has 120-150k dot crits in campaign.

Seal of Blades nerf is kinda expected, I even mentioned in the OP. I don’t expect that big of a hit, it’s true that the aura helps to clear trash without doing anything, but when burning down nemeses, Cadence will still proc Oleron all right, especially if there are some adds around for Fighting Form to hit. I’m already testing the build with nothing assigned to Whirling Blades, and it’s still fine, I even did glad+extra spawns with it.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NKQwDpV

Cadence does a couple of important stuff. First of all, it procs Deadly Momentum, which buffs everything we do. Second, it has the highest weapon damage%, 420%, meaning that all Cadence hits apply your flat internal trauma damage, multiplied by 4,2, to all targets hit. Blitz only goes up to 325%, and Forcewave has a meager 240%. Third, you do need something to consistently proc Oleron once Seal of Blades gets nerfed, and Cadence is the best for that.

If anything, you could ditch the WPS skills, as they don’t do that much, but since you have +4 to soldier, and autoattack a lot, I felt it’s better to put two points there to gain 10 points worth of skills, than to overcap Rending Force for 2% crit damage.

12

Took my test build to crucible last night. Only thing that stands in its way in zandarin or whatever, with his shotgun. Tried the hit and run tactic, worked for the first couple waves with him then at 140 he shotgunned me soon as I blitzed in. Will take another run at it tonight.
Btw this is only aspirant difficulty (2nd), need to beat it to try gladiator.

13

The Shotgun ability has a very long precast animation. Just watch out for it.
Finished Glad wave 150 with the non MI version.

14

I am running with mi’s, just testing if viable in crucible and end game before I decide on a build to make from scratch.
Debating on markovian commando or witchblade to try, been heating this is still a better build. So going to continue playing it.

15

Don’t Blitz to him, just run. You will be fine.

16

Very nice build congrats!
I love the active playstyle.
One question, can a new player start with this build?
Or its hard to gear up till you put your hands on octavius, since its lvl 90+?

Cheers!!!

17

I been practicing him on a markovian commando. Though I think this tactician is better dps and tanking.

18

Well, the build does need specific items to shine, but you can trade for them. What I did was to complete normal and elite, including Malmouth areas, then hit Challenger Crucible. Completing challenger is certainly doable with random gear, as resists are easy(ish) to cap, and mob HP is lowered in Crucible, so the lack of damage is less noticeable than in campaign. You can trade away your drops, I traded for all my set pieces except the helm, which I had the recipe for.

Completing ultimate will be painful, and if you don’t have the 100% rep boost items, you will not max out rep by the end of elite. Looking back, I should’ve completed ultimate with a 2h transmuted forcewave build, with a more defensive devotion setup, instead of slogging through with the actual build.

To sum it up, gearing is not hard, because the build does work with no gear, but it is absolutely horrible to play in ultimate, as your damage is low (maybe my spellbreaker spoiled me).

19

Think I will give this build a try, looks intressting :slight_smile:

But what do you mean with the (“name”) after all gear ?
“Shoulders: Pauldrons of Octavius - Sacred Plating/Wendigo Lifescent Powder (Barrowholm)”
Can this shoulders drop in Barrowholm ? Cant be right ? Since you have write (Devil’s Crossing" on some gear.

EDIT : What stats to prio on gear while leveling ? +%Physice ? (And ofc ressist)

20

Indeed, his “vitality barrage” can be quite deadly.
First, be sure you overcapped vitality resistance by ~30. Zantarin can reduce your vitality resistance. However, if there is “+50% crit damage” mod, he can still oneshot you, if he crits and you’re in melee.
Second, his “vitality barrage” has large “windup time”. He waves his hand for 1.5-2 seconds before releasing it.
Third, you should always kill him last. He is slow and wont engage you in melee, so kill all others enemies first.
Forth, Zantarin poses no danger from range. Just use Blitz and Forcewave properly (as i said before, his “oneshot” is telegraphed).

My main question about this build - Why Tactitian, not Witchblade? Yes, i know, Octavius set gives few bonuses to Inquisitor skills, but Inquisitor himself is worse for physical/trauma build, and has higher “starvation” for skill points - you simply dont have enough skill points to get all skills you want.
Another question - if you go for Trauma build, why dont use Oleron’s Rage? Yes, i know, you’ll lose some damage absorbtion, but DPS gain will be very strong as well.