6 FoA "Best In Class" Builds - 3 sub 30 seconds Ravager kills | Devastation Evoker, PB Reaver + more (with vids)

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi everyone,

I made 6 builds during this DLC, and now i put them all together in one post.
My goal was to kill Ravager below 30 seconds (easiest way to test a build), while showing decent survability and sustain. With 3 of these builds, i succeeded, and two of them are absolutely nuts.

Quick overview

:fire: OP: Evoker - Devastation + Winds of Asterkarn
Arcanist / Berserker

:fire: OP: Reaver - Phantasmal Blades
Nightblade / Berserker

:muscle: Very strong: Mystic - Chaos Wereraven
Occultist / Berserker

:+1: Decent: Thane - Tremor Forcewave
Soldier / Berserker

:+1: Decent: Witchblade - Cadence Voidpiercer
Occultist / Soldier

:moyai: Meme: Dreadnaught - Big Blackwater Cocktail
Demolitionist / Berserker

Builds:

1. Devastation + Winds of Asterkarn Evoker

:fire: Rating - OP

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:zap: GRIMTOOLS
Winds / Devastation Evoker

Showcase

Ravager 28 seconds kill

Playstyle

Cast Winds of Asterkarn, cast Devastation on cooldown

Thoughts

Apparently, adding projectiles to Devastation is as busted as i thought. One from Stormfang set, second from ascended affix on white weapon. This is only build that i fully completed without GDStash.

Ascended affixes - yes

2. Phantasmal Blades Reaver

:fire: Rating - OP

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Phantasmal Blades Reaver

Showcase

Ravager 24 seconds kill

[Edit] Changed ring for Widow’s bite, and sword’s suffix to abyss, since our -% RR pen is insane, therefore % RR from abyss will be significant.

Playstyle

Phantasmal Blades

Thoughts

I was worrying about survability without possession-like absorption, and low physical resist. But apparently, having 4000+ DA, on top of avoidance from Nightblade + devotions, means you just avoid over half of attacks, even from Ravager. This feels like just a better version of PB WitchHunter from Forum’s top 20 list.

Ascended affixes - yes

3. Mystic Chaos Wereraven

:muscle:Rating - Very strong

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:zap: GRIMTOOLS :zap: - full dps ravager version
Chaos Wereraven - dps version

:zap: GRIMTOOLS :zap: - tanky version more suitable for ascendant mode
Tanky version

Showcase

Ravager 19 seconds

Playstyle

Spam Icy Talons, cast Cold Snap on cooldown. Be as close as possible to bosses, for snapshot effect

Thoughts

I suggest using tanky version on ascendant mode. Problem with this build, is that i had to stand really really close, to have giga dps, like you see on a video, so that i shotgun with as many Cold Snap projectiles as possible.

Ascended affixes

one, to cap res

4. Tremor Forcewave Thane

:+1:Rating - Decent

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Tremor Forcewave Thane

Showcase

Ravager

Playstyle

Attack with Onslaught, cast Forcewave either on cooldown, or on max Onslaught stacks.
Careful - War cry shares onslaught stacks with Forcewave. You might want to swap helmet to Warborn instead

Thoughts

Saw Ascended Tremor mace, so i had to make a build around that. To survive facetanking ravager, for some reason i had to go over 40% ADCTH.
Using here Onslaught as DAR, with unleashing Forcewave with Onslaught stacks.
Warning - gdstash was kinda bugged here, might say ‘invalid build’ in grimtools.

Ascended affixes

one, to cap res

5. Cadence Voidpiercer Witchblade

:+1: Rating - Decent

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:zap: GRIMTOOLS :zap:
Cadence Voidpiercer

Showcase

Ravager 45 seconds

Playstyle

Ranged Cadence

Summary

Kinda disappointed with this one. On paper when i was doing math, i thought i will have way more damage. Although i did not spend much time PoBing this build, so it might need a little tweaking, like someone magically pulling more OA, since crit damage is relatively high.

Ascended affixes - none

6. Big Blackwater Cocktail Dreadnaught

:moyai: Meme build

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Blackwater cocktail Dreadnaught

Showcase

Ravager 45s

Playstyle

Attack in melee for maximum Onslaught stacks. Cast big Blackwater Cocktail.
On non bosses, you don’t need that many onslaught stacks, base ticks are decent as well.

Summary

Meme build, just stack as many Onslaught stacks as possible, and unleash biggest Blackwater Cocktail known to earth. On dummy i saw 2 million dot ticks. Biggest problem while not just pure bossing, is too high BWC cooldown due to both weapons.

Ascended affixes - none

Summary

Some of these builds are more optimized than others (especially first 3 ones), while some started mostly as ideas I wanted to experiment with.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome.

12 Likes
2

Nice builds. I’m working on a really similar Evoker build myself. I think I’m going to copy your jewelry setup, because I’m thinking I don’t have enough rr in my current setup…

One question. Unless I’m mistaken, it looks like only half the aether damage from Devastation is converted to cold. Would it not be better to use Mythical Arcanum Frigus as the weapon instead? Or is the extra projectile from the ascended affix even more valuable?

3

Based on this here is a conduit for two more projectiles , maybe freeing up the weapon slot for the Arcanum Frigus

4

It is fully converted- from belt + Star Pact.
The extra projectile from ascended affix on white weapon is really huge.
Next best options, is either Arcanum frigillis, then u swap star pact to Heart of Asterkarn (only if u can’t afford yet to roll a lot of Soul fragments for +1 projectile on white ranged weapon), or Shard of Asterkarn with +3 onslaught stacks and bigger Winds of Asterkarn AoE - but here you lose Hydra devotion, which I value a lot due to movement speed.

5

I tested this setup. 3 projectiles with my setup was heavily outperforming conduit on single target. It might be good on Crucible tho

1 Like
6

Just curious. Why do you need to roll it on a white ranged weapon? Could you not get the Ascended affix on a non-MI green?

7

By white , i mean non MI. It can be even double rare, as long as it is non MI and not epic/legendary

8

Your Winds was a lot better than my various set ups
The ascended roll on weapon is a great idea, thanks for sharing.

Any chance you worked on a fully min maxed Fire wolf zealot

9

Amazing builds! I have 2 question about the Phantasmal Blades Reaver build:

  1. You activated Nightblade’s Breath of Belgothan skill modifier, which turned Pneumatic Burst into a dual-wield skill, but your character is equipped with off-hand instead of dual-wielding weapons, so Pneumatic Burst won’t work, right?
  2. In your screenshot, both OA and DA are over 4000, but in the build tool they’re both 3000-ish - what’s the difference?
10

Hey, i looked at fire werewolf zealot, tried to cook something with Blazing Cleaver + apocalypton set + gryphon eye with guardians. Don’t think will be that high like pierce or chaos version, tomorrow maybe will try to make some minmax GT

11
  1. Ye, its cause i tried going double swords instead of offhand. Just take away that 1 point.
  2. Pneumatic burst, rallying cry and inspiration are basically always up, with them you have almost 4k OA and DA
12

I agree, I think its ceiling is lower
Heres what I have so far for fire

Working on a chaos Mystic one now, but its not close to Evoker Winds

13

Well, giga nerfs incoming 1.3.1

14

you’ve got 56 devo points is why :sweat_smile: - can remove 1 from azrakaa/oleron to make it normal
And too many attributes too 124, gotta nuke 15

15

this, and stats also