A fun build with no main attacking skill - Elemental Ray Pyro

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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DISCLAIMER This is not a guide, this is me dicking around after a long day at work.DISCLAIMER

A lot of discussions about AAR Warlocks going on these days, but what always depressed me was that CoF doesn’t reduce aether or chaos resistance. Of course, there is a way to both shoot lasers like a real badass Warlock instead of green goo like a snotty teenager AND take full advantage of CoF resistance reduction. You just need to equip this item which is considered only useful for PB Spellbreakers.

Since Obliteration only does 1/3 of the damage done by a 26/16 AAR, we need a way to supplement this damage with more elemental nonsense. Good thing elemental procs are a dime a dozen in GD, so that seems like a pretty straight forward solution. In the end, this little bundle of awesome was born:

Video of current setup and some gameplay.

Except god-awful resistances which can probably be solved via better rares (and DA not fit for Crucible or Fabius/MQ), the stats are pretty good.

The dps on Obliteration is 40k, which is not much, but the beam is much better than AAR in terms of usability because it pierces enemies. Besides, resistance reduction is beyond anything AAR gets:
30 elemental form CoF,
15 fire/lightning from Ulzuin’s hat,
50 fire/lightning from mines
20 fire from Warpfire
30 all from Manticore and
20% elemtal from Viper via Rift strike.

Cold got shafted, but 50% of cold gets converted to fire via Warpfire. Damn nerf to WF, that was uncalled for.

Of course, mana regeneration is nowhere near enough to support the ray for more than a few seconds because the char is designed to be more of a tank than a caster. Solution? We rarely use the ray. Yea, most of the time, we rely on procs to clear everything around us, using CoF+Flashbang to debuff the enemies (and start the fireworks cascade) and spamming mines for debuffs and, of course, Meteors. Ray is there mostly for cleanup, added dps vs bosses and triggering Manticore.

A lot of tweaking is needed, but this seems much less awful than my usual what-if characters. Once I figure out how to solve resistances and get some more mana regen, I might consider building it from scratch.

Obviously, I started this thread to hear suggestions.

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I tried a similar setup but now using Warpfire seems wrong. Consider using Decree of Aldritch to make better use of conversion.

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Obliteration is my favourite of the rays (piercing ftw), but I’m using it on a Druid myself and focusing on Lightning/Electrocute instead. Seems like your build works just fine at least, though maybe Conflagration might work better for a Pyromancer? You’ll lose the piercing effect on the ray, but since you’re mostly using it on bosses anyway it might not be too much of an issue. You’ll also lose the Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm proc, but you might be able to find another suitable off-hand item to make up for it. And of course there’s the fact that you might have to rejig your entire build to make it more fire-focused…might not be worth the hassle considering it seems to work well enough as is.

Plus, I’ve never really used Conflagration much before so it could be a terrible skill for all I know. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Don’t have it yet, PoV is incredibly annoying and I didn’t have the time to do any proper farming since new year.

edit: Just checked the stats on it, it would not fit at all. It converts elemental into aether, but I don’t have high aether bonuses or res reduction. It does look sick though, I want one.

Conflagration has slightly less base damage (but I would do more damage total because fire is my highest bonus) and a lower crit bonus, but that’s not the problem. The problem is, as you have said, i lose Pyroclasm. It’s the second best proc in the game and the damage types fit perfectly. And i’m not aware of any good damage proc that appears on a book.

The piercing is also incredibly important, wipes out a room in a few seconds and even a short burst will spread Manticore proc everywhere. Once you try it, you will never go back to AAR.

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I am glad you posted this even if it’s just for fun. The ring set is stupid powerful in open space. What if you add solael and/or arcane bomb to aid oblteration?

I am also making a conflagration build

And yef, WF nerf was too big. I had 95% converion one!!! Now it’s like 50:undecided:

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GeneralCash I’m trying to replicate this. Would you kindly list what your attribute allocations are, the augments, and maybe the gear list?
Thanks

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Decree of Aldritch doesn’t really fit here, but Spark of Ultos could be interesting. Would synergize nicely with the pieces of the Light’s Defender set you’re using.

Still, you’d lose the +1 to Demo and -20 Fire Res from Warpfire, though. WF is probably better.

Cool build. :slight_smile:

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Still working on it, so not sure. Attributes are max physique with enough spirit to equip the book, obviously. Augments are mostly whatever maxed out my resistances. I currently have the 2% OA/DA augments in my jewlery, but I will probably switch to something that gives mana regen.

Main items are Invoker’s amulet for the swirly elemental damage proc (it’s actually pretty for this neat build, 2x 4000 elemental damage per proc, and they persist for a long time so it really adds up), Emelental balance ring set (another swirly proc, lower cooldown and weapon damage, but half the damage is cold unfortunately), Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm (duh…), Ulzuin’s hat (resistance reduction and +3 Flame touched, I’m 100% this is best in slot) and, obviously, Tome of Arcane waste.

Rest is up to you, but anything that makes you tanky is a good choice. Unfortunately, there are no Iskandra gloves, so no way to to get the 3-piece physical resistance bonus. I like at least 2 pieces from the Light’s defender set because of the 6% DA bonus, so I used the shoulders as well because they are decent and the set bonus of crit damage and OA fits in nicely. Ulzuin shoulders sound reasonable as well. Pants are Stonehide with a spirit bonus so I can equip the book (along with +10 attributes to spirit as well, could be sub-optimal). Boots are just for pierce resist as the rest of the setup lacks it (armor and health are nice too, physical resist helps as well), but there is probably a much better pair of green boots out there.

WF is still very good here, +1 demo, mana regen, cast speed, reduced fire res are great. Cold->fire is still a massive damage boost, despite it being halved. Ray, Invoker ammy and the rings all do a large portion of damage as cold, which is not supported at all.

Not sure about Spark, it doesn’t give a proc, though this could be turned into a pet hybrid, there are certaintly enough skill points to do it.

What I’m cosidering is Invoker’s Master’s Spellblade. It gives an amazing proc (elemental damage PRM-type proc with 0.5 sec cd), and switching from Manticore to Fiend. I can still spread resistance reduction trough Chaos Strike, even if the cd is high. around 10 all resistance reduction would be spread trough Flame Torrent’s weapon damage portion.

Kinda busy today, gonna fuck aorund with this build when I’m done working, it’s really goofy.

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First of all GC I want to say thank you, you gave me a great idea how to rework my druid.

So here it is obliteration sheet dps with constant auras:

Build uses obliteration from Tome of the AW as a main atc skill coupled with devastation.
Its heavily relaying on obliteration electrocute and lightning dmg part and uses TT dager to convert some aether dmg from devastation to lightning.

To reduce resistances Elemental storm and arcane bomb are used.

This is just a starting point and build would require more polishing but even in this state is able to facetank Fabius with no issues. Tho to drop him needs more than 1 min and that is to much imo.

Also what makes me unhappy about this build is that I was yet unable to up OA to significant amount to take advantage of huge crit dmg multy (+109%)

Bright side for now is that due to high energy regeneration, energy absorption and -45% skill energy cost this build has no energy issues at all.

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Checking back in. I got my toon to level 50 and wanted to check with you, GeneralCash, if you have any updates to the build.

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I never even thought about using Ultos set on anything other than 2-hander builds (the axe is just too good I guess), interesting. Yea, I would assume you could stick this set onto a piece of paper and it would be able to tank anything.

Do you need so much OA? High OA mostly gives crit damage, but you have that in droves. Crit chance kinda flattens out after 2600 OA.

No, sorry, I’m turbo-busy. After next week I will either finish everything, hit submit and have a lot more time on my hands, or die at the hands of my boss.

I had a lot of fun picking around with this build, so I’m definitely gonna pick it off the shelf then.

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Imho LD set would be much better in this case, Im using Ultos just because I dont have LD helm :undecided: Tho thinking to take ulzuins instead.

Honestly Im not sure how much higher OA would help on this build but it helps a lot on my BF transmuted AAR warlock and I kinda like high OA numbers :smiley:

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I’ve been using Voidsteel Gauntlets with this build since lvl 50, I’m 72 now. With all the +% fire damage, the Witchblaze spell one shots all trash when it procs. Would this be a viable alternative to the LD gloves? I see you lose the 10% health from the three piece bonus, but Witchblaze just seems super powerful.

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Well crap, from patch notes:

Meteor Shower: Thermite Mines can no longer be assigned to this proc, slightly increased damage (this may cause your skill assignment to reset for this Celestial Power)

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That’s one of the few warranted nerfs this patch i don’t see the problem.

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I’ll spell it out for you then - “A fun build with no main attacking skill”

This is now just “A build with no main attacking skill”