[Blademaster] 2 Handed Sword Master

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Update : 05/04/2017
After much try and die, here’s the last version. The one I’m most happy with.
It’s not perfect but it does the job and I cleared most content with it (BOC, mad queen, fabius etc.) with reasonable speed.

Clearly, two handers aren’t the best weapons and two handed swords aren’t the bests two handers, but it works and I’m proud it does.
As it is, pierce damage was a dead end with two handed swords because 22% base pierce conversion is too low.
Even with blades of nadaan and sinister prefixe you can’t have more than 70% pierce conversion. Too much effort for too few rewards.

So I decided to go physical and it really works better (plus I don’t have to search for specific pierce conversion prefixe or constellations).

Before I go further I would like to thanks Chthon, Superfluff, and all the others that gave me advices.
I tried most advices to find what suited me the most, and here it is.

First, I love greatsword and I love Grim Dawn too.
But Grim Dawn doesn’t seem to like greatswords.

So here’s my attempt to make an ultimate viable 2h Sword Master.

Some pics of the build (stats etc.) with pneumatic burst and buffs on.
images updated 05/04/2017

Grimcalc updated 05/04/2017
And grimcalc (with +skills), +3 soldier skills, +1 all skills
http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-i9okXC

So, the concept is about a 2h sword user. The original idea was to go pierce damage, so I choose Blademaster.
Nightblade because of pierce debuff and soldier because that’s a great class, plus the title seems to speak for itself :wink:

Skills updated 05/04/2017

Here’s my skill bind :
mouse 1 : cadence (with assassin’s mark)
mouse 2 : blitz (with falcon swoop)
mouse 3 : pneumatic burst
keypad 1 : war cry
keypad 2 : ring of steel (with blind fury)
keypad 3 : oleron’s might (with cleansing waters)
keypad 4 : gaze of beronath
keypad 5 :

The gameplay is more dynamic, you just have to rush in pack mobs with blitz, debuff them with war cry and hack them with cadence, ring of steel and oleron’s might, I use gaze of beronath only on bosses.
You’re quite tanky but not immortal, so sometimes you have to retreat to regenerate and go back into melee.

Equips updated 05/04/2017
Here’s my equips :
Head: Warborn visor (w/ sanctified bone)
Shoulders: Warborn pauldrons (w/antivenom salve)
Chest: Warborn chestguard (w/ chains of oleron)
hand: Voidsteel gauntlets (w/ unholy inscription)
Leg: Hellforged legplates (w/antivenom salve)
Relic: Oleron’s wrath
Weapon : Frenzied Imperial Claymore of voracity (w/ oleron’s blood)
Any two handed sword that gives bonus damage, attack speed and ADCTH is good to go, the best being Frenzied of Voracity I think.
Ring #1: Closed fist of vengeance (w/ corpse dust)
Ring #2: Open hand of mercy (w/ corpse dust)
Neck: The peerless eye of beronath (w/ vicious jawbone)
Belt: Reforged chains of oleron (w/antivenom salve)
Boots: Golemborn Greaves (w/ mark of mogdrogen)
Medal: Mark of Divinity (w/ vicious jawbone)

Yep, Oleron’s my arms dealer :slight_smile:

And that ain’t changing, even more Oleron’s with devotions :wink:
Some MIs might be better (the usual suspects there :slight_smile: ), but I do not have the patience to farm them, and it works pretty well as it is.
Poison and aether resists are a little low but with the adequate potions it goes pretty well, you can always change augments to have better poison or aether resists if you like.
Most augments are Mankind vigil’s : +7% aether/chaos resists.

Well, that’s all.
Again a big thanks to all those advices they helped a lot (with a lot of trial and errors).
And thanks Crate for this great game, but do not forget two-handers and two handed swords, they really are lost tier weapons now.

Well, it doesn’t seems that bad, but 2h swords are clearly underpowered compared to 2h axes or 2h maces (not enough pierce conversion for a pierce build, too much for a physical one, too bad)

Devs please, give a little more love for greatswords users…

Well, that’s all for now. Any advice is welcome if I can make this 2h swordmaster a master of Grim Dawn :wink:

2

First video against fabius.
That was my first time using plays TV and recording a video so I wasn’t that much on the fight.

3

Also reserved for later

4

@Superfluff Avatar of Oleron makes it’s way to the forums :rolleyes:

Great build Red

Advice on the build-

[SPOILER]

  1. Too much investment into Squad Tactics

  2. Wrong point into Transmuter for PB

  3. Don’t need Phantasmal Armor and Elemental Awakening

  4. Drop MoD for BSoD and remove manticore to get Unknown Soldier

  5. Try to get War Cry so that you can get Piercing Aura

  6. Change your pants to MIs (farm them :D)[/spoiler]

5

I would also add: have you tried maxing dual blades for the flat damage? I’m not sure it will improve the build, since the usefulness of flat damage it is very dependent on attack speed, but it should be worth a try. Also, maybe forcewave could improve the aoe damage, although I don’t know if it is worth investing the point tbh.

Nice build overall, I initially wanted to try something similar, but than I gave up since there isn’t any real support for 2h piercing at legendary level…

6

Not much time, but why not transmuter for Pneumatic burst. That’s twice more heal for 1 point, but I’ll try.

Mod for BSOD, I don’t know all the abreviation, could you be more explicit ?

And manticore add for pierce res debuff (but it’s a pain to get it), wouldn’t it drop my DPS if I drop it ?

7

Does this work with a two hander? :confused:

8

Dual Blades and the Pneumatic Burst modifier only work with dual wield melee weapons.

9

We need video.

10

Haha, great :smiley: this was my first concept when I started GD. Avatar of Oleron 2h Sword Blademaster. MASSive damage potential. Never got a sword like yours. Got a Heart Piercing of Ruthlessness.

Video here from patch 0.6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz-4Bxv3bys&index=12&list=UUnKuNOEpft5I9bZ81ulaz5w

Edit: i still love the concept. OP if you want i could give some tips as i played this build for 100 hours or so. Your dps could be a lot higher and mixing phys with pierce like i did pays off as you can see in the video.

11

Incorruptible Cronley Ring of Nature’s Bounty? For real?

12

whoops, forgot about that…I’m too used to go with piercing dual wielding :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Going to be keeping an eye on this thread. I like the charge from the Soldier and the shadow step from the Nightblade. They both seem to only worry about MH damage, so I been trying to think up a solid build that was really mobile, but didn’t go to dual wielding like most builds involving Nightblade do. But I just started playing this game this week, so I’m not quite well versed enough to make my own brew yet.

But this seems to be on the path I’m looking for.

14

Yeah totally agree. GD’s 2H animations look best when used with claymore-style swords so it’s a shame that there’s not much top-tier gameplay support for them. Here’s hoping the 8th mastery will be Deathmark and will have good 2h piercing skills. Also, item sets with 2h swords.

15

Following Ch’ton advices, I went from 35k DPS to 40k DPS.
Thanks a lot. I still have to test it and farm those pants.
To Superfluff, I’ll take any advice you can give me, as I’ll really want it to be viable (at least against nemesis).

A little bit off topic.
I haven’t made any videos till now, could you tell me what do you use to make yours ?

Small Edit, I could facetank Rashalga and kill her in the first try without proc from mark of divinity :slight_smile:
It took me between 30 sec and a minute (I’ll do a better on later tries)

16

I’m using PlaysTV (AMD recording tool). Easy usage, recording and cutting. You can upload the clips to YouTube and PlaysTV, as you prefer.

As Nvidia user the same goes for Shadowplay, I guess.

17

Your DPS could be at 65K easily. You don’t need so many defensive devotions. You can take Oleron and thief too. Max unknown soldier. Black star can still be used for debuff instead of the expensive manticore adn also solves life steal so you can use better ring. I also have cunning investment and HP just above 10k but dps is over 65k

18

Even in patch 1.0.0.8? :confused:

19

Yes, Patch 0.6 where i made that video was over 70K:cry:

20

Still a pretty sweet ass build :cool:

Btw, i was asking about defenses. Can BMs afford to drop defenses this patch? I know traditional BMs high offense is the best defense but things changed this patch