[Build Help] A Neophyte's Attempt at and End Game Build - Fire Strike & Grenado Sorcerer?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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:wave: Hello lovely people,

I am new to this game and have spent my first 20 hours of playtime leveling a bunch of different classes / play styles up to 20-25 or so, and then circling back to these forums for the next enticing thing to try. Some of my favorite things in video games are build diversity and theory-crafting, and with a game as generally well-balanced as this one seems to be, my build paralysis / indecisiveness is way, way worse than usual - in a good way!

All that said, I thought maybe I’d feel more motivated to stick with something if it was a bit more of my own invention. Using some general guidance I’ve gleamed here and taking into account what I have enjoyed thus far, I whipped up a build in Grimtools that I’m curious to hear your feedback on! Would it be viable for endgame content? Am I on the right track with my build methodology? What would you change?

It’s a 2H ranged sorcerer focused around using Fire Strike and Grenado, because I have been having a blast using these. To reiterate, I know very little about how end game gear is meant to synergize, what the best bits and pieces are, etc - I just went off of info I’ve gleamed around end game resist stats plus my best judgment. I trust you’ll be constructive rather than mean, but please let me know what you think! I had fun making it, so hopefully - if nothing else - it can at least be iterated on, rather than scrapped. :slight_smile:

Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6)

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a fat 0 RR on a fire build

you have some lifesteal, but you will probably want a bit more, and you did get Dryad so that will help a bit with that shortfall
while you did cap your resist, you’ll also want overcaps to guard against debuffs, elemental and aether in particular
OA/DA is tolerable, but OA aint spectacular, tho you should stay within decent base hit chance atleast
hp pool is tolerable but not spectacular, which then is impacted by the lack of resist overcaps, and low armour absorb
your phys res is nice for a fire build, so good job on that
attack speed is ok for a 2h, but not fantastic, but you did grab kraken and hydra etc etc, so you did what you could there
1pt mirror good :+1:
1pt nulli would probably be potentially useful too in some situations
1pt arcane will just because, free boost to +4 from gear, and it’s a “free” passive proc buff

trigger-wise your devotion assignment isn’t the best to skills
fiend/flame torrent is a low cd skill, you’ve attached to a long cooldown skill, which means a lot of potential procs and dmg will be wasted
meanwhile dryad is a mid cd skill with high proc chance, and you’ve attached it to a spamable
that means you can’t control the proc, and might potentialyl waste it at full or near full health - if you attach it to similar CD skill around 2.5-3-3.5 sec, dryad gets 100% proc chance and you can control the proc when you want it, while still getting 100% uptime

not really gonna go into the “no wps thing” as a complaint/"lack, it’s a sorc which means all wps would have to come from items, and those items you might not have, or might not jell with your overall desire of firestrike and grenado mix - wps would make your firestrike stronger tho ofc

oh and slight generalization optimization note, concerning armour augments
when you have 2 mono augments, for which there exist a duo augment, it’s always better to use 2duo than 2 mono
in this case 15-15 pierce vitality mono augments vs 2x 10-10 pierce/vit duo augs = 20-20, 5 more of each for the same 2 slots

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*stun res is overcapped, so you don’t need the leathery hide component
CC res dont’ need overcaps as they can’t be reduced by debuffs

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Thank you so much for these responses! This is super helpful in understanding how to build and consider a lot of the variables involved.

I’ve re-worked it a bit to incorporate your feedback (no more aggressively over-capped stun, RR via OFF, more optimized augments, better OA, better armor / absorption, overcapped resists, a bit more attack speed). Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Regarding WPS (weapon pool skills, right? like on-hit effects?) … you obviously don’t owe me anything as you’ve already helped a bunch with my understanding of things, but any good info you’d convey or threads you’d point me to to better understand their merits / importance?

Anyway, thank you again!

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doesn’t work, sry to spoil your hopes :sweat_smile:
OFF is a special type skill, it does a freeze check first before anything else, incl dmg or debuff
so when/if a monster has 100 freeze resist or higher, it does 0 dmg and wont debuff = 0 RR
and all bosses have 100+ freeze resist,
some regular monsters also have freeze immunity, like plants and constructs
you’ll want thermite mines in demolitionist, eldritch fire in devotion and either revenant/rhowan’s crown(crown/revenant type RR doesn’t stack with themselves, so take either, difference sources of -x% RR stacks, hence why mines+eldritch fire works)

correct

sort of, they are a special type of procs, only triggered by auto attacks/default attacks and replacers (liek fire strike) and modifiers that attacks specifically,
where as regular on hit effect/procs are just separate stand-alone effects triggered by any type of attack and works/its effect is independent of the attack that triggered it, examples would be your procs on rings

item swap wise, the old medal has a wps on it, but it doesnt’ apply to 2h attacks (sadly :pensive:), but it was good for your fire strike still since it had dmg modifiers for it, and lifesteal
by changing that medal you lost firestrike dmg and lifesteal/heals
you did get more resist, oa, armour absorb, so that’s all good,
lost a bit of hp, and some devo stuff could probably be rearranged to maintain some stat stuff
ulzuin torch is good/decent for fire dmg builds, so might not really need to go high into purples and take Sage
ex with only changing medal back and devos including 2 RR devos and torch Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
you’ll still likely want to give consideration to thermite mines to improve dmg, and while i did say to 1pt arcane will before (since it was boosted for free by the old items) it might not have 9pts value “now”, and you could take other stuff, ex Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
ex with revenant instead of crown Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

as for for Chariot devotion/Wayward Soul proc, when a passive heal proc like that is attached to a constant active buff, there is a chance it might go off when it’s less useful to you, like when you’re at high health
if you attach it to a circuit breaker type buff, a temp/proc buff that’s only active at certain criteria, like when low health, ex Blast Shield, what happens is then that heal can only go off when you have that buff on, which only triggers after losing health, ie you wont get healed until having lost some health

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RIP - I clearly have a lot to learn here lmao. I was like "Oh dang, -100? That takes care of that, then!

Gotcha, okay - that’s super helpful. I’m definitely still fumbling my way around the devotion tree right now, and having a tough idea understanding what to prioritize.

Oh woah this does look better…

You are blowing my mind right now

That… is embarrassingly something I did not intuit myself but I appreciate you pointing that out. Yet another consideration in mapping these devotion procs…

Yo, what are you some kind of genius? Haha this is amazing! Thank you so much for so sincerely engaging with my concept and helping me understand these mechanics, I appreciate you immensely. I honestly believe learning from error (when practical) is one of the best ways to make concepts stick, and you’re helping me out so much. It’s funny how positively your small tweaks impacted the numbers here…

I do think I’ll probably have to bite the bullet and do thermite mines… I wanted a build that stood out a bit and didn’t understand why people don’t like grenado but now I can see much more clearly why it at the very least makes way less sense to prioritize.

I wish I could cook you dinner or something for the time you spent typing that all up, but please know I really appreciate it / you!

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Just as a heads up: you may want to look into Barresmith’s Destroyers set. It’s for lightning Grenado though, but otherwise it should be up your alley. A [very] rough sketch: Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator