Mr Freeze - A cold return to ranged combat Let’s kick some IceWhile streaming Grim Dawn and talking to the viewers I always claimed that I wanted a 2handed Ranged Character - The Reaper was the first one. More will follow!
General Build Idea
Mr Freeze - better than the movie version!- He is bad-tempered, emotionally cold and totally about shooting frozen things into a million pieces! Taking care of most enemies with a lot of stopping power, Mr. Freeze triggers many cold damage effects with a 2 handed ranged weapon (rifle or crossbow is just a matter of opinion - having a secondary weapon setup lets you switch between both sound effects though!)What is left standing dies quickly under fire from his chosen weapon of cold destruction. Lowering the enemies resistance helps to take on tougher enemies.
This character comes with his own secret: He was made mainly to have a relaxed time playing Grim Dawn - because of his secret weapon: The, also very cold, awesome army of the undead!
Skills
Essential Skills are
Amarasta's Blade Burst with Lethal Assault, Summon Skeletons, Call of the Grave and Pneumatic Burst
Additional Skills will be
Bone Harvest and Veil of Shadow with Night's Chill as well as Blade Barrier
Optional Skills - Variations Here comes the Bonus: This build can easily be focussed on either Minions or gunning alone.
I. Minion Version (recommended for levelling and players without an item collection present in the stash)
You go ahead and push the Necromancer Mastery all the way to 32. On the way there you pick up the essential skills mentioned above. You invest heavily into
Raise Skeletons
and both passives while doing that. Pick up
Bone Harvest
and invest some points into the 2nd passive
Soul Harvest
. Of course, we want all the minions we can get our hands on! But we do not have enough points for all of them. My recommendation is this: Paying tribute to our chosen class’s name, we then (Mid Elite-ish) push the Necromancer Mastery to Lvl 50 and invest in
Reap Spirit and Master of Death
. This gives us very powerful Minion(s) of Cold Death! And it looks amazing. The Spirit I mean. If you can get Reap Spirit above it’s Lvl Cap. you can even get two instead of one awesome looking fighter from beyond the grave.
II. Lone Ranger Version (recommended if you do not enjoy minions or want to go easier on your hardware)
For the determined Gunman, there is always a way! Push the Nightblade Mastery to 50 points and leave the Necromancer Mastery at 32 points. Pick up
Blade Spirit, Ring of Steel with both passives
and put some points into
Ill Omen, Phantasmal Armor, Veil of Shadow and Anatomy of Murder
to focus more on dealing damage and controlling enemy crowds as well as survive hero and boss fights easier! It might be worth taking Blade Trap instead of Bone Harvest if you do not trust your minions.
Situational Skills
Necrotic Edge
turned out to be something to consider only in the endgame for the Lone Ranger version. For levelling it uses loads of points without doing too much in a Hybrid build.
Spectral Binding
is a great booster for your character for the health boost alone. Might be dropped once the equipment gets better.
Mark of Torment
is worth checking out for the Lone Ranger Version mostly because of its potential crowd control benefit.
Siphon Souls
still needs to be tested for its potential of increasing survival chances and reducing powerful enemies crit chances.
Grimtools link
Current State of the build
Devotions
Basic Devotions are: Tsunami (5p),Jackal (3p) Shepherd’s Crook (5p), Rhowan’s Crown (5p), Murmur (6p), Amatok (7p), Raven (4p), Hawk (3p) = 30p
Optional Devotions are: Kraken (5p), Leviathan (7p) = 13p
Depending on your equipment you might need more energy, life, etc. pick some decent devotions up like Ghoul, Behemoth, Viper or Lizard, Sailors Guide.
Endgame Devotions are: in development right now ^.^
Items
Any BIG GUN will do ^.^ - Just kidding of course! There are plentiful options what to pick up, either crossbow or rifle work very well. You can get some weird, but sometimes also very powerful Crossbows from Ghost-type enemies. Those Spectral Arbalest need to be looked at! There are various options to boost acid, poison and vitality as well as cold damage with this build. Even bleeding is possible, not recommended though, because it relies on Items a lot. I´d recommend cold/vitality as sources of damage because it is amazing what you can get from the devotions. Feel free to experiment!
For the minions, it might be worth looking at Minion Attack Speed and Minion Damage on items if you can get decent rolls there without sacrificing too much in the area of resistances. Especially speed makes them into killing machines!
Levelling
Just to point it out before you guys run into any issues - It has become pretty clear that you, if you are just starting Grim Dawn and don´t have a full stash yet, need to focus on one part of the build starting around Act 2 Elite - Either focus on shooting or minions a lot! That goes for skills and Items. Devotions can stay though. It makes clearing Bosses and Heroes way easier. I would still recommend to start with the minions and use your shooting and skills to trigger
Shepherd's Call, Tsunami, Blizzard and/or Murmur
. It is possible to stick to the hybrid build all the way with a nice stash full of items and components though ^.^
End
If you have any questions feel free to send me a DM or reply to this post. I will try to come back to you as soon as possible. You can also catch me streaming Grim Dawn on Friday´s over at twitch.com/captn3mo. See you aboard!
Good luck and happy looting!
Ahoy and take care,
Captn3mo O7
[b]
PS: Do check out my other guides over [post=665360]here[/post][/b]
For questions about the Game, Mechanics and other things Grim Dawn look here:
Game Guide - http://www.grimdawn.com/game.php
Official Wiki - https://grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Grim_Dawn_Wiki
New Player Knowledge Compendium - http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56243