[Cold/Frostburn] Crossbow Spellbreaker

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

This is the first build guide I make, enjoy.
I always build my characters around a theme or an idea and I don’t much like mixing all kind of gear and looking like a clown or shitting out poison everywhere when you’re a fire demo, I also tend to value my Grim Fashion more than my dps and so I present to you…

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Crossbow Spellbreaker vs. HC Ultimate Loghorrean
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I found the generic Shadow Strike melee Spellbreaker to be quite boring to play so I wanted something a bit more original, I searched through my stashes for inspiration and stumbled upon the almost-never-used Northern Wyrm and this is how the whole build idea started.

- The Build -

Base: http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-JRUjin
+skills: http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-uoP3YR
Grimtools: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NK79nND

Attributes: All into Physique (Put some points into Cunning if you don’t have the 494 required to equip The Northern Wyrm)

Devotions:
Whirlpool -> Amarasta’s Blade Burst
Elemental Storm -> Ice Wyrm’s Breath (Weapon skill)
Blizzard -> Blade Spirit

This setup is fine for most of the content, if you find that your Blade Spirits aren’t critting enough due to low OA, put the Whirpool on them instead and the Elemental Storm on your Amarasta’s Blade Burst, this is also a good setup for single bosses since the Blade Spirits don’t cleave multiple enemies and so they don’t crit as much.

- The Gear -

Head: Clairvoyant Hat
Shoulders: Chilldread Mantle / Deathmarked Shoulderguard / MI of your choice
Chest: Frostdread Cuirass
Hands: Iceskorn Talons
Waist: Spellbreaker Waistguard
Legs: Empowered Legplates of Valor / Deathwhisper Leggings / MI of your choice
Feet: Golemborn Greaves / MI of your choice
Weapon: The Northern Wyrm :cool:
Ring 1: Alkamos’ Touch of Anguish / Band of the Eternal Haunt
Ring 2: Alkamos Touch of Dread / MI of your choice
Amulet: Empowered Essence of Beronath / The Peerless Eye of Beronath / Starfury Emerald :cool:
Medal: Mark of Divinity / Mark of Dark Dreams
Relic: Nemesis

Gear isn’t set in stone, I am lacking the perfect MIs to cap my resists and could always use more OA so feel free to adapt to your personal drops.
The Northern Wyrm could also be swapped for a MI if you find a crazy cold rifle or something but what the point swapping out this beauty for an ugly ass generic skin?
Slot Vengeful Wraiths into your rings along with the Malkadarr’s Chillbane augment if you want a more offensive build.

- How it works -

The build makes use as Amarasta’s Blade Burst as its main attack, the skill has a short cooldown but it increases all your cold damage from any source while it is recharging. For this reason, Attack speed isn’t as valuable as in other non caster builds.
Blade Spirit should be cast on cooldown, they deal decent AoE cold damage and proc Blizzard which deals an enormous amount of Frostburn damage and should proc quite often when cleaving multiple enemies.
Ice Wyrm’s Breath is your CC skill, it will freeze all the targets in it’s path, and will proc Elemental Storm, use it whenever it comes off cooldown. Extremely good against trash mobs.
Nullification, Mirror of Erectote and Blade Barrier are all situational skills used to debuff enemies or make yourself invulnerable for those ‘oh shit’ moments.

The build is somewhat squishy, so feel free to spend more points into Maiven’s Sphere of Protection if you really value your life, other than that, kiting plus all the freeze procs should do the job nicely while Frostburn keeps ticking.

It is Hardcore viable if you play it safe, I personally didn’t play this build for my entire leveling, using a generic Shadow Strike Spellbreaker build instead but it is completely viable once you reach level 75 to finish Ultimate and clear the roguelike dungeons.
I wouldn’t bring this build in the Crucible though, but feel free to experiment.

Thanks to everyone in the GD community, all the people coming up with amazing builds.
Chthon with his Dual pistol Cold Spellbreaker build that helped me with the final touches.
Ryzel for the interesting read about gearing for cold/frostburn in his Blademaster Guide.

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2

Lol, i just replied to you in my own thread

Glad you took the time to post this

Btw, i’d change somethings

-RR devotions like Elemental Storm should preferably be attached to your LMB skills

-Blade Spirits can spawn multiple Whirlpools so they are better sources to proc them

-You already mentioned needing better items for gear, consider Empowered Essence or Peerless Eye

-MIs are a bitch, don’t worry :wink:

Btw, had to ask. How is Blizzard treating you? I never found that devotion to be very attractive compared to Tempest for Lightning
Is it considerable (after new patch i mean)?

3

I actually had the Whirpool and Elemental Storm skill links swapped most of the time and only changed them for Log since the Blade Spirit would just fly all over the place instead of where I wanted them, on the boss. I’ll fix that, thanks.

I crafted the Starfury Emerald just for the proc because its looks pretty cool and fits the theme but you’re right, it’s not a huge increase though but I’ll add that as an option.

Blizzard isn’t that great due to its on-crit nature and the skill it’s linked to but it looks cool as well plus the constellation gives me both damage and some much needed HP. It’s really up to you, there are better options for defense.
I didn’t try Tsunami.

Thanks for the feedback!

4

-Tsunami works wonders with Wind Devils/ Bladespirit but it’s not a mandatory skill in any cold/lightning build

-Peerless/Essence should give you something far more valuable than the proc.

-Ty for the feedback on Blizzard
Guess i won’t be going for it anytime soon then :undecided:

-Btw i noticed do you not have Nemesis bound to your hotbar? Cause the pet is pretty decent

-And forgot to say this but the freeze effect on the stat screens looks cool :cool:

5

Looks awesome man, I considered making a similar Spellbreaker and will probably follow your setup.

No Kraken? IMO Kraken is probably superior to Viper so I would probably get that.

6

I’d drop Amatok for Kraken

Viper is needed for RR

7

I have all my passive buffs/summons on my second skillbar.
By the way, do you have any idea what sort of damage the summoned chillmane from Heart of the Mountain deal? And if it would be worth using without pet stats?

8

Night’s Embrace is an option for your Amulet BTW. Chillmane isn’t worth in a non-pet build IMO.

9

It ain’t worth it. That amulet slot seems too precious to be wasted like that imo

If you want another Summon then Nemesis fits the part

Even if you’re trying to unique, Chillmane would only be a waste of mana in tough boss fights.

Night’s Embrace doesn’t work anymore iirc

10

Thanks for the feedback guys, gotta farm some aether crystals and then I’ll play around with devotions.

11

Tonic of clarity is also needed in case you need a full reset

Nemeses drop them as often as health potions

12

Doesn’t work how? I’m just thinking the stats. The freeze thing got nerfed, but the stats are pretty good AFAIK.

13

I’d love to try Night’s Embrace but I don’t have one.

14

Just wanted to say you mention Eternal Haunt Ring to be BIS

It’s not actually, currently Alkamos Set is BiS (if you take into account the plus skills)

Deathwhisper Leggings should be BiS damage-wise but overall build needs resistances so they are literally unusable in most ABB builds

MI+ Eternal Haunt works really well, but Alkamos Rings are currently superior

Eternal Haunt seems to be good for Aether but for Cold it isn’t BiS anymore

15

Thanks for the suggestion, I think people usually go for BiS = best for damage in this specific build so that’s what I went for with the Deathwhisper Leggings, if I start calling BiS some everyday defensive piece of gear, it’s not going to be very build specific. I might as well remove the BiS stuff, just leave everything as suggestion and let people balance their offense/defense however they want.

I should go get that second Alkamos ring.

Also, what could be a good default shoulder armor that isn’t a MI? I’m guessing Chilldread Mantle.

16

Hey Krag, I was thinking of starting this character as my 2nd because I found the crossbow and I tend to enjoy frost-based classes in games like this. any suggestions as far as leveling path, skills etc? i’d appreciate any help you feel like giving :slight_smile:

17

I’d probably level as a generic dual wield melee spellbreaker, either ABB or SS focused, it’s up to you.

18

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52220

I did a similar build. This build works perfectly with iskandra in that case the iskandra amulet is a perfect 1 for u. The Pet form the mount medal isnt that big deal evry pet builder try it and its shit. So i think the The Peerless Eye of Beronath is better options.

For the blade spirit the 10 poionts is waste of time, u njust need to use it to proc whirlpool. U can take viper and kraken too not a big deal.

Elemntal awekening is another usless waste of points, unlees if u need resist of that. U can reach cold, frostburn dmg 1000% without that. After that the % dmg doesnt count.

Merciless repertoire is the same as elemntal awekenign u can skip it too.

I know u get lot of +skill point in these, but its not worthyt. If u get iskandra or better gear u can change these.

Choton mentioned the alakamos rings. i think dont worthyt. The only thing u can use from that the Dread ring. The chance to deal, the cunnig and avoid % is good, but the other doesnt very good, and the proc from the ring even not god beacuse of the range. So u shoot people from far distance and 3 meter radius is very low.

The 20 30%cold dmg its too low, with 2 haunt u can get - 20% cold wich is a huge dmg boost.

Elemental strom is good trash killer, but there is better options for u i think. The resist reduction doesnt stack from that.

19

All correct but Haunt Ring’s proc doesn’t stack with itself

So 2x haunt ring would be -10% Cold resistance (not -20%)

And -10% RR while is valuable in a build that lacks RR, it does fall behind the flat Cold and Frostburn provided through Alkamos Rings

Hence for the time being Alkamos Rings are BiS for Cold builds

20

I still think that either are the 2 haunts or 1 haunt and 1 other are is equal in this case with the alakamos ring. The proc range is till low for ranged type builds.

And dmg is 1000% + so doesnt coutn that much most of the ring abilities. only the 2% avoid and % chance to do frostburn dmg worthyt. (U can dodge too, so the a % avoid not aply any time.)

If he will be go with melee i would say it is BIS. Then it makes sense the proc from the ring.