Hello there, hope this is the correct place to post this since its more a gameplay related question then it is a build related question.
Pretty newb player here, never really played the end game so. I was hoping some of the more insightful people of the Grim Dawn community can help me make my build end game ready. I dont know where to farm for upgrades and would love to know where to get some good replacements on the gear or even components or augments. Ultimate goal is Morgoneth set and hope i can farm it someday with this build.
centererd around Loxmere blades, SS and bone harvest.
Questions i have and would love some awnser to:
where and what to upgrade first? Farm better loxmere blades? Alkamos Rings? Solael pants for health on attack? i think my pants now are pretty solid but maybe im mistaken. Also im going to farm a Gargoyle waistguard for the conversion and +1 to nb skills.
are my skillpoints to spread? What to focus more and what less?
should i change anything in my devotion setup, for more OA on the nodes? As you can see with my buffs, have around 2500OA and 2900DA, hoping to reach the 3k+ numbers ofcourse but i think i need better gear for that.
thanks in advance and hope i gave enough information to think about!
Solid choice for a first endgame build by the way. It might be a bit on the squishy end but damn does SS reaper hit hard (which, with some skill, makes up for squishiness).
Also, very nicely structured post and detailed information. Makes it easy to give my input.
The first piece of gear I’d work on replacing is your amulet. The affixes on your current one are mediocre at best: not useless, not great. I’d suggest farming for either another Ellena’s Necklace or a Gaze of Ungoliax. +1 to NB is great, but -8% reliable rr is also great. Just depends on your preference probably, I’d imagine they’d take about the same time to farm.
I agree with farming a good Gargoyle Waistguard, you’re definitely going to want that. That vitality->cold conversion is huge for this build, both for Nightfall and especially for Soul Harvest, and even for Tip the Scales in your devotions.
I agree that your pants are fine. Solael pants are great to farm because they’re applicable to so many builds, but this one really doesn’t need the extra lifesteal. If you want to farm anything beyond the two aforementioned items, you could go for a better Loxmere’s Frostblade; that “of the Void” suffix is unforunate. But it’s not that big a deal at the moment I’d say. As for the Alkamos rings: they’re obviously ideal, but I’d say they’re one of the last things you should farm for this build. For now, if you have Mythical Band of the Eternal Haunt, I’d suggest replacing Nightscorn with that. Otherwise, your rings are fine, just focus on farming those greens and then the Morgoneth set.
Lastly, I highly recommend swapping out your head and shoulder components for either Living Armor or Sacred Plating. Those have great resistances, but importantly they also have armor absorption, which will increase your armor’s effectiveness. Combined with the Scaled Hide on your pants, it should just barely hit 100%, which is ideal. If you don’t have those blueprints, I think Vinelton sells them, he’s the vendor in Ancient Grove. If he doesn’t, farming totems probably couldn’t hurt, but definitely do a few runs through Ancient Grove first to see if he sells them.
Your skillpoints look pretty good at the moment, I’ll just throw in some suggestions. You can hard cap (20/10) Night’s Chill, definitely do that. It’s also a good idea to soft cap (10/10) Ill Omen, the damage reduction is very useful. And most importantly, you’re going to want to max out Soul Harvest (currently would be 14/12 if you did so). It’s especially useful when you have the Gargoyle Waistguard.
For devotions, you’re definitely going to want to get Viper (you could remove Lizard and Jackal). Basically entirely for the last node, although the others are fine. The OA is great and the RR is also great; I get Viper on any elemental damage type build that has any weapon damage (to apply that RR). You also don’t have a source of flat RR, so I highly suggest going for Elemental Storm on Rhowan’s Crown (probably put it on SS and find a different skill for Rumor since Rumor spreads anyway) or going for Revenant. Also, the Hand of Ultos node on Ultos, Shephard of Storms is actually the least useful node for a cold build, you could honestly take the devotion point out of that and not really notice a change in your gameplay, especially since you’ll have the RR from Viper (which is way more reliably applied anyway). I’d suggest taking the points from Solemn Watcher and putting them into Panther since you need OA, and then you could get the juicy 5% DA node on Obelisk to make up the DA difference.
Once you have those armor absorption components, I suggest getting your vitality resist overcapped to 33%, then you’d probably be good to try farming the Morgoneth set! You need primarily cold, vitality, and physical resist (or armor) for that dungeon, especially for Morgoneth. He’s a tough one, but I think your build can get the job done.
That’s a lot of information, but to be fair there’s a lot that goes into optimizing a build. You’ve done a really good job so far! I didn’t see anything that I’d call a “bad choice”. Just a few different things to prioritize and it should hopefully perform better
I hope that’s easy enough to digest, and I hope it helps!
GrimTools said you had 25 skill points remaining; some of those are from quests and some from SR probably but that doesn’t account for everything so I figured you had some points leftover. If you need to take out some more, you could take some out of Whirling Death and Execution (I suggest keeping them at 6/8, that’s a nice breakpoint), Anatomy of Murder (probably best to just be a one-pointer in this build unless you needed extra cunning to equip your daggers), Elemental Awakening (also a good one-pointer, although better than Anatomy of Murder to put more points in for this build), maybe 1 point out of Pneumatic Burst and Veil of Shadow (both have nice breakpoints at their soft caps). I’d also suggest doing the Hidden Path quest if you haven’t already, as well as completing SR 50 if possible. Those will give you more skill points.
Oh I can’t believe I forgot this, but hey I remembered now. Stun resist is important, so I’d definitely suggest putting a Runebound Topaz on your next amulet. Possibly even your medal if you can afford losing the chaos resist.
Also, I fiddled around for a bit and came up with this devotion setup. It has everything important: Murmur, Elemental Storm, Viper, Ghoul, and still manages to get both the cold damage from Ultos as well as the DA from Obelisk. Feel free to try this setup! It also has Empty Throne for more stun and slow resist (as well as general resistances), that’s why I even thought of it in the first place.
thanks, that devotion setup looking solid as well.
im using: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV19O4DV now, really like the Scales devotion + going to farm for gargoyle now so that vit dmg on it becomes handy as well. Skill points i will chase, as well as a new amulet and made the epic ring u said. So looking better already! 2500oa-2900da buffed up with pneumatic burst.
