Death Knight - Cadence + Reaping Strike + Spectral Binding (Spectral Wrath)

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Greetings!

I bought the Forgotten Gods, and have Ashes of Malmouth as well, so now I have the full game. (I am very impressed by Crate Entertainment, these guys are gods walking among mere men)

I intend to create a hardcore Death Knight this time, cause it death knights seem to be evil, mysterious and cool. I love melee characters that use shields and swords. I was thinking of getting Reaping Strike for the healing effect only. But in order to make it more effective, I have to invest in constellations which increase Aether or Vitality damage?

My main question is, how effective is Reaping Strike for the healing effect?

In order to increase the effectiveness of Reaping Strike I was thinking of investing in Spectral Binding. Does Spectral Binding increase the effectiveness of Reaping Strike? Also, is the Aether and Vitality damage from Spectral Wrath added to Reaping Strike? (the in-game descriptions of the skills are confusing to me, I guess they are lore and not explanations how the skills work… also, English is my 3rd language, being a minority in my country)

My attack skill would be Cadence. My question is, Reaping Strike is activated during the 3rd hit of Cadence or during the two “in-between” normal weapon hits? (Cadence activates on the 3rd hit)

I would have Menhir’s Will for an “emergency” heal, this skill saved the life of my previous hardcore character plenty of times.

Overguard, Veterancy and Menhir’s Bulwark for the health regen effect, which kept my previous hardcore character alive. (I didn’t finish Elite yet though, so my experience in this game is limited)

If I would not have to invest points into Spectral Binding and Spectral Wrath, then I would put those points into Field Command and Squad Tactics.

I would like it if I would only have to invest skill points into Reaping Strike and then make it more effective with constellations. But this way I would have to get aether/vitality constellations and phisycal damage enhancer constellations, which I think would not be that effective.

Any advice is appreciated, I want to learn, because I know that I will be playing this game for many years to come.

This would be my build (the gear and consellations are not selected)
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/d2jl7BvZ
or
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2MBPMmV

2

Reaping strike has some healing effect,but is single target and like other melee wps works well with high attack speed,DW build in particular.

3

Can Reaping Strike proc on the activation of Cadence (3rd hit)? Cause then Fighting Form hits 3 targets and then Reaping Strike would steal life from 3 targets.

Or Cadence and these “can activate with all default weapon attacks” skill activate separately? (meaning that Cadence overrides these proc skills)

4

cadence is essentially a forced weapon pool skill every 3rd hit, it override everything else. so you can only get reaping strike or similar wps ability on the other 2 hits

spectral wrath is a spell/debuff so damage from that isn’t adding to your attacks, all flat damage from buffs like spectral binding is added to any attack with weapon dmg tho

death knight only works well as physical out of the box w/o items really, so you just wanna allin on physical dmg and ignore boosting aether/vit

as for the sustain part it is nice, but it’s not that reliable. you want global attack dmg converted to health on all of your attacks to sustain well! can get this from devotion or some item component

5

For S&B or 2h,no Cadence will override it.Plus Reaping strike will hit one target,irregardless of fighting form,they’re separate attacks,even if activated at same time.

6

Thanks guys for the explanations.

I checked Grim Tools and found all the constellations which convert attack damage to health, and these are as follows:
Toad 3%
Bat 3%
Ghoul 4%
Yugol, the Insatiable Night 6%
Revenant 6%

If I were to get these constellations, then I would get a total of 22% attack damage converted to health. But, if I were to get these constellations, I would not get +% to physical damage, which results in having a low damage output. Out of these constellations Yugol, the Insatiable Night adds a total of +180% to cold damage, in which case I could get the Discord transmuter for Cadence to turn physical into elemental, but this doesn’t sound to be a solution.

7

Discord DK is bad idea.DK is best for physical or aether with Krieg set end game.

You have items with life steal and also components.I use even on melee restless remains.Seal of blades is option,too.For constellation Ghoul has nice circuit breaker proc other than life steal.

8

I will keep this in mind, thank you!

After reading the responses, I decided to go for Reaping Strike only, which takes 11 points to max, Mastery point included. It has 136% weapon damage, hopefully it will activate often enough to keep me alive. If I won’t be satisfied with it, I can take back my skill points, or change my build later in the game.

9

There is a very detailed beginner death knight guide here, I recommend you to follow it.

https://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74487