Demolitionist 2nd Class Help

Hi, I’m looking for some help in deciding the best 2nd class for a demolitionist caster.
I want to use most or all of the demo skills (stun jacks, grenado, canister bomb, with a few points in mortar, flashbang, thermite mine, blackwater cocktail).
However, I’m not sure which of the 2nd class choices is best.
I’ve been playing a glass cannon build until level 58 but it started to fall off as I can no longer kill bosses in 1 second, and I die in 1 hit.

Note this character is on grim league so there are some special items that can give me different bonuses or conversions (for example, 100% of physical and of fire damage to cold for grenado).

So I’m thinking of either 2nd class soldier, arcanist, or oathkeeper.
I’m not sure what gear or weapons to use so I put the flamebreaker shield as it would be needed for 2 of the classes.

demolitionist template

  • soldier
    grimtools /calc/4NObqBdZ

  • oathkeeper
    grimtools /calc/m23aBlYZ

  • arcanist
    grimtools /calc/Q2zJxya2

Can anyone provide some pointers on the best levelling options with this?
Is it even viable? Every build I’ve seen ditches stun jacks completely.

I also thought for a long time about a shaman dual focused on lightning (for grenado and stun jacks), would that work better?
For example something like this:
grimtools /calc/a2En6ajV
But I don’t really have enough points for anything other than grenado, storm totem, wind devil, and some passives, so I would need to give up stun jacks for this build (as well canister bomb), so it doesn’t fit my favourite idea of a playstyle:
grimtools /calc/a2En6ajV
(I would definitely need ultos constellation for this).

Regarding devotions, I don’t really mind or know which are best. I had pure damage (mage, crown) but I’ve switched to tank (turtle, dryad, tree of life).

Probably Arcanist, because you could achieve a good amount of support with less points.
edit: Ofc, other masteries could work too, case in point, oathkeeper is a very universal one too

a few random notes:

in terms of explicit item support there is basically nothing that has stun jacks as well as grenado and canister bomb. maybe if you try to max +skills (basically impossible without gdstash) you can get somewhere (at least viable in campaign).

i really wouldn’t add all the other spells on top. if you can’t commit to any of 'em (and you can’t due to point constraints) they don’t do anything for your build. you want thermite mines though, resistance reduction is key. one sweet spot for these is 13/16 up to which you get -2% rr per point.

in arcanist you want star pact, in oathkeeper divine mandate and the guardians celestial presence aura so you really have to compromise in demo. what i’d try to do first is probably the elementalist using the transmuters for grenado and canister bomb (and maybe you can let go of stun jacks and just embrace barrelsmiths). arcanist would probably also go lightning to make use of star pact and its skill cooldown reduction. oathkeeper might try to go fire jacks, there is some conversion in that direction or you could use the easiest elemental to phys conversion with oathkeeper.

edit:

i mean you can no doubt get through the campaign. if you want to stick with all 3 ulzuin’s chosen skills i’d probably focus on damage over time, i.e. on canister bomb prioritize improved casing and level the main skill only for more fragments. with stun jacks prioritize full spread, grenado is most often used for the flat damage but you can go damage over time with coerced wraith. add ulraprax sting for stun jacks, maybe moltenclaw slicer for canister bomb and that should let you stack damage over time well enough.

I can’t say enough good things about this build.

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i would say you can choose any class by using barrelsmith+ulzuin set parts and play lightning canister+grenado demo caster. So arcanist as mentioned above or shaman for regeneration should be nice.

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thank you! I didn’t know about the barrelsmiths, I looked up a build using them and found Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.2.0.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator so I might go arcanist

I also realise that having all my skills is unrealistic, so I’m gonna have to give up most of them, and keep 2 or 3 at most. I like stun jacks but I find canister, cocktail and grenado the most fun so if I keep 2 of them i’ll be happy

thank you for the item links! I used ulrapax sting a lot, it’s very good. I’ll have to farm the moltenclaw slicer soon

thank you for the link, it seems like a good build but it doesn’t use the skills I like (cocktail, jacks, grenado, canister)

thank you, barrelsmiths seem great, so then yeah either arcanist or shaman, and stick to just grenado, canister bomb, and probably ditch jacks in favour of storm totem (or wind devil)

as i was searching the forums for acid cadence i found @Gnomish_Inquisition’s build collection, he went with barrelsmith’s plus stun jacks (bombadier). i bet going lightning cocktail would also be possible instead using wyrmbone gloves + lightning cocktail conduit.

that’s not a “collection” i’d recommend to others/new players etc
It’s largely purely GDstashed suboptimal builds, with far from accepted meta performance despite it, if at all.

the barrelsmith elementalist is a good example of that
aside from being super piano, it just doesn’t work well, and requires GDstashed fantasy items(now unobtainable items) to get that specific setup.

If you go barrelsmiths, just go nado canister, dont’ try to add in slow jacks etc etc
Use the rest for safeties, passives etc so it can actually also survive, and not give you arthritis on top :sweat_smile:

I see, thank you. I am struggling with a piano build at the moment as I have flashbang (RR), grenado (massive damage), stun jacks (heal from devotion + good damage in melee range + massive DOT), canister (some DOT), lightning nova (DOT), fire ray (massive DOT), cocktail (a bit of RR), thermite mine (RR), jump (a bit of DOT), and I have to also place mortar trap at the start. Each boss fight ends up with 5-6 skills that I need to re-use every 3 seconds. I am enjoying it but it’s inefficient.

I also have a massive issue with survival (despite dryad, blast shield and turtle).

I think you have too many buttons to press.

Drop Fire Ray, Mortars and stun jacks for sure and try to focus on 4-5 active skills instead

So after some more thinking, I’m deciding between Shaman or Arcanist 2nd class

Shaman:

  1. 33% chance of 450% lightning damage
  2. health and hp regen
  3. 33% bonus ele RR, which combined with the arcane bomb devotion and thermite mines, would give me 100% elemental RR

Arcanist:

  1. 22% damage absorption
  2. 135% permanent elemental damage
  3. bonus spirit and %OA
  4. 3 second invulnerability once
  5. bonus damage if hp gets low

I’m thinking shaman would work best due to 100% elemental RR. Would this work against Mogdrogen? And would it work better than arcanist?

Hey, I just posted a whole thing about the demolitionist class. Forum Link

Of course this was more about playing the demolitionist without a second mastery, but this is my favorite class so here’s some advice.

Since it looks like you’re most interested in the skills of the demolitionist then know that it’s entirely possible to solo the class through the entire game’s content. And this way all your skill points go into bombs.

If you want to use all the bombs, then go for a barrelsmith build like this: Grim Tools. It’s a completely viable build for endgame content with only moderate farming required. You’ll need the guns to combine for 100% fire conversion, and the two monster infrequents will take some farming, but it’s doable.

There’s also the more unconventional option of going cold damage, like this: Grim Tools. It uses the same spells as before, they’re just not as powerful.

But really, the fun in Grim Dawn comes from the dual class system, so I get wanting to go that route. The problem is that it necessitates a wider spread in skill points so you have to be more selective about what spells you go all in on. So at most you can generally only use one or two bombs as a primary attack. The good news is that every spell in the demo’s arsenal is viable if maxed out with supporting gear enhancements. Even thermite mine, mortar trap, and vindictive flame can all be your primary damage dealers if built around them. So there’s some flexibility with build options. If you think something sounds fun, then try it.

For what it’s worth, here are some builds that I’ve played around with over the years.

Elementalist - Grim Tools - Along the lines of what you were describing before. It has lots of bombs and other spells to dish out damage. However, I abandoned this build because it’s a real keyboard smasher. It was fun at first, but I grew tired of it after a while. If, on the other hand, you want to cast lots of lightning damage to deal lots of hurt, this could work. And once again the guns will need to get as close to 100% fire conversion for this to fully work.

Commando - Grim Tools - Fairly viable. The Mythical Beronath, Reforged works wonders for the demolitionist because almost everything is elemental and chaos damage. So this one item converts almost all damage to physical making builds like this easier to create.

Saboteur - Grim Tools - Another fairly viable option. Rimetounge enhanced blade trap so I invested in it, but it’s really only useful for mobs and not bosses. Still, it works. At least in the main game. Of course this build requires items like Alkamos’ Warsword to convert damage to cold in the early game, so I wouldn’t recommend it on a first playthrough.

Pyromancer - Grim Tools - Only tested a little bit, and that was many patches ago. Was an idea to use blackwater cocktail and thermite mine as primary damage dealers which led to the using the occultist class for extra chaos damage. Sigil of consumption is there for extra damage and life steal. It should deal adequate damage to bring mobs down, but I’m not sure about it’s long term survivability.

Purifier - Grim Tools - Only tested this one briefly, as I made it in middle of completing my solo demolitionist roster. So I can’t say anything about its long term viability. It should work, at least in theory.

There’s a lot of choices with builds in this game. Most things are viable for the main campaign if you just build around them. So go with whatever sound like fun to you.

this is my unoptimized Purifier. Inquisitor is taken only for Word of Renewal (heal, resists, hp, armor) and Aura of Censure (damage reduction + resist reduction), so you need minimum amount of points in Inquisitor and rest can be put into Demolitionist.

Thank you so much! There’s a lot of helpful information there, I will have a look at all the builds and read through the links.

That looks great, thank you! I forgot the aura of censure gives RR. I like the idea of a fire build but didn’t know it’s actually viable.

I would like to thank everyone for their input, not sure if anyone cares but I went with inquisitor 2nd class. It gives me nice support abilities and allows for a very nice build variety in case I want to respec. I have heal from word of renewal, some damage absorption and bonus damage from inquisitor seal, bonus damage from deadly aim, RR from aura of censure, and I have the option of going left click fire strike piercing damage shooting.

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