While working on the serious character who I plan on finishing all the Steam achievements with, I had an idea. On the bridge as you exit Devi’s Crossing at the very beginning of Grim Dawn there is a Rotting Corpse. It often drops an item with at least one Magic prefix or suffix. What if I made a character based on whatever that first item is? Thus was born the Devil’s Crossing Bridge Corpse Challenge.
Started out a fresh character and, sure enough, a magic item dropped. In my case, a Warped Scrapmetal Flintlock Rifle of Celerity. Let’s see what 2-handed ranged aether damage can be. Looks like it will have to start Necromancer. Spectral Binding for an initial main skill and some Reaping Strike for back-up. Spectral Wrath - Spectral Binding’s follow-on skill - should help cut through resistance early on, although keeping a decent weapon is going to need a lot of vendor farming until the Blood Grove rift is tuned in and the Fleshwarped Carbine becomes my best friend.
Level 10 Necromancer, Level 10 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Wow, this is more painful than I expected. With no AoE available unless I cheat and pick up something that doesn’t have any aether damage, like Necrotic Edge, I’m going to have to plug one zombie at a time for a while. Although I do, generally, like ranged characters for the ability to stand back and put everything down before it gets to me, this is going to be a slog. I suspect I’m going to be doing a fair bit of vendor farming before that. In fact…here, that’s a bit of an improvement and it only took five tries: Necromancer, Level 10 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator But rescuing Luther Graves is clearly going to be a priority to double the possible items for each farming trip.
At level 21 after downing the Warden: Spellbinder, Level 21 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Spectral Wrath definitely made things easier with packs, but, with only flat damage, won’t keep on giving, so I’ve started taking some in Calidor’s Tempest expecting that I’ll need something that scales with weapon damage as Wrath starts to fall off. Still something of a slog, as the tougher mobs don’t drop in one shot even with Reaping Strike. I did pull the Explorer’s set out of the stash and the Soul’s Touch gloves, although I’m going to have to start worrying about resistances pretty quick. Hopefully, getting to Reckless Power before I get to Benevald will help with the lack of punch. Although I’ll probably have to dig into some defensive skills before I can get to the end of the Arcanist mastery and start Reckless Power, even if this is SC.
Level 29 arriving at Homestead. I did find a Fleshwarped Carbine in stash, although an almost identical one dropped along the way. Pushing for Reckless Power, hopefully by the time I get to Ft. Ikon. Still hoping Spectral Binding/Wrath will hold me until then, as I don’t want to go deep into Callidor’s Tempest, since this is supposed to be a 2-hand ranged build. Although, we’ll see what happens when I max out Reckless Power. I may have to pick up a Blackwood Arbalest and lean into Panetti’s Replicating Missle.
And the first rifle Benevald had for me had Magestorm on it, so not bad.
Level 40 arriving at Ft. Ikon and finding the rifle is, indeed, quite decent. The aether lightning it procs helps with trash mobs and I should have Reckless Power added to the list of +Aether damage skills soon. And, then, I’ll be out of obvious skills to take.
Level 52 finishing up Malmoth I thought I’d try Panetti’s Replicating Missile instead of Callidor’s Tempest as I found a couple places where I was drawing a lot of ranged mobs and Callidor’s doesn’t handle that very much without leaping into the middle of them - if they’re grouped enough in the first place. Panetti’s also has the advantage of being spammable. I had to resist the temptation to not use the carbine at all in some spots. I’ve started working Maiven’s Sphere of Protection up because it can’t hurt to be a bit more tanky. It’s too bad I can’t use Albrecht’s Aether Ray with a carbine. Likewise, Devastation. On to the sands!
And level 57, having completed Forgotten Gods. I actually used Panetti’s very little, finding that Haunt combined with maxed Maiven’s Sphere was pretty effective. We’ll see if I find the desire to start Elite, much less Ultimate, while I continue the long grind for gear for the current serious character.
At the end of Normal, I am surprised at how effective this build has been. Both the Aetherlord’s Signet and Soulweave Girdle help with melee mobs piling in. The single target damage is respectable enough for most bosses in Normal and I like the stand back and shoot playstyle pretty well, particularly that I’m not stuck standing in Inquisitor’s Seal like a Mage Hunter build I’ve played around with. Full out Maiven’s Sphere makes it tougher than I would have expected. The only challenge I see is that I’ve run out of things that support the carbine playstlye and would have to dig deeper into either Panetti’s or go back to Calidor’s Tempest, both of which seem to violate the intention of being an Aether Rifleman.
I think endgame might look something like this, although having to invest that much in Physique to be able to wear Veilkeeper has quite a penalty in OA.
Also, on an interesting note: Since I started this character, no character has had a weapon drop from the corpse on the bridge out of Devil’s Crossing. I’ve probably had at least a dozen characters, either new ones or ones starting Elite or Ultimate, cross that bridge for the first time and everything has been some kind of armor. Most of it affixless, too.
