Dual Blades Question

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hey guys, GD noob here. :o I know this has only been asked a couple hundred times on here but the answers seem to contradict themselves and raise more questions which means I’m not understanding it. So will someone please explain the Dual Blades skill line to me? (I get it’s passive, while some skills are active)

Some Questions:
1 - Is it meant to be used by itself - with the Grey Sword (default attack that you start with at level 1) and no skills, or can/should it be used with skills such as Savagery, Fire Strike, and Cadence?

2 - If it CAN be used with those skills, will those skills (Savagery, Fire Strike, and Cadence) effect the proc of Dual Blades, thus making dual blades less effective (albeit gaining the bonus of those skills)? AND if Dual Blades won’t proc, will the other passives (such as Execution, Whirling Death, etc) still work?

3 - Will they affect any other active/passive skills besides the above mentioned? Are there any skills they don’t work well with? For that matter, do all skills blend together (I mean that’s the point of merging Masteries right?)

4 - Will Dual Blades work with all 1-hand weapons (i.e. can I dual wield guns)?

5 - I know this will be subjective as there are probably people who beat the entire game with no skills ever, but lets say I want to max the entire Dual Blades skill line as I loved dual wield in Titan Quest, can this be effective? Or will I need to supplement it with a lot of other skills?

6 - Lastly, do you have any favorite builds (names of builds) I can look up that you would to recommend to me?

I might have some more questions based on your answers, but let me say thank you in advance!!

2

Dual Blades is a passive granted for characters that are dual wielding one handed melee weapons only. You won’t get the bonuses if you are using guns.

Physical resist in Dual Blades helps a ton because most of the dangerous enemies attacks in endgame have a substantial physical component, so it’s worth to cap it at rank 16. If your build is pierce based, that’s a ton of flat damage and it’s also works if you are doing pierce to cold and even pierce to acid. To gain the benefits of the flat damage, you need to use skills with weapon damage. That includes the ones mentioned as well pretty much every skill with weapon damage.

3

Welcome to the game and to the forum. :slight_smile: Hopefully I can answer some of your questiions.

  1. No, you can use it with those skills. And for 4. no, dual blades doesn’t allow dual wield of ranged weapons. For that you need either an item like Gunslinger’s Jacket or Talisman or to have the Inquisitor mastery from the Ashes of Malmout expansion which has a skill that grants dual wield ranged.

  2. Not really sure what you mean by this. Dual Blades allows dual wield of melee weapons and will be usable not matter what other auto attack skill you use. Since Dual Blades will work so will all its synergies.

5-6. If you have just the base game then have a look at some of the builds here

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48165

to see what skills they use.

If you have the AoM expansion then have a look here

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79419

4

Perfect, this was EXACTLY what I was looking for. THANK YOU!!

For 2 - Some of the responses I read stated Dual Blades only work if you’re not using any other skills, because those skills have their own animation/proc or something like that. But if you’re saying they will stack, that is awesome.

5

Well, if you use FireStrike then you’ll be dual wielding fire, but it’s still dual wielding. The visual animations of the auto attack replacers will be seen while you’re dual wielding.

6

Dual Blades and the modifiers aren´t skills as such, really. Look at DB as a passive ability. You can´t put DB on your skill bar. But if you put 1 point in it, you get the ability to dual wield melee weapons. The modifiers work the same way, if you skill them, they grant you a chance to trigger them (whilst dual wielding melee weapons).

Bit confusing at first, Nightblade mastery is weird. ^^

7

The way I understand it (veterans, correct me if I’m wrong), there are 4 layers applied to attacks.

First layer are passives. Dual Blades is a passive skill, which means it’s always active, it always adds all its effect to your character.

Second layer are active skills. This is where you find auto-attacks, and auto-attacks enhancer skills like Cadence, Savagery, Fury of Beronath, but also CD skills like Phantasmal Blades, Ring of Steel, etc, etc…

Third layer are Weapon Pool Skills. These are skills that contain the sentence “this is a blablabla skills that activates with all default weapon attacks” in their description, like Belgothian’s Shears or Amarasta’s Quick Cuts. These WPS only apply to auto-attacks or auto-attacks enhancer skills.

Fourth and final layer are Procs, be it from gear or from Devotions, and can be generated from active skills or even WPS (or even other procs sometimes).

So, for example, you use Savagery, and have put points into Dual Blades, Belgothian’s Shears, Nidalla’s Hidden Hand, and Amarasta’s Quick Cuts :

  • Dual Blades is always in effect.
  • you can use Savagery instead of your auto-attack on your left-click.
  • each time your Savagery hits, the game rolls to see if it adds either Belgothian’s Shears OR Amarasta’s Quick Cuts. Both are PASSIVELY modified by Nidalla’s Hidden Hand before applying.
  • let’s say you use Ring of Steel. Dual Blades is still in effect (if you are dual-wielding melee of course), but nothing else from the example above applies.
8

I’ll give an example that might help.

Say you are a night blade and arcanist. You have some points in dual blades line and in Belgothian Shear’s.

You have 1 point in Calidor’s tempest. You have 1 point in Trozan’s sky shard.

So say you make an auto-attack. That will have a chance to proc Belgothian shears. If instead of arcanist you chose something with an auto-attack replacer then it could proc Belgothian Shears. If you have an item that grants an auto-attack replacer then that can proc it. Everything else (that is not an AAR) does not proc Belgothian Shears. (and that’s not BS :wink: hehe)

Now say you cast Calidor’s tempest. That has a component of % weapon damage. Dual blades gives a passive bonus of flat pierce damage, % pierce damage, and % cold damage. You will have NO chance to proc Belgothian shears because it is not an auto-attack replacer (unlike Savagery etc). However because Calidor’s tempest does % weapon damage your flat pierce will be applied to the %weapon of Calidor’s tempest. Flat damage from constellations and many other sources as well will apply whenever you deal %weapon damage. If for some reason your Calidor’s is dealing cold or pierce damage outside of the % weapon your passive benefits to %pierce and cold are passive and global so whenever you deal pierce or cold they are affected.

Now say you cast Trozan’s sky shard (which I’ve never tried so forgive an error). Again no chance to proc Belgothian Shears because TSS is not an auto-attack replacer (like Savagery or Cadence or Firestrike). Trozan’s also has no %weapon damage (unlike Calidor’s Tempest) and so the flat pierce damage from dual blades will not apply since no %weapon damage. However as I said the % cold and % pierce on Dual blades are a global benefit to anything you use so the cold damage % buff will improve TSS a little bit. (though I doubt to extend to build something all around a dual wielding caster or? lol)

Let me know if I’ve made an error in my understanding (peoples) or OP if what I’m saying doesn’t make sense maybe I can reword it or explain an assumption or term of jargon.

Also just a side note say you were a dual wielding player using Calidor’s Tempest (again I have no idea if any build uses). You might take the transmuter which adds a cooldown but more damage. Then you can use CT when not on cool down but when you are on cool down you can use your nifty dual wield proc like Belgothian shear’s.

9

Thanks everyone!! This was exactly what I needed. What a great community :smiley: Can’t wait to try all the many possible builds with this game.

10

Dual Blades is a passive and has nothing to do with WPS (except that it starts the line).

One op question that hasn’t been answered yet: maxing the whole WPS line. I’ve never seen it on any decent build. Blademasters use Markovian Advantage (with 25% chance) on top of nightblade’s WPS so taking them all would make the total chance 105% (or 117% with Direwolf Crest) and lessen the chance of each individual WPS. Infiltrators/reapers/tricksters/breakers are usually desperate for points in their other mastery trees so maxing all WPS would be very uneconomical.

Which WPS are worth it most depends on the build. For pierce builds Belgothian Sheers is worth maxing and also Execution if you’re wearing the Belgothian helmet. For cold tricksters/breakers ofc Execution is king. AQC and Whirling Blades are debatable. I usually take either depending on what is cheaper to get to 8/8.

11

You should also know about mechanics behind Cadence proc. It proc every 3rd attack (counting attacks with both weapons as 1) and it overrides all other WPS you have. So, you won’t have 420%+Flat Phys dmg Cadence + 265% Execution proc at the same time.
So when you use a Cadence with other WPS the can only proc on 1st and 2nd strikes, making them 2/3 effective.

12

Actually you might get just that. Execution is a dual wield skill so you actually get [265% + Cold Dmg] X 2, once for each weapon.

If you get a Cadence + Execution WPS combo, Cadence will overwrite one of the hits and you will end up with;
[420%+Flat Phys dmg Cadence] + [265%+cold dmg Execution].

13

Hm… Looks like I missed some updates on Cadence interaction with WPSs.
You right, according to this thread (would be cool if you could link it with your reply).
Gonna try it on my BM, switching from the Troll’s Rage to give Cadence a try.