[DW Melee] [1.1.2.4] COLD Righteous Fervor Deathmarked Dervish! [SR 75 viable]

Hey guys! Long time reader, first time poster. I’ve theorycrafted a lot of builds, but this one is a new take on one of my favorite classics, the Deathmarked. Thought I would share it!

I can do SR 50-60 consistently with this character, and have cleared 65. I will update if I can beat 75 - I think it’s totally doable with good piloting, I’m just not a good pilot :stuck_out_tongue:

UPDATE: 75 cleared! Got lucky on modifiers/bosses, but I’m sure that it would be more consistently doable in more capable hands than mine :smiley:

I don’t play crucible. I have no idea how well it would do, probably similarly to other deathmarked builds.

>>>GRIMTOOLS<<<

Concept

Alright, everyone knows about Deathmarked. There’s nothing too special here in terms of general gameplay and piloting - it’s a melee DW build. However, the Conduit of Divine Whispers can be crafted with 100% fire and physical to cold conversion on Righteous Fervor, which is a great default attack replacer. After messing around with a few different setups (tried to get Rimetongue to work, but it just under-performed in every category compared to Deathmarked), I settled on the tried and true standard “beat it to death with ice” that nightblades have been using since vanilla.


Stats with all permanent buffs, Lethal Assault, Ascension, and full stacks of Righteous Fervor.

Offense

  • ~3k OA with all buffs up
  • 150k+ sheet DPS with all buffs, ~21k base weapon damage, with ~9.3k flat cold added at ~2400% multiplier
  • 194% attack speed (200% with Prismatic Rage)
  • ~120 RR, more on tougher enemies = -78% (Night’s Chill + Rumor + Reaper’s Mark), 20% reduced (Viper), 32 Reduced (Elemental Storm)
  • Lots of procced AoE from devotions / gear

Defense

  • ~12k HP with decent rolls
  • ~2.7k DA, goes to ~3k with procs
  • 2.2k+ armor, goes to ~2.6k with procs (more with Angrim bonuses)
  • 83%+ resistances with buffs, goes to 87%+ with procs (fire is 70% without Righteous Fervor stacks)
  • 36% physical resistance (goes to 87% with procs!)
  • 35% melee dodge chance with 53% deflect chance
  • 80% stun resist with 78% slow resist and ~50% freeze/petrify/trap resist

Gear (Click the item name for grim tools link)

Amulet: REQUIRED. Conduit of Divine Whispers with the 100% physical and fire damage converted to cold to Righteous Fervor prefix. It is the build enabler.
Weapons, Shoulder, Head, Chest: Full Deathmarked set. The avoidance, physical resist, and Reaper’s Mark are so good, we can’t pass that up.
Gloves: Mythical Iceskorn Talons for that sweet bonus frostburn and crit damage to Righteous Fervor and Amarasta’s Blade Burst.
Medal: Mythical Mark of Dark Dreams for some sweet resistance overcapping, damage bonuses, and a radius increase and damage tick on Veil of Shadow.
Belt: Mythical Spellbreaker Waistguard for damage, OA, Aether Resist, and +1 all Nightblade skills.
Rings: Dual Deathguard Sigils to get points into Righteous Fervor, as well as having relevant damage, attack speed, and overcapping on Vitality resistance.
Boots: Stonehide Stoneplate Greaves. The suffix can be whatever you like, but preferably something with Elemental Resistance to avoid having to use Augments to cap them. If you don’t want to craft boots over and over to get Stonehide, look for boots with Poison and Acid resistance, then Pierce Resistance.
Legs: Flexible. I use Mythical Rimestone Legguards for relevant damage, move speed, avoidance, and physical resist. The bonus to Blade Spirit is also nice.

Devotions

Pretty self explanatory. I love Leviathan - good damage, good defenses, and a fun AoE proc. You could go Ultos instead for a more standard route, or even Yugol’s if you want, but I haven’t tested such a devotion set up.

Leveling

You can level with Righteous Fervor all the way, using Nightblade dual wield passives to help you out, but you will be much more focused on fire damage until you get that Conduit. Alternatively, you can main Nightblade using Shard of Beronath as the default attack, using Oathkeeper only for the buffs until end game.

Closing
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the build! Let me know if you have any suggestions, comments, tips, or if I missed something super obvious.

2 Likes

Reserved for no reason.

Sorry, man, this build has been done already by Jabrixone. I think he pretty much figured it out and min-maxed it to death.

You are still free and welcome to post your take of course and welcome to the forums!

Good try anyway!
Is it your first build here?

Nuff said.

Many (well me included :rolleyes:) see the forum as some kind of scientific journal

Indeed it is my first build here. I did not see Jabrixone’s build in my perusals. :frowning:

Our builds are pretty similar. I have different pants, boots, medal, and a significantly different devotion setup. Well, he didn’t post to the Build Compendium in any case, so I posted mine there. If that’s in bad form, let me know - I was legitimately unaware of his build’s existence, but I imagine this is a pretty easy-to-spot combo, so I’m not surprised it’s been done.

I said “you are free to post and welcome to the forums”, what’s the problem here?

@SirRaiuKoren

Don’t be discouraged or anything, man. It’s just if you want your build to get noticed, try and do little forum research and see if maybe someone has already posted a very similiar spec and it’s better in every way. Or on the contrary, someone did post a similiar spec, but yours is better in every way.

But again, it’s a free country. except when Z. makes it personal then it’s a banning season, lol

Very good one for the first guide.
I love Leviathan too, especially for look:D

what a cool build, thanx man, torn a bit between Leviathan and Ultos, the path to ultos seems to offer better stats, but whirlpool is sweet.

Yeah, Ultos is the more standard route for the RR on the skill, but I like Leviathan for cool (ahem) factor. Also the defenses are much nicer on that side of things, and damage isn’t a big problem for Deathmarked in general.

Leviathan is cool,I want to include it in some builds.

Z never makes it personal. If someone gets banned it’s because they broke the forum rules.

SirRaiuKoren feel free to post whatever builds you want. It doesn’t matter if they’ve been done before; it’s your personal take on a build that’s of interest to others and not all builds have to be mini-maxed to death. Frankly we have far too many of those and not enough of builds that people just play through the game using whatever equipment they find along the way or with little farming needed.

Nor is it “bad form” to submit your build for the compendium if you want to. If Jabrixone didn’t submit his, that’s his problem, not yours.

Well, to be fair to mad_lee this build is very similar to the one thejabrixone posted and hardly looks like one assembled with equipment found along the way with little farming. You’re right though, there is too little variety, so builds of all kinds are welcome!

On topic: Congrats on posting your first build here, looks really solid! I think I’ve got Deathmarked mostly completed, so I’ll try it if I can assemble it. Even if it’s similar to thejabrixones, it’s good to see alternative versions, especially if you don’t have all the items (looking at you alkamos :rolleyes:)in the game.

Looking forward to more builds from you! :slight_smile: