Fang of Dreeg (Witch Hunter)

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

The Fang of Dreeg

Once upon a time, there was a Nightblade who followed the teachings of Nidalla. She was so good when handling toxic matters, so venomous, that she, someday, heard the voice of the Witch God calling her. Devoting herself to Dreeg, the assassin became something more, something to be feared…

http://grimcalc.com/build/4kC0iUL
Be aware that this is theorical at the moment. I’m only starting elite, and I am level 50 with this build. While breezing through the Veteran playthrough, the resistance lowering is problematic because of the squishyness of the build.

Pros of the build :

  • Insane amount of damage (I didn’t found a boss that survived more that one minute).
  • Good survivability, thanks to the healing skills.

Cons of the build :

  • Really squishy… some bosses can and will one-shot you.

Occultist Skills :

Dreeg’s Evil Eye (12/12) : It is one of your main damaging skill. Maxing it is your first priority.
===> Blood Burst (12/12) : More damage for the Evil Eye and an area effect. A no brainer.
===> Focused Gaze (1/1) : Adding more damage, more poison duration ? Yes please. Add a 4 second cooldown to the skill ? Opponents will be dead anyway… Having this skill is a top priority.
===> Terrifying Gaze (12/12) : More damage, more duration ? Yes please. Chances of stun and fear ? The icing on the rotten cake !
===> Vile Eruption (0/12) : Turn your Evil Eye into a fragmentation bomb. Could be fun, but sadly, you need your points elsewhere.

Curse of Frailty (5/10) : The only benefit of leveling this skill, for this build, is the added area of effect and duration. The movement slowing is a bonus, but the most dangerous opponents and bosses can kill you from a distance anyway. You want this, because of :
===> Vulnerability (10/10) : Lower the ennemy resistance to acid & poison. usefull against poison heroes & bosses, or any poison “immune” opponent.

Blood of Dreeg (16/16) : Healing, regeneration. This is what you want and need… because you’re squishy. The acid damage & retaliation is a bonus.
===> Aspect of the Guardian : More damage ? Yes. Physical resistance ? Yes. Acid & Poison resistance ? Yes.
Blood of Dreeg should always be up during a fight.

Nightblade Skills :

Dual Blades (1/16) : You only want this to equip two weapons and to access the other skills of the tree.
===> Belgothian’s Shears (5/8) : Proc chances maxed (20%) at level 5, that’s why. You don’t care how much damage it does.
===> Nidalla’s Hidden Hand (8/8) : The only reason you invest in this tree. Stacking poison with this meets the Evil Eye of Dreeg in term of damage.
===> Amarasta’s Quick Cut (5/8) : Proc chances maxed at level 5. Then Nidalla’s teaching turn it into a poison stacker.
===> Whirling Death (5/8) : Ditto.

Pneumatic Burst (12/12) : You’re squishy, so you want this to heal. The speed bonus is always nice. This should be a top priority after you get the Nightblade Mastery.
===> Breath of Belgothian (1/1) : Allow you to use Pneumatic Burst quicker. A must have.

Veil of Shadow (6/10) : You want to invest in this skill because its area of effect gets larger with each level. But what it gives you is…
===> Night’s Chill (10/10) : An aura that lowers the opponent acid & poison resistance ? You need.

Shadow Strike (1/16) : A great mobility skill, with good damage even at the first level. Use it to get in and out of melee range.
===> Nidalla’s Justifiable End (12/12) : Add poison damage to the already good shadow strike ? Check… lower the skill cooldown ? Awesome. You can go anywhere you want.

Blade Barrier (1/12) : A one point wonder. I use it mainly as my “Oh crap” button. Plus, since you use poison, ennemies will still get the full effect of your medecine while you are safe for a few seconds.

Merciless Repertoire (12/12) : More Acid & Poison damage. Do I need to say more ?

Devotions :

  • Rat : The first I unlocked. More Acid & Poison damage and resistance. Get this.
  • Scorpion : The second. More Poison, plus a devotion power that gives even more poison. I put this power on Belgothian’s Shears.
  • Ghoul : Third. You need Chaos points to unlock some of the constellations of the build, this one is interesting because of it’s power, that turn your damages (even those done by skills) into health. Squishyness needs lifesteal. Put this power on your Veil of Shadow Skill
  • Manticore : Fourth. More Poison & Acid damage. The manticore power will be added to the Shadow Strike, where it gets a beautiful 51% chance to activate on hit, stacking even more poison and lowering resistances.
  • Eye of the Guardian : Fifth. Ditto Acid, Ditto Poison. The power is added to the Whirling Death skill, because it is only useful at close range.
  • Affliction : Sixth. You will not get the full constellation, because you are only interested in the acid and poison damage. The power will be added to your Poison Aura (because you will have a Poison Aura) and will create puddles of poison everywhere.

From there, you can choose what constellation to choose from those four :

  • Dryad : Poison and Bleeding resistance, shorten the duration of said poison and bleeding. To be honest, with all the constellation, gear and, more importently, the Aspect of the Guardian skill (which grants 100% Acid and poison resistance at level 12), even the ultimate malus won’t decrease your acid & poison resistance. But the bleeding part is interesting. Plus, the power will give you and added regeneration, which is always good. Put the power on Amarasta’s Quick Cut, to maximize the chance of it to proc and because you will loose the most health in close combat.

  • Jackal : You need 3 chaos points and it is the cheapest constellation to have it. It’s bonus aren’t the most useful for the build, except the attack speed bonus.

  • Spider : You need the 6 eldritch points it gives to unlock the Abomination. That’s it. Apart from that, it’s bonus are okay.

  • Abomination : You will only spend 5 points into this one, to get all the acid and poison bonus & powers. Add the power to your Dreeg Infinite Gaze (because yes, you will have it). The infinite gaze is mainly used when surrounded by ennemies, or even while your Evil Eye is on cooldown. Multiple projectiles mean multiple chances to proc.

Now, you may find that stack so much poison and acid damage bonus is a bit of an overkill… It is, in a way. That wouldn’t be a problem if this build weren’t so squishy. You may want to save the Jackal, Spider and Abomination points to invest in more defensive constellations, but I haven’t explored this idea yet.

Gear :

  • Now, you will want to use gear that grants you acid and poison damage bonus. Don’t worry too much about the acid and poison resistance, since most epic and legendary acid/poison based items will have them anyway. Plus, your skill Aspect of the Guardian and the constellation cover this area too.

  • Your main weapons will be acid/poison based daggers. Two reasons : first, they can grant bonus skill points and are fast. Secondly, you will have to focus on getting some resistance, you can’t spend your ressources in attack speed.

  • Your main problem with this build will your squishyness. With all the regeneration and lifesteal you can stack with your skills and constellations, this is somewhate manageable. But, upon entering Elite, the loss of resistance will hurt you a lot and the one-shot risk goes up. To counter that, y have no choice but to use components. Here are some components that add resistance :
    — Molten Skin : Fire (20%) and Burn resist, can be added to all armor.
    — Dense Fur : Cold resistance (20%), all armor.
    — Rigid Shell : Lightning resistance (20%) all armor
    — Sanctified Bones : 18% Vitality resist, 12% chaos resist, head and chest armors.
    — Frozen Heart : Cold resist, 10%. Rings.
    — Aether Soul : Aether resist (12%). Amulets and medals.
    — Black Tallow : Chaos resist (12%). Amulets and medals.
    — Silk Swatch : 18% bleed and pierce resist. Shoulder, chest, leg armor.
    — Wardstone : 7% Elemantal resist. 15% Bleed resist.
    — Hallowed Ground : 12% elemental resist. Chest armor.
    — Unholy Inscription : 10% vitality resist, 15% bleeding resist.
    What you choose is up to you, your gear and what you need. Be aware though that the chest and feet armors are dedicated to some comoponents, mainly : Mark of Mogdrogen on the foots (movement speed, health bonus and health regeneration bonus) and Rotten Heart (acid and poison damage) for the chest. As for the augments, you should choose those that cover the resistances with augments.

  • There are mandatory compnents you should use for this build to shine :
    — Vitriolitic Gallstone : Weapon slot. Bonus acid and poison damage but, more importantly, grants you the Poison Aura (+75% poison & acid damage AND raw poison damages)
    — Mark of Dreeg : Weapon slot. Bonus acid and poison damage but, more importantly, grants you the Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze.

  • The artifacts I use are, by order of leveling :
    — Corruption, for the poison bonus and the area poison damage that proc when hit.
    — Blight, Poison and Acid damage bonus, poisonous aura skill.

I will expend on the leveling process later.

2

The stun/fear chances don’t improve when leveling this skill and the damage bonuses are mediocre. This skill can be useful if you don’t have any other source of poison duration, but for a poison build that’d be a very bad idea.

The whole ‘poison stacker’ idea with Nidalla’s Hidden Hand doesn’t actually work. The skill does miniscule poison damage - 39/sec at 8/8 and 121/sec at rank 18 (compare to over 200/sec with 12/12 Eye of Dreeg + transmuter). And more importantly it doesn’t stack with itself. You hit an enemy with Shears, Quick Cut, and Whirling death all in rapid succession and you still only have a single stack of 39/sec poison damage from Nidalla’s and a single stack of weapon damage based poison. This skill is useful for Acid melee - at or approaching rank 18 - but is REALLY bad if your goal is truly poison. Not to mention dangerous to use as it requires sustained melee attacks.

Lifesteal doesn’t work with dots. Also doesn’t work with skills for that matter - only weapon damage (and only non-dot weapon damage!)

3

The only thing I would add to what Silben said is to put one point in vile eruption. Can we also get a screenshot of your character page and the gear you use?

It’s kind of funny, I think this is the third witch hunter build posted in a week. :smiley:

4

The whole ‘poison stacker’ idea with Nidalla’s Hidden Hand doesn’t actually work. The skill does miniscule poison damage - 39/sec at 8/8 and 121/sec at rank 18 (compare to over 200/sec with 12/12 Eye of Dreeg + transmuter). And more importantly it doesn’t stack with itself. You hit an enemy with Shears, Quick Cut, and Whirling death all in rapid succession and you still only have a single stack of 39/sec poison damage from Nidalla’s and a single stack of weapon damage based poison. This skill is useful for Acid melee - at or approaching rank 18 - but is REALLY bad if your goal is truly poison. Not to mention dangerous to use as it requires sustained melee attacks.

So, if dual wield melee doesn’t work out, what is the general base plan for stacking poison damage (assuming you want to make a full blown poisonmancer type)? Eye of Dreeg, devotion procs, and item procs, then run around till everything dies?

I saw a billion different variants - some people go full caster, some dual weild, some 2 hander, some hybridize. Is it just stylistic preference?

5

There are more spells to stack poison. Put Mark of Dreeg component in one weapon for an extra attack and Dreeg’s Affliction relic gives you another one. If you thinks it isn’t enought, use CoF to lower enemy defenses.

Greetings

6

To Silben :

  • Concerning Terryfying Gaze : Where should I spend my point then ?
  • Concerning the melee stacking : I was under the impression that it stacked with itself. Quite a shame really… Anyway, I’m not a full “poisonmancer” but Acid/Poison damage dealer. Adding to that the devotion procs and I can happily go melee against some bosses.
  • Concerning the Ghoul power : I already knew it didn’t work on the DoTs, but I saw the Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze give me a huge boost in health with it… And again, It’s not a full poison build, but an acid/poison with some melee usage.

My internet is bad (my gaming computer don’t have internet, I’m on my friend’s laptop), so it will take some time for me to upload images. But I’ll see what I can do.

7

OP, it’d be easier for everyone to view your build using http://grimcalc.com. Apparently you can only post links after 3 forum posts so maybe reply to this one then use grimcalc for all your skills and devotions? :slight_smile:

8

That was the plan ^^
And for my current gear, going level 60 elite :
http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/493970FangofDreegGear.png

EDIT : Grimcalc added
The grimcalc doesn’t depict any gear influence.

9

If you said that in your original post, sorry, I didn’t read it - whenever I see a new player on the forums posting their build without grimcalc, I go on auto-pilot :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Since I already started the thread, why not use it for some questions :
I don’t quite understand the relation between different poison procs. As I understand, a skill can only stack with another one. But what about weapons, wen dual wielding ? And what with bonus poison damage ?

So, on a melee attack, let’s say I have two melee weapon that deals poison damage… how poison will stack ?
First melee weapon

  • second melee weapon
  • Nidalla’s Hidden Hand proc
  • Blight skill (granted by the blight relic)
  • devotion power (let’s say the scorpion one)
    That makes five poison procs that stack together right ? or wrong ?

Next, how does bonus poison damage (direct damage, not % bonus), such as the poison aura bonus and some devotion bonus, interact with all of this ?

11

The same rule applies to weapons. If you melee attack once and proc Belgothians Shears, you will get the poison damage from weapon 1, weapon 2, Nidalla’s Hidden Hand, and any flat poison damage from equipment, devotions like the Rat, or the poison aura bonus from Vitriolic Gallstone. If you have the Blight Aura active and Scorpion’s Sting procs they will do damage as well. Seperate sources stack, Casting the same spell/attacking again/proccing the same devotion will only reapply the dot with another chance to crit.

12

Thanks ^^

I did some test, currently being level 60.
Nidalla’s hidden hand is level 8
Nidalla’s Justifiable hand is level 12
I have all acid/poison devotion except the Abomination, blood of Dreeg and poison aura up and my gear, I have +1059% poison damage and +196% poison duration.
With blight skill from blight relic on :
Testing on a dummy, If I go Shadow strike on it, then attack it for =< 2 seconds and having the scorpion devotion power proc with my belgothian shears, I get a total DoT of 11000 poison damage.
If I spend more time in melee, the poison DoT basically stays up and I get the Guardian’s Gaze to Proc.

Having done the same test but using : shadow strike then Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze then Evil Eye of Dreeg, I end up with a DoT around 16000, which require roughly the same time.

Should I dump the Nidalla’s Hidden Hand path completely or is it an acceptable difference ? Be aware that I like the playstyle and don’t aim for an absolute damage output optimisation.

Night chill and Curse of Frailty aren’t high level so I didn’t use them for the test.

13

Nidalla’s Hidden Hand isn’t a bad way to go, but I would hold off on dual wielding until you are over level 70. The caster version of this build is much much efficient in normal and elite. You can still make it work, but finding the points needed to get it to proc reliably at level 60 while maintaining damage is difficult. Make sure Night’s Chill and Vulnerability are maxed. Your main poison dots should come from DEE, Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze, Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends, Blight, devotions like Acid Spray and Scorpion’s Sting, and flat poison damage. If you are in need of a weapon, follow this guide on how to get Slithtongues, which are great.

14

Hm, two more questions:

A. I presume Vile Eruption fragmentation doesn’t actually apply a poison DoT?

B. How exactly does Shadow strike interact with poison?

  1. Does the swing apply every separate source of poison DoT you have from devotions/gear at once?
  2. Does the % weapon damage bonus from putting points into Shadow Strike itself boost the poison DoT damage akin to how default attack replacers multiply WPS damage?
  3. Conversely, does the Nightfall synergy apply the poison DoT from Justifable Ends and Gear in AoE? And if it does, does it do so at at reduced strength equal to the % weapon damage on it, or does it apply them at 100 % efficiency?