I’m new to the forums so I can’t post a link but here’s the Grimtools extension.
a2ddaoG2
I’m still fairly new to making my own builds in Grim Dawn. I was overlooking my favorite mastery, the Soldier, when I decided to try to something with Blade Arc. Sword and Shield are usually my gear of choice and I already have a Cadence Death Knight so I thought I’d try Bleed and Internal Trauma because I don’t have one. The Pierce damage is only there because I couldn’t find a way to build my Bleed and Trauma as high without avoiding it. I still haven’t gotten the constellations down because it’s a little overwhelming but I did what I could. I don’t have all the gear to make it yet so I don’t know if it’s Crucible or Lokarr viable but I thought it’d look like something that might be fun to play. Any opinions or suggestions are welcome.
Maybe I should spend some more time going over and revamping the Devotions but is it generally bad to go for 2-3 damage types or am I just too invested in Physical?
What I can say is that your build got some of the basics of defense covered so it’s good. You should get to know what different stats do and what’s important to have at what cost. For example, putting just one point in Haven gives you 4% block chance and 6% health which is too good to pass and very much needed. Or, investing in Blindside and Crushing Verdict at the same time isn’t optimal because both reduce the same stat (debuffs with the word “reduced” in them don’t stack with each other). So explore the masteries in grimtools, shuffle some points and see what benefits they can provide.
Second, you need a clear vision and some knowledge to assess if your vision is viable. You chose DoT dmg (Damage over Time) which is fine. But Blade Arc alone isn’t enough to carry a build. This skill is mostly used focusing only on the first node for bleed or the other trauma. Sadly, there aren’t more many more sources of bleed anyway so I’d give up on that. For trauma, however you need a different different set and more sources of it (like Forecewave, WPS like Zoltan and Shattering, flat trauma dmg from Oleron to be unleashed with Aegis high weapon dmg, etc)
Last, when you see resistance reduction to your chosen dmg type (physical) don’t think twice and take it (unless it has the word “Reduced” and you already have that elsewhere). Here, you have quite a lot of RR in Break Morale - you need to take it until you’re getting less than two for 1 point (here, until 12/12)