Hardcore Deceiver - "Max Payne" (Word of Pain) Build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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“My name is Payne… Maximilien Payne. Pain is my companion, my creed, my devotion. All Living creatures fear it, death hides from it, even the Void loathes it. There is no escape as I’m coming for you Evil! Feel my agony as I condemn you to eternal pain…”
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MAJOR UPDATE:[/i][/b]

The build has evolved greatly since my last update here. Working on new vids and grimtools but for now here’s a quick teaser:

Gladiator Crucible 1-20:

Note. This is by no means a finalized build. It’s a work in progress and I would greatly appreciate some help with its optimization. I’m new to this game, so please don’t be too harsh.

Now, I don’t claim this to be one of the top dps builds and if you are looking to kill bosses and nemesis in 5 sec - this is not the place for it. But it’s a viable Ultimate (both SC and Hardcore) farmer. Now, I have no endgame gear and am still farming elite BoC, SoT, etc, but I did try Ultimate with all greens and was doing OKish there.

Here’s a quick video of my lvl 82 HC Deceiver strolling through Elite Bastion of Chaos including a stray Nemesis kill.

Just a quick wasp nest run on Ultimate:

Slooooooow Ultimate Loghorrean kill (starts at 8 min)

The Grimtools link to the build without gear:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4ZDW1YwV

Current gear and skills:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zRB5v2

I really need help with Devotions as am still learning this topic. I went for Elemental Seeker as it works great with word of pain, every tick produces a seeker, so you only need to cast it once. I also use Elemental Storm linked to Curse of Frailty and as an option Leviathan tied to and auto attack or put one point in Dreeg’s Evil Eye. You could also get Arcane Currents but its proc rate doesn’t work well with this build as you don’t have a very fast attack speed.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward. Place a seal (if facing bosses) apply Word and CoF and watch everything melt. I tend to reapply CoF multiple times as it procs more Elemental storms which deal extra damage and reduce resistances. With Aura of Censure, CoF, and Storm you are able to debuff mobs by over 100% RR. I’m seeing some 35-45k crits already at level 82 without a single endgame item. Assuming this will get doubled in the end when the gear and devotions are fully optimized.

Enjoy! And please help to improve this build! It is really fun!

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Reserved for more content, currently going through Act 1 Ultimate - everything melts pretty fast, will upload a vid tonight.

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I attempted to do something similar but either I screwed up seriously or it was much weaker back then and received a buff later. It was also exceptionally boring.

You can check some ideas used there, which is also a Deceiver that mostly uses curses and procs.

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Your build looks very nice but it doesn’t have any game changing Word of pain items such as Mythical Gildam Arcanum Commendation which adds tremendous amount of dps. I’m using a poor mans (green) word of pain medal (Wendigo’s eye) and it adds about 35% dps already. Also, you went the fire and lightning path skipping a ton of % elemental points. There are also some conversion items that add a ton of flat cold/lightning damage to word of pain. We are looking at another 30-40% dps increase. And not to mention that some endgame gear gives +300% elemental damage. Probably still not gonna be enough for some nemesis and avatar of mogdrogen but [I hope] it should do crucible at an okish pace.

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Added a quick wasp nest run on Ultimate Hardcore. Made it to Homestead. Still not a single upgrade in sight…

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You might want to change the color of your intro text from Blue to RoyalBlue, DeepSkyBlue or Sardine. At least for me some default colors do not work well with GD’s forum theme and I can hardly read that text.

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Done, thank you!

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are you just click one time to word of pain? it doesnt work, you need to click after click. i thought you pressing and it casting continuesly.

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Nope, Word of Pain is just a replica of Curse of Frailty, but with damage ticks. Moreover, you can bind low cooldown devotions to both CoF and WoP and have them proc constantly. I used Aetherfire on WoP and something else on CoF, probably Elemental Storm. Fiend’s proc to Inquisitor Seal for extra fun.

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Hey Guys,

I have a dilemma now.

Trying to find a good balance between damage and toughness.

Currently I have: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zRB5v2

Armor 2100
Armor absorption 82%
All res 83% (plenty of overcap on most)
DA 3000
OA 2100

With a Mythical Meatshield 17k+ life and a very good low cooldown circuit breaker. This allows me to finally ditch the turtle and grab Wirlpool (Leviathan) as the third offensive constellation (Elemental Seeker, Elemental Storm). The only defensive one now is Wayward.

However, this comes at the expense of dps as I could equip a Cataclysm Eye (200% Elemental, +1 to all skills) but then would have no life saving passives at all. Are there any good ones I could get on gear/skills? This is hardcore and I’m a noob so trying to leave at least some room for mistakes.

In addition, trying to farm a Mythical Gildam Arcanum Commendation which is a lvl 84 medal. Where would you farm it, Ultimate or Elite? I’m now doing Ultimate SoT but mostly getting lvl 94 items nothing lower.

Thank you!

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OA is too low, Armor Absorbtion should be capped to 100%, 17k hp is unnecessary, Avatar of Mercy/Mark of Divinity instead of turtle/meatshield for circuit-breaker, but overall I play HC without CBs :rolleyes: Turtle is fairly useless, better take Crab. Ultimate SoT is your best bet imo, it should drop lvl 84 items as well.

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Thank you for the advice! Now, how can I cap armor absorption without a soldier class? As a deceiver, I don’t have any skills that help. I’ve put the armor component on chest and legs (8% each). Devotions?

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Living Armor/Sacred Plating into head and shoulders.

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Very slow Loghorrean kill (8-10:25) but watch the health bar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxlsSFAqR4k&feature=youtu.be

This is at about 35-40% of the endgame dps. I’m missing all the key items for this build. Back to farming I guess…

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Just a quick update - this build is now getting close to its full potential. Still missing some items and minor tweaks, but it’s already a solid HC Ultimate farmer. Will start doing bosses and crucible vids soon, but for now here’s a dummy test:

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Added a quick 1-20 test of the Gladiator Crucible.

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I’ve gotten I think four or five of these as quest rewards. Create more characters, the reward pool for these quests (Log and such) is actually not that big, you’ll get one sooner rather than later.