HC Sunherald Blade Arc Commando Leveling and Endgame guide [1.2.1.6]

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
, , , ,
1

1.Introduction
This is a beginner guide around one iconic class , idea was to reborn long time forgotten weapon
from the Forgotten Gods DLC , fantasy here is for 2H Brawler with powerful fire cleave (Blade Arc)

2.Pros and Cons
Pros:

  • Beginner friendly (3 buttons build)
  • High sustain both endgame and during leveling
  • Cheap (doesn’t require crazy gear to work properly)
  • Very good damage numbers for off meta build
  • A lot of windows for mistakes ( build running several fail saves and auto heals)
  • Very good starting option if you still learn the game
  • Good Lokkar farmer ,if you need your leveling set

Cons:

  • Not the fastest build out there (2-3 mins slower in SR 30/31 compare to top builds)
  • Not the best Celestial killer ( can take down Ravager and Calla but slow phase battle)
  • Requires some attention on CDs when in dangerous fight ( if Menhir’s and Blast shield are on cool down its very bad spot for the build)
  • Hard to get Blade Arc ranks on fire setup without sacrifice damage

3.HC SSF leveling Grim tools stamps

Grimtools level 20:

Grimtools level 28(Sunherald setup finally):

Grimtools level 32:

Grimtools level 40:( Infernal Sunherald full phys to fire conversion)

Grimtools level 50:(2000 life regen without procs , immortality unlocked)

Grimtools level 56:

Grimtools level 62:

Grimtools level 67:

Grimtools level 70:

Grimtools level 77:

Grimtools level 83:

Grimtools level 92(pre-endgame MI setup):

Max Blade Arc + Laceration setup (good clear):

Justicar Guard Commando (Blade Arc + Massive Blitz good armor setup)

Life leech spec (credit to Mad_Lee) more sustain

Link to the whole journey:

DEVOTION PATH

.Green Crossroad
.Spider
.Blue Crossroad
.Sailor’s Guide
.Remove Blue and Green Crossroad
.Kraken (always rush Kraken on any 2 hander with first 14 points , huge powerspike)
.Viper
.Yellow Crossroad
.Dryad
.Phoenix
.Hammer
.Rhowan’s Crown
.Harvestman’s Scythe
.Chariot of the Death
.Solael Witchblade
.Remove Hammer
.Remove Sailor’s Guide
.Hawk
.Remove Spider
.6 points Magi ( I skip the proc not enough skills for devotions and auto attacks builds have to avoid too much interupts)
.4 points Hyrian, Guardian of Celestial Gates (4th node is the one with %armor and %ele damage)

This is leveling devotion path that’s why involves so much fillers and potential removes , but
lots of this is essential for proper character progressing .Most of the players they rush RR devotions , me personally I don’t think that’s necessary early on ,stats gives more value especially in Hardcore mode

4.Pre-endgame farming advices

My personal farming route on a fresh 94-100 lvl toon is Totems ( I try to net at least 5 per session). I start with Staunton mine > Check Cronley’s Hideout if totem is next to the rift > Twin Falls > Broken Hills > Asterkan Valley > Crown Hill ( optional if Cronley’s totem is not next to the rift).This route involves 5-6 totems that very close to the rift ,also involves fast kills since this ones are no Ancient or Celestial totems. When you get the set and feel strong enough you can move to Shattered realm 26/7 is a sweet spot for this build (SR30/31 is totally fine just this build perform there for 7-8 mins due to sinlge RR mastery combo)
Easy Totem farming route for Beginners:

5.Endgame setup fights videos

Sunherald Commando vs Lokkar:

Sunherald Commando vs Ravager ( 4 mins fight , have to kite outside of Blast Shield + Menhir’s will):

Sunherald Commando vs SR 30/31 (good time ,not amazing but still we spoke about cheap build)

Life leech spec (face tanking both phases when dodging sunder, better sustain against bosses)

Mogdrogen fight was relatively quick just I forgot to click record button and this fight is one per
character unfortunately . Callagadra is doable but very very slow and Crate is impossible usually on most melee setups and I lack burst damage on this one

6.Conclusion

Build performs surprisingly well for the price needed ( no crazy greens , relic is Juggernaut ) and
honestly I have tons of fun playing this on SSF HC , its not boring like most Soldier setups. Thanks everyone for the feedback so I can improve the post and the presentation in general

4 Likes
2

The “guide” breaks the first forum rule:
obraz
https://forums.crateentertainment.com/faq#commonsense

1 Like
3

How so?

10

4

Not bothering to write a single sentence or Grim Tools, embed a video, putting more effort in the build title than the actual post, reducing the guide to be just a link, an advertisement to a video on youtube, especially while being able to communicate in English - that’s lacking common sense which is why people don’t do it as you can see from other guides.

5

It’s up to each build creator to decide how they present that build to others.

6

And as a forum user I can comment on this “presentation” to motivate him to improve. Because no communication in the form of at least a few written sentences, Grim Tools, etc. makes it way less useful that it could easily be.

In this case I think it’s to the point of lacking common sense and breaking this forum rule for the reasons mentioned because everyone else does it and understand the importance / value of these things, at least on some basic level.

We could extrapolate and imagine forum filled with a lot of such guides. Basically a wall for YT videos. Would that good for the forum users? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t use the forum then.

1 Like
7

i think this is the one you’re thinking of ? Common Sense Rules for Build Posting ,
maybe mixed with the old (dragon’s) guidelines for stuff like compendium inclusion etc

1 Like
8

More like I didn’t paid attention, I will fix it or deleted it or reposted it up to community standards, wasn’t intentional I just saw couple of guide like this ,sorry guys ( I will check the rules in depth as well)

2 Likes
9

Np, I don’t think there’s some hard rule (except Dammit’s parser to get a build into his Grim Dawn Builds) but a few sentences and some Grim Tools links at least would be common forum courtesy imo. I personally don’t expect much more that because I know how time consuming it can be. You know, just a sign you’re a real person not AI :laughing:

If you’d like you can try to get your builds in 🔰 Beginner Build Compendium - 105 guides for AoM & FG expansions which I manage. Having some progression there in the form of GT snapshots and some text is what I look at nowadays to differentiate between guides and Beginner Level 100 GTs.

I see mods on Reddit don’t care anymore, in the past this might have been self promotion / too little native input etc, this might have misguided you as well.

10

Yes , I do realise looks sketchy when look at it from different angle , thanks for the input I’ll try better

1 Like
11

Fixed , I hope is at least slightly better than before , thanks again for the feedbacks , I’ll try to improve from now on , my last forum interaction was back at 2005 so I am a bit rusty

3 Likes
12

my current modified character
with more balance between OA and DA and alot more physical resistance.

also got rid of blackwater cocktail and used the points in some other passives and using Rune of the dark progenitor for more OA and DA debuff for the enemy

still in progress for farming for the Justice set

what do you think?

13

Life bar is extremely low , half of your gear and components buff physical damage which leads to low Fire multipliers (1900% is too low for pre-endgame) . Rune of dark projeginator has bad cooldown and bad uptime , also blitz shred more DA and you don’t need OA shred on a commando since sustain comes from circuit breakers and absorbs . Cutting Black water cocktail means your only DR source is attuned lodestone which occupied the most important slot cause every endgame build runs Seal of Anhilation( apart from pets setups) . You stack crit damage for some reason but with 2800 OA is pointless , all the changes you applied are very controversial to the class . According to DA this is very situational stat 95% of the enemies has just 1.1 crit multiplier ( aka you take just 10% extra damage from crits ) , sacrificing all the firepower for 400 extra DA is a bad trade . Commando needs damage ,not sustain cause class has plenty of the second

1 Like
14

im planning to farm the justice set and follow the endgame guide.
but what if blackwater cocktail feels awkward to use in this build thats why i wanted to get rid of it?

also alot of this build was made with the help of AI lol

15

Help of AI :smiley: … I did this build myself , only the thumbnail was AI. I have 7k hours in HC I don’t need AI to making builds. AI can’t name the masteries properly what’s left to do builds

1 Like
16

no no apologize for misunderstanding me

i meant the modifications i did was with the help of AI lol

some of it not all

1 Like
17

I see , better don’t use AI it gathers most of it’s knowledge from Reddit it’s very inconsistent and also full of misinformation. You can always get advice from the community rather than some random generated stuff , AI seems to prioritise Fighting Spirit which is usually fine at 5/12 and AI always overcaped this for example in the expense of the good stuff , also AI never considered dimishing returns which is essential to preserve points

1 Like
18

I would strongly discourage using generative Ai (in general, but especially LLMs for tasks it’s not meant to do.)

People generally overestimate the capabilities of genAi.
All it does it restructure existing text into a format it is trained to mimic. It does not really understand the context, it only makes guesses based on connections between words.
And it absolutely does not understand any logical puzzles, like chess or making a devotion map, even if you feed it all the rules and guides.

The Ai will just confidently present absolute nonsense. And you’ll believe it, because it always makes it sound credible and give reasoning, even if that reasoning is just as nonsensical.

As for your build, there’s a lot to improve and damage to be undone.
Blackwater Cocktail serves a function, it gives you damage reduction and OA reduction and resistance shred all in one. Your minuscule phys res gain will not make up for that.
If you really don’t like BWC, then you could take maxed out Warcry with the transmuter and Fleshwarped Casque as your hat.
But that would also downgrade the build for a little quality of life.
(I see RSnoomak’s version doesn’t take the Agonizing Flames node on BWC, which is weird to me, but at least the DR is there. I guess the bonus to skills isn’t that high.)

And what is that augment on the sword? :smiley:

1 Like
19

for the augment in the sword i guess the AI wanted to have more OA lol

it was a nice try lmao