I’m quite new at grim down (played a little in december), and i wanted to try an hardcore char! Note that i’m making that thread because I feel a lot of tension when I discover new zone, so having a break discussing about grimdawn on a forum seems to be a good idea
In short, i want to play a dual melee char with sigil of consumption as aoe/leech life spell - it may not be the best char, but for the moment I realy like the gameplay
Currently i’m lvl 32, arriving in Homestead, and here the build I plan to get: link
So i’ve few questions:
-Is an “escape skill” like blade barrier mandatory? or if I play carefully with a good placement, it is a waste of point? (also, I don’t use escape+quit, hardcore is hardcore :rolleyes: )
-Nothing weird about that build?
-For devotion, i dont know what to aim… Belemoth maybe, any idea?
-Is there some thread link with advice for new/hc players (like the one using a Scaled Hide) ?
I don’t have much experience either, but I would go at least 25 nightblade (you need stats either way)
I would put 5 points into whirling death, 5 points into Amarista quick cut, and 1 point into ring of steel and it’s transmitter for an awesome, quick, aoe cc
Also, imo, blood of dreeg>> aspect of the guardian, survivability wise. The regeneration is huge.
Devotion wise, since you focus on vitality, I LOVE wendigo for both damage and leech, blood of giants is easy to take, scales is also awesome (always imo) for survivability and damage in a vitality build
I’ve made several characters, and this is the one that I’ve landed on. I’m level 75 just hit ultimate on SC (to get access to stash), but I’m playing as if it’s HC (I have 0 deaths).
It is definitely a very strong build. I love the AOE, I love the self healing. I have to disagree with a couple things that the above poster suggested.
Here’s my build (weapon pool skills really shine late game): witch hunter
Pnumatic, shadow dance, and veil are all obv very good defensive talents. I opted to max other skills.
As far as your questions:
No, it’s not mandatory. I don’t use it. If you’re in a position where this is saving your life, you’re also in a position where you will get bursted down at some point either when it’s on CD or when you don’t react quick enough.
Not at all. I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over the build, and it’s very good. Yours is pretty much exactly like mine.
Devotions are in the build I linked above. In short, the more damage you do, the more healing you receive. (3% from bat, 9% from revenant, 8% from haunted steel). Those attack figures dwarf any healing you would otherwise get from behemoth, etc. Notice that I did not finish revenant or dying god. The health cost on hungering void is just too steep. I hope crate takes a look at this ability. For revenant, the skellies do nothing.
Other comments:
In this build aspect of the guardian > blood of dreeg. The health regen for this build is nothing compared to the healing from sigil, attack damage. (Physical resist + poison resist) > health regen.
With how aggressive the devotion and talent setup is, focus your stats and gear exclusively on defense. If you come across some chaos/vit piece of equipment, it better be f–ing amazing. With focusing gear on phys, resist, health, and armor… my health quite literally almost never drops below 100%. If/when it does drop below 90% even, I know to back off from the enemy a bit. All in all, this build rocks. Plus, you’re dual wielding chaos blades, what’s sicker than that?
the problem with relying solely on lifeleech is that purple bosses are almost immune to it at ultimate, and, at least in my experience, at act 4 ultimate, there are a few occasions you need to back off or dodge aoes, and then you are not attacking, and thus not healing with life leech
i haven’t died with my build in ultimate either, and while this is partly to the 12% or so life steal, my ~1000hp/sec from behemoth and blood of dreeg are a major reason why.
even with always on 60% freeze ans stun reduction, (and 100% for 5secs every 40sec), there are bosses that can interrupt you quite often, and interupting your life leech can mean your death, at least if you have 12k hp or so that i have. If you get higher health, like 14k+, then life leech can “catch up” (since, really, you only need 1-2 crits to fill your health), but damage for melee is so high that i often watch my health bar going like a roller coster.
I think there are a number of different ways to make this build work. I currently have a level 66 DW Witch Hunter that is doing very similar things as everyone here. One major difference is that I focus on maxing Vulnerability on Curse of Frailty for the -Vitality res, and also put a decent chunk of points into Veil of Shadow for the move slow and -OA on mobs. No Sigil of Consumption at all. I can facetank pretty much everything with little problem so far, although that will likely change when I hit ultimate.
There are a lot of good empowered uniques for a vitality based melee build. Krieg’s Cleaver is insane for leveling, and DWing Omens (which are both craftable and easy to obtain via blueprints from factions) is a thing a beauty.
As far as devotions are concerned I haven’t noticed anyone mention Scales of Ulcama. I can’t recommend it enough. The proc is basically amazing. Otherwise, Gallows, Wendigo and Behemoth should be what you’re aiming for. All of them are easy to get. Everything else is kind of up to you. Resists, damage, whatever you feel will help.
I love it. Probably one of my favorite builds thus far.
wut?
i mention scales on my very first post (alongside wendigo and behemoth), but gallows is bad imo, the damage gain you get is minimal compared to what you get from equips, better imo to grab bat if you want a proc and more offensive, or stuff like sailors if you want more defensive
Having only 1 point on pneumatic burst in something I was considering during my last session, as sigil give us a lot a leech life, but I’ll wait a little, I cant face tank every bosses, and the heal save my ass more than once.
I still low level - 35, farming to get some eather/chaos resist before moving on in the story)
-The fact that all of you are investing points in the dual blade line in very interesting, it is a very offensive option, but for the moment i’m using a shield ( maybe i’m a little coward :furious: )
-I’ve removed turtle for bats in devotion, but how do you proc it? It has to be linked to a skill, and not the auto attack…
And thanks all for advices, now I can’t fool you and rip like retard
if you play with autoattacks you NEED to have at least 5 points (which is the maximum % chance of them triggering) at some of the weapon skills, they are good.
as for linking:
-you can actually link them to seperate autoattack skills (like amarist quick cut and etc) but it’s a bit suboptimal since they will only have a chance to trigger on the chance the skill is used
-you can put it into something like the sigil which is aoe AND hits every second (that’s what i’ve done in my vitality caster conjurer), it will proc like crazy, blade spirit is also an amazing 1 point skill for procs. you can have up to 3 of them up, each with it’s own chance, own cooldown on the proc, hitting simultaneously with your other attacks, and it is aoe, and it hits once every second. That’s what i use on my own nightblade to proc tainted eruption which is my main aoe.
-most optimal way is to eventually get one of the 2 ways to enhance your autoattack with an actual skill. There are 2 ways to do that (that i know of), one is to craft mistborn relic for your relic slot (you can get the recipe drop from the ogre boss before deadman gultch), the other is to get the recipe and craft the beronath’s shard component for your weapon, don’t know how hard a drop it is because i actually got it when i hit 65(ish) on my very first character, haven’t seen it since though. Either of those skill will be a MAJOR increase in your autoattack dps AND allow you to link a proc on the autoattack that actually procs out of both autoattacks AND skills linked to your autoattacks
edit:
something that i’ve figured late in the game is that… don’t worry about your skill points so strictly for end game. If you look at my build, i’m already at like +40skill points from the max from the equip, and i’m not even fully decked out. a few +1 to all X class skill items (i have +4 to all conjurer p.e.) alongside with epics/legendaries usually giving some skills can shore up some loose ends. Just get a general idea like “max skill x/y/z, put a few points in a/b/c, use 1/2/3 as 1 pointers” is usually enough. Respeccing skills is really cheap. Just remember you can’t respec mastery points, so at least solidify which skills you are going to use.
I didn’t read that one, but I did check out the grimcalc link in your third post which didn’t include it. Sorry.
Regardless, I’m going to disagree with you strongly on Gallows. If you’re going for Dying God and building primarily vit damage it’s legit. It gives you flat, a decent amount of % and it’s an easy +5 primordial. Bat will give you more damage when you proc, but it also makes getting to DG trickier. Sure, Sailor’s is more defensive, but it’s nothing you can’t make up with good gear and components. Additional flat damage is where the magic really happens, especially if you’re working off AS.
Then rip @ lvl 37, every things were easy… then one shot agains an unique mob with a gun (+rage quit so I didn’t the his name)
=> i’ll do the same in sc
