Hello everyone! So I started playing Grim Dawn and I’ve really liked it,but since I reached the higher difficulties of the game my character became progressively more and more useless.I’m playing a Blademaster lvl 82 on Ultimate and I have my resistances at a decent level(not maximum or overcapped,but still) and most enemies somehow take a third of my health with one hit or spell…Seeing that I can’t possibly play the game without kiting the mobs or playing VERY cautiously, I’ve been forced to rely on lifesteal to have “some” chance of surviving. So far it has worked great,it has saved me from many deadly situations,but right now I’m at the quest where I have to retrieve the cannons for the Black Legion from the Conflagration and on my way there I stumbled upon Valdaran, The Storm Scourge(whom I have killed in Elite difficulty without much trouble) and he just one shots me everytime…My attack speed is reduced and I can’t lifesteal the health he takes from me with just one spell.I’ve watched some videos on killing Valdaran and I must say I’m very surprised to see that others’ champions are sooo buffed up and their health bar bardly moves when they’re fighting bosses. Meanwhile, my healthbar is going up and down like a yo-yo and I barely manage to kill a group of mobs.
So what am I doing wrong? Is there something wrong with my skillset or the Attributes? And don’t tell me to farm move legendary gear,because I have the feeling that Crate entertainment despises the nightblade class…Seriously though, almost no legendary gear for a nightblade has dropped so far. Everything that drops is for a caster…Anyway,thank you in advance and I hope to read your responses soon!
Here are my skillset and a screenshot of my char:
http://grimcalc.com/build/AJQPCBz
https://s12.postimg.org/be26xsyzh/grim_dawn.png
Usually, people base their builds on what item drops before. So, if you get caster legends, maybe you should try making one 
Hover cursor over the (?) on the right side of your defensive ability and you will see the last monsters chance to crit you. With just 1568 in defensive ability you are getting critted alot. If those crits are pierce or bleeding they will hurt bad. At the very least you need 500 more defensive ability and more pierce and bleed resist.
Also you need pneumatic burst at 12/12 and a point in the transmuter.
You can accomplish this best by reducing your points in the dual blades passives so that they are at 5/8 giving you 20% chance of activation.
Your offensive ability is also too low making you miss a lot, this obviously hurts your chance to lifesteal.
I see you have put alot of points into cunning, physique would have been better. To compensate you need more HP from your gear.
I personally wouldn’t want to play melee with less than 10k HP
1 point in blade barrier is a nice “oh shit” skill.
You NEED pneumatic burst at 12/12 with the modifier. You will use it every cooldown for the rest of ever. Maybe you could take some points off of the dual wield cleave abilities, since they don’t do a ton vs bosses compared to 30% heals every 5 seconds
oh and as stated above, put 1 in blade barrier. If you are close to dead without any potions or heals on cooldown, it will save you. Of course if you are getting literally 100 - 0 one shot then it doesn’t do much but then you have bigger problems
You put a lot of points into cunning resulting in bad DA, you are getting crit a lot and some of your resists are low too. If you want to do low phys you need 12/12 pneumatic (with the 1st modifier and later shadow dance once you have gear) + high dmg/lifesteal to sustain through the big hits.
Valdaran has a pretty big lightning debuff. That + crit = rip
Ouch. Your resistance holes happen to be two of the more common damage types. Low pierce/poison damage resistance is likely hurting you much more than you realize. Also there are some very big phys hits you simply need to avoid in ultimate - like shamblers or the charging bull looking things.
Thank you all for your quick and helpful responses! I maxed pneumatic burst and it works great. I’ve also rearranged my charms so I get a decent amount of pierce and bleed resistance.
As for the sustain - usually I don’t get K.O.-d in 1 hit, I have
some time to lifesteal it back,but I do have trouble with large packs of monsters,when at least one of them crits me…
So now I face the bigger problem - how do I acquire more DA? Do I need to farm better gear or do I need to redo my devotion points for more DA? Because right now I’ve selected them so I get the Unknown Warrior constellation and every point after that I’ve put in Ghoul and Bat for more life steal.
This is my suggestion from your last grimcal build and your gears. And remember that your primary dmg is from your default attack and your survival comes first.
- Field Command : For more DA,OA, and the aura is very good. I’ve always want it and it also has attack speed and all dmg aura.
- Oleron’s Rage : For more OA, Movement speed and Pierce. It works well with every offensive soldier build.
- Pneumatic Burst : Spend all this skill line except Elemental Awakening to fix your DA and health regen etc. Very useful skill.
- Veil of Shadow : Instead of increasing your DA, reduce your enemies OA is fine (When you’re obtain higher gear you may put only 1 point in it and use it’s other skill line instead)
- Ring of Steel : For clearing enemies around you and give them 1.5 sec stun
- Blade Arc : For clearing enemies in front of you and give them a Knock Down
- Zolhan’s Technique : to increase chance of WPS for clearing enemies in front of you
- Fighting Spirit : You said you can’t tank those monster dmg. So its useless and may suits other tough and durable build
- Shadow Strike : just 1 point is enough for it to use for quickly approach target. You can do much more dmg with your default attack
- Anatomy of Murder : You didn’t focus on bleeding that much and you’ll face Human only 20% of the game. It should be one of last skills you may want.
- Something in Dual Blades tree : Maximize chance to be use only best skills and put other points in more survival skill first. Then if there’re points left then spend in some what you want more.
- Cadence but stay Deadly Momentum : In Blademaster. I think Cadence and Dual blades line require too many skill points if you don’t have + bonus skill in your class. Then I suggest that you should find other skills to invest points into them instead. Cadence always welcome when you’ve better gear and more skill points to invest.
If you find that you need something or some skills but you can’t get them through your class. Try to find skills from specific gears or components use for upgrading gears. Some may provide better optional skill for you.
PS. I never play Soldier class, but I think I know this game enough to judge which skill is appropriate for a char.
IMHO:
get pneumatic burst (12/12 with equip bonuses) and some points in shadow dance for evade% and defensive ability. Put more points in field command for OA and DA, it’s a really awesome skill.
If i were in you i would drop the entire cadence line and bring the soldier tree to 50/50. Then get oleron’s rage (10 or 12 points at least, bonuses included).
I get that you are into cadence for more dps, but actually i find that 2wielding BM have already more than enough dps with the dual blades skill tree.
You can use the “shard of beronath” skill instead of cadence as default weapon attack 
Put 1 point in ring of steel an 1 point in ring of frost for excellent crowd control skill, you will take a lot less damage from melee mobs.
If you don’t drop blademaster equipment, just level up another char you like and use it to farm until you get at least some of the items you need
As for devotions, IMHO crane is more useful than lion, you should consider empty throne for aether and chaos resistence. Living shadow is not that good. On the other hand, i find dryad’s blessing very useful. And as for DPS, I would go for oleron if i were in you.
Consider, btw, that almost every 2wielding nightblade build is pretty gear dependant, so you need at least 4 deathmark pieces in order to make it work very well in the last 2 acts of ultimate.
This is my devotion tree with my BM, im not saying that is optimal but i am comfortable with it.
http://grimcalc.com/build/q6lyaWx (only devotion points allocated)
One thing you should know about mechanics of this game as a blademaster is WPS or Weapon Pool Skill.
X% chance to be use
when you’re making a weapon attack. 100% is going to be normal attack, but if you’ve WPS skill it may random like
You have Execution(20%), Amar’s Quick Cut (20%), Zolhan’s Tech(16%), Mark’s Adv (8%). On your attack 100% will divide to those WPS and left only 36% of doing normal attack. (100-20-20-16-8=36%)
and WPS skills may have faster animation than normal attack that’s mean when your attack speed exceeding an amount. Increase WPS chance is the way more efficient. (I’m not sure about it, I’ve experience only ranged.)
Build got no focus. On a side note, it lacks HP and DA badly.
What you need is a clear vision of the character, the rest is min-maxing through skill tree, gear and devotions.
If you spread all around you can’t min-max. Skill tree alone can’t carry you. You use the tree to set up the direction. Devotions are the fine tuning of this direction. Gear is what enables the skill tree and carries you. These are all related and tight to each other to make a successful build.
Just build examples, but you get the point.
Everyone explained what you should fix but you should also fix your devotions. Most of your choices are good but you need Oleron and Living Shadow is bad.
http://grimcalc.com/build/qjLahv6
This is a standard for blademasters, set Oleron on your left click skill. Keep in mind that you will have to refund and refil some points to be able to have all of this.
If one allots his points correctly, one can get BOTH Oleron and Living shadow…
To free up skill points, I’d just drop cadence altogether (it cuts the effectiveness of all your WPS by 33% since the third attack cannot be replaced by other WPS) and use shard of beronath… also, for dual-wield drop Zolhan’s technique since it only uses damage of one hand… Markovian’s advantage is fine get it to 20%… only get the NB dual wield skills up to 20% (with +skills equipment), anything beyond that is a waste.
Personally, my own blademaster uses dual reaver’s claws and whisperer of secrets coupled with belgothian’s carnage relic for mass perma stun. With ring of steel modifier maxed at ultimate level, it’s 75% fumble… combined with dodge and you won’t be getting hit normally that much.
I usually just leave pneumatic burst at one point… the modifiers are nice, but the heal is unnecessary if you have enough total lifesteal (>10%). Ghoul is not worth getting, and neither is bat. Just stay with pink+white all the way. I myself get empty throne and crab to help with resists (with that much lifesteal dryad is not that good and she gives very little affinity points… the crab is a better choice by far). Living shadow does have a node for lifesteal, and you can get lifesteal from certain legendary rings, amulets, belts and shoulders, or from the haunted steel component. You already have thread of mortality, so you just need enough DPS to survive to leech back.
In specifics, leave shadow strike at one point, drop all the other NB WPS skills to level 5, and level up Oleron’s Rage (an awesome skill). The procs in the white/pink line are all dependent on crits, so find +% OA mods and augments.
I see you use yellow swords,… if you cannot find good swords, a few faction equipment pieces can help… just check. Those green items with lvl 75 requirement are not that bad.
Your total HP should be ~9-10k even with almost all the points in cunning (my blademaster only has like 8 points in physique and the rest in cunning). Just make sure you get +HP from good items, max the soldier passive which gives +% HP and +% physique, and the soldier mastery bar and you’ll be fine.
Well it’s going to be really tough to acquire a significant amount more. Would be nice if you had gear then you could max out veil of shadow. Veil of shadow+Oleron devotion blind bury is a huge reduction to enemy OA and attacks peed. Even with squishy setup you should use standard blademaster devotions imo, check any of the BM threads for one. You’ll lose some lifesteal but gain dryad/oleron and a lot of health which is also important. Ring of steel/frost with 4+ points in the circle fumble mod acn help a lot too with survivablit
Unless you want to use a program to change your char you’ll never have great DA. This kind’ve build is a lot more doable if you are experienced and have the gear as well
Those are some great ideas,guys! I’ve never really paid much attention to the rest of the skills in Soldier(or NB for that matter…), whenever I saw something that gives +Pierce or +Physical damage I would just max it,lol. As for the devotion points, Oleron definitely seems like a better option, I’ll rearrange my points so I have it. And tbh I didn’t even know about Shard of Beronath…
Anyways,thank you all for the great propositions, I’ll make sure to try them out when I get back home.
Cheers!