Help with a Ranged Pierce Tactician - DW or 2H?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi all

I’m in two minds about my Ranged Tactician, currently lvl 60.

I started it with the intention of being DW pistols, but when I looked forward at some of the end-game pistols, I wasn’t as impressed as with the 2H options, which seem to synergize directly with a pierce build, i.e. Silverbolt, which gives an irresistible +3 skills to boot.

I started leveling with DW, but it slowed down quite quickly, so I switched to 2H for kraken and better leveling, with the intention of completing it as a 2H build.

Then at the end of normal, I started to feel the lack of direct healing/defense. My original intention was to pick up with both Azrakaa and Unknown Soldier to stack pierce damage, with Living Shadow + other ADCTH sustaining me.

Therefore I respected to take the quickest route to Unknown Solider, but this meant dropping Kraken. Therefore I am back to DW, but with Living Shadow life sustain, and now it feels much stronger and faster than 2H.

I can either return to 2H later or keep on with DW.

My question is: is DW viable for a pierce focused build? Probably the best pistol I can see would be Havoc, but the problem is that it converts nearly half of pierce damage to physical - and so 2x would be a near total conversion. I’m not entirely sure what the ramifications of this would be.

I suppose this means it would convert all my base pierce damage to physical, which would then be boosted by +% physical damage, but no longer +%pierce damage? This would mean I maintain all my damage boosters except those that grant +% pierce damage (i.e. Aura of Conviction base pierce damage, but not %)? And I would mainly focus on -physical RR rather than pierce, and I would lose the benefit of pierce damage ignoring armour?

It’s hard to tell whether this will be ultimately beneficial. But it does probably mean an entirely different devotion setup. I had planned:

Kraken
Sailor
Lotus
Lion
Assassin’s Blade
Harpy
Empty Throne
Mantis
Azrakaa
Unknown Soldier

This configuration would stack the most pierce damage (and a LOT of physical resist) and leaves 5 points spare to spend on somewhere else, probably with ADCTH (e.g. Ghoul, Hydra, or Scales).

What do you guys think?

2

I had the same thought a while ago.

Built a DW tactician, themed after Gaara from Naruto. Its one kf my stronger guys but im a noob and all my guys are pretty janky. The issue i did run into was pierce/phys.

Gaara uses 2 mythical havocs, does decent damage but could definitely be better. I dont think i ever uploaded the level 100 GT link, but heres a link to my OP about the same kind of build

3

Thanks for the input. I think I’ve worked it out. I’m gonna run with DW Havoc, drop Unknown Soldier. This should open up lots of devotion potential. I don’t think my plan above was great - stacked Unknown and Azrakaa, and probably not enough to proc. One or the other is probably the best plan.

With DW, you can put Shifting Sands on Cadence, Assassin’s Mark on Chilling Round, and pick up Empyrion (chance on hit, physical damage) and Tree of Life. I’ll let you know how it goes… :+1:

1 Like
4

i highly recommend azraaka, that skill procs like crazy and is very cool

5

Hey man, I finally got the GT link for the DW phys/pierce tactician I made, so you can see how mine is. Not optimized, but still decent enough to clear MC for the most part, definitely have trouble in areas of ultimate though due to many many holes in resists and defenses and sub-optimal gear/complete lack of augments on armors…

Lord Gaara of the Sand

6

Hey thanks for the input. I’m gonna go a different way with devotions, here’s a link of what I think the end will be: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zYzp9N

Actually I’m in Elite and already quite close to this, think I have less than 10 shrines to get! (I completed Malmouth but skipped normal Forgotten Gods)

I notice Harp is quite popular, but I feel that a lot of the benefit - the +Pierce% nodes - is lost when most if not all of hand damage is converted to physical. My stats are also working out to be about 50:50 physique/cunning.