Help with Shieldbreaker build?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Hi! Could use some help optimizing my shieldbreaker and improving survivability as I don’t really know what I’m doing. Been a very long time since I last played Grim Dawn and never got to ultimate.

My train of thought for this build was:

  1. Never played Oathkeeper before
  2. Hey, Aegis of Menhir is a lot of fun
  3. Oh neat, Aegis does fire damage, gets buffed by retaliation and there are THREE devotions that work on fire retaliation. I’m gonna get all of them.

I think have some problems:
I’m heading towards Malmouth on elite and the build feels kind of squishy (or at least, it can’t facetank the final bosses in the dungeons). DA is low but, isn’t that good for a retaliation build? How best to improve survivability?

Righteous fervor is just kind of… there. Need to do something in between chucking shields and the sword at least gives me a little life steal. Not sure if there’s a better option

Skill points can probably be optimized.

Most of the items I’ve found seem tailored for acid retal or demo bombs retal, not fire aegis of menhir. Also my greens have crappy enchantments.

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I’m sure there’s veterans out there who can give you a lot more specific advice, particularly on retaliation which I’ve never tried. In general it looks to me like you put thought in your choices, but are trying to do a lot of things at once (Throwing shields, auto-attacking, parrying with shields, retaliation) that may dilute your focus too much. But don’t take my word for that. On a more practical level, a few things that stand out to me:

1] Your build has high armour, but low armour absorption. That means your armour is only 87% effective. Get another Scaled hide in those shoulders, or use Living Armour/Sacred Plating in chest and shoulders if you have the blueprints. This seems like the biggest and easiest fix.

2] There’s more green items to be found on the road to Malmouth that boost Aegis of Menhir, like the Basilisk Fang (dropped by Basilisks) and the Ugdenbog Repeater (dropped by Wendigo Cultists.) The gun in particular reduces cooldown which is pretty great, though odds of finding one that also boosts fire are poor. Still worth it though.

3] Your devotion map has no tier 3 devotions, because you split focus between shield defense, retaliation stuff, and fire damage stuff. I’d try to get Ulzuin’s Torch. Hydra if you decide to go for the aegis-boosting gun.

4] For skillpoints, I prefer Flashbang over Judgement for reducing defense & inflicting fumble/miss chance on enemies. It doesn’t include a retal element but it’s not there to deal damage either way, it procs devotions and debuffs enemies.More points in Safeguard would also help with survival, especially once you get your armour absorption up.

I’m also not sure about the components you use in gear. Something like Chains of Oleron to boost offensive ability or Ugdenbog leather for poison res, and then Barrowholm augments to boost health instead of poison res seem like they’d help. And that corpse dust ring augment doesn’t really make sense to me on a build that has no real health regen. Another bloodied crystal would boost armour and stats more, or you could boost freeze resist with a frozen hearth thingie. (though freeze is pretty rare in the campaign outside Steps of Torment.)

Your augments in weapons and jewelry also seem weak and low level, if you have the faction rep you can get much better ones. Finally, more lifesteal is always helpful. If you get the gun you can put devil touched ammo in it, though silvercore ammo would add a lot more damage.

Either way, good luck and have fun!

(I think I iterated 4 different versions of my own first character before it got to a place where I felt it was actually any good. )

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Cheers!

Yeah, in general I don’t want this to be an auto-attacking build and would rather focus on aegis and fire retaliation instead of doing all the things at once. I should probably just drop the righteous fervor nodes to 1 and use the skill points elsewhere. Safeguard, Ulzuin’s Wrath, Temper?

1] Your build has high armour, but low armour absorption. That means your armour is only 87% effective. Get another Scaled hide in those shoulders, or use Living Armour/Sacred Plating in chest and shoulders if you have the blueprints. This seems like the biggest and easiest fix.

Thanks, I will lean into that and boost absorption and armor.

2] There’s more green items to be found on the road to Malmouth that boost Aegis of Menhir, like the Basilisk Fang (dropped by Basilisks) and the Ugdenbog Repeater (dropped by Wendigo Cultists.) The gun in particular reduces cooldown which is pretty great, though odds of finding one that also boosts fire are poor. Still worth it though.

Never really considered the Ugdenbog Repeater because retaliation builds are supposed to get hit in melee - but I’m charging into melee range regardless so it is an obvious upgrade! Will see if I can find a basilisk fang to experiment with as well. It’s going to hurt losing those points in Vindictive Flame and Temper though

3] Your devotion map has no tier 3 devotions, because you split focus between shield defense, retaliation stuff, and fire damage stuff. I’d try to get Ulzuin’s Torch. Hydra if you decide to go for the aegis-boosting gun.

I’m not sure I agree about the devotions being too scattered - Phoenix Fire and Messenger of War together provide a big boost to fire retaliation damage, and Hyrian’s Glare uses that retaliation damage. What about swapping Hyrian for another retaliation or defense focused constellation?

4] For skillpoints, I prefer Flashbang over Judgement for reducing defense & inflicting fumble/miss chance on enemies. It doesn’t include a retal element but it’s not there to deal damage either way, it procs devotions and debuffs enemies.More points in Safeguard would also help with survival, especially once you get your armour absorption up.

Yes, Judgement does peanuts for damage lol. The thought behind it was that it both procs Phoenix Fire consistently and pulls everything into its damage aura, which is a cool synergy. Plus a defense debuff. Flashbang has range, better -DA scaling and miss chance though… will try it out!

I’m also not sure about the components you use in gear. Something like Chains of Oleron to boost offensive ability or Ugdenbog leather for poison res, and then Barrowholm augments to boost health instead of poison res seem like they’d help. And that corpse dust ring augment doesn’t really make sense to me on a build that has no real health regen. Another bloodied crystal would boost armour and stats more, or you could boost freeze resist with a frozen hearth thingie. (though freeze is pretty rare in the campaign outside Steps of Torment.)

Your augments in weapons and jewelry also seem weak and low level, if you have the faction rep you can get much better ones. Finally, more lifesteal is always helpful. If you get the gun you can put devil touched ammo in it, though silvercore ammo would add a lot more damage.

Yeah, the components and augments have been gradually thrown on to patch holes in resistances and stats as I was levelling. Needs a total refresh. I really, really, really need to farm the ingredients to craft more high-level components like the ones you mentioned (Ugdenbog Leather, Bloodied Crystal, etc)

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You may well be right. Like I said, retaliation is the one archetype I never really tried…

From what I understand, all sources of retal damage are only boosted by % retal, while the % fire damage only helps your fire skills. (Righteous Fervor, Aegis.) So it’s hard to get both types up to a decent level. And you do have most of the ones that help it.

(I’d keep Hyrian, it boost armour by a lot as well as boosting both retal and fire damage, so it seems very helpful for your build. )

Oh, and one more thing I forgot earlier: Your build does not have a lot of physical resistance. Now physical resistance is really hard to get in the current patch, as lots of it was nerfed apparently. But one of the ways that is still there is through shields, which have a lot of prefixes that give +phys res. Duratable can give 6-14%, and Enduring can give 4-8% AND 4-10% health. And those are yellow prefixes! There’s green ones too.

It’s worth looking for a shield with more phys res (maybe you already have one?) And when you upgrade your chest/leg/shoulder/head armour to legendaries later, there’s also plenty that offer more phys res, though smaller amounts.

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Ahh thanks, I’ll add physical resistance to the green item shopping list.

So I guess the plan to start is to find an Ugdenbog Repeater with some decent enchantments, then move points from righteous fervor into other skills, swap in the medal that buffs Aegis and re-do components and augments in favor of armor, absorption and OA.

Hopefully also get some greens with decent enchantments. Phys resist, retail, fire, OA and other defenses/bonuses, roughly in that order of priority?

I think the gun is basically a stat stick so I’ll be happy so long as it has a decent attack bonus lol

From what I understand, all sources of retal damage are only boosted by % retal, while the % fire damage only helps your fire skills. (Righteous Fervor, Aegis.) So it’s hard to get both types up to a decent level. And you do have most of the ones that help it.

That’s the impression I got from googling as well. Been trying to gather equipment that boosts both but I aim to focus on retaliation bonuses regardless of damage type. The build already has 53k flat fire retaliation and 17k physical retaliation with buffs and procs, so the node that adds retaliation damage to Aegis is the primary source of damage.

Edit: one question… does cunning buff crits? Otherwise it seems pretty useless for this build

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Cunning buffs offensive ability, which in turn boosts critical hit chance. It does not boost critical hit damage. The rule of thumb is that 3000 OA will let you hit everything reliable and score critical hits on typical foes, but to be able to crit high-end bosses (in ultimate) you might need as much as 3500 effective OA. (You OA + any -DA abilities you have, like Flashbang.) Even more if you’re depending on crits, like an upheaval build, but that does not apply to you.

Your build currently has a fair bit of % crit damage, so high offensive seems worthwhile. Phoenix fire also only procs on crit. So getting more OA might be nice. But investing heavily in cunning does not seem worth it, as it does not otherwise boost damage. Spirit at least boosts fire damage, though I don’t think it helps retal. Physique is probably your best bet to stay alive. A few more points in flashbang probably help more to get a few crits.

Oh, and for skillpoints, a couple more things:

  • Thermite mine and Celestial Presence are not maxed. Both should be. Resistance reduction is a huge damage multiplier.
  • Resilience probably only needs 1 skillpoint
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Roger that. I’ll post an update after I get some free time to tune the spicy shield build.

I appreciate the feedback, really helps to put thoughts down on “paper” and get some feedback

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You could say OA boosts Critial Damage in a way (depends how you look on it) because it enables you to have a chance for 1.2, 1.3… 1.5 Crits (+ your sheet Crit damage) so you could say your average Crit multiplier increases when you increase OA but it’s not much and low chance so in practice what you said is correct and high sheet Crit damage is needed to make use of Crits.

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Skill tree and devotion tree are all over the place ,1200% Rata multiplier is to low it’s practically unplayable, Shieldbreaker in general it’s not the best combo for Retal build ,gear is too random also ,87 Armor absorb is very low on a tank

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Do you have suggestions for devotions?

The thought behind the current set-up is Hyrian+Phoenix+Messenger for fire retal synergy, Rhowan’s and Solael for RR and then crab/chariot/turtle for defense.

I also played around with Obelisk of Menhir, but I couldn’t find a way to do it without sacrificing one of the three fire retal devotions. Faced with that choice, I decided to go all in on the gimmick lol

Gear and retal multiplier definitely need work. Partially a consequence of not having access to my old GDStash file, so it’s basically an SSF run

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you’re not using aegis medal, which gives you lifesteal
likewise you could use blazeheart(100% reward) for freebie fire, or the much harder pistol (firewise) Jason mentioned
I would not recommend leaning into retal as fire aegis, it’s “hard” in terms of payoff vs other retal/rata approaches, and most fire aegis item don’t really support it “well”.

Although fun i wouldn’t personally recommend Torch these days, a lot of meta fire paths has shown it can be much more rewarding to simply skip it in favour of stacking tier2s or burn booster on ex Sage(not the actual proc)

if you’re using melee+shield you’d benefit from also taking Smash wps (currently you have RF 100% converted so there is no phys loss with that Sword), and potentially even void seal wps for more aoe/RF application - which also applies to maxing out Retribution more if leaning into retal, but as RS mentioned your retal is somewhat lower atm.
Either way, Consecration should be pointed more/softcapped-maxed for freebie defence when using RF anyway, and you might aswell breakpoint RF if you’re actually using it as filler dmg with your wps investment.
Currently i’d say your devo assignment to proccers aren’t that optimal, which aside from healing shortcomings might also potentially affect that more (that’s assuming devo map even stays as is ofc)
Eldritch fire on mid-high CD aegis becomes a horrible proccer in solo fights like bosses, and even in smaller group fights can sometimes not trigger, having it on a spamable or higher frequency trigger can potentially either guarantee more procs or atleast improve it
Likewise elemental storm can straight up become a 100% guarantee if you assign it to Judgment, although you wouldn’t even have to use judgment and can just assign it to your pets and not worry about it or using an extra skill.
Decent triggers for eldritch fire could then be RF if you’re spamming that anyway, or thermite mines, or even VM+volcanic stride (tho that just essentially adds another/different mandatory button to rotate in ala Judgment, which might not be as desired). - potential downside of having Eldritch fire on mines, although decent in terms of trigger, is you’ll have to toss those out every single fight regardless then, where otherwise you might easily coast through hero packs without mines and just EF+Empys+Storm

Alternative healing option would be to include Dryad which can be neat on CD builds (can replace Turtle since you’re not needing the blues)

ex of tiny devo tweak with different gains could be instead of using Scholar (since nothing needs 10 greens), is to complete Rhowan and 1pt green crossroad giving more dmg/oa and total res (although you’re currently massively overcapped on chaos ofc, still provides room to shuffle)

if you would like some inspiration of “pure” aegis fire builds (no retal) Lee posted this sometime back (unsure if has seen tweaks/attention later) [1.2.0.2] The Virtue of Oblivion: 4:20 Crucible Gladiator 150-170, SR 90, 1:15 Ravager, Celestials - easy and tanky Fire caster Shieldbreaker (+bonus build: Empyrion's Army Shieldbreaker)
and Roman gave me this a while ago, which i enjoyed very much Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator (had a Soulblade/melee version too but forgot where i put it)
and while you don’t have to copy either, if nothing else perhaps they can give some ideas, also even if you haven’t transmuted (or desire) Virtue set yet

**side note, lifesteal can be weapon specific, so when you have 4% lifesteal direct on soulblade it means that portion of your sheet lifesteal only applies to attacks made with that hand and not left/shield hand, which gives you 9% lifesteal on RF attacks, and 4 on aegis/shield slam

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