Is My Build Bad Or Is It My Piloting?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
21

alrighty, finally got some time to sit down and play/take this baby for a spin

let me preface this by saying i do not mean to come off elitist, i consider myself a pretty avg/slightly above avg pilot skill wise
that said

I’ve no idea why you feel your Belgo felt squish on SR 65-66 :thinking:

i did 5 rounds of 65-66 farm, with no build changes, (tho i probably should have taken atleast RoS because it felt weird playing without :sweat_smile:), except swap Unknown Soldiers shadows proc from execute to whirling death - everything else was as is

these were the mutators i got

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0 deaths, 0 real threat moments, used 1 aether cluster (on the final chunk of final run :confounded:) - because did a bullshit pull
and that was sorta the theme, nothing was ever scary or threatening, unless i mega fucked up a pull which happened 2½ times, and only 2 of those felt sorta scary, but don’t consider them real threats because self inflicted
one pull was like 15-20 heroes/half a map, of bad combos heroes incl regular annoying trash, was scary because surround and too many to deal with statically - but didn’t need to cluster, just relocated every movement skill CD
½ “scary” pull was on the same map a shard later, less heroes and trash, but got a Reaper incl, wasn’t really scary because much lesser mobs and less heroes
the last scary pull included vile- and bileclaw, and therein lies the biggest threat to this thing, disrupt (and surrounds)
disrupt because of 0 resist, paired with surrounds = can’t use wendigo rush to gtfo, for a scary long time
so on the final shard where i pulled too many (yay war cry), and got disrupt buggers included in the pull, and had so many enemies/surround it made me get caught in disrupt pools that couldn’t get moved out fast enough from, resulted in the first “real” scary moment, and a need to cluster to survive the manual walk out push through enemies until disrupt wore off
^could be somewhat alleviated with simply not using war cry/don’t make aoe pulls and being more careful with the disrupt bastards like vile and bileclaw
*and neither of these pulls would feel comfy on most builds, not just belgo

aside from that everything was super smooth and felt mega safe and comfy
all nemesis and bosses got chewed up, build strong enough to even multi tank some nemesis+boss combo in boss room
dps wasn’t high enough to kill Seeker in 1 phase, but got down to like 10% or less hp, which is fine all considered
when catching Reaper alone it could kill him before spawning wraiths - on armoured mutator too
had 2 instances of killing Grava before he morbed (good rng on fumble pools i think) - on armoured mutator too (even survived eating his nulli orbs when i tried the 4th time and didn’t kill him in the last second :sweat_smile:)
Maiden felt ridiculously safe
Fabius was no trouble and got no blade barrier bs
Valde, Zantarin, Alex and Benji all totally ez
couldn’t kill Kaisan before first crystal spawn, makes sense, but no threat there either

did not encounter Morgo, Korvaak, Kymon or Gargabol, but considering how it tanked maiden+ilgor or +sturm bug, i doubt they’d be scary too on any of those muters

survived trap rooms relatively comfy, tho also didn’t get the most absurd screwy trap placements, tho did still get some of the bad trap maps 4x

with a grand total of 0 deaths:
all in all, while not “optimal” built, i’d say it was a beautifully safe/comfy belgo you had there for sure, imo,
atleast for 65-66 i don’t really understand the fuzz :sweat_smile: - so pretty well made i’d say, felt good to me :ok_hand:

Getting a tyrant derma slicer for DR instead of war cry tho will def be a great upgrade :+1:

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22

playing in shard 75-76 or even 80 so it’s mostly high stakes here…

I imagine a lot of builds can manage de 65-(order)66.

EDIT: I also managed to get my Tyrant derp slicer after 999 puncturing ones. :smiley:

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23

since Foehammer was running 65-66 experiencing these issues i see/saw no reason to test the build on 75, wouldn’t really accomplish the same troubles since the difficulty magnifies; and a ton of builds doesnt’ feel comfy on 75-76

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24

I didn’t want to overflow the forums with the same tread of idea of why my belgothian struggles so I tho it would be good idea to go with the flow here too.

Yes, it’s kinda answered I get it, but quitting now and just writing on a rock that a lot of builds don’t have a chance in 75-76 is not a correct way of doing things. While I didn’t get the full memo I did test my belgo against ravager (really nice fight), test in shard 80 (so many heartattacks but done it without a death), I can gladly say some of the info and insight helped me a bit too with the build.

In my eyes if I want comfy I simply stand in 1 spot whole game and have 0 threat, ofc it won’t be comfy in high shards but if you build it quite right, perhaps it’s quite manageable /or possible. :wink:

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25

If you want to feel even safer, you could retain your DR and even have full uptime on it if you switch relic to Belgothian’s Carnage to reduce the cooldown on War Cry. It would cost you some survivability from Serenity proc but I think full War Cry uptime is worth it.

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26

oh yea for sure
i don’t really think, for my part atleast, that it was a report on belgo “in general”, but more this very specific setup/Forhammer’s (old) belgo
i have belgos that feel ok in 75 and different setups that feel totally dog sht in 75 :sweat_smile:
have a belgo that can kill ravager and a lot that can’t -
so it totally varies build/setup to setup, and “a” belgo most definitely can potentially do X

i think here the curious part was more Forhammer’s specific experience and the “root” of the question; whether it was specific build that was bad or piloting
where then, since the exact same build 1:1 “in my hands” felt really good on SR 65-66, so much so i’d consider it a decent build job done for the task, i’d probably lean more towards piloting/experience being the thing at play here, rather than a “belgo build”, generalization or not. Because this specific build, even without RoS felt really really comfy imo, so i don’t think this specific one is bad - just didn’t think it necessary to test this specific setup on 75, since the post was about 65
and when i didn’t ass pull half map with war cry it could stand still and facetank everything without sweating, so that’ was definitely comfy (i would not try to multi tank Maiden+X boss on my glass belgo :sweat_smile:)

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27

I don’t think War Cry with belgothian goes well together, needs not only skill points but also time to cast it and, theoretically speaking if u cast it, then in meantime u are vulnerable to being critically hit without doing the life steal thing and such, but I could see how your version could play out.

I rarely see someone with the relic Carnage too, last time I saw someone running with it was back in 2018 or smth. xD

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28

i’d agree with Flaming
which as noted in my feedback was also the biggest issue in SR; War Cry just has potential to ass pull too much
it’s hard to control on some maps if your war cry will reach something “on the other side”, and then get half the map running
and the 2x it did happen it wasn’t that awesome

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29

Agree to disagree then. I don’t see how you can reasonably say no to permanent, full screen 25+% DR on a melee build (especially if Foehammer’s concern was survivability). Pulling can be controlled with careful play, which Belgo requires anyway given its limited AoE capability. With the build’s speed, you get 160-ish % CS without really trying, so it’s not like you cast War Cry and then stand there holding your dick for 2 seconds, the window of opportunity for enemies to kill you is small, particularly if you cast right after RoS stun, and then for the rest of the fight your survivabiltiy is 25+ % up. I’ll gladly stand there not attacking for 0.3 s or whatever to get that kind of resilience for 5 seconds.

Also, Carnage does more than just provide full DR uptime, you get better AoE from RoS, which is the build’s weak point (my version has RoS + CoS maxed so it’s not just utility), higher availability on oh shit buttons (Pneumatic Breath + Blade Barrier) and escape (whatever mobility skill you chose). It’s definitely at least worth considering as an option. It has not disappointed me yet.

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30

did you miss this part:

except it doesn’t
you aren’t able to guarantee that war cry cooldown finishing lining up with already expiring carnage cooldown to where it gives you 2sec so you’re still swinging around 1 sec downtime here and there, and then what’s the point (not dissing the carnage relic choice btw, but war cry)

i also don’t agree with belgo lacking aoe, so regular careful play isn’t really necessary (for 65-66 atleast), since unless you ass pull half a map you have plenty AoE even for regular surrounds, and ofc a decent movement skill lets you break it off frequent enough

sure agree to disagree,
but imo, this isn’t just a belgo thing, it’s a general Soldier/War Cry issue; i don’t like to use it in SR as DR unless i really have, or my build is guaranteed sturdy enough to survive ass pulls, because you can’t control when or where war cry pulls half the map the way their layouts work and how it can pull through barriers
which is then bad on anything but the sturdiest build, which you don’t “need” on belgo, because tyrant derma slicer fixes it ( if not already sturdy enough to not actually need the DR in the first place for 65-66 at least) - heck i even did a belgo using Oleron Blood for DR, or Leap rune, and they all felt better than war cry, despite the vastly reduced aoe DR application, simply because ass pulls got completely removed

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31

Hey no worries gnome! Thanks for taking the time to test the build out. I had a suspicion that it was my piloting, as the stats were completely fine. So it’s good to have that confirmation. Following Tomo’s advice made the build feel so much better imo, and it does what I want it to do. Thanks everyone for your insight and help!

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32

ye the new version def looks pretty dope :ok_hand: :yum:
*tho i’d probably finish azrakaa devotion for the proc myself, shuffle some augments around to account for new resist changes/overcaps

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33

Thanks yeah still a bit of fine tuning, also gotta get a Tyrant’s of Ruthlessness Derma legit, might take forever actually lol. Definitely should grab the Azraaka proc.

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You will gain an infinite number of puncturing until u get a tyrant, not even taking into consideration of a double rare scenario.

Source: trust me, bro

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35

Oh yeah, I remember farming for a Sinister of Ruthlessness back in the day, the amount of Puncturing of Alacrity or Celerity was 95% of the drops. Not to mention the Aetherfire of frostbite meme shit. :joy:

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36

Sounds legit

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37

i haven’t played this game in a while but when i did i remember kiting was essential. for example, when those big guys charge at you, the moment they stop moving you can actually turn around and run and they’ll miss. i usually did that turn around and run kite maneuver a lot, when range or melee cuz it seems like the ai’s reach is really low. when melee i would whack em for a bit then kite and they paused for a sec but i could still hit them with melee when i turned back around. pretty sure i’m remembering this correctly and i apologize in advance if this is completely wrong. my memory isn’t great (i did play ranged a lot so that might be messing with my memory). one thing i’m sure of tho is rune of ishtaks mercy. that rune is probably the best in the game if you don’t care about time. no monster resists petrify so you can use it to great effect everywhere. you can even interrupt some bosses for 1/4 of a sec which should give you enough time to finish the dodge back animation. definitely recommend trying it out.

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38

I’ll try that rune out; but aside from generally disliking disengage runes(they feel clunky and I struggle to use them effectively) I really like Wendigo rush. When I’m in trouble that juicy adtch helps when I need to gtfo.

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39

ishtak is one of the better ones cuz the animation is faster then the others. i forgot to mention my other weapon set that i use on most builds that complements the ishtak rune. i use mythical mindwarp for the 15 flat RR with chillspikes on it, and a green shield for phys res (immovable wardens fortress of redoubt). that shield has ~23% phys res, some health, a bunch of DA plus the normal shield block stuff so its pretty nice. anyway what i do is ishtak out, weap swap then a couple chillspikes (adcth works regardless of conversions so its a really nice sustain/ survivability tool) then re-engage every 5 seconds or so. the flat RR is really nice as it saves you devotion points and is only worth to drop it when you can get close to double flat aoe RR from somewhere else. the scales devotion is definitely something i’d drop if you’re gonna use the mindwarp chillspikes combo cuz its not an aoe.

separate question: anyone know if the revenants devotions skeles do an aoe attack or attack more then 1 monster?

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40

I dropped scales and grabbed Oleron’s gloves, with flat rr built in to RoS. Thematically the weapon swap is kinda yuck (and this is a guy who named his Belgo BM ‘Belgothian’ :rofl:), but also it would probably feel kinda gimmicky. Again, that is my personal taste. Thanks for the info/discussion though, it’s always refreshing to see how different people play the same game.

1 Like