Iskandra's Unification Warlock - attempt to collect as much %DA as possible

Hi folks, first time trying to put the build together, have mercy =)
Since I saw the complete set bonus for Iskandra’s Unification, I was obsessed with the idea to create more or less viable build around that 50%Damage Absorption proc and stockpiling it from other sources.
Here is what I made so far:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLzQnLN

Will be glad to see any criticism and advices =)

P.S.
Unfortunately, I have not had an opportunity to test it so far, therefore the idea can be totally useless.

reserved, just in case

These rings don’t stack. They’re the same debuffs, so you only get raw stats from both and one proc. Similar to Curse of Frailty.

Replace blood crystals with Topaz, even an arcane spark maybe. Your DA (defensive ability) is low

You don’t need Ulo, you already have nullification. Get solemn watcher if you want more DA

%DA is shorthand for defensive ability, not damage absorption (too rare a stat to need shorthand i guess)

Speaking of defensive ability - you need some! All that damage absorption won’t do you much good with 7k health and 2.2k DA. You’ll go down like a wet paper bag.

Incase you are wondering your passive effective health is about 11k. With a 2.2k DA value and only 3% leech i doubt it’ll cut it…

Calculate your effective health with damage absorption by:

Base health X (1 / (1 - 0.25)) X (1 / (1 - 0.12))

Now I might be a n00b here, but doesent the Iskandra set proc give 50% damage reduction and not +50% DA, or what am I missing?

Aiming for lots of +% DA is only useful if you have base DA to begin with

Change pants to stalward Gravas of readiness?

And warlock is a poor choice for aether build, how are you gonna get RR?

I second that. Even if you absorb 50% of the damage, but are vulnerable to crits, it doesn’t matter at all. Let’s say you have on average 25% chances of getting crit by enemies, you effectively have 25% damage absorption, which again drops even to a negative value by enemies’ skills that increase crit damage. In the end, some enemies would completely ignore your absorption and don’t crit you at all, resulting in no change in damage received. At this point, you’d be better off of getting 2900 DA and leaving it in this state. It’s exactly the same situation, or maybe even better since you’ll have a chance of mitigating 100% of the damage you receive (DA raises your dodge chance, which is effectively 100% damage absorption). Now, you have only 7k HP, and that is an unsafe amount of HP - you might die in two shots by some normal bosses, nemesis would oneshot you.

When building a caster, you should not care about damage absorption, but about a good amount of either DA and HP and HP and ADCTH. Damage absorption should be a helper stat, which is only additional. If you go Arcanist, you should max Maiven’s if you’re squishy (or just should, because it helps a lot), but if you can’t afford it, you can easily skip it.

Never rely on damage absorption if you don’t have an acceptable amount of DA and HP (2500 DA is good, 2700 is great and 2900 is almost perfect), HP should be at least 10k at level 100, but some builds can’t actually reach such value, but they have other sources of defense in this situation (armor, physical resist, damage reduction).

Adding to the absorb thing, it’s multiplicative not additive from different sources.

Yeah, my bad - that abbreviation was really confusing. Edited that.

Oooohhh, so my idea WAS a garbage after all…
well, at this point thread might be closed, it’s nothing to discuss anymore

Making mistakes and learning from them is never garbage.

It’s not garbage. Stacking %absorb is still good. It’s God-like, jut not God 100% absorb:)

Totally agree with you, learning - is a key. But the idea all in all did not justify itself - I sacrificed too much to get those %Damage absorb.

Anyway, thanks y’all for the responses and advices, really appreciate it. Great community =)

Hey,
there are 2 great builds where you could find some inspiration for your build :slight_smile:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74317
this one is rly tanky CT spammer without much focus on CD

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57552
and this one is entirely focused on CD (almost 100% Mark/Mirror uptime)

Both are insanely good and can clear 170 cruci without much effort.

I am currently playing the first one (but took the Hourglass) and its insanely strong.

I took it could work pretty well with Iskandra set as well, but havent tried it.