Just starting, focusing on fire strike so far....advice?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hello:)

I just started playing (I’ve had the game since early beta but waited for the full release to play it). I played a few chars just past killing the warden, but they where all mainly shaman based (one two handed damage focused, the other pet focused). They where fun, but I tried out a skill from the ember gem (fireblaze or something like that), and really liked it (it has nice aoe and would kill stuff pretty well.

That actually got me to try the pet build, which was destroying everything, but was also kinda dull. So…I looked at grim dawn calc…and decided to go with a demolitionist with a fast 1 handed gun (and a mage off hand) with the fire gems in both the weapon and shield. This adds a decent amount of fire damage and quite a bit of % fire damage between them.

Meanwhile I maxed fire strike and flame touch (Flame touch first), and am working on maxing explosive strike. I also have 1 point (for now) in vindictive flame.

I have put most of my points into physical, with 2 I think into cunning (for gun requirements), and 1 into spirit (Didn’t really need that as it turned out as I got 10 bonus spirit right after from my constilation. The constilation btw I have been working on (just about to finish it) is imp…which has given decent %fire damage and some spirit.

Here is the question though. So far I have noticed (Already) that there are high fire resistant enemies, and meanwhile, most of my damage is fire based from fire strike. This works great most of the time, but I’m thinking I’m going to need an alternative damage source eventually…or a way to reduce enemies fire resitance. Can I get from a constilation bonus ability (I see some lightning ones etc, but I don’t have alot of lightning bonus damage etc) or do I need to choose a second class. So far it looks like I have some nice bonuses to Aether damage, so that might work well in combo, but ways of making all enemies take more fire damage (including resistent onces) would be even better.

My tentative plan…for right now…is to finish maxing out explosive strike then to max vindictive (For the attack speed and hp regen).

After that i’m a bit up in the air. I think I want to max temper and static strike. Temper looks like it’ll boost the physical damage part of my fire strike significantly, and give me some nice universal armor as well, that being said…static strike looks like it’ll add more over all damage and add another damage type (lightning)…so I might go with that first (unless I need more defense and armor will help).

That does bring me to a question though, what exactly affects explosive strike? At max it says it adds 30% weapon damage 121 physical damage and like 70 burn damage. Is this added to every attack with fire strike, and most importantly, is the total damage part of the AoE explosive? So if I max temper and static strike will the extra physical and lightning damage be added to the explosive AoE damage of my first strikes?

From my limited testing…I think it gets added (or at least it does the full fire strike damage to the other enemies hit by the AoE), but it’s really hard to know for sure.

If static strike and temper both affect my AoE damage…I think i’ll be good at that point and not need anything else from the demolition tree.

Temper and vindictive flame would be my only defenses at that point, but that would only take me to level 30 or so according to grim calc…and I can pick up some more defenses from the constilations as well.

Btw, I didn’t take the power that modifies my fire strike because it requires you to use a 2 handed ranged weapon, and I like the faster fire rate of the one handed weapons. It actually gets more out of all your bonus damage since it fires so much faster AND you can embue (put a gem in) both your weapon and off hand item (So for now I’m getting %fire damage and fire damage from both hands).

I’m pretty open for a secondary class btw, although I do want to have a decently high offense/dps. I want my main source of killing to be fire strike for sure, and I’m hoping to keep the explosive strike damage high enough to take out packs easily (right now it just obliterates them).

The only other class I know is shaman, which doesn’t seem to work well with my goals.

I’m tentatively thinking of going with arcanist and getting:

IEE and Overload (should add elemental damage and boost all of it (including fire and lightning from fire strike).

1 point mirror of E as an emergency button.

max inner focus (for the offensive and spirit boost!).

Max arcane will

Max reckless power

1 in fabric of reality

12 in devestation (don’t have the points to max it, and not sure where I would lose other points to be honest).

That should pump by fire and lightning damage for first strike up significantly, and give me a good source of alternative damage from devestation (Aether damage…which I get a boost from in the constilations as well).

I know…it’s kinda glass cannonish…but I would have mirror as a emergency button, vindictive flame for bonus regen, and temper for bonus armor.

Too fragile? It looks like the best way I can boost up my fire strike damage to be honest. I was looking at possibly going with gun/shield for a more defensive setup (going with soldier), but the damage difference is pretty huge, and the only bonus would be to physical damage which isn’t going to be very high.

Any suggestions, ideas or info would be appreciated!!

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wouldn’t recommend arcanist 2nd.

pretty much any other class is better than arcanist as a support tree for firestrike, tbh.

3

My recommendation is to post a link to Grimcalc on your proposed build - it’s a lot easier for people to see what you are planning.

As far as I know, one needs three posts to do so (that is, post links), so just reply, then you should be able to edit your previous post and include your planned build path.

Also, for Explosive strike, only the damage listed on the Explosive strike skill is done in an AOE. That means that while the targeted enemy takes the full damage of all the firestrike talents (including Explosive strike), the other ones around it only take 30% weapon damage, etc.

At least, that’s how I understand it, I could be wrong.

Total damage modified by 15% is huge - A single pistol is nothing compared to the DPS output of a rifle. If anything, either duel-wield pistols, use some form of melee, or use a rifle.

4

I like Occultist for firestrike. You can mix fire + chaos fairly easily and even if you want to stick heavily fire focused curse of frailty + vulnerability is an incredible debuff. Blood of Dreeg + vindictive flame and blast shield can provide a very solid base of defense too.

As others have mentioned, while early game a pistol + spell tome (with components on both) is a good combo you’ll want to end up either using a DW relic (or other item) and sporting 2X pistols or use a two hander with the transmuter. The damage from an offhand spell tome just won’t keep up end game.

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Awesome, thank you for the info:)

Yeah, I will probably go with dual guns now that I know how to do it:) That is awesome. I’m a bit worried about explosive strike though, as if it doesn’t end up doing enough damage to take out packs of enemies, it’ll defeat the whole purpose of my build long term. I don’t want to be stuck killing things one by one again eventually.

I think I read a build called brimstone gunslinger that mixed fire strike/demo with occulist, and I was considering going that route and mostly following that build. I was confused by the dual guns though, but that has been cleared up.

I really do like the faster firing rate of the one handed guns (and the ability to have 2 components that way). It might not make as big of a difference later on, but for now it’s really nice. From what I understand you can reset your skills later though, so I could always switch over if I want.

I’m going to hold off on snagging a second class for awhile till I’m sure what I want. I will also stop putting points in explosive strike (Sadly I have already almost maxed it (think I have 2 points left)…but again maybe I can drop that later on. For now at least it’s still killing groups very fast. I’m just about to hit the warden and my fire strike damage is around 500-600 a pop (so even 30% of that from explosive strike is probably killing everything in 2 or so AoE bursts…well except fire resistant mobs).

That does make static and temper not as great though if it doesn’t add to the AoE damage. More damage for bosses or individual enemies is good, but I was really looking to keep a high amount of AoE damage for all the huge packs of enemies (I’m playing on veteran as I’m not new to the genre).

Oh, well, thank you all again for the tips!!

6

I’m pretty close to deciding to go with occulist as my second class. I also like the raven on defensive mode (I used that with my pet build and he rocks). He adds both healing and boosts elemental damage and resists.

I may even aim for the raven before getting temper/static since it’s elemental buff should work with explosive (and the bonus healing and elemental resist can’t hurt!!).

Planning on only putting 5 points into mend flesh and 1 into raven itself…so it’s not THAT expensive to get 12 points in storm spirit (total cost would be 33 points…or 11 levels I guess…including base occulist points).

That’ll set me up to get blood of dreg as well (lots of yummy offensive ability bonuses!!).

I’m not 100% sure if I’m going to go with occultist first, or finish off demo, but that kinda gives me a plan for my next 20 levels or so, which will probably take me mostly through normal/vet difficulty I bet…and I’ll have a better idea of what I need from there:)

7

AoE from explosive strike and brimstone will do well enough for clearing mobs

Temper does add to the aoe damage though. All the flat damage from temper (as well the % bonuses ofc, and the flat dmg from falem touched) are added to both guns. Explosive strike has a % weapon damage value so a % of that temper damage is added to the explosion. That being said it pretty minimal. Temper doesn’t really a ton till you have a lot of gear bonuses to ramp up the levels for free, much better things to focus points on until that point

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Yeah, main thing was I was not planning on getting to 50 in demo, and getting brimstone. I’ll have to change my plans so I can get/max it now I guess…which means alot less points I can spend on occultist.

I can’t wait to get 2 guns to be honest…do you do full damage from both guns every fire strike (and combine the damage from them for your Explosive damage?).

My main concern again though is that if I go with 50 demo, I won’t have points left over for the defensive skills I want.

I want my raven with 1/5/12 points invested (to heal 7% a pop of max health and give max elemental damage/resistance). I want maxed dreegs for sure (For the bonus regen, healing ability, and offensive bonus).

I really wanted to max vindictive flame for the total speed boost and hp regen.

Using the titan calc, I can get all that by level 60 (that is with only 6 points in explosive though and only 1 point (if I even bother with it) in temper.

If temper adds to both guns physical damage (and then boosts the physical damage % as well), then it’s way worth maxing as well, which brings me up to 66.

I’m thinking from there I go with 1 point into curse of fraility and maxed vulnerability (hopefully +skills will boost curses duration a bit).

That leaves enough points to max out sigil of corruption and witchfire. If I understand right Sigil converts 30% of attack damage to health (so you heal for 30% of the damage you do), and witchfire adds more damage (chaos) and boosts attack speed by another 15% (stacking with vindictive flame for a 30% boost).

Here is the build I’m looking at long term http://grimcalc.com/build/vNxVjFu

I have 1 point left over for another 1 point skill (letting + skills add to it), and if I need another skill to link to a constilation ability or something. I could probably drop a point from somewhere else (I ended up maxing explosive strike for the full 30% weapon damage) if there are other skills I need 1 point in later on.

Thats looking like what I will have to go with though if I want to get and max brimstone for additional AoE damage long term. Without brimstone I had alot of extra points 25 less core points in demo…and the 12 from brimstone…so 37 more points to spend. That could have gone more towards maxing occulist and adding more vitality/acid/chaos damage. Would be better for single target more then likely, but not as good versus masses of enemies. I’ll need to compare the bonus damage I’d get going that route (And how much it would add at 30% of weapon damage to explosive) compared to how much I get from brimstone I guess. Wish it was easier to test this stuff!!