Looking for a "good" sword and board cadence build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi everyone!

I’m quite new to GD, only 78 hours so far, and quite a good amount of time reading about builds and mechanics, and itemization and such, that’s why I consider myself as… lost.

I’m looking for the best sword & board build here to suit my needs, and I keep reading everything and its opposites about mastery/items/skills/devo choices. blademaster op, blademaster dead, piercing is god, piercing is ruined, markovian is useless, yet I see it on many builds, etc etc etc. Since I don’t really like to fail a char (and I already have, warlock AAR, nice too meet you :cry:), I’m kinda stuck until I have it figured out, and that’s why I require your help guys ! :slight_smile: you seem to know everything about how GD works and also what patch made what useless, so here goes.

To make it simple , here’s a list of what i’m looking for in the build :

-Cadence-based Melee : preferably 1H+Shield, I’ll consider DW
-Tanky : I don’t want to be on intravenous coffee to survive, I want it to be laid-back, smooth and forgiving ! not necessarily invincible against everything though.
-Not godly but good single-target dps (that’s what cadence builds are for, right?) and also good aoe clearing.
-Good farming abilities (which might seem redundant with the two items mentioned above)
-I don’t mind the BIS gear being long to grind for, as long as self found gear does a decent job towards the objectives of that build.
-why cadence ? I don’t know, I see many builds using it, and i like the idea of hitting fast for a cascade of damage and procs. I used to play werewolf druid and zealot pally on D2, so I like fast attack speed tanky chars.
-can clear ultimate & gladiator crucible (I don’t need the fastest clearing speed, just something… good)

Basically a smooth and tanky bulldozer that clears everything on its path and that doesn’t spend 1 hour everytime a bulky monster shows up.

do you know any build that can do all of this ?
I was thinking BM or WB, but the more I read the less I know, so I’m up for any advice here…

Thanks a lot for reading !

2

There’s 2 sword and board builds posted right on the front page lol

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48597

There’s one. The author is well known for his knowledge of this game so rest assured that that build is damn good and well thought out.

3

physical S&B are all more or less the same (Witchblade, Commando, Blademaster), tho i would recommend to go for Witchblade, easier time to cap resist & prolly a slight superior dps.

You can find phys S&B Witchblade build here. (updated from the original Jajaja’s one)

phys S&B Commando by Superfluff here.

4

The grimcalc links are slightly borked in this build IIRC. That said, Commando is a great choice for sword-and-board and in line with what OP is looking for I think. Plus you can get lots of explosions to boot!

5

Thanks for your fast replies guys.
I, of course, stumbled upon these builds while doing my research.

I was originally going for Jajaja’s one, then I realized it was out of date and was bummed out but then realized you had updated it Drizzto. However a comment from superfluff on said update threw me off a little bit

quoting :
"Tried and tested… I mean it’s ok for vanilla (not so much against shar zul or mad queen really) but in crucible you will just die.

The enemy damage debuff from oleron blood is redundant becuse it doesn’t stack with War cry debuff "

and he’s the author of the other build suggested here on my thread. Any thought about it ?

if I might add, I prefer the idea of witchblade over commando, not sure why, I like CoF and not a big fan of fire stuff usually.

6

those quotes are all completely out of context:
first one is about a specific devo route, and haunted steel talk.
second, talking about game mechanics.
third, talking about a personnal preference.

In none of those case they are talking about the viability of physical S&B.

7

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42424

8

Thanks a lot for this clarification. Again I don’t understand everything in build threads and this one is 100+ pages long so I probably missed a few things !
would be awesome if your update of jajaja’s build was edited to first page or made into a new topic with due credits. dense build threads and compendiums are indeed a noob trap and I fell right in it, again.

I think i’m definitively sticking with the WB update you made then.

thanks everyone for jumping in to help that quickly, I really appreciate it!

9

Yeah I’d prefer Witchblade over Commando as well.

10

I compared cadence witchblade and cadence blademaster and I found I preferred the blademaster. Faster heal recharge and a 20% dodge chance makes up for the scarcer resists in my opinion. The loss of CoF hurts though.

11

Noob here

Can someone explain why isn’t Cadence S&B Blademaster being built around pierce and is built around Physical?:eek:

12

You can do sure, with reavers claw and a blessed whetstone on it +Nadaan. It’s pretty solid. Damage is lower though. I tried it. I like the flavor of it. The main issue is that Shield damage isn’t converted so you lose out a lot if you go blitz. But you can go for Blade arc instead or something, for a change

13

I think it did not had +%pierce damage in modifiers before. Was it added when trying to fit triangle into square hole cadence into Valduin set? Also the only other way to get substantial flat pierce damage without full conversion is dual blades skill.

Then, debuffs for pierce were nerfed so thoroughly, that physical is almost simpler to debuff for.

14

Hmm something for me to do i guess, i feel pretty lost with what game to play next so might as well try this build (unless I get enough motivation to play Firewatch, does it have a good mystery in it?)

Fluff, i was planning on doing it with Derm Slicers (Heart Piercing of Voracity dropped when Pierce BMs are useless :rolleyes:) but I’ll consider Claw

15

Sounds like you already know what you want OP, my advise is, if you are looking to play GD, don’t be on the forums, you will always waste your time going back and forth on what is good and what is not. I highly suggest you find out yourself and try it out, if you like how it feels great! I think common sense and farming for awhile will fix any issues you may have.