My mighty Ultimate level smasher is "Embarrassingly Humbled" by Calligadra

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
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I had not tried Calliandra yet with any of my characters as I gathered from the posts that she is one hell of a tough cookie.
Ultimate was a “cake walk” with my Sentinel build and thought I would give Calligadra a try as this is currently my most powerful build. (Based on the ease it cleared ultimate)

I dropped down to normal to test the waters fighting Calligadra, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it does not matter what level you fight her, she is always the same? If this in not the case, then my dilemma is even worse than I thought as she one shot smashes me in vanilla Normal!

I could not even start to strategise fighting her. The moment I opened up her alter I was one shotted. Tried to portal back to my waypoint a few times, but died as one shot every time I reappeared at my waypoint.

I could not even get a chance to blink, never mind trying to move.
I guess it is going to be a cold day in hell before I try to fight her again, as if this character fails so spectacularly, I have no options with my other characters.

Maybe there is an weakness in my build that just gets me one shotted by just looking at her?
As I said, this build is by far the easiest I have cleared Ultimate with, but sadly very humbled by Calligadra

Here is the build link in case any theory crafter out there can identify why it fails so miserably against Calligadra.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4ZDvw9B2

In the meantime I will add Calligadra to my Sentinels “Don’t Fight This Monster” list :no_entry_sign:

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Eminently sensible decision. :smile:

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Your build has not just one but several weaknesses that make it impossible to beat Callagadra. For example: low DA, low armor, low armor absorption. Her main damage types are physical and pierce, so you need more of those resistances.

I was able to beat her with a specialized Warlord build that excels in all these categories, but that build is missing many other important stats so it’s is not really viable for much of the campaign content.

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Unfortunately, yes. You need a ton of armor, phys res, and many layers of damage absorption, heal and other defensive stats. DA must be above 3K.

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Thanks, I suspected that killing Calligadra would require a specific build.

As you say, that changing the build just to kill Calliandra would make the build very weak in other areas.
I have no problem with that as like in real life, there is no “Silver Bullet” or a “Swiss Army Knife” that can cater for ALL events that you get challenged with.

There is sometimes crap that you just cannot handle.

This is the situation with my character here. Not gonna change any specs to kill Calligadra and accept that she is out of my league.

Will see what issues my other characters have with her when I open the altar :boom:

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I haven’t tried Calla in any build but heard she’s tough. Dealing strong physical damage, you need either full metal tank, kiter or pets.

And if you try her in HC, all I can say it’s: “my condolences”.

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If you only want to kill her for the helmet that she drops, you can fight her on Elite. It’s much easier but the loot is the same.

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I did… With a full metal tank, had to kite for 25 min lol

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That was one of my questions?
I dropped down to vanilla normal for the conflict and was totally devastated in seconds.

Ultimate or Elite would be even more ridiculous for my character if she scales by level.

As previous posters have stated, this character is NOT Calligadra doable - and that is OK in my books.

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That warlord I was talking about can facetank her to death. Takes a while on Ultimate, my HP jumps up and down all the time so it is kinda scary, but she never managed to kill me. On Elite the fight is super easy and takes only 3 minutes.

the real Silver Bullet would like to have a word with you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9F7Ox2cv2A

Yea sorry I missed that bit in your post :blush:

Yea I agree. Other than the specialized one, none of my builds have the slightest chance either. She’s called a super-boss for a reason :wink:

Try Crate of Entertainment next! I tried it once, barely made it past the desert storm just to be insta-gibbed by some overpowered maggot :sweat_smile:

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That’s the reason I had to kite. In HC I don’t take chances, especially on a self found char which I spent a gazillion of hours to gear up.

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yea that makes sense. Congratz on beating her! In a kite fight like that I’d probably die soon because I can’t see anything from all the sweat that’s running down my forehead :sweat_smile:

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  1. DA. you’re getting crit to oblivion
  2. Armor: I’d gun for 5-6k for calla OR phys res: ~50% would be nice
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New monster that I will be adding to my Sentinels “Don’t Fight This Monster” list is Lokarr.

I eventually managed to get all the requirements for the quest in ultimate and proceeded to give it a go.
Hit a few surprises and deaths in the initial dungeon on the way. What are those crazy moving stones that emit damage and appear to prevent you moving back to a safe place? I suspect that they may be from Crucible, which I do not have or use?

Anyway, I eventually got to the Lokarr location and unlike Callegadra, I was able to sort of damage him and it looked like I was going to succeed.

FAIL - he kicked my character’s ass in a few minutes. Unable to face tank him and kiting was going nowhere. Porting back in also threw me into a pit of despair - He was back at 100% health - OUCH - press exit to menu and contemplate the futility of this venture with my current sentinel build.

I am far from complaining here though as I think these sort of conflicts and humblings give you a real wake up call.
This character sailed through Ultimate, killing Alkamos and Gargabol in seconds.
It appears though that killing Callegadra and Lokarr was not achievable with the current build.

It actually reflects real life - no matter how good you think you are - there is ALWAY SOMEONE BIGGER AND STRONGER that will kick your ass. In real life if you come across someone you cannot beat, you normally change tactics and bring in some different elements to your arsenal.

I really don’t want to change my sentinel build just to address these two bosses as she is an awesome ultimate level 100 farmer that wipes 99.99% off the map in seconds.

Looks like I will have to be tackling those two mothers with one of my other upcoming level 100 builds that can maybe tank with high resists and DA.

This is one aspect of Grim Dawn that makes it such an awesome game and challenge.

Unlike Lord of the Rings where ONE RING rules them all :mage:, in Grim Dawn ONE BUILD cannot actually rule them all :grim_dawn:

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Your sentinel build is nice! But without an extra 500-600DA and some OA, it’s really hard to expect it to stand a chance against superbosses.

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That is an interesting itemization, yes. But as mentioned above, OA +DA for superbosses. DA to avoid gettting crit too often. For example Cally has an AA that gets crit % bonuses. It also reduces resistances.

I’ll add that your health leech is not very strong with low %adct and Guardian’s gaze also bound to a low-speed (1/s) + low chance proc such as CoF. Superbosses will have life leech resistance…so with 90%LLR, 6% becomes ~1/2%.

With low armor absorption, this small leech + small regen is trying to cover a lot of holes. 30% of physical damage under the armor gets through, in addition to any value over your armor.

And cally attacks + pets all have a physical element. There are a couple of general RR attacks that will basically reduce your physical resistance.

Lokaar basically needs overcaps of primarily fire, then lightning if you can. Consumables or such to get 40 overcap, which is what he can RR. And he also has high LLR. And physical element to most attacks (as do the clones).

So for both of these, I think you could increase your armor absorption, maybe add a component with some adcth leech (Haunted steel, etc.)

Also, note that putting Oleron’s blood component on an item can be very useful for the 20%DR for 5s. That means 20% off the top of all damage for that 5s to that target. Before armor! (it’s not as stupid-silly as inquis aura, but it is useful for a single boss). * Edit: I forgot that Yugol has DR now, so this is not as significant for this build as of the last patch. Although it could depend on how it works with BBoY - do you need to be within the 3m radius to get the %DR bonus?

And there are armor consumables, etc, etc. Regen consumables, etc.

And you may need to kite to heal.

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I have managed to get the DA up to 2,600 now, but still have issues. It is like i said, You can’t win em ALL!

Some of the best boxers in the world found that out even after wiping the floor with the boxer who defeated the person who beat them.

I am happy to keep the character like this as a fast farmer and will choose the bosses it can comfortably kill. I have a few upcoming 100 chars, who undoubtedly will also be strong against some and weak against others.