Though i’m level 63 now, i’m still so confused over how various skills enhance each other. I was using OFF till about level 40, then decided to switch to CT as I felt that there was very little synergy with cold skills with demolitionist.
For equipment, i’ve been largely focused on burn and fire damage with aether as a bonus if i can get them. Right or wrong?
I’ve also been quite happy with fireball, though i read many say that it is not viable. So i’m wondering why. And if i don’t use fireball, then what should i be using then?
I usually go with either fireball or CT to clear normal mobs, and then a mix of CT and Devastation for Bosses.
Finally, i’ve no idea how to allocate points between all the various support skills like IEE, Overload, Elemental balance, Inferno, Reckless Power,
Flame touched, temper, vindictive flame, ulzuin’s wrath… which ones should i prioritize??
I spent about 45 minutes typing you a detailed reply here then accidentally closed the tab, so I’ll give you an abbreviated version.
Less overload, less stun jacks, less arcane will, less blast shield, more callidor’s tempest, more devastation. Upgrade gear to support your damage type but don’t sacrifice DA and OA, both of which are crucial. Try to fill out your resists more, especially pierce, acid, and aether.
Hope this short edition of my post is still helpful
I personally stuck with Seal of Destruction for Stormfire as it freed up a bunch of points and scaled not-too-horribly. It’s mostly there to proc Elemental Storm.
So are you gonna spam both Stormfire AND Callidor Tempest?
Note, you have damage conversion on Amulet and gloves. Fire > Aether and Fire > Lightning.
Seems like you want to do Aether and Lightning build judging from your damage conversions. But your highest damage multiplier is fire damage (twice as high as aether and lightning)
This character was purely to support a Trozan Spellbreaker. Used Stormfire for range and Callidor if mobs closed in.
This was also my first go at conversions. My understanding is that conversions could only happen once off the base element but I could well have cocked it up.
Edit:Yeah, it’s a cockup.
Yeah, life is slightly rubbish but hey, ups the ante.
Once a dmg number has been converted, it can not be converted again. But if you have like 20% fire dmg > cold and 20% fire dmg > aether, that just means that first 20% of your base fire dmg will be cold and then 20% will be aether. http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52486
Less blast shield is not good advice, it’s only lvl 7 atm too which is not great. I wouldn’t advise more CT or devastation at this time. What I would do is grab transmuted black water cocktail (3-4 in base skill), max agonising flames and grab 5-7 in thermite mines. Take points out of weak things first like overmax reckless power isn’t useful, arcane will etc.
Devotions are a mess, using CT and flame torrent you want to take ghoul. Elemental storm becomes redundant with agonising flame so get eldritch fire and bind it on cocktail. Lastly use the rover talisman, lie to rovers after speaking to elder. The all damage boost + agonising flame rr makes aether damage more significant contributor than you might think while levelling.
Ghoul and bwc phys damage debuff with better RR. I think these suggestion should help a fair bit
tks for the suggestions. my OL, stun jacks, arcane will are already at a minimum, unless you are suggesting that i remove some of them altogether?
so what exactly is my damage type i shld focus on? fire and aether?
and tks for all the effort you put in! too bad i didn’t get to see them
why do you say overmax reckless power and arcane will isn’t useful? i thought that reckless power gave the highest increase in damage per point spent. and arcane will seem to work well with CT since i’m in the middle of mobs most of the time and with the increased damage it clears them out faster.
Are you suggesting that i put my future points in BWC and thermite or to transfer existing points right now? And if its to transfer, from which skills shld i transfer from? And as explained, i feel that my fireball seems to be working quite well now, why is there a need for BWC? and when is thermite going to be used? for bosses? or just mob clearing? and if only a few points in BWC and thermite mine, it doesn’t seem like it will do much. and are you also saying that i shld stop using fireball and move to BWC?
why is elemental storm redundant with agonising flame? are you also saying that rhowan’s crown shld be abandoned? i was actually working towards ulzin’s torch, is that a good idea?
Empowered Fireblast is viable to beat the base game on ultimate (never tried to do AoM on ultimate with it as I usually switch to stormfire by then)
But I would assume it can beat AoM also as I have beaten AoM Ultimate and up to wave 150 Gladiator Crucibal with Empowered Lightning Nova as main damage skill.
Agonizing Flame and elemental storm -rr don’t stack. So you only need one or the other. Having both won’t really hinder you, but there are better damage procs available if you already have a flat -rr source like agonizing flame
Why not focus on the BWC and Mortar Trap. Use Blast Shield, Mirror, Maviens sphere of protection and nullifaction for defence. And perhaps some OFF for thrash mob controll?
Overmax reckless power is less useful early game because the attack/cast speed stops scaling up each point and you only get the minor damage boost (which itself isn’t much considering high +% fire damage). Most skills are most efficient in the early levels (except some like blast shield) so it makes sense to get the efficient bonuses first.
Thermite mines is mostly only for bosses and high health hero/big monsters. They are annoying but you are free to use them as much as you want. BWC comes with flat resist reduction and is a duration skill, you use it every 5 seconds, the resist reduction does not stack with elemental storm but it saves devotions points for use elsewhere. BWC also gives the 18% reduced physical damage debuff and an OA reduction debuff, both are very nice. You can still use CT and/or fireball alongside bwc.
ulzuin torch is very nice. As explained above flat reduced res reduction does not stack so points from crown can go elsewhere if you use bwc agonising flame.
i thought elemental storm was useful for the additional damage it provides…
why mortar trap over thermite?
So you suggest going to level 11 with reckless power?
Going forward as i gain points, how shld i allocate between BWC, Agonizing flames and thermite? For each 2 pts i get, i’m quite confused where i shld allocate the points. Do i just spread them out equally?
And you think stun jacks, full spread, flashbang and searing light are not too useful? and why reduce overload? The main confusion i have is that i’ve really no idea how trading off one skill with another makes sense or not.
Do thermite mines deal lots of damage? not that much
Mortar traps require you to be kinda tank though, otherwise they will miss.
Look, use whatever you can deal lot of damage with in safe way. And focus on one element. Do not go with lightning and physical, or lightning and fire. Just choose one. Then get resistance reduction and +%dmg to that type.
If you chose lightning, you can go stun jacks and transmuted grenado for instance.
Like this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZRaaerV
the actual points spent in each skill depends on how much +skill you can get.
I just wanted to show you one way of focusing damage and how to use arcanist to survive.
Devotions you go up to Hourglass and spear of heavens. The proc on hourglass can make you cast Mirror of erectoes two times in a row if needed.
Stun jacks are pretty easy to find gear that supports it, like faction gear and MI’s
Greando has a MI medal that has pierce > lightning conversion. You can shop those at the secret vendor in blood groove.
11 is when speed stops scaling each level. After that you only get +10% damage per point and more speed every 2-3 levels, it’s not as worthwhile and at your level there bigger gains to get elsewhere first.
However you like. Unless you want the physical damage debuff wait until mastery lvl 40 to take bwc.
It comes with experience. Generally +%damage eventually yields small gains to damage because characters can reach +2000% to damage types, an extra +10% on top of that is very small boost. During levelling +10% to fire damage is more meaningful but still quite small. Resist reduction on the other hand is a very powerful multiplier in this game because the multiplier is separated from +%damage (e.g x21 fire damage From +2000% fire damage is doubled if you reduce monster res to -100%). Having low resist reduction means your damage is penalised vs monster with fire res (which is common on story boss).
Except that the important levels for blast shield are 5 and 10 where you get + max resistance increases. 7 is a weird in between number which just nets you some occasional damage absorption and resists in categories that should already be rather high and not rely on blast shield to boost them.
This is a very helpful thread. I’m leveling a sorceress as well (lvl 79) and this is providing some great insight. Thanks to everyone contributing especially OP.
You could also do something like this with the basic build from my guide https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GDDeXV
(just note how I set up the skills and devos)
it is kinda opposite of what I did above with the lightning caster version. Here we pickup the defensive and offensive aid-skills from demo and use the arcanist skill callidor tempest for main dmg output. Dmg focus will be aether once we get dmg conversion items.
components to bring resistances ~ soft max. Some is from your Runic Bracers which do have a limited duration of protection…but you can find better resistance gear as you go.
gameplay:
-flashbang for crowd control and possible application of eldritch fire
-calidor tempest for a burn Dot and application of elemental storm
-mortar trap to proc fissure
-main attack is Fireblast which procs flame torrent.
-devastation for more fire damage on single targets (bosses). This is the skill you could pull points from if you want to tweak other skills.
-maybe mines and OFF(see below)
The idea is to stack some burn and Resist Reduction and then pew-pew with fireblast on top. Increasing resist reduction is a method of increasing damage, much like increasing %fire/burn.
Note that I only put a point in Thermite mines because you may or may not like how they work; if you like them, then add more points for more RR (pull points from devastation). I put a point into OFF because of the RR; OFF will not work on the bosses eventually, but might help general CC …get rid of the point if you find it to be generally ineffective.
Keep in mind that skills and devotions can be moved around as you progress (through special NPCs). But it’s not free - minimizing this will keep the costs down. I mention this because you may have some other path in mind for later - so skills/devotions can be changed at a later point.
Also aether: I don’t expect you’ll get great value out of the aether damage as it is small relative to the fire/burn…but it is just part of some skills.
If you feel too fragile with this low blast shield, then pull some points from devastation and put them there. That is something you’ll need to tweak for your playstyle. Don’t forget you also have Mirror of Ereoctes.
