New player as of last week. I have a level 30 soldier + demolitionist that I’m enjoying and have some questions.
I’ve been accumulating fire damage and fire damage %increase items as well as converting physical dmg to fire dmg since my fire dmg increase % is higher than my physical. I also have skill points in grenado and canister bomb.
Are grenado and canister bomb only physical damage? They seem “fiery” but from the descriptions in game it doesn’t look that way. I’m curious because I’d like to have my items and talents all complimentary. I did complete one constellation on devotion that added some type of fire talent to grenado as well.
I’m fairly new to the game as well but IIRC Grenado is mostly physical with a hint of flat fire damage, but you can always turn physical to fire damage with items. As for Canister bomb, I think it’s best used as CC because main support talent for grenade skills (Ulzuin’s chosen) isn’t that great atm.
With that said, having both physical and fire damage is actually a good way to beat monster resistances by having a secondary damage type + there are couple of good constellations that support both physical and fire damage types.
I’ve been playing GD for a while now, but I just started a Commando build last week. I’m more physical oriented, and I made a beeline for the Kraken constellation. Wow! I just about doubled my damage output from that alone, to the point that I am focusing on Fire Strike and I respec’d out of Blade Arc.
Also, I love the debuff skills on Demolitionist. Flashbang/Searing Light to drop enemy attack power and accuracy, and Blackwater Cocktail (plus dependent skills) to shred their resistances.
I started with the Versatile Commando build listed in Build Compendium IV as a basis (can’t link directly yet), but haven’t taken any abilities for shields and am planning to go for Light of Empyrion and Tree of Life instead of the constellations listed there. I’m interested to see if it can perform well on Elite/Ultimate, but I’m nearly at the end of Act IV on Veteran and I routinely kill bosses in ~10 seconds (DPS is about 9K currently).
If you hower the mouse over skills you can see their damage types. Physical grenado can be converted to magic damage with items and skills if you want.
Currently grenado and canister have terrible itemisation. They are technically spells with only flat damage and no weapon damage. Skills like these need items granting additional levels to them later on to be competitive. And there aren’t enough of them for these two.
Mortar trap works pretty well right now, except for the fact that you need to play like a trapper. It also consumes lots of energy at higher ranks, and so needs caster armor.
Fire strike is the cookie-cutter, it will carry you through however you play it, rifle or pistols or all kinds of melee.