New Time Dilation

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

I’m trying to think of the best ways to utilize the new Time Dilation. The most obvious one is to attach it to Canister Bomb and use it with a CDR Sorceror. This allows you to:

  • Use Devastation about half as often as you use Canister Bomb with the option for 15 seconds nonstop with 45% CDR
  • Use Mirror about about half as often as you use Canister Bomb with the option for 6 seconds nonstop with 50% CDR
  • 100% reliably double-cast Canister Bomb for every other of its cooldown cycles. You can also add any combination of OFF, Wrath of Agrivix and High Potency to the mix but they should be cast before CB explodes

Sadly I do not think TD works on Blast Shield or other passive (non-hotkey) skills.

Any other ideas? I thought of Doom Bolt but since its cooldown got reduced to 6.5 seconds I don’t think it has 100% chance to proc TD like CB.

2

It actually feels custom built for Doombolt. It still has 100% chance to proc, with caster off-hand CDR it effectively lets you double cast doombolt every 2nd/3rd cast or so.

I really like it on my Vitality Conjuror. Sigil-resistdebuffs-sigil-2doombolt-sigil is fairly respectable burst.

3

I think it’s more custom built for Arcanist - ironically for much the same reasons as the old Time Dilation: Devastation, Mirror and energy regen. A lot of skills can proc TD with high probability: CB, DB, PB, Stun Jacks and even TSS.

The tricky part is the “alignment” between these skills, TD and Devastation/Mirror.

With 40% CDR, the alignment between everything is, I believe, perfect with CB.

As you have noted, the alignment between DB and TD is imperfect because 16/6.5 = 2.46 which is not a whole number. That means getting max Devastation/Mirror uptime is more difficult to achieve from a timing perspective.

4

Don’t forget the fact Arcanist can hit about 55% CDR as it’s limit, not 40%. Starpact is a LOT of CDR if you max it out with other CDR sources as well.

5

I believed 40% CDR would be “perfect” for CB because:

18 * (1 - 40%) - 6 = 8 * (1 - 40%) = 4.8

However I did not take into account the substantial delay between casting CB and it exploding. Taking that into account, 45% CDR seems to be better for the purposes of ensuring a 15 second nonstop Devastation. The sequence would be:

0 Second: Dev -> CB -> CB
5 Seconds: Dev -> CB
9.5 Seconds: CB -> Dev -> CB

And Mirror would optionally be activated at the same time as Dev with Blast Shield and the stun from CB as a safety net.