Question about my build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

I decided with this update I wanted to actually make my own build, I decided it would probably be best if I went with an easy DoT build, built around the Soldier, so I could also tank while dealing the damage over time. However, I have never made a build before in any game, and only really looked up builds to use.

The basic idea of the build is that Internal Trauma and Bleeding will be applied to the target to wither them down, using namely Cadence with all passives, Forcewave with a shield, and Blade Arc with the cooldown. However I have a few questions, namely being:
Do skills that apply the same type of debuff stack, for instance Blade Arc with the passives has an Internal Trauma DoT, and so does Forcewave, do they tick together, or will one override the other?
Is Cadence a good skill to use as a default attack when I don’t have Forcewave or Blade Arc up?
What sort of Devotion trees should I go with?

If I can get this build working I will be sure to post it proper, but I need to learn most base mechanics first and if this build would even be plausible.

2

You won’t have enough skill points to do all of that effectively. DoT builds are usually 2H builds so you can really maximize the damage. I don’t think you can really get large enough DoTs with a 1H+Shield.

My advice is to go 1H+Shield and Cadence and just play something and see what you come up with. In the current patch it should work if you choose any of the other 5 masteries. Occultist is probably still best.

Or go 2H Warder with Primal Bond and Blade Arc and focus on bleeding.

Pick something and do it well rather than trying to do a whole bunch of things half-way.

3

Then maybe go to 2h, and use Cadence and Blade Arc then? I was looking at Forcewave and it doesn’t seem to be that good with AoE, which is something I assume I want using Cadence while Arc is on CD, and I didn’t realize how quickly 5 seconds actually was.

Also, I thought certain mobs had immunity to certain damage types, which is why I was thinking going Internal Trauma and Bleed, since if they are immune to one they probably aren’t immune to the other.

4

You get resist reduction. It comes from various items, skills, and devotions.

You can go 1-1-12 on the Cadence line if you are trying to do bleed. The bonus from Deadly Momentum will increase your Blade Arc and that’s all you really need. Depends on how many skill points you have.

5

Another question, are the exclusive skills ever worth it?
When I looked at a lot of builds I noticed not many of them had an exclusive skill activated, and looking at the soldier tree, Olberon’s Rage seems to be a good pickup if I planned to go more heavily into Internal Trauma rather than Bleeding.

6

Exclusive skills are very powerful, and are definetely worth it.
Both Oleron’s Rage and Primal Bond are great, and Mehnir’s Bulwark is the best for shield, of course.

If you want to make a true bleed build, stick with Cadence+Fightning Form and/or Blade Arc, use resist reduction from Devouring Swarm and abuse bleed constellations (Falcon, Huntress, etc).
Dealing considerable Internal Trauma is kinda difficult, because game actually lacks kickass sources for it. On other hand, some enemies are heavily resistant to bleed, but none have serious physical resistance (internal truma is reduced by physical resistance).

7

I have a bleeding/IT 2H warder and he works great! I currently use Savagery, but plan to test out Cadence tonight. Fighting form was already a really strong bleed and it got boosted!! I would also recommend maxing the first cadence skill as well. While there is no bleed on it, the % WD is crazy!! All of the Bleed/IT for x over y seconds from devotions (that are not part of a devotion proc) and your gear is applied via your weapon. That means it will get boosted by your weapon!!! The % WD on shadow strike is what helps make nightblade bleed builds strong. My current warder maxed out blitz just for the high % WD. Now when I try Cadence, I can reduce that back down to one point. :slight_smile: I’m a little concerned about AoE for clear speed though… with savagery I was able to use feral hunger and upheaval with blind fury to decent AoE. BA with clean sweep, just takes too long to recharge for efficient AoE. Also did 1-0-4(plus skills put it at 6-0-12) on force wave for some more AoE (but also on CD). The extended range/area might help… Will see…

Bleeds from different sources WILL stack. This is partly how the ticks get so big! For example, the bleed from blade arc will add with the bleed from fighting form and will stack with your bleed from your weapon damage. Any skill that has % weapon damage will add your bleed damage from your weapon in addition to the bleed from the skill, however, only the highest WD value will be applied. For example, you hit with BA at 16/16 (no clean sweep for simplicity sake) you will apply your weapon bleed at 135% (typically for 3 seconds) and the bleed from BA itself. You then hit with Cadence at 16/16 (+fighting form), you will add the fighting form bleed and override the 135% weapon bleed with the 420% WD bleed from Cadence. Now it will be ticking the bleed from BA, Cadence and 420% of your weapon. Follow that up with another BA strike. This will “refresh” the time in the bleed from the BA skill, but the bleed from the WD is not reduced to 135 nor is the time “refreshed”. The strong one always stays. Crits can make figuring this out a little tricky, but can also make your ticks huge . Increasing your during lets you “build” large tics too. As the strongest one stays, the longer the duration of the bleed the longer the higher bleed ticks. May times you don’t get the big crit on the first swing, but might on the second or third… This is how the ticks “build” so high, but increasing the duration is important to making that build up work. You don’t want your big crits wearing off fast. So when they do hit, they tic for as long as possible.

IT is a completely separate dot and it compliments Bleed builds great! Partly because of the high bleed resists some monsters have but also with how a lot of gear is plus physical/IT/bleed. However, most of your damage will mostly be from bleed and that should be your primary focus with physical/IT damage as a secondary focus.

Speaking of resists, they can be a pain! That is why most bleed builds will have either shaman (for devouring swarm) or OCC (for CoF). Those are both really good skills to have! I would recommend either one as your secondary mastery. I actually started with shaman with my warder so you can max DV early. It does pretty good early one too. Rend is typically a must have devotion as it also reduces bleed resist (and has a nice bleed). I struggled through AU on veteran with my warder as I only had DV at the time. By the time I got there on Elite, I had rend and now had little issue. Mixing in the physical and IT into your build will cause your ticks to be lower then someone just focusing on Bleed, but the undead and obsidian mobs will be easier to handle… The two biggest jumps in power (besides being able to equip legendary gear) were when I got rend and when I started completing Kraken.

A lot of bleed builds also get their big tick number from using a large source of bleeds. But that doesn’t mean take every skill with bleed damage. Yes they will stack, but the truly big ticks come from those skills critting so you’ll want the skills you take to be high so that base damage that gets multiplied is higher. Much more efficient then stacking a lot of little bleed sources. I believe one of the reasons blade arc’s clean sweep had its crit damage reduced is because of this… With the right build, BA with clean sweep and maxed laceration (which also has crit damage) could produce 200k ticks by itself, which was typically near 1/2 the dot tick damage…

Gear that has bleed procs fall under the more is better. As they are what they are, so you can’t make one stronger by not investing in another. So get as many as you can! Stack up those bleed sources!!

I use primal bond over Oleran’s rage. The bonus to IT and OA is nice, but I like the damage absorb, + bleed and + physical better from PB. I was getting my OA from field command/tendency of the boar. I also stopped my soldier mastery at 40 because those 10 points are very use for in picking up skills… (I did back up my character and tested out sinking in those points for OR and it just wasn’t worth it. significantly less damage. more crits, but not enough). It is definitely a point deprived build so not spending extra points on mastery helps… warders are already pretty tanky… If you go OCC, then I would go for OR, but would also probably not go past 32 on OCC.

Good luck with your bleed build! I really like mine, I think they’re fun!