2x Deathguard weapons yes
Reason 1: wave 160
Reason 2: wave 170
Reason 3: fumble/impared aim mechanic
I must admit I was wrong about dw builds. I was very excited because the ones with Ugdenbog daggers (purifier, infiltrator, vindicator) proved to be very good. But then I tried to make dw aether apostate, dw phys tactician and witchblade, dw pierce infiltrator work - and yeah, they are close, but they are not reliable and of course far from casters. This is Caster Dawn for sure.
I really hope patch will change things.
And yes, you’re right - dw builds actually have too low damage to perform what they are designed for - kill before being killed.
I see a problem with this. Hardest content isn’t supposed to be done with a glass cannon - it would be too easy in that case.
So it requires player to balance their offense and defense carefully. Casters and tanks have a lot of space here to work with and non-shielded melee have almost nothing.
You mentioned 4,2k DA. It is very, very hard to get for a dw build. So capping effective DA at 3,9k and nerfing monsters is actually a buff to dw builds!
But still, they will need this 3,9k DA as it is their main layer of defense.
At least more of them will become viable - I definitely hope for it.
Nightblade is mainly for dw builds and they are generally bad in crucible with rare exceptions.
I have some that work pretty good (dw purifier, dw vindicator and more) but I won’t post until the patch hits. Patch should change things for the better and I sure hope it will.
Piloting fragile melee dw builds with less than 4k DA in modern crucible is surely for aliens only 
Or maybe it’s dw kiting caster? Then it has some chance but nightblade and occultist (and shaman also) are masteries with literally zero defensive skills (only some healing), so I imagine this is PITA.
I personally was going to make a kiting WH with Dreeg set, shield and 4k DA. Yeah, I know, absolutely non imaginative
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62592
This one? Looks promising, despite some green rare items which is hard to get, and it’s not even DW. I think with some tweaks and minor changes this build might work perfect, at least for fast campaign/100-150 waves.
I never said glass canon. I said offense should be be greater than defense for this type. Maybe we just see them differently. I like to have tho option of having a rush with this type of char forcing you to focus but with great reward.
Also 4.2 K DA is not that hard to get with BM come on. You have Shadow dance, filed command, conditioning and neighboring DA devos
Offense is already better than defense for dw type, simply because defenses for them are basically non-existant naturally I stack this extra thousand of DA just not to die instantly on wave 160.
I don’t know how you see them. What do you mean by great reward?
I’ve made 9 dw builds recently, reaching 4k DA is a big problem for most without crippling offense. And these 4k DA gets some of these dw guys nowhere, they still die on wave 160 most of the time.
At the same time I’m pretty sure that any well-rounded kiting caster never needs more than 4k DA and many feel great even with 3k. What rewards do you expect for dw to have to compete with that easiness?
A fun thought came into my mind: in ancient times something like triple Iron Maiden on wave 150 seemed like a huge threat, now it’s a joke. I wonder what will become of crucible when they add new expansion and nemesis from it to the crucible (up to wave 200)? Maybe all our problems of today will look like jokes?
A fun thought came into my mind: in ancient times something like triple Iron Maiden on wave 150 seemed like a huge threat, now it’s a joke. I wonder what will become of crucible when they add new expansion and nemesis from it to the crucible (up to wave 200)? Maybe all our problems of today will look like jokes?
Triple IM was a threat to low-armor builds w/o ADCTH. With 3K armor, 15% ADCTH and okaysh dmg output you could piss on 3IM face even w/o a shield. Heck, I remember one Vitality build with transmuted bloody pox, that could facetank old crusy no-buffs no-banner, not even health pots regardless of what spawned inside.
I’ve made 9 dw builds recently, reaching 4k DA is a big problem for most without crippling offense. And these 4k DA gets some of these dw guys nowhere, they still die on wave 160 most of the time.
Sure, but crippling offense is not a problem if you only want to finish Crucible 170. It may be not as fast as you like but you will do it with enough DA.
I lost 50 to 75 % of my damage output yesterday; still finished it smoothly with a Bleeding Trickster.
A newbie question:
How do some of the skills in the builds read 22\12 when as high as I can go is 12\12. How do you raise the cap?
When you wear gear that has bonus to said skills. If you have 16 points into Cadence and wear a Ring of Black Matriarch, wich gives +2 to Cadence, you will see that Cadence now has 18/16 points. This can go as high as +10 over a skill nominal max, to a total of 26/16 in this case. You just need to have enough gear to get this kind of bonus.
Gear with +X to all Soldier Skills or +X to All Skills also counts towards that bonus. Any excess points are ignored, but you can get these points back from the respec lady until you reach the max bonus.
Ofc it is at a big price, the very soul of the build. that is the whole deal and that is why i’m bored with them instead of being excited
We also have different view on DW. I refer to auto attack only. SS/ harvest or other shenanigans are nukers, caster hybrids and that is a different story altogether
There were plenty of low-armor builds w/o ADCTH. Casters’ armor wasn’t buffed back then and had low armor values. And still I’m convinced that 100-150 was balanced much better than 150-170.
But that’s all history. How we enjoy our 2x Reapers and stack DA.
Well, at least with all these changes it’s still interesting to try new stuff, not bored yet.
I saw your post in that DA thread. You’re the one who finished crucible on your first try ever having 5k DA. My congratulations on that.
But here, in my thread, offense does matter. We are after clearing speed. If some builds can do it in 13min and others in 30+ than everyone will choose first ones. Best builds try to combine offense and defense in the most rational way.
I’m not greedy, I’m totally fine if you have your immortality. But many people found it not fine and so the balancing patch is on its way. If it comes out with the annouced changes it would be a pretty good improvement for the game, but you probably won’t be able to finish crucible until you get better at it
Why are people after these “pure” melee?! I remember I heard this from someone else too, maybe JoV. Why is adding a couple of skills to autoattacks suddenly make these builds all that different? Playstyle stays the same. Is it some sort of personal challenge?
As for me, pure autoattack builds (like old old blademasters when only act1 existed) in terms of playstyle are pretty boring, I demand a couple more buttons to press!
It’s not being purist. It’s a type of build. FS sabo is FS sabo. DW melee.
SS is a nuke skill and defines a build as a whole. You can’t call it auto attack at that point. And pure DW has plenty to press and focus on. They require skill most than many other builds.
Well, you say it as if DA-stacking near-immortal builds have to put everything into defence, and their DPS is so miserable, that they spend 30+ minutes to clear 151-170 waves.
It’s far from truth. DA stacking still leaves enough place for damage.
And the most disturbing is the WAY those builds reach “immortality” - simply stacking single defensive stat (DA) and capping damage resistances. They dont suffer from enemy abilities, that cause stuns/slows, reduce damage, apply fumble, reduce resistances, etc. And their defence is 100% passive and irrelevant to enemy damage (if enemy has 0% chance to hit, it doesnt even matter how much damage he deals).
All that is way too “cheesy” and shouldnt exist in self-respecting game.
151-170 waves arent even meant to be farmable. They are here for ultimate challenge, for the most skilled players using best gear, builds, etc.
Thank you for this thread, i’ve been trying out 5 of these builds and i’m having a lot of fun. Mostly casters atm.
Now i want to try some melee stuff and the dual-wield builds look very interesting.
Have you tried your cold infiltrator
with the new 1.0.5.0 Aura of Censure yet?
nice topic!
Strange. I focus on effectiveness first. My dw cold infiltrator does not benefit from any damaging skill like SS, so he relies on autoattacks and that’s fine with me.
And my dw vindicator has a chanse to be supported by 26/16 Storm Totem, so I definitely take it, because it’s very effective. I don’t see how it changes the build, it’s a massive strong support to autoattacks, but I still fight in melee, I’m still not-so-beefy dw user. Similar with dw purifier/sabo: BWC is too good, to I take it for support.
What is the point of making pure autoattack build if you intentionally don’t take strong skills that could support it? I mean, it only weakens the build, right?
And yes, I agree that dw stuff requires skill.
If you say so Apparently, lots of players agree with you here, so here comes the patch. I didn’t care about it much, I will play various builds anyway. As long as they allow me to have at least 3,9k DA and nerf monsters I’d say incoming changes are only for the better.
You’re welcome! Yes, infiltrator was made after changes to Censure. A very good dw build it is, but I must warn you that it is heavily weapon dependant: you need exactly Ugdenbog Chillstrifes with exactly Frostborn prefix and ‘of Fury’/‘of Alacrity’ suffix, these are way better than all the alternatives.
Yes!
I saw your post in that DA thread. You’re the one who finished crucible on your first try ever having 5k DA. My congratulations on that.
But here, in my thread, offense does matter. We are after clearing speed. If some builds can do it in 13min and others in 30+ than everyone will choose first ones. Best builds try to combine offense and defense in the most rational way.
I’m not greedy, I’m totally fine if you have your immortality. But many people found it not fine and so the balancing patch is on its way. If it comes out with the annouced changes it would be a pretty good improvement for the game, but you probably won’t be able to finish crucible until you get better at it
You´re right, after the patch, I won´t clear Crucible. And that will be perfectly fine.
I shouldn´t clear Crucible at the moment. I chose a DW Damage Build when I started Grim Dawn and cleared (most) of the Campaign with it. And now I got passive DA and playing…and I don´t really know, what I play. 
When swarmed, I´m hammering Devouring Swarm and RoS and run. Repeat. Got Iron Maiden, Reaper, Moosilauke and Martell (shouldn´t there be a 4th Nemesis…perhaps Aleksander was there) a few minutes ago. Took me roughly 12 minutes 160 - 170.
I hope with 1.0.6.0 I will see a lot of interesting builds clearing Crucible in this thread. Even if I won´t play them or finish Crucible myself.
will do:)
Aside from all the nerfs to tough mobs, buffs to celestial blessing, and plenty we haven’t yet seen. Basically you will e able to migrate from defense to offense, thus clearing faster which= defense.
I finished with 3K DA trickster, was hard, but with 0.6 changes it will be very good i’m quite sure
You are experienced and played with Korba, right?
Bleeding is a PITA against Undead, especially when I don´t have Manticore (like in my clearing build).
Perhaps I will try, just for fun. If I can do it…fine. If not, it´s okay, too.
No no, i’ talking bleed:p I did Bleed rager trickster and bleed Korba. Rager should be a savage beast after 0.6 from blessings alone