This build is not nominated because it has no topic, and no one has nominated it so far. But the question is, with BiS gear, how reliably can it farm Gladiator Crucible? Because if it can, I will respec my cadence Witchblade asap, because I have most of the BiS gear for this Forcewave build. Except 2-3 items maybe. (And we can even make a topic for it and nominate it if it’s successful enough. )
One thing worth to mention is, that you miss a lot of spirit in the posted BiS build for the required jewelry.
Other quiestions: How about using the Mythical Earthshatter Treads? We can max Forcewave, and we have a decent AoE skill in case we are surrounded, which happens quite often in Crucible. The Boneshatter is quite good as well and has it’s advantages of course.
And do we have to use the Seal of Blades for the life leech? Because damage wise, there are better options, like Seal of Might obviously. It even gives some Health and resists.
Completely forgot about spirit, lol. You can just dump some physique/cunning into it, or use Leggings of Arcane Harmony instead. Or maybe play with devotions a bit (i have to use Manticore to reduce resists, because War Cry dont have 100% uptime without Mythical Warborn Visor).
I’m 99% sure that it will farm Gladiator quickly. Sure, not without buffs (cause it isnt an dumb full-block S&B build), but with tribute sustain.
The main reason why i cant farm Gladiator, is that i simply lack 100% uptime War Cry (much stronger damage reduction, massive physical resistance, +2 skills and cast speed boosts from Stonefist Rebuke, armour from Mythical items (i have to use non-mythical Justice set and non-mythical Chausses of Barbaros) and overall overcapped resistances (which are supposed to come with BiS items, again).
Just try it, if you have key items. It will be worth your time.
I slice though Challenger like hot knife through butter, and still havent got many key items (Warborn Visor, Stonefist Rebuke, etc - on other hand, got like 12+ M. Boneshatter Treads and 7+ Reforged Chains of Oleron). Even if i’ll make a thread, what will i show? A build without key items than make it work really well?
I understand why it isnt nominated, i just wonder, why no one ever came to that idea? There are tons of far weaker build having their threds all around.
I don’t have that either, especially that the recipe probably could not even drop until yesterday’s patch. (If I had that, I would make an Octavius build.) Regarding the mythical melee Warrior focused sets, I have Mythical Markovian’s Visor only, and the chest, and the 3 other pieces of the Octavius set. And Mythical Warborn Shoulders and weapon. And now that I have the full Krieg set, which is reletively easy to acquire, I am thinking of making a Death Knight, which can probably reliably farm everything in the game. And because that uses Cadence and Blitz, I could respec this Witchblade into something else, like this 2 handed Forcewave or if I had the full Markovian set, maybe a Markovian bleeder. But I don’t have it yet, not even close. (And I am farming almost non-stop since AoM came out, so I really don’t get it, where people get their items anything other than cheating, but why should I care?) So the question is, what is my best choice now? Level up the Death Knight or respec this? Or both? Oh, and I have the full Mythical Light’s Defender set.
I postponed testing it because there is already a super strong forcewave-based skill on the list and I care about variety in builds.
2h builds can’t compete with s&b in terms of defence and I personally prioritise safe clearing. For me, it’s better to spend additional 5min, but finish successfully than rush every time and fail some attempts. And even in terms of damage I doubt that less durable 2h can beat this particular s&b, because Octavius set is nuts.
I also usually test builds that have some proof of clearing gladiator.
So here is the question for you: are you sure your build is not only strong but also reliable for clearing gladiator? Because you mentioned you don’t have it on full power. And comparing your build with one in the video, which one seems stronger to you?
This is my warborn set build, granted there are a bunch of S&B build that work, but if anyone is looking for an idea with this specific set and wants something to work around feel free to use my build, completed everything effortlessly. (no ravager, although probably could if I wanted to battled it out for a very long time).
Maybe not the most exiting of builds but gets the job done and you are pretty much untouchable even with health on the lower end.
Well, i will answer on that question only when i gather all required items.
I agree, that dying in Crucible really sucks, but on other hand, if you dont die but finish it faster, it’s a bonus. Even if have to use few consumables in most dire situations, i never dont mind using them (it’s better use an extra Courageous Tincture that costs mere 600 bits, that have even 10% chance to die). I also dont mind using buffs and banners (assuming tributes gain dont exceed loss) - they’re part of the crucible, after all.
The damage of that guy in video is nice (though not much behind my own, and as i said, i lack many key gear pieces).
What i dislike the most in this video - is that it doesnt show his survival potential. Yes, he beaten Crucible. Yes, it had +50% crit damage. But he hadnt encountered dangerous enemies.
Wave 147 - no Mad Queen
Wave 149 - no Sharzul
Wave 150 - no Iron Maiden and Zantarin spawned (essentially -1 Nemesis boss)
Let him beat Mad Queen, Sharzul and double Iron Maiden with non-Zantarin spawn, with some nasty mutators, and that will be completely another story.
Damn, and he even doesnt have capped Aether resist, and many other resists far from overcap. His slow resist is also not capped.
Not to mention i really question his devotion decitions. Why take Manticore if you can simply level up Break Morale? Why bind Assassin’s Mark to Ground Smash (it almost never is up)? Damn, why dont get some ADCTH elsewhere, and dont convert 10% of your physical damage into useless vitality! Not to mention his ADCTH is still too low.
I bet, my build will do the same but better, with proper gear.
Your armor, resist, shield block and health regen will do it all. Also defensive ability is really high, if you really want more survival which I personally don’t think it needs, u can swap some cunning to physique.
I am also wondering, why most Crucible videos show the easiest possible Nemesis combo. I would like to see double Iron Maiden Valdaran or Fabius or something. Not Mousilake and Benn’Jahr, they are 0 threat to any decent build.
I also consider Zantarin az an easy Nemesis, he never ever casted the vitality barrage from melee range, so as a melee all I have to care is, not to charge into him instantly when I see him, just after he casted it.
Yes, the defenses seem more than fine, I assume you can reliably farm Gladiator with this?
Wow, that’s some deep analysis! I have a queue of builds to try now, so I won’t be able to try yours any soon.
You are welcome to come and post the results - how your build is performing - as soon as you find gear you need.
Have you tried your build in Gladiator crucible? How much tries did you do and how many of these you successfully finished all 150 waves? What’s the average time of beating waves 100-150?
When testing if a build is really good these are the main subjects. This is the point of this whole thread.
Have you tried your build in Gladiator crucible? How much tries did you do and how many of these you successfully finished all 150 waves? What’s the average time of beating waves 100-150?
When testing if a build is really good these are the main subjects. This is the point of this whole thread.[/QUOTE]
I couldn’t tell you the average time but I have beaten it multiple times, then continuously beat it until u run out of tries, then have to go back to 1. Was relatively pretty quick I would assume, obviously there will be faster builds. Did it a while ago, this was my first build. Been farming lokar as of late and you can kill that guy in no time flat and honestly get quite a bit of legendaries from those 2 chests, usually 1-3, sometimes 0 but u can do it so quickly. (I just find crucible somewhat boring to be completely honest but I play solo so that’s probably why)
I have kinda dropped off as of late, but I have done end game crucible many times with the build and killed all nemesis. I can attest for the build, granted its by word of mouth. Also in that grimtools, my necklace and medal are a bit stronger than they show there, my medal has 11% defense ability on it, so with overpower up i’m sitting at like 3.5-3.6k DA, and high OA as well. (necklace has 40% acid resist on it got a nice roll when creating it)
So yes, build is a certified crucible destroyer. I mean, I use the health buff and OA buff, and I’m sure there are other builds which are stronger, but this one can get the job done easily as well.
Edit - I also used Siegebreaker for a while as well, gives u more damage and a bunch more skill points to mess around with since u use a lot of soldier abilities (as well as a ton of physical resist) - both end up working just fine, becomes personal preference. (I kind of like having really high DA - just seems like nothing hits u at all and it effects all damage types)
Edit - Sorry its been a while since I played and I am just looking over my build again. You honestly could pump a lot into cunning since the DA is really high and you get 12% cunning from devotions, granted its not that much and its probably moot at this point of the build and really just ends with how u want to play. I personally probably would (granted I went somewhat in the middle) just because you will kill faster - the only times I ever came close to dying and honestly i don’t remember the last time i died (not trying to brag just the build doesn’t go down and u have a lot of emergency CDS) (last time was when i tried ravager) butttt times where i guess it seemed like it maybe a bit dicey is if u just get completely boxed in, but the build kills things quick enough to prevent that from happening and honestly i rarely ever move i just click overguard and just go to town.
Hey man, I dont want to bother you much about this, so i am going to ask one last time.
Can you please post a Grimtools link of how you changed the gear and the devotions over the original? Its very easy.
Also i wanted to know if the aoe of the build is enough for all occasions.
Am new to Grim Dawn and am a very meta thinking player. Coming across this was an absolute Godsend after looking for hours at builds, not really knowing how viable they’d be for endgame. Thanks for this!
Well, it’s a solid build then. I’m afraid it would be rather slow though. I had a similar one once and it took like 45min to clear waves 100-150 in gladiator.
And best builds here can do it in less than 25 min, so it’s almost twice number of runs in the same time.
That’s why I asked about clear times. I usually start at wave 100, buy 2 blessings (damage and health) and see how long it takes to clear.
Ok, I’ll see what I can do. Aoe is enough.
You are welcome! That’s exactly why I started this thread - to help people with such things.
No. There are actually 2 of them there, cabalist and apostate. They are just posted in the same thread and author didn’t write the guides. Look closer.
I’d recommend you to go for cabalist.
Thank you very much for putting this thread together. It has helped me immensely with getting back into the game after a prolonged absence.
I’ve decided to stick with my apostate despite the recent nerf damage done by the new patch. As I understand it from your post, you are working on trying to make the vitality apostate work with the changes. Can you share any progress you’ve made in this regard thus far?
I’m really hoping to make this class combination workable, but I have nowhere near the theorycrafting skills of the more experienced players. Any help is appreciated.
Sorry for asking here, since the build doesn’t actually have a thread, but i’m having a few problems in crucible and i’m trying Myt Avatar of Mercy instead of Myt Peerless Eye of Beronath (Since i actually don’t have it aswell lol), does it hurt the build? Is it a valid replacement? Thanks in advance
Zantarin is the easiest nemesis among them all.
He never engages you first, so essentially you DUEL with him every time, while with Fabius/IM/Valdaran, you have to fight with 3 Nemesises at the same time!
He is slow and dumb, and his only dangerous skill is clearly telegraphed and is dangerous only to melee (and even melee has enough time to get out).
And Forcewave build is NOT melee, he can hit Zantarin from afar, being 100% safe.
)
But I have like 5 Myth Stonefist Rebukes. 
Not Mousilake and Benn’Jahr, they are 0 threat to any decent build.