[Sorcerer] Ultimate Pyrotechnician/Sapper Build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Ultimate Pyrotechnician/Sapper Build

[CENTER]GUIDE UPDATED June 16, 2016

[/CENTER]

This is an AoE build that focuses on clear-speed and fire/burn damage. Albeit it is not tanky in any sense of the word, it can survive adequately in all situations found in Ultimate Difficulty (except Nemesis encounters - yet to be tested).

I run with 1,300%+ Fire Damage and 1,200% Burn Damage with 1,1k Armor and 9.5k of HP in Ultimate.

My objectives for this build during theory-crafting:

  1. Fast clearing speed
  2. Ultimate survivability
  3. Self-sufficient (Solo)
  4. Damage over time/Off-screen kills (stragglers)
  5. Wide in-game itemization support.

GAMEPLAY VIDEOS
I apologize for the low-settings, I was recoding on my laptop. To make sure that I have smooth frames, I set everything to low. Nemesis videos will be coming up once I encounter them.
Depraved Sanctuary


Cronely’s Hideout

STRENGTHS

  1. Fast Clearing Speed
  2. Highly mobile.
  3. Steady damage output (burn/mortar)
  4. Offensive-AOE-oriented build
  5. Levels fairly quickly.
  6. Fast attack speed
  7. Offensive-based devotions
  8. Mastery 50/30, no need to max out masteries in both classes.

LIMITATIONS

  1. Requires constant kiting – for those of you who dislike this play style
  2. Can cause lag on slower/older machines/laptops.
  3. High mana cost (thanks to Grenado and BWC)
  4. Players may be struggling in early levels
  5. Somewhat gear dependent for damage output and survivability.
  6. No healing skill (this is a problem in my view, helpful to have anyway)

ATTRIBUTE POINT DISTRIBUTION:

  1. I initially went for 1:1.5 Spirit/Physique. But you can choose to have 1:2 spirit/physique for a bit more health.
  2. In the end, I had 56 in physique and 31 in spirit – 1.8:1 ratio.
  3. Spirit is needed for damage output and mana regen.

GRIMCALC LINK
W/o Bonuses: http://grimcalc.com/build/Fkon1C NO DEVOTIONS
W/ Bonuses + Devotions: http://grimcalc.com/build/Ch9sGJ

GEARING:
I found 4 of the legendaries myself during farming runs while my friends were kindly enough to supply me with rest of the necessary gear to complete this build. To be sure, one should expect some grinding and RNG luck to find 4/5 of the Ulzuin set.

Please refer to Graceful Dusk for the items below.

ARMOR
Head: Ulzuin’s Headguard + Prismatic Diamond
Body: Ulzuin’s Chestguard + Silk Swatch
Legs: Legwraps of the Tranquil Mind + Silk Swatch
Shoulder: Ulzuin’s Shoulder Guard + Antivenom salve
Hands: Wyrambone Handguards + Antivenom slave
Feet: Golemnborn Greaves + Mark of Mogdrogen
Belt: Sash of the Immortal Sage + Anti-Venom slave
Relic: Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm
Medal: Mark of Divinity + Ectoplasm
Ring 1: Invoker’s Burning Hand + Mark of Illusions
Ring 2: Lifegiver Signet + Mark of Illusions
Amulet: Heart of Ulzuin + Arcane Lens

WEAPON/OFFHAND:
Right: Warpfire 1H Dagger + Imbued Silver
Left: Tome of Arcane Wastes + Purified Salt

Note: as you level, you will be using rares: these are the stats you should be looking for:

Fire Damage, Burn Damage, Mana Regen, Skill Cooldown reduction, Elemental Resistances, + Energy, and ANY pertinent +1 bonus to skills.

ALTERNATIVE GEARING OPTIONS:

  • For offhand, player can also use Aldanar’s Vanity for the quick recharge proc, but since I needed mana regeneration, I with the Tome of Arcane Wastes
  • You can also use Grim Fate or Barrelsmith’s Salvo (Gun) for the main hand if you got enough cunning.
  • Badge of Mastery is also a good choice for the Medal Slot.
  • Fateweaver’s Mantle is also a good shoulder for this build.
  • Sacred Text of Menhir is another excellent offhand choice if you want more health.

SKILLS
DEMOLITIONIST – All offensive skills are found here

  • Flashbang – excellent AoE debuff, confuses enemies and reduces their accuracy.
  • Blackwater Cocktail – Our single target DoT skill, it also acts as a debuff with its progeny
  • Canister Bomb – AoE output, pretty self-explanatory
  • Grenado – with High Impact and Crit, this does massive damage to a small group of enemies and champions (also AoE)
  • Mortar Trap – For handling stragglers and AoE (The Big One), auto-attack just overall useful utility skill to have. Note: the Big One hits every 3 seconds or so. You can command the mortar with pet attack, but I personally don’t find it necessary.
  • Blast Shield – One point wonder
  • Flame Touched – Buffs our fire damage
  • Vindictive Flame – Speed Buff, Health Regen, Retaliation, along with Ulzuin’s Wrath, helps us clear those enemies come close.
  • Ulzuin’s Chosen – Excellent passive skill that can instant ready grenado and canister bombs, also increases our fire damage output.

Arcanist: Defensive skills are here

  • Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange – Self-explanatory, helps us recover mana. Elemental Balance buffs our burn damage
  • Mirror of Erectoes – Emergency skill, our panic button when stunned or about to hit by a heavy melee attack
  • Maiven’s Sphere of Protection – defensive damage reduction, enemy spell into mana conversion (Conversion)
  • Inner Focus – Toss away 1 point skill, increases spirit and offensive ability
  • Arcane Will – Another toss away skill, usually, my hp never drops below 40%.
  • Nullification – Excellent one-point wonder – removes dangerous curses such as Curse of Frailty
  • Mental Alacrity – Reduces mana cost on Grenado and BWC, increases cast speed.

DEVOTIONS – Modified Mid-June 2016

Crossroad Order
Turtle Max
Lion Max
Sailor’s Guide Max
Lizard Max
Eel Max
Solemn Watcher Max
TREE OF LIFE Max

Crossroad Eldritch
Hawk Max
Scholar’s Light Max
SPIDER MAX
Oklaine’s Lantern Max
-REMOVE ALL POINTS FROM SPIDER - we have completion bonus from Lantern now.

Magi 6 - IGNORE 40% Burn Node on Hand
Tango Builder 4 - Life nodes only

Don’t forget to remove Eldritch and Order node from Crossroad!

DEVOTION SKILL ASSIGNMENT:
Magi-Fissure x BWC
Healing Rain x Flame Touched
Turtle x Sphere of Protection

LEVELLING GUIDE
Overall, level with mortar trap, grenade, and canister bomb. All three skills will push you through A1 and A2 normal VERY QUICKLY, so you should be around lv 33 when you finish Cronely.

  • Lv 1-15: Use a gun (Francis’s Gun, 3rd Company Revolver, or 2H rifle), put one point into grenado, flashbang, and canister bomb; also put one point into Flame Touched and Vindictive Flame.
  • Lv 15-45: (Switch to 1H + Off-hand at around lv 20) Max out Demolitionist tree, put one point into each of the defensive skills in arcanist tree – MAX OUT ULZUIN’S CHOSEN – feel free to dump the second point into offensive skills.
  • Lv 45-50: Increase your defensive ability (including flashbang) in arcanist tree and elemental exchange, but don’t increase your maiven’s sphere yet, since the latter competes with your mana. Push arcanist mastery bar.

[ENTER ELITE at around lv 55, farm BoC for some gear upgrades]

Lv 50-60: (Put points into BWC, work your way towards my final tree) Farm some empower epics at SoT and BoC, if you are lucky, get some legendaries.

[Enter ULTIMATE at around lv 60-65 – depending on your gear]

  • Lv 60-65 – Farm SoT for legendaries [finish off your defensive skills]
  • Lv 65-85 – Up to you, farm legendaries, quests etc.

NOTE: I did not indicate how much points you should invest in each BECAUSE IT IS DEPENDENT ON YOUR GEAR – if you are constantly out of mana or feels you are getting one-shotted, then focus on defensive skills first! Remember, survival > damage/clearing speed!

FACTIONS/QUESTS

  • You should choose Kymon’s Chosen since we are using fire damage mostly, but since I dislike those fanatics and despise their fetch quests, I went with Death’s Vigil. But if you are having trouble gearing up, go with Kymon’s Chosen (traitor!).
  • SIDE WITH THE OUTCAST! Her quests offer TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF EXP. You will be farming SoT and BoC anyway, so why not? There is also a shrine at East Marsh. Your Black Legion rep will come from quests anyway.

Guide Continues Below…

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Play Style
For AoE - for single target, omit canister bomb.

  1. Drop down mortar
  2. Spam flashbang/BWC
  3. Canister Bomb + Grenado next
  4. Flash freeze anyone who comes too close
  5. Mirror if necessary

I initiate combat by provoking the enemy with a mortar or drawing them with blackwater cocktail. Always use the hit-and-run tactic. Lob a grenade and then run around the enemy. Ideally, circle around the enemy so they remain clustered together in a pack for “The Big One” mortar to hit. Another tactic is to lay down a field of fire by spamming BWC and let the enemy run through it.

Remember this: no matter how hard the enemy hits, if it can’t reach you, its OA is meaningless.

Debatable Choices/Equally Viable Options Discussions

[Here I address some potential contentions and criticisms of my build design]

Thermite Mine: This is a niche skill which allows you to plop down 3 mines (up to 6 max) on the ground and it will trigger when the enemy steps over them. It will burn the enemy at a steady rate. Initially, the mine and flash freeze combo worked great. It also works wonders on slow bosses. You can create chokepoints in doors with these mines around doors and corners.

But in open areas and where enemies can kite, it is hard to lure them into the mines. The mines are also hard to aim properly. Moreover, they do not explode like the mines on Field of Strife and just burns like a candle. They also do not debuff.

Mortar Trap: Oh my, this skill has received so little attention and those who gave it attention showered it with criticisms (inter alia, only one at a time? Slow attack speed? Can’t hit fast moving enemies). I find these critiques are overly pessimistic.

  1. Mortar trap is a great auto attack skill that saves you time cleaning up stragglers or wounded enemies.
  2. Great auto-proc for devotions.
  3. The Big One, when it does HIT, it does MASSIVE damage to mobs and single enemies alike. It also STUNS enemies, how great is that? If you time it properly, you can direct its fire into a group of enemies AFTER you use Flash Freeze on them.
  4. Looks majestic (okay, this is subjective)

MAXING OUT ARCANIST TREE – arguably, maxing out arcanist tree gives us the ability to use Devastation AoE and Reckless Power, both are exceptional skills per se. Moreover, we can further benefit from Star Pact skill cooldown reduction. Furthermore, arcanist mastery also gives us more damage from spirit.

I think it is ultimately up to you where you want to go. Remember, you can’t respec points dumped into mastery trees. Also, you will have about 20+ points less which you can spend on active and defensive skills.

In the end, I was militant against the idea of maxing both mastery trees.

MAGI v ULZUIN’S TORCH DEVOTION
I know, I know, Ulzuin’s Torch’s Meteor Shower has a higher chance of proc (25% v 15%) and is spammable if I attach it to Flashbang or BWC. It cleans out 1/3 of the enemies on screen and it also burns enemies. The extra 10% crit is also nice too.
I tried both, and in the end, I made a difficult choice going Magi.

Why?

  1. Ulzuin’s Torch has high devotion point requirement to unlock – 8 Chaos + 15 Eldritch! Good Lord! We would either unlock this at the very end of the build or we would pick up some constellations not particularly helpful to our build.
  2. No Complete Constellation Bonus. Magi has 3 eldritch point complete constellation bonus which allows me to free up some points from other devotions.
  3. Laggy – Yeah, if you ever party with anyone with a laggy computer, they’ll hate that you can bring down meteor showers every 4-5 seconds and give their weak graphics card a seizure.

Overall, I felt the need to grab some health nodes and I think that I struck a proper balance between survivability and offensive ability.

WHY NOT USE DUAL PISTOLS - Barrelsmith’s Twins or Use Rifles?

  1. I need mana regen and need chaos/aether auras, so that eliminates rifles.
  2. Dual wield pistols don’t offer any mana regen bonuses or cooldown reduction.
  3. We won’t be shooting anyway, we are lobbing grenades and molotovs.

Closing Thoughts and Thanks

Special Thanks to:

Crate: for creating this brilliant, in-depth, addictive game. I think they went above and beyond with this game with their small development team and resources. I would be happy to continue to offer my support for Crate.

My Friends (you know who you are :D): they supplied me with legendaries and provided insightful devotion/skill distribution guidance.

Missing String and Cryodacry: for maintaining the Build Compendium!

Please feel free to offer any suggestions, critiques, questions to me. I will be updating this thread as time goes by and as the game experiences more changes in the future.

Do alert me to errors in my math and my calculations as well!

Thank you for reading!

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Reserved Post for questions in the future.

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I just wanted to say that I was looking through different builds and stumbled upon yours, gave it a try and it’s probably the most fun I’ve had in an ARPG since Diablo 2… and I’ve played a lot of ARPGs.

The constant lobbing of explosives, molotovs and flashbangs has been quite a lot of fun. I haven’t seen how it feels at end game yet but leveling has been a blast. Pun intended.

Nice build. :slight_smile:

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I have to disagree on one point, blast shield is not a one point wonder. I always max it or don’t bother with it at all.

Since I have a character that uses both magi and torch, I have to say that a max level fissure is a little zone of fiery death and the meteor shower is fairly weak. Not sure why tier 3 constellations have such mediocre skills. Magi is definitely the way to go.

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I admit, it is rare that my blast shield actually activates considering that Mirror usually soaks up most of the incoming damage. That said, since I saw so many of my items gave bonuses to “Blast Shield,” I couldn’t resist! :rolleyes:

I am glad you liked the build. Ultimate is viable as long as you kite well.

The build is more geared towards AoE Crowd control - I can’t kill 3 nemesis - Iron Maiden, Fabius, and Undead Nemesis.

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I would:

  1. Max OFF
  2. Max Blast Shield
  3. Max Flame Touch
  4. Get rid of Mortar trap and The Big One
  5. Max Inner Focus
  6. Max MSP
  7. 1 point at IEE
  8. Max Elemental Balance

Devotion will aim for at least Giant’s blood and Turtle Shell, if you want to be tanky, go for healing rain (I’m currently using healing rain as well)

clear speed is actually faster than what you have shown in video and much harder to die, hp sitting at 10K.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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I thought about taking Healing Rain. The key problem is the high requirement necessary to unlock “Tree of Life.”

The “primordial node” requirement is too high to adapt to. There are not many primordial nodes that support fire damage/elemental damage. To be honest, I always considered “Tree of Life” devotion as an option for melee builds.

As to maxing OFF, I find there is no need as most enemies who get too close will get a grenado point blank.

Again, Blast Shield rarely activates in this build because we kite so much and we can dodge incoming damage or lure enemies to somewhere that’s favorable for our type of engagement.

Maxing Inner Focus is a good approach to increase our damage.

I didn’t want to max MSP specifically because of the high mana cost to run it. Blackwater Cocktail, Grenado and their modifiers are mana-use heavy already, MSP further limits our mana regen abilities. I personally find MSP, at a certain level, is adequate to eliminate most OHKOs.

Overall, my key concern with your passive buff/defense skill arrangement is the mana usage.

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GUIDE UPDATED June 16, 2016 -

CHANGES:

DEVOTION OVERHAUL - SEE SECTION ON DEVOTIONS

Gear Changes on Boots, Pant, Belt, Glove, Relic, and Shoe.

RESULTS:
+1,500 HP (From, 8,000 hp --> 9,500 hp)
+120-150 Armor (900 -> 1164)
+20 Mana Regen
+200~250 OA and DA (2150 OA, 2050 DA)
+Poison, Bleeding, Aether Resistances.

Overall, it’s a great update that makes this build more survivable in Ultimate than before without sacrificing its damage and other skills.

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I’m slightly confused. I am working through your new devotions but found a slight issue

Crossroad Eldritch
Hawk Max
Scholar’s Light Max
Oklaine’s Lantern Max
Magi 6 - IGNORE 40% Burn Node on Hand
Tango Builder 4 - Life nodes only"

The Oklaine’s Lantern and Magi requires 10 eldritch points. However I only have 8.

Any suggestions?

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Hello Steep!

Apologies, I forgot one step in the devotion setup.

I maxed out SPIDER, maxed Lantern, then removed all points from spider, and then went Magi. I’ll edit the build.

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How about this Sorcerer build? Grenado is main dmg dealing spell, maxed it out cuz High Impact increases physical damage from it with pretty high chance. BWC used only to decrease resistances. Flame Touched and Inner Focus helps with offensive ability so you have enough crit chance and at the same time Flashbang reduces enemy defensive ability. Elemental balance increasing crit dmg. With all this Grenado crits will hit like a truck. Mortar trap levelled only to get to 16 with +skill from items for two traps at the same time. Olexra’s Flash Freeze almost maxed and with Canister Bomb gives alot of CC.
There are still some points left and you can put them in BWC, “The Big One”, Flashbang, IEE, Overload or anything else you think is necessary.
Devotions giving you some defences so you dont need that much defensive item upgrades.
For items instead of Invoker’s Burning Hand i use Empowered Lorekeeper’s Band.
Im playing on hardcore and put most of stat points into Physique. Im still not lvl 85 but i intend to try this build out.

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Greetings and thanks for the build guide. I am a newcomer to Grim Dawn although i have played quite a few ARPG’s in the past. Could I get your opinion on Stun Jacks? I use it to CC mobs long enough for the mortar to hit but I’ve notice most builds go for Flashbang instead.

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Didn’t know this thread existed glad someone else enjoys this build :slight_smile: Revisited this guy recently and came up with a tanky setup using 3 piece justice set + valor legs. Infernal mask + peerless eye makes up for the lost +2 demo though we lose the ulzuin helm debuff and the extra bonuses to flame touched/temper. Uncrittable, 1600 armor with 95% absorb, and I got Dryad in the mix bound to Grenado for a nice heal every few seconds. Infernal mask + phantom thread belt also give 8% to dodge melee/projectiles on top as well. Don’t really need 3 piece though probably gonna drop the gloves and go back to wyrmbone. DA is still really high without chest piece too, could drop that instead and gain a ton of health from iskandra chest (also gives great energy regen) or divinesteel for a ton of health/resists including some phys resist

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Guys, what do you think of the following variation of the build:

https://grimcalc.com/build/hfXQbRD

Devotions included:

Vindictive Flame + Wayward Soul
Maiven Sphere of Protection + Giant`s Blood
Reckless Power + Turtle Shell
Blackwater Coktail + Fissure
Flashbang + Elemental Storm

This is a build on paper so i`m not really sure how it will do in practice. The idea is to use 2 static nukes (Mortar Trap & Devastation) and to use BWC + Fissure and Flashbang + Elemental Storm for stun and debuf. This way you are allowed to kite while your cooldown skill do the damage.

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There is an entirely different build using Stun Jacks - search the forum for Stun Jack Elementalist.

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I used this as inspiration for my first proper character. Altered it a fair bit to be easier and more defensive, but the core is the same. I call mine the failed suicide bomber build. He runs in, blows shit up but despite his best efforts never quite manages to die.

Currently in the 3rd chapter of HC Ultimate, haven’t skipped anything and haven’t really faced a challenge in a long time. This is without prior knowledge of bosses and a lot of carelessness. I feel like I should’ve died many times but I think the build is just too solid. Did have trouble with strong melee bosses for a while, but now that I finally picked up flashbang I find that I can almost tank most of them.

Bear in mind the only nemesis I’ve faced is the Aetherial one in Elite. I found him incredibly easy, but a couple of the others do scare me.

My tooltip damage is incredibly low (only 2.5k!) but the combination of BWS/Fissure/Canister Bomb with the reduced resistances from OFF pretty much destroys everything anyway. My gear is still fairly bad, with the only recommended piece being the Golemborn Greaves.

Thanks for the inspiration Amaranthen, made for a great first playthrough!

Edit: Oddly I ran into Valdaran again right after writing this post. Won’t win any awards for speed and do need a new pair of pants, but otherwise no issues.

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Is this build still viable?

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reserved for future use

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Any advices about augments?