Hi all. Just want to show you guys something that I’m trying to work on. Right now, still not done with Act 7 and don’t have the three Gods factions up to Revered yet.
I’ve been racking my brains out with this one and I’m getting more confused by the day. So the idea is, I want something tankier, standing up to Celestials (Mog, Calla, Rav) eventually, and does a good consistent damage. I’m using Bone Lance for the filler when Blitz, Blade Arc and Devastation is on cooldown.
What is confusing me is that I tried to run SR65-66 with this current iteration, and it’s soooo slow.
Am I leaning too much on the tanky side? Any insight on what can be further improved? Any recommendation is highly appreciated.
probably
also Bonespike is just not really a high dmg attack so it it could potentially be argued if it’s worth as filler vs spamming blade arc.
ex, compare Afanaseonkov’s weapon dmg vs yours Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator , then also remember he’s spamming an attack with 325%wd and you’re spamming one with only 100% - and my guess is those additional 225% spam isn’t made up for by bonelance having double the native flats.
Additionally your devo map is also much more conservative, dropping dmg there too, aside from defensive items* ofc
(not having dire bear instantly means most your flats/non trauma dmg loses a bunch of dmg there).
*It could be asked, do you really need 2 gollus?, why not a matriarch or combust band in one slot for that bit more RR.
Do you really need to go tree for regen? - could behemonth carry it enough or cheaper devo point wise.
Do you have enough OA to get Assassin’s Mark out the door frequent/reliably enough against fatter bosses?
Is this level of tankiness necessary/do the offensive tradoffs warrant it?
Thank you for your insight man. Reading your comment, I think it is more apparent that I’m losing alot in damage department because of the current ring and devo path. I wanted to test out Light of Empyrion as I have not used it yet and feels like it’s appropriate with the global elem to physical conversion by spellscourge. That’s why I took also Tree of Life. But it is too deep in the requirements. I’ll probably change to Claw MI for weapon, spam Blade Arc, then probably test Ulzuin Torch + Behemoth, then drop LoE + ToL overall.
I would like to cosplay a physical mage with meteors all around LOL. I’ll use RR rings (Black Matriarch + Combustion) and Annihilation relic to stick with the current idea.
Oh man! I’m missing out! I was thinking that the wordings used “Increases armor by -X%” means it is applied on your character, because the lifesteal is so big so it’s a penalty. Thanks!
the way flat physical dmg works in GD is each source gets counted individual against enemy armour, it doesn’t get combined into 1 single pool
Ex, you have 3 sources of flat phys on the axe alone, the base dmg (102-162), the native bonus flat(38-94), and seal of might 13. Then you have a source on the Combustion band via 11/16 fire dmg you convert to phys. So and forth for each instance of global flat phys, including the 3 native sources on Blade Arc
All these instance of flat phys doesn’t get merged together and counted against enemy armour; instead they each get counted on their own
so you have 162*phys % - enemy armour, 94*phys %- enemy armour 16*phys% minus enemy armour, etc etc, (and not 500*phys%-enemy armour).
Because each instance is checked individually it results in a bit extra dmg loss than if it was just pooled together to 1 armour check.
ex if we assume 2500%phys and enemy armour is 1200(*0.7) (162*26)-(1200*0.7) + (94*26)-(1200*0.7) + (13*26)*0.3 + (16*26)*0.3 = 5202 dmg vs (162+94+13+16)*26-(1200*0,7) = 6570 dmg, or; you dealt 1300dmg less here because of GD’s specific flat phys v armour mechanics
*ignoring %weapon dmg scaling atm just to illustrate the basic flat interaction
what dire bear then does is shred enemies’ armour so that compounding individual flat on flat vs armour checks gets reduced a bit more, since now in this example you wouldn’t be dealing with 1200 armour (*0.7) but 780 (*0.7) resulting in more dmg per source per hit.
Thanks for the detailed explanation! This applies to individual instances of DoTs too right? Armor affects the Internal Trauma tics by way of what was the target’s armor number when the skill with IT was applied? Then it checks for what is the armor number when the next tic is counted?
No, Internal Trauma is unaffected by Armour, it’s solely flat physical dmg (or X flat converted into phys)
all true DoTs, trauma, poison, burn, decay, bleed etc, checks enemy status on DoT application, status change after that wont affect tick dmg
“reapplications” (like a 2nd hit with blade arc) will count its own status check on that hit, it wont carry on the previous status check from the prior applied/already rolling trauma
Thanks again! I think I know the identity of this build now. Tried SR65-66 with my revamped build and it’s so much faster now. Can’t wait to optimize this further
Just sharing how it looks right now. For now, just having fun with this. Probably will not survive Celestials in this version LOL. Just going through Act 7 for now.
Edit: I just realized I have not augmented my helm and leg armor LOL
swap devo binds
Meteor has 3sec cd, makes it highly inefficient to have on a spamable (you’re wasting every single blade arc hit done between 0.1 and 2.9secs)
Funnily enough blitz and meteor has identical base CD so they will overlap perfectly in this case (blitz gets 100% meteor chance, while both skills will reset/go off CD at the same time, leading to perfect potential cycles)
meanwhile you have AM on a high cooldown skill, which is less optimal in itself (can’t apply RR fast again on new target), but also you can’t apply it to more than 1 target during that cooldown (yes doomforce is an AoE but that dosen’t mean you get aoe applied AM)
^on your lineup that then makes Blade Arc one of the most ideal
Maul is kinda fine on blitz, even if not “perfect” (need a semi spamable or 5sec base cd skill)
Ulzaad is whatever, long cd, long cd pairing is fine
i’d probably personally not like doomforce on maul, but should be workable
if that’s the best case available i’d probably try devastation instead, even if it technically will have longer cd than doomforce, it should ensure proccing more reliably, so it can be used “exactly” when desired (like instantly/initial moment of 1v1 boss fight)
*depending on how often you actually use war cry you could then have WC on ulzaad, otherwise doomforce is probably fine there
key thing to note is Torch’s base proc chance. Just because devo skills and trigger skills have same CD doesnt’ always mean they match up (nor necessarily will grant 100% proc chance) - just that torch 30% vs cd then fits the formula perfectly
(other example can be maul has 5sec duration, and it’s 20% proc chance fits perfectly with a 5sec cd skill to reach 100%, but that’s because base proc chance determines the %trigger formula)
I understand. Btw, do you happen to know if the number of targets and/or number of hits (Devastation in this case), give separate proc chances?
For example, Devastation is a good devo skill proccer since the number of instances for the %chance is increased due to multiple targets, multiple times of attack?
they do, hence why it makes it a better proccer in a potential single target scenario than doomfoorce
doomforce gives you 1hit “per enemy” in the aoe field, so it can be potentially fine in a multi fight situation. But the less targets there are, down to 1, you suddenly get 1x chance per 4sec cd, (which it think is 80% proc chance on maul per hit?)
Devas would then cause multiple hits/a hit per rock, so even if there is only 1 target/1v1 fight, you’re getting like… 2-3 rocks per second for 5 seconds?, which is then suddenly better than a 1x 80% chance/4secs
