Spirit-based Meleé build(s) - help me, please!

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi forumers!
As the header implies, I’d be most interested in getting some insight as to your favored Spirit-boosted ‘warrior builds’. Or even good choices combining Spirit and Cunning (if such phenomenon exists).

By builds, I don’t mean fully fledged guides, or even links to GrimCalc (though both would be scrutinized, with gratitude) – Listing your 3-6 most important skills, and a few words on your major types and/or sources of damage, what kind of hand-helds you opt for, survival necessities, and/or other essentials, would be very welcome indeed.

I’m having difficulties getting my head around (all) the options, especially when it comes to potential synergies/combinations provided by the myriad Mastery-, Devotion-, Item- and Component-skills. Now, add to that the many damage types, and how they’re ‘spread all over’ the six masteries, and you have one confused Norwegian. Probably several, I’d say.

To any and all who provides useful info: Thank you (in advance), on behalf of myself, and, I’m sure, many other forum users!
Perpetuum
PS! I do know about the Build Compendiums, and how studying them might gradually increase my understanding of the game. However, I have trouble organizing/remembering/mentalizing the info as it’s aquired, so I’m hoping for help. Between the number of parameters, of listed builds, of freely used abbreviations, the varying degrees of precise language, and even the many game revisions… Yeah, I do need help. And you can provide (a fraction of) it! :wink:

Attachment: spirit.jpg

2

Physique gives you Defensive Ability which is important from end game perspective

When picking the Nightblade mastery one can afford points in Cunning to get good Offensive Ability returns
Of course other class combinations can do so as well provided they have their Defensive Ability at a somewhat decent value

Spirit gives nothing in return and is useless

3

Physique is certainly the most popular stat but you need a good 10 points investment before you notice a decent return. Most of my builds are
48 - Physique (DA booster, HP booster, Health regen booster, lowers damage from critical hits)
21- Cunning (Increases OA and Physical, Bleed and Pierce damage as well as duration of physical based DoTs)
21 - Spirit (Increases energy regen, magic damage (elemental, vitality, chaos, aether, acid, poison) and mana bar

My Arcanist hybrids have pretty much no spirit investment and focus more on Physique and this applies to certain combos such as Warlocks and Pyro’s as well. Soldier can stand to have no Physique investment and go full Cunning etc etc.

4

Unless you put 50-70 points into spirit, the bonus is hardly noticeable. Physique gives DA and Cunning gives OA which are far more important than energy regen from Spirit.

5

Hi, and thanks for your answers:D

I think I might have been a bit unclear as to what I need help with, so I’ll rephrase:

Can anyone please share good meleé builds (set-ups) that primarily base their damage output on Spirit, rather than Cunning?

Inspired by the name of my first replier, here’s an example in Titan Quest-terms:
By going Earth+Dream (Evoker, or Chthonian w/Underlord mod), and investing heavily into Intelligence, and moderately in Dexterity, you could make a viable meleé character. Strength would only receive a bare minimum to allow equipping of a good dagger.

Now, I know the attributes are not the same in GD, but in both games you have an Elemental dmg-booster (Int / Spr) that I’d like to focus on, and a Physical dmg-booster (Str / Cun) that I wonder if one could (more or less) drop. If, however, Cunning is needed for all characters in order to make reliable hits, I’ll revise my concept. So:

Do all meleé characters need Cunning more than they need Spirit?

@ Chthon

I have no intention of skimping on Physique; I’d even say it is important long before the end game, and would invest at least 40% of my points in Phy for any build (feel free to educate me, though).

I assume you mean it gives nothing in the way of OA/DA? Spirit’s return on elemental damage is hardly useless…?

@ Duck_King:

Physique is certainly the most popular stat but you need a good 10 points investment before you notice a decent return. Most of my builds are
48 - Physique (DA booster, HP booster, Health regen booster, lowers damage from critical hits)
21- Cunning (Increases OA and Physical, Bleed and Pierce damage as well as duration of physical based DoTs)
21 - Spirit (Increases energy regen, magic damage (elemental, vitality, chaos, aether, acid, poison) and mana bar

Awesome job, thanks. Does this mean you end up with/near this ‘investment plan’ for quite different characters, like, say, Blademaster and Sorcerer?

My Arcanist hybrids have pretty much no spirit investment and focus more on Physique and this applies to certain combos such as Warlocks and Pyro’s as well. Soldier can stand to have no Physique investment and go full Cunning etc etc.

Good, but what do said hybrids do for damage? Cunning? Or is there no need to boost weapon/skill damage with attributes? Sounds counter-intuitive to me that elemental damage-builds should not invest heavily in Spirit…?

@thailehuy:

Unless you put 50-70 points into spirit, the bonus is hardly noticeable. Physique gives DA and Cunning gives OA which are far more important than energy regen from Spirit.

Which bonus from Spirit is hardly noticeable; the damage boost? Or do you reckon ManaRegen is the only significant gain from Spirit investment?

Again, thanks for all your replies, including thos not yet penned :wink:

Perp

6

Even on my characters that specializes in melee damage other than physical/pierce, I still don’t invest in spirit just to increase damage output. The DPS from devotion setup is more than enough and I’d rather go physique as I’d dislike to go defensive devotion setup and then having to rely on spirit for damage.

For example
Lightning based Warden: 55+P/20C/10S
Acid based Witch Hunter: 5S/0C the rest in P
Chaos/Fire Witch Blade: 5S/10C the rest in P
Elemental Battle mage: Plan to use no more than 10S rest in P as there is more than enough spirit from Inner Focus and masteries.

7

Unfortunately in Spirit’s current state, Cunning is usually far superior. The only builds I see with high Spirit is Albrecht’s Aether Ray builds, and they certainly aren’t Melee. If you’d like to focus on a non Physique stat, Cunning is the one to go for.

That said, if you are dedicated to the idea… I would go Arcanist/Soldier, use Cadence, and take the Discord Transmuter for it. Arcanist naturally has high Spirit, and a boosting passive. Soldier’s got Cadence, and Discord will make it fully Elemental so it can benefit from Spirit.

I don’t particularly suggest it, because Elemental builds are very gear heavy and tricky, but it’s certainly not impossible. You could also attempt something similar with Fire Strike, or Primal Strike, and it may sort out.

8

@petrivanzyl:

Awesome, that unties a big knot of befuddlement! Thanks, also for the appxm. values for your builds.

So, people (you) have concluded that sufficient damage boost can and should be had from other sources, while attributes are best spent towards survivability…? I’m profoundly impressed by whoever calculated this; I don’t think I could’ve assessed this on my own. I’m really glad I asked, and even more so, that you replied! :wink:

You have my gratitude :smiley:

9

@Nssheepster:

And thanks to you too! I was actually contemplating the Battlemage, with the Cadence\Discord set-up, already; now my resolve has been semented :wink:

I think I’ll go with a 1P:1C:1S from the start, adjusting offense/defense (through skills, devotions, items…) as needed along the way. Hopefully, it will be a fun ride - in any event, it shouldl be educational :slight_smile:

Thanks again, all!

Perp

PS! Would you go 2-Hander, Sword&Board or Scepter/Dgr+Offhand with such a build?

10

Hm. Tricky. There are good options for all. If you were going to use a Shield, Soldier is definitely the class for it, so it’s a good option. It would also replace some defense so you could safely use more Spirit. Generally, I’d go with whatever you find/are comfortable with until around 45. At that point you’d want to start committing to one or the other. Keep in mind there are some Devotions you’d specifically want for each of those options, so… 2H, Kraken. Offhand, Lantern. Shield… Multiple, actually. Most of them defensive.

11

Spirit is too weak for melee builds, even if they use magic damage and spend lots of energy. Leeching energy is way better that regenerating it, and spirit overall is the weakest attribute among the three.

12

What are the best sources of leeching energy? Arcane Spark?

13

Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange, Tip of the Scales, Arcane Spark, some items and constellations… Hell, even Phantasmal Armor does it well.

14

One of the few problems I have with the game. Spirit is useless, Cunning is useful but only if you go soldier because otherwise you need to go full phys. From a ‘normal’ RPG background, you would imagine a cold spellbreaker, for ex, to invest heavily into spirit and some cunning. Full or almost all cunning to physical damage dealer glass cannons like pierce BM, bleeding warder, phys commando. Full physique would be useful for tanks, retaliation builds, etc…

Nope. Bleeding warder? Full phys. Cold SB? Full phys. Pierce BM? Full phys. Fire pyro? Full phys. Chaos warlock? Full phys. Only way you can play the game by not putting a single point in phys is going Soldier oriented combinations OR relying HEAVILY on ADCtH (attack damage converted to health), like JOV’s full cunning pierce BM builds (dual wield and rifle).

Worst part is that this is probably never going to change, considering it needs a very deep rework of the game core mechanics.

15

Cunning is decent for any build, that deals non-magical damage (physical, pierce, bleed, trauma). Soldier actually gets even more benefit from physique, due to his passive. He’s often forced to get cunning, because his OA can be too low.
And build that benefitted cunning most (DW pierce Blademaster) got nerfed into oblivion.

And energy regen bonus from spirit is way too weak. It should have much higher impact on energy regen, to be considered worthwhile.

Also, certain items require too much physique, you have to put literally all you points into it to be able to wear heavy armour.

16

I really don’t understand the “Spirit is useless”/“go full-Phys or your character is trash” arguments and I don’t think I ever will. I’ve taken around 10 characters through Ultimate with ease using approximately a 50/50 Phys/Spirit setup, and at no point (except for a couple of minor cases when I was short on Phys for high stat requirement items designed for non-Soldier mastery combos - the Light’s Defender Plate, for instance) have I ever felt like I’d messed up by investing in Spirit too much. Granted, Gladiator crucible requires more defensive setups and I can see why full-Phys might be more useful there, but even then there are towers and buffs available to support those who choose not to take that route.

Sure, it’s true that you can skimp on Spirit and just get extra damage from devotions instead, but isn’t the same true for other stats as well? Wolverine is a great DA-focused devotion and you can pretty much get it right off the bat, plus there’s another 18 DA sitting for you in Crossroads should you need it. Likewise, Tortoise also has a bunch of DA ripe for the taking, once again available almost right from the beginning.

OA is a little trickier to get en masse, but I usually find that most non-physical damage/non-Cunning characters who need it gain access to Chariot of the Dead or Hydra at some point along the line anyway - and again, there’s another 36 OA in Crossroads for anybody who wants a bit more.

The same goes for health - I’ve never found a 50/50 split to result in an overly fragile character, and even if I did there are plenty of ways via gear, augments and components to get more health along with both DA and OA.

I’m not saying that Spirit is amazing and everybody should invest in it, and I’m sure there are definitely good reasons for why a number of builds would want to go full-Phys, but saying that Spirit is totally useless seems a bit much. Several hundred percent extra damage isn’t nothing, after all, and it sure is nice being able to tweak my build without having to worry about not having enough Spirit to equip things as well.

17

Physique is useless if you only invest small amounts into it as well.
1 point into physique gives you a whopping 20 HP and 4 DA. But with 10 points investment and %HP and %DA bonuses the return is very noticeable.

The reality is, if you go full physique you can easily get well above 2000 extra HP and around 350-400 bonus DA (that’s a lot of DA).

Cunning is the same you get 4 OA per point.

Only reason I feel you should invest into spirit is for elemenatal DoT builds. Take my sorceress for example. I didn’t invest a single point into Cunning because I get enough OA bonuses from the masteries and gear.

Sadly that particular build is “not” a DoT build. But you get the idea. There aren’t enough elemental bonuses in the game to reach this amount of duration. Most people average around +300% end game. Sprit gives you a bonus +500%

18

I guess it’s really just a case of personal preference - some people are happy to have the full 360 DA from a full-Phys build and find their damage sources elsewhere, whereas I’m happy to go 50/50, settle for 180 DA and some extra damage, then get another 120 DA or so from 4 points in Wolverine. Sure, 300 in total is a little less than the 360 DA I’d have got otherwise (not to mention the fact that people who go full-Phys can still take Wolverine on top of that), but it’s enough for me, especially when it comes to ranged characters - and likewise, I’m sure there are people who look at their damage and go “that’s enough for me” before deciding not to invest in Spirit on any of their characters.

It kinda feels like any variation in stats can be made up for elsewhere so easily (at least to some extent, I imagine - 0 Phys builds are probably thin on the ground for a reason) that it’s never a major issue aside from when it comes to gear requirements. Some people prefer more safety, others more damage and flexibility in regards to gearing. I (and I imagine many others) lean more towards the latter, and I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with that. :slight_smile:

19

I’m pretty sure you can reach 700-800% DOT damage easily without any spirit, it’s just not all DOT, but some certain DOT to focus on

It’s not just preferences, you need very high physique to equip heavy armor. Most melee characters need heavy armor to survive, and even many casters need heavy armor for the bonus it gives as well. You cannot reach 900 physique requirements with just 50/50 point split

20

Warders can usually manage that without any physique. Makes full Cunning or Spirit easier to handle for them. Not hugely useful, unless you’re focusing Lightning or Bleeding, because that’s really all you can do with Warder that benefits from Cunning or Spirit very heavily, outside of the obvious OA increase of Cunning.