Sword and Board Battlemage build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
21

I think you missed the point :wink:

While i do say RR is important i never say it is central.

-Physical Commando is a bad example since Physical and Elemental aren’t comparable.
Physical is much less resisted by enemies when compared with Elemental

-Stun Jacks goes Elementalist cause of the item support provided for it, Sorcerer wouldn’t be bad imo, but you’d loose some valuable plus skills support that shaman gets.
Pyromancer Jacks isn’t advised well not in the traditional sense unless some creative minds can figure it out (or already have :rolleyes:)

-BWC Pyro is energy intensive, BWC sorcerer isn’t. Sorcerer already has plenty of RR sources

These are all bad examples for comparison mate, all the builds you state already have plenty of RR.

-Elemental is currently the worst supported damage type. And you’d want to get as much RR as possible hence Witchblade and Commando are much better.

-As for making builds clear content, i am certain Battlemage can do it. But i still stand by the fact that it isn’t optimal

My Point:

My point is for any build there are many things you need to consider. Resistance Reduction happens to be one of them, if i have tons of flat damage but i don’t have much RR then I am not very effective at damaging my foes
Further more if i have tons of RR but don’t have enough Flat damage then it’s a bad build as well
And if i have both but am suffering mana problems then again the build is weak.

You can’t over-emphasize on any one of the aspects i stated and have to strike a nice balance between all of them. And i haven’t even taken into account crit multiplier, OA, DA, CB, damage reduces and character resistances

22

Now you are just making excuses if its optimal for one its optimal for all. There’s much better synergy as battlemage as there is for witchblade.

23

How come?

You’re clearly missing the point i am trying to make here, RR is important but there is a balance that needs to be struck between RR and other things that make a build tick.

Elemental Battlemage lacks the RR necessary for doing it optimally.

You can’t treat Discord like Physical where one is free to pick b/w demolitionist and occultist. since the two damage types (physical and elemental) are as different as night and day

And let’s not forget how much AS we’d loose going Battlemage

24

Hello folks,

Well I am done the “main” campaign in elite, however I am up to 10 deaths and have yet to do all the Outcasts rogue dungeons so I expect that to climb…:slight_smile:

And as everyone believed the build I used for Veteran didn’t work for the last part of Elite so I had to adapt and overcome.

With equipment buffs it currently looks like this

http://grimcalc.com/build/1008-ZdfjMU

Equipment wise its like I went shopping for the shiniest stuff I could find no matter what class it belonged to…:slight_smile:
I have a ring and pants that are for a sorcerer
Witchblade gloves and chest
A spellbreaker weapon
the rest either fit in the Soldier or Arcanist family so I guess thats me…:slight_smile:

One thing I completely forgot about upgrading is the Relic, I still have Equilibrium…Not sure what to go with in this build

But I am enjoying it…Cheers

25

Your test begins in Ultimate. With the right gear you can still do it, as for the rest of my views you already know them

I do wish you luck with the build

And have to thank everyone in this thread, i feel like going Physical Battlemage to solve the recent Markovian Defense problem

26

Thanks you and to all. Considering my build I am stuck on which relic to make

Juggernaut
Haunt
Zeal

I haven’t a clue which of the legendary, there are a few that increase block chance which would benefit Targo’s hammer.

BTW was I right in assuming that if I have any gear that is +physical damage that is negated by Discord? I only put 2 in discord and I was thinking of bringing it down to 1 because elemental Exchange also converts physical to elemental and RP converts it to Aether and the shield also converts physical to elemental

Someone asked why I put 9 points in Zolhan’s I just wanted it up to 25% because I assume that when I linked it to Aetherfire that it would only proc when Zolhan does. Perhaps Markovian would have been a better pick

I threw in a point to Mental Alacrity only because I current have an item that increases it by 2. Its the same reason I picked Calidor’s Tempest as a second damage dealer.

The build is mercurial depending on gear.

I will keep you all informed on my progress

Cheers

27

Haunt is all bug useless imo
You would benefit from Juggernaut more

28

I have 200% attack speed so what did I lose going Battlemage?
I understand your point but you clearly overly rely on -rr. 65% is more then enough to do all content in the game. Getting more -rr doesn’t make a build more optimal. As you get better defences from going Battlemage.
Doesn’t make 1 build more optimal then the other.

29

As for gear if it is flat physical damage then it will be added to your damage, but none of the % physical damage from gear helps you unless you are still doing some physical damage after conversion.
Nothing wrong with taking Zolhan’s Technique as it will add a bit more AOE to your build.

30

Battlemage sword and board could absolutely work well as a hybrid caster and cadence build (no discord because that ability wastes points). There are so many options since elemental damage comes in three forms and you can abuse all three of them with no problems. RR from sacred strike, elemental storm proc, and necrosis and you are good to go. Not to mention you could porc into meteor storm and put points into olexras flash freeze for -fire resist. Battlemage is definitely the best class combo for elemental based cadence.