Sword & Board Cadence Elemental Battlemage build

Hi

I’ve tried to find a guide for a sword & board elemental cadence battlemage but can’t seem to, does anyone know of one?

Thanks!

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a sword & board elemental cadence battlemage

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This something in mind have I :grin: Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. No guide, just an idea with what items I got.

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Tactician version would be more logical, here is a theorycraft I made before but never tested Tactician, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

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I believe this build suffers from a lack of RR and may even be unviable at higher levels - would that be an issue?

Yes Battlemage has no RR and it’s a problem.

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You could attempt a mageslayer set build and focus more on fire/cold RR with Olexra’s FF for a lot of the mobs (the whole screen) and also the fire/cold devotion RR with the elemental RR for more. It’s still an elemental build, but emphasizing fire/cold more than lightning.

Something like:
Grimtools: battlemage with OFF focus for RR.

It’s pretty tight with proc skills, but you could put a point into something like forcewave for an almost guaranteed proc of some. Also, you could maybe swap in a Oleron’s blood component for some %damage reduction if it is a big issue or move some points to WC. (nominal physical resist is a bit low and probably could be tweaked with gear with more thought).

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This.

I’m going to have to reset my own Elemental 2-hander Cadence build to a Tactician, because of a lack of RR Battlemage has. Though I might theory craft some stuff to get it working as a Battlemage.

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Thanks everyone. Really useful. Would it be easier working with aether damage rather than elemental?

Should be much easier. Aether and chaos are the least resistant damage types by monsters in the game. For battlemage aether would be obvious pick. And there is specific drop aether set for battlemage.
Chaos would be tricky as you would probably need full rahzin set and dual spark of reality scepter.

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I think either could work, depending on what gear you have. Here are some examples for both:

Aether S+B Cadence build +Overguard

Chaos S +B Cadence build + Overguard

Edit: modified the Aether version for a (imho) better dev path for S+B play. Don’t know how I forgot the RR first time around…

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So I theory crafted my 2 hander elemental Battlemage build to be better, and it sort of works. Very glassy due to poor sustain though, suspect Tactician and Witchblade elemental Candence build might work better, but hit 200K sheet dps with Cadence, so it’s not totally bad :stuck_out_tongue:

The only reason it works is due to Scion of Arcane Force, because otherwise RR would be a nightmare. I also fudged up skills in the skill bar so the first SR75 shard I hit I was all like - “wtf is wrong here?”. But that’s 6hrs of broken sleep for you ;-;

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The thread was more S+B, but in any case…nice idea.

If the build seems glassy, I think you could tweak the devotions to include Guardian’s Gaze and Phoenix. The chest, shoulder, belt, and medal could be changed for various other conversions without too much loss (medal acid->ele, shoulder chaos->ele).

Because I’m not sure if this really needs Elemental Storm. Cadence will probably land the RR more frequently than a small radius 3.5 sec blitz.

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why take crown when bonk stick already takes care of flat RR ? :thinking: - frees up those devo points

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Bonk stick?

Scion hammer the build uses, has 33RR to Cadence on it

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I fixed that in the next version. Forgot flat RR doesn’t stack, even it if targets different resistances. This is the current one, that grabs the cold, fire and lightening -%RR devotions:

Haven’t been able to run 10 SR75 runs (good way to test out the capabilities imho) because I got no sleep last night and had to nap 5-ish hours today.

[edit] Oh yeah, before I forget, the previous one was hitting stupidly large crits in SR75, regularly saw 500K+, with sheet dps of +300K. Well, once I fixed the devotion assignments and skill placement on the skill bar I screwed up. And that was without the current devotion map either. Plays a lot less glassy with MSoP, but can die in boss rooms.

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i like the part where you put 1pt in shield training, and is 1pt short in fighting form of an extra target :sweat_smile:
if RR is at such premium going all stackables in devos is on the table, i’d probably take viper over the ring, and then get a ring that either boost the build skill or flat dmg wise, or even extra stackable RR wise, get more racial dmg to deal with high resistant annoyances like Grava, more lifesteal might also bring more comfort?

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Well, I was pretty tired when I made it lawl, so mistakes were going to happen :stuck_out_tongue:

I am still bloody tired too, so I wonder what mistakes I’ll find in my theory crafted builds I made today for an elemental Mage Hunter dual pistol build and a Scion of Arcane Force Witchblade :upside_down_face:

As for the BM devotion map - trying to get all the RR devotions, plus Elemental Seeker makes what you suggest impossible without 5 more devotion points. There’s sadly no give as -%RR is better than %RR. And it was a bit of battle to get a good balance to cover resistances to begin with, while not going completely insane on GD stashed double rares. As despite using them (because ADHD = I get burnt out on farming easily) I do like to minimise their use where possible.

I’ll admit though I’ve probably focused on the wrong things in that build, since there are some definite trade offs that could be made, more so if I used Living Rings to cover some stuff.

As for why I went with the Eternal band - since I can’t get Viper, it’s 12% RR has some minor utility since it can stack with everything else, has a chunk of +attack speed and DA which this build needs more of + ~22% aether resist.

Mind you, it’s still saner looking than this one:

Thanks to conversions + sustain from modified BoD it’s been surprisingly good in the 2 SR75 runs I did. Not the fastest, but it does the job despite being a meme build that I cooked up on a whim.

[edit] Right - I need to go be functional, as I’m running out of time due to 5hrs of napping eat up today and I need something that isn’t cheese based to eat lawl.

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So here is my current elemental S&B Battlemage: Grimtools

I have made it to level 91 in Hardcore and it’s basically my only main HC char.

Any advice much appreciated (realise poison resist is too low but not sure that is coming through properly on grim tools, can’t double check rn)