Just curious about everyone’s opinion as I return to GD after a hiatus:
At this point, what would you say is your top 10 builds for Grim Dawn that you have personally tested? (if not 10, then whatever ones you like the best).
For Vanilla or Crucible purpose ? 
DEE WH (Both)
DW Coldbreaker (Campaign)
BWC Sorc (Crucible)
AAR has multiple viable variants, definitely more than ten…So my answers are
AAR Aether/Fire
AAR Chaos/Fire
AAR Aether/Chaos
AAR Chaos
AAR Chaos/Vitality
AAR Black Flame Covenant
AAR Iskandra’s Unity
AAR Clairovoyant’s
And then of course, each variant can be done pure DPS, medium DPS, or “lowest” DPS with a large amount of added tankiness. Any Chaos variant is OFC best done as Warlock, but the other variants can be done with Demolitionist, Soldier, or Shaman and benefit accordingly.
AAR in all the variants is a one button build, simple requirements and scaling, and even the tankiest version have little to no trouble outputting the damage needed to kill every boss in the game, and doing it fast enough to clear trash fairly quickly. It kinda does everything you’d want a build to do, as long as you don’t mind the lack of AOE on the base skill.
I like the part where you say “AAR” LOL
Jeez, is it that overpowered now?
That’s the builds I prefer lately:
- DEE Witch Hunter
- BWC Sorcerer
- Tri-Element Saboteur
- TSS Druid
- Phantasmal Blades Witch Hunter
- Stun Jacks Elementalist
- Chaos AAR Warlock
- Pet Conjurer
The one big thing that prevents it from being overpowered is that MASSIVE energy cost. I’m leveling yet another AAR character right now… At L48, with 163% Cast Speed and -29% Skill Cost… I’m still getting zinged for 679.2 energy a second. 4 Ectoplasms and a Focusing Prism are 100% needed.
It also helps the balance simply because it is enforced single target all the time, and the best relic for it is usually the Rover ones, since nothing else really supports Aether/Fire quite as well as just using those and their skill. *
I’ve seen people kind of force AAR into a seemingly OP state, for a few moments, by speccing 100% into spirit and damage devotions, and then just popping a spirit pot after a second, but as much damage as they get, they also die to two hits from just about any boss, and even with the spirit pot, they can’t cast for more than say 5 seconds. 5 Seconds of crazy damage with all that cost…I find it hard to call that OP.
EDIT: * The Chaos versions do have much better relics though. Almost forgot, since I’m just doing a standard one right now.
The one big thing that prevents it from being overpowered is that MASSIVE energy cost. I’m leveling yet another AAR character right now… At L48, with 163% Cast Speed and -29% Skill Cost… I’m still getting zinged for 679.2 energy a second. 4 Ectoplasms and a Focusing Prism are 100% needed.
I dont want to ruine your dreams, but any AAR effective dmg is kinda low if you compare it with poison WH or cold spellbreacker, or DoT warder, or burning sorc.
Its a clunky inneffective spell that require a LOT of investment in tankiness to actualy do any dmg, a lot of investment in energy to sustain it and a lot of investment intro OA to bring it to the level of 1008 pierce BM.
I’ve tried poison, and I’ve seen cold…Once you hit 200% Cast Speed, your damage is among the highest in the game with AAR.
You might not LIKE AAR, and that’s fine, to each their own…But trying to deny the massive single target DPS you put out with it is insane. There are plenty of pictures and videos showing it off, so denial is futile.
It’s also pretty clear that it’s very effective, since you can clear the entire base game, nemesis and all, with AAR. I’ve been told people have killed Mog, Mad Queen, and the Edge fight with AAR as well.
Maybe Pierce BMs reach higher…Okay, except they have to be standing next to the enemy at all times…And oh yeah, they aren’t shooting an awesome laser. They also don’t have anywhere near as many variations. Pierce BM…Does Pierce…And you’re done. AAR? Yeah I listed those out already.
AAR has its downs and ups, but in the end, it’s huge damage with a lot of varieties, and still manages to be well balanced and well made. It’s also a laser, which is an automatic bonus to anyone who likes channeling beams of hot green death across the battlefields of Cairn.
I’ve tried poison, and I’ve seen cold…Once you hit 200% Cast Speed, your damage is among the highest in the game with AAR.
dmg from character sheet? yes, its kinda among the highest. Actual dps? Its another story, not very AAR friendly.
It’s also pretty clear that it’s very effective, since you can clear the entire base game, nemesis and all, with AAR. I’ve been told people have killed Mog, Mad Queen, and the Edge fight with AAR as well.
You can clear the entire base game with default atack.
Maybe Pierce BMs reach higher…Okay, except they have to be standing next to the enemy at all times…And oh yeah, they aren’t shooting an awesome laser. They also don’t have anywhere near as many variations. Pierce BM…Does Pierce…And you’re done. AAR? Yeah I listed those out already.
Lol, the last think i would do with any AAR battlemage is kiting mobs.
A) And you’re telling me you’ve tried all the AAR variants at the highest level, so you can say that with impunity? Or are you making the classic assumption and going “Anything Aether or Chaos is bad because resistances are a thing that exist”?
B) Sure. When you do that, and don’t murder yourself from the sheer boredom of ONLY using default attacks, you let me know. Don’t forget, you said ONLY default attack…That’d mean no WPS, and without WPS, you’ve not got many damage devotions on offer, since most of them link to attack skills or spells, and you said just the default attack.
Waiting for your video of a Mogdrogen kill with ONLY Default Attacks, not spells or WPS.
1h+shield physical Witchblade (Cadence+Blitz) is still the best. Period.
A) And you’re telling me you’ve tried all the AAR variants at the highest level, so you can say that with impunity? Or are you making the classic assumption and going “Anything Aether or Chaos is bad because resistances are a thing that exist”?
Ive tried Aether battlemageAAR and Warlock darkflame AAR. Warlock is somewhat better, but not that much.
For AAR you must stay in one place and shoot the damn ray all the time. You must invest in tankiness to do so and you need at least 3k effective OA to do reasonable dmg with AAR and a lot of mana to do so.
For example, poison WH can do one atack sequence and disengage while looking at 500k dmg poison ticks.
The fact that you stand still for AAR doesn’t affect the power. And oddly enough, NO, you really don’t need a ton of extra tankiness. What you DO need is to stand in a good place, generally doorways and bottlenecks, or at the appropriate range from the boss.
The 3K OA point is your opinion. Unless you’re using an on crit proc, I’d not worry about it. AAR hits really fast, so even if you miss 1 out of every 5 hits, you’re still hitting faster than basically anything else in the game.
Poison WHs do in one burst what AAR does in a few ticks. If you prefer that, go for it, IDC. But AAR outputs as much, if not more, damage, simply because AAR isn’t running a CD, like DEE usually is done with, and all those poison procs that WHs use.
Poison WHs have their benefits. So does AAR. Stop trying to deny that AAR is a top build, it’s not going to fly. The OP asked for TEN. You’ve got room to spare here, man.
Lol, what this thread is about? Aether ray? It has good sheet DPS but many other issues. Main one is that you need to stand still, so you need to be a tank, which contradicts its glass cannon all-into-mana theme. If you can’t afford being super tanky, prepare to run away from flesh hulks :). And then there is a terraformer boss, herald… of stars? Who summons them by 2 with no cooldown. 
Talking about strong builds, stun jacks is one. This is relatively old news, but I’ve tried it only just recently myself. It is a caster that can facetank all things including Sharzul and Fabius with over 100K DPS point blank. It requires a set.
Where is this mistake coming from? No, you really don’t at all need to be tanky. KILL the Flesh Hulks, and then you’re good. You CAN be tanky, if you want to…OR you can just focus on damage, and then almost everything will die before it reaches you.
You CAN kite with AAR if you’d like to, and there are MULTIPLE ways to get a slow proc for your AAR to help keep enemies at a distance.
Seriously, WHO is spreading this warped view of AAR?
slow dosent work on anything you want to slow. Same with other CC source with the exeption of freese with opie amy.
You cant oneshot flesh 3flesh hulks with AAR before they charge you, hell, you need at least 4 sec of interreptuted AAR cast to bring at least one down.
And if you cant facetank your actual dps goes down whit every second you run. For AAR you must never run away, unless in dire need of doing so.
AAR new meta :rolleyes:
+1 except that you cant even bring it to 1.0.0.8 pierce BM dmg output.
Slow works on trash just fine. For bosses, you’ve got Arcanist, clearly, so you have potion, and mirror, and whatever other gear based CB you’re running, before you even have to think about moving, and few bosses are actually still living at the end of that.
As for “one shotting” 3 flesh hulks…No, I can’t. But I can engage them from across the screen, DPS down one and half of a second before they reach me, and then use Mirror. And that’s on my current, underleveled for the content, tanky variant of AAR that I’m trying out. I have DRYAD bound to AAR on this version for god’s sake. On a DPS version, they’d die even faster…More so if it was a Chaos version, thanks to resistances.
Look, we’re clearly not going to agree on this. Let’s stop wasting time.
JOV, you always seem to be aligned with most “meta” of builds, whether they’re actually as good as advertised or not. Odd.
After thing you wrote Im 100% sure that its odd to you