The Gatling Gun Build...

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hey there fellas,

It’s been a long time since I’ve last played this game but I used to love that build. It was a Battlemage using dual pistols. I’ve no idea how playfield changes with higher difficulties and levels after 50. Can anyone tell me if such a build would work with high level items and difficulties? If it can how would the stat distribution be set?

2

I’m no expert but I’ve got a dual wield sorcerer lvl 85 using dual wield pistols.
I can run right up til lvl 85 and loghorrean and all of BoC except final boss. Some nemesis I can do (aether, chaos), undead I died to in about 20 sec. and the rest I haven’t met. Mad queen looks at me and I die. Crucible I am at lvl. 100 at Challenger right now.

End game (ultimate) seems to require these things:

  • Health (at least 10k to avoid shotgunning)
  • Offensive and Defensive ability at 2000 or over - to “crit and not be crit yourself”.
  • Resistances at max or overcapped for nemesis/hidden path.
  • Debuffs to hit enemies to lower their resistances.
  • Defensive devotions are required at Ultimate level - for health, armor, resitances, automatic heals etc. Dryad, Chariot, Giant, Empty throne,Targo are popular choices.
  • Stat distribution is mostly Phys but it varies. You might need some Spirit on your battlemage for regen/damage.

There are endless requirements/setups for different builds, but you need to trade to collect a full set of legendaries. You will probably never get it selffound. You will get of course get legendaries by farming elite/ultimate, so eventually you will have some legendaries that fit your build.

I had an absolute blast running my dualwield sorcerer until Ultimate Nemesis. Use Rhowans crown/Elemental storm (damage AND debuff) on FireStrike and you are golden all the way.

I’ve also got a blademaster at lvl 85. And I am now levelling a witchblade (currently lvl 48) that will hopefully be able to farm most nemesis, hidden path and crucible better.

3

I have one. It’s tanky enough that I can clear ultimate BoC with some kiting but overall it’s very meh and doesn’t come close to the top weapon or caster builds. At first I tried an aether proc cadence build, but there just aren’t enough physical to aether conversion options available and the only pistol in the game that has it (soulflayer) doesn’t offer attack speed which severely affects the cadence procs. It felt like a shittier version of aether proc PRM.

Then I tried to focus on a elemental cadence build with dual arcnums. It was better but had similar problems with gearing. You can force proc items, but most of them are clearly designed for demolitionist and you gain nothing by using them on battlemage. Lastly I tried to focus purely on increasing the output of cadence but as expected, it comes nowhere near the melee based cadence builds.

tl;dr, even if you want to use cadence as your primary, it’s better to play commando. If you just want a nice dual wield pistol build, play a class with demolitionist and use fire strike.