The Northern Wyrm's Bane - 2H ranged chillspike infiltrator; ~205k sheet DPS unbuffed/unbannered

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

GT link: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4ZDL8pzZ
Youtube video: I’m an idiot and didn’t hit record till I hit wave 161. :stuck_out_tongue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6_ZAAOWgso&feature=youtu.be

As always, my thanks to the usual suspects. Ya’ll know who you are by this point. :stuck_out_tongue:

o26mPvZ.png597×903

Preface

To my knowledge, a chillspike centered infiltrator has not been done, and I personally find that strange. Intuitively, it makes sense to pair the best seal-granted skill with a class capable of adding disgusting amounts of flat damage and resist reduction to it.

In addition, chillspikes allows us to conveniently achieve 2 things

  1. We can bypass the skill point cost of the WPS line or that of Shadow Strike
  2. We can use 2H weapons without the disadvantage of their shitty attack animation.

This beast born from my madness is able (under perfect conditions) to shred crucible-Kuba in seconds.

>-140% Resist reduction:
i. 10% from ravager’s helm
ii. 10% from Ignaffar’s combustion
iii. 30% from Night’s chill
iv. 36% from Aura of Censure
v. 23% from rumor
vi. 32 from Throne
vii. Variable amount from viper

Sources of flat damage
i. Lethal assault
ii. Arcane empowerment
iii. Cold bonus to PB from undying oath
iv. Steel resolve
v. Ranged expertise

Conversion to cold
i. ~55% - 70% pierce to cold conversion from grips of hag-whatever and alkamos rings
ii. Up to 30% acid to cold conversion on silver sentinel shoulder
iii. 10% physical to cold conversion from seal of the night

Defense
I must confess that its defense is rather abysmal.

While the build does boast a respectable 3.15k DA, 2.2K armor, and 12.5k hp - its pathetic 3% phys res does get it swatted from time to time.

And for the life of me, I have no idea how to fix this. Any input here will be more than welcomed.

While more than adequate for stomping vanilla, this is build requires a lot of microkiting to excel.

Poor positioning will quickly spell your doom. This is especially true if you get surrounded by 4 nems in 170. However, if you manage to take down one of them, the rest is cake.

x1x1x1x2 and Fluff both use this trick to mitigate the above risk:

Put the banner on bottom left and it’s guaranteed to have an AoM nemesis there (and they’re all fast) so you won’t worry about slow nemeses spawning there.

This turns the fight into a 1 v 1 for a few seconds. Our stopping power allows us to quickly shred this poor fool, thereby allowing us to deal with the other 3 nems with relative safety.

Offense

  1. Cast seal
  2. Cast Rune of Hag-blahblahblah (Have blizzard bound to this)
  3. Use ABB for LA bonus (Have elemental storm bound to this)
  4. Spam chill spikes (Have rumor bound to this)
  5. Cast Northern wyrm’s breath (Have whirlpool bound to this) and a 2nd rune before kiting
  6. Ring of Frost when surrounded
  7. Time your repositioning with the cooldown of Seal. Blade barrier when kiting is not an option.
  8. Kite more than necessary when in doubt while casting RoH in front of you.

Devotion
i. Purple crossroad
ii. Viper, eel
iii. Green crossroad
iv. Spider, Hawk, Quill, Wolverine
v. 3 nodes into crown, 4 nodes into Rumor
vi. Throne
vii. 4 nodes into Amatok for blizzard
viii. Harp (THIS IS NEEDED FOR ENERGY MANAGEMENT)
ix. Complete leviathan

Cheaper/Viable item alternatives:
i. Shoulders: Zantarin’s shoulderguard
ii. Shoes: Golemborn
iii. Helm: Clairvoyant’s hat

Leveling:
Nightschill, ABB, Aura of Censure

2

Hey,

Aura Censure flat dmg does not get added to weapon like La etc:P Just does some dmg

3

Will correct that immediately. Thanks Fluff!

4

I love this weapon btw. Pre AoM i wanted to make a Stacraft Ghost themed spec ops sniper build :stuck_out_tongue:

Seems it;s bile launcher WH in AoM so far. You found a nice work around for the weapon

5

You can try Dodge-heavy setup. Realy greath pantsu+Dodge belt+boots of dancing shadows. Or, if you can burst at least one nemesis in 6 seconds timeframe, you can try Amarastra boots.
Another option is triple Formidable setup on Boots+Pantsu+Shoulders.

6

Killing the nem in 6 seconds is no problem at all. It honestly depends on who spawns where my banner is. If it’s a slow moving bugger like zantarin, I’m really reluctant to run into lokarr’s aetherfire (?) portal to take him out.

As for formidables…I don’t have them. :stuck_out_tongue:

I suppose I COULD GDstash them, but most of my items were recycled from my breaker.

P.S. Are the boots you’re referring to the windshears?

P.P.S Still can’t decide between aura of conviction vs aura of censure…is phys res better for defense? Or is %damage reduction?

7

Put the banner on bottom left (dead), and it’s guaranteed to have an AoM nemesis there (and they’re all fast) so you won’t worry about slow nemeses spawning there.

8

Did you try this with M. Bane of the Winter King? You’d lose your nuke, a bit of health, DA, and +1 Inquisitor but I imagine you’d pick up a lot of raw damage with the huge flat damage, +1 Nightblade, and higher % cold.

9

I did consider bane of the winter king when theorycrafting but realized that I’d lose the range advantage. I’d have to walk up to nems to slap them with ABB. Given the innate squishiness of the build, it’s something I’d rather not do.

Also, the northern wyrm gives +1 to inquisitor. Since most of my skill points is sunk into the inqui skill tree, that +1 goes a much longer way than the +2 to NB.

Put the banner on bottom left (dead), and it’s guaranteed to have an AoM nemesis there (and they’re all fast) so you won’t worry about slow nemeses spawning there.

EDIT: Didn’t see your message for some reason. That’s VERY helpful advice. Maybe that’s whats needed to get a more consistent clear rate.

10

First noticed it on Fluff’s videos. Then applied it to my own gameplay and it really improved my clear rate even before 0.6 patch. Once you get the hang of it you’ll usually be fighting 1 then 3 nemeses in 170 instead of 4 at the same time.

11

GT link is up, gents/ladies.

First noticed it on Fluff’s videos. Then applied it to my own gameplay and it really improved my clear rate even before 0.6 patch. Once you get the hang of it you’ll usually be fighting 1 then 3 nemeses in 170 instead of 4 at the same time.

I’ll try this out when I get back home today. I’m about to get my first tattoo. ^^

12

Youtube video is up!

Per x1x1x1x2’s suggestion, I tried placing the banner in the bottom left of the screen, and let me tell you…it worked wonders.

Clearance rate is EXTREMELY consistent now. You’ll see me wreck reaper in 5-6 seconds, allowing me to get that easy win.

13

Good build, now get back to working on that Markovian concept :rolleyes:

14

:rolleyes: Yes, mum.

15

Updated the OP.

Tested in 1.0.6.1’s crucible: ~9:30 clear.

16

Great build, mate, got nothing to add :slight_smile:

17

I finally placated your OCD. :stuck_out_tongue:

18

Assassin is a much better devotion proc for Rune than Blizzard, even without 100% conversion. Try it out.

Also, I would switch around bindings on Rumor and Elemental storm. Rumor only needs to trigger once, you want the entire screen covered in Elemental storms. Speaking of which, I prefer Manticore over Elemental storm on Chillspikes builds simply because you still do a significant amount of piercing damage. The damage from the proc itself is more or less the same and the nodes along the way are marginally useful at best (the last node on Manti is actually useful because the build struggles with psn res).

Source: I run a full Sentinel DW version of this build, basically does the same thing (kite nasties with Runes, spam Spikes when you can tank).

19

Mind if you PM’d me a GT?

EDIT: Did a little bit of testing. I suppose it’s a matter of personal preference. The reason why I bound rumor to RoH was to garauntee an instant RR proc on the big bad uglies.

ABB on storm has an 85% proc chance which isn’t ideal, but something I can tolerate.

As for blades of wrath - that’s an ingenious suggestion and one I’ll definitely explore further.