[Theory / Weapon Showcase] Dreadscorcher Aether Fire Strike

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
,
1

While my last thread attempted to showcase the Spark of Reality weapon, this thread will feature another weapon that hasn’t seen much love in the forum - the Dreadscorcher. Not only does it add a good amount of Weapon Damage to Fire Strike, it converts 100% of both Lightning and Chaos damage from the Fire Strike line into Aether. That means both Static Strike and the Chaos portion of Brimstone are fully converted into Aether. At this point, the only part of Fire Strike that has yet to be converted is the Fire portion, and so we turn towards the 1.0.7.0 patch which blessed us with multiple MI conversion options.

Grimtools - Dreadscorcher Aether Fire Strike Sorcerer

I originally theorycrafted this as a Defiler since Defilers have little love, but leaving +5 to Arcanist skills on the table would have me twitching a bit; besides Sorcerers can use love in the Compendium as well. I made sure to look at Defilers, Sorcerers, and Purifiers (because everything ranged has to be best with Purifier, why else would you make such a fitting item perfectly suited for Aether Purifier, and nothing there even had this weapon as an option. In the event players found an item and wanted to know how to make good use of it, here is how it would look.

Equipment Explanations:

  • Build is designed completely around the weapon - full Aether Static Strike and full Aether Brimstone makes Fire Strike shine.
  • Chest, Belt, and Amulet make for 100% Fire to Aether conversion and all three slots are used effectively: Belt gives +Arcanist Skills, Amulet gives +All skills for this build and a great 10% Armor boost, and Chest is an MI, meaning I go for resistances and a “Kings” suffix to match with Barbaros pants.
  • Shoulders and Medal are to boost Brimstone to 20/12. Note that both pieces are non-mythical, the medal because of the huge flat damage proc, and the shoulders because the Mythical shoulders convert 25% Aether to Chaos damage.
  • Hat is the standard All Skills hat (skill points are very tight here) and the extra Aether damage is a nice bonus.
  • First ring is the standard Aether RR ring, the second ring I chose for the resists and the Aether racial damage. I did not find a non-MI ring that gave both Attack Speed and Aether damage.
  • Gloves are BiS for flat damage, relevant resist, and Attack Speed.
  • Boots are for the necessary Physical Resistance proc, Elemental Resists, and bonus to Blast Shield. They are also craftable for whatever craftsman bonus you’d like (Armor).

Depending on your rolls, Attack Speed is around 182% with one Battle Cry up (that’s why I like “Kings” suffix to complement the Barbaros pants), meaning that we get capped Attack Speed with Ghoulish Hunger active. Since Fire Strike is doing all the work here and the conversions apply only to it, we eschew a T3 proc for all the juicy T3 stat nodes, including enough OA to get 3,000 OA, extra Crit damage, all nodes but the Skeleton proc on Revenant, and that wonderful 50% Slow resistance node in Aeon’s so we have capped Slow resistance. We only have 10% ADCTH and Ghoulish Hunger as our healing, but that’s what you get with Sorcerer.

Since I haven’t made this character yet, here’s a back of the envelope Fire Strike calculation, using a standard 18% Resist Enemy, assuming neither Explosive Strike and Static Strike are active, but all procs are up:

Aether damage from Fire: 38 (Fire Strike) + 27 (Flame Touched) + 7 (IEE) + 18 (Gloves) + 113 (Brimstone) + 45 (Blood Sigil Proc) = 248 Fire Damage
Aether damage from Lightning: 136 (Static Strike) + 7 (IEE) + 12 (Skyshard Powder) = 155 Lightning Damage
Aether damage from Chaos: 130 (Brimstone) + 37 (Fabric of Reality) + 40 (Blood Sigil Proc) = 207 Chaos Damage
Aether damage from Physical = (260 base damage + 108 Explosive Strike) * 75% conversion = 276 Physical Damage
Aether damage (flat) = 71 base damage + 42 (Reckless Power) + 37 (Fabric of Reality) + 11 (Seal of Corruption) = 161 Aether Damage

Total Flat Damage = 1,047 Flat Damage (830 if you don’t include Static Strike or Explosive Strike)

Percent Damage (Grimtools sheet) = 2,072% (Including Arcane Will + one “Kings” proc - I removed one of the Kings proc for more accurate calculation)

Resistance Reduction:
35% from Arcane Bomb
15% from Ring Proc
15% from Haunt
8% from Aether Corruption
25 flat from Blackwater Cocktail
Total of 98% Aether RR = 1.8 multiplier on 18% resistance Enemies

Crit Damage = 1.2 multiplier for 3,000 OA + 58% Sheet Crit Damage + 15% Searing Might = 1.93 Crits

Weapon Damage = 122% + 25% (Dreadscorcher) + 30% (Explosive Strike) = 187% Weapon Damage

Total Damage modifier = 1.13 multiplier (Searing Might - Maiven’s)

Fire Strike Damage (all multipliers) = 132K Crits without Static Strike or Explosive Strike

I know it’s hard to get a good DPS value without making the character myself, but if I incorporated everything correctly, you get some really good Fire Strike action. I’m sure the more experienced members can make a better skill distribution / devotion layout to optimize survivability, but beefed-up Fire Strike + 20/12 Brimstone should be exciting for someone to enjoy.

I’ll continue to make these sort of threads for underused Weapons / classes, it’s fun when you’re not super confined to a set to make things work.

2

You’ve got non-mythical shoulders in your grimtools link :wink:

3

The mythical version has aether to chaos conversion

4

Despite the good stats this weapon has extremely low damage. I’ve spent much time around it trying to make something decent but failed. I have no idea what changes can save this rifle.

5

Have you thought of including Callidor’s tempest (with transmuter) as some kind of “AoE nuke”?

6

You can get 26/16 Callidor’s Tempest, but what skill points are you willing to give up to get it? I can see moving some points from Flame Touched and Fabric of Reality, but skill points are at a premium, even with +5 to Arcanist skills. As korsar mentioned above, the weapon itself has low damage so WD isn’t as great as other 2H builds are.

If I had video producing abilities and a stronger set-up, I’d run the dummy tests myself to see whether the Brimstone shotguns outweigh the low WD numbers, but I don’t have that capability. Outside of the joy of losing myself in Grimtools, I like building around underused weapons so that we can give informed feedback about exactly what it is a particular class combo / equipment lacks so Crate can buff it appropriately.

7

Have you considered Krieg’s set?

Something like this with Kriegs . This frees up a few skill points of BWC and doesn’t need the double-green. I think the belt and ring can roll >80% conversion together but I haven’t checked.

8

Tried both Krieg’s and a mixed up setup a while back, both sucked imo. No min/maxing included though.