This battle mage uses Nex and Ortus with Cadence as main attack skill.
Who did say that battle mage builds don’t have enough power and N&O are for elemental builds only?
So, let’s have some fun. 
The build:
Active buffs are: Battlecry, Fighting Spirit, Inspiration and Wayvard Soul
Quick GT link for reference:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/DV9qYgLV
Cadence damage statistic with deadly momentum and active buffs mentioned above:
Guide is in progress.
Death Hammer
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent buffs
Gear setup
You can use crafting bonusses on helm and medal to close the gap in stun resistance.
Devotions setup
Skills setup
Soldier mastery
Necromancer mastery
Damage: Physical
Active skills: Blade Arc, Bone Harvest, Eldritch Instability, Ill Omen, War Cry, Mark of Torment
Passive skills: Field Command, Spectral Binding
WPS : None
Build concept:
It’s an alternative build setup of DK on physical spam BA using Soul Harvest and Ulzaad’s Decree to boost BA damage.
I was looking for DK builds on blade arc and found interesting build from @grey-maybe. That build was focused on using Korvan Celestial Halberd with Bloodrager’s Endless Frenzy set and I thought what if we use Targo’s Craft pieces with Gutsmasher instead?
Credits to: @grey-maybe for the help with improving build setup, polishing the build and testing it in Shards.
Pros:
Cons:
=========================
–DESCLAIMER–BEGIN–
I use GD Stash to test build concepts and to reveal build true power or to discover potential build support issues. So please keep in mind that the next two builds are posted with gear rolls pretty close to the best.
Most of my builds are focused on main campaign content since build concepts not always allow to complete greater challenges.
–DESCLAIMER–END–
Brothers in Death - Death Keeper
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent buffs
Gear setup
The Blood Knight set - best choice for vitality Death Knight builds: boosts damage and grants RR.
Mythical Wildblood Crusher - probably the best 2H weapon for vitality DK builds; Nightbringer could be interesting option but grants less flat damage and has no attack speed bonus.
Mythical Blackwatch Seal rings - grant us skill bonus for Cadence, flat OA and resistences.
Mythical Voidrend Talons - since the weapon doesn’t have physical damage and we have low (25% in total) physical to vitality damage conversion, the gloves will boost Cadence vitality damage due to % WD bonus modifier.
Mythical Chausses of Barbaros - grants us flat OA, chaos resistence and nice proc.
Mythical Girdle of Stolen Dreams - grants us OA and Bone Harvest skill bonus, as alternative you can use Mythical Dreadweave Girdle
Mythical Mark of Kalastor - to close gap in resistences and to get some OA as bonus.
Mythical Boneshatter Treads - grants us not only vitality damage support, but also resistences (in particular slow and physical) and flat OA.
Devotions setup
Skills setup
Soldier mastery
Necromancer mastery
Damage: Vitality & Decay
Active skills: Cadence, Bone Harvest, Dreeg’s Wounds, Ill Omen, War Cry, Bloodthrister, Mark of Torment
Passive skills: Field Command, Counter Strike, Spectral Binding, Harbinger of Souls, Soul of Nazarn
WPS: Zolhan’s Technique, Reaping Strike and Necrotic Edge
Build concept: Melee 2h vitality Death Knight using Cadence as main attack spam skill and boosting damage from Soul Harvest, Hungering Void and other sources
Credits to: @Archangel2245 for testing build in Shards and providing feedback, @SKS000 for skills adjustment proposal.
Pros:
Cons:
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Brothers in Death - Death Executioner
Note:
Gear setup
The setup is similar to previous build except the following items:
Mythical Signet of the Fallen - grants us RR, attack speed and boost for vitality damage
Mythical Cursebearer - RR source and resistances with boost for vitality damage
Mythical Wendigomane Leggings - grants us OA bonus and boost for vitality damage as well as useful resistences
Mythical String of Maggots - grants us damage boost and useful resistances as well as bonus for Necromancer mastery skills
Mark of Plagius - to cover gap in resistances and to get to boost OA and damage
Devotions setup
Skills setup
Soldier mastery
Necromancer mastery
Damage: Vitality & Decay
Active skills: Reaping Arc, Bone Harvest, Dreeg’s Wounds, Ill Omen, War Cry, Bloodthrister, Mark of Torment
Passive skills: Field Command, Counter Strike, Spectral Binding, Harbinger of Souls, Soul of Nazarn
WPS: No
Build concept: Melee 2h vitality Death Knight using spam Reaper Arc as main attack spam skill and boosting damage from Soul Harvest, Hungering Void and other sources
Credits to: @Stupid_Dragon for constructive discussion and valuable advices for build improvement.
Pros:
Cons:
=====================
–DESCLAIMER–BEGIN–
I use GD Stash to test build concepts and to find out how good it can be. So please keep in mind that the next build was posted with gear rolls pretty close to the best.
–DESCLAIMER–END–
Death Knight - Morgoneth’s Cold Fury
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent buffs
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent buffs and all temporal buffs
>> Grim Tools Calc with alternative devotions setup <<
Gear setup
Armor of the Eternal Night set - grants us not only cold damage support and resistances, but also 25% RR on skill mod for Ill Omen. The last one is important since both masteries by default don’t have cold RR.
Mythical Executioner’s Judgment - we use it to boost Cadence cold damage and to get % AS bonus as well.
Mythical Dreadweavers - these scepters are the core of the build. It grants us solid support for cold Bone Harvest and skills bonuses for Necromancer & Soldier masteries
Mythical Band of the Eternal Haunt - grants us one more source of cold RR
Alkamos’ Touch of Dread - to boost our OA and to also to get some cold flat damage and % AS. In alternative devotions setup with Leviathan we use Misery of Alkamos rings set to compensate the loss of OA.
Mythical Chausses of Barbaros - mainly used for high OA bonus, it’s important due to low OA, % physical resistance and for proc boosting our damage that is low under permanent buffs.
Mythical Boneshatter Treads - grants us OA bonus and nice resistances bonus as well
Spiritseeker Cord - grants us cold damage support and skills bonus for Necromancer mastery.
Iskandra’s Balance - grants us not only % AS bonus, but more important the relic provides solid boost to our damage helping build to fight against strong mobs (Alkamos, Moosilauke and etc) with high cold resistance.
Mythical Direwolf Crest - grants us ability to to dual wield melee weapons
Devotions setup
Alternative Devotions setup with Leviathan
Skills setup
Soldier mastery
Necromancer mastery
Damage: Cold
Active skills: Cadence, Bone Harvest, Ill Omen, War Cry, Bloodthrister, Mark of Torment, Amatok’s Breath
Passive skills: Field Command, Spectral Binding, Harbinger of Souls, Chilling Weapon
WPS: Reaping Strike and Necrotic Edge
Build concept: Melee dual cold Death Knight based on Mythical Dreadweaver scepters and Armor of the Eternal Night set. This is the rebirth of my AoM cold DK build for FG.
Cadence and BH are our main attack skills. We use Deadly Momentum and Soul Harvest to boost our damage and Necromancer’s WPS to improve the DPS. You can also try to reinvest few skill points into Zolhan’s Technique to increase WPS pool.
Credits to: @Stupid_Dragon for neat idea to use Morgoneth’s set to get more RR.
Pros:
Cons:
AoM: Death Knight - Cold Fury
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent and temporal buffs
Damage: Cold
Active skills: Cadence, Bone Harvest, Blitz, Ill Omen, War Cry, Bloodthrister, Mark of Torment
Passive skills: Field Command, Spectral Binding, Harbinger of Souls, Chilling Weapon, Frostdread Presence
WPS : Reaping Strike and Necrotic Edge
Pros:
Cons:
Gameplay (campaign)
So far there were no cold DK builds. So I decided to try to craft such build. Build concept is based on Mythical Dreadweavers usage - it give us flat cold damage for auto attack, sweet skill mod for BH and War Cry.
Cadence and BH are our main attack skills. We use Deadly Momentum and Soul Harvest to boost our damage. Gameplay is pretty nice and not tense. Cold DK ofcause is not such effective and deadly as other cold builds having more sources of RR and cold damage boost, but is good enough.
The build is tanky on the one hand and has good cleaning time (fighting) on the other hand. BH can be used to kill running away mobs under fear effect - I didn’t have any problems with it. Since some resistences are not overcapped (for example fire resist), you may need to use potion in fights against some strong enemies like Gargabol. Sometimes you could have issue with lack of mana.
Max damage dealt was 207K. Under buffs cadence damage can be boosted up to 75700 cold and 5000 frostburn; BH - up to 71400 cold and 11000 frostburn.
Credits to Archangel2245 for gameplay video from test runs; to John Smith and Safarel for help with polishing build concept!
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Reaper - Cold touch of Death
Damage: Cold
Active skills: Beronath’s Fury, Bone Harvest, Shadow Strike, PB, ABB, RoS, Mark of Torment, Bloodthrister
Passive skills: Veil of Shadow, Spectral Binding, Harbinger of Souls
Pros:
Cons:
Gameplay (campaign)
To my knowledge there were no dual wield cold Reaper builds so far. So I decided to try such type of Reaper build. Build concept is based on boosting cold BH damage by using Mythical Dreadweavers, Mythical Dreadchill Mark and Mythical Iceskorn Talos.
Main source of damage is given by BH with ABB combination. We use Beronath’s Fury as auto attack to trigger WPS while waiting for BH CD. Gameplay is pretty cheerful on the one hand and edgy on the other. Build requires good reaction and piloting skills to unleash the potential. The damage outcome is pretty good. Max damage dealt I got was 334K. Under buffs BH damage can be boosted up to ~84K cold and ~15K frostburn.
Credits to Archangel2245 for gameplay video from test runs; to mad_lee for the build request and John Smith for help in build adjustment!
–DESCLAIMER–BEGIN–
I use GD Stash to test build concepts and to find out how good it can be. So please keep in mind that the next build was posted with gear rolls pretty close to the best.
–DESCLAIMER–END–
The Guardian of Elements
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent buffs
Gear setup
Iskandra’s Unification set pieces - one of the good gear choices that give us: elemental damage support, OA & DA bonus, aether to elemental conversion and resistances. You can play around with other gear like Horns of Korvaak or Ravager’s Dreadgaze, Mythical Shroud of Illusion or Fateweaver’s Raiment and etc.
Scion of Arcane Force - the best 2H weapon for elemental cadence builds. You can use another component like Seal of Blades or Seal of Might to gain more defense (resistances and armor).
Elemental Harmony - grant us good damage support, OA and resistances and has nice proc. As an alternative you can try Mythical Reign of Ice and Fire rings.
Mythical Peerless Eye of Beronath - grants us bonus to mastery skills, so we can max out required skills; OA and % crit bonus. As an alternative you can use one of Kaisan’s amulets with appropriate prefixes and suffixes: Kaisan’s Burning Eye or Kaisan’s Eldritch Eye.
Mythical Dawnshard Grip - grants us flat elemental damage, % AS and pierce resistance
Mythical Runebrand Legwraps - grants us resistances and allow to max out IEE. As an alternative you can use Mythical Leggings of Arcane Currents
Mythical Phantom-Thread Girdle - grants us OA, energy absorbtion and +1 to all skills for Arcanist mastery
Mythical Mark of the Dreadblade - to max out cadence, get flat aether converted to elemental damage and AS
Iskandra’s Balance - grants us solid elemental damage boost, % AS and bonus to Arcanist mastery skills.
Devotions setup
Skills setup
Soldier mastery
Arcanist mastery
Damage: Elemental
Active skills: Cadence, Blitz, Callidor’s Tempest, Masterful Korvan Switness, Nullification, Mirror of Ereoctes
Passive skills: Field Command, Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange, Maiven’s Sphere of Protection, Reckless Power
WPS : None
Build concept: Elemental melee 2h Battle Mage based on using Cadence as main attack spam skill with Scion of Arcane Force
Credits to:
@Zantai and Crate team for introducing new weapon to support elemental melee battle mage builds
@Stupid_Dragon and others for useful discussions on elemental builds
Pros:
Cons:
Well, finally found some time for experiments and I have a couple of interesting builds to share with you. Hope you will enjoy it. 
Credits:
@Stupid_Dragon for useful discussion about elemental ranged builds and advices - it became the core concept for both builds!
@Superfluff for weapons advice for dual melee build.
@Safarel and @John_Smith for skill adjustments advices.
@Zantai for giving some love to Arcanist mastery in recent patches! Hope you won’t stop on it and will grant one day RR to Arcanist mastery as well.
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Dual ranged 3-elemental battle mage build
>> Grim tools calc <<
Screenshot with permanent and temporal buffs (and some debuffs as well).
Damage: Fire, Cold and Lightning
Active skills: Cadence, Masterful Korvan Switness, Nullification, Mirror of Ereoctes
Passive skills: IEE, Reckless Power, Maiven’s Sphere of Protection, Filed Command, Arcane Resonance
Max damage: I got 231K in campaign. Looks good for such kind of builds.
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Dual melee 3-elemental battle mage build
>> Grim tools calc <<
Screensjot with permanent and temporal buffs.
Damage: Fire, Cold and Lightning
Active skills: Cadence, Masterful Korvan Switness, Nullification, Mirror of Ereoctes
Passive skills: IEE, Reckless Power, Maiven’s Sphere of Protection, Filed Command, Arcane Resonance
Max damage: I got 328K in campaign. Looks solid.
Pros:
Cons:
P.S: The builds setups are not yet finalized. Probably some optimization will be done in future.
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–DESCLAIMER–BEGIN–
I use GD Stash to test build concepts and to find out how good it can be. So please keep in mind that the next build was posted with gear rolls pretty close to the best.
–DESCLAIMER–END–
Mage Hunter - Aetherial Hunter
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent buffs and Word of Renewal with Inquisitor Seal enabled
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2G1WzXZ
Gear setup
Bonemonger’s Hood - grants us skill bonuses to inquisitor mastery and additional source of aether RR.
Krieg’s set pieces - one of the best gear choices for aether builds that give us aether damage boost support, phusycal resistance and nice proc.
Rutnick’s Blaster - the core of the build. It grants us solid range damage support as well as neat mode for Mirror of Ereoctes - additional time duration and aether damage boost. Since Mage Hunters don’t have auto attack skill we use Shard of Beronath on one of the guns to get it.
The Magelord rings set - it not only grants us flat and % aether damage boost but also allows to get 95% elemental to aether conversion with good rolls on the rings and on the shoulders.
Heart of Malmouth - grants us bonus to arcanist mastery skills as well as useful resistances, so we can max out required skills; OA and % crit bonus. As an alternative you can use Mythical Peerless Eye of Beronath or one of Kaisan’s amulets with appropriate prefixes and suffixes: Kaisan’s Burning Eye or Kaisan’s Eldritch Eye.
Ascended Shoulderplates - grant us important elemental to aether conversion and allow to cover the gap in resistances.
Mythical Wraithborne Legwraps - grants us aether damage boost, resistances, OA and DA, and allow to max out Reckless Power.
Mythical Arcanoweave Cord - grants us skill bonuses to masteries, resistances and aether damage boost.
Mythical Mark of Anathema - to max out Reckless Power, get flat and % aether damage boost and resistances.
Serenity - the relic with crafting bonus allows us to get solid DA as well as additional skill points for masteries and resistances.
Devotions setup
Skills setup
Inquisitor mastery
Arcanist mastery
Damage: Aether
Active skills: Beronath’s Fury, Inquisitor Seal, Astral Rift, Word of Renewal, Word of Pain, Ather Corruption, Nullification and Mirror of Ereoctes
Passive skills: IEE, Reckless Power, Maiven’s Sphere of Protection
WPS : Bursting Round, Chilling Rounds, Storm Spread, Aether Spread
Build concept: Range dual wield aether Mange Hunter build using Rutnick’s Blaster with Beronath’s Fury as main attack spam skill and WPS pool to boost the damage. The build is focused on elemental to aether conversion.
Pros:
Cons:
Credits :
@Michael1994 for sharing his range build calc and useful discussion.
@StrUktO and @Zul for testing the build and providing feedback on it.
@Slev1n for testing the build in Crucible
@Crate for adding new MI granting good aether range build support.
If someone wants to try the build before start leveling such character - you can use the save:
_WStashMH2.zip (1.7 MB)
================
–DESCLAIMER–BEGIN–
I use GD Stash to test build concepts and to find out how good it can be. So please keep in mind that the next build was posted with gear rolls pretty close to the best.
–DESCLAIMER–END–
Ritualist - Bleed Executioner of Souls
Note: Screenshot was made with permanent buffs
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrm0kkV
Gear setup
Bloodrager’s Endless Frenzy set - one of the best gear choices for bleed builds with Shaman mastery. The set grants us attack speed and bleed damage boost, OA and DA and useful resistances.
Mythical Guillotine - probably the best weapon choice that supports bleed in necromancer mastery and grants us solid damage boost as well as ADcTH and bonus to both masteries skills.
Malmouth Blade Seal - the ring is used to get OA boost and Stun duration reduction as well.
Mythical Right Hand of Carnage - the ring not only grants us flat and % bleeding damage boost but also boost OA and provides useful resistances.
The Crimson Claws - the gloves grant us flat and % bleeding damage boost as well as nice mod for Feral Hunger.
Mythical Chausses of Barbaros - this pants are used to get flat OA bonus as well as resistances and nice proc to boost low attack speed.
Windshear Greaves - I use this boots due to defense stats and nice proc, but you can pick up other boots with more appropriate bonusses for your playstyle, for example Mythical Boneshatter Treads or Mythical Wyrmscale Footguards.
Mythical Guthook Belt - grants us flat and % bleeding damage boost and bonus to shaman mastery skills.
Bloodletter’s Lagoth’Ak’s Bloodbinding of Butchery - the medal is used to boost bleeding damage on Devouring Swarm and Siphon Souls. The Bloodletter’s prefix is highly recommended to be used to boost OA. As for the suffix - you can use any other to close gaps in resistances.
Massacre - one of the best the relics for bleed builds. It grants us flat and % bleeding damage as well as shaman mastery skill bonuses and has a nice proc.
Devotions setup
Skills setup
Shaman mastery
Necromancer mastery
Damage: Bleeding
Active skills: Savagery, Ill Omen, Devouring swarm, Violent Delights, Siphon of Souls, Wendigo Totem and Mark of Torment
Passive skills: Mogdrogen’s Pact, Primal Bond, Spectral Binding
WPS : Reaping Strike, Necrotic Edge, Feral Hunger, Upheaval
Build concept: 2h melee Ritualist with Guillotine aka bleed Executioner.
The build uses Savagery as main attack skill to boost OA, attack speed and damage. WPS from both masteries are used to support melee damage, while Siphon Souls is used to reduce enemies OA and DA and bleeding resistance. The build is focused on bleeding DoTs.
Pros:
Cons:
To mitigate cons you can play around with gear and devotion setups, for example like this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/L2J1BDaN, and craft items with required crafting bonuses - for example stun duration reduction on helm and boots.
Credits :
@Safarel and his Discord Community for inspiration and valuable build discussions and proposals
@Michael1994 for testing the build in Crucible and Shards and his feedbacks
Build’s Performance
Crucible
4 blesses and no beacons
4 blesses and 3 beacons - Roman’s run
Shattered Realm - can complete SR75-76.
If someone wants to try the build before start leveling such character - you can use the save:
_WStashRit.zip (1.4 MB)
Why use a Forcewave set for Cadence and elemental weapons on a phys build?
Psycarrot ranks this build by 10 of 10 and goes for treatment.
Octavius gives elemental>phys conversion. That’s why the armor. And N&O set… I dunno, but looks creative 
As Bloodysaint already mentioned - it is in the sake of elemental>phys conversion. 
Thanks! Yeah, the gameplay is pretty neat and I got a lot of fun with it. Since we don’t have 100% elemental to physical, the set proc freezes enemies from time to time.
Hehe, that’s a nice bonus to have
This is a good incentive for me to finally try out the battlemage. It’s one of the two mastery combinations that i haven’t tried and that’s because i have soldier in too many of the others :rolleyes:
Really like the build, it’s very well balanced. Maybe for racial dmg in crucible chains can be swapped for a sanctified bone, as there is plenty of trap resist from gloves and Harp proc. It would also add some more vit/chaos res. Other than that… Have to hurry and lvl up a battlemage. Tbh, arcanist is such a great and often overlooked support mastery for melee builds. Was waiting for FG to try on the templar, but i’ll prepare for that with the battlemage
An interesting concept indeed but I think the conversion on Nex and Ortus lower the efficiency of the build quite a bit and there are much better physical sets and items out there.
Since you have the Sacred harmony set proc that has built-in RR I’d drop Break Morale and invest those points in Mirror for example. I also don’t quite get why you took Mental Alacrity.
Replace Elemental Balance with Absolute Zero, Exchange crit % for phys RR?
Absolute Zero only works when the enemies are actually frozen by OFF. Most bosses and even heroes are immune to the freezing effect especially on higher difficulties.
That sucks…
Thanks for the info btw
You’re welcome. Btw there is a set that actually allows to freeze some bosses for short periods of time, but it is elemental focused: https://www.grimtools.com/db/itemsets/116
The biggest issue is the 30% physical conversion on them. Still, they do pack quite the punch and that flat RR is something else. But yeah, no need to invest more than one point in Break Morale for skill disruption. Totally overlooked that one as it’s usually present in most physical builds. As for Mental Alacrity, it may be for better energy management for the active skills, if you frequently use Nullification and the skills from the boots/relic. But even so, arcanist should have enough energy regen even without Mental Alacrity.
And yes, this may not be on par with other physical builds, but I don’t think it’s that far behind. Also, points for something different from the usual Warborn/Beronath phys conversion builds. They’re great, but wouldn’t work that well with battlemage as support class. Maybe we’ll see Bero on a physical PRM build, who knows :rolleyes:
I barely ever used OFF, so that’s foreign territory for me, but I always though that the RR happens in the aftermath of OFF being used, those couple of seconds of frostburn/slow. But yeah, after reading the text more carefully, it’s even stated in there: “after the initial effects wear off”… damn, would have been something if it triggered without the freezing prerequisite.
Many players have complained about OFF not working on most enemies and I’ve seen several posts on the forum suggesting to make it work on enemies the way you’ve described. But the skill would be too op since the RR is insane.
Nevertheless it is a good early game lvling skill.
First of all thank ypu all for your interest in build!
I have updated my first post with current setup. Please keep in mind that it is fun build - to get new experience, have nice gameplay and fun. Although the build damage is not as great as in case of more standard physical builds, however it feels good in campaign.
If you wish to try the Crucible with this build you will definitely need buffs, especially for damage boost. It will be great challenge and most likely it would be painful. I think the build could complete 150 waves on Gladiator difficulty.
Zolhan doesn’t work well with DW builds. It has a slow animation and only hits with one weapon lowering the overall dps. And you still have those nasty points in Break Morale in your new your set up that the build doesn’t actually need because of the RR on Nex and Ortus proc 
Thank you!
Need some testing to polish setup for Crucible.
I hope you will get positive and great experience with battle mage. You can find interesting battle mage build concepts in compendium^ http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?p=679695#post679695
P.S: I wish Arcanist had better support in RR. It will make some classes combination like battle mage more effective and to be closer to the “top” builds based on non-arcanist calsses.
