Img1. Auras only+Blood of Dreeg;Img2.+Devotions+Fighting Spirit; Img3. Chaos and Vit dmg, for Img.2; Img4. Most dmg dealt, in a Gladiator Crucible, 2 man party. And yeah, I died a lot, but mostly few years ago, when I began to play GD
WARNING: 1.This is my first build that I post, constructive criticism is always welcome; 2. This is not a super-fast-killer, like some crazy builds out there; 3. English is not my mother tongue.
Hello everyone, and thank you all for reading this. If I've caught your attention thus far, it's a good thing. That means that at least for the sake of curiosity you came to see my work. This is my 2nd GD character, made it some years ago, used to be S&B (considering the name...). A few months back an idea came to me, what would it look like if I turn it into a ranged build, with chaos? The Harbinger set caught my attention, and after some weeks spent with some testing and farming, I present you this build. Hope you will find it decent enough, maybe even give it a try someday.
This build focuses mainly on chaos damage, with some vitality and physical as secondary damage types. In GD, one of the best ways to deal enough damage is to reduce enemies resistances to that dmg type. How do we do that?
- Devotion tree: Solael’s Witchfire: -20%Chaos Resistance
- Proc from Harbingers Bow: -20% Chaos Resistance
- Open Hand of Mercy ring: -13% Reduced target’s resistances for 2s
- Solael’s Flame( Symbol of Solael granted skill): -10% Maximum Chaos Resistance
- Black Star of Deceit: 20 Reduced Target’s Resistances for 3s
We also need as much OA as we can get, without sacrificing too much survivability. Flat OA and %OA we get from gear, devotion tree and procs.
Skills
GrimCalc without +skills
GrimCalc +skills
They Live’s setup
*Thoughts about skill tree:
-Max soldier I don’t think it’s that necessary, maybe for the stats, but this is what I have right now, considering this character used to be something else;
Devotion tree
I will enlist all steps that you need to take, “+” means add, "-"means remove a point:
Setup 1:
+Crossroads
+Empty Throne
-Crossroads
+Crossroads
+Hawk
+Scholar’s Light
+Chariot of the Dead<—linked to Possession
-Scholar’s Light
-Crossroads
+Crossroads
+Viper
+Solael’s Witchblade<—linked to Cadence
+Behemoth (3 points for Giant’s Blood)<—linked to Solael’s Witchfire
+Lizard
+Gallows
+Kraken
+Dying God<—linked to Doom Bolt
+Revenant (4 points)
Setup 2:
+Crossroads
+Scholar’s Light
+Crossroads
+Viper
+Lizard
+Behemoth <—linked to Solael’s Witchfire
+Solael’s Witchblade <—linked to War Cry (just a prefference, Doom Bolt takes too much mana)
+Eel
+Kraken
+Raven
+Fox
+Abomination (Abominable Might part) <—linked to Cadence
-Crossroads
+Dying God <—linked to CoF
*Thoughts about Devotion tree:
- I was using Abomination (the Abominable Might part) instead of Dying God; the damage was more consistent, all my phys was converted into chaos, had more hp, and the uptime of the buff was 12s with 14s cd; I’ve decided to give Dying God a try, haven’t leveled it max so far, but it seems pretty solid too;
- Before patch 1.0.0.5 I had Wendingo and Ghoul, instead of Chariot of the Dead; now, with the buff it received, it seems an obvious solution, like Giant’s Blood;
- I’ve put 4 points into Revenant to get the 9% ADctH;
- The 2nd setup was suggested by They Live, and I am using it atm, it’s more offensive than my original setup, which is tankier (devotion wise).
Equipment
This is what I use atm, with some changes on some nemesis fights(see below):
Head:Mask of the Harbinger with Sanctified Bone
Chest:Devil’s Cage Hauberk with Mutated Scales. Edit:I’ve replaced the armor with Shroud of Illusion, the dmg loss is only 1k, but you gain more survivability.
Pants:Pretty Great Pants with Silk Swatch
Boots: Golemborn Greaves or Boneshatter Treads with Mark of Mogdrogen
Gloves: Harbinger’s Grasp with Consecrated Wrappings
Shoulders: Resistant Iron Maiden’s Shoulderguard of Vitality with Silk Swatch
Weapon1: Harbinger of Eternal Suffering with Symbol of Solael
Weapon2:Silverbolt with Silvercore Bolts. This weapon is for chthonics.
Amulet: The Peerless Eye of Beronath or Empowered Essence of Beronath with Arcane Spark
Ring1: Open Hand of Mercy with Corpse Dust
Ring2: Closed Fist of Vengeance with Ectoplasm
Belt: Girdle of Stolen Dreams with Antivenom Salve
Medal: Black Star of Deceit or Badge of Mastery with Attuned Lodestone
Relic: Solael’s Decimation
*Thoughts on gear:
-This build was using at first the 2h ranged wep Witching Hour, but the bonus from The Harbinger set it’s just too awesome;
- The Legplates of Valor seem to be the best in slot, they cover a lot of missing resistances;
- Boneshatter Treads are nice, Golemborn Greaves are also good(even better);
- I am mostly using The Girdle of Stolen Dreams, changing with Boneweave Girdle for the lifesteal and against undeads. The Girdle of Stolen Dreams hits you so bad with the reflect skellies…
Videos
Loghorean Fight
Valdaran Fight
Fabius Fight
The Sentinel Fight
Mad Queen Fight
…to be continued…
Leveling Guide
Considering the leveling part, you can go for the 2 obvious choices: Melee(Sword&Board or 2H) until lvl 75 when you can equip The Harbinger Set or go Ranged all the way.
I wont go into details regarding the melee part, you can find info on that in most of the melee builds, and ofc you can play it as you find it most suited and depending on the gear you find/have.
Leveling as ranged:
I suppose most people know how to play a ranged character. Kite, slow the enemy so you can kite some more, have some pets to take the agro, kite again. Your sources of slow will be CoF and Eldritch Fire(Solael’s Witchfire constelation). You allready have 1 good pet, that can get agro very easy; you can even opt to play as a mixture of ranged summoner, if you so desire, but that would require different gear and skill setup.
Level 10
Pick the Hellhound for some support, he comes in handy for ranged.
Level 20
Get Fighting Form and Blood of Dreeg. Advance with the occultist mastery bar. At lvl 14 you can wear Devil’s Mark, if you find/have/trade it.
Level 30
Get Field Command and Aspect of the Guardian. Some more levels into Cadence and Solael’s Witchffire. A good chaos weapon for lvl 25 is Curse of Burrwitch.
Level 40
Max out occultist mastery bar, get Possession. Get Squad Tactics on soldier tree.
Level 50
Max out Possession and Squad Tactics. Reccomended weapon Wretched Crow of Bysmiel.
By now (or sooner) your pet wont be able to tank anymore. If you like dogs and wanna keep him longer, it’s your choice; but in this case you have to give him some more love, spend some points in him for more life. I respeced the points I’ve had in him.
Level 60
Max out Solael’s Witchfire and Blood of Dreeg. Go and advance the soldier bar till you get Scars of Battle.
Level 70
Max out Cadence. Give Warcry some levels. Weapon choices:Emp Devil’s Mark, Emp Curse of Burrwitch, Witching Hour.
Level 80
Max Military Conditioning and Fighting Spirit. Put some points into Scars of Battle or Aspect of the Guardian, depending on the resistances that you might miss. Now you can wear The Harbinger Set(lvl 75).
Level 85
The remaining points you can put where you need the most: either Aspect of the Guardian(psn and phys res), or Decorated Soldier(ele&slow res, phys dmg), or max out Fighting Form(for 100% chance for Cadence to pierce) or whatever you like.
I’ve pointed out the weapons that you can use until you get to lvl 75, but I’ve said nothing about gear. Well, I think that the best advice I can give is to wear whatever makes you cap the resistances, gives you more life, OA, DA, etc. Even the weapons you use, could be some good rares, as long as you have enough dps to move on with the quests and the campaign.
Final Thoughts:
-I hope I didn’t bored you guys to death, I know my guide is a little bit incomplete, but will provide in the future days a leveling guide, aswell as anything you might consider necessary;
-As stated on the top, it’s not an uber build, but I find it fun enough; I can clear most content (Iron Maiden haven’t tried yet, Mad Queen I have to kite a lot, but doable, Moosilauke I also have to hit-and-run a lot);
-I have to try some more gear set-ups, but with a job+wife+kid, my free time is kinda scarce; but will do, if feedback is required.
Ok, time to go to sleep now, thank you all sooooo much for giving my build at least the time to read. This means a great deal to me. I eagerly await your feedback, cheers!
EDIT:
-Ty so much Superfluff for the tips, I’ve changed the gear accordingly, and it works like a charm;
-Ty Flying Potato for pointing it out, I’ve included in list the reduce in max chaos resist from Symbol of Solael;
-I’ve added a Sentinel fight, with last improvements on gear, you can see them all there;
-Changed the pictures with some fresh ones;
-Added Mad Queen fight;
-Added Setup 2 for devotions tree, and updated the grimcalc, according to what I use now. Many thanks to They Live for the upgrade on the devotions and skills;
-Added a short leveling guide, as a ranged character.
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