[v 1.0]Pyromancer build : Voidfire leech

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi. Here’s my latest build. I’m quite happy about the result and I hope you’ll enjoy playing it as much as I did. :cool:

I - The build

1. Concept
This semi-melee, chaos/fire oriented caster build is focused on damage over time, AOE and self-healing. It’s a good compromise between survivability and damage. The gameplay is quite simple : cripple the mobs’ damage and defense, throw your stuff on the ground, things die.

It is more suited for solo play because packs will melt before you cast all your stuff in multiplayer but having a ton of debuffs is always welcomed in a party.

I’ve played this build in softcore but I think it can work in hardcore with a few changes.

2. Pros & Cons
Pros:
+ great sustained AOE damage
+ good survivability
+ not gear dependant
+ a ton of debuffs and RR to help clearing Ultimate in single and multiplayer
+ fire, pentagrams and highly flammable beverages : just like metal shows !

Cons:
- energy issues, specially during long fights
- relies on ground-targeted AOEs which makes kiting difficult sometimes
- level dependent, requires a lot of skills points to start working well
- poor mobility
- can easily blow up due to burst damage

3. Skill trees

4. Stats and gear
. Stats
here’s how my stats currently look like :

NDrskpo.jpg1164×370

You need a lot of addtional Physique for the late game, specially when both your masteries give you barely any physique per skill point spent. Spirit is also needed to wear high level caster gear ( level 75 foci require 715 spirit to be equipped). Cunning is just here to help you equip high level 1 handers so avoid spending any points in it unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Recommended base attributes at level 85 :

  • Physique : 900+ (70+ points spent)
  • Cunning : 375+ ( 0+ points spent)
  • Spirit : 715+ ( 20+ points spent)

Recommended stats at level 85 :

  • 2.2k+ OA
  • 2k+ DA
  • 10k+ HP
  • 800+% fire and chaos damage
  • 80+% elemental, poison, aether, chaos and vitality resists
  • 50+% stun resist
  • 120+% casting speed

. Gear
Here’s the gear I’m using:

5. Devotion
. Map (click to enlarge)

. Constellations used in this build

  • Fiend : it will help your clear speed early on and will spread the RR from Viper and your gear to mobs around you. Attach it to a spammable skill (Chaos Bolt, Fire Strike…) to keep it always active

- Solael’s Witchblade : Pretty good utility skill, the RR is mandatory for Ultimate

- Dryad : provides a lot of sustain and some energy/energy regen. Attach it to a low cooldown skill to maximize its proc chance. Does wonders when attached to BWC or Sigil

- Behemoth : Grants a mini-Menhir’s Will on top of some HP and regen. Mandatory constellation in every build, even after the nerfs.

- Ulzuin’s Torch : Buffs fire and burn damage and OA by a huge margin. The proc deals a lot of AOE damage and will boost your clear speed. My only regret about it is that the FX creates a lot of noise on the screen

- Hawk : helps saving some Cunning and provides cheap OA and crit damage

- Viper : The stats and the affinity gain make it totally worth the 4 points. The RR it provides stacks everything else this build uses

- Empty Throne : Great if you need resist. I put a single point in it for the stun resist because it’s great against Iron Maiden and it’s impossible to find some on non-tank gear

- Solemn Watcher : Gives a massive boost to DA which was lacking in the previous versions of this build.

. Devotion path :

[spoiler]- pick Crossroads : Chaos

  • max Fiend (attach to Chaos Bolt)

  • pick Crossroads : Order

  • max Dryad (attach to Sigil of Consumption)

  • remove Crossroads : Order

  • max Viper

  • max Hawk

  • max Solael’s Witchblade (attach to Curse of Frailty)

  • pick Crossroads : Primordial

  • max Behemoth (attach to Possession)

  • max Eel

  • remove Crossroads : Primordial

  • max Lizard

  • max Solemn Watcher

  • remove Lizard

  • max Scholar’s Light

  • pick Crossroads : Eldritch

  • max Ulzuin’s Torch (attach to Blackwater Cocktail)

  • Crossroads : Ascendant

  • put one point in Empty Throne[/spoiler]

. Other constellations worth mentioning

  • Turtle : This constellation gets a pretty bad name on these forums, but it’s really not THAT bad. It gives pretty good defensive stats and the proc helps surviving during the early game. However, it does scale poorly and the shield isn’t proactive which means it won’t defend you against instagibs. Pick it if you’re playing HC or if you have issues surviving in Veteran but I’d suggest you switch it for something more valuable late game.

  • Magi : I’ve used it in place of Ulzuin’s Torch for a long time. It deals a lot a sustained damage to mobs as long as they aren’t moving. Due to its low cooldown, you can attach it to a spammable skill and spawn a ton of volcanoes and stunlock them. Also provides a ton of fire and burn damage.

  • Scales of Ulcama : Not that good after the big nerfs to defensive constellations. Still provides some HP/energy and the proc will help you sustaining a bit while dealing okay damage.

  • Ulo, Keeper of the Waters : Pick it if you’re lacking resistances or if you need a purge ( against Cronley for example )

  • Sailor’s Guide : the freeze duration reduction is good to have on some fights ( Alkamos, Moosilauke… ) but you can just ignore the constellation and pop a Hoarfrost Ointment when needed.

  • Chariot of the Dead : provides a lot of OA and another healing proc. Maxing the constellation is quite expensive though.

  • Oklaine’s Lantern : good offensive stats for casters

  • Crane : pick it if you crave for resistances

  • Dying God : I’ve tried using it while using a Blood Orb of Ch’thon but my damage went downhill. It probably needs a lot of gear and skill changes to work but right now Ulzuin’s Torch does a much better job within this build.

6. Skills
. Actives

  • Chaos Bolt : Comes from the Void-touched Ammo component. The skill itself kinda sucks : it has low base damage, costs a bunch of energy, has low projectile speed and does that weird arcing that will sometimes make it fly above mobs without hitting them. However, it’s acceptable on this build because it’s played at melee range and the 3 projectiles make it good at proccing stuff. Attach Fissure ( Magi ) to it and get ready for the volcano spam.

  • Thermite Mines : Some AOE DOT/RR. I cast it almost only against bosses,elites and nemesis because it’s kind of awkward to use on smaller targets and it tends to slow down every pull.
    I have prioritized maxing Hellfire Mines over Thermite Mines because the reduction to chaos resist is more important and rarer than fire/lightning RR.

  • Curse of Frailty : Debuffs enemies in a large area, reducing their movement speed, DA and most damage resistances in the game ( but not chaos :eek: ). Cast it first at every pull. It triggers “on attack” procs like Exterminus’ Darkflame, which is pretty cool. Don’t overlevel the main skill and keep it at 10/10 (+skill included) to max its duration, radius and MS malus. Those points will be more useful somewhere else.

  • Blackwater Cocktail : Good damage in a huge AOE. With Agonizing Flames ( - all resists that stacks with the other debuffs used here ) maxed and the transmuter ( physical damage reduction ), it becomes a very powerful mob crippling tool. The main skill is maxed because of the effect range as it’s much larger than the FX implies. Excels at proccing devotion.

  • Sigil of Consumption : Great sustaining tool against packs, not so much against bosses. Deals good damage in a fairly large AOE. It looks like the casting issues have been fixed so that’s cool.

  • Blood of Dreeg: The changes to the skill have made it an invaluable ally to occultists. Its cooldown is much shorter than the buff duration, so you can easily keep the OA/resist boost active and have the skill off cooldown in case you need a quick heal.

  • Doom Bolt : A single target ‘’’’‘nuke’’’’’. Its damage is very low considering its cooldown and energy cost. Pretty bad skill overall but since I have +4 to the skill from gear, I just put one point into it and use it to snipe annoying targets like healers or against bosses. It’s also good at proccing long cooldown devotion like Cleansing Waters or Hungering Void.

  • Gaze of Beronath : Lowers the mobs’ OA and thus their chance to hit/crit you. Use it during difficult fights like Fabius, Iron Maiden or Queen Rashalga.

. Passives

  • Blast Shield : Very strong defensive tool. It reduces the damage you take from every hit. For example, at 12/12 it will reduce the damage every hit you take by 800. When overlevelled, it’s basically godmode for 4 seconds on a 14 seconds cooldown and will allow you to tank crowds for a while, giving you enough time to cast all your spells.

  • Flame Touched : Gives a ton of OA and fire/burn damage. Max it.

  • Vindictive Flame : Both nodes are good one pointers that will give you cheap CC and some total speed. I’ll probably max VF once the xpac is out

  • Possession : Provides a ton of damage, chaos resist and the most important, damage absorption. A must-have on any Pyro build to survive and deal damage.

  • Void-ward Aura : With the component itself, give bleeding and a lot of chaos resists while also increasing damage dealt to Chthonics, which helps a lot considering they are naturally resistant to chaos.

. Other skills worth mentioning

  • Summon Familiar : With one point in every node and up to 4 in Mend Flesh, the raven will help you levelling until Elite. You should stop using it and unspec it past that point because it will start dying a lot from enemy AOEs.

  • Flashbang : Very good skill but I just don’t need it in this build and don’t want to add another spell to the rotation which would slow the clear speed further down.

  • Poison Bomb/Noxious Poison Bomb : Use them to cheese the very early game. Switch to Chaos Bolt once you have enough chaos damage and resist reduction, or just keep it as it’s a pretty solid skill overall.

  • Cannister Bomb : With one point in the main skill and 3 in the transmuter, you have a very useful CC tool to help you during the early game. Sadly it’s completely useless in Ultimate.

  • Fire Strike : Requires too many skill points and doesn’t really fit in this build. It can help you leveling during the early game.

II - Gameplay and levelling
1. How to play this build
This is a close range caster build that relies on close range skills to survive and deal damage, so you should always be located in the middle of a pack of mobs ( the bigger, the better ) to hit as many targets as possible in a single blow and maximize the damage output.

The skill rotation for this build is pretty basic. Cast Curse of Fraily on mobs, throw a Burrwitch Cocktail at them then cast Sigil of Consumption. Move to middle of the pack of mobs and spam Chaos Bolt at the closest enemy. Rinse and repeat.
Use Doom Bolt on annoying targets ( healers ), on dangerous mobs ( Hulks ) and on bosses. Keep an eye on your life and energy bars as they will fluctuate a lot and use tonics accordingly. Also keep an eye on Blood of Dreeg’s buff timer and refresh it before it runs down to keep the buff always up.

Gameplay videos (outdated, I will eventually upload some fresh ones) :

2

Waiting for vid :smiley:

3

The forums are back, I can finally post my video ( it’s in the gameplay section of the OP ). If it stays up for long enough, maybe I’ll even be able to finish my guide. :rolleyes:

4

Added the Skills section. I’ll add the itemization later.

5

Nice,

I would make a suggestion though. Flashbang is amazing. Litterally amazing. I would recomend taking a look at adding that.

6

I know it’s a great skill and I did use it for a while but it was making my rotation even more heavy than it already is. Also CoF already has some -DA, even if it’s a lot less, and I already have a ton of survivability so FB doesn’t bring me as much on the table as it would on another build.

7

I understand… i playing a sab right now and i feel the double edge sword of flashbang. It’s very powerful and worthwhile but yet still annoying with a high level of confusion. the Fumble is pricelss though.

8

Added recommended weapons. The Itemization section might take a while to complete so I’m probably going to skip directly to gameplay after filling the offhand section.

EDIT : added the recommended off-hands. Gameplay will come next.

9

I’ve just finished the 1st section of the guide. I still have to work on the gameplay section.

I’ve also added a video of a Fabius kill done without using hp pots. :slight_smile:

10

Flame Touched will boost all your fire damage - from my tests it greatly boosted my Mortar fire damage, plus the OA boost is huge

Hitting a maxed Flash Bang, Curse of Frailty and a maxed Flame Touched, one is sure to crit :slight_smile:

I’m working on a different take of this kind of build.
Trying to make BWC, Sigil and Thermite mines hit as hard as possible.
Hope it works

11

I’m finishing up normal right now with a pyro hybrid build, and it’s funny just how different the two are. I’m running 2-handed with thermite/blast shield/sigil but investing heavily in VF and Solael’s for the attack speed and also investing in Blood of Dreeg (and eventually aspect as well).

Just as you said, it takes a long time for the build to even start functioning (veteran was awful until about 35). Even now at 43, while I am wrecking things, I am still lacking the vast majority of the aoe I will eventually have (hellfire mines, destruction, a couple of devotion procs (and I just now got Eldritch Fire, so it is level 1) and a proc on a weapon I intend to use later.

Having a blast, though. Log should be a piece of cake with the mines. Looking forward to hitting Elite shortly.

12

These are the 2 items I’m testing with a similar build.

SpiritCrusher seems to put a curse on every enemy in a large area around me as soon as I cast Sigil, BWC, Flash Bang etc, but this curse stays on them until they die. Which in turn constantly procs Voidfire Nova from the Heretic Tome, even when I don’t attack/cast.
I noticed this on the attack dummies as well

In any case damage on Sigil is quite big going through Ultimate, and so it heals me a lot, I can tank quite a bit! Even with just 1 point in Blast Shield…
The combo of maxed Witchfire, Flame Touched, Sigil, BWC with the high potency transmuter, and greater FireBlast spam has been good clear speed wise.
Plus the occassional Doom Bolt from proc and 1 point skill
With an OA of 2000, I can crit big time and often due to the above skills debuffing, slowing and confusing the enemies
Plus the massive resistance debuff, and Sigil also procs Eldritch Fire from devotion tree

I have +450% for Vitality, +430% Fire, and +500% Chaos Damage. So Sigil is healing me quite a bit
I can face tank multiple heroes and mobs… while standing in aether/poison pools…the more the merrier! :rolleyes:
Plus extra heal from the Bat and Gallows devotion skills

Still thinking about the Hellfire Thermite mines, because the Heretic Tome does add +2 to it…
Just need to find an Empowered SpiritCrusher

I’m also torn between a few components for the Weapon and off hand - but I guess resistance comes first
Trying Kil’s Flame on chest armour for extra healing and sustain, still not sure about it.

13

I didn’t max Flame Touched because I’m already have 600% fire damage and 2100 OA without it, and since I barely use the flat damage I don’t think it’s worth it ( that would be a ~16% damage increase only on my fire damage). Plus, I don’t know what to sacrifice to max it because I need everything : BWC, CoF and TM for the resist reduction, Sigil for sustain and Possession for the defense and the damage bonus.
Honestly, if I had some extra points I’d probably spend them into Vindictive Flame for the cast and move speed because that’s what I’m currently lacking at the moment.

As for Flashbang, I know it’s good but I don’t use it because it would be yet another spell to cast every pull and CoF already does similar stuff on top of reducing vitality and elemental resists. The confusion can also be a bit counter-productive because it makes it harder for me to keep mobs in the AOEs. Also I don’t think -DA debuffs stack.

Thermite/Hellfire Mines are a blessing and you should definitely give them a try. They are a bit awkward to use but when you manage to set them up correctly they completely melt bosses. I just wish they had a slightly bigger AOE but oh well. The only con is that you need to max the Demo tree to get Hellfire Mines, but that’s totally worth it in my opinion and you get a lot of stats for doing so.

For the components, I go for Void-touched Ammo on my gun and either a Purified Salt or an Imbued Silver on my focus depending on which act I’m playing. Defensive components are not very fun but work well while the offensive ones are kinda pointless late game. Also, I think Chains of Oleron is much better than Kilrian’s Shattered Soul for the OA and the reduced entrapment duration, and it’s also much easier to obtain.

Glad you’re enjoying Pyro, it’s a lot of fun and can be played in many different ways. Elite should be fine because you’ll have most of your skills unlocked and levelled, but early Ultimate might be tough until you get some acceptable gear. Mines completely melt Log, thanks to its gigantic hitbox. :slight_smile:

14

Nice :slight_smile: Flashbang is amazing!

15

I’m currently making my own twist of this build and was wondering if Possession is still 100% needed for the build? This is what I have so far, same devotions but with chariot of the dead on Blood of Dreeg instead of Possession:

http://grimcalc.com/build/Qz2YXf

Was thinking that the 38 points needed for Possession/Doom Bolt were better spent elsewhere. What are your thoughts?

16

Well the damage absorption is pretty nice, as is the 100% skill disruption protection, and damage scaling.
If you want Sigil to be useful in Ultimate, you have to make it hit really hard.So Possession helps with that

17

Ah ok. So Possession is still basically required for a chaos pyro. Guess I’ll be following this build pretty closely then.

Any ideas on leveling? Was thinking about putting 25 points into Occultist to max out sigil then maxing out demo for hellfire followed by maxing occultist for possession.

Devotion-wise, I guess I’ll stick with the guides though Ulzuin’s would be amazing.

18

Not even remotely.

Devotion-wise, I guess I’ll stick with the guides though Ulzuin’s would be amazing.

If you have any interest in going 2h instead, I should be posting a build later today that uses Ulzuin’s and Abomination. As I noted earlier in this thread, for a hybrid fire/chaos pyro build, it has turned out quite different from this one (which I think is really cool and shows just how much depth GD has).

19

I’m building a fire/chaos caster build. Not interested in 2h. Just not feeling comfortable spending all the points to get to possession but not seeing a way to play this caster without it as I’ll need all the defense/damage boosts I can get to soak up the hits.

20

Possession isn’t required for every chaos pyro. It really depends on the playstyle and since this build is all about facetanking stuff Possession is very important. If your build doesn’t involve going into melee range, and if you can keep mobs at a safe distance then I think you can skip it.

Sorry, I still haven’t written the levelling section. I blame procrastination.
With this build I’ve levelled the Occultist tree up to 25 and put some points in the Familiar branch. 1 point into Familiar and Storm Spirit plus 4 points into Mend Flesh are enough to keep you alive until Elite. After that point the raven will have trouble surviving AOEs.

Then I levelled the demo tree and put some points into BWC and CB+transmuter. You can also focus on the demo tree first and level up using Fire Strike if you prefer.

That’s something I also love in GD. There are many ways to play the same class combos.