It should certainly be tankier than a glass cannon Spellbreaker ;). Glad you’re interested, please let me know if you have any questions!
Thanks for the guide! I’ve decided to use this build to see if I can clear Ultimate HC for the first time with self-found gear. I think this has good damage types and tankiness, and you mentioned getting through Ultimate content with 0 deaths. An appealing claim for an aspiring Hardcore newcomer.
I appreciate the sections you typed out and the detail you went into in some places. However, speaking of details, would you be able to provide a little more in regards to leveling? Specifically, the order to put points into things and take them out is a bit confusing. I did read your reply to @mda about ABB, but I’m talking about in general, especially for leveling in Hardcore with 0 gear waiting for me.
You say to max NB to 50 first, but then also say to get 4/16 Menhir’s Will first, and also 17/16 ABB and 10/12 Pneumatic burst and 10/10 Night’s Chill while somehow also maxing Nightfall.
At level 27 currently and I have 16/16 ABB, 10/12 PB, 4/16 Menhir’s Will and 40/50 NB, but I’m confused as to where to go next. Do I push to 50 now and start dumping points in Nightfall, or do I max Night’s Chill first then finish the push to 50?
I think that’s the only area of the guide that’s could use a little work (from the perspective of a new player anyway). Otherwise, loving the build so far and thanks again for the guide! One day on Softcore I want an entire “set” of S&B Casters. I’ve already gotten Drizzto’s DEE WB to 85 and that was a blast. Would love to “collect them all” and have one of each damage archetype. Would be awesome if you or Drizzto did a Commando and Chaos/Vit WB hinthint 
I’m glad you’re taking the build for a spin! I’ll try and address your post point by point if that’s alright.
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Sounds like you’re doing great so far with the leveling, and that is a good question. I would push to 50/50 and max Nightfall before Night’s Chill, because the Frostburn damage on Nightfall is very significant in the early stages of the game (Normal/Veteran), while the -Cold RR% becomes more valuable later in the game as you get more and more sources of Frostburn.
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Since you’re doing HC mode, if you want to err on the side of caution and are happy with your kill speeds you can wait on Nightfall and get 6/16 on Menhir’s Will and 8/12 on Overguard first. Overguard is very helpful as an “Oh Shit” button to keep you alive, along with Blade Barrier (just 1 point).
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The reason I say 17/16 ABB is because for whatever reason, that jump from 16 to 17 gives waaaaay more Frostburn damage than any other jump between skill points. If you can find something that gives +1 to ABB or NB skills then go for it, but it’s certainly not necessary if you can’t find it
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The idea of S&B caster builds are indeed awesome. As far as all the different damage types, I know Drizzto has a Bleed S&B Warder and is working on (presumably an Aether?) S&B Battlemage of some sort, but I don’t know the details. As far as Commando goes, JoV has a nifty build here that does both Fire and Lightning. Chaos/Vit WB on the other hand I’ve only seen done in attack builds. The main issue with a Chaos/Vit WB S&B Caster is that the Chaos/Vit spells you have access to are Sigil (kinda), Pox (kinda), and Doom Bolt, and all of those spells scale best with CDR, which you won’t have a lot of because you’re using a shield instead of an off-hand and you’re not Arcanist. That would mean the DPS probably wouldn’t be the greatest, but I suppose it could still do well.
Hope that helps!
hi do you mind share the skill tree without the gears please, i follow your skill tree run down but get like 7 or more points short …
I’d like a more indepth leveling guide if you’d break it down a tad. Haven’t played in a long time so unsure the actual order of things.
Hey! Here’s the breakdown.
Level 10
5 Nightblade
5 Soldier
6/16 ABB
4/16 Menhir’s Will
10/12 PB
Level 20
20 Nightblade
5 Soldier
12/16 ABB
4/16 Menhir’s Will
10/12 PB
3/10 Veil of Shadow
4/10 Night’s Chill
1/16 Shadow Strike
1/12 Blade Barrier
Level 30
40 Nightblade
5 Soldier
16/16 ABB
4/16 Menhir’s Will
10/12 PB
6/10 Veil of Shadow
7/10 Night’s Chill
1/16 Shadow Strike
1/12 Blade Barrier
Level 40
50 Nightblade
5 Soldier
16/16 ABB
4/16 Menhir’s Will
10/12 PB
10/10 Veil of Shadow
10/10 Night’s Chill
1/16 Shadow Strike
12/12 Nightfall
1/16 Blade Spirit
1/12 Blade Barrier
Level 50
50 Nightblade
20 Soldier
16/16 ABB
4/16 Menhir’s Will
10/12 Overguard
5/10 Shield Training
10/12 PB
10/10 Veil of Shadow
10/10 Night’s Chill
1/16 Shadow Strike
12/12 Nightfall
1/16 Blade Spirit
1/12 Blade Barrier
Level 60
50 Nightblade
30 Soldier
16/16 ABB
4/16 Menhir’s Will
10/12 Overguard
5/10 Shield Training
10/12 Field Command
10/12 PB
10/10 Veil of Shadow
10/10 Night’s Chill
1/16 Shadow Strike
12/12 Nightfall
1/16 Blade Spirit
1/12 Blade Barrier
You should be good from there, just work your way to Menhir’s Bulwark and Scars of Battle and get those maxed, and then hit your defensive passives (Shadow Dance, Military Conditioning, etc.). I think I gave a Devotion breakdown in a previous post, but basically get Tsunami (bound to ABB) first, then when you get 11 points take out Tsunami and get Spider, Hammer, and first 3 in Crown for Elemental Storm (bound to ABB). Then get Blue Crossroads and Eel and get Amatok/Blizzard, should be around the same time you’ve leveled up enough to get Blade Spirit. Bind it to Blade Spirit, then finish Amatok and Crown and Green Crossroads and get Hawk, which should allow you to take points out of Spider to put into starting/finishing Owl, which should allow you to take points out of Hammer. Then just finish the Devotion tree as shown on grimtools. Remember early game to get Chipped Claw in your weapon and Battered Shell in your shield for extra single target DPS against bosses.
And Darksto sorry for the super late response, here’s a grimcalc of what the skill points should look like without gear.
http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-loDp4S
Keep in mind that is assuming you have the gear that is in the first grimtools link in the OP. Different gear may give different bonuses, which would lead to a different skill setup.
Hey man I really appreciate that break down and so quick. I’m presently giving this a try. I like Blade masters, thank you for the time you’ve put in.
No problem, I’m glad you chose this guide =) Knock 'em dead 
So I have never actually beat the game, I’ve decided to play Veteran non-hc (always played veteran hc only since game launch) and I’m wondering a few things… like do you only focus on damage or do you get lot of defense/res gear while you go through the game? Do you do all of the quest? Do you farm at any time until end game?
I plan to try this build solo self found so I hope I your answers guide me.
Guys, how do you deal with Fabius? I’ve got similar build, but just can’t do efficient damage to him. His regen is :rolleyes:
When I get 11 points, I can’t get to Elemental storm, I could be doing something wrong but spider is 5, hammer is 3, the two ends are 1 each and crown point 1 is 11 so how do you get to elemental storm?
In my playthrough I didn’t need to farm at any point, but I did do all the quests (except for the Outcast ones, did them on Ultimate though). For gear I always recommend defensive over offensive while leveling because your base skills do a lot of damage comparatively to end game. Look for things like health, resistances, armor, etc. OA and DA are nice as well.
No comment on Fabius yet actually because I never farmed negative rep, but I’m assuming he’ll go down because it can kill MQ and her regen is pretty crazy. I should say that you need at least a few of the legendaries with Frostburn procs though because otherwise yes the DPS will be too low.
As for Elemental Storm, you can take the 2 points out of Crossroads and put them in Crown because Spider and Hammer meet Crown requirements by themselves. That’s how you can do it with 11 points =)
Thanks so much for that, I didn’t realize you could take points out if you met requirements… Silly me that’s a huge dps boost. So much to learn still…
So defense/res/health and armor, I’ll remember that. I appreciate all of your quick responses. I just hit Act 3. I have died once but I Feel that’s going to happen for now, I just wnat to get to the end of the game and then I’ll do a re-do in HC Vet instead of Vet with the same type of build.
Another question, how do you manage your energy? I find spamming AB / Shadow Strike / Ground stomp and having VoS up all the time I drink potions like a mad man…
Would you also take defense/res/health over stuff like spirit/cuning ect?
Also, could you look at this and tell me why it’s losing damage and if the game actually calculates all of this properly or not?
Oh and how do you tell what’s better in a shield, I assume the faster recovery time is better .5 vs 1.00 but is the damage blocked worth the sacrifice or do you just look for +def/res ect and not care about that stuff?
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For energy problems, get Ectoplasms and put them in your rings/medal/amulet if possible.
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The weapon has lower DPS listed because it has lower attack speed and base damage. The DPS number only takes weapon damage into account; not damage from skills. So, even though your equipped weapon does less weapon damage, it’s still better for the build because you’re using cold damage and +1 to ABB (which is important to hit 17/16 for big Frostburn damage bump).
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For shields early game I typically look at the bonuses that come on it more so than the blocking numbers. Higher damage blocked is better for bosses because they do more damage at a time, and better block recovery is better if you’re being hit by many small attacks at once. Since bosses are generally more threatening than crowds, I’d prioritize higher damage blocked over block recovery.
Thanks for the idea on Ectoplasms.
Yeah, that’s all I was wondering was the base damage ect. So on the actual character screen my total DPS should be improved with the other weapon correct?
Bonuses instead rather than blocking numbers, by that I assume you mean like +res ect?
Also you missed one (no offense taken) but are res/def ect over stuff like spirit/cuning?
Thanks for the amazing write-up! I chose this for my first self-found HC run and ultimate was a breeze. I only got to 2 core items (gloves and medal) and it still had better clearing times than my 2h warder Incredibly safe too, barely ever got to activating Mehnirs Will.
Cheers!
Hey! Congrats on running it through self-found HC, I’m glad you had such a great time with it =)
And Yori, res/def definitely more important than spirit/cunning. Those last two are probably the least important stats to worry about. And by bonuses yes I mean res/def stuff.
Thanks for the build.
What do you think about Beacon of the Winter’s Veil as main weapon?
Skill and proc wise it’s really inferior to Crescent Moon but (a better rolled one)+DMG value is higher and +OA seems sweet
I have no MIs so my setup is like this:
grimtools.com/calc/dVb9932J
also ditched Oleron’s Blood for capping aether res, not sure how much impact it has but right now it seems just fine mobbing.
Hey! Good question. I can’t remember if I mentioned it in the main post but Beacon of Winter’s Veil is a solid choice. I’d rank it only below Crescent Moon and Olexra’s Chill. The best things about the Beacon aside from the OA are the Frostburn duration buff and the big chunk of Flat Frostburn. I’d still rank it below Crescent Moon because resist reduction is such a powerful effect and hard to come by for Cold damage, and the +1 to skills are amazing as well. Still a great weapon for the build though.
As for Oleron’s Blood, not only does it provide great single target damage reduction that keeps you alive against bosses, but it magnifies all your Flat Frostburn damage by 350%. Especially if you’re using Beacon, I’d recommend keeping it unless you’re really struggling against Aether.
Thanks for the build. This is my second char and I like it more than the summoner Conjurer, mainly because of the crucible.
A few questions.
- What about Counter Strike, as a one point wonder - alternative (to cold) source of damage? In general, or in particular when using Avenger Of Cairn and/or another sources of retaliation damage.
Blitz - Great for mobility and applying 2 sources of Flat Frostburn at once with a decent magnifier.
Which sources?
- Why you not 12/12 Shadow dance in you posted current build (for example, due to Military Conditioning)?