[v1.0.0.9] The Glacier, S&B Frostburn Blademaster, Crucible Demigod...slightly

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Counter-strike 1 pointer would be OK if you had at least +3 to Soldier skills to up it’s effectiveness, and if you were going more of a retaliation direction. The physical and bleed damage don’t really interest us though, we’d only want the +% to retaliation.

Physical and bleed damage from the counter strike is noticeable when dealing with cold resist mobs (this is also the reason for point in Squad Tactics).

Also, when running numbers, did you multiply the flat FB from EA by 2.5? Because when using Oleron’s Might ability all Flat FB damage is magnified by that amount. Also, the thing with DoT procs is that they last a while with increased FB duration; as long as one goes off every 6 seconds it’s pretty much always ticking.

What bold exactly means? Please write an example in numbers.
And why 6 seconds? BiS setup have +100% FB duration, most of sources have 2 seconds, so as a result 4 seconds.

62

That’s true. It’s basically free damage for 1 point, even if it’s not a lot and doesn’t synergize. When I hop back on I’ll put a point in and let you know if I notice a difference =)

And yes you’re right again, it’s around 4 seconds not 6. The idea though is that a lot of the procs are either on attack (which gets triggered practically on CD because each source counts as a different attack) or 100% on hit (you get hit all the time) or on crit (same as attack just make sure your OA is high enough). The shoulders proc requires a melee hit so it’s less dependable, but still pretty good.

And what I mean in bold refers to my DoT primer. Abilities that deal % weapon damage deal that same % of their Flat damages, including DoTs like Frostburn. So for example if I’m using Oleron’s Might (which deals 350% weapon damage) and I have 50 Flat Frostburn damage, that strike will apply a DoT for 175 Flat Frostburn instead.

63

Ok, flat FB damage comes from EA, Amatok, Leviathan and small piece from Icecorn. And displayed in character window as frostburn damage. I have ~1610 w/o EA. So, with EA 2/12 will be 1870, with EA 12/12 2770. Oleron’s Might 355% (why 2,5?); 6640/9830. About +3k (+12,5%) FB damage (taking into account previous calculations) in favor of EA.
To defend ABB positions I need to calculate cold damage, as secondary damage source. And for this I need to install a patch in which ABB received a significant boost in cold damage.
To be continued :slight_smile:

64

Brilliant , thanks for that , cleared it up nicely :slight_smile:

65

Haha, yes sorry I need to learn to math =P

When I said multiply by 2.5 I was thinking “add x2.5 to your current value”, which is of course completely different. You’re right that you should just multiply by 3.55.

And again, just want to say I really appreciate the effort you’re putting into number crunching for us. Was complicated enough for me just to deal with FB damage in the initial planning phase of the build, didn’t bother with Cold. I’m curious what you find!

66

I am only seeing 25% cold conversion, am I missing something?

67

In fact, I forgot about the flat frostburn at all (should be taken into account in the ABB damage too). Also I forgot to use Chilling Weapons and Lethal Assault buffs. So the numbers are quite approximate and need to be recalculated.
In 1.0.0.10 ABB received cold damage boost and EA FB damage nerfed.

68

Hi Ryzel,

thanks a lot for the really nice build ! First build I’m actually enjoying in HC (i play HC only) and that’s working very well. Finished my first playtrough on Normal Veteran this week after clearing the whole game content, well at least the content I know… campaign, Port Valbury(holy shit that was hard and scary), Hidden Path, BoC, SoT and most explorable things. Then started Elite @lvl58 with very nice stats and very high resists everywhere.

I’m still very new at this game IMO, with only 480 hours of gametime but your build has hooked me up even more and I learned a lot.

I had a question out of curiosty while I was taking a look at the devotions setup… I’m probabably wrong but anyway :

My understanding is that you took Wolverine to get enough Ascendant nodes to acces to Leviathan ?!

Are we stacking enough retaliation damage to benefit of it and are the other stats ( DA + DA% )really needed ? Like I said I’m new and this is a simple assumption but would it be possible to go:

Empty Throne instead, followed by Harpy? Now to go Harpy you would have to leave Viper empty and lose the -20% target’s ele resist wich is probably really needed i guess…?! But you would on the other side get 15% reduced stun, 8% chaos res, 8% aether res, 8% pierce res and the goodies from harpy…39% cold dmg, OA and bleeding res…

Anyway, looking for you guys opinions about this, I hope it’s not the dumbest thing you ever heard XD

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Hey, I can’t PM you because I’m new.

I just started out, I’m level 34. I maxed Nightblade and have some points in some areas, but I’m just not sure where it would be most effective for my current level.

I just started playing yesterday with a friend and am just looking for a good way to level and be strong while doing it.

Thanks!

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@ Havoc_Mayhem: My pleasure! Glad you’re liking the build =) Hope you continue to demolish HC! I would be scared to run the roguelike dungeons before the build comes together in the later levels, but grats to you for making it work!

To answer your question, yes it is to get Ascendant points for Leviathan. You’ll notice it’s an efficient way of hitting 13 and not getting any extra. I’ll try and explain the decision-making process for why I would do Wolverine + Viper over Empty Throne + Harpy.

Empty Throne + Harpy gives…

  • 34% total resists (nice, but not necessary)
  • 15% Stun resist (not needed because of Scars of Battle)
  • +39% Pierce Damage (negligible bonus late game, and Pierce isn’t important to build)
  • +39% Cold Damage (cold damage is more useful, but still not as important as frostburn and the bonus is negligible)
  • +10 Cunning (essentially meaningless to the build)
  • +1.5 energy regen (nice, but borderline negligible and not necessary)
  • 15 OA (nice, but very small bonus)
  • 5-10 Pierce Damage (not useful for our build)

Wolverine + Viper gives…

  • 40 + 4% DA (noticeable bonus to DA, which is important to help us survive)
  • -10% Phys/Cunn for weapons (pretty much worthless end-game)
  • +55% Retaliation Damage (small bonus but useful if we end up finding Retaliation damage gear, e.g. Avenger of Cairn)
  • 30 Piercing Retaliation (borderline negligible bonus, but since we’re tanking and reduce Pierce resistance through Night’s Chill, piercing retaliation can be an acceptable source of damage)
  • 10 Spirit (negligible but useful bonus)
  • 15% chance of energy leech (useful bonus to keep mana up)
  • 10% energy absorb from spells (see above)
  • 10% vitality resistance (nice, but not necessary)
  • 20% Reduced Elemental Resistances + 3% OA (noticeable bonus to DPS as this can reduce Cold resistances by at least 5% usually, and sometimes a lot more, which increases DPS by that amount. 3% OA is not a very large bonus but certainly will be more than 15.)

So basically I’m giving up 24% more resists (which can be covered by gear somewhat easily) for a little more OA, good amount of DA, little bit of piercing retaliation, more mana, and most importantly more resistance reduction for Cold which leads to higher DPS.

I hope that helps! No such thing as a dumb question =)

@ Little - Hey! Check out page 4 for a detailed leveling breakdown. If you’ve maxed NB already though I’d get Nightfall maxed ASAP, then Veil of Shadow/Night’s Chill, then Amarasta’s Blade Burst, with a point in Blade Barrier.

@ valium - Sorry this is a month late response, but basically Cold conversion is meaningless to this build. Conversion mechanics are only really important if I’m doing a lot of Physical/Internal Trauma damage that I then want to convert to Cold. This build doesn’t worry about that because the skills it uses already deal Frostburn/Cold damage. If I wanted to create a Blitz/Forcewave version of this build, that would be a different story.

72

hope you’re gonna update this for the expansion !

73

How did you get eel with no devotions that give you +1 Primordial?

74

A. He has viper which gives blue
B. Devotions can self sustain. You can grab blue crossroad, fill out eel, then remove the point in the middle. You’ll need at least 1 blue to respect out of it though

75

You are awesome. Thank you.

76

Hello ppl,

I followed this thread and made a similar build for vanilla, it was inspired by and indeed based on this amazing build by Ryzel.

Cold & frostburn BM is really good and I cheesed expansion MQ using full lv 85 gears. This is my updated cold S&B BM build:

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2gaWByZ

From my experience some tips for expansion are:

Devotion: since 5 more points and new constellations, it’s much easier to pick all “good” constellations now. Murmur is really good with Rumor providing another source for RR, and Giant’s blood making this build even more tanky

Skills: tbh I have no idea where to put additional points, everything seems to have very diminishing return. So what I did is:
a) maxed out BB for even shorter cooldown time, allowing more invincibility. It’s very useful when face tanking large group/bosses.
b) put rest into Merciless Repertoire for flat increase in dmg. this is a no brainer so I m not really sure if this is optimal.

Gears: mostly just replace everything with mythical ver. it’s a no brainer approach and still very good. Now with mythical tier it is easy to cap res, and more options for components and arguments. Some things on gearing I notices so far are:

a) [u]Weapon:[/u] I haven't got Mythical Crescent Moon so I am using a Mythical Beacon and a Mythical Olexra, both are doing good. But I think Mythical Crescent Moon is still BiS cuz of RR.
b) [u]Head:[/u] Mythical Clairvoyant Hat requires an absurdly high spirit of 560, it's not worth upgrading unless you can top up spirit with other slots.
c) [u]Hand:[/u] Chilling Grip of Hagarrad is a really good piece, modifier to Veil of Shadow is great.
d) [u]Relic:[/u] Nidalla's Outbreak buffs cold dmg nicely and I see it more relevant now than Bastion.
e) [u]Shoes:[/u] With new crafting tweaks it's now much easier to get good green from blacksmiths, and high level green prefix and suffix can provide very high res bonus. It's very easy to cap certain 1 or 2 res using the right shoes/pants, then topping up other res with components and arguments.

Since exp I have farmed for quite some time and replaced like about 60% of the gears so far, it has already been quite strong and tanky.

Tried it with vanilla nemesis in lv 100 and can face tank them all without any problem. New nemesis/super bosses are not tested yet, gonna farm more rep.

There’s defiantly much room for improvement, so C&C please.

77

Hey! Don’t worry guys, I’ll update this soon™.

I can tell you right now though that devotions will probably be exactly the same, except with the extra 5 points get Murmur for Rumor devotion proc with more cold resist reduction.

@Aliba - Haha double post! Thanks so much for your input! I’m happy to hear that the build seems to be quite effective in the expansion. I’d recommend extra skill points go to maxing Lethal Assault for more OA, since this build lacks it compared to some others and we want to crit as much as possible with our DoT damage. Potentially pushing AAB back up to 17/16 might be worthwhile as well I think, although I might have read in recent patch notes that they tweaked it so the big boost isn’t there anymore.

78

Could you do a 30 / 50 / 70 skill guide? Im currently level 53 (having an other build) and I already died 90 times. I cant pass diablo boss :frowning: I would love it, if you could take a time and do a step by step level guide. (grimcalc)

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Check out page 4 for a detailed breakdown of what skills you should have at 10 level intervals. Mentions devotions too, but I would add that you should prioritize Murmur devotion after getting Rhowan’s Crown and before Blizzard.

80

How do you craft the boots? (Stonehide plates of kings)

81

To any one following this builds more indepth levelling guide …

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.

If following this guide would this mean I would have to use a 2 to 1 ratio? Meaning 2 points in the Mastery bar and one into a skill? ( Sorry still very new to the game. )

Also, I assume I should start with the Nightblade first and at lvl 10 pick Soldier?