[V1.0] Lazy face tank PRM+Procs battlemage

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi guys, I’d like to share a build that lets lazy people like me can play caster class with more convenient. This build will be fresh to most people, since there are enough melee build that relies on adcth (aka. life steal).

Here are some short videos:
Ultimate Fabius face tank kill in 30sec without pot
Ultimate Log face tank kill in 25sec without pot
Ultimate BoC clear under 8 mins, killing all heroes encountered, facetank the entire run

Now here is the interesting one to show the potential and flexibility of this build:
Clearing ultimate BoC except final boss (due to game crash) in 10 mins with pants, 2 rings and medal UNEQUIPPEPD, using no pots/consumables

I will record again for final boss kill if needed, and with even less gears equipped.

As promised, I recorded another video about killing final boss of BoC in 2 mins with pants, 2 rings, medal and boots unequipped.

This build can also face tank and wreck every boss in Ultimate, except you need 5 secs kitting for last boss in BoC. And of course, you can’t facetank Elite Mogdrogen with this build. However, Veteran Mogdrogen is face tankable. Generally, I think this is a pretty solid and rare build for a caster class.

For gears, I use 4 set of Iskandra set with Wrath of Ascendant, and other stuffs, which are shown here. Basically, you can use shield or caster offhand, shield for more survivability and caster offhand for more damage/utility. There are many viable offhands like Aldanar’s, Will of Living, Sacred Texts of Menhir, etc. Keep all resistance decent high with augments and components. My current items showed in videos are focused on CD reductions provided by Aldanar’s vanity and Albrecht’s Duality.

Here is the build:
Before item skills bonus
After skills bonus
Ideas of this build is pretty standard, double damage reduction from War cry and Maiven, with PRM for kitting and proc all the effects from items, along with other damage boost passives. All the gears, skills and devotions enable a caster to face tank most deadly bosses, and ignore all the threats coming from mobs. However, the build is flexible. For example, you can put less points in Soldier for more points on PRM, or you can even get rid of PRM in exchange for AAR.

Most important for this build is devotion:
Devotion 1 of 2
Devotion 2 of 2
Note: this devotion set can be altered, but the core ideas remains - high hp regen with decent DA/Armor.

For leveling up, just go for standard PRM build with a shield, get Overguard and shield training for safty (because I was testing if this build is HC viable, feel free to go without a shield). Having an Agrivix’s Malice will make leveling much easier, especially for single target damage. If you want to go for other classes other than battlemage and spellbreaker, I strongly recommend you to use a Riftstone for Chaos strike. The reason is: Chaos strike, like Blitz and Shadow strike, provides you an excellent way of gap closing, which leads to an extreme lazy playstyle and maximum profit of Agrivix proc.

A more optimized way to use this build is: prepare two sets of weapon/offhand - switch to caster offhand for devastation, then switch back to shield for more tankiness, this should allow you to have more flexible gearing option and, to involve more points in devotion for increased overall damage. But that’s not for lazy enough, right?

If anyone is interested is this build, I can post more details about gearing and play style. I hope this post will provide insights for some builds, making Grim Dawn more fun.

2

really interested in your use of arcane bomb

can you give some more details on it? how heavily is it boosting your dps?

3

Arcane bomb here provides resistance reduction in boss fight(thanks to Most for correcting), and it can provides decent trash cleaning speed during hit&run (obviously I run&shield charge just for more farming efficiency, as mobs can’t even hurt me). You can safely put those devotion points into other stuff if you like. Again, these devotions are flexible.

4

This is awesome.

Have you tried any of the other PRM class combos?

5

both your weapon debuff and the arcane bomb debuff are ‘-x%’ meaning they stack. arcane bomb is likely contributing a large amount to your boss dps

6

yes, you are right. I thought they don’t stack. I was stupid to underestimate the power of arcane bomb.

7

me too lol, that’s why i’m so interested in your video. great build.

i’m going to incorporate it into my callidor’s tempest/agrivix proc build. thanks for the idea.

what’s the resistance reduction at max rank btw?

8

Yes, I tried, and battlemage is by far the laziest one

9

-33% i believe

10

Its funny about two weeks ago people here were arguing regen is worthless as defensive stat, same as armor. Whats with all these builds facetanking Fabius now. :slight_smile:

11

Indeed. Hp regen, if applied with decent resistance, armor and DA, will solve the sustain problem of casters, since pure casters can’t take advantage of adcth.

12

I add some details of the build, as well as uploading a full BoC run video.

13

Hey, my first time playing an arcanist

Could you give some info on leveling?

I started off with OFF and sky shard and act 1 went by very fast (albeit I died some times)

However now on act 2 I am getting killed non stop!

My setup is:
Level 18
12/12 OFF
16/16 sky shard
1 PRM - 6 Distortion
1 Mirror
15 in arcanist
Nothing soldier so far
Have spent no attributes as I am always reluctant to spend those since cant refund…

14

Sky shard and PRM are both fine for leveling. However, they are different damage type. PRM itself is elemental, distortion is aether and sky shard is cold/lightning. If you don’t have any damage type preferences, I suggest you use something similar to this build, dropping sky shard for Maiven’s. PRM will give you enough damage for mobs clearing.

15

Just upload a video of my build clearing ultimate BoC with 4 items not equipped

16

Hi, would it be possible to post a leveling guide in terms of gear?

The items you are showing are the best in the game and its presumed that you need to spend dozens of hours farming in Ultimate to get these items.

As self found i would be interested in how to get to farming in Ultimate for this BiS gear with what is actually attainable in the game.

Also what do you think on Agrivix`s instead Iskandra’s Balance (300% fire/cold dmg +15% change of +250% Elemental dmg)?

17
  1. Since this is not my first charater, I have a blademaster with 20+ days play time to farm gears for my other toons, so basically I can access to some critical gears, espacially, relics. The leveling process is pretty straight forward. In normal/veteran, just use PRM and max Maiven’s. You should be fine with everything.

In elite, use a shield with mana regen/% elemental(fire) damage bonus if possible, as well as getting shield training and overguard in soldier skill tree. Or you can simply use caster offhands, but play with cautions. Take devastation. If you are using a shield, switch to a caster offhand for enabling of devastation then switch back to shield and spam PRM, for maximum efficiency. However, if you manage to get a Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm at lv60, then you will have decent damage even with a shield at hand. Optimizing fighting spirit CD will also help a lot because you won’t have much fire damage bonus and offense ability during this phase.

For ultimate, I strongly recommend you use a Agrivix and a shield for most convenient play style (of course get rid of fire damage for aether damage). Only thing to mention in devotion is: you can get arcane bomb after reaching ultimate difficulty, other than that, it’s all yours to call.

  1. This battlemage is self found too. Before current gears, I was using Will of the living and half of clairvoyant set with other faction gears. If you have Agrivix at this time, focusing on survivability - resistant, armor, hp regen, max hp, etc… You can efficiently farm SoT, four hills, twin fall or which ever place you want to do. Survivability is your first priority because with Agrivix and devastation,

  2. Agrivix is better for PRM build because even with +300% fire damage, PRM still outperformed by Agrivix in close range combat and kitting, espacially when you already have a decent amount of base fire damage bounus.

If you watch my newly uploaded video, you will find out this build is not that gear dependent. And again, if you are interested, I can also upload a video using faction gears.

18

honestly this and Most’s CT build are pretty much the same, its just triggering the procs with a different skill + devastation. like i said, by far the strongest two builds right now are the aggrivix/devastation/proc based caster build and my melee sabotuer build.

i can substitute PB , prm, ct, etc in the aggrivix/devastation combo and results would be similar.

im really interested in finding other similarly strong builds without using the above, but i fail to think of any

19

attributes points? spirit?

20

TBH, you are not fully understand this post. The strongest point of my build is not about proc or PRM or aggrivix, it’s about how hp regen stack, along with proper damage mitigation (resistance and armor are far from enough), solves sustain problem of casters, makes facetanking Fabius possible. Based on this ideas, one can improve other builds too, especially for high damage output caster classes. My BoC run video with only 2/3 gears on will prove lots of my points.

And even for aggrivix/devastation/proc based battlemage, a most optimize build exists, and we (including Most) are on our way to find it out.