Alright everyone,
After my poison melee blademaster died and I did not feel like going through the testing and theorycrafting to bring him back…I decided to make a build that I have wanted to make for a while. I would like to introduce…
Primitive, The Exiled Starcaller
Background
Primitive was a top disciple of Trozan before the Grim Dawn and, due to her lust for increasing power and her dabbling in magics that Trozan did not approve of, he exiled her from under his tutelage. She became an apostate mage and pursued powerful magics on her own, eventually learning how to not only conjure comets of solid ice and lightning from the sky, but also flaming meteors from the aether. She has access to the very power of the heavens and is not afraid to use it…
A couple of notes for readers of the build:
-This build was theorycrafted and farmed for extensively. I have put a lot of time into it and, although the gear is not perfect yet, I felt that the character was at a point that I could share it with confidence. This character is entirely legitimate and, luckily, a portion of the best in slot gear is crafted. I am still playing through act 4 of Ultimate and am on my way through the necropolis at the moment. As such, any feedback or ways to improve the build are greatly appreciated and welcomed!
-This build does rely on using the Trozan’s ascension set and Aldanar’s Vanity caster off-hand. The build absolutely works without these items it is just not quite as fun, there are less falling stars, and it clears slower. The build, along with Aldanar’s, uses other sources of cooldown reduction and these are vital to the kill speed. Again, the build works without it, it’s just slower.
-I initially theorycrafted this build as a druid build and, after resetting the skill points on my 85 druid and playing around with it I realized that the only reason I was taking shaman was for the HP bonus on Heart of the Wild. While this is a beautiful and very powerful use of skill points, I decided that playing as a spellbreaker had more utility, more damage and was simply more fun to play. That said, I did lose approximately 3k health from my level 85 build but, with the devotion setup used and with the amount of skills at my disposal, survival is the least of my worries 99% of the time.
-This is not a “lazy, play with one hand only, never use your keyboard build” as seems to be popular on the forums right now. I am not saying anything against those builds at all and the ability of those build creators to create something as powerful as they have is quite impressive. It is just not my style. I love controlling myself and the battlefield and I love having to play a proactive, and reactive Grim Dawn instead of a zoned out watching a movie Grim Dawn.
The Build
Grim Calc + devotion - w/out gear
Grim Calc + devotion - with gear
Disclaimer*** I want to give full credit to Modalsoul and his incredible devotion setup used in his PRM build. It provides amazing survivability and, since both his build and mine rely heavily on skills and gear for dmg, the devotion can be focused almost exclusively on defense. I copied his devotion setup exactly and really seriously check out his build its pretty impressive.
Attribute Allocation
Just to sound like a broken record, I put all of my points into Physique. You don’t need cunning for this build and you get enough spirit from masteries and gear. The physique is necessary to wear the leg armor and for the HP that is not naturally abundant to a spellbreaker.
Active Skills
-LMB - Empowered Lightning Nova from Amber materia. I cannot think of any better skill to use and it actually works pretty well to proc other skills.
-RMB - Trozan’s sky shard - this is your bread and butter damage skill and cast it as often as you can. It calls down three comets of ice and lightning where you click. They do big damage…
-Devastation - this is your big nuke and calls five waves of fiery meteors from the aether. Use it for large groups and bosses. It is awesome.
-Olexra’s Flash Freeze - A screen wide 4 second freeze of all enemies except heroes and bosses. This skill is just…incredible and will save your life so many times.
-Ring of Steel with transmuter - Another 2 second freeze in a 4 meter radius around you. Again it will save your life.
-Shadow Strike - use it as a travel skill and also to place yourself in the best position to inflict maximum destruction with your spells.
-Pneumatic burst - huge heal every 10 seconds and also provides health regen, DA and chance to avoid attacks. I keep it up all the time.
-Mirror of Ereoctes - 3 second immunity skill with a 23 second cooldown that allows you to move and attack during. Again, will save your life if used correctly.
-Blade Barrier - 3 second immunity skill with a 35 second cooldown that stops all movement and actions. Will save your life, stagger it with mirror.
-Nullification - A buff stripper for bosses. This skill is amazing and hugely undervalued I think. The boss loses his buff and also does less damage to you. Win win.
Auras
-Veil of Shadow with Night’s Chill - Awesome buff that slows enemies, lowers their OA and lowers their cold resistance. As in TQ, the best way to do more damage is to lower resistances, and this is a big part of that.
-Maiven’s Sphere of Protection - Damage absorption and physical dmg reduction for a small loss in overall DPS? sign me up.
-Star Pact - the arcanist exclusive skill. Massive bonuses to cold and lightning damage and % skill reduction. Perfect for this build.
-Iskandra’s elemental exchange - We really use this for the energy regen and crit damage bonus from elemental balance.
-Void Ward Aura - Chaos and bleeding resistance. From the Imbued Silver materia.
Gear
Head BIS - Trozan’s Hat with Sanctified Bone
Head 2nd - Outcast’s Hood
Amulet BIS - Starfury Emerald with Arcane Spark
Amulet 2nd - This amulet is fairly easily crafted but Arcane Eclipse would work.
Ring 1 BIS - Empowered Starfire with Corpse Dust
Ring 2 BIS - The best option I found/have is Open Hand of Mercy with Corpse Dust.
Rings 2nd - The rings for this build are hard and I had trouble finding ones that really fit besides the empowered starfire. I use the open hand of mercy because it gives me a lot of defensive bonuses. You could use Albrecht’s Duality for the cooldown and some good dmg bonuses but I wanted the defensive bonuses.
Chest BIS - Trozan’s Vestments with Chains of Oleron
Chest 2nd - Eastern Robes
Legs BIS - Empowered Legplates of Valor with Silk Swatch. These legs are just amazing. Phys, pierce, and bleed resist, hp, DA. I do not know what legs would be better so please help me!
Shoulders BIS - Trozan’s Mantle with Silk Swatch
Shoulders 2nd - Empowered Astral Mantle
Gloves - Iceskorn Talons or Aethereach with Antivenom Salve. I do not have either of these gloves and so have not been able to test with them. I think both will be good and both have what appear to be very good procs. Iceskorn is more defensive and Aethereach is more offensive. Hopefully I find them soon and am able to test. Right now I am wearing Wyrmbone Handguards for various bonuses. Eastern Gloves would work too.
Feet BIS - Wraithwalkers with Mark of Mogdrogen
Feet 2nd - Magelord’s Greaves
Weapon BIS - Trozan’s Starkeeper with Imbued Silver
Weapon 2nd - Empowered Coldsnap
Offhand BIS - Aldanar’s Vanity with Amber
Offhand 2nd - Nocturnis
Belt BIS - Phantom-Thread Girdle with Antivenom Salve
Belt 2nd - Dreadweave Girdle
Relic BIS - Iskandra’s Balance
Relic 2nd - Haunt
Medal BIS - Badge of Mastery with Aether Soul. Hope you get lucky and get bonuses that are useful.
Medal 2nd - Star of Frozen Skies
Gameplay Style
For 90% of the enemies in the game I am strong enough to shadow strike into the middle of the pack and throw out a OFF. If the pack is small one cast of TSS is enough to finish them off. If not or if there is a hero then cast your devastation. While masses of comets are falling cast your emp lightning nova to proc additional comets. Use your defensive skills as needed and cast OFF and Ring of Steel as needed. Most groups will die very quickly and because of the devotion set and the skills taken, I can generally sit in the middle of a very large group with about 1.7k hp regen per second and not drop below 60% hp (with PB). One pro and con of this build is that enemy size does matter for how much damage they take. The bigger they are the harder that they fall but the smaller they are… yeah.
Leveling Guide, General
Unfortunately this build doesn’t really come together until you can get at least TSS and devastation up to speed and, even then, they cost butt loads of energy and it’s hard to level. I would level this as a PRM build or as a melee cold spellbreaker and then switch over once you are able. I am not going to post a detailed leveling guide, you can search the forums and find many better ones than I could make. *Edit - Shakes responded to this build and described his leveling process of a cold arcanist that used a maxed OFF from the beginning to kill trash and got TSS to kill bosses. He said it works great and if you really wanted you could level this build like that. I imagine there would be a lag towards the end of normal/veteran and the beginning of elite where OFF damage drops off but… if you feel so inclined 
Gameplay Videos
Ultimate Log Kill
I will record a BoC run a bit later but The Division releases tonight so I am not sure when lol
Thanks for reading