Maw of the Damned
Meat Shield
Gravetouch
Markovian’s Bulwark
Spellscourge Bulwark
Virtue’s Defender
Wrathguard
Give these shields 8% phys resi.
IMO, non-retaliation shields are useless in most cases, but their lack of physical immunity furthers that.
I don’t really like this suggestion, as someone who has a functioning build with the weapon. (It was the build I used primarily to test Vitality against the new roguelike!)
While my build is a Ritualist, you’ll run into a similar issue with a lower cooldown on the skill: not enough energy upkeep. CoP won’t sustain you enough for a 1.0/1.5s CD Bone Harvest after several casts and you may well go dry on Energy between potions. Even with Mog Pact and considerable +Shaman, my build can barely go from one mobpack to another with 2s BH and auxiliary skills between Energy Potions.
Furthermore, I’m not sure I understand @adoomgod’s point about 300% WD “giving you enough lifesteal as it is.” ADCTH does not scale above 100% efficiency, and while my build does boast a solid 39% ADCTH globally, the additional 8% is noticeable enough and helps the 20k-HP character survive from burst to burst, which both Shamans and Oathkeepers are inherently prone to endure. (though Oathkeepers are aided with Resilience)
The weapon is currently perfectly functional and not in dire need of improvement. Having said that, if it were to get a buff, trading flat Health for flat DA would be ideal both for Oathkeepers (who have no DA outside Resilience/Consecration) and Shamans (who have none outside TotB).
My point with the lifesteal is not that it scales with the 300% WD -.-, it’s that 300% WD is a lot of damage and thus 100% of your lifesteal is going to be plenty of burst heal by itself. Is that not clear? Attacks with a ton of %WD tend to hit hard, which means if you have any decent amount of lifesteal (vit builds tend to) then it’s a lot of healing.
As for perfectly functional and not in need of improvement, can you just share your build? When I made the suggestion on Discord I didn’t share it on the forum for a reason… @Maska322 I meant to just suggest the change you want… not friggen quote me as if I was claiming to be super knowledgeable about the item. Jesus.
If you like a suggestion for an item change say why for yourself. If I don’t personally post on the item with my thoughts here it’s because I felt my suggestion was too casual for me to put my own weight behind it. If you felt it’d help your build you could post your build and why you think it’d help…
All that being said, casting Bone Harvest more frequently would be burst healing more often as opposed to bigger burst healing less often, and make Vit Bone Harvest more of a main source for the build. DA instead of health on the item would be nice too.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYXzbJZ
Greens are excessive and by no means mandatory. The resists on the legs can be spread throughout the rings/boots without much damage/tankiness loss. I’ll also edit the above link into my first post.
Edit: In hindsight, the build definitely doesn’t need so much Oak Skin (old habits die hard…) and BH is overcapped by a point. Woops.
Edit 2:
While this isn’t inherently false, it does become untrue as soon as you run out of Energy. 
I certainly didn’t consider the energy probs, because I was just making a cursory thought at the item after trying just his one build out with it. I like your Ritualist. Maybe the item’s fine. shrug Though more in mog pact might help but you’d have to make sacrifices ofc
I am sorry, I couldn’t just walk past it. But why do you even use Savagery on your build, when you don’t convert any of the Lightning damage to Vitality? Your weapon damage is abysmally low for any meaningful melee two-handed action. Also even though you used twenty fantasy greens your total Vitality damage is still 1463%, smh.
I would recommend dropping this melee nonsense, and playing it as a caster (with Vitality belt and medal), it would be infinitely better, I guarantee.
To stay on topic, this green weapon could indeed use a flat CDR roll instead of adtch mod.
Or, OR, it could use Lightning to Vitality damage rolls so players can finally play a semi-proper melee Vitality Ritualist.
I feel like that would make it too strong. If they could lower the %WD penalty by 25% it’d be perfect imo.
Did you try using arcane spark?
You should have 0 energy problems with it
@ceno: Didn’t bother fixing things too much, but try this intead - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZw4MXqN
EDIT: If energy is still PiTA, girdle of stolen dreams should fix everything
You completely missed the point. Ceno referred to it as a “functional” build that he used to test the roguelike, nowhere did he imply it was optimal. It looks like a build that can comfortably complete content on Ultimate, meaning that it meets the purpose for which he played it (testing the roguelike). Nothing’s more obnoxious than unsolicited feedback.
Since we have totally normal shield, can we also have bare hands like weapon?
I just hate when i play full caster and by casting spell there’s weird animation that makes weapons / offhands dissapear for second.
Or maybe make invisible illusions, more freedom in weapon illusions?
Thanks for the advice which I didn’t ask for.
For the same reason you use it on every Cadence Warder, untransmuted PS Druid/Ritualist/Conjurer, etc. - OA, DA, Slow Resist, Phys Resist, and a means to proc Devo’s between casts of a CD skill.
(Edit: Also because it’s a DPS upgrade over regular autos with or without Lightning Conversion or high Weapon Damage, and the build isn’t exactly point starved)
I’m surprised I have to spell such a thing out to an esteemed elite builder such as yourself.
PREFACE: As always ceno, I’m not trying to disparage you because I do value your insight. I’m merely voicing my disagreement here.
I wonder if this is a reply aimed at me.
If so, I’d just like to say that I wasn’t trying to give advice so much so as to refute your claim that a -Xs CDR mod to BH on that MI is irrelevant due to a lack of energy sustain.
Because it really isn’t.
If anything, it’ll be a buff to energy sustain as you’ll be able to leech more frequently.
I’ll attempt to summarize the suggestions for 1H BA raised by those who participated in this thread.
Overwhelmingly, the response seems aimed at improving the damage output of S&B BA specs. This can be done by:
Increasing the flat damage on laceration (@Stupid_Dragon), while simultaneously lowering the %WD value on gutsmasher to prevent overbuffing 2H BA. Admittedly, care must be taken to likewise ensure that 2H pierce BA does not become OP.
Adding a 1H transmutor to BA which gives BA an AS bonus, and which adds shield damage to the MH damage. (Note: This damage is meant to be added atop the MH damage, and not alongside it so as to bypass the problem posited by enemy armor)
IMO, it seems that more were in favor of suggestion #2.
It isn’t as aimed at you as it was to another, but in general, discussion of builds posted in this thread isn’t especially relevant to the thread itself. See also: Rhylthar’s Bleeding Cadence discussion which got shafted elsewhere.
Frankly, the whole discussion of MIs isn’t relevant to this thread either.
My comment was meant to start and end in response to Maska’s comment under the purview of the bolded bullet point. If you agree with Maska’s suggestion and disagree with mine, you needn’t critique my build to get your point of view across. Responding to Maska’s suggestion under the purview of the italicized bullet point is all that’s really necessary. Otherwise, we get into extended (potentially heated) arguments over “your build is garbage because X” that doesn’t really do anything for anyone.
All that being said, this comment isn’t super-true because even without CDR mods BH still has 100% uptime on Arcane Spark leech. So you have fringe cases where it’s true vs mobs, but not so much applicable with bosses as the effect does not stack with itself.
How dare you throw me under the bus
I’d like to say that I am extremely grateful that Crate and team is going through the effort to listen to itemization discussions. It really helps put a spotlight on items that just outright don’t make sense and helps to bring real diversity.
I haven’t played this game since 1.1.2? but from a pet player’s point of view, the fundamental problem of pet builds is still present: pet builds that don’t rely on sets are boned. I’ve searched through the forums of any pet builds being posted, and I have not seen a single pet build that wasn’t beastcaller’s set, ghol’s set, or birbs set. My major theory as to why this is the case is that unless you can somehow keep Skeleton’s alive, there simply aren’t enough bodies to both block swarming enemies and provide the AoE necessary to prevent the swarm from massacring the player.
Sigatrev made the point soundly: pet builds need a ton of skill points and there simply aren’t enough equipment pieces that grant the necessary skill points while giving pets and the player the defenses they need to survive. Some points of order: Shaman’s Oak Skin scales wonderfully after 10/10 and provides pets much needed Pierce Resistance, and yet there’s not a single item in the game that provides Oak Skin and pet bonuses. There is only one pet off-hand that provides +1 to Shaman skills and it gives no resistances to the player and no damage bonus for pets. Belts that provide pet bonuses? lolno bonuses to Shaman, and so on and so forth. I could go on about this point, but I want to focus on items I am trying for pets:
Bleeding Pets without Beastcaller Set: I haven’t tried out the new devotion set-up yet, but you would think that between -82% Physical RR, -130% Vitality RR, and -162% Bleeding RR, Conjure Primal Spirit would rip through everything, but I’m dying well before enemies do. I’d love to get around 2,000 Armor to better take Physical hits, but outside of pet sets, there’s not much heavy armor I can take without sacrificing DA or necessary pet skills. We have Elite Wendigo Spellweaver which could give points in Conjure Primal Spirit, but there’s no offensive pet stats at all - why is this thing giving 5% Defensive Ability but not 5% offensive ability? Items like Overlord’s Grip and Wildshorn Leggings don’t really have much place, but they’re the only items that give healthy DA and Stun Resistance, so I really have no options. It doesn’t help that pet builds are very gimped by Slow effects since we have a hard enough time accounting for defenses, pet stats, +skills and pet defenses without even beginning to think of things like CC resistance.
As an aside, I’d love to have an item that gives an extra Wendigo Totem so that Wendigo Totem + Blood Pact would be useful on pet builds (I haven’t seen many Blood Pact builds be used, period), but it’d have to conflict with Dark One’s Set so that you don’t reach uber levels of borked.
Mythical Fiendgaze Tome: It’s a shame that there aren’t any real Chaos pet builds outside of Witching Hour, because there are a lot of very neat items that end up being trashed by lack of support. First is getting Reap Spirit up to 23/16: we have Clairvoyant’s Set, which oh so conveniently converts 50% of Chaos Damage to Aether, nuking the reason for this tome in the first place. The Reap Spirit gloves conflict with Bonescavenger Gloves, which is ironic as Reap Spirit is one of the only pet abilities that can actually kill enemies to summon the Spirits. Reap Spirit boots give no offensive bonuses, and you removed the Chaos damage bonus from Shadowfiend’s Cord, wtf? As for who to pair the very unsupported Chaos Necromancer, you have the Cabalist which has Possession and Hellhound for Chaos damage, and can use the Black Scourge mace to summon more things on death. The problem? Absolutely no RR. On the other hand, you have Defiler who does have Chaos RR and Mythical Dracarris to give Chaos synergy to you and your pets. The problem? There’s nothing in the Demo class that gives Chaos damage bonuses, so your offenses are pathetic. I’d love to see a Chaos Reap Spirit build work, but it would likely need an amulet with +points to Reap Spirit and Chaos RR to Ill Omen, the Dracarris blade to have as much Chaos damage as the Fire damage, a medal that gives modifer that gives Chaos bonus to Call of the Grave, and much, much more.
It really sucks that pet builds are so reliant on sets to even function. The only thing that could possibly make it so that non-set pet builds are viable is if Grim Dawn takes the Titan Quest route and makes it so that you have 2 Briarthorns / Hellhounds / Birbs at 20/16 and increase their size/threat/internal resistances at overcap so that it’s worth taking the skills to 26/16. Hellhound is the absolute worst end-game skill and outside the sets, the itemization and modifiers do not provide unique build ideas nearly as much as the non-pet skills. I have my thoughts on other pet items, but without any coherent possible build ideas, it’s impossible to think of ways to fix the itemization.
I suggest rebuilding Chillwisper as below to make it better with Cold DE Reaper.
Radaggan’s Folly: the Necro’s part seems really hilarious so I suggest remaking it to support acid Drain Essence with aether->acid conversion.
