Shoutout to fluff for helping me out with the theorycrafting process. Ditto for all the others who have made this game so special to me.
Preface
The blood knight set is arguably one of the most versatile sets around as proven by Tz tz. I just find it strange that a vit-cadence variant has yet to be done.
Offense
Unbuffed/unbannered Sheet DPS of 153k with Dying God up
200% Attack speed
-111% RR
50% WPS chance
85% phys --> vit conversion
Low OA of 2.9k
NOTE: Fluff pointed out to me that taking Markovianâs advantage and Zolhanâs results in an overall DPS loss due to their slow attack animation lowering cadence uptime.
Defence
3050 DA, 16k hp, overcapped resists
2500 armor, 100% absorption, 19% phys res
15% ADCTH
4 circuit breakers
This is the primary reason why this bloodknight is SO tanky:
a. Bloodthirster: 26s CD - 8s duration = 18s downtime
b. 6/10 MoT: (18s CD * 92% after CDR) - 4.6s duration = 12s downtime
c. Ghoul: (30s CD * 92%) - 6s duration = 21.6s downtime
d. Menhirâs Will: 20.2s downtime
Total duration of âinvulnerbilityâ: 8s Bloodthirster + 6s Ghoul + 4.6s MoT = 18.6 seconds.
Since this total duration exceeds the downtime of both Bloodthirster and MoT, we can keep this chaining process going for perpetuity, with Menhirâs will as a nice failsafe.
Devotion pathing
Green crossroad --> Hawk, Spider --> Spec out of crossroad
Purple and blue crossroad --> Ghoul, Viper, Eel, Kraken, Solemn watchtower
Yellow crossroad --> Lion
Manticore, Rattosh the veilwarden, 6 nodes into DG, 1st node of Ultos.
Cheaper/Viable gear alternatives
Gloves: Iceskorn talons
Rings: Cursebearer
Medal: Mark of the Dreadblade
Weapon: Prioritize affixes in this order - (i) Phys to Vitality conversion, (ii) Attack speed.
Levelling
Physical forcewave spam with spectral wrath.
Blood Knight is slowly becoming the Justicar of Vit builds. Top tier for the build itâs intended for, High tier for the rest of the builds it can be used.
Was a bit surprised that the build doesnât have Bat. Tried to shuffle devos a bit, ended up getting something with better damage but OA/DA sucks. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62awM8mZ
e: have you tested 12/12 Fighting form? Looks good for cruci cause thereâs always hordes. Take points from maybe Necrotic Edge (also curious how this performs with just 1 WPS)
I havenât tried 12/12 fighting form actually. I usually donât, but thatâs more out of habit than reason.
Where would you get the points from?
As for bat: I use it initially, but quickly realized it was a negligible source of sustain given that I have haunted steel and reaping strike as it is. The OA/DA boost feels a lot better in practice.
Just saw your thing on necrotic edge. Yeah, Iâll do a quick run later and we can see how it goes. Necrotic edge is kinda annoying anyway. But a 5 skill point investment into Fighting Form only increases the âmaximum targetâ from 2 to 3. You reckon thatâs worth it?
Why Spectral Wrath at 10/10? after 8 it starts to give only 1% per level so i tend to either stop at 8 or go as high as i can depending on how much spare skill points i have.
The other one iâm intrested about is Ill Omen over Ravenous Earth.
I donât really play cruci so i might underestimate the value of omen spreading through the whole arena with one cast but i think REâs universal damage reduction and better devotion proccing capabilities on single/fewer targets is superior.
I might be wrong because of cruci having different needs than main game as i said before.
So unless you are fond of ill omen you can try to skip it, pull down spectral wrath to 8 and squeeze 1 extra skill point from somewhere to get 1pt RE with 12/12 decay.
For main game it would be hands down better, iâm not sure about cruci (to say the least).
Is GDstash like an external shared stash like GoMule/PlugY for Diablo II?
I get quite many nice Spectral War Shields and Ectoplasm from Ark Undercity, and Kilrianâs souls from the final boss there. But I have not yet seen a single highest tier spectral warmaul in Ultimate⌠the one I have now I actually bought from the vendor in Steps of Torment, in elite. It had good stats on it, including some nice attack speed so it was worth the 190k iron bits at that stage. But in Ultimate, that vendor just sold second highest tier spectral warmaulsâŚ
Itâs not âsupportedâ but itâs not banned either. However, it is common courtesy that items gotten through GDStash (or any other cheats/3rd party programs) shouldnât be used in multiplayer or be traded to other players because that just ruins their game. So something like you can cheat but keep it to your own game.
And yes, the highest tier MIs can drop in Elite. Easier to farm at the cost of lower droprate, still worth it for weaker characters.
So the forum at the official site of a game does not ban (which in my ears is the same is supporting) cheating? Well I might consider asking for a refund from crate then. Why do people cheat in these kind of games, I really donât get itâŚ
I guess 95% of all the build guides here are made with that tool in purpose of e-peen growth?
Say I want to farm this https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8772 wonât the monsters have to be level 94 or higher to drop this? Where in elite can you find haunted champions with that level?
depends on how you define it, but for me (and Crate, I guess) supporting is not the same as being neutral and just letting the users decide on whether they should use it or not. Supporting is when Zantai himself just barges in on farming help threads and says âhey just use gdstashâ.
I canât speak for others on why they âcheatâ (this is the last time Iâm using this word in this thread) but for me, itâs basically for me to have as much room on theorycrafting as the game allows. When youâve played a lot of builds to ultimate, some to crucible, levelling, hell even most of vanilla ultimate becomes boring. But a new kind of game opens up in the name of Grimtools. Basically what I (and most builders, Gdstasher or not) do is open Grimtools, think of a concept and come up with a build. With the experience accumulated from hundreds of hours of gameplay, I can already tell whether a build can perform well in any part of the game (except mog and ravager) with relatively high accuracy, so I try some different item and skills combinations until I come up with something I like to test in the game. Now some classes/builds are just too item dependent and will require a lot of MIs to work. I may or may not have those things in my legit chars but one thing ia for sure: it is a hassle to manage inventories when you already have a lot of things. And I get bored easily so sorting everything just wonât work. GDstash is the easiest path for me. Doesnât mean I canât play legit. I already posted 3 builds here without GDstash and two of those turn out to be my favorites (stun jacks sorc, bleed witchblade, bwc sorc).
I guess 95% of all the build guides here are made with that tool in purpose of e-peen growth?
Now this is the biggest misunderstanding that people have with regards to builders. The only builder I know that posts GDstash builds other than me is sir spanksalot. And the purpose of doing this is to just present a concept that will work, as a product of the âGrimtools gameâ I mentioned above. Saying that a majority of builds here use fabricated items is an insult to Fluff, Chthon, Ptiro, madlee, and many others who post legit builds that are strong. Remember, not because you see double rare MIs mean that the build is not legit, and aside from a few others, those greens arenât even needed. Iâd say the amount of GDstashed builds in this forum is closer to 15%.
Say I want to farm this https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8772 wonât the monsters have to be level 94 or higher to drop this? Where in elite can you find haunted champions with that level?
Idk about SoT scaling in Elite but try in Tomb of Herald Mathis (that one tomb south of the malmouth camp). Level 94 items drop from level 84 and above enemies, so thatâs the level you need to look for. If you find the SoT enemies in elite scaling to that level then itâs better there cause Ilgorr drops that mace too.
If you already after ~3 years have done all legit builds in the game, isnât it time to move on to another game? I come from a Diablo II community where people still are not done with their legit goals (like untwinked 99ers, holy grails, stupid builds, and what not).
Thanks for the tips anyway, I will checkout SoT and Tomb of Herald Mathis on Elite then. Getting a weapon upgrade will still just increase overall dmg for me of the order of 10%, so overall I think I would be better off starting a new build and take that one as far as I can and then progress from there. I always give advice on new/returning Diablo II players that grinding for gear is not the first think one should have in mind, so I should probably practice what I teach
