Vitality/Chaos Phantasmal Blades Witch Hunter

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hey greetings!

This is my first build guide. I hope you get some ideas from this guide or try it out complete. Please also give me suggestions on how to change the build. I know it’s not perfect.

Now that we cleared that: This is a witch hunter build focusing on phantasmal blades. I actually started leveling this build long before the changes in the demonslayer set which also is featured in this build. My thoughts at that time were going more to MIs. But then I had another build idea which is why I didn’t play the other further. Then when I saw the most recent changes in the demonslayer set I was hyped again and digged out this toon.

I’m personally pretty satisfied with the results and it’s working really fine (for me). It is 100% viable for Ultimate. I have almost no problems with Valbury and SoT. The ones I have occure when I’m careless. BoC is not that hardly tested out.
Regarding Nemesis: Valdaran is no big deal. Moosilauke might be a bit funny in the second phase, but doable also. Benn Jahr not tested yet and Fabius is not so easy in my opinion.

Okay, how does the Build work?

It’s based on Phantasmal Blades with Frenetic Throw. It’s highly energy consuming.
Starting a battle you want to use Curse of Frailty on the mobs and then spam the shit out of your PB. You might want to buff up before with blood of dreeg for a little extra damage and resistances. I found that Bloodthirster (Haunted Steel) is a great skill for surviving even in bigger crowds. Even with several elite mobs. I also like to have one point in blade trap. Especially while leveling. but even maxed it is nice to hold back some mobs.

Itemization

As for Itemization, I have not yet completely figured out which items may be the best.

This is my setup so far: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZRqb4VD

My Moosilaukes are “of Thorns”. Note that the Rolls can differ. So am I nearly capped in the resistances, besides bleeding which has 44 and aether which has 67. Note that you don’t try to get poison resistance, because you can cap the poison resistances by using the Blood of Dreeg buff.

For the shoulders I think you want “Demonic Moosilauke’s Pauldrons of Solael’s Malice”. Also you want a BoM with +5 on PB. Other arguable items might be the demonleg plates and the golemborn greaves. You might find better green MIs, which I had no luck in so far. I think this way it’s a good cheap way. Also when having the BoM with +5 you might want to use only one Signet of the Fallen. I don’t know yet which I would prefer.

Conclusion

While leveling and maxing out it was a really solid and fun build. It definitely can be improved and I’m especially curious how it will change in the expansion. This build is definitely not overpowered in any way. Unfortunately not nearly :stuck_out_tongue: But on the other hand this way it might not get nerfed too hard. I see much potential for this build looking at devotions and stuff.

Please give me your opinion on this one! :slight_smile: And also please tell me if something regarding the layout of this thread nerves you, so i can improve the next time I post something.

Greetings and have fun with this guy!

Fimbul

2

Couple of things.

Using that ring twice is sort of pointless, you don’t really need the +PB and the vitality debuff does not stack.

Devotion I would remove Scales of Ulcama and take Manticore instead. Put Acid Spray on PB, Wendigo’s Mark on Curse of Frailty. Same (probably better tbh) amount of sustain, much more damage.

3

Having Wendigo’s Mark bound to Phantasmal Blades is just too satisfying because with the 5 or 6 projectiles plus the large chance to pierce through, you just mark all the mobs you attack. The sustain is huge.

4

Yeah well, the thing is you want 26/16 in phantasmal blades and i don’t have the BoM +5 PB yet. so unless i find a BoM i need it for sustaining the dmg.

Regarding Manticore: Yeah i thought about that too, but I fear to get even more squishy. and i can already lower the resistances quite good with the augment and and curse of frailty. but i’ll try it out :slight_smile:

about the ring again: What would you use in exchange?

5

This is my version of this build, it skips Pneumatic Burst to get Blade Spirit and max it. Little weird perhaps but I’m a bit bored with “normal” builds. I also changed a few equipment slots around, nothing major. Still get 26/16 PB with only 14 points invested (in grimtools, hold ctrl+shift to show skill levels without bonuses).

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BqMrNA

CoF is applied to all it’s targets every second, which is hard to believe but even more effective at applying the mark. Certainly easier with just one click and for the duration it takes care of itself.

6

thx for this post, I modified skill tree a lot and followed Avyctes’s devotion tree.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLo0M2G

this is my build.

i wish i have BoM with 5 phantasmal blade

Special thx to Tysar who gave me Demonslayer’s Defense.

7

It’s kind of easy to cap phantasmal blades without BoM. Signet of the Fallen and the final set bonus of Demonslayer gives pluses to phantasmal blades.

8

I do aware of that too, but BoM with 5 Phantasmal Blades looks sexy for me and can save few more skill points.

by the way i got BoM with 3 Phantasmal Blades from some Korean friend.

thx for metioning it.

9

But it’s limited to 1 extra mark per tick. Same thing for skills like War Cry or OFF, they have 100% chance on attack and yet the various no-cooldown devotions only affect one target.

PB hits many targets with a tiny tiny delay between them so I would argue it works better than CoF.

10

can I make my version of the build walkthrough with borrowing aspect for Korean Grim Dawn Community in Naver? I make sure i leave the link