Your build looks fun, but unfortunately for non maxed players (like me) looking to try some builds it’s very difficult to figure what progression to take skills and devotions while getting to 85. Lots of great gear pictures which unfortunately mean very little to newer players. Any breakdown you could give would be appreciated, but of course I understand that is a lot of extra work. The most popular guides (i.e. Pokemon, Ultimate Blademaster etc)) are the ones that allow newer players easier entry into builds by giving some guidance on what they did as they progressed. I can’t put in the time it takes to go through all the theorycrafting etc due to RL stuff Read:time), so I am attracted to guides that offer easy entry as a new/found item guy. Just my 2 cents from a noober
Thanks for listening
Whose build? Mine or this retaliation build in general? Just download my char above (put it in My Docs > Grim Dawn > Save > Main) and you can try to figure out progression on your own. The idea here–why I’m sharing it–is to give people some sort of plan (I give you the blue prints, and you build, you know what I mean?) of how to build (it would also help if you read what others have said about progression). Of course it’s a LOT of hours to acquire all this equip, so I took several short-cuts (like taking a blank char and molding it to my specifications). It’s not difficult to figure out progression, either. You can go with pets, you can go with spells, it doesn’t matter how you do it. You need to have certain equipment to make it work, and once you have the retaliation equipment needed and the items with the appropriate attributes (e.g., you want stuff that has regeneration and stuff that will keep you alive), you’re pretty much set.
Base regen vs % regen comes down to which you have more of. If you have a high percentile already than you’ll want more base regen from mog’s pact. If you have decent base but low % than you’ll want to increase percentage. Because it’s a modifier of savagery you may find it’s most effective only when you’re attacking.
This build is less gear dependent than most other builds as it offers much more leeway since it’s tailored to survivability. Therefore you have a lot more freedom to play around until you get into ultimate. As you are leveling you can basically follow the skill set/devotions pictured on the op and just ensure you don’t assign points into things like the mastery bar that you may regret later since you cannot capture those points back. The points have no particular required order for this build to work as it’s not as touchy as other builds. Honestly if you leveled your mastery bars to their proper place and then evenly dispersed the points in the skills leveling them all up at the same time you’d be good to go. As I was leveling I quickly realized that survivability came easy in normal and elite so I put more points heavily into the skills that offered retaliation (oak skin, menhir’s bulwark) and for devotion points I focused more on retaliation as well. By the time you finish elite you should be level 75ish anyways and have plenty of points to pretty much have everything as you see it in the pictures and on the grimcalc.
Nice! I have a ton of hours in (1000+ I think) and I’ve only ever seen two of these drop so nice find! That belt though, the thorn girdle…I must have a dozen of those in my inventory. That’s definitely the legendary I find the most.
Thanks I’ll perhaps try it. BTW the Grimclac shows skills with item/equipment skill bonuses (in blue) so no idea what actual points are.
After calculations and observing acid/poison changes through items swaps, I decided to drop Perdition down to one item, ,empowered gloves of perdition, reason being is 2 items is only about 800 more poison/acid damage, I took off the helm for Terror of the Grove which adds a nice 40% retaliation damage from all sources.
Hi! This build looks great, but from first couple of pages of discussion i get that it’s possible to create something similar with different classes at cost of some survivalbility?
But sadly no specific builds were given, so is there any other reflective builds that are more damaging, or at least have some “nuke” skill for casters\ranged (like, f.e. Doombolt, or some DOT skill, maybe?) in trade for health as i don’t play HC and don’t mind dying.
This is my first post in the forum. Just wanted to give a big thank you to squib for getting me far in the game. I’m now at level 85 Ultimate. So far my retaliatory damage is decent thanks in large to the Final Stop Shield and 3 Empowered Perdition armor. I bought a set of Elite Harvest Handgaurds for an additonal 332% retaliation damage but it has never triggered for me, the chance for it to activate at 10% is low. Could that be the reason? Does this happen on the empowered version as well?
Reflect is too weak, the mob(especially hero/boss) hp and mob damage are miles apart, the only reason to use reflect is to kill mandatory enemies to progress through the game. Reflect will never be made good enough to maintain balance
Giving this a shot, i started in HC and i’m only level 24 atm, not a huge player here. levelled using summon briathorn until i got some retaliation/reflect gear and i respecced into wendigo totem at that time. As far as i saw, as a noob at this game, retaliation is “thorns” suffix on rares, the other retaliation is on green items. Atm i have 2 reflect gear pieces and 4 retaliation, i will gain another 3 with levl 25, life pool and resist are the easier to gear compared to the other builds i tried, so far definitely worthed. Any hint on faction gear maybe? since i don’t have any piece of the perdition set you mention and i like grinding/learning more than taking a savefile.
You do get more flexibility if you don’t mind dying. Alot actually. If you’re not playing hardcore and don’t mind having some deaths on the record I would say your entire devotion tree could be changed to things that aren’t as focused on survivability. This character is tanky enough to clear ultimate without assigning a single devotion point (with some risk of dying in some circumstances, i.e. lots of poison damage if you have low poison resist, etc.) but general mobs shouldn’t be a problem. Hmm, nuke skill… this would be tough as if you’re focusing on retaliation/reflect it’s hard to get enough damage out of any skill to mean something in ultimate. Fortunately 80% of all enemies are melee or at least have a melee attack so retal is sufficient. Reflect works decently vs ranged, but as Dekaron stated, they have to keep it underpowered or everyone would be pimped out in reflect gear all the time.
Glad you’re digging the build! On the elite harvest handguards, % to activate on those does not show up in your stats page but it does activate. Because it’s activation is per attack and offers no lasting buff it never registers on the stats page but I did test this and saw it activate when I compared the damage output with them on vs when they were not on.
First of all, respect for grinding vs savefile acquisition. There is actually quite a bit of retaliation gear with the factions. Multiple factions have gear with it but I found kymon’s chosen to be the strongest supporter (I’m wearing two piece from it still). Apart from gear, devotions and skills offer a ton in retaliation as well. There are a surprising amount of valuable green items in the game that offer both retal and reflect so I never sell a piece without at least briefly looking it over.
You say reflect is weak (and I agree), but what about in PvP? Reflect would probably be quite strong. Reflect needs to be over 100% to really do any damage to monsters. I think if there were scaling (player vs monsters), it may work (that way it won’t be too OP).
I’m level 41 on Veteran and having trouble. The biggest problem is that non-melee bosses take FOREVER to kill, and some bosses I simply can’t kill because they outheal me (like Master Ravok, and I’m not even sure what he’s healing with). I somehow managed to kill Bolvar, but it took over a half hour! Any suggestions? Ugh, apparently I can’t post a link to my tree yet since I’m a new forum member, but I can tell you I have 3 of the Perdition set pieces for gear.
Through normal veteran there is nothing wrong with applying a few points to an attack skill but after normal re-assign these back to retaliation. In normal you can flat out attack 'em to kill em in addition to your retaliation damage. To handle ranged/casters reflect gear should do the trick. On the original post I have a video showing the reflect gear I had at the time. I keep that on hand when I’m heading for a ranged/caster boss and that time is significantly cut down. However, like I said, on normal, through a few points in savagery and then near end game on veteran reassign them to the more important skills for this build that have to do with retaliation and survivability. Retaliation is great vs melee but reflect is the defense vs ranged & casters. If you read through some of the previous posts there are some other ways to take out casters through devotions, procs, etc.
What are your thoughts on vitality retaliation? I found a couple of green lvl 85 Spectral War Shield of the Badger that does 302 vitality retaliation damage. I kept it in my shared stash just in case I come across gear that might complement it with future character builds I may just make with vitality being the main damage output.
Also, I’m thinking of dropping points from Menhir’s will and respecting it to savagery to compensate for the “legendary” battles I have to deal with spell casters-ranged bosses and sub bosses. At this point Wendigo totem heals me for 940 hp (not as good as yours at 2k) but I think that might resolve the incredible patience that’s required to eliminate some enemies. Besides I have a new circuit breaker, I found an awesome amulet.
Avatar of Mercy
40% Elemental Resistance
40% Vitality Resistance
35% Reduced Stun Duration
35% Reduced Petrify Duration
35% Reduced Freeze Duration
+4% Maximum in ALL resistances - Yay!
+40 Defensive Ability
Grants Skill: Mercy (Level 1)
In your darkest moment, mercy from the gods.
30% Damage Absorption
50% Reduced Stun Duration
50% Reduced Petrify Duration
50% Reduced Freeze Duration
50% Health Restored
5 Second Duration
40 Seconds Skill Recharge - the recharge rate drawback
Decisions…Decisons that’s 40% of the game for me. Sometimes I take longer in making what I deem is the right choice when equipping gear than actual game play.
Okay, I just tried respecting some points from Menhir’s Will to savagery while doing so I realized I will not get the results I want. Man, how do we increase weapon damage dps with our warder build? Is there a sweet spot where a warder build like ours can sufficiently take out non melee? I’m too in love with max retaliation I can’t let go of it. Hahahaha!
I think one way of shaving some time in disposing non melee bosses is to weapon swap a two handed weapon like the stone fist of rebuke which also adds 2 points in soldier.
I used Stonefist too in Elite
Amulet is the most valuable slot in this game in my opinion. That is a great amulet! However, one nice thing about this build is that there is a circuit breaker built into the skill set. I think using this as your circuit breaker and freeing up those points is a good call. I would have done the same if I didn’t have a good retaliation amulet. That said, should you ever find a good retaliation amulet or maybe one that gives you +1 to all skills, (I have a blue amulet in my reflect gear video that has 28% reflect and it does +1 to all skills, plus you can craft it if you have the blueprint) then you may want to put points back into menhir’s will and swap out the mercy amulet.
Stonefist is a good choice. Menhir’s will activates off of 2 handers or shields so you are safe there. I’d keep this along with a weapon/shield combo on weapon swap in case you come across some hard hitters and need that shield block reduction. I have a circuit breaker shield called meat wall that I use on another character to weapon swap and it heals me instantly on switch if my health is under 50%, then I just switch back to my 2 handed weapon (which on that guy is also stonefist rebuke).
I decided not to stay with Perdition, instead of your empowered armor, I just luckily managed to drop Dread Armor of Azragor which made my damage spike almost 20k, just need thornhide legs and thorn girdle of mistyglade and I’ll be set for the rest of the game.