Weapon swapping Stonefist for required spell and ranged bosses gave me 4298 dps boost after ditching savagery for cadence. While the dps is not impressive the weapon can give an additional 500% physical damage boost when it activates. It did shave some time off in chopping down enemies that can’t be skipped. Helped a lot in getting the Slay The Herald of Flame Achievement in Ultimate. However the same weapon swap approach did not work too well…I did die a while ago when trying to go for The Herald of Destruction. That sucked. It was kinda working but I got careless and impatient and did not run away fast enough when the circuit breakers lit up. Crafted some stormshroud ointment for lightning resist for those annoying floating spheres of flesh that spew electricity, I dunno if that’s gonna help since I’m already at 84 lightning resist. Squib’s resist are at 89%. Wow. Perhaps equipping a reflect gear here is not a bad idea? Any vids on how you took out the Herald of Destruction squib?
By the way, I did not completely abandon Menhir’s will, from where I got the additional points to pump up Cadence although it only triggers with 50% health, still works (when I play calm and not in hurry) gives me enough time to escape and full heal. next thing on my to do list is increase health as I’m only at 14k at the moment. There’s an augment to add health but not too sure what options are better, health generation % or the 180 health increase option in the ring and amulet augment?
I don’t play hardcore…yet so I can be a bit reckless and more experimental. For now it’s about gear farming and this warder build is just the guy to do it.
Not a bad call at all! I think the dread armor is a nice upgrade and without 2 piece of the perdition set (for the bonus) I don’t think it’s as good as some of the legendaries. Is this your normal guy or a new hardcore guy?
Actually this is a tough battle with reflect as well. Herald’s resists that are maxed are also the same type of damage he does so reflecting it back isn’t very effective. Guys like this are why I’ve said this build can require patience. This guy and the guy guarding loghorrean’s door on ultimate…they die, but just takes patience. Damaging potions may help if you have the bankroll, procs definitely help, weapon damage helps, just can’t except to kill them as fast as you do everything else in ultimate. Since you’re lined up for farming, this build is great for that, worry free grinding.
I’m hitting and running for cover for the big chuck of rocks when the lightning storm hits is what works on the Herald of Destruction. Was doing it a few minutes earlier then decided to take a break. By the way, if I rift away from the battle to get some rock soup at Devil’s Crossing to restore constitution, would that take away the achievement even if I manage to kill the Herald? I noticed when I rifted back the flesh orbs were gone and the Herald all alone, giving me a clear window to take free hits.
You’ll have to let me know. When I got to him on ult I face tanked the entire time until he was dead. Since he doesn’t move it was actually quite easy. Use autohotkey to macro attack and I went and heated up some real life soup
I took too long in trying to kill the Herald that it moved towards the area where I was taking cover. Suddenly some Aetherial mobs with Aetherial human sell outs with skill disruptors spawned with prevented me from swapping my 2 handed weapon for a shield. Good thing my retaliation dmg was good enough to repel the ones doing kamikaze on me, and fortunately no Flesh Hulks.
I can’t face tank the Herald with 14k health, or maybe I could but I’m doing something wrong. Perhaps slow but sure is safer, with a weak one handed weapon and a shield equipped. I’ll try that. Herald currently at less than 20% health. Me, no more constitution. Rock soup guy won’t give me anymore to replenish.
Okay, break’s over. Face tanking time with finger at the ready on health potion, fortress and overguard at the ready.
Yep I got the Achievement. Cheapo way of rifting to and fro from the battle will get you the achievement.
In the end what worked best is what squib said. Just face tank the darn thing. Didn’t know my guy could until I tried it. Didn’t even need to use any potions nor use fortress for damage absorption. The wendigo totem did it’s job in healing me fast. The lightning storm burst by the Herald was not even an issue.
Normie, not gonna bother with HC even though I haven’t died once on norms, I don’t wanan deal with getting utterly wiped again. Trying to find shoulders/gloves to replace the peridition set, currently using divinesteel shoulderguards but I can’t tell if the retal on them is boosted by stats or fixed, because if it’s fixed I’m gonna consider finding something else for shoulders. and hands are bleh in general to try to find retal on.
I just started grim dawn recently and after trying trying a few characters I decided I knew I wanted to play a reflect character but could not figure out how to build him. This guide has been awsome and has gotten me to halfway on elite mode HC. I do feel like I am starting to get beat up real bad now and I feel like my sustain from passive is not giving me nearly enough regen to tank like it did earlier. My character is about lvl 58, any tips on how to tank better maybe I am not maxing the right skills at this point or something. Also, how exactly does wendigo function? Its description confused me.
Hmm, at lvl 58 it should be pretty decent. What are some of your stats? Armor, resistances, gear, etc?
Wendigo will heal you but you and the enemy need to be fairly close to it. However at max level it’s healing ability is killer! Basically keep yourself and the enemy within the red circle coming out of the wendigo totem and it will heal you every second.
Wow, your replies are crazy fast for the guide maker. Thanks for that.
(just realized I cannot post screenshots because my post count is too low)
My weapon is empowered lightning rod.
my gear is mostly retaliation, with the shield having 45% reflect on it. One item I am using that I do not fully understand how it works is ‘wyrmscale footguards’. When do they proc that massive retaliation damage? whenever I take any fire or lit damage or what? besides that and my really fancy belt I just found theres nothing really of note in my gear. The sword required a disgusting amount of cunning to use, but it is by far the best thing I have seen.
16 menwirs will / 10 military conditioning / 12 field / 8 decorated soldier / 8 scars/ 12 menwirs bulwark / 10 heart of wild / 10 oak skin /3 totem. everything else is 1 pointed.
should i prioritize health over resists or vice versa? Ive been prioritizing relation>resists>health but even that I feel like my resists are lacking even though I just massively improved them.
When you get hit by fire or lightning type of damage you get a shield that protects against fire/lightning till you take 4000 damage of that type. I dont have the boots so i’m not sure if retaliation part is always on or only when shield is up
I would prioritize resists over hp as you are. At this point I’d max out wendigo totem even if you need to steel points from a few points across the board. Basically, cast the totem near you and let the enemies come. You would be surprised how useful it to keep your health full. When you hit lvl 70 it should be easy to max resists because you can finally use the armor augments. Your boots, according to the text, should proc once every 20 seconds when hit. However, I’m not sure if the mechanics would have everyone take that damage when you are hit or if that’s just once from the enemy that triggers it in the first place. If you watch your character tab 3 see of those fire/lightning retaliation stats show up in your retaliation damage list when the boots proc. If they do than the retaliation is constant while active, if it doesn’t show up than the retaliation is only on triggering.
Hello! Thanks for the in-depth guide. I have a question, it seems you have some skills that aren’t really necessary like Blitz, Savagery, grasping vines, and entangling vines. It seems the rest of the skills are required to maximize your retaliation, resist, and hit points. Is that right? I am trying to find a better way at tackling damaging bosses who frequently attack with range or other special skills and not trigger retaliate so much…
Thanks again Squib for the build blueprint. I so do not regret going this route. Knowing what kind of gear to look out for from the very beginning made this build fairly easy to make with the right amount of time and dedication.
My retaliation/Reflect Warder just took out The Actually Final Form of J.B. lol
I got to the secret area and was able to tank out the clones.
Got the Gazer armor! Man, I don’t understand why some people say it’s junk?
I always wondered how it would be like to have 300 constitution bonus. With the Gazer armor on that’s just what happened.
The step-by-step guide is done! (though I’ll refine it a bit with some time.) See post #2 for the completed guide. I would have had this out sooner but it takes time away from playing lol
LOL nice! And grats on the completion! Gazer Armor ftw! Hmm, could we tank Loghorrean wearing Gazer armor…tempting lol. We could hit and run with all that constitution though
Actually I’m working on a guide to explain all this (just posted what I’ve done so far on the first page). The skills like blitz, vines, savagery are for devotion procs. Ones that activate on attack. Vines slows mobs down, and blitz is so I can plow as it pushes past enemies and lets me get quickly to the heart of the mob.
Ranged is tougher, reflect gear and procs from gear/devotions are your best bet, well and of course direct weapon damage. Fortunately 80% of the enemies are melee or have a melee attack when you get close. For reflect in action vs range/casters see my video on OP.
