So I decided I wanted to try to make as tanky a character as possible and it seems like the “sword and board” warder seems to fit that bill. My issue is that he seems to be the slowest character I’ve played in terms of everything. At low levels he has no movement boost and he takes forever to kill bosses and mini bosses. I am sure he will be great when he gets some levels under his belt but so far it is like banging my head against a wall and is not proving to be very fun. Anyone have any ideas how to make this leveling process more enjoyable?
Unless you’re dead set on leveling with something as close as possible to your final build, I’d drop the shield for the time being and level with a 2-hander and Blade Arc, or transmuted Force Wave or Primal Strike until you start having trouble with survival and then switch to shield build.
Building tanky before ultimate is a waste of time imo since nothing should be able to kill you and you’ll just end up bored before even reaching that point.
10characters
At least Retaliation pops aggressors.
Primal Strike is moot, unless ranged.
And even then it is… mute.
I went more something like this:
http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-T0hzaP
using blitz to move around. This build is almost pure soldier.
At low level Devouring Swarm (and Wendigo Totem) on the shaman line can go a long way in making stuff a lot faster (I’m leveling a retaliation guy and he is starting to slow now at lvl 32 but the character is 100% impossible to kill).
Max Cadence, Deadly Momentum and Menhir’s Bulwark as soon as possible (dont pic shaman mastery even).
Or use Blade Arc + 2-hander while leveling.
And thouh Warder is indeed a bit tankier, his DPS in endgame will be far behind Witchblade, for example.
@to the OP, it doesnt help much for leveling phase but this is something you can aim for an endgame warder:
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52646
Since warder cant compete on the physical damage aspect from witchblade/commando, a bleed build is definitely a decent option. 