Warlord build for HC?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi, I was looking into a tanky Warlord build for Hardcore. Was checking out the Octavius build, but that got nerfed into the ground.

Anyone have a viable Warlord build for HC? The tankier the better!

Thank you

2

Dude Warlord is just born to serve in HC conditions.Retaliation,Octavius,Forcewave,Cadence-all are pretty great.

3

Even after all the nerfs? I heard retal’s and octavius got their damage halved.

4

For HC is important not to die.Even after the nerfs defensively nothing beats Warlord.My second class choice will be Paladin.

5

Thats a great point, I’ll give it a shot. Thanks

6

I play only hardcore. As mentioned above, Warlord was made for us dude. Even after the nerfs, my (by far) best combinations of tankiness/dps builds are:

  1. Octavius. I looked at the King Octavius build in the Forgotten Gods builds sticky, then made a few changes where appropriate for HC.
    gt: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4NOk0pvN

  2. Stoneguard Physical retal: I just got this guy to 100 and have only done 15 levels of SR so far, but he’s looking pretty nice. Super tanky, solid dps, smooth gameplay. Like the Octavius build above, I looked at the FG builds sticky, then made a few changes for HC and b/c of gear I don’t have yet.
    https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV1bqJmZ

fyi: I completely reset game for FG launch, so I’m missing some important items still. I don’t have serenity, mythical zolhans revenge, mythical markovians stratagem, or Judicator’s Seal set, to name a few that I’d like to have. I’ve kind of had to scramble on some pieces here and there to make builds work.

If you’re not pushing for higher SR or 170 crucible though, builds kind of open up for us. For speed farming nemesis or farming crafting mats, I like dervish or blademaster. My bm died a few weeks ago, but here’s my dervish:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2gl1vgV

7

Hey Guys, iam pretty new to GD.
I played Diablo 2 Classic Hardcore for Years and GD is my first ARPG after D2 which i realy enjoy and iam already in love with it.

So iam on my first Playthrough of the Game with my Soldier on Veteran Hardcore, mainly using Forcewave.
Iam lvl44 pure Soldier and found my first Legendary (I realy love the low droprates so far, you can work with green/blue Items so well that legendary drops realy feel special but not needed).

So when i look at these complete level 100 Warlord Builds i have some questions.

  1. In which order do you level most Skills?

Iam pretty much done with Forcewave/Olerons and working on the survival/support skills.
Iam still using a 2H Weapon.
So when would be a good time to pushing some levels in the Oathkeeper line?

I realy enjoy trying out stuff, so i dont need the perfect way to how to spent every single Point, just a little guidance for my first run.

  1. Devotions

Jeez this is pretty much the worst and the best thing in GD so far.
I spent Hours testing Devotions or reading what they do.
Then i found some i would realy like to take, but it would take me another 2 Hours to find out how to reach them. ^^

So what is a solid way/order of picking up Devotions for the Warlord Forcewall/Aegis?

  1. Items

Its my first run so i dont have top tier items.
How does that change the Skill/Devotion progress?
Can i just go straight and replace crap items with better stuff on the fly, or should i rather use other Skills/Devotions untill i have the full Gear?

  1. HC Mode

So its pretty nice to play GD blind in HC Mode from the beginning.
Sure Nomral/Veteran isnt where the real show starts, but i had some close calls already.
Like panic running throught deadly Aether Mist in the Conflagration (it would sucked hard when my first death would be thanks to the Envoirement insted of an epic Bossfight).

So are there some Areas/Bosses where a new HC Player should be realy realy carefull or better completely avoid it?
I was reading about a deflection skill on some bosses, after that i took out all the bleed damage from Forcewave, because he said it could deflect and insta kill me.

Sorry for the Textwall but iam so into GD right now i wanne do/ask/read/watch/play/try everything at the same time.
But i would realy appreciate some Tipps from the GD HC Veterans.
Have a good day.

8

1.You work yourself to rending force maybe and the reach the end of OK bar,max Celestial presence.Or reach War cry and then.Put points early on in Menhir will.

2.Devotions,offensive option is to go to Azraaka or Oleron,defensive to Empyrion.Ulzaad is so nice and ofc Assassins’ blade is must.

3.S&B is safer for Hardcore than 2h.If you’re new player without items is tougher in HC.I suggest to try more dungeons and treasure trove items to update your items every few levels.

4.For HC mode,I suggest to avoid ground damage and reflect mobs.

9

Hello, my first post here :). I also play hardcore but not beeing really active lately. Don’t know about new classes but there are quite decent advices from players who play hardcore here. I think the fastest way to get to high level and get the desired equipment is to have some friends who can trade with you and maybe give you some advices. So here are some advices from me too as i saw that somewhere here in the forums and it is exactly my thoughs about the very first charachter in grimdawn and especially for hardcore: Try to keep your armor up as you progress, keep resistances at least 40+. Try to get honored reputation with the factions that you meet so that you can get revered with them asap. To get reputation you must kill monsters listed as enemies for certain faction or / and do quests. What i did with my first charachter was to farm until honored with almost each new faction and then moved on. The reason for that is not only the faction items you can buy. There are also pots of experience (malmoth dlc required) and mandates you can buy for other charachters of yours which can speed the process of leveling new charachters. Everything can happen in hardcore and if your char die and you want to raise fast a new one those will come in handy. With my second char in hardcore (the first one died at lv 60) was able to get all the mandates (bought 15 of each which was not needed as now i have only 2 chars lv 100 :slight_smile: ) and exp pots. Now with the introduction of the new dlc there are also other faction stuff which you can trade between your chars. Oh i think that you already know that but keep your valuable items you find in you general storage not your personal.

PM me if you want to add you ingame.

10

A couple cents from someone who plays GD HC exclusively.

Don’t underestimate reflect damage. Even white/trash mobs with that spiky white aura can get you insta-killed sometimes. Especially if running a high hitting build. My first retaliation warlord died to one of those despite 5k armor, 3k+ DA and overcapped resistances. When you are hitting 100-300k, even 40% reflect damage reduction may not be enough. I’d aim for at least 60-70%.

Personally, I’m rolling a dual wield physical Eye of Reckoning [warlord] at the moment. It’s not very tanky but fun and fast. Can be built relatively fast too.

For your first play through you should probably stick to S&B. Maybe even farm the Krieg’s set once you make it to level 75 in Elite. Do a few runs to the Ugdenbog’s rougue dungeon just to buy a bunch of low level legendary blueprints and craft some game-changing items like Beronath.

11

After couples of Sofcore chars i got my first HC into Ultimate. Leveling was fine because of my knowledge of the game. However, after getting to Lev 100 and trying to build more powerfull skills i have big problems with the transitions. I tried following two builds:

and

The surviability i have is great, but i still did not do any Roguelike dungeon or Nemesis.
My main problem is, how to transition from bad /mediocre gear to this one in the builds? Or should you use something like an ‘Intermediate’ Build to start getting into Cruicible / Roguelike Dungeons/ Low SR?

12

My Sword and shield “Beginner spinner” warlord is defenitely HC viable even with shit items you can find it in here ⚔ Collection of malawiglenn's Beginner Friendly builds I also included a more defensive devotion map for it

13

Thanks, i had a Eye of Reckoning Oppressor in Softcore, so i could give it a try. Very impressive Build description.

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