Now obviously I don’t mean gear wise cause clearly the two Top 20 builds for these each use different sets of gear. But when I check their skill builds and such they seem very similar!
I want to know what the actual playstyle and mechanical differences are though. I have a level 100 Warlord that is using Rekt’s older build (here is my current Grimtools, uploaded this morning Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator) so I have a starting point for either. And if I am being honest I am pretty sure I have the craftable Markovians piece so I could just build that whole set with some time.
I mostly want to upgrade this character to have more damage without sacrificing too much defense. I like being as tanky as I am, and this build can at least kill Lokaar so I got that going for me.
Help me understand just how the Markovian Warlord and the Blitz Warlord differ in playstyle so I know which sort of upgrade path I should head for.
Markovian: more damage, faster SR/Crucible clears.
Blitz: easier to put together from scratch/if you don’t have any set items and improve from there, better for main campaign target farms because of lower Blitz cooldown (and it doesn’t have any problems against reflectors)
Tank wise they are similiar, against big cluster of mobs Markovian might be slightly better, against Celestials, particulary Callagadra Blitz might be slightly better.
not really that much slower, maybe a bit if you need to rush to some roguelike boss while skipping everything else. I am also not sure how is Markovian gonna react to main campaign reflect mobs, because it has much less physical resist and then a bit less reflect res (but it does have absorb and some regen so maybe it will be ok)
I mean I only have 17% Reflect Resist right now, and 27% Phys Resist, and most reflect mobs dont bother me in the main campaign areas or skeleton key dungeons.
well if you didn’t have problems with reflects on it maybe you didn’t run into proper reflects yet or maybe your char is not doing enough damage to be a danger to itself
edit: looked closer and indeed it’s true, your damage numbers are extremely low (and your OA is criminally low)
LOL Thats fair. It does seem to take a while to bring things down, but conversely I dont go down either so its very much “pillow fight” esque. I think I will start working towards Markovian then and fix things a bit.
You are probably measuring it against main campaign content which is still very far from endgame. You can easily switch to endgame Blitz build that has mostly farmable gear and like magnitudes more damage than what you have now and work towards markovian with that.
Well I am trying out the Blitz version you suggested and yea it feels much better, albeit a bit more squishy. Granted I dont have everything and I need to fix my poison res now
It looks like it’s missing several augments (ring, amulet and few armor pieces) and then ring and amulet components. Also your green pieces have a lot of random affixes
You have to take Empyrion if you don’t have Tyrant’s Bargoll root because you are lacking damage reduction right now. Your OA is also woefully low - you are not proccing Assassin’s Mark a lot. Any crafted belt with OA will be better than your belt right now. But you are on the right path at least.
Alright well until I get a Tyrant Root (And who knows when that will be) I adjusted the devotions a bit to get Empyrion
The question now is where to put the last 3 points. I was eyeing Panther for more OA, or just putting them back into Vire for the damage. Kinda wish I had a way to fit Healing Rain instead of Dryad but its whatever.
Good question. 30% chance of damage reduction on Oleron’s Bloods wps is much less effective than having damage reduction on every hit. Imagine how this build operates: first thing you do is you fly into a herd of mobs with your blitz hitting a lot of targets at the same time in a large radius. With Tyrant’s on the weapon it means that you debuff a whole pack instantly and with low cd on Blitz you can zap between few packs of mobs pretty quickly debuffing them all. While Oleron Bloods only come into play after Blitz during your Righteous Fervor attack. And your RF is getting interrupted by Blitz and Doom quite a bit plus attack speed is not capped so your damage reduction will be much less consistent.
Now Empyrion’s proc will also be less consistent than Tyrant’s but sheer value of dr on it somewhat compensates for it.
Sold at the vendor also Bargoll farm is extremely easy nowadays.
Like this. And for the love of Ch’thon get rid of those horrible OA-less greens - their quality is “leave it on the ground and don’t pick it up”, how are you still wearing “unyielding” medal “of spines” (of Spines, Carl!) and Runecarved and Lightbringer belt and ring
