I have been scouring the forum, and I have noticed that there are very few witchblade builds, or even references to one (I may be looking in the wrong place). So I was wondering if there is any particular reason they are not used often.
Soldier and Occultist have an insanely low class synergy is why. About the only thing Soldier offers to occultist is durability, and the only thing Occultist offers to Soldier is BoD’s healing and the AS from the Witchblade buff.
Its just a case of really bad synergy.
Actually they have really great synergy!
Huge amount of Chaos Damage from Occultist to funnel through Soldier’s huge amount of % Weapon Damage.
Massive -Phys Resist on Curse of Frailty
The reason they’re not really popular is because Occultist offers nothing of interest to a Soldier in the way of autoattack replacers (since it really only has DEE) and the only good Soldier autoattack replacer is Blade Arc. Autoattack replacers are crucial in the current meta due to Devotion proccing. And every Blade Arc build is going to be subpar to a Leviathan or Stonefist Rebuke Blade Arc build. The reason Obsidian Juggernaut can’t keep up with those is because of Chaos Resists on enemies, i.e., a lack of an ability to debuff them since CoF/Vuln doesn’t affect Chaos res.
TL;DR Witchblade has amazing synergy, balance is just fucked. Welcome to Grim Dawn.
WB are not popular because you can’t really destroy all nemeses with it in 20-30 seconds like you can with a Blademaster, Witch Hunter or Saboteur - that’s it actually.
However, the class combination is much better for finishing HC Ultimate than any of the above. But, as you can see, only a couple of ppl play HC so the “meta” is about farming poor Fabius…
Just wait a couple of days and i’ll post a HC Ultimate viable WB build. Have patience as I need to know the changes in 1.0.0.4. before providing a leveling guide.
I have one on HC, and it is very durable.
It is based on Cadence because I was tired to spam 3-4 skills every fight to trigger the various procs. Obviously Blade Arc is better overall.
12/12 Break Morale (-30 flat physical)
12/12 Vulnerability (-39 % physical)
Maxed Assassin’s Mark (-33 % physical)
Ring of the Black Matriarch (-15 % physical)
Total=-117 physical resistance.WITHOUT any overcapping.
You can then put an Essence of Ch’thon on your weapon for even bigger reduction.
To fully exploit this, you have to get a weapon with as little “armor piercing” as possible, as well without any conversion. At the moment my char wield a green “Tyrant exalted double axe of Fury”, but i think there’s something better than this for sure.
You can go 2h (faster) or 1h+shield (almost unkillable). In the second case, the proc you get with a full Markovian set is very good as it allow you to have WarCry always on.
About devotions, i have Assassin’s Mark bound to Zoltan, Dryad bound to Markovian (unnecessary, but this is HC so…), Blind Fury bound to Cadence, Giant Blood bound to Field Command and Targo’s Hammer bound to Menhir’s Bastion (each hammer can crit for 6000-11000, and with a good block chance you always have at least 2 around).
Remeber that this setup is for HC. If you play regular, you can be a lot more offensive than this.
I have a withcblade at lvl 78 and its amazing. I kill everything in seconds and can’t die. I get up to 1500 hp regen with buffs active and can kill nemesis fast too.
Soldier and occultist go well together.
I will be posting my commando build some day, since it’s the best char I have ever made but if this WB keeps doing well by time I’m 85 and have beaten all enemies then I will post it too.
Witchblades are my favorite combination. I think they’re a little less popular or talked about because of the Chaos resistance of the enemies at the end of the current content. This can be overcome with -all resist or -chaos resist but the options are limited which tends to pigeonhole the builds in some more narrow must-have selections if they want to overcome this damage penalty.
Witchblades are my favorite combination. I think they’re a little less popular or talked about because of the Chaos resistance of the enemies at the end of the current content. This can be overcome with -all resist or -chaos resist but the options are limited which tends to pigeonhole the builds in some more narrow must-have selections if they want to overcome this damage penalty.
Do not bother with Chaos. While a chaos WB will have a higher sheet dps, you will become crazy trying to get a good debuffing for it. Physical is the absolute best way to make one, imo. Or you can try an Hybrid Acid+poison/retaliation build (with the absolution set), and also a vitality based build (a more difficult setup).
This.
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Do we struggle with OA/DA in this build? Can we get something like 2600+OA /2100 DA with this?
If we can crit often enough, would a Black Star of Deceit a better choice here? I feel really clunky when I have to cast both War Cry and CoF in every single fight.
What is the best 2H physical based build in your opinion? (In term of balance between both survivability and clear speed, I don’t mind repetitive and boring gameplay)
I don’t play HC so I don’t mind a little bit more offensive setup.
Do we struggle with OA/DA in this build? Can we get something like 2600+OA /2100 DA with this?
My HC WB has around 2350 OA, 2200 DA and 2400 armor. With all the temporaney buffs active, she can go well over 2600. If I manage to find a fitting weapon with some OA on it, things should improve a lot. Also I’m wearing a belt with no OA/DA on it:(.
If we can crit often enough, would a Black Star of Deceit a better choice here? I feel really clunky when I have to cast both War Cry and CoF in every single fight.
Black Star + Kymon’s Will (and/or Oleron’s Blood) are the the “poor man” version of a fully buffed War Cry. Also you do not have to cast neither CoF nor WC so often. I usually only fire both if I encounter a large pack of dangerous mobs with some heroes, and ofc on bosses/nemesis. Also BSoD will keep me from wearing a Mark of Divinity, but again this is an issue for HC only and you can try to go with your idea and see how things works.
What is the best 2H physical based build in your opinion? (In term of balance between both survivability and clear speed, I don’t mind repetitive and boring gameplay)
I don’t play HC so I don’t mind a little bit more offensive setup.
Probably the Blade Arc with Leviathan is the best one (mine should have 2600 starting OA, 2400 DA, 2650 armor, 14k hp, 35k dps, 33% physical resist, capped resistances. Based on memory.) It is not on HC because at the beginning i was not sure about the “stability” of such char. Note that the Markovian’s one is still better against single target boss/nemesis, due that atm i cannot overcome the huge cost in energy of constantly spamming blade arc (although i have some ideas in mind)
^ Really nice, thank you.
I would like to try a 2H physical WB with Blade Arc and Leviathan in mind. Can you help me with a devotion setup? Is it possible to get both Kraken and Oleron? I have played around with different setups but so far I haven’t been able to have both of those. Kraken seems too good to pass for a 2H user and Oleron seems like a must for a physical based build.
Keep in mind that getting those values in a self-found first char is a big pain as you have to plan ahead most things and spend most time farming/crafting specific items.
The good news is that If you go 2h + blade arc, you do not need Oleron, but Falcon, Assassin’s Blade and kraken. If you want, i can post my char as reference for you to fallow.
EDIT: This is my build. I really love to play lazy on softcore, so all my char also love defense/simplicity of use.
Minus temporaney buffs:
With temp buffs:
I only kite a bosses/nemesis when I do not have any energy left to attack:mad:. Maybe a 2nd Weapon with Beronath’s Fury should solve this issue once and for all.
I theorycrafted a blade arc build but then for fun came up with a pet/retaliation/tank build which could be rather amusing to try out.
Might give it a go.
Looks awesome ETK. Are the rares just a bunch of stuff with resist fixes?
Looks awesome ETK. Are the rares just a bunch of stuff with resist fixes?
More or less… But they also incredibly hard to get, expecially the helm and one ring, but the build itself do not lose too much without those…
Try fevered rage as a witchblade. Great stuff, you deal way more dmg and crits, and the enemy’s increased attack speed can give you a lot of targo’s hammers. Make sure you have a decent shield tho. And be prepared to run away until it wears off if you play grimmest and you can’t handle all the heroes 
Try fevered rage as a witchblade
Not the best idea for HC;)
However i once planned to make a WB based on retaliation, acid damage and on block procs that should have used this skill. Then i got distracted by other concepts, but someday i will try to make one for sure.
Can you please post grimcalc with build/devotions for this? Looks like a very safe/HC viable char indeed.
I have already said that this, while softcore, was build for me to see if such WB was
playable on Hardcore. AS SUCH, THE OBSCENE DEFENSE IS NOT NEEDED AT ALL IN REGULAR
GAMEPLAY. So you should stick to what posted below only if you want to play a very, very
tankish build (like me), or you have to find the best setup by yourselves (i think you
can gain AT LEAST another 25/30%dps with a more offensive setup).
The calculator’s down. Good.
Those are the skills with all the bonuses from the items included.
50/50 Soldier-------------------------------
12/12 WarCry + 12/12 Break Morale
12/12 Fightning Spirit
22/12 Oleron’s Rage
26/16 Blade Arc + 17/12 Laceration
6/16 Blitz + 6/12 Blindside
6/16 Counterstrike
6/16 Menhir’s Will
16/12 Field Command + 12/12 Squad Tactics
10/10 Military Conditioning
6/10 Veterancy
6/8 Decorated Soldier
8/8 Scars of Battle
32/50 Occultist----------------------------
12/12 Solael’s Witchfire + 3/12 Second Rite
11/10 Curse of Frailty + 2/10 Vulnerability
17/16 Blood of Dreeg + 12/12 Aspect of the Guardian
2/12 Bloody Pox
2/12 Sigil of Consumption
I have also one unspent point. If this was actual HC, i would have pumped Menhir’s Will way more, and probably dumped some offensive devotions to get ToL as well.
Devotion---------------------------------
Yellow crossroad node.
Falcon >>> Blade Arc
Lion
Assassin’s Blade >>> Bloody Pox
Eel
Hound
Obelisc of Menhir - Only the bottom 3 nodes
Hawk
Kraken
Behemoth >>> Field Command - Only 3 nodes
Jackal - Only 2 nodes
Viper
Rowan’s Scepter
Targo the Builder - Only the first 4 hp nodes.