KickStarter Grim Dawn

[ArchAngel]

I have been thinking of trying another build focused on Chaos damage. As main skills I was thinking Aether Ray (converted to chaos damage) and Doom Bolt.
Not sure if I should go for lvl 50 occultist or arcanist exclusive skills for it.

 

[Hobo Elf]

You'll obviously want the Occultist exclusive skill since it gives Chaos damage and damage absoprtion. There's nothing you'd want from the Arcanist exclusive skills if you are converting Aether Ray into Chaos damage. Be sure to get this for maximum fun time.

 

[ArchAngel]

You'll obviously want the Occultist exclusive skill since it gives Chaos damage and damage absoprtion. There's nothing you'd want from the Arcanist exclusive skills if you are converting Aether Ray into Chaos damage. Be sure to get this for maximum fun time.

But I would assume that Aether bonus damage would convert to Chaos damage for Aether ray and arcanist skill also gives bonus fire damage which is half of Aether Ray damage.

 

[RuySan]

Arcanist seems totally boring compared to spellcraft in PoE. It seems that it's just better to dump points into the basic ranged spell instead of trying anything different.

 

[ArchAngel]

So quick theorycraft of this build would be this: http://grimcalc.com/build/QeHXpb

 

[Hobo Elf]

You'll obviously want the Occultist exclusive skill since it gives Chaos damage and damage absoprtion. There's nothing you'd want from the Arcanist exclusive skills if you are converting Aether Ray into Chaos damage. Be sure to get this for maximum fun time.

But I would assume that Aether bonus damage would convert to Chaos damage for Aether ray and arcanist skill also gives bonus fire damage which is half of Aether Ray damage.

You'd assume incorrectly. In damage calculations conversions are always applied first. Any +Aether% damage would be a complete waste.

So quick theorycraft of this build would be this: http://grimcalc.com/build/QeHXpb

At a glance it seems sound enough. What a painful build to look at, though. 50 Points into Occultist and 40 points into Arcanist. Imagine that 30 levels worth of skill points are spent only on the masteries. Ugh, cannot wait for mods to fix this and bring down to 32 points per mastery.

 

[4249]

The +Aether% from Disintegration is still applied even with the transmuter. So going 50 Arcanist would be worth the %damage bonus, the crit bonus and about 50-60 spirit. I'd probably drop the healer bird for that and get heals from devotion, and Blood of Dreeg.

If you have a skill, such as a Transmuter, that converts the damage your attack does, then this calculation is performed before any bonuses from other skills, attributes or equipment are considered. Skill modifiers are still applied first. What this means is that if you take a skill that normally deals Aether damage and use Conversion to make it deal Chaos damage instead, then the skill will benefit from % Chaos Damage bonuses instead of % Aether Damage bonuses.

 

[MrJohnson]

Interesting! Need to check back with ma builds...

 

[ArchAngel]

The +Aether% from Disintegration is still applied even with the transmuter. So going 50 Arcanist would be worth the %damage bonus, the crit bonus and about 50-60 spirit. I'd probably drop the healer bird for that and get heals from devotion, and Blood of Dreeg.

If you have a skill, such as a Transmuter, that converts the damage your attack does, then this calculation is performed before any bonuses from other skills, attributes or equipment are considered. Skill modifiers are still applied first. What this means is that if you take a skill that normally deals Aether damage and use Conversion to make it deal Chaos damage instead, then the skill will benefit from % Chaos Damage bonuses instead of % Aether Damage bonuses.

Ok. In this case I changed my build to: http://grimcalc.com/build/fpTloc
Removed Fabric of Reality and invested into Hellfire aura that gives both chaos damage and fire damage.

Healer bird heals faster than Blood of Dreeg. And you don't need to fuck around activating it all the time

 

[Hobo Elf]

The +Aether% from Disintegration is still applied even with the transmuter. So going 50 Arcanist would be worth the %damage bonus, the crit bonus and about 50-60 spirit. I'd probably drop the healer bird for that and get heals from devotion, and Blood of Dreeg.

If you have a skill, such as a Transmuter, that converts the damage your attack does, then this calculation is performed before any bonuses from other skills, attributes or equipment are considered. Skill modifiers are still applied first. What this means is that if you take a skill that normally deals Aether damage and use Conversion to make it deal Chaos damage instead, then the skill will benefit from % Chaos Damage bonuses instead of % Aether Damage bonuses.

The problem with this build is that you end up starving for skill points pretty badly. http://grimcalc.com/build/8MPNmp I avoid going 50/50 in both masteries.
Another variation could be this http://grimcalc.com/build/qlYBwN since mobility with AAR is a big problem, you could go for max Maiven, Blood of Dreeg and Sigil of Consumption so you can just facetank enemies while you blast them.

 

[MrJohnson]

What do you guys think about my cold caster build?
http://grimcalc.com/build/913RWs

(1 point in dual whield is optional and can be switched to other skills if you wanna for example use 2 of http://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/8504-Empowered-Skyshard-Spellblade)

 

[Hobo Elf]

My only opinion is this: Good Luck. Making a Cold themed caster is the hardest thing to do in Grim Dawn due to the poor Cold spell representation within the Masteries.

 

[4249]

Olexra's seems pretty pointless for a cold damage build. My best guess would be just to go ham with Trozan's. Not exactly purely cold damage, but close enough. It's also pretty easy to support it with Pneumatic Burst's and Iskandra's modifiers.

I'd probably go for something like this:
http://grimcalc.com/build/IiycVP

 

[RoBoBOBR]

I tried cold mage, but Trozan's is such a bitch to hit stuff with, plus it's on cooldown. Respecced in Calidor Tempest and never looked back.

 

[MrJohnson]

Olexra's seems pretty pointless for a cold damage build. My best guess would be just to go ham with Trozan's. Not exactly purely cold damage, but close enough. It's also pretty easy to support it with Pneumatic Burst's and Iskandra's modifiers.

I'd probably go for something like this:
http://grimcalc.com/build/IiycVP

Cold nova that freezes the entire screen pointless in a cold caster build - why? It's not for damage, it's for CC and debuffing, you can't really spam Trozan all the time so you keep the little shits in check with the nova.

My only opinion is this: Good Luck. Making a Cold themed caster is the hardest thing to do in Grim Dawn due to the poor Cold spell representation within the Masteries.

already played through veteran (didn't even start normal) and it works for me. I 1v1 your Dreeg as soon as the itemization is kinda equal

 

[4249]

Olexra's seems pretty pointless for a cold damage build. My best guess would be just to go ham with Trozan's. Not exactly purely cold damage, but close enough. It's also pretty easy to support it with Pneumatic Burst's and Iskandra's modifiers.

I'd probably go for something like this:
http://grimcalc.com/build/IiycVP

Cold nova that freezes the entire screen pointless in a cold caster build - why? It's not for damage, it's for CC and debuffing, you can't really spam Trozan all the time so you keep the little shits in check with the nova.

I see it as more of a supportive skill for fire and physical. 24 points for just the CC feels like a waste. 12 points to Absolute Zero especially. The first point gives you a 20% slow, while 11 skill points only gives 30% more. If you like the CC, do keep it.

 

[Serus]

You'll obviously want the Occultist exclusive skill since it gives Chaos damage and damage absoprtion. There's nothing you'd want from the Arcanist exclusive skills if you are converting Aether Ray into Chaos damage. Be sure to get this for maximum fun time.

But I would assume that Aether bonus damage would convert to Chaos damage for Aether ray and arcanist skill also gives bonus fire damage which is half of Aether Ray damage.

You'd assume incorrectly. In damage calculations conversions are always applied first. Any +Aether% damage would be a complete waste.

So quick theorycraft of this build would be this: http://grimcalc.com/build/QeHXpb

At a glance it seems sound enough. What a painful build to look at, though. 50 Points into Occultist and 40 points into Arcanist. Imagine that 30 levels worth of skill points are spent only on the masteries. Ugh, cannot wait for mods to fix this and bring down to 32 points per mastery.

Or simply wait for the first DLC that will certainly add at least 5 more levels to the cap... 10 maybe

 

[MrJohnson]

Another use for the nova: Mine Detector

I see it as more of a supportive skill for fire and physical. 24 points for just the CC feels like a waste. 12 points to Absolute Zero especially. The first point gives you a 20% slow, while 11 skill points only gives 30% more. If you like the CC, do keep it.

Well can't talk about Ultimate difficulty yet (but think it will be pretty much shity dmg), but on veteran it's enough dmg to kill all trash and little yellow enemies (have only 1 point in Absolute Zero atm), so it's a good sweeper atm

 

[Cyberarmy]

The bad thing about frost nova is that its not working when you need most need it. You cannot freeze bosses and some heroes are immune to its effects to.
And after leveling up trozan and devastation it really falls behind at damaging too. Im using it with only 1 point for a secondary oh siht button in ultimate.

 

[made]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

 

[gestalt11]

I thought all Celestial powers were passive upgrades (similar to Skyrim celestial thing).

The constellations withe a reddish star have some sort of power. These cane be EXTREMELY important. Arcane Bomb/Witchblade proc + acid spray is a major stacking -resist debuff. Getting something like Behemoth and Tree of Life heal/regen procs can significantly increase your survivability. Crab has what appears to be a pretty strong block proc but I have not tried it. Tortoise is actually a quite useful proc to get in the early game and can be finished in act 1.

These power are "level" themselves. Low end near center have 20 level, mid tier have 15 and edge one have 10. These powers level via normal XP gain as long as they are slotted onto something. So getting to a power you want early on can be good just to level them up.

Then these powers sound like something I will avoid like plague.

So far, every time I have died, I have felt like "yeah, I let them corner me, I didn't use strategy" and I come back pissed off to take my revenge (and my grave stone..). If these celestial powers make me even harder to die, then fuck that. Right now I have a perfect balance between survival and feeling strong enough as I level up. Celestial bullshit sounds like something that will just make me feel OP.

I'll avoid unlocking any such powers (I was worried about red stars before anyway).

Its not hard to make a build that feel OP for vanilla Normal. Its only somewhat tricky to make one that feels that way for Veteran Normal. But things like say a defensive setup of devotions can be pertty important for Ultimate and/or Elite. Anyway you can change devotions so if you want to just pickup something like choas/aether resist because you are low on them or something you can always swap it later in Elite for a power or whatever. Also some powers are not that strong or only strong for certain builds.

Finally keep in mind you can use devotions to alter some builds. For example putting Arcane Bomb into Aether ray not only make Aether Ray itself better due to -res % of Aether but also adds a 5 meter aoe. This can save you from needing to do something putting points into calidor's tempest for aoe. Although CT + arcane bomb would still be much superior AOE, you can still get good enough AOE with say AB devotion + the two aether damage increases of arcanist.

 

[gestalt11]

The +Aether% from Disintegration is still applied even with the transmuter. So going 50 Arcanist would be worth the %damage bonus, the crit bonus and about 50-60 spirit. I'd probably drop the healer bird for that and get heals from devotion, and Blood of Dreeg.

If you have a skill, such as a Transmuter, that converts the damage your attack does, then this calculation is performed before any bonuses from other skills, attributes or equipment are considered. Skill modifiers are still applied first. What this means is that if you take a skill that normally deals Aether damage and use Conversion to make it deal Chaos damage instead, then the skill will benefit from % Chaos Damage bonuses instead of % Aether Damage bonuses.

Yes but if you convert to Chaos you should probably run Posesssion and not Reckless Power. Reckless would only buff the fire part of AR. However RP would give cast speed too which helps AR. Posesssion give 12% damage absorb which put onto pof Maivens should be rather good defense, so I think it would be better. Finally you would absolutely want Witchblade Deovtion which reduces Chaos and Fire resistance and if you can fit it in Acid Spray from manticore will be enhanced by Posession and the enahncer skill of blood of dreeg.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

 

[made]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

Magic missile works well enough. Just hit lvl 50, gonna mop up the last few remaining areas and then head over to elite, maybe respec later.

 

[1451]

Facing the red guys on veteran as a shaman. Their debufs are nullifying any defences I may have had. So I have to grind until I find the equipment needed with the necessary resistances or craft it which means I have to grind for materials.
12 types of damage surely were a great idea.

Also I've noticed my briathorn became utterly useless after mid game. It was the same with my occultist pets. Seems like a fine idea to have a pet until mid game and then reset any points you invested there, somewhere else.