[Caster] Infernal Knight's BWC Sorcerer [v1.1.5.0 ready]

Grim Dawn★ 4 · 39 ratings4.4k views78 favorites6 min readby WrethUpdated Nov 26, 2019View on Steam ↗

1. Introduction

I chose Sorcerer, because it was my first build and Arcanist is my favorite + go-to class when building a caster in this game and I spent most of my time in this game with some sort of Arcanist related builds. Further Sorcerer is by far the tankiest caster you will find, any combination of the classes Inquisitor, Arcanist, Shaman and Demolitionist [especially Elementalist (Demolitionist + Shaman), Druid (Shaman + Arcanist), Vindicator (Shaman + Inquisitor), or maybe even Purifier (Demolitionist + Inquisitor)] are close opponents and I prefer Sorcerer for the following reason: My Sorcerer build is heavily based on Cooldown Reduction (CDR) with the Skill “Star Pact” from the Arcanist mastery to support this type of playstyle (Shaman and Inquisitor offer no such skills).
Now you might think that the Shaman class provides much more health (short: HP) due to the “Pact of Mogdrogen” modifier “Heart of the Wild” and therefore it’s better to choose Shaman. Well the part about the extra HP is true, but with the CDR from Arcanist you can cast “Mirror of Ereoctes” almost every 13s, which means you can be invulnerable over 20% of the time (if you cast back to back mirrors).
Further “Blast Shield” and healing devotion procs will activate more often, which grants even more time of being almost invulnerable. I don’t think all that is worth some extra HP, especially when my build offers 15k health already.
Well, then why not build a Druid which combines all advantages of Arcanist and Shaman? Druids can be very strong too, but the reason I prefer Demolitionist is “Blast Shield”, which makes this build in combination with “Mirror of Ereoctes” and CDR more tanky than any other caster out there.

2. What can this build do?

-Easily clear all main game content (Mogdrogen and Ravenger require a lot of kiting and therefore they are only advisable to more advanced players)
-Clear Gladiator Crucible until wave 150 reliably (150-170 easy with buffs or you have to be really careful and should know what you’re doing)
-Shattered Realm clear 75 solo
-Lokarr in 34s (just an average run I recorded, could do it few seconds faster I think)

3. Build Concept

First up, this build survives due to a mixture of rather high armor, HP and defensive ability (short DA), this is mainly archived by a defensively oriented devotion constellation. Further we have a strong circuit breaker granted by “Mythical Mark of Divinity”, a rather weak circuit breaker with “Prismatic Rage” from the component “Prismatic Diamond” and the best healing devotion proc “Healing Rain” from the “Tree of Life”. The high amount of Cooldown Reduction (CDR) supports this playstyle just splendidly and the skill point distribution is well thought out, meaning skills and their cooldowns go hand in hand with each other, as explained later with Nullification. No energy issues (as long as multiple enemies are around) due to high energy leech / absorption from enemies and their spells.

4. Grimtools Link

GRIMTOOLS (no greens): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV776zJV
With the new DLC we have 4 skill points and 2 attribute points more. I also tried a more aggressive devotion system).

It doesn’t matter to which permanently active buff you bind the devotion procs, just make sure it is active ALL THE TIME (for example don’t bind them to skills, which are only active when health drops below 70% etc…)

little extra: my build currently looks like this as I'm playing it: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/xZyn4JAN
It appears I have items with good pierce res, its overcapped by at least 5% ingame.

5. Gear

Well, what should I say… you can see that we use (as most other builds) a lot of legendary items, which can be rather nerve-racking to get. Anyway, there is a big trading scene out there and the “Infernal Knight Set” is not used often so it should be rather easy to get, “M Peerless Eye of Beronath” and “M Mark of Divinity” are used more commonly and are therefore harder to find.

6. How to level up and distribution of points

Skill Points:
“Olexara’s Flash Freeze” makes leveling on normal /veteran a breeze, max out this skill as soon as possible and you will see frozen enemies all over your screen. Simultaneously spend points on “Blackwater Cocktail” (for hero and boss enemies, explanation in “7. How to play”) and “Flashbang” and permanently active skills, focus on maxing out the arcanist mastery bar first (for “Star Pact”). When you hit elite or level 70ish “OFF” does not do enough damage so you would want to get some points (actually all except 1) out of it and put all of them into BWC and its modifiers, this is your new main attack now. The new 4 skill points from the Forgotten Gods DLC go into Metal Alacrity so we can spam BWC for a longer duration without taking energy potions. And also for more casting speed and therefore more dps.

Attribute Points:
With the current patch its should be possible to go full physique, so you want to put all points into that. (earlier we had to put 3 points into cunning so we could equip Mythical Warpfire)

Devotion Points:
in order which constellation to select (+) and drop (-)
Crossroad Blue (+)
Lizard
Crossroad Blue(-)
Crossroad Purple (+)
Empty Throne
Crossroad Purple (-)
Crossroad Green (+)
Scholar's Light
Crossroad Green (-)
Hawk
Rhowan's Crown
Crossroad Pink (+)
Ghoul
Chariot of the Dead
Crossroad Pink (-)
Behemoth
Solael's Witchblade
Ulzuin's Torch
Magi (6 points)
Jackal (1 point)

7. How to play?

So far so good, but how do I play with this crap now?
Well, your main attack should be Blackwater Cocktail (short BWC), so you’re basically running around spamming “BWC’s” and “Flashbang” (for target’s reduced OA and DA), occasionally dropping “Thermite Mines” (for resistance reduction against Fire Damage), and cast “Callidor’s Tempest” (for high Burn Damage) or “Devastation” (very good skill for putting only one skill point in it).
“Olexara’s Flash Freeze” is only good against non-hero mobs, since it won’t freeze most heroes, and bosses not at all! The reason we still want to use this skill is that it is very effective (in crucible with extra spawn) to kill trash mobs insanely fast, also it prevents enemies from charging you by freezing them. Anyway, the main reason I still have this skill is the resistance reduction against fire damage, our main damage output.
Make sure to use Nullification (against bosses and heroes) as often as possible, it is on 8/10 skill points so one boss can be put 100% of the time under influence of Nullification (if used correctly). “Mirror of Ereoctes” is our panic button, 3 seconds of invulnerability make sure to get as many points in there as soon as possible, it’s one of the best defensive skills in the entire game.
While Mirror and Blast Shield are on cooldown you have to be more careful against strong enemies (like Nemesis), otherwise, you are likely to die very fast.

8. The End

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my first guide on grim dawn.

If you're having as much fun in this game as I do make sure to rate this guide and add to your favorites, this would mean really much to me :)

Anyway, if you have any improvements, ideas, suggestions, etc...
let me know in the comments.

Important Stuff for new players

Get your resistances up
Use components while leveling
Armor absorption should be as high as possible (100%)
Survivability >>> DPS (always!)
Focus on only one or two damage types
There's a lot more to it, but I'm sure you will figure it out :)