I'm getting slaughtered on ultimate....

[Tuna Boat Captain 2000]

I'm focusing on resistances while trying to keep true to my build as a blademaster(duel-wield,pierce/cold) but Im just not finding legendaries that do anything for me... I'm level 82, and so far I have found about 25 legendaries, good right? NOPE!...out of those 25, 10 are weapons that don't fit my build(offhand/2handed etc) 6 are shoulders(none for nightblade) 3 were duplicate items which were of no use to me, and the other 6 I am using. But out of those 6 only 1 is ideal for me, the rest just kinda fit, maybe just on par with epic, or maybe a tiny bit better, but really not by much.
I just got to homestead in the game and I'm wondering if maybe better drops lie ahead? I'm becoming disheartened and almost feel like quitting cuz it's just not that fun.
I've been reading similar threads on the net from 2015/16 with basically the same gripe, but was hoping they might have fixed drop rate/crappy legendaries by now.
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29462

Also, as far as weapons go green variant weapons give the highest dps and that's including legendaries. I have been half tempted to use the greens but havent as they don't add any secondary skill abilities, but really what gives with that? Why should the green weapons out dps ALL epic, and legendary weapons?

[Matthew]

Common problem of perception. Legendaries aren't required to beat the game, nor are they supposed to be easy to find. They are kind of like trophy items, something to give incentive for players to keep playing the game after they've fnished it.

Blue: Solid base stats. As long as your build, devotions, and augments work well together, these are enough to give you the base stats needed.

Purple: Slightly higher base stats. Usually have more OA/DA attached and often various procs or additional abilities. On average better than most blue equivalent, but not by a game-breaking amount.

Green: Despite dropping from the earliest levels, potentially the best items in the game for certain slots and builds. However getting the right combination of affixes on the right item is difficult. It is typically far easier to find legendaries than it is to get some of these end-game green combinations.


If you are really struggling, I would focus less on the gear you don't have and more about what is not working in your build. Are you using armor augments? When you say you are focusing on resistances, does that actually mean they are capped? What is your base health at? What kind of additional sources of mitigation do you have? What is your health regen?

Pierce Blademasters already have among the highest dps in the game, and they can afford to sacrifice some for better survival. Often in many cases, your clear speed remains the same or is better, since better survival means less running around trying to avoid damage.

[Tuna Boat Captain 2000]

Yes I use armor augments but do not have all stats to 80. Of the 10 resistances I have poison @40 pierce @20 chaos @20 stun @20 aether @55 vitality @70 and the rest @80+ I've tried to take from the strongest states to give to the weakest where I can, but that's all I can do without changing gear thus far.
I have definetly been trading in rares for epics and epics for legendaries, I guess I shoulden't have.
As far as hp goes I have 1170 base 10,700 with equipment on. HP regen 70.08

[Azunai]

pierce resistance should have a higher priority in a piercing damage build. my pierce BM often oneshot himself against reflect mobs (skeleton knights etc.) when i neglected pierce resistance. i made it a priority to always cap the resistance to my main damage type on each of my melee builds when i found out why he died so often against some specific mobs ;)

a DW blademaster (any DW nightblade, really) can be very squishy. that's the price you pay for the ridiculously high damage output. even with good gear, you'll probably never get tanky enough to steamroll ultimate without paying attention. at least none of my nightblades is tanky enough for that. sometimes you just have to get out of the mess, heal up and then SS back in to finish the job.

with decent resistances and enough sustain ( % life steal works pretty nicely due to the massive damage output), you can at least roflstomp most of the trash without resorting to hit&run tactics. bosses and heroes (or whatever the correct name for the "star" critters s) can be tricky. if they deal significant burst damage (shotgun abilites, high damage strikes), you probably can't facetank them from start to finish.

[Finnvbot]

Don't forget that you can manage your resist by having different rings and amulets at hand and changing them up depending on the enemies you're facing. You most definitely don't need a bunch of legendaries to steamroll Ultimate. However, as Azunai rightly pointed out, you absolutely cannot get complacement, especially when you're playing a Nightblade.

Here's a little checklist for you:
1. Is your Offensive Ability above 2.1k? (moar crits you dish out = moar better a.k.a. do you kill stuff fast enough?)
2. Is your Defensive Ability above 2k? (less crits from enemies = long and prosperous life)
3. Check your armour absorption (Scars of Battle skill and Scaled Hide component are your best friends in melee range). That's a big one for melee chars.
4. Do you improve your defence via the Devotion tree? It's a complex subject and there's no one size fits all solution and I know it's easy to blame your gear on everything but a good skill setup can make or break your build. I've been there and I done that. ;)

[Tuna Boat Captain 2000]

So, thanks very much to everyone that took the time to reply, your help is very appreciated <3
I pretty much did a combination of everyones advice, made a few tweaks here and there, and now I seem to be much, much more tankish, and what used to be 1 death every 5 min has now been augmented to 1 death every 30-60 min...BIG difference!
I was getting hung up on the color of the equipment rather then quality. My thinking was if you find a legendary that is what you should be using cuz it's legendary, whether it fits your build or not, and that was the problem in a nutshell.

BTW is there an ultimate nightblade set to find?

[DeadlyDanDaMan]

Originally posted by Good old Legbone:

Why should the green weapons out dps ALL epic, and legendary weapons?

DPS isn't everything. You are now beginning to learn that.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Azunai:

with decent resistances and enough sustain ( % life steal works pretty nicely due to the massive damage output), you can at least roflstomp most of the trash without resorting to hit&run tactics. bosses and heroes (or whatever the correct name for the "star" critters s) can be tricky. if they deal significant burst damage (shotgun abilites, high damage strikes), you probably can't facetank them from start to finish.

I have a DW cold pierce BM and he survives on lifesteal, without it he would pop lots of potions, he has 2 NEX blades (lucky finds on another toon) which have a nice proc that fires a lifesteal vitality bolt and with all his aoe ground procs from devotions (whirlpool/blizzard etc) hes constantly gaining life. His sheet dps is only 24k but he kills stuff faster than my Pyromancer who has sheet dps of nearly 40k, his procs and debuffs are crazy and shadow strike hits like freight train. He killed log on ult in under 1 minute which for a 24k dps build is pretty good.

As to OP a further bit of advice legendaries are great in GD but theres ALOT of them, so if you find a few which favour a different build roll an alt, use the stuff it gives you on other builds, I parked my current BM at lvl82 a while back and rolled 2 alts up to ultimate before i went back regeared him a bit tweaked him now he destroys pretty much anything he meets.

Oh and as a melee on ultimate pierce resist of 80 is a requirement imo

[Finnvbot]

There are a few Nightblade sets: The Deathmark, Bloodreaper's Carnage, The Unseeing Eye, The Venomblade Pact, etc.

[Funky T]

Originally posted by Good old Legbone:

BTW is there an ultimate nightblade set to find?

Since you said you're using mainly Pierce/Cold damage, The Deathmarked Set would probably be the thing for you. Lvl 75 legendary set, 5 pieces (I think) including 2 weapons. But if you don't like the weapons included, or got a better one, you can swap out one of the 5 items with most of these sets. The +2 Nightblade Skills (or other class) is usually the 4-piece bonus.

Other than that, I can just agree with the other statements here:
Resistances are key to survival!
Especially on Ultimate enemies sometimes have resistance reduction skills that can drop all your resists by 30-40 %-points. So where possible, try to have a little extra on your resists over maximum.
To help with that, remember to slap components on your items and even faction augments. Those augments do make your items Soulbound (can't be used by any other character), but you can remove them just like with the components, so you don't permanently lose them for potential use on other chars.

At least with your focus on Pierce/Cold you can build up resistances against your own reflected damage. I'm playing a physical/internal trauma Witchblade (Soldier/Occultist) and it's pretty hard to find worthwhile physical resist on gear.
The character is pretty tanky and plays well, but I am my own biggest enemy. Accidentally hitting a reflect mob with any of my internal trauma dots deals more damage to me than anything else in the game.

[Finnvbot]

Originally posted by Funky T:

Accidentally hitting a reflect mob with any of my internal trauma dots deals more damage to me than anything else in the game.

That, kids, is when you know your build is god tier.

[Tuna Boat Captain 2000]

My 1 good weapon is a deathmark so hopefully I can find more from that set.
I gotta say that adding pierce defence was the single most important tip, it makes a huge difference. I would see my health always disappearing as soon as I would attack a mob, but couldn't figure out exactly what it was from, now I know!
Also, is 50 the absolute max number of devotion points possible? I have 50 then found another shrine, unlocked it and it gave me nothing? So for the rest of the game any shrine I find I should just keep walking?

[Funky T]

You can only have 50 devotion points with any character, but there are more than 50 shrines in the game.

You won't get more points beyond 50, but you can choose to pay them up anyway, since they are actually decent loot containers and give you some EXP. So if you find a shrine with low cost, you might consider paying it.
Fighting shrines are obviously still free loot.

[Finnvbot]

50 is the cap at the moment, yes. You cannot exceed it even in Crucible. I believe that the expansion is going to raise the cap but don't quote me on that. ;)

Shrines still have a chance of giving you epic and legendary items so the choice is yours. I ignored some of them on Ultimate because I didn't feel like crafting relics and such to restore a shrine.

[Seraguith]

Items aren't the only things in the game. You sure your Devotion trees match your playstyle and skill build? Since you're having a hard time there must be something unoptimal around your build.

I have a level 80 character and I have no problems tanking and dealing lots of damage using my own personal build.

[Old Iron Johnson]

A raw green item will be inferior to purples, but with prefixes taken into account, they're generally much more versatile. For the standard DW Blademaster build, switch out your deathmarks with Derm Slicers, preferably one with Tyrant's and one with Vampiric/Of Voracity to keep healed. Do the same with Gollus's rings to get your health up.