I thought TD didn’t affect devotion skills?
TD certainly does iirc.
I put together a quick reference chart for CDR:
TD falls into the “CDR Reset” category and Giant’s Blood falls into the “Active Devotions” category, so TD affects Giant’s Blood.
EDIT: Updated chart, see posts below.
The last time I did some testing for TD, it worked for Active Item Skills (manually activated Granted Skills assignable to a hotkey) but not for any devotion skills. Because if it did affect devotion skills, then TD could affect itself. :rolleyes: Guess I’ll go test again…
If the skill cooldowns were set after all skill effects have been been fired (i.e. as the final step of the process), then TD would not reset its own CD. It’s pretty easy to verify that TD does indeed reset other active devotions just by looking at devotion uptimes.
My understanding is that item cooldowns were specifically made never to be affected by any CDR for balance reasons, but I’d certainly be very interested to find out otherwise.
EDIT: Just looked closely at the purple Sovereign icon in my quickbar during the Gladiator video and it does indeed look like active item skills are being reset by TD. Nifty! It’s obvious that they’re not affected by traditional CDR, but perhaps they’re also affected by CDR Chance.
Yup, it looks like we’re both right and wrong! 
I did some testing with Dryad’s Blessing to confirm that TD does affect devotions skills except itself of course.
For me this changes everything (again; the first time was when Superfluff informed me that it affected active item skills) and I’m not going to complain too much about the unannounced nerf to TD from 15 seconds base cooldown to 16 seconds.
Our main goal is still reaching an high as possible lvl on the summon skeleton skill because it is our biggest damage source even after the nerfs? Right?
Updated the imputed DPS for the Mad Queen video today: the previous Monster DB value of 6.7M MQ health had erroneously included the 4-player scaling bonuses. Monster DB has since been updated with single player MQ having health of 4.9M, resulting in an imputed DPS of 960k for our 5.1s MQ kill.
Yes - for the current build, reaching 26/16 Raise Skeletons is still the single largest boost in DPS.
Very detailed guide ever !
We can make a book with this.
Special GD Pets Book from DaShiv.
Crate should make a Special Myhtical Off-Hand Caster with that book 
I’m a bit barren on high level relic recipes, would it be worth replacing Deathchill Aura for Eye of the Storm? I’m currently using the Stormbringer of Malmouth offhand.
Thanks for your reply.
BTW, do you have your own set of keyboard shortcuts?
I found did a little bit hard to press 6,7,8 for the last skills in an intense fight.
Also, is this build vulnerable to the monsters having buff cleaning skill, under the tag “Arcane” ?
Thank you again.
So i’ve got my current iteration of this build to 1004% pet dmg, 119% pet attack speed, and 108% pet crit dmg before any temporary buffs or procs. +57% OA on pets.
The crits i’m seeing, rather than 50 or 60k, are more like 5k-14k on the high end.
Now granted i don’t have all the RR quite yet, but that is a HUGE DIFFERENCE.
Was the 1.0.30 nerf that huge to skellies? and even with your CDR you’re looking at ~5s CD on bile pets. Mythical Crown of Serpents will shave 4s off that but it’s not in your build lol. Don’t have one yet still missing that recipe.
EDIT: also i appreciate that you mention your loot being “not that great” but i’ve got 1600 hours and i’ve never seen the Master’s Spellblade recipe drop… so i won’t be using that for a mainhand lol
If you don’t have any of the level 70 relics and you already have Stormbringer, then yes Eye of the Storm is your best relic option.
I find it helpful to leave 1-3 as is, bind 4-6 to QWE, and bind the rest to various mouse buttons/wheels. This way, every key is quickly and easily accessible.
Between having pets steamroll most enemies in the campaign so fast and there being a huge wall of pets in front of me, I never even noticed anything unusual about the Arcane mobs until people on the forum complained about their dispel mechanic. So… not vulnerable at all.
- Post your GT so we can see what you’re working with, and what you’re still missing.
- Plug your build into the provided Max Pet Damage Calc and compare it against the reference build’s calc stats in each category (note that the calc has already been updated to 1.0.3.0, which is why the calc will be a more accurate comparison than the video). If you’re interested in comparing max crit values, the key stats you’ll want to compare between the posted calc and the calc for your build are:[ul]
[li]Your skeletons’ starting stats (as determined by your Raise Skeleton skill);[/li]
[li]How much additional flat damage you’re adding;[/li]
[li]Your +% lightning mod (+% all to pets has far less correlative power to final DPS for this build than +% lightning)[/li]
[li]Your final lightning RR amount, including your spellblade roll; and[/li]
[li]Your final crit multiplier with all procs up.[/ul][/li]I’m willing to bet that the above list will explain 90% of the deviation, with the remaining 10% due to how consistently you’re able to maintain/stack/reset temporary buffs.
And how much does faster resummoning of our 1 base point blight fiends add to our DPS, versus the increased DPS from having the +1 skills allowing us to reach 26/16 skeletons and another skeleton from reaching the Undead Legion breakpoint, the additional flat damage bonuses to ALL pets from both necro and occultist, the global CDR to improve uptime on Shepherd’s Call, Hungering Void, Call of the Grave, faster skeleton resummons, etc etc? Which set of bonuses better match up with where the DPS of the build is actually coming from?
+1 to all skills isn’t necessarily the best pure-DPS bonus, but builds require a certain minimum of skills to function and the Clairvoyant’s Hat provides desperately needed skill points (and CDR) that are far more valuable than the OA and the CD bonus on blight fiend.
Mythical Crown of the Serpents and maximum blight fiend resummoning simply aren’t worth it for this build because those aren’t where the build’s needs are. It could instead be a great item for a build with overleveled blight fiends, or for a ritualist build, or for a acid/poison pets (instead of lightning pets) build, etc. Not every great pet item belongs on every great pet build.
Hi DaShiv
Once again ty for a very detailed guide, I can learn so much from the game working through them.
Here is my link for my current setup
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/b28nO3DZ
Any tips/ideas or improvements will be appreciated
Thank you
Gogga
I’ll keep thinkering with it and post a grimtools.
As a benchmark, how much +% dmg, +%crit and +% OA do i shoot for on pets?
my skeletons are currently lvl 26, the build is almost identical though it looks like i have more +skills on my gear than the GT you posted
Thank you very much for this fantastic guide, it is very well written and incredibly articulate. I hope to be able to ask several questions about it here, if this is the correct place (and if not, any hints where I should ask instead are greatly appreciated). I’m hoping my questions are good enough to be useful for others to read, once you answer them 
To contextualize my questions (and as a way of giving additional praise): This is the first full guide (of this kind) that I have read – I am new to GD, and I prefer to start new games and try out as much as possible before following anything too closely, but your guide just fettered me, it is just too good not to read thrice, which I did. I noticed while reading for the second time, that there is so much in GD that is counter-intuitive, not just in the fine print of the mechanics. I mean also this: I like ARPGs, and even though I am not particularly skilful, I guess I am a veteran; I usually play summoners, at least at first, or summoner hybrids, because they usually represent the playstyle I like (snipers, basically; I usually ranged in traditional RPGs), because that’s how I started out in D2, because they intuitively make sense (why not let someone else fight for me) and because in almost all other ARPGs I have played, a summoner is usually the one which requires the LEAST amount of knowledge and gear (you need an awesome weapon to rock as a warrior, and you better know the mechanics of leech and reflect and whatnot to make sure you can sustain hits and mana etc.). That just doesn’t seem to be quite the case with GD.
So I suppose (1) my first question is: Your build isn’t really for beginners, is it? I am on my first playthrough, and I just passed the Coven in Veteran mode, and had up until now basically just followed my instinct, playing a cabalist focussed on summons. And I am pretty much crushing everything without much trouble, just doing my thing. Yet from what I now gather, this is to be expected, and Ultimate will be very different; my intuition is enough for Veteran, but then I’ll be stuck. And to get unstuck, I’ll need to delve as deep as you have been delving. And see: maybe summoner is so different, that if I want to play what I want I’ll need to change significantly? You write:
>> Suggestion: If you want to play a character that maintains a static army of permanent pets with high health/resists to tank for you, play a conjurer instead. Skeleton builds are specialized for maximum pet DPS regardless of casualties, and these builds operate best as offensive machines for which ALL pets are treated as expendable resources. The primary job of skeletons is to inflict damage as fast as possible, and NOT to survive indefinitely or to protect you! If you’re investing into making your skeletons tanky, then you are GUARANTEED to underperform compared to an offensively-optimized skeleton build.
The related question is: (1b) So you are not only constantly checking your cooldowns and doing your buffs and debuffs (like I am doing now), but constantly re-summoning your minions (like I am NOT doing now)? My skeletons don’t die that often, and my “permanent” ones (my Blight Fiend doesn’t have the transformer, then I have a Crab from a relic, a fire spirit from an epic off-hand, and the raven and the hellhound) die only sporadically, mostly to those weird AoE ground effects. How do you push all the buttons? How do you bind so many keys? What are your keybinds? Do you have to toggle between both sets often? I wonder if I have the skill for that, and instead need…
(1c) a Conjurer? Like, Briarthorn and Hellhound? Those can be my army? Do you have a build in mind?
My [u]second question /u: I didn’t even understand what Devotions are until near the end of Act 1. I was then under the mistaken impression that they are a little icing on the cake, the meat of which must come from Masteries and to a slightly lesser degree items. But you pros seem to consider Devotions inherent to a build’s damage output; now, they almost seem to me to be similar to the Passive Tree in Path of Exile: build-defining (but useless without active skills). If so, then I need to respec out of my ad-hoc intuition and look at T3s. I was aiming for Tree of Life, since I had thought that my army from my Masteries would be enough; now I know better. You sing the praises of Dying God, but do not mention (explicitly) the necessary steps needed to sustain health regen. What are those? Is BoD supposed to be enough? If I am too weakly skilled a player to manage all my CDR optimally (as your choice of Time Dilution lets you do), can I instead go for a weaker, more beginner-friendly “version” of “your build” and take another explicit pet T3 (like Modrogen) or Tree of Life (thus less CDR and thus keeping the standard (non-anomaly) version of Blight Fiend etc.)?
Third Questions are simply and revolve around skill choices: (3a) If you have all those +skills items, why not put one point in Blight Burst or Foul Eruption? Then (3b) you write about Ravenous Earth:
>>An AOE damage ability with good uptime and lots of multiple hits. This makes it very useful as a 1-pointer to proc both devotions that require continuous refreshing (such as Shepherd’s Call) or devotions with low/no cooldowns (such as Twin Fangs).
I get it. I think I was doing that, with Bloody Pox. So what makes my choice of Bloody Pox for the same purpose suboptimal? I had specced into it very early, and like it because of auto-spread (fire and forget, nice QoL for lower-skilled people like me) and no cooldown.
I find Bone Harvest hard to use because of its range. Any tips?
Last Question: You have all these great suggestions for items, a lot of which can be crafted. I haven’t found the blueprints to most of this, but even the crappy ones for which I HAVE found the blueprints I can’t readily make (Finally manage to make Hysteria, I think it’s called, which I am currently using for pet bonus Crab). Where am I supposed to get all the stuff to make the crappy relics I need to craft the better relics? Am I supposed to run back to A2, for example, and try to farm Manticores in the hopes of finding their “eyes”?
Thanks tons! Hope I am not detracting too much from the pro-debate here.
Is this build beginner friendly?
How about an update for the most recent patch?
You already have Deathchill so that’s the biggest boost you’ll receive to the build at that level. In general, the priority is simply to level as fast as possible at the lower levels, and your current setup should allow you to easily blow through content at your level.
Quick point of efficiency: generally it’s best to keep Undead Legion at 12, 16, or 20.
There’s no particular benchmark because the value of improving all of those depends quite a bit on a) how much you already have, and b) how much you have in the other DPS components.
Basically, you’ll want to invest in whichever area provides the best returns for your build at the current moment:[ul]
[li]Flat damage[/li]
[li]+% damage[/li]
[li]RR[/li]
[li]Crit/OA[/li]
[li]Attack speed[/li]
[li]Pet count[/ul][/li]For example, a 5% increase in any of those could look like 20 more flat damage, or +150% more lightning damage, or 10% more attack speed, or 1 more skeleton from Undead Legion, and so on. To a first order approximation, they’d all provide comparable improvements to DPS.
In other words, trying to hit predefined benchmarks is far less useful and effective than taking an accurate picture of what your build’s DPS factors look like, and then accurately assessing where you can improve most efficiently.
The endgame gear requirements are actually quite friendly compared to the other top-tier builds on this forum:[ul]
[li]Unlike other conversion builds, our primary conversion item is a faction item.[/li]
[li]There is no legendary set that you have to complete for set bonuses before the build becomes functional.[/li]
[li]Most of the mythicals are used for their stats and not for their item skill modifiers, so the lower non-mythicals can easily be substituted.[/li]
[li]The survivability on the build doesn’t come from equipment-specific armor values or procs, but instead from devotions and pet usage. This means that unlike some other builds, your survivability isn’t centered around finding certain items; instead, better equipment mostly helps you clear faster (although decreasing average enemy lifespan does increase summoner survivability as well).[/ul][/li]It’s not the easiest build to play necessarily, but that’s more about the player’s general ARPG aptitude IMO than experience with Grim Dawn. There are GD vets who will struggle with this build, and there are skilled ARPG players who are completely new to GD that can pick this build up no problem.
Yes, there’s an extra level of management, almost like playing an RTS game. You can also look into using keystroke macros to help with task automation (such as refreshing buffs).
Both the Pokemon and Pet Retaliation builds are designed for AoM and are conjurer-based.
That’s because there are numerous ways of meeting the health regen penalties of Hungering Void. If you look through the build forums for the builds that use it, you’ll find lots of different strategyies For this build, BoD + Giant’s Blood (with near-constant uptime via TD) quite easily provides us with +400 health/s even during Hungering Void.
If you’d like to play without TD, I’d suggest looking into either the “simplified” version of this build discussed in the “Analysis” section of the guide, or use the Skelemancer build instead. You’ll notice that both of these builds still use Dying God - as discussed in the Pet Devotion guide, Dying God is by far the best T3 pet devotion for a pet cabalist.
And where do you propose taking those points from?
Keep in mind also, that: (a) Foul Eruption only procs when the summon can successfully steal a kill from pets using Ravenous Earth, and (b) when using Unstable Anomaly, Blight Fiends may not even have the chance to cast a single Blight Burst before they expire, and certainly never more than one.
Bloody Pox works great with Twin Fangs, but I used Ravenous Earth instead because: (a) using RE, Twin Fangs will much more reliably fire into the thickest part of enemy packs for far better leech instead of toward some random straggler, and (b) given the build’s extreme point shortage, at low investment levels the % damage reduction from Decay was more valuable than a small amount of OA shred from Wasting.
Just wait until you try crafting your first Mythical relic.
The only thing to say, really, is that there’s a pretty fair amount of farming and collecting involved with GD crafting.
Not for a couple of weeks at least since I’m currently overseas on business.
When narrowing down relics, which one is the most optimal out of the two?
I’m undecided between Bysmiel’s domination or Dirge. Dirge’s pet is nice but it is so slow, i love it because im a pet hoarder.
I recently noticed that Bysmiel’s proc actually give physical resist on top of all the crazy bonuses, makes it very attractive. The +15% OA is also amazing, but lacking the +1 necro skill and an additional tanky pet.
Thank you for the nice and detailed build
I have one question regarding the recent nerf of the spellblade.
(Major Nerf) Blueprint - Master’s Spellblade: reduced All Resist Reduction to 15 (Note: Was 25 base RR.)
I’m currently 47 and have a Salazar’s Sovereign Blade. Taking into account the future CDR Reset I may come across on items, is it still worth the lose of my Harbinger pet for the 12 RR of Adept and after that, the 15 RR of Master ?