Seems like there’s no enter point for Siphon Souls? We’re about to take Blood Boil without starting that path 
Nice catch. Fixed (I put 1 point in at same time as I got Decay). Left it there until later when it says to max.
thnx mate! your build for a beginner like me is…awesome:) i really appreciate your effort. ty
Thanks, Bene. You’re most welcome. Let me know how it goes/if you have any questions.
I’ve finished the campaign on Normal at ~62 lvl, switched to Vet and did a few bounties (now I’m Honored with all vanilla factions and Respected with AoM’s) and now sitting at ~64 level. Most of resistances is overcapped already tho I didn’t use any augments and such, just a pure equip stats.
So should I run for Elite now, compensating the resses penalty with augments, or work on bounties until Honored with AoMs, 65 lvl and Barrowholm stuff? 7.5k hp and like 2.5k Ravenous Earth tooltip dps (unbuffed iirc).
Also, could you please make some melee build someday, this one is so well-written. Most builds just throw grimtools link at you and that’s it.
You shouldn’t need to do bounties (unless you really want to). The Barrowholm level 65 items only require Friendly, so you already have that. You can start on Elite and go back to Normal/Veteran at 65 just to pick up the interim gear from Barrowholm before getting the rest at 90.
The only faction I did bounties for was Rovers (so I could unlock the Mogdrogen shrine on normal). I may have done a couple for Barrowholm on Ultimate to finish off to Revered, but if so, it didn’t require much. Simply playing (and in my case, fully exploring maps/all areas) and doing quests got me all the rep I needed.
I wouldn’t worry too much about resistances in Elite (especially if they’re close to maxed) unless you feel noticeably squishy. If so, just add a few components to round things out.
Thanks for the vote of confidence in my guide. I may or may not make more guides at some point (been playing a lot of Subnautica recently). In the meantime, if you’re looking for melee, I’d recommend checking out Stupid Dragon’s 2H Lightning Elementalist build.
I’m sorry to bother you with my own progression but I have to share it.
I forgot to run BoC and Valbury Port somehow and didn’t quite finished with The Outcast, so I did on Veteran; that and a few easier bounties (cheap relics craft) pushed me to 65 and Revered with Anasteria.
Since I got nothing else to do I switched to Elite and cleared A1 up to Flooded Passage (had to go to work). Kinda disappointed a bit in Possession, I know it will get better later but for now it adds up something like 150 dps to RE.
Barrowholm items wasn’t that good at this moment tho I did bought chest piece and thinking about shoulders (but this would require to balance the resses again). Still it’s pretty neat I can always buy a decent pieces if RNG grins at me.
My resses took a little hit, elemental is solid 84 still, while I do miss a bit of Aether (25% atm), Pierce (54%), Stun (~40?) and Acid/Poison res (positive value, being easily fixed with BoD). Well placed RE can eat up to half of hps of most heroes, and frankly I don’t feel like I’m playing on a higher difficulty (it’s only A1, ikr). Enjoying this build immensely. Enjoying this guide immensely.
Should I run Hidden Path on normal/vet or it’s too hard even now?
Thanks for the suggestion about melee, think I’ll try out Stupid Dragon’s creation when I’ll be done with this great toon.
No problem, Bykot. Thanks for sharing your progression. Your resists sound fine (Aether a little low, but that’s not uncommon at this point; plus, it mostly only matters in Act 6 and Port Valbury, at least on Elite). Stun resist is mostly only important in Crucible and if you have RE up, you’re generally leeching enough that even if you are stunned, you’ll survive through it. A little more important in Acts 5/6 in Ultimate just because the difficulty ramps up so much but still not a deal breaker. And yes, BoD is fantastic for never having to worry about poison resist ever. 
If you already did the rogue-like dungeons, you’re definitely capable of finishing Hidden Path on Veteran. I’d do that and then go back to progressing through Elite.
I’ve got 3000 hrs on this game (according to steam) have constructed probably a couple dozen from this condominium, and I have to give you much accolades, loud and long for this write up.
I’ve assembled builds that made me :furious: because of their ambiguity.
This write up is, well, astonishing. I’m gonna assemble it just because it is so astonishing. I’m gonna dream about how astonishing this write up is.
Nice and I appreciate it.
At Homestead now, Elite goes with 0 deaths. Somehow managed to get Bonespike at lvl 71, combined with “Soldier’s” and, more important, “of Decay”, and it’s a damn big upgrade in all fields: HP, phys, Vit damage, +2 RE and RE duration. Now RE does something close to 3.5k tooltip dps with auras (I always forget to cast BoD before checking…). As long as I don’t stand in yucky pools and (esp) aether ground I can outleech nearly anything, even without Bloodthirst from Haunted steel. It’s my best toon over the whole Grim Dawn plays and I know who’s the MVP in guides
@tdurden, haha, thanks for the high praise. It means a lot.
@Bykot, grats on the Bonespike. They are indeed very, very good. In fact, a well-rolled Bonespike will be better than the Wendigo Blooddrinker. I avoided using one on my playthrough only to be sure the faction only gear would work. The main benefit of Haunted Steel is the +%Vit damage and the extra ADCtH. Once you have Blood resistance capped, the activated skill doesn’t really add much (I used it for a while, but realized it doesn’t contribute much additional leech, since you already have a lot). I’m glad your journey continues to go well. Nice job on 0 deaths.
Okay, I’m 82, done half of AoM content (still Elite), found one Nemesis - and that was the Kubacabra himself. I’ve heard bad things about him but kited him to death without any troubles (ok, I’ve crossed a half of Ugdenbog backtracking later)… guess he’ll take his toll on Ultimate. Got his green pants (Prismatic, of Fortitude, 85 lvl), closed two achievements for one Nemesis and six Nemesis kills :D. Died just once in Fort Ikon for the fallen boss there, got oneshot from his meteors (crit? 11k hp gone, poof) but I’m blaming only myself for being reckless, that was plain dumb to facetank.
RE is 4k tooltip dps now (buffed), OA/DA 1.7k both, top damage dealt 37k, all resses are overcapped except stun. The equip is a horrible mix of greens with 3 blues, relic is still Gluttony.
I told that before but obviously should repeat myself - great guide, great build, thank you!
UPD: +1 death, that son of a void, Ravager. I knew I’m not too bright.
95, mid-campaign, Ultimate, died 0 times here (yet), no Nemesis encountered so far (not that I’m so eager to fight’em now, anyway).
I feel like switching Will of Rattosh from Siphon Souls to Ravenous Earth might be a good idea since the mobs (and especially bosses) is under constant RE bombardment and thus WoR debuff would be applied constantly too, not to mention that Siphon Souls is a bit more risky overall. Or am I missing something?
I’m 100 on Ultimate, done with main campaign and took a break before AoM content for recipes farming. Mountain Deeps is great for that, so you could get one treasure trove (like 66%), loads of Bonespikes and a few hero/boss encounters. Steps of Torment is done, Bastions of Chaos is on the way (but that’s for weekend), 0 deaths so far. No Nemesis found yet.
If you’re not lazy you could easily get much better stuff than shown, I’m sitting at 17k hps, OA/DA 2.2k/2.4k (tho I know the point was to show that faction stuff will do). Maybe it’s not the fastest build, I don’t really care, cuz in terms of survivability it’s just great. Kinda scared of Nemesises but I jus need to face’em to check out.
UPD: BoC done easy. AoM is on the way.
UPD2: Cleared 1.0.5 Ancient Grove dungeon. Kuba invited me right before SK doors, killed him with 1 careless death after the first split (that’s imo the hardest part, when the splinters is still hit like two trucks and you have the chances to catch up 2x breaths) and loads of kite. Grove itself was good and deathless, tho that aetherial hydralisk was surprisingly beefy and the last boss (The Tree Stump) is pretty annoying but doable (I wonder how it’d go with mediocre geared melee, like hit-swing-ouch-toast?).
Btw I’ve never used Solael’s Flame, twice Haunted Steel all the way - you can’t have too much leech here if you play reckless like I do.
I just wanted to add to the accolades for this build guide. It’s the best one I’ve seen for any build of any game in 30+ years of playing games. Some have been close, but this is the creme de la creme. I wish that everyone would take the time that you did when publishing a “finished” build.
Thanks for your progress updates, Bykot. It’s nice to hear someone else’s experience with the build and you seem to be doing great. About your spell binding question, you can try it out. I’ll be honest, I don’t fully understand the proc mechanics on different spells (some have higher proc chances which is why some get bound differently than you’d expect), so I figured a veteran like JoV probably had better bindings than what I would come up with.
@Requnix, thank you! It works fine for farming/Nemesis/dungeons. I have cleared all dungeons at 100 on Ultimate without issue. Some Nemesis can be a little tricky/take a while, but they’re all doable. As mentioned, I’ve done 150 Challenger without buffs several times, so Crucible farming is definitely possible and campaign farming (such as in Mountain Deeps like Bykot mentioned) works very well. I kept myself handicapped to just the gear mentioned in the guide, but you should be able to quickly find better replacements once you farm a bit, and thus get faster kill times, and tankiness is very good.
@buddhabunny, thank you! That’s very high praise. I really appreciate it.
I want to add my thanks for your great guide as well! One of the if not the best one for new players on here. It deserves more recognition, another reason for me to post here.
I’m only lvl 41, but it’s the fastest build to level I’ve played and lot of fun at that. Maybe I’m just lucky but the gear support even just for leveling seems to be great. I’ve got ravenous earth at 21/16 atm. Makes everything an absolute breeze.
Thank you for taking the time to write this and for your new player knowledge compedium too! Hope to see more from you.
I’m back after a long time 
Have you managed to beat Lokaar or Gladiator using this gear? I’ve managed to take out 3 quarters of Lokaars’ health but don’t have the patience to go through to the end after 40 something attempts and I lost count of how many hours I spent running and kiting (I restarted the game every time I died), those damn ranged burbon clones are annoying.
Only two things left for me to finish - Port Valbury and Malmouth itself (not taking the secret(s), Mog and Rava). Got 380+/380+ Vitality Damage/Decay Bonespike dagger but I guess I should aim for perfect 414/414 or at least 400+ Vitality with Chaos (can’t remember how did I get this number but seems plausible). I’ll post my toon some time later just to show how far you could go playing self-found taking this beautiful build as a starter, if I’ll find some relic on my shoulders… I’d be so happy with Living Armor recipe but no luck so far (hope this little rant would help).
Is there any particular reason why you don’t keep Spider in your devotion tree instead of dropping it and then picking up Hawk to get the greens? Thanks.
As an aside, I’m into Ultimate now. The build plays really nicely. The only road bump I’ve run into is the Mogdrogon quest in Act 5. The second phase of the boss at the end of the dungeon beat the hell out of me in Expert mode.