[1.0.5.1] Vitality Cabalist Build Showcase - Melee, Caster, etc

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

b Hagaraz The Dark One - Vitality Hybrid DW Melee
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Credits to THT for his glorious concept of Dark One scourge strike Cabalist. You can access his thread here:

Update 1: Shifting skill points from ravenous earth skill tree to bone harvest and reaping strike based on Ptiro’s suggestion. Also adding more explanations

Update 2: Just realized that theurgist prefix for soul harvest is not really needed. Although the flat vitality damage added would be 22, generic prefix suffix like stalwart and readiness can also be used. Decaying is also usable as the flat vitality damage increased can be 21. The build updated with dread lord’s prefix + chaos strike as another nuker, increasing the kill speed considerably as it enable us to move quicker! Credit to superfluff for suggesting.

sc2.png503×745

Preface
Cabalist is the first mastery I started with when I start playing Grim Dawn. That is because I like to play pet build in every ARPG I play, especially the one that use skeleton. Unfortunately, pet build is the weakest archetype in grim dawn, mainly because of the itemization, skill tree, and devotions cannot fully support the stats separation between player and pets.
I still play pet build though, but only for levelling a necro :p. Other than that, I am still trying to build a truly hybrid pet build in grim dawn.

So, after failing to make a pet necro build, I stumbled across THT thread and converting my build to DW melee. After that, I am experimenting a lot with other vitality build cabalist, trying all the skill available in them.

This build is one of them, an effort to update THT build with all the patches.

The Build

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLBxBMN
Screenshot with all permanent buff + blood of dreeg, soul harvest, hungering void, and call of the grave.
DPS shown is scourge strike

Build Feature

  • High OA DA
  • Huge Weapon Damage
  • Can reach +3500% of vitality damage with some good rolls
  • 109%+10% Vitality RR
  • Good Crits Damage
  • Good Lifesteal
  • Quite tanky due to dark one procs, possession, reduced enemy damage (ravenous earth & bloody pox modifier), and OA shred (bloody pox). Mark of torment is only used for facing high attack boss and nemesis.
  • Claw of Hagaraz is faction blue prints.
  • 3 Nuker came from item (sacred, chaos, scourge strike)
  • Dual wield melee
  • Need to drink energy potions if energy leech is not working.
  • OK CC resist, it is enough for finishing no buff and banner 150 Crucible though.
  • To some people, too many button to press
  • Dual wield melee

Equipment Choices
Core Items:
Full Dark One Set
Main Hand + Off Hand: 2x Claw of Hagaraz. Build defining items, craft at arngrim for +% armor
Medal: Mythical Direwolf Crest. For dual wielding
Amulet: Death-Watcher Pendant. For increasing Call of the grave durations, Best prefix should be dread lord’s for adding more flat vitality damage + ADCTH, enabling us to use riftstone component. Other prefix option should be decaying, stalwart, or whatever for resistances. For suffix, get one that increase OA/DA like protection, attack, readiness, or dranghoul
Relic: Scourge. Build defining relics, get %DA for completion bonus

Others:
Rings: Judicator’s seals set. OA&DA Bonus, RR, heal
Belt: Mythical Girdle of Stolen Dreams. Huge OA bonus, helpful energy leech, +Occultist
Pants & Boots: To cover resistant, Cunning and Spirit Requirements.

Devotions
We are going all out in offensive vitality devotions, taking triple T3 devotions, twin fangs (bat) and the almighty flame torrent (fiend):

  • Dying God --> staple for vitality build, super 40% crits damage and high vitality damage multiplier
  • Rattosh --> Huge 25% Vitality RR and 8% Life leech RR for even more
  • Aeon --> Use offensively (double attack for all our nuker, call of the grave cooldown reset) and defensively (reducing mark of torment cooldown)
  • Twin fangs --> Trash clearing, more sustain with life leech
  • Flame Torrent --> If scourge strike, sacred strike, chaos strike, and bone harvest are our cannon, flame torrent is our machine gun.

For sequence:

  1. Crossroads Red
  2. Fiend, bind to ravenous earth
  3. Bat, bind to curse of frailty
  4. Crossroads Blue
  5. Eel
  6. Lizard
  7. Solemn Watcher
  8. Lion
  9. Scholar’s Light
  10. Crossroads Yellow
  11. Jackal
  12. Rattosh the Veil Warden, bind to bloody pox
  13. Sailor’s Guide
  14. Dying God (to procs only), bind to bone harvest
  15. Aeon’s Hourglass, bind to scourge strike

Gameplay
Keybind:
LMB: Scourge Strike
RMB: Bone Harvest
Mouse scroll up: Curse of Frailty
Mouse scroll down: Bloody Pox
Middle mouse button: Blood of Dreeg
Keyboard 1: Ravenous Earth
Keyboard 2: Call of the Grave
Keyboard 3: Sacred Strike
Keyboard 4: Chaos Strike
Keyboard 5: Mark of Torment

Standard procedure:
Cast call of the grave
Scroll up & down & press to activate CoF, Pox, and BoD
Chaos strike in
Cast Bone Harvest, triggering hungering void
Cast Ravenous Earth near the enemies, triggering Flame torrent
Mash LMB, RMB, keyboard 3, keyboard 4.
Rinse and repeat, kite if necessary

Build Explanation and Performance
In cabalist, Dark one set, solael witchfire, second rite, soul harvest, and possession can increase weapon damage considerably high. By dual wielding, it will increase even further. However, cabalist lack the skill to utilize that huge weapon damage aside from bone harvest (which unfortunately only use main hand damage).

Then what do you do with those huge weapon damage? Use item skill of course! This build use triple strike skill on top of bone harvest for nuker: chaos strike for mobility, sacred strike as RR, and scourge strike for super nuker! All of them utilize both weapon damage. In addition, WPS skill is also used so you can trigger some when you are mashing those attack button.

There are some selection for vitality damage weapon, going by THT concept and dark one set purposes, you can use bonespike, then focus your skill point to ravenous earth. For me, I pick Claw of Hagaraz, which provide more skill point to both masteries and unique self buff to call of the grave.

Claw of Hagaraz is silently buffed in patch 1.0.5.0, adding +10% crits damage to call of the grave. This provide more burst damage to the build with sufficient OA. With more skill points, we can add bloody pox (OA shred and reduced enemy damage), a bit of WPS, and mark of torment! Increasing the build survivability.
With +600% Vitality damage and +20% Crits damage, also more RR and leech from Rattosh, the offensive part of the build -compared to THT concept- is still there and can potentially be greater. With Aeon + death-watcher pendant modifer, call of the grave is inactive for only 3 second.

The build can consistently and easily clear 150 Crucible with no buff and banner. Basic understanding of what the enemy and nemesis can do is essential though.
I also tried to do 170 crucible without buff and banner, but in 160 alek and reaper killed me, pincer attack me from both sides.
Well, this build can surely do 170 with buff and banner with more practice, especially on the next patch.

Afterword
Go Team RED!!!

2

u Valguur The Gluttony - Vitality Caster[/u]

You can check valguur’s ritualist from Ptirodaktill thread here :


In fact, I use devotion setup from him and it is almost the same as (1) build.
sc2-a.jpg497×785

Preface
Valguur’s cabalist is the first set I have been working on alone because I have not seen one successful build in this forum. I have been working with the build for a long time, trying to increase the damage of sigil of consumption until doom bolt is not needed. Almost giving up on the build until I saw the ptirodaktill devotion setup in his ritualist. Turn out, it is the last piece my build needed. Previously, I never thought that dying god, aeon, and rattosh can be in the same setup.

This is a build that is overall better and easier to pilot than (1) build, mainly because it is a caster, can effectively kite, still so tanky, and has double mark of torment due to CDR and Aeon.

The Build

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/aZqad7mZ
Screenshot with all permanent buff + blood of dreeg, soul harvest, and hungering void.
DPS shown is scourge strike

Build Feature

  • Good OA DA
  • Good Weapon Damage
  • Can reach +3000% of vitality damage with some good rolls
  • 145%+15% Vitality RR
  • Good Crits Damage
  • Humongous Lifesteal due to 16% Life Leech RR and all the vitality spell and procs
  • Easy to kite due to sigil of consumption and CoF slowing the enemy by 70%
  • Not that many button to be pressed
  • Double Mark of Torment if needed
  • Caster
  • OK CC resist, it is enough for finishing no buff and banner 150 Crucible though.
  • To some people, too many button to press
  • Caster

Equipment Choices
Core Items:
Full Valguur Set
Main Hand: Decree of Aldritch. Converting maximum of 54% fire damage of flame torrent and sigil of consumption to vitality
Alternative Main Hand: Corruption of Gargabol. Is potentially better than decree of aldritch on this build as it can also provide additional RR in ill omen
Medal: Rylok Mark. is a must for increasing sigil of consumption damage, use whatever prefix or suffix you have. Additional slow is nice to have
Amulet: Reaver’s Hunger. is a must for increasing sigil of consumption damage, bonus duration is also a big help. Additional increase damage of bone harvest is also nice to have
Rings: Mythical Cursebearer and Voidheart or Mhythical Signet of the Fallen. Ring slot is used for additional RR, in this build I use voidheart instead of signet of the fallen because it convert additional fire damage to chaos (ours has quite nice 1300% multiplier for chaos) and plus to skills that I use

Others:
Shoulder: Mythical Bloodfury Spaulders. Plus to skills we use, nice ADCTH, and nice procs
Belt: Mythical Girdle of Stolen Dreams. Huge OA bonus, helpful energy leech, +Occultist
Boots: Mythical Voidwalker Footpads. Help to overcap destruction, nice defensive procs
Pants: To cover resistances.
Relic: Solael’s Decimation. Mainly used for +occultist and OA, its procs is nice for additional damage. Get completion bonus on skills that we use

Devotions
Devotion setup is the same as Ptirodaktill’s Ritualist, and the explanation is almost the same as the first build, except:

  • Aeon --> Mainly use for defensive (reducing mark of torment cooldown) and making hungering void up almost all the time
  • Flame Torrent --> This is mainly a caster, but the skill setup make it has an acceptable weapon damage. Also Decree of aldritch converting max 54% of elemental to vitality and valguur’s chest converting max 30% chaos to vitality. 4% ADCTH can also provide some sustain.

For sequence:

  1. Crossroads Red
  2. Fiend, bind to ravenous earth
  3. Viper
  4. Eel
  5. Sailor’s Guide
  6. Solemn Watcher
  7. Phanter
  8. Scholar’s Light
  9. Hawk
  10. Oklaine’s Lantern
  11. Respec Hawk
  12. Jackal
  13. Rattosh the Veil Warden, bind to curse of frailty
  14. Dying God (to procs only), bind to bone harvest
  15. Aeon’s Hourglass, bind to doom bolt

Gameplay
Keybind:
LMB: Bone Harvest
RMB: Sigil of Consumption
Mouse scroll up: Curse of Frailty
Mouse scroll down: Blood of Dreeg
Middle mouse button: Siphon Souls
Keyboard 1: Ravenous Earth
Keyboard 2: Mark of Torment
Keyboard 3: Doom Bolt

Standard procedure:
Scroll up & down & press to activate CoF, BoD, and Siphon Souls
Cast Bone Harvest, triggering hungering void
Cast Ravenous Earth near the enemies, triggering Flame torrent
Stack multiple Sigil below the enemy
In between stacking the sigils, you can cast CoF, Siphon, and RE multiple of times. Make sure all of your RR (beside rings) always active, RE / Flame torrent always active, and hungering void [most of the time] active. Stand above the sigils. Use double mark of torment for facing multiple nemesis or bosses.
Rinse and repeat, kite if necessary

Build Explanation and Performance
Main damage dealer of this build is sigil of consumption. The skill itself does not provide much damage without using multiple skill modifier. With this item setup, sigil damage increase by ±80%. However, it still need a huge RR to accompany it. Secondary source of damage is siphon souls and flame torrent. Bone harvest damage is also quite nice, but lack of skill point to softcap it.

The same as (1), the build can consistently and easily clear 150 Crucible with no buff and banner. Basic understanding of what the enemy and nemesis can do is essential though.
Last time I use this build, I finish 161ish with buff and banner on the first try. Same problem as before, get pincer attacked by multiple nemesis.
However I believe that this build can do 170 with buff and banner with more practice, especially on the next patch.

Afterword
Go Go Team RED!!!

1 Like
3

Reserve for Vitality Drain Essence

4

Reserve for other future vitality cabalist build

5

Digging the build.

Quick/random question - Does the OA boost which comes with the transmuter of bloody pox take effect after/before the OA reduction from wasting?

6

Nice.
Do RE worth it on first build? No CDR and no duration modifier seems rather meh for this spell. Isnt it better to drop it to onepointer and max Bone harvest instead? Also you can drop Solael Witchfire and Second rite to onepointers and add Sigil in the build. And why do ppl put Judicators rings in every possible build :wtf: Cursebearer+Signet of the fallen are BiS vitality rings.

7

Strongly recommend 2x bonespike. They trop like candy too. Also at least 1x riftstone

And congrats:)

8

Thanks spanks…
Regarding your question, honestly I don’t know. However, if going through basic mathematical order of operations, the transmuter will act first, then the flat shred from wasting come in.

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Tapatalk

9

Thanks ptiro!
I think you were right on RE part. With RE in such a poor state, dark one set doesn’t give any skill modifier to RE, and current item setup; I should leave RE enough points to only yield 6-7 fragments, still maxing decay, and eliminate foul eruption. Right now, the skill is only good for damage reduction and flame torrent trigger. The remaining skill points will goes to bone harvest line and WPSes. It will be nice to have another nuker.

Regarding judicator, they are necessary on this build for their huge OA bonus, resistance, and their procs. The build has already enough RR for having such a huge weapon damage. In the valguur build, the additional RR is necessary because sigil of consumption is not a strong skill on their own.

Regarding solael witchfire, dark one head and chest convert chaos to vitality, which SW provide in form of flat damage. Second rite also provide flat vitality damage. Both of them contribute to the weapon damage which is the main source of damage to this build.

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10

Thanks Fluff, it was a lot coming from you… :wink:
The thing is, with bonespike, I cannot put points on bloody pox and Mark of torment, which contribute to the survivability of this build.
Ptirodaktill raise up a really good suggestion for focusing on bone harvest instead, and only gives enough points on RE, which I think will be the most fitting on this build…

I was thinking about riftstone too before, but the flat RR from sacred strike is too good to pass up…

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11

Never knew mods on Call of the Grave affect the player, and not the pets. Turns out to be really strong here. Singlehandedly made this build a very unique concept.

12

Just tried Ptiro suggestion for bone harvest. It came out really good!
Nemesis and bosses drop dead even faster. First post has been updated.

Thanks X1X2!
Yes, most of skill modifiers for pet related skill like call of the grave, reap spirit, and bonds of bysmiel is actually affecting the player, not pet.
I guess if it want to affect the pet, they will add wording like “bonus to all pets” before the modifier itself.

13

Try https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62aOr0gZ this setup, should clear ~30% faster that original. Don’t know if I no CDR decay is reliable. I switched to Il omen on my ritualist cause Decay has very short duration and if you try to run away it wont help you at all.

14

RE need to be always active for decay to be effective. Thus, the player need to cast it in interval. Bloody pox modifier intend to cover decay when needed.

I appreciate your suggestion, I will try it someday. I think sigil of consumption is not doing anything on that build though.
I personally think that high OA and DA is much needed on the melee build because it mostly need to face enemy’s attack head on.
For now, I think current RR is enough because (1) build already has huge weapon damage.

15

Second build posted with more explanation and guide!!

16

Hey cool build man! I am currently trying to gear up for the second build (caster cabalist), I am quite new to the game and I was wondering if there are any good purple items that I can put in the medal/leg slot meanwhile I farm for those MI’s? Cheers!

17

Thanks man.
For pants, you can use anything really. Currently this MI is best to cover the resistances especially stun res. You can replace it with myth legplates of valor, myth chausses of Barbaros, myth mageguard legguards, or myth wraithborne legwraps.
However, there are no non-MI pants that has stun res, so you need to cover that by changing boots slot to myth greaves of Ill omen, or crafting stoneplate greaves. Also you need to use component on head that has stun res. Aim for at least 60% stun res for caster.

For medal, rylok mark is quite easy to get, really. They dwell in the void of AoM area, or you can farm them at the same location as you farm dark one set. Otherwise, you can use myth unholy sigil of covenant.

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18

Mate. You need to see the power of it. You can have 4 RE up at once shotgunning. Bind FAngs to RE and you will survive anything, or to pox, or harvest, i assume you want flame torrent shred , anyway you just have to try it :smiley:

Chaos strike with chaos> vit conversion and soul harvest is really strong, even if you ignore the above. CS would be a great addition

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V04lrRV With voracity affix you won’t need seal anymore for lefesteal

Or 2x spike https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2g03y7V Whatever affix you can get on second one or first. As long as you have vitality bonus and/or lifesteal. I just but what i thing is BiS.

You can have plagueabearer and replace blessed strike with chaos strike

19

I know well the power of ravenous earth with increased duration by bonespike as I tried THT build before I made mine.

The thing is, replacing hagaraz to bonespike is shifting the focus of this build and changing the identity and gameplay of the build. People can see THT build instead.
Mine is trying to emphasize more on increased crit damage and weapon damage by adding more nuker.
Also, I was trying to minimize the use of triple-rare MI :stuck_out_tongue:

Regarding the triple-rare MI, I found that +3 to soul harvest only count for 22 flat vitality damage. If only pursuing flat vitality damage, decaying prefix is enough. What essential for the build is only death-watcher pendant itself.

The build updated with changing the prefix of death-watcher pendant to dread lord’s, enabling us to use chaos strike as suggested by Superfluff.

20

Yeah totally get this. The call of the grave thing is an intereting take, and you would do even more dmg with chaos strike with that bonus thatn the THT one