[1.1.4.2] WIP Deceiver Healer Chaos Pet - Fun and decent, but needs work

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Greetings all,

This is a build that I started with way back when, but has been sitting around in my character list at around level 90 forever waiting to be Sarnathed. I’m not someone who has had a lot of success with pet builds, and this is another of that ilk. It’s decent enough through the game content, but the kill speed is a bit lacking and it may be that the concept simply isn’t top drawer (in my hands anyway!). So I’m looking for a little help with making it better but without doing so at the cost of the concept - otherwise I could just grab a Maya pet build at random and I’m done.

GRIMTOOLS

Essentially the concept is to run a Chaos-focused pet build driven by Mythical Touch of Purity and enough CDR to keep Healing Rain and Hungering Void permanently up (or as close as possible anyway). The support constellations primarily aid the pets themselves or provide Chaos RR. The rings and tome convert pet physical and cold damage to Chaos, hence the use of Bonescavenger’s gloves to provide extra pets that deal Chaos.

Right now the character hasn’t reached level 100 nor has all the right factions revered, so I’m far from having this actual build fully working and therefore I may have some misconceptions about its effectiveness or where it’s failing. I also had Inquisitor mastery at 50, so there are 10 skill points unavailable to me, and the same goes for those in the Shattered Realm. Hence this is a Work In Progress.

One main question is the choice of Shepherd’s Call vs Acid Spray, as I’m 4 points short of getting everything in (or might just not be smart enough to do it). Gut feel says the -RR is more valuable, but that might just be wrong. Flame Torrent definitely works though, as the character has around +1600% Chaos damage bonus, and is pretty much the only AoE in the build.

Perhaps Touch of Purity itself is the albatross around the neck but it was the build inspiration so I’m sticking with it for now. It’s hard to keep enough health regeneration going, but in truth without using the healing skills at the hard cap the weapon is likely irrelevant (in the past I had the character healing running at over 1000 health per second so Healing Rain being up wasn’t forced [cos you have to get hit for it to trigger], but that’s probably not necessary). I didn’t really appreciate how skill point-hungry the build has become. Mythical Dracarris is probably BiS for the build as it stands and the pets don’t die before the caster during the content anyway.

It’s decent but slow and could almost certainly be better. So, any advice on improving this concept outside the choice of weapon (or perhaps to indicate how to better showcase Touch of Purity, maybe cut Healing Rain but boost Blood of Dreeg and Word of Renewal instead etc) and the other key skills mentioned would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

EDIT: In the meantime, a bit more theory crafting based on the ideas mentioned in this post has led me here: Grimtools. This looks to have a more stable health regeneration base while getting Shepherd’s Call in. This will be the new test version!

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I want to help, but I have no idea how to make it work with just the Familiar and the Hellhound, while Focusing on the Hellhound and not the birb.

But it is certainly an interesting concept and I am curious to see how it progresses.

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So am I! :smiley:

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I’m sure this is a silly question, but do the granted skills on Dracarris and Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips require the character to deal the killing blow before triggering? I always assumed the answer was no, because I’m pretty sure Raise Spirit off the gloves happens regardless of the player character’s interaction. However, now that I’m testing Dracarris as a comparison, the Hellspawn ability hardly ever triggers, which is odd for something with a 100% chance to activate. Am I confused? It can’t be in cooldown because the recharge period is shorter than the activation period.

Edit: Just tested it now. Send Hellhound to kill a plant. No trigger. Sent to kill another plant. No trigger. Disbanded pets and attacked a plant with character - Hellspawn triggered every time. Is this the right behaviour? A bit more testing later and it seems I need new gloves…

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Yes, the player needs to deal the damage for these type of procs.

When you attach this to a non player-scaled pet, the pet gets the benefit and it uses the pet’s damage. But pets have a lot of %damage so it works.

As your concept is to convert [80%] physical to chaos, I’d be tempted to try and compare this:

  • Primal Instinct Relic
  • change Dead God and Manticore for Shepard’s call and Revenant. Shepard’s call has similar stats to DG for pets, but is less demanding on your regen. The skellies are player-scaled, but they should still hit well enough and a pack of these should put RR down well and not do a lot of damage (which aggros you)…as long as you have a skill that can keep them up.
  • add a point to each node in Storm Box and attach Raise the Dead proc to this. SB should consistently proc the Swarmlings of Primal instinct, as well.
  • Juggle points out of Infernal Breath for the skill compensations. (remove infernal Breath)

WOP will be stupid-good in the next patch so you won’t have to juggle it as much- It will last long and cover most of the screen. So SB should not be too much piano and will not do much damage for aggro, but should proc well.

The reason I suggest Revenant is that you have Acid Spray attached to CoF, so revenant might be better for you in this case. If pets were spamming Acid Spray, then it might be better due to their large %all damage bonuses to have acid spray. Also Inquis has SB which is a serious proc machine. However, Revenant may not work so well when you lose Dead God, as your character will lose a lot of OA…and I’m not sure how well the player-scaled pets will hit with this loss (it doesn’t affect non-player scaled pets).

You might want a little higher DA, though. I’m not sure how much you are getting aggro at present.

TLDR. Just some ideas for testing.

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As it turns out, the pets have more %Chaos (when including the %all) than the character’s! But this is a good point to bear in mind. I’ve been playing around with actually getting into the melee to pick off stragglers so that I can proc the gloves and/or Dracarris, and it might even be that with better OA/DA the character can take Flame Torrent to try keep those procs running. But you do raise an important point - if the build is to act like a caster and stay out of the fight, then the damage types on the gear completely loses relevance.

I had considered this relic initially (I have one on another toon), but for some reason convinced myself the swarmlings were player-scaled. This is definitely the right relic in the case that they’re proper pets.

What I’ve done on the current build is actually to cut Tree of Life, Jackal and Hound, switch Eel to Lizard and put the points into Behemoth (complete) and Shepherd’s Crook. This way I have the main ingredients and actually end up with better health regen even when Giant’s Blood is on CD. I added a point into DEE to trigger Shepherd’s Call. I’m finding it a lot easier to play, though there are still some mega damage spikes that I haven’t quite understood, though these may be related to insufficient resistances, especially Pierce and Chaos. Having said that, Revenant bears another look - I’ve mostly ignored it the skeletons because they’re player-scaled and use the wrong damage types. That’s not to say they can’t work, and I’m willing to test them out. Great call with linking them to Storm Box, by the way!

Is Infernal Breath that bad? Ok - I need the points elsewhere anyway.

I’m not getting too much aggro, but sometimes take a heavy hit at the start of a combat when engaging a pack of enemies. This might just need better play or a way to get Solemn Watcher into the build.

Thanks for the fantastic feedback, hammyhamster! I have a lot to investigate now.

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So I tried this out and all I can say is, “WOW!” Huge improvement right there. :smiley: The health regeneration on the relic is enough that I can use Inquisitor Seal more aggressively as well because the character doesn’t need to be standing on it all the time.

Here’s the revised, pacifist build - Grimtools

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I’ve modified the build a little more now to get Revenant in.

Grimtools

Even though it’s early days and the new celestial power is low level, I’m finding the battlefield a little easier to control and therefore the build feels safer/easier to play. I wouldn’t say that the build is more powerful at this stage as I may have lost a bit of kill speed with the change in -RR power, but that’s to be expected.

In an effort to make the bird more effective I’ve brought Lightning Strike and Vulnerability back to prominence at the cost of some pet health and energy regen from Bonds of Bysmiel. I do wonder how this will impact high level enemy AoE pet survival, though.

The character is now level 99, with no Shattered Realm skill points, misspent 10 in Inquisitor Mastery (and I’ve discovered I’ve not done the Hidden Path on ANY difficulty), so the actual build has a few compromises. Because this was a pre-Malmouth toon, built at a time when I thought Augments permanently made items Soulbound and therefore I avoided them, the character is not revered with any relevant faction either at this stage (Devil’s Crossing, Barrowholm, Coven of Ugdenbog) and therefore Chaos, Pierce and P/A resistances are not capped. The fact that these 3 resists are the key components of fighting enemies related to the 3 factions is ironic, to say the least.

I’m going to stick with this build for a while now because it feels stable. I’ll run around getting the missing skill points and augments and provide an update only then. I will still keep an eye out for other suggestions to improve things further, of course!

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hmmm nice concept but i think for start u need to change inquisitor classe ?

hmm what about this ? https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YNn6LvpN

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While I agree that a Cabalist is certainly better as a pure pet build, I think you will find that several simple options are just flat out better. For instance, going with the Shepherd of Lost Souls set will provide an extra Hellhound, massively buff the skeletons etc etc. Should you choose Revenant as a source of -RR then you could quite easily cut the physical to chaos damage conversion and aim instead for a build that shreds Vitality damage instead. To me this is a totally different build, but it’s one that feels more naturally suited to the Cabalist class. Beacon of Lost Souls automatically converts 50% physical to vitality, for instance - you could dual wield for 100% conversion, and the Solael’s Witchblade constellation would be almost completely useless.

There are 4 primary reasons for taking Inquisitor with my build. Firstly, Touch of Purity is a Deceiver weapon that buffs the heals in each class and grants +1 to all Inquisitor skills. It looks completely out of place on a Cabalist. Secondly, Necromancer has no way to debuff enemy chaos resistance, which is achieved with the Inquisitor’s Word of Pain/Death Sentence. Spectral Wrath debuffs Vitality, hence the “natural” progression is to go Vitality with Lost Souls. Thirdly, Soul Harvest does not replicate all the aspects of Word of Renewal - specifically the heal, the physical damage buff, and the resistance buffs. It provides flat Vitality damage, yes, and while that doesn’t matter to Dying God my build is Chaos-centric. Finally, Inquisitor Seal protects the character and the pets while providing a damage-boosting platform that can spam -RR. I consider Inquisitor Seal to be one of the most universally powerful skills in the game. In my build I don’t fully utilise the flat elemental damage from Arcane Empowerment (which is buffed by all the -RR the build provides, particularly the fire component), and this is one of the bits I want to try work on.

It seems to me that your build adds too many variables in terms of damage types, uses a weapon that is little more than a piece of wood, removes a key heal-all skill and loses Inquisitor Seal. There’s an excellent chance the clear speed will be higher because you have FAR more sources of damage, I’ll grant you that, but this may come at the cost of the caster being a bit more of a glass cannon.

TL;DR: I don’t think that Cabalist supports a Chaos-damage-based pet build, and it would be easier to stick with what that class is good at - namely Vitality. The devotion setup could certainly be similar to mine, just without Solael’s Witchblade and with Revenant.

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well u right inqui is better for chaos RR but its become hard & hard to finaliz this concept if u take inqui and i rly want to see the final version