[1.1.8.1 - 1.1.9.6] Dark One's Reborn: Vitality Caster Ritualist ( 4:30m Crucible, 5:33 Naked Ex, SR 100, Ravager of Flesh, Crate, Callagadra, Mogdrogen)

Necro
Dark One’s set arising from the ashes
INTRODUCTION:
After some discussions in a certain elitist discord server, I decided to make an attempt and revive what was thought to be a nerfed weak archetype in the form of Dark One’s. Credits to @mad_lee that helped me with some of his item suggestions.
GRIMTOOLS:
Tab 1
tab 1 with all permanent buffs

RE
Ravenous Earth tooltip with all procs active

GEAR:
Core of the build is Dark One’s set of course, everything else is sort of BiS.
Decree of Malmouth: Nerfed Pandemic and Bonespike are straight up worse for this build, so we welcome a Storm Totem item instead.
Soulcatcher: BiS amulet. We fully convert the chaos damage to Ravenous earth and the extra damage on Devouring swarm is welcome.
Hallanx’s Head: Relevant skill bonuses, useful cdr to Wendigo totem and conversions.
Prime Ring of Morgoneth: Mad_Lee’s suggestion over Signet of the fallen. Relevant conversion for bat, offensive ability, healing effects increase and a decent damaging proc.
Cursebearer: BiS vitality ring, can’t pass on that one.
Frozen hearts on rings are mandatory for cc resistances and the hp scales nicely with Heart of the Wild.
Wendigomane Leggings: BiS pants. Phys res, lots of OA, decent healing proc.
Boneshatter Treads: BiS boots. Slow res, relevant skill bonuses, phys res.
If you happen to have a low bleeding resistance roll on it, replace one Spellscorched Plating with an Ugdenbog Leather and a Venomguard augment with Solar Powderstorm from Homestead. You will lose some pierce res overcap and health like this, but it would cover any bleeding res hole.
Basilisk Crest: BiS medal that you can vendor farm in Ancient Grove. Relevant bonuses, modifier to Ravenous Earth, look for offensive ability and %vitality damage ( if possible, preferably “Of Butchery/ Of Soulwarding” suffixes). Lagoth’aks Bloodbinding and Mythical Mark of the Forbidden are still good options though.
Lunal’Valgoth’s Waistguard: BiS because of the conversion and +1 all skills in Necro. Look for “Consecrated” prefix. Any other affix with slow res should do though.
Eldritch Pact: BiS for damage since we convert all of that chaos to vitality. Impurity is the other solid option with an extra healing proc that is half converted.
Rune of the Dark Progenitor aka:


This rune is the movement ability of choice simply because we convert the chaos damage and it has huge OA/DA shred which build lacks .

SKILLS:
Wendigo Totem and Ravenous Earth are no brainers since they are supported by the set.
Devouring Swarm alongside Spectral Binding/Wrath are also obvious for their resistance reduction.
Mark of Torment is a good defensive skill that allows to facetank more than a character should.
Mogdrogen’s Pact line gives nice HP and DA/ resistances.
Storm Totems and Bone Harvest as another damaging skills. If you don’t like the build’s DA, you can replace Bone Harvest with Siphon Souls and Blood Boil for offensive ability shred. I have tested it, it provides a bit worse dmg overall but another leeching proc ontop.
Harbinger of Souls as our exclusive since Ritualists have only 1 vitality exclusive.
Call of the Grave is the new skill that vitality Necromancers can play with nowadays. It didn’t use to give %vit damage some patches ago so it’s a good damage increase while it’s active.

GAMEPLAY:
Rotation caster playstyle. Throw everything and facetank or kite. Mark of Torment helps with facetanking.

VIDEOS:
SR 75-76 run

faster run

SR 75-76 run

Another one

SR 95-100 Bosses. Pharma and clusters were used

SR 100 full run

Mogdrogen. Use lightning res pot

Ravager of Flesh

Crate of Entertainment

Callagadra

Crucible Naked extra spawns

Some Crucible runs

And one with Impurity relic

New video with nerfed updated version

OLD VERSIONS

INTRODUCTION:
Hello everyone, Dark one builds have been done a billion times already and this is my Ritualist version. I had it posted on my old account, but since that one is deleted, I decided to repost and update it.

UPDATED GRIMTOOLS
OLD GRIMTOOLS

Nightbringer version
Callagadra setup
Budget setup with faction gear and easy to get epics
On the belt you need resistances and DA/OA. Fix the rest with augments. In the budget setup I used the first belt I got from Lunal’valgoth’. Beware of your cc resistances because they are non-existant. Also bind Wendigo’s Mark to Ravenous Earth because you won’t get healed by it if you bind it on Totems.

Primary Tab permanent stats

Ravenous earth tooltip with Hungering void and Blood pact
RE

GAMEPLAY:
Simple gameplay, put down totems and RE, debuff enemies with Devouring Swarm and Siphon Souls and use Mark of Torment to facetank unescapable burst

VIDEOS:
SR 95 Bosses
Dark one Ritualist SR 95 Bosses - YouTube
5:59 Crucible run
Dark one Ritualist Crucible (4/3) - YouTube
Crate fight
Dark One Ritualist vs Crate - YouTube
Ravager of Flesh fight ( run away from his blood pools cause they drain your energy)
Dark One Ritualist vs Ravager of Flesh - YouTube
SR 100 bosses with Nightbringer setup
Darkbringer Ritualist SR 100 Bosses - YouTube
Callagadra fight with specific setup (use some pharma for HP/OA/DA and Courageous Tincture)
Dark one Ritualist vs Callagadra (Callagadra spec) - YouTube
SR 80 bosses
Dark One Ritualist SR 80 Bosses - YouTube
SR 65 bosses with Budget setup
Budget Dark One Ritualist SR 65 Bosses - YouTube

LEVELING:
Start leveling with Devouring Swarm and skeletons. Once you reach Mountain Deeps farm a Bonespike, spec into RE and remove skeletons.
Remember to use Bone talisman relic from “The Lost Elder” quest. Lie to the guy that wants it in order to keep it for yourself. The proc helps with energy regen, but if you still struggle put more points into Mogdrogen’s Pact. Remember to do the same thing in Elite and Ultimate to get upgraded versions of the relic.
I also recommend getting a shield with physical resistance. Put some points into cunning/spirit to use the bonespike and the rest in physique.
Once you feel like RE and Swarm don’t kill things fast enough, you can start using Storm totem and its transmuter or use Wendigo totem for sustain.
You don’t have to rush for an exclusive skill, but remember to put some points into passive skills like Heart of the Wild and Oak skin for HP/Resistances and Spectral Binding/Wraith for HP/OA and resistance reduction.

For Devotions, rush for bat and bind it to Devouring Swarm. Then go for Jackal and Sailor’s Guide to unlock Wendigo. Then you can start building up to either Revenant/Dying God or Rattosh. I recommend going for the first by using the Chaos Crossroad point and then Eel to unlock Revenant. Once you’ve done this you can remove the point from the Chaos Crossroad and go for Solemn Watcher to unlock Dying God. Finally you can start building up for Rattosh. Order Crossroad, Lion, Hawk, Scholar’s Light, Rattosh and you are done.

CONCLUSION:
Another Dark one build, nothing to see here folks.


Until next time
16 Likes

why was your account deleted? :no_mouth:

nice build, nice budget spec.

Thanks, I accidentally deleted all of my YT videos so I decided to delete my account on the forums aswell since I had already posted builds with these videos (:

1 Like

Decided to do a spirit dump and change some components/augments skill distribution and managed to do a 5:28 run


Also Nightbringer version can do Crate

why not binding bat to RE its way better ;0

also since you have 100 percent chaos to vit conversion I think that goin for guardians gaze would be awesome here bind rattosh to vines it works wonders bind bat to totems it works quite nice wen you have them all out and bing G gaze to RE and dont see how can anyone possibly take you down :slight_smile:

you can edit your replies btw. Click on the three dots and select the pen

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I dont know if you can bind revenant to Swarm , I think its possible and if you like and you have the oa you can give up some oa from dev and get goulish as a set up breaker dont think it is needed here this is quite a beast :smile:

It is, but Wendigo bound to Totems don’t heal you and you can’t bind totems to Revenant either so Swarm has to be bound to it.

I would probably have to drop wendigo for that and I think that Wendigo is better than Guardians Gaze here : Relevant dmg type + phys res while the other one is only used for the proc.

2 Likes

got your point, im starting to realize that dmg type + its quite important :slight_smile: , im just saying bc I just got my doom bolt to do 77k-96k base dmg on my sentinel bc of optimization in that aspect

Updated, wrote a new paragraph, build is better than ever.

4 Likes

How does Nightbringer version compare to bonespike one? I’d like to use that weapon in a build since I’ve had it lying around forever and it looks damn cool.

Probably worse damage wise, but maybe tankier. I have no clue how it is nowadays
@AlkamosHater had an Oblivion spam Nightbringer version, but he hasn’t updated it in a long time.

Added 2 more SR videos Dark One Ritualist SR 75/76 - YouTube
Dark One Ritualist SR 100 full run (one death to Benny) - YouTube

2 Likes

A quick meanigless update: Posted new run Dark One Ritualist Crucible 4/3 - YouTube and updated grimtools Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.4) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator. Bonespike after the nerfs has become a useless item and Pandemic is worse than it on this build so Decree of Malmouth buffs came in handy. I guess this might be the end of me.

3 Likes

New Crucible naked extra spawns with updated spec

New version Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Ravager

And Callagadra with some tweaks ( it can be half facetanked, but you don’t really have to do it, kiting around Totems and Ravenous Earth can still do the job)

2 Likes

Hey, Retal_abuser! Nice nickname btw.

Thanks for you build. Just leveled it 100 and it was a blast. I have almost all items apart of decree of malmouth. Can’t make the game drop it for me (more than 20 attempts already). What’s good substitute for it? Good old bonespike or gun from ugdenbog with - vital resistance?

Also I noticed you have 30 points in cunning. I guess that’s leftover from the older version of the guide and I could drop it in physique? Or do I need them for something?

Hello, Bonespike and Pandemic can both work, the points into cunning are to boost offensive ability since the build has a good amount of crit damage with all the buffs and Decree scepter.
It’s not very popular to do that on a spirit scaling build, but getting around 3.2 to 3.3k offensive ability is good for this build.
I would honestly recommend to continue farming for it since the weapon has chaos resistance and makes overcapping other resistances easier.

1 Like

Some SR runs

1 Like