Introduction
Do you like pet builds, but you are worried that snooty elitists will judge you for playing them? Do you enjoy classic, simple damage types like 
? Do you find Sunder annoyingly hard to dodge on other builds? Mortar Trap Shieldbreaker just might be the build for you! Summon player-scaled pets to rain fire on your enemies while you run around and toss flashbangs, all while pretending youâre a âcasterâ and not a pet build!
The genesis of this build guide is that I wanted to try out @grey-maybeâs Pyran Shieldbreaker build, which is the #20 build in the patch 1.2.0 Top 20. I looked for a leveling guide for a build that uses the same primary damage skills, and didnât find any. So I decided I would make one. To do so, I leveled a character with no mandates, no XP potions, no Lokarrâs set, and no access to my shared stash, to remind myself what itâs like to level a first character without all those advantages. Here Iâll share my experience leveling my Mortar Trap Shieldbreaker, along with some guidance on what you look for if you want to replicate my journey.
Build Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Good mobility â you have Vireâs Might, and you donât ever need to stand still to do damage.
- Lots of circuit-breakers for survivability.
- Amazing AoE damage and good single target.
- Easy gameplay â not a one-button face-tanker, but no piano either.
Cons:
- Have to rely on component skills at low levels.
- Need to get a little lucky with item drops to increase Mortar Trap summon limit early.
- Build doesnât really come online until Act 6 (when you can farm Terrnoxâs Tome).
How to Play
Once the build comes together, you rush around gathering up mobs with your movement skills, dropping Mortars as you go. Then you put a Thermite Mine wherever you have grouped them up, and toss a Flashbang. Wait a split second until everything dies.
Against bosses, itâs basically the same. You can very easily kite and avoid Sunders on this build. The main difference is you probably want to recast Thermite Mines periodically while the boss is chasing you in circles around your Mortars.
Leveling Journey
Levels 1â20 â Level 20 Grimtools
My plan was to rush Mortar Trap, so I could start using my primary damage skill ASAP. However, Mortar Trap is clunky at first. You can only summon one, and it takes a second to start shooting, and can pretty easily miss a moving target. Luckily, weâre going to be boosting fire damage, so we can get by for the first 20 or 30 levels with Fireblast (slot a Searing Ember into your weapon or offhand) and Greater Fireblast (starting at level 15, you can craft Flintcore Bolts to replace the Searing Ember for a big upgrade). Weâll think of Mortar Trap as primarily just for bosses and other difficult fights at these early levels.
As you level, put your attribute points in Physique, unless you need Spirit or Cunning to equip some important item.
Start with Demolitionist & 5 points in the mastery bar.
Then 1 point in Flame Touched. The rationale is that we know Kyzoggâs Skull is one of the first drops weâre going to see, and it boosts Flame Touched. So just 1 point will give us a nice little boost to fire damage along the way.
Push the mastery bar to 25/50. At level 10, you should finally be able to put your first point in Mortar Trap.
By level 20, you want to have 16/16 Mortar Trap, because level 20 is the earliest possible level at which, if lucky, you can get an item that will put you over the soft cap to 17/16, which gives you +1 Summon. This also makes your Mortar Trap strong enough to help you burn down bosses like Krieg.
With your remaining points, push the mastery bar to 32/50 and start building up Heavy Ordnance.
On my playthrough, I experimented with capping Flame Touched, instead of pumping Mortar Trap so fast. That increased my Fireblast damage by about 50%, but I found that wasnât really necessary for clearing trash. I wasnât playing on Veteran, where maybe it would feel better. So donât be afraid to experiment with that, too.
I was in the Wardenâs Lab, right before Warden Krieg, when I hit level 20. I skipped a lot of optional areas and quests, so if youâre playing for the first time and exploring thoroughly, itâs likely youâll hit it earlier.
Levels 20â30 â Level 30 Grimtools
Finish capping Heavy Ordnance.
Then add Thermite Mine to your arsenal and pump it to 9/16. Youâll pick up a Martinâs Crest as youâre making your way through act 2, and youâll want to a +1 to all skills in Demolitionist item as soon as possible, so that will put us at the 13/16 breakpoint, which is good enough for now.
Put 1 point in Vindictive Flame, Ulzuinâs Wrath, Temper, and Blast Shield. These arenât strictly necessary if you want to get into your 2nd mastery faster, but I like to drop a point here so I can benefit from bonuses to those skills on gear.
At this point, youâre ready to take your second mastery: Oathkeeper. Weâre going to push the mastery bar all the way, because we really want Celestial Presence, but put a point in Vireâs Might as you go for a nice mobility boost.
If you can, craft a Fervor relic at level 25. Itâs not essential, but itâs a nice boost and itâs in the crafting path for your endgame relic, so might as well.
Once youâve finished Act 1, I recommend heading into Act 7 (Forgotten Gods expansion) and siding with the Cult of Solael. Just unlock the faction vendor. We arenât actually going to do Act 7 right now. Return for an Emblem of the Charging Bull any time you upgrade your medal (if you want to side with a different cult or use a different movement skill, thatâs fine, too â Solael just has augments we want at higher levels).
I hit level 30 just as I was rolling into Homestead.
Levels 30â40 â Level 40 Grimtools
When offered the choice, side with Kymonâs Chosen.
Level 35 is when we get serious about boosting Mortar Trap over the soft cap. You may have been able to do this already with a lucky drop. If not, at level 35, with Respected Kymonâs Chosen rep, you can craft a Chosen Cord and buy a Chosen Mantle. Itâs worth farming the rep if necessary, if you have no other way to reach 17/16 Mortar Trap.
Donât forget to craft a Conflagration relic if you can.
With Mortar Trap over the soft cap, and Greater Fireblast starting to fall off, you may begin to find yourself using Mortar Trap more often on trash mobs. This is the most awkward period for the build â we still donât have Terrnoxâs Arcane Tome, which is when we are truly happy to ditch Greater Fireblast and rely solely on Mortar Trap. But I found that it was still pretty smooth sailing for me (remember, though, I did not level on Veteran).
For skill points, weâre still just pushing the Oathkeeper mastery bar. At level 37 you should be able to drop a point in Summon Guardian of Empyrion, which gives you your other player-scaled pet and your secondary damage source. Weâre going to just invest 1 point for now and keep hitting the mastery bar; Celestial Presence is more important, as it gives you another source of resistance reduction to support Mortar Trap.
I reached level 40 when I turned in the initial Fort Ikon quests.
Levels 40â50 â Level 50 Grimtools
I completed act 4 at level 41 and went straight to Ugdenbog.
At level 42, you should reach 50/50 in the Oathkeeper Mastery bar. After that, max Celestial Presence.
This is when I put 1 point in all the Oathkeeper skills I would want eventually: Divine Mandate, Presence of Virtue, Haven, Rebuke, Resilience, and Tectonic Shift. Again, not really necessary â feel free to delay this to get moar damage from your guardians faster.
After that, start pumping Summon Guardian of Empyrion. These guys will make your clear speed feel better, especially before you get a Terrnoxâs Arcane Tome.
Speaking of which, as soon as you reach the Malmouth Outskirts rift, you want to pause and farm one. You donât need to worry about affixes (though you can farm for good ones if you want), just make sure you get one you can equip right away. This is the single most important item for this build, and you will use it until well after the scope of this guide (you probably want to assemble a Mythical Dawnshard Grip + full Pyranâs Ruminations set before youâd stop using this item).
So this is when our build finally really comes online. At this point you should have a Summon Limit of at least 3 Mortar Traps, and be able to summon them much faster. Youâve also got your Guardians of Empyrion to support as a secondary damage dealer and resistance reducer. Your next priority will be to reach the hard cap of 26/26 Mortar Trap (I didnât manage this until level 66).
I hit level 50 in Crown Hill, just before finishing Act 6.
Levels 50â60 â Level 60 Grimtools
I finished Act 7, and thus the whole campaign on Normal, at level 55. At this point, I went straight into Ultimate. Hereâs the state of my character at the start of Ultimate: grimtools. Note that none of my resistances are capped. I have played enough Grim Dawn that Iâm comfortable moving directly to Ultimate in this state. If youâre actually a new player on your first-ever playthrough, I recommend doing at least Acts 1-4 in Elite first. At level 70, if you build enough faction rep, you should have an easier time capping resists with augments, and that will make your life a lot easier on Ultimate difficulty.
In Ultimate, I found that my Mortar Trap damage felt a little lacking, so my first priority after capping Summon Guardians of Empyrion was to finish out the Demolitionist mastery bar and invest in âThe Big Oneâ.
Levels 60â70 â Level 70 Grimtools
At level 60, consider crafting Ulzuinâs Pyroclasm if you have the blueprint. I didnât immediately, because I wanted to keep the elemental resist from Conflagration. But I had one by level 70.
Level 66 is when I managed to reach the 26/16 Mortar Trap hard cap, thanks to a lucky drop of Mark of Calamitous Desires. Even without that drop, at these levels you should be looking for a way to get there. Solael Void Hood and/or Chosen Flame Seal might help.
I also started investing attribute points in Spirit around here. I was looking forward to needing to hit 724 Spirit to equip high-level Terrnoxâs Arcane Tome and/or Pyranâs Effigy.
At level 70 you should finish out âThe Big Oneâ. Next, you can finally put a point in Flashbang. I didnât feel I really needed this, but itâs the last skill we havenât unlocked.
Levels 70â80 â Level 80 Grimtools
After picking up Flashbang, I also added Searing Light (1 point). After this, you are going to cap Thermite Mines, Divine Mandate, Vindictive Flame, and Flame Touched, and invest the remainder of your skill points in Blast Shield and Haven. I donât think the order in which you do these really matters. I started with Divine Mandate, Blast Shield, and Thermite Mines.
Level 70 is when the base game faction vendor resist augments become available. Make sure you take advantage of these. They might allow you to improve your resists with some juggling of gear (just make sure you keep Mortar Trap at 26/16).
I finished Act 4 on Ultimate at level 77. My resists still werenât capped, but I just kept pushing on. If you find youâre having difficulty staying alive, or are playing Hardcore so youâre just being more careful, you can slow down and farm gear & rep to fix them (dropping back to lower difficulty if necessary). Myself, I found that since this build is so mobile and my damage was great, I didnât need to. I only died once in this entire leveling journey, and that was only because my two-year-old daughter distracted me.
At level 80 I was still deep in the Ugdenbog, and working on Flame Touched.
Levels 80â90 â Level 90 Grimtools
Level 84 is when I arrived back at the Malmouth Outskirts and farmed up a new Terrnoxâs Arcane Tome.
Finished Act 6 on Ultimate at level 89. At this point I have capped Flame Touched, soft-capped Vindictive Flame, and am putting points in Haven before going back to max Vindictive Flame with my final skill points.
Levels 90â100 â Level 100 Grimtools
I finished Act 7 on Ultimate at level 92. Here is my build at that point: grimtools. I had gotten a lucky Mythical Boots of Primordial Rage just before Korvaak â thatâs the footwear we want for our eventual Pyranâs endgame build.
To finish leveling, I went back and did optional side quests, worked on faction rep, and went farming for better Dreeg-Sect Legguards (unsuccessfully) and Gollusâ Ring.
I encountered my first nemesis â Kubacabra â at level 96. He posed no real threat, which was a promising sign that the build is strong enough to tackle endgame content.
I finally remembered to craft my endgame relic, Korvaakâs Deception, at level 99.
Finally, at level 100, with the exact build linked above I decided to test the build against some rogue-like dungeons and Lokarr. Steps of Torment, Bastion of Chaos, and Port Valbury were all a breeze. Lokarr made me worry for a split second, but was also defeated with no deaths. So at this point I decided to call the leveling journey done â the build is clearly strong enough to serve as babyâs first endgame gear farmer. Next stop, Pyranâs set!
Theoretical Gear Checkpoints
In the leveling journey above, the grimtools links are imports of my actual save file. I had some lucky drops you might not get, and I was also not being very patient about fixing resistances, farming leveling gear, or crafting/buying the best faction gear at any given time. So Iâve also included untested, theorycrafted gear setups for a few checkpoints along the way, which use only faction gear, crafted gear thatâs not too hard to make, and target farmable items. These could maybe be improved, but they at least show how you can hit your +1 Summon Limit targets with unlucky drops.
- Level 35 Theorycrafted â Iâve invested a lot in resists, but you really, truly donât need to worry about that so much at this level on normal.
- Level 55 Theorycrafted â Has 26/26 Mortar Trap. Very difficult to completely cap resists on Ultimate at this point, but this is close.
- Level 75 Theorycrafted â Keeps 26/26 Mortar Trap. Capped resists w/ augments allows us to invest more in offense.
- Level 100 Theorycrafted â with a Hexflame. Probably better than the level 100 build I actually achieved?
Devotion Path
Crossroads red
Jackal
Crossroads green
Raven
Solaelâs Witchblade (bind to Mortar Trap)
Hawk
Oklaineâs Lantern (this pretty much locks us into caster offhands, but thatâs fine)
Remove Crossroads green
Tortoise (bind to Vindictive Flame)
Wraith
Harvestmanâs Scythe
Remove all points from Wraith
Crossroads purple
Rhowanâs Crown (bind to Summon Guardian of Empyrion) â at the 3rd node is where I started Ultimate
Alladrahâs Phoenix (bind to Vireâs Might)
Behemoth (bind to Divine Mandate)
Remove all points from Jackal
Crab (bind to Presence of Virtue)
Blind sage (4 nodes)
Gear Priorities
Our #1 priority for gear is to increase our Mortar Trap Summon Limit. There are three ways to do this:
- Equip a Terrnoxâs Arcane Tome â the only target-farmable item that gives 1 Summon Limit to Mortar Trap (and the only non-legendary item).
- Exceed the soft cap for Mortar Trap (i.e., at least 17/16 skill levels).
- Hit the hard cap for Mortar Trap (i.e., 26/16 skill levels).
Here is a grimtools search that shows all the items in the game that add levels to Mortar Trap. Itâs a short list. The only items on it that can be equipped below level 50 are Kymonâs Chosen faction gear, which is why we side with them.
This means that weâre going to need to rely on items with +1 to all skills in Demolitionist to help us boost our Mortar Trap summon limit. Hereâs a grimtools search for non-legendary items with this bonus. Iâve excluded two-handed weapons, shields, and caster off-hands, because those prevent us from using Terrnoxâs Arcane Tome, our top priority item by far.
To get to 17/16 as early as possible, you can craft a Chosen Cord or Conflagration relic at level 35. The former is the likeliest path for a brand new player with few blueprints â Blueprint: Chosen Cord is a faction reward from Kymonâs Chosen at Respected, so itâs the only one you can really guarantee. You also want to be on the lookout for any of the following items during your early leveling journey:
But those are all random drops, so you canât count on seeing them.
After that, priorities are roughly:
- cap resists (you wonât be able to achieve this at low levels, donât worry too much about it before Ultimate)
- fire damage
- health regen, OA, and DA
- CC resists
- physique & spirit
Other notable items
Chosen Mantle: easily acquired early-game boost to Mortar Trap from Kymonâs Chosen faction (see also Elite Chosen Mantle)
Chosen Flame Seal: another Kymonâs Chosen item that boosts Mortar Trap. I never bothered with this one; instead I stuck withâŠ
Gollusâ Ring: used by endgame Pyran build, good for leveling too (look for one with good resists)
Dreeg-Sect Legguards: used by endgame Pyran build, good for leveling too (look for one with good resists)
Martinâs Crest: nice boost to Thermite Mine, likely to have fire damage affixes
Ulzuinâs Pyroclasm: level 60 relic, step between Conflagration and Korvaakâs Deception (our endgame goal)
Mark of Calamitous Desires: one of the few items that boosts Mortar Trap. Random legendary drop; the Mythical version is our endgame build goal and is craftable if you have the blueprint.
Malmouth Mace: if you arenât lucky enough to get an Empowered Leander Greeneâs Hand Cannon (or the Mythical version), this more reliably attainable weapon can give you +1 to all skills in Demolitionist at level 84 & Honored rep with Malmouth Resistance.
Mythical Dawnshard Grip: only if you get one of these can you even begin to think about ditching your Terrnoxâs Arcane Tome. I still wouldnât, until you have also assembled a Pyranâs set.
Pyranâs Ruminations: This is the set weâre aiming to collect for the eventual endgame build (beyond the scope of this guide).
and special mention forâŠ
Hexflame : this is your endgame weapon. But itâs a craftable item with a faction blueprint, so it ought to be one of the first items you pick up for your endgame build. I didnât craft this during my leveling journey, but I really should have, as @tqFan rightly pointed out.
Endgame Build Target
Pyranâs Shieldbreaker (patch 1.2.0 version â @grey-maybe has not updated the build yet for 1.2.1)