[1.2.1.3] Beginner friendly unconventional Gunslinger Ritualist HC, SSF

Introduction

Hello everyone, today, I’m excited to share one of my unconventional GD builds with you. These builds are often labeled as weird, bad, unoptimized, or unusual by others, but I have a deep appreciation for them nonetheless. Not every character needs to be an overpowered Conjurer or Warlord. I enjoy experimenting with different builds and classes to see what unique outcomes I can achieve. If you consider that you can improve the build then you can recreate it and modify it as much as you want.

Build Pros & Cons

Pros:

  1. High self-sustain
  2. High resistance reduction (if we cumulate all the debuffs that reduces the vitality resistance we can reach -180% vitality resistance)
  3. High health, the Shaman has Hear of the Wild which grants 26% HP and the Necromancer has Spectral Binding which grants ~1.5k HP.
  4. High vitality damage modifier
  5. Increased maximum movement speed (145%)

Cons:

  1. Low physical resistance (to increase the physical resistance, the build requires many Mythical vitality oriented items.)
  2. Low DA (requires specific defense ability oriented affixes)
  3. Low armor, cant face-tank
  4. Tbf farming the MI’s is kinda a pain in the butt, even as a Nemesis, the humanoid heroes rarely spawn and even more rarely drop the Howlers

Why it’s unconventional?

This build is an unusual mix of a caster that mainly uses the Devouring Swarm and Siphon Souls; to support them we will use two Ugdenbog Howler and the Lagoth’Ak’s Bloodbinding, and a gunslinger that uses Vitality Savagery supported by Packla’s Skins item. We can also use the Death-Watcher Pendant, it’s a decent item which grants quite a lot of vitality damage and 5% total speed.

You can easily buy an amulet, regardless of your faction affiliation, from a vendor located in the Blood Grove located here , his stock often resets, all you have to do is to releport to a different area and wait for 10-15 seconds. He can often roll two rare affixes allowing you to purchace a powerful amulet, this is how my character has Blighted Death-Watch of Tormented Souls, even though these rare affixes are far from being perfect, they do grant quite a lot fo %vitality damage.

I have decided to use a weapon I have not seen anyone else using, the Ugdenbog Howler is one of the weapons forgotten by the community, after a quick skimming on Grimtools builds and google with no result I have decided to make the build myself, as a big gunslinger fan I immediately knew what to do. :cowboy_hat_face:

The build is unconventional because both classes, Shaman and the Necromancer do not specialize on one-handed ranged weapons. Additionally, while using small guns the Shaman is unable to use its strong modifiers like Might of the Bear, the physical resistance it grants is extremely valuable just like its total damage modifier, and passive skills like Brute Force, Feral Hunger and Upheaval.

This build can also be considered Beginner friendly because all items can be easily obtained as it mostly uses MI’s.

Obtaining the Plunderer’s Talisman or its lesser version is simple; you either buy it from the Devil’s Crossing faction or in the Malmouth in order to be able to dual-wield guns.

NOTE: In order to have a smoother leveling process it is advisable to either use Primal Strike or any other heavy hitting skill, then resetting the skills with the help of the Spirit Guide. I do not like resetting skills, additionally i like role-playing, as a result i was playing as a vitality gunslinger from the level 1 without having the necessary MI’s but that slowed the leveling. Only around level, 50 I have obtained all the necessary MI’s and the leveling speed regained its momentum.

The Build

The build is quite simple, debuff the enemy with the Devouring Swarm and Siphon Souls, use the Bone Harvest to gain the extra flat Vitality damage bonus and then strike with Savagery.

To attain the level 22 Siphon Soul we can use the Elite Wendigo Vile Cuirass, to support the Savagery we have 3 Default attack techniques, the Reaping Strike, Necrotic Edge and Volley but that’s not quite enough.

We can also use the new Oleron’s Blood for it’s techniques, with this we can achieve 100% technique proc, with some investment into Reaping Strike and Necrotic Edge.

Since the item rework, the Oleron Blood captured my attention, i was eager to test the technique it grants, after leveling this character i must say i’m quite pleased with the damage output, finally we can no longer solely rely on the Seal of the Void in order to obtain a weapon technique.

Constellations

The main three important Constellations are Rattosh for vitality resistance reduction, Revenant for flat reistance reduction and Dying God.

The other constellations can be moved around, when i theory-crafted the build i have noticed that i cannot get both Hydra and Wendigo unless i take filler constellation like Scholar’s light which tanked my offensive ability.

I have decided to take Hydra and Hawk and Throne for OA, CC resistance and Max movement speed and ditch Wendigo, but the choice is yours, the build wont suffer much if instead of Hawk and Throne it has Light, Toad and Wendigo.

Components

When choosing the components, it is important to raise your Armor Absorption to 100%
You can use either of these combinations:

  1. 1x Scaled Hide (Pants) + 2x Living Armor or Sacred Plating (Shoulders + Helmet or Chest armor)
    This way you have 100% armor absorption and you have 1 free slot, either helmet or chest armor, if you can go more defensively and insert a Prismatic Diamond into the helmet to have a safety net when hp drops below 50% or you can go more aggressively and insert a Kilrian’s Shattered Soul into the chest for extra attack speed or Chains of Oleron for OA and entrapment resistance.

  2. 3x x Living Armor or Sacred Plating (Shoulders + Helmet + Chest armor) + Ancient Armor Plate (pants)
    This version fits characters that lack resistances.

As for the rest of the comonents you can use the classics, Bloodied Crystal (rings) for armor, DA and bleed res, Seal of Annihilation (amulet) for attack speed, Arcane Spark for Disruption Resistance, Disruption is rare but if you like venturing into Shattered Realms then its a good idea to have atleast 24%. Consecrated Wrappings for attack speed, attack speed is kinda rare and you rarely reach 200% attack speed, getting as much as you can is a good idea.

The rest of the slots can be filler with Ugdenbog Leather and Spellscorched Plating for the resistances you lack.

Augments

The best weapon augment is surely the Ravager’s Harvest, but do not forget about the Essence of Ch’thon, 15% vitality resistance reduction might feel underwhelming but it’s actually a lot, especially for Vitality oriented characters, most enemies have lots of vitality resistance so these extra 15% can become crucial.

As for the rings the best trio are Wraith’s Scream, Irrah’s Blood and Arcanum Dust, in my build i chose the Arcanum Dust because i had to fight Moghdrogen and i lacked elemental resistance, but the best augment i believe is the Wraith’s Scream.

Grimtools Links

Ritualist, Level 10 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 10
Ritualist, Level 20 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 20
Ritualist, Level 25 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 25
Ritualist, Level 30 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 30
Ritualist, Level 40 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 40
Ritualist, Level 50 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 50
Ritualist, Level 60 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 60
Ritualist, Level 70 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 70
Ritualist, Level 75 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 75
Ritualist, Level 77 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 77
Ritualist, Level 90 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 90
Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator 100 SSF final version
Note: The link above is my character at the end of the run, i purposefully avoided using Mythical items because it’s a beginner-friendly build.

A more late-game version of the build which uses Mythical items could look something like this:
Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator I believe the Decaying Ugdenbog Howler of Ferocity is the perfect fit as it grants Flat damage (it gets converted to vitality) and +2 to Savagery.

Optionally, you could use Mythical Korvaak’s Brand to gain an extra Technique, ditch the Plunderer Relic and use another Vitality oriented Relic like Deathchill, Impurity, Necrosis or maybe something neutral like Serenity.

Mythical Heart of Yugol for vitality damage and physical resistance is a good choice, Mythical Bloodfury Spaulders for +3 to Siphon Soul and attack speed, Mythical Boneshatter Treads for even more physical resist and max movement speed, Mythical Signet of the Fallen is also an excellent choice for even more vitality resistance reduction.

YouTube

leveling 1-94
i dont have enough space on my laptop to record the full playthrough, i only recorded the Hero, Bosses and Totem fights.

Gunslinger Ritualist GD 22 Lokarr, Grava, clones, Mog
Gunslinger Ritualist GD 23 Raveger/Callagadra
Ravager and Calla fights were often close, the ravager is fast and hits like a truck, but with the help of a few Clusters i managed to survive.

The items i had when killing the celestials are the same as level 100 final version.

2 Likes

Thank you for sharing this build. It is always great to see unconventional builds. Do you see a 2-h variant for endgame?

Hello, as a big gunslinger fan i didnt even thought about using a different weapon.

In case if you prefer a two-handed ranged weapon i guess we could use the Mythical Soullance ,but we will need to make a few adjustments in the build.

We will have to discard Siphon Souls as we no longer have Modifiers for it, we will deal more damage with Savagery, so wasting time casting it is not worth.

We will also probably have to prioritize reaching level 26 Savagery, which wasn’t a priority in the old build, savagery skill is capricious and few items supports it, it’s likely that we will have to use the Mythical Direwolf Crest or Mythical Crimson Heart coupled with The Crimson Claws just to reach level 26 Savagery.

I understand that the idea of using non Vitality oriented gear to level Savagery to 26 might look strange, but its actually worth it, instead of getting extra 80% vitality damage which would increase our total damage by 3-4% it’s better to use an item with Savagery on it which will increase our Base damage. For example, at level 23 Savagery gains an extra Charge which increases the potency of Savagery from 108% to 115%, additionally it will increase the base damage from 76 to 108.

I made a rough sketch of what this could look like Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator but it needs further improvement.

On one side we will have The might of the Bear, Total damage modifier coupled with Physical resistance and Kraken Constellation, but we lose 24% vitality resistance reduction from the guns and Defense Reduction from Siphon Souls.

Thanks for the reply! I am intrigued by the vitality 2-handed gunner.

In your main post you may want to describe how to get the death-watcher pendant since you are locked out of joining Kymon’s chosen as a necro. New players will not know about farming Benevald or picking necromancer as a class after joining Kymon’s chosen.

1 Like