- [Melee/Caster] [1.2.1.4] HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster (Ralfhskz)
- Damage: Cold, Frostburn
- Active Skills: Shadow Strike, Amarasta’s Blade Burst, Ring of Steel, Pneumatic Burst, Wendigo Rush
Greetings, grimmers!
After some time away from the game i decided to play again with a class i didn’t leveled from the scratch yet aaand… bullzeye!
This class have great synergies, is fast and safe to play!
We have double natural RR sources, good AoE and single target damage, great health regen and very high mobility, the gameplay resemble my cold beginner spellbreaker , but comparing the two, this trickster can even farm the old SR65-66(now 26) fast and safely using only MI’s and faction items.
This char performs better using SS, ABB and RoS skill rotation, but you can do it randomly too.
This char can facetank a lot of stuff, but if you’re playing HC you should kite when facing physical hard hitters (you can spend some points on wendigo totem if you wanna facetank more enemies) and beware when using SS on reflecting mobs when their aura is ON.
I leveled this char without any leveling items like savior’s merit, potions of clarity, mandates or lokarr’s set.
Actual char stats
The char’s leveling is exciting and fast!
Lvl 1-10 Nightblade, Level 10 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Started as nightblade! First thing i did was getting two olman’s weapons on a house near the place where you fight barrog. Spent the first points on dual blades and Amarasta’s Blade Burst (you can spend 1 point on ABB and 2 on the mastery bar until you reach pneumatic burst and breath of belgothian) spend some points on shadow strike when you reach it.
Lvl 10-20 Trickster, Level 20 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
When you reach night’s chill, spend a point on veil of shadow and then max it ASAP. After that, you will spend all your skill points on the shaman’s mastery bar. After getting your 6 first devotion points, complete the tsunami devotion and bind it’s proc to wind devil, this will boost up your damage a lot on the first stages of the leveling.
After defeating warden Krieg, head to this cave ASAP to farm our build’s main weapons (since the drop rate can be a bit lowish on normal difficulty, you’ll probably have to do some runs in order to get 2 of them). It’s a good idea to farm our main chest armor, they drop from cronley’s thugs, but if you want a specific mob to farm, you can try killing Nicholas Balthazar he have a good chance of dropping it.
Lvl 20-30 Trickster, Level 30 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
After farming the weapons, continue your way trough the campaign, spend some points on raging tempest to improve the enemie’s elemental resistance reduction (i spent 8) and then start spending points on the nightblade’s mastery bar until you reach ring of steel and ring of frost (this will help a lot with crowd control) after spending one point in each of them, after every lvl up spend a point on SS and 2 points on the mastery bar until you reach blade spirit. On devotions, complete the rat and behemoth.
Lvl 30-40
I’m really sorry, but i had such fun playing that i totally forgot to upload the char to grimtools when i reached lvl 40 
but to resume, you will continue trough campaign. It’s really important becoming friend to the order of death’s vigil on homestead!
When i reached darkvale gate i take a detour to the FG DLC (you can choose whatever cult you want, but i chose solael’s cult to start) to restore some shrines (devotion points) and farm two good items for the early leveling, a good helm and belt that boosts up our damage and stats a bit. You will farm those items from the gargoyle mobs on Astral Fields near the DLC final boss.
On devotions, complete murmur (bind the proc to blade spirit for now), remove rat, remove chaos(crossroads), spend 1 point on order, complete the tortoise, spend a point on ascendant(crossroads), complete the hammer, complete the harvestman’s scythe, remove tsunami, complete panther.
Lvl 40-50 Trickster, Level 50 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
After restoring the shrines and farming the gear on FG, i came back to the main campaign. Continue until you unlock all the other factions (ugdenbog, malmouth). On devotions, complete crab, remove hammer, remove order, remove ascendant, complete rhowan’s crown (now bind the proc to blade spirit and bind murmu’s proc to wind devil), complete the chariot of the dead.
Lvl 50-60 Trickster, Level 60 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Started elite at lvl 54. Time to upgrade your gear and weapons! Check the factions to see if you’re already honored with some of them, and don’t forget to buy their writs to boost up your reputation gain. If you didn’t reached stormcaller’s pact with shaman yet, i reccomend spending all your skill points on the shaman’s mastery bar until you reach it.
On devotions, spend 5 points on ultos (bind the proc to SS) and then spend the final points on amatok (bind the proc to RoS). Don’t forget to farm all monster totems that you find on your way.
Lvl 60-70 Trickster, Level 70 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Continue trough campaign, cap your resistances. When you get honored with devil’s crossing, go talk to the devil’s crossing inventor to unlock the hargate’s isle quest so you can farm another key item to our build, the Ellena’s necklace . When you reach homestead, it’s time to change your head armor, go to Order of Death’s vigil headquarters and talk to their leader until he asks you to do the quest for the aetherial essence, then you can farm Noveria Stormfire for the head armor MI.
Lvl 70-80 Trickster, Level 80 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
I started ultimate at lvl 77. Don’t forget to cap your resistances and upgrade weapons and armor! Now you should be on a rush to get to malmouth and become revered with the factions.
Lvl 80-90 Trickster, Level 90 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
When you get revered with malmouth, buy some potions of clarity to speed up the leveling from lvl 90 to 100. It’s time to begin your endgame gear farming.
You already know where to farm the chest, weapons (look for cold dmg boost on affixes), amulet, belt, and head armor (sure, you can use a Fettan Mask too, but i prefer the diadem for the stormcaller’s pact and OA+DA bonuses).
Your shoulderguard can be farmed in crown hill and another malmouth areas by killing the ascended mobs. The fastest way is doing bounties from the factions until you are asked to track down and kill Torraxsteria, she always drops ascended MI’s. Another good and somewhat easier option is the Elite Wendigo Bladed Pauldrons from Barrolholm faction shop.
Go farm a good dreeg-sect legguard from the guardian of dreeg near devil’s crossing, you can buy your handguards from the homestead faction shop and your boots from black legion’s faction shop. Your rings will be farmed from Gollus near homestead (look for OA on affixes on at least one of them).
The medal will be farmed from Ilgorr’s at Steps of Torment.
" Allright i hit LVL 100 and i’m fully geared… now what?"
This char can easily and quickly farm all skeleton key dungeons and proved to be a good and reliable SR26-27 farmer. You can always check grimtools builds section for another cold trickster endgame build too if you wanna a different playstyle.
Some video proof: *i’m sorry for the laggy videos, i recorded on my laptop and he’s not so good 
HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster x Rashalga (mad queen)
HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster x Kra’vall
HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster x Gargabol (full run with Kuba fight)
HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster x Morgoneth (full run)
HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster x Korvaak
HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster x Theodin Marcell
HC Beginner Cold SS Trickster x SR26
Thank you very much for reading! Feel free to comment and help improving this guide in any way.