- [Melee] [1.2.1.6] Beginner-Friendly Dual-Wield Acid Cabalist Hardcore, SSF (Cripptid)
- Damage: Acid, Poison
- Active Skills: Bloody Pox, Curse of Frailty, Beronath’s Fury, Bone Harvest
- Cheeky assassin-like necromancer
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.
The new Acid Necromancer is amazing, It’s easy to build (fits a new player), it’s strong, it deals decent damage and it’s quite unusual.
_1.zip (713.9 KB)
The Save file of the character.
Just drop the file into your C:\Users.…\Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save\main
Build Pros & Cons
Pros:
- High self sustain from Blood of Dreeg, 38% restoration with a 4/sec CD is a reliable source of healing (similar to Pneumatic Burst)
- Decent Life Leech 19%
- Good damage both AoE and Single target
- High attack speed thanks to the modifiers, you are likely to have 200% ATT without putting any effort.
- Decent Damage absorption thanks to the Possession 21% damage absoprtion +8% from the Dark One’s gift.
- Fast leveling, I level to 94 and beat the Normal + Ultimate (DLC included) in just ~13 Hours,
- usually it takes me around 15–16 hours to level a character to 100 and defeat all 3 main campaign bosses on Ultimate (if not longer)
Cons:
- Low armor
- Requires some time to grind the items needed, The Dark One’s Gift + [MI’s]
- It took me around 4-5 hours of farm to get all the set pieces and [MI’s]
- Relatively low CC res, even with Blazing Ruby, Chains of Oleron and Mark of the Traveler
The Build
The class is Cabalist, Necromancer + Occultist
Short Build Explanation
One of the recent patches buffed the Necromancer Spectral Wrath
now it has a -27% Acid Resistance reduction, which for some might appear non-significant but this is a huge buff, even before the buff Acid Necromancer was decent, now the Acid Necromancer is even stronger.
On top of that the item that was rarely discussed in the community, the Wendigo Barb also received a buff,
The swords boast impressive basic Flat Physical damage, even without Affixes they are comparable to some Mythical acid one-handed swords.
Previously, the swords did not have global Physical to Acid conversion, and it was difficult to use them because of that.
With the recent buffs, these swords became really impressive. Dual-wielding them isn’t difficult either, you just need to buy the Bladesworn Talisman from the Devil’s Crossing Faction.
Or using one of the medals Mythical Direwolf Crest or Mythical Korvaak’s Brand which grants the ability to dual-wield melee weapons.
Items
As mentioned before, the build uses two Wendigo Barb,
they drop from
You can find these monsters in the Gloomwald, the first two areas/portals before the Witch Coven are filled with these turners, additionally you can become hostile with the Barrowholm, the location and the dungeon are also filled with them. Just try to get a Poisoned Wendigo Barb of Alacrity, these affixes are super common and will drop quite fast.
The Dark One’s Gift set can also be considered an [MI] because it drops from the * Rift-Claimed Adherent [Map] you can read how to get to this location here Lokarr's Secret Quest - Official Grim Dawn Wiki. But be careful, the location is dangerous, better keep an Aether Cluster under your thumb.
Farming two Viloth’s Ring is also a good idea, your can find the boss right in the Devil’s Crossing, here * Viloth, the Corruptor [Map]. The ring has innate flat Acid damage, has great bonuses, you just need some decent neutral or acid affixes and you are gucci, these rings might actually be better than 80% of Blue or Mythical acid rings.
The Putrid Necklace is also a good choice, you can get it from * Primordian, the Forgotten One [Map], the Aether to Acid conversion is nice for your Spectral Binding and Spectral Wrath. Foggy Blank area is close to the Devil’s Crossing, reaching and farming the Amulet poses no challenge.
You can use any Acid oriented pants, but i recommend the Solael-Sect Legguards it has innate % Life Leech + Resistance to Freeze effect, you can farm it from * Guardian of Solael [Map], you need to unlock the The Hidden Path - Official Grim Dawn Wiki quest to have access to it.
As for the belt, you dont really have many options, a cheap belt you can get early on is the Rhowari Cord +1 to Occultist is very powerful, if you dont mind to farm you can use the Mythical String of Maggots which drops from the * Gurblix the Digested [Map], or you can use the
Mythical Pack of Deadly Means.
The Mythical Pack of Deadly Means is actually a decent belt, it allows you to dual-wield, with it you no longer need the Mythical Direwolf Crest, Mythical Korvaak’s Brand or the Bladesworn Talisman, it frees one slot, medal or the Relic.
The cheapest relic you can use is the Bladesworn Talisman or its upgraded version Bladedancer’s Talisman, i believe the Bladedancer’s Talisman is better than the Mythical version Blademaster’s Talisman, even though the Blademaster’s Talisman has more damage it loses the Slow resistance, Entrapment and 5% evasion.
If you are lucky, and you found either the Mythical Pack of Deadly Means, Mythical Direwolf Crest or Mythical Korvaak’s Brand you no longer need the Relic to dual-wield weapons, so you are free to use an Acid oriented Relic or something neutral like Serenity.
You have many options, Blight, Dreeg’s Affliction, Deathstalker, Malediction or Serenity
And lastly the boots, you can use any Acid oriented boots like Mythical Vilescorn Greaves, Mythical Venomspine Greaves, Mythical Stonetreaders if you are unlucky just craft Stoneplate Greaves, the blueprint for Stoneplate Greaves is random, and you are likely to spend lots of Scrap and Coins crafting it to get a good pair but its worth it, one of the few Boots with %Physical resistance.
Why using Beronath's Fury? The synergy between Techniques and Default attack skills
I like combining Default attack skills with Techniques.
Skills like Fire Strike(Demolitionist), Savagery(Shaman), Righteous Fervor(Oathkeeper) or Fleshwarped Strikes granted by Heart of Theodin Marcell, Beronath’s Fury (Granted by Item) Shard of Beronath are all considered Default Weapon Attack skills.
They empower your basic attacks. Most of them just grant extra damage.
Techniques also empowers your Default Weapon Attack, for example the
(Soldier) has 2x Techniques: Markovian’s Advantage and Zolhan’s Techniques,
(Nightblade) has 4x techniques Belgothian, Amarasta, Whirling Death and Execution.
(Shaman) has 2x Feral Hunger and Upheaval.
(Oathkeeper) has 2x Smite and Smash
(Necromance) has 2x Reaping Strike and Necrotic Edge
Whenever you attack, you have a chance to perform a special move, one of the Techniques you have learned.
If you use a Default Weapon Attack, the damage from the Techniques is added to your Default Attack, just like the Technique perks like Striking multiple targets at the same time or Piercing enemies if you use ranged weapons.
When you dual-wield weapons, and you DONT have any Techniques, your damage is NOT doubled, when you attack, you first attack with your Right weapon, then Left weapon and then have a chance to perform a rare quick attack from both weapons.
The synergy happens when you dual-wield weapons, and you HAVE techniques, when a technique triggers you strike or shoot from both weapons at the same time.
If you have 4 techniques, each 25% chance to trigger, ALL your attacks will become a Technique attack.
For example in my build Cabalist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator has:
1x Technique granted by the component Oleron’s Blood,
1x Techniques from the Medal Mythical Korvaak’s Brand
2x Reaping Strike + Necrotic Edge
Combined, i have 85% chance to trigger one of those techniques, whenever i attack i have a 85% chance to hit with both weapons at the same time.
(25% chance to trigger Reaping Strike, 25% chance to trigger Necrotic Edge, 20% chance to trigger Mythical Korvaak’s Brand and 15% chace to trigger the Oleron’s Blood, you can trigger only one Technique when attacking, but the more techniques you have the higher chance to trigger them).
Constellations
If you need help with the constellations you can use this link, it has the Devotion Progress Bar
The must-have constellations are the Rumor: For its Resistance Reduction, many enemies are Acid/Poison resistant and the Manticore: For the same reason, Manticore reduces total resistances.
Abomination and Yugol are also powerful constellations which grants lots of %Acid damage bonuses.
Fox constellation for its 6% Life Leech bonus.
You have around 7 dangling Devotion points, i chose Turtle as a safety net, but you are free to chose whatever you want.
Components
When choosing the components, it is important to raise your Armor Absorption to 100%
You can use either of these combinations:
- 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, 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. - 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 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%.
The rest of the slots can be filler with Ugdenbog Leather and Spellscorched Plating for the resistances you lack.
Low level Grimtools
Notes
During Normal you can use the Groble Vile Effigy which can be farmed right outside of the Forgotten Gods DLC in the Korvan Plateau it will convert your Vitality damage from Pox to Acid, a solid choice untill you reach the Malmouth DLC and get the low level Wendigo Barb.
Shard of Beronath component is more powerful than you think, the skill is similar to the Righteous Fervor, and damage-wise it rougly equal to the level 14-15 Righteus Fervor, at the cost of one weapon component slot.
Performance
Alkamos, Port Valbury, SharZul, Cubacabra, Gargabol, Morgoneth.
Lokarr ~ 33 sec kill, Reaper of Souls ~22 sec, Mogdrogen ~4 min 10 sec, Callagadra ~5 min 10 sec,
i could have killed them faster if i relied more on the clusters or Serenity, i’m too afraid of sunder, so i was dodging and running a lot, with Cluster im basically invulnerable, also i completely forgot about Mark of Torment for some reason, its a really good skill tho.
TLDR: Over all a solid build, can kill Celestials and performs well against hoards of enemies, it was a fun experience building Necromancer/Occultist as a melee Dual-wield assassin, thanks to the Bone Harvest the build has lots of Flat damage and thanks to the Necromancer Techniques it deals lots of damage with default attacks.