- [Caster/Player scaled pets] [1.2.1.6] The army of empyrion (Ralfhskz)
- Damage: Fire, Burn
- Active Skills: Blackwater cocktail, thermite mine, judgment, ascension, disorder
Greetings, grimmers!
After some absence of the forum, decided to share this beginner leveling guide with y’all.
Gotta thank @tqFan for reminding me that we didn’t had any beginner guide based on our famous and useful guardian of empyrion.
Till’ now.
I leveled this fella some months ago and totally forgot about writing this guide.
Let’s have a little talk about the summon guardian of empyrion skill: As you might already know, the primary use of these pseudo-pets on most builds using oathkeeper mastery is to reduce your enemies resistances.
But not on this build. They will reduce not only their resistances, but will literally reduce them to ashes too! 
The skill rotation is simple: we’ll use Blackwater cocktail to deal nice AoE bombing and reduce enemies damage and resistances, use your thermite mines to debuff even more your enemies and then use judgment, while your guardians quickly destroy them.
This build is not a facetanker, so beside having two fail-safe skills (blast shield and the tortoise proc), you gotta learn how to position yourself and kite enemies when needed (ascension can/will save your ass a lot).
This build uses mostly target-farmable items and faction gear.
I always level my beginner guides chars from absolute scratch, so i do not use potions, mandates, merits or any other leveling items.
BUDGET LVL 100 BUILD
About the leveling:
LVL 1-10 Demolitionist, Level 10 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Started as demolitionist. First thing i did was rushing to Blackwater cocktail and high potency.
Spend 1 point on flame touched and 2 points on the mastery bar until you reach high potency.
After that, spend a point in BwC and one on high potency, then at each level up you can spend 1 point on BwC, 1 point on flame touched and 1 point at the mastery bar.
Spend a point on vindictive flame when you reach it.
Lvl 10-20 Shieldbreaker, Level 20 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
After reaching lvl 10, choose the oathkeeper as your secondary mastery, then start spending one point in demon fire and 2 points on the oathkeeper mastery bar at each level up.
When you have your first 6 restored shrines, spend a point on chaos in crossroads and complete the fiend devotion and bind its proc to BwC for now.
Lvl 20-30 Shieldbreaker, Level 30 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
After finishing act 1 (defeat warden Krieg), i recommend lying when completing the lost elder quest on arkovian foothills, the bone talisman relic and its granted skill are very useful on the early build leveling.
Don’t forget to farm our first target-farmable item from cronley’s mobs, the incendiary shoulderplates on four hills and cronley’s hideout.
After defeating cronley, i took a little detour in to the steps of torment, when you reach the broken hills area. Since we’re gonna use BwC as our primary source of for now, i farmed the zarthuzellan’s codex from grand priest zarthuzellan, near the entrance to the skeleton key dungeon.
About skill points, continue to spend 1 point on demon fire and 2 points on the oathkeeper mastery bar.
On devotions, spend a point in order on crossroads, complete the tortoise, spend a point in primordial and eldritch on crossroads and then start spending points on behemoth.
Lvl 30-40 Shieldbreaker, Level 40 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
I rushed my way on the vanilla campaign to fort ikon.
When you’re doing the homestead quests, be sure to farm build’s rings from Gollus on the dermapteran hive.
When you’re asked to choose between kymon’s chosen and order of death’s vigil, CHOOSE THE ORDER OF DEATH, this is mandatory for this build.
After joining them and speaking to their leader on sorrow’s bastion, do all their quests. Then you’ll speak to the keeper of tomes NPC there, then you’ll get access to the quest to recover the sacred ashes.
Once you get in fort ikon, talk to inquisitor Creed and then go back to enter the tomb of archon barthollem
You will find the archon Barthollem at the end of the tomb, farm him and you will get the key item for this build, the Barthollem’s gavel
After obtaining the weapon, its time to spend some points in the summon guardian of empyrion skill! You’re gonna spend 1 point on the first node and 2 points on celestial presence until you max celestial presence.
Then spend a point on the guardian of empyrion and 2 on the demolitionist mastery bar until you unlock the thermite mines.
Spend a point on judgment, a point on crushing verdict and start spending points on heart of wrath.
After this, i took a visit back to the cronley’s hideout to farm our medal, the popular Martin’s crest from moneybag’s Martin. He will always drop one.
Then i took detour to the Forgotten gods DLC, and the reason is to farm the our helm, the chosen visage. You can farm it from “chosen” mobs, but the easiest way to farm it on normal is killing sister crimson and brother segarius.
Another great item to farm there is the gargoyle girdle belt.
The easiest way to farm it is on the astral fields near the area you fight korvaak, the eldritch sun.
On the devotions, change the fiend’s proc to summon GoE, complete the behemoth, then complete the solael’s witchblade (bind the proc to blackwater cocktail), remove primordial, chaos and eldritch on crossroads, complete the wraith and complete the harvestman’s scythe.
Before going back to the vanilla campaign, take a look in the faction shop any of the cults from the DLC that you already have the respected reputation and buy the endurance blueprint from them.
It’s a nice and easy to craft relic until we got something better in the endgame.
Lvl 40-50 Shieldbreaker, Level 50 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
After completing the DLC, i headed back to vanilla campaign and rushed to defeat the loghorrean and then completing the ashes of malmouth DLC.
On your way to malmouth, pay a visit to ancient grove to farm build’s amulet, the Vilgazor’s heart.
On devotions, complete the lotus, complete crab, remove wraith and start spending points on magi.
Lvl 50-60 Shieldbreaker, Level 60 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Started elite difficulty around lvl 54.
Remember checking resistances and upgrading your gear.
After maxing out GoE, and divine mandate i began maxing vindictive flame + haven and then heart of wrath.
On devotions, complete the magi (bind proc to thermite mine) , jackal and hawk, then spend your final points on ulzuin’s torch (bind it’s proc to judgment).
Lvl 60-70 Shieldbreaker, Level 70 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
You should be finishing the vanilla campaign + DLC’s at lvl 75-80, remember to keep upgrading your gear and take a look on the factions window, you must be honored with most of them, so don’t forget buying their wrists.
Lvl 70-80 Shieldbreaker, Level 80 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
I completed all malmouth’s resistance quests and did some Dreven Cole and council’s runs to get revered with them ASAP, the reason is to buy their potion of clarity, this will help a lot getting to lvl 100 on ultimate.
Lvl 80-90 Shieldbreaker, Level 90 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Remember to check resistances!
After reach lvl 90 and above, it’s time to begin farming the “endgame budget lvl94” version of your equipment.
Farmed Martin again to get a decent version from his medal, but in the end i dropped a nice legendary medal that gives us some cooldown reduction on judgment
Talking about cronley’s hideout, don’t forget to farm a endgame version of your shoulder armor there.
Got lucky when farming an endgame weapon!
You do not need attack speed here, so look for fire dmg affixes!
I farmed a lvl 94 gargoyle girdle but ended dropping a piece of the legendary set we will use on the endgame gear!
You can use a elite harvest grips if you didn’t dropped anything better yet. I dropped this epic (it’s a very common drop when farming totems) that fits very well for now
On the pants i used the most popular cairn’s choice for pants, the dreeg’s-sect legguards, farm the guardian of dreeg near devil’s crossing until you drop one with decent affixes.
I used the nice and cheap elite legion greaves for some time.
Then i changed to the common but efficient mythical final march.
After dropping the stoneplate graves blueprint, i crafted a nice version of it.
On the helmet, you can stick to the chosen visage, but you have another options, like the easy-to-get fettan mask, there’s a even easier solael black flame hood option on the solael’s sect faction shop that gives you fire damage bonus and +3 to summon guardian of empyrion skill (nice option to cap it)…
or even doing some tomb of the heretic dungeon runs to farm the morgoneth’s magis, their magi helmet gives you an extra GoE, helps you capping the GoE skill and even grants stun and freeze resistance, that is GREAT!
I ended up using the chosen visage bcs it was easier to farm and gives us phys resistance (that was heavily nerfed on last patches) and more fire dmg affixes.
Pay another visits to gollus to farm endgame versions of “his precious” rings
You can buy your chest armor from malmouth’S faction shop.
If you didn’t dropped any better amulet than vilgazor’s, farm a lvl 94 version from him. I dropped a common alazra’s ruby that fitted very well until the endgame final spec.
My build after some good hours of farming
Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
With this spec, you can farm bosses, nemesis, all skeleton key dungeons and even complete the SR26-27 challenge.
Some video proof:
Korvaak
Theodin Marcell
Rashalga (mad queen)
Kra’vall
Ancient grove run
Bastion of chaos run (all right, grava’thul and shar’zul are really m***fckrs for our army😂)
Steps of torment run
Port valbury run
Tomb of the heretic run
SR26
“All right, now what”? 
Well, there are lots of strong shieldbreaker builds on grimtools and on here on the compendium, but if you wanna stick with your little private army, there’s some options of endgame gear you can use to challenge celestials.
I chose the infernal champion, but there’s another options like the justicar guard.
After some days farming and testing the limits of the build, i ended up dropping the endgame armor on a skeleton key dungeon.
My build after the drop
Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Then i dropped the Mythical infernal knight faceguard blueprint.
Crafted two helms and transmuted one of them into the final piece of the legendary set.
Dropped the mythical handguards of justice and an good endgame amulet some days later.
Final build spec 
After weeks of farming, i felt this char was ready to challenge cairn’s biggest challenges:
Avatar of mogdrogen
(used a stormshroud ointment just to be safe covering the needed lightning resistance)
Callagadra
(be careful, calla can kill you very fast, so don’t try to tank it more than you should, and for empyrion’s sake, use ascension wisely if you’re playing HC 
)
Ravager of flesh
(take special care with his sunder debuff moves, but it’s not so hard as calla’s fight)
Thank y’all for reading!
Hope you find this guide useful.
