[1.3.0.5 - 1.3.0.8] HC - Ice King Cold Pet Mystic

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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This build was essentially finalized during the playtest phase, with the recent work mainly focused on polishing the finer details before completing the final setup.

The original idea was to make it a hybrid player-and-pet build. While it looked flashy and was fun to play, the actual performance was underwhelming, as neither the player nor the pets dealt particularly impressive damage. In the end, I decided to go back to what I know best—a pure pet build.

One of this build’s biggest strengths is its mobility and map-clearing speed, which is significantly better than most existing pet builds. It performs exceptionally well for farming the open world and roguelike dungeons. Keep an eye on future farming route optimizations that I’ll be sharing.

Compared to the Beastcaller Conjurer, it is a bit weaker in terms of pet control and aggro management, It also isn’t as comfortable to play as the Beastcaller Conjurer. That said, as a pet build for map farming, it’s definitely among the best.

CR 180 - 200 EX
SR 30 - 31
SR 42 - 43
Super Boss: Dread
Super Boss: Mogdrogen 2.0
Super Boss: Uber Nerfatal
Super Boss: Callagadra
Super Boss: Ravager of Mind
Super Boss: Mogdrogen 1.0

Gameplay Setup GT：Mystic, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.0) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Nature’s Guardians Devotion：Mystic, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Leveling: I recommend starting as an Occultist, using Raven and Hellhound as your main pets. Once you’ve farmed Halion’s Crest, Zaria’s Pendant, Fleshwarped Archive, Burning-Blade, and Chosen Visage, the leveling process becomes very smooth, and you can comfortably progress all the way to level 94, where you can switch to the final gear set.

1.3.0.8 Update

The character’s Devotions have been shifted toward defense, while the skills have also been optimized. The build now stays permanently in Wolf Form, using melee attacks to trigger Dryad’s Blessing and combining it with other sources of healing to achieve extremely fast recovery.

At the same time, melee attacks significantly reduce the Hellhound’s cooldown, giving the build a major advantage when fighting Superbosses. It also provides the satisfying experience of playing a true melee-focused pet build.

This version successfully cleared all Superbosses and other major encounters in 5-Ashes Altar difficulty. Overall, it has a clear advantage over conventional pet builds when fighting Superbosses, while performing roughly on par with them in other content.

One important note: do not use Potion Modifiers that increase pet damage when fighting Superbosses. Doing so makes the character considerably more fragile and much easier to kill. For other content, such as SR, Crucible, and Skeleton Key dungeons, you can use Potion Modifiers to speed up farming. For the specific potion combinations, please refer to the GT.

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SR 36 - 37
5 Ashes Altar Steps of Torment
5 Ashes Altar Ravager of Minds
5 Ashes Altar Mogdrogen 2.0
5 Ashes Altar Callagadra
5 Ashes Altar UberNerfatalUber

Gameplay Setup GT：Mystic, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

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Thanks for sharing. What happens if you change Berserker to Shaman, actually? With extra -% RR from Wind Devils, Briarthorn’s Emboldening Presensce, Primal Bond instead of Possession, Wendigo Totem (or even Primal Spirit)?

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hi, can u share your character file?

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You’d lose a lot of the set bonuses, so the damage ends up being lower than with Mystic. If you want to pair it with Shaman, the Beastcaller set is really the only setup that makes sense.

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I’m sorry, but I can’t share the save file here.

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zip it then upload it.

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Not bad, but you may want to consider an alternate devotion path.

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Which one , Istahk? share your GT here pls.

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Fiend I would say is the most important. Mogdrogen became mostly obsolete after the attack speed nerf. Murmur is a loss for pets when you have other RR options of which you have 4.

Of coarse it’s just my opinion, but I believe you will notice a large difference.

Gave you a link. Too many GT of this already as it’s one of the few good Berserker builds. I assume they are adding more build support later.

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Hi, for cold hound, between this and beastcaller, which one do you think has more DPS?

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Beastcaller

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Try this ice wolves Mystic BD:Mystic, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator, It’s better than yours I think.

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Thank you. I also want to ask: How can we find a source to convert all physical dmg to cold dmg for hellhound? So far I can only see bysmiel’s mindweaver and bysmiel’s rings but they only converts physical to elemental dmg. I cant use wight frost edge since it conflicts with the offhand that gives 25% dmg modifier to hellhounds. So I cannot find a reliable source for 100% cold dmg beastcaller conjurer.

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If you’re using the Beastcaller’s set, the only way to get 100% Physical → Cold conversion is with a two-handed weapon, which obviously isn’t a good fit for the build. The other option, Bysmiel’s Grasp, only converts Briarthorn and Primal Spirit, not Hellhound. Because of that, I don’t think the Beastcaller’s set is a particularly good choice for a Cold Hellhound build. If you want to focus on Cold Hellhound, I’d recommend going with a non-set setup using Winter King’s Helm instead.

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You are in HC mode,but you don’t select devotion spring maiden,jackal’s step and bysmiel relic for better ways of survive,why?

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Selecting devotion bysmiel’s hound with nearly 0 cold damage,why?

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Why you don’t add one point to mend flesh,11% health resord in 4s,espacially in HC mode?Maybe HC is easyer,I think.

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Hmm. The biggest problem with the helmet is that it does not convert physical and chaos part of hellhound into cold. For the bysmiel weapon, I mean the bysmiel mindweaver, the dagger, not the mace. But that thing only converts physical to elemental damage. Hmm right now, I wonder what can berserker provide better than shaman? From what I see, the biggest bonus is the +200% cold damage from rallying cry, but I wonder if it will be better than primal bond. Still, I must admit that other than primal bond, shaman indeed has nothing to contribute to the set.

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The trade-off is pretty significant. It’s similar to putting the Ghol’s set on a Cabalist—you lose a lot of what the class combination is meant to offer.
Without Shaman, you lose the bonuses from Mogdrogen’s Pact, and you also have to spend devotion points on a source of Type 3 Resistance Reduction, which is another opportunity cost.
That said, it’s still worth giving it a try. I tested it early on before the build was fully optimized, and the damage felt pretty underwhelming.

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Tbh this case is harder for me to decide than cabalist vs ritualist ghol. For ghol, we gain a full acid briarthorn support, mogdrogen’s pact support and the primal bond buff too. It’s way easier to decide ritualist. For this one, the only support I can see so far for pet in berserker is the 200% cold dmg bonus from chilling cry, which is comparable to primal bond+mogdrogen’s pact support of shaman.

Tbh currently I don’t think conjurer with beastcaller or other setup can have a good cold hellound support. At least if I play as conjurer, then I need the conduit of the eldritch whisper, to convert chaos and fire of hellhound to cold, which loses 25% dmg modifier for hellhound. I also need something that can convert physical dmg to cold (since hellhound receives physical dmg buff from beastcaller and mogdrogen’s fact and there are other pets than hellhounds too), and wight frost edge is the only item can do so (which conflict with the codex offhand that gives 25% dmg modifier to hellhound.

Alternatively, I might use this Bysmiel's Mindweaver - Legendary One-Handed Dagger - Grim Dawn Item Database and one of the bysmiel ring to convert the physical to elemental dmg, but it’s elemental dmg only. So yeah, I am not confident in cold hellhound build for conjurer. The ice king set might not that bad due to giving 4x hellhound. Might only need to decide between mystic and conjurer.