Build Diary Ultimate difficulty
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Level 61-70
Preparing for ultimate:
honored with some factions to get ring, amulet and wpn augments
revered with homestead and black legion to get armor augments for resistances to wear at lvl 70
Chest and shoulder faction items from Malmouth
Farm two new good Gruldrir weapons
Farm other MI’s so with resistances (belt, amulet, medal)
Get a decent pair of Solael pants from the Hidden path secret quest
Make sure to have points in aspect of the guardian for “free” acid res
craft Terror relic (Hyram) we will not use its granted skill
get “menirhus” on life pot
level 65 for me, starting ultimate Mystic, Level 65 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
skill-wise, pushing for Possession skill. When level 70 augments for pierce resistance in armor and new weapons which will probably net 50% higher dps.
We can start to feel the energy becoming a problem a bit now… maybe craft an arcane spark component for amulet… we’ll see later. Don’t use curse of frailty and bonechilling cry on trash mobs, just waste of energy.
level 70 for me Mystic, Level 70 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator (with the new weapons we farmed - should be around 40% more dps)
Level 71-80
Prio is to max aspect of the guardian for phys res and Possession for dmg and dmg absorb.
level 80 for me Mystic, Level 80 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Level 81-90
Now prio is to rush to form of the beast passive skill
The level 65 chest armor and shoulders are starting to feel… paper-like. HANG IN THERE level 85-94 is the hardest part of this build guide! You’ll get through!
Once we get the Black citadel riftgate in ultimate, we go back and start Ashes of Malmouth DLC.
level 90 for me Mystic, Level 90 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Level 91-100
We have the Black citadel riftgate in ultimate, but we are not ready to farm Gruldrir in ultimate yet for weapon upgrades. So, we will go back to normal/veteran and do that… cheesy but it works! Try to get four to five level 94 ones, where at least one of them has the rare suffix “of the abyss”. They are really quick to farm, so we do not need to reroll them - just farm new ones.
Now we are gonna get the helmet… in ultimate
In order to be able to reroll affixes, we need to find the inventor. Do this quest in normal …
where it is much easier (it will only unlock this inventor mechanic in normal, but that is ok)
This is what I get after rerolling it with 8 ashes of awakening (it is mentioned further down in the guide how to get ashes of awakening material)
We want resistances (not acid resistance) and about 1k health on it, or a crazy amount of resistances so we can use armor augments from Barrowholm that provides health.
It is mentioned further down in the guide how to get ashes of awakening. Remember the reroll cost goes up pretty quick…
We are about to go and fight Ekket’zul and save Ulgrim from the void at level 92.8
NO WAY we are gonna manage that without the helmet and weapon upgrades. So, we will go to forgotten gods and progress somethings there until we are level 84.
We hit level 94 pretty quick doing GF content, and we can now equip some upgrades: weapons, helmet, crafted gloves (common blueprint, I crafted about 15 pairs). We also took an attribute respec potion to put all points into physique.
level 94 for me: Mystic, Level 94 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
(about 70% more dps compared to level 90…)
This should be enough to complete the AoM and FG dlc’s. Main goal now is to get revered with Malmouth resistance faction for better chest and shoulder armor, and the Dreeg faction for ring/amulet augments.
Just keep playing playing so we can get revered with as many factions as possible, in the Noktukari faction (it is mentioned further down in the guide how to do that)
level 100 for me: Mystic, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Level 100 and end-of-guide-build
Now the serious upgrades can begin!
Farming for upgrades
Getting revered with Noktukari for their faction blueprints (ring) see further down in guide
Ring number 2
Look out for devour rings Devourer Ring - Rare Ring - Grim Dawn Item Database , they spawn around Necropolis interior riftgate (and other places too like ) Combine with “kill 200 chtonics” for noktukari.
Medal
korvan desert areas, Combine with “kill 200 eldritch” for noktukari.
Belt - ulo’s springs kill crabs, or craft faction belt from Kurn. Combine these runs with Kurn bounty “Kill corridius”. Also, make sure to check the spawn locations for the treasure troves which can give you the material “bloodbound totem” required for the ring craft.

Legs - Solael, always useful for future builds too!
Amulet - sylvarria runs. You are gonna do these kinds of runs anyway to get ugdenbog blooms for endgame crafting of components etc so not time is wasted! Don’t stop these runs until you have like 100 or so ugdenbog blooms!
Weapons - kill gruldrir over and over again
normal/veteran or ultimate!
You also get bloodbound totem materials as reward in doing the quest given by Vessera Gulder. She is located in the east of Kurnhold and asks you to find a family shield - which can be found by killing a certain group of monsters inside a building in the east of Ruins of Utak Kunar (Utak Kunar riftgate). You’ll need 5 of them to craft the ring.
After a handful of hours farming for these upgrades and more faction reputation mostly for Noktukari, we ended up with this setup which will be considered the end-of-guide-build:
Mystic, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.5) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
With this, we can farm skeleton key dungeons, shattered realm etc to make the mega super duper build posted at the beginning of this guide, or just farm items for future characters!