Build Overview
As everyone knows, Ritualist pets have become extremely squishy since the pet resistance bug fixed. The main reason is that they lag behind in Defensive Ability, physical resistance, and health. This is especially noticeable when going for offensive devotions, which leaves pets with only around 10–15% DA-related mitigation and physical resistance. With those defensive stats, SR 30–31 and regular Celestial bosses are manageable, but once you step into SR 40+ or take on Celestials empowered by 5 Ashes, pets become paper-thin. They can go down almost instantly upon engaging enemies.
However, a pet build is not a speedrunning build. Being able to handle all types of content in the game should be a basic requirement. This meant going back to the drawing board and focusing on survivability.
Increasing pet DA and physical resistance was particularly important. Ritualist has limited sources of pet physical resistance through its mastery auras, leaving both the player and pets at around 14% physical resistance. As a result, I had to focus heavily on DA, eventually reaching around 37% DA-based damage avoidance. Pet health was increased from 110% on the offensive setup to 170%.
Even these defensive stats alone were not enough. Strong group healing was also necessary to keep pet health topped up during combat. I therefore picked up virtually all the devotion nodes that provide pets with health regeneration and group healing.
With these changes, both the player and pets now have a much higher level of survivability. After extensive testing, SR 40 is very comfortable, and both Ravager of Flesh and Mogdrogen empowered by 5 Ashes can be killed by simply standing your ground.
Equipment Choices and Damage Trade-offs
Since this setup prioritizes pet DA, I did not use Mythical Blightstone Invoker to maximize physical-to-acid conversion for pets. The final setup has only 68% physical-to-acid conversion, resulting in a small damage loss.
However, Awakened Black Hand of Sanar’Siin provides three additional little bugs, which help compensate for some of that lost damage. In addition, the player’s base OA reaches 2800, allowing the small spiders summoned by the gloves to trigger reliably. Taken together, these sources largely make up for the damage sacrificed for survivability.
One note regarding the equipment shown in the video: the pants used there are Mythical Riftwarped Legwraps . The GrimTools link contains the final setup using Bysmiel’s pants instead.
Ascended Affixes
Some Ascended affixes rolled resistance bonuses. Feel free to adjust your augments accordingly to fill any remaining resistance gaps.
For the important slots—jewelry, medal, main-hand and off-hand weapons, and belt—I recommend prioritizing resistance reduction or aura-based crit bonuses. The remaining slots are flexible, so there is no need to spend huge amounts of Soul Fragments chasing perfect rolls.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Pet survivability is now on par with Conjurer-based pet builds, and surpasses Cabalist pets.
- Player survivability is better than that of the offensive Conjurer setup, making this build very stable.
- 62% healing increased effectiveness for the player, combined with high health regeneration.
- Slightly less demanding when it comes to specific double-rare green items than the Conjurer setup.
Cons
- Movement speed remains behind that of other builds with multiple movement skills. Pet players are probably used to this by now, and with farming focused more on materials in the world and dungeons rather than speedrunning Shattered Realm, it is not a major issue.
- Damage is lower than that of the Fire Beastcaller Conjurer.
- There are three recurring buttons to manage: Bone Harvest to trigger Shepherd’s Call, Ill Omen to trigger the Wolf devotion proc, and the totem for healing. The button count is roughly comparable to Fire Conjurer, but the gameplay feels less fluid than builds that mainly use Curse of Frailty and Grasping Vines.
Performance Across Different Content
1. Ravager of Flesh — 5 Ashes
Drop the healing totem and use Ill Omen to reduce incoming damage. You can stand your ground and facktank the fight.
2. Mogdrogen — 5 Ashes
The same approach works here: place the healing totem and maintain Ill Omen for damage reduction. You can stand your ground facktank the fight.
3. Callagadra — 5 Ashes
Kiting is required. Watch for Callagadra’s wind attack animation and pull your pets away in time. When pet health drops by around 30%, reposition and kite until it is safe to engage again.
Be especially careful to avoid the large tornadoes. Whenever an opening appears, drop the healing totem and let your pets attack for a few seconds before pulling them back out.
The fight takes approximately 3–5 minutes with this approach.
4. Uber Nerfatal
The Uber Nerfatal has an enormous health pool and a healing mechanic. The main problem is that it is difficult to trigger the player’s Spectral Wrath to reduce its Poison Resistance, making the fight extremely long.
Its poison breath, fan-shaped ice spikes, and wave attacks are relatively easy to dodge. However, try to finish the fight within 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Otherwise, it will trigger its enrage mechanic and begin spamming waves almost continuously, putting considerable pressure on both the player and pets.
5. Shattered Realm
The videos demonstrate SR 30–47. You can choose your preferred range, from regular farming to pushing beyond SR 40. The build handles these shards without much difficulty.
Since this is a more defensive setup, the player can safely stay close to enemies to trigger Spectral Wrath and reduce enemy resistances, thereby increasing damage output.
GrimTools
Gameplay Demonstrations Across Different Content
Crucible 180 - 200 EX
Shattered Realm 30 - 31
Shattered Realm 36 - 37
Shattered Realm 46 - 47
5 Ashes Dungeon Steps of Torment + Dread
5 Ashes Super Boss Ravager of Flesh
5 Ashes Super Boss Callagadra
5 Ashes Super Boss Mogdrogen
Super Boss Uber Nerfatal
Previous Version
Leveling Guide
You can follow the skill point allocation order shown in the screenshots below. For certain specific green items, you can click on them in the GrimTools build calculator to check their drop locations on the map.
After completing Act 1, I recommend heading to Korvan Sands to farm a Scorpius Pummeler . This weapon will significantly increase your damage output. While you’re there, have an NPC craft two Vitriolic Gallstones for your main-hand and off-hand weapons.
You can gradually farm the rest of your gear as you progress. Try to keep any armor with the Cage Soul prefix, as it can help you max out your Blight Fiend skill level.
The screenshots don’t include any points in the Skeletons skill. During the actual leveling process, invest in Skeletons first, then unlock Unstable Blight Fiend . After that, respec your Skeletons skill points at an NPC and use BF to level all the way to Ultimate difficulty.
Farming Gear While Leveling
Based on the screenshots, once you reach level 100, you can start farming Shattered Realm SR 26–27 on Normal difficulty . As you gradually get comfortable with the content, move up to SR 30–31.
Keep farming until you gradually collect the Ghol’s set . Alternatively, if you find the content a bit too challenging, you can farm Totems throughout the campaign, which also have a chance to drop pieces of the Ghol’s set.
Once you have the Ghol’s set, you can move on to SR 26–27 on Elite difficulty , where you’ll find more Legendary items. Continue progressing to higher shards as your gear and familiarity with the content improve.
Once you’ve collected most of your core gear, you should be ready to move on to farming in Ultimate difficulty.
Allocate your attribute points primarily to Physique and Spirit. Once you have enough Spirit to equip your gear, put all remaining attribute points into Physique.
Leveling GrimTools Build Calculator
