I have a few more questions. I found some damage conversion items. Both convert a portion of the physical damage from the pets into vitality damage. Is it worth using these? I have maxed Devouring Swarm so there is some synergy here but i don’t know if it will be truly beneficial. Also, i found a good Bloodsworn Codex. I’ll probably use another potion to reset my attributes as i won’t have enough spirit without making some sacrifices to my physique. Should i remove points from one of my skills (most likely Grasping Vines) and use them on the mastery bar? The necromancer mastery bar can offer 40 points in spirit but i’ll still need more than this. Is it always crucial to max both mastery bars? Thanks for all the answers!
sick off-hand! Upload build and we can see how you can get spirit.
But why are you even not aiming to get 724 spirit at level 100 anyway?
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https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4ZDPGX8Z
I thought it would be fine to just use a shield for added protection. Maybe not the most efficient for the build but more survivability is good, i believe. This character isn’t hardcore though so i shouldn’t be so scared of death in this case. I haven’t died with this character yet so i’m trying to see if i can beat the game without dying. That would confirm that i’m capable of playing hardcore. I never played in hardcore in any games that have such difficulty levels. I barely survived an encounter with the infamous duo of Acedian Aldric and Boris while i was playing today. It was really scary. The last time i got this close to death was when i fought Kra’vall in Elite. Not even Kubacabra was this terrifying.
Shields offer in most cases 0 protection in this game.
Ok heart of the wild 10/10 is enough, you can not even have more than 10 points more than “softcap”
Points in grasping wines are useless. Seal of blades? does not transfer over to pets. And you had no augment in the shield. And no armor augments either, you are not revered with any faction???
Vitality&bleed pets sounds garbage, you dont want conversion.
Note, your off hand will provide 5% spirit, so just try to get some ring etc with enough spirit to put on the off-hand then you put on your regular stuff. The off-hand can therefore sustain itself.
Get necro bar at 50 and use less points on useless stuff. Bosses have slow res so do not try to slow them imo.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YNn8nRdV note the 2 nodes in spider for spirit, rest you get by using temp items to wear off-hand, then when off-hand is on you just put the regular items back on.
I’m revered with all factions except Cult of Dreeg. Grasping Vines has been my main crowd control tool since the very beginning of the game. It doesn’t work on bosses but it works very well against everything else pretty much. Things simply have a really hard time getting to me when they are slowed a ton and keep getting immobilized by the vines. The skill has carried me pretty hard so far but, as you said, it might not be the best way to handle bosses in the end game. That’s why i’m considering swapping points. But the skill is far from useless.
I used the Seal of Blades just for the 8% boost to armor in the skill (and because the skill itself is completely free). I haven’t unlocked Seal of Might yet. I forgot to augment the shield and some of my equipment after i transitioned to ultimate. I’ll look into that. And i’ll see if i can find a piece of equipment with spirit to help me get the off-hand equipped. Thanks for the tips.
You should not need it, therefore it is useless. If you need it, then your build is “wrong” 
If your build is carried by grasping wines even against lesser mobs, then something is wrong.
You should be able to buy a yellow item “of psyche” at any vendor basically.
If you use armor augments, you can go more aggresive on the gear in terms of pet “punch”.
Seal of might is good, but you also have imbued silver and purified salt for pet chaos/aether res (and for yourself) good budget options.
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One thing that i forgot to ask. Why place points into Spectral Binding/Wrath? I know that Wrath has RR but i have a lot of that already and it requires me to get hit which i want to avoid.
You can ditch that, but hard to not get hit 
There is so much stuff going on
and rule of thumb in GD; you can never have too much RR
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I made all necessary adjustments in order to equip the off-hand. I took a hit in physique but it should be worth it. However, there is something that’s bugging me. Here is the Grim Tools: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GnWnlN
It says that i have 7 points available for the skills. But i have already done the quest that gives the free point in Act 1 in Normal, Elite and Ultimate and the Hidden Path in Normal and Elite. I have one more level to gain. That means i have 2 points to gain (from level up and hidden path). What are these other 5 points that the Grim Tools shows? Did i miss some other major sidequest?
you get 3 skills point and 1 attribute point from doing SR shard 25 quest on Ultimate, and you get another attribute and skill point for doing Messenger(okaloth) quest and main quest in FG, and 1 skill point for doing the… “other you”? quest(can’t remember name) in AoM
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This is all in Ultimate right? I have done all the quests (except going into SR and Morgoneth) in the other difficultys.
yup ultimate only, you can use grimtools checklist to see which quest you are missing (it lets you upload your quest data)
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A few more questions. Here are my current amulet and weapon:
I haven’t made any other major adjustments to my build and things are working out fine until now. People already told me that the amulet is good but i have been looking at other threads and it seems that the Mythical Heart of the Sand King is an ideal item for a pet bleed build. I should be able to farm for it in Elite difficulty. Should i go for it or it’s fine to just keep my current MI?
My other question is regarding the weapon. I don’t really have many great options. I already have a Mythical Ravager’s Barb and the Mythical Black Scourge but i don’t know how good is the former as an end game item and people told me that the latter is unreliable as it won’t trigger from pet kills. This Bargoll’s Core modifies Call of the Grave and makes it more useful but i don’t know if its modifier is applied to my pets or just me. I tried to look at my pet’s regen rate and it doesn’t seem to become any higher when the buff is on. Can someone please tell me if that Phys Res and health regen from the mod is also applied to my pets?
You are fine with that amulet for now, but the sand king amulet is very good. But for the sake of progressing through the game its not needed (the drop chance for the non-mythical amulet is also very small so not worth the hassle until you can farm him so that he drops the mythical one!) But hmm I guess since you are level 100 now, you COULD go back to elite and farm for the mythical once, because the area level scales up to 90 in elite… your call, I would just progress because it is not “a must have” until later.
Only you (of course) since it does not read “to all pets” 
Same with Mythical Overlord’s Iron Grip those modifiers to the toggle skills will only affect you. In fact, there is no item skill modifier to toggle skills that will change pets!
HOWEVER it should be noted that flat stuff that is added to aura toggles, that will affect all party members (such as mogdrogen pact) also will effect pets
Several good weapons Malmouth Stormcaster +1 shaman decent pet stuff, Mythical Black Hand of Sanar’Siin grants some pets on ATTACK which you will do so most of the time you have at least two of these guys running around. But since you wanna farm sand king Scorpius Pummeler will add loads of crit dmg to your pets, which is important for DoT dmg.
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Thanks a lot! This is very important. I like the phys res on the buff but since it’s not affecting the pets then i need something else for the end game. Scorpius Pummeler coverts all the physical damage to acid which will make Assassin’s Mark useless though. If i find an amazing one then it could be worth it but i’ll need a major respec on my devotions. I’m looking at Grim Tools right now and Cryptstalker seems like a fine choice. Stormcaster is nice because it will free my hand or pants slot for something else (i’m stuck with these because of elemental resistances for pets).
I’m a little disappointed. I was expecting that modifiers could turn CotG into a better pet skill since it pales in comparison to the healing capabilities and buffs from Blood of Dreeg. That seems to be the major struggle for Ritualists as pet masters. The lack of a better support skill for the pet’s survivability. Wendigo Totem is okay but it’s range is very limited and requires replacing and repositioning it constantly.
+2 seconds duration, and the mods from “of binding” to your pets is no joke though.
Not hard to change devotions. If you get acid RR (like this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZRwAjxN ) your blight fiends will be more damaging too with acid/poison dmg as secondary source of damage besides bleed.
btw, your last grim tools did not, afaik, have any component in off-hand. And so did it not in your screen shots.
Cryptstalker … its ok, the radius of the aura is very bad though. Drops from spirit monster totems https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Totems
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I didn’t add a component yet. I tend to forget about it when i start playing. Murmur has some interesting nodes that i didn’t notice. Getting an extra 3% chance to avoid melee attacks and projectiles seems pretty okay. I’m going to do a bit of farming and see if i can get the heart of the sand king while looking for a Scorpius Pummeler. If i don’t find a good one then i’m going to pick up a Stormcaster to free up one of my other armor slots. I have some interesting options for my gloves.
3% avoid is junk, you just want the RR proc
The boss that drop the amulet also drop those pummelers like candy
I also have the 2% chance from Eel so it’s 5% total. Unreliable but maybe RNGesus can save me on a rare occasion.
Edit: I’m dumb. I don’t have that. You placed those points into Eel in the Grim Tools link in order to unlock Murmur. Well… I farmed for around 2 hours and finally got the Mythical Heart of the Sand King. The only worthwhile Scorpius Pummeler that dropped was this one:
I’m going to test it for a while. I have a lot of those potions that reset devotions so i can always revert things if i don’t like the result. I’ll throw a point in Reap Spirit and see if it can be used to proc Howl of Mogdrogen. If it works then i’m going to use this instead of Bone Harvest.
I finally did it. I finished the game on Ultimate difficulty for the first time and without dying. The help that people provided here was crucial but i also did a good job at kiting. The proc on the boots probably saved me more times than i could possibly count.
It wasn’t a walk in the park. I had many close calls. Most of them were caused by Nemesis bosses. Kaisan was the worst with Aleksander as a close second. Benn’jhar was easy but he hurts a lot. Kubacabra is a little annoying but not that difficult (though i almost died to him in the Tainted Wood because he was close to a large pack of enemies). Valdaran was a complete joke. I didn’t fight Cronley’s Gang enough to unlock Fabius though i’m not particularly excited to fight him due to his recent buffs. I also didn’t unlock The Iron Maiden but i did fight her in the Shattered Realm on another character. She didn’t look all that difficult but it was on Normal and only Shard 19 so…
Regular bosses were easy but the dungeon ones… not so much. Alkamos was a pain. Shar’Zul wasn’t a big deal but he was distracted by the pets most of the time. Aldritch and his goons were annoying but simple. Gargabol was the one that got the closest to killing me by far. He deals so much damage that my minions were evaporated during his second phase. I’m still going to fight Morgoneth but i expect the worst. His arena is so full of stuff all the time that it feels impossible to dodge. But i already completed my objective of beating the game without dying so i can die in peace now. In the game!
I’m going to farm the remaining pieces of the Lokarr set and after that i’ll be able to get to the end of the game a lot quicker. Oh yeah… This guy is extremely difficult for me. Too much damage and too much stuff happening on screen. He was just as hard as Gargabol in terms of damage done to me but he doesn’t kill my minions as fast as the big tree. The most annoying part are the other dudes that appear and keep shooting at me. Lokarr also loves to go invisible like Alkamos. It’s going to be kind of pain to farm him but it’s worth it.
A big thanks to everyone that helped. Now, it’s time to enjoy the game even more and make other interesting builds! Edit: I forgot to add the Grim Tools link.
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