šŸ”° Beginner Build Compendium - 93 guides for AoM & FG expansions

ā–§ Beginner setups (w/o detailed leveling)

Link to thread damage type class author game version

sorted by authors

Nery (3)
Beginnerā€™s/budget DW pierce ranged Tactician Pierce Tactician Nery 1.1.9.3
Budget DW melee cold Infiltrator, Gladiator 150-170 Cold Infiltrator Nery 1.1.5.1
Budget cold DW melee Blademaster Cold Blademaster Nery 1.1.3.1
banana_peel (2)
American dream: from 0 to beating endgame Pierce Blademaster banana_peel 1.1.6.2
Beginnerā€™s Shadow Strike Infiltrator Cold Infiltrator banana_peel 1.1.6.2
Maya (2)
Nocturne ā€“ Lazy, Budget, Player scaled Pets Vitality Conjurer & Ritualist Maya 1.2.1.2
IceCream - Budget Forcewave Soldier Physical Soldier Maya 1.1.9.8
AlexGoldFish_322 (1)
Full Faction Gear Ritualist Vitality Ritualist AlexGoldFish_322 1.1.7.1
AlkamosHater (1)
Semi-beginner target-farmable Outcast Spellbinder Aether Spellbinder AlkamosHater 1.1.8.1
Dabuwa87 (1)
SSF shieldbreaker mortar trap blackwater cocktail Fire Shieldbreaker Dabuwa87 1.1.9.4
gargabolo (1)
Beginnerā€™s Hybrid Pet Warder - The Mogdrogen Cleaver Pets / Physical Warder gargabolo 1.1.9.1
mostmost (1)
How to play Sigil of Consumption - HC - Ravager Vitality Sentinel mostmost 1.1.9.4
supertolik (1)
Beginners Phantasmal blades Spite Blademaster Pierce Blademaster supertolik 1.1.7.2
Udars (1)
Xervous (1)
BYOB (Build Your Own Breaker) Cold Spellbreaker Xervous 1.1.6.2

sorted by game version

Nocturne ā€“ Lazy, Budget, Player scaled Pets Vitality Conjurer & Ritualist Maya 1.2.1.2
IceCream - Budget Forcewave Soldier Physical Soldier Maya 1.1.9.8
SSF shieldbreaker mortar trap blackwater cocktail Fire Shieldbreaker Dabuwa87 1.1.9.4
How to play Sigil of Consumption - HC - Ravager Vitality Sentinel mostmost 1.1.9.4
Beginnerā€™s/budget DW pierce ranged Tactician Pierce Tactician Nery 1.1.9.3
Beginnerā€™s Hybrid Pet Warder - The Mogdrogen Cleaver Pets / Physical Warder gargabolo 1.1.9.1
Semi-beginner target-farmable Outcast Spellbinder Aether Spellbinder AlkamosHater 1.1.8.1
Beginners Phantasmal blades Spite Blademaster Pierce Blademaster supertolik 1.1.7.2
Full Faction Gear Ritualist Vitality Ritualist AlexGoldFish_322 1.1.7.1
American dream: from 0 to beating endgame Pierce Blademaster banana_peel 1.1.6.2
Beginnerā€™s Shadow Strike Infiltrator Cold Infiltrator banana_peel 1.1.6.2
BYOB (Build Your Own Breaker) Cold Spellbreaker Xervous 1.1.6.2
Budget DW melee cold Infiltrator, Gladiator 150-170 Cold Infiltrator Nery 1.1.5.1
Budget cold DW melee Blademaster Cold Blademaster Nery 1.1.3.1
Vanquisher Fire Sentinel, semi-beginner and farmable Fire Sentinel Udars 1.1.3.0

Beginner builds ā€“ what are they?

Items are key for making good builds in Grim Dawn (GD). As a new player, you naturally have no items, so how to make a good build that can farm items? These builds and guides can help you with that, they are kind of ā€transitionā€ builds, something you can make even with terrible RNG luck. The builds are focused around faction items, ā€œtarget farmableā€ green Monster infrequent (MI) items with not too good rolls (target farmable means you can target a monster or area and you have high chance to get them compared to random drop legendary items). Also some blue items (epic) are used since they have much higher drop chance than legendaries.

Most of these builds also contain leveling advice, some have journals to show real life examples of builds in various stages of the progress.

Some of these builds also uses the target farmable legendary sets Kriegā€™s Armament and Dark Oneā€™s Gift.

But what about this or that build guide I saw on reddit / youtube?

I have limited myself to include the build guides that are posted here on this forum. The guides included have a dedicated thread and follow the ā€œphilosophiesā€ of beginner build like focuses on faction items and easy to get monster infrequents as described above.

Patches ā€“ is the build still viable?

Patches in Grim Dawn does not work the same way as in say Path of Exile. Even if a guide is 3-4 patches old, it is still 95%-100% accurate. Given that the purpose of these build guides are to help you get a char to start doing end-game, you should not care about it being ā€oldā€ or ā€outdatedā€. You can also just ask in the thread for that particular guide if there is some important item or skill change.

What is more relevant is if the endgame - Best in Slot (BiS) geared builds that are often presented last in these guides are updated and viable. But the leveling and budget gearing part is as mentioned 95%-100% accurate and relevant.

Build uses items with variable rolls ā€“ how can I even try to replicated those?

Green items can be very powerful and drop way more often than legendaries (purples). The presented builds are just examples, never try to get exactly those rolls of affixes. Instead, try to puzzling good greens that you have found to cover resistances and stats like offensive ability (OA) and defensive ability (DA).

A particular kind of green item type is ā€œMonster Infrequentā€ (MI) which very often give very nice skill bonuses. They drop from fixed monster sources so they are pretty easy to get. Mind though, a perfect roll might take forever to get, but a perfect roll is not needed for a build to ā€œworkā€. Get around 5 or so of each MI and save them in your stash. Then you combine them together with other items that you find and faction gear to cover resistances etc.

What builds are HC viable?

For me, HC success is about your own play style and playing skills. Also, I think most people start with softcore to learn about the game and builds first. Some authors here only play HC, like Stupid_Dragon so check out his builds maybe. But again, he is an experienced and good player and builder, just because he was able to pull if off will not mean that you necessarily will. Vitality casters are also a safe bet, mostly because the amount of life steal they have. Finally soldier based builds can also provide the extra defenses for HC if you are new.

Playstyles - what are they?

Personally I think the most important thing is to figure out what playstyle fit you most, what do you enjoy playing? In this compendium builds are sorted in playstyle so it will be easier for you to pinpoint what builds looks interesting for you to try out.

You can learn more about playstyles in this guide Builds types and styles in GD

  • [Caster] - a generic tag for casters. Here are some important sub-categories:

    • [Spam caster] - have its main spell(s) as skills that scales with casting speed and have essentially no cooldown.
    • [Cooldown caster] - have its main spell(s) as skills that have cooldown and thus make it ideal for kiting/ā€œhit and runā€.
    • [Channeler] - a build that has to ā€œchannelā€ a skill to do damage. Eye of Reckoning counts as one, even though it scales with attack speed instead of casting speed.
    • [2H Caster] : for any caster that uses a two-hander weapon. No cooldown Forcewave counts as one.
    • [Shield Caster] : for any caster that uses a shield for whatever reason, builds based around Aegis of Menhir and cooldown Forcewave automatically count as one.
  • [DW Melee] - a melee autoattack build that hits enemies with two weapons;

  • [2H Melee] - a melee autoattack build that hits enemies with a two-hander;

  • [Shield Melee] - a melee autoattack build that carries a shield;

  • [DW Ranged] - a ranged autoattack build that hits enemies with two weapons;

  • [2H Ranged] - a ranged autoattack build that hits enemies with a two-hander;

  • [Pets] - summoners and the kind; There are two kinds of pets, those that scale with pet bonuses and those that scales with player bonuses (pseudo-pets) often when we talk about pets in GD we refer to pets that scales with pet bonuses.

  • [Pets / Player] - builds which have pets scaling with pet bonuses and player scaled skills both dealing significant damage

  • [Skater] ā€“ Vire might skill, you skate back and forth dealing damage and activate procs. Fast movement means you can be quite efficient farming totems and materials for crafting.

I got stuck - what should I do?

You can read the other guides linked in the bottom of this page. You can also make a forum account and ask the author in the guide you are trying to follow. Also make sure to read all the comments in the guide thread, there might be others who have asked the same question.

You can also join the official discord Grim Dawn and ask there - try to be specific and explain what guide you are following and what you are trying to do and are having problems with.

Build collections

Some authors have made a compendium of their beginner builds with additional information and tips.

More Guides etc. (click me)
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