DISCLAIMER
DISCLAIMER
After 1.3 was announced and Zantai smites all Drain Essence specs , one particular playstyle rise from the ashes. Something that was consider for leveling spec now is solid endgame contender and that is Dark One Bone Harvest Spam Ritualist !!!
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Discord community request this build so I did another dark pact with @mad_lee and this time is really a Dark One , he provides the endgame setup , me providing the leveling spec . I was skeptical at the beginning but thankfully I was totally wrong this build is extremely cheap and so smooth to level . I have tons of fun leveling this setup
PROS AND CONS
PROS AND CONS
PROS:
- Very easy to build
- Very hard to kill
- Very cheap setup (set is target farmable and 70% of the leveling gear are vendor items)
- Solid burst damage
- High mobility
- Very easy to master (3 buttons playstyle)
- Very cool visuals (Bone Harvest is very cool )
- Very high life leech potential
CONS
- We have to play Shaman for the first 35 levels
- Secret quest for the set is a bit annoying ( I make a simple video guide about it)
- Main form of sustain is leech and heals from procs so big slams can be a problem
LEVELING
LEVELING
Faction and Blacksmith choices (CLICK ME)
- Vigil vs Kymon - Here is the tricky we need Kymon chosen according to farm Master Ravok, thats why we have to play Shaman only till Homestead
- Outcast - I kill her , Black legion rep is better for this build
- Barrowholm - We have to be hostile Reaper’s pants are BiS (best in slot) for this build
- Cults - I pick Solael we need their jewelrys augments
- Angrim - better endgame crafting bonuses
Attribute points: (CLICK ME)
1:1 Physique/Spirit for the entire leveling process , if you like you can put a bit more in Physique but usually is not necessary
[PROGRESS STEP BY STEP (CLICK ME)]
Level 1-10
I decide to level up to Homestead as Primal Strike Shaman ( don’t choose Necro you will lock yourself from farming one of the best Bone Harvest leveling helms) . Shaman rules this bracket cause you need just big two hand Axe , Spear or Mace (avoid swords some them comes with pierce ratio , prioritise attack speed ) . You can check the vendors they always sells magic weapons with " Of Alacrity" suffix . Standart leveling here is 1 point mastery bar + 2 points Primal Strike up to the Thunderous Strike mutator after that I like to put some points to Mogdrogen pact (life regen is king early at the game ).
Level 15
Next bracket is usually when you save your blacksmith , its very hard to get acid resistance in act 1 so my priority here is to get Putrid Necklace hands down the probably the best early amulet (massive life and acid res). I always keep Milton’s Casque it comes with the very important Aether res before we tackle Warden Krieg. Around level 13-14 you medals start to pop in the vendors be sure you buy some with life regen or resistance but main deal here is we can put Wardstones for the amulet and our new medal. Another huge boost is to craft 2 x Antivenom salves for your belt and boots . We start to build wealth at this bracket , so at level 15 I switch Magic items from the loot filter , common items are already switched off at the start ( this makes the game smoother looking at hundreds drops at the ground is overwhelming ). I make deal with Direini when I found the Cultist book in Burwitch Outskirts , I prefer to have extra boss in the Cronley hideout later for reputation reasons ( Devils Crossing rep is hard to grind) .Most important spot for this act is last Riftgate you can farm Underground transit up to level 20 or until you have 60 crystals stock in , this is very important farming session cause this materials are needed to craft your first row of components before act 2. This is what we aim for after act 1 Level 20 after Act 1 CLICK ME.
Note: You don’t exactly the items I have before level 35 doesn’t really matter what affixes you have as much as you hunt basic stuff like : Movement speed for boots , attack speed gloves , attack speed weapon , life , resistances . Damage is not priority , your weapon , skills and devotion map provides more than enough damage . Being faster , tanky and having good passive regeneration is more valuable than 10-20% more damage . Remember mobs die just once any exceed damage numbers are in vain , hitting mob with 1000 life for 1000 damage or 2000 damage makes zero difference , but dying on every second step make a lot of difference for your sanity
First Crating and Component Session:
- 2x Antivenom Salve - Boots + Belt
- Purified Salt - Weapon (not good physical components that early )
- 2xScaled Hide - Shoulders + Torso
- Silk Swatch - Pants
- Helm - If you don’t have Ectoplasm at this point use w/e you have (don’t left empty comp slots)
- 2x Corpse Dust/Frozen Heart - Rings
- 2x Wardstones - Medal + Amulet
- Relic - Ruination (attack speed and amazing skill for boss fights)
Note:This is standart comp setup at level 20, this setup provides vital sustain tools
Level 25
At this point Shaman destroys any pack , we lack some single target firepower (Ruination granted skill helps with that) but this is totally normal also we are not gonna be Primal Strike Shaman for too long. Here I usually slow down and enjoy the leveling phase since Act 2 is very rich on quests . My main goal here is to reach Respected status with both Devil’s Crossing and Rovers(if you don’t reach this status by quests just run Cronley’s Hideout few times and Old Arkovia undeads) , so the moment I reach level 35 I will be pretty much geared in faction gear (not a single random drop can beat , early faction gear). Cronley ring is nice ring for auto attacking speed and for those of you that dont know Primal Strike scales with attack speed . This bracket is very important to stockpile around 100k iron bits this is the amount needed for the transition to spam Bone Harvest . Most of my resistances are capped especially the one needed for this act , my chaos res are low but you will need that when you reach Blood Grove . Voladrak must be respected this is one of the few campaign bosses that can insta deletes you if his weapon rolls the right affixes if you watch the video summaries in “Videos” section you gonna notice that I avoid his 2 slams (indicator for that is he rises his both hands for big bonk).This is my character at level 30 CLICK ME. I still carry some stuff from act 1 and they start to falls off already , time for replacements. Left side of Homestead is usually very easy for Primal Strike shamans , just be sure you visit Gollus when you reach Royal Hive his ring is very good for leveling Shaman builds . Rovers sell very good Oil that boost your vitality damage by a lot so I recommend to stock 5-10 of them its cheap boost
Level 35 Faction Gear
Very important milestone for every class in Grim Dawn, you unlock DC and Rovers faction gear. I transit to Bone Harvest in this bracket but keep in mind you very likely will be higher level than me (it’s very unlikely to be lower but is possible) , so don’t be deceived by the level before you transit you need to check this list :
- Most important Amalgamation kill and side with Kymon’s Chosen (that’s why we play just Shaman to this point)
- 100 k Iron bits if you its your first character
- 2 x Bonescythes from Mountain Deeps Troggs (very good area to farm them , a bit later this weapons can be bought from secret vendor in Blood Grove)
- Bladesworn Talisman Blueprint from Devil’s Crossing
- Devils Cuirass + Devils Shoulderguards from DC
- Rhowari Handguards from Rovers
- Harvest Footpads from Homestead
- Rhowari cord blueprint from the Rovers ( doom bolt will scale with our vitality damage)
Note: Don’t respec until you have all the items needed , just farm everything as Primal Strike Shaman and we you got everything respec your skill tree , even if somehow mess this up and you have to pick Deaths Vigil cause you choose to be Necromancer for some reason don’t worry you can use different helm like Korvan Casque. Missing Death Whisper Hood cant break your run cause this is just leveling helm
Blood grove is next step and because there are no good vitality early components I like to craft Salt + Silver for my weapons easy solution for Aether + Chaos res. Bone Harvest at this point will deal ridiculous amount of damage if you play Softcore and this feels too overpowered for you switch on Veteran mode , me personally I like to delete everything but I know some people dislike when is too easy.
After shopping and reputation is done its time to get new pants, be sure you stock some dynamites cause we go back to act 1 and open Hidden Path quest ,just few steps east from Hevil’s corpse there is hidden path with detonation site (be sure your poison res are 60-80 ideal cause this is very acid/poison heavy area), here we face Guardian of Dreeg and this rat will drop this amazing Jeans, this pants provides tons of sustain and also good offensive ability. My personal advice is to grind and finish Pine Barrens quest line before you step into Blood Grove you need decent Chaos and Vitality res for this zone of the game, everything so far is breeze but this area can catch you off guard so paid attention.
Level 42
Blood Grove is very reach area on quests , also Kymon’s chosen quest line will lead us to Death’s Whisper Hood an amazing helm for this build and the main reason we play Shaman for the first part . I finished all quests and side quests here cause they are very good source of EXP.
Nothing special can be said here build is so ridiculously strong that almost everything dies instantly. Thal’Nosh barely moved it was killed almost instantly . Good reminder is tho check secret vendor in Blood Grove for better weapons and amulet , keep in mind Bone Harvest scales with casting speed so ideally we want "Of Celerity " suffix few resets of the vendor should roll decent enough weapons . Usually I look for better bases on the weapons at level 35, 50 , 70 ,84 , 94. Asterkan Valley is the most poorest area in Grim Dawn , Fort Ilkon and Necropolis are not better , but Dark Sepulcher hides a boss that drops very good medal for this build - Mark of Plagius. Only enemies that are high vitality resistant are Void Parasites but they are harmless.
Level 50
Most important for this bracket is to reach Mourndale and to farm the Chthonic rift for Lunalvalgoth belt (BiS belt for this setup). First we have to deal with Coven quest line and basically kill Scorv (I choose to be hostile with Barrowholm so I can Reaper of the Lost comfortably instead of rely random drop for the pants in SR ). Again nothing special here , build obliterate everything at this point , having full item support from MIs (Monster Infrequents) make the setup unstoppable killing machine. Malmouth offers some challenge finally cause some mobs here at least are tanky enough to survive more than a second , I like this expansion cause offers good variety of quests and actually very easy ones, couple of side areas also if you like exploring and killing extra bosses. Theodin Marcell is very easy for this setup cause you can snipe him from a distance without dealing with his most dangerous move , just avoid crystals activation they can easily chain tons of damage if you take too much projectiles. Hyram is very important be sure you finish this quest cause he sells all level 35 relics blueprints that are random drop and we are after Bladedancer’s Talisman , you can easily refresh his stock by teleporting in different map and port back after 6-7 seconds
Note: if you have some resistance problem at this point some factions should be at Honoured status and you can check for weapon and jewelrys augments that offers resistance or if you are fine you can use damage ones )
Level 60
Around mid 50s we step into Forgotten Gods , this is the most hardest content in the campaign cause this expansion is notorious for having too much enemies that shred resistance . Eldritch mages also shot gun with their basic attack and pack of them is really scary , density is also very big compared to other maps in the game. Main advantage of FG it comes with a lot of shrines so is very good power up act. Father Kymon is very easy , but Korvaak's third form can be very scary if you dont pilot well or overstay your welcome. I choose Solael on all difficulties cause thei augments are essential for the endgame setup
Level 70 Elite
Time for Elite difficulty , a lot of people advise against it but if it’s your first toon or you are beginner at Grim Dawn , Elite difficulty offers nice power up cause up to Homestead you have tons of shrines and easy quests also reputation gain. My goal for here is to reach level 70 and get my Devils Crossing reputation to Revered , this way I ll get my Elite version of the faction gear. I did everything the same way I questing , I pick up every easy shrine and I grind my way to level 70. Good thing about Elite is you get 25% penalty to your resistance but only for the top row , compared to Ultimate when you get 50% for the top row and 25% for the bottom row (apart from physical resistance ) also this way I can stack the resistance needed to step into Ultimate
Level 80 Ultimate
At the moment I hit 70 and Revered with Homestead + Devils Crossing I have enough augments ,gear and tools to transit to Ultimate (remember to grind higher level base MIs for your setup if you lack stats) . Ultimate should be smooth being the hardest difficulty ,at this point you should be familiar with the map so not much guidance is needed but I usually avoid some side areas with ground damage and this build don’t need anything that comes from dungeons so I avoid them as well. First thing you want to do after you kill Loghorrean is to acquire Sadihna’s Memento this is very important step watch this video How to Unlock Dark One set cause if you lost the memento you cant finish the quest , same goes for Mythical Stormheart but more about this in the video
Level 90 Ultimate
This bracket is mostly leveling and eventually getting next tier bases , remember you can farm some of the bases in the lower difficulties if the mobs scales up to your level
Level 100
A lot of players get confused what to do after they hit level 100 , I will try to general explain most important goals:
- Get every reputation to Revered
- Get level 94 MIs for your build
- Finish the campaign ( some skill points are locked behind quests)
- Finish every quest that’s left in your log ( I hate having unfinished quests sitting there)
- Optimise your resistance and try to level your Devotions to max (EXP pots helps even if you are 100 potions boost EXP gain to the Devotions skills)
- Farm your Dark one set (this is more specific to this build)
- Last step is farm the items from the endgame setup ( I will explain later how to get them)
DEVOTIONS PATH
Pink Crossroad
Jackal
Remove Pink Crossroad
Yellow Crossroad
Lotus
Bat
Crane
Scales of Ulcama (take left part first)
Remove Jackal
Purple Crossroad
Empty Throne
Remove Purple Crossroad
Chariot
Berserker
Ratosh
Rat
Hawk
Lion
Remove Crane
6 points Abomination (Right arm + 1 node from the left arm)
DEVOTIONS PATH
Pink Crossroad
Jackal
Remove Pink Crossroad
Yellow Crossroad
Lotus
Bat
Crane
Scales of Ulcama (take left part first)
Remove Jackal
Purple Crossroad
Empty Throne
Remove Purple Crossroad
Chariot
Berserker
Ratosh
Rat
Hawk
Lion
Remove Crane
6 points Abomination (Right arm + 1 node from the left arm)
FINAL SETUP
FINAL SETUP
Dark One Spam Bone Harvest Ritualist by @mad_lee
Endgame version of this run , very cheap setup nothing crazy mostly target farmable items and some very cheap crafts
FARMING
FARMING
I would leave a link to my personal farming strats and what I do as a SSF player (I use completely fresh save folder for all of my runs ), I do a lot of farming tests when simulating beginner starts
How to get the items for the final setup:
- Dark One’s Gift - Watch this video CLICK ME
- Amulet - shop at Blood Grove or kill Master Ravok at Fort Haron
- Medal - Logath’Ak boss in the Bastion of Chaos dungeon check grim tools map for his location
- Rings - Epic ring is random drop , Legendary ring comes from the final boss in Tomb of the Heretic
- Weapons - Shop at Blood Grove or farm Mountain deeps (keep in mind if the item is not 94 level than that means the base is 84 with high level affixes this is bad for weapons you lose tons of weapon damage)
- Belt - Lunal’Valgoth in Mourndale chthonic rift
- Pants - Nemesis for Barrowholm I just farm Barrowholm cellar to reach Nemesis status and after that I farm there again to spawn him (leave pants after the set,weapons and the belt)
- Boots - world drop yellow craft , usually the game prioritise this blueprints so you very likely have it already
- Relic - random drop blueprint ( if you struggle to find it bladedancer work just fine)
Note: You don’t need exact same affixes , as far as you get closer to the final setup stats like resistance , life , OA etc , even if you are slightly behind its not end of the world build will work completely fine even with different affix combo
FAQ
FAQ
How hard is to finish this guide and endgame build?
Very easy , honestly starting a build prio to Dark One is one of the most easiest start . Vitality leech setups are very smooth to level and they are still one of the top recommendations for fresh start or beginners
RS noob, you level with Mark of Plagius , when @mad_lee picks Logath’AK ?
Both medals can be used for leveling but Bastion of Chaos is time consuming and kinda expensive to repair the bridge. However feel free to level with Logath’Ak if you visit Bastion during your journey
How much time final setup would take as a beginner?
Was very chill journey took me exactly 17:59 hours to reach 100 , took me 10 runs to grab the set . I was lucky enough to drop Cursebearer during my late 80s . I craft the boots at my 12 attempt not the same affixes but a very good ones . I shopped the weapons after like 20 rerolls , I shopped similar amulet as well. I am on the way to get the pants and Prime ring so I assume less than 30 hours in game time and any setup that requires less than 50 hours is considered by the community extremely cheap
VIDEOS
VIDEOS
Normal Difficulty
Elite Difficulty
Ultimate Difficulty
How to Unlock Dark One Set
Final spec vs Ravager of Flesh