Casual & Fun - A collection of builds for empty stashes and open minds™

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Casual & Fun
A collection of builds for empty stashes and open minds

by Captn3mo

Introduction

Ahoy fellow plunderers of loot,
are you looking for some

inspiration?

Don´t know what class or which build to play next? Are you a fan of

experiments and adventure?

Yes?
Well, you definitely have come to the right place then! I am collecting a few of my builds here, for players

new and experienced

alike! Mainly because I think they are great fun and might fill a gap in the available builds here in this Forum.

These builds might be different from what you have seen so far or from what you expect, so please take the time and read the following lines

to avoid misunderstandings:

[spoiler] Disclaimer

My builds are born, shaped and “perfected” following a few general rules:

  • Fun
  • Self-Found
  • Independent
  • Campaign-oriented
  • for the casual player
  • with limited playtime available

This means, that you can pick up these builds as a new player with an empty stash as well as an experienced player looking for a fun build to try. I am not
going to hold your hand though, thinking for yourself and learning to understand the game while playing is required and also recommended! The builds are written
leaving lots of room for your own situation and decisions. Please be advised: My builds acts as a guideline, inspiration and foundation - Not as a complete walkthrough or guide for new players as such - there are better options for that, like this --> - New Player Knowledge Compendium

The goals of my builds are:

  • Fun gameplay
  • Campaign completion possible [Normal,Elite,Ultimate] - Excluding Dungeons and Secrets!
  • Experimental Concepts / Unpopular Concepts / Fresh Ideas - turned into working builds!
  • Understandable and playable for new players in Softcore and Softcore Veteran.
  • Enjoyable for Experienced Players to use as a foundation for their own version.

The focus of the builds is on being fun for the player. My idea of fun in this game: Dealing decent"I kill things" to awesome damage “I obliterate things” or having a very unpopular concept as a base for a build (e.g. Mind control) work well enough to complete the campaign in all the difficulties without suffering 15 minute boss fights and without the need to theory craft or min/max for hours before being able to play.

With that being said, completing Ultimate difficulty might require some tinkering for some builds. These are aimed at casual players after all. So, to be clear, dungeons and secret enemies might require some extra time put in or might be impossible with my builds as well as the viability for Hardcore or higher Crucible levels might not be given. I will add tags in the title of the build if they worked for me in [HC] [SC+VET] [UltimateDungeons] [Crucible 100+].

I cannot be held accountable for any loss of lifetime due to my builds being bad or not turning out fun for you! I will most definitely be happy if you find a mistake and point it out to me, so I can correct it. These builds are there for a reason, I made them, they are a work of love! Treat them with respect!
[/spoiler]

Collection of builds - updated regularly!

Here you will find a list of all my builds (and those to come), sorted by Playstyle (caster, ranged, 2-h melee etc.), Challenge Level (easy, medium, arrrrrr!), Class (Soldier, Shaman etc.) and - Signature Skills :

Caster:

Medium - [1.0.6.1.][SC+Vet] Deceiver (Inquisitor + Occultist) - Flames of Ignafar - Tainted Flame - Finished! (Vanilla Ultimate done!)

Melee:

Easy - [1.0.6.1] Witch Hunter (Nightblade + Occultist) - Shadow Strike - Quick and fun!

Ranged:

Medium - [1.0.6.1] Reaper (Nightblade + Necromancer) - Amarasta’s Blade Burst and Minions

Easy - [1.0.6.1] Witch Hunter (Nightblade + Occultist) - Dual-Wield Guns and Bloody Pox

For questions about the Game, Mechanics and other things Grim Dawn look here:

Game Guide - http://www.grimdawn.com/game.php

Official Wiki - https://grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Grim_Dawn_Wiki

2

reserved for later use

3

Ignafarts Chaos! - The Tainted Flame Chaos Caster
Me: “I want a new character. A caster would be cool i guess…”
A friend:“Why don´t you create a deceiver?”
Me: "Oh!"Sometimes it does not need much to come up with a fresh take on a build. I started up the game, picked my classes after a few level up’s
and the story of the tainted flame chaos caster began…

General Build Idea
The main skill is the Inquisitor skill

 Flames of Ignafar

but we are using its conversion option

Tainted Flame

to convert Fire to Chaos Damage and Lightning to Vitality Damage.

That sounds more complicated than it is. We basically blast everything with a massive, medium-range chaos spell and then we move on to the next group of enemies. Repeat that process until map-clear is achieved ^.^

This build focusses on relatively smooth gameplay with only a few essential skills and lots of potential to make it into your version. It is quite stable and can stand its ground against most groups and bosses. Not much dancing required - depending on your resistances and items as well as your devotions of course.

Skills
Essential active skills are the main attack

Flames of Ignafar

and the

Sigil of Consumption

as a means of getting back some health and dealing extra damage. At which point you activate the conversion depends on the items find. As soon as you have collected some items that boost your chaos damage you can put 1 point in Tainted Flame and start to make things interesting ^.^ Before that you can also play with the fire version of this skill. Keeping your eyes open for chaos damage is a good idea though. You might want to experiment a bit - compare the damage in the character window, II Tab, of your skill with fire and then with chaos. Most of the Skills that follow this short introduction make use of your chaos damage - so you will need them as soon as you switch.

Solael's Witchfire

provides extra chaos damage as an aura while the

Word of Pain

lowers the enemies chaos resistance.

The [u]exclusive[/u] skill Possession

gives another boost of damage as a toggled skill while you actively use

Word of Renewal

whenever you need speed/health - it´s our panic button. Or safety option if you prefer that ^.^

Later in the game we can focus our attention on the

Inquisitor Seal

to further boost our damage while hindering our enemies and providing an extra layer of defense for us. Passively we can make use of

Deadly Aim

to boost our damage, if we deal a critical hit.

Optional skills can be the

Doom Bolt

to strike bosses down. You could try to increase the Burn Damage you deal and put some points into the

Endless Flame

passive for

Flames of Ignafar

[s]and even take one of the exclusive skills

Aura of Censure or Aura of Conviction

instead of

Possession

to further increase your damage output in that area. I have not tested that option yet.[/s]Update: Played through Elite with no major problems and a ton of fun! Ultimate turned out to be a challenge though. This is where Items come in handy to help you out. I focussed Word of renewal and passives to get survivability up. Lower resistances becomes more important (I am looking at you Word of Pain!)
Level 83 now, Damage is in need of some love - survivability is still amazing! Loghorean down! Vanilla content is completed! I call this build succesful at this point. You can gather quite some items for secondary/multiple other characters, in my book it is a viable Beginner´s build even. The stability and diversity this build can allow is amazing and fun! Go ahead and test it!
Grimtools link

Current State of the build - Final Version (The rest is up to you ^.^)

Devotions
This part of the build is always a work in progress for me. Optimizing Devotions is one of my favourite parts of the game!

My reasoning was: I want some extra damage to level easier and then some survivability (life+energy) to not rely on items too much in that area.

Basic Devotions are: Bat (5p), Fiend (5p), Wendigo (6p), Solael’s Witchblade (5p), Lizard (3p), Viper(4p) + Crossroads Chaos (1p) =29p
Options I want: Behemoth (6p), the Wretch (4p), Sailor´s Guide (4p) + Crossroads Primordial = (44p)

Final points: Dying God (7p), Chariot of the Dead (7p) = 58p - So i need to get three points back in the end and do some shuffleling ^.^Update: The Wendigo (6p) has been switched for the Ghoul (5p) and the Throne (4p) has been added, while we dropped the Viper (4p) and went for our final setup. Crossroads are still Chaos and Primordial, these are subject to change.Some shuffleling indeed!What you pick there depends a lot on your items and prefered playstyle. Go for offense or defense as needed! There is no best way here - only the one that works for you.

Items
I´d like to recommend some items that can be found while playing through the game that give you a nice boost, but are by no means necessary!

On your way to the Arkovian foothills, some Bandits(Arsonists) can drop Helmets that can give you a +2 boost to

Flames of Ignafar

and some other related bonusses as well as Shoulder Armor that increases the burn damage you deal. These Items are so called Monster Infrequents (MI) and can help a lot! Those arsonists also have a chance to drop dynamite - really like a loot pinata!

Close to Devils Crossing is an Area called Kymon’s Retreat. You meet an NPC there who can be rescued or left to kill his family. Now, here is where things get grim. Let him burn his family, kill him and pick up his torch. It`s a special 1-H weapon that boosts your (fire)damage output quite a bit and it is a guaranteed drop if you steer the dialogue towards the mentioned escalation. Available on each difficulty too. Only useful before you switch to chaos. Keep that in mind.

Scepters have a high chance to boost chaos damage as well as some Pistols. There are MI, …Bloodsworn Scepter of…, that drop from Cultists, for example on the way to Burrwitch on the eastern side (Burrwitch Outskirts portal and then east), south of where Angrim (The NPC Smith from the Sidequest) waits, is a path that leads east. Follow that and you come upon a cultist camp. Good chance you find something worthwhile there. Also: There is a locked door which opens into an area that contains quite powerful enemies. And a special enemy too.

If you are respected by the Black Legion you can buy a Legion Spellbearer Hat that gives you a nice boost and comes with a

Sigil of Consumption

trigger. They also sell a chest armor that is quite nice since it comes with chaos and aether resistance, the Legion Vestments. There is also a Dagger and a Pistol available. Watch out though, the faction shops do ask quite a high price especially if this is your first character.

Apart from that I cannot recommend many Items since I was just using what I found by playing through the game. In my opinion this is the best way to build up a solid character of your own. Do not rely on a legendary you might never find. Use your components to harden your defenses (except maybe the weapon slots if you can afford that later on). Craft a relic that suits your needs if you have the materials. And don´t forget about augmentation as soon as they are available!

End
If you have any questions feel free to send me a DM or reply to this post. I will try to come back to you as soon as possible. You can also catch me streaming Grim Dawn on Friday´s over at twitch.com/captn3mo. See you aboard!

Good luck and happy looting!

Ahoy and take care,
Captn3mo O7
[b]

PS: Do checkout my other guides over [post=665360]here[/post][/b]

For questions about the Game, Mechanics and other things Grim Dawn look here:

Game Guide - http://www.grimdawn.com/game.php

Official Wiki - https://grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Grim_Dawn_Wiki

New Player Knowledge Compendium - http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56243

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Ms. Dotty! - PoisonBomber extraordinaire
[i]She kills with style and with flair!

[/i]

I always wanted to use shadow strike in a way that has a bit more style to it. This build is making it amazing and mean and swift! A study in green.

General Build Idea

Ms Dotty is all about flair! She jumps her enemies from afar, unleashes deadly, poisonous hell and then moves on, dancing through groups of enemies never stopping for long. - This build is based on a very mobile, dual-wield melee focussed playstyle that uses poison damage and piercing damage to take care of
enemy groups and single targets in a swift fashion! Easy to gear up, interesting to develop further and definitely fun to play, this build offers a great start for new players and veterans alike.

Skills

Essential Skills are

Shadow Strike incl. Nidalla´s Justifiable Ends

,

Nidallas Hidden Hand

and

Blood of Dreeg

Additional Skills are

Amarasta's Blade Burst+Lethal Assault Pneumatic Burst, Phantasmla Armor, Blade Barrier, Whirling Death, Execution and Curse of Frailty

Optional Skills - Variations are probably turning up by mid-Elite ^.^ , stay tuned!

There was no need to maximize any skill from the beginning and I usually go for a mastery first anyway. Same was the case here. Lots of one point investments for utility reasons, some focus on Phantasmal Armor and Nidalla’s Hidden Hand to get energy and damage. That was it for normal difficulty.

Elite shall prove a bit more interesting I hope ^.^

Grimtools link
The road so far

Devotions

The Abomination seems to be a good target. Getting there is a means to get all the poison triggers available: Rat, Eye, Manticor, Scorpion. The Ghul will help keep us alive. More details soon!

Items

So far I found that Riftscourge Slicers and Dermapteran Slicers (both being droppped occasionally in Act 3 by the identically named Monsters) can be quite good for levelling this build. Everything with a Poison Nova trigger helps clearing larger groups and looks amazing! The Quest reward for Killing Mogara helps quite a bit as does the free poison augment you get there. Best reason to visit that area in normal difficulty. I will look into Items more while playing on Elite difficulty.

End

Currently Lvl 40. So far this Build is going as smooth as can be with it being self-found, relying on Lady Luck! Stay tuned and subscribe to this post to get all the updates!

If you have any questions feel free to send me a DM or reply to this post. I will try to come back to you as soon as possible. You can also catch me streaming Grim Dawn on Friday´s over at twitch.com/captn3mo.

See you aboard!

Good luck and happy looting!

Ahoy and take care,

Captn3mo O7

PS: Do checkout my other guides over [post=665360]here[/post]

For questions about the Game, Mechanics and other things Grim Dawn look here:

Game Guide - http://www.grimdawn.com/game.php

Official Wiki - https://grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Grim_Dawn_Wiki

New Player Knowledge Compendium - http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56243

5

Mr Freeze - A cold return to ranged combat Let’s kick some IceWhile streaming Grim Dawn and talking to the viewers I always claimed that I wanted a 2handed Ranged Character - The Reaper was the first one. More will follow!

General Build Idea

Mr Freeze - better than the movie version!- He is bad-tempered, emotionally cold and totally about shooting frozen things into a million pieces! Taking care of most enemies with a lot of stopping power, Mr. Freeze triggers many cold damage effects with a 2 handed ranged weapon (rifle or crossbow is just a matter of opinion - having a secondary weapon setup lets you switch between both sound effects though!)What is left standing dies quickly under fire from his chosen weapon of cold destruction. Lowering the enemies resistance helps to take on tougher enemies.

This character comes with his own secret: He was made mainly to have a relaxed time playing Grim Dawn - because of his secret weapon: The, also very cold, awesome army of the undead!

Skills

Essential Skills are

Amarasta's Blade Burst with Lethal Assault, Summon Skeletons, Call of the Grave and Pneumatic Burst

Additional Skills will be

Bone Harvest and Veil of Shadow with Night's Chill as well as Blade Barrier

Optional Skills - Variations Here comes the Bonus: This build can easily be focussed on either Minions or gunning alone.

I. Minion Version (recommended for levelling and players without an item collection present in the stash)

You go ahead and push the Necromancer Mastery all the way to 32. On the way there you pick up the essential skills mentioned above. You invest heavily into

Raise Skeletons

and both passives while doing that. Pick up

Bone Harvest

and invest some points into the 2nd passive

Soul Harvest

. Of course, we want all the minions we can get our hands on! But we do not have enough points for all of them. My recommendation is this: Paying tribute to our chosen class’s name, we then (Mid Elite-ish) push the Necromancer Mastery to Lvl 50 and invest in

Reap Spirit and Master of Death

. This gives us very powerful Minion(s) of Cold Death! And it looks amazing. The Spirit I mean. If you can get Reap Spirit above it’s Lvl Cap. you can even get two instead of one awesome looking fighter from beyond the grave.

II. Lone Ranger Version (recommended if you do not enjoy minions or want to go easier on your hardware)

For the determined Gunman, there is always a way! Push the Nightblade Mastery to 50 points and leave the Necromancer Mastery at 32 points. Pick up

 Blade Spirit, Ring of Steel with both passives

and put some points into

Ill Omen, Phantasmal Armor, Veil of Shadow and Anatomy of Murder

to focus more on dealing damage and controlling enemy crowds as well as survive hero and boss fights easier! It might be worth taking Blade Trap instead of Bone Harvest if you do not trust your minions.

Situational Skills

Necrotic Edge

turned out to be something to consider only in the endgame for the Lone Ranger version. For levelling it uses loads of points without doing too much in a Hybrid build.

Spectral Binding

is a great booster for your character for the health boost alone. Might be dropped once the equipment gets better.

Mark of Torment

is worth checking out for the Lone Ranger Version mostly because of its potential crowd control benefit.

Siphon Souls

still needs to be tested for its potential of increasing survival chances and reducing powerful enemies crit chances.

Grimtools link

Current State of the build

Devotions

Basic Devotions are: Tsunami (5p),Jackal (3p) Shepherd’s Crook (5p), Rhowan’s Crown (5p), Murmur (6p), Amatok (7p), Raven (4p), Hawk (3p) = 30p

Optional Devotions are: Kraken (5p), Leviathan (7p) = 13p

Depending on your equipment you might need more energy, life, etc. pick some decent devotions up like Ghoul, Behemoth, Viper or Lizard, Sailors Guide.

Endgame Devotions are: in development right now ^.^

Items
Any BIG GUN will do ^.^ - Just kidding of course! There are plentiful options what to pick up, either crossbow or rifle work very well. You can get some weird, but sometimes also very powerful Crossbows from Ghost-type enemies. Those Spectral Arbalest need to be looked at! There are various options to boost acid, poison and vitality as well as cold damage with this build. Even bleeding is possible, not recommended though, because it relies on Items a lot. I´d recommend cold/vitality as sources of damage because it is amazing what you can get from the devotions. Feel free to experiment!

For the minions, it might be worth looking at Minion Attack Speed and Minion Damage on items if you can get decent rolls there without sacrificing too much in the area of resistances. Especially speed makes them into killing machines!

Levelling
Just to point it out before you guys run into any issues - It has become pretty clear that you, if you are just starting Grim Dawn and don´t have a full stash yet, need to focus on one part of the build starting around Act 2 Elite - Either focus on shooting or minions a lot! That goes for skills and Items. Devotions can stay though. It makes clearing Bosses and Heroes way easier. I would still recommend to start with the minions and use your shooting and skills to trigger

Shepherd's Call, Tsunami, Blizzard and/or Murmur

. It is possible to stick to the hybrid build all the way with a nice stash full of items and components though ^.^

End
If you have any questions feel free to send me a DM or reply to this post. I will try to come back to you as soon as possible. You can also catch me streaming Grim Dawn on Friday´s over at twitch.com/captn3mo. See you aboard!

Good luck and happy looting!

Ahoy and take care,
Captn3mo O7
[b]

PS: Do check out my other guides over [post=665360]here[/post][/b]

For questions about the Game, Mechanics and other things Grim Dawn look here:

Game Guide - http://www.grimdawn.com/game.php

Official Wiki - https://grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Grim_Dawn_Wiki

New Player Knowledge Compendium - http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56243

6

loving the thread concept. another build you should add/check out is the “green screen” one where a Cabalist is using all green skills (i.e. ravenous earth, DEE, dreegs component, etc). looks cool, levels easy, gears with MIs and faction stuff. not sure how endgame is as i only just got to ultimate.

7

Hey Stefan429,

thank you for your kind words and welcome to the thread! Glad to provide some build ideas and happy that you like the idea!
Thank you very much for the idea! I could do one for each color maybe? I love builds that rely on atmosphere over efficiency and the “green screen” sounds like a lot of fun!

silently taking some notes

Yip, I think that is a great plan! Thanks a bunch!

8

Ms Poxy - making hearts bleed. And heads and arms and legs. Mostly everything really She leaves a trail of blood indeed. Only touching the enemy ever so slightly. And if they don´t fall over they get shot until dead! Bloody Pox is a fun skill in melee. But what about Ranged combat? With Pistols? Yes, plural! That question was enough to start a new guide. And her sister, Ms Dotty is doing so well I thought she might want company.

General Build Idea
This build is all about draining the enemy of Blood and Vitality and Loot! The mobility and quickness of a dual wield pistol build gets upgraded by using a massively powerful damage over time effect. Shoot, hit, reposition, wait until the enemy falls over, spilling loot all over the place. That is the plan.

Getting the balance between direct damage, damage over time and survivability will be what building this character is going to be about mainly. And fun. But also Blood. And loot.

Skills

Essential Skills:

Bloody Pox, Amarasta`s Blade Burst, Curse of Frailty with Vulnerability, Blood of Dreeg with Aspect of the Guardian and Anatomy of Murder

Additional Skills:

Blade Barrier, Blade Trap

Optional Skills - Variations: Searching…please wait.

Grimtools link Current State of the build - Level 49 going smooth!

Devotions

Basic Devotions: Bat (5p), Ghul (6p), Fox (4p), Hawk (3p)

Advanced Devotions: Mogdrogen the Wolf [6p) and/or Unknown Soldier (7p)

Items

You will need some Item that enables dual-wielding of guns. The Relic Gunslinger’s Talisman might be the easiest to get your hands on (Blueprint available with “Respected” status in Devil’s Crossing) . The Marauder’s Talisman is another Relic tpye, the recipe for it is a random drop though. Then there are some Epic Items that offer that bonus - Gunslinger’s Jacket or Marauder’s Ammo Belt for example - if you are lucky you can get them early. If not, just craft the Relic ^.^ If that does not work either, play Gun + Shield/Offhand for a time, it can give your bloody pox quite a boost and might be a variant for HC or squishy characters.

End
If you have any questions feel free to send me a DM or reply to this post. I will try to come back to you as soon as possible. You can also catch me streaming Grim Dawn on Friday´s over at twitch.com/captn3mo. See you aboard!

Good luck and happy looting!

Ahoy and take care,
Captn3mo O7

PS: Do check out my other guides over [post=665360]here[/post]

For questions about the Game, Mechanics and other things Grim Dawn look here:
Game Guide - http://www.grimdawn.com/game.php
Official Wiki - https://grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Grim_Dawn_Wiki
New Player Knowledge Compendium - http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56243