DISCLAIMER
DISCLAIMER
Patch 1.3 will come with some Drain Essence nerfs but don’t worry this spec is so strong and can take some minor nerfs.
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Cold Drain Essence Reaper is the least demanding DE spec , cause all of your resistance shred are attached to buffs and auras , its fully automatic spec so you don’t have to care if you apply all of your debuffs cause 90 % of them will apply on their own. This spec is very smooth to level and very simple playstyle
PROS AND CONS
PROS AND CONS
PROS:
- Very easy to build
- Good item support during leveling
- Simple playstyle
- Controller friendly spec
- Requires minimum to zero piloting skills ( still advicing to dodge big smacks)
- One of the most potent farmers in the entire game
- You can play the build straight from level 2
CONS
- DE cant break objects ( I use shift+ move to or my movement augment to break objects)
- Chillwishper set requires Celestial Lotuses to be craft
- Budget setup is a bit squishy compare to his big brother
LEVELING
LEVELING
Faction and Blacksmith choices (CLICK ME)
- Vigil vs Kymon - as a Necromancer I stick to Vigil
- Outcast - up to you I go hostile here
- Barrowholm - I want to kill Ravager so I stick with them
- Cults - Doesn’t matter you will max all of them
- Angrim - better endgame crafting bonuses
Attribute points and Devotion path: (CLICK ME)
Best you can do is 2:2:1 Physique/Cunning/Spirit . We run specific meta in which Master of the Death is the exclusive that brings more firepower so Cunning is good investment here , you can hoover my stats in Grim tools and that is going to show you how I spread my skill points
Devotion path:
- Pink Crossroad
- 2x Points Jackal (total speed is king first 10 levels)
- Purple Crossroad
- Empty Throne
- Remove Purple Crossroad
- Remove Jackal points
- Remove Pink Crossroad
- Green Crossroad
- Spider
- Remove Green Crossroad
- Rhowan’s Crown
- Chariot
- Hyriam
- Eel
- Yellow Crossroad
- Lion
- Remove Yellow Crossroad
- Harvestman’s Scythe
- Bard’s harp
- Amatok
- Remove Eel
- Yellow Crossroad
- Remove Lion
- Murmur
- Remove Pink Crossroad
- Green Crossroad
- Remove Spider
- Hawk
- Remove Green Crossroad
- Viper
- Remove Empty Throne
- 4 x points Ultos
[PROGRESS STEP BY STEP (CLICK ME)]
Level 1-10
For this bracket I start with 1 point in mastery bar and 2 points in Drain Essence until I reach 8-10 points the moment I unlock Hungering reach I start dumping points in it to boost my targets and this is when build really start to be fun. Items wise we look like usual for stats , OA , life and resistances , don’t bother to look for damage its absolutely pointless to stack this early into the game (utility is king ). Karvor Conjuring Bone ( a corpse next to lightning zombie in Sudden Hollow) and Isaac Spaulders ( in a tree stump west from Foggy bank rift ) are the two important items here both of them guaranteed greens. Grim tools is your friend this items have their spawning location in the description.
Level 10-20
Very important bracket main priority here is to get 10 points into Hungering Reach first ( soft breakpoint for 5 extra targets next 2 skill points gives you almost nothing that’s why we go just for 10 points for now) , next we want 16/16 in drain Essence as our main skill and we start working on Spectral binding (hands down very powerful buff , tons of life and OA) . Items wise we still aim for the same stuff but we start looking for casting speed mod on the gloves and movement speed on the boots so we can speed up the game a bit . Around level 14 medals start to show up at the vendors buy something with resistance or life (don’t go crazy on this its just temporary medal) , if you feel rich you can craft some of the basic ones after you save your Blacksmith , the moment you secure your smith craft 2x Wardstones for your medal and amulet (this will speeds up the game for you also nice resistance) . Slith primal ring is another good rare ring part of a quest in Witchmare . I do all quests in Act 1 is one of the best acts in my opinion cause atmosphere is really apocalyptic
First Crating and Component Session:
- 2x Antivenom Salve - Boots + Belt
- Scaled Hide - Torso (armor absorption makes your armor more effective )
- 2x Silk Swatch - Pants and Torso
- 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
- 2x Coldstones - Weapon + Off-hand
- Equilibrium relic - spirit , move speed and spirit also proc is ok
Note:This is standart comp setup at level 20, this setup provides vital sustain tools. Components are very important itemisation tools , don’t neglect them
Level 20-30
First thing that I do after I deal with Warden Krieg is to talk to Emissary and jump to Forgotten gods for my movement augment , I pick Solael for tis run cause Charging Bull is my favourite augment (you have to finish just first quest and pick a cult to unlock corresponding movement augments ).This bracket we max out Spectral binding + Spectral Wrath and we shift to Nightblade cause at this point Necro offers nothing essential , Nightblade on the hand offers Pneumatic Burst (powerful cooldown ) . This is not just buff , this your secondary potion and main form of mitigation when you get big damage spikes , proper cooldown management on Pneumatic Burst is the difference between good NB and a bad one , you can't imagine how much people I watch mashing this button rather than paying attention to the duration and keep it off cooldown so they can use it when they need it ( no point to mash it you need just the buff up 24/7 and rest is cooldown management) . Another important reason to rush Pneumatic Burst is the total speed boost early on , life regen (this helps to mitigate early dots and act 2 comes with a lot of bleeding) and offensive ability. Most important item here is the Spectral War Shield , my top targets are Laudos Varga and Nomos Dread , both of them can be found in Old Arkovia ruins and they are part from "The Assignment " quest if you need tracks on the mini map, this shield comes with energy mitigation (very good) and extra targets. Act 2 is not very hard at all especially for Drain Essence spec , other noticeable loot is Cronley Rings cause I run some pierce res problems at that time so I hunt for one good ring , around level 30 I start " Hidden path" quest by destroying detonation side a bit North East from Devils Crossing prison (again use grim tools world map it's very helpful , Grim Dawn wiki also good source of information but only for quests , everything else is misinformation for most part). Guardian of Dreeg drops very nice MI pants , also very easy to get affixes on those . You may noticed I skip Decomposition , reason for that is we don't have access to Vitality to Cold global Conversion and getting this node will just increase my energy consumption without much value in return (knowing your class is half of the game)
Level 35 Faction Gear
GRIMTOOLS (CLICK ME) Level 36
GRIMTOOLS (CLICK ME) Level 40
One of the most important brackets for every leveling build , you unlock Respected status with Devils Crossing , Rovers and Homestead . I did all quests in Homestead that related to the left part , it’s very important to kill as much beasts and insect possible. Rovers in the other hand needs undeads extermination so if you are not already respected farm a little bit more in Twin Falls/Old Arkovia ruins for better shield and this way you double dip . Devils Crossing should be respected when you finish Cronley questline but if you are not just do 1-2 runs at Cronley’s Hideout. Most important thing here is to unlock Port Valbury , thankfully we don’t have to go to actual dungeon we need just the guardian that stays in front of dungeon’s gate. This Hearld drops our weapon for the entire leveling process. After Homestead left part is done , I unlock Pine Barrens in Prospector’s Trail - this idea provides 2 shrines and very cool questline hunting down few beast bosses , good for Homestead reputation and leveling ( cause I don’t like to step into Blood Grove before my level 35 and the shopping list for this bracket). Ungoliax provides very good leveling medal for Cold Necromancer
Shopping List:
- Devil’s Cuirass - hands down amazing armor (500+ life, OA/DA and pierce + chaos res)
- Devil’s Shoulderguard - OA/DA, physical, aether and pierce res
- Rhowari Handguards- amazing gloves (%damage, casting speed, ele res and flat stats)
- Harvest Footpads - amazing boots (triple res, 200+ life and movement speed)
- Solar Defender (Homestead) - good generic helm mainly for life . poison res and good defensive proc
- Blueprint for Specter (Rovers) - good stepping stone relic with very important casting speed and chaos resistance
- Blueprint for Runestone (Rovers) - hands down best leveling helm component
After all this is done ,it’s time to step into Blood Grove . This area is one of the most dangerous ones if they catch you off guard . Zaria and Harbringers are one of the first enemies that can shred your resistances, that’s why is not recommended to step here before level 35, if your resistance page is not on par you can be debuffed even to negative values and get one shot from Zaria’s Obsidian Shards. Harbringers on the other hand look harmless, floating and slow enemies but they cast one of the most nastiest debuffs in the game - Spectral Miasma, you can see what this debuff is capable of in this short crucible video. Blood Grove on the bright side is very rich on side quest, also very easy ones so be sure you fully explore the zone cause there is secret vendor as well that sells some useful items and blueprints. Final boss for this act also summons Obsidian Shards but they are not even close to the power of Zaria ones, however his chaos pools deals significant amount of damage if you stay inside for too long( secure next riftgate after you kill him, don’t teleport to finish quests ,shop etc cause is very easy to forget and displace your rift and then you have to run whole Darkvale fortress again-happened to all of us ).
Level 40-50
Here I go for my leveling amulet at Steps of Torment , at this point you should have maximum 3-4 Blood of Chthon and maximum 1 free key from Kalderos , so it’s a bit dicey since Ilgor drops two different bases so you might not get it but when you get Blood of Chthon just craft another key and try again (affixes doesn’t matter , we need the base of the item). You might noticed I didn’t explain much of the skills process but it’s pretty straight forward I just focus on Night Blade.
This is summary video so far and example run of the Steps of Torment if you can to see the build in action so far First Summary video. Fort Ilkon is not very hard apart from Lucius , just avoid his meteors cause this can hurt even the most tanky builds. Loghorrean is one of the most easiest fights I fully face tank him without any issues. This bracket you should hit respected with Black Legion so you can buy their faction belt and boost your Nightblade skills. Unfortunately this level bracket is very short Asterkan valley is one of the poorest areas and Fort Ilkon questline is also very poor but this is good opportunity to go back and farm higher level bases of your most important greens , this is what I usually do cause this stage of the game is mostly chill and grind
Level 50-60
Coven is one of the ok zones we have enough quests and we can kill a lot of beasts to boost both Coven and Homestead reputation , at this point check your reputation status cause Honoured status unlocks some Augments that can help with your resistance (for example I use Homestead Chaos resistance augments on my weapon and shield ). Legion War Seal comes in clutch here for me cause cheap ring but in the same way fix my problems. Don't forget to scam Mogdrogen for a free dungeon key , even you can reset Vinelton for better rings (living rings also good option for leveling cold build ). Malmouth is not hard as well be sure you clear the whole questline if it's your first toon cause this reputation unlocks XP potions for your alts and your current toon as well. Forgotten gods is very rich expansion , a lot of shrines hide in here be sure to check grim tools map and take your time to explore . FInally we can farm next two important slots Gargoyle Waistguard (finally we can convert Vitality to Cold and get all nodes in Drain Essence ) and Korvan plating (soft points to Drain Essence nodes) . You can farm the armor slot in Cairn docks and the belt can be farmed in Astral Fields (area before Korvaak). Moment you get the belt you can switch to necro leveling and get Decomposition (something we skip earlier but now is converted partially). Tomb of Heretic is locked behind questline , I do this usually after I beat Korvaak , what we need from Tomb of the Heretic apart from the shrine is Magi Mantle from the Magis at Magis Court (you don't have to finish the whole dungeon , all you need is the court and reset). This is another recap video for those of you that want to check what's behind my choices and see how the build performs at this point [Recap video level 45-60 CLICK ME](https://youtu.be/yLbI7t0OLxM)
Level 60-70
Time for Elite , a lot of players advice against Elite however if you want proper transition to Ultimate especially if it's your first character jump to Elite is easy quests , reputation and shrines (is much easier to level in Ultimate when you have all of your devotion points ) . You don't need my guidance at this point , I did exactly the same stuff that I did in Normal . Main goals here is to reach Homestead and clear left side + Pine barrens this should be enough , next goal is to hit level 70 so we can use endgame augments and third and final goal is to reach Revered with Homestead and Rovers , so we can get elite bases for the Rovers Gloves and Homestead boots ( you can do bounties or simply kill tons of skeletons on the way to Ilgor for your medal and kill some beasts in Pine barrens ) .Another important moment is to reach Korvan sands so we can get Fettan mask (easter egg item but very good for leveling ). My recap video for Elite can help you a lot and also check some gameplay in this difficulty [Elite recap video CLICK ME](https://youtu.be/1X1Jm1slPaQ). Take your time don't rush the game , upgrade your bases by farm for a better ones , Elite is nice power up also is very easy without too much stress (after all we play games to chill ) , nobody watch over your shoulder so don't compare your speed to the speed of seasoned veterans (find your own pace and stick to it it's not a race )
Level 70-80 Ultimate
We continue with Ultimate at this point mobs start to hit a bit harder so its advisable to reposition when you noticed too much damage spikes . this bracket is ideal moment to upgrade your gear and farm better versions of your MI(monster infrequents) , if you don't yet . We continue questing , I did full clear cause we have to level not only our toon but also our devotions , nothing much else to be said , the campaign should be familiar enough to you at this point if you hit a wall use Grim Tools , Official Discord or simply ask under the post , even if I am not capable to answer a lot of experienced players check regularly this posts (one of the most friendly gaming communities is the Grim Dawn community dont be shy to ask )
Level 80-90 Ultimate
Last two brackets are mostly get Revered status with all the factions and stock some wealth cause endgame crafting is not cheap. I dismantle all low level legendaries (no point to keep this) for extra scraps and materials , nothing much can be said here just finish your quests and try to finish all Honoured status quests cause they offer the best rewards.
Level 90-100
Final leveling bracket is where you get final 94 bases on your MIs and prepare yourself for pre-endgame farming , take your time and update your build for the next farming strategy. Here is another recap video Ultimate Recap video CLICK ME
Level 100 Budget Setup
How I did my pre-endgame farming is to start hitting totems using my personal route which you can check in this video Totems Route for Beginners , what we need is all tier 3 components blueprints , Intrepid Boots Blueprint and Emberguard Gloves Blueprint to start with (anything that we found as an extra is just a bonus). Game priorities this blueprints so should be long enough (there is high chance you have them before level 100 check your blacksmith ). After I craft good pair of boots and gloves ( we look for " of Celerity" suffix on the gloves and we look for Life and resistance on the boots ) , keep in mind this items are just stepping stone don’t get crazy on this but if you get good pairs be sure you keep them for different builds , they might be not endgame options for this build but they can be for different setup. Next easy step is to reach Vinelton in Ancient Grove and reset his stocks by going to the previous dungeon level wait 5 6 secs and pop up back , we hunt good pair of Living rings just aim for what you missing (its very easy to shop affixes , much easier than grinding ). Now is time for good weapon , this is very important step so try to get something that’s double cold similar to my weapon ( any double cold or elemental + cold affixes will do ). Next step is the pants I hit over and over Solael guardian until I get Impervious prefix (this can roll also on a different item but we need at least one Impervious prefix somewhere ). Rest of the items doesn’t really matter in which order you gonna target them but Magi mantle I leave for last. I intentionally leave some items with crappy rolls despite having better ones just to leave you options with affixes and augments. Here is final recap and explanation behind every item and how the build perform in endgame content like SR 26-27 (standart spot for budget setups ) Budget setup recap video CLICK ME
FINAL SETUP
FINAL SETUP
Rank 3 Chillwishper Reaper - endgame setup by @nofika4u & @banana_peel . Probably the strongest channeling build before patch 1.3 , one of the best SR farmers in terms of price and skills requirement . Main advantage of this build is , it doesn’t requires countless hours of farming
Top 20 Softcore Builds - if you want to see more interesting endgame setups
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
FAQ
FAQ
Why this Drain Essence build is better than the other ones?
Quality of life is huge on this one , also much cheaper and you don’t have to maintain a lot of cooldowns and debuffs which leads directly to better performance cause instead of focusing on your skill bar - you focus more on the field.
Ok but what about nerfs to Drain Essence in the upcoming expansion ?
This nerf will be not so significant , it’s totally deserved nerf cause DE at the moment is extremely strong. Single target damage will get hurt a bit but this build is not designed to be single target damage monster , its deigned to destroy SR and Crucible and the nerf wont impact much this.
How much time final setup would take as a beginner?
Took me 20 h to hit level 100 , I didn’t rush anything , manage to finish all quests . Took me 6 hours to get online the budget setup so I can switch from campaign farming to SR 26-27 farming and get all the items needed to craft the set and potentially get all the off pieces. Grim Dawn use anti dupe system so if you stay in the same session is very unlikely to get dupes (that’s why SR is the best farming spot cause you can abuse the anti dupe system by staying in the same session , compare to dungeons and totems when you have to reset the session after a clear)
VIDEO
VIDEO
Endgame Setup vs 5 x SR 30-31 runs CLICK ME
Endgame setup vs Callagadra 70% success rate CLICK ME
(atleast on 80-90 version)
