Ghol/Wraith Cabalist

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Ghol/Wraith Cabalist

Ghol’s Malice is an awesome and versatile pet set. The Wraiths from Reap Spirit got a duration boost with the new patch, and are now a great option for supplimental damage on almost any pet build that can use them.

Clairvoyant’s Wand, while having no direct pet bonuses, is an amazing pet Cabalist weapon if you’re using Wraiths. It has +1 Occultist, +2 Reap Spirit, and the proc does a great job offsetting Reap Spirit’s huge mana cost, in addition to the healing it provides.

Beyond using Ghol’s Set and Clairvoyant’s Wand, you have a ton of flexibility in terms of damage types, devotions, and other itemization. Here are four different varieties of Ghol/Wraith Cabalists that all do 6:30 Gladiator:

Acid-Cold-Poison Cabalist
6:30 Gladiator

Physical-Cold-Poison Cabalist
6:35 Gladiator

Lightning-Cold-Poison Cabalist
6:25 Gladiator

Chaos-Poison Cabalist
6:30 Gladiator

All of the differences in clear times come down to crucible RNG.

Bonus

Physical-Cold-Poison Ritualist
6:25 Gladiator

This was the original Ghol/Wraith setup I played with. I tried the Cabalists afterwards and found them far more versatile and easier to play.

Conclusions

I love the Ghol set. It’s very flexible and makes the best pet Ritualists that I have ever seen, but I am still annoyed that it is so much more flexible and at least as capable in the hands of Cabalists. Beyond the speed, healing, resistances, and broad RR coverage from a single skill that can also proc celestial powers that Occultists bring, general Cabalist itemization is also better than Ritualist itemization.

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Very cool to see such a flexible build!

Where do these builds fall in regards to tankiness/clearpseed in the spectrum of pet cabalists? On paper, I see them as a middle ground between the tankiness of Maya’s will of the wisp build (https://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82769&highlight=wisp) and the clearspeed of your witching hour skeleton build (https://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83926), is that about right?

I really enjoy the steamroller aspect of your witching hour skeleton build, it’s only inherent negative aspect being if the skeletons do die, you’ve lost all your steam. I also like the super tankiness of Maya’s will of the wisp build, where you can grind your way through the really tough content slowly and painfully if required, the inherent negative aspect being Reap Spirit can be hard to use effectively when you’re kiting and pulls a lot of aggro. How do these builds fair on those points?

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The setups I’ve so far included in the OP lean a bit to the offensive side of the middle-ground. They are a lot more resilient than the Witching Hour build since you don’t need to worry about keeping fragile skeletons alive, but the character itself is only slightly tankier.

These setups are specifically designed for maximum clear speed, but Ghol builds generally don’t lose a ton of power by switching to Ishtak because a lot of the Blight Fiends damage comes from Blight Burst, the vomit attack, and DoT, so the speed isn’t quite as critical. I’ll mess around tonight with some Ishtak setups that should be tankier than these without being too much slower, probably in the ~7:00 range.

I haven’t tried any of these out in the Shattered Realms. I’ll give that a shot tonight as well.

Reap Spirit while kiting isn’t ideal, but it’s a lot better since their duration was boosted. It’s definitely fine for the level of kiting you need to do in Crucible, but I’m not sure how well it will hold up to Shattered Realms level of kiting where things live much longer.

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Physical/Cold/Poison Ritualist links to a cabalist, btw.

It is pretty frustrating that Wind Devils can’t proc the vast majority of important devotions that pet builds want. That said it would be really interesting if some of the Winter King stuff had Reap Spirit support, something I’ll probably write up a suggestion on later.

Also, did you ever try the Blight Fiend conduit? Converts the physical to acid, and since you don’t really have any physical outside of that on cabalist other than hellhound, I’d imagine it’d be decent and would work alright in place of the Bysmiel’s amulet. Not to mention the freed up resistances, of course.

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Thanks, link is fixed.

Yes, it is very frustrating. Combined with the fact that Shaman also have a temporary pet that needs resummoning, the number of actives can get unmanagably large.

I tried it after I had already recorded using the Yugol Rings. It unsurprisingly performed about the same, just like everything else. In the interest of time I stuck with what I had already done rather than trying to get another “good run”.

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For what it is worth, I havent had any problems with Reap Spirits and Kiting, even in SR 80+. It has only become better with the recent buff to Spirit. However, birbs might also be playing a part since even when you are running, they act as a constant source of dps.

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That’s really nice. I’m an addict to conduits because of the defensive benefits they provide, so if they are usable in a build, I gravitate towards them. 8% less damage from Eldritch considering Eldritch is one of the most dangerous types of enemies now with FG being out is honestly amazing – almost to the point that I want to try to fit inquisitor into some pet builds (and I know deceiver familiar has worked in the past). That, and the amount of resistances that the amulet provides overall.

I had an idea for a pet apostate for blight fiend/wraith which was originally just some dumb idea of “what if this actually worked” that I might try Also I could actually potentially use the inquisitor seal mod on glyph of kelphatzoth for once, and there’s something really funny sounding about dropping inquisitor seals for pets to stand on.