Build Intro:
So I finally got around to making my own Pet build. Early disclaimer that I theorycrafted this blind (means I did not even look at a pre-existing guide; Because I like racking my own brain for ideas) so sorry if this was rough around the edges. This one took hours, since the biggest challenge was skill point shortage and I actually had difficulty choosing a second mastery to pair with my Occultist (For the record, I went with warlock because it was the class which offered a ton of Offensive ability for around 50 skills points).
Image Source: https://bugmeyer.artstation.com/projects/EVD4
Pros & Cons
Pros:
+Extremely fast and efficient crowd clearing
+Good single target damage (Assuming that caster & pets focus fire)
+Durable pets and caster
+Relatively simple playstyle
Cons:
-50/50 damage split (Caster needs to contribute & not stand back idly)
-Durable, but not tanky pets (They die if the fight goes on too long)
-Below average damage output if the pets do not help out
Leveling
For leveling to 94, I would recommend this guide right here (By Monceux)
Long story short- You will be leveling as a cold arcanist on Normal / Elite with mainly Trozan’s Sky Shard, Olexra’s Flash Freeze & Greater Ice Spike. You can upgrade to Seal of the Night at higher levels, but I personally did not find it necessary on Elite.
For devotions, you have two choices- Either follow the leveling guide above or scroll down and refer to my devotion path instead. If you follow the above guide, then you will need a complete respec at level 94 and must level up certain devotion powers from scratch. If you choose mine, you will lose out on some damage, but start out on Ultimate with nearly maxed devotion power levels and won’t have to respec devotion points. Personally, I have tried both methods and still had a smooth leveling experience on both accounts. If you haven’t tried it before, Trozan’s Sky Shard is one of the best area nukes in Grim Dawn even without the cold damage bonuses from constellations (provided that you have maxed the skill and its modifiers early on as instructed) so it is powerful as it is.
Build
Final Build: Warlock, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Attribute points- PHYSIQUE 97 / CUNNING 10 / SPIRIT 00
NOTE: Final attribute points allocation can be highly variable depending on the affixes you get for the Monster Infrequent gear. Ideally, the point allocation above should work if you have the correct Prefix and Suffix as shown in Grimcalc. Personally, my in-game attribute combination was different, since I used an inferior quality item as my MI. In any case, look at the values above as approximations but not absolutes & have a Respec potion on standby.
Play this class as you would for a caster- LMB is a spammable skill & your RMB is debuff. Activate Bysmiel’s Authority if you need the Resist Reduction or a quick heal. Constantly refresh Blood of Dreeg, while using Displacement and Mirror of Ereoctes as defensive / tactical skills.
One thing I must admit was that I originally wanted a support healer build, since I was going to focus heavily on the ravens. But I grossly underestimate how powerful they could be when fully built and paired with a hellhound which was leveled just as heavily- Crowds died in record time, Monster Shrines were razed, Kymon lasted a measly 18 seconds and Korvakk went down in only 1 minute, 40 seconds. Granted, these were Ultimate campaign benchmarks but they were pretty impressive. Survivability wasn’t really an issue when my character had more than 50% Physical Resistance by default at all times with pets that were just as resilient- Enemies either died to my pets because they were too distracted taking me down or I could get a lot of free shots in when they fixated on my pets.
As happy as I was with the results, I was kind of disappointed that it would have made a poor support healer build. I was counting on ‘Mend Flesh’ not for myself, but for my ravens to heal each other and the hound. It never worked as intended though, as much as I played around with pet stances. Either I healed them with Blood of Dreeg / Bysmiel’s Authority or they would surely overextend if I didn’t pull back . As such, I’d rather just put all pets on fully aggressive mode since they were literal killing machines.Following that, it’s best to refund all points from Mend Flesh (unless you can make it work) and put them somewhere else instead.
After finishing this guide, I noticed there was a similar one written by Maya in the past: The Fat Birb - Pet Warlock . There are quite a number of differences, but the gist is that Maya’s built has more powerful pets, while mine puts more emphasis on the caster. Personally, I am not a fan of ‘lazy’ pet builds and like to be more active otherwise I would zone out mid session, but I know that most people might prefer the more ‘traditional’ playstyle so I’m including Maya’s guide here as well. That way, it’ll offer more customization opportunities to fit the mold of varying playstyles
Devotion
- Green Crossroads
- Raven
- Purple
- Empty Throne
- Rhowan’s Crown (3 nodes to Elemental Storm, Bind to Summon Hellhound)
- Red
- Jackal
- Bysmiel’s Bonds (Bind to Curse of Fragility)
- Viper
- Chariot of the Dead (Bind to Maiven’s Sphere of Protection)
- Quill
- Hawk
- Yellow
- Lion
- Refund Red and yellow
- Typhos, the Jailor of Souls
- Blind Sage (Bind to Stormfire)