hahaha wow, that’s excellent! Revisions are in the works, you’ve really pushed progress on my build. Underestimating DA will lead to my downfall. That battle against ulgrim was a nail biter for me hahah
You managed a lot more HP than I anticipated. Just good rolls?
Ulgrim fight was pretty dicey. As I said in my previous post I wouldn’t recommend it for HC characters. Although it might feel pretty safe if you chugged some elixirs prior to the fight.
I just used random drops for the items, no hunting for good rolls. I’ll check though…
Looking at the rolls, everything was below average except Shoulders, which rolled +840 health. The big difference was the fact that the GrimTools was using Mark of Divinity instead of Mythical Mark of Divinity. Here’s a GrimTools with that fixed: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYRPQA2
Yes, I am completely aware of this. I use it in fights because I just mash keys when I play GD. 
From the build I posted a few days ago:
I was just going to suggest a revised grimtools which takes points out of OFF and Trozan’s in favor of overmaxing BoD and getting one point in CoF and two in Vulnerability.
Like this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYRPQl2
Because we don’t have cold resist reduction TSS doesn’t do much damage to anything, save for a tiny bit of lightning damage, and there’s already so many active skills I don’t think it really helps much. Overmaxing BoD gives us a nice boost to health regen and offensive ability which will make the build safer and give us a bit higher chance of hitting crits.
CoF gets aether damage from Mythical Codex of Lies and provides movement speed slow and resist reduction which increases our overall damage output. While it doesn’t reduce aether resist, it does reduce enemy elemental, poison and vitality resists by 20% (at 5/10), which will increase the secondary damage output of all our skills. The DA reduction from Vulnerability will also help us to land crits. I would seriously consider bringing Vulnerability up to 10/10, but I’m not sure what to pull points out of (Elemental Balance or Inner Focus maybe?)
EDIT: Taking a few points out of star pact we lose 1% CDR in exchange for some more resist and DA reduction from vulnerability: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2pnJYBZ
I personally don’t use The Clairvoyant set anymore for the double nuker concept so can’t comment any further
@Mator I wanted you to know I’m still testing things in my own slow way with your suggestions (props on the aether transmogs lol) and that I thank you for the time you’ve put into what I’m trying to build. It’s greatly appreciated my friend.
Sure thing. 
Just wanted to thank you for the guide and chime in with my current build. I used the original lvl 85 version and based mine on that. As this was my first character, it’s in SC though.
I went into a different direction with the build, partially to try different things, partially because I didn’t find a clairvoyant wand yet, but I did find a decree of aldritch. The basic idea is to just focus on aether damage.
Skill-wise I dropped bloody pox, panetti and trozans and picked up sigil of consumption and albrechts aether ray. I did manage crucible on gladiator to 150 with health and damage buff (and giants blood still at 8/20).
What I’m struggling on is to get defenses up. Right now, stun resist is severely lacking, but health is quite low and other resists are also barely at 80 and some more armor absorbtion would be nice. But other than getting some insane roll on Aleksanders pants I don’t know where to go from here.
Grimtools:
Hi and welcome.
Yours looks like a pretty well made build but there are a few things i’d mention.
You said you want tankiness so consider of Kings affix on boots if you can get it.
You seem to want a little bit of everything. Actually all of everything:) AAR/Devastation and DB. If it were another nuke like CT instead of AAR, it would have been fine.
The reason why I say this is how channeling spells work. You stand in one place, wind it up, and fire away. Every time you cast something else, you interrupt your channeling. Devastation is fine because It’s fire and forget, but DB kinda messes up your flow. I imagine it’s hard to mitigate damage and cast all your spells including winding up AAR.
You chose Warlock to play with DB too I imagine, even if it’s not the best mastery synergy for Aether. But if you want a channeling biuld you have to simplify some things and use only things that don’t hinder your channeling too much, Especially AAR that has the longest wind-up animation of all channeling spells.
If you ever decide to drop DB you can use Mark of Fierce resolve weapon for DA health, pierce res and stun res
Thanks for the feedback.
My reasoning for Warlock was that it was my first char and I started with Arcanist, because Mage and then I chose Occultist since it looked cool. That was when I had no idea what any of the skills are.
I wanted to get Of Kings on those boots, but I am out of scavenged plating now.
For the medal, the conversion on Doom Bolt is mostly useless. I use it mostly for the great roll on OA/DA, the extra damage for Doom Bolt is a very welcome bonus.
Right now I use AAR inbetween spells, it’s bad for that. I also use it to mow down stragglers or dps down single strong enemies (SoC->Aether Corruption->Devastation->Mirror->Doom Bolt*2->AAR->Mirror->AAR), it’s pretty good at that.
CT sounds like a great idea, I should try that. That also frees up the amulet and gloves slots.
Going to be taking a real in-depth look into your build idea’s @Mator, should be fun! Hoping for no rips tonight but I think we should be okay 
@Superfluff - thanks for helpin out Vince.
@Vince - you’re most welcome, I hope the character is coming along nicely!
edit: So far so good! We were able to clear Edge of Reality, which I previously had to “glitch” one of the mobs during the first split to stay in the room to accomplish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbDk_23W4zU Please excuse my language
This is what I’ve been playing with so far [ https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62aOxYEZ ]. I’m planning to make an Aggrivix’s Malice before long to test it with the old build I once had in combination with the idea’s you’ve brought forth Mator. The big difference in mine from before is:
[ul]Dropping Targo
Adding Behemoth and Solemn Watcher
Dropping TSS and going 50/50 in Occultist (to break 12k HP), keeping 15/12 in Star pact because I feel like at 39% I’m missing out on DPS which may just be in my head so I’ll be testing that more.
And instead of Agrivix I’m using Eternity, which I believe may be redundant seeing how I already have Hourglass but who knows lol[/ul]
Sidenotes: CoF didn’t seem worth keeping because my vitality damage is <400% and the speed debuffs didn’t seem all that necessary. I found that OFF was nice just because it kept mobs inside Devastation drops and also body blocked more mobs with the frozen ones. This could simply just be because of my playstyle/preference but at the end of the day I don’t think CoF will make or break the build.
Hey Twan,
my build is indeed coming along nicely.
This is where I am at now with callidors tempest instead of AAR and freshly crafted boots:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVA8zkw2
I think Eternity is very worthwhile for the build. It reduces the CD on hourglass too.
Amazing…
I really like how you’re pulling off 22/12 doom bolt, 26/16 devastation and 25/16 CT (SO CLOSE TO 26!!!). What are your CT’s hitting for?
haha, thank you, I think
Usually around 30-40k non-crit I think.
It was a bit underwhelming when I first tested it on dummy, both the transmuted and the default version of it. The AAR version obviously did a lot better against the dummy, but that is a poor simulation of actual fights anyway. Dummy is a small target and completely immune to health reduction from Doom Bolt so it is the natural enemy to this build. Dummy time right now is 1m 40s or something like that, the AAR version did it in 50 seconds even when running out of energy.
The enemy that made me switch to CT was Kubacapra. When I was still on AAR, I tried killing him without using it, and it was pretty much the same fight. With CT it is a bit faster and much smoother, as I have a small nuke that I can just use and run around after, instead of trying to stand still for a clunky high dps spell.
When starting with it, CT is kind of derpy with the build. It shoves enemies out of Devastation, you need to get close to everything, but after a bit of practice with it it fits naturally into the rotation.
That sounds pretty nice, I can visualize throwing devastation down and runnin around bumping mobs back into it hahaha. Have you considered trying Manticore instead of Imp? I used to run with Imp but found my dps was higher with Manticore. Also bigger Doom Bolt hits >:-)
Hey, Twan.
This build looks rad. I am super new to Grim Dawn (played for the first time last night) and I think I’d like to try this build out, but I’m a little confused by some things. Some posts later in the thread seem to contradict the OP, the OP seems to differ somewhat from the provided link to the Grim Dawn Calculator, etc.
I completely understand how this happens; the build is ever evolving and it’s not your job to maintain a perfect forum post! If you’ve got the time, would you be able to give the OP and Grim Dawn Calculator a once-over? And flesh out the Leveling Guide?
Also, should anything here change significantly if I am playing Hardcore co-op with 3 others? Running an Arcanist right now with Flash Freeze and Sky Shard maxed for CC and some burst damage. Still under Level 20. Where should I go from here (or should I re-roll for this build)?
Thanks for your time!
No problem! I’m usually more proactive about my builds but I’ve taken a little hiatus and got a bit lazy I’d be more than happy to hash out any questions/concerns you have.
So the Grimtools link is my most up-to-date version (double checked as of 12:42 AM on this fine Saturday morning). I would disregard any of my previous grimtools links throughout the thread and rely solely on the one in the guide. OR you can take a look at what some others decided to do, some are quite good/cool. If there are any particular contradictions you’d like to address please point them out for me.
Regarding the leveling guide and your current situation I’m going to take a swing at answering both here: Since you aren’t vitality damage and you’re playing with pals on HC (
) don’t use pox and fevered rage, it is merely the quickest way I found to level the character. In your case I would focus on this -> Maiven’s Sphere of Protection; 1 point in Mirror of Erocetes and Nullify each (they’re what you’d call a 1 point wonder); then max out devastation. Since you’re 20 I’ll throw you a lvl 40-50 grim tools that I’d likely follow in your situation.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/1NXPGb8N - This will work well by buffing/healing your friends while CCing and eventually dealing massive damage from Devastation while retaining your Arcanist identity. That devotion route is to help your mates deal increased damage via panetti spam while your devastation/TSS is on CD. You’ll then likely want to shoot for Widow then Hour Glass.
I may have rushed this a bit but it makes sense in my head, if you have doubts/questions/concerns I’ll answer them as soon as I see them
Thank you so much for the detailed and timely response!
I’m excited to get everyone online and give this a go. I’ll let you know how it works out!