Help with a HC build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hey everybody, skipped over posting in the introduction forums in favour of jumping straight here with a question which arguably has already been answered, but I feel that I’d get a more targeted answer this way; apologies if this is not the place.

So I started playing the game about a year ago, had some fun with a softcore conjurer, finished on normal, got about halfway through elite before getting bored and dropping the game altogether.

With the expansion catching my eye during the GOG summer sale, I had another go at it and decided to once again try a pet build, more precisely the excellent Night King (can’t post links on my first post, huh), but to make things more interesting, I also made it my first HC character. Everything went swimmingly, I breezed through Veteran, barely breaking a sweat against the end boss (and not even getting touched by the Mad Queen), and I’d started the expansion, was excited to be experiencing the new content for the first time; the build was great fun, with most damage coming from the (at that point) 11 pets, combined with a bit of activity from myself with Blood of Dreeg, Bone Harvest and Ravenous Earth. Elemental resistances were at 80%, poison around 50% (should have bumped it higher, but I forwent that for higher pet damage) and, never truly in danger, I started to get cocky and, rather than stick to the tried and true strategy of sending the pets first, started barging in gung-ho, eager to visit spiky, bony death upon my enemies (which would often work to great effect). I was particularly confident since I had two circuit breakers (as I’ve found out they’re called) - the Alchemist’s Belt and a amulet whose name I’ve forgot (death…proof? death…ward? death something, I think). All that lasted until I found myself nonchalantly cracking skulls on my way through some basement/cave in the Gloomwald and the fucking poof, you’re dead. Needless to say, I was less that ecstatic.

What I’d greatly appreciate would be suggestions for a build that:

  1. Is nearly idiot-proof, right down to my level of headbutting enemies with a pet/caster hybrid build level of incompetence, in terms of survivability
  2. Has a reasonably fast clear speed - having just gone through the game, and not a huge fan of repetition (which I guess doesn’t really make ARPGs the best fit for me), I’m not really looking forward to murdering my way through Cairn one zombie at a time
  3. Has a manageable number of active skills - I’m not terribly skilled, so I felt that the Cabalist offered me just enough action to be interesting, while relying on the pets to do the heavy lifting where I’d otherwise struggle; looking mostly for some nice AoE abilities, as well as, perhaps, a cool auto-attack
  4. Is equipment-independant, since the only stuff I have is what I’ve been able to gather with my now-defunct cabalist; granted there’s quite a few blues in there, but surely not something to build around
  5. While I greatly appreciate the Night King build and had fun with it, I’d rather not replay that (well, that should be obvious, I wouldn’t be posting here otherwise!), nor am I too eager to replay a Conjurer (I still have that guy btw). Having said that, I’m not at all opposed to either of the classes composing those combos, nor am I against pet hybrid builds (in fact, it seems like they’d be right up my alley)
  6. From what I’ve found lurking on the forums, a reflection warder seems like the safest bet and, unless a better option is suggestion, is probably what I’ll go with. I would rather try something a bit more active though, but I don’t mind just sitting around for the knuckleheads to kill themselves off my relation, so long as it’s done quickly enough (and from what they say on the forums, it appears to be); seems like chasing down ranged enemies would be a chore.

So, to sum things up: durable, quick, fun and cool is what I’m looking for.

Thanks for taking the time to read and I’m looking forward to your suggestions!

Chris

2

Welcome to the forum. :slight_smile: Have you had a look in the Build Compendium to see if there’s anything there that takes your fancy?

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68138

There are some beginner friendly builds in there that aren’t reliant on specific gear to make them workable.

3

Hello Xertos

First of all, sorry to hear about your character. It especially sucks to lose them when you’re still not established firmly on hardcore and levelling takes a lot of time. Later on with exp potions and faction rep boosters it’ll be much less punishing. So I think any aspiring HC player should make it his number one goal to reach this point and stockpile them.

Then, even if your character perished you can still upload the save file to grim tools to either analyze him yourself or show to us. Since your poison is 50%, which is pretty enough for normal/veteran, I’d expect it was either vitality, bleed or physical. Physical is especially tricky because while players are usually wary about keeping resistances high, they often forget about armor, often due to attachment to gear pieces that are already outdated.

As for your wishes I’m sure that a build like that just doesn’t exist. Retaliation tanks are indeed durable but they are anything but quick and cool and fun. They are slow and boring af. Also HC players literally learn by surviving (or sometimes not) through hairy situations, so a build that is 100% safe would stagnate your growth as a HC player.

As for the build to play - I don’t know, it’s down to personal acquantiance with particular playstyles. E.g. I grew to like 2-handed builds because they deal high damage and are reasonably durable. A coulple of friends of mine had some success playing gunslingers on HC. Also know a few players here who advocate for casters, but since most of them rely on timing Mirror, Blast Shield and Mark of Torment to survive they’ll be unreliable unless you perfect it.

4

The 3 post problem is part of the anti-spam measures here on the forum, but we have a special thread where you can post some short nonsense to get around that.

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48496

Once you’ve got another couple of posts you can use www.girmtools.com to import your character as Stupid Dragon said if you want others to have a look at it.

Loading your character into grimtools is pretty easy. Go to the build calculator and see the arrow with a line underneath on the lefthand side? Hover over it and it says “Load character from save file”. Click on the arrow, then find your character and double click on it, then click on the player.gdc file to select it, then on open and grimtools will import it into the programme.

5

Don’t go reflection, it’s not the playstyle you’re looking for at all and is boring in general.

I just started a new HC char too, a Vitality Ritualist (Shaman/Necro). This is a very easy to level char: start as Shaman, take Devouring Swarm and get the Bat Twin Fangs devotion to bind to it.

This combo trivializes normal and keeps your health topped up all the time due to the massive leech.
Later you add Ravenous Earth for shotgun damage, the nice thing about this skill is that its support lowers enemy damage.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/b283d3zN this is what I have at the end of normal if you want an idea of what such a build looks like.
Did not use any stash items except some components and it was very comfortable to level.
Resists look dangerously bad but they don’t even matter because your HP bar barely moves due to sustainability.

6

Cold Rune of Haggard Inquisitor + Occultist is probably the easiest to gear build with relatively fast clear speed and low amount of casting stuff.
Start as Inquisitor. Rush Rune of Hagard, then put 1 point in rune every level and 2 point in mastery . Put one point in Biting Cold, keep Chillsurge at 9/12. Rush Aura of Censure, max it, then max Artifact handling. Put one pointer intro Word of renewal line, then switch to Ocultist and rush Aspect of the Guardian.

Your point distribution should look like https://www.grimtools.com/calc/m23PdeqV this when you reach AoM content of Elite.

7

Thanks everybody for the input so far!

I figured that post thing would be an anti-spam feature, makes sense.

I’d taken a quick look across the builds compendium whilst lurking the forums, but like I said, I figured a more targeted question might net me more suitable answers.

I figured a build that ticks all my boxes might be hard to come across, perhaps I’ll focus mainly on durability so as to increase my chances of actually making it to the end of a HC game.

It was a blow, to be sure, but at least lessons were learnt, not least of which was that investing my money in several copies of the rep bonus items (hadn’t got the 100% ones for any of the factions, but 50% would still have made a difference) might have been a smart idea.

You were spot on, Stupid Dragon, about the attachment to old items and neglecting armour - progressing at a reasonably steady rate, I never considered trading in those sweet +1 to all skills items for newer, perhaps less flashy but more useful ones. If I’ve done this correctly, this is the build I used: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV1PqQn2
I can’t be certain, but I remember significantly higher elemental resistance that what’s shown there, only dropping bellow 80% after I’d switched the prismatic gloves for the riftwarped grasp. I could be wrong though, no way of checking.

Both the inquisitor+occultist and the ritualist sound like fun, although I’m a bit apprehensive about the latter because devouring swarm (plus curse of frailty and the occasional… whatchamacallit, the one where the roots stick out) were pretty much the only things I did with my conjurer while the pets did the work, and I got a bit tired of it.

I’m still contemplating which build to go with next, though I’m also considering the possibility of taking a break from GD to give Tyranny a try.

8

Because grim tools assumes you’re on ultimate, which has severe penalties to resistances. To the top-left there’s a difficulty selection so you could check what your resistances were on normal.
Your helm, chest and pants should had been updated before venturing into gloomwald.
Not using components to improve resistances on normal is another typical newbie mistake.