I’ve took an extended break from Grim Dawn and have recently got back into playing in the last couple of weeks.
Before I stopped playing, I had specced out a 2h ranged build and wondered whether it was possible to have a pet in the equation. I (as well as a lot of you I imagine) played a lot of Diablo 2 and one of my favorite classes was the cookie cutter bowazon with a max level Valkyrie to tank.
I’m trying to replicate that in Grim Dawn and have maxxed Summon Briarthorn and Ground Slam in my build. However, all my gear and devotion is focused on my DPS and my survivability and I’ve got next to no pet bonuses.
Is this a waste of time - will the briarthorn get owned in ultimate? I’m not that attached to it so don’t mind dropping it, but I wanted to get an answer to this before I start the character.
Your pets will get slaughtered on ultimate in a heartbeat.
It is like MatMB has said, they are useless without the
gear and skill support. Simply because the monsters are
much stronger. This will first occur/start at elite.
Yeah, well…I wouldn’t actually call that a hybrid build in the sense OP wants it - i.e. like a WoW hunter or something. Truth is in Ultimate difficulty that warlock will do maybe 5-10% of the total damage output.
I have worked my head around a possible hybrid pet build for quite some time now and can see only one viable possiblity where the damage output is shared equally between the PC and the pet/pets - Physical / Bleed warder. In terms of items, ofc, most support is given to a hybrid pyromancer. However, I wouldn’t pursue one until the Devs fix the atrocious cast speed and A.I. of the legendary voidfiends on the Will of Bysmiel and make them permanent summons as they should be.
With the items we have now, the best bet is a bleed warder with bladearc, Primal Spirit and that OP amulet called the Doombringer.
For tanking purposes. Only the Hellhound can draw enemies away from you.
Having pets that appear on attack/death is viable because enemies have to walk past your wall of pets in order to attack you.
Take a look at one of my old vids on Elite
On his first form he tried to walk around my pets but was surrounded. On his second form my Hellhound drew his attention until death.
The hardest part about hybrids is the resists imo. The hardest resists to find for pets are bleeding/poison and pierce. If you’re a conjurer this is not a problem (Mogdrogen’s Pact). But pyro’s will have to take Wolverine and pick their equipment carefully. On top of that, your own resists will suffer. The balancing game is hard here.
More items like this need to exist. This ring provides good poison resist for the player character and good poison resist for the pets. etc, etc. This is perfect for hybrids and pure summoner’s too.
There’s 3 devotion paths you can take. The top right path will lead to very defensive pets taking “Light of Empyrion”. The bottom path will lead to highly offensive pets and it’s the path I would recommend. Taking both “Shepherd’s Call” and “Howl of Mogdrogen”. Then there’s the path that ends in “Dying God” which I consider to be balanced pets. But you really have to work around the health loss of Dying God. Personally I find Mogdrogen the Wolf constellation to be hard to compete with. Most of my builds feel they have to take it.
I’m working on a Warlock as well. But I’m aiming for 3 pets for each element. Hellhound/Familiar/Chillmane. Problem is I don’t really make much use of the amulet as the only bonus I get from it is the pet. :undecided:
I copied a blank character yesterday to test a 2H ranged aether build. It didn’t work (very low damage despite of the +6 to arcanist). Then I switched to a hybrid build using a 2H ranged weapon.
I selected Witching Hour because of the active skill. At level 75 and using Lazy Pokemon’s gear (just a few changes) I managed to get +13.000 dps and +600 pet damage & +280 pet HP. After using the active skill and the beastcaller’s active, my damage raises to +18.000. Pets receive a good buff too. Using Shepherd’s Call with all the other bonus, the pets can get +1200 damage, wich is quite good.
The good part of the build is that every kill will raise a spirit (Necromancer’s Deathgrips - 4 seconds cd). I had to put Heart of the Mountain to have an extra pet (Yeti), with the Hellbound, the raised spirits and the Primal Instinct bugs. I have the bysmiel pet too.
I’m still testing it. I have around 9200 HP, but my resistances are low. I’m looking for new pieces to change my gear despite I’d loose damage or pet damage. I’ll make a short video about the character, but I know it’s not a competitive character.
And this is why I suggested a Warder. Most people, I think, want a build in which the pet(s) tank while the master deals heavy damage from afar. Naturally they will go for pyro or some cooky ranged primal strike conjurer. The idea, however, is bad in GD due to the fact that a) the items that give bonuses to pets leave you paper thin in terms of resistances AND b) you will usually end up taking aggro away from your pets - so you lose both survivability and dps.
Now, let’s look at the high level items that support pets…the Beastcaller’s Talisman, for example, buffs bleed damage. There is only one single pet that deals bleed damage and unlike acid or chaos you can’t reliably add this damage type to your pets. The other “bleed” amulet you can have is the Dire Wolf one…and it does not favor a 2h char. By this fact alone I concur that the only way you could construct a viable true hybrid is having the pets do the damage, not the tanking.
And now…let’s see why a 2h Bleed/Physical Warder will be ideal in this sense:
You already benefit from the Mogdrogen constellation so it’s a win-win situation for you AND the pets;
The Briathorn buff boosts your physical resistance to a high degree;
Even if the Primal Spirit dies (though I doubt it), it would still have dealt a huge amount of damage to the target in the form of DoTs.
It allows you to take items that are not normally “pet” items, such as the Doombringer amulet and make the most use out of it;
It debuffs physical (War Cry) and bleed (witch the Primal Spirit does) and vitality (so you can take necro gloves also).
You have the retardedly powerful wendigo totem to keep the Briathorn alive to maintain the buff and you will also probably use The Guillotine;
You can play around savegry AND Blade Arc (even both).
Itemisation is easy: 3x Beastcaller set items + Whisperer of Secrets helm (rare aether resist right here ;).
This is the only “competitive” TRUE hybrid build you can make right now IMO. If the Infernal Knight set is a fire/chaos focused pyro or witchblade set you could also make one around the hellhound / Voidfiends. However, those Voidfiends really need a look at because Hotfix 2 did not fix their A.I.
I’m missing the gun component and have to change the feet component too (I’m using refurbished items). The shoulders are only for survibability (+1000 HP and +15% chaos resistance). I think I should make a few changes and make a weak character that can beat the game with few restrictions (clones). I plan to change boots and/or belt to get enough resistances.
His pets are the Yeti, Hellhound, the spirits when killing and the Primal Instinct bugs.
The most successful attempt I had with Hybrid Pet Build is a Poison Conjurer, and it’s near impossible to gear it legitimately.
I mainly used “Dominator” prefix and “of the Blight” combination, to achieve 500%+ pet damage bonus and 1500%+ Poison Damage bonus. He can build up 90k+ poison ticks while kiting and let pets (2 permanent and up to 7 temporary) tank / block for him.
He can kill most Nemesis under 1 min, only have to kite constantly against Fabius (too fast) and Moosilauke (freeze-lock pets).
Like I said, it’s almost impossible to get required gears for him legitimately, so I won’t say it’s your solution. There is just not enough gear supports in GD to make a Hybrid Pet Build to work ATM, pet gears’ damage bonus are too spread-out and offer next to none resists (especially against stun / freeze / trap).
I somewhat agree. My pyro end game ended with pretty decent resists so did my pets. But they’re damage potential isn’t as high as I’d like it to be. If I push for higher damage output, my resists drop down the toilet.
