Looking for non-passive pet build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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Hi everyone,

I recently started playing GD and I have to say I am quite hooked :smile:

I am looking for some ideas on a non-passive pet build. Please allow me to explain better what I am looking for:
I made my first hero a Conjurer because it reminds me of the Witch Doctor Playstyle from Diablo 3. After checking out some endgame builds, however, I realized that everyone plays pet Conjurers passively. The main idea of most builds I found is to buff your pets while you run arount casting Curse of Frailty to weaken your enemies. Honestly, I cannot picture myself doing this. I want to be able to kill things with my hero as well, be it with Doom Bolts, Eyes of Dreg, my main weapon, whatever. Think for example how the Hellhound/Gargantuan Witch Doctor plays in D3.

Is there such an end-game viable build in Grim Dawn or something that comes close to it? Or is a hero doomed to be weak for ever if they build for pet stats? I do not need to stick with Conjurer if another class can fulfill the role better. Thanks for everyones help in advance!

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pretty non-passive [1.1.3.1] Sir Dredeon, Bloody Oppressor - Melee DW/Player scaling pets Blood Knight Vitality Oppressor (no greens, Gladiator, SR 75)

I think the “best” option would be to go with player scaling pets.

And this [1.1.3.0] [Caster] Vitality Oppressor (sr/sr+) - feat. fake pets

might be hard to do some kind of “budget” version of them as they require pretty much all that gear

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Thanks for your help malawiglenn!
So one way to go would be with Opressor’s fake pets. Great, I am taking notes :nerd_face:

Any other ideas?

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Oppressor is nice since you can focus on Ravenous Earth when leveling. You can have a look at Nery’s guide here [1.1.1.2] [Caster] Beginner's/budget vitality RE Oppressor,leveling guide inside,Cabalist version added

You can change the devotions to the ones I have in my Cabalist guide


then you will get the Revenant devotion proc, which will include some player scaling pets.

You will pull the most weight here for starters, but later on when you find more specific gear to the Guardians, you can change the build around :slight_smile:

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Is it a good idea to continue with my Doom Bolt Pet Conjurer until I finish the game on normal difficulty and then switch to the new charracter at a higher difficulty and transfer items/components? Or what is the most efficient way to go about this?
Note: I have main game and AoM+Crucible and can get FG if necessary.

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You might as well start a new char.

  1. you only have low level crap gear to xfer over
  2. you do not have faction mandates or experience potions to xfer over
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My understanding is that I can start at a higher difficulty with a new character with the FG expansion. Is that correct? I don’t want to repeat all the normal difficulty stuff I’ve done so far :sweat: I’m finishing Act 2 now on Veteran.

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You “need” to do Elite and Ultimate anyway so…
And if you think you can manage starting in elite go a head, it will hurt you a bit if you do that without faction mandates and you will find it very hard to get faction reputation up later in the game since you have to unlock them in elite…

act 2 veteran, that is like 1.5-2 hours gameplay :stuck_out_tongue:

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Only if you already have a character in Ultimate who can access the Forgotten Gods content to buy the merit tokens. You can put those in your transfer stash for other characters to use.

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you can also buy merit token for Elite if you have a char in elite (you need to be in conclave of the three to buy them i.e. at least kill warden krieg on Elite)

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Great, thanks for your help! I need to understand better how to progress through the content, it is quite complicated compared to most action RPGs.

Is there anyway at all to make a Pet Conjurer who is not a Curse of Frailty bot?

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Easier just to start a new char. Finishing all the campaigns on all three difficulties is 40-60 hours so 2-3 hours “lost” is not that much big of a deal :slight_smile: (+ all hundreds of hours you need to farm for gear for end game builds)

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I have certainly spent more than 15-20 hours in the campaign so far. I am the type of player that needs to explore every little corner of the map. I am almost at Homestead now, no idea what act that is.

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Well you do not have to do that. Plus you can use map tools like Grim Tools to speed up things.

What is your goal with the game?

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Act 3 out of 4 for the main game, 2 more Acts with Ashes and another one with Forgotten Gods, but both of those are optional expansions.

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As always with action RPGs I first play the campaign thoroughly before I start farming end-game content.
This includes exploring the campaign map and so on.

Last time I ask this question so that I understand properly: There is no Pet Conjurer build where your hero does more than spam Frailty, right? No chance to have any direct damage spell or devotion as a viable damage source in end game?

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You could have a look at sigatrev’s builds to see if any of those would work. But usually it’s either you doing damage or the pets do.

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Thanks, I was afraid this would be the answer. To me this is a design problem of Grim Dawn, not a big fan of it :-/

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My builds tend to be a little more player active than other pet builds these days, but it’s still the pets doing all the killing.

If you want to actually play a “hyrbrid” pet Conjurer, your best option is probably to use Bysmiel’s Trinkets set for 2 x Familiar and use Savagery with Spark of Ultos or something like that. It won’t be competitive in Crucible or SR, but you’d do fine in main campaign.

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Fantastic man, thanks for joining the discussion. I was just reading your Storm Familiar beginner friendly guide and I learned a lot!
I will look both into the Savagery + Spark of Ultos idea and also test the Wind Devil to see if it makes the conjurer playstyle feel a bit more interactive.