Newbie - make me better

My build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RVvmG0p2

Act I was a breeze. Act 2 is much tougher and now if I feel like I’m up against a brick wall!

Thanks :slight_smile:

Link’s empty.

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Welcome to the forum, on grimtools build calculater there is an button at upper left, if you click it you can upload your current build then share it with the below button.

And I suppose you’re 30 level or something; first tip without seeing the build is get some pierce and bleeding resistance. In fact your main goals are to keep all resistances at %80(atleast), keep your armor absorption at %100 if possible and support your main damage type. To do so you need to use right gears(right doesn’t mean one particular in this game) ofc but you also need components. You should be able to craft some of them and already have some of them, read the descriptions and use accordingly. Don’t be afraid to test, your first character is your test drive; just have fun and learn how the vehicle works.

Hopefully this works: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NK195JV

First, what is your aim here? Your choosen class combo is not usually for a standart melee or ranged attack build. People use it for Pet builds or casters, which neither of are in my understanding.

But as I said, you need to higher your resistances, in act 2 creatures mostly hit pierce, bleeding and physical but there are other types aswell. You have only decent elemental resistance, try to increase them as long as you can. The rest, you first say your aim then people/me can guide you to the right directions in skill line.

Anyway you seem to like Bone Harvest skill, it’s an unusual style for first build but examine this topic what it will be like to focus on that skill;

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Started out as a caster but like to have melee weapon for when i get surrounded by enemies. Bone harvest worked well initially but is too weak now to do enough damage. Ditto for poison damage…

I don’t know what that means but, if you want to stick with Bone Harvest, you need to support it’s damage type which are cold/vitality and some pierce. Since you have vitality resistance reduce(increase your damage) in both character, and vitality damage support. You should wear gears accordingly supports your damage type. But you can do it as cold damage too. You spread your skill points too freely. You should remove points in pets and Dreeg’s Evil Eye.

Or if you wanna stick with pets you have to wear items that gives pet bonusses. This part is complicated so I let someone else who has experience with pet builds explain it to you. But know that pet hybrid builds is suck in this game. So you should choose one way or another.

Just run ravenous earth and curse of fraility. Invest in mastery bar every level. Get posession as exclusive skill. Devotions get bat and Rattosch.

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I guess your main mistake is you’re not really sure what your “end game goal” is.

In Grim Dawn you are not given enough “Skill points” to invest at your leisure. This is a common mistake when you’re new, grim calc allows you to calculate what your build will look like at level 100 so that should give you some idea.

The general rule of thumb is to invest in 1 or 2 “primary” skills and everything else is “support” (OA/DA boosts, resistances, %damage absorption, resistance reduction etc)

EG. If you invest in “Bone Harvest” and choose to focus on “Vitality damage”
Your primary skill is “Bone Harvest” so you max the entire line (or heavily invest in it)

Your support skills are things which will boost your damage to vitality and keep you alive.
Flat resist reduction is found in “Foul Eruption” on Ravenous Earth line.
% resist reduction is found in “Spectral Wrath” on Spectral Binding line and “Vulnerability” in Curse of Frailty line.
Possession will grant you % vitality damage boost and increase damage absorption

I mean there’s a lot to look at. Those are brief examples. Later on you’ll want to convert unwanted damage types eg Acid to Vitality or Cold to Vitality or vice versa and hunt down MI’s which will help your build etc. eg Korvan Reaping Halberd

In short you try to build around 1 or 2 main skills and choose a damage type which synergises well with the classes that you picked. If you try to use pets you need to invest into pets primarily and focus completely on pet bonuses etc. Hybrids are not things you should be trying to make work when you’re new

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Which only kicks in if monster killed by ravenous earth dies and explodes. Will work great for killing packs when you are ravenous earth focused build, but against sole bosses it does nothing.

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True, forgot to mention that part

Which skill do you like using best? Once you have a skill chosen then make sure you boost its damage type as much as possible while building support and resistances as mentioned above.

It’s easy to keep switching around skills as you find items that support them etc, but you’ll end up with damage types all over the place so pick one main to focus on, at least until you build understanding.

Don’t worry about damage conversion yet, just focus on the damage the skills use as you’ll find more item support as you level.

Use components in your weapon when you can - coldstone, vitriolic gallstone, etc. Components add a nice damage boost and useful boosts or additional skills.

example tweaks for a melee+spells bias

changed: components, skills, devotions + relic from reputation blueprint

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BmKXDN