Pet Builds in Grimarillion - A Full Guide

Witch Doctor+Storm actually seems stronger then my Occultist+Earth (probably cause I don’t have some of the right pieces) but there’s way too many auras and skills, plus re-summoning the Zombie Dogs and Fetish Army all the time.

I’ve been messing around with a lightning pet build. The base is sigatrev’s Deceiver build:
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76155
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NKBeLWZ

The second mastery is Storm instead of Inquisitor, for a very nice addition to the pet damage and a cool invincible aura pet. The ravens hit like a truck.

The second pet build I tried was a WitchDoctor / Nature. It’s almost unfair how strong this is. You literally have an army under your control. The WitchDoctor set is quite nice.

These are interesting pet builds but I’m guessing many aren’t intended for the Grimmest version?

Every build I test is designed for Ultimate Grimmest - if you’re asking what I think you’re asking, some builds are better designed to play a different build up through Ultimate (or until you have enough skill points) and then respec when obtain equipment / skills that your build is reliant on. Something like Riftstalker + D3 Skellies is something you need to wait until you have enough points to get the 100% Physical to Aether conversion before you try adding Riftstalker to the mix (or even just get it for the buffs / passives and then go for the other skills when you get the conversion). Once you get it, though, you’ll plow through even Grimmest content with ease.

The hybrid pet/player builds are more challenge builds than anything, but even then they can go up through at least Log on Ultimate Grimmest (and that includes Hidden Path - Mad Queen is a favorite of mine for build testing purposes). The squishier builds may have a more challenging time on AoM Nemeses, but I can only test so much that I’m likely only going to take my favorite builds out of the 20 or so that I post through AoM + Lokarr. The others are either challenge builds or prompts for Crate / mod devs to buff underwhelming equipment or classes.

I have write-ups for my 3 Riftstalker builds, but I’m going to hold off posting them until I finalize their equipment to make sure I maximize their efficiency and that I’m not relying on too much on OP equipment in the event things like Eurydice’s Wedding Bands get nerfed. Like I did for Storm, one will be standard pet build, one will be hybrid pet + player, and one will be full-player build.

Patch 1.0.7.0 came and went with nothing interesting for classic summoners. All the new green gear with conversion definitely opens up a few exciting options for player-scaled pets, however. Sadly, the changes to Barrelsmith guns and Fleshwarped Shard no longer giving bonuses to Reap Spirit totally nuked two of my builds, but the remaining builds look to be unscathed. I’m definitely excited to try out the new Raise the Dead.

Come see my build compendium for full write-ups of the Riftstalker builds. If you’re having a hard time seeing my pictures or need more clarification on things, please let me know and I’ll see how I can edit my posts.

Just wanted to say thank you so much for this guide! i’m very new to the game and with how steep the learning curve is, even for vanilla, I was feeling overwhelmed and hesitant to do much of anything. This guide and info is a godsend. You rock!

Thanks for the guide! I’m also following your pet builds in the other thread.
Being a noob, I’m experimenting a little before trying to wrap my head around more complex builds.
I’m trying with a Nature/Shaman combination as I like to create a build from a concept, in this case some kind of “caller of the wild”. The damage type would be acid/poison.

I’m wondering… Is using Occultist instead of Shaman a more optimal choice in this case?

I haven’t tested the Thorn Sprites out, so I can’t say much for that. If you’re doing a “Caller of the Wild” theme, I assume you’re going to incorporate the Nature Dogs as much as you can? If you want the acid / poison theme, Occultist will be much better for you than Shaman. Get Blood of Dreeg as high as you can get, and make sure to get both Poison RR abilities as soon as you can. Heck, if you want to make the theme Dogs with a Poison bite to it, you can replace Occultist with Witch Doctor so you can get 7 Dogs nipping at your enemies’ heels.

There’s a staff that converts 30% pet’s Physical damage into Acid, though it’s hard to obtain without you accidentally leveling over the range necessary to get it. Once the new expansion comes out, there will be a new Mythical Set that converts 50% of pets’ Physical to Acid; that will definitely boost your pets’ Poison capabilities. Heck, replace Occultist with Rogue and you can get 100% of Physical converted to Poison if you combine all three items.

For those watching the other thread as well: 2 new builds are posted - 1 is the Necro + D3 Necro Skelemancer, and the other is a 3rd Player / Pet hybrid build, this time featuring Reap Spirit. No points for guessing what the Necro player-scaled pets are going to be, but I have to get the photos ready before I can post it.

Thank you for the suggestion! I have rolled a witch doctor/nature and see what I can see with acid. Can’t wait to read your future builds and analysis on the other thread! I’m starting to appreciate Pet builds now.

So sad that D3 necromancer skeletons are so incredibly weak and fragile. I wish this mod included the D2 classes mod. Now D2 Necromancer has sturdy skeletons.

Doing a bit of grave digging but since i don’t find any other post going so deep into pet builds.
Currently, what would be the best combo of class for a pet build that would apply for both Grimarllion and Dawn of Masteries ?

I would love an answer for that as well, but forum is fairly dead these days.

Well, the forum isn’t dead, but try asking in the Grimarillion thread itself.

Or join their discord.

It’s not that it’s dead.There’s a Grim/DoM discord.Rather than asking questions here it get asked there.Much easier.

I haven’t tried the DoM mod yet, so I can’t speak on that regard. I think the equipment is the same for both mods, which is very important as getting enough +skills and good modifiers are key for making a build work.

If I’d have to pick an absolute top pet build combination, I’d say Occultist + Nature. Bysmiel’s jewelry set to get the double Raven, 4 pieces of the Nature set to get +2 to Nature skills, with the Voidmancer’s Belt + Mogdrogen’s Ardor to get 26/16 Raven + a good number of relevant skill points. Both classes have a huge amount of +Pet Health, Occultist has Manipulation for pet Speed, and the Force of Nature is a very good pet to deliver high damage. Being Elemental with around 100% elemental RR means that nobody outside of Celestials will fully resist your damage type, which is also a big plus.

Earth is also a great pet class, as out of all the pets in Grimarillion, I think the Core Dweller is the highest performing pet out there. There’s a set similar to Ghol’s that gives you the second Core, and the set is very easy to find and doesn’t interfere with a lot of other pet gear, which is also essential to creating a good build with a lot of synergy.

I have like 4 pet builds in Grimarillion (don’t play DoM so can’t comment on that), and I’ve reached level 100 on all of them, and pretty much “cleared” Ultimate (with max mob spawns).

I see people already talked about some combos, but I’d like to point out that you can also try a “Ceremonialist” (Occultist/Witch Doctor).

With the correct set of gear you can reach up to 5x Gargantuans (used to be 6 or 7, but it got nerfed a bit :smiley: )

Use Kanai’s Cube: Tall Man, 2x Mythical Tall Man’s Fingers and Mythical Tasker and Teo-gloves.
As for the rest you can use the full Zunimassa-set, the full Covenant-set or combine the both to various degrees. As for weapon, if you don’t go with Bloodied Dagger of the Covenant then you can for example use a Mythical Anessazi Edge. For amulet I use Mythical Sovereign Ruby of Domination since it allows you to use the “Sovereign” buff.
Hope this inspires someone to try this combo! :grinning:

Now that is something, what other absolute combinations you recommend? haven’t played a pet build since Vanilla GD before Ashes

What is the fastest clearing one?

If i where to go HC what would you recommend?

I haven’t run Grimarillion Crucible to determine the fastest clear times. Earth with the 2 Core Dweller Set is extremely strong; I’ve easily beat SR85 with a mix of Fire and Cold (Earth + Storm; even with the nerfs that removed multiple summons, it’s still very strong), I can only imagine how good a full Fire pets build with something like Nature and 26/16 Core Dweller can get.

If you were to go HC, you want to focus on getting 20K+ health and really good Health regen. Nature is a lock for that because of the good %health bonus and an Exclusive that gives Crit Avoidance (DA) and Cooldown reduction. Then couple it with any class that’s not reliant on an Exclusive; Earth, Occultist, or Witch Doctor would be my top three secondary classes for HC pets.

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Hmmm i might pospone HC till i get the feel of the mechanics of the last bosses

You instead of narrowing it down gave me more options hahahahahaha :heart:

What about for full DPS? Nature + Earth or Storm + Earth? Witch Doctor is also something you cited, i know Occultist Vitality is strong too but depends on getting that Resist Reduction?

For full DPS, Nature + Earth all the way. Storm has some nice buffs, but Nature outclasses practically everyone when it comes to good pet buffs + a really nice temporary pet in the Force of Nature.

For HC, I don’t think anything can beat Nature + Earth. The pets are crazy strong, the buffs you’re getting for yourself are really good, and you can craft Satyr equipment for +skills to Nature or Earth while you’re hunting for gear. Plus, unlike the Vanilla classes or D3 classes, the GQ set gear is very easy to farm once you get good enough to handle an additional bump to named enemy Heroes, so you’ll be looking for the Helio’s Sun set and convert all that juicy damage into Fire.