User’s history:
I play ARPG since Diablo II and Grim Dawn for at least 2 years, and used to play Titan Quest before. We play exclusively in LAN multiplayer cooperative 2 players in non-hardcore veteran.
I like to test the various builds the game has to offer, and to see how viable or not viable they are when faced to the various challenges the game has to offer. And Grim Dawn is particularly good at this with this dual classes system.
So far, I have to congratulate the developers team for their work: while the game development pace is pretty low compared to the general industry standards, I have to admit that most “reasonable” (or understand “conventional”) builds are now both viable and more or less balanced, which is a good performance with the game mechanics this game is based on. The game was pretty much a mess at first, but I think that the way it is now going is the right way.
I have then enjoyed many tanks, ranged and casters builds, and recently decided to go for a pure summoner/healer build, which I am playing at the moment with my brother going for a melee/aura commando. The result is amazing: my 7 pets enjoy massive bonuses from all the “to all pets” bonuses I can get, mass health regeneration and my teammate’s auras, while my teammate enjoy massive meat shield and massive health regeneration and can fully focus on DPS.
Feedback for the curious:
For those who may have not tried yet and may be wondering, here is what I can tell:
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A pure summoner/healer build is not as lazy/easy as you may think, because you have to constantly manage your army, in both health and numbers, which means constantly relocating the wendigo totem to where the battle now plays, to time and synchronize well your mass healings with Blood of Dreeg and Apothecary’s touch, to respawn the right pet when it dies, to keep your pets away from the areas that could hurt them too badly, while trying to get yourself as little attention as possible from the enemies. This build is completely different from a usual tank or ranged or caster build, but I can now tell that it is just as much funny and challenging as they are. If played properly and with some luck, you are just never attacked.
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A pure summoner/healer is likely as challenging to build as your usual tank or whatever. Your priorities in the allocation of the skills points, equipment and devotions are different, and so is your behavior on the battlefield, but it is some fun and challenge in its own way.
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A pure summoner/healer is more of a team game build. A tank is required on the front line for the aggro, DPS and boss duel. A battle summoner though is still possible in solo games: since you go for occultist/shaman, you have plenty of choice for direct combat skills with sigil/doombolt/eye and vines/totems and whatever other skills you may get from your equipment. I did not go for that because I wanted to see how far I could push that build. I usually consider pets in ARPG as some kind of affective tools for the kids and usually like my characters fully self-reliable.
The build:
http://grimcalc.com/build/1007-xi1ZI4
Why no direct battle skills?
To keep as much low profile as possible. I don’t want this build to have any direct attack, to make sure that most monsters just ignore me. And it works: I set all pets to aggressive behavior and they get the attention of like 99% of the monsters and I am then free to monitor their status. Just the way I have planned it.
Why not more points into Mogdrogen’s Pact?
Because first I need my pets to be as free as possible, not to rely on staying around me, and second because 35 health regeneration per second is nothing for a pet who has 40K health.
Permanent battle pets: Briarthorn+Hellhound+Stormhound (Savage Relic)+Revenant (Black Grimoire of Og’Napesh focus)
Permanent support pets: Familiar (Crow)
Temporary battle pets: Primal spirit+Harbringer (Sword of Salazar)
Temporary support pets : none
Attack support: Roar (Briarthorn)+Hellfire (Hellhound)+Storm spirit (Crow)+Manipulation+ Flame touched/Field command (teammate)
Defense support: Wendigo Totem+Blood of Dreeg+Apothecary’s Touch+Bonds of Bysmiel
Attack skills assignment:
Hellhound: Flame torrent+Infernal Breath
Briarthorn: Scorpion Sting+Ground Slam
Revenant: Elemental Storm
This character is now around level 70, left clic=move here, right clic=all pets attack/move here, died 1 time, drinks no potion, killed around 40K monsters, has 2400 as highest damage ever done, has as pets bonus +100% to life and +450% to all damage. Thanks to the special attacks of the skills trees and of the devotions, this army does almost all the possible types of damage, which makes it very multipurposed. Its total health points is estimated to around 90K permanent, +45K with the temporary reinforcements, which makes a solid meat shield your teammates can enjoy.
Comments/suggestions about the pure summoner build:
- There is a huge discrepancy in the frequency of the pets abilities:
The skills I see done/applied all the time: Emboldening Roar, Storm Spirit
The skills I see used on a regular basis: Ground Slam, Infernal Breath
The skills I see applied very randomly: Lighting Strike, Mend Flesh
The skills I have never ever seen used: Ember Claw
I have no idea where the problem is here. I did experiment a lot with this build, and I can tell that the pets skills are used very differently depending on which they are. Emboldening Roar and Storm Spirit are very solid investments as the pets keep them active at all time: as soon as the effects of the ability wear off, you can be sure that the pet will cast it straight away. This is what is expected. On the other hand, I have Mend Flesh and Ember claw, which I am just not sure if the abilities really work or if there might be some bug. I have put some points into them, with no effect whatsoever on the battlefield. There may be something to fix here.
This problem is not isolated to those abilities only:
- There is also a huge discrepancy in the frequency of the devotions abilities assigned to the pets:
Elemental storm for instance. I can see up to 3 of them cast at the same time when assigned to the revenant, while I see like 1 of it every minute at most when assigned to the Stormhound. I have no idea what might be wrong here. I have experimented it over hours and I can tell that their frequency is very different depending on their assignment.
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It is not possible to see the current pet stats, like resistances, bonuses to damages, current total DPS for main attacks etc. All I can have are the default main stats on the skills descriptions (health, +% all damage and main attack default stats), and the bonuses on my character profile. But this does not provide me the current resistances for instance in elite or ultimate difficulties (+80% in fire resist as bonus does not mean that the pet currently has 80% fire resist, or does it?), or how much damage they do right now, with all the bonuses around applied (auras, buffs, etc).
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The temporary pets dies when their summoning duration is over. This kind of sucks. They have not been killed. As a summoner/healer, I value the health of my army and I don’t want to see them dying, especially for no reason. Since they are summoned creatures, they should just kind of “unsummon” or summon back when their duration is over. There is also a bug with the Primal Spirit which makes it die standing, not falling on the ground, like it is frozen. Not a big deal, but this looks wrong. Please consider making the summoned disappear with some special effects when their duration is over instead of dying.
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Only the devotions with %chance on attack / %chance on critical attack and doing damages only (no buffs) can be assigned to pets. Why is that?
If this is for balance purposes, why not re-balance the devotion skills when assigned to a pet? Most devotion abilities are already rebalanced depending on how they are assigned (the %chance of effect varies depending if it is applied to a default attack or a cooldown skill), then I take it that it could be possible to have the same way for this devotion abilities when assigned to pets.
I would love to assign Giant’s blood or Cleansing’s Waters to pets. If you consider this unbalanced, just make them weaker when assigned to pets.
- There is no devotion dedicated to >pure< summoners.
You are going to say “what about Bysmiel’s bonds and the Sheperd’s Crook?”. I mean >pure< summoner, like someone who already has massive bonuses to pets and who is not looking that much into getting more bonuses, but more into getting more pets. And I also mean like someone who has no direct attack. At all. For which therefore the Raise the dead ability of the Revenant or the Bysmiel’s command of the Bysmiel’s bonds do not apply.
There should be a devotion that enables the summoning as a spell of a permanent or at least a temporary additionnal pet. The %chance on attack or on hit are good for tanks. Not all builds are tanks or want to tank to be able to enjoy their abilities. Since the devotions basically cover the requirements of all the builds that are possible, I really think that a devotion that would enable when completed an additionnal summoning would make sense.
Since Grim Dawn is that much dedicated to offer such various possibilities to make and play characters, I really think that a build fully dedicated to summoning should be able to summon in late games at least 8 or 10 pets. One can make almost invincible tanks or casters that can do massive damage over whole areas, I can’t see why a real summoner shouldn’t also be possible. (and before you mention the raise the dead ability, I would consider it valid only if the %chance of effect could apply as a passive permanent bonus to the character with no need to assign to an attack skill. And second those summonings are way too slow and too temporary and requiring too specific conditions to be really considered as part of an army).
Sorry for the long text. Thank you for the attention for those who have read it.