DISCLAIMER
DISCLAIMER
After @GSAsylum “drop” this spec at the bin
I decide to recycle it , cause looks an amazing off meta gem and I think community would like this unique approach to pets.
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
During 1.2.1.6 play test , GSA links very interesting Warlock which immediately caught my attention . I really liked the spec and I save the Grim tools so I can make a leveling guide in the future. Raven Warlock excels in several aspects of the game and its absolutely chill to play spec (especially for me when I like to have nice cup of tea and dont paid much attention to the battlefield ). Everyone in the community prob knows that I am not big fan of the pets playstyle but still I try to do one pet run per year.
PROS AND CONS
PROS AND CONS
PROS:
- Main spec can be played from level 1 ( no respecs )
- Very cheap setup (endgame setup has zero greens)
- Hellhound and Raven hold the aggro pretty well
- Simple playstyle , you just cast Curse , Dreeg evil eye and temporary buff
- Raven (Familiar) and Hellhound have full item support during leveling
- Build requires zero piloting skills ( you are not the main target most of the time)
- Very potent farmer (pet builds can do endgame content with trash gear without any issues)
CONS
- Raven sometimes get stuck and you have to resummon it to join the battle
- Bysmiel set can’t be crafted it’s absolutely random drop
- Gameplay is not very dynamic ( some players prefer more action)
LEVELING
LEVELING
Faction and Blacksmith choices (CLICK ME)
- Vigil vs Kymon - I prefer Vigil , but really doesn’t matter
- Outcast - Black Legion reputation is priority so I kill her
- Barrowholm - most important faction for any pet setup , be sure you stick with them
- Cults - Bysmiel Mindweaver is faction craft ( the endgame weapon) so I pick Bysmiel in every difficulty
- Angrim - better endgame crafting bonuses
Attribute points and Devotion path: (CLICK ME)
Physique - all
Cunning - 10 points ( we use dagger at the beginning and another one at endgame ,this point varies but it’s good to have 5-10 points before level 20)
Spirit - 15 points ( should be enough to equip any off hand)
DEVOTION PATH:
- Purple Crossroad
- Sheperd’s Crook
- Pink Crossroad
- Jackal
- Green Crossroad
- Raven
- Remove Purple Crossroad
- Remove Pink Crossroad
- 3x Points Rhowan’s Crown (just for the proc)
- Yelllow Crossroad
- Stag
- Pink Crossroad
- Bysmiel’s Bond
- Blue Crossroad
- Panther
- Staff of Rattosh
- Behemoth
- Eel
- Dryad
- Remove Raven
- Remove Green Crossroad
- Lion
- Remove Jackal
- Remove Pink Crossroad
- Remove Yellow Crossroad
- Ishtak , the Spring Maiden
- 4 x Points Rumor
[PROGRESS STEP BY STEP (CLICK ME)]
Level 1-10
I got suggestion to add some actual progression to the skills unfortunately is time consuming , so I will explain what I focus and prioritise in this case my main priority for this bracket is to hit 13/16 Summon Familiar so my Raven can shoots 3 projectiles . Most important item for this bracket comes from a corpse Karvor’s Conjuring Bone , this off hand will give us extra pet that boost total speed which is king after 1.2 . Gearing pet class is very easy your actual toon needs only resistance , DA ( defensive ability ) and life - your pets on the other hand need every possible boost they can get. We need Searing Ember component so we can support our Raven at the early stages with some extra clear speed
Note: Open links in separate tab so you can stay on the same paragraph at the guide
Level 10-20
This bracket is a bit more important , there are few very crucial upgrades for any starting build. First we have to secure our Blacksmith so we can craft 2x Wardstones for the amulet and the medal slot , this will speed up the game. Vendors sells very good early medals or you can craft some basic one with resistance. I push forward in Occultist tree to reach Ember CLaw so my Hellhound can Taunt enemies and I sit comfortably at the back. I did every quest in Act 1 , take my time I didn’t rush at all this playthrough. Items I am looking for here are Putrid Necklace , Isaac Spaulders , Slith Primal Ring these items are guaranteed and easy to get but gives everything that we looking for. Most important quest is to make a deal with Direini rather than kill him cause he gives to you the key for Depraved Sanctuary and I want that Salazar dagger
First Crating and Component Session:
- 2x Antivenom Salve - Boots + Belt
- Purified Salt - Weapon (resistance and pet resistance)
- Silver - Off hand (resistance and pet resistance )
- Scaled Hide - Shoulders (this component is better on Torso cause that’s most hitted part)
- 2x Silk Swatch - Pants and Torso
- Helm - If you don’t have Ectoplasm at this point use w/e you have (don’t left empty comp slots)
- 2x Corpse Dust/Frozen Heart - Rings
- 2x Wardstones - Medal + Amulet
- Equilibrium relic
Note:This is standart comp setup at level 20, this setup provides vital sustain tools
Level 20-30
First thing that I did after I killed Warden Krieg is to jump to FG (Forgotten Gods) and grab Leap movement augment from the first quest when I pick Bysmiel . Act 2 is very easy after you get some pierce and bleeding resistance , I push occultist tree get my Hound to 10/16 which is good milestone and after that I max out Iskandra Elemental Exchange (easy pick you need just 1 point into Arcanist to unlock this powerful passive) but my main goal is to reach Manipulation so I focus more on Occultist bar rather than the skills. My first goal when I reach level 25 is to visit Depraved Sanctuary - approach this place very slowly cause its very unlikely to have chaos and vitality resistance at this level (especially if you play HC ) but Salazar offers very good starting weapon that gives ranks to both our pets and extra temporary pet as a steroid button. I did all quests here as well , this act is very rich on them so use that to catch up some levels and easy reputation . Most important target in this act is Halion which is a boss in the Henefy mine a bit orth from Old Arkovia rift , first version of this medal is not very impressive but later it comes with juicy bonuses to pets and some mod to Hellhound.
Level 35 Faction Gear
Very important milestone for every class in Grim Dawn, you unlock DC and Rovers faction gear. You have to spend some time killing Cronley’s gang members and some Undeads to reach Respected status with both faction but trust me every minute spend worth it.
Shopping List:
- Rhowari Cuirass - hands down amazing armor for pets early on
- Rhowari Shoulderguard - Warlock skills ranks and resistances , bonus to pets
- Harvest Handguards - amazing gloves flat DA and %DA
- Harvest Footpads - amazing boots (triple res, 200+ life and movement speed)
- Blueprint for Rhowari Cord- 1 to Occultist and good damage proc
- Blueprint for Runestone (Rovers) - hands down best leveling helm component
- Hysteria Relic - Homestead offers this amazing relic that gives you very good early pet with crowd control skill
After shopping and reputation is done its time to get new pants, be sure you stock some dynamites cause we go back to act 1 and open Hidden Path quest ,just few steps east from Hevil’s corpse there is hidden path with detonation site (be sure your poison res are 60-80 ideal cause this is very acid/poison heavy area), here we face Guardian of Dreeg and this rat will drop this amazing Jeans, this pants provides tons of sustain . My personal advice is to grind and finish Pine Barrens quest lines before you step into Blood Grove you need decent Chaos and Vitality res for this zone of the game, everything so far is breeze but this area can catch you off guard so paid attention. I do every quest in Homestead (keep in mind Conflagration quest is not recommended if you are on HC mod). Here you can met Fleshwarped Commanders and Vanguards and they dropped Fleshwarped Casque , hands down best helm to level Arcanist gives % OA/DA to IEE ( Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange) which scales everytime you level up and this affect your pets as well when they are under IEE buff. This enemies can be found outside of Homestead , Rotting Cropsland and Conflagration ( a bit scary zone for HC ).
Level 30-40
[GRIMTOOLS (Warlock, Level 40 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator)
Time to step into first really dangerous zone - Blood Grove. This area is very heavy on vitality and chaos damage, couple of deadly bosses lurking here like Bolvar and Zaria. Zaria and Harbringers are one of the first enemies that can shred your resistances, that’s why is not recommended to step here before level 35, if your resistance page is not on par you can be debuffed even to negative values and get one shot from Zaria’s Obsidian Shards. Harbringers on the other hand look harmless, floating and slow enemies but they cast one of the most nastiest debuffs in the game - Spectral Miasma, you can see what this debuff is capable of in this short crucible video. Blood Grove on the bright side is very rich on side quest, also very easy ones so be sure you fully explore the zone cause there is secret vendor as well that sells some useful items and blueprints. Zaria is the first target we looking for, she drops both Amulet and the Off hand that we looking for , which is amazing cause she is really fast farm and we get some decent rolls on this items early on. Next target is Thal’Nosh (final boss for this act) , he drops the best leveling rings for this setup (massive pet bonuses and skill ranks).
Level 45 Bargol Switch
Here I am on the way to Ugdenbog for the my weapon of choice for the rest of the run , a bit southeast from the Ugdenbog rift is Bargol (he is fixed spawn location , you can use grim tools map its very helpful tool) . Keep in mind Bargol drops three different bases and we are after his Core cause it gives really good modifiers to the raven.First we have to deal with Loghorean and the Fort Ilkon arc which is very short cause this is one of the most poorest areas in Grim dawn in terms of quests. Most important thing on the way to Fort Ilkon is Guardian of Bysmiel , doesnt matter what pet class you are running this mini boss drops the best leveling pants (very easy to get affixes , really fast run and amazing base ). Skill points wise I work out to max out Familiar main node > Hellhound main node> and put some points in the curse for radius and resistance shred.
Note: remove Infernal Breath at this point slows your Hound cause bad animation
Level 45-60
This bracket involves Ugdenbog, Malmouth , FG and start of the Elite. Skill distribution for this bracket is very simple , I start working on Arcanist tree to get soft cap on the Overload and hard cap on Maiven's since I move to harder content and I prefer my summoner to be safe. Most important in Malmouth is to farm Ransacked Lighthouse , boss there drops best leveling off hand for any Hound user , keep in mind Fleshshaper Hinissius drops three different bases we are after his Archive. Absolutely beast of a off hand , full support to Hellhound (total damage modifier , lesser cooldown , ranks ). After so much beasts kills you should be Honoured with Homestead and it's time to buy Beast Tamer's Augment for our weapon and off hand (good boost to pets early on). Nothing much to say about FG to be fair it's just power up for the shrines and get reputation to the Bysmiel cult , since we need a lot of stuff from them. After you save Hyram in Malmouth and finish the questline be sure you reset the game session so now he can spawn as a vendor in Steelscap District , he sells all non faction level 35 relics and we are after Ancestor (huge upgrade over Hysteria) , according to reset his wares just teleport to different area ( I like Lone watch ) make few steps just to pass some 6-7 sec on pop up back to your personal rift , took me may be 8 resets and Ancestor pops up for sell ( if its not your first playthrough , you probably have this already or you might be get lucky and this drop for you so first check your blacksmith before you waste your time)
Elite portion of this bracket is very simple , getting easy EXP and reputation by far we need Honoured with Devil’s Crossing cause they sell one of the best pet augments - Rifthound Salt , a lot of changes to pet behaviour and mechanics , so total speed is king recently. Most veteran players advice Elite skip , however if you are not so experienced I recommend to play this difficulty at least up to Homestead , this involves easy quests,shrines and reputation . Me personally I really enjoy how smooth was the leveling so I play this run up to FOrt Ilkon so I can farm higher level MIs bases and since Zaria + Tal’Nosh gives tons of reputation to Barrowholm this is win win situation.
Level 60-70 End of Elite grind
Very important bracket , here we prepare for the hardest difficulty the smoothest transition is being level 70 and Revered with Homestead and Black Legion . Remember you can jump to Normal and finish their Honoured quests cause at this point they should be unlocked and last quests always gives massive reputation. I mainly farm my MIs and jump back to normal to farm Bargol and Lighthouse since I stop progressing after Fort Ilkon in Elite at this point. Unlocking early augments helps a lot cause this way you can be pretty flexible on the affixes in your gear and much easier to close resistance gaps since Ultimate comes with huge penalty to your resistance. My target here are:
- Zaria ELite
- Thal’nosh Elite
- Guardian of Bysmiel Elite
- Bargol Normal
- Ransacked Lighthouse Normal
- Halion Elite
- Galakros farm for crystals and reputation with Black legion
- Pine Barrens farm for reputation with Homestead
- Bounties - optional if you get tired of the grind
Level 70-80 Ultimate start
After all the preparations it’s time for Ultimate , at this point is mostly questing and race to 100 . Take your time enjoy the process , at this point you should be more familiar with the game and nothing much can be said by me . We have the same goals , farming better bases by jumping back to lower difficulty but usually pet classes can get out even with lower level gear , especially this class cause I am not the main target , to be fair I reach 100 with mostly level 60 gear and my amulet was level 35 ( keep in mind I am veteran , I still advice farming higher level bases at level 50,70,84,94 )
Level 80-90
This bracket is again just min maxing reputation and questing but at this point we start to drop Mythical gear , we are after Mogdrogen Ardor relic at this point so watch out for it (if you have it just craft it at this point ). Most of the endgame setup gear is random drops so be sure you safe any item from this setup if it drops .
Level 90-100 Budget setup
Final bracket here usually campaign is done and its time for the budget pre - endgame setup. I would explain my priority in a few steps with the actual order:
- Campaign finished , all quests done . I do hidden path just once in Ultimate for all the points , I found pointless doing this in Normal and gather the stones again in Ultimate.I get the stone from Normal and when I drop them on the ground in Ultimate and pick them up this finish automatically first part of the quest and gave me all the attributes points and unlock the Sentinel
- Grind for last tier bases
- Farm Bysmiel reputation so I can craft Bysmiel Mindweaver and use their augments
- Farm Barrowholm reputation cause their weapon augments are BiS for this setup
- During Bysmiel farm I hit the Eldritch totem in Korvan city and the one Cairn Docks (in cairn Docks this group involves Beast totem as well but chances are slim , use Grim tools to locate potential Eldritch totems spawns that are easy to farm). Eldritch totems drop the Gate to many worlds (I got two in 5 totems , that was very lucky)
Budget setup is capable to farm SR 26-27 comfortably , can kill Lokkar , Ravager of Flesh , Mogdrogen and Callagadra . Check video section for the gear explanation and fights explanation as well
FINAL SETUP
FINAL SETUP
Cheap Beginner setup level 100
This is my beginner setup for people that cant afford 8 h grinding per day and people that just pick up the game recently. There is no crazy items, everything is guaranteed with a little bit of play time
Endgame setup by @GSAsylum
GSA tests a lot of off meta pets setups , it’s one of the most experienced players when comes to pets and pets mechanics . This spec might be not the strongest but is a lot of fun , huge respect to him for sharing this in the community
FARMING
FARMING
I would leave a link to my personal farming strats and what I do as a SSF player (I use completely fresh save folder for all of my runs ), I do a lot of farming tests when simulating begginer starts
FAQ
FAQ
You have Rumor in the budget setup but your pets cold damage is almost non existent?
That’s why I picked this at last , I level prio to the GSA final setup and I want the moment I get the blueprint for the helm to have Rumor max level instead of picking something else and to level Rumor from scratch.
How is that possible , such a budget setup to drop all Celestials and farm deep endgame?
Pet builds are not very demanding in terms of gear and piloting , especially casual pet builds , you can achieve almost everything in the game with just a little bit of play time.
How much time final setup would take as a beginner?
I really enjoy this one took me 19:48h to reach 100 , I did all quests apart from dungeon ones . Took me another 3 hours grind to achieve the budget setup , so I would say pretty casual build
VIDEOS
VIDEOS
Budget Setup vs Mogdrogen - Gear and Fight Explained
Budget setup vs Ravager of Flesh - Fight Explained
Budget Setup vs Callagadra Fight Explained
Endgame setup vs Crate of Entertainment
Lokkar - very easy , this spec kill it under 20 secs
SR 26 - 27 - very consistent 7-8 mins for the budget setup , this is roughly 80-90 legendary items per hour . If you farm SR farm it in the same game session to prevent dupes , Grim Dawn has anti dupe system when you farm in the same game session (don’t get me wrong you can still get dupes cause system do few fail checks before drops you dupe)
