INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Always wanted to feel yourself like a creature of legends? Become a Stymphalian bird with sharp metallic feathers, ramming through a battlefield and butchering all the foes? This is a guide how to become one!
Phantasmal Blades is an amazing skill which finally received a good way to level with Pierce damage type with FoA launch.
Special thanks to @RSnoomak , who really helped me with a lot of things in GD since i was a beginner, including formatting this post and @AlexHerton who helped me greatly with text proofreading for this guide because my english is fairly lacking. Credits for the pic above goes to suaixtix
ABOUT THE BUILD
ABOUT THE BUILD
Conception of the build is fairly simple: We fully convert our PB to pierce with the help of Jarinthor's Head and Dranghoul Savage Blade, then stack pierce shred, crit damage and cunning&OA to maximise damage, and DA to get enough survivability.
PROS AND CONS
PROS AND CONS
PROS:
- very easy to build, no complicated mechanics
- very cheap setup
- solid solo target damage
- high mobility
- high lifesteal
- good survivability in endgame
- excellent class synergy
- core legendary item is very easy to target farm
CONS:
- PB is not really good on early levels, one respec is needed (don’t worry, its a fairly easy respec)
- AOE is somewhat lacking, this build sadly got no +projectiles to PB
- Hard to get life on this setup (not impossible though)
- tricky shotgun playstyle, we are doing much more damage close to enemies
- really not HC viable
LEVELING SECTION
LEVELING SECTION
HOW TO USE GRIM TOOLS (CLICK ME)
This guide heavily relies on Grim Tools (GT) to showcase stuff.
To see where to get one or another item, click on the item icon in the calc, then look at the bottom of item stat block.
To find skills, click on this button on the left.
To find devotions, click on the button on the top.
Faction and Blacksmith choices (CLICK ME)
- Vigil vs Kymon - doesn’t matter, we don’t need anything from them, i go Kymons because i like them more
- Outcasts - doesn’t matter, we don’t need anything from them, i go friendly with this faction because i like Anasteria
- Barrowholm - we really need their augments and Ravager helm, so friendly
- Cults - doesn’t matter, i stick with Solael because i like him
- Angrim - very important for early game, must pick
Attribute points and devotion map (CLICK ME)
Despite this build being purely pierce-focused we actually need spirit to use offhands. Early its 10/10 physique/cunning, on respec should be 10/10/20 phys/cun/spirit (can hold points a little bit to wear offhand with no problem), and then get to 20/20/30 close to midgame.
Coming to endgame, several animal affixes are needed to reach good Cunning, that’s our main damage scaling stat.
Devotion Path:
+Yellow crossroads
+Assassin’s Blade
+Harpy
+Panther
+Sailor’s Guide
+Harvestman’s Scythe
-Sailor’s Guide
+Bard’s Harp
+Assassin
+Red crossroads
+Mantis
+4p Scales of Ulchama (we just need proc and %hp, don’t get full devotion)
+Unknown Soldier
+Azrakaa
PROGRESS STEP BY STEP (CLICK ME)
Lvl 12 Berserker, Level 12 (GD 1.3.0.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Starting out as Werewolf, that’s our main skill for first two acts. Put 1 point in mastery bar, Implements of War and Werewolf on lvl 2, after that just go with 2 points in werewolf and 1 point in mastery bar till we reach Voracity. After that we need to max out Werewolf and put some more points in Voracity to get lifesteal.
For gear i’m just filling up slots and any two melee weapons will do just fine here.
Lvl 15 Honed Swords Reaver, Level 15 (GD 1.3.0.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
IMPORTANT: we need to side with Angrim when we reach Burrwitch Outskirts, because he has the recipe for Honed swords. Very good weapon for act 1-2.
I start putting points in nightblade here, to get to Dual Blades and Night’s Chill
Lvl 20 Reaver, Level 20 (GD 1.3.0.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Finished act 1. Skill-wise i’m maxing dual blades for more pierce flats. I’ve also got one point from Implements of War, because dual-wielding is already enabled by Dual Blades skill and Implements doesn’t really give us much.
Some recommendations:
After completing act1, which is basically a tutorial, you really need to get components in place.
Wardstones in amulet and medal are very good for starting a character, will give us a lot of nice resistances and movement speed.
Silk swatch, at least one will give us much needed pierce res before act 2 - you might even want get two of them, because there will be a lot of piercing damage.
x2 antivenom salve is also very good for us to get some poison res, there’s a lot of enemies with this type of damage.
x2 Scaled hides to get our armor absorption - very important for melee, without at least 92% we will take a lot of damage from melee hits.
For ring slots i prefer one Corpse dust for a little bit of health and vitality res and Frozen Heart for freeze res.
Don’t forget to also craft Equilibrium starting relic to fill out all of our equipment slots.
Do quests for guaranteed gear - side with Angrim, if you not done that already, find the fabric to get a nice chest, collect Isaac’s spaulders from his stash in Wightmire, collect x3 slith necklaces for Slith primal ring - this is one of the best rings for leveling, which provides a lot of good resistances.
Werewolf can be very good at tempo, so you can get to next locations bit underleveled, so to avoid that i recommend to farm aether crystals at Krieg’s lab - that’s a good thing to do, because we always need aether crystals.
Lvl 30, act 2-3 Reaver, Level 30 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
WW carries through the campaign fairly well, but at this point just Honed swords will be not enough. Once reaching Cronley’s gang hideout, we get a couple of good upgrades:
Murderer's Breastplate - Rare Chest Armor - Grim Dawn Item Database
Murderer's Epaulets - Rare Shoulders - Grim Dawn Item Database
Murderer's Cowl - Rare Helm - Grim Dawn Item Database (this one is actually not that good, if you got some better pierce-focused blue helmet, feel free to use it)
Cronley’s signet (from Cronley himself)
The Murderer’s “set” can be farmed from most of the bandits in Cronley’s locations, such as Staunton Mine, Haneffy Mine, Four Hills and Cronley’s lair, stop and farm them a bit for a good pieces (good will be any almost Rare affix on the gear, just to get resistances)
If you got bounty hunter’s belt recipe from totems - also use it, total speed is always very good.
Lvl 40, before respec to PB Reaver, Level 40 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
In Homestead, we gain access to very good stat sticks - Dermapteran slicers.
Dermapteran Slicer - Rare One-Handed Sword - Grim Dawn Item Database
Can be dropped easily in Royal Hive - don’t try to farm specific ones, any slicer will do the job, we just need them to get items for respec.
We can also get Solael-sect pants - very good pants with generic bonuses. Follow quest from this page (https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hidden_Path) to get them.
At this point i’m stopping my campaign progression to farm stuff - especially faction rep. We need at least Rovers on Respected, so we can buy Rhowari Grips and Runestone blueprint. Craft Runestone right away - its a very good leveling component for helm slot.
Lvl 43 Reaver, Level 43 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Finally, we are going for respec.
Devotions stay the same, for skill tree follow grim tools.
Item-wise there is two core slots we will need to get:
Dranghoul Savage Blade - Rare One-Handed Sword - Grim Dawn Item Database
Groble Death Effigy - Rare Off-Hand - Grim Dawn Item Database
You will need two locations unlocked for a farm - Tyrant’s Hold and East Marsh.
Tyrant’s Hold is just down from Prospector’s Trail Rift, progress the location and you will find it.
You don’t need to farm grobles there, they are from wrong clan, you need big boi Dranghouls for their blades.
For East marsh you will need to go right from the Burrwitch Village rift and find the Repair Site.
This is where you farm Death Grobles for their offhand.
Be aware, this is a pretty tough spot, so you will really want to get x2 dermapteran slicers before farming them.
Again, don’t try to get ideal rolls on the gear - but “of Celerity” on effigy will be ideal.
Slot x2 ectoplasms on your rings, so you will get enough energy and energy regen for PB spam. Later on we will not need them, when we pick our energy sustain devotions.
Craft and slot Restless Remains to your gloves for a nice boost to cast speed and energy.
Before going to Blood Grove i also recommend to slot Imbued Silver in offhand, to fix chaos res - this will be very helpful.
Lvl 50 snapshot Reaver, Level 50 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
At this point I’ve killed Loghorrean on normal and went for DLC trip to unlock all the factions and do some of their quests. There is a lot of useful stuff for us in DLCs, some of these items are BiS for us even for endgame:
Bloodbound Armor - Rare Chest Armor - Grim Dawn Item Database
Legion Belt - Rare Belt - Grim Dawn Item Database
Vine Ring - Rare Ring - Grim Dawn Item Database
Packla's Visage - Rare Helm - Grim Dawn Item Database
Gutworm's Mark - Rare Medal - Grim Dawn Item Database (this one is actually not from DLC, but its a tough fight without proper gear)
Sylvarria's Root - Rare Amulet - Grim Dawn Item Database
Kra'vall Shoulderguards - Rare Shoulders - Grim Dawn Item Database
Most of these items are not present yet on my character, but that’s because I’ve got them with much higher lvl than I am, so don’t worry about that.
For devotions i’m picking all the needed stuff to have enough regen for my phantasmal blades. For skills - progressing with Zerker tree, while picking all the useful stuff on the way. Bloodfrenzy maxed provides both pierce damage% and cast speed.
Don’t forget to buy writs from the factions, if you happen to have them on Honored already.
Lvl 60 Reaver, Level 60 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Got some good gear upgrades which i mentioned in previous section, finished with AoM and half of the FG for faction rep and devo shrines, so i’m starting Elite. Do not worry, you can actually not go for Elite at this point and finish FG and FoA - no rush, really. Actually it would be much better to do some FoA to get Bloodbound armor, but got too lazy to go to DLC and just will farm it on either elite or Ultimate.
About gear changes not mentioned in previous section:
Changed relic to Slaughter - just a nice slot for +1 to Nightblade and some stats. You can buy needed blueprints from Hyram when you finish AoM questline.
Also i got Arcane spark for medal slot to finally be free of x2 ectoplasm and have a little bit more hp and vit res from Corpse Dust.
About skill tree - just continuing upgrading zerker tree for sweet-sweet Bloodborne and Form of the Beast bonuses.
Lvl 70 Ultimate jump Reaver, Level 70 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Before starting ultimate make sure to max out devotion points and faction rep in Elite difficulty (Devil’s Crossing, Homestead, Legion and Rovers to Revered)
For these 10 levels i was basically just preparing for Ultimate - farming and a little bit of Elite questing, just went for full Homestead and Devil’s Crossing questlines to get rep.
I’ve got a lot of items updated - finally got “Of Celerity” affix on offhand - its really helpful to get Cast Speed close to the cap.
Zealot gauntlets - fairly lucky drop, they are ideal here, i’ve tried to avoid using random drop items, but they are just too good here to not actually use them. You can replace them with no problem with these faction gloves Elite Rhowari Handguards - Rare Gloves - Grim Dawn Item Database .
For offhand and helm - don’t try to get pierce affixes on them, they have really high chance to get Vitality affixes. For helm i really just go for resists on affixes, and for offhand the best we can get is “of Celerity”.
You really need to get Devil’s Crossing, Homestead, Legion and Rovers to Revered, this will help with good item slots, and also with augments for the patching resistances. My pierce res is very low on gear for example, but I’ve fixed it with a couple of Pierce res augments from Devil’s Crossing.
Buy Malmouth bladed waistguard from Malmouth faction - you just need to be Respected with them to do it. Very good crafted belt, which helps with resistances and also gives %OA.
I’ve done some work with skill tree - please check it. Some minmaxing with softcaps and unlocking good one-pointers. Initially i went just for Form of the Beast and Bloodborne max, but after some testing, this skill tree is better.
Lvl 84 Reaver, Level 84 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Well, almost nothing changed in the gear. Got a nice cast speed on blade.
Mostly doing quests in Ultimate, farming levels, rep and all that, in preparation for endgame.
At this point (around lvl 80) i really recommend to farm lvl 84 Solael’s pants “of Vitality”. Maybe even Bysmiel-sect pants because health is really an issue. I did not farm these pants and died quite a lot of times xd
Kinda funny that I’ve still not farmed previously mentioned Bloodbound armor, buuut anyway. I’m too lazy to go far into FoA on normal/elite, its too big XD
It will be the last leveling snapshot - next ones will be for endgame
FINAL SETUP
FINAL SETUP
Cheap setup snapshot:
Lvl100 fresh save trash affixes
Jarinthor’s head is extremely easy to farm, everything else is just green items, can start Ascendant farm for Ashes and Soul Fragments with absolutely trash affixes on greens, and all greens are accessible without even Skeleton Dungeons.
Dream endgame setup:
By me Reaver, Level 100 (GD 1.3.0.7) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
FAQ
FAQ
-Why are you using Raven form, despite not using any active skills from it?
I’m using Raven for 10% TDM buff and some max cast speed. That’s it. Yes, you can use any abilities while in the form, aside of default attack replacers.
-OK what about Ascendant, is this build viable?
Totally ascendant-viable, we get a lot of power just from the class synergies, propelled by fully converted pierce PB.
-Where is this build in the potential upcoming meta ?
I think minmaxed endgame build is in the good spot. Not too OP, not relying on any gamebreaking mechanics like Onslaught, but also very strong for any content. Might suffer from some global nerfs to Berserker, but i’m very sure this setup will be still perfectly functional, because, again, it is not relying on some game-breaking combos.
-How much time final setup would take as a beginner?
I did this build on a completely fresh save, took about 27 hours to get to Ascended mode farming. Getting to endgame is fairly quick thanks to Berserker being very mobile mastery, farming for endgame-all-content-viable setup will take a while, but FoA item-rerolling mechanics makes this process much smoother and faster for any green-heavy build.
FARMING
FARMING
@Aleksandr also made a guide about this setup and he have a very nice and detailed explanation on endgame farming, so here’s the link what you can follow once you finish leveling process (he has a slightly different approach to endgame gearing, easier to get to compared to mine, but have lower ceiling) Aleksandr’s endgame guide
I will leave a link to a @RSnoomak channel, he got a very good collection of general guides for Grim Dawn.
VIDEOS
VIDEOS
Showcase of the fresh 100 build:
Ascendant mode, pierce bias main node altar showcase
Showcase of full GDstashed setup with no ascended affixes and potion mods: