The Carnival - A Guide to Pets

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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566

Thank you for your kind words and deciding to join the pet cult become a summoner :blush:

Now, I will try to explain the single masteries that make up the classes as well as the classes themselves as best and brief as I can :stuck_out_tongue:

Occultist:

2 pets available from the start and Familiar makes leveling easier. Familiar can dps while your doggo tanks, making it a good mastery to start with. Also Elemental/lightning RR is available in abundance.

You have Curse of Frailty + Vulnerability for all or atleast most of your RR needs.

Then you have the various pet buffs + Blood of Dreeg acting as both heal and buff for both you and your pets. You won’t need to worry about Acid/poison resistance at all.

Bonds of Bysmiel + Manipulation is as good as an exclusive skill or 2, but without being exclusive.

All in all, you can’t go wrong with choosing Occultist for Pet build.

Shaman:

If you want to go for bleed pets, you need this :3

Best picked up later than as a starter mastery if you intend to level with pets as you only get Briarthorn early on and Primal Spirit is not really reliable without CDR and is best used as burst dmg for bosses if you pick it up early on.

Only… bleed RR is available early on and Bleed dmg takes time to kill. Plus only Briar and Primal Spirit deal bleed and no Bleed conversion, so you will have to rely on flat bleed dmg which early on is not really available in abundance for pets.

The main attraction here however is that Exclusive, Primal Bond. Even though it might seem best for bleed pet builds at first, it is currently the best pet exclusive there is. So regardless of your build, if it has shaman, get this over everything else.

One versatility of Shaman mastery is that you can convert the pet dmg (since briar + PS have a lot of phys) into almost anything.

Necromancer:

While they have the largest number of pets, they lack stuff that buff pets unlike other masteries.

Some might call me biased on this, but personal opinion is that Skeletons and Master of Death both need some heavy buffs before they become viable. Right now I wouldn’t recommend going for MoD on any build and Skeletons seem to do better in builds where they are taken on as a bonus dps rather than Lost soul Skeleton focused builds.

Best for Vitality or Acid/poison pet builds though you can convert them into elemental if you really want to :stuck_out_tongue:

While they lack pet buffs and stuff to the level to Occultist, the sheer number of pets they get makes them rather attractive choice to use as the mastery to start with. And since Skeletons only start showing their fragile nature later on, you can comfortably go through Normal with Necro alone if you wish.

Out of the 3, I have been able to successfully level up both Necro and Occu as solo masteries to lvl 100, but Shaman I had to give up half way through as things got too hard.

Conjurer:

Easiest to start with as you get plenty of pet support from Occu, has Primal Bond and both Briarthorn and Familiar give your pets plenty of resistance from their auras along with dmg.

Itemization is easy and rather straightforward as you can easily convert pet dmg into Elemental and both masteries got ele RR.

If you are playing HC, best one to go for with pets as Pet Conjurers tend to be tankier than the rest even without the best items.

Can fit pretty much and dmg type.

Cabalist:

More focused on dmg than def. You can focus on Elemental or Vitality if you wish, but Acid is personal fav.

Chaos was popular once. Not sure where it stands atm.

Easiest would be to just go for Ghol set + Transmuted Blightfiends for massive AoE dmg they bring.

Though I do have Will O Wisp as an Elemental Cabalist that focuses on Familiars & Reap spirits instead.

Since you have Occu for support, leveling shouldn’t be too hard. And itemizing for Acid/poison or elemental is still easy.

I rather not speak of Vitality or Skeletons as my experience with them have been subpar.

Ritualist:

Was considered to be the weakest combo for a while, but as of recent times, they have shown themselves to be rather strong.

However, do note that personally I would only suggest going for this with either Vitality Diviner Reap Spirits or if you have enough of an experience with pet builds. The lack of Occultist means, it can be a bit hard to get it up and running before you find it comfortable to play.

While you still have the option to level and use budget items for Acid or Vitality, the main Issue I have is pet survivability and free stats offered by occultist being denied. And due to that, it might take a while to get to the same power as Conjurer/Cabalist as you farm for items.

So, personal recommendation?

  • Pick Conjurer if you want the easiest time.
  • Go for Cabalist if you want Reap Spirits.
  • Pick my “Ishtar” from the list if you want only Reap Spirits :stuck_out_tongue:

If you have further questions, let me know :slight_smile:

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567

Oh wow, I feel like a spoiled child here :innocent:

On a serious note, from your very detailed answer I take it as the conjurer is best balanced way for me between damage and defense. Also your scarlet endgame build with the primal spirit was something I was thinking about.

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568

You can never go wrong with a Pet Conjurer :stuck_out_tongue:

As for which one to choose, my Fluffy Squishy is what I usually recommend as it pretty much lets you roll your head on keyboard and still win even against superbosses.

Though some have commented that it is rather on the too defensive end of things when it comes to fast clears in Crucible and such. And hence why the Weeping Queen was born, which is basically a more offensive focused version of the same build.

Scarlet (Sanguine Lupus on the Drop-down List here), is kind of a weird one of the lot. It is not particularly defensive and at the same time doesn’t really bring enough fire power to compensate for the lower defense either.

Best way to describe it would be that it simply plays differently. You need to be more active with it as facerolling on keyboard will get you killed. Also, you will need the items and the Mythical Beastcaller set before you can get it rolling.

But then the issue is that bleed takes time to kill and so it offers a different playstyle in that regard since your job will be more about letting the dmg tick rather than just force burst down the enemy.

Another issue is the rather lack of versatility when it comes to things like devotion paths as all the pet bleed stuff is centered around Mogdrogen devotion and you can’t really deviate from it while plenty more options are available for other damage types.

The reason I made it was mostly because there was a demand for it and I had an older one during the Ashes of Malmouth era before Forgotten Gods was announced. However while it gets the job done in being able to complete all content and kill all bosses including Celestials like Callagadra, Crate of Entertainment etc, and is indeed one of my top 5, it is my least favourite of the 5.

Do note that I am not stating these things to discourage you, but simply letting you know of my personal experience with it as both the author of the build and a fellow player of pet builds so that you know what to expect :slight_smile:

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569

Nice, right now I’m lvl 25. The other thing that is not clear to me is the pet bonuses on items and components. For example the Coldstone component gives cold dmg and frostburn dmg to pets, but right now none of them dealing that type of dmg. Familiar doing lightning-electrocute, Briarthorn dealing phys-bleed and Hellhound fire-chaos-phys. So the question is if I add that component to my gear, is it going to do anything to their dmg?
Same with items, I found items with +aether dmg to pets for exmaple, how does this work in this game?

570

You either need flat dmg from outside sources or the pets themselves to deal the same kind of damage for +% dmg of a particular kind to work.

For example, +100% Aether damage won’t do any good for a Pet build unless you can convert their dmg into Aether first.

But +10 Aether damage (without the “%”) just adds +10 dmg of Aether type to your pet’s weapon dmg which all melee pets do 100% of in their auto attacks while the Familiar is special in that it doesn’t have an auto attack and uses Storm Orb instead in its place.

However, while extra damage is still extra damage and most the +% dmg bonus your pets get are +x% to all damage (which means it will work regardless of dmg type and is universally useful), you still need to get the appropriate Resistance Reduction (RR) for it to actually matter. Hence why Hellhound’s Hellfire Aura for eg, is useless in a non Chaos Pet build and is a waste of points (unless you can convert that flat chaos into the type your build uses).

Essentially RR > everything else in grim dawn. So you should work your dmg types around how much of RR you can get and of what type.

However, Elemental dmg as I assume you are already aware of, is a bit weird from the rest. It is 33.33% Fire, 33.33% Lightning & 33.33% Cold instead of being its own separate dmg type. So 9 elemental dmg is actually dealing 3 Fire, 3 Lightning & 3 Cold.

But if you have +90% Elemental dmg, it means +90% Fire, +90% Lightning & +90% Cold.

Ideally you want all your dmg type to be of a single type, boost its +% dmg bonus as much as you can and get as much RR for said dmg type as possible.

But for pets, as explained above, you get +x% to all dmg instead most of the time with +x% to a particular type being comparatively rare. And Elemental RR is available in plenty on a Pet Conjurer with Vulnerability, 2nd node of Wind Devil & Rhowan’s Crown. You also get flat Elemental dmg for all pets from Storm Spirit Aura (from your familiar).

All that makes something like extra flat Cold dmg worth it (though you want 2x Seal of Might if you can for the resistances offered, on the final build), but Pet Aether dmg for now remains rather meh due to lack of options to capitalize on it.

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571

Okay, I get it now. Thanks again for the clear and fast answer!

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572

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

Here I am right now, got some good blue items already :smiley:

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573

Noice :3

Btw, if you find yourself needing more damage, you can shift points from Hellhound into Curse of Frailty for more Phys and Bleed RR + take up Assassin’s blade devo and bind it to Briarthorn :slight_smile:

Devotion setup for that can b found here: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZwL8WbN (Ignore everything else as it is an old link)

574

Strange thing tho, I really struggled with my first character that is a paladin (fav class :expressionless: ). It’s only lvl 38 but I felt so weak although I did not find a beginner guide to that. And here I am just runnig and the pets destroy everything.

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575

So a little update here. The build works great thanks to you, but I kinda miss the necromancer feeling, it feels like I’m playing a beastmaster so I will probably try some other combination of your builds that has the necro class in it before I pick a “main” character.

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576

I think I will just level on necro, and decide later on. :skull_and_crossbones::ghost::skull_and_crossbones:

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577

If you don’t mind leveling as solo necro mostly, I highly recommend Ishtar. It is pretty much on par with my Fluffy Squishy and in some regards even better :sunglasses:

578

Good friends, can you help me with a set of pets and how to route from abilities to devotions, currently I use Shaman and Occultist, I am new to the game, I only have the base game.

Note: I am using the google translator because I don’t know English :llorar:

579

Unfortunately, I cannot help much with base game only since the expansions have added too much content. But hopefully this helps:

Abilities -

Lvl 10 – 16/16 Familiar, 1/16 Mend Flesh.
Lvl 20 – 16/16 Hellhound, 1/10 Curse of Frailty, 7/10 Vulnerability, 1/16 Blood of Dreeg, 1/12 Storm Spirit.
Lvl 30 – 5/10 Curse of Frailty, 10/10 Vulnerability, 1/12 Ember Claw, 16/16 Blood of Dreeg.
Lvl 40 – 12/12 Lightning Strike, 1/12 Aspect of the Guardian, 7/12 Bonds of Bysmiel.
Lvl 50 – 12/12 Manipulation, 1/12 Infernal Breath.
Lvl 60 – 12/12 Bonds of Bysmiel, 12/12 Possession.
Lvl 70 – 12/12 Storm Spirit, 12/12 Aspect of the Guardian.
Lvl 80 – 12/12 Ember Claw, 12/12 Infernal Breath.

You can put enough points in Shaman after getting Familiar, to get a 16/16 Briarthorn before going back to focus on the Occultist Side. In that case, you use the points that would otherwise go to Ember Claw & Infernal Breath. Also, if going for Briarthorn, get Curse of Frailty to 10/10.

After level 80, you can change points to whatever your final build is going to be :yum:

Devotions -

Purple
Shepherd’s Crook
Green
Raven
Remove Green
Rhowan’s Crown
Yellow
Assassin’s Blade
Remove Yellow
Blue
Sailor’s Guide
Amatok the spirit of winter (4 points to get Blizzard)
Empty Throne
Scholar’s Light
Hawk
Mogdrogen the Wolf
Leviathan

Hopefully this helps :blush:

Also, while I might not be able to help with other languages, someone else might be able to translate the above text to your native language if you have problems understanding anything written here. So feel free to let us know if there is any problem :slight_smile:

580

Added the above info to the Guide. It is now 104 pages long… image

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581

Hi Maya,

Thanks so much for your pet guide!

I have a question, for “Bonus to All Pets” Damage mods like:

% to All Damage
% Crit Damage
% Offensive Ability
% Total Speed
% Attack Speed
Flat Damage

Is there anyway to easily compare between 2 values to determine which one is better? Always at a loss when comparing across different types :laughing:

Thanks!

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582

First of all, welcome to the Community and the forums. And glad to hear you like the guide :blush:

Now, to answer your question, it is… tricky. The thing is, which you want more depends on how much of everything you have already.

Like for example, if you have +60% OA, then I would recommend pumping up %Total Speed & %Crit Dmg over getting more OA, but if your bonus OA is at like +30% or lower, I would ask you to prioritize that if you have %Crit & %T.Speed at respectable amounts already.

Personally I would rank them like this:

% Total Speed > % Offensive Ability > % Crit Damage > % to All Damage > % Attack Speed

You generally won’t need to focus on %Attack Speed and will get it along with other stuff on most builds.

As for Flat Damage, its value increases with the number of Pets you have, but how much you should go for and how much you can afford to sacrifice in the pursuit depends entirely on your build. Bleed Pet builds for example love stacking %Flat dmg over say… Elemental Pet builds.

However, generally more Flat dmg is good, as with more of everything :stuck_out_tongue:
But you don’t need to worry about it while leveling and if you plan on making your own endgame build, it is best to experiment as there are too many variables.

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583

Thanks for the welcome and also the very detailed and super fast reply!

At least now I have some reference when I am faced with 2 items with different types of damages to compare, which has been a total headache at the higher levels as there are more options to choose from. :joy:

As for build wise, I have actually been following your Fluffy Squishy(Your the “can be played with head rolling on keyboard” sold me :wink: ) for quite sometime already, though it took me about 3 years(No joke, on and off very ultra casual playing Grim Dawn) before I finally reached Level 100 a few days back… :laughing: It’s my first, and the one and only Character currently.

Still have quite a bit to go for this char, working on completing Ultimate Act 4-7(For Rep, Mandates etc), meanwhile also switching between Shattered Realms(Working on increasing the Shard, at about SR 30 currently) for gameplay variety as I saw that you recommended Shattered Realms for farming equipment. These are my near term goals for now as I slowly progress towards the equipment used in your Fluffy Squishy Grimtools link.

Thanks again for everything!

Cheers

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584

image

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585

Hello Maya, thank you very much for answering, I will try to follow your instructions, I also hope to get the expansions soon, do not worry about the language because I translate it from the Chrome browser jjj

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