Manipulation is not taken for movement speed. It provides Total Speed bonus which includes attack and cast speed. That helps with dps regardless of which type of pet build you go for.
I see. I didnāt know that. I guess I need to take it then since Iām experimenting with on-hit/on-critical-hit devotion procs for pets.
About to do my 2nd playthrough and all this info is amazing, thank you!
If anyoneās interested, on my first playthrough I went with a ritualist, there was a lot of respeccing and experimentation along the way. I ended up ditching the skellies at some point as they felt too squishy and just focused on the blight fiend and the briar. By the end of the main story I had a pretty functional summoner, it felt great to play, even with no good uniques/sets. Spent longer than I care to admit examining the devotion tree, and could never shake the feeling that I was making terrible choices. I was just after the main story and about to do the ashes dlc when I took a breakā¦ and my character is gone, not sure if its steam cloud or game updates or what. I was struggling to remember how I built it, decided to look for some guides and BOY Iām glad I did, so much great info here. Think Iāll try a conjurer this time, hopefully take on the dlc and endgame stuff!
Cheers Maya! 
EDIT: I reloaded the game and my character is back! False alarm! Also has better gear than I remembered haha
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Will update builds in the next few daysā¦
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Birds Pets are overrated 
welcome back
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Ty. Welcome back to you as well 
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WB! missed u
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Your guide download link now goes to some really sketchy malware page. You might want to remove that.
Zippyshare always had ads. But the website seems to have shut down. I need to update the guide for the new patch and will upload it after.
My usual online hosting site also changed their ToS, so that wont work anymore either.
The Carnival Guide updated.
Changes -
- Builds now updated to 1.1.9.8
- Removed Inanna and Skulls & Bones from the list since Blightfiends and Skeletons have been underperforming terribly for me compared to other pets.
EDIT - Updated AoM and Basegame only example builds as well and reduced the total number of pages to 208 
EDIT 2 - Some minor updates and stuff :3
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Unreleased Skeleton Ritualist that I forgot I had and am too lazy to create a dedicated thread for - Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
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PDF Guide updated. If you bookmarked the old link, do note that with the current host, every time I edit the guide, a new link is generated.
Changes - Skulls & Bones gets added back to the PDF since the current version of the buildās performance far exceeded my expectations.
Banshee & Atomic Emu are still left out of the PDF since they are altered versions of Ishtar & Fluffy Squishy.
Also, with their primary difference being made more defensive to facetank Callagadra and Zantai hinting changes to superbosses in the upcoming patch(es), I have decided to wait before adding them to the PDF.
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PDF Guide updated to include Emu and Banshee + some slight changes and updates to builds.
I was kind of waiting for news on the upcoming patch on the 10th butā¦ yeah 
EDIT - Added the new budget chaos pet cabalist to the pdf guide.
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As someone on GoG, I canāt get into the Steam PTR and there doesnāt seem to be a way to do it on gog.
So, if anyone wants to playtest any of my builds and submit feedback, it will be much appreciated. Or, if you want an op geared char save of any of my builds to test against the PTR patch, let me know and I will send you the save as well (quests and a few other things will be messed up since I have edited and re-edited most of my test files like 100s of times by now).
Cleared out all my builds for v1.2 so will level up the Petwalker to see how the new patch works.
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Update -
A big thanks to @eardianm for testing out some of my endgame builds for me.
I can now safely say that pet builds will do more than fine in the upcoming patch (unless some drastic change happens). While super deep SR, semi-afk facetanking Superbosses, etc might no longer be possible, everything else should be ok
Linking the Callagadra bullying becauseā¦ wellā¦ a cally bully a day keeps yugol away.
Now, since this seems to be a rather hot topicā¦
Regarding Sunder, easiest way to deal with it if you are playing with Pets -
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If you have pets that can generate threat (or taunt) enemies for you, make sure to level up their aggro generating skills so that enemies focus on them more.
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Do not ignore your Pet resistances because the idea is to use them as shield so that they get sundered instead of the player (unless you are ok with kiting and avoiding the sunder skills)
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More Pets = easier to mess with the boss AI, which means less frequency of attacks and spells cast. So, stuff like Skeletons should not be bad even though they are not that sturdy. Just make sure to have some sturdy pets to act as tanks as well.
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While leveling, should not be an issue. Just remember to wait till your character is geared before tackling endgame challenges and do not be hesitant to go down a difficulty if you find it too difficult to farm for gear, especially if on Hardcore mode.
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I have never played an end game pet build and I spent about 2 minutes asking Maya about the setup before diving into a few SR75-76 runs, Ravager, and Cally, so this is super easy to play still. In SR Scarlet pulling big packs is a no no, especially with sunder spam in 1.2, but more so because the debuff stacking just murders pet dps, very quickly got muddy. Otherwise these were an easy play, although I disagree strongly on the playerās CC res here 
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just never get hit 
So I think the need for speed has finally bit Maya, maybe after my spamming of pet builds recently looking for quick Ravager kill tests, maybe from the toxic infusion to GD Discord in general. Scarlet has been revamped with the latest tech and feels like a top tier build in PT, with some final gear/devo testing still needed
edit: but in PT you absolutely replace the ring components with frozen hearts imo
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