For the benefit of addicts, which pure melees would you say hold up best, relatively speaking?
Crystalum DW Archon and Melee Spellbinder (find them in our grim sheet) are the closest. After that Nortuses, Evoker, pure Pierce DW Dervish (all in the list). After that I would say Belgo BM is pretty fun. Not the tankiest but can still be decently fast. Warborns are pretty solid overall (surprisingly Blademaster that I put together for giggles turned out to be pretty solid).
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Oh. I was told it’s very important here to say in the title when it’s opinion. Figured to ask because someone asked me online and I didn’t have an answer.
Perhaps for the next best builds in Grim Dawn thread I could recommend you some names of people playing online with amazing builds. Of coarse I would check with them first.
Have them post builds and videos on the forum. If the builds are amazing, maybe they dethrone some of builds here in an update. I requested for a separate thread for challengers.
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I’ll ask. I know some if not all have accounts here.
I looked back at the Reaper in the OP post.
I know they use one Shurot ring, but overall I value the stats i get from 2 viloth rings
You basically get the stats that you want more easilly (fixing the build based on what you need) and it’s still great if Path of the three isn’t maxed out (+3 instead of +2 from the shurot ring)
Shurot ring is still good though, depending on your build
Dunefiend blade might be great or somewhat close to a Rift Scourge with ok affixes
But venomfang of venomclaw gives + 4 to LA , the Rift Scourge give + 200acid damage to shadow strike and more % damage to acid/poison … Shadow Strike is mostly maxed out in my case (besides nightfall) … i have “venomfang of alacrity” so not quite there yet
Veil of shadow would be great, but I am a junky, I tested the power of poison on bosses (merciless repertoire + path of the three maxed) , you won’t make me give up on it 
I guess thats why i like nightfall from my testing it helps with damage (AOE and single target, AOE is significant enough to keep it maxed out)
As for Rat, I didn’t go for it but I can’t give up on resist from Scholar’s light (rememberr i had to put more points in elemental awakening ? xD )
As you said, it’s about 1k in difference but you lose 6% total speed which in the end not sure there is a huge difference, I might try one day to go back with rat
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It’s less than 14% because you guys don’t include non-WD Poison damage on the Shadow Strike skill line itself that doesn’t suffer from removing Rat nearly as much. I got 7.7% smaller ticks from a rough, hopefully correct estimation.
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Can you explain differently ? Not sure where you takes your numbers !
Hmmmn, sad to see Acid drop off so much, hopefully the next patch buffs that a bit. Not surprised Physical is so low, mainly because you have to take Bear to get the best damage amounts and I think enemies got a buff to PR on top.
Doesn’t help either the damage calculation doesn’t sum all the small bits of physical damage up before checking armour. Which reduces the damage potential of physical builds significantly.
i guess because the title is so long there wasn’t room to put the 
in, but they included it in a picture a bit down 
unsure if direct dmg type related, since last time one acid was a pure melee archetype (part of the general dropoff) and the other was retal aegis, which’s conduit Lee has complained about since being nerfed (likewise no lightning retal aegis this time and only voidsoul remains)
I’m also sad my Vit AoM spam Sentinel also missed the cut, but to be fair, it’s a meme build And suffers from Voidsoul’s forced 100% chaos conversion on DB, so can’t take it. Which is making me ponder stuff when I should be doing other things…
From what I remember it was comparable in damage output but better vs superbosses due to more sustain? I remember these fights (by romanN1 who worked on it too) being more impressive for me so I preferred Vit. But now Chaos got Chaos RR and Doom Bolt buff benefits it more. Unless I the_messed up the order of events.
Correct, and the addition of the Doom Bolt buffs made the Chaos Aegis far better. But I’ll look at using DB with my build too now.
Tomorrows.
Edit - fuck, bloody brain got hooked on the problem: Sentinel, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Right, sleeeeep.
That Ritualist looks very interesting. Tree of Life must be to compensate for the health drain from Hungering Void along with Wendigo Totem. Player Pierce, Aether, and Chaos resist are little low for SR. Pet Pierce, Aether, and Freeze might also cause some trouble.
I would suggest 1 pt in Dread for the +2 range.
I do like high as possible Call of the Grave. I see Fiend is only for agro and Briarthorn only for resistances. The damage dealers are all max so it makes good sense adding percent to damage.
8 pts into Mogdrogen’s Pact must be for regen as pet’s physical damage is converted to vitality.
I understand no double rares, but affixes Of Scorching and Of Decay shouldn’t take too long to farm for better.
It’s a unique and interesting build for sure. I never thought to try a secondary only pet version. How does it compare to a standard version?
GT doesnt’ display pet sheet with Mogpact resist (or emboldening roar) applied, so pet pierce/aether will be capped
I thought that’s what the buttons on bottom right did. Oh well, imperfect, but still a great tool.
it does for players, but for whatever reason (i don’t know why), party wide buff resists like Mog pact/Blood of dreeg isn’t counted in pet sheet/the “ally” effect doesn’t seem to be factored in to transfer, and only stuff with actual “bonus to pets” appears
If you turn the red/yellow buff on 'n off you can see pierce res only drops by 12 from Seal of might, aether remains unchanged, tho they should both interact by the additional 20-30 from Oak Skin
Ingame it will ofc apply correct and pet sheet does bounce higher if skilled/unskilled Skin/casting BoD on Cabalist
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Here is my take on your idea of secondary pets. I left components off weapons so resistances can be adjusted for different rolls on other the gear (Imbued Silver). The pendant was bought on 3rd visit to blood grove shop. The over-point in Primal was unavoidable with my available gear. I did my best to use the lesser affixes in my stash.
It had an above average time in a couple solo SR36. In total I re-summoned fiend once and one application of skeletons around 5 times. I wonder what it will do with double rare gear.
I find hungering Void is only good if you use both vit and chaos as primary damage.
At first I did not use Fiend and Briarthorn. I didn’t know what else to do with the extra points and they take some heat off the skeletons.
Overall I think your secondary build concept is fantastic. Any day I see something new is a good day.
EDIT: Finished testing. I can find no speed difference between maxed Primal Spirit based off of yours vs my old version with maxed Briar.
I can compare our different devotions and gear if you have a download.
What do you mean by “secondary build” and “secondary only pet”? I don’t play pets.