Unless you insist on playing solo self-found, you could also just get them with another character, or trade for them.
Did you happen to record how you did this? I’[m having trouble figuring it out.
devotions can self carry
so say viper gives blue+red,
if you fill out red crossroad to unlock viper, you then fill in viper and gain +2 red+3 blue, you can now remove red crossroad as viper cost 1 red, but is providing 2
same goes for other devos, you can use temp fillers to meet requirements, then remove them after the devos are full and self sustaining, if you start with inner constellations/tier1 devos and work your way out to the larger they can then carry like this
go to devo page and move yellow slider at the bottom Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
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I wish I had seen this before. I appreciate and respect the work you did, and this is a good resource, but I think this needs more disclaimers… I don’t like how this is given a gold star and sticked and presented as gospel, as I disagree extensively with many of your choices. The thing is, this game has SO MANY builds that are viable, that some are bound to slip through the cracks, for any number of reasons. Entire powerful playstyles aren’t represented, like FoI and EoR.
You should link to the description of the build at the build for every build, and not just the GT link.
I won’t argue with the top ones which blow up Ravager or Callagadra, but, for a lot of the lower ones which only clear SR75… maybe they can clear higher, but given that there’s a thingy that lets you start at SR80, why not start there? That should pretty much be a requirement at this stage in the game, except for farm specialists or budget specialists. It’s not like there’s a dearth of options there.
For example, I am a lazy clumsy dude who uses a controller, and, on previous patches (which therefore have less power creep) I have 22 builds that can clear SR80+, six clearing SR85+, and two clearing SR90, and even one that cleared Callagadra and Crate of Entertainment with a controller. The only one that made your list is a highly modified (IMO worsened) Lightning CT Druid, and that’s not even the best Callidor’s Tempest build. Nor do I see a post of their doing of the build on their profile, with its justification for some choices that I very much disagree with, compared to my Lightning CT Druid. Even if it’s better than my Druid, which I seriously doubt, I can’t believe it’s better than my Spellbinder, let alone my SR90 Leviathan Death Knight, or my MI heavy SR90 FoI Mage Hunter, which has been heavily buffed since I did it.
If this were titled as “Ranking 20 of the Top-tier Softcore Builds” I wouldn’t have an issue. But… it’s not, and I can’t help but feel like it’s misleading, and should have more disclaimers.
If the scoring system were more objective, I think it would have resulted in something better. Instead of having every person involved test every build, you could have just chosen the best results for each build at SR, crucible, and celestials, and give them a performance score based off of that. That wouldn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) the full scoring, but it would be a good place to start, and there wouldn’t be builds with the best accolade being a clear of SR75.
Anyway, I hope you take my suggestions to heart if you do another one of these.
it’s not about equal archetype representation(there was an entire pet debate because of it 
), the whole “how they did this should explain that” i think (+FoI was way “worse” back when this was made, as per the PTR feedback and 1.2.03 changes)
And EoR was on the old top20, but 1.2 changed things around, just like there were loads of gunners back then, few dual wielders, and now it’s the opposite.
as for the shard nr, it is because it’s the most efficient to run
Flexing sr 90 doesn’t really do much, if it takes you 10mins to clear 1 shard, that’s really bad rewards. Sure it might be cool to do for some, but there is not much to gain.
These builds then serves as optimal farmers or “performance clearerers” within those explained/established metrics
If and when the goal was to include in sr90 by default, it would likely look a whole lot different, just like if it was a truly 100% Hardcore oriented list it would probably also be a bit different, but the folks laid our they criteria and is open about all the steps.
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I said SR80 should be the minimum, not SR90. Also, none of my SR90 builds take 10 mins for a shard. Maybe 2, at most, or else I’d get bored and move on. But my point isn’t about that clearing SR90 is the point of the game, but that any build which does that is very strong, and will be great for clearing SR75 or SR80, and doing any other content except perhaps celestials.
I’d go so far as to say that any build which can’t clear SR80 with ease is not a top build, unless it’s specifically for farming or budget.
I will try to answer as polite as possible here:
Something you can put into the name of your thread yourself. It’s not given by anyone.
Nothing really did at the moment of testing.
Not true, one of the honorable mentions is an EoR build. FoI builds weren’t good enough at the moment of testing.
That’s just your opinion. SR 75-76 or SR 30-31 is just the most rational thing to farm in terms of challenge/reward ratio in our opinion.
I just looked at all of them. None of them are close in terms of power levels to the ones that made the cut. Except for Pierce RF Paladin and we tested it in my version. Our collective has like collective 30k hours of making endgame builds and trust me we played 99% of the archetypes that exist (I mean the ones that have potential to be in the running). We didn’t miss anything, trust me.
It absolutely is. What you linked is not even second best Callidor build. I don’t think you really played as much stuff as we did.
This is just a bad build, I am sorry. Gimped by “no green” self-imposed restriction 2800 OA 2h Cadence Phys build.
This is just entirely your personal bias.
Absolutely not, sorry!
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pretty sure all of these can do sr 80, last i tried them atleast
the point is it’s just not as good a metric efficiency wise
*keep in mind anyone is free to make their own criteria and metric requirements and compile their list or ranks, the point just is this top20 one the authors and testers have specified/laid out their XYZ’s for us to understand
my personal feedback for instance is/was much different on both, because i have my own ways in mind, but neither of these two are my lists or approaches the OPs use.
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Poor “An Onion” still being misunderstood. Anyway, none of the testers play with controllers, which I assume has a huge impact on how a build plays, so unfortunately may be irrelevant for those players. The rest is already addressed in the op for the previous 400 comments so not going to rehash arguments
Fwiw my 2 cents is we should do content specific ratings if/when this gets kicked up post FoA, ala maxroll.gg charts. SR farmer, supers, crucible, as it will allow for some more niche competitors to not be dragged down when they struggle in an area. Still wouldn’t expect SR past top loot farming levels though, that’s not the point of these ratings nor something the group values
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Zantai actually came to me in my dreams and revealed the 10 of 20 best builds. He said the rest will come posthaste but never came back so we had to guess.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
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Thank you for trying to being polite. I know being rude is much more fun 
OA isn’t the sole criteria for strength. It’s low on OA, but it clears its targets with ease. I agree that it doesn’t have greens.
By what criteria? Greenness? It has 2500 DA and 1700 armor. If greenness is your main criterion, you should make that clear somewhere. You should also make clear to what level you farmed the greens. 1 rare maximum? 1 rare minimum?
And, since you’ve tested everything, what’s wrong with this one? (ps, it now does nearly 50% more damage than when initially tested with the buffs)
As was written.
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By criteria of several builders each with thousands of hours of experience playing all of the CT builds possible in their most optimised state and deciding so.
No version of FoI made the cut and Aether one is one the weaker side because no dots and not enough support. This particular one has some lapses in itemization (bad devotion map, low overall %damage, poorly scaled OA, second ring choice is questionable etc.)
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So basically, it’s not a strong build because you didn’t decide that it’s a strong build? You may have had all the reasons in the world, but from the outside, it looks rather circular. You should be able to point to something and say “this build is weaker because [it doesn’t have any greens.]” I admit that this was a while ago, and you might not remember everything, but I’m not a fan of the way you’re presenting your decisions as perfect and incontrovertible and unarguable, ie gospel.
So, it cleared SR90 despite my poor choices in devotion, admittedly questionable ring, and mediocre rolls on the MIs, and it’s on the weaker side?
Yes
By that you mean “in your opinion”, right?
I am so sorry about that!
So did all 60+ builds we chose for the testing for this top20 and about 100 more that we didn’t choose because they weren’t strong enough (in our opinion)
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no, I mean that you can’t provide reasoning on why it was chosen other than that it must have been right because it was chosen.
It was written elsewhere they that all were only required to be tested to SR75.
Damn, that’s good sarcasm!
I’m sorry, this out of context quoting is so effing triggering. The original quote was,
@Bagel
It wasn’t circular. It wasn’t simply because they said so. The reasoning was clearly stated and the deciding factors were stated in the op. But you quoted only the first part. Literally a quoting out of context fallacy. Are you arguing in bad faith? What the f is your agenda here?
RNGesus, Who art in Num Gens,
Entropic be Thy name,
Your Random come,
Your Rolls be done
On Grim Dawn as it was in TQ.
Give us this day our daily grinds.
And forgive our rage quits,
As we forgive those who GD Stash.
And do not bring us nemeses,
But deliver us from bad loot,
Amen.
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All in the op, in our grimsheet, in the comments to this thread. I am sorry I can’t be explanining it to everyone who doesn’t even care to read the op first.
You clearly haven’t even read the op and yet here you are demanding a personal explanation and asking why several builders each with more experience and a better proven track record than you didn’t include your Leviathan DK or Aether FoI Mage Hunter. Do you think that there is an off-chance that not only you are completely out of your depth here but also out of line?
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Nope. “playing all of the CT builds possible in their most optimised state and deciding so.” doesn’t actually explain any more. I’m just being concise, stating what I’m responding to rather than quoting the entirety of the paragraph every time.
I asked how the criteria explain a specific decision, and all I got was, basically, “because we decided it.”
You could, like, for example, look at my previous comments and see the larger context. But instead you quote only a small snippet of context and call me out on not quoting enough. Nice.
You could, like, for example, read the full OP and see what you were asking for. But instead you skip and call them out for not being able to provide full perfect explanations in the replies section. Nice.
3 Likes