can I ask why spellbinder cannot make the top 20? cause in the first few patches I see it very high on top.
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Things change, and the race is tight to begin with. As @banana_peel puts it:
Also, if you go by grimsheet, a class with more builds will score more points, that doesn’t mean the individual builds are at the very top.
The only pet build deserving to be in the top 20.
Archon, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
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lol good one
Now this is a great post. I have made it to about 37 on my char and just randomly placing points as I have no idea what do. Maybe I can start over with one of these builds and get more enthused about playing more.
I recommend these sources:
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I’ve dived a little into pets and played several builds:
Lost Souls vitality and chaos Cabalists, Diviner Cabalist, Beastcaller lightning Conjurer, Ghol acid Conjurer
Here is a summary that can also be considered as sort of pets feedback from a non-pet player:
- Summoner is an incredibly weak target. No means to leech, no buff stats on pet gear at all. You are basically forced into either huge regen (that still won’t save you) or Dryad
- Ishtak is basically forced for having Taunt because Generate Additional Threat commonly found on pets… well… doesn’t work. Any active skill from player pulls aggro to the player. Despite doing little to no dmg, which honestly seems like design oversight: why wouldn’t enemies attack mor dangerous targets? And if suddenly they have 200 IQ to attack the summoner, why does pet gear not offer more defensive stats and skills?
- Forced to go Ishtak you miss out on a lot of pet devotions, the majority of setups can’t afford the best dmg boost - Mogdrogen. Pet map with Ishtak and Rattosh (vitality is the most common dmg type for pets) looks pretty horrible
- Solo dmg is actually pretty good on a lot of opmitized setups. But AoE is either lacking or doesn’t exist at all. A lot of custom pets have simple melee range slap and that’s it
- The problem this game has with hitbox collision skyrockets with the amount of pets. Ravager fight on a build with 10 sec dummy kill time can take way over 3 mins because the boss constantly bounces between your pets and they miss a lot
- I have found nothing lazy or safe about the gameplay of dmg focused pet builds. A lot of buttons to press, A LOT of stuff to track, all the while constantly repositioning
In conclusion. I wish i could recommend a pet build to someone new/casual who wants a “very strong build” without any specifics by i cannot. The playstyle needs heavy defensive buffs and buffs to AoE. Even the fastest dmg focused pet builds are far behind the fastest farmers, with hard gameplay and very unforgiving. Defensive focused builds also require some caution because the summoners are inherently weak and have no means for burst regain of health. The speed plummets to the ground, and all that is left is an achievement of crawling deep into SR. Which honestly you can do with a decent variety of characters if you stack enough hp, phys res and leech.
If there is a room for new adjustment in the current playtest, i’d suggest to spray pet gear with defensive buffs for the player like it’s Christmas. Hardly anything will be too much.
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At the very least, it looked like the Vitality Skeleton Lost Souls Cabalist accomplished fairly well in Crucible; that 200% pet attack speed goes a long way in clearing things quickly. Even then, all those pets look like they don’t compare to whacking a big stick and hitting 9 targets with a 200K AoE auto-attack.
It’s hard to even recommend buffs for pet builds because they are intrinsically tied to 1) sets that are specifically tailored to patch pet skills’ weaknesses, and 2) the Mogdrogen devotion route. Any skill modifiers that take away from one of those 2 things have to be extremely strong to make up for taking away one of those 2 ties, and for the most part, they fail in doing so.
Here’s what happens when you try to make a custom pet build that doesn’t use a set:
You’d think that a quasi-permanent Primal Spirit, 3 Reap Spirit Wraiths, and maximum uptime on big temporary buffs like Call of the Grave would make this build somewhat useful, right? No, instead I get an 8+ minute Crucible time and that’s with micromanaging everything as tightly as possible. Looking under the hood, the build is clearly missing in pet total speed and offensive ability, and the Wraiths and Primal Spirit barely add anything because all they have is the basic melee slap, and it’s difficult to steer the pets toward AoE since they’re so busy bouncing around trying to hit their primary target.
Basically, the non-set pet gear needs massive speed boosts or the non-primary pet skills like Primal Spirit and Reap Spirit need a big buff to their AoE in order for custom non-set pet builds to compete with set staples like Lost Souls and Beastcaller’s. Conjure Primal Spirit is especially weak due to the short duration, long downtime, and lack of discernable AoE, and can especially use a buff to make maximizing it worth it over simply stacking pet stats.
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Any other bleed builds were tested besides #8 that didn’t make honorable mention but were still really good ?
Not a lot of bleeding builds close to top20, but a lot of builds that you can call viable.
Closest pure bleed to top20 was probably lee’s Trickster with BS shield. From the hybrids, Goredrinker Tactician scored well. And then about 8-10 builds a little behind.
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Which is appropriate placing because dots are for cowards
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Them be fighting words!
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So how does the harbinger conjurer compares to har’zin witchblade? Seems like witchblade would have more rr and be bit more sturdy.
Is the shoulder WPS that much better than ZT on steroids?
Or is it the savagery being much better than ToC ?
Any more chaos build that were relatively close to the list?
Thanks for the great list ! Much appreciated 
Hard to tell, that Conjurer does not even use Upheaval 
. What gives it strength?..
Anyway, if someone wants to compare both builds, here is my Harzin Witchblade _Doomforger.zip. It is better to see with your own eyes than theorize 
.
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This Cabalist is a work of art 
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Rah’binger Witch Hunter was my fav build for a long time. It didn’t hold up to the challenge, as well as Witchblade.
Harbinger set was tested for all classes - Pyro, Witchblade, Sentinel. Conjurer was the best. Fully converted Savagery for 2H is infinitely stronger than any other AAs.
Closest to top20 were the builds that Abuser linked. At first i tried Deceiver Doom Bolt but it also didn’t hold up. The DW gunner is one of the strongest builds that didn’t make the list. It has higher performance than a lot of the builds in the list. Just not as tanky as one would hope.
Also from chaos, Darkblaze Pyro, EoR Sentinel and RA Deceiver scored well.
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Is there any GT link to those Darkblaze Pyro and RA Deceiver builds ? Cheers
Thank you good sir