TPOM's Grimarillion Build Compendium, Featuring Pets


Attention all citizens of Cairn!
For all pet lovers, it’s a day of rejoicing!
For the enemies of Cairn, THE DAY OF REKTONING IS AT HAND!

To complement my Grimarillion guide, I have been field testing builds that can serve as a jumping point for players who like to see concepts that work before jumping in. As is my style, the theme of this compendium is pets! Pet armies, small companions, debuff pets, and mercenary pets; the more the merrier. I have tested nearly every class and every damage type in an effort to see how certain skills synergize with the generous gift of classes Grimarillion provides us. All in all, I have around 20 builds (thank GDStash for the ability to quickly test certain ideas) that I have outfitted and tested. For those who like to whack enemies themselves and not have minions doing your dirty work, I also have multiple player-scaled pet builds that combine pets with major damage skills; Elemental Seekers, Raise the Dead, and Unknown Soldier can be a lot of fun when you combine them with a player focused build, not to mention the juicy player-scaled pets from the mod classes!

Summoner builds (the ones that are scaled to pet damage) are built differently from standard main skill builds in that in addition to focusing on survivability and resists, you have an additional column for pet stats: pet Health, pet damage, pet Crit, pet Speed, and pet Resists. Neglecting pet stats in favor of player resists leads to Campaign slog where pets have trouble bursting through boss heals. Neglecting pet resists in favor of damage kills off your pets before major damage can be done, leading to the player running like a headless chicken. It is a very delicate balance, but with new pet equipment, much more +All Skills options, and the ability to equip weapon components to jewelry (Imbued Silver and Purified Salt are some of the best components for pet builds - pound for pound - in the game), pet builds are more than capable of handling the extra difficulty Grimmest throws at you.

As I do want to give each and every build its proper explanation, I will order my builds by featuring classes. Grimarillion features multiple classes that give bonuses above and beyond what vanilla Grim Dawn gives us, and their skills are perfectly aligned to provide new pet opportunities, or even take a traditional pet build and take it to heights they have not seen before! The OP will serve as a table to contents - if there’s a build in particular you want to see without going through pages of posts, follow the links in the intro.

For testing my builds in the MC, I use the Grimmest setting “Misanthropic” (the level 3 setting) - I found that to be the best indicator as to how they would face in SR65-66, anything further than that - especially up to 11! - just makes the whole run a slog while bringing my laptop to its knees. Unless the build has a particular theme to it or is a hybrid pet/player style build, you can be assured that the build is more than capable of running through SR75-76, though you may still face trouble defeating the Diablo bosses in SR, depending on the build.

Links to Pet Builds:

Summoner Builds:
Witch Doctor + Hunting - Zunimassa’s Tiki Tribe - Updated for 2020!
Damage Type: Cold, Acid
Pets - Tiki Warriors, Zombie Dogs

D3 Necromancer + GD Necromancer - Skeleton Overlord
Video Guide & Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Vitality
Pets - Command Skeletons, Skeleton Archers, Raise Skeletons, Bone Golem with Blood Transmuter [32 Skeletons in Total!]

Nature + Rogue - Rabid Wolves - New for 2020!
Damage Type: Acid
Pets - Call of the Wild, Force of Nature, Thorn Sprites, Sigil of Bast Relic, Bysmiel’s Command

Nature + Storm - The Thunder Nymph
Video Guide and Gameplay
Damage Type: Lightning
Pets - Summon Nymph, Winter Sprite, Avatar of Bast

Earth + Storm - Helio’s Core
Video Guide & Video Gameplay - Note: Nerfed in v80
Damage Type: Fire
Pets: Summon Core Dweller, Winter Sprite, Shavo’s Relic, Helio’s Sun Nymph, Helio’s Fire Webweavers

Spirit + Dream - Nightmares from Another World
Video Guide & Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Vitality
Pets: Summon Liche King, Summon Nightmare, Skeletal Soldiers, Summon Outrider

Hybrid Builds:
Occultist + Earth - The Furies
Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Fire
Pets - Summon Core Dweller, Summon Hellhound, Black Scourge (Reskill), Salazar’s Blade (Reskill)

GD Necromancer + Spirit - Dark Divination - Updated for 2020!
Video Guide and Gameplay
Damage Type: Vitality
Pets - Reap Spirit

Player-scaled Pet Builds:
Champion + Riftstalker - The Army of None - Updated for 2020!
Video Guide & Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Aether
Pets - Army of None

Dream + Riftstalker - Master of Rifts - New for 2020!
Video Guide and Gameplay
Damage Type: Chaos
Pets - Astral Rift, Raise the Dead

Outrider + Demon Hunter - Turrets of Shrapnel
Video Guide & Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Pierce
Pets - Arcane Assault I + II, Sentries, Unknown Soldier

Soldier + Dream - Blood Knight’s Resurrected Army! - Updated for 2020!
Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Vitality
Pets - Blood Knight Pendant, Soul of Narzan, Raise the Dead

Witch Doctor + Nature - Soul Gatherer of Peace
Video Guide and Gameplay
Damage Type: Cold
Pets - Slaved Soul, Manitou, Ethereal Veil

Demon Hunter + Barbarian - Rain of Beasts
Video Gameplay with Grimtools Link
Damage Type: Cold
Pets - Flying Strike

Wizard + Elementalist - Arcane Hydra Tamer
Video Guide & Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Fire
Pets - Hydra (Wizard Skill), Hydra (Item Skill), Mirror Image, Elemental Seekers, Tongue of Flame

Rogue + Necrotic - Eyes of the Beast
Video Guide & Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Acid
Pets - Quillthrower of Dreeg (Reskill), Amulet of Dreeg (Reskill), Summon Epalios (with Transmuter), Rogue Divulcum Relic

Crusader + Oathkeeper - Fervent Holy Warriors
Video Guide and Gameplay (including Grimtools Link)
Damage Type: Lightning
Pets - Phalanx, Heaven’s Fury, Summon Guardian of Empiryon

Crusader + Arcanist - Smiting from the Heavens
Damage Type: Physical
Pets - Heaven’s Fury, Deathstalker

Nightblade + Demon Hunter - Fiery Blades
Video Gameplay (with Grimtools Link)
Damage Type: Fire
Pets - Blade Spirit, Chakram

Monk + Crusader - Sacred 2 Seraphim
Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Fire, Lightning
Pets - Mystic Ally, Archangel (X2), Phalanx, Heaven’s Fury

Barbarian + Defense - Colossal Defender
Video Guide
Damage Type: Physical
Pets - Ancient Commander, Spectral Phalanx

Oathkeeper + Champion - Empiryon’s Finest Guardians - New for 2020!
Damage Type: Fire
Pets - Summon Guardian of Empiryon

Spirit + Demolitionist - Tim Follin’s Rage of Agrivix - New for 2020!
Video Guide & Video Gameplay
Damage Type: Aether
Pets - Agrivix Set Wisps

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First class feature is Storm!

Storm has a huge number of benefits for pet builds as well as players seeking advantages in other ways. Storm has two sources of full damage conversion: 100% Cold to Vitality and 100% Lightning to Aether. Unlike most group damage conversions, these abilities affect pets as well. I would advise against running a pet build with Lightning to Aether conversion because the only group pet that specializes in Lightning [Occultist’s Raven] has a large Electrocute component that can’t be converted and Occultist is much better suited for Elemental than Aether anyway. The Cold to Vitality conversion, however, is a huge gold mine. Necromancer’s Reap Spirit and Bonescavenger Grips both contain pets that have dual Cold and Vitality damage, and converting all of the Cold damage to Vitality turns these pets into powerhouses. Storm also helps pets that primarily deal Physical damage: Storm provides at least 25% Physical to Cold or Lightning damage, assuming you at least soft cap its respective abilities. Cold conversion works wonders with the Winter King sword, and we all know the wrath of Lightning builds with Spark of Ultos and Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth rings. You can even take both skills and combine them with the Black Pendant rings (easily crafted at the Satyr in Devil’s Crossing) to get a full Elemental conversion build focusing on Cold and Lightning. With generous RR in not only Cold and Lightning, but Vitality and Aether as well and you have a wealth of possibilities to choose from.

The Storm Wisp is used largely as a defensive buff-bot. Its damage is Lightning, which helps Lightning pets even more, but its real utility is in its second ability which grants Elemental daamge and a large Elemental damage boost. Unfortunately, it makes the Wisp underwhelming if you’re going for Vitality or Aether, but considering there are already a good number of buffs / passives / RR to invest points into, leaving the Wisp out for these types of builds is not a big deal.

Even if you’re not playing a Summoner build, Storm has multiple passives which will greatly help you out. Storm provides a great Spirit boost for builds seeking an off-hand, and if your build’s main skill consumes a lot of Energy, its passive instantly replenishes part of your Energy once it reaches a threshhold. It’s the equivalent of using a potion without needing to use potions at all! The second ability is nearly just as good, as softcapping it gives you 10% DA as well as 30% Pierce resistance. The bottom skill provides an Energy shield that drastically raises your Elemental resistance on a short-term basis. It’s excellent if you’re going up against enemies that relish in their own RR abilities.

Storm is part of the GQ club, which means that players can roll for +1 to class bonus at the Satyr. If you’re not playing Beastcaller’s Lightning pets, this is a substantial boon as medals amount to a free class skills boost. For nearly all instances where I do a Satyr roll, I prefer the suffix “of the Wild;” Elemental Resistance and DA are highly coveted bonuses even for non-Summoner builds. Of course, with enough rolls, you’ll find a medal that gives you the class bonus and a suffix that sufficiently helps your character.

My builds focus on more interesting aspects, but if you’d like a standard pet build that can easily tear through content, standard pet builds in Vanilla can easily be outfitted to feature the Storm class.

Cold Pets: Nature + Storm: Winter King Sword for 50% conversion, Storm buff for 25% conversion, and 2 Black Pendant Rings to bring the total conversion to 82% Physical to Cold. Frostdread Curiass adds additional flat Cold damage to pets and make sure you craft a medal with Nature prefix to get additional pet %OA.

Lightning Pets: Shaman + Storm: Spark of Ultos for 25% conversion, Storm buff for 25% conversion, and 2 Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth rings to further increase pet Lightning damage. Voidmancer’s Cord is necessary as it provides a chance for huge Lightning damage. Shaman is more suited for this combination as the two rings give bonuses to Primal Spirit and you won’t have the luxury of bonus skill points like you would have with the Black Pendant rings. Nature can do this job as well - use Mantle of the Patron for Shoulder equipment if you’re not using Beastcaller’s.

Build Objective: Turn Witch Doctor and its Zunimassa Set into a veritable horror.

Source of RR:
Piranhas - 28 flat RR
Witch Doctor’s Mass Confusion - 36% Cold & Acid RR
Hunting’s Study Prey - 30% Elemental & Acid RR
Rumor - 23% Cold RR, 30% Acid RR
Mythical Persephone’s Ring - 10% Cold & Acid RR
Spear’s Study Prey Modifier - 12% Elemental RR
Total RR - 138 Cold RR, 133 Acid RR

Equipment
Weapon: Divine Queen Zenobia’s Spear
Components: Seal of Might
Off-Hand: Mythical Zunimassa’s String of Skulls
Component: Seal of Might
Head: Mythical Zunimassa’s Helm
Component: Living Armor
Shoulders: Mythical Fiendflesh Mantle
Component: Living Armor
Hands: Mythical Zunimassa’s Finger Wraps
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Feet: Mythical Fiendflesh Greaves
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Belt: Divine Pythia’s Bindings
Component: Spellscorched Plating
Pants: Mythical Zunimassa’s Chausses
Component: Scaled Hide
Chest Armor: Mythical Zunimassa’s Marrow
Component: Titan Plating
Amulet: Skillful Amulet
Component: Aether Soul
Rings: Divine Persephone’s Ring + Skillful Ring
Components: Royal Topaz + Ectoplasm
Medal: Dreeg Mark of Chills
Component: Black Tallow
Relic: Bysmiel’s Domination (3% DA bonus)

Devotions
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V07YBr2

Devotion Bindings:
Rumor to Tiki Warriors
Whirlpool to Zombie Dogs
Shephard’s Call to Mass Paranoia
Howl of Mogdrogen to Study Prey
Harp to Swampland Attunement

Zunimassa’s has received numerous nerfs and has become somewhat of a joke: an overabundance of Cold and Vitality resistance while lacking any other resistances, barely any pet speed, percent bonuses to Physical, Acid, and Fire damage (what?) and only +1 to Witch Doctor when other D3 full sets give +2. That being said, I wanted to find some way to show off the set, and thankfully, Hunting Mastery was there to patch up what I needed.


Normally it’s not very wise to use two damage types, especially with pet builds, but Cold and Poison are naturally paired together with devotions and items, and with Zombie Dogs doing primarily Cold damage and Dreeg’s Mark of Chills providing 100% Fire to Cold conversion, using the two damage types together made perfect sense. I was looking for a second Mastery that provided RR to both types & healing without using many skill points. Occultist was the first choice, but it would have interfered too much with the equipment choices. Hunting Mastery made the perfect compliment, adding Energy Regen, a great heal, summoner OA, pet Health, and valuable secondary resistances, all while allowing us to gear primarily towards giving +All Skills through the Skillful Ring + Amulet combo.


Zunimassa’s Set gives some, but not many, bonuses to Zombie Dogs, so I let the set focus on those pets as well as the Tiki Army; even without other pets, the two are great for hunting down enemies, and with your huge pet %Health, you have little worries about them dying frequently. The player’s health is not too shabby either; even with no Stun Resistance, over 40% Physical Resistance (which goes to 70% when Bysmiel’s Domination buff is running!), Spirit Walk, and frequent healing through Herbal Remedy makes it capable of tanking whatever comes through it. Resistances are tight all around, but once Grimarillion is updated with the proper resistances on Spellscorched Plating, you can swap your Augments around to give you more Aether and Chaos resistances.

Pierce the Vessel gives you and your pets 15% OA and a 1.15 total damage buff after RR, but it comes at a steep cost of 210 Energy / second. We take devotions such as Harp, Harvestman’s Scythe, & Leviathan to increase our passive Energy Regeneration, but Witch Doctor’s passive provides 60% Energy Regeneration all by itself, and Hunting provides an additional 25% when we use a Spear. This gives us a total of over 150 Energy Regeneration, which is perfectly suitable for running Pierce the Vessel as long as you occasionally turn it off while you’re moving around to get your Energy back on track before the next Harp buff.

Oh, the days where you can summon 9 Army of None at one time

Build Objective: To make the most of the Champion’s Army of None ability. Since the Army of None pets are now permanent, we focus on maximum damage by converting most of its damage into one damage type.

Source of RR:
Champion’s Conviction - 25 Aether RR
Riftstalker’s Detach - 25 Aether RR
Arcane Bomb - 35 Aether RR
Total RR - 85 Aether RR


The Zenith mod has undergone a large overhaul since I made my Army of None video and especially when I originally posted this build. The build goal remains the same - to make use of the Army of None ability - but since the pets are not capable of carrying a build on its own, I had to find a new way to incorporate a main damage source while keeping true to the build’s theme.

This time, it’s using Lucius’ Arm-blade to summon many Aether meteors to the ground while using Warp to inflict good Weapon damage and use it as a main attack. Since investing points in the skill only increases the Weapon damage by 4-5% at a time, we instead invest heavily in Hasteful Empowerment, which grants a large Aether flat damage component which amps our overall Weapon Damage.

Since the video was released, the Zenith mod heavily changed how the multi-class bonuses work. They are now bound to various active and passive skills instead of stand-alone abilities, which means there are no more 500% Weapon Damage passive abilities used in the build anymore. Instead, the Zenith-Champion passive affects the Riftstalker’s Bloodless passive tree, granting 80% Lightning to Aether conversion at its current investment. That makes it far easier to convert all of Army of None’s Lightning damage to Aether damage without sacrificing your gear slots to do it.

Second class feature is Riftstalker!

The above two screenshots sum up Riftstalker’s potential for craziness: when you have a 25% to have your next crit have 150% extra Crit damage, you throw as many bodies at the enemy as possible and have the Crit damage add up. The buff that grants that Crit damage is great on its own, as it grants the player (and pets) flat OA, DA, and Total Speed. In fact, the buff is only one of three abilities that grant Total Speed: Riftward totems + Warp autoattack (if you’re playing a Melee build) also grant Total Speed.

Riftstalker’s damage capabilities are in three damage types: Pierce, Aether, & Chaos. Chaos immediately conjures up images of Witching Hour destruction + Voidwhisper Band, and essentially replaces Occultist as the Chaos pet support of choice (assuming you’re not making use of double Ravens, that is). Aether grants a new world of possibiitiy to pet builds, as there were no ways to give pets Aether damage in the vanilla game; Grimarillion, however, does have a few classes where pets specialize in Aether damage, and I’ll show a brief sample of one in the example builds at the bottom of this post. Pierce damage is essentially limited to player-scaled builds, where the potential for conversion - and with it, the number of pets available to you - is much greater.

Riftward Totems are a treasure of boosts to both player and pets, as for a mere 24 Skill points, you and your pets get the gift of a massive amount of flat damage (75 Chaos damage at 12/12 is the same as Hellfire’s 75 Chaos damage at 22/12), great percentage damage boost (120% at 12/12, 180% if you’re playing Pierce), and Total Speed. These totems are like Wendigo Totems in the sense that they need enemies near it to activate and grant the abilities, so make sure you are built tanky enough to reap the benefits. To compliment the totems is the level 1 skill Detach, which grants -34% stackable RR to the three damage types at 12/12. At Mastery level 40 is a great passive that grants Aether + Chaos resistance; there is nothing that pet builds need at Mastery level 50, which grants the player necessary skill points to invest in the other class.

Zenith classes - thanks to the wonderful Grimarillion devs - are represented in the Satyr craft, and you can craft jewelry + Chest piece that grants +1 to Riftstalker. The bonus that comes with the craft? CDR! That’s right, CDR - one of the most highly sought-out bonuses to get - is packaged with the Riftstalker class, which means you can stuff even more CDR in your rings + medals that you couldn’t get in Vanilla. You thought the fun ended there? The Zenith mod - crafted by Ceno - stuffed additional bonuses in Mastery leveling, and no points for guessing that Riftstalker grants even more CDR just by leveling your character. Just by getting to level 40 Mastery and making one Satyr craft with + Riftstalker skills and you have as much CDR as an off-hand. If your other class has a main-skill nuke that does major damage in one of these three types and has a long cooldown, Riftstalker is sure to help that class enormously.

An example build template to follow for easy playing is Riftstalker + D3 Necromancer. D3 Necromancer has a Level 50 buff that gives pets 100% Physical to Aether conversion, and Riftstalker compliments the pets wonderfully through the above skills. D3 Necro has Frailty to provide flat RR, so you have the freedom to build around Aether damage as you’d like. 2-pc Rathma set grants your pets 100% to all damage and 20% Crit damage. I’d probably go Chest and gloves as the Chest piece gives you 5% DA and there’s not nearly as much competition for pet builds in the glove department. Shoulders and Boots can be Fiendflesh for the nice damage absorption, Head is Beastcaller’s Cowl as the Physical damage is converted. For relic I’d go with Menhir’s Bastion for the nice AoE Heal + flat damage boost. Amulet, Rings, and Weapon I’d go all out and get as many +All Skills as you can get while maintaining your resistances, as the amount of Skeletons you get increases while overcapping the skill. Medal I’d go for either Satyr craft with Riftstalker bonus or Mythical Combat Medic’s Mark depending on whether I think the pets need more heals or not.

Devotion Set-up for Riftstalker / D3 Necro Aether pets

I’d highly recommend the above devotion set-up as you get Tree of Life for healing you and your pets, Ishtak for survivability and flat Physical damage (and the CDR you have lets you proc this often), and a good smattering of Health, DA, and resistances so you can breathe a bit easier with your equipment.

Flat damage, Total Speed, Flat OA, great RR, a passive that grants rare resistances (including Stun resistance), passive CDR just by leveling the Mastery and the chance to get massive Crit damage, all within a reasonable amount of skill point allocation? Let’s get some pets and blow this baby wide open.


Gazers are always watching

Build Objective: To combine Dream’s Astral Rift with Riftstalker’s Riftstorm to provide the ultimate master of Rifts

Sources of RR:
Raise the Dead or Tip the Scales - 24 flat RR
Detach - 34 Chaos RR
Trace of Clairvoyance - 30 Chaos RR
Eldritch Fire - 35 Chaos RR
Divine Arburing - 12 Chaos RR
Total RR - 135 Chaos RR

Astral Rift was a recent addition when the Dream Class was revamped. They are large, immortal eyes that follow the player and attack with both an AoE ripple attack and a Doom Bolt like attack. The Divine Pythia’s set grants one additional summon to Astral Rift, but the headpiece converts 100% Chaos damage to Vitality. To properly use it with Riftstalker, I had to use the Divine Moros Nyx which converts 100% Vitality to Chaos. Fortunately, the Divine Amulet of Morpheus also provides an additional summon as well as +3 to the skill. Unfortunately, there are no other ways to provide bonus points to this skill, so instead we use Fettan Mask, Pythia’s belt, and Serenity to provide additional bonus skills to Dream class. You need a basic attack to go along with your Rifts, so I chose Distortion Wave as the Weapon provides additional 45% Weapon Damage.

Riftstalker’s Riftstorm has been changed to become permanent pets alongside the Astral Rifts. Due to the Zenith overhaul, it is now Sap which provides stackable Chaos RR, so make note of that when choosing Riftstalker as a class. Defensively, Riftstalker provides Aether + Chaos resistance as well as some secondary resistances.

How does this build survive without a healing skill? Bat and Tip the Scales are fully converted to Chaos and have large ADCTH components. Dryad is bound to Psionic Strike (which provides flat Chaos bonuses, which in this case applies to Distortion Wave) to get 10% heal every proc. Combined with bountiful ADCTH and over 195% Cast Speed with Dying God activated, and we have a build that even stands a chance against the D3 SR bosses.

Build Objective: Since Riftward Totems are no longer part of Riftstalker’s set, this instead gives maximum firepower to Outrider’s Arcane Assault rifles while using Demon Hunter’s Sentries for even more guns

Sources of RR:
Marked for Death - 30 flat RR
Entangling Shot - 40 Pierce RR
Bladetwister - 10 Pierce RR
Assassin’s Blade - 32 Pierce RR
Total RR - 112 Pierce RR

Silverbolt was given a big boost with the advent of Grim Dawn Patch 1.1.6.0, making this the perfect time to bring this build up to date. Not only does it now give +3 to all Skills (the only weapon in the game to do so), but it is now 100% Armor Piercing; with that, you don’t have to worry about maximizing Armor Piercing, freeing up the amulet slot and getting a total of +4 to All Skills. With Fallen God’s general Attributes change, we take Divine Blessing of the Gods for the Elemental Resist, huge flat DA, and +1 to all skills, and use the other equipment slots for large DA benefits. That way, we invest a large amount of Attribute Points into Cunning for the OA benefits and over 450% bonus Pierce damage you get with over 1,100 Cunning. The bountiful number of bonus skill points gives you a huge benefit especially with the Outrider class, as now you can maximize both Arcane Assault Weapons and not have to worry about shortchanging your passives or other active skills.

Compared to the old build, which had Rifstalker, Demon Hunter provides a fantastic set that provides +2 to all of its skills and a main weapon attack in Multishot, which launches rockets when you hit your target with your projectiles. The headpiece of the set allows you to summon Sentries, which are stationary pets that attack in the direction of your target, matching well with your Arcane Assault Rifles (Arcane Assault I is a temporary pet, while Arcane Assault II is a permanent pet).

I can assure you this is one of my most powerful builds, being one of the only builds I’ve piloted to perform under 5-minute Crucible times. There is a lot of firepower behind the set, and between 2 healing abilities, 2 circuit breakers, and an invulnerability button, there’s a lot of survivability to ensure your most dangerous targets get deleted.

A little background to this: early on in AoM, an Agrivix Spellbinder was posted in the forums under the name of “Manly, Beefy caster.” Having been a huge Tim Follin fan before I had Grim Dawn, there was no way I was going to put the game down before making a beefy caster of my own. To make things more interesting, I decided not to include either Arcanist or Necromancer, but instead use the Demolitionist, as the bonuses to Vindictive Flame make the character truly beefy and Ulzuin’s Wrath has the effect of punching bad guys in the face without even making a move to hit them. Thus, this build was born.

Sources of RR:
Agrivix pets - 24 flat RR
Spectral Miasma - 30 Aether RR
Thermite Mines - 35 Aether RR, 32 Lightning RR
Widow - 35 Aether + Lightning RR
Divine Sword of Damocles - 20 Aether RR, 15 Lightning RR
Crosier of Osirus - 15 Aether RR
Total RR - 159 Aether RR, 106 Lightning RR




Ignore the DPS line in the first picture, I use the keyboard to take snapshots and sometimes it doesn’t properly show the main skill.

Equipment
Weapon: Divine Sword of Damocles + Mythical Codex of Agrivix
Components: Seal of Blades + Purified Salt
Head: Satyr Craft with +1 to Spirit Skills with suffix “of the Flesh Hulk”
Component: Living Armor
Shoulders: Mythical Mantle of Agrivix
Component: Living Armor
Hands: Mythical Gabriel’s Vambraces
Component: Restless Remains
Feet: Mythical Stormtitan Threads
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Belt: Divine Sash of Erebus
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Pants: Mythical Arcane Harmony Leggings
Component: Spellscorched Plating
Chest Armor: Mythical Vestments of Agrivix
Component: Titan Plating
Amulet: Mythical Arcane Shard of Agrivix
Component: Bloodied Crystal
Rings: Mythical Seal of the Blazing Inferno + Divine Thoth’s Mark
Components: 2X Bloodied Crystal
Medal: Divine Anubis’ Wrath
Component: Arcane Spark
Relic: Crosier of Osiris

Agrivix Set comes with a huge amount of Cast Speed when you select Demo, as the 4-pc set bonus provides 10% Casting Speed to Vindictive Flame in addition to its normal speed bonus. Naturally, I looked for sklils that focused on Casting Speed and settled on a Channeling build, as I have attempted others in the past without great results. The kicker to choosing the Divine Sword of Damocles is that 100% of the Vitality damage in Drain Life is converted to Lightning; granted Lightning is only about 25% of the skill’s damage, but it gives the Demo class an advantage Arcanists and Necromancers don’t have: free Lightning damage boosts and RR. Spirit also has a Casting Speed buff, and both Dark Covenant and Circle of Power provide the OA you need to Crit consistently to activate the weapon’s RR. With 200% Casting Speed, Drain Life hits around 4+ times per second; while the damage needs some time to ramp up due to applying Widow, you have enough buffers that you can focus on your channeling without having to constantly kite.

The kicker to Ulzuin’s Wrath is that it can knock enemies over who are susceptible to it, allowing you to continue draining them without having to re-position yourself. Outside of Vindictive Flame, Thermite Mines, and Flame Touched, the only remaining skill I take is Blast Shield; taking Giant’s Blood bound to Blast Shield is perfect for a full heal just as you hit the circuit breaker. Combined with Spirit’s circuit breaker and Tree of Life, and you have multiple ways to heal yourself when Drain Life and Ulzuin’s Wrath are not enough.

The weakness of combining Drain Life with Agrivix’s Set is that you need to take several equipment slots away from Aether damage, so you have only 1900% Aether damage before Spirit bonuses. That will make this build weaker than more Aether focused builds like Spirit + Necromancer. You will have to keep an eye on your Blast Shield and Spirit circuit breaker cooldowns and make sure to distinguish between enemies you can tank and enemies that you have to disengage. This build is able to beat SR65-66, including beating Aether Resistant enemies like Reaper; but it is a harder challenge to clear the challenge with this build than other builds. Still, though, between two circuit breakers, Behemoth, Tree of Life with large natural Health Regeneration, and 26/16 Drain Life, this build satisfies the search for the Beefy Agrivix caster.

Build Objective: Raise the best Skeleton Army imaginable!

Sources of RR:
Guardian of Death’s Gate - 25 flat RR
Frailty - 30 Vitality RR
Spectral Wrath - 35 Vitality RR
Rattosh - 25 Vitality RR
Total RR - 115 Vitality RR

Featuring the most ever amount of skeletons in this build - 32 Skeletons + 1 Blood Golem!

Getting Skeletons to work in FG is not an easy task, and even harder when you have 2 classes of Skeletons and neither of them have decent pet Health, Resistances, or pet Healing (at least with this set-up). Combine that with the most heavily resisted damage type in the game and it’s a wonder I was able to have this work at all. Thankfully, the D3 mod has provided numerous Skeleton-based equipment that allows me to fully cap Command Skeletons at 26/16, leaving me the rest of the slots to focus on vanilla Necromancer’s Raise Skeletons and keeping my pets healthy.

Sadly, I’m not able to use Time Dilation to provide a more reasonable upkeep for Call of the Grave + Frenzy, as you need the Empiryon Constellation just to give yourself enough resistances to survive the onslaught. It’s definitely worth it, though, as you need your Skeletons to survive long enough that you only need the occasional re-summon to keep your army in fighting shape. Similarly, investing in further RR is more important than investing in Shephard’s Crook, especially as between Call of the Grave and Frenzy, you will raise your pet stats to the point where more pet damage will result in diminishing returns and raising RR - especially against heavily resistant Nemeses - is more worth it.

Instead of taking Commander of the Risen Dead and focusing on Aether damage, we instead take Guardian of Death’s Gate + Master of Death to give our pets 100% Physical to Vitality conversion, with 2X Spiritbinder Glyphs giving us 100% Elemental to Vitality so we can use Skeleton Archers as well. Damage-wise, this build best benefits from Command Skeletons with Aetherfire bound to them, as it’s the only devotion left that doesn’t have a cooldown, so you have 13 Skeletons stacking up Aetherfire pools for good damage. Skeleton Archers take the Bat devotion, as they are less sturdy than Command Skeletons and I find myself having to resummon these Skeletons the most. Raise Skeletons takes up the Rattosh devotion, ensuring that the RR stays on the enemy for the whole fight.

To keep the Skeletons alive, I provide 2 sources of healing: Tree of Life devotion, and Bysmiel’s Authority gives us an on-command heal while giving pets flat RR on hit. Combined with Necromancer’s Spectral Wrath and Skeleton’s Rattosh devotion, and you have nearly 100% maximum RR working at all times, having only to cast Frailty to get the rest of it going. You can’t really do anything about the lack of pet Pierce Resistance, meaning Fabius is going to be a pain for this build. Outside of that, you have 80-85% resistances all around, meaning that as long as you’re careful about pulling bosses, you can even survive Shattered Realms without frantically resummoning your Skeletons all the time.


Build Objective: Make the best use of a Diviner’s Set hybrid possible.

Source of RR:
Diviner’s Set Helmet - 25 flat RR
Ill Omen (Diviner’s Helmet Mod) - 12 Vitality RR
Cryptstalker Aura - 15 Vitality RR
Spirit Deathchill Aura - 25 Vitality RR
Spectral Wrath - 30 Vitality RR
Rattosh - 25 Vitality RR
Total RR - 132 Vitality RR

The Diviner’s Set is back, and since sadly there are no Spirit pets that are immortal, the best way to build a Diviner’s Set pet build is to do away with the Spirit pets all together and focus on big Reap Spirit damage. The set itself has undergone a lot of changes since the initial build post; what used to be an Aether + Vitality hybrid is now a pure Vitality caster - the Spiritbinder Glyph rings convert all of the Wraiths’ cold damage to Vitality, and any kills from the Reap Spirit attack summon Bound Wraiths that also inflict full Vitality damage.

Cryptstalker is a new addition to Grim Dawn from v1.1.6.0 - it provides a 15% Aether and Vitality RR aura 5m around the character. Normally, that would spell disaster for pet builds, but since Spirit’s Deathchill Aura is also a 5m aura that provides Vitality and Aether RR, the weapon is a great fit for this build. To provide the necessary staying power to keep within that radius, we use Dryad bound to Reap Spirit. Dark Covenant is now a full-fledged heal that provides Critical damage for you and your pets, which compliments nicely with Call of the Grave’s and Hungering Void bonuses.

What’s the secret to this build’s success? Spirit provides a huge number of racial bonuses, especially against Aetherials and Undead. There are two circuit breakers - one from Spirit’s Death Ward and the other from the medal which is the GQ equivalent of Unlife. And Spectral Binding and Spirit Ward combine to give the build over 17K health.

Hi TPOM,

Really enjoying your compendium! Quick question, how did you get your blood golem to work in the D3 Necro + vanilla necro build? The current D3 Necro build in Grimarillion 62a causes a crash to desktop when the blood golem transmuter is used and you summon the blood golem (D3 mastery author has it fixed in the update this week, but it’s not incorporated in Grimarillion yet). I’ve been wanting to try a similar build as yours, but with Spirit.

Build Objective: To use the Blood Knight set with the Raise the Dead devotion for maximum player-scaled skeletons

Source of RR:
Raise the Dead - 24 flat RR
Trance of Clairvoyance - 25 Vitality RR
Rattosh - 25 Vitality RR
Soul of Narzan - 15 Vitality RR
Will of the Fallen - 15 Vitality RR
Total RR - 104 Vitality RR

The Blood Knight build used to be property of Necromancer + Terror Knight, except when I tried it in the Shattered Realms, the timer would run out before I’d even hit the boss segments! The Necromancer section simply didn’t have the strength to handle the SR content, so instead, I switched over to the Soldier class (and good thing as well, as Soldier was the hardest class to figure out how to incorporate pets with it) and it works much better. The Blood Knight set takes the skill Counter Strike close to 26/16, converting all of its damage to Vitality. Solider passives work tremendously well here, with the large OA bonus from Field Command and Fighting Spirit helping to get the Crit attacks necessary to activate the weapon RR; free armor absorption to help with filling out resistances, and Menhir’s Will to work alongside Serenity and Giant’s Blood to make the build tank any group of monsters that come your way. As the class provides no RR of its own for a damage type that is often heavily resisted, we bring in three slots that add RR procs to help along.

The Dream class provides a main attack and some great flat Aether damage which is converted to Vitality thanks to the Blood Knight’s helmet and 4 piece bonus. Otherwise, the bottom row of passives and Foresight, which is the GQ equivalent of Necromancer’s Mark of Torment, rounds out the rest of the build: total Speed, an Arcane Will equivalent proc, Vitality and Chaos resistances, and Retaliation damage which helps bolster Counter Strike’s damage.

Build Objective: To feature the Spirit and Dream pets as they have the best synergy with each other.

Sources of RR:
Gatekeeper skill or Prophecy Amulet skill - 20 flat RR
Deathchill Aura - 30 Vitality RR
Trance of Clairvoyance - 30 Vitality RR
Rattosh - 25 Vitality RR
Total RR - 105 Vitality RR

Spirit and Dream pets have been worked on extensively and is now one of the best Mastery combination for pets there is. The Divine Kallixenia’s Momento Set drives the damage toward Vitality damage, converting 100% of Chaos damage from Dream’s Master Mind to Vitality. The set provides double Liche King summons; according to ASLYUM, the Liche King is modeled after the Raven, but with an immunity to Vitality damage instead of Lightning damage. Vitality damage is ideal for immunities, as attacks with %Reduction to Health are partly mitigated by Vitality resistance.

Offensively, Vitality pets have a huge benefit to damage; between Hungering Void & the Gatekeeper proc, you have an extra 720% Vitality damage in addition to the 1600% All Damage bonus taken from the above pic + 200% All damage bonus from Hungering Void. The changes to GQ equipment mean that you can far more easily cap your pets’ resistances, making it far easier for your double Liche Kings to stay alive.

Build Objective: To make the most of Svylan Nymph using the Druid’s Set.

Sources of RR:
Elemental Storm - 32 Elemental flat RR
Plague - 25 Elemental RR
Squall - 25 Elemental RR
Arcane Bome - 35 Lightning RR
Avatar of Bast - 10 Elemental RR
Total RR - 127 Lightning RR

From the video’s description:
I originally made in my build compendium a Winter Nymph build that converted all of its Elemental damage to Cold damage using various conversion items. Now there is a Druid’s staff that provides +2 to both classes and converts 100% Elemental damage to Lightning, rendering the Cold build moot.

This is a solid build using the TQ Druid’s set, capable of 5 minute Crucible times as well as easy SR gameplay. The key is combining capping your pets’ resistances and maintaining great pet speed with Mogdrogen the Wolf.

Damn!

Thank you so much, TPOM, you’ve put a lot of work into this.

(Must shout out to all the devs for the work they’ve put in to the various mods).

Do you think these builds are viable WITHOUT the equipment you’ve listed?

P.S. Did you ever do anything like this for DAIL?

Do you think physical based build of nature+occultist would work? There would be sources of RR from plague, cof, and manticore at least. Since i don’t have items for all these fancy full conversion builds in this mod. I’m not sure about rest of the devotions though.

Fifth Class Feature is Witch Doctor!

Witch Doctor was given a hearty introduction with my first build in the Compendium, using the Zunimassa Set that gives +2 to Witch Doctor and makes Tiki Warriors quasi-permanent pets. Sadly, before D3’s ultimate update that introduced the Kanai’s Cube, the Zunimassa Set was the only way to get +All Skills in Witch Doctor, which is a shame since Witch Doctor is a heavy, heavy skill-point hungry Mastery, and that’s true whether or not you make a pet build with it. Witch Doctor has multiple buffs, a passive to help with Energy Regeneration, 2 flat RR abilities - one for Elemental RR that gives Damage reduction and the other a standard RR ability, stackable RR that only unlocks when you have 12/12 invested in it and usually needs more than that for the uptime to match the cooldown, and Pierce the Veil- the great offensive buff featured in the Zunimassa build that grants an amazing Damage and OA boost in exchange for a massive Energy Drain that requires you to build around it. Thankfully, there are plenty of classes that grant passive Energy Regeneration and the devotion Harp - and if you need even more than that, Tree of Life - is a universal way to keep your passive Energy at manageable levels when in the heat of battle.

Let’s dive into the abilities themselves: Burning Dogs is largely invested because 16/16 increases the number of Dogs summoned from 3 to 4, and unlike most pet abilities, they are all summoned at once. A neat strategy with this is that if you see any of the Dogs weakened, direct them towards a target and re-summon all of them to pile on their Sacrifice damage. The damage is Physical, so you have to find a way to convert that damage, whether it be Cold through Winter King Sword, Elemental with Zunimassa + Black Pearl Rings, or Acid when FG comes out and you have access to Ghol’s Malice set. You can summon even more Burning Dogs by killing enemies with Grasp of the Dead, but that requires heavy investment in Hybrid gameplay, and the Dog’s mainly Physical damage does not sync well with Grasp of the Dead’s Poison / Vitality damage. Gargantuan has a Poison cloud when you invest 16/16 in it, and Tall Man’s Finger ring + Kunai Relic allows you to summon multiple Gargantuans at once. Tikis are usable even without the Zunimassa Set, but they are then used as a temporary pet similar to Conjure Primal Spirit.

Even if you don’t like looking for pet Stats, player-scaled Witch Doctors can summon multiple pets thanks to the Jade Harvester Set and its emphasis on Soul Harvest. The second node of Soul Harvest is the afore-mentioned flat RR ability, and the last node lets you summon Cold / Vitality pets if you kill enemies with the ability. Additionally, Corpse Spiders are also player-scaled, and you can summon many spiders to swarm the field as long as you have reasonable cooldown reduction. Phantasmal Blast and its second node are low in damage, but amazing for proccing devotion abilities due to the split projectiles. Mass Paranoia is a long uptime + long cooldown ability that grants Fire, Cold, Poison and Vitality stackable RR. Lastly, it’s hard to mention Witch Doctor without promoting its great survivability. Walk the Plane is a Mirror-like invincibility ability that grants a small heal when you soft-cap the skill, and Spirit Vessel is a circuit breaker that heals you for half your health when you reach 30% Health. Overall, Witch Doctor is a great class that’s slightly hampered by the sheer number of skill points and +skill bonuses that are required to make its abilities worth it, but amazing when you pair it with a less-hungry Mastery that helps with more RR capability.


For those who are tired of seeing Pet stats and want to see builds that whack enemies on their own volition, Witch Doctor is the last of my class features that focus on summoning. With the exception of one unrevealed pet build, all builds after this class feature will emphasize on good old-fashioned no-nonsense player-focused builds. There will still be pets, as is the nature of my compendium, but they will all scale with player damage, so you don’t have to go out of your way to build around them, for when they benefit, you benefit as well.

Build Objective: Take two classes that are normally used for pet-scaled pets and instead focus on Witch Doctor’s player scaled pets.

Sources of RR:
Jade Harvester Haunt - 20 Cold RR
Plague - 30 Cold RR
Mass Paranoia - 30 Cold RR
Rumor - 23 Cold RR
Ethereal Veil - 10 Cold RR
Hand of Ultos - 25% Elemental
Total RR - 113 Cold RR

The defining feature of Soul Harvest comes in the final node: if you kill an enemy with it, you summon a player-scaled pet that does Cold + Vitality damage. With our investment, you can summon up to 8 Slaved Souls at once - between CDR / Refresh and Jade Harvester set’s flat cooldown reduction, you can throw Soul Harvest quickly enough to slay multiple groups of trash mobs one after another. Ethereal Veil adds permanent pets that help with RR, so you can easily have over 10 pets attacking the enemy while getting your Soul Harvests ready to get the kill. Equipment is standard, OA is high enough to regularly Crit enemies, the other slots + devotions are focused on Crit damage. Chillspikes + Blizzard + Hand of Ultos add to DPS when there aren’t many pets in the background. Devotions focus on getting Ultos first, then getting the available sources of Crit damage.

Sixth Class Feature is Elementalist!

With the hideously overpowered features of the other Zenith classes (Riftstalker’s innate CDR and 150% Crit Damage, Necrotic’s amazing passives and innate ADCTH, Champion’s stupidly strong passives and huge RR, Terror Knight’s great flat RR and Entropic Reign), Elementalist glides under the radar. Where other classes shine with their main damage abilities, Elementalist shines with its multiple buffs and supporting role - the most obvious of which is the ability to convert 100% Elemental damage to one of the three Elemental types. As such, I focused my builds on those that involve multiple Elemental types and benefit greatly from having Elementalist convert them into a single type. Surprisingly, there are not many classes that fit this mold: classes that do have good Elemental abilities such as Crusader or Wizard don’t have the RR to maintain a decent shred [Elementalist itself just has flat RR, which can easily be replaced by the Rhowan’s Crown devotion if you’re in need of skill points], and those who do have good Elemental RR like Occultist or Champion don’t have any abilities worth the Elemental type conversion. I’m sure that Elementalist’s main damage skills could carry a build if you give it enough skill point bonuses; for the purposes of this Compendium, though, we let it have a back seat so that we can demonstrate what other classes can do when they’re unleashed.

Where pets are involved, Zenith creator Ceno gave all the vanilla pet items such as Primal Instinct to the Elementalist. Two AoE buffs could be used in a pet build, especially since flat Fire damage is great for Swarmlings; however, the focus on fire means that as a support type, Elementalist is particularly outclassed by the Earth class, much less the other 2 Primal Instinct classes Shaman and Nature. Instead, we stick with the player-scaled theme and build around Elemental Seekers. These pets last for 3 seconds and detonate at the target of their choosing; focused on one Elemental type, these Seekers can do great damage, especially with the large Crit bonus they have. With enough CDR to reduce their cooldown to 1 second or less, this devotion proc is amazing with tick debuffs such as Occultist’s Curse of Frailty or Inquisitor’s Word of Pain. In addition, the Flametongue relic provides mini-Seekers of its own; not only is their damage great, but they provide 10% Stackable Elemental RR as well. As such, my Elementalist builds will feature both of these pets. With Blind Sage’s 10 Ascendant and 18 Eldritch affinity requirements, you have to build your devotions around satisfying that and a nice T3 Elemental ability. Fire has Meteors and Cold has Leviathan; sadly, Lightning is the odd man out in this equation.

Build Objective: To use Elementalist’s full Elemental conversion to make single-type Seekers, along with Demon Hunter’s Devastation-like spell, but if Devastation projectiles were birds falling out of the sky.

Sources of RR:
Elemental Storm - 32 flat Elemental RR
Demon Hunter Bolt - 30 Elemental RR
Rumor - 23 Cold RR
Flametongue - 10 Elemental RR
Total RR = 93 Cold RR

Equipment
Weapon: Mythical Etrayu
Components: Seal of the Night
Head: Mythical Silver Sentinel’s Mask
Component: Sacred Plating
Shoulders: Mythical Spaulders of Zakara
Component: Sacred Plating
Hands: Mythical Chilling Grip of Hagarrad
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Feet: Uliana’s Destiny
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Belt: Hunter’s Wrath
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Pants: Mythical Arcane Harmony Leggings
Component: Scaled Hide
Chest Armor: Uliana’s Heart
Component: Titan Plating
Amulet: Mythical Executioner’s Judgment
Component: Tainted Heart
Rings: Alkamo’s Touch of Anguish + Alkamo’s Touch of Dread
Components: Purified Salt + Imbued Silver
Medal: Satyr Craft with +Elementalist Skills and Suffix “of Scorched Runes”
Component: Tainted Heart
Relic: Tongue of Flame with 3% DA bonus

Devotions: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4Vxg1jv2

The Rain of Beasts ability naturally converts 100% of its Pierce damage into Cold damage, so we take the rest of the build and focus on Cold damage. The build originally used the Mythical Frigid Quillbreath which was primarilly Physical damage. Uliana’s Heart converts 25% Physical to Cold Damage; combined with the Weapon, Amulet, and Component conversion, the build featured 95% Physical to Cold in addition to 55%-60% Pierce to Cold. Then Grimer introduced Mythical Etrayu, and this build transformed from great to monstrous. Hungering Shot is a Savagery-like skill that can reach up to 140% Weapon damage. Hunter’s Wrath adds a 4% Total damage modifier; when added to the 10% modifier from the Demon Hunter’s passive, you can plow through enemies with nothing more than the auto-attack.

Demon Hunter’s Ballistics gives flat Piercing damage, Rapid Fire and Elementalist’s Flame-Touched like buff provides flat Fire damage. With the new 1.0.7.0 augments, you get flat Lightning damage as well; most of the Pierce and all of the Elemental damage is converted to Cold damage. The real pets in this build are Elemental Seekers and Tongue of Flame, both of which are primarily Elemental damage - having them converted into 1 damage type maximizes their damage output - Tongue of Flame specifically has great damage for an Empowered Relic. Chillspikes, Blizzard, and Leviathan provide the AoE, and hard-capping the last node of Hungering Shot provides a near 75% chance to pierce through enemies. Alkamo’s Rings are incredibly tough to find; if you want the Pierce to Cold conversion, Nightscorn rings do just as well, but you would need to find places to get an appropriate OA.