forgive me, but i’m fairly new to Grim Dawn and this Forum. So far am i pretty much enjoying to twiddle around with masteries. Currently am i working on a Vitality Damage Ritualist (Necromancer/Shaman) and hoped some more experienced people could take a look at it and eventually lighten me up if that, what i fiddled out on that grimtools build editor would work.
I’ve allready started levelling a character to try this idea. But currently it’s just lvl14 and since i’m pretty new am i still unsure if this will work.
The idea was to work out a build that goes ballsdeep into Vitality damage, using Devouring Swarm as main skill (kind of replacing weapons), thus ignoring weapons and making both slots free to get %Vitality Damage, Resists, Health. So far i’ve to admit it’s a cakewalk relying on Devouring Swarm and Mogdrogen’s Pact (Lvl14).
Chosen Skills for my Build are:
-Devouring Swarm
-Mogdrogen’s Pact with it’s adds
-Storm Totem with it’s add (Absolutely no clue how to understand this light to vita conversion…)
-Wendigo Totem with it’s add
-Harbinger of Souls (Yay more Vita Damage and Attack damage to health)
-Bone Harvest with it’s adds (Except Harvester of Death)
-Spectral Binding with it’s add
Most of the skills should heal me for some amount as all skills either directly or via Devotions deal Vitality Damage and Attack damage to health.
Chosen Devotions are as following:
Gallows, Scales of Ulcama, Lion, Toad, Typhos, the Jailor of Souls, Rattosh, the Veilwarden, Affliction, Behemoth, Wendigo and Bat.
Since Devouring Swarm has no cooldown, i decided to use it as Default attack skill and casting Bone Harvest, Storm Totem and Wendigo Totem off cooldown.
Maybe someone is able/willing to enlighten me a little if this would work, how to spend my attribute points, what gear to pick (Health/Resists/%Vitality Damage?!).
Thanks in advance and good luck out there turning every rock in hope for THAT shiny item.
Hmm. Can’t tell how it will be later. But for now Devouring Swarm one shots all encounters (except bosses/heroes, those require to reinflict it two to three times). But yea. Level 16 going for a walk in Burrwitch. At first glance i wanted to spec for Dying God, but then i got afraid of the negative side effect it has. Paying over 300 Health per second doesn’t make me feel that comfortable…
Devouring Swarm really just replaces the auto attack.
Devouring Swarm, the Will of Rattosh and Spectral Wrath are mainly supposed to reduce Vitality Resistance for the Totems and Bone Harvest.
It definitely wont work out later at all. I have had 26/16 Devouring Swarm and used an item in every possible slot that adds flat damage to the skill. And it still does no where near enough damage to be a main damage skill.
If you are just using it as something to cast while totem does your main damage it will be OK.
Absolutely, max the swarm and the spectral and get ratosh by any means necessary. But later on the swarm’s damage will become rather irrelevant. Best see for yourself. Don’t take everything you read here for granted
Negative health regen from DG is gonna be like 0.1% of the damage you’ll be taking at endgame.
This thingy i worked out on my own. Didn’t read much about other people’s builds and stuff yet. But especially the Devotion system can be troublesome. Fun, but at times annoying to puzzle around with it. I’m somewhat sad tho.
So many Vitality Damage modifiers in the Devotion menu, yet it is impossible to have all. Decisions, decisions. But as this is my first character will i play it further for now. At last see how far i can get and learn how things work.
Gladly with my level 16 Ritualist i didn’t ran into much trouble. Only one a lvl21 monster in some cave nearly got me. The only time so far i had to use a health potion. Nice little emergency drinks, saved me from my first death. <3
Thanks tho for your hints and feel free to add more.
After rethinking a little i ended up going a bit different. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZPl83dZ
Still am i somewhat unsure about gear. Was looking a bit through the grimtools database…but can’t decide gearwise yet.
I just entered Elite, so i guess i still have little time to find fitting stuff.
All in all tho did normal mode end way too easy with this stuff. The only real issue was this Rashalga, the mad queen. Tho at that point i still had no access to Behemoth and Wendigo and thus was lacking heal. Since i got those am i simply sitting on bosses…
Quite handy to not require any default weapon attacks. I can simply run around spamming Bone harvest off cooldown and finishing most stuff with devouring swarm. So far i haven’t even seen much use for the both totems. xD
Bone harvest keeps triggering Wendigo Mark quite often whilst Devouring swarm procs the Twing Fangs from Bat aswell. On top of those they trigger Breath of Death. Quite handy… more damage…more heal yay.
When being hit i currently trigger Giant’s Blood, Prismatic Shield, Spirit Ward and Lifestealer Nova. Have a hard time to find much better stuff tho. Especially as Prismatic Shield keeps my resistances overcapped (I just entered Elite, still am i glad to be overcapped). So far my gear mainly stacks on %Vitality damage, main stats (Physique and Spirit mainly) and resistances.
If anyone has some additional advices, then feel free to post.
hi void, my first advice to you is utilize decay from ravenous earth.(the second skill) it reduces damage taken and also a good devotion trigger like twin fangs. Other than that you can do all you want until you get to late elite and then you really gotta come with a plan for your build (i usually do completely random stuff while leveling to test and because it doesnt matter that much). In the end it becomes much more tight what you can do and can’t do. Still free but much more restrictive if you want something that will actually work against most stuff. So my second advice is don’t work right now towards an endgame build. Look what you find, don’t skip greens - look at them and improve what you have.
Here is a beginner ritualist I made for my planned beginner build thread, I just played most of the campaign content on it and it was super nice. Easily cleared all main campaign content and managed to kill fabius, maiden, valdaran, and aleksander no problem. Only tough fight was kupacabra ofc All items are faction stuff or super easy to get MI. Just need some minimal resists from random pants, medal, and belt (craftable, but can use anything really). It smoothly/healthily clears mobs and while boss kill times aren’t insane they aren’t bad and you are borderline unkillable. Only bad part of build is late elite/early ultimate you will have a lull in power before you get master of death + max out your damage skills besides totem/ravenous
I beat campaign + killed all those nems wearing level 70 version of faction gear + using worst bonespike/groble effigy possible that I got in normal so build is pretty solid Once you swap to level 90 gear, craft mortality, and spend an hour or w/e farming up a half decent bone spike/effigy with some big % vitality boosts then the build really takes off. I beat 150 on challenger crucible too with 0 issue and no buff/banner, iirc I foolishly died on 160
You make huge mistake not using ravenous earth in your build. It’s a great source of damage and damage reduction + it’s an insane devotion proccer
Hey and thanks for your two cents.
To be fair so far am i even bored. Trying to rush Elite atm as i lack a challenge (I hope the Mad Queen will at last offer one). But i must admit i’m currently more of an aoe spammer with my Build. I keep proccing Hungering Void with Devouring Swarm, Wendigo Mark with Bone Harvest but whilst those both tick they frequently trigger Vitality Wave, Spectral Vortex and Breath of Death.
At the moment am i at a stage where i simply don’t know where to put all that heal. Even boss creeps seem to barely get me below 90%…
Vita Decay am i more or less ignoring. I’m more focussed on the raw Vitality Damage output but most Vitality items so or so come along with Vitality Decay on top. Upon stumbling through the Database one item cought my eyes.
The Mythical Soulbearer offers some interesting stuff towards Bone Harvest, Vitality Damage and Wendigo Totem.
Except Pierce Resistances are most of them either overcapped or near cap at the moment. Twin Fangs is on my Storm Totem right now, but both Totems do i only need for Bosses atm.
When i’m getting hit Giant’s Blood, Prismatic Shield (Have it for those nasty Resistance Debuffers), Spectral Wrath and Lifestealer Nova trigger. All in all loads of sources to deal Damage, which in return heals me.
At last i saw some funny 13-14k hits with Bone Harvest allready. Made me curious how far i can get it higher.
I think right now do i only have to fear oneshot-mechanics. But yea, i try to get a bit faster through Elite as i know the Story from normal and the foes are too easy.
One thing i wonder. Why do you suggest using Master of Death? It seems to mostly offer boosts for your pets, which you don’t seem to have…
Btw Ravenous Death i didn’t feel that comfortable with. Especially the last add Foul Eruption seems uncomfortable against singletargets.
Once you swap to level 90 gear, craft mortality, and spend an hour or w/e farming up a half decent bone spike/effigy with some big % vitality boosts then the build really takes off. I beat 150 on challenger crucible too with 0 issue and no buff/banner, iirc I foolishly died on 160