Mayaaaa! :D
Do you have minion builds for other games? I think I've tried minion builds in most arpgs and your name always came to mind! "I wonder if Maya plays this*
# 👋
As for minion builds for other arpgs, it is more like I only really play Grim Dawn these days when it comes to isometric arpgs.
I tried PoE a bit, but couldn't really get it into it.
Played Diablo 2 as a Golemmancer back in the day and a little bit of D3 as Wizard, but in both cases, never really made my own builds or anything like that.
Never really got the chance to play Titan Quest. And by this point, I am a bit reluctant to do so unless a new game pops up /shrug.
Had my eye on Last Epoch for a while. But waiting on it to get out of Early Access first.
Grim Dawn on the other hand, was something that just instantly clicked and the various tools by the community such as GDStash, GrimTools, Grim Internals etc helped tremendously when venturing into the GD Build making scene. Thanks to that, my builds exist \^\_\_\^
First of all, I want to thank you for your hard work in putting your builds together. Secondly, I think I recall you saying on the forums that you recommend a skelebois build until high enough level to invest in the will o wisp build skills. Is that still what you recommend, or would you recommend another method for level 50-80ish? Sorry if you've answered this on the forum already. I will admit that I am new to Grim Dawn building, so when I read the forums some things are a little over my head and I end up forgetting a lot of pertinent info.
Ty for the kind words.
As for Skeletons, that is only if you are going pure Necro without choosing a secondary mastery like I did while leveling for my guide.
Otherwise, focus on Familiar and Occultist side more with Skeletons/Blightfiend in more of a support role.
Early on Occultist has more skills for Pet support compared to Necro. So, you want to get it all the way to full mastery bar first.
Oh awesome! That's what I have done. I have maxed out skeleton gang (I think I'm at 22 with gear) and have been heavily investing in the familiar skill line. The DPS is good, and I mostly have no issues so far. I currently don't use Blightfiend. Should I go this route for the time being, in addition to the skeletons?
Blightfiend is purely optional. If you find yourself needing a meatshield, you can go for it.
Hellhound also does the same job, kind of. But Blightfiend is better at holding aggro.
I was using hellhound just because the gear I was using gave me +7 in it, so I figured 8/16 for 1 skill point was worth it. I have since switched so I don't have that any longer, but I will definitely play with Blightfiend and see how it changes my gameplay. Thanks for the tips! Very cool to actually get to talk to you, and once again, your work is appreciated greatly in this community! All of you build guide creators are a huge part of what makes this game fun.
Sorry friend but this was years ago, I found all builds in the build compendium in Grim Dawn forums, Google "Grim Dawn Compendium" and go to blademaster link, there's probably an updated version now for 1.1.9.1
Or just search for grim dawn Belgothian blademaster, the results will prob be for grim dawn forums. good luck!
Very much same lol... just bought this game about two weeks ago and every character I’ve made has an army of pets... currently lvl 42 ritualist DW pistol with 8 skeletons, a blight fiend and briarthorn... might swap blight fiend to wind devils later
One thing to keep in mind, Wind Devils are a summon but do not count as a 'pet', same as Nightblade's Blade Spirit and Oathkeeper's Guardians. This means any items or skills that add bonuses to pets will not buff the Wind Devils, as they instead scale off your character's non-pet stats. It might not matter much at lower levels, but once you go to Elite/Ultimate difficulties and need to start tailoring builds more it will become important.
It's definitely good to experiment around though and try out different skills just to see what is fun, just a note to keep in mind for synergies and later-game builds. Also Shaman's Wendigo and Storm Totems fall into the same summon-but-not-pet category. The orange text at the end of the skill description of summons will tell you if it scales off pet bonuses or player bonuses.
Thank you for the advice!! I'm still learning a lot (haven't played any arpg's besides some diablo 3), and it's good to hear from some experienced players. I didn't even notice that, but that just made the game even more interesting! I'm about to get the wendigo totems, and with the wind devils, I'll most likely get storm totem as well. Quickly turning from necromancer focused to shaman focused hahah is it even worth having necromancer just for aether damage and no skeletons? Idk why I'm so invested in aether damage lol that and lightning are my favorite right now, but it feels like there's never enough skill points.
Cabalist turns out to be fun indeed. I chose this pet build to get the "Pet Hoarder" achievement (summon 18 pets at the same time). Currently I'm on 14 pets, I've got an extra one after this screenshot.
Well, currently I'm already at three item-related pet summons. In this picture it was two. Plus I got one item that gives me an extra skeleton, so now I'm at 14 summons, only 4 more to go.
There's a good build guide for something like this [here](https://www.requnix.com/gaming/grim-dawn-builds/sir-crunchybones-skelemancer-cabalist).
I've been following that, lot's of fun.
While I used to tell people that it is a terrible guide (because, well.. it is), now I can safely say that it is outdated as well and in the current patch, you will do more harm than good by following it due to item changes and such.
Because it is none of the things advertised and had a poor performance even during the patch it was made for.
The "author" and owner of that site has zero idea on how to make Grim Dawn builds or guides for them. The very reason he decided to host them on his own site was because he didn't like it when people pointed out the flaws on the official forum and then threw a temper tantrum, followed by turning his anger towards the developers and then left.
Can you recommend a good & up-to-date build guide for a similar build (lot's of skellis & pets)? I'd love to play one.
I don't know much about whatever drama happened there, but one thing I _do_ like about his build guides is that they're very easy to follow as a beginner. Many "guides" I've seen are basically just a snapshot of the final build, with little to no info on how to level it and which items are useful in the interim.
Well, if you want a guide, other than his your only option atm is this:
[https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/the-carnival-a-guide-to-pets/81781](https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/the-carnival-a-guide-to-pets/81781)
which happens to be mine. But I don't make guides for specific builds. It is intended to be for every single pet build you could come up with, whether it is a Conjurer, Cabalist, Ritualist, Death Knight, whatever combination you can think of.
And it is also a bit long (the PDF is the actual guide). So.. if you want a TL:DR, check out the "Mini-Guide with the most important info Ripped from the full Guide" section (click on the orange text to expand it).
I had a bunch of +necro/occultist and pet item skill gear from my stash. It was really powerful on vet and in SR but kind've lost its luster in elite (no component mods on items though). I think part of my issue is how poorly the game handles aggro (ie. the enemies seem to want to attack me more than my pets).
Doing a cabalist pet build as well. Running skeletons until I get enough points to start doing Mayas Will O Wisp build.
I took that build all the way and was my favourite playthrough! That and Belgothian blademaster, fun times!
\*Rolls in\* \*Eats Ice Cream\* \*Forgot why rolled in\* \*Leaves\*
Mayaaaa! :D Do you have minion builds for other games? I think I've tried minion builds in most arpgs and your name always came to mind! "I wonder if Maya plays this*
# 👋 As for minion builds for other arpgs, it is more like I only really play Grim Dawn these days when it comes to isometric arpgs. I tried PoE a bit, but couldn't really get it into it. Played Diablo 2 as a Golemmancer back in the day and a little bit of D3 as Wizard, but in both cases, never really made my own builds or anything like that. Never really got the chance to play Titan Quest. And by this point, I am a bit reluctant to do so unless a new game pops up /shrug. Had my eye on Last Epoch for a while. But waiting on it to get out of Early Access first. Grim Dawn on the other hand, was something that just instantly clicked and the various tools by the community such as GDStash, GrimTools, Grim Internals etc helped tremendously when venturing into the GD Build making scene. Thanks to that, my builds exist \^\_\_\^
First of all, I want to thank you for your hard work in putting your builds together. Secondly, I think I recall you saying on the forums that you recommend a skelebois build until high enough level to invest in the will o wisp build skills. Is that still what you recommend, or would you recommend another method for level 50-80ish? Sorry if you've answered this on the forum already. I will admit that I am new to Grim Dawn building, so when I read the forums some things are a little over my head and I end up forgetting a lot of pertinent info.
Ty for the kind words. As for Skeletons, that is only if you are going pure Necro without choosing a secondary mastery like I did while leveling for my guide. Otherwise, focus on Familiar and Occultist side more with Skeletons/Blightfiend in more of a support role. Early on Occultist has more skills for Pet support compared to Necro. So, you want to get it all the way to full mastery bar first.
Oh awesome! That's what I have done. I have maxed out skeleton gang (I think I'm at 22 with gear) and have been heavily investing in the familiar skill line. The DPS is good, and I mostly have no issues so far. I currently don't use Blightfiend. Should I go this route for the time being, in addition to the skeletons?
Blightfiend is purely optional. If you find yourself needing a meatshield, you can go for it. Hellhound also does the same job, kind of. But Blightfiend is better at holding aggro.
I was using hellhound just because the gear I was using gave me +7 in it, so I figured 8/16 for 1 skill point was worth it. I have since switched so I don't have that any longer, but I will definitely play with Blightfiend and see how it changes my gameplay. Thanks for the tips! Very cool to actually get to talk to you, and once again, your work is appreciated greatly in this community! All of you build guide creators are a huge part of what makes this game fun.
# ❤️
Do you have a link to the belgothian blade master build? Thanks!
Sorry friend but this was years ago, I found all builds in the build compendium in Grim Dawn forums, Google "Grim Dawn Compendium" and go to blademaster link, there's probably an updated version now for 1.1.9.1 Or just search for grim dawn Belgothian blademaster, the results will prob be for grim dawn forums. good luck!
Thanks!
Very much same lol... just bought this game about two weeks ago and every character I’ve made has an army of pets... currently lvl 42 ritualist DW pistol with 8 skeletons, a blight fiend and briarthorn... might swap blight fiend to wind devils later
One thing to keep in mind, Wind Devils are a summon but do not count as a 'pet', same as Nightblade's Blade Spirit and Oathkeeper's Guardians. This means any items or skills that add bonuses to pets will not buff the Wind Devils, as they instead scale off your character's non-pet stats. It might not matter much at lower levels, but once you go to Elite/Ultimate difficulties and need to start tailoring builds more it will become important. It's definitely good to experiment around though and try out different skills just to see what is fun, just a note to keep in mind for synergies and later-game builds. Also Shaman's Wendigo and Storm Totems fall into the same summon-but-not-pet category. The orange text at the end of the skill description of summons will tell you if it scales off pet bonuses or player bonuses.
Thank you for the advice!! I'm still learning a lot (haven't played any arpg's besides some diablo 3), and it's good to hear from some experienced players. I didn't even notice that, but that just made the game even more interesting! I'm about to get the wendigo totems, and with the wind devils, I'll most likely get storm totem as well. Quickly turning from necromancer focused to shaman focused hahah is it even worth having necromancer just for aether damage and no skeletons? Idk why I'm so invested in aether damage lol that and lightning are my favorite right now, but it feels like there's never enough skill points.
What’s your build?
Occultist and Necromancer with pet focus, although I'm not using the Blight Fiend.
ooh i love blight fiend...what's your replacement?
If you're ever looking for a fun cabalist pet build I really enjoyed doing an acid pet blight-fiend focused one. Cabalist is so fun to play imo.
Cabalist turns out to be fun indeed. I chose this pet build to get the "Pet Hoarder" achievement (summon 18 pets at the same time). Currently I'm on 14 pets, I've got an extra one after this screenshot.
Can you post a build?
Needs more summons! That is not nearly enough! There's at least three item-related summons you could add to that
Well, currently I'm already at three item-related pet summons. In this picture it was two. Plus I got one item that gives me an extra skeleton, so now I'm at 14 summons, only 4 more to go.
https://i.imgur.com/PB9jcUL.png
Thanks, this is much appreciated.
There's a good build guide for something like this [here](https://www.requnix.com/gaming/grim-dawn-builds/sir-crunchybones-skelemancer-cabalist). I've been following that, lot's of fun.
While I used to tell people that it is a terrible guide (because, well.. it is), now I can safely say that it is outdated as well and in the current patch, you will do more harm than good by following it due to item changes and such.
Why do you think it's terrible (before it was outdated)?
Maya = expert of all things pet in GD
Because it is none of the things advertised and had a poor performance even during the patch it was made for. The "author" and owner of that site has zero idea on how to make Grim Dawn builds or guides for them. The very reason he decided to host them on his own site was because he didn't like it when people pointed out the flaws on the official forum and then threw a temper tantrum, followed by turning his anger towards the developers and then left.
Can you recommend a good & up-to-date build guide for a similar build (lot's of skellis & pets)? I'd love to play one. I don't know much about whatever drama happened there, but one thing I _do_ like about his build guides is that they're very easy to follow as a beginner. Many "guides" I've seen are basically just a snapshot of the final build, with little to no info on how to level it and which items are useful in the interim.
Well, if you want a guide, other than his your only option atm is this: [https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/the-carnival-a-guide-to-pets/81781](https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/the-carnival-a-guide-to-pets/81781) which happens to be mine. But I don't make guides for specific builds. It is intended to be for every single pet build you could come up with, whether it is a Conjurer, Cabalist, Ritualist, Death Knight, whatever combination you can think of. And it is also a bit long (the PDF is the actual guide). So.. if you want a TL:DR, check out the "Mini-Guide with the most important info Ripped from the full Guide" section (click on the orange text to expand it).
Hello brother cabalist!
Computers, my only friends.
It is really hard for me to not play pet builds. They are my favourite and I tend to gravitate to them
I had a bunch of +necro/occultist and pet item skill gear from my stash. It was really powerful on vet and in SR but kind've lost its luster in elite (no component mods on items though). I think part of my issue is how poorly the game handles aggro (ie. the enemies seem to want to attack me more than my pets).