Man, I don't usually take time to comment on a video but recently I stumble on your channel and I'm always fascinated with the details you give, no one on the internet, can tell better about GD and this is where I come for info about classes, builds and everything related really. This time you did something awesome, showing the way since the first levels of the classes is essencial, lots of builds I couldn't go up a few levels because of not knowing what to do since I only had the lvl 100 grimtools kit to rely on. Thank you very much for the content, this is very very very good!
Hey I just wanted to say: thank you for your amazing guides and content, I just got grim dawn a week ago from the steam summer sale and I've been having a blast. Keep it up man :)
You are 100% the best grim dawn youtuber and streamer hands down! I have still yet to make it too 100 on grim dawn and will be going for vitality caster. Thanks for the amazing content!
Your stuff is excellent even in 2024. I have had this game since 2016 and finally giving it a go. I will say the one awkward thing I have experienced is that the pox is not spreading anymore cuz it one shota mobs. I actually have gone back to raven because it went from a great AOE to a bad single target kill (except against elites)
Thanks for the great explanation man. I started making a vitality character yesterday and I am skipping Normal difficulty with merit (just getting shrines of normal dif.) This video gave me some insight about what I can do in Elite with this Occultist. Keep it up, thank you.
Nice, good luck with the char! I speedleveled a Conjurer with the merit on patch 1.1.5 not too long ago aswell. This is the VoD ua-cam.com/video/fZ93wWfPZLU/v-deo.html
I just got the game in Steam as it was on sale for so cheap and i have been hearing how good it is from disgruntled diablo/blizzard fans (which I'm not btw), I have never played a game like this before, but i picked Occultisf for the first mastery. Which brought me here. Thrilled to know Occultist is good in this game unlike in Darkest Dungeon II lol
Great stuff. Just the 1-12 section at the end, could be it's own guide and is probably missed by a lot of people, since it's at the end of the video, while there's a lot of great early game tips there, especially for beginners.
This is an absolutely amazing resource! I just started playing GD about a month ago, barely started ultimate. Your name has come up quite a few times, and I can definitely see why. Thank you so much for all of the hard work you do! I hope you continuing enjoying what you do and I hope you're staying safe and well. :) Small critique, if that's ok, the "S" sounds are a little sharp in your videos I've noticed, I think it may be your mic, I'm not sure? But you might want to see if there is a software de-esser plugin you could use? It would make 96/100 contenrt into 100/100. Again, thank you for everything that you do, Rekt! Peace! :)
Yea my "S" is partly due to my accent and partly due to the fact that I am using a ~35$ headset mic, sorry about that. I will upgrade my mic soon. Glad you enjoy my content nevertheless! :-) Hope you're staying safe and healthy aswell!
dunno how things were, but i started playing and instead of raven i went eye balling, just rushed to blood burst, and i didnt have any problem one-2 shotting everything until i decided to skip half of the first act and go to the second act, basically 5-10 levels below most stuff there, granted, some bosses there did make things dificult for me, but the xp was so much faster that i just decided to keep going. managed to get to lvl 30 before coming back to deal with the rest of act 1. so dunno how fast it is for the raven, but i can garantee acid start is incredibly fast, and you dont even need that much either, as i spent most of those level just leveling mastery to unlock the last eye passive.
Hey, great video man! I was looking to do another build after my first HC attempt in Grim Dawn. I have almost a thousand hours clocked but I'm still kind of a noob at the game. Got bored of playing SC so I changed. My Cabalist build managed to get to level 93 and then I was cornered and stun-locked to death by flesh hulks. I was thinking a vitality caster is perfect for HC because of the life steal capabilities. Thanks for teaching me how to level an occultist. I had only played Soldier classes before.
As a vitality caster you usually wanna put a healthy mix of physique and spirit (rather more physique) and only as many points into cunning as needed to use weapons, which often is 0.
I'm curious as to why you rated Shaman higher than Necromancer as a secondary. I think Necromancer has a higher overall damage potential when pairing the skellies with the fiend devotion proc. I'd probably give the edge out to shaman for survivability with the Mogdrogen's Pact buff and the Briarthorn pet aura, but pet survivability tends to be a non issue in the late game, especially when I spec heavy into the blue line of the devotion tree.
I am no pet expert myself, I mostly recited the opinion of pet experts from the GD forum. The general consensus there seems to be that skellies are way too squishy without proper gear and even with the gear they are not any better than a pet conjurer with gear. So basically conjurers being better without gear and conjurers/cabalists being on the same level with BiS gear. Thus I rated the shaman overall higher for pets than necro.
I'm at lvl13 now and for the last 2 levels i am dealing too much damage, resulting in pox not being able to spread, not a big deal as soon as there is a biggie around ofc; so maybe transition slower into maxing blood pox and keeping the raven strong might even be faster with usual trash
Why do you put points in Raven early on? If you just go straight to bloody pox it will absolutely lay waste to everything early on. And once you get enough points you can just continue or respec as you suggest. But if you get pox ASAP (level 2) you can pretty much wreck everything. (To be fair I'm talking about the normal difficulty. )
Both is viable tbh, you could just continue using default attack only until level 3 and then spec into pox as you said. I mainly used Raven because you can use it from lvl 1 on and it's also what speedrunners tend to use. To be fair though, speedrunners tend to need more single target dps than AoE compared to normal leveling. In the end both methods are viable for the earliest levels with raven having worse aoe but better single target dmg and bloody pox being the inverse.
@@rektbyprotoss Thank you for you for the response! Also, I wanted to ask, why don't you recommend using 'hollow fang'? I'm quite a noob and to my untrained eye, it seems that the fang gives vitality damage buffs. Woudn't we want this over the other things?
@@TheWolverine1984 hollowed fang is good for damage, yes. But as long as you don't have all of your res at 80% I would not recommend going for it. That's why I usually recommend using components that give you res, even on weapons, such as e.g. imbued silver. Damage is not unimportant in Grim Dawn, but you will get enough from masteries, devotions and your weapons. On other gear slots aswell as on components and augments resistances are more important than damage. TL;DR: If you have maxed res already or you can't get your needed res on the weapon slot, feel free to use hollowed fang.
Hi! Great guide, as a beginner I find it immensely informative, thanks a lot! A quick question - I am around lvl. 35 something ... on the bosses, if I cast Pox with Fevered Rage - it makes them so fast & hard hitting ... am I just not supposed to use the Pox on tougher mobs? Also, as a general rule of thumb for early levels, am I right to just choose equipment with + vitality dmg over everything else? Thanks again for the guide!
As a vitality caster... Pox, Doom Bolt and another spell from your secondary mastery like e.g. totems and devouring swarm from shaman or ravenous earth and siphon souls from necromancer.
Is the "Totally Normal Bulwark" a viable replacement weapon in place of the boneblade at level 85? I'd be giving up the bloody pox bonuses, but, +1 to all Occult. . .
Thank you for an indepth guide. Always loved explanation like this where you dont have to bother with all the indepth skills and synergies....too old for that already lol. Only question is - what should i do to get more protection as enraged mobs at 24-25 now hit for like 20% of my hp...they dont die to fast and get that one hit in that takes out a chunk of health, plus that circle on ground only works for stationar targets - but all mobs get super fast after that curse and at so low defence im unable to circle around in so small space to keep em in it. And last this, that curse many times doesnt spread - mostly happens with spiders and swarm of flies. One more thing. Your gear doesnt add vitality damage bonus? Dont i need to stack it?
i had gear score 8 when i hit lvl 36 (avarage lvl of all items equipped) and was clearing everything super easy, not sure where your issues come from, i did some things different than in video, i have invested into shaman way earlier than lvl 43, around lvl 20 to get grasping vines and i'm casting curse of frailty a lot (both skills lvl 1). add to that constantly moving, cast pox and run for your life again, constantly, when you get wendigo totem you can start facetank some stuff, not much but still. that circle on the ground - sigil - is used mainly for bosses when you drop fevered rage, don't bother to have more than 1 point into that early. gear doesn't show vitality cause items in the video are base items with no mods, blank. video has been made in build planner - 3rd party program - GrimTools. in over all, yes you want as much vitality as you can get + max life + some armor + resists.
So what if I want to keep bloody pox, should I go with necro as my 2nd class instead of shaman? Thanks for all the guides and hard work btw, great content. Also, do you think Occultist is good for a bleed build with bloody pox or naw?
i went shaman anyways for totems, they are awesome sustain and greatly proc wendigo mark (when you have all 3 storms placed it's constantly ticking). Main skills: bloody pox, storm totem, wendigo totem, sigil (wendigo and sigil for harder enemies, for trash 1 click of pox to spread and 1 totem to proc stuff)
Yo, just wanted to ask about the devotion tree and what to do from level 43 onward. I unfortunately don't have forgotten gods, so I can't go through with unlocking lotus. Just wondering what devotions I should do instead? Also, how many points should I have at the end of the first playthrough on normal, going into elite difficulty? Cheers
to answer your question for future reference of others I went with bat > jackal > eel > wendigo > revenant > gallows > lizard > owl > ghoulish hunger > affliction > 2 points of kraken (all dmg %). Ended up with no points on crossroads and no point left with. Not entirely in that order after revenant.
Can you start as Shaman and do the same build? I feel like Shaman has a better farming skill, could be completely wrong though because I’m quite new to Grim Dawn.
If you plan to do a vitality Conjurer (shaman+occultist) anyway, then yes you can start out with devouring swarm, which is certainly the better skill for act 1.
@@rektbyprotoss Thank you! And I have been finding it hard to choose between different gears to equip. What should I value more? Higher armor rating, better resistances or just straight up more damage? And as for damage, do I just choose the ones with the highest +%Vit, Vit Decay and Bleed Damage? Thank you for these videos they really do help a ton. On my 2nd character atm, my first is a DW Purifier, still have a lot to learn.
Hi! Quite new to the game, love your work! Ive been leveling a conjuror at normal. Did level shaman first like you said, now im around 35. I found that i may lack direct damage, should I keep devouring swarm or respec the points in something else to have more direct damage? Though, the swarm is vitality damage too and got nice gear for that :/
Vitality Swarm is good in all phases of the game, it just starts to shift from a damage ability to a debuff ability at around lvl 20+. For single target damage you will have to start using sigil and doom bolts.
@@rektbyprotoss thank you for answering! Started doom bolting a bit, its pretty good! But costy. Also, just got the everlasting vampiric bonewall o/t wolf, it helps for survival!
@@etiennesimard1051 You're welcome! In the long run the sigil of consumption will become your main ability for both single target and aoe dmg, so anything supporting it like a good vampiric bonewall is perfect! :)
Hi bin gerade auf dein Video aufmerksam geworden. Und ich habe das Gefühl dein Akzent ist deutsch. Da mein Englisch nicht sehr gut ist, wollt ich fragen ob es eine Möglichkeit gibt dich über Discord oder so zu erreichen. (voraus gesetzt meine Vermutung mit deutsch ist überhaupt richtig) Denn leider gibt es für Grim Dawn nur sehr sehr wenige deutsche Guides eigentlich nur einer der das Devotion System erklärt. (keine Panik bin kein nerviges Kidi was dann ewig bei dir/euch abhängt hätte nur paar Anfänger Fragen zu Grim Dawn)
I'm a little late to the game. I've had it for a while, just never really dug into it because of it's complexity. I'm struggling with this build on Veteran mode. Having trouble surviving while bloody pox does it's work, any advice?
If you struggle with surviving while using fevered rage you can spec out of it as long as you already have a maxed sigil and maybe the shield for the sigil. Alternatively you could also use Dreeg's Evil eye with its transmuter if you have some gear supporting it.
@@rektbyprotoss Thanks! I don't think I placed my points in a proper order, but I just turned a corner the other day and now, I'm mowing down mobs! I've died a few times since, but mostly because I get lazy in the wrong places and don't anticipate just how fast some of the mobs come at me! Love your content, keep up the great work!
Hey thanks for the awesome vid. Very informative and helped me change completely from a pet build to this one which has been a lot more fun. One problem I'm having though is that I'm super squishy and die multiple times to elites and bosses. My resistances aren't that high, but I'm wondering if that's the reason, my items, my devotions level (since I switched from a pet build) or what the issue could be. In my current state, I don't think it's viable cause I die so easily.
At higher levels, in higher acts and/or higher difficulties 80% resistances are basically mandatory and you'll take lots of dmg if have lower res. Also try to have at least 100hp per lvl. Your items, devotions or skill point allocation could also be part of the reason, but it's kinda hard to comment on that without a grimtools link. As long as you roughly follow the skill allocation and devotions in this video and have gear that caps your res, you should be fine. Also if enemies swarm you too much, try removing the point in fevered rage.
@@rektbyprotoss awesome, thanks for the quick reply! I'll try to up my resistances first and see if that helps. I honestly don't plan to play GD for too long but liked and subbed cause your content is excellent. Thanks again!
Early on with the Raven, then add pox for AoE, then add the dog as a tank and blood of dreeg for healing. Later on drop pox and use curse of frailty instead for debuffing. For endgame pets are probably the strongest as e.g. this guide by Maya shows: forums.crateentertainment.com/t/birds-of-bysmiel-pet-occultist/49796
@@rektbyprotoss Thank you! I followed your guide up till lvl 53 now, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to lvl as a pure occultist. So need to switch to pets then, got it. I want a lvl 94 occultist to make a strong Har'Zin's deceiver.
@@rektbyprotoss They don't synergize that good. I've tried it once and got stuck on ca lvl 50. I believe a pure occultist would be better when correctly specked and equiped before lvl 94 when all the good stuff is usable. I mean, YOU could certainly do it, I don't really know the game that well to make deceiver work at low levels =)
@@Vladthestud it's still better to put points into the Inquisitor's mastery bar for raw stats (physique cunning spirit HP) than not doing it. Also Word of Renewal and Inquisitor's seal are universally useable support skills.
what's the standard of something being "HC viable"? whenever i see that statement im reminded that someone beat ultimate HC Korvaak without choosing a single class , which in turn means that any build is HC viable as long as it plays extremely safe. closest thing i can think of for the definition of HC viable would be "can turn off brain and go ham"
There is no real "standard" for "HC viable", it's pretty subjective tbh. For me HC viable means that you won't ever die in the ultimate main campaign as long as you don't pull the plug on your brain. This doesn't include SR75 or Crucible 170 or superbosses unless there are videos of me doing that content. My usual HC builds are usually not "turn off your brain and fall asleep" builds, because if you want that, you should rather go to bed and take a good nap instead of playing HC Grim Dawn. That said, on a occultist you might aswell fall asleep due to all the leech you have as long as you don't mess up your (faceroll) rotation. TL;DR: For me "HC viable" =/= "Turn off your brain and go ham", but "HC viable" = "you won't ever die, as long as you pay attention to the game" If you want to turn off your brain and go ham I suggest playing SC instead.
@@rektbyprotoss fair nuff, thanks for the reply. I always wondered what a HC player defines this as since ive been seeing various guides saying their char was HC viable while they had smth like 2.7k da or some other terrible stat like that
There are a few thing to consider : skills of the player (knowing the game, how many buttons can you utillize and how fast and accurate you can press them), how good is your PC and then the build itself which may be a complete crap or average or a top tier build. Also you should thing about what kind of high endgame areas/bosses you want to play with it. For example some builds are really good for SR and others for Crucible but i have never seen a build which is a reliable farmer in both areas in HC. Thinking of myself and knowing that i am just an average player with moderate understanding of this game, with weak pc and i have 2 really strong combinations : conjurer (lightning summoner, really good for sr 65-66) and warlord (acid retailator, excellent 150-170 crucible farmer), both of them very durable. I also have one forcewave tactitian but no matter how i tried to build him, he cannot compete with the other builds that i have. Here RektbyProtoss has some quite interesting builds but i don't have the hands to play them :) or i find them about the same of what i have already build. As i understood from his videos he likes defense 2.8k or higher, while i for example am satisfied with more than 3k so as he said it is subjective. For example i am quite lazy to level new chars and prefer to play with old ones while he experiments a lot and you can see his results. Also i like to play with fewer buttons then he plays (saying that i always am in need for one adittional slot for a skill or potion :) ), i like more tanky chars and even with them i avoid some bosses like gravathul like the plague.
I hit 100 for the first time, you have 106 attribute points, I only have 103, where do your extra 3 points come from if you don't mind another question?
You get 3 attribute points from the hidden path (dreeg, solael, bysmiel, Temple of the three), 1 per difficulty. Maybe you have missed it, but there are also couple of other quests that give you attribute points. You can use the checklist on grimtools to see which ones you are exactly missing.
@@rektbyprotoss Thanks! I've done the hidden path on both normal and elite, working on it on ultimate now . . . must've missed the other ones on elite or something. . . I'll double check. Every little bit helps! Now if I can get around all the stuns on ultimate! You're videos have made playing the game so much more entertaining, thanks!
Thank you for this guide @RektbyProtoss , I am loving my vitality Occultist/shaman now. I took 95% of your advice for the build (am L37 so far) but I was hoping you could explain something to me: why do you prioritise black death talent so much? it seems kinda crappy to me, but i don't know much about the game yet. Also, would you mind explaining how second right works? It seems to add flat vitality damage to my weapon when I have solael's witchfire buff active, but does it do that flat vitality damage every second like sigil of consumption does? (they are written very similar but upon testing dont' seem to function similar) Thanks for any help! :)
Imo bloody pox with fevered rage is the fastest way to level an occultist, that's why I prioritise it so much. Even later it's debuffs enhance dmg from your other abilities substantially. Between lvls 30 and 70 you will need to use other abilities on top of bloody pox though, such as sigil (like your did) and doom bolt or whichever skill from your second mastery you wanna use. Only in endgame/ultimate difficulty I would take out the fevered rage node and focus more on other skills instead. About second rite: It's flat vitality and vitality decay damage that gets added to all of your %weapon damage skills and default attacks. It will only apply when you use that skill or default attack. The vitality decay is a DoT that gets applied once and gets reapplied by every %WD/default attack, but it's not the same as ticking flat damage over a duration like the damage on sigil. The damage on sigil is ticking every second, because it's attached to a skill with a duration. Unless you have a skill with %WD that has a duration (I believe those don't exist), you cannot have the same kind of ticking dmg through second rite.
@@rektbyprotoss ah, I see now. So many things this game doesn't explain! I was wondering why i didn't see extra damage to sigil of consumption from second rite. Thanks again.
Useful stuff. Playing an Occultist - Shaman. Doing well until I got to Port Valbury and died to grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Overlord_Van_Aldritch Level 39 now, plan on later using Corrupted storm totems and getting Max Oak skin. Maybe use Doom bolt and go vitality/chaos. Mostly using Pox, dreegs and sigils of consumption
Dying to Van Aldritch at level 39 is no shame. Port valbury is a skeleton key dungeon after all and those should usually be tackled after main campaign as they are significantly harder. Dreeg's is only good here, if you have some acid to vitality conversion as shaman doesn't really have any acid synergy. Doom Bolt and Devouring Swarm are better than Dreeg's on a Conjurer.
i dont know this game lease teach me every build i make its ends in a terrible one shot from monster lmao what i'm doing wrong my dude, also i love you
![Grim Dawn 1.2 Beginner Playthrough - Oppressor, Aether Dual Pistols - Part 1: Act 1-4 [HC SSF]](/img/n.gif)
not gonna lie, this is one of the best things i've seen in youtube in the last 2 years.
Man, I don't usually take time to comment on a video but recently I stumble on your channel and I'm always fascinated with the details you give, no one on the internet, can tell better about GD and this is where I come for info about classes, builds and everything related really. This time you did something awesome, showing the way since the first levels of the classes is essencial, lots of builds I couldn't go up a few levels because of not knowing what to do since I only had the lvl 100 grimtools kit to rely on. Thank you very much for the content, this is very very very good!
Thank you for the kind words! :-)
yes this. I am trying to find a character/mastery/playstyle that I like and it really helps the way RektbyProtoss explains things. Danke mein freund!
Hey I just wanted to say: thank you for your amazing guides and content, I just got grim dawn a week ago from the steam summer sale and I've been having a blast. Keep it up man :)
You are 100% the best grim dawn youtuber and streamer hands down!
I have still yet to make it too 100 on grim dawn and will be going for vitality caster. Thanks for the amazing content!
You do the best guide videos available for Grim Dawn. Another great vid, thanks!
Your stuff is excellent even in 2024. I have had this game since 2016 and finally giving it a go.
I will say the one awkward thing I have experienced is that the pox is not spreading anymore cuz it one shota mobs. I actually have gone back to raven because it went from a great AOE to a bad single target kill (except against elites)
You need to disable gore in the options for pox to spread off corpses.
@@rektbyprotoss Holy moly thats a thing?!?! Thanks!
Thanks for the great explanation man. I started making a vitality character yesterday and I am skipping Normal difficulty with merit (just getting shrines of normal dif.) This video gave me some insight about what I can do in Elite with this Occultist. Keep it up, thank you.
Nice, good luck with the char!
I speedleveled a Conjurer with the merit on patch 1.1.5 not too long ago aswell. This is the VoD ua-cam.com/video/fZ93wWfPZLU/v-deo.html
You have been an invaluable resource and I appreciate your work. Have given me endless help.
Protip, disable gore in the beginning. You don't spread bloody pox if you overkill the enemies bodies.
i wish i saw this comment sooner. im finally past that point T.T had to switch to sigil bc pox was horrible at that point xd
I just got the game in Steam as it was on sale for so cheap and i have been hearing how good it is from disgruntled diablo/blizzard fans (which I'm not btw), I have never played a game like this before, but i picked Occultisf for the first mastery. Which brought me here. Thrilled to know Occultist is good in this game unlike in Darkest Dungeon II lol
Oh cool! I met you on Twitch today. Your NPC wrecked me in the game yesterday. I just started playing
Great stuff. Just the 1-12 section at the end, could be it's own guide and is probably missed by a lot of people, since it's at the end of the video, while there's a lot of great early game tips there, especially for beginners.
This is an absolutely amazing resource! I just started playing GD about a month ago, barely started ultimate. Your name has come up quite a few times, and I can definitely see why. Thank you so much for all of the hard work you do! I hope you continuing enjoying what you do and I hope you're staying safe and well. :)
Small critique, if that's ok, the "S" sounds are a little sharp in your videos I've noticed, I think it may be your mic, I'm not sure? But you might want to see if there is a software de-esser plugin you could use? It would make 96/100 contenrt into 100/100. Again, thank you for everything that you do, Rekt! Peace! :)
Yea my "S" is partly due to my accent and partly due to the fact that I am using a ~35$ headset mic, sorry about that. I will upgrade my mic soon.
Glad you enjoy my content nevertheless! :-) Hope you're staying safe and healthy aswell!
@@rektbyprotoss hey thanks. I was worried about coming across as ungrateful. Stay Rekt!
FYI leveling with devouring swarm (shaman) or ravenous earth (necromancer) is very good too
Thanks. This helps a lot.
dunno how things were, but i started playing and instead of raven i went eye balling, just rushed to blood burst, and i didnt have any problem one-2 shotting everything until i decided to skip half of the first act and go to the second act, basically 5-10 levels below most stuff there, granted, some bosses there did make things dificult for me, but the xp was so much faster that i just decided to keep going.
managed to get to lvl 30 before coming back to deal with the rest of act 1.
so dunno how fast it is for the raven, but i can garantee acid start is incredibly fast, and you dont even need that much either, as i spent most of those level just leveling mastery to unlock the last eye passive.
Hey, great video man! I was looking to do another build after my first HC attempt in Grim Dawn. I have almost a thousand hours clocked but I'm still kind of a noob at the game. Got bored of playing SC so I changed. My Cabalist build managed to get to level 93 and then I was cornered and stun-locked to death by flesh hulks. I was thinking a vitality caster is perfect for HC because of the life steal capabilities. Thanks for teaching me how to level an occultist. I had only played Soldier classes before.
Glad you like it :)
I place down the sigil of consumption and the enemies just walk out of it. How do I make them stay on the sigil and take damage?
Thanks for the guide! It really made my leveling up so much easier :) Did you mention how to spend the attribute points?
As a vitality caster you usually wanna put a healthy mix of physique and spirit (rather more physique) and only as many points into cunning as needed to use weapons, which often is 0.
thnx for the very elaborate info!
What are you using to look at all this gear? Is it some sort of mod? Its cool to know where specific gear drops
I'm curious as to why you rated Shaman higher than Necromancer as a secondary. I think Necromancer has a higher overall damage potential when pairing the skellies with the fiend devotion proc. I'd probably give the edge out to shaman for survivability with the Mogdrogen's Pact buff and the Briarthorn pet aura, but pet survivability tends to be a non issue in the late game, especially when I spec heavy into the blue line of the devotion tree.
I am no pet expert myself, I mostly recited the opinion of pet experts from the GD forum. The general consensus there seems to be that skellies are way too squishy without proper gear and even with the gear they are not any better than a pet conjurer with gear. So basically conjurers being better without gear and conjurers/cabalists being on the same level with BiS gear. Thus I rated the shaman overall higher for pets than necro.
Nice! Thanks man :)
great videos... i follow your guide of arcanist build and im very happy with the build... thx
I'm at lvl13 now and for the last 2 levels i am dealing too much damage, resulting in pox not being able to spread, not a big deal as soon as there is a biggie around ofc; so maybe transition slower into maxing blood pox and keeping the raven strong might even be faster with usual trash
You can either do that or disable "Gore" in the options. Then bloody pox can even spread from corpses.
Why do you put points in Raven early on? If you just go straight to bloody pox it will absolutely lay waste to everything early on. And once you get enough points you can just continue or respec as you suggest. But if you get pox ASAP (level 2) you can pretty much wreck everything. (To be fair I'm talking about the normal difficulty. )
Both is viable tbh, you could just continue using default attack only until level 3 and then spec into pox as you said. I mainly used Raven because you can use it from lvl 1 on and it's also what speedrunners tend to use. To be fair though, speedrunners tend to need more single target dps than AoE compared to normal leveling. In the end both methods are viable for the earliest levels with raven having worse aoe but better single target dmg and bloody pox being the inverse.
@@rektbyprotoss Thank you for you for the response! Also, I wanted to ask, why don't you recommend using 'hollow fang'? I'm quite a noob and to my untrained eye, it seems that the fang gives vitality damage buffs. Woudn't we want this over the other things?
@@TheWolverine1984 hollowed fang is good for damage, yes. But as long as you don't have all of your res at 80% I would not recommend going for it. That's why I usually recommend using components that give you res, even on weapons, such as e.g. imbued silver. Damage is not unimportant in Grim Dawn, but you will get enough from masteries, devotions and your weapons. On other gear slots aswell as on components and augments resistances are more important than damage.
TL;DR: If you have maxed res already or you can't get your needed res on the weapon slot, feel free to use hollowed fang.
@@rektbyprotoss Thank you I got it.
Hi! Great guide, as a beginner I find it immensely informative, thanks a lot!
A quick question - I am around lvl. 35 something ... on the bosses, if I cast Pox with Fevered Rage - it makes them so fast & hard hitting ... am I just not supposed to use the Pox on tougher mobs?
Also, as a general rule of thumb for early levels, am I right to just choose equipment with + vitality dmg over everything else?
Thanks again for the guide!
If I hate sigil of consumption... what should I pick instead?
As a vitality caster... Pox, Doom Bolt and another spell from your secondary mastery like e.g. totems and devouring swarm from shaman or ravenous earth and siphon souls from necromancer.
@@rektbyprotoss thank you!
Is the "Totally Normal Bulwark" a viable replacement weapon in place of the boneblade at level 85? I'd be giving up the bloody pox bonuses, but, +1 to all Occult. . .
It's an alright replacement, if you don't have a good boneblade or ascendant's weapon. The bulwark is better for chaos occultists than this one.
Thank you for an indepth guide. Always loved explanation like this where you dont have to bother with all the indepth skills and synergies....too old for that already lol. Only question is - what should i do to get more protection as enraged mobs at 24-25 now hit for like 20% of my hp...they dont die to fast and get that one hit in that takes out a chunk of health, plus that circle on ground only works for stationar targets - but all mobs get super fast after that curse and at so low defence im unable to circle around in so small space to keep em in it. And last this, that curse many times doesnt spread - mostly happens with spiders and swarm of flies.
One more thing. Your gear doesnt add vitality damage bonus? Dont i need to stack it?
i had gear score 8 when i hit lvl 36 (avarage lvl of all items equipped) and was clearing everything super easy, not sure where your issues come from, i did some things different than in video, i have invested into shaman way earlier than lvl 43, around lvl 20 to get grasping vines and i'm casting curse of frailty a lot (both skills lvl 1). add to that constantly moving, cast pox and run for your life again, constantly, when you get wendigo totem you can start facetank some stuff, not much but still. that circle on the ground - sigil - is used mainly for bosses when you drop fevered rage, don't bother to have more than 1 point into that early.
gear doesn't show vitality cause items in the video are base items with no mods, blank. video has been made in build planner - 3rd party program - GrimTools. in over all, yes you want as much vitality as you can get + max life + some armor + resists.
So what if I want to keep bloody pox, should I go with necro as my 2nd class instead of shaman? Thanks for all the guides and hard work btw, great content. Also, do you think Occultist is good for a bleed build with bloody pox or naw?
i went shaman anyways for totems, they are awesome sustain and greatly proc wendigo mark (when you have all 3 storms placed it's constantly ticking). Main skills: bloody pox, storm totem, wendigo totem, sigil (wendigo and sigil for harder enemies, for trash 1 click of pox to spread and 1 totem to proc stuff)
Yo, just wanted to ask about the devotion tree and what to do from level 43 onward. I unfortunately don't have forgotten gods, so I can't go through with unlocking lotus. Just wondering what devotions I should do instead? Also, how many points should I have at the end of the first playthrough on normal, going into elite difficulty? Cheers
to answer your question for future reference of others I went with bat > jackal > eel > wendigo > revenant > gallows > lizard > owl > ghoulish hunger > affliction > 2 points of kraken (all dmg %). Ended up with no points on crossroads and no point left with. Not entirely in that order after revenant.
Can you start as Shaman and do the same build? I feel like Shaman has a better farming skill, could be completely wrong though because I’m quite new to Grim Dawn.
If you plan to do a vitality Conjurer (shaman+occultist) anyway, then yes you can start out with devouring swarm, which is certainly the better skill for act 1.
@@rektbyprotoss Thank you! And I have been finding it hard to choose between different gears to equip. What should I value more? Higher armor rating, better resistances or just straight up more damage? And as for damage, do I just choose the ones with the highest +%Vit, Vit Decay and Bleed Damage? Thank you for these videos they really do help a ton. On my 2nd character atm, my first is a DW Purifier, still have a lot to learn.
I love my acid caster occultist
Hi!
Quite new to the game, love your work! Ive been leveling a conjuror at normal. Did level shaman first like you said, now im around 35. I found that i may lack direct damage, should I keep devouring swarm or respec the points in something else to have more direct damage? Though, the swarm is vitality damage too and got nice gear for that :/
Vitality Swarm is good in all phases of the game, it just starts to shift from a damage ability to a debuff ability at around lvl 20+. For single target damage you will have to start using sigil and doom bolts.
@@rektbyprotoss thank you for answering! Started doom bolting a bit, its pretty good! But costy. Also, just got the everlasting vampiric bonewall o/t wolf, it helps for survival!
@@etiennesimard1051 You're welcome! In the long run the sigil of consumption will become your main ability for both single target and aoe dmg, so anything supporting it like a good vampiric bonewall is perfect! :)
Hi bin gerade auf dein Video aufmerksam geworden.
Und ich habe das Gefühl dein Akzent ist deutsch.
Da mein Englisch nicht sehr gut ist, wollt ich fragen ob es eine Möglichkeit gibt dich über Discord oder so zu erreichen. (voraus gesetzt meine Vermutung mit deutsch ist überhaupt richtig)
Denn leider gibt es für Grim Dawn nur sehr sehr wenige deutsche Guides eigentlich nur einer der das Devotion System erklärt.
(keine Panik bin kein nerviges Kidi was dann ewig bei dir/euch abhängt hätte nur paar Anfänger Fragen zu Grim Dawn)
I'm a little late to the game. I've had it for a while, just never really dug into it because of it's complexity. I'm struggling with this build on Veteran mode. Having trouble surviving while bloody pox does it's work, any advice?
If you struggle with surviving while using fevered rage you can spec out of it as long as you already have a maxed sigil and maybe the shield for the sigil. Alternatively you could also use Dreeg's Evil eye with its transmuter if you have some gear supporting it.
@@rektbyprotoss Thanks! I don't think I placed my points in a proper order, but I just turned a corner the other day and now, I'm mowing down mobs! I've died a few times since, but mostly because I get lazy in the wrong places and don't anticipate just how fast some of the mobs come at me! Love your content, keep up the great work!
what difficulty level should i stop using fevered rage?
Whenever you don't feel comfortable using it anymore. I stopped using it at some point in ultimate.
Hey thanks for the awesome vid. Very informative and helped me change completely from a pet build to this one which has been a lot more fun. One problem I'm having though is that I'm super squishy and die multiple times to elites and bosses. My resistances aren't that high, but I'm wondering if that's the reason, my items, my devotions level (since I switched from a pet build) or what the issue could be. In my current state, I don't think it's viable cause I die so easily.
At higher levels, in higher acts and/or higher difficulties 80% resistances are basically mandatory and you'll take lots of dmg if have lower res. Also try to have at least 100hp per lvl. Your items, devotions or skill point allocation could also be part of the reason, but it's kinda hard to comment on that without a grimtools link. As long as you roughly follow the skill allocation and devotions in this video and have gear that caps your res, you should be fine.
Also if enemies swarm you too much, try removing the point in fevered rage.
@@rektbyprotoss awesome, thanks for the quick reply! I'll try to up my resistances first and see if that helps. I honestly don't plan to play GD for too long but liked and subbed cause your content is excellent. Thanks again!
Hey there, thank you for the guide. Good job as always. One question, how would you level a pure occultist to lvl 94?
Early on with the Raven, then add pox for AoE, then add the dog as a tank and blood of dreeg for healing. Later on drop pox and use curse of frailty instead for debuffing. For endgame pets are probably the strongest as e.g. this guide by Maya shows: forums.crateentertainment.com/t/birds-of-bysmiel-pet-occultist/49796
@@rektbyprotoss Thank you! I followed your guide up till lvl 53 now, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to lvl as a pure occultist. So need to switch to pets then, got it. I want a lvl 94 occultist to make a strong Har'Zin's deceiver.
@@Vladthestud Why not use the inquisitor class as a support then? :D
@@rektbyprotoss They don't synergize that good. I've tried it once and got stuck on ca lvl 50. I believe a pure occultist would be better when correctly specked and equiped before lvl 94 when all the good stuff is usable. I mean, YOU could certainly do it, I don't really know the game that well to make deceiver work at low levels =)
@@Vladthestud it's still better to put points into the Inquisitor's mastery bar for raw stats (physique cunning spirit HP) than not doing it. Also Word of Renewal and Inquisitor's seal are universally useable support skills.
what's the standard of something being "HC viable"? whenever i see that statement im reminded that someone beat ultimate HC Korvaak without choosing a single class , which in turn means that any build is HC viable as long as it plays extremely safe. closest thing i can think of for the definition of HC viable would be "can turn off brain and go ham"
There is no real "standard" for "HC viable", it's pretty subjective tbh.
For me HC viable means that you won't ever die in the ultimate main campaign as long as you don't pull the plug on your brain. This doesn't include SR75 or Crucible 170 or superbosses unless there are videos of me doing that content. My usual HC builds are usually not "turn off your brain and fall asleep" builds, because if you want that, you should rather go to bed and take a good nap instead of playing HC Grim Dawn. That said, on a occultist you might aswell fall asleep due to all the leech you have as long as you don't mess up your (faceroll) rotation.
TL;DR: For me "HC viable" =/= "Turn off your brain and go ham", but "HC viable" = "you won't ever die, as long as you pay attention to the game"
If you want to turn off your brain and go ham I suggest playing SC instead.
@@rektbyprotoss fair nuff, thanks for the reply. I always wondered what a HC player defines this as since ive been seeing various guides saying their char was HC viable while they had smth like 2.7k da or some other terrible stat like that
RektbyProtoss what do you mean by face roll rotation?
@@crescentfuze You roll your face on the keyboard (It's a very easy rotation).
There are a few thing to consider : skills of the player (knowing the game, how many buttons can you utillize and how fast and accurate you can press them), how good is your PC and then the build itself which may be a complete crap or average or a top tier build. Also you should thing about what kind of high endgame areas/bosses you want to play with it. For example some builds are really good for SR and others for Crucible but i have never seen a build which is a reliable farmer in both areas in HC. Thinking of myself and knowing that i am just an average player with moderate understanding of this game, with weak pc and i have 2 really strong combinations : conjurer (lightning summoner, really good for sr 65-66) and warlord (acid retailator, excellent 150-170 crucible farmer), both of them very durable. I also have one forcewave tactitian but no matter how i tried to build him, he cannot compete with the other builds that i have. Here RektbyProtoss has some quite interesting builds but i don't have the hands to play them :) or i find them about the same of what i have already build. As i understood from his videos he likes defense 2.8k or higher, while i for example am satisfied with more than 3k so as he said it is subjective. For example i am quite lazy to level new chars and prefer to play with old ones while he experiments a lot and you can see his results. Also i like to play with fewer buttons then he plays (saying that i always am in need for one adittional slot for a skill or potion :) ), i like more tanky chars and even with them i avoid some bosses like gravathul like the plague.
do you have a build without the pets for ocultist/shaman?
Check the description. E.g. my Nightbringer Conjurer and beginner Conjurer are very strong shaman/occultists without any pets.
I hit 100 for the first time, you have 106 attribute points, I only have 103, where do your extra 3 points come from if you don't mind another question?
You get 3 attribute points from the hidden path (dreeg, solael, bysmiel, Temple of the three), 1 per difficulty. Maybe you have missed it, but there are also couple of other quests that give you attribute points. You can use the checklist on grimtools to see which ones you are exactly missing.
@@rektbyprotoss Thanks! I've done the hidden path on both normal and elite, working on it on ultimate now . . . must've missed the other ones on elite or something. . . I'll double check. Every little bit helps! Now if I can get around all the stuns on ultimate! You're videos have made playing the game so much more entertaining, thanks!
cool
Thank you for this guide @RektbyProtoss , I am loving my vitality Occultist/shaman now. I took 95% of your advice for the build (am L37 so far) but I was hoping you could explain something to me: why do you prioritise black death talent so much? it seems kinda crappy to me, but i don't know much about the game yet. Also, would you mind explaining how second right works? It seems to add flat vitality damage to my weapon when I have solael's witchfire buff active, but does it do that flat vitality damage every second like sigil of consumption does? (they are written very similar but upon testing dont' seem to function similar) Thanks for any help! :)
Imo bloody pox with fevered rage is the fastest way to level an occultist, that's why I prioritise it so much. Even later it's debuffs enhance dmg from your other abilities substantially. Between lvls 30 and 70 you will need to use other abilities on top of bloody pox though, such as sigil (like your did) and doom bolt or whichever skill from your second mastery you wanna use. Only in endgame/ultimate difficulty I would take out the fevered rage node and focus more on other skills instead.
About second rite: It's flat vitality and vitality decay damage that gets added to all of your %weapon damage skills and default attacks. It will only apply when you use that skill or default attack. The vitality decay is a DoT that gets applied once and gets reapplied by every %WD/default attack, but it's not the same as ticking flat damage over a duration like the damage on sigil. The damage on sigil is ticking every second, because it's attached to a skill with a duration. Unless you have a skill with %WD that has a duration (I believe those don't exist), you cannot have the same kind of ticking dmg through second rite.
@@rektbyprotoss ah, I see now. So many things this game doesn't explain! I was wondering why i didn't see extra damage to sigil of consumption from second rite. Thanks again.
Useful stuff. Playing an Occultist - Shaman. Doing well until I got to Port Valbury and died to grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Overlord_Van_Aldritch
Level 39 now, plan on later using Corrupted storm totems and getting Max Oak skin. Maybe use Doom bolt and go vitality/chaos.
Mostly using Pox, dreegs and sigils of consumption
Dying to Van Aldritch at level 39 is no shame. Port valbury is a skeleton key dungeon after all and those should usually be tackled after main campaign as they are significantly harder. Dreeg's is only good here, if you have some acid to vitality conversion as shaman doesn't really have any acid synergy. Doom Bolt and Devouring Swarm are better than Dreeg's on a Conjurer.
i dont know this game lease teach me every build i make its ends in a terrible one shot from monster lmao what i'm doing wrong my dude, also i love you
Should start following rule #1: "just don't get hit" :)
It was interesting and usefull.
.
Btw. can someone send me a code for this game on gog? THX
I love my acid caster occultist