The Carnival: a guide To peTS By, Maya Index: 1. Introduction 2. General Guide to GrimDawn 3. Classes 4. Pets 5. Builds, Budget Builds & How to Level 6. Beginner’s Tips and Build Diaries 7. Crucible & Shattered Realms 8. How to Make Your Own Build 9. Useful Tools 10. Abbreviations 11. Conclusion 12. Mini-Guide with the most Important parts Note: The guide is made with the assumption that you have both Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods Expansions. INTRODUCTION Who I am, is not important. We are all but faceless names here anyway. But what is important is what I have to offer you, stranger. The Carnival is, as the name suggests a festival; a festival of man and beasts. I could tell you more about it, but you won’t listen and probably just berate me for wasting your time. So instead, let me just show you that which has led you here. The prize at the end, or perhaps I should say, beginning of your journey. Let’s get right to it, shall we? As the sand trickles down in the hourglass, we shall find you all you need to carve your name in the Hall of Heroes. And while I cannot lead you to your fame and glory, I hope to show you the way to immortality. Whether you seek to bind Eldritch creatures to your will, or reap and use the very Souls of your fellow man or perhaps a more noble approach in becoming a simple master of Beasts blessed my nature, you will find your path here. But I must also warn you of something. To become a summoner is no easy task and it demands much of you. Should you hold steady in your current course, you must be willing to give yourself entirely to the art. Attempts at trying to mix it with traditional roles of spell casting or close combat will end only in tears and blood. <<Go to Index >> General Guide To GrimDawn So you have decided to enter this grim and dying world. Glory, power, perhaps wealth, whatever your obsessions or reasons might be, I welcome you. Though there is not much wealth to be had and power always comes at a price. You may strive for glory then, but what use is fame in a world of corpses? Ah, forgive my ramblings. Do not let them concern you much. Now let us get straight to the point, for the journey you are about to undertake is a long and perilous one and I do not wish to keep you here any longer than necessary. So, you know the story. A stranger from a far away land happens upon those in need of help and rises to the occasion, thereby becoming their hero and savior and eventually going on to fight and hopefully win against some great evil. Here, of course you start at the end of a hangman’s noose and is no more of a hero than a swamp rat. But hopefully that can change with time and to do so, you need to learn some basic things. That is what we will be discussing here. 1. Resistances and Resistance Reduction play an important part. Do not skimp on either. 2. You get to choose 2 Masteries that will then combine to form your Class. Choose wisely for once you have made your choice, there is no turning back. 3. Devotions play another important part in shaping your destiny. You need to either present certain offerings once you uncover a Shrine or cleanse it of the corruption that has set upon the once holy place of worship, in order to gain the favour of the gods. 4. Skill and Devotion choices are not permanent and can be changed at the Spirit Healer for a cost. Do note that the cost increases with the number of times you do this. 5. Conversions on Auras apply to the caster only, inorder to avoid unfortunate Multiplayer scenarios. Yes, this means that the conversion from the Aura does not apply to your pets either. 6. When it comes to choosing sides on faction quests, Allying yourself with Anasteria the Aetherial Witch & with Barrowholm is generally a good idea. 7. Do not ignore Augments and Components. They make a lot of difference. Augments can be purchased from Faction Vendors once you have enough reputation. Some Components can be found while others have to be Crafted using Blueprints. 8. It is generally not a good idea to farm for specific items at lower levels as you will out level them rather fast. Focus instead on Leveling up and on gaining Devotion points. 9. When leveling up Attributes, focus on Physique. Put points in Spirit & Cunning only as needed. You will get a special potion later on that lets you reset your Attributes. 10. Relics are special items that can only be crafted using their Blueprints & materials. 11. Devotion procs bound to Pets scale based on Pet stats and hence should always be bound to pets whenever possible, on a pet build. 12. Exclusive Skills are special skills in that only one can be active at any given time. So, make your choice carefully and do not waste points in a second exclusive skill. 13. Devotion Bindings are not permanent and can be changed any time you want. Certain devotions can only be bound to certain skills. It is by design. 14. There are 3 types of Resistance Reduction(rr) : -%rr, rr & %rr. Sources of “-%rr” stack while the highest “rr” and “%rr” gets counted instead. “-%rr” stacks additively with “rr” and they both stack multiplicatively with “%rr” 15. Cool down reduction applies to both skills & devotions, but not to item granted abilities. 16. Every skill can be upgraded by 10 more levels from its maximum, using specific items. 17. Damage is calculated against Physical Resistance before Armor. Pets only benefit from “Bonus to All Pets” part of Item stats. Damage Types: Usually, this is not where you are supposed to stumble upon this. But even though this is most likely not the right place for this to be, it might perhaps be the best place to add it in due to the rather relevant importance of it when it comes to choosing your build and building upon it. One might wonder, why is it so important? The question becomes even more pressing early on when you wouldn’t have access to damage conversion and hence the entire discussion or relevancy of it might seem redundant. However, since Resistance Reduction plays a rather important part interms of actual damage you, or should I say, your pets will be able to do, it is rather crucial that you try to convert as much as possible into one or two damage types. Now, certain types are easier to work with than others and you will find that certain masteries support particular types over others. In other cases, you might come across certain combinations of skills and items that oddly enough behave in ways previously though impossible, resulting in odd builds taking place and new options emerging. But all that said, this is still not the place for this and even in the author’s limitless insanity and hunger for ice cream, there must still be some sense of order afterall.. So then why are we here and why are you reading through this here rather than elsewhere? The reason, simply put is due to a certain rather universal issue or perhaps “quality” when it comes to a certain rather prevalent damage type. Pierce damage based Pet builds, at this time are not possible for there does not exist proper support or itemization to make it probable. Aether damage in regards to pets is something that may have better options and yet at the same time, falls short of being something you can choose without deliberately crippling yourself in the process. But those two aside, every other option, remains options for you to choose from. And yet, we are here to converse about one such choice that is more deceptive than it might seem. Physical damage is something you will see most pets doing atleast in some part, by default. And you might even find items, skills and the very stars themselves lending aid and support to this. But make no mistake that giving into temptation here, will undoubtedly leave you in despair later on. Reason is how physical damage and armor interacts. Since every source of physical damage gets checked against enemy armor individually, the flat physical damage you get are mostly going to waste though pets thrive on sources of bonus flat damage. Now, to explain it, I am going to use a hypothetical situation. Let us say that you have pet that deals 100 physical damage. Then, let us say that you get 20 flat bonus physical damage from 5 different sources (skills,devotions, items etc, etc). So your pet would now have 200 total physical damage, right? Now, for the sake of simplicity, let us take an enemy with 20 armor, 100% absorption and 0 physical resistance. Let us also say that you have no resistance reduction for the same reason, i.e., simplicity. Normally, you'd expect your pet to deal 180 damage, right? Since the 20 armor would block 20 of the 200... Only, that is not how it is designed. Each source of flat physical damage gets checked individually against armor instead of adding them together first and then checking it against the armor value. So, in our hypothetical situation, it will basically check the base 100 damage against the 20 armor. Then the sources of flat 20 physical damage, each separately against the 20 enemy armor. So.. 100-20 = 80 20-20 = 0 20-20 = 0 20-20 = 0 20-20 = 0 20-20 = 0 And the result is that instead of doing 180 damage, your pet will only do 80 damage. That makes up for a pretty big difference to the end result. But if you can convert that into another damage type, you don't get this problem. So in my example, if you convert 100% Pet Physical Dmg into Fire and the enemy has 0 fire resistance, your Pet will be doing 200 Fire Dmg in total (100 base & +20 * 5 flat) It is supposed to be balanced by low enemy physical resistance, but in practice, doesn't quite work as intended, atleast on pet builds. Now, another thing to remember is that the reason why Pet builds love Flat sources of damage is because their effectiveness is multiplied by the number of pets you have. So if you have 100 Flat damage and 5 pets, you are effectively gaining +500 Flat damage. But in the above hypothetical situation, that +500 {(20 flat physical *5 sources) *5 pets} will still amount to a grand total of +0 damage if you go up against an enemy with a mere 20 flat armor. Now I mentioned that it is supposed to be balanced by low enemy physical resistance values. But the problem is that most of the sources of Physical RR available to pet builds are also unreliable to be effective enough. Curse of Frailty is good ofcourse, but on a conjurer, there is nothing else from skills. On a Cabalist, you need to get hit to proc your Spectral Wrath and even then, Necro pets aren't exactly physical focused and there is no way to Convert Pet dmg Into Physical as things stand for now. So half you pet damage will be something else. For all other types of pet damage except bleed, it is rather easy to convert most of it, if not all of it into the same damage type and thus benefiting more from the same type of resistance reduction and +% bonus damage stacking. Also your sources or Resistance Reduction from Devotions are pretty much limited to Assassin's Blade and Manticore, on a Physical focused Pet build. Both of them I have found to be rather unreliable unless facing a single enemy. Even then, as I painfully learned in my experience against certain rather tougher adversaries with Physical Pet builds, it simply isn't enough to make up for the issue with Armor. Note that while you can also use the Bysmiel devotion Pet instead of Manticore for RR, even with the recent buffs, I do not find it to be that effective. Your mileage may vary. All that said, it still works out pretty decently for non-pet builds even with the way how armor and physical damage interacts, but unless Pets get something like Armor shred or are made an exception to the whole armor/physical damage interaction, or something more to help with the situation... other damage types will fare much better, everything else being equal. <<Go to Index >> CLASSES So you seek a companion to aid in your quest. Who doesn’t? After all, all life craves someone or even something to share it with and why should you be any different. But fret not. It is that search that has led you here and it will not be in vain. But enough of all that, let us look into your options first, shall we? Companions, henceforth addressed as “Pets”, come in two distinct forms. There are those that gain their strength directly from you and are mostly immortal extensions of your very being and then there are creatures which willingly follow you or are either bound to yourself by some strong and ancient magic. For ease of differentiation, we shall address them as “Player Scaled Pets” & “Pet Scaled Pets”. Player Scaled Pets are those like Wind Devils and Wendigo Totems, the Guardians of Empyrion and even the likes of Blade Spirits. We will however be focusing primarily on Pet Scaled Pets, or True Pets. I am fully aware of how it sounds to say it out loud, but do bear with me for the moment. While you shall learn more about them in the next section, let us focus on the various masteries and classes that you have the option of pursuing for now. Occultists, Shaman & Necromancer, are the three basic masteries that you’d require if you are planning to focus on Pets. But in the world of Grim Dawn, you are not limited to a single mastery as you have the option to select a second one once you acquire sufficient experience (Lvl -10). So, in other words, you need not start with one of the three Pet Masteries unless you want to. And even then, you do not have to start with pets right away. You may decide to simply acquire more power before eventually switching over to the path of a Summoner . Now let us look at the choices in a bit of detail shall we? Occultist: I may sound like I am being partial to my Lady Bysmiel, but I assure you that my judgment has not been clouded by my adoration of my mistress. Occultist is widely considered by many as one of the best choices for any aspiring summoner. You might be wondering why that is. The answer is quite simple. It has everything needed within the confines of the mastery. The Great Raven & the Hellhound both serve as reliable minions. The acidic Blood of Dreeg not only heals you and protects you, but also serves to strengthen your blows against your enemies. And it also affects your minions, both healing and strengthening them as well. Possession, as sinister as it sounds, also serves to protect you from harm and bolster your resistance against the chaotic energies. It does however prevent you from using another “exclusive skill” for Solael does not like to share. And now, to talk of my mistress, Lady Bysmiel, the “Bonds of Bysmiel” and its subsequent skill “Manipulation” empower your pets in such a way that you could not even dream of. But it does not stop there, for with just a word, your Curse of Frailty can both weaken your foes and empower the attacks of your minions against them in a way very few skills can hope to. Another one of Dreeg’s Blessings, “Dreeg’s Evil Eye” lets you weaken the physical blows of any who gets struck by them, provided you take “Focused Gaze”. So, if it is not already obvious, what I am trying to tell you is that for every situation you may find yourself in, there is a tool in the Occultist mastery. Also as I have said before, even though we are looking at it from the view of a summoner, you need not invest in pets at all and can go for a more traditional route as a spell caster or even use the mastery to support another. Its uses are many and will certainly not disappoint. Shaman: Ultos and Mogdrogen will be your patron gods should you decide to become a Shaman. The things available to you are mostly beasts and spirits of nature and should you delve deeper, the power of storms and the dark and savage side of life. Do you seek brute strength? Do you seek to tame the beasts of the wild? Do you perhaps desire to be an embodiment of both Nature’s Kindness and its Cruelty? No matter your pursuit or the nature of your quest, you will most likely find your place in Gaia’s Bosom. Before we delve deeper, I must turn your attention to what I have told you before regarding Player Scaled Pets. You will see that Wind Devils and both Wendigo Totem & Storm Totem are Player Scaled Pets. That means, their uses for a pure summoner like ourselves will be limited. But they are not entirely useless either, well except for perhaps the Storm Totem which we will avoid for now. When it comes to Wendigo Totem, it is a decent source of Area wide Heal. A single point in Blood pact might be worthwhile, but any more is a waste. Now, as for Wind Devils, avoid putting points in the skill itself. Instead, you should be focusing on leveling up “Raging Tempest” as it reduces the elemental resistance of your enemies and make them take increased damage from elemental attacks. Do keep in mind that a Shaman does not naturally possess any true pets that do elemental damage. So you will either have to convert their physical damage into elemental by some means or use pets like the Raven Familiars from the Occultist mastery to make use of the Wind Devils. But, enough about that. Let us look at the actual Pets of the Shaman mastery. Briarthorn will be both your sword and shield here. Primal Spirit, which you will be able to summon once you have invested enough in the mastery, is a Temporary spirit. While it functions just like any other true pet, it will disappear after a certain duration and will need to be summoned again. Keep that in mind. Mogdrogen’s Pact and Primal Bond empower both you and your pets. In the case of Mogdrogen’s Pact, it is because the skill is an Aura. And as is the nature of all such things that affect allies in an area of radius, it also benefits your pets provided they do not leave the Area of Effect. And yes, “Heart of the Wild” and “Oak Skin” both affect your pets too. Devouring Swarm reduces your enemy’s resistances against Bleed & Vitality. So if you are focusing on those, putting a few points here will help you tremendously. An example would be Bleed based pet builds focusing on Briarthorn & Primal Spirit or Vitality focused Ritualist that combines both Shaman and Necromancer masteries. Grasping Vines won’t do us much good since we are focusing on pets, but it is still a decent skill to bind Devotions to as it damages in an area and hits for multiple times. So note it down as well. The rest of the skills from the Shaman mastery are unfortunately not of much use to us as we are trying to stay far away from the action as possible and will not be joining our pets in direct combat. However, just like when it comes to Occultist, you can level up without using pets and in such cases the skills that we are avoiding here, will be of use to you. Necromancer: Perhaps you do not like to serve the Gods. Perhaps instead of submitting your being to other powers in return for their gifts, you wish to make other beings submit to you. Or maybe, you simply like playing with life, death and life after death, just like any aspiring necromancer. It could also be that you find the dead, strangely alluring. Whatever your reasons are, I am not here to judge, but to aid. Now, let us get straight into the pets at your disposal. As one might expect of necromancy, you have Skeletons. They are your basic pets and pretty fragile, but come in numbers. Then there is the BlightFiend, a bloated corpse of pestilence that can be used as a great source of area wide damage. And finally, you have the Reap Spirit skill that lets you attack someone and then summon a Spirit at the location of your enemy. The Spirits are temporary minions that disappear after a short period of time, but are basically immortal. Master of Death, as the name would suggest, bolsters both you and your army of undead, along with any other minions or pets that you may have. Call of the Grave empowers your minions for a duration, both strengthening their attacks and giving them some regeneration. Spectral Binding bolsters your health and damage even though the damage part is kind of useless for a summoner. Spectral Wrath weakens the resistances of anyone or anything foolish enough to attack you and makes them more susceptible to the attacks of your minions. Mark of Torment, helps you take more punishment than otherwise possible, by absorbing part of the damage intended for you and then then reflecting it to the unfortunate foe that bears the Mark. Its only real downside is the cool down period on the skill. Ravenous Earth is a decent skill to level up with if you are not interested in doing so with pets. But outside of that, it is still useful to us for binding devotions to. Also, if you can afford to put points in Decay, it lowers the damage of affected enemies, giving the skill another use.