Sections

• Introduction
• Skills
• Devotions
• Equipment
• Piloting Tips
• Crucible
• FAQ

Introduction

Conjurers make some of the best pet builds in Grim Dawn, and are by far the most versatile pet class combination in the game. One of the great things about Conjurers is that there are a ton of build customization points you can use to trade offense for defense or vice/versa.

Builds in Grim Dawn are extremely dependent on items. Trying to follow a build when you’re starting from scratch can be difficult if you don’t have the items required to make the build work. This guide to is help players who have no items work towards a powerful end-game pet Conjurer, with incremental improvements as you get better items. This guide will focus on items that are easily available (faction gear and affix-independent Monster Infrequents), and also talk about what alternatives are best to use as you find them.

This guide will focus on building around the Occultist’s Summon Familiar because the pet is very powerful and there are a lot of easily available gear options that make it much easier when starting from scratch.

This is what we’re going to be building towards: >>>> Grim Tools <<<< 129

There are a lot of viable end-game alternatives you can choose from, including your own customizations. Some alternative devotion and equipment setups are suggested in their respective sections.

Once you do have access to all end-game gear, you can try pairing Mythical Will of Bysmiel with the Mythical Beastcaller’s set to have both 2 Familiars and 2 Briarthorns at the expense of fully overcapping Summon Familiar. There are some very powerful builds using that setup, you can find some examples here or here 25.

Skills

In case you’re unfamiliar with Occultist and Shaman pet skills, below is a brief description of all the skills we use and why we use them.

[Spoiler2]
Terminology

[ul][li]Soft cap[/li]number of points you can put into a skill. Summon Familiar has a soft cap of 16, Lightning Strike has a soft cap of 12.
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[ul][li]Hard cap[/li]maximum number of points a skill can have included skill bonuses. This is always the soft cap plus 10.
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[ul][li]Ultimate ranks[/li]The range of points between the soft cap and the hard cap.
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[ul][li]Overcap[/li]Anything over the soft cap.
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Skills

[ul][li]Summon Familiar[/li]This summons a Raven pet that shoots lightning balls, and is the main source of damage for this build. The summoned Raven scales very well with points, gaining both extra damage an extra projectiles. If close to the target, it’s possible to hit a single target with multiple projectiles which can be very powerful. The Mythical Will of Bysmiel amulet allows you to summon a second Familiar, which is even better. Hard-capping this skill is the number one item priority for this build.
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[ul][li]Storm Spirit[/li]This gives the Familiar an aura that adds flat and % elemental damage, and provides elemental resistance. The Familiar’s own attack is actually a spell, and only gets a fraction of the flat damage added to it, but other pets benefit fully. The auras from 2 familiars do not stack. You generally want as many points in this as possible, but if you’re using the Beastcaller’s Set and also investing in Briarthorn, this is an okay place to take points from. It’s a good place to spend points but non-essential.
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[ul][li]Lightning Strike[/li]This gives the Familiar a powerful extra spell. It is worth as many points as you can get, but rarely worth specifically itemizing for.
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[ul][li]Bonds of Bysmiel[/li]This boosts pet health. Pets have access to a lot of health bonuses, and there are a lot of skill bonuses to this from items, so it is rarely worth investing more than a single point. Pets usually do not have a hard time staying alive.
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[ul][li]Manipulation[/li]This adds damage and, more importantly, speed to your pets. Until the soft-cap, this provides 2% total speed per point, and 1% afterwards. I tend to leave this at the soft cap, but if you have points to spare, this is a great place to put them.
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[ul][li]Curse of Frailty[/li]This provides Physical and Bleeding resistance reduction. Our main sources of damage are elemental, so we mainly take this for the Vulnerability modifiers. More points in this increases the radius and duration as well, so I like to keep this around 5 points on elemental pet builds such as this one.
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[ul][li]Vulnerability[/li]This modifies Curse of Frailty to reduce DA and resistances to Acid & Poison, Elemental, and Vitality damage. This gives 3% RR per point until the soft cap, and 1% per point after. This is worth keeping at the soft cap.
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[ul][li]Blood of Dreeg[/li]Instant heal, and a bunch of HP regen, flat OA, and flat damage. This skill is great and deserves 16 points, but is not worth itemizing for.
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[ul][li]Aspect of the Guardian[/li]This provides rare physical resist and a LOT of poison resist. Until the soft cap it adds 1% physical resist per point, and afterwards only every 3 to 4 points. I try to keep this soft capped.
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[ul][li]Dreeg’s Evil Eye[/li]With the Focused Gaze transmuter, this is great for procing Celestial Powers. You can use Grasping Vines or Doom Bolt instead if you prefer.
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[ul][li]Mogdrogen’s Pact[/li]This provides some hp and energy regen, along with some physical flat damage. This build doesn’t have enough skill points to make this worth investing in, but you need one point for Heart of the Wild and Oak Skin.
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[ul][li]Heart of the Wild[/li]Adds 3% HP per point until the soft cap. This is a great place to dump extra points if you want some extra durability, but I usually don’t have the points to spare. This is never really worth overcapping.
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[ul][li]Oak Skin[/li]This provides pierce resistance and armor. The resistance can be pretty useful and give you some flexibility with devotions and items, but on this build you don’t really need it.
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[ul][li]Summon Briarthorn[/li]The Briarthorn is an okay pet but not really worth investing in unless you’re going to use the Beastcaller’s set to get two of them. This build places one point in Briarthorn to use his aura skill.
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[ul][li]Emboldening Presence[/li]This provides % damage, flat OA, and physical and bleeding resistance. Like Aspect of the Guardian, it provides 1% physical resist until the soft cap, and then every 3 to 4 points after. Keep this soft capped to take advantage of the physical resist, but it’s not worth extra investment beyond that.
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[ul][li]Wind Devil[/li]Required for Raging Tempest.
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[ul][li]Raging Tempest[/li]Provides -35% elemental resistance at 12/12, and an additional -1% for each point afterwards. This is worth using at the soft cap on elemental pet builds, but it does require you to use an extra skill, making the build a bit more active and drawing a bit more agro to yourself. This is optional, but will increase your offensive power.
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[ul][li]Primal Bond[/li]Provides damage reduction, reduced damage from beasts, and both % damage and % crit damage to pets. The pet bonuses scale well into ultimate ranks, and the damage reduction scales decently. This is worth getting as high as possible.
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[ul][li]Conjure Primal Spirit[/li]Very fast, very powerful pet, but temporary. You have to continuously re-summon him, and without any CDR he has only 50% up time. Primal Spirit is amazing, you want as many points in it as possible.
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[/Spoiler2]

Suggested Skill Ordering

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 27[/COLOR][/li]Take Occultist and max Familiar. Keep 16 points in Familiar unless you end up with more than +10 to the skill.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 19[/COLOR][/li]Put a few points into Lightning Strike. The goal for Lightning Strike at this point is to keep it high enough to 1-shot trash mobs. Put a single point into Storm Spirit to get extra bonus from any +skills items you find, and optionally a single point into Hellhound to draw some extra agro.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 16[/COLOR][/li]Finish the Occultist mastery and max Maniuplation. Manipulation has diminishing returns past the soft cap, so feel free to remove a few points if you end up with any items with skill bonuses.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 9[/COLOR][/li]Max Blood of Dreeg and Aspect of the Guardian. AotG is good to have maxed before going into Act 5 because of all the poison damage there. As with Manipulation, you don’t need to overcap AotG as the Physical resist doesn’t scale into ultimate ranks and you’ll have more than enough poison resist. Put one point into Curse of Frailty as soon as you get the Sheperd’s Call celestial power so you have something to bind it to.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 9[/COLOR][/li]Max Storm Spirit, and at this point probably Lightning Strike.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 11[/COLOR][/li]Take shaman and max Primal Spirit, putting one point in the Mogdrogen’s Pact tree on the way. If/when you need a second skill to proc Celestial Powers, put a point Dreeg’s Evil Eye, Grasping Vines, or Doom Bolt.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 2[/COLOR][/li]Max Primal Bond
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 5[/COLOR][/li]Take Briarthorn and max Emboldening Presence. As with Manipulation and AotG, you don’t need to overcap this so only place enough points to have 12 points including bonuses.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 4[/COLOR][/li]Put extra points into Curse of Frailty and Vulnerability. I like to have 5 points (including bonuses) in the base skill to have a decent AoE and duration. Vulnerability should be kept at 10 including skill bonuses.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools 12[/COLOR][/li]Put the rest of your points into Raging Tempest, up to the soft cap of 12 including bonuses, with one point in both Wind Devil and Maelstrom.
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Assuming you have some skill bonuses from items, you’ll probably have some points left over after soft capping various skills. You can use the rest wherever you like. Some good options are Oak for extra pierce resist, Heart of the Wild for health, or Manipulation for a little extra speed.

Both Wind Devil and the Celestial Power Arcane Bomb are useful but optional. If you want a build that is simpler to play (few buttons to press), you can skill Wind Devil and only need to use Curse of Frailty as an active skill.

Tip: Do not be afraid to change skill point investments as your gear changes. If you’ve got limited gear, you’ll definitely want to make the most out of every skill point you have.

Devotions

In case you’re unfamiliar what constallations are useful for pet builds, below is a brief description of all the devotions I like to use in pet builds and why. This will include some discussion of constellations not used by this pet build.

[Spoiler2]Tier 3 Constellations

[ul][li]Ishtak, the Sprint Maiden[/li]One of the 3 big pet constellations. This provides some great pet and player bonuses, but the Celestial Power is the real reason to take this constellation. The most important part is that the proc makes pets taunt their targets, so that enemies attack your pets instead of you. This is an extremely powerful defense mechanism.
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[ul][li]Light of Empyrion[/li]This provides some decent other pet bonuses and resistances. I use this up to the 5th node sometimes, but rarely go for the Celestial Power.
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[ul][li]Mogdrogen the Wolf[/li]One of the 3 big pet constellations. This provides some great player and pet bonuses, and the Celestial Power Howl of Mogdrogen which gives a massive 40% speed boost to pets. Unfortunately, it is very hard to max player movement speed when going down this devotion path.
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[ul][li]Dying God[/li]One of the 3 big pet constellations. This provides some pretty good player and pet bonuses, and the Hungering Void Celestial Power. Because it provides and aura, the non-pet bonuses on Hungering Void also apply to pets. The speed and crit damage are great to have, and on Chaos or Vitality builds the extra damage is huge. This also has very similar affinity requirements to Aeon’s Hourglass which is another huge plus.
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[ul][li]Aeon’s Hourglass[/li]Provides some great defensive bonuses and Time Dilation which is really useful, improving uptime of all temporary buffs and summons, and lets you cast Blood of Dreeg more often.
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Tier 2 Constellations

[ul][li]Ulo the Keeper of Waters[/li]Great resistances, including for pets. I never use the Celestial Power because it requires an extra active skill to bind to, and with it’s very long cooldown you have to pay a lot of attention to use it in a useful manner. I use this over Stag and Panther if I need the resistances and can spare the devotion points.
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[ul][li]Solemn Watcher[/li]Good defensive bonuses including pierce resistance and DA. I use this over Stag and Panther if I need the resistances and can spare the devotion points.
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[ul][li]Staff of Rattosh[/li]Great pet bonuses, and some nice player aether resistance too. I almost always use this.
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[ul][li]Widow[/li]Some nice aether resistance, and a Celestial Power that provides lightning RR. The downside is that the skill cannot be bound to pets. Conjurers already have access to a lot of RR, and have a bit of a spread in damage types, so the extra RR is often not as helpful as you might expect, particularly considering you could be using the points for other benefits.
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[ul][li]Amatok the Spirit of Winter[/li]This constellation has the Celestial Power Blizzard, which is one of the most powerful Celestial Power attacks in the game. I absolutely love Blizzard, and find it goes really well bound to Familiar. Pet builds tend to have a ton of +all damage and +elemental damage, so cold isn’t too far behind lightning, and most of the RR tends to be elemental rather than lightning specific. The spread in damage types is actually pretty useful, because it improves your DPS against enemies that are highly lightning resistant.
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[ul][li]Tempest[/li]Potentially useful for the Reckless Tempest Celestial Power, but I have never found it to be worth the cost, even on lighting pet builds. Blizzard is a lot more effective.
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[ul][li]Rhowan’s Crown[/li]Provides some minor pet bonuses, some decent resistances, and has a great Celestial Power that provides elemental RR.
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[ul][li]Behemoth[/li]Provides some good HP regen, and the Giant’s Blood Celestial Power which is decent defensively. This can be useful on both Mogdrogen builds and Dying God builds.
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[ul][li]Crab[/li]Provides some pretty good resistances and the Arcane Barrier Celestial Power. Pairs decently with Mogdrogen.
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[ul][li]Typhos, the Jailor of Souls[/li]Provides some pretty good pet bonuses, a lot of the same ones that Ishtak provides. It’s pretty useful if you’re going for Mogdrogen.
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[ul][li]Bysmiel’s Bond[/li]I frequently take the first 2 nodes of this constellation for the 8% pet speed boost, but almost never complete the constellation, or even use the Celestial Power when I do. It’s damage is far too low to be using an extra active skill in my opinion.
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[ul][li]Solael’s Witchblade[/li]The Eldritch Fire Celestial Power is a must-have on chaos pet builds.
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[ul][li]Murmur, Mistress of Rumors[/li]Provides the Rumor Celestial Power which can be pretty useful on Cabalists that use both Blight Fiends and Familiar’s with Blizzard.
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Tier1 Constellations

[ul][li]Raven[/li]Provides some decent pet bonuses. This is my first choice when I need Eldritch.
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[ul][li]Eel[/li]Provides movement speed, pierce resistance, and has great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Stag[/li]Provides movement speed, pierce resistance, and has great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Panther[/li]Some nice pet bonuses, and great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Lizard[/li]great source of HP regen, useful if you’re using Dying God. This has pretty good efficiency for Affinity. I always use this over Hound.
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[ul][li]Assassin’s Blade[/li]Useful for the Assassin’s Mark Celestial Power on physical damage pet builds.
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[ul][li]Crane[/li]Great resistances and the provided reduced spirit cost means you only need 652 spirit to equip lvl 94 legendary off-hands. I use this almost every time that I use Ishtak.
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[ul][li]Shepherd’s Crook[/li]This provides some decent defensive bonuses for you and your pets, and also has the Celestial Power Shepherd’s Call which is pretty good.
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[ul][li]Toad[/li]Provides some minor pet bonuses, and has great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Empty Throne[/li]Provides some good resistance bonuses, but I rarely end up using it.
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[ul][li]Wolverine[/li]Provides some good resistances and DA, but I rarely end up using it.
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[ul][li]Fiend[/li]Provides some minor pet bonuses, and the Flame Torrent Celestial Power which is great on chaos/fire pet builds.
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[ul][li]Jackal[/li]Provides minor pet bonuses. I often use this when I need Chaos Affinity.
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[ul][li]Vulture[/li]Provides some decent resistance bonuses. I use often this when I need Chaos Affinity.
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[/Spoiler2]
Many of the devotion setups I use have 2 Celestial Powers that must be bound to player skills. Curse of Frailty is always used, but there are some different options for a second skill. My personal preference is Dreeg’s Evil Eye with Focused Gaze, but Doom Bolt and Grasping Vines are also great choices. Wind Devil doesn’t work in these scenarios as it is a player-scaled pet.

The relevant Celestial Powers that require player skills are Shepherd’s Call (Shepherd’s Crook), Hungering Void (Dying God), Time Dilation (Aeon’s Hourglass), and Arcane Bomb (Window), Howl of Mogdrogen (Mogdrogen the Wolf).

There are numerous different viable devotion setups you can use. Here are a couple of options I can recommend:

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 1 27[/COLOR][/li]The main setup I recommend in this build is defensive with some great RR as well.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 2 5[/COLOR][/li]Similar to setup 1 but a little simpler to play as it doesn’t use Arcane Bomb, which means you don’t need as many active skills.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 3 3[/COLOR][/li]This is better offensively at the cost of defense, using Dying God and Aeon’s Hourglass instead of Ishtak. It’s definitely faster and works great in the main campaign, but in the crucible it’s a fair bit less reliable.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 4 2[/COLOR][/li]This setup with Mogdrogen is great offensively, but also pretty bad defensively. In addition to not having Ishtak, it also doesn’t have maxed player movement speed. You can swap Whirlpool for Reckless Tempest if you want but in my experience it performs a little worse.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 5 4[/COLOR][/li]Alternate Mogdrogen setup using Giant’s Blood and Arcane Barrier instead of either Whirlpool or Reckless Tempest. A bit better defensively, but still lacks player movement speed.
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Tip: You can fully max a new set of Celestial Powers in a couple of hours running the Rogue-like dungeons with Potions of Clarity, significantly less time than it takes to farm the item’s you’ll need. If you decide to change devotion setups later on, it’s not a big deal.

Devotion Order (for setup 1)

[Spoiler2][ul][li]Crossroads (Eldritch)[/li]

[li]Raven[/li]

[li]Crossroads (Order)[/li]

[li]Stag[/li]

[li]Eel[/li]

[li]Amatok the Spirit of Winter[/li]4 points required for Blizzard, bind Blizzard to Familiar.

[li]Crossroads (Ascendant)[/li]

[li]Shepherd’s Crook[/li]bind Shepherd’s Call to Curse of Frailty

[li]Buyback Crossroads (Ascendant)[/li]

[li]Rhowan’s Crown[/li]bind Elemental Storm to Primal Spirit or Briarthorn

[li]Buyback Crossroads (Eldritch)[/li]

[li]Window[/li]bind Arcane Bomb to Curse of Frailty, bind Shepherd’s call to Dreeg’s Evil Eye.

[li]Crossroads (Chaos)[/li]

[li]Jackal[/li]

[li]Staff of Rattosh[/li]

[li]Buyback Jackal[/li]

[li]Crane[/li]

[li]Ulo the Keeper of the Waters[/li]

[li]Ishtak, the Spring Maiden[/li]
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[/Spoiler2]

Equipment

Equipment flexibility is one of the things that makes this build great for beginners.

The builds priorities for equipment are as follows

• +10 to Summon Familiar
• Pet speed (up to ~180% attack speed including proc buffs like Frenzied Devotion from Bysmiel’s Domination)
• Player resistances (up to cap)
• Pet damage

These priorities hold for pretty much the entire game, from the moment you start the character until you clear Ultimate difficulty, although resistances are less important for most of normal difficulty.

You don’t really need to worry about pet OA, you end up with a ton of bonuses naturally. If you have less than ~40% bonus you might want to think about getting a little more, but it’s not critical (pun intended).

Most other pet builds need to care to some degree about pet resistances, but this build doesn’t really because Familiars are practically immortal. Any build using Skeletons or Briarthorns needs to care about aether/chaos resistance a lot more.

When leveling, look for items that have the Occultist prefix with +1 Summon Familiar. Look for items with Epic items with +1 Occultist skills. Look for items that boost pet speed and damage.

Before going into specific item slot recommendations, here are a few useful items that you don’t need to farm:

Useful Faction/Vendor/MI items

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Salazar’s Sovereign Blade[/li]This Monster Infrequent gives +2 Familiar and has a skill that summons a temporary pet. The pet it summons is powerful but really slow, and usually can’t keep up during the campaign. Still, the +2 Familiar on this item makes it great to use when you’re starting out, regardless of what affixes the item gets. It is NOT worth trying to farm good affixes on this.
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[ul][li]Legion Voidcutter/Elite Legion Voidcutter[/li]This weapon from the ancient past has been overlooked for years, but it’s proc provides a speed bonus comparable to the procs on Mogdrogen the Wolf and Bysmiel’s Domination. Despite giving zero skill bonuses, It is one of the best weapon options you can possible have on this build. These can be purchased from the Black Legion faction. This will be nerfed in the next patch for sure, so enjoy it while you can.
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[ul][li]Claw of Hagaraz[/li]This weapon is craftable, with a blueprint purchased from the Barrowholm Faction. It gives +1 Occultist skills and some decent pet damage.
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[ul][li]Stormbringer of Malmouth[/li]This off-hand is craftable with a blueprint purchased from Malmouth Resistance faction. It gives +3 Lightning Strike and a large pet lightning damage bonus.
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[ul][li]Wendigo Conjuring Seal[/li]This ring gives +2 to Summon Familiar and is purchasable from the Barrowholm Faction. This make it much much easier to hit +10 Familiar until you find all of the other gear.
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[ul][li]Legion Mark of the Void[/li]This medal gives a huge pet OA bonus, and has some useful chaos resistance as well.
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[ul][li]Ancestor[/li]This is an amazing relic for pet builds, Familair Conjurers in particular. The blueprint can be purchased from the Hyram, the Rare Goods vendor in Steelcap District (unlocked after some of the Malmouth Resistance faction side quests). He can also sell the blueprint for Haunt which is required to make Ancestor. The blueprint for Mistborn talisman (also required to make Ancestor) can be found from the Troll boss at the end of the Smuggler’s Passage.
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[ul][li]Beastcaller’s Cowl[/li]The vender in the Ancient Grove sells random blueprints for non-mythical legendaries, and can sell the blueprint for the non-mythical Beastcaller’s Cowl. If you’re underequipped, farming that dungeon can get you the blueprint for this great item, and is also a great place to find other legendaries. The vender sells the same blueprints on all difficulties, so you can farm it on normal if you need to.
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[ul][li]Empowered Essence of Beronath[/li]This craftable amulet gives +1 all skills, which is really useful when you’re lacking gear. The blueprint can be purchased from the vendor in the Ancient Grove.
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[ul][li]Empowered Black Grimoire of Og’Napesh[/li]This craftable off-hand lets you summon an extra pet. He’s not super powerful, but is certainly useful to have mid-game when you’re lacking gear. The blueprint can be purchased from the vendor in the Ancient Grove.
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[ul][li]Empowered Malformed Effigy[/li]This craftable off-hand gives +1 occultist skills. Early on you’re probably better off with the Black Grimoire (unless this can get you to 26/16 in Summon Familiar), but this is a good alternative option. The blueprint can be purchased from the vendor in the Ancient Grove.
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[ul][li]Clairvoyant’s Hat[/li]This craftable helm gives +1 all skills and some CDR. The blueprint can be purcahsed from the vender in the Ancient Grove. You’re probably better off with Beastcaller’s Cowl but I’d use this if it was needed to reach 26/16 in Summon Familiar.
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[ul][li]Kra’vall Shoulderpads[/li]This is great early on, providing OA, crit damage, and +3 to Manipulation, giving you either some extra damage and speed or 3 extra skill points to spend wherever you need.
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[ul][li]Wendigo Spellweaver Chestguard/Elite Wendigo Spellweaver Chestguard[/li]There aren’t a lot of great faction armor options for pet builds, but the +2/+3 Conjure Primal Spirit this provides can provide a nice boost to damage output when you’re lacking in gear.
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[ul][li]Elite Outcast’s Skey Vestiment[/li]Another decent faction armor option for later on if you don’t have anything better yet. It provides some decent speed and +3 Raging Tempest will save you 3 points that you can spend elsewhere.
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[ul][li]Hysteria[/li]This is the least useful of the pet Relics, but the blueprint is purchaseable from both Homestead and Coven of Ugdenbog. Its worth using on most pet build until you find something better.
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[/Spoiler2]

Augments

[Spoiler2]
This list covers all of the augments that I find to be useful on any pet build, but not every augment that offers pet bonuses.

[ul][li]Rifthound Salts[/li]Ring/Amulet augment that can be purchased from the Devil’s Crossing faction at Honored. Among other things it provides pets 3% total speed, which by itself isn’t huge but with 3 of these together it’s pretty noticeable.
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[ul][li]Mogdrogen’s Blessing[/li]Ring/Amulet augment that can be purchased from the Rover’s faction at Revered. Provides great offensive pet bonuses, and is the default augment to use unless you specifically need other resistances
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[ul][li]Mender’s Powder[/li]Ring/Amulet augment that can be purchased from the Malmouth Resistance faction at Honored. It provides some great pet defensive bonuses. This augment is not very useful on this particular build, but it’s good to know about for other builds that need those pet resistances more.
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[ul][li]Sylvarria’s Essence[/li]Ring/Amulet augment that can be purchased from the Coven of Ugdenbog faction at Revered. It provides pet and player OA and poison resistance. This is useful on pet builds that do not include the Occultist mastery and thus do not have access to Aspect of the Guardian.
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[ul][li]Witch’s Powder[/li]Weapon augment that can be purchased from the Black Legion faction at Honored. It provides pet OA and attack speed. This is the best weapon augment to use until you get access to Ravager’s Eye from Barrowholm.
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[ul][li]Coven’s Wit[/li]Weapon augment that can be purchased from the Coven of Ugdenbog faction at Revered. It provides pet damage and total speed. If you don’t need the player defense bonuses from Ravager’s Eye, this is the best weapon augment for pet builds.
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[ul][li]Ravager’s Eye[/li]Weapon augment that can be purchased from the Barrowholm faction at Revered. It provides pet offensive bonuses and player defensive bonuses. This is a great all-purpose augment for pet builds, and is my usual default.
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For armor augments and components, use whatever you need to max your resistances.
[/Spoiler2]

Now, lets talk about what items to prefer in what item slot, and why. Note that the final build is not just picking the top item from each slot. It’s a selection of items that go well together to cover all of your needs.

Amulet

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Will of Bysmiel[/li]allows you to summon 2 Familiars
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[ul][li]Conduit of Eldritch Whispers (with the Familiar bonus)[/li]The Familiar bonus affix adds damage to familiars and lets their projectiles pierce, which is pretty useful.
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[ul][li]Mythical Sovereign Ruby of Domination[/li]Provides great damage bonuses and some CDR.
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[ul][li]Sovereign Ruby of Domination[/li]Provides great damage bonuses and some CDR, although less than the mythical version.
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[ul][li]Anything with +1 All skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 Occultist skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 Familiar (if needed)[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Rings

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth[/li]Provides major pet speed and lightning damage bonuses, and +2 Primal Spirit. This is craftable once you find the blueprint.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Wendigo Conjuering Seal[/li]+2 Familiar, some nice Aether resistance, and some decent pet damage.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 Familiar (if you need it)[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Medal

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Mark of Forgotten Spirits[/li]+2 Summon Familiar and other good pet bonuses
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything else with +2 Summon Familiar[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Mythical Mogdrogen Sigil[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mythical Beastcaller’s Talisman[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Beastcaller’s Talisman[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mogdrogen Sigil[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Belts

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Voidmancer’s Cord[/li]+3 to Summon Familiar and Primal Bond, and some good pet bonuses.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Voidmancer’s Cord[/li]Same skill bonuses as the Mythical version with smaller other bonuses. Craftable once you find the blueprint.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mythical Shadowfiend’s Cord[/li]+1 Occultist skills, and some other pet bonuses.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 Occultist skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Helmet

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Beastcaller’s Cowl[/li]Great bonuses, amazing buff skill. Craftable once you find the blueprint.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Beastcaller’s Cowl[/li]Not as good as the Mythical one, but still pretty good. This is craftable, and the blueprint can be purchased from the vendor in the Ancient Grove.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mythical Necrolord’s Gaze[/li]This provides +1 all Shaman skills and some extra uptime for Primal Spirit. Craftable once you find the blueprint.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 All skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 Occultist skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Chest Armor

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Anything with +2 Familiar (Mythical Necrolord’s Shroud is the only legendary option)[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Gloves

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Overlord’s Iron Grip[/li]Really useful resistances and skill modifiers
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mythical Bonescavanger’s Deathgrips[/li]+2 Primal Spirit and some pet speed.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Boots

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Fiendflesh Greaves[/li]The proc is really useful defensively, and they give good pet bonuses.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Fiendflesh Greaves[/li]Not as good as the mythical version, but still good.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Pants

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Chausses of Barbaros[/li]provides useful chaos resistance, and the proc affects pets and is really good.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mythical Wildshorn Legguards[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Shoulders

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Mythical Mantle of the Patron[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything else with +2 Summon Familiar[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mantle of Mogdrogen[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Weapon

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Elite Legion Voidcutter[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mythical Spark of Ultos[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Claw of Hagaraz[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mythical Witching Hour[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Salazar’s Sovereign Blade[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything else with +1 Occultist skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Off-hand

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Stormbringer of Malmouth[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Cataclysm’s Eye[/li]+1 all skills and great resistances
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 All skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 Occultist skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li] Black Grimoire of Og’Napesh (Normal, Empowered, or Mythical)[/li]Provides an extra pet. If +1 Occultist skills is either not needed or not enough to reach +10 Summon Familiar this is often a better choice, although Stormbringer of Malmouth wins once you can get it.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with other pet or player resistance bonuses[/li]
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Relics

[Spoiler2]

[ul][li]Bysmiel’s Domination[/li]Massive pet speed and damage bonus on the proc
[/ul]

[ul][li]Primal Instinct[/li]Swarmlings are great, and the +1 Shaman skills is useful.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Mogdrogen’s Ardor[/li]+1 all skills and pretty good overall pet bonuses.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Ancestor[/li]+1 Shaman skills and some great pet bonuses, including 10% total speed.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Dirge of Akrovia[/li]Decent pet bonuses, and a tough pet that provides some extra RR.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Anything with +1 Occultist skills[/li]
[/ul]

[ul][li]Savage[/li]provides an extra pet, but he’s not that great.
[/ul]

[ul][li]Hysteria[/li]An extra pet with some minor pet bonuses.
[/ul]
[/Spoiler2]

Tip: Anything that can crafted by a blacksmith gets a random bonus. The bonuses are specific to the blacksmith (except for relics). Angrim gives some great defensive bonuses, including a chance for 3-7% pierce resistance. I always craft at Angrim for the pierce resistance. (he can also give % armor or % physique). The Black Legion smiths offer some great bonuses too. For more information on blacksmith bonuses, see this thread.

When it comes to the end-game equipment setup, you have a lot of choices for the weapon + off-hand + relic combination. You need to get +1 occultist skills total between those 3 items, and otherwise want to maximize speed and damage. Here are several different combinations that all work fine.

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 1 3[/COLOR][/li]Claw of Hagaraz + Stormbringer of Malmouth + Bysmiel’s Domination
[/ul]

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 2[/COLOR][/li]Claw of Hagaraz + Stormbringer of Malmouth + Primal Instinct
[/ul]

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 3[/COLOR][/li]Elite Legion Voidcutter + Stormbringer of Malmouth + Mogdrogen’s Ardor
[/ul]

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 4[/COLOR][/li]Mythical Spark of Ultos + Stormbringer of Malmouth + Mogdrogen’s Ardor
[/ul]

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 5 2[/COLOR][/li]Elite Legion Voidcutter + Cataclysm’s Eye + Primal Instinct
[/ul]

[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 6[/COLOR][/li]Mythical Spark of Ultos + Cataclysm’s Eye + Bysmiel’s Domination
[/ul]

I generally like to have one of the three 3 big speed boost buffs (Mogdrogen the Wolf Constellation, Elite Legion Voidcutter,and Bysmiel’s Domination). Using more than one of them together tends to lose out due to the other bonuses you have to sacrifice, and using none tends to lose out due to the lack of speed.

Piloting Tips

Pet Attack
Familiars shoot multiple projectiles, and only one or two of them will hit their targets if left to their own devices. To get the most out of Familiars you need to intervene manually by using the Pet Attack command frequently. Bind if to your RMB. The trick to using it effectively is that you don’t want to click on monsters, you want to click on the ground next to monsters. If your familiar doesn’t move to that location, you probably clicked on a monster instead so move your mouse a little and try again. Since you’re not only telling the Familiar where to move, and not what to attack, you may sometimes need a second click on the intended target. Getting the Familiar in the right place is the most important part.

Generally, I just right click the ground in front of a pack of monsters as I move towards it and the Familiar takes care of the rest.

Using Pet Attack this way is actually pretty useful on all pet builds. It maximizes that damage from Skeletons using Flame Torrent. It helps ensure Blight Fiend’s Blight Burst or Sundered Wraith’s (Reap Spirit) Vitality Nova gets launched in center of packs. It’s less relevant for Briarthorns and Primal Spirits, but it doesn’t hurt with them either.

TODO: What else should go here?

Crucible

This build is quite capable of farming the Crucible on Gladiator. With 3 buffs and banner, even the slower variations can consistently clear in under 8 minutes, allowing 3 runs on a single set of buffs leaving you with a small net gain in Tribute. The more aggressive setups can get as low as 7 minutes, and with some unrealistic MIs can get under 6:30 clear times.

If you’re still a way away from being able to farm Gladiator, you can try farming the top 20 waves of Challenger difficulty instead. Using 3 buffs you should be able to do 3 runs, finishing with a small net gain in Tribute.

Here are some tips:
TODO: Explain my piloting strategy

FAQ

Reserved.

Reserved just in case.

I posted them one at a time with the customary 90 second delay

I’ve never focused on any specific %damage values. Generally speaking, you want (and can get without too much trouble) at least 2000%, but for pet builds speed is often at least as important. 130% pet attack speed is good, 180% is great, much more than that is overkill.

Different damage types also have access to wildly different amounts of both % bonuses and RR.

[ul][li]Physical gets some of the most RR, but can only get up to around 2000%. [/li]
[li]Chaos has some of the least RR but can get to 3000%. [/li]
[li]Lighting can get around 2800% with a lot of RR, but conversion isn’t full meaning it’s mostly Familiars. [/li]
[li]Vitality has trouble getting much above 2200% but has tons of flat damage and RR.[/li]
[li]Poison can get to around 3000% but RR is limited, and only Blight Fiends really supply any damage.[/li]
[/ul]

Also the character sheet doesn’t tell the full story. Most pets have ~150% all damage on the skill itself and the character sheet only shows all damage. There are tons of items/skills that boost specific damage types. Non-pet specific aura boosts don’t show up in GrimTools (e.g. Battlecry proc from Barbaros)

Also pet builds tend to deal a veritable soup of different damage types.

Probably, depends on what you mean by top tier and how much hybrid. I’m afraid I don’t understand non-pet builds well enough to have much hope of pulling off a serious hybrid.

I did manage a 7:08 clear with a Storm Totem/Familiar Conjurer using a stupid MI weapon, but Storm Totem is basically a pet and I think the Familiars were doing most of the work anyway based on the number of Bound Spirits spawned. I thought it’d be cool to use Lightning pets while having Stormbringer of Malmouth convert Bound Spirit vitality to lighting so they’d be all elemental.

I think your best bets would be Diviner Ritualist/Cabalist, Lightning Conjurer/Vindicator, Elemental Deceiver/Vindicator, Witching Hour Deceiver/Conjurer/???.

You’d definitely want to focus on Familiar, Primal Spirit, or Reap Spirit for your pets. Those are the easiest to itemize for and also give the most power for the least points, while being the easiest to keep alive. Familiars are basically immortal, and the other two are temporary by design. Diviner’s set is pretty much a must if you want to use Reap Spirit for the pets, but I’ve been messing around with a lot of Diviner builds lately and have had some pretty good success. I’ll post about them eventually.

Viper applies to player attacks only, not pet attacks. Storm Orb’s %weapon damage is the pet’s flat damage (from any flat damage bonuses, such as from Storm Spirit). In my experience, the RR on Viper is not useful to pet builds.