Contact

You can reach me at: david.allen @at@ requnix.com.

  1. Hey! Just wanted to say thanks for your guides! I got into GD about a month ago and got a 2H ranged firestrike purifier to 100. After a bit of farming on that character, I got bored. But then I realized I picked up a lot of BPs for helms and I realized that I had 2 pieces of the Light’s Defender in addition to the BP for the helm. Because some of my purifier gear could overlap with a vindicator, I decided to fire one up and I came across your guide! I’m not sure what happened on the GD forums, but just wanted to say thanks again for continuing the provide your builds, albeit on another site, despite what has happened. Looking forward to updates on vindicator guide as they come around!

  2. Thanks, Matthew! The ST/WD Vindicator is a lot of fun. It’s been requested to create a Primal Strike Vindicator build as well – not sure if I’ll get around to it soon as PoE Legion comes out on Friday. I’m working on a DW Physical/Pierce Tactician (Gun) build right now and hope to have it done and published by Thursday (if it performs really well).

    Thanks again and have a great week!

  3. Hi, I too have recently returned to Grim Dawn after an absence and really appreciate the effort that you have taken to create these guides. Please continue to do more as these have really helped me understand some of the mechanics behind the game and been great in letting me explore some of the other classes.
    Thanks

  4. Thanks for posting your guides!! I have almost 4700 hours into Grim Dawn and did a reset with the release of Forgotten Gods. I’ve been using a number of your guides and having a huge amount of fun.

  5. I have 7 of them on the go but I am really enjoying MR THUMPYSHARTS and BURN THE WORLD as I have never spent much time with either of these types of builds in the past.

  6. Just wanted to say thanks for all the builds! I’m currently trying out this scourge arrow slayer build and loving it so far! Only thing I was trying to figure out is why lacerate is in the build setup since it does not work with bows?

    Keep up the good work! love it.

  7. Thanks! Oops – Lacerate and MPD is just to level up the gems for use with another build (or to vaal and sell) – they aren’t used for this build. Sorry for the confusion!

  8. I am currently using the Skelly guide and it is working very well. I wanted to say thanks for all the guides. I am new to the game.
    Is there an Oathkeeper guide /WW style you might have somewhere or know of one i might use.
    Thank you again for all the hard work and making the game for me.

  9. Thanks for the feedback; I’m glad they are helping! With the buff to Skeletons in the latest patch, SIR CRUNCHYBONES should be doing very well!

    The reason I didn’t do an Eye of Reckoning build guide is I couldn’t find one that performed as well as these other builds all the way through to end-game with self-found gear. Fire EoR was the strongest, but it just lost its survival in Ultimate. Archon EoR was the strongest, but it required all BiS legendaries (which wasn’t feasible for a starting build). Without BiS/Complete Mythical sets, EoR just didn’t perform well, and that was before the nerf 🙁

  10. I am really enjoying your guides, and I have found them very useful as a new player. I do, however, have one tiny suggestion. On Hardcore Veteran, because I haven’t unlocked Elite or Ultimate, yet, the Skeletons were getting wrecked in The Putrid Den. I found that a single point in Bone Harvest after the initial 6 in Skeletons solved that problem quite nicely.

  11. That’s great advice – especially with how tough Veteran is now (much tougher than when I made the guide). I’ll put a quick not in with your feedback. Thanks!

  12. Hello! Instead of adding to the build thread I’ll make the CrunchyBones reminder here!

    With GrimTools down, were you able to use the “archive” I linked to see why you added Spectral Binding and Spectral Wrath? It looks like they wouldn’t add to pet support? I can see the RR, but caster will be more than 2m away from things most of the time.

    To that point – from K Ross comment – how is Bone Harvest making that much difference? It again is an attack, and all I see is the -8% movement?

    Maybe these 2 things show a clear lack of concept of GD on my part!
    Thanks again for the time to read my confusion!

  13. GrimTools is back up! It’s actually Soul Harvest (the 3rd in the line of Bone Harvest) that empowers pets – that’s what he meant to say – so one point in Bone Harvest and one point in Soul Harvest. Give that a shot and let me know your thoughts!

  14. Hey Ross! GT is back up – now I can review your recommendation – did you mean a single point in Soul Harvest vs. Bone Harvest? (Soul Harvest is the only modifier that impacts pets). Can you elaborate on your experience mentioned above?

  15. I was a complete newbie and followed your guide from the moment I started playing. I think you need to stress in your guide that once you accumulate your 5000 ion cobalt that you need to place it in your starship inventory.

    I had 10000 ion cobalt which I spent hours mining. I had multiple opportunities to spend it but your guide said not to. I ended up getting killed by sentinel drones and lost the lot because they were in my exosuit. I didn’t know I would lose all of my inventory in my exosuit but keep my starship inventory.

    Please can you stress this in the guide and save someone else a world of hurt. Thanks.

    UPDATE: Never mind. Sorry. I was playing normal so I retrieved my items – phew!

  16. Glad you were able to retrieve the content! The vast majority of players are going to be in Normal mode, so they can retrieve any lost items at their grave. Generally only experienced players will be in Survival or Permadeath – BTW did you die at the egg farm where you get the blueprints? I might want to add something there about the dangers…

  17. Have you completed the Neverwinter upgrade because i am a mediocre player enjoying Rift and Neverwinter..as a cleric in NWN i cannot play her and stay alive i have made a lumpenclump ‘Barbie’ and tracked through to the undermountain in quick time..i discovered this looking for reasons and some wise assist on the matter

  18. I actually wrote the review right before the “big changes” so I can’t really comment on the game’s current state. My apologies; have you tried the Neverwinter Subreddit?

  19. Really enjoying the builds. Do you have any plans for a retaliation build? I’ve seen some impressive end-game Warlords but I enjoy your levelling guides. Thanks.

  20. Hey David, I really enjoy the No Man’s Sky Beyond complete guide but it is a bit outdated in critical ways and could use an update. For example, the entire section on nanite farming doesn’t work anymore. The eggs don’t regenerate as they did, however they do regenerate on the order of once a week. I think your quick guide is a valuable resource to allow folks to fast track into the core of the game and don’t want gamers to be turned off because they think it is outdated. As I write this, NMS Beyond is at build 2.15.

  21. Hey Ed! Yup, I recently heard about this change. So they regenerate once a week in real time? Ouch. I figured it might be once a day. That means one would need to find numerous bases and network them all together for farming and hit them once a week (over a period of days). This does change a big part of the guide. I’ll need to think about how to address this. Are you 100% sure they regenerate once per week? Is this documented somewhere?

  22. Hi there read your post about the grim dawn community
    Wel what to say besides it was long 🙂

    I skipped the forums all tougether and wend straight to
    your guides (as a returning player myself) and found them very helpfull

    Just wanted to say your guides are great keep up the good work!! 🙂

  23. Hi David,

    Just wanted to drop a note thanking you for all your hard work. I am new to Grim Dawn and started off overwhelmed and lost, but your starter builds helped me gain understanding of the many gear/skill/devotion mechanics and now I absolutely love this game. Your “Burn the World” Purifier is actually my main atm and it is just a joy to play. I plan to do many more characters as well.

    Thanks again for all you do!

  24. im somewhat new to GD and have all the expansions. Do I need to purchase all in game tabs first before I can use GDitem assist?
    I’m also launching the game using GDinternals. Thanks for your help!

  25. Welcome! You can start using GD Item Assist at any time, but you do need to unlock the different stash tabs to enable the built-in management. If I recall you can go into the GD Stash settings and have it use Stash 1 or 2 as the deposit stash, so technically you could enable it earlier – but IMO you don’t really “need” GD stash until you can afford to buy all tabs anyway 🙂

  26. Perfect! Do you buy the shared transfer stashes or individual character stashes? Thanks for your help!

  27. Hello David.
    Just read your update on the toxicity of the forums. I’d like to thank you for your good build guides, and I’m sorry to see you lost the spark for Grim Dawn. I will be hoping to see you in other games and more positive communities.
    (Primary character is Crunchy, since I sometimes fall asleep while playing casually, and the pets really save me) 😉

  28. Thanks for the support, Birk; I appreciate it! CrunchyBones and Bloodydots are my two favorite builds out of the bunch. Happy hunting!

  29. David, My name is David also. I am sorry for what happened to you by Crate. I will admit I am one of those people who have come back to Grim Dawn every 6 months or so and always thought it was odd that people were advised to Theory craft, or use a final guide without any knowledge of the game. Which was on of my biggest turn offs, the other turn off of this game I have is once I am 100 and have BiS what then??

    Are you going to be going over the next PoE update that is coming out this upcoming Friday?

  30. It’s actually quite difficult to get all BiS for any single build, which is part of the fun of Grim Dawn; which is why people run multiple builds so they can find items to build their “account”. But it is unfortunate how most of the “information” on the forums is for end-game snapshots that most people don’t have a clue how to “get to”, which is why I made my guides.

    Yup; I’ll be playing Delirium when it launches on Friday.

  31. Hello david.
    I have already asked you on some occasion some doubts I had about a couple of Grim Dawn builds.
    I have to say that the work of doing these guides is wonderful and I encourage you to continue expanding the repertoire with some more, I think they could help many people like me, I think Grim Dawn is a great game and in the official forum The guides are nothing more than character captures.
    I am enjoying your Skelemancer Cabalist a lot.
    Today I wanted to ask for advice on how to build a character.
    I loved the paladin and the hammerdin crusader in Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 respectively.
    I was wondering. Is there a combination of classes or a build in Grim Dawn to replicate the hammerdin?

  32. Thanks for the feedback, Guamedo! Crunchybones is one of my favorite builds. I haven’t played GD in such a long time, I’d have to do substantial research on how to create something similar; in reality, you would probably have a better response from the GrimDawn subreddit. I hope this helps!

  33. The hell are we supposed to do with this paste bin(PoE)? And why isn’t it explained on this site? Why do I have to even ask?

  34. Morning Joe! Sorry for the frustration; the beginning section did have:

    Path of Building is required to view many of the below builds. Additionally, make sure you have a good loot filter. I personally recommend NeverSink’s Loot Filter.

    However, I’ve added a new section with the proper stand-out border and background right above the start of the new builds that reads:

    For new players, you need Path of Building to view the PoB files.

    I hope this helps!

  35. I just checked; it’s fine. Note there are multiple trees – it defaults to Phase I for leveling; click on the combo box and you’ll see Phase I, Phase II, etc. And you’ll find additional details in the Notes section.

  36. Hi David,

    I’m new to GD and really appreciate the time that you put into these guides.

    Any thoughts about which of your beginner builds will fare the best in the current version (1.1.6.2)?

    Thanks!

  37. Thanks for the support! My favorite builds are Sir Crunchybones (Skelemancer) and Sir BloodyDots (Bleed Conjurer). But it really comes down to the play style you prefer. All of the builds should be viable with the current version of the game. Enjoy!

  38. Great No Mans Sky guide! Are you no longer able to buy advance mining blueprint? I’m late to the game but the only thing I couldn’t figure out with your guide so far. Thanks again!

  39. David, Being new to Grim Dawn having played Diablo and WoW, your guides are absolutely fantastic for any new player, especially those of the older generation LoL. My Skelemancer toon is so much fun as per your guide and is now level 65. I would really like to create another build but unfortunately unable to find any guides as detailed as yours, so was wondering if you have done a build for a fire templar type sword and board dude, there are a few videos, but nothing detailed like your brilliant guides.
    Any info or assistance would be greatly appreciated – keep up the great work
    Stu

  40. Hey Stuart; thanks for the feedback! I believe the build you’re probably looking for is a Krieg’s Death Knight. Unfortunately I don’t have a guide for it, but you should be able to find one online; it’s been around quite some time. Good luck, and happy hunting!

  41. Hi David,

    I’m new to Grim dawn and found some your character builds online. I decided to go with Mr. Crunchybones for my build and have been having fun with him. However, since I’m still new to the game and still working on leveling him, what stats/attributes should I focus on in my gear and as I level?

    Thanks

  42. Great choice! The guide should have everything you need; both the attribute requirements and recommended items during leveling are under the “Leveling Guide” section. Enjoy!

  43. Thanks a lot for these guides. They were the only reason I enjoyed the game. After having 5 useless characters your Crunchybones, Thumpy and Acid Ravenous were an awesome trip to level 100! I could barely find guides with levelling sections, and if they had it was badly written.

    Sadly I’m quitting this game. This community seems toxic. When people ask on reddit about guides they get downvoted. One person even recommended this site of yours and they got downvoted!!! What the hell? You have the best guides for this game. Period. I don’t a “guide” that all it has is a grimtools link with BiS and no explanation for anything whatsoever. That’s not a guide: that’s laziness.

    I wanted to write beginner guides for GD as I did for Torchlight 2 because I like to make new players life’s easier and more enjoyable, but I’m afraid when that time happens the big minority that for some reason despise guides will make my life hell.

    Stay safe. I love your work. If you have a paypal or something I could donate. I’d like to contribute to this content.

  44. Thanks for the support, Joao! The toxic community is why I quit (http://requnix.com/the-hidden-toxicity-of-the-grim-dawn-community-and-crate-entertainment). Since the people running Crate are unethical themselves, the community reflects their lack of values and standards. Sadly, the core rotten people (it’s a group of about a dozen folks) have taken their toxicity to Reddit and spend all of their time dominating the forums and subreddit. And yes, they are mentally ill narcissists who are hellbent on making life hell for anyone who isn’t part of their group and doesn’t do things their way. It’s quite sad because Grim Dawn is such a good game; the reality is Crate (and especially Arthur Bruno) simply doesn’t care about the toxicity of the community, so nothing will change. Thanks for the offer of donation, but I want my site to be ad and donation free; I write the content as a hobby to provide information to the gaming community, and am happy to do so 🙂 Have a great weekend!

  45. Sad stuff, David. Game itself is amazing but I can’t stand to play knowing that if I ever need help I’ll be in bad hands.

    In contrast to the Path of Exile community. I started today a new character before the league ends in more or less 3 weeks. Asked some stuff on the subreddit and plenty of people answered; one guy even gave me some levelling stuff to level up faster!! I feel like home here. Can’t say the same for GD.

  46. Yes, I found the PoE community to be much more open to new players and those who provide guides. There’s definitely some min/max fanatics who attack any build that isn’t “the best” but they have strict guidelines about how to behave on their forums, and solid community managers. That’s the real difference – rotten people are quickly banned & removed by the Administrators 🙂

  47. Thank you for your guide, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks also to Google.

    Is the six skeleton limit a hard cap? The reason I’m asking is because I found a belt that had a +2 to skeletons, but it doesn’t work, it only brings up six.

    Thanks.

  48. Hey John! Sorry it’s been a good year or so since I ran that build; if I recall, leveling the skills up also increases the number – so once you get the +2 and all the skeleton summon skills up, you should be at your max. Sorry I don’t have more detailed information; I hope this helps though!

  49. Thanks David.

    The cap increase is in Undead Legion, I had not put mastery points in since level 14, and my character was 21 last yesterdat – so had some catching up to do.

    I have another question: Are all the mastery points used up, or are there any leftover? I’d like to stick some points in Hellhound, if possible. If not, no problem.

    Thanks again.

    John

  50. Hi David,
    I restarted playing POE last year around october, started discovering a lot of new stuff by myself then ended up looking for help & builds on some forums and luckily found your very helpful guides. I enjoyed playing with a few friends during Blight and Metamorph seasons, then we stopped for different reasons. But during all my research to understand the complex mechanism of this cool game, I read a lot of stuff from you and liked very much how clearely, wastely and with a lot of love and patience you write your guides.
    I could play SRS Necromancer, Frostblades Slayer & a bit of Ice Shot Deadeye with which I had a lot of fun !
    A few weeks ago, we discovered “by accident” GrimDawn so I started playing the old way, discovering stuff by myself (made a poison warlock which probably wont kick ass on high end game but I’m enjoying so far at lv 58.
    After 3 weeks I started browsing the web to find a few advices and look at some guides.
    What a surprise, you wrote amazing guides about this game, too !
    I’m really happy to feel home again and get your very appreciated & useful information !
    For my second char, I started following your MR CRUNSHYBONE guide and despite only being lv 22 so far, it’s great to follow it to the word and very fun to play 🙂

    All that to say : many thanks for all the great work you did.
    Keep strong when facing issue with jerks (yep, I read that also).

    Faq

  51. Thanks a ton for the support, Faquin! Mr. Crunchybones was one of my favorite builds 🙂 When you’re done with Mr. Crunchybones, be sure to try out Sr Bloodydots! 🙂

  52. Just thought I’d thank you for comprehensive guides! I’ve had trouble making my own builds…there’s a lot of options in this game and I keep hitting ‘I like this idea but then it dead ends and just can’t proceed well’, but I’ve been able to greatly enjoy the game having some direction. I got Mr. Zappy through FG Elite and realized my gear just isn’t up to snuff for Ultimate difficulty, so now I’m leveling the acid melter to do speed farming that needs slightly less setup/wind devil maintinance.

  53. I loved the breakdowns of games you reviewed, was wondering if you had plans to check out Last Epoch and how it compares to other games in the genre?

  54. Hey Edin! I have Last Epoch, but haven’t been playing it lately because it’s still in Alpha; when they launch the official Beta, I’ll probably check it out again. I think that’ll be happening pretty soon!

  55. Hey, just wanted to let you know I found your Grim Dawn build(s) on a different site with no author listed so I thought I’d link the site in case they are stealing your stuff:

    https://contactsmultiprogram.weebly.com/blog/grim-dawn-best-shaman-build

    P.S. Thanks for your build.s I’m currently using crunchybones, meltycakes and just started burn the world. I’d love to see a shaman/necro pet build from you if you’re interested in doing such a thing. Otherwise, thanks again; I enjoy the simplicity and power of your builds a lot.

  56. Thanks for the heads up! Not much I can do about it; just some person copying content. The site isn’t even really complete, so I’m not that concerned. It appears they copied a number of builds from other locations.

    I appreciate the support! Sadly, I don’t play Grim Dawn anymore, so I won’t be doing any future builds — but I’m glad the old ones are “holding up” – it’s been nearly two years 🙂

  57. Hey David

    Was just wondering if you’re going to be doing a guide on the new expeditions mode in No Mans Sky? Would love a guide to follow and yours are always the best

  58. Hey Soroush! Hard to say – depends on how busy things are over the next month or so. I’ll definitely be coming back to NMS; I just don’t know when. I’ll be sure to consider your request when I do! Thanks a ton for the support and recommendation!

  59. Yah I’ll give it a shot; will be interesting with the major changes. Don’t really plan on publishing any starter builds though because the changes are so drastic, it’s impossible to predict what builds will be great league starters. I mean ED/C, CA/TR, EQ, Totems, etc. will probably still work well, but I think we’re going to have to try them out to see which ones perform the best.

  60. Hi Dave,

    Thank you so much for your NMS guide, it really helped me get through the early stages of the game but is a little outdated. Thanks to a lot of information largely posted by yourself I was able to write a more modern guide and I wish to send you a copy that you can use, either in whole or in part, to update your own guide. I just don’t know where to send it. You should be able to get my email address from this post, please contact me and I’ll send you a copy.

    Cheers,

    Andrew.

  61. Thanks for the feedback and support, Andrew! I’m actually planning to update the NMS guide probably with the next expansion. If you did write a complete guide, I recommend hosting and sharing it with the community as I did here.

  62. Hi, could you help build a dw Apostate. Wanted to try cold build, but everywhere I look is lots of hate for the build do to lack of synergy gear in ultimate. I’ll deal with ultimate when I get there, but i’ve been struggling with the different skills. Right now I’m overlapping Rune of Haggard and Bone harvest for when surrounded, and Rune of haggard, and word of pain for trash. (not the best, but soloing and using pick up gear till i know what I want to farm for)

  63. Unfortunately, I haven’t played Grim Dawn for more than 2 years, so I’m not going to be of any help; I recommend trying the Grim Dawn Subreddit – active players might be able to lend a hand. Apologies I couldn’t be more help, but I hope you’re able to have your questions answered there. Good luck!

  64. This is awesome, thanks! I Want to share a little hack I discovered for easily transporting ore and other items that are not compatible with portals. Simply grab everything, even if it’s massively more than you can carry, then log out. Log back into a *different world* and drop your stuff. Log back into the original world (now carrying nothing) and use the portal to go to your intended destination. Position yourself next to a convenient place to store your stuff. Log back into the second world to pick up your stuff, then log back into the original world. Voila!

  65. Hi David! I tried emailing you but your spam filter keeps kicking me back. SO, it’s gonna sound cheesy in a public forum, but I’ll put it here instead:

    Hi David,

    I thought it was long overdue to send you a thank you, considering all the many many hours I have put into your games over the years. Specifically, the OG–Mordor. I remember playing this game with my brother as a kid, and always went back to it, even as new and flashier games continued to be developed and released. I know you’ve worked on others since then, but this is the one that keeps grabbing me. Recently found it again on oldgames.com and couldn’t download DOSBox fast enough!

    I’m 36 years old, I work full time, I have a gaming PC, an Xbox Series X, a Nintendo Switch, and I still spend way too much time playing Mordor. Just wanted to let you know that even your first works are still being appreciated in 2022 🙂
    (And… if you happen to have a save of a character that knows Retrieve Soul and can pull my beloved Seeker Elf, Alastair, out of a rock, after I drunkenly cast Ethereal Portal instead of Detect Rock, you’d make my entire life…)

    Thanks again, and stay safe out there!

  66. Thank you so much for the feedback and kind words, Amanda; it means a lot! I certainly enjoyed making MORDOR and its successor, DEMISE; the 90’s were so great 🙂 Unfortunately I don’t have any save files – the best option is probably to create a new Seeker character and build it up to the point it can use and execute Retrieve Soul on the level the rocked character is on, and then you’ll have it as your backup Rocked rescuer. Thanks again, and have a great weekend!

  67. Thanks David! Yeah, you’re right, just wanted to see if I could avoid grinding that far again, but I guess I’ll have to 😀 oh well, bigger and better!
    Cheers for the reply, and thanks for the reminder to check out DEMISE!

  68. Hi David

    Does the No Man’s Sky Prisms guide still work for 4.0 and are you planning any updates?

    Thanks

  69. Chlorine Manufacturing was nerfed substantially, as was the ability to acquire oxygen, so I’m currently researching new methods and plan on updating the guide soon. If you come across any recommendations, please let me know!

  70. Some options I have seen mentioned:

    Gold Farms
    Circuit Board Farms
    Collecting Bones
    Stealing from Cargo Pods in outlaw systems
    Trade Routes
    Scrapping ships
    Scanning (with upgrades)
    Farming Cacti for Unstable Gel
    Cooking
    Selling Salvaged Data
    Collecting Storm Crystals

    I haven’t played much so I don’t know how effective these are and if they are even viable early game. Thank you for looking into a replacement for chlorine farming, because I’m not sure what I should be doing instead.

  71. Thanks! I’m actually finalizing the new guide… I hope to have it complete within the next few days (NMS guides take a lot of time). It still makes a ton of money; it just takes longer than before, but that’s good because we can actually focus on playing and enjoying the game while we make money, rather than solely focusing on making money. I’ll let you know when it’s released!

  72. Hello do you still use and help people on grim dawn, I would love to be able to pick your brains on new updates to the awesome builds you have posted

  73. I’m sorry to learn about that wretched drama, my friend. You’ve created and assembled a top-notch array of easy-to-read and follow guides, and I’ve benefited greatly by consulting them. I’m new to Grim Dawn and while I was able to feel my way through leveling and fleshing out a retaliation warlord (more forgiving of mistakes to be sure), I was encountering the “blahs” with other projects, such as my Conjurer. Convinced that I was missing something important, I plumbed the internet and found myself led here. All I can say about my Conjurer now is, “Oh my!” He’s a screen-clearing, boss-shredding machine. Well done!

    A word of encouragement to other new players who read this: it’s never too late to fix mistakes with builds. My Conjurer was sitting idle at level 31 while I played around with my Forcewave Warder. All I had to do was respec following David’s outstanding guide and now, he makes my Forcewave Warder look silly (not that he’s bad, mind you).

  74. David!

    It’s 2023. What are you up to?

    Long time lurker…fantastic guides.
    Thanks for taking the time to make them all.

  75. Thanks! Been taking a break from gaming and focusing on writing, which has been quite enjoyable. Keeping an eye on the new POE 3.21 release along with D4, and of course any major Valheim updates. Also hoping we’ll see the big V Rising update soon, as well.

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