If I'm in melee combat in Grim Dawn, something has gone very, very wrong.Įdit: Just noticed the poll up top. Too much emphasis on melee for my tastes. I don't feel it is nearly so effective as the "NO, you fight" build, but that's probably more me not liking the shaman tree in general. Though I feel that Taylor here will be going for the more traditional "Lazy Pokemon Trainer" build, Shaman+Occultist.
You wont even need to learn any other spell than summon X until at least the mid point if you're smart, keep out of the line of sight for most enemies and keep a close eye on that zombie count. Hell, by the time you get crow, your skeletons will be several levels higher than you. Seriously, follow this and you can speed run the game pretty easily, as your minions will be constantly a higher level than most everything for the first third or so of the game. Stand back and laugh as your army obliterates everything around you without you having to lift a finger, except to occasionally resummon your minions. With crow maxed, start maxing each of the undead and crow passives as desired.
From there, max out crow asap, though you'll want to put at least one point into necro mastery every other level. Necro first, pour all your points into summon undead, just summon undead don't even put points into the mastery bar, until you get your next specialisation option crops up and you take Occultist. I tend to go for a Demolitionist based build when playing seriously (because fire bombing is so damn fun and useful), but going for the pokemon trainer builds is just too much hilarity to ignore. Necromancer+Occultist is, hands down, the laziest way to play.