Inquisitor - Dual Pistols, Resistance Reduction, and Few Bad Pairings

What It Does Well

Officially described as members of the Luminari Order who protected the Erulan Empire from arcane and occult dangers - excelling with ranged weapons while an arsenal of relics and arcane runes makes them more than capable in close quarters.

• ▸Guns: dual pistols with no special gear, with passives that raise damage and speed, plus three weapon pool skills that proc on ranged attacks.
• ▸Magic and placement: magical attack skills alongside several placed runes.
• ▸Resistance reduction: elemental scaling and reduction, plus pierce, aether, and chaos reduction as active skills - which is rare - and three ways to reduce enemy Defensive Ability.
• ▸Defense: an instant heal and a placed damage-absorption skill, with the exclusive skill offering either physical resistance or an enemy damage reduction debuff.
• ▸General scaling: Offensive Ability, Defensive Ability, critical damage, and total damage, which makes synergy easy regardless of damage type.
• ▸Anti-race: skills that target Chthonians and Eldritch specifically.
• ▸Attribute growth: Physique 1.5 / Cunning 4 / Spirit 2.5.

Strengths and Weaknesses

• ▸Strength: plentiful, strong area damage available from low tiers, and few enemies that resist its elemental focus.
• ▸Strength: it secures large amounts of aether and chaos resistance and raises Offensive Ability, total damage, and critical damage, making synergy easy with many masteries.
• ▸Weakness: three ranged weapon pool skills, but no default-attack replacement like Fire Strike.
• ▸Weakness: the two rune skills are strong but carry the delay inherent to placed skills and take practice.
• ▸Weakness: the channeling skill needs many skill points to finish and is awkward in energy cost, range, and vulnerability to crowd control.
• ▸Weakness: its only permanent buff is the final-tier exclusive skill, which limits hosts for on-being-hit devotion procs.
• ▸For builds using any of the three elemental types, the Japanese wiki states that the heavily buffed exclusive skill Aura of Censure makes taking this mastery on one side close to always correct.

Choosing a Partner and Getting Started

Inquisitor sits on the fits-anything side of the roster, contributing generic scaling and resistance reduction. Pick the partner by your intended damage type.

• ▸Nightblade: the Japanese wiki explicitly calls the pierce synergy here very strong, and it meshes with dual-wield melee damage.
• ▸Arcanist: shares elemental damage while Inquisitor supplies the resistance reduction and defense Arcanist lacks.
• ▸Demolitionist: shares fire and lightning while bringing the defensive skills and instant healing Demolitionist is short on.
• ▸If pierce is your main damage type, whether the weapon carries 100% Armor Piercing decides the build (see the pierce section of the Nightblade article).
• ▸For what Ashes of Malmouth adds and whether you have it, see the DLC Guide.

1. Official Grim Dawn Game Guide: Masteries — Confirms Inquisitor as a Luminari Order member armed with relics and arcane runes, excelling with ranged weapons while remaining capable in close quarters, and requiring the Ashes of Malmouth expansion.
2. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Inquisitor — Confirms the AoM origin; the pierce and elemental focus with ranged weapons and gear-free dual pistols (the page calls this unique, but its 2026-07-21 update predates Fangs of Asterkarn, and Berserker's Implements of War also unlocks dual pistols, so this article does not repeat the "only" claim); durability beyond its low Physique thanks to instant healing and strong defensive skills; pierce, aether, and chaos resistance reduction as active skills; the anti-Chthonian and anti-Eldritch skills; the assessment that the heavily buffed Aura of Censure makes it near-always correct on one side of an elemental build; the very strong pierce synergy with Nightblade; and the listed strengths and weaknesses.
3. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Implements of War (Berserker) — Confirms that Berserker's tier-1 passive also unlocks dual pistols, which is why this article does not repeat the Inquisitor page's "only mastery" claim.
4. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Masteries index — Confirms the attribute growth (Physique 1.5 / Cunning 4 / Spirit 2.5), favored damage types (1. elemental, 2. physical and pierce, 3. aether and chaos), and the mid-range, guns-and-traps positioning.
5. Official Crate Forum: Grim Dawn Version v1.3.0.4 + Hotfixes — Official patch notes for the verified version.