If you have just started playing Grim Dawn and are currently going through the first Act, moving through the Burrwitch Outskirts, chances are you will eventually have to decide between Duncan or Angrim.

If the fear of picking the wrong choice induces mild anxiety to you, as it does to me, fear no more and read on. I will explain the advantages of each smith and give you tips on deciding as well as a general answer.

As a general answer, go with Angrim if your build wants armor and Pierce Resistance (most physical builds, and a lot of other builds as well), and go with Duncan if you play a caster that runs out of energy. Both can roll +% Physique. The choice only counts for the difficulty you make it on, so you can take the other smith on Elite or Ultimate.

Everything below is checked against the game files of version 1.3.0.8 (Fangs of Asterkarn), so the bonuses, the odds and the dialogue lines are the current ones.

Duncan

Of the two, you will meet Duncan in the Burrwitch Outskirts first who will also tell you about Angrim. Talking to him will initiate the quest “Tale Of Two Blacksmiths” as Duncan tells you that his Master Angrim left the camp and took the forging hammer Malleum Menhir with him. Duncan will ask you to retrieve this hammer as it is required for him to make proper gear.

Duncan’s main forging skills are of the Arcane nature. He uses Arcane Forging to empower the crafted gear with one of the following stats:

• Increases Energy Regeneration by 8-16%
• +4-12 Defensive Ability
• +2-4% Physique

Additionally, you will be able to craft a few low-level Rare pieces:

• Adept’s Bladed Mace
• Glyphed Archive
• Double-Barrel Pistol
• Occult Horn

As the description already suggests, Arcane forging means that Duncan is more of a caster-friendly smith and as such, is more relevant for these types of builds.

Angrim

As mentioned above, Angrim is the Master who has left to go towards the Burrwitch Outskirts and is seeking the Black Legion to become their armorer. He has the hammer that Duncan seeks and once you find him, you can decide on whether you take the hammer to bring it back to Duncan and thus have him as your smith in Devil’s Crossing, or if you choose Angrim instead.

You can either convince him to hand you the hammer peacefully or kill him for it depending on the dialogue options you pick.

Angrim’s main forging skill is the Practiced Skill. His crafted items have one of the following boons:

• 3-7% Pierce Resistance
• Increases Armor by 2-4%
• +2-4% Physique

Additionally, he will have the following low-level Rare items as crafting options

• Honed Longsword
• Brutal Great Axe
• Rotating Rifle
• Battle Shield

Angrim is the kind of smith that works best with physical builds like the Blitz Warlord Build. Additionally, he offers Pierce resistance which is quite useful in lategame because there are multiple situations where you might miss that last little bit on Pierce resistance. There probably aren’t a ton of situations where you would heavily rely on the crafted rares, but they can be an added bonus for your build if its physical.

Siding with Angrim or not: what each dialogue option does

You will find Angrim in a secluded spot east of the Burrwitch Outskirts riftgate. Tell him you are there for the Malleum Menhir, and then pick “Duncan needs it to help the refugees.” The option to invite Angrim only shows up after that line, so do not skip it if you want him as your smith. From there, you have three ways to end the quest:

• Invite Angrim. Pick “I have a group in Devil’s Crossing. You could join us.” and then “I’ll see you in Devil’s Crossing. (Side with Angrim: Open Riftgate)”. He moves into the prison right away, and you get 350 XP on Normal.
• Talk him into handing over the hammer. Pick “It is time the hammer was passed on.” and then “I will see that his work benefits humanity. (Side with Duncan)”. Angrim gives in, you bring the hammer back to Duncan at the refugee camp, and he joins you in Devil’s Crossing later. You get 800 XP on Normal.
• Kill him for the hammer. Every option marked “(Side with Duncan: Attack)” starts the fight. He fights you as a Champion and drops the hammer, and the quest then ends the same way as the peaceful route: Duncan becomes your smith and you get the same 800 XP. Apart from the usual loot from the fight, killing him gives you nothing extra.

The lines that actually decide the quest are marked in brackets (“Side with Angrim” or “Side with Duncan”), so nothing is final until you click one of those.

Angrim or Duncan?

The short answer is: Pick Duncan if you lean towards a caster and pick Angrim if your build is more physical.

The long answer is a little bit more difficult but boils down to the choice actually not really mattering. You see, the way Grim Dawn works is that once you beat the whole story, you can start out at the beginning again, only in a higher difficulty (called Elite). This means you can take any choice you made before and just choose the different path this time. You can also switch between Norma, Elite and Ultimate difficulty effectively giving you access to both smiths if you really want to.

One more point, which probably might even weigh heavier is the fact that these two smiths are not the only smiths in the world of Grim Dawn and you will meet plenty of other blacksmiths who will give you other kinds of bonuses that often times are more impactful than the ones of Angrim or Duncan.

If you are still unsure, Angrim is the safer pick for most characters. Pierce Resistance is hard to fill on gear, armor helps every melee build, and several of the current 1.3 leveling guides on the official forum go with him for exactly these bonuses. Duncan mainly pays off for casters that struggle with energy early on.

Which crafting bonus will you actually get?

Each craft gives the item one random bonus from the smith’s list, but at most smiths the three bonuses are not equally likely. A player on the official forum crafted items 721 times and found that one bonus comes up far less often than the other two. The game files confirm it. Both Angrim and Duncan weigh their three bonuses 100, 100 and 35, which means the first two each come up about 43% of the time, while Physique, the last one on both lists, only comes up about 14% of the time (the forum thread with the test data).

So if you are crafting for +% Physique, which a lot of endgame builds want on their crafted pieces, you are going to need a lot more materials than you might expect. If you mainly want Pierce Resistance or Armor, Angrim will give you one of the two in about 86% of crafts, and the same goes for Energy Regeneration or Defensive Ability at Duncan.

Can you switch blacksmiths later?

Not on the same difficulty. Once the quest is done, your pick is locked for that difficulty. On Elite and Ultimate, you get the quest again and can side with the other smith, and then you simply load that difficulty whenever you want to craft with him.

Your blueprints are not tied to either of them. Any blueprint you have learned can be crafted at any blacksmith, so the choice only changes the bonus list and the few low-level Rares listed above. It also has no effect on any other quest.

The XP choice

One other factor that you might consider whenever having to decide between Angrim and Duncan is if you favor a medium XP bonus over any other later smithing questions.

Once you finish the quest “Tale of Two Blacksmiths” you get a different amount of XP depending on who you side with on normal difficulty. While the amount is not gigantic, it can have a little bit of an impact and definitely be a deciding factor particularly if you do not need the blacksmith services in the near future. So if XP is all you care about, pick Duncan for the 450 XP bonus.

Conclusion

So while it does not actually matter in the end, it is good to know why exactly this is the case and how you can still derive some sort of value from choosing either Angrim or Duncan. Of course, there is also the RP element that is completely subjective and thus was not discussed in this guide. Ultimately, I urge you to simply try out both choices (which is applicable to all Grim Dawn quest choices) and simply see the difference for yourself, either with a new character or once you reach Elite difficulty.

Chances are you will face that choice again on a second character, and the Conjurer pet build or the Commando build are easy ones to start that character with.