# Grim Dawn ( Titan Quest \ Diablo fans )



## AsRock (Jun 7, 2012)

If you're wishing for a TQ2, you should check out Grim Dawn, the spiritual successor to TQ being created by the lead designer from Iron Lore. Currently, they have a successful campaign on Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crateentertainment/grim-dawn) but there are only 6 days left and with your support they could accomplish much more!

As a registered member of these forums, we have no doubt that you were or continue to be a fan of the Titan Quest game, along with the expansion, Immortal Throne. While there is no sign of Titan Quest 2 on the horizon, there is however a spiritual successor to the game in Crate Entertainment’s Grim Dawn. In 2009, Crate’s Arthur Bruno (former lead designer at Iron Lore Studios) negotiated for the rights to the engine from Titan Quest.  Since that time, Crate Entertainment has been hard at work developing the open world ARPG Grim Dawn. Crate Entertainment has listened extensively to the feedback provided by the gamers who played Titan Quest, and the end result is a “game guided by traditional design and old school sensibilities, with innovation only in the areas where it truly improves the game and isn't just a gimmicky back of the box feature.”

As the development of Grim Dawn continues towards its final stages, Crate Entertainment invites you to view the progress that has been made so far, and the planned features that will be making their way into the final release of Grim Dawn. (Also, be sure and check out the outlined stretch goals such as two-handed weapons and randomly appearing high-level dungeons.) Like other independent projects, Crate has embraced the Kickstarter model, and the Grim Dawn project can be found at the following page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crateentertainment/grim-dawn

Please take the time to visit, and support the development of a game that is sure to evoke memories of Titan Quest in a way no other game on the market will. Also, feel free to visit and join the Grim Dawn community at www.grimdawn.com

Thanks for your time and support.

The TQ.net admin team,
On behalf of Crate Entertainment


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## AsRock (Jun 7, 2012)

Wow, it's like no one liked Titans Quest lol.


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## NinkobEi (Jun 7, 2012)

This genre is quickly becoming drowned. Last several years there have been hardly any of these types of games. Now suddenly there are 5-6. These companies should have beat D3 to the punch.


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## D007 (Jun 7, 2012)

NinkobEi said:


> This genre is quickly becoming drowned. Last several years there have been hardly any of these types of games. Now suddenly there are 5-6. These companies should have beat D3 to the punch.



idk why anyone is even playing D3.. I hated it..lol.. Put it down after 2 hours of monotonous, pastelle, ugliness. This looks much better.


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## Frick (Jun 7, 2012)

AsRock said:


> Wow, it's like no one liked Titans Quest lol.



You only waited 2 hours. 

Anyway will look at this. Looks good.



D007 said:


> idk why anyone is even playing D3.. I hated it..lol.. Put it down after 2 hours of monotonous, pastelle, ugliness. This looks much better.



You vs millions.


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## ChristTheGreat (Jun 7, 2012)

D007 said:


> idk why anyone is even playing D3.. I hated it..lol.. Put it down after 2 hours of monotonous, pastelle, ugliness. This looks much better.



Because each person have their own opinion 

Looks quite nice. We'll see when this game will be release, for now, D3 takes my time


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Jun 7, 2012)

*Are you kidding?*



AsRock said:


> Wow, it's like no one liked Titans Quest lol.



Titan Quest and Immortal Throne was and is awesome. I never did finish it completely but I bought it both on Steam and earlier on physical discs. I still think it looks beautiful today and is a blast to battle mythological beasts. I studied Latin for years so I am into the genre. I've been playing a lot of Dungeon Siege 3 so I say I am ready for action based so called RPGs with lots of ass kicking.


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## D007 (Jun 7, 2012)

Frick said:


> You only waited 2 hours.
> 
> Anyway will look at this. Looks good.
> 
> ...



Lol no, just me vs me.. 

I hope everyone who likes the game is thoroughly enjoying it.. It just wasn't for me I guess.. 'd Diablo 2 though..


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2012)

AsRock said:


> Wow, it's like no one liked Titans Quest lol.



now that D3 is out, no one needs look alikes. titan quest was great, but also buggy and demanding on hardware.


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## ShiBDiB (Jun 7, 2012)

I refuse to put money in these things.. 

1. Not enough transparency to where my money is going.
2. If the game was truly good it would get picked up by a legit publisher.


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## AsRock (Jun 7, 2012)

NinkobEi said:


> This genre is quickly becoming drowned. Last several years there have been hardly any of these types of games. Now suddenly there are 5-6. These companies should have beat D3 to the punch.



Thats only if you have the money to do such a thing and this has been in the works near the end of TQ.



D007 said:


> idk why anyone is even playing D3.. I hated it..lol.. Put it down after 2 hours of monotonous, pastelle, ugliness. This looks much better.





Frick said:


> You only waited 2 hours.
> 
> Anyway will look at this. Looks good.
> 
> ...



Get ya eye's checked bubba



Robert-The-Rambler said:


> Titan Quest and Immortal Throne was and is awesome. I never did finish it completely but I bought it both on Steam and earlier on physical discs. I still think it looks beautiful today and is a blast to battle mythological beasts. I studied Latin for years so I am into the genre. I've been playing a lot of Dungeon Siege 3 so I say I am ready for action based so called RPGs with lots of ass kicking.



I can say we enjoyed TQ more than D3. D3 seems to be some thing that D2 wasn't but D2 was better than TQ except for resolution and camera changes you could do.. 



Mussels said:


> now that D3 is out, no one needs look alikes. titan quest was great, but also buggy and demanding on hardware.



Look alike ?. it looks totally better than D3.

I just hope they aim more for the D2 type of play than the D3 type play.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Jun 7, 2012)

I'm actually very happy they didn't release before Diablo 3. I play diablo 3 and while it's OK it sucks compared to early Diablo.

Diablo 3 has nothing but bad reviews which all these other companies can use for major leverage in market. I am so ready for any of these titles to launch.

Torch Light II
Sacred III
Grim Dawn

So far all of these games look better then D3.


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## Frick (Jun 8, 2012)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> Diablo 3 has nothing but bad reviews which all these other companies can use for major leverage in market. I am so ready for any of these titles to launch.



Err no, D3 has great reviews from reviewers and a lot of great user reviews and a major bunch of crybabies who flaw the user score. It seems people just can't have a balanced look at it.


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## razaron (Jun 8, 2012)

As long as this has a WYSIWYG loot system, it will be a buy.



Frick said:


> Err no, D3 has great reviews from reviewers and a lot of great user reviews and a *major bunch of crybabies* who flaw the user score. It seems people just can't have a balanced look at it.


Most of them probably haven't even played the game.


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## Delta6326 (Jun 8, 2012)

Wow grim dawn looks really cool I couldn't find a realese date.


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Jun 8, 2012)

the outlook looks grim on this one


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## Anisotonic (Jun 15, 2012)

Delta6326 said:


> Wow grim dawn looks really cool I couldn't find a realese date.



There isn't one, it's currently in pre-alpha. They are aiming for august 2013 I think. Looking forward to this, should be excellent.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 14, 2019)

I'm reviving this topic, because why make a new one.

Who's playing this right now? The new expansion (and probably the last) 'Forgotten Gods' is out.










I'm looking for build ideas! What are you cooking up?

I'll kick off with my current work in progress.

*Toxic Sentinel*

This build capitalizes on the new Oathkeeper class by combining a focused Acid/Poison build with strong retribution damage and tankiness. I used to run a Witch Hunter with a similar idea sans the retribution - and the tankiness, instead using avoidance from Nightblade to survive. Lots, and lots of damage over time, but it also meant chicken gameplay, with lots of kiting and running involved. Direct melee would rip me apart in the higher levels on Ultimate. The Toxic Sentinel is the solution? I've yet to discover how it will fare in the end-game, but so far, so good...

Build link:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7qEyvN

Basics / considerations:
- Fundamentals based on http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36115
- Strong devotion tree focus on poison procs, to stack for a high damage over time. Some splashes into retribution damage and shield block for additional toughness.
- Can evolve equally well as a melee based, or caster setup. We have Righteous Zeal for the first and Dreeg's Evil Eye for the latter to focus on. For melee, being sword/board is a minor loss as most of the shield damage is counted towards attacks as well.
- 100% synergy; Dreeg's Evil Eye now adds retribution damage. Bloody Pox/Fevered Rage (optional) benefit this build's damage due to the retribution focus, as mobs reach and hit you much faster, while giving you a brutal Defense Rating shred. Acid damage is also the highest in your direct (melee) vicinity. Righteous Zeal stacking _also_ adds additional retribution damage on top of Dreeg's Evil Eye due to its weapon damage component. Since Retri damage has its own scaling mechanic, the damage type isn't even that relevant, it all gets added as flat damage. You're looking at a very easy to obtain 3-4K on top of almost everything, and more on something such as Aegis of Menhir (it gets up to 38-40% extra!).
- The Sentinel offers the highest potential for resistance shredding. We get -35% from Guardians and -30% from Curse of Frailty. And another 28 Resistance Reduction from Devotions. This is an _ungeared_ resistance shred of 93%.
- Great potential from the skilltree for Physical Resistance stacking through passive and active effects, which should cover up the additional damage from Fevered Rage. However, its still a risky endeavour to use it. This to me is the fun element of this build. Bloody Pox is a real high risk/high payoff skill for it.
- The best part: you can play this as actively as you like. Even just running past enemies is enough to start seeing numbers. Stand still and those numbers get much bigger. Start pushing buttons and they explode.
Looking forward to your input


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## neatfeatguy (Apr 14, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> I'm reviving this topic, because why make a new one.
> 
> Who's playing this right now? The new expansion (and probably the last) 'Forgotten Gods' is out.



I hate you. 500+ hours put into this game and you tell me there's another expansion out.....I hate you because now I have to play it again.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 14, 2019)

neatfeatguy said:


> I hate you. 500+ hours put into this game and you tell me there's another expansion out.....I hate you because now I have to play it again.



Roll an Oathkeeper and we can share the love together    This class is awesome, opens up so many new things.

Made a little demo vid


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## WhiteNoise (Apr 16, 2019)

I heard about this game but never looked into it. Reminds me of POE a lot but looks like it has potential to be even better. Think I'll pick it up.


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## Space Lynx (Apr 16, 2019)

I will be buying it in the summer sale. I own base game, but none of expansions yet.  

@Vayra86 thank you for sharing your build!!!


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## Vayra86 (Apr 17, 2019)

Level 72 now and my stacked poison dot sits at a nice 66K/sec



WhiteNoise said:


> I heard about this game but never looked into it. Reminds me of POE a lot but looks like it has potential to be even better. Think I'll pick it up.



This is much more like a Diablo 2. Quite story focused and linear. Cool things are that you need to actually progress through 3 difficulties to gain enough reputation with factions for some endgame bonuses, giving the runs some purpose. You can mix & match 2 classes at will totally freeform, so the amount of build options is staggering, but not as overwhelming as PoE. And the amount of itemization and customization options is incredible, too. It has a bit of a learning curve figuring out the little secrets to great damage, but that makes it all the more fun.


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## HTC (Apr 17, 2019)

I'm playing this game using Linux (GOG version). Also have Steam's version but not with the latest patch, so i'm playing only GOG's version.

Still using my level 100 pierce blademaster.


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## flmatter (Apr 17, 2019)

I have to buy FG for it yet. But was having fun with it for a while   may have to revisit it in between Div2 and PoE.


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## AsRock (Apr 17, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> I'm reviving this topic, because why make a new one.
> 
> Who's playing this right now? The new expansion (and probably the last) 'Forgotten Gods' is out.
> 
> ...




I totally forgot about this game, WOW.  I even forgot about this thread .


Anyways it's more gritty like more on the D2 side visually and so far it's been enjoyable.

As for using other peoples builds and a person is new to the game i think they better of learning the hard way as it's much more fun than checking a guide every other level.

Like it's not as if you cannot fix it.  so screw up be a better experience than being lame and using other peoples builds.

Finding the Coop a bit lacking but i guess i am more used to the DOS series.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 17, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> I'm reviving this topic, because why make a new one.
> 
> Who's playing this right now? The new expansion (and probably the last) 'Forgotten Gods' is out.
> 
> ...


I'm thinking about grabbing Gods and getting back in, but MWO has my attention right now, with several side-forays into Rimworld, poking at TW3 again, Thinking about Void Destroyer 2 (thanks @Kursah , you jerk  )... I'd like to consider Mutant Year Zero, or maybe Outward... Too Many Games!!


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## Vayra86 (Apr 17, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I'm thinking about grabbing Gods and getting back in, but MWO has my attention right now, with several side-forays into Rimworld, poking at TW3 again, Thinking about Void Destroyer 2 (thanks @Kursah , you jerk  )... I'd like to consider Mutant Year Zero, or maybe Outward... Too Many Games!!



#firstworldproblems 



AsRock said:


> As for using other peoples builds and a person is new to the game i think they better of learning the hard way
> 
> Like it's not as if you cannot fix it.  so screw up be a better experience than being lame and using other peoples builds.



This build here is something that is iterated from another build, but yes, you're right in a general sense. Discovering the game's mechanics by yourself is certainly a better way. It also takes a hell of a lot of time not everyone has. A starting point can be a great help to removing that time sink. When knowledge grows you can still tweak and change it as you see fit. But checking out other builds is also a great way to get inspired. Many of them are very gear dependant anyway, so you simply can't just copy paste from the get-go.

The reason I started this one is the Perdition set, actually. I initially banked on having that entire set to make it all work. Turns out its much more versatile. If I hadn't tried that, I'd never have known the potential of Retaliation damage for example.

My very first noob builds were focused entirely around Phantasmal Blades (Nightblade)... it _loooked good_ until I touched Ultimate and suddenly had no way to sustain myself or my damage. Boom 40 hours down the drain and nothing the wiser...

Regardless - - if _anyone needs any help_ in mechanics or how damage stacking, resistance shredding and OA/DA etc. work, feel free to ask. Those are the tools you really do need to make the right choices. Another one of those is knowing how life leech (or adcth (Attack Damage converted to Health...) in Grim-speek) actually works. Its a proper little puzzle on its own.

Made another vid on this build @ 72. Some action involved as well


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## ZenZimZaliben (Apr 17, 2019)

Im excited for the Forgotten Gods expansion. FLMatter and I just completed the Swamp expansion on Ultimate...but Division 2 just came out so been playing that. My favorite build currently is a Druid with the Utlos Lightning set. I have completed ultimate with it and very high in the crucible. Next up favorite is Demo + Inquisitor = 2 pistols of doom. Death Knight is also really cool. But the key to the game is any class that will give you Enemy resistance reduction, especially on Ultimate.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 17, 2019)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> Im excited for the Forgotten Gods expansion. FLMatter and I just completed the Swamp expansion on Ultimate...but Division 2 just came out so been playing that. My favorite build currently is a Druid with the Utlos Lightning set. I have completed ultimate with it and very high in the crucible. Next up favorite is Demo + Inquisitor = 2 pistols of doom. Death Knight is also really cool. But the key to the game is any class that will give you Enemy resistance reduction, especially on Ultimate.



Shredding is soooo important indeed. I can grab -93% from the skill tree with this one  (+1 devotion, Acid Spray)


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## Wavetrex (Apr 17, 2019)

Sign me up to this club !

GD is pretty much the only game I play on a regular basis.


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## WhiteNoise (Apr 18, 2019)

I'm buying this tonight. Not going to bother with any DLC at first but I would have loved to start a necro....oh well, less investment upfront in case I don't like it but it looks killer.


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## ShurikN (Apr 18, 2019)

Currently playing 2h Fire Oathkeeper (warlord). Started with a shield fire oath+demo but it died at around lvl 40. I just managed to catch up with the new one. Dmg is pretty sweet and the resistance debuf from Guardian of Empyrion is sick. And the two summoms actually deal a decent amount of dmg at just lvl 1.
Might give a poison one a try at some point. I think I even have better gear for it.


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## HTC (Apr 18, 2019)

WhiteNoise said:


> I'm buying this tonight. Not going to bother with any DLC at first but I would have loved to start a necro....oh well, less investment upfront in case I don't like it but it looks killer.



GOG *usually* has this game with serious discounts, including the DLCs (obviously not the latest one, since that is @ full price, for now). Unfortunately, now it's not on sale 

That's actually how i got GOG's version myself since, up until that point, i played exclusively on Steam.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 18, 2019)

WhiteNoise said:


> I'm buying this tonight. Not going to bother with any DLC at first but I would have loved to start a necro....oh well, less investment upfront in case I don't like it but it looks killer.



Roll Shaman/Occultist (one or both) and you might just get pretty close to that necro feel  There are other sources of skeleton summoning, too 



ShurikN said:


> Currently playing 2h Fire Oathkeeper (warlord). Started with a shield fire oath+demo but it died at around lvl 40. I just managed to catch up with the new one. Dmg is pretty sweet and the resistance debuf from Guardian of Empyrion is sick. And the two summoms actually deal a decent amount of dmg at just lvl 1.
> Might give a poison one a try at some point. I think I even have better gear for it.



No need to reroll for poison, just add some points in the tree to convert all your damage  Soldier's Physical damage can also be converted pretty easily on the fly. I did initially try building acid with Warlord too, its doable if you focus melee. Item wise there's some nice synergy around Forcewave too. And Guardian damage.. its mental. When you overcap that skill it can be a primary damage source.



Frick said:


> Last summer/fall I played Grim Dawn for like hundreds of hours in a month. I burned out pretty badly on it, never got to the end of even vanilla on Ultimate. 2H Commando, pretty decent but I need some new gear, so I need to hit 94, which requires grinding more than usual. I might finish it this summer.



Latest expansion contains new items that allow you to skip some grind. You can insta unlock Ultimate now, and transfer Iron bits between characters.


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## Frick (Apr 18, 2019)

Last summer/fall I played Grim Dawn for like hundreds of hours in a month. I burned out pretty badly on it, never got to the end of even vanilla on Ultimate. 2H Commando, pretty decent but I need some new gear, so I need to hit 94, which requires grinding more than usual. I might finish it this summer.


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## Space Lynx (Apr 18, 2019)

is there anyway to reset skills? say i hit level 50 and i don't like my build, can i reset all points spent, etc? and if so how


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## Vayra86 (Apr 18, 2019)

lynx29 said:


> is there anyway to reset skills? say i hit level 50 and i don't like my build, can i reset all points spent, etc? and if so how



Yes, there's a Spirit Guide available right away at level 1 and you can reset everything except your class choice.


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## Frick (Apr 18, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Yes, there's a Spirit Guide available right away at level 1 and you can reset everything except your class choice.



Not devotions though, for that you need a potion from the Malmouth expansion.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 18, 2019)

Frick said:


> Not devotions though, for that you need a potion from the Malmouth expansion.



What? Yes devotions too. The potion just resets everything but you can go point by point with simple bits & bobs at the Guide. The limitation pre-Ashes of Malmouth was that you couldn't refund _Mastery points. _This is now possible too.

Fact of the matter is, you even NEED the point by point respeccing in Devotions to really make the most of it.


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## Wavetrex (Apr 18, 2019)

My highest character so far is a Lvl 96 "Commando" (Demo-Soldier) that uses fire/lightning retaliation for most of his damage, and most of the Soldier defense skills for keeping him alive.





(Screenshot is taken in Elite, oops.... so resists show higher than what they should in Ultimate)

He has completed Ashes of Malmouth on Elite (and all side quests), but ultimate has almost killed me in several ocasions.
Notice the 7000 damage taken in stats:



With all that armor and resistances, seeing half of your life vanish in a single blow is terrifying.

My problem with him is also seen in this Stats page... Average Item Level 72 on a lvl 96 character...
Good stuff simply didn't drop.... so at the moment not playing him anymore, I feel like walking on thin ice with every step...

Playing alts so they catch up and perhaps accidentally drop some great item for the main.

I'm not playing real "Hardcore", but a self imposed mode "semi-hardcore", in which if a character dies for any reason, I just spend all it's money and unload everything then delete him/her.
Aiming to complete the game an all diff levels ... but it will take a good while. After lvl 75 gear is extremely important, survival depends 100% on having the right gear and inserts and stuff to mitigate damage and/or allow quick escape in case shit really hits the fan.

Glass cannon characters only work in this game until about lvl 50-60... at least in my experience.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 18, 2019)

Wavetrex said:


> My highest character so far is a Lvl 96 "Commando" (Demo-Soldier) that uses fire/lightning retaliation for most of his damage, and most of the Soldier defense skills for keeping him alive.
> View attachment 121266
> 
> (Screenshot is taken in Elite, oops.... so resists show higher than what they should in Ultimate)
> ...



Few tips, if I may...
- overcap resistances by 20~25% if at all possible. Enemies shred them too and its those moments your resistance is below 80% + incoming crits that can one shot you.
- Your OA/DA are low. DA is huge for survivability, if you can get near 2700~3000 with procs/buffs that will prevent a lot of incoming crits.
- Lacking high DA, get 'Wayward Soul'. It procs on incoming crits to save your ass and the constellation doubles as a nice OA boost.
- AUGMENTS. Get that rep to Revered with some factions that offer the harder resists like Aether/Pierce/Chaos and Stun reduction. Augments can fill the gaps in your defense. They also allow you to avoid using shitty components and instead focus on ones that complement your build.
- Glass cannons simply do not work period. The game is just easy until 50~60  
- Use the new loot filter and make sure you check those Rare (Green) drops often. Dual rare affixes can be more powerful items than legendaries. This is the way to stay current in higher levels. Also: MI's! (Monster Infrequents). Vendors you find in dungeons/the world tend to sell those, and they give major bonuses to specific skills. These are greens too. Even that boss you beat up, Theodin Marcell, drops his very own MI (picked this up yesterday, easy to miss!):

This thing is almost worth building something around entirely. Look at that granted skill and the weapon stats... 236% Aether on a 1-hander. it even has a resistance shred. And note, this is the damage I see on a pure Acid build... Great candidate for a WPS based crit build.





- There is a Legendary item smith in Ashes of Malmouth, he will give you random legendaries of a chosen type in exchange for _rare crafting mats_.
- Seems to me you've focused way too much on Physique and total HP pool. 18k is madness. Instead, focus on 'increasing Effective HP', in other words, make a single Hit Point more valuable by increasing resistances. With about 10K you can already get by just fine, its also easier to heal up. The payoff is much greater that way, for every % more resistance/mitigation of damage you get an exponential amount of toughness in return. If you can go from 80% to 82%, that is not 2% less damage, its *10% less* than you got before.


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## Frick (Apr 18, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> What? Yes devotions too. The potion just resets everything but you can go point by point with simple bits & bobs at the Guide. The limitation pre-Ashes of Malmouth was that you couldn't refund _Mastery points. _This is now possible too.
> 
> Fact of the matter is, you even NEED the point by point respeccing in Devotions to really make the most of it.



Ahh ok. Been a while. 

And, yes AUGMENTS. You needs them.


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## HTC (Apr 18, 2019)

Frick said:


> Ahh ok. Been a while.
> 
> And, yes AUGMENTS. You needs them.



Indeed you do. Here's how my blademaster currently looks with all the augments as well as with skills that require being toggled to work:


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## bug (Apr 18, 2019)

WhiteNoise said:


> I heard about this game but never looked into it. Reminds me of POE a lot but looks like it has potential to be even better. Think I'll pick it up.


It's got nothing of PoE's depth. It's only got a few mechanics on top of TQ (if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess). What stopped me from playing this was the (quasi) one hit kills that pop out of virtually everywhere once you get past the first level of difficulty. PoE has those too (and TQ before it), but in GD it seemed like any boss had the ability to spawn with a deadly combination of modifiers. Itemization is also basically non-existent with all guides recommending the same set of items for a build type.


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## HTC (Apr 18, 2019)

bug said:


> It's got nothing of PoE's depth. It's only got a few mechanics on top of TQ (if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess). What stopped me from playing this was the (quasi) one hit kills that pop out of virtually everywhere once you get past the first level of difficulty. PoE has those too (and TQ before it), but in GD it seemed like any boss had the ability to spawn with a deadly combination of modifiers. Itemization is also basically non-existent with all guides recommending the same set of items for a build type.



A lot has changed over time, and i'm not referring only to the DLCs: suggest you check it out once again.

If you're not properly geared for the build your aiming for, it can get messy ...

The learning curve is a bit steep IMO but, once you learn how to properly gear and set up your toon, there's a ton of customizing options to choose from.



And i'm still learning ...


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## bug (Apr 18, 2019)

HTC said:


> A lot has changed over time, and i'm not referring only to the DLCs: suggest you check it out once again.
> 
> If you're not *properly geared *for the build your aiming for, it can get messy ...
> 
> ...


Does that still mean one specific item set per build, set that you can't really hope to acquire playing by yourself?


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## HTC (Apr 18, 2019)

bug said:


> Does that still mean one specific item set per build, set that you can't really hope to acquire playing by yourself?



On some builds, you can actually have two full sets @ the some time but that's more the exception than the rule.

Dunno how long ago you tried the game but drop rates of epic / legendary items have increased a lot and, though some items only drop from certain monsters, most stuff is "rather easy" to get: still depends on RNG, though.


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## bug (Apr 18, 2019)

HTC said:


> On some builds, you can actually have two full sets @ the some time but that's more the exception than the rule.
> 
> Dunno how long ago you tried the game but drop rates of epic / legendary items have increased a lot and, though some items only drop from certain monsters, most stuff is "rather easy" to get: still depends on RNG, though.


I don't have a problem with monster specific drops (Stonebinder's Cuffs ftw!) or RNG. But while in TQ you could get by with sub-optimal equipment and skill, GD was too reliant on gear and riddled with damage spikes for my taste. And the way Warfare and Defense were merged into Soldier killed the build diversity for me.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 18, 2019)

bug said:


> Does that still mean one specific item set per build, set that you can't really hope to acquire playing by yourself?



It never meant that, I think you've done too much reading/watching and too little playing... Rare and MI based builds are not a new thing, it was always there and it has always enabled a wide variety of build options and limitless itemization. Will every combination allow you to feel like a god? Of course not, but that never happens.

An example is the Trollrage build. You can run that with one specific MI drop and use anything you want on top, and has no fixed skillpoint investment or even class choice.
https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Mistborn_Talisman_(relic)



bug said:


> What stopped me from playing this was the (quasi) one hit kills that pop out of virtually everywhere once you get past the first level of difficulty. .



Yeah. And you speak of lacking depth? It seems you lack knowledge, instead... If you get one-shotted your build/itemization is wrong (or you're standing around in some nasty stuff), see post above in response to Wavetrex's setup.



bug said:


> Warfare and Defense were merged into Soldier killed the build diversity for me.



Let go of your TQ-roots and approach this as a fresh game. I think that's fundamental for you reading all this.


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## bug (Apr 18, 2019)

@Vayra86 If a game doesn't match my mindset, I don't play it. It's as simple as that. I gave GD a fair (imho) chance, I played almost to the end of second difficulty. It wasn't my cup of tea.
I didn't say GD was a bad or good game, I just posted my experience with it compared to other more or less similar games.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 18, 2019)

bug said:


> @Vayra86 If a game doesn't match my mindset, I don't play it. It's as simple as that. I gave GD a fair (imho) chance, I played almost to the end of second difficulty. It wasn't my cup of tea.
> I didn't say GD was a bad or good game, I just posted my experience with it compared to other more or less similar games.



Oh don't get me wrong there, if you don't wanna play it, then don't. I was just under the impression you missed out because of that mindset, hoped I could open it up a bit. I say this because I've had a similar experience with several ARPGs and the actual obstacle was exactly that: stuck in old ways and experiences. Sometimes a game can really open up to you with a fresh look.


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## Wavetrex (Apr 18, 2019)

Sorry in my latest screenshots none of the buffs were turned on.

The values are quite higher, otherwise I wouldn't have survived until lvl 96... but yes, indeed, I still need to correct stuff and find good items.

But looking at @HTC 's post... wow, 33 days of gameplay on that character. 
My BEST barely has 3 days!

Still much to learn, young @Wavetrex ;-)


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## HTC (Apr 18, 2019)

Wavetrex said:


> Sorry in my latest screenshots none of the buffs were turned on.
> 
> The values are quite higher, otherwise I wouldn't have survived until lvl 96... but yes, indeed, I still need to correct stuff and find good items.
> 
> ...



That tends to happen when you play exclusively with it. I've changed builds many times but always used the same toon.

Believe you me: i'm NO expert, @ all.


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## Wavetrex (Apr 18, 2019)

HTC said:


> That tends to happen when you play exclusively with it. I've changed builds many times but always used the same toon.
> 
> Believe you me: i'm NO expert, @ all.


Oh now I see.... 528 deaths. Ooops.

I had many deaths before, but they resulted in me deleting the character.
All my alts currently on various levels (from 40 to 96) have 0 deaths... I don't accept failure out of myself


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## HTC (Apr 18, 2019)

Wavetrex said:


> Oh now I see.... *528 deaths*. Ooops.
> 
> I had many deaths before, but they resulted in me deleting the character.
> All my alts currently on various levels (from 40 to 96) have 0 deaths... I don't accept failure out of myself



Over 20% of those deaths are from Shattered Realm. Before Forgotten Gods, i had "just" over 400 or so.


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## Frick (Apr 19, 2019)

bug said:


> It's got nothing of PoE's depth. It's only got a few mechanics on top of TQ (if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess). What stopped me from playing this was the (quasi) one hit kills that pop out of virtually everywhere once you get past the first level of difficulty. PoE has those too (and TQ before it), but in GD it seemed like any boss had the ability to spawn with a deadly combination of modifiers. Itemization is also basically non-existent with all guides recommending the same set of items for a build type.



Oneshotting was only a problem for me on Ultimate when you got past Fort Ikon. I had some poison problems in the swamps until I realized I had like minus poison resistance. And itemization is ... I dunno. I didn't read up on anything until very late game and just played for fun. I don't get why everything in games has to be optimized and researched and calculated. It's a fun game, don't bother about being optimal. The downside is that when you reach past a certain point you have to gear up (grind rep) to survive, but it's perfectly feasible to do so without doing a Perfect X Build From Reddit, especially as you can respec easily (unlike D2 and TQ iirc). Also the difficulty increase is expected.



Vayra86 said:


> Let go of your TQ-roots and approach this as a fresh game. I think that's fundamental for you reading all this.



Well, yes and no. It is a heavily polished TQ with crafting, quite literally. There is enough refinement and ambiance to make it new (and _much_ better), but if you actively dislike the basic mechanics of TQ it will be quite hard to like GD.


Wavetrex said:


> I had many deaths before, but they resulted in me deleting the character.
> All my alts currently on various levels (from 40 to 96) have 0 deaths... I don't accept failure out of myself



This is tangential, but that is an excellent way to ruin your life.


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## ne6togadno (Apr 19, 2019)

Frick said:


> TQ iirc


you dont





check what mystic can do


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## Frick (Apr 19, 2019)

ne6togadno said:


> you dont
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Aye, but the cost increases like crazy. If you're at a high level and want to respec entirely it gets super expensive very fast. Prohibetively so. In GD I've never had that problem. In my first TQ playthrough I wanted to respec at a higher level and ran out of money quite fast, despite having what felt like all the money in the world (and I had looted literally everything I could because that is how I do things). One of the myriad of small ways GD is TQ but better.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 19, 2019)

Frick said:


> Aye, but the cost increases like crazy. If you're at a high level and want to respec entirely it gets super expensive very fast. Prohibetively so. In GD I've never had that problem. In my first TQ playthrough I wanted to respec at a higher level and ran out of money quite fast, despite having what felt like all the money in the world (and I had looted literally everything I could because that is how I do things). One of the myriad of small ways GD is TQ but better.


I started an oathkeeper, enjoying throwing the shield, but not sure I should have taken the Occultist   Thinking about backing out and trying a new one before I get too deep, but I do admit, most of my points will be in the 'Keeper tree anyway....


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## Vayra86 (Apr 19, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I started an oathkeeper, enjoying throwing the shield, but not sure I should have taken the Occultist   Thinking about backing out and trying a new one before I get too deep, but I do admit, most of my points will be in the 'Keeper tree anyway....



Occultist does kinda put you in the caster role, but you can still go melee as 'on top'. At least for Acid/poison builds. Dreeg's Evil Eye + Menhir are both cooldown based, use the time in between to spam Righteous Fury and stack some extra bonus damage on top (plus all the other stuff it gives). All your other damage skills are also (part) weapon based so you can double dip all the way. Aegis of Menhir can get up to 50% retaliation damage, nothing to sneeze at, and Dreeg's also gets up to 10% from the tree. So there is quite a bit of synergy to be had. If you can reliably convert lightning to acid, the entire Shaman gear box opens up to you as well (also retaliation focused).

You're right tho, you will be using mostly Oathkeeper's tree. This build is really growing on me, the variety of attacks keeps it fun. Dangerous foes can be approached cautiously while you still stack the poison dot quite well, and everything else you can zerk right into with melee. I'm lv 79 right now with +3/+1 Occultist/Oath all skills and STILL have tons of ways to spend points for big bonuses.

But if you need more convincing, push Keeper to 50/50, and max out Guardians, then sit back as they clear the road to ultimate for you. Then take a long look at Curse of Frailty and imagine what your endgame will be looking like with default -65% allresist on everything  Occultist is really just there for that extra shred and passives, and the way that shredding can also apply to an Oathkeeper phys/fire build should you ever get bored with poison. At that point you can even expand on melee and push further on phys/chaos/fire. Lots of options! Even Vitality/Chaos would be feasible..


EDIT
I just figured out you can also transmute set items into others. Either same set or random set.
O
M
G

4/5 Dreeg's now


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## HTC (Apr 19, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I started an oathkeeper, enjoying throwing the shield, but not sure I should have taken the Occultist  *Thinking about backing out and trying a new one before* I get too deep, but I do admit, most of my points will be in the 'Keeper tree anyway....



Masteries is the one thing you can't take back: everything else can be reverted, @ a cost of iron bits and aether crystals, including devotions.

Unless ofc you were referring to a new char and not a new mastery, in which case i misunderstood.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 19, 2019)

HTC said:


> Masteries is the one thing you can't take back: everything else can be reverted, @ a cost of iron bits and aether crystals, including devotions.
> 
> Unless ofc you were referring to a new char and not a new mastery, in which case i misunderstood.


Yup, just starting all over. Only level 17 or 18 so far, but like I said... most of what I'll do will be in the Keeper tree... dunno, will decide tonite


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## Vayra86 (Apr 19, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> Yup, just starting all over. Only level 17 or 18 so far, but like I said... most of what I'll do will be in the Keeper tree... dunno, will decide tonite



Do share what you come up with!

Got my skill bar complete now, working as intended


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## ne6togadno (Apr 20, 2019)

Frick said:


> Aye, but the cost increases like crazy. If you're at a high level and want to respec entirely it gets super expensive very fast. Prohibetively so. In GD I've never had that problem. In my first TQ playthrough I wanted to respec at a higher level and ran out of money quite fast, despite having what felt like all the money in the world (and I had looted literally everything I could because that is how I do things). One of the myriad of small ways GD is TQ but better.


still puzzles me why this design choice has been done.
it's quite annoying to reach legendary difficulty and to get stuck on boss which you cant pass because you cant change your build :/


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## Frick (Apr 20, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> EDIT
> I just figured out you can also transmute set items into others. Either same set or random set.
> O
> M
> ...



Aye, useful for doublets. I refuse to transmute set items, because I'm a digital hoarder, and can make an endless amount of characters to store them with.



ne6togadno said:


> still puzzles me why this design choice has been done.
> it's quite annoying to reach legendary difficulty and to get stuck on boss which you cant pass because you cant change your build :/


 It hails from The Olden Days I assume. D2 was horrid like that. It's a tough line to walk: I like how you can make a character who literally cannot finish the game. It appeals to me, but it's also super annoying and I hate it.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 20, 2019)

ne6togadno said:


> still puzzles me why this design choice has been done.
> it's quite annoying to reach legendary difficulty and to get stuck on boss which you cant pass because you cant change your build :/



I think Grim Dawn has found a pretty nice middle ground between full respec and locking your character into a single build as it is now. It wasn't as nice when they prohibited refunding mastery points, but now I feel its in the best possible place. Since it has so many class combo's it also doesn't hurt replayability as much as it does with other single-class ARPGs.

The design choice for no respec is simple: higher replayability. That is why Diablo 3 gets so utterly boring so incredibly quick. You basically roll one toon for each class and you're done. Add very limited itemization and its just an exercise of combining a very small set of skills together, in any way at any time in any combination. End result: Meta builds and nothing else is really considered viable anymore. The only way Blizzard could 'fix' that is adding seasonal time sinks, and those gems you can level up in rifts. Basically chasing carrots.

Even when Diablo 2 introduced a respec option, it was (after the first one) incredibly tedious to farm together. They really wanted those skill choices to be meaningful, they want players to think on their feet with all the loot they get during the game, and adapt. Its also a way to prevent players from getting the BIS-min-maxed wonder they all aim for. It helps build variety.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 22, 2019)

So frustrating. Had Perdition shoulders in the stash, 2 regular, 2 empowered, and a shield. Couldn't wait to tack them on. Then, I started going with a 2-H and enjoying it more. Then, holy crap, 2 drops in 20 minutes!! Handguards and the Chest! This'll absolutely rule when I get 40, I'l already have a 3-piece set even without the shield! What awesome luck!!


Dropped my dps 500 points, and moved it to my health bar....  *sigh*


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## Vayra86 (Apr 22, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> So frustrating. Had Perdition shoulders in the stash, 2 regular, 2 empowered, and a shield. Couldn't wait to tack them on. Then, I started going with a 2-H and enjoying it more. Then, holy crap, 2 drops in 20 minutes!! Handguards and the Chest! This'll absolutely rule when I get 40, I'l already have a 3-piece set even without the shield! What awesome luck!!
> 
> 
> Dropped my dps 500 points, and moved it to my health bar....  *sigh*
> ...



Pro tip, do the expansion content at least about halfway, so you unlock the transmuting option. That way you can swap those perdition parts to a different set piece and use double drops to get what you're missing. The Forgotten Gods content is also a standalone bit of story, its really built to be played at any time during your campaign. That, and you'll also want to build all the rep you can as early as possible, killing Eldritch gives rep with the 3 expac factions, and those do appear in the regular campaign(s) as well. Same goes for the new factions of Ashes of Malmouth, if you visit them early and do/accept one quest they start giving you rep for regular kills.

The shops over at the FG-expansion also have an item called 'Merits' which allow you to skip difficulties _and unlock all waypoints _in the lower difficulties. Huge time saver if you're not looking to replay things 3 times (which you can still do as usual, regardless).


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## bug (Apr 22, 2019)

@Ahhzz Ah, the stash. Another thing that turned me away from GD 
I tried tools similar to TQVault, but none seemed to be good enough at keeping track of things. (And another thing that might have changed in the meantime.)

I'm going to stop my whining now and let you guys carry on


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## Vayra86 (Apr 22, 2019)

bug said:


> @Ahhzz Ah, the stash. Another thing that turned me away from GD
> I tried tools similar to TQVault, but none seemed to be good enough at keeping track of things. (And another thing that might have changed in the meantime.)
> 
> I'm going to stop my whining now and let you guys carry on



This is absolutely valid... the stash is impossible to keep organized. No sorting or filter methods, no search... painful. The only plus is that you have so much shared stash space, I guess.

And when you think you've got your stash in order, next up is finding the right components to upgrade your gear with. I organized a stash tab for those mats only and even with the highlighting per item type, its utter hell finding the right stuff to put on each item. What also doesn't help is that the item info pops up right over the stash tab :/


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## AltCapwn (Apr 22, 2019)

Oh, never heard of Grim Dawn and been searching for a good D2/D3/TQ/PoE like game. Sweet.


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## bug (Apr 22, 2019)

altcapwn said:


> Oh, never heard of Grim Dawn and been searching for a good D2/D3/TQ/PoE like game. Sweet.


I haven't touched D3, but I can tell you this is definitely not a PoE clone. In fact, coming from PoE, I had quite a shock when I saw the number of resists GD has, thinking "how on earth am I supposed to max all that?"


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## razaron (Apr 22, 2019)

Anyone playing with mods? I usually have a hard time playing Grim Dawn for more than a few days but using Grim Internals and Rainbow has made the game infinitely better. 
They're just QoL mods but using them in conjuction with the new item filter and movement skills has made the game much better. 

Grim Internals adds mini health bars over enemies, little icons under hero and boss mobs mini health bars showing your applied debuffs, how much dps you're taking for each damage type and, most importantly, auto-pickup of components in the same range you would auto-pickup iron bits. 
Rainbow makes it so item descriptions are colour coded, so "+x% fire damage" shows up in orange, "+x% cold damage" in blue etc. Affixes and item base names are also colour coded to let you know if they're magic/rare and normal/MIs.













bug said:


> It's got nothing of PoE's depth. It's only got a few mechanics on top of TQ (if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess). What stopped me from playing this was the (quasi) one hit kills that pop out of virtually everywhere once you get past the first level of difficulty. PoE has those too (and TQ before it), but in GD it seemed like any boss had the ability to spawn with a deadly combination of modifiers. Itemization is also basically non-existent with all guides recommending the same set of items for a build type.


The games gotten much better over time. 
For the few years, basically every patch note mentioned smoothing out damage spikes. Resists are also much more common on items. 
They added item skill modifiers to a lot of monster infrequent and legendaries that change how skills work (example). 

Due to the addition of item skill modifiers, legendary sets are now more about enabling certain builds by converting skills to different damage types or giving them additional effects. All high level epics and legendaries now benefit 3 classes and drop more frequently. Rares and double rares are also much more common in higher difficulties. So as long as your build doesn't rely on specific gear, it's fairly easy to complete all 3 difficulties with what you find along the way.


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## bug (Apr 22, 2019)

@razaron Nice to know. If I ever find time to get back to gaming and finish Witcher 3, I guess it's worth to get the expansions and give GD another chance.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 22, 2019)

I'm enjoying the Eye of Reckoning play (I've discovered it called "Spin2Win" this morning ) with the 'Keeper. I've not looked into mods for it, but when searching earlier today, found Grim Dawn Stash, and I'm looking to see if it's worth fussing with. I see a lot of stuff like Smash and Grab, which just nerf monsters and buff the player. Still looking for some more TES-level mods, which actually work to make the gameplay better, not one-button-pushing easier....


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## AltCapwn (Apr 22, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I'm enjoying the Eye of Reckoning play (I've discovered it called "Spin2Win" this morning ) with the 'Keeper. I've not looked into mods for it, but when searching earlier today, found Grim Dawn Stash, and I'm looking to see if it's worth fussing with. I see a lot of stuff like Smash and Grab, which just nerf monsters and buff the player. Still looking for some more TES-level mods, which actually work to make the gameplay better, not one-button-pushing easier....



A bit OT but it makes me think of a barbarian build I have in D3 where I can use whirlwind non-stop. It makes it a "Spin2Win" build .

I'll check GD after work 2day and see if it's cool.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 22, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I'm enjoying the Eye of Reckoning play (I've discovered it called "Spin2Win" this morning ) with the 'Keeper. I've not looked into mods for it, but when searching earlier today, found Grim Dawn Stash, and I'm looking to see if it's worth fussing with. I see a lot of stuff like Smash and Grab, which just nerf monsters and buff the player. Still looking for some more TES-level mods, which actually work to make the gameplay better, not one-button-pushing easier....



Eye of Reckoning has a bit of a hard time scaling into late game, because of its rather low damage per hit. You need a lot of resistance and armor shredding to make it work OK. It excels if you can combine it with lots of %x chance on attack procs with very low cooldowns, the amount of strikes per second is insane.

Its acid again, but in one of the caves in act 1 (the one after Burial Cave) you can find this item (and upgrades of it at each difficulty)
https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Slithtongue

Try combining that with eye


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## Ahhzz (Apr 22, 2019)

altcapwn said:


> A bit OT but it makes me think of a barbarian build I have in D3 where I can use whirlwind non-stop. It makes it a "Spin2Win" build .
> 
> I'll check GD after work 2day and see if it's cool.


the post I saw referring to it that way specifically called out to those that missed their D3 Barbarian heheh. I expect you'll find it familiar 

@Vayra86  I found Item Assistant on Nexus, and again on grimdawn forums, which might make it easier to manage stuff, even if it's semi-out of the game.  Still prowling thru the mods...



Vayra86 said:


> Eye of Reckoning has a bit of a hard time scaling into late game, because of its rather low damage per hit. You need a lot of resistance and armor shredding to make it work OK. It excels if you can combine it with lots of %x chance on attack procs with very low cooldowns, the amount of strikes per second is insane.
> 
> Its acid again, but in one of the caves in act 1 (the one after Burial Cave) you can find this item (and upgrades of it at each difficulty)
> https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Slithtongue
> ...



I can't get to my game easily right now, but I've got Scorpion attached to the 2-hander I have right now, and once I swapped to it, I've not seen anything else within a few hundred dps; I like the numbers retaliation and my main attack (can't remember the name) show. I also redid my build a bit this morn, moved to Eye of Dregg, and it's rolling pretty smoothly. I may try to grab a small vid this evening.


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## WhiteNoise (Apr 22, 2019)

So I have around 18 hours into Grim Dawn and I dig it. The first few hours I was just trying to figure things out and though I was impressed with the visual art style of the game I was not feeling the game yet but as I figured things out I started really digging this game. Right now it's hard to say but I think this game is better than POE. POE is awesome but this game has more meat. 

I am currently in act 1 with my L16 Necro/Occultist. Working on a pet build. I consider these builds 'easy' for beginners and it allows me to more easily get through the game while I learn.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 22, 2019)

WhiteNoise said:


> So I have around 18 hours into Grim Dawn and I dig it. The first few hours I was just trying to figure things out and though I was impressed with the visual art style of the game I was not feeling the game yet but as I figured things out I started really digging this game. Right now it's hard to say but I think this game is better than POE. POE is awesome but this game has more meat.
> 
> I am currently in act 1 with my L16 Necro/Occultist. Working on a pet build. I consider these builds 'easy' for beginners and it allows me to more easily get through the game while I learn.



Cool, another one bit the dust 

Take special note of the near-complete lack of actual grinding. Its a well orchestrated progression path no matter what class you roll, lots of loot and options shall pass you by. GD values your time so much more than PoE does. This is why these games should be offline-based...

The trick is being able to see what's great and what's not. Quite a bit of complexity in all the stats/mechanics involved. Don't take anything for granted and don't go on what you've been familiar with from damage scaling in games such as Diablo. It does things a bit differently in some ways.

You're right about pet builds and you have chosen well, young padawan

__
Still going strong here, though I've chained up some deaths in ultimate... a good 40 or so 

Also figured out Coven has a nearly BIS weapon for me... a Slithtongue on steroids


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## ne6togadno (Apr 23, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> The design choice for no respec is simple: higher replayability


this combined with tunneled zone design w/o any variety and funny item drops is what acctually killed repleayability for me.
i've just got firewalker pice drop. nice. increased fire damage can add to my warfare/earth mastery build but it is int set and i havent invested much in inteli beside what i get from lvling earth mastery :|
lets lvl up a bit and invest all stat points in inteli.
few days later... 
greath now i can use the firewalker and i got few more pieces for 2-3 set bonus but... those high rares and low legendaries that i have to replace with firewalker boost my dps far more then firewalker 
now i have to lvl up even more to get stats points for str for next legendary piece i got since i wasted so much points on inteli that i didnt actually needed :|
but it takes ages to lvl up cause i am quite over lvled because of farm to boost inteli. i cant go next act cuase the end boss of this act slauter me in 2 hits as i lack resistances cause i cant wear the gear that can help :|
may be i start with new toon and i focus developing it only for useful items and dont get myself sidetracked by useless stuff. 
but i've sold out useful low lvl items that can make my new start easier cause of lacking space so i'll have to gear up again and i've have to play bosses hit and run again as i wont be able to facetank em undergeard even thou this isnt my first toon and i have some gear stashed :|
and i'll have to run slowly for quite some time till i get speed lvled up
ummm... 
fuck it no.
lets play something not so booooring else.

i havent played much GD but from what i've seen so far it has much more game play variety with all those short cuts through the fences, house basements, caves etc and even thou landscape is fixed as it is in tq it is far from monotonous and booring. and with constelations they manage to add poe's skill tree variety into tq's limited class&skill system.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 24, 2019)

So far, my highest on this toon is around 15k, which I'm ok with. Nothing to compare to lol, but the mobs keep falling so I guess that's good 

Loving Grim Internals. Best thing about it is not having to chase back after the components.


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## ratirt (Apr 24, 2019)

New updates for Grim Dawn? Damn I need to take a look it's been a while since I played. 
BTW: The Grim Dawn is one of the best games of this kind for me.



Vayra86 said:


> This is why these games should be offline-based...



Strongly disagree about that statement


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## Vayra86 (Apr 24, 2019)

ratirt said:


> New updates for Grim Dawn? Damn I need to take a look it's been a while since I played.
> BTW: The Grim Dawn is one of the best games of this kind for me.
> 
> 
> ...



Can you elaborate? You've also said GD was one of the best games of its kind; the two are not unrelated  The reason it can offer so much itemization and variety is because its built as an offline single player focused game. Imagine putting this in the setting of Path of Exile. It wouldn't work at all, droprates would need serious adjustment and the end result would be long grind and tedious progression, something Grim Dawn handily avoids. Diablo 3 had similar issues and sprinkled some real-money trouble on top. Even today that game is beyond saving, and its precisely because it had to be online and accessible. It was even integral to the RMAH concept. Do you want daily quests in GD? Or gems that need hundreds of hours to 'progress through to make them usable? Thát is what online means when it comes down to it. Grindy gameplay and inconsequential progression. And of course, the inevitable boredom of having to adjust to a metagame.


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## bug (Apr 24, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Can you elaborate? You've also said GD was one of the best games of its kind; the two are not unrelated  The reason it can offer so much itemization and variety is because its built as an offline single player focused game. Imagine putting this in the setting of Path of Exile. It wouldn't work at all, droprates would need serious adjustment and the end result would be long grind and tedious progression, something Grim Dawn handily avoids.


Imho online cooperative games with a persistent universe don't work in general. They all turn into trading games and there's no workaround for that 

It's why I was so puzzled when GGG implemented SSF they way they did. Instead of realizing playing by yourself means no chance of ever seeing more than a handful of the items that enable you to tackle high-level content and upping the drop yields accordingly, they made SSF a mere badge of honor and left the drop rates untouched. As if players were going at it solo because of masochism.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 24, 2019)

bug said:


> Imho online cooperative games with a persistent universe don't work in general. They all turn into trading games and there's no workaround for that
> 
> It's why I was so puzzled when GGG implemented SSF they way they did. Instead of realizing playing by yourself means no chance of ever seeing more than a handful of the items that enable you to tackle high-level content and upping the drop yields accordingly, they made SSF a mere badge of honor and left the drop rates untouched. As if players were going at it solo because of masochism.



It took me many moons to realize SSF wasn't all that great after all, indeed. But about drops and items... yeah. PoE does fall flat on its face if you stubbornly solo it and barely use poetrade. But then again, you can still solo mostly and use poetrade for some finishing touches / impossible to get item (how I did it). Still, the time sink is massive and the payoff is mediocre, especially compared to GD.



Ahhzz said:


> Would love to continue the PoE discussion, maybe over here?   Altho I fully agree that many fans of PoE do also enjoy Grim Dawn, and some poor souls even like D3...



Agreed


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## bug (Apr 24, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> It took me many moons to realize SSF wasn't all that great after all, indeed. But about drops and items... yeah. PoE does fall flat on its face if you stubbornly solo it and barely use poetrade. But then again, you can still solo mostly and use poetrade for some finishing touches / impossible to get item (how I did it). Still, the time sink is massive and the payoff is mediocre, especially compared to GD.


The root of the issue is if you set the drop rates high enough for a single player to get by, you get a flood of content online. So every online game gets calibrated for online experience and if you want/have to play by yourself, you're forced into trading. At that point, it's the same game as a stock exchange, only less lucrative.

Fwiw I've sunk 3+ years of solo gameplay into PoE (with a full time job, so no 8+ hours daily sessions) and was never able to see the "regular" version of Atziri. My best toon was a RF templar (don't remember the ascendancy) that would constantly whirlwind with LGoH to stay alive. Everything else I could afford to build ended up too squishy. That's how PoE works if you don't trade


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## Ahhzz (Apr 24, 2019)

Would love to continue the PoE discussion, maybe over here?   Altho I fully agree that many fans of PoE do also enjoy Grim Dawn, and some poor souls even like D3...


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## bug (Apr 24, 2019)

In my mind it's not a PoE discussion as much as comparing games that will both appeal pretty much to the same audience.
But I hear you, will try to keep on topic


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## ratirt (Apr 25, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Can you elaborate? You've also said GD was one of the best games of its kind; the two are not unrelated  The reason it can offer so much itemization and variety is because its built as an offline single player focused game. Imagine putting this in the setting of Path of Exile. It wouldn't work at all, droprates would need serious adjustment and the end result would be long grind and tedious progression, something Grim Dawn handily avoids. Diablo 3 had similar issues and sprinkled some real-money trouble on top. Even today that game is beyond saving, and its precisely because it had to be online and accessible. It was even integral to the RMAH concept. Do you want daily quests in GD? Or gems that need hundreds of hours to 'progress through to make them usable? Thát is what online means when it comes down to it. Grindy gameplay and inconsequential progression. And of course, the inevitable boredom of having to adjust to a metagame.


I understand what you are saying and what is your focus here. What I wanted to mention, and I think a lot of people will agree, it's great to get a chance to play with your colleagues. Doing quests and play together. I'm not talking about the "universe" type of things cause I tried it few times and it doesn't work  for me. I get your point but getting the game purely offline without any possibility to play with others would be a very bad idea. Maybe this isn't exactly what you mean but offline for me means no way of any multiplayer possibility with other players, no interaction.

BTW. I played Diablo 3 and titan quest. Like both and got them all on a DVD  Grim Dawn is kind of a step forward and it rocks


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## ne6togadno (Apr 25, 2019)

online/offline is ment for technological side of the gemes rather then mulitplayer/coop aspect of the games

poe, diablo 3 are online games. your charecter is kept on server, loot drops are server side calculations, hit/miss/block/damage/kill/ are all server side calculations. no conection to server and you cant play.

tq/gd/diablo 2 (at least sp part)/torchlight are offline games. your chare is stored localiy, loot drops are calculated localy by your game not by server, hit/miss etc. are also local calculations. you still have automatic updates, cloud save, coop mulitplayer that requrire internet connection but game mechanics are running localy not on server. you can play the game even w/o internet access.

PS i doubt there could be sensible dev that think that coop/multiplaier is not needed in arpg


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## ratirt (Apr 25, 2019)

ne6togadno said:


> online/offline is ment for technological side of the gemes rather then mulitplayer/coop aspect of the games
> 
> poe, diablo 3 are online games. your charecter is kept on server, loot drops are server side calculations, hit/miss/block/damage/kill/ are all server side calculations. no conection to server and you cant play.
> 
> ...



You mean single player? It's not offline when you have an internet connection and you interact with other players via internet. That's just wrong interpretation bro.
In Grim Dawn you can start with lvl 1 single player and yet still play with others via internet. Offline for me indicates there's no way you can interact with other players whatsoever.
Maybe nowadays offline means single player but that's more confusing than it explains.
If you disagree please explain your ways.

I get the loot etc. that's being determined individually for each player by their own game on their own computer.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 25, 2019)

ratirt said:


> You mean single player? It's not offline when you have an internet connection and you interact with other players via internet. That's just wrong interpretation bro.
> In Grim Dawn you can start with lvl 1 single player and yet still play with others via internet. Offline for me indicates there's no way you can interact with other players whatsoever.
> Maybe nowadays offline means single player but that's more confusing than it explains.
> If you disagree please explain your ways.
> ...


For me, "offline" means that I am not _required _ to have an internet connection. After purchasing GD (from GoG, the only way to go ), I install it, and then I could take my PC to a desert island, run solar and wind power, and play until one of us dies. Sure, it has MP capability, but it's not _required._  Games like D3, PoE, etc aren't offline in my head. 
But, everyone has their own interpretation; as long as we each know what the other means by "offline", everyone's happy


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## Vayra86 (Apr 25, 2019)

ratirt said:


> You mean single player? It's not offline when you have an internet connection and you interact with other players via internet. That's just wrong interpretation bro.
> In Grim Dawn you can start with lvl 1 single player and yet still play with others via internet. Offline for me indicates there's no way you can interact with other players whatsoever.
> Maybe nowadays offline means single player but that's more confusing than it explains.
> If you disagree please explain your ways.
> ...



The key word here is local. Because you do things locally, you as a player are in control of your game. For loot-based games such as these that is a serious perk that directly influences the gameplay.


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## ratirt (Apr 26, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> The key word here is local. Because you do things locally, you as a player are in control of your game. For loot-based games such as these that is a serious perk that directly influences the gameplay.


Yes. That's the word I been missing  Local and you are right about the loot. It is a huge perk for games like this.
When my computers is shipped, first thing I'm gonna do is launch the game and see what's new. It's been a long while since I played.

Do you guys know any other games like GD that you'd recommend?


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## AsRock (Apr 26, 2019)

WhiteNoise said:


> So I have around 18 hours into Grim Dawn and I dig it. The first few hours I was just trying to figure things out and though I was impressed with the visual art style of the game I was not feeling the game yet but as I figured things out I started really digging this game. Right now it's hard to say but I think this game is better than POE. POE is awesome but this game has more meat.
> 
> I am currently in act 1 with my L16 Necro/Occultist. Working on a pet build. I consider these builds 'easy' for beginners and it allows me to more easily get through the game while I learn.



After dropping $126 in to this game i would personally have to say hell no.

It's alright game and to me it's not finished, only the main quest line the ai actually speak the rest seems to be pretty much reading and in coop even in local coop sucks.

To me the game needs a few idea's from others like Divinity 1 or 2 were the other player can at least join in the conversation.

Story line is pretty meh and diffidently like POE over GD and was much cheaper, well if just in it for the story you can complete POE without any issue without spending a penny.

Maybe a preference but both me and my wife enjoyed the TQ story telling way much more, then again i like any thing based on Greek gods and all that. Don't think they story is is very well projected at all and just seems much more of a hack'n'slash so even on the story side i would pick even D3 over GD.

Games has lot of promise but over all it just isn't finished.

After thought: Like GD and don't expect it to have the search function that POE has which is some thing pretty dam unique and the only reason we stopped playing that game was due the changes they do ever 2-3 months and added some thing new which commonly forgot about the coop part of the game and had to do every thiig twice.

GD is good but fails in the end from what i can tell so far after 50hrs. Shame too has it does have a nice gritty feeling like back in the D1 days.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 26, 2019)

ratirt said:


> Yes. That's the word I been missing  Local and you are right about the loot. It is a huge perk for games like this.
> When my computers is shipped, first thing I'm gonna do is launch the game and see what's new. It's been a long while since I played.
> 
> Do you guys know any other games like GD that you'd recommend?


You _might_ try Divinity Originial Sin 2,  Tons of story line, and it's more of an RPG/RTS, but it's about as close as I can get. Maybe Outward?  Haven't tried it yet, but it might appeal..


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## WhiteNoise (Apr 26, 2019)

I now have 36 hours into Grim Dawn with my L40 char and so far I do like this game more than POE (at this time). Not to take anything away from POE though as I do love that game. I have 655 hours in it. The thing I love about POE are the acts. The thing I do not love is running maps after the last act. POE is much too short. I can blow through all the acts way too fast. I have around 6 characters in that game ranging from L50 to high L80's and I just can't be bothered to run maps over and over to keep leveling. I think that is why i keep starting new characters; just so I can replay the acts. The Acts motivate me while the maps just become tedious. Plus the changes every two to three months kinda annoy me because I'm constantly having to re-work some of my characters. Not to mention loot drops are stupid and getting that awesome gear is a lot of work; I know because I have put the work into it.

GD on the other-hand has (so far) a far richer world to run around in. Graphics and world art are on another level compared to POE. Solid gear drops without having to waste crazy amounts of money or deal with the trade network. Lore is decent if you take the time to do a lot of reading. Not a ton of voice acting but enough so far. The game is just a lot of fun. I like that I don't have to deal with the crazy skill tree of POE and have a simpler skill path to follow with GD but GD does have the constellations which really allows for some cool tweaking and added bonuses which should cater to POE fans.

The truth is this; if I can play GD long enough to get 600+ hours in it then its a solid game but if I get bored after 100-200 hours then everything I said about GD being better will be wrong and I'll admit it too. GD is new so my excitement is high but POE kept me hanging on for a long time....can't argue that POE is one awesome game. Will Grim Dawn keep up? So far yes but I need to put many more hours into it before making my final conclusion.


I should add one thing. I hated TQ. I only played the first one and I was bored out of my mind. I played through it though because my buddy wanted me to play with him.


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## bug (Apr 26, 2019)

Hehe, worlds...
To me finishing PoE on all three difficulty levels (back when PoE had those) was akin to finising the tutorial. What came after was nothing like the main campaign.
So if that's what you're after, then yes GD is way better. You get factions to side with (though back when I was still in the loop, it was pretty mandatory to side with one side over the other) whereas PoE just felt like pigeonholing you towards the end of the story. Of course GD's way gives birth to discussions like these: https://steamcommunity.com/app/219990/discussions/0/1483232961030671830/
So apparently the devs can't win no matter what they do.

Fwiw I don't think GD has the better graphics (tastes, eh?) and while I really liked TQ's skill trees, GD's just felt, for the lack of a better word, sparse. The skill trees were a big part of the reason I quit GD in the end: too few points to come up with something effective and too repetitive gameplay using the skills I had skill points for. Tried both melee and ranged toons, never felt like I could keep a caster alive in GD.

Still, the mere fact we're discussing GD here (even me who haven't played it in a couple of years) is proof enough that the game made a splash.


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## WhiteNoise (Apr 26, 2019)

I agree that the Acts in POE are really the tutorial. I just enjoy the tutorial more than the end game. I still dig the game and I have an investment in it too. I run a map here and there when I'm bored or if a friend wants to play a bit but I'm pretty burnt out. 

GD does have a more simplified skill tree but I have to admit its kinda nice after dealing with POE's tree. I really think between the crazy gear, crafting, and constellations that GD is deep enough to keep me quite busy in figuring out builds.

I'll play it while it's fun. I'm still in the lower acts (How many acts are there in GD?) so I really don't know what to expect once I get further in but so far so good.


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## bug (Apr 26, 2019)

WhiteNoise said:


> I agree that the Acts in POE are really the tutorial. I just enjoy the tutorial more than the end game. I still dig the game and I have an investment in it too. I run a map here and there when I'm bored or if a friend wants to play a bit but I'm pretty burnt out.
> 
> GD does have a more simplified skill tree but I have to admit its kinda nice after dealing with POE's tree. I really think between the crazy gear, crafting, and constellations that GD is deep enough to keep me quite busy in figuring out builds.
> 
> I'll play it while it's fun. I'm still in the lower acts (How many acts are there in GD?) so I really don't know what to expect once I get further in but so far so good.


GD is deep allright. It's just that when it came down to skills, I had a hard time finding synergies and stuff I'd like to play. Granted, most of that was just me looking at numbers, I didn't have the time to actually build characters and try skills on my own extensively.
In TQ, it was pretty easy to spot Marksmanship, Onslaught or some spell for casters that, with synergies, will carry you through the game. In GD, not so much. Though I'm sure if I had the time, I could find said skills in GD, it wasn't easy to spot them by just looking at the skill tree. The dearth of skill points only made things worse (btw, after the expansions, are skill points still as scarce in GD?)


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## Ahhzz (Apr 26, 2019)

WhiteNoise said:


> I now have 36 hours into Grim Dawn with my L40 char and so far I do like this game more than POE (at this time). Not to take anything away from POE though as I do love that game. I have 655 hours in it. The thing I love about POE are the acts. The thing I do not love is running maps after the last act. POE is much too short. I can blow through all the acts way too fast. I have around 6 characters in that game ranging from L50 to high L80's and I just can't be bothered to run maps over and over to keep leveling. I think that is why i keep starting new characters; just so I can replay the acts. The Acts motivate me while the maps just become tedious. Plus the changes every two to three months kinda annoy me because I'm constantly having to re-work some of my characters. Not to mention loot drops are stupid and getting that awesome gear is a lot of work; I know because I have put the work into it.
> 
> GD on the other-hand has (so far) a far richer world to run around in. Graphics and world art are on another level compared to POE. Solid gear drops without having to waste crazy amounts of money or deal with the trade network. Lore is decent if you take the time to do a lot of reading. Not a ton of voice acting but enough so far. The game is just a lot of fun. I like that I don't have to deal with the crazy skill tree of POE and have a simpler skill path to follow with GD but GD does have the constellations which really allows for some cool tweaking and added bonuses which should cater to POE fans.
> 
> ...



I will point out that some of the lore you find affects the game itself. there are several "hidden" quests that you have to find and read about 

Snagged my second epic on this toon, and man it's nice...It was barely an upgrade after I swapped my belt with the Chains for more dps/less health, but when I kick the aura in... sweet....


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## Ahhzz (Apr 30, 2019)

So, approaching 70 rapidly, and almost cleared all the quests in my log. Had to farm a little Rover rep this morning, to bump into Honored for the last Shrine quest, and discovered (happily) that when I wander into an area for the first time, no matter how low the area _normally_ is, it looks like it scales to my current level. A few of the bounty targets yielded double rep, as I got rep for the kill near my level, plus the bounty rewards .

I'm a bit of a glass cannon right now. I hit 49 kdps last night on the Flesh Master (thanks to my Dreega'lanore; best weapon I see at legendary for my build, but level 58 ), but I'm scrambling to get a couple of pieces swapped out to get me some better resist. My gear is not too far from level, so armor is ok, but I gotta bump those resists up. I've got a good pair of pants in the bank within a few levels, and I wouldn't mind swapping my feet. Just trying to last long enough to get to a "farm" status, and I'll go hunting for better gear. With no _real _ranged damage (ignoring aura), I have to go hunting the mobs, and pretty quickly get in "stuck" range. I've worked out a semi-pattern of running in with the Eye, smacking everything I can reach, and then darting out of range, letting the massive dots and retaliation damage take its toll. I've managed several boss kills off-screen that way, and at least 2 have dotted to death after I couldn't clear the area quickly enough and fell. I res back in camp to "+100 Reputation with Blah Blah" heheh.

Should be able to completely wipe out "Normal" this week, or at least enough to make me feel good about it, and move up a tier, start all over. That'll let me peg my devotions without crucible farming, and I can see if I need to completely revamp.

**edited: wrong weapon originally


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## Frick (May 11, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> So, approaching 70 rapidly, and almost cleared all the quests in my log. Had to farm a little Rover rep this morning, to bump into Honored for the last Shrine quest, and discovered (happily) that when I wander into an area for the first time, no matter how low the area _normally_ is, it looks like it scales to my current level. A few of the bounty targets yielded double rep, as I got rep for the kill near my level, plus the bounty rewards .
> 
> I'm a bit of a glass cannon right now. I hit 49 kdps last night on the Flesh Master (thanks to my Dreega'lanore; best weapon I see at legendary for my build, but level 58 ), but I'm scrambling to get a couple of pieces swapped out to get me some better resist. My gear is not too far from level, so armor is ok, but I gotta bump those resists up. I've got a good pair of pants in the bank within a few levels, and I wouldn't mind swapping my feet. Just trying to last long enough to get to a "farm" status, and I'll go hunting for better gear. With no _real _ranged damage (ignoring aura), I have to go hunting the mobs, and pretty quickly get in "stuck" range. I've worked out a semi-pattern of running in with the Eye, smacking everything I can reach, and then darting out of range, letting the massive dots and retaliation damage take its toll. I've managed several boss kills off-screen that way, and at least 2 have dotted to death after I couldn't clear the area quickly enough and fell. I res back in camp to "+100 Reputation with Blah Blah" heheh.
> 
> ...



The weapons I've used the most have all been gamblecrafted actually, for my "main" (2H melee Commando), mostly because of life steal.

So to you who knows, I wouldn't live without life steal. It feels like I'm doing something wrong, or the game is just like that. In Titan Quest I think all of my chars tended towards ridiculous amounts of health generation, not really by intention, but it was so powerful and some gear gave you pretty silly bonuses to it so it just ... sorta happened. It was the same with this Commando in Grim Dawn. I stumbled across a weapon with like 10% life steal and it was silly how useful it was. Haunted Steel on everything, and gambled weapons with life steel is how it came down. Level 95 or so and only ~70k damage, which isn't a lot I feel, but otoh I have never laid eyes on gear that increased that damage. I'll try to build my dude in grimtools one of these days and let yous all has a look.

In any case things became so much simpler once I hit 94. Close to finishin Malmouth, the .... Langerrhaonsnen or whatever the boss for vanilla was called was surprisingly easy once I got to him. It. Her?


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## Ahhzz (May 13, 2019)

Hahahahaha Managed my first Nemesis this morning, and he gifted me a Nice set of boots, and the Malediction recipe I started drooling over yesterday.  Gave me a 6kdps-showing bump for 5 minutes of crafting a couple more random relics and a new chant for my boots, at least I think that's where they both dropped. Of course, he also gifted me two more deaths, since he split himself twice and I wasn't prepared for either. Still, a solid bump in DPS and defense, so I should find things a bit smoother this time thru AoM...


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## Vayra86 (May 14, 2019)

ne6togadno said:


> this combined with tunneled zone design w/o any variety and funny item drops is what acctually killed repleayability for me.
> i've just got firewalker pice drop. nice. increased fire damage can add to my warfare/earth mastery build but it is int set and i havent invested much in inteli beside what i get from lvling earth mastery :|
> lets lvl up a bit and invest all stat points in inteli.
> few days later...
> ...



The first part reads like you desperately should roll a new character and start fresh  When you're struggling for stats early in the game (that is pre-Ultimate really), the build is unlikely to work well later; unless you've aimed it towards a very specific endgame gear set(up). But in that case, what you should be doing is separate a levelling build and an endgame build. Respeccing is easy, possible and cheap these days.

The second part, can only agree and its what I really like in GD, the balance they struck between depth and not going crazy about it as they did with PoE. I do agree PoE takes things _very_ far. And I also agree with @bug  that the way that game has its progression managed isn't exactly perfect. GD nails that, in my view. The entire path from 1-100 is a carefully designed progression path that keeps expanding in its requirements as you reach for the top.

I think the gist of all those subtle differences in design is the_ influence of online_ on games. Grim Dawn handily avoids that influence and stays true to the original ARPG formula. It doesn't need artificial time sinks or repetitive content because what it wants to do is offer the entire experience in those 100 levels and across that single world map. No RNG zones/maps. The best you get is an arena style end game called Crucible to really take things further. And, with the latest expansion, they also added rifts as another sort of timed challenge mode. Neither is required or deeply integrated into the game, its bonus.



Ahhzz said:


> Hahahahaha Managed my first Nemesis this morning, and he gifted me a Nice set of boots, and the Malediction recipe I started drooling over yesterday.  Gave me a 6kdps-showing bump for 5 minutes of crafting a couple more random relics and a new chant for my boots, at least I think that's where they both dropped. Of course, he also gifted me two more deaths, since he split himself twice and I wasn't prepared for either. Still, a solid bump in DPS and defense, so I should find things a bit smoother this time thru AoM...



Damn... I've been looking for Malediction for weeks now. Still waitin'... I need it as the LAST component for https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Dreeg's_Affliction_(relic)

Still rolling with the Acid/Poison Oathkeeper?



Ahhzz said:


> I have to go hunting the mobs, and pretty quickly get in "stuck" range
> 
> **edited: wrong weapon originally
> View attachment 122294



Did you get Forgotten Gods yet? If so you can buy Emblems that apply as an Augment to your Medal and those are all movement skills; ie a teleport, a pounce, a charge. They're also cheap and do not require reputation. If you have the expansion you can jump straight onto them (pun intended). With that and Vire's Might combined you'll be like Sonic.

Btw that weapon is drool worthy and I want it too. Stop stealing my drops okthx 

Btw you might want to be careful with that Chains of Anguish belt. The movement speed reduction can be a dealbreaker there. The damage not so much, but suddenly slowing down can cost you a heart  Especially because it also slashes your defenses at the same time. High risk high payoff item for sure.



bug said:


> GD is deep allright. It's just that when it came down to skills, I had a hard time finding synergies and stuff I'd like to play. Granted, most of that was just me looking at numbers, I didn't have the time to actually build characters and try skills on my own extensively.
> In TQ, it was pretty easy to spot Marksmanship, Onslaught or some spell for casters that, with synergies, will carry you through the game. In GD, not so much. Though I'm sure if I had the time, I could find said skills in GD, it wasn't easy to spot them by just looking at the skill tree. The dearth of skill points only made things worse (btw, after the expansions, are skill points still as scarce in GD?)



I get what you're saying here. And for me playing this for over 600 hours now, I can say that really, all those different skills are actually quite same-y. The main differences are in how damage types are used / converted / buffed. Grim Dawns' stronger builds are very well adapted to double dipping in damage types in many different ways. My poison build I shared earlier has elements of it too; I double dip in Retaliation damage there, and the poison DoT handily supports that because it needs time just like the creatures that need to reach and hit you.

But the individual skills, you're absolutely right, aren't all that distinct or game-changing. The biggest damage comes from stacking many different skills in a short period of time, in the right order, and triggering the right on-hit effects. I have several builds where the lion's share of DPS comes from a few Constellations rather than the class skills.

I think much of GD's learning curve is also due to these design choices. They mixed it up just enough to challenge your set ideas about how to stack and min-max stats. As for skillpoints being scarce; you consistently get 3 points per level and down to 2/level after level 50 and 1 per level after level 80 I believe. Plus a couple from quests. The breathing room in skillpoints needs to come from gear drops that offer +x to skills. Some even offer +1 to _all skills._ Or all skills of a class. You can also _overlevel _skills to amplify the effects further. I've learned that if you lack skillpoints for a given build, it needs to be trimmed down/streamlined further, and that usually only benefits it. There are many ways to stack things to reach similar results, some expensive and some a LOT cheaper.



Frick said:


> The weapons I've used the most have all been gamblecrafted actually, for my "main" (2H melee Commando), mostly because of life steal.
> 
> So to you who knows, I wouldn't live without life steal. It feels like I'm doing something wrong, or the game is just like that. In Titan Quest I think all of my chars tended towards ridiculous amounts of health generation, not really by intention, but it was so powerful and some gear gave you pretty silly bonuses to it so it just ... sorta happened. It was the same with this Commando in Grim Dawn. I stumbled across a weapon with like 10% life steal and it was silly how useful it was. Haunted Steel on everything, and gambled weapons with life steel is how it came down. Level 95 or so and only ~70k damage, which isn't a lot I feel, but otoh I have never laid eyes on gear that increased that damage. I'll try to build my dude in grimtools one of these days and let yous all has a look.
> 
> In any case things became so much simpler once I hit 94. Close to finishin Malmouth, the .... Langerrhaonsnen or whatever the boss for vanilla was called was surprisingly easy once I got to him. It. Her?



Loghlorrean I believe 

Just wait until you fight the Kraken, AoM expansion, his little brother... He's mighty fun on Ultimate 

70K is fine. Grim Dawn is not a game where you are supposed to run through maps in two minutes with stuff dying left and right, speed runs are not rewarded at all (quite the opposite, many secrets are found and randomly placed in world objects and even monster spawns often happen some time after passing through areas) and the gear requirements are pretty high to begin with. The DPS calculation is also very... very... inaccurate.

Lifesteal build... still wanting to do one, but I'm always getting stuck on the fact that lifesteal only applies to %Weapon damage and nothing else. Pretty big limitation. If you're struggling to see where other builds get their health from... on-hit procs (Wayward Soul etc.) and hard Health Regeneration stats. You can stack that very well (1k HP/sec is not uncommon). Also, just a heavy defense priority and mitigation allows you to run off health pots alone.


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## ratirt (May 14, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> You _might_ try Divinity Originial Sin 2,  Tons of story line, and it's more of an RPG/RTS, but it's about as close as I can get. Maybe Outward?  Haven't tried it yet, but it might appeal..


I played divinity but not the 2nd part. I will have to try it but now I'm kinda back on GD since the new expansion showed up 



Ahhzz said:


> So, approaching 70 rapidly, and almost cleared all the quests in my log. Had to farm a little Rover rep this morning, to bump into Honored for the last Shrine quest, and discovered (happily) that when I wander into an area for the first time, no matter how low the area _normally_ is, it looks like it scales to my current level. A few of the bounty targets yielded double rep, as I got rep for the kill near my level, plus the bounty rewards .
> 
> I'm a bit of a glass cannon right now. I hit 49 kdps last night on the Flesh Master (thanks to my Dreega'lanore; best weapon I see at legendary for my build, but level 58 ), but I'm scrambling to get a couple of pieces swapped out to get me some better resist. My gear is not too far from level, so armor is ok, but I gotta bump those resists up. I've got a good pair of pants in the bank within a few levels, and I wouldn't mind swapping my feet. Just trying to last long enough to get to a "farm" status, and I'll go hunting for better gear. With no _real _ranged damage (ignoring aura), I have to go hunting the mobs, and pretty quickly get in "stuck" range. I've worked out a semi-pattern of running in with the Eye, smacking everything I can reach, and then darting out of range, letting the massive dots and retaliation damage take its toll. I've managed several boss kills off-screen that way, and at least 2 have dotted to death after I couldn't clear the area quickly enough and fell. I res back in camp to "+100 Reputation with Blah Blah" heheh.
> 
> ...


Which class you play? I got loads of legendary.



Vayra86 said:


> Loghlorrean I believe
> 
> Just wait until you fight the Kraken, AoM expansion, his little brother... He's mighty fun on Ultimate
> 
> ...




I kinda got that build. Life steal and dmg it works but there are some flaws in my build especially for the mana points  The blue bar is being eaten super quick.


----------



## kapone32 (May 14, 2019)

Titan Quest has new DLC: Titan Quest Atlantis

I see that no no one here has mentioned Torchlight or Torchlight 2. Those are some excellent ARPGs, The Van Helsing series is nice too but my favourite is Victor Vran.


----------



## bug (May 14, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> Titan Quest has new DLC: Titan Quest Atlantis
> 
> I see that no no one here has mentioned Torchlight or Torchlight 2. Those are some excellent ARPGs, The Van Helsing series is nice too but my favourite is Victor Vran.


Torchlight felt incredibly underwhelming to me. Van Helsing was ok (made 3 chars or so), but I got it when I didn't realy have time to play that much anymore. Didn't try Victor Vran.


----------



## kapone32 (May 14, 2019)

bug said:


> Torchlight felt incredibly underwhelming to me. Van Helsing was ok (made 3 chars or so), but I got it when I didn't realy have time to play that much anymore. Didn't try Victor Vran.



The best thing about Torchlight is it reminds me of Diablo 2 but Victor Vran is nice because you can actually jump in it and it supports local and online Co op. I agree that Van Helsing is meh compared to Grim Dawn but POE was the biggest grind I have even been through and that skill tree was daunting.


----------



## bug (May 14, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> The best thing about Torchlight is it reminds me of Diablo 2 but Victor Vran is nice because you can actually jump in it and it supports local and online Co op. I agree that Van Helsing is meh compared to Grim Dawn but POE was the biggest grind I have even been through and that skill tree was daunting.


Having spent hundreds of hours in Diablo and DiabloII, there was nothing in Torchlight (1 or 2) that reminded me of the series.


----------



## Vayra86 (May 14, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> Titan Quest has new DLC: Titan Quest Atlantis
> 
> I see that no no one here has mentioned Torchlight or Torchlight 2. Those are some excellent ARPGs, The Van Helsing series is nice too but my favourite is Victor Vran.



Torchlight... I never really got into that to be honest, I played and finished both of them. But the urge to replay them is absent. I'm not a huge fan of the classes, the skill progression and the itemization they've chosen there. Feels a bit... I don't know. The best I can describe it as, is that this feels like a Nintendo version of the classic ARPG. It does play very smoothly and has good polish though.


----------



## kapone32 (May 14, 2019)

bug said:


> Having spent hundreds of hours in Diablo and DiabloII, there was nothing in Torchlight (1 or 2) that reminded me of the series.



For me it was the art style and feel,  but raising Skeletons was super fun. I know that Torchlight 1 & 2 were short but they never felt like a grind to me



Vayra86 said:


> Torchlight... I never really got into that to be honest, I played and finished both of them. But the urge to replay them is absent. I'm not a huge fan of the classes, the skill progression and the itemization they've chosen there. Feels a bit... I don't know. The best I can describe it as, is that this feels like a Nintendo version of the classic ARPG. It does play very smoothly and has good polish though.



Understood I have not looked back either but I did have fun playing them My favourite thing by far was raising skeletons. You actually brought up one of my favourite ARPGs Record of Lodoss War (Dreamcast).


----------



## Vayra86 (May 14, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> For me it was the art style and feel,  but raising Skeletons was super fun. I know that Torchlight 1 & 2 were short but they never felt like a grind to me
> 
> 
> 
> Understood I have not looked back either but I did have fun playing them My favourite thing by far was raising skeletons. You actually brought up one of my favourite ARPGs Record of Lodoss War (Dreamcast).



Hah yeah its nice if an ARPG supports good summoning builds. GD has it too! I've tried a Necromancer focusing on raise skeleton, and it is viable for sure. Still got to work on that one though, Lv 49... and needs a better build around it really.

I have to say that PoE is VERY strong with summoners as well, especially because of its triggered cast potential, the totems and all that... huge amounts of options.


----------



## kapone32 (May 14, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Hah yeah its nice if an ARPG supports good summoning builds. GD has it too! I've tried a Necromancer focusing on raise skeleton, and it is viable for sure. Still got to work on that one though, Lv 49... and needs a better build around it really.



I have not yet got that far in Grim Dawn but it is calling me to play some this long weekend hehehe. If only I could get away from Division 2!


----------



## ratirt (May 14, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Hah yeah its nice if an ARPG supports good summoning builds. GD has it too! I've tried a Necromancer focusing on raise skeleton, and it is viable for sure. Still got to work on that one though, Lv 49... and needs a better build around it really.
> 
> I have to say that PoE is VERY strong with summoners as well, especially because of its triggered cast potential, the totems and all that... huge amounts of options.


I've got a necro. It's nice but I've hit a snag later on. The minions draw attention but still you would need some assistance. I can bet it is good in a party. Very valuable.


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## Ahhzz (May 14, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> ...
> 
> Damn... I've been looking for Malediction for weeks now. Still waitin'... I need it as the LAST component for https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Dreeg's_Affliction_(relic)
> 
> ...



I am still rolling with the Poison OK, and still enjoying. Picked up some purple boots this morn (my second "Mehmesis" lol) that managed a bit more armor and evened a couple of resist values. Only at 84 right now, so still got time to get picky.

For the sword, I actually had to drop it a few levels ago. I had a green 2H axe drop with a dps bump more than 2k. Still hoping to see a mythic version at some point, but I'm also waiting for that on my Headgear. I need to GT my toon and link it up here.

Yeah, I've about had it with the belt. I've been looking at them as they go by, and I pick up every green, but I think I need to start actively searching a replacement, even if it costs me dps. That stupid slow is nightmarish. I only lose 2kdps or so shown, but with EoR rolling all the time, it procs so freaking often...

I have to admit, I don't know that I could go back to playing without GrimInternals... that tool is critical!

**edited for boots link


----------



## phanbuey (May 14, 2019)

I love this game... I hate port valbury.

I havent had a build that could run through it on veteran yet without an unfortunate and untimely death.  Definitely maxing aether resist next time.


----------



## HTC (May 14, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> I love this game... I hate port valbury.
> 
> I havent had a build that could run through it on veteran yet without an unfortunate and untimely death.  *Definitely maxing aether resist next time*.



The ground dmg isn't aether and the player is dmged in percentage of total life as opposed to a fixed number, so it will still be problematic but the monsters definitely use aether dmg (most of them) so it's a good idea to cap that res by 20 or more. Actually, it's a good idea to cap ALL resists by 20 or more, except maybe stun (the res from the 1st page of char info: not from the 3rd page).


----------



## Wavetrex (May 14, 2019)

*Solution - Move fast.*

I can't play today anymore any toon without some 20% increase in run speed (minimum). From *boots*, from *pants*, from *constellations*... (and there are a few other items that give total speed or run speed)
- First, it allows you to go through the world quicker, because from what I've noticed, combat is only 1/4 of the time spent actively on the map... the rest 3/4 is just walking. Saving 20% of that is AMAZING in terms of completion time.
- Also, it allows you to run in case shit hits the fan. So many times I avoided dying to some boss because I could outrun him and regenerate (_doesn't always work, there are -some- bosses which are impossibly fast and always catch you_)
- Finally, those annoying ground patches are much easily manageable if you can go past them quickly without taking too much damage.

There's usually 3 types of environmental damage areas:
- Low damage, which can be survived endlessly with high regeneration or drinking potions - Like Putrid Den in act 1
- Medium damage, which take about 5 seconds to kill you ( 5 pulses ), but you can survive 2-3 more by drinking a potion, allowing for over 7 or 8 seconds of surviving if timed correctly.
- High damage, which are 3 pulses (if you're still there when the 3rd comes and not drink potion, you're dead)

---
Extra:
- Global damage absorption DOES have an effect on those (like Maiven's Sphere), as well as various items (allowing you to stay there more)
- Damage soaking skills like Blast Shield also stop the ground patches damage until collapsing.
- Mirror of Ereoctes completely negates all damage (including from patches) until it pops.

For any other toon, speed is the only way. And NEVER fight above one of those, that's suicide... let the mobs come to you on safe ground.


----------



## flmatter (May 14, 2019)

I have been playing occasionally, I am on discord  hit me up if you want to run some Grim. I still have to finish Malmouth(at the end) on Ult.


----------



## Vayra86 (May 14, 2019)

@Wavetrex ^so much this. Grim Dawn is also NOT about facetanking everything. If you do that you are easily left with the impression that your defense is inadequate when in fact all you had to do was look for a cue and walk away. Its much better to move more and use the breathing room to add damage over defense. Offense is also a defense, in a way. Also, for those ground patches, the benefits of Constellation/proc heals cannot be overstated. Just having 2-3 healing buttons or procs alongside your health pot is enough to get you through to the next cooldown for a new health pot.

Later in the game and with certain bosses (even Warden Krieg does it) they use rotations that first slow or stun you and follow up with a big hit. Those are the moments that will inevitably destroy you on Ultimate - despite great gear. Without resistance for crowd control and sufficient movespeed, that will get you every single time.

Forgotten Gods gained movement skills to augment your Medal with - use them. Even on top of an already present movement skill they are lifesavers - and time savers.


----------



## HTC (May 14, 2019)

I think i can stand in those "problematic areas" a while longer:



Still attempting past shard 60 in SR but, so far, without success. This is my latest testing build: i can do OK if the bosses don't come @ me @ the same time but, because the bosses map is so small, they often do, which is what is screwing me


----------



## phanbuey (May 14, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> @Wavetrex ^so much this. Grim Dawn is also NOT about facetanking everything. If you do that you are easily left with the impression that your defense is inadequate when in fact all you had to do was look for a cue and walk away. Its much better to move more and use the breathing room to add damage over defense. Offense is also a defense, in a way. Also, for those ground patches, the benefits of Constellation/proc heals cannot be overstated. Just having 2-3 healing buttons or procs alongside your health pot is enough to get you through to the next cooldown for a new health pot.
> 
> Later in the game and with certain bosses (even Warden Krieg does it) they use rotations that first slow or stun you and follow up with a big hit. Those are the moments that will inevitably destroy you on Ultimate - despite great gear. Without resistance for crowd control and sufficient movespeed, that will get you every single time.
> 
> Forgotten Gods gained movement skills to augment your Medal with - use them. Even on top of an already present movement skill they are lifesavers - and time savers.



I do a fair share of kiting, but yeah there are times when I either get pinned or decide "oh I can just stand here and finish off this boss" that get extra sketchy.  My ranged paladin is sailing through everything (but Valbury - it's a bit harder to kite and I get pinned all the time) so far; hoping he scales into ultimate.  Oathkeeper is kind of broken.  It's a tanky ranged build that does a decent amount of DPS (14K @ level 46) and plays exactly as you're describing above -- kite turn shoot, kite.

Also - unrelated for anyone here if you get the occasional hitching and stuttering in the game, reassigning the CPU affinity in task manager (checking it to one core, then checking them all again) makes it go away completely.


----------



## Ahhzz (May 15, 2019)

Throwing my toon up here for perusal, drooling, and ridicule 





						Sentinel, Level 83 (GD 1.1.2.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
					

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion




					www.grimtools.com


----------



## kapone32 (May 15, 2019)

Thanks to the OP for posting this. I would also like to thank all the members that talked about specifics. I just got back into the game and I love how well fleshed out the game is. I will definitely be playing this on the weekend.


----------



## SaltyFish (May 15, 2019)

bug said:


> Fwiw I don't think GD has the better graphics (tastes, eh?) and while I really liked TQ's skill trees, GD's just felt, for the lack of a better word, sparse. The skill trees were a big part of the reason I quit GD in the end: too few points to come up with something effective and too repetitive gameplay using the skills I had skill points for. Tried both melee and ranged toons, never felt like I could keep a caster alive in GD.


Grim Dawn's skill tree is indeed much larger and more spread out than Titan Quest's. TQ masteries historically had 20 skills in 6 tiers that capped at 32 points (the recent Atlantis expansion adds 2 skills in a new 40 point tier). GD masteries are 27 skills (excluding special modifiers) in 9 tiers that cap at 50 points. To make matters worse, while both start off with 3 skill points per level, GD eventually gives diminishing skill points at high levels whereas TQ keeps it constant. So GD does feel starved for skill points coming from TQ. But at the same time there's the new devotion system with its own tree and points. So it kind of works out.


bug said:


> GD is deep allright. It's just that when it came down to skills, I had a hard time finding synergies and stuff I'd like to play. Granted, most of that was just me looking at numbers, I didn't have the time to actually build characters and try skills on my own extensively.
> In TQ, it was pretty easy to spot Marksmanship, Onslaught or some spell for casters that, with synergies, will carry you through the game. In GD, not so much. Though I'm sure if I had the time, I could find said skills in GD, it wasn't easy to spot them by just looking at the skill tree. The dearth of skill points only made things worse (btw, after the expansions, are skill points still as scarce in GD?)


It is harder for me as well to come up with builds in GD than in TQ. But it might also be because TQ has been out longer so we all know what to (ab)use and GD reined in some of the former's balance issues. Post-nerf Ternion Attack is still in a league of its own in TQ even if it takes a bit more effort to get there now. GD's closest equivalent is probably Fire Strike and while it too remains very good post-nerf, it's not on the level of Ternion Attack. When doing TQ builds, masteries have no-brainer picks (Study Prey, Ternion Attack, Distort Reality) and trap picks (Life Drain, Flame Surge, Disarm Traps). But some you needed to try out because the skill descriptions don't always make it clear (e.g. Thunderball having no effect on a miss while Volcanic Orb does as well as their difference in trajectory). It is harder to discern such in GD (again a combination of balance and less familiarity) and the obvious TQ analogue skills don't perform the same (Savergy and Righteous Fervor are versions of Onslaught with less crazy scaling, Bloody Pox is sorta Plague but with different debuffs, etc.). There's also more damage types thrown around so there's less overlap/synergy potential. But remember you get a "third mastery" with Devotion. The massive size of it (I try to think of it like PoE's skill web that was stolen from FFX though it's not a perfect analogue) does make it hard to keep in mind interesting combinations, but it also provides a lot of opportunity to synergize with your masteries. At the very least, I do enjoy the fresh challenge of coming up with new builds and how it's not repeat of the same stuff from TQ.

All things said, I do miss how TQ spread around the pets/summons in its masteries. GD confines them to a few masteries and the devotion system.


----------



## Vayra86 (May 15, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> Throwing my toon up here for perusal, drooling, and ridicule
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Definitely pick up Solael's Witchfire as a 1-pointer! (Or 2, if you take the other skill as well) Pretty good payoff especially for weapon damage based builds.

How is Eye of Reckoning synergy with acid/poison stats? I'm curious how that scales... Your build seems more physical-focused than anything else in base damage, yet your damage types focus on Poison and phys/fire/lightning (for Eye its about a 33%  even split between the three). If you just use EoR to spam Guardian's Gaze around, you could use any other damage skill as well such as Bloody Pox, or Dreeg's Evil Eye, and I've also had great success linking this constellation to the Guardians of Empyrion. The Gaze eyes will spawn _around them_ instead of you, so you don't need to facetank to have them proc and it also fits nicely with the skill cooldown as you can summon 2 of them. I had looots of Gaze eyes up that way 

Also, are you aware that +x% damage on items will apply _after damage conversion? _So if you're converting physical damage into acid, you'll want to stack +x% Acid Damage. The bonus phys damage will be lost. You can also only convert _once._ So if you were thinking 'Phys > Fire > Acid' with your exclusive skill, that ain't gonna happen 

Another quick win is swapping one Mark of Dreeg with this








						Vitriolic Gallstone
					

Vitriolic Gallstone is a common component for use in Melee Weapons, Shields and caster Off-Hands. This item is available for crafting from the Blacksmith. It can also be received as part of Faction Bounty rewards for Homestead. Crafts one Vitriolic Gallstone Component.




					grimdawn.gamepedia.com
				




It gives you an aura for moar damage. And you could even stack two of those.

Additionally I would suggest funneling more points into your attack skills and make all those buff skills one pointers. Except for the best ones. You could also move the point in Volcanic Might towards Tectonic Shift, it extends the range of Vire's Might.


----------



## Ahhzz (May 15, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Definitely pick up Solael's Witchfire as a 1-pointer! (Or 2, if you take the other skill as well)
> 
> How is Eye of Reckoning synergy with acid/poison stats? I'm not seeing that, to be honest. Your build seems more physical-focused than anything else in base damage, yet your damage types focus on Poison and phys/fire/lightning (for Eye its about a 33%  even split between the three). If you just use EoR to spam Dreeg's Eyes around, you could use any other damage skill as well such as Bloody Pox, or Dreeg's Evil Eye.
> 
> Also, are you aware that +x% damage on items will apply _after damage conversion? _So if you're converting physical damage into acid, you'll want to stack +x% Acid Damage. The bonus phys damage will be lost.


I wasn't really aware of the nuts and bolts of when it applied. With most of my gear, I simply look at what drops with +acid/poison, +phys, and Phys to Acid, and then try them on to see what happens. Path of three converts phys and fire to acid, as does my chestpiece. Add to that Pestilence and the asstd venom/acid auras on my weapon, I do a fair bit .  I'll look tonite about my damage breakout: Grim Tools isn't that great about accuracy, it only grabs the Average values on gear, and doesn't bother with dps calcs heheh. You are right, I need to throw a point in Witchfire. I never use the shield anymore, so I need to drop my 2 from Safeguard and put them to witchfire. 

I'm running into a "slowing". Went to deal with the tentacle monster NE of the Coven, and got myself slaughtered right quickly. I can be taught, altho it took 3 runs to do it: come back later .  So, I'm bouncing around the area, re-killing heroes and bosses, looking for my nemesis, hoping to get a little better gear. I've swapped belts, which cost me 4kdps, but gave me a little more resist. I've got a few rings and amulets waiting for a level or two to try them on and check the stats. I think my current stated DPS is around 30k; I've lost a few because of working on survivability..

I use the EoR for dealing with the "mob mentality" of multiple mobs, I just run around, spot mobs, Dire's Might into them (which procs Tainted Eruption 51% of the time), throw a curse at what's left standing (or bowled over), and spin into them, or wander away, letting the dots and aura finish them. If I hit Champions or up, I do the same, and then toe-to-toe with Fervor, kicking off Dreeg's blood if my health drops to yellow. Some of the big boys, and all the bosses get a dose of Pestilence and Ascension, and I start Abolishing Evil every 4 seconds (middle mouse key bound to repeat "7" until clicked again lol). Last time I looked, that was doing about 30k per swing by itself, I think. 

Oh well, much to do and learn. This is the highest I've pushed a toon yet, and I am enjoying the crap out of it. I may go back to my "hunter" build after this; I always have preferred standing back and sniping with a shield in front, but the first Oathkeeper I saw was something like this build, spinning around and throwing a shield all over: I had to try it heheh.


----------



## Vayra86 (May 15, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I wasn't really aware of the nuts and bolts of when it applied. With most of my gear, I simply look at what drops with +acid/poison, +phys, and Phys to Acid, and then try them on to see what happens. Path of three converts phys and fire to acid, as does my chestpiece. Add to that Pestilence and the asstd venom/acid auras on my weapon, I do a fair bit .  I'll look tonite about my damage breakout: Grim Tools isn't that great about accuracy, it only grabs the Average values on gear, and doesn't bother with dps calcs heheh. You are right, I need to throw a point in Witchfire. I never use the shield anymore, so I need to drop my 2 from Safeguard and put them to witchfire.
> 
> I'm running into a "slowing". Went to deal with the tentacle monster NE of the Coven, and got myself slaughtered right quickly. I can be taught, altho it took 3 runs to do it: come back later .  So, I'm bouncing around the area, re-killing heroes and bosses, looking for my nemesis, hoping to get a little better gear. I've swapped belts, which cost me 4kdps, but gave me a little more resist. I've got a few rings and amulets waiting for a level or two to try them on and check the stats. I think my current stated DPS is around 30k; I've lost a few because of working on survivability..
> 
> ...



Cool  That is some pretty decent damage though. I hadn't expected that given your setup. Nice.

EDIT: Its funny though I get stuck at the same point with many toons. Ashes expansion really is a noticeable difficulty increase on Ultimate (and below, as well).

Ranged... huh  Here's what I am thinking of right now - and I already have the Harbinger set in the bank, except for the helmet... full Chaos damage 






						Pyromancer, Level 100 (GD 1.1.2.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
					

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion




					www.grimtools.com
				




All I'm missing though is those sweet WPS skills. Instead I have a dual stack attack enhancer + load of added base damage... hmmmmmm


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## phanbuey (May 15, 2019)

He's barefoot 

"the barefoot pyromaniac of devil's crossing"


----------



## Vayra86 (May 15, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> He's barefoot
> 
> "the barefoot pyromaniac of devil's crossing"



Still looking for Mythical Stinky Socks


----------



## Ahhzz (May 16, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> ...
> 
> Another quick win is swapping one Mark of Dreeg with this
> 
> ...



I only have one Dreeg Mark: it's a 2H .  My stated DPS, standard, walkaround buff is 39k for Righteous, 14k for EoR.  Without my "Hulk Smash" buff, I'm at 19k-31k on Abolish Evil, and my short buffs push that to 35k tops. My biggest single hit is 68k at once, and the highest number I saw on GrimInternals was around 140kdps.

My acid Damage on the sheet is 1794-3613, with a 1278% modifier. Poison is 2649, +1556%. Physical is 798-2406, at +262%. I took your advice on Witchfire, and pulled my shield skills. It was fun, but I'm enjoying this build more. I'll have to eval the buff drops... Attached to a lot of those numbers   I did stick a point in Tectonic, but probably won't pull Volcanic: it has a knockdown that I enjoy.

For lack of a better one right now, I've got a Mythical Soulweave, and 7 or 8 rings and medals to try out in another 25% of a level. Still looking for a solid belt, better gloves, and something in a weapon that's not green, and still kicking ass lol. Hard to beat that thing so far, haven't seen anything within 5-600 points in a good while...

thanks for the advice


----------



## Frick (May 16, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Loghlorrean I believe
> 
> Just wait until you fight the Kraken, AoM expansion, his little brother... He's mighty fun on Ultimate
> 
> ...



Ayep, tried Kraken on ulti a few days ago. I will get him some other time.

And life steal works in my commando build because many skills boost weapon damage, yeah.

And anyway now I dislike not having internet at home. I have Forgotten Gods and have it on the laptop ... but I don't know how to "activate" it on the desktop, if it is at all possible. Otherwise I'll have to wait for a few months when I'll visit the old folk. GoG has many upsides.


----------



## bug (May 16, 2019)

Frick said:


> Ayep, tried Kraken on ulti a few days ago. I will get him some other time.
> 
> And life steal works in my commando build because many skills boost weapon damage, yeah.
> 
> And anyway now I dislike not having internet at home. I have Forgotten Gods and have it on the laptop ... but I don't know how to "activate" it on the desktop, if it is at all possible. Otherwise I'll have to wait for a few months when I'll visit the old folk. GoG has many upsides.


Ha, you got it on Steam. Serves you well.


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## ShurikN (May 16, 2019)

They released another hotfix, and broke Grim Internals again. Had to disable auto updates xD
Luckily I could play shattered realm without it. I got so reliant on it in the last month that it's impossible for me to play without it now.


----------



## Ahhzz (May 16, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> They released another hotfix, and broke Grim Internals again. Had to disable auto updates xD
> Luckily I could play shattered realm without it. I got so reliant on it in the last month that it's impossible for me to play without it now.


Yeah, I'm still sitting on 1.1.2.0. I might try to update again in a bit, there were definitely some changes to the classes, just don't feel like risking a nerf right now lol.


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## phanbuey (May 16, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> Yeah, I'm still sitting on 1.1.2.0. I might try to update again in a bit, there were definitely some changes to the classes, just don't feel like risking a nerf right now lol.



I hate when they nerf stuff on single player...


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## ShurikN (May 16, 2019)

I don't remember if there were significant nerfs to the classes or skills, but I do know certain sets were changed, and some claim that Ulzuin's set got nerfed in the process. 
Also if you are already on 1.1.2.x, then you are good to go, as Hotfix patches (the "X" in version number) usually focus on bugs and fine tuning.
But as I said, some mods will get broken. So if you update, you cannot go back to the older one (like with gog)


----------



## Ahhzz (May 16, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> I don't remember if there were significant nerfs to the classes or skills, but I do know certain sets were changed, and some claim that Ulzuin's set got nerfed in the process.
> Also if you are already on 1.1.2.x, then you are good to go, as Hotfix patches (the "X" in version number) usually focus on bugs and fine tuning.
> But as I said, some mods will get broken. So if you update, you cannot go back to the older one (like with gog)


I know the Sword I was initially using (Dreegal'anore) got nerfed a bit (added resist, removed some damage), as with Eye of Reckoning (slowed movement speed) and Ascension (increased cooldown). I'm not using the sword right now in favor of a green 2H sword, and there was a buff to Fervor, so I might consider an update, as long as Grim Internals is caught up. I need to go ahead and download the current one and save it, so when GI gets updated, I can update them both heheh.


----------



## Lorec (May 16, 2019)

You guys been tempting me with this game long enough! 
Finally 70% off on steam. Got it already 








						Save 75% on Grim Dawn on Steam
					

Enter an apocalyptic fantasy world where humanity is on the brink of extinction, iron is valued above gold and trust is hard earned. This ARPG features complex character development, hundreds of unique items, crafting and quests with choice & consequence.




					store.steampowered.com


----------



## Ahhzz (May 17, 2019)

Lorec said:


> You guys been tempting me with this game long enough!
> Finally 70% off on steam. Got it already
> 
> 
> ...


Good price!! I don't know that you'll get enough play time to warrant snagging Ashes before it goes back off sale, but even if you don't, the base game has tons of game play in it!! Enjoy 
This is a pretty decent tutorial, a bit long at 45 minutes, but there's a lot to cover. The reddit page has a lot of info, and feel free to ask in here, we'd be glad to help with what we know


----------



## phanbuey (May 17, 2019)

aight guys... im doing it...

Going to try a 2H ranged soldier inquisition.  "DOOMGUY"


----------



## Lorec (May 17, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> Good price!! I don't know that you'll get enough play time to warrant snagging Ashes before it goes back off sale, but even if you don't, the base game has tons of game play in it!! Enjoy
> This is a pretty decent tutorial, a bit long at 45 minutes, but there's a lot to cover. The reddit page has a lot of info, and feel free to ask in here, we'd be glad to help with what we know


Well, I will have a proper go at base game for now. 
Both ashes and forgotten gods dlcs are on a slight sale only. 
Base game is a steal though.

ty for that tutorial as well, i hate making first throw-out characters haha


----------



## Frick (May 17, 2019)

bug said:


> Ha, you got it on Steam. Serves you well.



It was gifted though... But yeah, more or less. Steam is good and all but it doesn't mix well with an offline life.


----------



## phanbuey (May 17, 2019)

So that build didn't last long at all... cadence kind of sucks.


----------



## ShurikN (May 17, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> So that build didn't last long at all... cadence kind of sucks.


Maybe go dual wield and focus on the 4 passives on the top of Inquisitor tree.


----------



## phanbuey (May 17, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> Maybe go dual wield and focus on the 4 passives on the top of Inquisitor tree.



It's just that the paladin (oathkeeper+inquisitioner) was so much stronger.  Looks like oathkeeper + demolitionist might be pretty OP too - shield + tons of fire & retaliation.


----------



## ShurikN (May 17, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> It's just that the paladin (oathkeeper+inquisitioner) was so much stronger.  Looks like oathkeeper + demolitionist might be pretty OP too - shield + tons of fire & retaliation.


I tried it. Wasn't particularly happy. Eventually the toon died on HC so I went with pure fire Soldier+Oath. You might build it better than I did tho.


----------



## phanbuey (May 17, 2019)

Ah nice thanks for that!  how is soldier + oath, r u doing pure retaliation/phys?


----------



## ShurikN (May 17, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> Ah nice thanks for that!  how is soldier + oath, r u doing pure retaliation/phys?


No, I'm going full fire, no retaliation, 2H. It's doing fine so far at lvl 93 HC


----------



## ratirt (May 18, 2019)

Damn. I got absolutely no time for playing :/ I need to figure something out.
Anybody playing the new character Oathkeeper?


ShurikN said:


> No, I'm going full fire, no retaliation, 2H. It's doing fine so far at lvl 93 HC


What if you get fire resistant monsters? Any alternatives?


----------



## ShurikN (May 18, 2019)

ratirt said:


> Damn. I got absolutely no time for playing :/ I need to figure something out.
> Anybody playing the new character Oathkeeper?
> 
> What if you get fire resistant monsters? Any alternatives?


Yeah, almost everyone is playing the Oath now, it's just how it is when a new class drops.

As for fire res, I have a fair amount of fire resistance shredding. Some come from items, some from Guardian of Empyrion summons, and some from devotions.


----------



## bryanw1995 (May 18, 2019)

HTC said:


> GOG *usually* has this game with serious discounts, including the DLCs (obviously not the latest one, since that is @ full price, for now). Unfortunately, now it's not on sale
> 
> That's actually how i got GOG's version myself since, up until that point, i played exclusively on Steam.



I see a lot of people on the forums complain about GoG updates taking an extra day or 2, or that multiplayer support isn't great.  Just an fyi to new users considering which version to get.

FG allows mp between GoG/steam version, but all older versions do not (95% of user base is steam).



Vayra86 said:


> Few tips, if I may...
> - overcap resistances by 20~25% if at all possible. Enemies shred them too and its those moments your resistance is below 80% + incoming crits that can one shot you.
> - Your OA/DA are low. DA is huge for survivability, if you can get near 2700~3000 with procs/buffs that will prevent a lot of incoming crits.
> - Lacking high DA, get 'Wayward Soul'. It procs on incoming crits to save your ass and the constellation doubles as a nice OA boost.



You don't need to overcap resists by 20-25% unless you're pushing endgame content like Gladiator crucible, Nemesis, or Shattered Realm.  He's so far away from that, that there's no point in bringing it up.  And 2700 DA, again, you don't need that unless pushing endgame content.  For normal farming he can get away with quite a bit less than that.

Wayward soul procs at "20% chance on hit", and it has for a very long time now.


----------



## HTC (May 18, 2019)

bryanw1995 said:


> *I see a lot of people on the forums complain about GoG updates taking an extra day or 2*, or that multiplayer support isn't great.  Just an fyi to new users considering which version to get.
> 
> FG allows mp between GoG/steam version, but all older versions do not (95% of user base is steam).



With GOG Galaxy, i'm told the updates are in the same day but i can't use GOG Galaxy myself (don't know how, under Linux) and, for the install files to become available, it takes a few days longer.

I follow these steps to install GD under Linux (Ubuntu):









						Crate Entertainment Forum
					

Official Community for Crate Entertainment Games




					www.grimdawn.com
				




New patch? Need to download all the files and re-install the whole thing.


----------



## L|NK|N (May 18, 2019)

Just purchased this game yesterday as a Diablo fan. Add me on steam L|NK|N


----------



## bryanw1995 (May 18, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> amn... I've been looking for Malediction for weeks now. Still waitin'... I need it as the LAST component for https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Dreeg's_Affliction_(relic)



The vendor in the Ancient Grove sells all recipies of lvl 75 and below (including set helms, relics, etc etc, everything), he usually has 5-10 for sale in any given instance.  Also, his sales are timed, so if you buy from him, go kill the dungeon boss, then backtrack to him, you can buy some more plans.



phanbuey said:


> I love this game... I hate port valbury.
> 
> I havent had a build that could run through it on veteran yet without an unfortunate and untimely death.  Definitely maxing aether resist next time.


Port Valbury is brutal, I normally don't bother with it until ultimate, and even then just b/c the 3 Watchers drop some nice MI belts.



HTC said:


> I think i can stand in those "problematic areas" a while longer:
> 
> View attachment 122977
> 
> Still attempting past shard 60 in SR but, so far, without success. This is my latest testing build: i can do OK if the bosses don't come @ me @ the same time but, because the bosses map is so small, they often do, which is what is screwing me



I'm grinding through SR on hardcore now, up to 50 on my King Octavius build...but holy crap the difficulty really spikes around lvl 45.



phanbuey said:


> aight guys... im doing it...
> 
> Going to try a 2H ranged soldier inquisition.  "DOOMGUY"



That's a Tactician. I have one using the Runebinder set, it's really fun to play.  I'm hardcore, so don't laugh at the Mark of Divinity.  Here it is:






						Tactician, Level 100 (GD 1.1.2.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
					

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion




					www.grimtools.com


----------



## bug (May 18, 2019)

ratirt said:


> Damn. I got absolutely no time for playing :/ I need to figure something out.
> Anybody playing the new character Oathkeeper?
> 
> What if you get fire resistant monsters? Any alternatives?


Oathkeeper... So in GD's lore, other classes are expected not to keep their oaths.


----------



## Vayra86 (May 18, 2019)

bug said:


> Oathkeeper... So in GD's lore, other classes are expected not to keep their oaths.



Well, most classes are sort of anti-heroes really. You can also make or break promises in several quests in the game


----------



## bug (May 18, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Well, most classes are sort of anti-heroes really. You can also make or break promises in several quests in the game


Oh, so you can break a promise while playing an Oathkeeper.

Joking aside, much of the allure of TQ was its attention to detail (remember how many uniques made references to Greek mythology and were actually emulating it?) I missed that in GD.


----------



## SaltyFish (May 19, 2019)

Speaking making or breaking promises, there's this set:





						Oathbreaker - Item sets - Grim Dawn Item Database
					

Grim Dawn Item Database




					grimtools.com
				



I find it amusing that it also hampers some Oathkeeper abilities.

TQ's attention to detail was absolutely fantastic. I swear half the devs must've been major mythology/classics nerds. Ancient Greek in the beginning of the opening that's accurate? Telkines and Dactyloi are from Greek mythology but tend to be rarely mentioned in pop culture works; the Dominions series is the only other game I can think of that uses them (and one of the devs there is an actual mythology/religion professor). They were also pretty good on the non-Greek stuff too. Zhu Rong's Firebow was one that stood out to me, if only because it was the only bow that boosted skills that wasn't in Rogue or Hunting. I think the flavor text on the unique items in GD kinda make up for it.

One thing I do miss in GD from TQ was the Dark Covenant skill. Hungering Void just isn't the same.


----------



## Vayra86 (May 19, 2019)

An update on Toxia. Swapped to Eye of Reckoning...and it is not bad at all! Good fun to play as well! Thanks for bringing that skill to my attention @Ahhzz 

Synergy wise its surprisingly easy to add a good chunk of vitality damage in the mix at no real cost. I'm looking at Gavel of Ravenous Souls to convert fire > vitality damage to get rid of the remaining half that isn't converted to Acid on all attack skills as well. Compared to last build, the devotions are focused towards lots of life leech (16% total) at no real cost otherwise. You can see that towards the end of the video. At the cost of some retaliation constellations I also crammed in Wayward Soul, which is huge to counteract incoming crits. Apart from the biggest hitters my health bar barely moves...


----------



## Ahhzz (May 19, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> An update on Toxia. Swapped to Eye of Reckoning...and it is not bad at all! Good fun to play as well! Thanks for bringing that skill to my attention @Ahhzz
> 
> Synergy wise its surprisingly easy to add a good chunk of vitality damage in the mix at no real cost. I'm looking at Gavel of Ravenous Souls to convert fire > vitality damage to get rid of the remaining half that isn't converted to Acid on all attack skills as well. Compared to last build, the devotions are focused towards lots of life leech (16% total) at no real cost otherwise. You can see that towards the end of the video. At the cost of some retaliation constellations I also crammed in Wayward Soul, which is huge to counteract incoming crits. Apart from the biggest hitters my health bar barely moves...


I'm using Behemoth's Giant Blood  for my "Oh crap", but I've reworked mine a little, and still tweaking a bit. I can manage most areas ok, but I keep running into some random Heroes/Bosses that are giving me headaches.....


----------



## Ahhzz (May 30, 2019)

Grim Dawn and DLC on Sale at GoG 



Spoiler



Grim Dawn


-70%
24.99
7.49


Grim Dawn - Crucible


-30%
5.99
4.19
Grim Dawn - Forgotten Gods


-15%
15.99
13.59
Grim Dawn - Ashes of Malmouth


-30%
17.99
12.59


----------



## HTC (Jun 24, 2019)

Finally managed to clear shard 75, with my blademaster: took quite a while.

Figured out how to *NOT* aggro most / all the bosses in shards 65+ maps: depends on the monsters but it has a rather high success rate, i think. Doing it this way, i get two bosses @ the same time @ most, which is much more reasonable then three or more @ the same time. Doesn't work all the time, specially VS ranged bosses, or when Gravathul (SP????) is one of them.

For this to work, a rune with the teleportation effect of Nadaan's Strike is required, in order to teleport right @ the start of the boss shard to a specific place nearby: *this must be done right @ the start of the boss shard* and effectively stops *most of the monsters* from coming @ you right from the get go. Sometimes, it doesn't stop them all and up to two still come @ you, but it's much better than all of them, right?

There are two maps for shards 65+: a smaller map and a bigger map. You'll want to teleport in both of them, even the bigger one, right @ the start of the shard: *do NOT delay this*. You'll need to figure out the max distance you can teleport before reaching the boss shards because if you attempt to do it outside of the range of the teleport, the teleport will fail and that can lead to all monsters coming @ you @ the same time, even in the bigger map (rather rare, but it does happen).

The smaller map - teleport to near the bottom right corner of the map.
The bigger map - teleport to near the top left side of the map.

*IMPORTANT*: this only works when you *reach the boss shard for the 1st time*. It will *NOT WORK* if you fight and end up dying to the bosses @ least once.

Still haven't figured out this for the smaller boss map of shards 45-60, though: more often then not, all of the monsters come @ me @ the same time in this map


----------



## Arctucas (Jul 28, 2019)

So, been playing for about a month, a few hours here and there.

Just wanted to ask; is anyone else bored with the constantly playing the same bounties over and over? I mean, I have completed a bounty, and when looking a the next bounty, it is the exact same bounty!


----------



## HTC (Jul 28, 2019)

Arctucas said:


> So, been playing for about a month, a few hours here and there.
> 
> Just wanted to ask; is anyone else bored with the constantly playing the same bounties over and over? I mean, I have completed a bounty, and when looking a the next bounty, it is the exact same bounty!



You only do bounties? Not enough reputation yet?

Before Shattered Realm, i used to do the Rogue Dungeons and track down the some of the more "easy to find" Nemesis. Now, mostly Shattered Realm and Nemesis: highest SH lvl i've done yet is lvl 78, so far.

Ofc, i've been playing exclusively with a lvl 100 char and i'm honored with all friendly factions as well as nemesis with the rest , so i don't need reputation.

You'll need it if you're not yet with honored / nemesis status yet. It's a grind to reach max status but, once completed, you can stop doing bounties, permanently (with that char). Highly suggest getting the mandates and warrants for the factions: helps tremendously when you're trying to lvl reputation with other chars since these items can be placed in the transfer stash for other chars to use.


----------



## Frick (Jul 29, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> aight guys... im doing it...
> 
> Going to try a 2H ranged soldier inquisition.  "DOOMGUY"




Wouldn't soldier+demo be a better fit?


----------



## Vayra86 (Jul 29, 2019)

Frick said:


> Wouldn't soldier+demo be a better fit?



Inquisitor is absolutely mental for ranged builds. Lots of shreds including a permanent -% elemental aura shredder... and Demo is always that same ol' boring Fire Strike crap. You can even shred aether and chaos, its very easy to stack specific damage types too, from different sources (Word of Pain, Runes, your gun, aura).


----------



## bryanw1995 (Jul 29, 2019)

Tactician (soldier/inquisitor) is really strong these days for ranged builds.  I have a Runebinder Tactician that is a blast to play and really wreaks havoc on the battlefield.


----------



## Arctucas (Jul 29, 2019)

HTC said:


> You only do bounties? Not enough reputation yet?
> 
> Before Shattered Realm, i used to do the Rogue Dungeons and track down the some of the more "easy to find" Nemesis. Now, mostly Shattered Realm and Nemesis: highest SH lvl i've done yet is lvl 78, so far.
> 
> ...



I have done the main game and Malmouth, have revered reputation with the Coven, Homestead, Black Legion, Outcast, honored with the Barrowholm, Devils Crossing, Malmouth, Rovers.

Currently level 69 Warlord.

Just trying to build up character. How else to build stats?


----------



## ZenZimZaliben (Jul 29, 2019)

Arctucas said:


> I have done the main game and Malmouth, have revered reputation with the Coven, Homestead, Black Legion, Outcast, honored with the Barrowholm, Devils Crossing, Malmouth, Rovers.
> 
> Currently level 69 Warlord.
> 
> Just trying to build up character. How else to build stats?



So just like any of these games..diablo, titan quest.etc..Don't spend much time on the first level of difficulty, the game doesn't really start until you hit Ultimate...which by then you will have max rep with every faction you want. I've 4 characters in Ultimate and my druid has finished everything except the newest expansion.


----------



## HTC (Jul 29, 2019)

Arctucas said:


> I have done the main game and Malmouth, have revered reputation with the Coven, Homestead, Black Legion, Outcast, honored with the Barrowholm, Devils Crossing, Malmouth, Rovers.
> 
> Currently level 69 Warlord.
> 
> Just trying to build up character. How else to build stats?



I said i'm honored with all friendly factions but i meant revered: my bad.

As for your question, don't do all bounties: some bounties give reputation while others only give iron bits. Be "picky" with the bounties you do.

As soon as available with your highest lvl char, get the mandates for the factions you want reputation and place them in the transfer stash to be used by the char you want to lvl: this will speed things up because bounties will give 50% to 100% more reputation this way. This works for both positive reputation (friendly) as well as negative reputation (enemy) factions.



ZenZimZaliben said:


> So just like any of these games..diablo, titan quest.etc..*Don't spend much time on the first level of difficulty, the game doesn't really start until you hit Ultimate...which by then you will have max rep with every faction you want.* I've 4 characters in Ultimate and my druid has finished everything except the newest expansion.



True ... and not true ...
For the friendly factions, this can be true, provided the player hasn't "sped up" the lower difficulties but, for the enemy factions this is false. It took me quite a while to get nemesis status with Cronley's faction (Fabius), for example. With the beast faction (Kubacabra), i reached nemesis status before clearing Malmouth expansion.


----------



## neatfeatguy (Jul 30, 2019)

I haven't been in GD for almost two weeks, tied up with other things and playing another game I just recently picked up.

So I finally decided to launch GD and see what kind of mayhem I can bring....

WTF is up with the shitty looking monster HUD they threw in? Damn eye sore. It's so distracting that I actually hate trying to play the game. Sure, you can scale down your HUD and the monster HUD gets smaller.....but playing across 5760x1080, that makes the skill bar so small it gets hard to easily see what skills are setup and what buffs you have on.

I actually, in the first time (out of 700 hours of playing), don't want to play this game anymore. They took a crappy looking font, slapped it into the HUD and then made the monster HUD take up 25% of your screen. The monster HUD doesn't do anything different than it did before this last update, except now it's 3x as large and 10x as fugly.

If they don't change it back or give an option to use the old HUD, I won't play the anymore. And that makes me sad because I actually really enjoy the game play and how awkwardly you can build champs to see how far you can actually get through the game using them. It was a game I could drop 30 minutes into here and there when I didn't have much time to spend on games......guess I'll have to find something less fugly looking now.

So here's hoping they fix the atrocity they unleashed.


----------



## flmatter (Jul 30, 2019)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> I've 4 characters in Ultimate and my druid has finished everything except the newest expansion


Let me know when you want to finish ashes then newest expansion


----------



## Frick (Jul 30, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Inquisitor is absolutely mental for ranged builds. Lots of shreds including a permanent -% elemental aura shredder... and Demo is always that same ol' boring Fire Strike crap. You can even shred aether and chaos, its very easy to stack specific damage types too, from different sources (Word of Pain, Runes, your gun, aura).



Sure, but I meant the DOOMGUY thing. Commando is thematically better.


----------



## Ahhzz (Jul 30, 2019)

neatfeatguy said:


> I haven't been in GD for almost two weeks, tied up with other things and playing another game I just recently picked up.
> 
> So I finally decided to launch GD and see what kind of mayhem I can bring....
> 
> ...


I haven't updated to 1.1.4 yet, but I did see some people talking about sticking with Grim Internals for the better health bars. You might try it, as it still has some Quality of Play improvements that Crate won't be introducing to the game.


----------



## neatfeatguy (Jul 30, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I haven't updated to 1.1.4 yet, but I did see some people talking about sticking with Grim Internals for the better health bars. You might try it, as it still has some Quality of Play improvements that Crate won't be introducing to the game.



Thanks. I'll look into it, see if that makes any difference.

What Crate really needs to do is 1 of 2 things:
1) Revert to the original HUD
or
2) Make the monster HUD have its own resize slide bar so I can make it as a small as possible without making everything else on the player's HUD so small it's too hard to utilize.


----------



## Frick (Jul 30, 2019)

Just got Forgotten Gods and honestly I don't see any difference to the HUD, @neatfeatguy .

Anyway, this is my "build". It's not a "build" as much as "assembly of random doodads". The only thing I actually grinded for was Avenger. It's obviously not that precise (the weapon has higher percenteges overall), but still. He survives and killed the end boss in Malmouth dissapointingly quickly.






						Commando, Level 99 (GD 1.1.4.0) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
					

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion




					www.grimtools.com


----------



## neatfeatguy (Jul 30, 2019)

Frick said:


> Just got Forgotten Gods and honestly I don't see any difference to the HUD, @neatfeatguy .
> 
> Anyway, this is my "build". It's not a "build" as much as "assembly of random doodads". The only thing I actually grinded for was Avenger. It's obviously not that precise (the weapon has higher percenteges overall), but still. He survives and killed the end boss in Malmouth dissapointingly quickly.
> 
> ...



The monster HUD (monster name, health and such at the top of the screen) takes up too much space with the 1.1.4.0 update they pushed out a few days back. I'll post a couple of screen shots (not my game play) that show the difference of the monster HUD.

*Here's the original look:






Here's the new look:



*


The updated monster HUD is just too large. It hides parts of the screen and you can't see monsters coming from the top part of the screen. It makes my eyes snap to the monster information and keeps causing me to look to it as I mouse over every new mob, thus I'm not able to keep focus on the actual game play.


----------



## Ahhzz (Jul 30, 2019)

neatfeatguy said:


> ...
> The updated monster HUD is just too large. It hides parts of the screen and you can't see monsters coming from the top part of the screen. It makes my eyes snap to the monster information and keeps causing me to look to it as I mouse over every new mob, thus I'm not able to keep focus on the actual game play.


That's one big thing I like about Grim Internals; I turned the mob health bar off for anything under Hero


----------



## Frick (Jul 30, 2019)

neatfeatguy said:


> The monster HUD (monster name, health and such at the top of the screen) takes up too much space with the 1.1.4.0 update they pushed out a few days back. I'll post a couple of screen shots (not my game play) that show the difference of the monster HUD.
> 
> *Here's the original look:
> 
> ...



Ohh you mean that. Yeah I just saw that actually and yes it is ugly. The font is my problem with it.


----------



## ZenZimZaliben (Jul 30, 2019)

flmatter said:


> Let me know when you want to finish ashes then newest expansion


Haven't picked up the latest expansion yet. Have a bunch of other games I'm playing and in September the new Borderlands launches.


----------



## ne6togadno (Sep 21, 2019)

finally got time to finish normal difficulty.
have to do elite now so i can unlock ultimate.





						Druid, Level 79 (GD 1.1.4.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
					

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion




					www.grimtools.com


----------



## ne6togadno (Sep 24, 2019)

btw if anyone havnt figured out kill vet warden before your toon get to lvl 10 hit me with pm. i can provide hints


----------



## AsRock (Nov 22, 2019)

For those interested 1.1.5.0 has just been released.

To much to list here so 


> The moment has arrived at last. Grim Dawn’s largest free content update ever is here!
> 
> With v1.1.5.0, Grim Dawn has received a staggering update to itemization, over 6000 database changes. If that alone were not enough, v1.1.5.0 also features the Tomb of the Heretic roguelike dungeon for Forgotten Gods and a series of smaller dungeons that will lead you on a quest to uncovering its entrance. The claim that this is Grim Dawn’s largest update ever is no exaggeration. For just a taste of all that’s in store for you, you can read the changelog below.
> 
> We are beyond proud to get the culmination of many months work into your hands today and hope you all enjoy!











						Grim Dawn V1.1.5.0 + V1.1.5.1 + V1.1.5.2 Changelogs :: Grim Dawn General Discussions
					

The moment has arrived at last. Grim Dawn’s largest free content update ever is here! With v1.1.5.0, Grim Dawn has received a staggering update to itemization, over 6000 database changes. If that alone were not enough, v1.1.5.0 also features the Tomb of the Heretic roguelike dungeon for...




					steamcommunity.com


----------



## bryanw1995 (Nov 24, 2019)

oh wow, patch notes look great!  I might have to dust off my, um, steam key.


----------



## HTC (Nov 24, 2019)

AsRock said:


> For those interested 1.1.5.0 has just been released.
> 
> To much to list here so
> 
> ...



Don't you hate it when a developer gives such content several YEARS after original game release ... for free ...?

The nerve ...


----------



## Vayra86 (Nov 24, 2019)

Already cooking up something new in the grimtools builder... 



ne6togadno said:


> btw if anyone havnt figured out kill vet warden before your toon get to lvl 10 hit me with pm. i can provide hints



Is this some sort of challenge? I usually have way higher level when I arrive there.


----------



## AsRock (Nov 24, 2019)

HTC said:


> Don't you hate it when a developer gives such content several YEARS after original game release ... for free ...?
> 
> The nerve ...



Which is one of the reason i am willing to give the game a shot again.  but did not work out to well last time for a few reason's but maybe stuff has changed enough over the last 6 months.

But tbh not seen any thing in the patch notes since then so not holding my breath.  But yes it is nice as these company's i can count on a single hand.


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## ne6togadno (Nov 24, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> Is this some sort of challenge? I usually have way higher level when I arrive there.


it's achievement. "i  was not expecting you, human". and it is before lvl 11 not lvl 10 as i posted it  before.
for this cant arrive there you have to run boy run 

edit:





						Druid, Level 96 (GD 1.1.4.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
					

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion




					www.grimtools.com
				



got new tool for mass destruction. 61k dps before savagery charges 17.6k hp with auras up. 6 digit crits are not rare.
on the way to warden at ultimate.


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## ne6togadno (Nov 25, 2019)

few mins i've posted yesterday random mob in burrwitch dropped my new pants and from lab for first slith quest i got new armor.
with some enchants fiddling i got ~64k dps, 18khp at the price of a little armor rating.





						Druid, Level 98 (GD 1.1.4.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
					

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion




					www.grimtools.com
				



at this point i fill almost like i am cheating through the game. will see how it will go with end game bosses and dlcs


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## bryanw1995 (Nov 28, 2019)

Frick said:


> Wouldn't soldier+demo be a better fit?





Vayra86 said:


> Inquisitor is absolutely mental for ranged builds. Lots of shreds including a permanent -% elemental aura shredder... and Demo is always that same ol' boring Fire Strike crap. You can even shred aether and chaos, its very easy to stack specific damage types too, from different sources (Word of Pain, Runes, your gun, aura).





ne6togadno said:


> few mins i've posted yesterday random mob in burrwitch dropped my new pants and from lab for first slith quest i got new armor.
> with some enchants fiddling i got ~64k dps, 18khp at the price of a little armor rating.
> 
> 
> ...



The game is pretty easy once you get endgame gear.  Well, most of it is, anyway.  Unfortunately, there are a dozen or so bosses/encounters/etc that go from "this game is roflstompy" to "omgwtfbbq" in a hurry.

1.  First step is reliably farming the older Nemesis monsters on Ultimate.  Think fabius, Moosilauke, stuff like that.  
2.  Next step is reliably farming newer Nemesis.  Kubacabra, Archmage Aleksander, Grava, maybe one or two others that may or may not show up depending on your choices in game.
3.  Next step is SR 60, Crucible Ultimate 170, and the Celestials.
4.  Last step is pushing as high as you can go in SR.

From looking at your build, it looks like you're on your first max lvl character.  You have a long way to go still, but getting there, in my experience, has proven to be a ton of fun.


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## ne6togadno (Nov 28, 2019)

yap it's first toon that i got to ultimate. didnt had problems so far but i am still just at the entrance of old arkovia. a long road yet to go.
so far my biggest problem is missing 5-6 bag tabs and 2 more stashes. have to lvl up a bit lowbie toons so i can offload some gear to them.


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## bryanw1995 (Nov 28, 2019)

I have a mule for each gear slot (just 1 for all jewelry).  It gets to be a lot of potentially useful gear for numerous builds after awhile.

Sorry, step .5 is finishing off campaign in ultimate.  Most of the content when just progressing isn’t bad, though Father Kymon can get pretty hairy if you don’t have the dps to kill him quickly.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 28, 2020)

By request @ShurikN .. here is my current Dervish build.

For levelling just grab Slithtongues at 20/50/70 (guaranteed drop in act 1) and watch those poison dots fly. All you really need is Burst, Shadow Strike, and passive damage boosts (Repertoire, Path ot Three, etc.) Then, any greens that boost Burst or acid/poison, its pretty straightforward. Even just getting that Devotion tree as fast as possible is enough to push through Veteran/N and Elite. I'd suggest using Merit (from expansion, to unlock stuff unto Ultimate) so you can speed through those shrines and get rep fast.

Dervish, Level 100 (GD 1.1.2.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Apparently Grimtools is in maintenance right this moment probably because of the 1.1.6 patch, but link should work. Its ungeared but the devotion setup and skill set is the most vital part really. Due to that I can not make changes, because my current skill setup is different from this one due to gear drops, most notably the Crusher. Initially this build was meant to work similar but with Righteous Fervor as spammable single target. Thing is, Blade Burst with a Crusher is just better in every way. You only use Fervor now to get the DA and attack speed bonus. Because we know DA is the best defense stat really... Still, feels like 10~12 points that could be used differently if you'd want to.

Essential / BIS gear (or at least to my knowledge so far)

The whole thing begins and ends with Amarastan Crusher as seen in the other topic. The original build focuses on acquiring the Venomblade set, but I doubt its going to be stronger, have yet to find those pieces except the Fist (it drops like candy). I've compared both of my one handers with Fist of the Venomblade, but it doesn't even get remotely close in dmg output. Easily half or less.

Another staple is having Tainted Eruption tied to Ring of Steel. It will proc at 51% which is more than often enough and this way you can use Ring to get a controlled poison dot off after jumping in between a group of enemies. This defines the playstyle. We have two teleports, so its jump in, hit RoS, spam Burst until stuff dies, move on. The second teleport is either an escape or the way to travel to the next group; Dreeg's Vector is not targeted like Shadow Strike so its great for movement. As its a lifesteal build, anytime you can't hit something yourself, you shouldn't be getting hit either.

As for all poison builds, 2x Vitriolic Gallstone is great to have, aura's stack. The whole affair is pretty focused. You only need acid/poison and I'm sitting at 2400% damage for those types now. Can get a lot higher still.

The biggest DPS boosts do come from  +skill Amarasta's Blade Burst. 26/16 puts you at 230% weapon dmg... in a huge area... on top of all that flat damage and with no cooldown.

One thing I'm still doubting is whether to keep those WPS skills. With spammable Burst, they barely get used, actually only if we spam Fervor.



Spoiler



- anything with flat damage to Burst. This damage barely gets reduced from Crusher (only 18% total dmg, easily balanced out by the +18% crit)





- More greens. Act 1 is a gold mine for this build which is great of course because you have access to damage early
This ring is farmable just under Devil's Crossing for example





And Slithtongue (x2 if needed) carries you until the end game; being stronger than its Coven Refuge rare/revered rep counterpart. You find this in an Act 1 cave the one with Slith and a combat shrine in it. (Foggy Banks waypoint, go west)

- Venomlash... ridiculous conversion as you can probably see, and a perfect match for all the other skill bonuses too, because we use them as well.





- Geared skillset (+2 all skills enabled)







- Also pick up this medal augment, its remarkably strong, the OA shred is even unique to the build, as in, you won't waste it by having another same OA shred that overwrites it. It stacks for example with Veil of Shadow. The net result is a high DA, (very) high OA character with 30% melee dodge and decent HP with 25% lifesteal. Its hard to die, except from onehitters.





Last, this is probably the BIS relic... again, flat acid dmg.


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## ratirt (Feb 28, 2020)

I need to get back to the game. Haven't played for a while.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 28, 2020)

ratirt said:


> I need to get back to the game. Haven't played for a while.



Well if you like cutting cookies, use the above, its very easy to level it self-found and ungeared.


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## ShurikN (Feb 28, 2020)

Thanks for the build. Will give it a go in the following days. One of the main reasons why I asked for it was because I have A LOT of poison gear (probably the most of all dmg types). It was time to put it to use.
Cheers!


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## ratirt (Feb 28, 2020)

Never played NightBlade. Might give it a go. Although I been thinking to start over with my Soldier nice I think I have chosen wrong sub class. Besides I need time and I don't have a lot of it nowadays.


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## Ahhzz (Feb 28, 2020)

Guys, do us a favor, please. Love seeing these responses and builds, might even post mine up at some point, but can we get spoiler tags to make them a little easier to manage? Thanks!!


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## Vayra86 (Feb 28, 2020)

Ahhzz said:


> Guys, do us a favor, please. Love seeing these responses and builds, might even post mine up at some point, but can we get spoiler tags to make them a little easier to manage? Thanks!!



Done


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## bryanw1995 (Feb 28, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> By request @ShurikN .. here is my current Dervish build.
> 
> For levelling just grab Slithtongues at 20/50/70 (guaranteed drop in act 1) and watch those poison dots fly. All you really need is Burst, Shadow Strike, and passive damage boosts (Repertoire, Path ot Three, etc.) Then, any greens that boost Burst or acid/poison, its pretty straightforward. Even just getting that Devotion tree as fast as possible is enough to push through Veteran/N and Elite. I'd suggest using Merit (from expansion, to unlock stuff unto Ultimate) so you can speed through those shrines and get rep fast.
> 
> ...


So, I was going to reply to say that the full venomblade set is the way to go...but they have really buffed amarastan crusher.  I think I'll have to pull my dervish back out and try it with amarastas blade burst on lmb, that seems like it would be much more dmg than using righteous ferver.  Otherwise, nice build.

fyi, as a general rule, set pieces aren't too tough to get anymore.  my usual method when I start over:

1.  farm fabius elite for plans.  Pretty big grind, but if you do this until you stop getting a plan every time you'll have a ridiculous amount of plans/gear built up.
2.  speed farm fabius/moose/iron maiden ultimate, I finished off a huge number of sets this way
2a. work on krieg's set piece farming at same time you're doing (2)
3.  kill lokarr. a lot.  double nemesis troves!
4.  gladiator 150 runs.  I've done some up to 170, but they're really tough without real end game setup, and easy to die in hardcore if you go that high.  150 isn't nearly as difficult and loot is very close.
5.  SR60.  Loot just gets to be amazing once you can do SR 60.  Plus, you only need to do 2 shards to get max loot, so you can get SR stones, start at 60, clear 60 and 61, get loot, rinse/repeat...huge loot!

These days it might just be faster/easier to go straight to SR 60 runs if you have the right build for it.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 28, 2020)

bryanw1995 said:


> So, I was going to reply to say that the full venomblade set is the way to go...but they have really buffed amarastan crusher.  I think I'll have to pull my dervish back out and try it with amarastas blade burst on lmb, that seems like it would be much more dmg than using righteous ferver.  Otherwise, nice build.
> 
> fyi, as a general rule, set pieces aren't too tough to get anymore.  my usual method when I start over:
> 
> ...



I am still definitely hunting down the Venomblade set entirely. Still need to actually try it. This build is really a variation on the MissMeltycakes DW melee poison Dervish. But I had been fiddling with acid/poison builds with Nightblade and Oathbreaker variations (combi with Occultist, etc.) for quite a while now. Kinda just put this together myself, only the devotion tree is the same really. But yea, Crusher is insane, and Venomlash is like a force multiplier for it. When I hit 84 and equipped it, the first try I was like... oh shit, I'm not even seeing the health bars go down...  it was just AoE insta kill all 

But yeah this feels like a build I can bring to end game. So much potential, still, and so many pieces to collect to make it better. I've never really gone that deep into farming endgame, many toons hit a wall somewhere in Ultimate for me, always missing a damage increase at some point. Not with this one


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## phanbuey (Feb 28, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> I am still definitely hunting down the Venomblade set entirely. Still need to actually try it. This build is really a variation on the MissMeltycakes DW melee poison Dervish. But I had been fiddling with acid/poison builds with Nightblade and Oathbreaker variations (combi with Occultist, etc.) for quite a while now. Kinda just put this together myself, only the devotion tree is the same really. But yea, Crusher is insane, and Venomlash is like a force multiplier for it. When I hit 84 and equipped it, the first try I was like... oh shit, I'm not even seeing the health bars go down...  it was just AoE insta kill all
> 
> But yeah this feels like a build I can bring to end game. So much potential, still, and so many pieces to collect to make it better. I've never really gone that deep into farming endgame, many toons hit a wall somewhere in Ultimate for me, always missing a damage increase at some point. Not with this one



All of my toons hit that wall.  The scaling is still something that throws me off... Wolcen kind of does that as well but not nearly as bad as GD.  Especially given how easily you cruise through mid game.  I feel like level 80+ starts to reaaaaallllllyyyyy suck with all my builds and I have to completely rebuild for late game at that point.

Which, because im super lazy usually involves just googling and copying a build... kind of takes the problem solving fun out of it.


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## Space Lynx (Feb 28, 2020)

I am just waiting on the expansions to hit around $5-6 each... they never go on a big sale sadly... even during winter steam sale it was still $12...


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## Vayra86 (Feb 29, 2020)

lynx29 said:


> I am just waiting on the expansions to hit around $5-6 each... they never go on a big sale sadly... even during winter steam sale it was still $12...



Why wait, its easy to lose hundreds of hours in this game... surely thats worth it. Game still gets updated too, including content.



phanbuey said:


> All of my toons hit that wall.  The scaling is still something that throws me off... Wolcen kind of does that as well but not nearly as bad as GD.  Especially given how easily you cruise through mid game.  I feel like level 80+ starts to reaaaaallllllyyyyy suck with all my builds and I have to completely rebuild for late game at that point.
> 
> Which, because im super lazy usually involves just googling and copying a build... kind of takes the problem solving fun out of it.



Its sure not easy to find the right secret sauce with each build but now with all the crafting and rep gear a lot of stuff is easier to tweak and improve. But yeah, very similar experience though that also keeps the game fresh every time. Rerolling is half the replay value Imo.


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## bryanw1995 (Feb 29, 2020)

lynx29 said:


> I am just waiting on the expansions to hit around $5-6 each... they never go on a big sale sadly... even during winter steam sale it was still $12...





Vayra86 said:


> Why wait, its easy to lose hundreds of hours in this game... surely thats worth it. Game still gets updated too, including content.



Yeah, since Forgotten Gods was released we've had 2 HUGE updates (1.5 and 1.6), the game has continued to improve.  By the time you start seeing expansions at $5-6 each, gd 2 will be out.


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## ShurikN (Feb 29, 2020)

Base game and the first expansion are dirt cheap from time to time, second expansion is still fairly new, I think you can get the whole package for around $20 during sales. Which is more than a fair price IMO


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## Ahhzz (Mar 9, 2020)

Still trying to inch my stats up a bit at a time...


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## Frick (Mar 9, 2020)

Still having trouble playing the expansion. It's just boring to me. So uninspired.


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## Vayra86 (Mar 9, 2020)

Ahhzz said:


> Still trying to inch my stats up a bit at a time...
> View attachment 147542



Greens, man. Greens! You can get +10% attack speed and raw damage for Righteous Fervor on your helmet, for example...  It outclasses Perdition by a mile, probably... Frequent visits to monster infrequent vendors are a great pastime. In addition, there is a green Poison Bolt proc for belts too, so you can get different weapons and still have those bolts flying about.

Also the result of my number crunching with Oathkeeper is that, while Retaliation damage is a nice way to double dip in damage and counter-damage... it does not stack as well as a damage type for Righteous Fervor; ie you are better off stacking Acid directly than going with ret bonuses. Retaliation _looks_ like double dipping, but they're also stats that don't always go to stacking the pure damage itself (Perdition set is a great example; it barely gives raw poison/acid damage). Its separate and does not stack; Acid Retaliation != Acid. Fervor only gets about 15-20% retaliation damage from stacking it, but you get full Acid damage stacking on it.

Do you spam WPS with Righteous Fervor? If you want to capitalize on that, get all those devotions that also proc Retaliation damage to get the most out of that and your Ret damage stacking.

That is one nice armor score by the way, damn! How much is your absorb?



Frick said:


> Still having trouble playing the expansion. It's just boring to me. So uninspired.



Play the Lut Gholein theme song and all is well  Embrace the shameless copy and get into those Tombs, because the execution in Grim Dawn is done very very well. I'm currently chewing on Lost Oasis and destroying Morgoneth. Tough cookie


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## Ahhzz (Mar 9, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> Greens, man. Greens! You can get +10% attack speed and raw damage for Righteous Fervor on your helmet, for example...  It outclasses Perdition by a mile, probably... Frequent visits to monster infrequent vendors are a great pastime. In addition, there is a green Poison Bolt proc for belts too, so you can get different weapons and still have those bolts flying about.
> 
> Also the result of my number crunching with Oathkeeper is that, while Retaliation damage is a nice way to double dip in damage and counter-damage... it does not stack as well as a damage type for Righteous Fervor; ie you are better off stacking Acid directly than going with ret bonuses. Retaliation _looks_ like double dipping, but they're also stats that don't always go to stacking the pure damage itself. Its separate and does not stack; Acid Retaliation != Acid. Fervor only gets about 15-20% retaliation damage from stacking it, but you get full Acid damage stacking on it.


I'm always on the lookout for an upgrade to warrant dropping my 3-piece bonus from Perdition heheh. The sword just replaced a halberd for some excellent Speed upgrade for a 1k dps bump, and the pants I farmed for about 2 hours before getting a decent double green roll. The Radaggan's gem just looked too awesome not to try rofl, and it did give me a small dps bump. I'm not really looking to stack Ret damage, mainly just looking for Acid/Poison, but I've died too many times lately, and I'm tweaking here and there for a more health, and finally maxed my elems with semi-decent numbers on the others. I'm wanting to go farm a better roll for Viloths Ring, but I've been distracted by Totem searching heheh.






Vayra86 said:


> Do you spam WPS with Righteous Fervor? If you want to capitalize on that, get all those devotions that also proc Retaliation damage to get the most out of that and your Ret damage stacking.
> 
> That is one nice armor score by the way, damn! How much is your absorb?


Acid Spray is attached to my RF, but I do need to re-visit my devotions to make sure I've got things where I want them. Absorption is at 100%, which is good considering my lower HP pool


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## Dixevil (Mar 9, 2020)

If you love D2 then there's a good mod called Reign of terror. Brought back those sweet memories.


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## Vayra86 (Mar 9, 2020)

Ahhzz said:


> I'm always on the lookout for an upgrade to warrant dropping my 3-piece bonus from Perdition heheh. The sword just replaced a halberd for some excellent Speed upgrade for a 1k dps bump, and the pants I farmed for about 2 hours before getting a decent double green roll. The Radaggan's gem just looked too awesome not to try rofl, and it did give me a small dps bump. I'm not really looking to stack Ret damage, mainly just looking for Acid/Poison, but I've died too many times lately, and I'm tweaking here and there for a more health, and finally maxed my elems with semi-decent numbers on the others. I'm wanting to go farm a better roll for Viloths Ring, but I've been distracted by Totem searching heheh.
> View attachment 147569
> View attachment 147570
> View attachment 147572
> ...



In Ultimate just having 80% resistances isn't enough. Overcapping is recommended. I'm sitting at +25-30% on each resistance *above *cap now and can still be shredded to 50%! That is what gets ya. Have you reaeched Revered already with the expansion factions (Cults)? That is where a huge chunk of survivability comes from. The augments are best in slot, along with the ones from Coven, Malmouth Resistance and Barrowholm. It gives you a lot of leeway to customize the rest of your gear more freely.


Try Murmur for devotions. Its a ridiculously good shredder. and works well with a spammable like RF. Its better than Acid Spray because -% reductions stack and I believe they nerfed Spray into the ground too. And its also better for stacking devotion points towards 18 ~ 20 green. Also, OA reduction on enemies is a fantastic way to improve your defense. It effectively pushes your DA stat even further  = avoid crits more. That suits your low HP pool too.



* + *

 VERSUS 





Another fantastic devotion for us is the Raise Skeleton one. It slows enemies and working through that devotion you get attack speed and a whoppin 6% lifesteal. I have that one linked to my RF now, but I don't spam it, I just use RF to stack the buff. But the skeletons help alot surviving against the super fast enemies in expansion content. The Vitality damage is irrelevant. You want that debuff.

This is all more tailored to a Nightblade combo with Cold dmg, but I reckon you can easily convert that to Acid especially if you're using greens.

And yea totems.. definitely the best way to farm gear now. Its like christmas!

Final suggestion: free up some resistance space with Arcane Harmony leggings. They're fantastic; huge spirit and DA stats, elemental and aether resist. And should have dropped for you now at least once... It seems like an odd choice but just ignore the proc it has. Mythical of course is even better... But Spirit is pretty huge for acid builds. (Duration + Magical), easily on par with just stacking Acid damage on its own.

And the proc... it is a knockdown, even if its the wrong damage type, so that is a great defensive mechanic too.


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## Ahhzz (Mar 9, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> In Ultimate just having 80% resistances isn't enough. Overcapping is recommended. I'm sitting at +25-30% on each resistance *above *cap now and can still be shredded to 50%! That is what gets ya. Have you reaeched Revered already with the expansion factions (Cults)? That is where a huge chunk of survivability comes from. The augments are best in slot, along with the ones from Coven, Malmouth Resistance and Barrowholm. It gives you a lot of leeway to customize the rest of your gear more freely.
> 
> 
> Try Murmur for devotions. Its a ridiculously good shredder. and works well with a spammable like RF. Its better than Acid Spray because -% reductions stack and I believe they nerfed Spray into the ground too. And its also better for stacking devotion points towards 18 ~ 20 green. Also, OA reduction on enemies is a fantastic way to improve your defense. It effectively pushes your DA stat even further  = avoid crits more. That suits your low HP pool too.
> ...


I've been wanting to dig into ways to shred resistance, but keep getting distracted with "Just one more run around, hitting my spots, I bet I'll get an even better pattern this time!" lol. This weakness is compounded by replacing my amulet, a ring and the halberd in the last 4 days, thus justifying my procrastination  . I'll look for the Harmony legs this evening   Thanks for the input!

edit:
@Vayra86  you seemed to be stressed over the greens in my gear lol. Here's my GT link, please feel free to point out any places that I should focus. Apparently, I don't have any of the Harmony pieces, but I'll keep an eye out. thanks!


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## Ahhzz (Apr 11, 2020)

If anyone here is on the fence, and fine with Steam, GD is on sale 80% off, and the DLC at 30% off, or if you want it all except the bells and whistles, the Bundle is 57% for the game and all DLC combined.


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## Space Lynx (Apr 12, 2020)

Ahhzz said:


> If anyone here is on the fence, and fine with Steam, GD is on sale 80% off, and the DLC at 30% off, or if you want it all except the bells and whistles, the Bundle is 57% for the game and all DLC combined.



I wish that 57% were true... I have been wanting the expansions for awhile now but I am waiting for around $15 complete your collection price point.  I'm not in any rush, but the $5 base game price is fantastic and the lowest its ever been to my knowledge.


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## Ahhzz (Apr 12, 2020)

lynx29 said:


> I wish that 57% were true... I have been wanting the expansions for awhile now but I am waiting for around $15 complete your collection price point.  I'm not in any rush, but the $5 base game price is fantastic and the lowest its ever been to my knowledge.




 
You already own Grim Dawn on Steam, so it's not in your bundle   Price checks out at $5 for GD, plus the $23.77, minus a little if you had the full package available   Good game, you won't regret it! Grab that DLC


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## Ahhzz (Apr 15, 2020)

Came across this in a stack of urns   I hate not exploring/smashing/killing everything, which takes so stupid long, and then something like this pops up and reinforces the bad behavior lol


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## Space Lynx (Apr 15, 2020)

Ahhzz said:


> Came across this in a stack of urns   I hate not exploring/smashing/killing everything, which takes so stupid long, and then something like this pops up and reinforces the bad behavior lol
> View attachment 151568



it only requires level 10 to wear? that seems really OP'd for that low a level.  unless the +15% part has a max cap on it. otherwise I wouldn't know why you would change the ring once from level 10 to 90 lol


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## Ahhzz (Apr 15, 2020)

lynx29 said:


> it only requires level 10 to wear? that seems really OP'd for that low a level.  unless the +15% part has a max cap on it. otherwise I wouldn't know why you would change the ring once from level 10 to 90 lol


Hadn't found it yet, which means I'm not breaking nearly as many boxes/pots/urns as I thought , since apparently it's a static drop   . https://steamcommunity.com/app/219990/discussions/0/1635291505019980941/


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## Vayra86 (Apr 15, 2020)

Ahhzz said:


> Came across this in a stack of urns   I hate not exploring/smashing/killing everything, which takes so stupid long, and then something like this pops up and reinforces the bad behavior lol
> View attachment 151568



I believe these items drop from fixed locations, like the Exalted Chests that you only get once per playthrough. Another example is the Totally Normal Shield. Which is a pretty cool thing because you can dual wield shields (visually at least) that way  All these static drops have something peculiar to them that sets them apart from everything else.

Ah you figured out its static I see 



lynx29 said:


> it only requires level 10 to wear? that seems really OP'd for that low a level.  unless the +15% part has a max cap on it. otherwise I wouldn't know why you would change the ring once from level 10 to 90 lol



+All Damage isn't that powerful a stat, though in early game you can feel it for sure. 15% is pretty low, even if its a relative scale. +2000% of added damage on a character isn't uncommon in late game.

Still, XP and elemental resist on top of it this early is nice.


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## Space Lynx (Apr 16, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> I believe these items drop from fixed locations, like the Exalted Chests that you only get once per playthrough. Another example is the Totally Normal Shield. Which is a pretty cool thing because you can dual wield shields (visually at least) that way  All these static drops have something peculiar to them that sets them apart from everything else.
> 
> Ah you figured out its static I see
> 
> ...



ok thanks for explaining, I only have a level 17 at the moment.


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