Grim Dawn ( Titan Quest \ Diablo fans )

[bug]

@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.

 

[Vayra86]

@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.

 

[Wavetrex]

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 ;-)

 

[HTC]

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 ;-)

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.

 

[Wavetrex]

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

 

[HTC]

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.

 

[Frick]

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.

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.

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.

 

[ne6togadno]

TQ iirc

you dont

check what mystic can do

 

[Frick]

you dont

check what mystic can do

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.

 

[Ahhzz]

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....

 

[Vayra86]

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

 

[HTC]

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.

 

[Ahhzz]

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

 

[Vayra86]

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

 

[ne6togadno]

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 :/

 

[Frick]

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

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.

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.

 

[Vayra86]

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.

 

[Ahhzz]

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*

 

[Vayra86]

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*

View attachment 121489
View attachment 121490

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).

 

[bug]

@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

 

[Vayra86]

@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 :/

 

[AltCapwn]

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

 

[bug]

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?"

 

[razaron]

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.

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.

 

[bug]

@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.