KickStarter Grim Dawn

What best complements an Occultist who goes primarily chaos/vitality damage? Shaman?

 

Shaman for Bleed and Vitality. Arcanist for Chaos.

 

Already got a Warlock no need for a second one. D:
Seems like Shaman is the only choice then.

 

So since the soldier nerf I am finally able to die on Elite with my Soldier. But I can respec into Squad Tactics now that they reversed that shitty switch to olerons rage, so I got a massive dmg upgrade.

Haven't tried out the Taunt of Warcry yet. Hope it works. It hurts to see all my blademaster friends die misserably while I chill in a sea of enemies.

 

Sykar Flash Freeze got buffed considerably. Maxed out its radius used to be 10 meters. Now it's 16 meters. The freeze duration was upped from 3.75 seconds to 4.5. That's a pretty significant buff. The cooldown was reduced to 6 seconds from 7.5 seconds. Shit is really good now. Really, really good. Callidor's Tempest remains the same. Dunno what the point in its transmuter is anymore. Its only viable function now is as an Aether attack for Aether melee characters.

 

Agreed. Also seems like it is pointless to get Maiven's Sphere past 12 as it looks like it maxes out at 25%/10%

The delays before and inbetween the waves is a bit too much for my taste. I kinda liked the animation of the old version more as well, when they came down at different angles, now they come down all straight, looks a bit boring. Also was easier to hit moving targets.

 

Yeah. I think Maiven's still needs to be tweaked with, because I'm not sure the devs know what they want out of it. They are trying to balance it out by not making Possession or Primal Bond redundant. Also, Devastation is so good now. It procs 5 waves and you don't need to stand still anymore. I think I gotta try making an Aether Arcanist now with the change in PRM and Devastation (but fuck AAR, not touching that horseshit ability). Not sure what to pick for a 2nd master though. Can't think of anything that will gell with this kind of Arcanist build, other than Demo for the fire damage, I guess.

 

Edit: I'm kinda OK with AAR, its bound to my left click and good for clearing remaining trash/heroes after meteor shower/blizzard. With good cast speed it kinda rocks.

 

I like AAR.

 

Looks like not much changed for the puppet master builds - too bad about Possession tho, I kinda dug the old satanic rage effect on it that you could pop at will (plus the increased movement speed was neat for when you had to get places and dodge shit trash).

 

Briarthorns AoE buff got buffed so that's nice. The taunt mechanic got tweaked to be more effective as well so Hellhound should be able to hold more agro. I like the new red aura on Possession more.

 

Mh suddenly adding shaman to my Occultist sounds more and more tempting.

 

Shaman + Occultist was always a good combo.

Edit: I don't mean just for the obvious pet build. Bleed / Vitality was always a pretty powerful caster-melee hybrid character concept. And they made it even better now with the newest patch due to buffing Devouring Swarm and Bloody Pox + Wasting. Gonna have to dust off my Bleed/Vitality Shaman and continue with that. I have some pretty badass Legendaries to try out with this dood.

 

Considering going shaman as well on my Demo and going full lightning damage. Still pondering what to add on my lvl 40 Nightblade. Definetly not Soldier but otherwise kinda only Arcanist left which has good synergy. Or Occultist but I am already pretty invested into cold damage as secondary damage source. Changing skills and gear to acid&poison seems a bit of a waste.

 

I dunno, it's pretty massive on your character, something that I'd prefer for temporary effects rather than auras. Now you gotta constantly walk around with a red fart cloud.

Pretty sexy drop, this:

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If I find more pieces, I just might have to ditch Og'Napesh.

 

They buffed every single spell in my main build (the elementalist) and Thermite Mines are finally worth something ;d I'm still unsure about Mortar Trap.

I hate how slow it casts (the initial animation), that pretty much dissuaded me from continuing my AAR arcanist. The Wizard in D3 has a similar spell that is much more fluid to use.

 

They removed the damage modifier for Chaos damage from the Cadence transmuter. How does Crate expect anyone to make a Chaos melee character now? With component skills only? Lol.

 

Fuck this change to Devastation, I cannot use it at the final boss AT ALL. My best AoE clear and all it does is make the initial noise and then NOTHING, does not even go on CD.

 

I decided to wait a little bit before playing the full game. Do you guys feel it is getting better with patches or is it one step forward two step back?

 

A LOS issue perhaps? I used it without any problems. Mostly casted it in front of boss where his summons wait, trying to hit them all at the same time.

It is full just right now, only balance changes and maybe an expansion pack.

 

Nearly all my character builds got nuked in yesterdays patch so if you don't mind the possibility of that happening next patch, go for it. Other than some optional quests that are still missing, it's a full game.

 

Yeah another try and I could basically cast it on the boss but when I was further down it just did not went off. Strange behaviour though. Still hate this fight though due to the cheesy massive HP bloated spawns all the time. Doesn't feel like a challenge and more like being cheated on.

Well an intro and an outro would be nice. Skippable preferably, of course but setting the mood from the start and getting a satisfying finish movie even if brief would be nice.

 

And mine are buffed.


I accepted this kind of "balance" patching as another layer of RNG.

 

I don't mind. My favorite character got buffed. I just wish that you could respec masteries because the only reason I took Arcanist over Demo with my Soldier was because Arcanist was a more appealing choice for tanky characters at the time, even though I wanted to take Demo. Now that Demo is actually a legit choice I would've gone with that 100%.

 

They should give free full repsecs(both mastery and devo.stars) when they apply this kind of dramatic changes. Stat changes are not that crucial but I won't say no to it.