KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Shadenuat]

Somehow all diablo clones even if they have "grim" in their name or more subdued design like poe still end up with endgame characters looking like they are from korean mmos or wow. or diablo 3. Although at least in PoE the trashiest looks are reserved for microtransactions.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Hit level 50 and killed the (pre-DLC) big bad. I don't have any of the DLC yet so I'll be heading into elite soon to do it all again (yaaaaay). I remember there's a broken bridge to the east of one of the earlier zones, as well as a rather more expensive one in Necropolis or something, and I guess I can go back to that skeleton key thing now. Is there anything else that needs finishing up in normal?

 

[Hyperion]

Hit level 50 and killed the (pre-DLC) big bad. I don't have any of the DLC yet so I'll be heading into elite soon to do it all again (yaaaaay). I remember there's a broken bridge to the east of one of the earlier zones, as well as a rather more expensive one in Necropolis or something, and I guess I can go back to that skeleton key thing now. Is there anything else that needs finishing up in normal?

Hidden quest that starts in the first zone. Check the east side just off the starting bridge for a spot to blow up with dynamite. Gives a skill point and attribute point in each difficulty. There's the Bastion of Chaos past a broken bridge in the area before the final dungeon. It's another one of those rogue-like dungeons, but has a Devotion Shrine before the skeleton key door.

There's also a Devil's Crossing reputation based quest in the first zone that involves taking the boat over to Naga Island. Shrine of Mogdrogen quest if you haven't done it.

 

[Zakhad]

Plus the Aetherial roguelike dungeon if you haven't done that, in the conflagaration past some crystal you have to dynamite.

 

[Sykar]

Plus the Aetherial roguelike dungeon if you haven't done that, in the conflagaration past some crystal you have to dynamite.

Do you mean Port Valbury?

 

[Zakhad]

Plus the Aetherial roguelike dungeon if you haven't done that, in the conflagaration past some crystal you have to dynamite.

Do you mean Port Valbury?

Yeah, that's the one. Forgot the name and was too lazy to look it up.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Does anyone have any recommendations for (non-DLC) fun builds? Not necessarily super duper can-kill-bosses-in-seconds sort of builds, just fun or amusing to play. At the moment I'm playing a Warder using savagery and primal strike, and that in combination with maelstrom wind devils, storm totems, and reckless tempest is just an absolute shitstorm. Lightning bolts all over the place. Admittedly it can be hard to tell what the hell is going on sometimes, but it's pretty entertaining, especially blowing skeletons apart with primal strike and watching their bones fly everywhere. Currently working on getting spear of the heavens unlocked for even more lightning. In PoE I quite enjoyed that charged explosion thing with totems, and the meteor was fun in D2, along with that dual-wield berzerker thing. Is there anything similar you can do in Grim Dawn?

Speaking of PoE, I wish the bosses were a bit more varied. Something like Purity or whatever her name was with the crazy room blender. Everything just seems to be a variation on "Hits you, maybe casts some AoE shit on the floor, might summon stuff".

Also, fuck those bug things that spam out huge poison/acid whatever pools all over the place, Ugh. Not so bad once I got my resists up at least.

 

[Lacrymas]

Shaman + Demolitionist based on totems and the turret. You don't need to kill anything yourself, but it's still a frantic playstyle because you have to dodge enemies while positioning the turrets and totems correctly. Stun Jacks for a spammable dmg. It's lightning-based again so you might not want to do that. My first char was a pet-based Arcanist/Occultist, but Shaman/Occultist is better. Pet builds aren't as passive as in other games, unless you go Necro/Shaman, then it's pretty boring, at least at first. All in all, I recommend getting the expansion if only for the Necro, but it still has cool content, at least it isn't as ...vanilla as the rest of the map. My favorite build is Necro/Shaman based on vitality damage and Drain Essence, it's ridiculously cool for me for some reason.

 

[Lone Wolf]

A Demolitionist/Arcanist bombardier is a good time (using Black Water Cocktail, Grenado, Canister Bomb, Stunjacks primarily). It was enjoyable levelling that character to ~60. Then you really need to be geared up to stay effective, if you progress into Elite/Ultimate.

A Shadowstrike/Flash Freeze Nightblade/Arcanist is also quite fun. Shadowstrike into a mob of enemies, Flash Freeze the whole screen, clean up. Rinse and repeat.

One of my favourite characters, though, was a Demolitionist/Occultist double pistolero. In Normal/Elite, it would melt everything effortlessly. I ran into durability issues in Ultimate, but that difficulty is all about your resistances, health pool and resistance reduction.

 

[Max Damage]

Difficulty in this game has no sense. After main campaign Ashes of Malmouth supposes you either have to be twinked or go new game+? I have played many arpgs, even Titan Quest doesn't have this lack of transition from core game to expansion. You pretty much get thrown out of ballpit into fight club, and you're expected to have been in the fight club from the start, it seems. I pretty much gave up at demon boss in the swamps because you're expected to run to him through 2 levels (assuming you open your riftgate right next to enemy riftgate) each time you die, which you will because by this point I had nothing to protect me from meteor of 1-hit death. Once you advance to Elite everything's easy again (I'm in Act 2 now), so what the fuck? The core game needs difficulty lift badly, but I don't think that cranking it up from 0 to 100 for expansion fixes anything, it only makes you wonder if devs know the word "moderation" or "tuning".

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

Difficulty in this game has no sense. After main campaign Ashes of Malmouth supposes you either have to be twinked or go new game+? I have played many arpgs, even Titan Quest doesn't have this lack of transition from core game to expansion. You pretty much get thrown out of ballpit into fight club, and you're expected to have been in the fight club from the start, it seems. I pretty much gave up at demon boss in the swamps because you're expected to run to him through 2 levels (assuming you open your riftgate right next to enemy riftgate) each time you die, which you will because by this point I had nothing to protect me from meteor of 1-hit death. Once you advance to Elite everything's easy again (I'm in Act 2 now), so what the fuck? The core game needs difficulty lift badly, but I don't think that cranking it up from 0 to 100 for expansion fixes anything, it only makes you wonder if devs know the word "moderation" or "tuning".

The core game basically completely fails at preparing most players for the gigantic kick in the ass that is AoM content. It's not just the obvious difficulty spike, it's the fact that DESPITE how generous drops seem to be the loot pool is so big/diluted with so many prefixes/suffixes and shit that the chances you will have a full set of serviceable gear by the time you launch yourself into AoM are fucking nonexistent

 

[Saduj]

The core game basically completely fails at preparing most players for the gigantic kick in the ass that is AoM content. It's not just the obvious difficulty spike, it's the fact that DESPITE how generous drops seem to be the loot pool is so big/diluted with so many prefixes/suffixes and shit that the chances you will have a full set of serviceable gear by the time you launch yourself into AoM are fucking nonexistent

That's pretty much my issue. At one point, I got lucky with a few good drops that worked with my build in a short amount of time. But now the loot pool is so diluted that I haven't sniffed decent gear in quite some time. After finishing the original game on Elite, I played up to Fort Ikon on Ultimate without receiving a single drop that was decent enough to replace existing gear. I wasn't stuck yet, but some of my gear was severely under leveled and I just got bored. When AOM came out, I played up to the end boss on Elite and that is where I got stuck. Can't beat the bastard with the gear I have. I did not receive a single piece of usable gear the entire time playing AOM on Elite up to the end boss. I could go back and try to play AOM on Veteran or finish the original game on Ultimate, but I don't see the point given the never ending parade of shit items that have been added to this game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Difficulty in this game has no sense. After main campaign Ashes of Malmouth supposes you either have to be twinked or go new game+? I have played many arpgs, even Titan Quest doesn't have this lack of transition from core game to expansion. You pretty much get thrown out of ballpit into fight club, and you're expected to have been in the fight club from the start, it seems. I pretty much gave up at demon boss in the swamps because you're expected to run to him through 2 levels (assuming you open your riftgate right next to enemy riftgate) each time you die, which you will because by this point I had nothing to protect me from meteor of 1-hit death. Once you advance to Elite everything's easy again (I'm in Act 2 now), so what the fuck? The core game needs difficulty lift badly, but I don't think that cranking it up from 0 to 100 for expansion fixes anything, it only makes you wonder if devs know the word "moderation" or "tuning".

The core game basically completely fails at preparing most players for the gigantic kick in the ass that is AoM content. It's not just the obvious difficulty spike, it's the fact that DESPITE how generous drops seem to be the loot pool is so big/diluted with so many prefixes/suffixes and shit that the chances you will have a full set of serviceable gear by the time you launch yourself into AoM are fucking nonexistent

I quit playing the game because of the massive loot pool. It's a loot pool designed for an always online game like path of exile or D3, not a singleplayer game with no incentive to trade due to most online players using hacked/duped gear. It would take me weeks of nonstop grinding to actually get the gear I wanted for the correct class combo I played.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

honestly you might as well just fucking generate some gear for yourself using one of the available 3rd party tools, because unless you grind like an absolute madman in Crucible mode you're never going to get a full BiS setup for just one or two characters, never mind MULTIPLE characters with many different builds

lot of endgame shit is challenging enough that you can be BiS-geared and still be given a run for your money anyway, don't even DREAM of doing most of this shit in suboptimal gear

 

[Okagron]

The expansion was purposely made harder because people were complaining that the main game was too easy. I guess that's why they made it technically optional since you can go to the next difficulty by beating the base game, so you can just go to the next difficulty if you don't want to deal with the difficulty spike or go there if you want more challenge. I do agree the difficulty spike from the base game to expansion can be a little too severe and making the previous act harder would ease into it more smoothly.

The expansion factions do have some great items and you can use those in case you are getting unlucky with drops.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

The expansion was purposely made harder because people were complaining that the main game was too easy. I guess that's why they made it technically optional since you can go to the next difficulty by beating the base game. I do agree the difficulty spike from the base game to expansion can be a little too severe and making the previous act harder would ease into it more smoothly.

The expansion factions do have some great items and you can use those in case you are getting unlucky with drops.

yeah have fun grinding faction rep AKA probably the worst part of the entire game

I mean yeah you'll get those faction boosting mandates eventually after you've already done a bit of grinding on your main but if you want to have characters that go ODV and KC you're going to need probably 2 characters to grind, one for each

 

[Okagron]

yeah have fun grinding faction rep AKA probably the worst part of the entire game

Not an issue if you have mandates from previous characters but as a first time player, yeah, it can suck really badly. I made an Hardcore character just to get the hardcore achievements and i forgot how painful it can be.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

yeah have fun grinding faction rep AKA probably the worst part of the entire game

Not an issue if you have mandates from previous characters but as a first time player, yeah, it can suck really badly. I made an Hardcore character just to get the hardcore achievements and i forgot how painful it can be.

and this is really the problem, Crate designed this system that basically requires multiple fully-involved go-rounds and you look at the Steam stats for cheeves in GD and you find that most people don't even have the patience to complete the fucking game on Ult ONCE

I mean, I have in excess of 1000 hours sunk into the motherfucker, but I'm a glutton for punishment and even I reached a point where I was like "you know what, if I have to do another Cruc or rogue dungeon run that gives me fuckall for rewards I'm going to fucking have an aneurysm" and just fucking generated the gear I was desperately looking for and never finding with legit stats and moved the fuck on to trying to get Mad Queen and Shar'zul and shit dead

 

[Lone Wolf]

AoM Normal is harder than base game Elite. This is known. Which is why you can skip AoM and go straight to Elite.

But the good news is your skills will carry you through Normal and very basic gear through Elite. You don't need sets or BiS items, as long as your character isn't a shitshow. Common rookie errors include spreading your skillpoints too thin by trying to level 4-5 skills simultaneously and/or not investing in the Mastery. In addition to that, make sure that your 2nd Mastery isn't a major component of your build until lvl 30-40. There just aren't enough skillpoints to go around.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

you know what's even better? The devs are full in a single-player game. Physical-damage Witchblades basically make bitches out of 99.9% of the content? Well we're going to tune Curse of Frailty a bit to fix their little red wagons. Wait. Phys Witchblade still stronk, now other sub-uber builds with Occ that use CoF are fucked? OOPS

 

[Lone Wolf]

The only truly gimped builds - at the moment - are the ones that depend on consistent Chaos damage, because the resistance reduction just isn't there. Virtually everything else can be made to beat 99% of the content, if you itemize correctly.

Supposedly, the new expansion will add big ticket Chaos items/constellations/skills to help with the RR.

 

[Okagron]

In a dev stream, Rah'Zin set was revealed for chaos and apparently it seems to gives what is probably a chaos auto attack replacer. It's for Witch Hunter, Witchblade and Blademaster. But apparently it looks pretty ridiculous with Harbinger, because these two sets don't overlap in items. So a Chaos Deceiver with this set and Harbinger sounds pretty ridiculous.

 

[Lacrymas]

I've been getting item upgrades for my build pretty consistently and haven't had trouble through Ultimate (haven't gotten to AoM yet). I didn't play AoM on Elite, though, I wanted to get better loot chances on Ultimate. Otherwise, yeah, having so many damage types makes the loot pool diluted for a single character and the constant duplicates I get don't help. The different damage types do the same thing as well, making it kinda pointless to have so many.

 

[Sykar]

I've been getting item upgrades for my build pretty consistently and haven't had trouble through Ultimate (haven't gotten to AoM yet). I didn't play AoM on Elite, though, I wanted to get better loot chances on Ultimate. Otherwise, yeah, having so many damage types makes the loot pool diluted for a single character and the constant duplicates I get don't help. The different damage types do the same thing as well, making it kinda pointless to have so many.

Well the difference lie in enemy resistances resistances primarily chaos for Cthonians and aether for Aetherials the other types are not numerous enough to matter that much except maybe for cold resistant mobs in Asterkan Valley. But yet damage types could have added something. Fire automatic dot, cold slow/freeze and maybe stun/daze for lightning, etc.

 

[Lacrymas]

Lightning, fire and cold could've easily been one damage type (elemental). Some items have +elemental damage anyway. To not lose flavor, the different abilities could've retained their visuals, but treated as elemental damage. More class combinations would've been made viable by this too.