KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Lacrymas]

I tried making a Necro on Elite, you get to lvl 7 just by reading the lore entry near the vendor which exchanges iron bars for bits. I was already lvl 14 by the time I killed the Reanimator at Burial Hill. Even on Elite, the skellies don't die faster than the cooldown. There is no waiting involved.

 

[Cryomancer]

There is no waiting involved.

Once you reach lv 50+ you will see. I searched on google a little and if you don't have a lot of +health gear, they are worthless. Greater the level, greater is the gear dependency. Anyway, since i can't find a mod which removes this BS, i will go re play BG2 for the 666th time.

 

[Lacrymas]

By the time you are 50, you should have more summons than the skeletons. The problem is you.

 

[Perkel]

I tried making a Necro on Elite, you get to lvl 7 just by reading the lore entry near the vendor which exchanges iron bars for bits. I was already lvl 14 by the time I killed the Reanimator at Burial Hill. Even on Elite, the skellies don't die faster than the cooldown. There is no waiting involved.

The question is why do you play Elite with lvl1 character.

 

[Lacrymas]

Because I've found that's best in terms of leveling vs the monster levels. Instead of going through normal and skipping Elite, I go through Elite. I'm already lvl 25 and have 4 pets (skeletons, raven, crab from Hysteria, bone guardian from Marrow Band).

 

[DeepOcean]

I don't know what you guys are talking about. My necro is a pure pet build, my only direct damage is pox and thats just to trigger another summon, it doesn't really hurt anything. Throw the Imp devotion on your skeletons and they'll just delete everything before it even fights back till like level 30, and at that point you've got an army.

Indeed, necro pet builds are very strong and can curb stomp anything until late Elite, you will only have a harder time by the time you get to late Elite or Ultimate if you dont have proper pet resists as your skellies will be obliterated way faster than you can recast them.

 

[DeepOcean]

Because I've found that's best in terms of leveling vs the monster levels. Instead of going through normal and skipping Elite, I go through Elite. I'm already lvl 25 and have 4 pets (skeletons, raven, crab from Hysteria, bone guardian from Marrow Band).

You can start Elite at level 20 or more with Ultimate Lore XP farming if you have both expansions.

 

[Lacrymas]

After this little experiment of mine (which is already lvl 33 with even more pets, the only one I'm missing is the shrimp from the Blightshard Amulet I never got to drop), I concluded the game needs an option to downgrade items which have lower level variants (normal, empowered, mythic). I have 3 mythic Crown of Commands, yet not 1 which is the original lvl 26. I opened a thread here, if some of you have accounts there you might want to upvote it (or whatever the kids call it these days). As for keeping skelingtons alive, I recommend either Blood of Dreeg or Wendigo Totem, depending on your second class choice. Call of the Grave is not as good because it has a longer CD than Dreeg and lacks the immediate health restore. That is in addition to getting resistances for them of course.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Game is kinda fun, but it gets repetitive quickly. Too many waves of enemies of the same type. Art is great though.

 

[Lacrymas]

Hack and slashers are repetitive by nature. GD is the least repetitive of them all.

 

[Lacrymas]

If anyone disagrees, I would love to hear suggestions about less repetitive hack and slashers.

 

[Damned Registrations]

PoE is way less repetitive. Grim dawn is just really unimaginative with abilities. To be fair the budgets between the two games aren't even comparable, but the most creative thing I've seen out of Grim Dawn is a spell that vacuums enemies in to you, and it's in DLC only and it's a super janky implementation that knocks things away if they're too close and always stops them from hitting you which is counter productive for the retaliation it should synergize with.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yes, those countless map fragment runs are quite the variety hour.

 

[Damned Registrations]

As opposed to countless farming literally the same zone with the same layout over and over for an MI/Faction? Or shattered realm, which is literally just a shittier version of mapping? The maps themselves have huge variety in layout, bosses, enemies and modifiers. On top of that, you can go do the delve content instead which is entirely different, or the labyrinth with it's puzzles and traps, there's different league mechanics every few months, and like 20 other systems you can focus on from all the previous leagues.

Grim Dawn is way better about dropping loot and not making you click 500 times to pick it up, but it is severely lacking in every type of content (including the fucking loot.)

 

[Lacrymas]

You have the campaign map, Crucible, Shattered Realm, roguelike dungeons, superboss hunting, etc. They also have random modifiers. And how is PoE better in the loot department?

 

[oldmanpaco]

So I have not played this since I finished it per-expansions 4 years ago. Basically going in blind again What's a fun first build?

Spoiler

inb4 read the fucking thread

 

[Baron Dupek]

Recommend me some fun builds, codex. I already played as shaman+arcanist primal striker (most chad build in the game IMO) and inquisitor+demo (kinda gay ranged twink). No pets plz

https://www.requnix.com/gaming/grim-dawn-builds/aether-man-aar-mage-hunter
I used that one for my main character that beat GD and all DLCs

 

[Damned Registrations]

And how is PoE better in the loot department?

It just does more creative things. At most, loot in Grim Dawn will change some numbers on a skill or grant a new simple skill. PoE has items that require paragraphs to even explain what they actually do:

Spoiler

The Dancing Dervish grants level 15 Manifest Dancing Dervish. Manifest Dancing Dervish will be supported by any applicable support gems socketed into The Dancing Dervish; it is not necessary to have the sockets be linked together. The manifested sword does not deactivate when swapping to different weapons, however, the weaponslots remain disabled while it's active.

While The Dancing Dervish is manifested, the player character is considered unarmed and is affected by Onslaught, therefore effects such as

Facebreaker's,

Doryani's Fist's, or Hollow Palm Technique's unarmed damage bonus will take effect. As soon as Rampage ends, the manifested weapon will vanish and the character reequips the weapon reenabling the weaponslots. The Minion itself has a lot of damage reduction while it's active and will not die that easily. A little bit of minion life regeneration suffices to keep it alive and healthy.

---

Lightning Coil has the property 'physical damage taken as elemental'. With Lightning Coil, a portion of physical damage is taken as lightning damage. This takes place before mitigation is applied, therefore armour will not mitigate the lightning portion but lightning resistance will.[1] While wearing Lightning Coil physical damage can apply the Shock status ailment to the player character.[citation needed]

---

Disintegrator
Maelström StaffWarstaff
Quality: +20%
Physical Damage: (373.2-409.2)–(529.2-577.2)
Critical Strike Chance: 6.50%
Attacks per Second: 1.25
Weapon Range: 13Requires Level 64, 113 Str, 113 Int
+20% Chance to Block Attack Damage while wielding a Staff
Adds (250-280) to (315-355) Physical Damage
Adds (376-400) to (568-600) Physical Damage to Spells
+1 to Maximum Siphoning Charges per Elder or Shaper Item Equipped
25% chance to gain a Siphoning Charge when you use a Skill
Adds (12-14) to (15-16) Physical Damage to Attacks and Spells per Siphoning Charge
Gain 4% of Non-Chaos Damage as extra Chaos Damage per Siphoning Charge
1% additional Physical Damage Reduction from Hits per Siphoning Charge
0.2% of Damage Leeched as Life per Siphoning Charge
Take 150 Physical Damage per Second per Siphoning Charge if you've used a Skill Recently

(Note the last modifier, this staff kills you for using it, characters typically have ~7000 life so eating 1500 per second is very deadly)

---

Empire's Grasp
Goliath GauntletsQuality: +20%
Armour: (688-928)
Requires Level 53, 76 Str
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 10 Knockback
+(400-600) to Armour
Knockback direction is reversed

(This one item lets you vacuum enemies in with knockback effects, it's the only way to do that in the entire game AFAIK)
---
Southbound
Soldier GlovesQuality: +20%
Armour: 110
Energy Shield: 21Requires Level 51, 40 Str, 40 Int
Adds (30-36) to (44-50) Cold Damage to Attacks
(12-16)% increased maximum Life
+(40-50)% to Cold Resistance
25% increased Freeze Duration on Enemies
Your Hits can only Kill Frozen Enemies
50% increased Herald of Ice Damage

This pair of gloves prevents you from killing enemies with hits unless they are frozen. You can still kill them with damage over time however. This allows for all sorts of strange interactions. Again, all these weird effects are unique to these specific items.

---

The Jinxed Juju 48 +(30-40) to [[Intelligence]]
+(23-31)% to [[Chaos Resistance]]
(10-15)% increased Effect of your [[Curse|Curses]]
(10-15)% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your [[Skill|Skills]]
10% of Damage from [[Hit|Hits]] is taken from your Spectres' [[Life]] before you" class="tc -mod">+(16-24) to Strength and Dexterity+(30-40) to Intelligence
+(23-31)% to Chaos Resistance
(10-15)% increased Effect of your Curses
(10-15)% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills
10% of Damage from Hits is taken from your Spectres' Life before you

An amulet that redirects damage from you to a particular type of minion.

---

Heartbound Loop
Moonstone RingRequires Level 20
+(15-25) to maximum Energy Shield
Regenerate (10-15) Life per second
(20-40)% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
Minions have 15% increased maximum Life
Minions have 10% increased Area of Effect
350 Physical Damage taken on Minion Death

This one injures you every time a minion dies. Because the damage is in discreet hits and not damage over time, it can trigger effects that occur when you suffer damage. Because it triggers on minion death, it can be combined with other items that can reduce minion duration to 0 seconds. So you can create a set of triggered spells which summons a minion which instantly dies every time you take 700 damage, while also healing you so you don't die. Combine this with a skill that makes your minions explode on death for something that continually spawns suicide bombers around you many times per second.

---

The Bringer of Rain
Nightmare BascinetQuality: +20%
Armour: (518-680)
Evasion: (745-978)Requires Level 67, 62 Str, 85 Dex
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 18 Melee Physical Damage
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 18 Faster Attacks
Socketed Gems are supported by Level 18 Blind
6% Chance to Block Attack Damage
Adds 20 to 30 Physical Damage to Attacks
(200-300)% increased Armour and Evasion
+(200-220) to maximum Life
20% chance to gain an Endurance Charge when you Block
Can't use Chest armour
Extra gore

This helmet gives you massive offensive bonuses but prevents you from wearing anything in your chest slot, which is arguably even more important than your weapons for some characters.

---

Headhunter
Leather BeltRequires Level 40
+(25-40) to maximum Life
+(40-55) to Strength
+(40-55) to Dexterity
+(50-60) to maximum Life
(20-30)% increased Damage with Hits against Rare monsters
When you Kill a Rare monster, you gain its Modifiers for 20 seconds

This is generally considered to be the best item in the game. The modifiers you can get from rare monsters include things like haste, extra max hp and model size, 100% life leech, immunity to curses, and about 20 other things. They used to hold races where everyone had this effect because it's so fun to blast around with monster powers.

---

Wings of Entropy
Sundering AxeTwo Handed Axe
Quality: +20%
Physical Damage: (136.4-148.8)–(281.6-307.2)
Critical Strike Chance: 5.00%
Attacks per Second: 1.25
Weapon Range: 13Requires Level 60, 149 Str, 76 Dex
(6-7)% Chance to Block Spell Damage
+8% Chance to Block Attack Damage while Dual Wielding
(100-120)% increased Physical Damage
Adds (55-65) to (100-120) Fire Damage in Main Hand
Adds (55-65) to (100-120) Chaos Damage in Off Hand
Counts as Dual Wielding

This is a two handed weapon which counts as dual wielding... in a game where you can dual wield by default anyways. This has all sorts of weird complications.

---

Shavronne's Revelation
Moonstone RingRequires Level 30
+(15-25) to maximum Energy Shield
+(60-75) to Intelligence
Right ring slot: You cannot Regenerate Mana
Right ring slot: Regenerate 3% of Energy Shield per second
Right ring slot: +100 to maximum Mana
Left ring slot: You cannot Recharge or Regenerate Energy Shield
Left ring slot: Regenerate 40 Mana per Second
Left ring slot: +100 to maximum Energy Shield

A ring which not only does different things depending on which finger you equip it on, but prevents you from gaining mana or energy shield to regenerate the other.

I could come up with plenty more, but I think you get the idea. And these are just the ones that are obviously weird even to someone who doesn't know any of the mechanics. The problem is that it's too hard to get ones that are useful to you without trading. But god damn there is cool stuff out there that is exciting to find.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Grim Dawn has cool characters, nice mechanics, great lore and a lot of replay value due to different masteries. I like Path of Exile a lot, but i always keep coming back to GD

 

[Cryomancer]

PoE is far better than GD and has way less annoying cooldowns. My unique critique is that most cool stuff like ice spear which raises phantasms when kills are generally not optimal...

 

[Sykar]

Because I've found that's best in terms of leveling vs the monster levels. Instead of going through normal and skipping Elite, I go through Elite. I'm already lvl 25 and have 4 pets (skeletons, raven, crab from Hysteria, bone guardian from Marrow Band).

You can start Elite at level 20 or more with Ultimate Lore XP farming if you have both expansions.

Huh?

 

[Sykar]

And how is PoE better in the loot department?

It just does more creative things. At most, loot in Grim Dawn will change some numbers on a skill or grant a new simple skill. PoE has items that require paragraphs to even explain what they actually do:

Spoiler

The Dancing Dervish grants level 15 Manifest Dancing Dervish. Manifest Dancing Dervish will be supported by any applicable support gems socketed into The Dancing Dervish; it is not necessary to have the sockets be linked together. The manifested sword does not deactivate when swapping to different weapons, however, the weaponslots remain disabled while it's active.

While The Dancing Dervish is manifested, the player character is considered unarmed and is affected by Onslaught, therefore effects such as

Facebreaker's,

Doryani's Fist's, or Hollow Palm Technique's unarmed damage bonus will take effect. As soon as Rampage ends, the manifested weapon will vanish and the character reequips the weapon reenabling the weaponslots. The Minion itself has a lot of damage reduction while it's active and will not die that easily. A little bit of minion life regeneration suffices to keep it alive and healthy.

---

Lightning Coil has the property 'physical damage taken as elemental'. With Lightning Coil, a portion of physical damage is taken as lightning damage. This takes place before mitigation is applied, therefore armour will not mitigate the lightning portion but lightning resistance will.[1] While wearing Lightning Coil physical damage can apply the Shock status ailment to the player character.[citation needed]

---

Disintegrator
Maelström StaffWarstaff
Quality: +20%
Physical Damage: (373.2-409.2)–(529.2-577.2)
Critical Strike Chance: 6.50%
Attacks per Second: 1.25
Weapon Range: 13Requires Level 64, 113 Str, 113 Int
+20% Chance to Block Attack Damage while wielding a Staff
Adds (250-280) to (315-355) Physical Damage
Adds (376-400) to (568-600) Physical Damage to Spells
+1 to Maximum Siphoning Charges per Elder or Shaper Item Equipped
25% chance to gain a Siphoning Charge when you use a Skill
Adds (12-14) to (15-16) Physical Damage to Attacks and Spells per Siphoning Charge
Gain 4% of Non-Chaos Damage as extra Chaos Damage per Siphoning Charge
1% additional Physical Damage Reduction from Hits per Siphoning Charge
0.2% of Damage Leeched as Life per Siphoning Charge
Take 150 Physical Damage per Second per Siphoning Charge if you've used a Skill Recently

(Note the last modifier, this staff kills you for using it, characters typically have ~7000 life so eating 1500 per second is very deadly)

---

Empire's Grasp
Goliath GauntletsQuality: +20%
Armour: (688-928)
Requires Level 53, 76 Str
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 10 Knockback
+(400-600) to Armour
Knockback direction is reversed

(This one item lets you vacuum enemies in with knockback effects, it's the only way to do that in the entire game AFAIK)
---
Southbound
Soldier GlovesQuality: +20%
Armour: 110
Energy Shield: 21Requires Level 51, 40 Str, 40 Int
Adds (30-36) to (44-50) Cold Damage to Attacks
(12-16)% increased maximum Life
+(40-50)% to Cold Resistance
25% increased Freeze Duration on Enemies
Your Hits can only Kill Frozen Enemies
50% increased Herald of Ice Damage

This pair of gloves prevents you from killing enemies with hits unless they are frozen. You can still kill them with damage over time however. This allows for all sorts of strange interactions. Again, all these weird effects are unique to these specific items.

---

The Jinxed Juju 48 +(30-40) to [[Intelligence]]
+(23-31)% to [[Chaos Resistance]]
(10-15)% increased Effect of your [[Curse|Curses]]
(10-15)% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your [[Skill|Skills]]
10% of Damage from [[Hit|Hits]] is taken from your Spectres' [[Life]] before you" class="tc -mod">+(16-24) to Strength and Dexterity+(30-40) to Intelligence
+(23-31)% to Chaos Resistance
(10-15)% increased Effect of your Curses
(10-15)% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills
10% of Damage from Hits is taken from your Spectres' Life before you

An amulet that redirects damage from you to a particular type of minion.

---

Heartbound Loop
Moonstone RingRequires Level 20
+(15-25) to maximum Energy Shield
Regenerate (10-15) Life per second
(20-40)% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
Minions have 15% increased maximum Life
Minions have 10% increased Area of Effect
350 Physical Damage taken on Minion Death

This one injures you every time a minion dies. Because the damage is in discreet hits and not damage over time, it can trigger effects that occur when you suffer damage. Because it triggers on minion death, it can be combined with other items that can reduce minion duration to 0 seconds. So you can create a set of triggered spells which summons a minion which instantly dies every time you take 700 damage, while also healing you so you don't die. Combine this with a skill that makes your minions explode on death for something that continually spawns suicide bombers around you many times per second.

---

The Bringer of Rain
Nightmare BascinetQuality: +20%
Armour: (518-680)
Evasion: (745-978)Requires Level 67, 62 Str, 85 Dex
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 18 Melee Physical Damage
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 18 Faster Attacks
Socketed Gems are supported by Level 18 Blind
6% Chance to Block Attack Damage
Adds 20 to 30 Physical Damage to Attacks
(200-300)% increased Armour and Evasion
+(200-220) to maximum Life
20% chance to gain an Endurance Charge when you Block
Can't use Chest armour
Extra gore

This helmet gives you massive offensive bonuses but prevents you from wearing anything in your chest slot, which is arguably even more important than your weapons for some characters.

---

Headhunter
Leather BeltRequires Level 40
+(25-40) to maximum Life
+(40-55) to Strength
+(40-55) to Dexterity
+(50-60) to maximum Life
(20-30)% increased Damage with Hits against Rare monsters
When you Kill a Rare monster, you gain its Modifiers for 20 seconds

This is generally considered to be the best item in the game. The modifiers you can get from rare monsters include things like haste, extra max hp and model size, 100% life leech, immunity to curses, and about 20 other things. They used to hold races where everyone had this effect because it's so fun to blast around with monster powers.

---

Wings of Entropy
Sundering AxeTwo Handed Axe
Quality: +20%
Physical Damage: (136.4-148.8)–(281.6-307.2)
Critical Strike Chance: 5.00%
Attacks per Second: 1.25
Weapon Range: 13Requires Level 60, 149 Str, 76 Dex
(6-7)% Chance to Block Spell Damage
+8% Chance to Block Attack Damage while Dual Wielding
(100-120)% increased Physical Damage
Adds (55-65) to (100-120) Fire Damage in Main Hand
Adds (55-65) to (100-120) Chaos Damage in Off Hand
Counts as Dual Wielding

This is a two handed weapon which counts as dual wielding... in a game where you can dual wield by default anyways. This has all sorts of weird complications.

---

Shavronne's Revelation
Moonstone RingRequires Level 30
+(15-25) to maximum Energy Shield
+(60-75) to Intelligence
Right ring slot: You cannot Regenerate Mana
Right ring slot: Regenerate 3% of Energy Shield per second
Right ring slot: +100 to maximum Mana
Left ring slot: You cannot Recharge or Regenerate Energy Shield
Left ring slot: Regenerate 40 Mana per Second
Left ring slot: +100 to maximum Energy Shield

A ring which not only does different things depending on which finger you equip it on, but prevents you from gaining mana or energy shield to regenerate the other.

I could come up with plenty more, but I think you get the idea. And these are just the ones that are obviously weird even to someone who doesn't know any of the mechanics. The problem is that it's too hard to get ones that are useful to you without trading. But god damn there is cool stuff out there that is exciting to find.

A lot of this stuff is just niche and hardly utilized. GD also has stuff that transform entire damage types to different ones, opening up completely new class combinations that would not work well together before like Nex and Orthus for Demo+NB.
What is so bad about entire new skills? I take an extra skill over the stuff you posted much of which does not really change the play style in a substantial way mostly like GD just shifts your focus in terms of gearing. Lightning Coil is such an item, you will value Lightning Resist a lot more than other types of defense.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I don't have a particularly good attention span for h'n's anyway, but PoE definitely holds the record of boring me the quickest. GD is a very ok game, it just makes the most typical mistake of being too drawn out. It also has a strong start with a promise of extra-dimensional apocalypse in a steampunk setting, but quickly devolves into running around fields and swamps killing boars and bugs and visiting cellars to hunt skellingtons.

I don't know how the design responsibilities are divided among that team, but looking at TQ and GD, if char-building/itemitzation/etc guize and core gameplay guize are different people then I'd say the former would do well to kick the latter up the bum and find someone with a bit more flair.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

One thing i really think is a missed oportunity in GD is upgrading the prison defences. It starts half ruined, it it could be upgraded properly (walls restoration, towers, archer perches, etc)

 

[Sykar]

One thing i really think is a missed oportunity in GD is upgrading the prison defences. It starts half ruined, it it could be upgraded properly (walls restoration, towers, archer perches, etc)

Yeah that would have been cool. Like when you get the cannons for Homestead for example.