KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Citizen]

I'd love PoE, but it's an always online F2P game with randomly generated maps that forces you into trading with other players using a very gimmicky currency system, as opposed to optional online singleplayer focused GD with handcrafted maps

PoE's skillsystem is great tho

 

[abija]

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.

The amount of damage types and the restrictions they bring are by far THE WORST part of GD. It limits builds and makes the gear grind 10x worse than should be for a game where the only variety comes from the build you play.

 

[Sykar]

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.

The amount of damage types and the restrictions they bring are by far THE WORST part of GD. It limits builds and makes the gear grind 10x worse than should be for a game where the only variety comes from the build you play.

The damage types per se are not the problem. That they are all the same apart from coloring with no distinction like fire, frost and lighting in PoE is my main criticism and I would not even expect them all to have a special property but at least some of them should have had.

 

[Lacrymas]

I have no idea what Crate's future plans for this game are. If I were them, I'd implement different effects for the different damage types at one point. It makes sense and it will be more than choosing your team color. The mobs will also become more dangerous when every cold attack has a chance to freeze or slow you.

 

[Damned Registrations]

What is so bad about entire new skills?

They're boring. Incredibly boring. Like "Deal 300% weapon damage to an enemy, 4 second cooldown" boring. Or the 50 variations of "Occasionally do bonus damage." And changing elemental damage types from one to another isn't that interesting. PoE does that too, those items aren't even interesting enough to be worth mentioning. Yeah, interesting stuff is niche, but the potential is there. Grim Dawn has no potential except 'make numbers bigger' or 'change my attacks to a different colour.' The fact that you need some endgame super rare item to use doombolt alongside aether ray without being a total gimp isn't much of a selling point in my view. Pretty much the only new playstyle Grim Dawn enables with gear is the retaliation one. PoE has had over a hundred.

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.

I don't know how you can be serious here. You don't think turning any skill in the game into a fucking tractor beam alters playstyle significantly? Or not having any body armour? Having your fucking weapon unequip itself and go fighting shit on it's own while you switch to an entirely different build that works barehanded? Even lightning coil allows for some pretty crazy stuff synergizing with skills or items that trigger when you get shocked, and other synergies that would be difficult to explain, and I agree it's probably the least interesting item on there.

Playstyles in Grim Dawn don't even vary between characters ffs. What's the difference between a Nightblade that charges in, hits things in melee, and pops an emergency skill to heal vs a soldier or oathkeeper or shaman doing the same? The shaman does lightning damage? That's not even worth mentioning. "I do lightning damage" isn't a playstyle. "I stack 5 different kinds of curses on enemies and super power them by using multiple items that do unique things with curses" is a playstyle. "I run 4 times faster than any normal character and deal damage based on my movement speed" is a playstyle. Fuck, it's like 20 diferent playstyles because you can scale that damage into a ton of different skills that use that item.

I have no idea what Crate's future plans for this game are. If I were them, I'd implement different effects for the different damage types at one point. It makes sense and it will be more than choosing your team color. The mobs will also become more dangerous when every cold attack has a chance to freeze or slow you.

I wouldn't hold my breath, considering they can't even implement a skill that pulls enemies towards you properly. And the Kymon's Chosen/Death's Veil thing breaking multiplayer is incredibly retarded.

I'd love PoE, but it's an always online F2P game with randomly generated maps that forces you into trading with other players using a very gimmicky currency system

See this is a legit complaint. I'd throw in the endgame turning everything into a zoom zoom glass cannon and the potions and vaal skill systems being broken by the insane kill rate as problems as well.

Though I don't get the hate for the RNG maps. PoE campaign is way better and has better theming in it's maps than Grim Dawn from what I've seen. Ziggurats and towers and sewers are actually laid out like ziggurats and towers and sewers. Which is damned impressive. Grim Dawn felt very, very samey for the most part. The only notable areas I can think of are the farms by Homestead and the clusterfuck that is Malmouth's winding ruined city. They both had some actual flavour to their layout, though they were both also really awful to actually play in their own way. For most of the game you could slap a different tileset on things and you wouldn't notice the difference. The mines don't feel like mines, the forests don't feel like forests, the desert doesn't feel like a desert, etc. In short, you could show me the outline of a map in PoE and I'd have a decent shot at guessing what part of the game it is, while I probably couldn't do the same for Grim Dawn despite it having fixed maps.

 

[Lacrymas]

Nightblades don't "charge in", they zoom zoom teleport around the enemies. The only ones who charge are Soldiers. I have 5 different characters and they all play significantly different. 3 of them feature Necromancer and they couldn't be different.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Nightblades don't "charge in", they zoom zoom teleport around the enemies.

 

[Lacrymas]

What kind of criticism is that, though? Меlee builds go in melee, duh. And they do zoom zoom teleport.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You're arguing that these are significantly different playstyles:

30 Energy Cost
3.8 Second Skill Recharge
180 Degree Attack Arc
3 Target Maximum
125% Weapon Damage
90 Physical Damage
Knockdown target for 1.5-3 Seconds
+300% Movement Speed

22 Energy Cost
3.5 Second Skill Recharge
115% Weapon Damage
80 Piercing Damage
80 Cold Damage
Stun target for 1.5 Seconds
+500% Movement Speed

Seriously? It's the exact same shit. One is slightly faster while the other has a tiny AoE. In both cases you just click on either the nearest on strongest enemy depending on if the chaff is actually a threat and then start bonking things with your default attack. Why are both of these even in the game? Why is there more than one skill tree for 'do extra attacks while using default melee'? Why do you need 10 flavours of 'Hit everything in an AoE around you.' Why couldn't they come up with some original ideas?


By comparison, here's two movement attack skills from PoE:

Channel to project an illusion which you steer. You gain stages while it moves, until it stops at a maximum total distance. Waves of area damage frequently pulse along its path, based on your attack speed. Stop channelling to teleport to the illusion, dealing a final wave of damage.

Charges at a targeted location or enemy, pushing away enemies in your path and repeatedly dealing off-hand damage in a small area in front of you. You deal damage in a larger area when you reach the target. The further you travel, the more damage you deal, and the greater your chance of stunning enemies.

Notice how one of them stuns, does extra damage scaling with distance, starts moving instantly, while the other ones requires charging up, teleports you instantly, deals damage between you and the destination while you charge, doesn't do any extra damage at the end point?

So the playstyle for one is to ping-pong between the strongest enemy and enemies far away from him to repeatedly hit the strong enemy with the highest damage hits, preferably keeping the monsters spread out. The playstyle for the other is to wait until enemies are about to hit you then release the skill to escape through them while dealing extra damage, preferably clumping them together to hit them all at once. Different.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

It really depens on what kind of char you build. If you insist on every char being the same, you will end up making samey characters

 

[Damned Registrations]

I mean, is there a difference between a shaman/soldier using blitz to charge in and cadence/whatever (all that shit is, again, pretty much the same) and a nightblade/demolitionist using his version of those skills to do the exact same shit? That's what I mean when I say different classes don't even play differently.

Yeah, you have aoe skills and whirlwind and obviously a caster doesn't play like a melee. But that's some pretty basic shit. If your bar for build variety is that bows and axes are different, I think you've fucked up. I can do more varied shit just with daggers with a single class in PoE than you can do in Grim Dawn period.

Why don't these skills have anything special about them? Why not make a skill that does more damage to enemies at full health so you avoid tiny bits of splash, or does more damage the more steps you've taken in the last 30 seconds, or creates totems that mind control enemies instead of just throwing fire at them? Why is every single skill just vanilla X damage in Y area with no other interesting modifiers that would incentivize using it differently than another skill of the same archetype?

 

[Efe]

its not that gd is bad at skills but rather, poe is too good at this point.

yet i find myself feeling lost leveling fuckton different shit when playing poe while gd's smaller package keeps itself focused at all times.

 

[Sykar]

its not that gd is bad at skills but rather, poe is too good at this point.

yet i find myself feeling lost leveling fuckton different shit when playing poe while gd's smaller package keeps itself focused at all times.

PoE has like half a decade more development time. GGG is by now a giant company with a crap ton of developers, Crate is still a small time studio by comparison. PoE was its own thing while GD is an obvious successor of TQ.
Also the vast majority of skills are not any better. Furthermore unlike GD PoE will without fail degenerate into a two button build, one for movement and one for damage, rest gets automated so you can wank as mindlessly through maps as possible. The power creep in PoE is utterly retarded at this point and there is no end in sight that it will get any better. 90% of PoE is uneccessary bloat both in terms of skills(gems) and passive skill tree never mind that idiotic currency system that doubles for some retarded reason as crafting mats.

You're arguing that these are significantly different playstyles:

30 Energy Cost
3.8 Second Skill Recharge
180 Degree Attack Arc
3 Target Maximum
125% Weapon Damage
90 Physical Damage
Knockdown target for 1.5-3 Seconds
+300% Movement Speed

22 Energy Cost
3.5 Second Skill Recharge
115% Weapon Damage
80 Piercing Damage
80 Cold Damage
Stun target for 1.5 Seconds
+500% Movement Speed

Seriously? It's the exact same shit. One is slightly faster while the other has a tiny AoE. In both cases you just click on either the nearest on strongest enemy depending on if the chaff is actually a threat and then start bonking things with your default attack. Why are both of these even in the game? Why is there more than one skill tree for 'do extra attacks while using default melee'? Why do you need 10 flavours of 'Hit everything in an AoE around you.' Why couldn't they come up with some original ideas?


By comparison, here's two movement attack skills from PoE:

Channel to project an illusion which you steer. You gain stages while it moves, until it stops at a maximum total distance. Waves of area damage frequently pulse along its path, based on your attack speed. Stop channelling to teleport to the illusion, dealing a final wave of damage.

Charges at a targeted location or enemy, pushing away enemies in your path and repeatedly dealing off-hand damage in a small area in front of you. You deal damage in a larger area when you reach the target. The further you travel, the more damage you deal, and the greater your chance of stunning enemies.

Notice how one of them stuns, does extra damage scaling with distance, starts moving instantly, while the other ones requires charging up, teleports you instantly, deals damage between you and the destination while you charge, doesn't do any extra damage at the end point?

So the playstyle for one is to ping-pong between the strongest enemy and enemies far away from him to repeatedly hit the strong enemy with the highest damage hits, preferably keeping the monsters spread out. The playstyle for the other is to wait until enemies are about to hit you then release the skill to escape through them while dealing extra damage, preferably clumping them together to hit them all at once. Different.

Wow speak of retarded. Teleport skill vs charge skill "totally the same bro"! Hey dipshit, Some people want to have movement skills without being forced to select one specific class. SS also lets you dodge attacks while Charge eats them so you have to be more mindful when you those depending on the situation. Just click next strongest mob? Nonsense. Depends on how stable you are what your CD is, if you can reset CDs, etc. Tanky builds can charge in an start auto attacking. Squishy builds need to dodge and weave. Substantial differences in playstyles and completely disingenuous to proclaim that you can just charge and auto attack with every build. Even more so since PoE offers such builds too and in fact most builds will inevitably degenerate into two button builds.

 

[Damned Registrations]

"Teleport" that still has travel time and isn't even twice as fast, and needs to be targetted onto an enemy just like Blitz, stuns an enemy just like blitz, deals weapon damage just like blitz... Yeah how could I think the two skills are totally the same when one could be used to dodge an attack (what fucking attack do you dodge by running into melee with the enemy attacking you?) and apparently the class that can become completely invulnerable for 3 seconds and heal to full is 'squishy.' Ok then. Glad we're not being disingenuous here.

Even more so since PoE offers such builds too

Yes, which is why the player base has been avoiding and bitching about them for 5 years while playing cool shit like charged dash instead. Nobody plays the boring old shit like double strike and heavy strike that you're holding up as massively different playstyles. While apparently you'd be fucking rock hard to have a new skill introduced that moves at 450% speed instead and stuns for 2.5 seconds while dealing chaos damage.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

So let me get this straight - in a world where you have two great ARPGs that you can enjoy, you keep bitching and complaining about something thats just personal preference and gameplay style...

Dude thats just dumb

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'm bitching about people being dishonest while describing the games. PoE has a fuckton of problems, build variety isn't one of them, and it's not one of Grim Dawn's strengths. If Blitz and slightly faster blitz are such radically different skills, PoE has like 20 radically different movement skills instead of... 3. Sure, flame dash and frost blink might both teleport you the same distance on about the same cooldown, but one is fire and one is ice, and the fire one leaves a trail and can stock 3 charges! So an otherwise identical build is now TOTALLY different.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

So goys,
Picked up grim dawn again after multiple playthurs of Underrail and Kangmaker.

can I just say that NB+oathkeper acid heresy is an amazing build.

A DW WPS devotion spammer. works even with absolute shit equipment on ultimate.

Main Skills:
1)Righteous fervor with transmuter bound with tainted eruption devotion stays as left click skill always.

2)the 4 WPS of NB @ 20% (execution @ 21%)
smite wps of oathkeeper @19%.
so each Righteous fervor buffed attack is a WPS.
Each WPS is attached to a devotion (flame torrent, twin fangs, guardian's gaze, scorpion sting, bull rush)

3) summon guardian of the empyrion with maxed celestial presence and heresy transmute (acid resist and immortal player scaled summmon). Bound to acid spray devotion.

4) blade spirit with rumors devotion attached. soe ach summon attack gives more resistance reduction to acid/poison (our main damage type).

5) Veil of shadows with maxed night's chill. even more resist reduction! also aura around you so that you can keep spamming righteous fervor.

6) Maxed Path of the three excloosive skill. full on heretical dervish bro here.

7) Merciless repertoire and nidalla's hidden hand. more acid/poison damage.

8) distance closers. shadow strike and vire's might.

9) utility stuff like pneumatic burst & ascension for heal/buff. blade barrier for the oh shit skill.

Playstyle is zoom to a target with shadow strike and spam righteous fervor till stuff dies. also spam pneumatic burst to keep health up and ascension/bladebarrier when u require bit of breathing space. Vire's might is runnign away skill. rest are passives and/or sustains.

All in all very nice build to play when you are buzzed and a bit clumsy and want that arpg loot piñata for the cathartic relief.

Aiming for this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2dM3M5V
Optimize plz.
presently lv75 with absolute shit equips, but the builds managing fine on ultimate.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Homie, that's not Necro/Oathkeeper. That's Nightblade/Oathkeeper. I'd get rid of Resilience/Smite/Rebuke + whole Vire's Might line + Retribution. Then get rid of Phantasmal Armour + Blade Spirit. Make Shadow Strike a 1-pter (total, get rid of everything else in the line). As well as Breath of Belgothian + Elemental Awakening. Bring Veil of Shadow right down - you don't need the range.

Get Dual Blades + WPS pumped up, as well as max Righteous Fervour.

Think about 1-pting Amarasta's and pumping up Lethal Assault.

Remember that most of the itemization for this combo is going to be doing cold/acid, and Amarasta's custom built for that. Lethal Assault pumps ALL attacks made in that window, so you put Amarasta's on right click. You start the fight with one right click, then hold down left (RF) for four seconds. Rinse/repeat.

EDIT:

Regardless, your build is mostly fine stats-wise. Capped resists + 12k HP +~2500 OA/DA = Ultimate campaign is no prob. But with NB/OK, you're going to want to get damage to a good place, because your defences have a limited window. Any NB combo is about killing things as quickly as possible. You've only just soft capped (16/16) your default attack replacer. Gotta supermax that shit.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Homie, that's not Necro/Oathkeeper. That's Nightblade/Oathkeeper. I'd get rid of Resilience/Smite/Rebuke + whole Vire's Might line + Retribution. Then get rid of Phantasmal Armour + Blade Spirit. Make Shadow Strike a 1-pter (total, get rid of everything else in the line). As well as Breath of Belgothian + Elemental Awakening. Bring Veil of Shadow right down - you don't need the range.

Get Dual Blades + WPS pumped up, as well as max Righteous Fervour.

Think about 1-pting Amarasta's and pumping up Lethal Assault.

Remember that most of the itemization for this combo is going to be doing cold/acid, and Amarasta's custom built for that. Lethal Assault pumps ALL attacks made in that window, so you put Amarasta's on right click. You start the fight with one right click, then hold down left (RF) for four seconds. Rinse/repeat.

EDIT:

Regardless, your build is mostly fine stats-wise. Capped resists + 12k HP +~2500 OA/DA = Ultimate campaign is no prob. But with NB/OK, you're going to want to get damage to a good place, because your defences have a limited window. Any NB combo is about killing things as quickly as possible. You've only just soft capped (16/16) your default attack replacer. Gotta supermax that shit.

yeah sorry my bad. NB not necro. like i said playing grim dawn buzzed.

Thanks your comments make sense. Totally ignored the potential of lethal assault there. ended up with https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lNk5paqV . Kept smite as I wanted 100% chance to proc WPS. toher than tha changed a couple fo components for resists and pumped the points in wps and DW. with 1 point in blade burst/LA. Also kept 1 pt Blade Spirit for procing devotion. ANd its an immortal player scaled pet. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/d2j5pJlN

Was doing another physical spin2win Eye of Reckoning necro/oath. basically spectral wrath for phys resist red, and spin2win bound with Oleron's wrath devotion. Guardian of empyrion is bound with assassin's mark devotion. Here is that https://www.grimtools.com/calc/p25k1AEZ

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

damn making me want to play again. My favorite build I think was Soldier +Oathkeeper, and spammed Targos hammer with shield maiden and maxed out shield recovery time reduction and other sheild recovery reduction aids because Targos hammer can go off once every .1 second, and then you can add other types of damage to it and you just obliterate anything that gets near you once you get your shield recovery time down. Even before that really, once Targos Hammer is relatively high level. Targos Hammer is Awesome.

Edit: Are they going to make a Grim Dawn 2?

 

[oldmanpaco]

How do people actually have the perseverance to get to ultimate? Every-time I get half way through elite I get bored with my character. Happened 3 times now.

 

[Lacrymas]

By not going through Elite. You either start on Elite at lvl 1 (which I recommend) or go directly to Ultimate after normal, or just rush through Elite in like 2 hours. It's like asking how people get to Hell in Diablo 2, nobody does all the quests or explores every zone.

 

[oldmanpaco]

By not going through Elite. You either start on Elite at lvl 1 (which I recommend) or go directly to Ultimate after normal, or just rush through Elite in like 2 hours. It's like asking how people get to Hell in Diablo 2, nobody does all the quests or explores every zone.

What? Thought you always had to start on normal then elite? You can skip levels?

 

[Lacrymas]

You can by buying difficulty tokens in the Forgotten Gods starting zone, then either rush Reanimator to get to the chest or get it in the Crucible.

 

[Axioms]

So I've downloaded some mods for art assets and pillaged them to make some fancy pet classes. My god is the file structure of this game absolute dogshit. Holy cow. Sometimes I think about dealing with the dumb way data is connected and stored and wanna off myself. On the other hand love playing super pet class. I modded the pets to stay fair but having like 40 pets is awesome. I have one super necro class and one class for non-necro pet stuff.