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KickStarter Grim Dawn

coldcrow

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2009
Messages
1,649
You need to beat the tentacle monster at the end (Necropolis).
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,157
I just exploded the blocked exist in Fort Ikon. I suppose i'm close enough to do it legit i guess, but what mod can i use if i want to do it right now?

BTW, i got a stat and a skill point from The Hidden Path quest. If i skip normal, how do i get those? Since you can skip normal legitimately i assume there is a way, just like with devotion points.
 
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Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Quest rewards like skill points and bags are given to you automatically. Only devotion points aren't.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,157
Can i give myself the Champion's and Savior's Merits with a mod? It feels like i'm "wasting" the first experience of those areas when i'm not even paying attention as i play.

Just read ultimate scales from 1-100. That's perfect. With a mod that reduces xp gained i may get it just right.
 
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Shitty Kitty

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Sep 9, 2020
Messages
556
Can i give myself the Champion's and Savior's Merits with a mod? It feels like i'm "wasting" the first experience of those areas when i'm not even paying attention as i play.

Just read ultimate scales from 1-100. That's perfect. With a mod that reduces xp gained i may get it just right.
You can use GDStash and just drop the merits into shared stash then pluck them out with the character. And aside from a few more interesting points in the world, yes, Normal/Veteran lose their fangs after Act 1 or so (unless you're running a really weird/hard to gear build like a ranged Chaos Witchblade). Elite and Ultimate are much better, Normal/Veteran is pretty much your training wheels phase and a good time to learn the map and locations so you can come back to them. I will say that if you jump ahead with the merits there are still like... 4 attribute points and 7 skill points that are unaccounted for (probably from some quests) but honestly that amount is hardly gamebreaking. Can always jump back into lower difficulty and track down the quests in question to get those points without slogging through the entirety of the mode.

As far as devotion points go, shrines on higher difficulties tend to be much more demanding on offerings, I think last time I bothered clearing Ult shrines some of them wanted Relics which are pretty damned valuable in terms of materials required to craft at times.
 

Sharpedge

Prophet
Joined
Sep 14, 2018
Messages
1,061
Biggest problem in my opinion with GD is that the boss fights just aren't very interesting. They have 3-4 mechanics max and for most of them, you can just out gear them and then tank+spank. This holds true even for the Celestials like Callagadra and Mogdodren. The game has a very solid foundation, but the lack of interesting bosses as well as a compelling endgame (SR and Crucible are far from compelling) ends up turning me away from the game quite fast.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,157
It's a Diablo clone i don't know how interesting boss fights can be unless they change the style of those kind of games.

Diablo 3 had some MMO stuff for the boss fights, but some purists scorned at those.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
You can't get too crazy with boss battles because waiting for them to execute their telegraphed attacks will just get tedious on the 15th kill. Not to mention kill speed is important, so piling on unnecessary seconds to a boss fight isn't ideal. That said, AoM's final boss fight is more elaborate.
 

Sharpedge

Prophet
Joined
Sep 14, 2018
Messages
1,061
It can be better than GD without being super elaborate. Despite the many flaws PoE has (and the fact that you can just completely outgear any boss in the game and then ignore all of its mechanics), some of its boss fights are pretty good in terms of what you could reasonably expect within the hack and slash genre. Atziri, Shaper, Elder or Aul for example are all much more interesting than any of the fights in GD.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,157
The whole "play through the same game 3 times in increasing difficulty" design trope for ARPGs really needs to die off faster

It was already running thin for me with Diablo 2 since i can beat normal in that game while sleeping.

But this game made it more obvious by being larger.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
They buffed Veteran in one of the last big patches, but I haven't played Veteran since Forgotten Gods came out. I usually run a lvl 1 char through Elite and then Ultimate. I'm not exactly sure how well balanced Ultimate is for lower level characters and it might depend on your twinking capability. I'd say Elite -> Ultimate is a good compromise and a good path to take. Running through a difficulty doesn't take as long as it seems. You can rush through it in around 2 hours.
 
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Shitty Kitty

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Messages
556
They buffed Veteran in one of the last big patches, but I haven't played Veteran since Forgotten Gods came out. I usually run a lvl 1 char through Elite and then Ultimate. I'm not exactly sure how well balanced Ultimate is for lower level characters and it might depend on your twinking capability. I'd say Elite -> Ultimate is a good compromise and a good path to take. Running through a difficulty doesn't take as long as it seems. You can rush through it in around 2 hours.
Veteran's a little harder I guess, but it's mostly in ways that reasonably experienced players won't usually sweat and arguably benefit from with the increased Heroes producing more XP, better drops and a bit more challenge. I would recommend Veteran as a starting point to anyone who was competent at Diablo 2, Normal's very tepid for anyone but the dexterity-challenged or slow in the head IMO. The nastiest thing that usually crops up in any mode is the fickle finger of RNG putting a finger on the scale by spawning certain mobs in certain spots (and those Totems can be a real bitch for a low-level player in Veteran, but the rewards are potentially amazing).

Also, the last patch added something very interesting to me - an armor set that might give my Sacred Harmony Saboteur a new lease on life.

It might also be useful for my Pyro. Hmmm. Not sure I can work it around Darkblaze.

Theorycraft Sab until I can actually farm up the set. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZRwxyxN

Damage spread is messy as hell, that Chaos to Cold on Nex kind of screws things up a little.
 
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Shitty Kitty

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Sep 9, 2020
Messages
556
Farmed up the set and made some changes to the Saboteur. Got a few beers in me and decided to take the end result for a spin in Glad Cruc.



For someone who's typically as bad at Cruc as I am I'm impressed I did this well with it on first run while three sheets to the wind. Those Chthonian boss mobs are rough customers, though. Death Novas did half their work for them.

EDIT: Might make a slight change to devotions to get the Ulo proc to get rid of reflective shields and such because I'm finding those are tripping me up a lot.
 
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Shitty Kitty

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Sep 9, 2020
Messages
556
Whoops, forgot to remove old video before edit time expired. Oh well. Decided against messing with Ulo, causes too many issues with devotion point allocation and I'm watching replays and realizing that the reflect generally isn't what gets me. A few minor changes here and there in skills and devotions from last time, this feels a bit better.



If I had activated Blade Barrier after that Iron Maiden hit I think I would have cleared this wave. Still getting used to the button order and after accidentally punching Blade Barrier a few times when I had it on button 5 decided to move it down to button 8.
 

xuerebx

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
Messages
1,001
Finished the game at level 57 nightblade/occultist! :D Highly enjoyable, the 50 hours went by very fast. It's fast paced and fun enough that I will give it another go using a different character in the future, or perhaps continue enhancing my current character. Thanks for the tips along the way too!
 
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Shitty Kitty

Self-Ejected
Joined
Sep 9, 2020
Messages
556
Finished the game at level 57 nightblade/occultist! :D Highly enjoyable, the 50 hours went by very fast. It's fast paced and fun enough that I will give it another go using a different character in the future, or perhaps continue enhancing my current character. Thanks for the tips along the way too!
Witchhunter is a bit glassy at times but very fun and very strong with a number of great options for gearing/playstyle. As long as you keep Pneumatic Burst and Blood of Dreeg up, take Possession and take advantage of the Nightblade's really good passives, decent buffs/debuffs and mitigation skills combined with the Occultist's incredible debuff capability a Witchhunter can just tear through things.

A new patch just dropped and it tweaked a few things I'm currently using on this Saboteur (for the better). So now I need to screw with some things in gearing and such to see if I can take advantage of the upgrades. The Saboteur is just unavoidably glassy but it generates impressive amounts of pain with what some people consider very poor stats - no global lifesteal, main damage type bonus under 2000 percent and HP that sits just above 12k. What I've figured out is that I can make up for these shortcomings by absolutely demolishing enemy Defensive Ability and stacking resist reduction high. Most other classes don't really have to make these tradeoffs, the Sab is honestly one of the weaker mastery combos at the moment, and yet it manages (usually). Iron Maiden is still the Sab's bane, easily the worst Nemesis to deal with.
 
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Shitty Kitty

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Sep 9, 2020
Messages
556
Been tinkering with some of the new Forgotten Gods items, namely a 2H sword called Rancor. It looks really neat at first glance - clearly oriented around Trickster (Nightblade/Shaman), a mastery combination that really has been neglected nearly as badly as Saboteur has, despite being in the game from launch. More specifically, Rancor seems to support/boost a Phantasmal Blades Trickster build. Trickster has anti-synergy issues just like Saboteur, though for different reasons - Shaman focuses pretty heavily on 2h weaponry and Nightblade is much more focused on dual-wield melee. Still, maybe this sword will help bring them together better.

Nope.

The thing about Phantasmal Blades is that it's a notorious energy hog. Doesn't matter if you transmute it to be spammable or use it as a cooldown skill. It gobbles up energy like mad. Rancor itself has zero native energy management abilities. So you look at good gearing options to cover that, while still supporting the damage types encouraged by Rancor (pierce and bleed - it even converts Vitality to Piercing, seemingly offering a bridge between Shaman's Vitality skills and Nightblade's Piercing skills). Most gearing options focused on Piercing don't really accommodate a 2h sword. Bleed... you have the Bloodrager sets, but they have no energy management. Nightblade has some limited e-management but certainly not great, and it's never been enough to support PBlades on its own - most PBlades builds are Spellbreakers (Nightblade/Arcanist) to take advantage of Arcanist's e-management, which PBlades desperately needs. Trickster? Shaman has no e-management at all natively, and none of the sets that support Trickster offer it that I've seen.

So now you have this 2h sword for a Trickster (already a problem, since Nightblade keys so heavily off dual-wield and the 2h skills for Shaman CAN be worked around... except the Bleed stuff works a LOT better with a 2h, and Rancor's Pierce/Bleed focused). It can't really be adequately supported with a Nightblade set that focuses on Piercing. It can't really be adequately supported with a Shaman set, period. It can't be supported at all with any set that supports both Nightblade and Shaman - honestly aside from Bloodrager and the epic Bloodreaper set there really aren't any, and Bloodreaper ties up both hands with a pair of swords... a Trickster set that supports dual wield, you don't say? Oh, and the Korba Trickster is also dual-wield? It's almost like dual-wield is way better for a Trickster than 2h. So why do we have this 2h Trickster sword?

But let's say you just IGNORE the really neat PBlades mods on Rancor. OK. It has Devouring Swarm mods, too. So focus on that... oh, Devouring Swarm is really awful as a primary damage skill, even with the modifications to it? Well, ok, so it's a support skill. What does it support? With the mods, it reduces Pierce resist, converts the Vitality damage on DevSwarm to Pierce... ok, so now you have a Pierce/Bleed Trickster with a 2h weapon. It can't benefit from the Pierce focused stuff in Nightblade that keys off dual-wield, and it does nothing to unify the damage types outside of PBlades and DevSwarm, so your Savagery and Primal Strike on Shaman side, skills that key really well off a 2h weapon, still have a bunch of Lightning damage that is basically unsupported in any sense by the Nightblade side. But maybe you could do Ring of Steel on Nightblade side instead? A cooldown PBAoE pierce/bleed nuke, sounds promising right? Rancor does NOTHING for Ring of Steel beyond the base damage modifiers. Not a damned thing. Other gearing options exist to boost Ring of Steel, but then you start asking why you're dragging around this 2h sword for Ring of Steel when there are so many other better options to support Ring of Steel.

So Rancor has a niche, that it's hilariously bad at. Anything it could be good at, something else will do much better. And what blows my mind is that Trickster, like Saboteur, has been in the game from launch. There are builds focused around the new FG mastery, Oathkeeper, that are hands-down some of the strongest builds in the game right now. Out of the gate, Oathkeeper just kicks ass and takes names. Warlord (Oathkeeper/Soldier) is one of the strongest things in the game right now, and it's basically the new kid on the block. Oathkeeper has crazy synergy with SO MANY THINGS. But Crate apparently has either forgotten about Trickster and Saboteur or doesn't fucking care. At least Trickster has Korba. Saboteur is just suffering, and even the new sets that enable Saboteur to do things that don't suck (Rimetongue, Ember's Calling) are probably better for something that isn't Saboteur.

I'm just baffled, really, because Crate has shown that it CAN address anti-synergy issues (Battlemage now feels pretty good with Krieg set and Spellscourge set, despite being one of the worst mastery combinations at launch), and it can get really inventive with addressing mastery combo shortcomings via things like damage conversion and skill modifiers... and yet here we are with Rancor, a weapon for one of the laggards (Trickster) that supports a criminally undersupported skill (PBlades)... except it supports it so poorly that you shouldn't use it.
 
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Shitty Kitty

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Sep 9, 2020
Messages
556
On the bright side, I ironed out most of the issues I had with the Rancor Trickster.


On the downside, still pretty glassy and I need to practice more with those later waves.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Surprise mega update today, over 700+ MB DL and around 3.4 GB installation according to Steam.
https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/grim-dawn-version-1-1-9-2/111702

Notes on mastery changes in spoiler, warning, long:
[Class & Skills]
Devotion

  • Affliction: increased Vitality damage to 15-18
  • Alladrah’s Phoenix: reduced % Burn damage to 50% and removed % Health Regen
  • Amatok: increased % Health to 5% and Health to 150
  • Anvil: increased Internal Trauma damage to 12 / 5s and Armor to 45
  • Attak Seru: increased Elemental damage to 16
  • Autumn Boar: increased % All Retaliation damage to 100%
  • Behemoth: reduced % Health Regen to 30%
  • Dire Bear: added 14 Physical damage
  • Dryad: increased Energy Regeneration to 1.5
  • Harvestman’s Scythe: reduced Health Regen to 30
  • Hound: increased % Armor to 9%
  • Hyrian: increased % Armor to 18%, Health to 280 and % Shield Damage Blocked to 65%
  • Korvaak: added 2 Energy Regeneration
  • Kraken: increased % Attack Speed to 26% and % Cast Speed to 10%
  • Light of Empyrion: increased Physical damage to 10-14
  • Magi: increased Defensive Ability to 35 and Fire damage to 10-14 and reduced % Burn damage to 100%
  • Obelisk of Menhir: increased % All Retaliation damage to 120%, Armor to 210, Defensive Ability to 70, % Defensive Ability to 6% and % Shield Damage Blocked to 40%
  • Oleron: increased Physical damage to 16-22, Internal Trauma to 24 / 5s, and % Physical and % Internal Trauma damage to 200%
  • Rat: increased % All Retaliation damage to 40%
  • Raven: increased Energy Regeneration to 1.5
  • Scales of Ulcama: reduced Health Regen to 18
  • Scarab: increased % Armor to 5% and % Shield Damage Blocked to 24%
  • Shieldmaiden: increased % Shield Damage Blocked to 90% and Internal Trauma damage to 20 / 5s
  • Targo: increased % All Retaliation damage to 90%, Physical Retaliation to 150, % Armor to 15% and % Shield Damage Blocked to 24%
  • Tempest: increased Lightning damage to 8-20 and % Electrocute Duration to 50%. Replaced % Run Speed with 4% Total Speed.
  • Tree of Life: reduced Health Regen to 60 and % Health Regen to 60%
  • Ultos: increased Lightning damage to 10-30 and Health to 280
  • Ulzaad: increased Physical damage to 12-16 and Health to 260
  • Ulzuin’s Torch: added 12-15 Fire damage
  • Vire: increased % Physical and % Internal Trauma damage to 120%, Physical Retaliation to 120, % All Retaliation damage to 120% and Armor to 195
  • Wraith: increased Lightning Retaliation to 25-85 and % All Retaliation damage to 30%
  • Wretch: increased Acid Retaliation to 44 and Health to 110
  • Blades of Wrath: added point-blank damage penalty
  • Fetid Pool: increased base % Retaliation added to Attack by 1%
  • Fissure: increased Cooldown to 1.8s
  • Fist of Vire: increased base % Retaliation added to Attack by 4%
  • Hyrian’s Glare: increased base % Retaliation added to Attack by 4%
  • Maul: increased % Activation Chance to 20% (WARNING: this will cause your skill assignment to reset), increased Radius to 4.5 and Duration to 5s and removed Cooldown
  • Messenger of War: increased Fire Retaliation damage
  • Phoenix Fire: fixed an issue where the Absorption effect was not applying
  • Reckless Tempest: increased Lightning damage and increased base Targets to 2
  • Shield Wall: increased base % Armor by 5% and increased % Shield Damage Blocked scaling with rank
  • Targo’s Hammer: increased base % Retaliation added to Attack by 2%
  • Trample: increased base % Retaliation added to Attack by 3%
Soldier

  • Cadence: increased Physical damage scaling with rank
  • Fighting Form: increased Bonus Targets scaling with rank to 4 at rank 12, 6 by max ultimate rank and increased % Physical and % Pierce damage scaling with rank to 134% at rank 12, 262% by max ultimate rank. Target Arc now scales with rank.
  • Forcewave: increased % Weapon damage scaling with rank to 220% by rank 16, 270% by max ultimate rank
  • Tremor: increased % Weapon damage penalty to -60%
  • Rending Force: replaced Pierce damage with Physical damage
  • Menhir’s Bulwark: increased Physical damage scaling with rank
Demolitionist

  • Searing Strike: increased % Damage Modifier to 15% and % Crit damage to 15%
  • Brimstone: reduced Fragments scaling with rank to 5-6 by rank 12, 6-7 by max ultimate rank
  • Canister Bomb: reduced Fragments scaling with rank to 8-10 by max ultimate rank
  • Shattering Blast: increased % Retaliation added to Attack scaling with rank to 30% by rank 12, 36% by max ultimate rank
  • Grenado: increased Physical damage and removed Pierce damage
  • Temper: increased Physical damage scaling with rank
  • “The Big One”: increased Burn damage scaling with rank
Occultist

  • Dreeg’s Evil Eye: increased Acid damage scaling with rank
  • Blood Burst: now also strikes the primary target, Energy Cost removed
  • Terrifying Gaze: increased Energy Cost scaling at ultimate ranks
  • Vile Eruption: increased Energy Cost scaling at ultimate ranks
Nightblade

  • Blade Spirit: reduced damage scaling with rank. Innate blade burst ability now has a point-blank damage penalty and reduced Bleed damage.
  • Execution: reduced base % Weapon damage by 30%, to 200%
Arcanist

  • Trozan’s Sky Shard: increased Cold damage scaling with rank
  • Shattered Star: increased Lightning damage scaling with rank
Shaman

  • Mogdrogen’s Pact: increased Physical damage scaling with rank
  • Savagery: increased % Weapon damage scaling at ultimate ranks to 162% by max ultimate rank
  • Stormtouched: increased % Chance of Lightning damage to 40% Chance but reduced the % Lightning damage, a net gain with smaller damage spikes
  • Wind Devil: increased Movement Speed by 33% and Duration to 18s. Adjusted AI behavior to reposition less spontaneously and follow the player more closely. Max distance away from the player before Wind Devils are teleported to the player’s position has been reduced.
  • Maelstrom: reduced Damage scaling with rank
Inquisitor

  • Chilling Rounds: increased base % Weapon damage to 55%
  • Flames of Ignaffar: increased Target area cone by approximately 10% and increased Fire damage scaling with rank
  • Intensify: increased Lightning damage scaling with rank
  • Lightning Tether: increased Lightning damage scaling with rank, particularly at ultimate ranks
  • Ranged Expertise: increased Pierce damage scaling with rank
  • Storm Spread: increased base % Weapon damage to 30% and its scaling at ultimate ranks to 40% by max ultimate rank
Necromancer

  • Raise Skeletons: reduced % Pet Attack damage on skeleton Fireball Nova, Death Bolt and Undeath Missiles
Oathkeeper

  • Heart of Wrath: reduced Fire and Burn damage scaling with rank
  • Presence of Virtue: increased Bleed and Internal Trauma damage scaling with rank
  • Haven: increased % Healing Increase scaling with rank to 22% by rank 10, 33% by max ultimate rank and increased % Health scaling with rank to 30% by rank 10, 40% by max ultimate rank
  • Rebuke: increased Physical damage scaling with rank
  • Soulfire: increased Lightning damage scaling with rank
  • Summon Guardian of Empyrion: fixed an issue where flat damage modifiers on items for this skill were not increasing the damage of the basic attack of the guardians. Reduced Burn damage scaling with rank.
  • Celestial Presence: now reduces % Elemental Resist instead of % Fire Resist. The Transmuter’s functionality remains unchanged, with the % Elemental Resist Reduction converted to % Acid Resist Reduction.
  • Vire’s Might: increased Physical damage and removed Pierce damage
  • Volcanic Stride: reduced Burn damage scaling with rank
 
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Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Sign of a sequel? They are working on a city building game.
 

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