KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Hobo Elf]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

Magic missile works well enough. Just hit lvl 50, gonna mop up the last few remaining areas and then head over to elite, maybe respec later.

It's functional but lacking if you want to make a themed elemental caster. Overall it's an incredibly mediocre spell that falls short vs DEE or Fire Strike with Brimstone.

 

[ArchAngel]

Pets are good if you equip pet items, same for any attacks you have.

 

[gestalt11]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

Magic missile works well enough. Just hit lvl 50, gonna mop up the last few remaining areas and then head over to elite, maybe respec later.

It's functional but lacking if you want to make a themed elemental caster. Overall it's an incredibly mediocre spell that falls short vs DEE or Fire Strike with Brimstone.

PRM is fine, dude kills ultimate fabius in same time as brimstone DW pistols:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34478

 

[DeepOcean]

Okay, last Diablo clone I played for reals was Diablo II... so... almost clueless newbie here, been thinkering with a witchblade and that build is cool for a survival standpoint going heavy on health regen but the occultist heavy AoE heavy hitter, Doom bolt is very far in the skill tree and I won't have enough points, right now I only have as AoE Blitz and blade arc as AoE attacks. Blade Arc has some nice bleeding but bleeding damage doesn't stack. I can stand all day long getting hit but things are dying slowly. Is there a decent elemental caster build that doesn't die like a bitch? I don't need crazy AoE just enough to speed things up but boy I hate kiting and glass cannon builds.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

Magic missile works well enough. Just hit lvl 50, gonna mop up the last few remaining areas and then head over to elite, maybe respec later.

It's functional but lacking if you want to make a themed elemental caster. Overall it's an incredibly mediocre spell that falls short vs DEE or Fire Strike with Brimstone.

PRM is fine, dude kills ultimate fabius in same time as brimstone DW pistols:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34478

Guy is decked out in Legendary items. It literally does not matter what kind of shit build he'd run, it'd work no matter what with that gear. His damage isn't particularly impressive either. My DEE crits for about the same amount except it also has a DoT critting for 20k scratch that I just saw my DEE DoT ticking for 40k damage alone on the side.

 

[gestalt11]

Facing the red guys on veteran as a shaman. Their debufs are nullifying any defences I may have had. So I have to grind until I find the equipment needed with the necessary resistances or craft it which means I have to grind for materials.
12 types of damage surely were a great idea.

Also I've noticed my briathorn became utterly useless after mid game. It was the same with my occultist pets. Seems like a fine idea to have a pet until mid game and then reset any points you invested there, somewhere else.

I am not sure of your build but these are not always your only option, for example many people vastly under estimate Blast Shield in Demo mastery. If you have a good aoe and blast shield you can often just power through things and kill enough things to in the 4 seconds its active to have good defense via offense. This is one of the reasons that Elementalist can be a better 2H fighter than many Warder build (also thermite mine is now an very excellent resist debuff for lightning/fire/chaos).

Also you can get resistances from devotion if you need it. Anyway just being a 2H ranged Shman with primal strike + something (I am using elementalist) is enough to mess up things entire room of cultists no matter what your defenses. You can probably finish all of veteran with liek 10% in each resistance alone. Any that build gets a very good lightning crossbow at lvl 35 from Kymon's faction so you don't need to grind any to hit hard.

 

[gestalt11]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

Magic missile works well enough. Just hit lvl 50, gonna mop up the last few remaining areas and then head over to elite, maybe respec later.

It's functional but lacking if you want to make a themed elemental caster. Overall it's an incredibly mediocre spell that falls short vs DEE or Fire Strike with Brimstone.

PRM is fine, dude kills ultimate fabius in same time as brimstone DW pistols:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34478

Guy is decked out in Legendary items. It literally does not matter what kind of shit build he'd run, it'd work no matter what with that gear. His damage isn't particularly impressive either. My DEE crits for about the same amount except it also has a DoT critting for 20k on the side.

DEE would not leverage Arcane Bomb and Argivix like PRM. You can get a lot of Aether damage on PRM and buff a bunch of aether and -res the aether. DEE can be leveraged just fine and obviously this guys equipment and devotions are an important part of the build. But just comparing two skills is not insightful towards its performance and you can't assume there are equipment analogs for all build types.

Although I suppose if your DEE DPS kills Fabius in 20sec when you are all legendaried out that would be a solid number showing its better. The only one i have seen that is faster than 30sec is a melee DW with really high attack speed one.

 

[1451]

Most enemies do not offer great resistance. Not even elite mobs. But when I face a boss my character suddenly misses half of his attacks, doesn't matter if I am facing a bulky troll or a nimble demon summoning gunner. At least 50% of attacks simply miss.

I was thinking of making a ranged cunning auto attacker for my next character but after seeing how weak auto attacks are against bosses, I think I will just roll an arcanist.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

Magic missile works well enough. Just hit lvl 50, gonna mop up the last few remaining areas and then head over to elite, maybe respec later.

It's functional but lacking if you want to make a themed elemental caster. Overall it's an incredibly mediocre spell that falls short vs DEE or Fire Strike with Brimstone.

PRM is fine, dude kills ultimate fabius in same time as brimstone DW pistols:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34478

Guy is decked out in Legendary items. It literally does not matter what kind of shit build he'd run, it'd work no matter what with that gear. His damage isn't particularly impressive either. My DEE crits for about the same amount except it also has a DoT critting for 20k on the side.

DEE would not leverage Arcane Bomb and Argivix like PRM. You can get a lot of Aether damage on PRM and buff a bunch of aether and -res the aether. DEE can be leveraged just fine and obviously this guys equipment and devotions are an important part of the build. But just comparing two skills is not insightful towards its performance and you can't assume there are equipment analogs for all build types.

Although I suppose if your DEE DPS kills Fabius in 20sec when you are all legendaried out that would be a solid number showing its better. The only one i have seen that is faster than 30sec is a melee DW with really high attack speed one.

And you can supplement DEE's damage with Vulnerability and Acid Spray. Both debuffs stack btw. And it is possible to compare the two skills since they are essentially the same except one of them has weaker DPS and AoE (PRM).
I'm kinda interested in Arcane Bomb providing an Aether debuff now though. I see that Eldritch Fire provides one for Chaos as well. I might make my Chaos Warrior now since the lack of Chaos debuff was holding back that specific type of damage.

 

[DDZ]

Bought this game.

Gonna play maybe.

 

[gestalt11]

Most enemies do not offer great resistance. Not even elite mobs. But when I face a boss my character suddenly misses half of his attacks, doesn't matter if I am facing a bulky troll or a nimble demon summoning gunner. At least 50% of attacks simply miss.

I was thinking of making a ranged cunning auto attacker for my next character but after seeing how weak auto attacks are against bosses, I think I will just roll an arcanist.

This means your Offensive Ability is too low. So arcanist can be good since it gets a passive with %OA. Also Demo is good since Flame Touched is good OA and flashbang is a VERY strong DA debuff. Occultist gets good OA from its heal/regen Blood of Dreeg. Also consider getting some rings or something with OA and maybe put roiling blood on them

 

[Hobo Elf]

Viper, Hawk and Chariot are great for OA as well. Getting OA is so easy now.

 

[gestalt11]

I'm playing a cold caster atm and it's been a breeze all the way through vet. Biggest downside is that it's pretty damn boring.

The lack of a cold spell specific spammable spell hurts it. You can supplement Trozan with component spells, but they are kinda boring and weak after Normal/Vet. Fire has the same issue although Grenado and Canister Bomb help a lot more than Trozan does. You people building Cold casters should upgrade yourself to a fun style and roll as a Lightning Wizard. Now there is a fun build.

Magic missile works well enough. Just hit lvl 50, gonna mop up the last few remaining areas and then head over to elite, maybe respec later.

It's functional but lacking if you want to make a themed elemental caster. Overall it's an incredibly mediocre spell that falls short vs DEE or Fire Strike with Brimstone.

PRM is fine, dude kills ultimate fabius in same time as brimstone DW pistols:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34478

Guy is decked out in Legendary items. It literally does not matter what kind of shit build he'd run, it'd work no matter what with that gear. His damage isn't particularly impressive either. My DEE crits for about the same amount except it also has a DoT critting for 20k on the side.

DEE would not leverage Arcane Bomb and Argivix like PRM. You can get a lot of Aether damage on PRM and buff a bunch of aether and -res the aether. DEE can be leveraged just fine and obviously this guys equipment and devotions are an important part of the build. But just comparing two skills is not insightful towards its performance and you can't assume there are equipment analogs for all build types.

Although I suppose if your DEE DPS kills Fabius in 20sec when you are all legendaried out that would be a solid number showing its better. The only one i have seen that is faster than 30sec is a melee DW with really high attack speed one.

And you can supplement DEE's damage with Vulnerability and Acid Spray. Both debuffs stack btw. And it is possible to compare the two skills since they are essentially the same except one of them has weaker DPS and AoE (PRM).
I'm kinda interested in Arcane Bomb providing an Aether debuff now though. I see that Eldritch Fire provides one for Chaos as well. I might make my Chaos Warrior now since the lack of Chaos debuff was holding back that specific type of damage.

Well chaos and aether still have some res problems since cultists and aetherial tend to high res to the one they have affinity and you are basically stuck with Witchblade(chaos/fire)/AB(aether/lightning) devotion + acid spary(universal). Vulnerability will do elemental/vit/bleed/phys/poison&acid but none for aether/chaos.

Really the fire or lightning can stack a good bit more, Occulist/demo being the most because of thermite mine (which is something like -50% fire/lightning and like 33% chaos give or take). Since hellfire on thermite also debuffs chaos I think chaos may be better than aether. However Arcane bomb is really damaging and maybe better than witchblade devotion for the actual damage part, Ithink it also does a higher debuff at -33%. So in the end you can maybe get mostly similar res debuff (maybe 10 less?) for less investment.

Poison of course has the NB aura which can also be pretty great but Acid spray is not specific to poison so there is no second devotion with a -% to stack on it and Mark of Dreeg won't stack with it either.

Brimstone builds seem really tight and leveraging a pyromancer to get max fire and chaos resistance is kind of hard with only 85 levels. Elementalist Primal strike or savagery(without procs) + various lighting only -res is strangely somewhat easier to fit and still works very well with Arcane bomb as the lightning and aether parts are roughly equal.

Arcane bomb is really nasty paired with Grasping vines. It can clear groups of normal in Elite all by itself with a lightning focus and procs almost instantly. Also it has -OA so it helps some defensively.

Anyway I think a chaos route is pretty viable but you probably really want Demo for the mines. On the other hand I while I have not extensively test witchblade devotion (I know its pretty good) I have a strong suspicion Arcane Bomb is overall better by a good margin. So perhaps that makes up for Chaos having the extra -res possibility from hellfire mines. Eldritch fire though has no listed recharge and spreads while AB has recharge but hit in a 5 meter AOE. They are both very nice damage.


I believe it is actually lightning that can be debuffed the most (ignoring vitality/bleed) because thermite is such a large debuff so its either fire or lightning and arcane bombs is I think about 8% more -%res. Fairly small difference there though. Chaos comes in fairly far behind at like 50 less due to hellfire being less than first part of thermite and nothing on Vulnerability and maybr 40 less than Fire. But all in all still a pretty hefty amount of minus res at -33+-20+-25 for about -80.

Also chaos gets no benefit from the viper 20% off elemtnal res. but fire and lightning will (personally this is meh to me I can't even fit viper into my 2H lightning build due to using kraken, but for a non two hander its something to consider since they give same color points).

 

[4249]

The +Aether% from Disintegration is still applied even with the transmuter. So going 50 Arcanist would be worth the %damage bonus, the crit bonus and about 50-60 spirit. I'd probably drop the healer bird for that and get heals from devotion, and Blood of Dreeg.

If you have a skill, such as a Transmuter, that converts the damage your attack does, then this calculation is performed before any bonuses from other skills, attributes or equipment are considered. Skill modifiers are still applied first. What this means is that if you take a skill that normally deals Aether damage and use Conversion to make it deal Chaos damage instead, then the skill will benefit from % Chaos Damage bonuses instead of % Aether Damage bonuses.

Yes but if you convert to Chaos you should probably run Posesssion and not Reckless Power. Reckless would only buff the fire part of AR. However RP would give cast speed too which helps AR. Posesssion give 12% damage absorb which put onto pof Maivens should be rather good defense, so I think it would be better. Finally you would absolutely want Witchblade Deovtion which reduces Chaos and Fire resistance and if you can fit it in Acid Spray from manticore will be enhanced by Posession and the enahncer skill of blood of dreeg.

Where did I even mention Reckless Power? What the fuck are you on about?

 

[Jaesun]

The whole Resistance crap is going to drive me up a wall....

 

[Durandal]

All this theorycrafting makes me constantly anxious whether I'm doing something inefficient or whether I could have picked a better synergy

So far playing lv. 16 pure Demo on normal/vet as a Molotov + Fire/Explosive Strike build with a 2h Ranged. I put alot of points in Flame Touched for the sake of increasing Offensive Ability. Devotion points I put in extra fire damage and phys damage, although I guess I'll have to put some in life/resists later on. So far wondering whether I should go for Grenado or/and Canister Bomb later on. Am I doing it right, or am I just following a path to ruin like this on higher difficulties?

 

[Wolfenswan]

All this theorycrafting makes me constantly anxious whether I'm doing something inefficient or whether I could have picked a better synergy

So far playing lv. 16 pure Demo on normal/vet as a Molotov + Fire/Explosive Strike build with a 2h Ranged. I put alot of points in Flame Touched for the sake of increasing Offensive Ability. Devotion points I put in extra fire damage and phys damage, although I guess I'll have to put some in life/resists later on. So far wondering whether I should go for Grenado or/and Canister Bomb later on. Am I doing it right, or am I just following a path to ruin like this on higher difficulties?

I found that as a long as you don't generalize all builds are playable on normal/vet. Resetting skills and devotions is dirt cheap anyway, so no mistake is permanent. The demo/occultist I just finished normal/vet with ended up with full firestrike and using the flashbang (and the first curse from occultist) for CC. In between I used the hellfire mines as I had found a +5 skill bonus set. They were amazing but would be much better on a tank focused build.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Durandal, a Demo/Occultist ranged dual-wielder with Solael's and Fire Strike is an absolute killing machine that makes most of the content trivial. I'm still equipping for proper Ultra end-game, but the Bastion of Chaos is a laughable Elite run. Maybe 10-12 seconds for the BoC boss. Sheet DPS is an easy 32k, with lvl60 equivalent items.

Even better: because it tops up the Occultist mastery, you can go for the exclusive skill there, and walk into the end game (Ultra, Necropolis Cthonians) with 80%+ Chaos resist.

Alternatively, I'm currently running a Demo/Arcanist. Mortar, Thermite Mine, Canister Bomb + Blackwater Cocktail. Only up to Lvl 40 Normal, but it minces content with very mediocre equipment. You don't need much in the way of defensive Devotion choices (maybe Giant's Blood), since you have access to the Mirror of Ereoctes and Maiven's Sphere and kiting is incredibly easy (get the transmuter on the BC, throw at mob half a screen away, follow up with Canister Bomb, watch them die (or run away)) . This allows you to pump up the volume on the offensive selection (I'm going for Ulzuin's Torch).

So far wondering whether I should go for Grenado or/and Canister Bomb later on. Am I doing it right, or am I just following a path to ruin like this on higher difficulties?

Grenado is very damaging on single targets or very small clumps of enemies. CB is, basically, a cluster bomb that can lay waste to a huge area. They're not really either/or, in that sense. Both benefit from the passive at the very end of the Demo skill tree, which massively boosts their damage and - fairly often - can reset their cooldowns instantly.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I like the fact that Grim Dawn makes the best items in the game very difficult to acquire - but once you do, your quest is done.

Diablo 3 is a totaly different animal, which makes gathering any collection of items relatively achievable. However, it then asks you to spend hundreds of hours tweaking them in minor ways (Ancient + best rolls). It doesn't feel rewarding.

 

[ArchAngel]

Any build that does not mince meat on Normal is a very crap build. It is easy to make anything good on Normal.

 

[Lone Wolf]

No argument, there. But from previous experience with various class/skill combinations, this Demo/Arcanist combo will translate well to Elite (and, eventually, Ultra). It kites really well; has serious survivability with MoE/MS; and its AOE damage is huge. Good combination of different sources of damage, too (internal trauma, fire, burning, pierce and elemental).

I'll report back if it doesn't work out, in the end.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Everything should work now quite well. A few builds back I made a Soldier + Occultist that did Chaos damage with guns and I hit a literal wall with Loghorrean because I simply did no damage at all due to him resisting Chaos, but now that even Chaos and Aether resists can be debuffed and enemy health has been scaled down, every type of damage should be viable.

 

[gestalt11]

All this theorycrafting makes me constantly anxious whether I'm doing something inefficient or whether I could have picked a better synergy

So far playing lv. 16 pure Demo on normal/vet as a Molotov + Fire/Explosive Strike build with a 2h Ranged. I put alot of points in Flame Touched for the sake of increasing Offensive Ability. Devotion points I put in extra fire damage and phys damage, although I guess I'll have to put some in life/resists later on. So far wondering whether I should go for Grenado or/and Canister Bomb later on. Am I doing it right, or am I just following a path to ruin like this on higher difficulties?

1) Grenado and canister are both quite strong and are better than molotov, but the recharge can be annoying.
2) A mistake many people make is heavily investing in skill with +dam%. These skills are only nice to have for example my level 60 elite elementalist has like 650% lightning damage so if I put a point that adds 8% into flame touched its not that large of an effect. OA is important but as long as you are hitting I wouldn't worry about trying to get super high by investing in skills unless that skill does something (like blood of dreeg or flashbang both which are good defense too)
3) In general, using veteran as a reference, you want to decide on a reliable way to stay alive and have it working by the time you get near to the first level of the warden or norther burrwitch.

As general guidance if you are going mostly offensive your goal should be to be able to do 1000 damage quickly. I say this number because that is roughly what will kill an aetherial mutant. By quickly I mean one hard hit or two/three fast/very fast hits. How you stay alive can vary alot. Life steal + some skills. Flashbang/Fraility/graspong vines+range kiting. Often rushing as many point into your chosen offense as possible with a few low point investments in key skills is best. For example in the Elementalist rushing savagery or primal strike and then putting about 4 points into flashbang and its fumble passive and say 1-3 points in grasping vines is enough to take well probably all of veteran if you went with ranged weapons. In that case rushing say primal strike to 16/16 and a bit into torrent ASAP will essentially offesnively overwhelm most things except the Warden himself.

Unforatunately you have picked a build that is hard to give guidance on as Demo with fire strike really really wants you to rush to brimstone for excellent damage and also you really want to get blast shield to about 5 points or so and blast shield is now fairly high up. You should be OK, but I think most guides would suggest going pure grenado/canister until you can get enough point for FS to work well. It will probably feel weak until about level 30 or so. Canister + greando with a high point investment will blast things apart.

 

[Aruil]

A little off topic, but thought i would ask here first. Does anyone else have serious performance issues?

I run it on a i7-930 18gb ram and 670 2gb and the only way to have close to 60 fps is by turning everything off/low. In the starting town i can get to 70+ but that's an almost static place. The really strange thing is that I upgraded from an ati 5850 2gb and while in every other game I have seen huge improvements, here it's almost the same deal.

 

[1451]

Removed all points I had in briathorn and added them in auto attacks. Was frightened for a moment, since I made ui bigger and because of this it showed I had only one point available when in reality I had 12.
Didn't see any other fun skills in the shaman so I will be multiclassing as a shaman/soldier since the latter has lots of aa passive procs. Time will tell.