OK - pretty new here- very late to the party. Sorry for the long post.
I played the vanilla game several years ago - Normal Veteran settings and “beat the game” - never looked at any advice, forum,etc. Picked up Maulmouth a week ago and started playing again and also found this forum. Started realizing that I had no clue on how deep character building went, and I obviously had no idea how to build a good character. I was just putting devotional/skills/attribute points all over the place. Currently in Maulmouth level 60 2H rifle/ranged Elementalist. I like the rifle/ranged type gameplay and also like bombs/mines, and some casting is fun too. I do not want to just stand in front of a boss and trade blows/magic. So, because I have found both respect potions and thanks to reading this forum threads I now understand what they do, and that I can just go to the Spirit healer to respect over again on some things with money and aether crystals ( both of which I have plenty of). With that said, I am still hazy of some stuff and what to change with my build to make it better as I am unable to beat most hard bosses ( I get killed pretty quickly) - as I said I had no clue what I was doing and was just enjoying playing. Now I want to be able to take on some of those hard bosses and not just run away like a scared rabbit. Here is the best I can do after a full respec (both potions used for respecting attributes/skills/mastering bars/devotions, and a few devotion points taken in and out to get to the next constellation etc.) with my 2H Elementalist at level 60 - using the knowledge gained on this forum ( thank you!!) . Please advise and comment freely. I will not be offended as I am pretty knew to this whole thing and surely I missed some things.
Not sure if you just forgot to link components/augments or you’re just not using them.
If it’s the latter you need to socket your equipment asap.
Get rid off briarthorn pet and invest 1 point into Wind Devil and max out Raging Tempest.
Start slowly investing into Flashbang+Searing Light. It will increase your crit ratio whilst simultaneously slowing the enemy. Late game you’ll need very specific greens to be a valid build.
The downside of picking Primal Strike over Savagery is you lose the bonuses from Tenacity of the boar (which is the only oa+da booster in the Shaman tree and to make matters worse Demo has no DA boosters in his tree).
You’ll definitely want to get flashbang up to 12 first node / 6 2nd node.
I agree on getting rid of briarthorn/stormtotem/stun jacks. And wind devil (raging tempest really) is far more important than thermite mines, but you’ll want both eventually.
Also get the transmuter for primal strike asap. It’s incredible.
This may perhaps be a very unwelcome thing to hear, but I’ll say it nonetheless just so you know what to expect in the late game with your elementalist:
The elementalist struggles to perform as a ranged toon insofar as I can tell. I’ve never been able to craft an elementalist (caster or otherwise) which I was satisfied with. I would suggest leveling a vindicator or a purifier if you’re looking for a ‘powerful’ build as defined by the current meta - i.e. crucible flash farmers.
HOWEVER, please do not let my opinion of what is or isn’t ‘good’ have any impact on the way YOU want to play the game. I’m merely offering an alternative for you to consider.
The Grim cal does not seem to work for me - using Win10 64bit in Firefox. Maybe I was not clear enough in my first post = I am currently not using the character/build in the grim calc I linked. That build is just to a single possible build based on the current character I am now using which is much, much worse. Yes - I had no clue what I was doing.LOL - so general consensus seems to be do not use Prime strike as default weapon - use savagery and get rid of Briarthorn, Storm totems. Use respec potions to change out of Demolitionist/Elementalist and become a Vindicator? Do the respec potions allow that? - I do not want to start entire game over. If I can change to become a Vindicator instead of an Elementalist - which skills should I use?
So how do I get the grim cal to work properly? I cannot get the rings I am using to load at all - both are green. Grim calc is general in greens, not specific. Which I can understand- there must be thousands of variants. He cannot list every one of them.
Thank you DUCK_KING for mentioning Augments- I had forgotten about them. I have not actually done much crafting or deconstructing at all.
Malawiglenn - thank you for the comments/link. I am unsure how linking a character build that is at level 100 helps when I am at level 60- 40 levels above me will take a long time to get to. Your link does show specific gear -so how do you find and put them in the Grim calc? or does it only do that for Epic ( blue)and Lengendary ( purple) gear that is in the database? The specific 2h gun I am using is a green “Warped Sparkthrower of Alacrity (lvl 55)” which buffs Prime Strike nicely = +32 attack speed, +3 to Prime, and +40% to Crit on Prime. How would I link a specific green item in a post here. Yes, I will be looking for that Epic Sparkthrower gun- but since I am at level 60 and that gun is much higher - it will be a while before it will drop and I can use it.
Here is a guide on how to do a GrimTools for a specific char that you have
I made it myself
You can not reset a chooses mastery. There is a mod that can do that though.
You will be fine with an elementalist, it is not the “optimal” choice for a ranged char and Sir Spanksalot have much higher expectations about builds than what the “casual player” has.
Short of downloading GDstash to change the mastery of your class, your only other option is to start over.
If having a powerful build to quickly farm items (i.e. the crucible - if you have it, that is) is your ultimate goal, I still think that starting over is the fastest option.
you need l33t gear and good piloting skills to clear gladiator 150 comfortable enough to be effective
Steps of torment (the last two levels) and Challenger is good enough to get the ball rolling. One SoT run can give about 3-6 legendaries in about 10-15min, plus you can tweek your char to deal with undeads (and Chtonics in BoC)
Ok- some things answered= thanks. Some not so much. Yes, thanks for that link to teach me how to load my real character/build on the build calculator - but it is so embarrassingly bad that I have not done so.
Nope, NOT going to start game over - I play games maybe 10 hours a week. So either I do a mod/cheat to change to Vindicator or I play as a Elementalist. Either way is OK with me. I know there are purists out there that hate any modding, changing, etc. but I am of the opinion that playing a game is supposed to be enjoyable - so it matters NOT how you change the game if you enjoy it.
Farming Crucible for items is not my goal and have not gone back to kill/rekill any bossed to get any specific item to drop, nor have I gone back to any area to do farm runs for chest drops at all. And I don’t even own Crucible.
I just want to enjoy my first and probably only playthrough of a pretty cool game. So by enjoy - I mean = not get destroyed in 5-10 seconds by every new boss I stumble upon 10 times in a row before I put new gear on, etc. and figure out a way to kill them. It is fine for me to die every once in a while - especially when I don’t know what I will run into as I explore -as its my first play through. I know that is probably an unpopular point of view to some that have spent many hundreds of hours playing and figuring out perfect builds in this game.
With all that in mind - say I stay as a level 60 Elementalist playing in normal veteran mode with a goal of enjoying my first and probably only playthrough to “finish”, going back occasionally in the game to find quests that I missed and to kill bosses that I could not kill previously. So, I guess I am asking for advice on how to respect my skills and attributes and devotions only toward those goals - not to play hardcore/ultimate mode with a perfect build. I did not know Prime Strike was not supposed to be used in Main default LMB attach - LOL so why did they name it Prime Strike then - https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+prime+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1 .
Example : use Savagery for Main attack ( LMB) and Prime for RMB? or ditch prime completely and use Savagery as main skill and a RMB skill from Demolitionist? Dumb Briarthorn completely? use any pets at all? etc. etc.
OK - as I said I am a total newbie here. What is Challenger 150, or Glad 170, what does BiS mean? “Edit”- looked it up =OK best in slot - I assume it means best equipment you can find to put into that slot for that character. Again how does this relate to my situation at level 60 in normal veteran?
Don’t worry about it. Here on these boards no-one is going to hold it against you and if they do they are probably new around here and their opinion about your preferences can be promptly discarded. Grim Dawn is an intentionally moddable game and furthermore Crate is NOT against the use of third-party “cheat” tools. They want you to play the game in any manner you find enjoyable.
Most of the people here (including myself sometimes) forget that many still play this game casually and just for fun.
Yeah that looks like a good guide for what you are about to build, even though it may not be “updated” to the latest patch, I am sure it is good enough for you.
Thing is that the first build you make in these kind of games does not end up… “good”, since you learn by your mistakes and so on. I hope you will make it to the end and perhaps make another build after that
You can use Primal Strike as an LMB skill. But what it will not do is trigger things like Feral Hunger and Upheaval if you also have those skills. They only activate on default weapon attacks which Primal Strike isn’t. If you look at the build you linked to he takes Brute Force, but not the other two, even though he is also using Savagery.
Challenger and Glad (short for Gladiator) refer to difficulties in the Crucible add on. It has 3: Aspirant, Challenger and Gladiator. If you haven’t bought it, then the advice to farm there is irrelevant.
Best in Slot items are things to look out for when you collect loot since they’ll help make your character better.
OK - very good, I appreciate the encouragement.
Yes I did notice the build I linked (post #13) has “Wind devil” linked to the devotion Window Proc - which is no longer possible due to the newest update changes. That is why I was proposing a different skill= Jacks or Windigo or Vines -which can be put into the Widow Arcane bomb proc. Also What if I used Prime as my second attack- RMB and used Firestrike as my default attack-LMB, would Feral Hunger/Upheaval then work with Firestrike - or do they only work with Savagery?
Edit: Never mind - Feral hunger/upheaval only works with 2H melee- not with 2h rifle- correct??
You want to use Flashbang, you can bind both (not at the same time though) Elemental storm and Arcane bomb to it. Bind the other one to your attack skill (Savagery/primal strike etc).
ok yes = starting to get this a bit now and have played a bit more so now at level 60. At level 60 Elementalist - with finding all devotions on normal and 2 in the expansion, and doing 2/3 of the hidden path quest ( one of the many bosses I could not beat with the current character). I know there were other quests on normal that gave points- but I cant remember them and have no idea if I did them or not.
The Grim Calc always defaults to : 105 attribute points, 55 devotion points, and 244 skill points.
When trying different builds as if I did the full respec using both potions (leaving mastery alone) on my 60 level Elementalist I should set the calc to have the following points:
Devotions= 30 ( 28 + 2 that I found in the expansion) leave 25 unused on the calc.
Skills = 169 - leave 75 on the calc unused.
Attributes = 62- so leave 43 attributes unused.
Is that correct??
So, when i put the full 50 point of skill in the Shaman mastery , and 32 in the Demolitionist Mastery. I am left with 162 on the calc - or 87 left to put on specific skills.
correct?
The way I figure it I should be able to get 3 proc’s in devotions to bind to my skills using my 30 devotional points= Fiend constellation- flame torrent, Window- arcane bomb, and Rowan’s Crown - Elemental Storm, as well as get Kraken full. I will have to do a few buy backs to get there. So with main attacks skills of Prime, and Flash Bangs, what else should I set to bind to use the third proc? I have been using Flame Torrent proc with out really realizing it so i is now pretty high= level 17/25 - so why not use it somehow.
I just like Briarthorn or some type of pet as it provides an additional target for the enemy and can block enemies in small passages. Thermite mine purely for reduce enemy resistance. Am I on the right track?
