Greetings! As a completely new player to Grim Dawn, I wanted to get some opinions on what the best first build might be. I know that variations of this question probably come up from time to time, so let me add a bit more detail to mine. Maybe this can even be of use to other newcomers.
My goal is to start with one character and push that character as far as possible–ideally reaching level 100 and the end of Ultimate, farming for gear, evolving into an end-game build, and then taking on and taking down some (all?) of the superbosses if possible. If that last point proves beyond my reach, then I’d at least like to end up with a good base to use for farming items for another character that could go through all of the content. Whatever classes I play on alts after that will likely depend on what kind of gear my first character acquires for storage. So let’s roll with the following assumptions for this first character:
-
I have the base game, AoM, FG, and Crucible (if that last one matters at all for this).
-
I will be playing exclusively Solo Self-Found, with no items already waiting for me in a shared stash.
-
I have at least surface-level familiarity with (i.e. I may have skimmed once or twice) some of the excellent beginner’s leveling guides published by the great build creators/theorycrafters/testers here on these forums, and would like to start with one of those builds.
-
I’d like to be able to eventually farm the Lokarr set on my first character to help with leveling subsequent characters, so a build that is inherently strong enough or somewhat naturally tuned for defeating Lokarr would be a plus.
-
The RNG hates me, so as I start farming for end-game gear, I’d want to be able to perform well enough with only items that can be found or bought without having to rely too much on low-chance random drops.
-
I don’t have any preference as far as damage type or play style goes, as long as piloting the build doesn’t feel too much like performing a classical piano recital while simultaneously taking dictation with a stenotype machine.
So given all this, a few builds stood out to me:
- Deathknight, for Krieg’s set.
- Vitality Ravenous Earth Cabalist, for Dark One’s set.
- Pet Conjurer, for Dark One’s set (and birbs)
At the same time, I’ve also heard that Warlord is a very strong starter class, and that the relatively easier availability of the Kreig and Dark One sets isn’t as big of a deal with some of the features added in Forgotten Gods. Not to mention several other interesting looking starter builds (AAR, Blademaster, etc., etc.) from a handful of well-known beginner guide creators around here, as well as other builds I may not even be aware of.
So, to sum it all up, I’m not so much asking “Which starter builds are good?” because they all look good from my vantage point, but more “Knowing what you all know now, if you were to start Grim Dawn completely fresh, which one of the many great starter builds/classes would you chose as a first character to push as far into the end-game content as you could?”