Items are key for making good builds in Grim Dawn (GD). As a new player, you naturally have no items, so how to make a good build that can farm items? These builds and guides can help you with that, they are kind of ātransitionā builds, something you can make even with terrible RNG luck. The builds are focused around faction items, ātarget farmableā greenMonster infrequent (MI) items with not too good rolls (target farmable means you can target a monster or area and you have high chance to get them compared to random drop legendary items). Also someblue items (epic) are used since they have much higher drop chance than legendaries.
Most of these builds also contain leveling advice, some have journals to show real life examples of builds in various stages of the progress.
But what about this or that build guide I saw on reddit / youtube?
I have limited myself to include the build guides that are posted here on this forum. The guides included have a dedicated thread and follow the āphilosophiesā of beginner build like focuses on faction items and easy to get monster infrequents as described above.
Patches ā is the build still viable?
Patches in Grim Dawn does not work the same way as in say Path of Exile. Even if a guide is 3-4 patches old, it is still 95%-100% accurate. Given that the purpose of these build guides are to help you get a char to start doing end-game, you should not care about it being āoldā or āoutdatedā. You can also just ask in the thread for that particular guide if there is some important item or skill change.
What is more relevant is if the endgame - Best in Slot (BiS) geared builds that are often presented last in these guides are updated and viable. But the leveling and budget gearing part is as mentioned 95%-100% accurate and relevant.
Build uses items with variable rolls ā how can I even try to replicated those?
Green items can be very powerful and drop way more often than legendaries (purples). The presented builds are just examples, never try to get exactly those rolls of affixes. Instead, try to puzzling good greens that you have found to cover resistances and stats like offensive ability (OA) and defensive ability (DA).
A particular kind of green item type is āMonster Infrequentā (MI) which very often give very nice skill bonuses. They drop from fixed monster sources so they are pretty easy to get. Mind though, a perfect roll might take forever to get, but a perfect roll is not needed for a build to āworkā. Get around 5 or so of each MI and save them in your stash. Then you combine them together with other items that you find and faction gear to cover resistances etc.
What builds are HC viable?
For me, HC success is about your own play style and playing skills. Also, I think most people start with softcore to learn about the game and builds first. Some authors here only play HC, like Stupid_Dragon so check out his builds maybe. But again, he is an experienced and good player and builder, just because he was able to pull if off will not mean that you necessarily will. Vitality casters are also a safe bet, mostly because the amount of life steal they have. Finally soldier based builds can also provide the extra defenses for HC if you are new.
Playstyles - what are they?
Personally I think the most important thing is to figure out what playstyle fit you most, what do you enjoy playing? In this compendium builds are sorted in playstyle so it will be easier for you to pinpoint what builds looks interesting for you to try out.
[Caster] - a generic tag for casters. Here are some important sub-categories:
[Spam caster] - have its main spell(s) as skills that scales with casting speed and have essentially no cooldown.
[Cooldown caster] - have its main spell(s) as skills that have cooldown and thus make it ideal for kiting/āhit and runā.
[Channeler] - a build that has to āchannelā a skill to do damage. Eye of Reckoning counts as one, even though it scales with attack speed instead of casting speed.
[2H Caster] : for any caster that uses a two-hander weapon. No cooldown Forcewave counts as one.
[Shield Caster] : for any caster that uses a shield for whatever reason, builds based around Aegis of Menhir and cooldown Forcewave automatically count as one.
[DW Melee] - a melee autoattack build that hits enemies with two weapons;
[2H Melee] - a melee autoattack build that hits enemies with a two-hander;
[Shield Melee] - a melee autoattack build that carries a shield;
[DW Ranged] - a ranged autoattack build that hits enemies with two weapons;
[2H Ranged] - a ranged autoattack build that hits enemies with a two-hander;
[Pets] - summoners and the kind; There are two kinds of pets, those that scale with pet bonuses and those that scales with player bonuses (pseudo-pets) often when we talk about pets in GD we refer to pets that scales with pet bonuses.
[Pets / Player] - builds which have pets scaling with pet bonuses and player scaled skills both dealing significant damage
[Skater] ā Vire might skill, you skate back and forth dealing damage and activate procs. Fast movement means you can be quite efficient farming totems and materials for crafting.
I got stuck - what should I do?
You can read the other guides linked in the bottom of this page. You can also make a forum account and ask the author in the guide you are trying to follow. Also make sure to read all the comments in the guide thread, there might be others who have asked the same question.
You can also join the official discord Grim Dawn and ask there - try to be specific and explain what guide you are following and what you are trying to do and are having problems with.
Build collections
Some authors have made a compendium of their beginner builds with additional information and tips.
RektByProtoss leveling guides for every mastery. YouTube video playlist. Give good and detailed advice on the ābestā ways to level each single mastery up to āmid-gameā. He has ton of SSF (self solo found) build videos/journals that you can watch and learn from. He is a streamer on twitch and also plays HC.
Grimtools very useful tool, you can plan a build, upload and share yours, check the important quests and shrines you have missed on a character, and much more.
Monster Totems Video guide about farming monster totems.
You also skip making your own thread and instead made topic with all builds.
Sorted by play styles is also very cool! I find the lack of ranged builds disturbing. May do some 2H Purifier. Iāve left the leveling process some time ago, due to not being enjoyable but itās worth trying again, I guess.
ah yes true I need to have more hype and advertisments like those You Tube builds Perhaps add some commercials āthis build is sponsored by coca colaā
Yeah that is why I thought āsword and boardā chaos blade arc witchblade would be redundant, also sword and board warlordā¦there is forcwave
At this point, I can conclude that people just want their stuff spoonfed to them. Beginner builds is literally one of the first sections on the compendium and people still donāt find it.
But more places to find stuff is never bad. And I love how you formatted it by style! Noobs usually donāt know classes or damage types sorting by style is a good idea.
This isnāt too necessary right now as there arenāt many guides, but a summary linking to each playstyle section would be handy to navigate faster
Inspired from the end game compendium, a tag to indicate the guide has gameplay video(s), maybe other tags like āhc viableā (if the builder considers it is), etc
Where are the links to Rektās channel/guide compendium ? D:
And perhaps other youtubers that do quality stuff
Iād remove that little jab in the green spoiler, that does not feel very professionnal
Good job on the disclaimers at the beginning, those questions come back often and theyāre answered well
True, though some builds do feel safer and fool-proof (looking at you, vitality casters) and HC enthusiasts may want to begin with a safer bet so indicating those would help
Rekt does have a compendium thread and a dedicated thread for each build so I think he qualifies for the criterion, given heās the largest resource for HC gameplay, he makes a fine addition to the collection
One question, if someone wanted to add his guide from an external source like, Reddit for example, is that possible and would there be a form to fill ?
Thanks for the proposal, but Iāll have to deny it. Long ago Iāve beaten certain someone to Compendium management by volunteering myself, and time proven me right. Iām fine with you doing a beatiful version of budget build section of Compendium, but mine has to remain as a backup.
Yeah maybe but I think dividing into hc viable and not can be a bit missleading too. Also most ppl start in softcore to gain knowledge of game. I know dragon play hc exclusive so his builds are of course safe bet.
To be fair, all rekts builds do not have own thread and the vast majority of them are not ssf or geared with same philosophy as these other beginner/budget builds. I have watched some of this SSF stuff, and I see whenever he drops a good legendary he just equip it which would go against this beginner/budget build philosophy. Like my warder, I dropped two avanger set items but refrained of using them just to make a point that build works even without RNG luck so to say,
Format I guess just make a dedicated thread about build guide on the forum. I think 99% of content should be written format. So no thread with a link to yt or reddit only.
TBH I should remove Mayas pet builds for consistancy, because not even I can find themā¦ linking to her compendium āthe carnivalā should be enough.
I made an account here literally just to tell you how much of a beautiful bastard you are. Been wanting something like this for ages, seeing as Iām both new and awful at this game. Thanks a million.