Beginner here, need help

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi,

First sorry for my English, I am not a native speaker, far from it.

I have bought the game recently, it is really nice I have to say, much better than PoE and quite different from D2/D3. In such game (ie. game where it is not possible to refound every stats) I like to follow a build guide (just because really why no refound?).

So i decided to follow this guide - edit - which I cannot link since it’s my first post here (stupid idea) :
it is the “Tri-element Saboteur 2.0” dual blade
(I am aware that is is slightly outdated, I read page 80 - Btw, and I am really sorry to say it, but this site is really ugly and it makes everything about the game extremely unclear…especially with all the technical jargon)
Nevermind, I started in veteran, because “why not ?” and the game was really easy until I reached level 40, at this point I switched to melee dagger as suggested in the build and all went wrong…I never died as range, I was just owning everything, It required a little kitting sometime but it’s ok I guess.
As melee, I just keep dying again and again…I have much more damage, but I just can’t survive and I am forced to kite a lot more, which is kinda ironical. And there are some really annoying shit like aetherfire and crystals that just destroy me. I cannot go anymore in the conflagration, whereas I reached the necropolis with range spec. Also Dots kill me so easily, it happened many times that poison killed me after I killed every foes (yes I am spamming pneumatic burst).

So now I am stuck, should I go back to range and I am afraid to be stuck later on in the game, or is there anything I missed with the melee build (I just take too much damage)?

Also, just some random questions, why is it that developers find it funny to add 2500 different kind of components? It is a PoE disease (without “Search bar” - sigh). I can’t really see the fun in that, especially for beginners. Are there some place to farm components, how do I know where to find what? For instance, where do I get “haunted steel”, the forgemaster doesn’t even has it in its list? Why the quest objectives are so minimalistic (really it’s much worse than D2) I just keep looking on the Grim Dawn wiki, because I actually don’t have the courage to read and memorize the 200 lines of reading for each quest.

Thanks a lot for your help, especially if you have any idea why I just can’t make the melee build works or I you have any other beginner build to suggest.

2

Few tips for you:

  1. Dont play Glass Cannons until you get decent gear and get familiar with the game.
  2. Try Soldier (prefferably in a physical-based build).
  3. Capping resistances, having decent armour and physical res, and enough ADCTH is imperative for survival.

If you start playing a strong, TANKY (!) build (and most of them are based on Soldier, and most of the rest - on Shaman), capping all resists including CC ones, you’ll feel the difference.

Saboteur is just too squishy, and you can do nothing with it. No matter how great gear you’ll use for him, he still will have too low HP and too poor defences to survive through hard content.

P.S. You get Haunted Steel from factions (Kymon’s/Death Vigil). And most bounty quests (kill a certain hero or bring certain item) arent worth your time or efforts. Just skip them till you get quest for something you will complete quite easily (killing a boss in fixed location, or several common enemies).

3

MortalKombat has some good suggestions. However, to clear up some confusion, you CAN respec your points. The only thing you can’t redo is change your Masteries, but attribute points, skill points, and devotion points can all be reset (the latter two with the Spirit Guide and attribute points with Tonic of Reshaping, available in the expansion).

So in that sense, don’t worry about being stuck later if you switch back to ranged. If that was what was working for you, do that. You’ll be able to adjust things later. Like MortalKombat said, any build that includes Soldier is pretty good for a beginner, since it has so many built-in survivability skills, which makes you less dependent on gear.

I feel you on the components dilemma. Honestly, I highly recommend dedicating a single shared stash tab (so all your characters will have access/dump in the same place) to components and crafting materials and then using the built-in auto sort feature. This will alphabetize them all which makes it a little easier to find what you’re looking for. Also, as you play more, you’ll get a feel for what’s what, just takes some experience.

Also, for some more tips and helpful information for beginners, check out my New Player Knowledge Compendium. Trust me, I had all the same questions you did when I started and that should do a lot to help you feel more comfortable with game mechanics.

4

Thanks a lot for your reply,

I have prioritized health and resists over damage but it’s like you said saboteur is really squishy. I picked this build randomly, just because it said “for beginner”, “low gear”…I’ll make a soldier I think, finish the story line and then I will see.

I did know about the skills and devotion points, but what annoyed me was attributes, so I am relieved to learn that they can be refound too :slight_smile: !

@ceruleansong: I will have a look on your guide, it looks really nice.

Thanks

5

Without good gear, and Attack damage converted to health (ADCTH), even a soldier isn’t all that tanky. And ADCTH isn’t all that useful until you start doing decent damage.

I wouldn’t worry about resists too much from levels 1-20, as you won’t really be capable of getting them very high anyway and with 20% resists across the board, you’d still get hit pretty hard. HP, Physique, and damage is really your best focus early on, and maybe some energy regen if you are having troubles with energy usage (don’t make your skills too high if you can’t control the energy usage, unless you plan to use them sparingly).

Recently, I’ve found the most universally easy to level method for levels 1-14 (up to 25, if you can find Flintcore bolts). Level to 7 as normally, which should be easy for any character, then place an “Searing ember” component on your weapon or offhand/shield. Now you gain access to Fireblast. Place a “Chilled Steel” component on your other hand for Ice Spike to deal with those resistant to fire (place on your right and left mouse attack). The damage is about as good as any skill, and allows you to put points into your class level and gain lots of stats. At level 15, you can upgrade it to Flintcore Bolts, which might not be easy for you to get, so you might stop there.

This allows you to be a lot more tanky with a lot of stats, and can wear most any gear your level, because your stats are puffed up. It also allows you to pick up higher level skills a lot sooner, but don’t put all skills in the class level as you near level 15, as you will want to plan to have your primary abilities ready for level 15 (or 25 if you find a Flintcore bolt).

6

In my experience saboteur is pretty good. I could farm fabius with it consistently without bis gear (jajaja’s build) It might not be good for crucible but for a beginner to start farming it’s not bad at all.

7

I recommend you read this:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56243

8

Hi,

I have few others questions if you mind helping me,

I liked the story, the lore is quite developed but am I supposed to do the game again on elite and ultimate? Does it bring something else than just doing crucible? I just grabbed the extra skill point given at the beginning.

I feel a little stuck with gear, I made a soldier and I am basically spamming Forcewave (and kitting boss is fun but slightly ironical) and I have seen that Octavius set would be great with it, but I can’t really find it for now, that’s it?

Thanks for your answers,

9

Yes, you are supposed to complete the game 2 more times. You will receive extra devotion points from shrines, and extra skill/attribute points from quests
Spamming Forcewave? Welcome to the club!
Octavius set is great, but it’s rather made for 1-h + shield Forcewave. Sure, you can use it for 2-h “spammer” too, without a shield.
But there are other options. for example, my build uses Justice set (non-mythical), Mythical Justice set is also great, though rather made for fire-based Forcewave (but you still can use it without gloves for physical build).

Here’s my build BTW:
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2ELg9lN

10

Hi again,

So now I have reached lvl 70 and I can’t go further, I mean I can, but I just don’t do any more damage. I got some good items I guess but not for soldier, and green/blue gear doesn’t help. Plus I don’t really see how the damage are calculated (how come that the game tell me that a better weapon make me lose 1k DPS in the comparison of both items?).

So what am I supposed to do now, there is no way of getting specific items, and anyway the build I was following use Octavius set which cannot drop yet…

Have you some other tips to help ?

Thanks,

11

For beginners, the best way of farming some legendaries is Twin Falls runs on Ultimate.
You TP to Twin Falls rift, go left, then down, through wasp camps and into wasp cave, then clear the cave. Wasps are very weak, spawn many heroes and drop useful items for craft too. And no nemesis spawns there :).

12

Legendaries also drop as quest rewards - for killing Loghorrean if you’re above 50 and killing Marcell (I don’t know if there is a level limit for this, it probably is).

There are also smiths that craft legendaries, you meet them on ultimate.

You can try this build here: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52683. It was made to work for a beginner (it has a link with the build using only faction gear). The best thing about it, in my opinion, is that the second best weapon for the build is farmable in one specific place, and it only takes you about 30 minutes to an hour to get a decent one.

If you decide to try the build, don’t feel bad about leveling another character, you can get more legendaries as quest rewards this way :slight_smile:

13

The game calculates DPS for your left click skill only. (Or, if your left click does no damage, it will choose the right click skill.)
For almost any build, the DPS calculation is not a good indication of how much DPS you will actually do.

For example, some of my builds use Amarasta’s Blade Burst on my left click so that I can always keep Lethal Assault active without thinking about it. So any weapon that gives a bonus to Amarasta’s Blade Burst will always say it has better DPS, even though it might be weaker on every attack except Amarasta’s Blade Burst.

14

Also, melee characters are a bit more difficult to play well because you always need to balance offense with defense and there’s not much room for mistakes.

Have you considered casters, particularly dot casters?

Dreezto’s poison witchblade build looks very good for a new player: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52149. There’s a lot of support for poison in the game.

EDIT: The build was updated by Zhuugus for AoM: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61983, build 3 under ‘Casters’. It uses three green items and getting the right combination of prefix and affix is very hard, use whatever you have.

15

Okay thanks for the replies, I will give a look at all of this, I don’t really want to restart for the third time yet though. I want to push a little more with the one I have if possible.

You can try this build here: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52683. It was made to work for a beginner (it has a link with the build using only faction gear). The best thing about it, in my opinion, is that the second best weapon for the build is farmable in one specific place, and it only takes you about 30 minutes to an hour to get a decent one.

Do you think this build would work as a tactician instead ?

Thanks a lot

16

Yes, it has a Tactician build too. Look in the quote following the “Cunning” section.