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Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
21

Look deeper. Obviously it takes time and effort and lots of experience to get used to the huge possibilities. And the skill trees are loaded with “AH HA” moments as you evolve your build.

With Sigil, all I can do is vary its damage type or add a couple more damage types. That it. That’s my build variety once I chose to go with Sigil. Shrug. That’s not really build depth once you have become used to a tree that can really change everything about a skill, as well as its damage.

Imagine with Wind Devils (to use your example) you could spec them to do things like (just making this up…)

  1. Make it one big Devil max but it deals 4x damage of a small one.
  2. Wind Devils orbit tight around the player and no longer deal damage, instead they do…whatever buff.
  3. Wind Devils can be targeted onto a specific enemy and stay on them till they die, reducing their elemental resistance by x and dealing a DoT.
  4. Wind Devils rush towards the target location and explode, dealing huge Lighting in an AoE
  5. Wind Devils spin in a large circle orbiting the player and destroy any incoming projectiles.
  6. Wind Devils move around randomly but have a tether of Lightning between each other that deals damage.

That’s the kind of variety you get on skills in the Last Epoch trees.

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22

granted i didn’t look at many, but what i looked at fit my wind devil description “perfectly”

it might be different “attacks” added, but it’s still what GD does, just cut up into pieces and spread out, when at least half of them could have been, like in GD easily have been unified into a single node/skill/effect, for the players benefit

base skill, minus x effects and dmg
node out that just basic stat upgrade, could easily have been baked into main skill poin upgrade
another node with additional dmg to main skill, ala how wind devil main node has phys dmg and lightning dmg
another node with new effect, ie raging tempest
then anode with dmg upgrade to that node
then a node adding a status effect or some buff/debuff to that node
then a new skill/effect addition, with the same piecemeal separation as above
it’s why i used wind devil and not sigil, because wind devil does basically that
this, to my eyes looks what LE does, each colour corresponds to a skill mod in LE

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^that’s 15 different things, just made individual…

that’s how you get 20 some skill nodes, GD just cut through the BS and went like “wouldn’t it just make more sense and have it be part of the same?” :thinking:

obv granted not every skill in GD is specifically like wind devils, tho in LE similarity pierce meal effect many seem to be still, in GDSigils are just as generic a skill as they come. But even GD sigils they would have easily cut up into atleast 8 separate nodes :sweat_smile:
which honestly, imo, GD fanboi’ism aside, seem not just superfluous, but almost “insulting” in terms of build depth, because it’s just sorta artificially inflated by cutting it up to so small individual bonuses that didn’t “need” to

*should maybe point out i’m not dissing all the separate and different skill effects in LE
as mentioned Sigils basically has none, so using it as an example doesn’t really seem like a full 1:1, and there are still more addon skills than you get with most of GDs 3node/multi effect skills - but the inflation stems from many of the supporting could easily have been merged together and been an incremental base upgrade
like how you get increasing more frags on some skills in gd, aside from base dmg, instead of having more frags being a separate node, or more targets be a separate node, just have it be part of the base upgrade, liek maelstrom +targets at breakpoints. And obviously include silly base dmg/passive stat upgrades in the main nodes too, like, that’s just stingy, even GD gets you multiple stats per regular passive/generic dmg boost node

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23

Yes several nodes will behave as you say but many more do more significant things as per my Wind Devil examples. Where is the Wind Devil node to make it live longer? Or increase the summon limit? Or give it a wider range? 3 very simple things that you cannot even change. They may have rolled a ton of potential nodes into only 3 nodes but the price is a huge loss in customization options.

GD has very very few skills whose behaviour you can change like that. The closest is its 1 point nodes that slant off diagonally from the main lines (e.g Primal Strike’s Thunderous Strike node). Even then these often just change damage type and that is it. Thunderous Strike is an unusual one in that it very significantly changes Primal Strike. Last Epoch has TONS of nodes like that throughout it’s skill trees (look for 1 point only nodes out at the extremes of branches in the trees).

24

items

items

items or base stat upgrade (i think) - or it’s one of those skills that just default has so huge range it doesn’t really “need” more, unlike the stingy range upgrades i saw in some of the LE skills :sweat_smile:

and that was mentioned earlier i think, that while a lot of the skills in GD are pretty sparse being confined to 3 nodes “max” on avg, they then handled it by supplementing on items
granted a lot of them are just generic conversions, but it would be hugely dishonest to say that’s all there is, some items have such useful or even defining skill addition mods they are built around, like permanent wind devils, or spam summon all in 1 cast…
unsure if it’s a limitation of how the GD skill tree works (sorta doubt it from mods), or Crate just didn’t wanna bloat the GD skill trees like some mods, or LE, and opted to then add some bonus stuff on items

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25

OK so which items give me the 6 crazy things I listed in my previous post?

What if I want to customize 2 skills and the items that do that use the same item slot? What do I do when a far superior item for that slot drops, but doesn’t have the behaviour modification I need on it? Seems items that alter skill behaviour is a very clunky approach and frustrating approach to take.

Because equivalent LE items simply give you more points to spend on a skill, you have far superior customization options.

26

please don’t try to move the goal post, i already said this

you ask for “ok where is XYZ” for this skill, because LE gives that, i then provide that
asking for “even more”, when there still is a limit, and that limit has already been mentioned and established, doesn’t really do much, other than confirm “yes LE has on avg more effects than GD” - we already acknowledged that, and it’s the positive thing about their skills, while the other is then a detractor, and the inflation detractor remains (depending on pov ofc)

Likewise “moar effects” has been requested in GD, because “obv” people want that, you give people popcorn and suddenly they want it buttered, caramelized, chocofied etc etc etc, and GD devs at some point had the sentiment “enough is enough, if you want more you mod it”
might be a little cop out, but at the same time ok i can see the point, “when is enough enough?” - fortunately we then do have some awesome modders i’ve seen, so you can still get more effects if you want “even more”/don’t think devs handful was enough
would it be dope if we could get everything, sure, but can’t always get that; in the same vein we could ask why LE stopped at 6 effects?, when they could add 10, 15, or supplement with additional item effects on top, “it goes both ways” in the end

27

They are my goal posts since I am here stating LE’s approach is superior because of the flexibility it offers your build. I didn’t really move them either, that list was the first thing I said that GD lacked in its customization options for skills. The joy of LE’s build options is making your Wind Devil do stuff it doesn’t remotely do normally, not in adding more Lightning damage to it.

28

that’s where actual build choice comes in, sacrifice X for Y, not a generic incremental stat upgrade because you didn’t have enough skill points, that you then try to make up for on generic +skills anyway

same type of customization just handled different and with differing amounts, guessing because of design choices
what you are requesting is not build depth, just more skills, simple as that, GD could do that pretty easily, devs just chose the current amount forwahtever reason
if you focus on quantity, sure LE has “moar”; but it does not = depth or superior customization options (imo), it’s just quantity, maybe even quantity over quality because of the upgrade inflation on top, but that’s ofc somewhat subjective either way

doesn’t change asking for A, getting A, then demanding B and not accepting A if B isn’t delivered too now, is kinda “silly”…

29

Well you’ll just have to take my word on that then. It’s amazing. It’s the reason that I have 5 Liches in Last Epoch, many sharing the same skills, and yet they play completely differently.

30

i have more than 5 blademasters, sharing same skills, they all play totally different too :sweat_smile: - i’ve just now, after 5 years, reached a point where i’ve started to consider diving into the mods, that’s how long and how much variation GD provided me, running the “same” classes and skills or even builds multiple times

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31

I have a Blademaster @ level 85, one of my favourite classes. Could you link me at least 2 of these build that use the same skills yet play completely differently?

For the record my BM plays like this…

Pneumatic
Shadow Strike into group.
Ring of Steel to stun everything
Blade Burst to buff myself (repeat every 4 secs)
Spam Cadence until I need to rebuff → kill all
Teleport with Glyph (or SS if it’s off cooldown) to next group.

But I have a poison Dervish that plays more or less the same and I’d like some variation between the two.

Which made me think. Because you pick 2 masteries in GD, a lot of classses actually play the same because they have the same dominant mastery and only differ in the secondary mastery. So the build diversity is lower that it may first appear.

32

(gdstashed) meme ss/blitz hybrid thingy Blademaster, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
my all time favourite [1.1.7.2] The Melee King - maximum damage DW pierce Cadence Blademaster (sub 5 min Crucible, SR75-76)
dual wield blade arc, doesn’t really feel the same as melee aa+wps like belgo and cadence (probably for obvious reasons of 1h blade arc) Blademaster, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
aand i had a real shadow striker somewhere (noctirns) that i can’t seem to find - plays differently from the first meme, not weaving cadence/blitz/ring of steel the same
like this, but “worse”/blademaster [1.1.9.5] Noctirn Infiltrator - DW Pierce Shadow Strike. SR 85 / Ravager of Minds

make an acid EoR dervish with potential acid SS filler via dunefiend set,
make a weird “not reaper/not trickster” phantasmal blades dervish,
make a ranged ABB dervish
puer eor dervish as fire dmg

33

If you think those 3 BM builds play significantly differently, then Last Epoch will seriously blow your mind. That’s really the best recommendation I can give. My 5 Liches are much more diverse; they feel like 5 different classes.

I have a fire EoR Templar that I think would play more or less the same.

34

trust me, they do
and again, LE might have more effects, but it also has a lot of bloat, which skews the so called diversity, you need to keep in mind GD combines a lot of those skills, so shadow strike is already multiple layers of LE skills/creation in it’s own
vary it up as a focus or filler, and they do play differently with how much you’re zippin around,

doesn’t really, that’s where the beauty of the SS filler comes in
SS in, dot sht up, movement skill out, use EoR for support dmg or heal if you don’t wanna just kite things and let poison handle stuff

35

Isn’t last epoch not even out yet ?

36

what the hell

37

Heh. Just found myself on the wrong end of this horrible mechanic. My Archon is all-in on player-scaled pets and specifically Storm Totem. I got a lovely offhand that adds +1 Totem and reduces cooldown. It absolutely completes the build. However I found a MUCH better (legendary) offhand but it lacks +1 Totem. I feel stuck with the old item now. This mechanic is nasty. If this was LE, I’d be able to just craft +1 Totem and cooldown onto the new item. :confused:

38

this is gonna sound possibly silly, “are you sure it’s actually better”

being legendary doesn’t necessarily mean “better”, it depends on overall stats and build ofc
and many builds uses those non legendaries with skill mods, like +1 summon etc, because they turn out to be better for X specific build, and can get a ton of stats
anyway, that’s part of build sacrifice, you pick one for the other depending on your likes or needs, here you just get to do it on a single item, instead of needing to spend a quarter of your skill points for it

curious on this, since it sounds different than what we talked about earlier - assuming this doesn’t pertain to the skill system at least

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39

In terms of building, I feel GD is far better and has more options than LE but that is to be expected as it is still incomplete and has plenty of stuff being added in and reworked. Same for itemization, though crafting is better in LE.

40

That’s what item skill modifiers do in Grim Dawn

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