I will try to explain. The crafting in LE is very deterministic. It works as follows:
Every item can have up to 4 affixes. (2 primary (usually offensive) and 2 secondary (usually defensive)). These affixes can have up to 5 tiers (levels basically). E.g. Fire Damage affix might give +10% Fire damage per tier.
If you disenchant any item (which you can do on the move) you have a chance to get shards corresponding to one or more of the affixes that item had (higher affix tiers = more shards). Some affixes are common, some are very rare etc. This means every item is potentially valuable, even blues (2 affixes) from a disenchant point of view.
These shards go straight to your bank and are shared by all your toons. Any shard can then be applied to any other item, and will add 1 tier of that affix to the new item (or increase the tier if the new item had that affix already).
The only non-deterministic thing in this is the amount of “forging points” on the item that get used during the craft (this is the RNG part but it can be mitigated with a glyph (a glyph is a crafting modifier item; there are tons of them that do different things to affect your craft)).
This all means that the definition of a good base item to craft with is one which has as many affixes of types that you actually want, and as few affixes that you do not want, plus as many forging points as possible.
Even then, this all just scratches the surface. Crafting can be modified in many ways with glyphs including removal of affixes, chance to lock an affix and create a new affix slot (hence you can have more than 4 affixes on items), chance to score a crafting crit (the craft uses zero forge points) and on and on and on and on.
One of the really nice things you can do is convert a 4 affix rare into a Legendary, IF that rare has the same base item type and sufficient “legendary potential” points. This creates a new copy of that Legendary, but it also inherits some of the affixes on the rare that crafted it, making it an uber-Legendary perfect for your build.
Since one of the affixes in the game is going to be “+1 skill point for skill X”, this is basically how you’d get +1 Storm Totem onto a Legendary.
Crafting in LE is a game all of its own and is very very satisfying. Best crafting system I’ve ever encountered, by far.
so basically, breaking it down/simplifying it a bit,
you can can remove affixes from item A, with a bit of RNG, and then slap them on another item B ?
but in terms of the GD modifiers vs LE skill system, that’s still just base on a generic +skill that then needs to be spent in the nodes (which was only an “issue” to begin with because of the bloated generic nodes to begin with starving you of points)
the swapping affix part i’ve been sorta chewing over since it’s been mentioned/requested before for GD, some people don’t like they roll a rare item with super affix, but they want that affix on another rare instead
so that sounds cool, obviously another potential nightmare balance-wise but would def help with rare farming in GD. But probably would also have made crafting much more interesting than the base system if more variations like that could have been tossed in (think few people would disagree crafting in GD is very basic )
so that’s def a neat aspect LE included, before even diving into the other variations it also includes, like affix legendary upgrades etc
The +1 skill point shards typically modify the way the skill works too; or at least buff it in some way, over and above giving the extra skill point(s). They are pretty rare.
tbh, I have never felt the skill trees to be bloated nor of being starved of points. Of course you always want more points. But when you are sitting thinking about a build and evolving it as you level, and messing with options, the skill trees feel more like multiple opportunities and difficult choices rather than bloat. They immediately evoke the desire to experiment with builds.
what i mean by bloat is all the generic passive upgrade nodes, that leads to the cool effects
i hate generic nodes like that, more so when you’re then forced to point them to unlock further nodes, which is then just another annoying 10% passive
when i was messing around with LE skill trees it kept hindering getting to the effects i wanted, because i had to spend so many points in those “useless” nodes, so it just bloats the skill point budget, for what’s essentially just more 10% dmg or reduced mana cost or other generic uninteresting stats - actually reminded me of WoW skill nodes for a second
like imagine how bad it would be in GD if you were forced to point consecutive nodes in skills where you didn’t want or need them, or worse needed to invest a minimum pts in the passives to even get to unlock the next node. Would have been so egregious in GDs skill tree if it used that approach i think
so the +1 skill on item, just serves to then push you through that bloat, that they created in the first place, is what i mean; if they hadn’t forced you to spend 8 points in generic passives to begin with we didn’t need to be so horny for that extra +1 to unlock more (and i get that you said it brings extra along usually)
ofc it does, that’s the point of them it’s still an “upgrade” compared to 0
but it also doesnt’ change that it’s still the most basic of generic forms, which imo is boring, and when you’re then forced to point them, and point them to X degree on top, then it becomes bloat, when it could just have been integrated
need to spend 5pts just to reach something nice, generic sad upgrades, worse is it forces me to spend 2 in one generic before i can even spend 3 in the other generic
here it forces me to spend 6 on still the same sad generic old timey booster concept
this is bloat, this is the parts i don’t like, these types of upgrades are boring, and worse when forced - obviously this isn’t specific to LE, their skill tree is just based on this concept too
so when a skill tree is intentionally bloated like that, i don’t get excited about wanting->needing a +1 skill on an item to unlock more, just because they forced me to waste that precious point earlier (yes i remember you said it brings more usually)
but that’s what i meant by bloat if it helps clarify
and again it’s not unique to LE, it’s sorta a common OG approach to upgrades, obviously not even devoid in GD trees, but to a lesser extend and more optional
Sorry for necro-posting, I just started to two new characters, one in Last Epoch and one in Grim Dawn. I just noticed an interesting thing . LE lets you use only 5 abilities by default, yes (LMB is movement only, movement+break destructibles or movement + one of the 5 other abilities). But you can play a shape-shifting druid which gives you 4 unique abilities per shape (1 is reserved to shape-shift back to the human form or to switch forms). There are 3 shapes which you can take (bear, tree, insect). That gives a nice set of abilities. I haven’t explored everything LE offers so maybe there are other classes which can use more abilities than just 5. For my summoner necro this number felt very limiting. For beastmaster it was OK (you have a special key for pet attack and summon companion button is replaced with its active ability so you have summon + active on the same key).
They just balanced the game around it, probably a controller limitation. On the other hand they provide a nice way to customize your abilities through skill trees so I can live with that. The question is how many of the skill tree nodes are actually useful in LE. Sometimes they are great. Sometimes it feels to me like “let’s make things complicated only for the sake of making them complicated”. GD is a pretty mature product which accumulated years of polishing and re-balancing and it really shows.
It only proves how great Grim Dawn is.
If even a PC game port to console is so good, even despite it was made with mouse in mind…
Maybe, GD wasnt the best when it was released, as there was too little endgame content and too much flaws, but after a lot of polishing it truly shines now, while most others bite the dust.
)
. LE lets you use only 5 abilities by default, yes (LMB is movement only, movement+break destructibles or movement + one of the 5 other abilities). But you can play a shape-shifting druid which gives you 4 unique abilities per shape (1 is reserved to shape-shift back to the human form or to switch forms). There are 3 shapes which you can take (bear, tree, insect). That gives a nice set of abilities. I haven’t explored everything LE offers so maybe there are other classes which can use more abilities than just 5. For my summoner necro this number felt very limiting. For beastmaster it was OK (you have a special key for pet attack and summon companion button is replaced with its active ability so you have summon + active on the same key).