A little late to the party, but I just got this game a few days ago and i’m really enjoying the Diablo-esque vibes.
I’m playing a DW melee Reaper because they sound badass, but I have no idea how to build it effectively, skill-wise, attributes and devotion. I tried looking through the Build Compendium but I just got even more confused – it feels like those builds are tailored for the end game and very item dependent. Since I’m nowhere close to the endgame, i’m sitting here going “Follow it or make changes? And what sort of changes?”
So, i’m hoping the community can help lift this fog of confusion and give me some advice or point me to a beginner-friendly build I can reference to build my Reaper into a badass.
Yes, apart from the builds in the Builds for Beginners section, all are endgame builds and pretty gear dependent.
Best thing to do is upload your character and then post it here so we can have a look at it and give you some advice.
To upload your character to https://www.grimtools.com/calc/ click the ‘up arrow’ button in the upper-lefthand corner. If you have cloud saves enabled (enabled by default) your save file will be in \Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata########\219990\remote\save\main_{character name}\player.gdc
Otherwise it will be in \Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save\main_{character name}\player.gdc
Then click on the icon below the arrow and copy the link shown to paste here.
Yep, upload your char on GrimTools so people can give you advice. Btw, if you haven’t done it yet, I suggest to read the officilal game guide for the basics
As a starting point, I picked this build (https://bit.ly/3dGmakB) to follow. But since I obviously don’t have the gear, I’ve changed the gear so I could see what the base skills allocation was.
Looking through other threads, I’ve seen people saying you can build it around Phantasmal Blades or Bone Harvest or Cold, etc. I’ve tried looking for Beginner Builds in the Build Compendium that might shed some light on how to play a Reaper but alas, there are no Reaper builds so all these scattered advice is making me confuse.
I’m just looking for a fun way to play a DW Reaper so i’m hoping to get some advice on how to build such a character, instead of going through the whole trial and error process to figure out good synergies.
Well, a common choice is between dual-wield or 2H. DW Malkadarr weapons, or Spectral Battle Axes, work quite well for levelling, and I guess for farming the Main Campaign.
At endgame Alkamos scythe can be farmed fairly easily for a beginner, so you could go for Bone Harvest.
I’m far from an expert in the game, but I generally go with “if it’s working then keep playing it”, if it’s not working then what’s wrong with it? Most skills can work (except Blade Trap), so play around with the different ones and see what is the most fun for you.
It’s fairly easy to retool a character if you end up hitting a wall. Some general advice, I guess, would be to choose an element and focus on it, your items seem to be all over the place, those gloves do basically nothing for you. Also don’t be afraid to dump points into masteries, especially necromancer…Spectral Wrath can carry you most of the way through normal difficulty, and Mark of Torment is one of the best damage mitigation skills in the game. The mastery points alone increase your survivability as well.
The game is designed so you don’t need an optimal build to carry you through the campaign. Respecs are also fairly cheap so feel free to try stuff out. When you want bleeding edge performance that’s when you turn to the forums.
