Soooo…right out the gate I will say that I have played up to level 40 in Grim Dawn and played to around 30ish in Titan Quest so I get a general idea of how the stats, skills, classes, ect work. That being said I am having major issues where it feels like it counts the most. Here are a few things.
Devotions. I don’t know if the scale of the devotion page is just intimidating, or what, but things like “Spear of the Heavens” with that whopping 180% increase to both lightning, and aether damage, while seems nice, also impractical.
As a Shaman and Arcanist I can see SOME use out of it. Mostly, the electric side though due to Shaman being amazing for both electric and bleeding builds.
Though then you have “Tempest,” “Wraith” and “Tsunami” that bring the Lightning up to a good 348% increase. Yet you are bringing the Cold and Aether up along with it. While nice, it raises the question on Elemental increases. Is this a full up on the Lightning, Cold, and Fire all at once? Meaning 100 in each at a 25% to elemental goes from 300 split to a 375 split? Or is the Elemental increase split down so 75% increase only effects each of the 3 elements by 25% cause I know if I had 75 flat elemental damage it would do 25 to each element.
Those are all just thoughts and questions I would love some answers for if anyone can but more than anything I am trying to figure out how to be comfortable with where I am going in the game. I keep having an issue where I become too squish, never failing to die to a boss at least once even if I can deal a ton of damage OR I can stand there for days, but days is what it takes to kill the boss, even getting to the point of 15 minuet stand offs with normal mobs. This also tends to happen right at the end what I will call the first act, “Warden’s Cellar.” I should note I only play on veteran difficulty as well, was this a mistake for a new player?
Overall every class brings a lot to the table, but also leaves me a bit dazed and confused. Aether, Vitality, and Chaos seem hard to focus on damage wise. Nightblade feels like the only option for cold damage, but not really hard focused into it. Solder seems the most straight forward and frankly, comfortable to me as I have always been one to like my sword and board. Shaman is appealing because of the lightning and how I have always been drawn to it, but Shaman seems to rely on two handed weapons more than anything else giving me a hard time trying to figure out my “place” as it were. With all that said…
TLDNR
Warder is the class I want to shoot for. Lightning and Physical damage priority with sword and board fighting style. Retaliation damage is also welcome as it is just added damage. (I cant put links in my post yet so all I can do is give the build code) build/OtypD1d (at the end of the link) is about the best I could come up with. I don’t want a cookie cutter build to copy I want to understand various things to help me make something like this work.