Class recommendation for one armed bandit

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hello. So I’m a bit limited on my use of a mouse/keyboard and would like some input on what class(es) might work best for me. To sum things up I was in a motorcycle accident and have limited use of my right arm and hand, to the point where I can’t use it with a mouse or keyboard, so I can only use my left hand to game now.

I’m using a Bloody ML160 gaming mouse which at least gives me some extra buttons to work with, but not quite as many as I’m used to. I can only use keyboard functions if I take my hand off the mouse. Ok, enough of the woe is me sob story, I’m grateful to be able to play at all.

I have played games like Diablo, PoE, Titan Quest, and others in the arpg genre quite a bit over the years so I have some idea of what I’m doing here, but I’m not really sure what might work best for my playstyle now.

I currently have a level 20 Conjurer, and about the same level Ritualist. I kind of like the playstyle of summoners since it’s a little easier to keep up with the amount of buttons that need to be pressed, but I’m not sure if either of those classes are what I really want for endgame content. I also like the idea of something that can facetank large groups or bosses without getting instagibbed. I was thinking Deathknight or another class that can take a beating with some decent self sustain abilities.

What are your guys’ thoughts on those classes, or any other that can perform well with limited buttons to use? I can comfortably use about 4 or 5 buttons on my mouse, not including left and right click. The other buttons are a bit more difficult to use efficiently, but I can set buffs or certain summons to them. Oh, and my aiming with the mouse cursor could use a little more finesse, but that’ll come with time.

I’ve been looking through tons of guides and watching videos, but I’m still at a loss as to what might suite my needs best. I’d greatly appreciate any advice.

2

I suggest you to use this purifier, it’s a one of the best “lazy” build for nowadays, that mixed really high damage and really high defences.
Most important is that this build are used only 5 buttons (if we don’t count left and right mouse button than only 3).
Try it, and good luck.

3

Awesome, thanks for the reply. I hadn’t considered a Purifier. I’ll definitely check it out.

4

Generally, WPS Ranged builds (Dual Gun or 2H) have a small number of abilities to use in combat.

If it’s any help, I use this mouse : 12 button mouse
I bought it when I was an avid MMORPG player. I always found it difficult to trigger the abilities while moving on the keyboard. With this mouse, everything is under the thumb. It’s very practical for ARPG/Hack&Slash. I play only with the mouse, the keyboard is used for non-combat things such as displaying the map, opening the bags, using portals etc. which obviously can be done by clicking the UI with the mouse.
I don’t do it but you can also assign “shift” (very useful for ranged characters) to a secondary button on the mouse.

5

And I just realised it wouldn’t be possible as you have to play with your left hand. I should read more carefully.

6

With a good mouse you can play most builds (especially if you utilize macros)… maybe except the ones you’ve started. Here’s a little misconception common among ex-Diablo players. In GD pet builds actually require lots of buttons (especially the best ones that utilize Witching Hour): buffing, debuffing, temporary pet summoning, resummoning, proccing Time Dilation, etc.

The “laziest” build that comes to my mind would be a physical Witchblade with just 3 active buttons (LMB autoattack, RMB Blitz and MMB Curse of Frailty) and another one that has to be pressed once in a while (Blood of Dreeg). For more tankiness go S&B but that’s another button for Overguard.

EDIT: Wrong. The laziest builds are of course retaliation builds that require no buttons at all. But who wanna play THAT?

7

You bind autoattack to RMB on ranged builds and there’s no need of any “shift.”

Besides, I generally disagree with people above who recommended a purifier. Seal, WoR, mines, flashbang, maybe BWC and that’s excluding LMB and RMB for move and attack. Besides, despite all the flashiness and color, by the end of the day purifiers suck.

8

You’d have to be more specific as to how many buttons you can comfortably press, because the mouse wheel is basically 3 extra bindings.

Looking at this, I assume you have 3-4 extra mouse buttons in the center, and would probably use the keypad on the side for stuff you don’t need in combat, such as map, inventory, portal etc.?

So let’s make a couple of assumptions:
You wouldn’t use the side buttons (on the left) for combat because it’d be uncomfortable to.
You wouldn’t use the keypad (on the right) in combat because it’s awkward to still properly point your cursor.
You can use the center buttons, but I’d assume you’d primarily want to use the one labeled [1].

This still gives you an impressive six key bindings to work with:
Left mouse
Right mouse
Middle mouse (wheel click)
Wheel up
Wheel down
Macro button [1]

So, assuming you use your main mouse button (left by default, right if you inverted your mouse) for “Move Here” on ranged builds, and whatever main attack you have on melee, this gives you room for 4 other active skills + health pot. Most builds don’t use that many.

Ironically enough, the really good pet builds use an array of temporary buffs you need to constantly recast, most of them want you to spam debuffs, and some need you to use an extra skill for Time Dilation. At least assuming you want to operate at peak performance. I don’t want to scare you away from playing one, especially since they’re really comfy if pointer accuracy is a problem for you, but it can get… pretty bad

Forcewave builds are generally sparse on key binds, don’t require much accuracy, and are overall relatively easy to play.
Superfluff’s Arcanor build for example would perfectly fit into this control scheme if you drop Blitz, which is only used for mobility here. Move To, Forcewave, Inq Seal, Word of Renewal, Arcane Devastation, health pot. You’ll probably need to bind your energy pot to one of the less accessible buttons, but it’s not like you’ll panic-cast energy pots. A pure physical one that uses even fewer buttons would be even easier.

Generally speaking, you should be able to play most builds, just make sure to make extensive use of the Quickbar Switch bind and put all your permanent buffs on there.

Even if you’re playing a Witchblade that fills the entire bar, you can just click them with your mouse.

I think it ultimately comes down to your playstyle. If you like “point and shoot” but don’t want to get used to kiting, a tanky gun Purifier or any Forcewave Soldier should be great. Ideally the ones with Inquisitor Seal so you really can just stand still. Most generic melee builds already don’t need you to press many buttons, so you should be good on that front too. Generally, I’d probably recommend you stay away from anything that needs to use Demo’s mines because they’re awkward AF, requiring good placement and positioning. As long as you avoid complex casters, you shouldn’t run into any trouble.

9

I used to have a left handed razor naga but my daughter broke it and when I went to buy a new one I found out they stopped making them and couldn’t even find one online, so the next best thing was the ML160. And I actually use the number pad on the mouse for most of my key binds. 4,7,8,9 are the easiest buttons for me to use, so I bind things to those that I need to use frequently. I have my potions bound to 1 and 2. I can’t reliably uses the thumb buttons on the left side of the mouse; same for the other middle mouse buttons since it’s already awkward enough holding that mouse with my left hand. I think I may try binding SHIFT to one of the thumb buttons though to see if I can make it work for ranged heroes to stand still while firing.

I started a purifier and am only level 10 atm, but it’s been enjoyable up to this point so far. I started with demolitionist first and just picked up inquisitor and grabbed a couple pistols. I’m liking it better than my summoner classes so far, but I do kinda miss having some kind of pet to tank a bit for me. I really don’t have much interest in playing a retaliation build. Even that’s a bit too boring for me. This purifier build from the first reply seems to be very fitting for the type of playstyle I’m looking for. It has a few decent actives, and a good amount of passives for the majority of it, but still keeps me on my toes.

I’d be willing to try some other classes too that kind of fall in line with a similar playstyle to that purifier build. I just need to steer clear of glass cannon builds that require a lot of kiting I think. Thanks for all your advice. It’s nice to have some kind of direction now.

10

If you’re not leveling with Word of Pain or High Potency cocktails, I’d suggest you only take (and max) Explosive Strike from Demo, drop 6-10 points in Explosive Strike in Inquisitor, and then work your way up to Inquisitor Seal and straight up max that. That should put you at around level 23. Standing in a maxed seal early on makes you ridiculously tanky. It’ll be a little slow, but it’s also very safe, and you get more than enough damage later on anyway.

11

Textbook OXYMORON :smiley:

(pet builds)’re really comfy when pointer accuracy is a problem

I gotta disagree here. Pet builds a pretty much the hardest to pilot in the game. Positioning. It directly affects not only survivability but also DPS.

Please don’t do that. RMB for autoattack is the way to go. It makes all attacks stationary.

12

Awesome, thanks for the additional tip on leveling my purifier.

And I’ll avoid binding my shift key too.

13
  • 20% damage reduction from Censure at +2 overcap.
  • Substantial damage absorption from Inquisitor Seal, especially when making an effort to overcap it as far as possible
  • Immense damage output = great lifesteal. Purifiers like fire damage, which naturally builds toward Ulzuin’s Torch, which wants red and thus encourages taking Ghoul for even more lifesteal.
  • Fire damage has good heavy armor support. Justicar is one of the best sets in that regard. Demo has a skill that grants bonus armor.
  • Flashbang’s massive fumble debuff

You can absolutely play a Purifier to be tanky, it’ll just be a little slower than what you’re normally used to, because you’ll have fewer skill points for the really heavy hitters. That doesn’t make it any less safe to play if played carefully. If you can somehow get your hands on a Will of Fate, clearing trash becomes trivial, and most tougher mobs can be facetanked inside of seal early on. In higher levels you’ll have more gearing options, lifesteal from devotions and/or hopefully weapon/glove component, and much more damage.

With max Explosive Strike straight into Bursting Round and Inquisitor Seal, Purifiers are basically untouchable while inside the seal from level 20-ish all the way up to Malmouth. By that point you can max Aura of Censure and sink points into Steel Resolve to trivialize aether/chaos resistances in normal.

If damage ever becomes a concern with such an overly defensive skill build, Fiend and Rhowan’s Crown devotions are your best friends. Blackwater Cocktail with High Potency is excellent at triggering either of those, while Fire Strike gets the other one. Since you’re not moving out of your seal, you get full use out of Flame Torrent.

14

I don’t know if it was mentioned yet, but you can bind things to mousewheel up/down, which is super convenient for cooldown skills that need no target like buffs or AOEs like siphon souls. Some ground targeted effects like Wendigo Totem or Thermite Mines are also quite convenient.

Wish your recovery to go well.

15

Even after 1500 h played, I learned something today.

Another suggestion, depending on your playstyle would be indeed some tanky Witchblade/Commando. There are some good ones (from TZtzfor instance).

Another good and simple build: Trozan Druid (Lightning caster) has 3 combat skills, 2 defensive skills LINK

16

Have you taken a look at the Razr gamepad? >>>Link<<<

Not sure how limited your right is, if you can at least move the mouse around for targeting and use the pad thumbpad for movement?

Just a thought…

17

You probably have Akdong’s Justice+Sigilises fire DW Purifier in mind. It’s a great build, don’t get me wrong, and Storm Spread (and maybe also Jaxxon rings) paired with Brimstone is one of the most effective AoE concepts in the game. Myself, I prefer Ulzuin plus Dagallon guns which is defensively inferior but thematically more interesting. Both destroy all MC content and fill the screen with a rainbow of explosions. Neither can clear 170…

EDIT: …without a banner and loads of luck with mutators and nemeses, that is.

18

I was thinking more about Justicar set + Stronghold set (optional Jaxxon abuse), or Desolator. Both concepts are tried and proven to somewhat reliably beat Crucible 170(+) with buffs/banner. If you can go under 12 minutes per run, you can afford to use 3 of any buff/banner without losing tributes (assuming you successfully finish both runs).

I don’t think any Purifier build can compete with double Dagallon & double Jaxxon’s when it comes to clearing campaign. You basically oneshot entire screens, it’s really satisfying to play. I am not exactly sure how effective double Dagallon can be in Crucible, since you’ll end up hurting for skill points, but I’d imagine a defensive Devotion path would help tons. I do intend to do just that on my own Purifier, but that’s a work in progress at the moment, and I haven’t even theorycrafted a GrimTools yet. At least if that doesn’t work out, I have two other builds to reliably fall back on.

Also I think the Ulzuin set is kind of trash, specifically for taking up an amulet slot without doing anything actually useful in that slot. Justicar + any amulet with a skill bonus is automatically better in most situations, as nice as the Ulzuin helmet may be.

19

I like the zoom function the mouse wheel provides too much to bind the scrolling to other abilities. Too many years of playing mmo’s and needing to zoom in/out frequently have kinda stuck with me.

I’ve thought about game pads and used one at one point when I could use both my hands, but I can’t use my right hand at all for mouse movement or pressing keys, so I’m limited to using just my left hand for all functions.

I’ve thought about a druid and witchblade, but haven’t done a whole lot of research on them yet. I’ll definitely check them out too see if they fit into my playstyle though.

I’m liking the options the purifier has available. I’m running dual pistols atm with mostly passive skills, but I think I’m going to throw a few more active abilities into the mix since I’m feeling pretty comfortable with him atm, and I could use the extra damage and/or debuffs. I saw a build that used a 1h and shield and he was able to facetank stuff like a boss and still put out respectable damage, so i may give that a try if it starts to get a bit too hard down the road. I’m only on normal mode, but i play with the veteran difficulty because I still like a bit more of a challenge. Everything goes pretty smooth until I come across 3 hero enemies at the same time, then the game lets me know I need better gear or need to change my skills around a bit.

20

Shields in Grim Dawn unfortunately don’t do that much unless you dedicate a major part of your build to it. I assume that you saw was the Stronghold set, which doesn’t use a shield just for the sake of it.

Defensively speaking, just using any shield won’t do you much good if you can’t increase block chance/recovery/damage to a relevant degree. I’d suggest avoiding anything that doesn’t specifically offer a bonus to guns. You’ll get more out of the extra damage from dual wielding, or some unique bonuses rifles can provide.

The best thing about shields for builds that don’t dedicate to using them are the additional resists, specifically physical. Any green shield with base physical resist and a physical resist prefix can be a significant survivability increase. If you want to farm Krieg for three hours, anyway…