not sure if it fits here or better in gameplay or even builds…
sorry if its the wrong location…
anyway… lets get to the point, shall we?
TL/DR: even tho ive played some time i dont know if endgame content is viable without all this min/max stuff and gear grinding
been playing gd for almost 200h now(199.2h at the time being), first char i really played was a dw vit reaper, really squishy but lifesteal was helping a lot… breezed through elite(besides 2 bosses in the end) and finally landed on ultimate where i encountered a lot of trouble…
i got around 35 different chars(i kinda like giving the game a different approach i guess) by now, most lv20ish but reaper and sorcerer lv 65
i like using a variety of skills but from what ive seen people tend to stick with as few as possible in their builds so im unsure if my way of playin is even endgame viable…
i also like the concept of occ oath and wouldve liked to have seen a better chaos damage performance i guess, i tried sentinel and … i dont remember which class i combined with occ but i also tried some kind of melee caster… buffing melee damage and using debuffs/aoes
in the end occ felt to me like a really weak version of necro but thats most likely on me…
what im trying to say is after playing my reaper which is really mobile and my sorcerer which just casts aoes so doesnt have to stand somewhere but can move while fighting, most other builds ive tried feel very sluggish
i havent tried any builds from other players yet but i always get spooked off by how min/max’d they are so i tend to stick with having more than 1 damage type… not using RR… that kinda stuff…
youve actually read this far? sorry for the long text… i guess i was bored or something but i actually wanna know…
is casual viable for endgame? do i have to stick with min max stuff or something thats close to it to play on ultimate?
You can play ultimate difficulty of main campaign with suboptimal builds. You won’t be able to do all the end-game content though. You need a good build for that.
But endgame is not necessarily fun. Just do what you like. I enjoy following other people’s guides for example. You might like to do everything yourself, although that might mean that you’ll get to endgame in a couple thousand hours.
It’s okay to experiment with your first characters, try a class combination for a few levels then move on etc. failing is the best teacher. If you wanna finish the main campaign in Ultimate difficulty there are things you should be aware of about game mechanics and honestly I didn’t understand anything in your text.
and try to upload your character into this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/ and provide us the link so we can examine what is wrong with it.
But generally speaking, keep your armor absorption high, use components and augments to get resistances, you need to cap all your resistances. You need some physical resistance, lifesteal or health regen depending your playstyle. You need circuit breakers. There are lots of things to mention but I can’t say anything because I don’t know what you know.
Forget about end-game for the moment, do what you enjoy and learn the mechanics in the process. Your first goal should be hitting 100 and finishing the all content in ultimate difficulty.
Basic comprehension of the game’s mechanics is part of the foundation of any end-game capable character build.
For this reason I second @fordprefect, experiment first to familiarize yourself with skills and their mechanics. Do not rush, this game is not the rushing kind. Enjoy the journey.
Once you’ve hit specific walls, return here and ask questions about the particulars you’re stuck on.
endgame is pretty broad in grim dawn. Its like anything from doing steps of torment or ancient monster totems in ultiamate to killing crate of entertainment boss, SR 75+ and crucible gladiator 150-170.
Here you can find tons of “budget” builds that can at least do some of the endgame content that Grim Dawn offers Beginner build guides Compendium (for AoM + FG expansions) see them as either “minimal versions” of builds or “stage 1 - endgame builds” something that you can improve on later on
200h and 35 chars… try to focus on a few of them, or just one, and try to make them as good as they can be! If endgame was accessible to someone who does not know about how to make builds etc, then it would not be endgame.
all answers were helpful but yours(not sure if this shows up as an entirely new comment or is linked to the one i hit reply on… i mean @Ulvar1) was by far the best!
im actually considering to make a new char for this(another one… but i deleted some now! lol)
thanks for the help c:
