Oh! Well then, that was a silly question!
Thanks man, really appreciate the clarification.
I honestly expected a reply along the lines of “Since you’re stuck in Korvan City, you will be excluded from this temple/shrine/funky place, so your farming possibilities are limited.”
But if the Shattered Realm is the farming place, I got all worked up for nothing!
“The Endgame Content” is basically Shattered Realm in Ultimate difficulty and Crucible in Gladiator difficulty. You need to step to elite difficulty if you finished all content in normal/veteran; do all again then step into ultimate and do all again. You’ll get lots of items by doing that and with some luck you can make a proper build which you can test in ultimate SR and Gladiator Crucible. You can also do item farming in normal/veteran-elite SR, aspirant and challenger CR. There are also rogue-like dungeons that you enter with skeleton key in all difficulties. There are levels in both SR and CR. For example a 100 level mediocre build should do normal SR 65-66, take rewards and repeat to farm gears. There is no use in doing more than 2 level in SR by quailty of loot but with your first character you need to start from the beginning. You’ll get waystone blueprint in every stop point, then you can craft them to use start there not from the beginning. Once you get all waypoint stones, you can craft with every character and just start the choosen levels if your build is capable of doing instead start from the beginning.
So, for a bad situation, it’s a rather lucky outcome. That’s perfect!
Thank you for the in depth explanation, it was more then I had hoped for!
I’m bookmarking this post for future reference. My new toon is not at lvl 100 yet, but it will be soon enough.
Edit: Spelling and syntax
Also after reaching elite and ultimate once; you can buy difficulty merits from conclave of the three vendors which provides difficulty jumps to elite or ultimate without finishing the content; ofc it gives all skill & attribute quest rewards. So for your next character you can jump directly to ultimate ofc I don’t recommend that till you grasp all the mechanics of the game.
Another detail is that monsters below your level too much won’t loot rare materials, reputations etc so there is no point of staying in normal when you’ve reached certain level. You also only need to finish act 4 to access next difficulty. Some people only go through necropolis and then go next level, some do also malmouth and then next level, some do all. There is no penalty for skipping quests etc except some quests gives you skill & attributes points I suggest you do them. I recommend doing all since you have lots of things to learn and by doing that you can be revered all factions and nemesis with all enemy factions to get some extra armor buffs(augments) and creatures(nemesis) till you reach ultimate. You can buy writs from faction vendor when you reach honored status with thwm which will give you extra rep gain. When you become revered they also sell mandates; those are for your next characters. You can buy all them and stash in shared sectio ; then use it with your next character to gain extra rep juat from the start. There are also warrants which you can get by killing those nemesis’ which provide the same thing; stash them and use with your other characters to gain more negative rep.
You can learn other mechanics by doing some research. This game requires great amount of reading but best teacher is being defeated 
there are also a lot of hidden things in the game 
I’m not going to lie, There’s a huge amount of stuff I’ve glanced over. Information overload, kinda thing. My first toon was… ill fated, at best. I quickly looked up a build guide and just followed the instructions. I can’t wait till I get to theory-crafting, and building my own viable(hopefully) variants.
When I ran into the FG issue, I started farming rep with the various factions instead. I was expecting to unlock the top tier vendor stuff, but never gave any thought to the all the paper. Now I almost want to throw out my toon and start over with epic rep buffs. Guess that’s the best part of these kinds of games. Wanting to start over from scratch.
And yes, the hidden stuff, the breakable walls, the little nuggets of info that lead you on an epic quest for knowledge, that’s my favorite part! It’s clear the level designs were done by passionate people, and it ticks all the right boxes for me.
The only thing I’ve ever looked up(apart from char sheets), was that secret quest “The hidden Path”, as I noticed a huge honking wall I couldn’t get trough, that just taunted me to no end. I must have spend hours in that area, before finally giving up. Totally worth it in the end. The lore you get is is quite interesting.
I should probably familiarize myself with the wiki, point taken 
Thanks for nudging me along, you’ve managed to quell my concerns and give me valuable pointers.
JohnnyBoy: Out of all do curiosity, not to be mean, why on God’s Green Earth would you go out of your way to use Linux? As for missing any of the FR story? You are not missing much. You really won’t learn about crazy lady till you do her secret quest in Ultimate. FR as far as the story goes is very disappointing compared to the base game and AoM, those two were just great. Too bad the FR story wasn’t based off of your choice of choosing Death’s Vigil or Kymon’s Chosen. NOW THAT would have been epic with two different endings. Maybe Crate can add that later with DL content. That would improve the story a lot.
Edit: Regarding all of the ‘hidden’ areas, so much fun. I like finding secret areas, even if it doesn’t yield anything worthwhile. Something this game has and D3 lacks. It cracks me up when I see a dead body or two next to a chest. Oh so close and yet no soup for you. MINE! The Hidden Path was really fun too. I admit I had to look it up online to finish it. Grim Dawn reminds me of Dungeons and Dragons and Call of Cthulhu, so much fun.
fordperfect: Shattered Realm has too much walking from one group of monsters to the next, then hoofing it to the blue portal with the hopes that you make it in time. I can’t even get to shard 5, it’s rather sad and very stressful, especially if I get the Candle District map. Good grief. Who thought that was a good idea?
I find Crucible to be a bit better since the monsters come to you. However, that gets boring after the 2nd or 3rd play through. It seems easier to just go through the story map from one rift gate to the next searching for shrines. At least you get loot and don’t have to worry about dying. If you do die, you just travel back to the shrine till it pops loot. Where in Crucible, that’s the end. In Shattered Realm, there goes your time clock.
Seriously, what’s the point for SR and CR? Do they have exclusive loot?
SR does, yes. A special set you can buy when you reach certain levels of it.
You’ll see the ‘‘Loot’’ when you farm SR 75-76, or CR 150-170 but they are mostly not exclusive since purple MI’s can not be obtained by SR or CR; the amount of green MI’s is so much more than regular target farms, which increases the chance of the great rolls.
Though in crucible monster ‘‘mostly’’ come to you, you still gotta go to them to kill faster since there is a time limit for every wave.
Ofc the purpose of the game is to enjoy, and if you enjoy main campaign more, you should do as; however, you need to gear up for your characters and the best way to farm them is still SR and CR. In Crucible the dead penalty is more so SR is easier for beginners and your build can’t do SR ultimate, try in normal or elite. Loot is less, but you can obtain the waystone blueprints easier and with luck find some good items to use. If you can’t even do normal SR with a 100 level character then you need to read some guides to learn game mechanics and the ways to improve your character. You can also create a thread with your build link here and ask some guidence.
I also enjoy leveling with a new character, main campaign farming, searching all the nemesis and killing them more than doing SR or CR but you gotta do those time to time otherwise it may take too much time to gear up your builds.
madea_fleecestealer: Niceness. I will definitely keep that in mind. Though, I seem to be having more issues with SR over CR. A tougher nut to crack indeed, but it makes for a greater achievement when I do… so yeah… that.
fordperfect: That is true, I do a circle and go to the mobs in CR to kill them faster. But, there are times when I stand in the middle and pop War Cry and mow them down with Obsidian Tremor. Those that don’t die, I pick off one by one with Blade Arc. With SR, it’s not killing the monsters that I have an issue with, it’s the travel. It seems like a very ineffective way to farm gear since there is a time constraint. Again, biggest issue is the blue portal after killing all the mobs appearing on the other side of the map. With CR 150-170 being the sweet spot, that’s good. At least I am in the middle there. Who knows one day I’ll get luck with my current set up and get to 161.
Edit: Yeah, I have 12 characters now. 11 are Level 50-100, only 2 at 100 though and both noobs. The 12th one is only level 1. I haven’t chosen a build yet. I do enjoy leveling through the base game. I like the story a lot and I like playing different characters. I also like the AoM x-pack too, not a fan of FG tho.
My Noob 100: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zxG79Z @ 107,463 DPS w/buffs.
I have another Level 100, she is an even bigger noob, haha. She is one of my very first characters and I didn’t look up any builds or read any guides. I still don’t know what I want to do with the character yet, but I at least wanted to get her to level 100. I want to get her through Ultimate, then see if I have any good sets, blues, or purples for her to use.
My Bigger Noob 100: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLOkvL2 @ 60,992 DPS w/buffs.
I already memorized all the portal locations(they are mostly rng but still few places in certain maps can be easily guessed) and you’ll in time. And with a proper build SR 65-66 farm in ultimate lasts 20 mins at tops with neutral mutators, hell if you don’t trust your build you should instant quit when bad mutators came up because they probably kick your ass in the boss room. So do some normal SR 65-66, get some gear and put them to your builds one by one. Eventually one of your builds become strong enough to do those in ultimate then the rest is easy, you can farm lokarr set etc to make your leveling easy.
Oh I missed your link. @JohnnyBoy sorry for hijacking btw.
First, you need to max all your resistances atleast with extra %20, pierce and bleeding can be just capped.
Second, you need to cap your armor absorption
Third, you need atleast %15 physical resistance
Fourth, chose one main spam skill and improve that and spend other points to support skills.
You need also more RR but to achieve that you will need certain gears; check with -%chaos resistance reduce items in grimtools. And sheet dps is just a scam; RR and other stuff like wps, weapon damage, attack speed, crit damage, OA etc determine your real damage output. My first character had 180k dps and couldn’t kill shit because I didn’t know what the resistance reduce is, also if you can’t survive, you can’t hit and dps won’t matter.
Oh my god! @Rawrbarian, you just opened a can of worms, without even knowing it I could talk for hours about Linux, but all of the reasons could be summed up with the word ‘security’.
Sorry, but I need to get technical for a sec, but the example will make it clearer(hopefully).
Kernel access, is a way of restricting and safeguarding hardware as well as software. Level 0 has direct access to microcode and chipset interface. The higher the number the less ‘trust’ (access) you have.
To my example:
Denuvo anti piracy/cheat software; It demands Kernel 1 access to preform basic functions. Linux is rather stingy with giving out access to anyone, let alone a closed, secretive, proprietary system. It’s pretty much guaranteed it will never function on a Linux rig - even emulated.
Windows gives access to everyone, while Apple is the mighty gatekeeper, where you have to ask nicely to be let in to the closed environment.
Other then that, the design philosophy of FOSS(Free and Open-Source), ensures I can go trough the code, without elaborate decompiling and educated guesswork. I can see for myself what the software does, line by line. There is no big corporate guy in a fancy suit, that says ‘Trust me’.
You don’t want that thingy you downloaded to report back your system specs(or worse…)? Disable that line/section, recompile and you’re good.
The cost of this is, sadly, I have to jump trough hoops to get things to work. Work on my rig is usually not ‘click button - watch magic’, but instead tinker, fiddle, mess around, and finally hit it with a hammer. But this is the path I chose willingly, and I’m quite happy about it. I would even do it again! Recommending it however, is another matter. It takes a special mindset, a whole new way of thinking, and most of the time getting your hands dirty. It’s not for everyone.
If you want to know more, I’d happily talk over PM’s or in another thread.
Back to subject:
Aww man! I was really liking the story. When I saw her just standing there, I actually said out loud “Crazy Lady, why aren’t you dead yet?” It cracked me up to see her again.
@fordprefect No need to apologize mate, but if this is a hijack contest, I’m winning 
Sorry for the diverging subject, I’ll limit my enthusiasm for Linux to a dedicated thread/site.
EDIT: And I don’t consider you guys input hijacking, btw. I’m still learning about the game, which was the original intend of the thread
Point of Cruci? Additional challenge, different than campaign. I don’t even care much about loot.
JohnnyBoy: You sound like a friend of mind, he also uses Linux. However, I could never get a straight answer out of him about using it. I for one don’t have that mindset. You hit the nail on the head right there. I see your hammer and raise another. I used to really be into computers back in the day of DoS, yes I actually said DoS haha, but now I am far too lazy to anything more than push the power button. I just… can’t… anymore. Thanks for answering my question and for doing so in a manner befitting that of a decent human being.
Back to the game. Her line wasn’t bad at all, it was the whole Kymon’s fault and he betrayed us all and became the big end game baddy. I thought that was lazy at best. It would have worked very well if it tied into the one decision in the base game. Who’s side should I choose? You know, long term consequences. That would have been epic. Back to Dahlia (sp). I wish I was able to complete her secret quest in Ultimate. I died at the end. So I don’t know the full scope of her story, but again, hers wasn’t bad at all. I consider her to be a little golden nugget in a game filled with little golden nuggets. Even though I am not a fan of FG, save for the Oathkeeper class, I do like the game a lot.
I started playing this game early June 2020, so I am still learning as well. However, thanks to Covid, I have an increased amount of free time and I use it playing Grim Dawn. Sorry to hear you got stuck. At least you still have the complete base game and the first expansion pack. As fordperfect said, you have Shattered Realms to play in also. If you so choose to purchase The Crucible DLC, there is that as well. I, for one, prefer that mode of end game over Shattered Realms.
If you get tired of either one, farming the totems yields loot as well. I am currently doing that with my first 100. I decided to keep tabs of how many purples, blues, and blue prints I find. I am curious to see how many I can collect after 10 runs of popping 10-12 totems a run. Not only am I curious to see how many goodies I can find, but to see if any of them are actually any good. So far, after 2 runs, not too bad at all. 20 purples. 41 blues. 4 blue prints.
Edit: My run through is base game only. I start at Wightmire and work my way up to the Warden’s Cellar, then I start on the other side at Arkovian Foothills and work my way to the Necropolis area.
I bought the game… maybe a year ago or so. Played a couple of hours, and then got CR and AoM immediately. It quickly became obvious to me that this game had everything I wished D3 had.
I’m in the same boat as you; It’s remarkable how much free time you find yourself with, when the world shuts down. But I’m nowhere close to getting bored yet. I’ve managed to start 3 toons, with the highest at lvl 81, so loot isn’t really my highest priority, ‘just’ a cool side-bonus. I’d much rather mess around with theory-crafting and funky builds. At the moment I’m playing normal veteran, and I feel like an overpowered god. The baddies just melt around me. It’s a grand power trip, but it will probably not last trough the other difficulty settings.
As I mentioned earlier, this thread is bookmarked, so when I get to that point, I’ll gladly steal all the great ideas from here. The loot run sounds like a lot of fun, everyone likes getting more and grander stuff
EDIT: Funky build: My lvl 81 is a glass cannon that can’t shoot, but I have 14 permanent and rather protective friends
JohnnyBoy: I, also, feel this game has everything that D3 doesn’t. It’s a shame really, D1 and D2 were masterpieces. Oh well, there is Grim Dawn now. A little while ago, I was in the same boat. I had my main character, Chaos Damage Two Handed Witchblade, in the early 80’s, and a couple of alts on stand by if I ever got stuck.
He is level 100 now messing around in Ultimate. However, I am still in theory craft mode. The more loot I find, the more I theory craft. Also, the more I read other people’s builds and playstyles. The game has been around for about 4 years, so there is a lot of info online. Yeah, I will not be bored any time soon.
What pet build are you running now? I tried one, Necromancer with skeletons, but it felt rather clunky and I went splat soon after a few of them died. I ended up deleting the character and trying out another idea.
I started with a shaman that was all over the place. I picked all the shiny stuff without knowing what was what. He’s hopeless in every sense!
After that, I went searching, and found this youtube vid. The guy does an excellent job explaining the reasoning why he made his choices. Perfect for a noob who needs someone to hold his hand. I was loosely following his build, till I bought FG… a couple of weeks ago or so. I have to agree tho, I die if someone decides to look menacingly at me.
With the new and shiny stuff I thought I’d start over again with another toon and do a ‘real’ run trough the game. My current is this Vindicator and Omnitrio did an amazing job! She’s a downright bada**, and rather fun as well.
JohnnyBoy: I started the same way with my Commando. I didn’t know what was doing. I didn’t look at any guides or watch any videos. I wanted to learn by trail and error. I wouldn’t say he’s hopeless, just a bit tedious to play until I get better gear. For me to do that, I need to grind out 10-13 more levels. So I have that character and other theory crafted ones just sitting there at levels 50’s-60’s until I know what I want to do with them or if I even want to keep them at all.
I will take a look at that video and see what’s up, especially since I don’t have any real experience with pet builds. I have a rifle using Vindicator for grins. I don’t really have a direction for the character, I just wanted to may a lightning damage rifle character. Be interesting to compare and contrast the two.
Edit: Just looked at the Vindicator link. I have some of the gear. One of the guns, an item from the Cyclone set, and most of everything else. It looks like a lot of fun. Once I get to the mid 70’s I will take a real good look at my devotions and most likely do a hard reset. I still have some grinding to do, lots of loot out there hiding from me.
Honestly, installing most Linux distros is super simple. You just download, burn to USB, reboot into the LiveUSB installation… and install. Most distros install rapidly - many in like 5 minutes flat. Running any post install updates and installing proprietary GPU drivers afterwards… maybe another 5-10 minutes.
Want to play GD? Just as simple. If Steam isn’t already installed you just find it in whatever package manager the distro uses and install it. Log in, go into Steam settings and enable Proton, download/install GD, play. With Proton it’s as easy to play most games in Linux as it is on Windows.
Using various tools, like Grim Internals etc is where it can be a bit more complicated tho. Or if you’re playing games from other game launchers the learning curve goes up a bit.
By and large, Linux isn’t hard to use anymore - but there are certainly cases where it can be, depending on what you are doing or want to do.
powbam: Maybe one of these days, if I get bit by the curiosity bug and I have the time to boot, I will give it a look. Atm, Windows is good enough for what I need to do. Right now that is Grim Dawn. Good to know that it is relatively user friendly.
For the most part I agree - I happen to like Windows (and yes, I like 10 just fine and see no reason to be using older versions anymore). But I also enjoy using Linux from time to time and seeing the progress that has been made in the Linux world towards making it more palatable to the end-user and I can tell you - it has come a loooong way from the day years ago I first began dabbling with it.
Most noobies will begin with Ubuntu or Linux Mint (which derived from Ubuntu). Both are very noobie-friendly.
Another which is also noobie-friendly is Manjaro - ironically, Manjaro is based on one of the hardest types of Linux distros to learn, Arch. Arch is famous because you build Arch from the ground up. Meaning you start with no GUI - nothing - and you put it all together piece-by-piece, brick-by-brick.
Manjaro is my preferred distro these days and I like it because it is a fully built Arch distro (no need to build this one from the ground up), beautifully constructed and very smooth and enjoyable to use. And just as easy as any Ubuntu-based distro would be. Arch-based distros are also rolling releases, meaning you never have to upgrade to a new “version”, like you would going from Windows 7 to Windows 8 etc. It is similar to Windows 10 in that it is meant to be upgraded infinitely going forward (a rolling release) and therefore “versions” are largely meaningless.
If you ever want to give Linux a go and have any questions then by all means, just make a thread in Totally Random and ask away.