For a Better Character Customization

My idea is so simple. Since the developers and players claim this game to give “almost endless” character customization, it’d be good to that actually be true.
Lot of legendaries and “high-end” items, tend to have specific skills or damage buffs.
Just for an example… Why would I want to play Drain Essence in my 2-H melee Vitality/Aether DK, losing a potential good buff and not getting the 5 bonus Uroboruuk’s set because I’m not a caster?

What you have done in lot of items is to “lure” us. Like, you aren’t supposed to get a “perfect build”, so you either play your way and lose some bonuses, or just fit in the OP-boring-build-every-one-is-using.

Would be that hard including a “+1 in ALL skills”, or “+2 in all “Cold damage” skills”, or something like that? We could use it in a lot more builds, in a lot more characters and class combinations.

Yes, we can’t pretend having a superduperpowerful set in no time, but hey, I’ve played a total of 500+ hours in my DK and Commando and I don’t even have half of a good gear. Like, they still have green items.
Do you know how many legendaries I own? The shared stash is about to collapse and I don’t have any set or good high-end items for them.

It’s frustrating having like 8 2-H Chaos Damage Mythical Hammers and not a single good pair of boots.

I’m no talking about RNG, but giving us players the possibility to use more VERSATILE ITEMS on our characters while we search for the “perfect match”.
Isn’t that the pride of the game, variety and versatility?

+1 to all skills are far too splashable to any build, there’s need to be very few of them. Make more of them and they become far too common place, even more than now.

There are 8 classes. 24 well thought sets and some “single-legendary items” would be more than enough, there would be the 500+ legendary item mark, fitting a wider range of builds.

Another example, imagine I build a dual wield Nightble Necromancer with Vitality damage. Should I look for Krieg’s or Uroboruuk’s set? I’d lose tons of buffs and damage just because Krieg gives +1 to Necro, Soldier and Arcanist.

If the game is thought to combine a lot of classes and skills you can’t be forced to play some specific classes and even build compositions! just to have an “optimal” character.

I think you underestimate the power of some rare items. There are a lot of rare’s, especially the Monster Infrequents that have very good stats and are better than any legendary in its slots (for example Legs and Boots).

Also using a full set is not always effective. Dont limit yourself by thinking that if you use a set only with all set pieces. Most sets are most powerfull when you only use a few parts as some parts of the set arn’t good and there are just better items for that slot or your playstyle.

Did you account for Forgotten gods and the new patch?

Maybe neither set?
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0y7v9Z
I just threw this build together after seeing your post so I’m sure it needs tweaking. Either way I think you’re getting tunnel vision with regards to your builds. Use the db to get familiar with what MIs, legendaries and sets are in the game before deciding that there’s nothing for you to use.

Neither as JayNyne said. You don’t have to run after the +1 to all skills in a class, like you would do in Diablo 2 for example.

That’s the beauty of this game. Many “suboptimal” (whatever that means) characters can complete the game just fine. We are not forced into anything. Now maybe the issue is your definition of optimal. For me it’s whatever feels fun and can finish Ultimate. If for you it’s Crucible 170 viable, I hear you.

Well, you guys have a point.

Yes, for me “optimal build” means I’m finishing whatever playmode I go in. Since Grim Dawn has “too little” high-end and also too much items and time spent to collect them, I’d say that I would have finished my character when it’s filled with legendaries that fit its build.

And yeah, that Reaper build killed me. But you know my point is exactly that: that guy is insanely big, for sure, but there are tons of Skill and Class buffs that are useless.
I’m not a developer, I can’t come up with a solution to every example I give. +1 or +2 or +X% to any Skill I’m not using means to me that I’m “losing” something. Even if you 90% people are happy with that.

On the other hand, you have to be a Grim Dawns hardcore player to know what do you exactly need even if that’s non-optimal, and then have THE LUCK to come up with that.

Would it harm the game too much if I find pieces that give me some versatility so I don’t feel my character won’t advance anymore with its Greens/Blues set?
Of course there are powerful MIs and blues but they’re as difficult to find as legendaries and still there’s that “empty” feeling that you’re playing for nothing because you don’t own that 94 OP piece / set that will get you to beat 170 Gladiator Crucible.

And that’s lame for a game which should give every class and combination an opportunity to be “a god”. That’s the goal of ARPGs, am I wrong?

To finish, I can post my DK build, but what you’ll see is not a “random thought funny build”. It has the potential to be a pretty big character but lacks the itemization.
In fact, I’m finishing Ultimate with a combination of greens and blues, and only one epic piece of armor.

I sometimes go and watch GD streams and I’m very sad when I read “new build Dregg’s set”. Which means “I built up a character thinking more in items than in the skills/combinations per se”.

I don’t know if I’m making myself clear but this game with this whole lot of branches and combinations needs a way better and versatile item feature.
The game is literally telling me: “You’ll collect a ton of sweet OP legendary and MI pieces, but you’ll have to stick with your Eagle, Fox and Monkey set, I’m sorry”.

The goal of ARPGs and any computer game is to have fun. Only a few percentage cares about end-game stuff anyway. What the goal of playing Grim Dawn is up to you to decide.

I think Grim Dawn has the most versatile item system in any ARPG, and you want it to become even more complex?

I also think that you are overestimating full lvl 94 sets, and again, overestimating the significance of end-game.

Anyway, there will be plenty of new items and stuff in the new patch/expansions. Just wait and see

+1 to this, fun>>>farm

I think that is your issue, the items are meant for more than one build, so they do not necessarily fit exactly to a specific / your build

The game is literally telling me: “You’ll collect a ton of sweet OP legendary and MI pieces, but you’ll have to stick with your Eagle, Fox and Monkey set, I’m sorry”.

not sure what set that is, but if you cannot find a legendary set that fits you or a bunch of legendary items that do, you maybe should rethink what you are doing (yes, there are a few gaps, but not so many that you should always fall into them)

I almost never use a full set for a build. I think I have 5 or 6 builds that use a full set and I have over 90 builds I have got to 100.

Tho I might change my mind if I ever find the Eagle, Fox and Monkey set. As that sounds pretty fucking epic. Probably the 2nd best set to incorporate monkey ever. Obviously Puppy Monkey Baby is still number 1.

There used to be a belt with +1 to all skills, and the problem was that once any char had that belt, that was it and no other belt was used, because of this “Frizzick’s (bad spelling) Utility pack” had the +1 to all skills removed and suddenly players were using all different types of belts instead of “this is the only belt to use”.

This change made the game more interesting and far more versatile as for players there was suddenly a wide range of items to use. :wink:

Edit… From personal experience having +1 to all skills items REMOVES versatility and choices from builds, as it’s too good to give up once you have the item, and it works with every single char, thus every build ends up using the same single item and you end up with far, far less choice / options for builds.

100% agreed Jaknet. There was also the Delirium helm with +1 to all skills. Good thing they were nerfed.

That Utility Pack epic belt also had +1 to all skills. Mog Ardor and Peerless Eye amulet are two of the most overused items because how easy it is to just splash them in a build.

Shit I miss having +1 to a class skill completion bonus on chest components like chains of Oleron. Was a sad panda when they removed them.
But it ended up being the right decision as it would be to easy to gear if they stayed

But mate… UNSTACKABLE components. :rolleyes:

There are items with bonuses to more than two masteries. Does that mean that Crate should allows us to pick a third mastery so we use the items at their full potential?

No, but there are items with three masteries bonuses that would “fit” into 5.
Does anyone know about a 2H Legendary or MI with Aether and Vitality buffs?

It’d be pretty much OP for a Necromancer but mine has one, a green one, which would be pretty much difficult to change, even for a Legendary.

That’s what I mean with the “Eagle, Fox and Monkey set”. Talking about “balance” in a single player game is not funny. Much less if “we’re here to just have fun”.
You guys, and maybe me sometimes, will fall into contradiction if we want to deffence our arguments against everything.

Again, I won’t have fun with my DK knowing the best items I can put on her are “common greens” with no “special visuals”, nor a badass appareance.
Plain truth. I will have “lots of fun” farming for nothing, or maybe for another characters. I will see no improvement. I’ll play hours and hours for nothing.
Then I’ll just give up and stick to another, better geared character that maybe is less entertaining, no matter how much “fun” I have with my DK.
And that’s a fact.

I like the idea of more +1 to all skills quite a lot.

My latest ravenous earth ritualist felt awesome to play as, but every goddamn decent piece of gear i found tried to pidgeon hole me into a lame necro/occultist, which was annoying as hell.

Well, either that, or a far larger table for every single class combo, but that could take ages to do.