Keeping Direni Alive

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

I was surprised to see some videos of endgame Cronley runs where players chose to keep Direni alive to fight him over and over and over in Cronley’s Hideout.

Is that a deliberate choice, like does fighting him over and over there have a chance to drop something good? I usually only get junk.

I thought it’d generally be better to kill him in Act 1 during Cultist’s Orders so that he doesn’t block the way over and over in subsequent Cronley runs, especially in ultimate, since I thought he’d just mostly slow down each run. I usually do Cronley runs more for dynamite than anything else though.

2

keeping him alive in devil’s crossing makes sure you get a strange key, which opens the iron door for Depraved sanctuary also when you let him alive, you get also a chance to get tainted brain matter from him.

3

For the latter part, you have a good chance for tainted brain matter to drop each time you fight him in Cronley’s Hideout? If so I might want to keep him alive in future sessions, at least for ultimate. I usually try to just be patient about Strange Key if I didn’t get one already (never factored that into the appeal of keeping him alive or killing him).

4

That key that mentioned above has a very little chance to drop from the cultist mobs near the depraved sanctuary if it is not changed

Also he is in hero classment which may increase the chance of an item you looking for

5

Yeah, I noticed that! But I have hits and misses. With some playthroughs, I get the key right smack in Burrwitch Outskirts at the precise time I want it. And there are some where I have a level 85 character in ultimate that has yet to encounter a single damned Strange Key in that difficulty and maybe wishing I just got it from Direni.

It feels to me like the odds of the key dropping are lower in higher difficulties, but I don’t have a large enough sample to say for sure.

6

Direni got a pathetic drop table. People mostly keep him alive to farm rep faster, but not because of the loot.

7

I see, that coincides with my personal experiences. I didn’t think of it from a rep standpoint to kill him over and over.

8

If you are going to run Cronley more than 7 times, it’s worth it to leave Demetri alive for rep, otherwise kill him. The thing is, in ult, you have an endless period of time to account for, so killing him may just bite you in the ass later when you are trying to grind out Fabius rep.

9

I keep him alive in Ultimate for an extra hero to get more rep for Cronley to help unlock Fabius and for more loot.

10

I Kill everyone that I am allowed to, as I like to keep the population down. Less people alive means less people who will one day betray me.

1 Like
11

Normal/Veteran and Elite difficulties = revealed and killed in A1 Devil´s Crossing (exp and DC rep at the moment)
Ultimate = boss in Cronley´s Hideout (rep farming and some loot)

What i dont get is (maybe bcs i am not from english speaking country and missed something), he is Ch´thonic agent (Cultist Orders - Salazar, Blade of Ch´thon) but later he is Aetherial boss.

12

Well it seems that he hates Devil’s Crossing and John Bourbon more than anything but the Bloodsworn were a little bit to extreme for him so he joins Cronley at the end

13

He dropped 2 or 3 legs for me yesterday farming for rep and a ring. Can’t beat that

14

I always whoop him on normal, bonus DC reputation and Blood of Ch’thon are more worthy then those few reputation points. On elite and ultimate I tend to just go with the story line and keep him or drop him depending if I get the key from normal progress.
Then again I never did like fighting Fabius and a most of my endgame characters don’t even have nemesis reached with Cronley’s crowd.