Little help needed

Hi

Started playing Grim Dawn a couple months back. So far mainly been messing around with a few different chars, but now my Warder passed lvl 70 and since I also bought the latest expansion recently, I have now ventured into the Malmouth area.

Up till now, I have had no problems, but seems like that expansion area seriously up’d the difficulty. A couple of the bosses took me 5-6 tries to get down and I’m dying A LOT more. I’m lvl 72 and some bosses have quite a few levels on me (totally unfair :P)

  • Is that to be expected considering this is my first “high” level char?

I played a lot of PoE a couple years back, so know the importance of resists, but my gear is of course subpar to someone who has farmed for ages.
Resists are not all max’d, but I do have elementals around 87-90, poison max, pierce max, bleed 30ish I think, vitality and eather around 50, chaos around 20. HP around 10k, Damage 20k+

  • Should I max all out at expence of lots of damage or are there some I should focus more on than others?

I started with Primal Strike, which I loved, but I had to switch to Savagery around lvl 55-60 as I had problems with lacking life leech. I am considering switching back now, as I have the points for wendigo blood pact now.

Savagery build - grim tools:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0y6GRZ

Primal Strike build - grimtools:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZo1lYB2

  • Any suggestions on how my build should look at around 72? And what I should focus on in terms of gear/resists.

PS. I love my totems so please dont remove those :stuck_out_tongue:

at what difficulty are you at?

well you need a defensive approach, you dont deal any damage if you are dead :wink:

and we can’t see gear, components and such unless you share your character, see my guide how to do that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEASwrQ5C7k

Ahh cool didnt know you could upload char with equipment like that. Will do that tonight.

Elite difficulty

  • Is that to be expected considering this is my first “high” level char?

  • Should I max all out at expence of lots of damage or are there some I should focus more on than others?

  • Any suggestions on how my build should look at 74? And what I should focus on in terms of gear/resists.

Current build with gear:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/mN48XYBN

Resistances depends on witch act you are in.

I would get rid of Upheaval and get War Cry instead

  1. Yes. You have no gear farmed, you don’t know the strengths/skills of bosses, and you’re new to building characters. Everyone goes through this with at least their first high level character.
    Also, the game difficulty spikes in the expansion area. And get used to bosses having levels on you. When you’re level 100 you have to fight bosses level 108 or higher (I think ravager and mog get to 112?).

  2. You should always look to get as much resistance as feasible. Knowing what resistances you need also helps because then you can switch out one for another. For the expansion areas, these are the most important in order:
    Gloomwald/Ugdenbog: Poison, Bleeding, Vitality
    Void to Malmouth: Chaos, Fire, Bleeding
    Malmouth: Aether
    And I think Elemental is just generally useful as well.

  3. Alongside suggestions from 2, keep in mind armor is hugely important. You have some pretty good item rolls, but your gloves, pants, and boots are all level 58/59 items. Decently rolled level 70 items should be better than well rolled 59 items because armor is just that important. 95% of enemies deal physical damage.
    Your physical resist is pretty good thanks to savagery’s transmuter so if you decide to go back to Primal Strike, keep that 8% phys res loss in mind.
    Also, check all your faction vendors to see if there are useful augments you can buy (for resists). I think the armor ones need Revered so it’s unlikely you can get those at this point, but there might be some jewelry augments that can help.

Makes me feel a bit better that I’m not a total failure :slight_smile:

I’ll look into never and better armor and ditch upheavel for now. I do like war cry, but maybe just putting the points in field command for the extra armor could work.
And then some extra vitality and chaos resists.

Thanks for the info, guys!

never leave home without maxed Field command! It also scales well after soft-cap

Same with Scars of battle, free armor absorption, bleed resist and other good things. Decorated soldier is a one point-wonder

Sanctified bone in helm is good source for vit and chaos res, you can always keep component later when you get better helm.

Field command really helped a lot. Both defensively and offensively. At 75 I was able to boost most of my lacking armor with self crafted and some legendary boots. One more Shrine and I get another debuff.

The tide has turned! :stuck_out_tongue:

That Legion ring you have in right position is crap, you can shop stuff that is better (fills your resistances)

Try to craft some Scaled hide for pants, chest and or shoulders (get 100% armor absorption, high armor is useless unless you have 100% absorption) do not use ancient armor plates unless you can remove them (rare component that is good to have later on)

Your cold resistance is way high, replace the component in chest

Also remember sanctified bones in chest/head (and that you should keep the addon when you change gear, sacntified bones are not super-rare but not very common either)

Devotions: when you have finished Ultos devotion (proc node and the one that gives chaos res) get the first node in the Empty throne for stun resistance.

Bind devotions to toggle skills, now you have Ghoul proc on menhir will, and menhir will is only active when you a certain criteria is met. Bind it to stormcaller pact.

Augment: you got the augment that gives PETS resistance (common beginner mistake) but that means that you are honored with atleast Devils Crossing. I got you new augments.

here is something that you can aim for the next 5-10 levels https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GGJnL2

You will get wrecked in the later acts in Ultimate unless you have perfect resistances etc, be prepared for that :slight_smile:

Didn’t realize that armor/armor absorbtion was so important.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Will look into it.