I haven’t played in a while but might be looking to play some more again. I’ve always been interested in making my own builds and not using someone elses (less alt-tabbing lol). But the only problem is, I’ve never been any good at it.
What are some tips to designing my own build?
Focus. Using eight skills may SOUND cool, but you’ve only got so many points. Using four damage types might seem good, but really, three is as far as you should push it in the vast majority of cases. Stick to two, usually. Plan your devotions in advance, so that you know your skill assignments and your progression, and don’t have to stop and replot with every shrine you reach. Make sure you’ll have enough energy for whatever it is you’re doing…Even attack skills aren’t free, and with enough AS I’ve found my builds outpacing my regen sometimes.
Thank you for the response! How many points do I put into all my skills while leveling? How do I determine the right number to put in? How can I determine what skills work well together and which don’t? Is there any rule of thumb?
You will need Resistance Reduction of some kind. Look on your skills and your devotions primarily; items can help but you won’t get them while you’re leveling.
Part of it is preference. Mostly I go by feel. Feel squishy? Level something defensive. Not feeling squishy yet? Then level something to hit harder.
The only things you can’t respec in this game are the mastery bar, your class choices, and your attribute points…So shove almost all your Atts into Physique, like we all do, and be careful about your mastery bar.
As for what works well together, generally you want synergistic damage sources. Poison/Acid for example, go very well together, one is the up front hit, Acid, and the other is the associated DOT. Elemental is Fire, Cold, and Lighting, so those go well together. There’s fair support for Fire and Lightning, and some support for Cold, not much.
Generally look at your skills, and see what damage types are offered on the skill and the modifiers along it. Those damage types almost certainly have support somewhere in the game, so you can focus there if you’d like.
Ah okay thank you! What about attribute points? How do I go about allocating those and can you respec if you mess up?
Most builds get away with using only Physique, but have a look at the Build Compendium in the Classes section to see what others have done. You might need some points into Spirit or Cunning, but it depends on what equipment, etc, you have/find.
And no, attribute points can’t be respecc’ed. Skill points and devotion points can be bought back at the Spirit Guide, but once you’ve allocated attribute points that’s it - unless you use a character editor of some kind.
Ah okay, thank you :D. I went with Arcanist/Occultist. I think my damage types will be Elemental/Aether/Poison. Or maybe just Elemental/Poison?
You should be okay to go all Physique then as you’ll get plenty of Spirit from those masteries. If you want to use daggers then they need Cunning so keep an eye on that and if needed put a few points into it. But you should get that from the masteries early game, so might only be a consideration late game if you decide to use them. Guns, rifles and crossbows also need Cunning.
Either Elemental or Poison
Not both
As for tips:
-Copy a forum build
-Try to understand what makes it “tick”
-Experiment and find your own style
-Make that build yours by adding your “signature”
-You’re now ready to kill Mogdrogen
There are a few guidelines. Others have already pointed out bits and pieces, but let’s condense all that.
First off, you’ll want to decide what kind of character you want to make.
Step 1: armors. What armors does your character use? There are basically two types - heavy armors (very high physique requirements, usually comes with very good resistances, designed for characters which will be taking a lot of hits) and caster armors (moderate physique+spirit requirements, usually comes with energy regen and +%damage mods). Maybe you want a character that wants the best of both worlds (and everything in between) in which case you’ll want a decent amount of physique/spirit, which you can then just boost with gear/devotions.
Step 2: weapons. What weapon does your character use? Most weapons usually have a physique requirement. Ranged weapons and dagger/sword-type weapons usually have a significant cunning requirement, while caster weapons/offhands can have physique/spirit or cunning/spirit requirements.
Gear choice will reflect the type of character you want to make. Obviously a “ranger”-type character will be using some sort of ranged weapon instead of a scepter/caster off-hand, while a “gladiator”-type character will be using heavy armors and a sword/mace and shield.
If you’re just starting out, you might want to focus on creating a character which mostly relies on 1-2 stats. The idea is that you’ll then have a lot of extra stat points to play around with if you screw up somewhere.
3 stat characters are ideal mostly for players who already know what items they want for end-game, you can experiment with these once as you become more experienced.
Now that you have a rough idea of what your character is going to be like, your next step is to choose a mastery that works for you. Some masteries cater to certain playstyles better than others - Occultist is a mastery designed around debuffs, summoning and vitality/chaos/poison/acid damage types, for example - obviously not a great choice if you want nothing to do with pets and these damage types. Grimcalc gives you a very basic idea of what to expect from each mastery if you mouse over them.
Although this choice is permanent/irreversible there is really little room for error when picking masteries, the only risk here is if you try to play a mastery in a way that it wasn’t meant to be played.
Skill choice comes last, and is the easiest to fix (in-game) if you screw up. The general idea is that you want to choose and level skills that have synergy with each other. The best way to know this is through either firsthand experience or by asking around in forums like these.
Skills comes from three major sources: masteries, devotions and components. Learn to enjoy this part, besides actually fighting monsters in-game figuring out what which skill combinations to use is (or should be) one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game.
It gets even more interesting as your knowledge of items increases and you come across a few specific ones that grant you unique skills, from summoning powerful creatures to throwing poo at your enemies.
It’s too late :(. I went with Occultist so I can’t switch now. Any suggestions?
Create a new character asap.
Yeah, make a new character. But, if you really don’t want to, here are some suggestions:
If you want to focus on elemental damage, you could but some points into Summon Familiar. You really only need 1 point in the base skill (or a few more if it’s dying too much), but you can put points into Mend Flesh and Storm Spirit. Just make sure to switch the Familiar’s mode to Defensive if you do decide to take points into it. (Do that by right-clicking the icon in the top left once you’ve summoned it.) (Note: if you put points into an ability for your pet, you’ll have to re-summon it for it to be able to use that ability.)
Vulnerability (which is the attachment to Curse of Frailty) has some Elemental Resist Reduction, which is also nice. Only put as many points in Curse of Frailty as you need to give it a good cast radius, since you won’t be using the Resist Reductions much.
And if you feel like you need a heal spell, Blood of Dreeg provides some nice health regeneration, as well as some Offensive Ability.
Thanks for the suggestions. Is there a trusted character editor I could use to reset my class if I wanted to?
Also, I like how people say you can’t make a bad build yet instantly tell me to make a new character once I say I went Arcanist/Occultist lol.
I don’t think the character combination is bad, it’s just that I think there’s a lot better support for a elemental caster than the Occultist.
I actually have an Arcanist/Occultist, it uses the Hellhound, Doombolt, and Albrecht’s Aether Ray (with the modifier than converts the Aether damage to Chaos damage).
As for a character editor, I have no idea. But it’s really not hard to get a character to level 20, it’ll only take 2-4 hours depending on how well you know act 1.
That sounds pretty fun actually. I’ll switch up my skills and go for something like that now lol. Gonna have to change all my gear though lol. So what damage types does it use though? Aether/Chaos?
Yes you can absolutely make a “bad” build very easily. Some builds may be harder to make work than others tho. With knowledge and a bit of luck with gear and such, any build should be doable.
Here is the Utilities section
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=32
GD Defiler should work I believe
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9343
GD Stash also has some character editing abilities
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9343
There was also the trainer, GD Trained Hard,
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38266
but I believe the author has been awol and it doesn’t work with latest builds.
Fair enough. What would’ve been a better choice to go with then?
I can’t rightly say as I haven’t used them but I would probably give the Defiler a go as that is its primary function.