Mobs hit too hard. Only defensive build viable.

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

Hi.

In first sorry for english :stuck_out_tongue:

In current build (31?) i just cant play. Mayby im no pr0, but no noob also. I beat diablo2 on self find items, from scratch too hell baal. It was hard but i find the way.

Why i cant play GD? Well i get killed too mutch. Game start being difficult about 35lv. Now im 55 on higest char (i make few). The thing is, i make tanky build, 70% attributes to psyhique, rest cunning. Get resist asap to some acceptable levels (lern that from diabolo). Also crazy ass wendigo totem + all the rest healing/defences

But still, even when my resist are high, my max hp also got buffed, my killing speed is nice so i get rid of trash masses fast, i still get killed from time to time.

The thing is i read is ā€œsingle playerā€ game. But if u play only single player u dont find BiS items all the time. You actually need to go online to trade items or you will get killed. Just like in diablo2, so how this is single player when player need to trade with others?
I dont know why people said game is easyā€¦ they have max lv 25, or play from early acces with diffrent balance and farm good items alredy, or just cheat.

So many skill, builds classes, devotions. But you need all defensive. Look for thread ā€œmost viable mastery in ultimateā€. Its soldierā€¦ because of defences.
Deviotions? Only those with resist/other defenses. You find item without res? Its a trash.

So my question is this game will get some balance or i can quit alredy?

Seriously i try play this but is unplayable. People find fun being one-hit killed even with tank build?

And just mind that i know mechanic in games like that. I play diablo 2 quite a lot, i play little titan quest. For now player must make perfect build, have luck finding items or you will get nice cross. Its bad design. It should be viable to play unperfect build without constant dying. Just killing/farming slower. Less optimal but no facerolled.

2

Behemoth + Tree + appropriate Debuff devotion + OA fillers , is the works for all devotion setup

Post your grimcalc stats,skills and devotion

Are you using components and augments?

Resists are super important along with decent amount of armor, always keeps relevant resist near 80% based on area. This is what usually causes the one shot

That soldier thing is outdated. Classes like blademaster need great gear to shine while Conjurer (pet or vit) can do well with decent gear

3

I cannot understand how you could be having such problems at lvl31. If anything, Normal Difficulty was harder in Diablo II than it is in Grim Dawn! Where are you up to in the game? Are you perhaps under-levelled? Is your gear really under-level? I have a lvl50 character that I play on auto-pilot in Veteran: all yellow, self-found gear, only tier-one devotions and no healing/defensive skills at all.

Alternatively, perhaps you are playing TOO defensively. In this genre, you can spend the early difficulty focusing more on offence and faceroll everything by killing it before it can hit you, then switch to defence at higher difficulties when it becomes impossible to kill fast enough.

1 Like
4

Maybe you should try Path of Exile. Very few builds are viable in that game if you donā€™t stack tons of health.

Now, my experience with GD is limited (first char ~clvl60), but I did not find that I need to heavily rely on defence. Quite the contrary, this is one of the few instances when I went for 2h melee and skipped a shield. I got my primary resists mostly maxed out, but my secondary resists suck (e.g. 0 aether and chaos). But as long as Iā€™m extra careful in areas with aether or chaos damage, Iā€™m fine. I expect this will change when I hit ultimate, but by then Iā€™m also expecting Iā€™ll find better gear. I do have some jewellery with aether/chaos resistance in my backpack just in case, but so far I was fine without it.

On the other hand, what good are defences if you can just ignore them? There should always be a price to pay when going all offence.

5

I said build 31. Not level 31. I mean current patch (1.0.0.3).
Since i found very frustrating when i read something on forum and it was for older patch and get fixed. Like i wrote in first post now my highest char is 55lv.

But i left the game for torchligt.
cya

6

Lol, perhaps you were just bad at the game? The only times I had issues was in the transitions between Vet-Elite and Elite-Ulti, mostly because I didnā€™t re-cap my resistances well enough between the swaps. My Spellbreaker is nearly 100% offensive, with only the smallest of concessions to defence (Resistance capping mostly, maxed Mirror being the other), and my clear speed is very good, my DPS against all but the most durable of targets is insane enough that I usually only need two rotations of my abilities to kill them, which is about 2-3 seconds, and if a fight drags out my DPS skyrockets as my procs start to cover the map in a field of death.

Literally the only thing I have trouble with so far is Moosilkee or however you say his name, and that is mostly because my primary damage type, cold, isā€¦ not exactly useful vs the cold focused nemesis. Even though my resistances keep most of his damage managable, his damage is just high enough to be a 1 shot threat on me when he lands all three parts of his Shattered Sky on me due to RNG favoring him. Even then, I have a fallback plan in an amulet that grants me freeze resistance reduction, which when comboā€™d with Shard of Askerannā€™s resistance reduction actually lets me get his freeze resistance low enough as to be able to freeze him, meaning my high aggro combo can hold him down for a few seconds (6, to be exact, which is as long as the buff on the amulet last).

I just cleared BoC in Ultimate with only 7.7k hp and mostly capped resistances (Vitality being the only exception, which sits around 50 or so), and only got dangerously low twice, both due to me being cocky and diving into the entire field of leach immune enemies so that I could up the clear speed by 1-2 skill rotations on them all.

This is notably with only like 3-4 Legendaries, of which maybe 2 are BiS. Everything else is just greens or blues that fit what I need, it being a resistance stat stick or granting me specific +levels I focus on. My gear has TONS of improvement available, and it still works fine.

7

Itā€™s not required to build a tank build, but it is required to have some resists and a fair amount of health. You can get health by gear, devotion points and to a lesser extend, attribute points. There are also 2 classes with health skills. Just because you build an offensive character, does not mean you can ignore your defenses.

8

Ok, the OP was just trolling. Leaving GD for Torchlightā€¦

9

GD is an action RPG. You can build and gear for some very passive playstyles, where you need next to no (precise) input, but that obviously limits your options and results in gameplay that isnā€™t going to be very exciting or engaging.

You canā€™t ignore defensive stats if you want to stay alive, but the best defense is still not getting hit (too much, for what your build can take), and thatā€™s done through movement, positioning and well-timed use of CC and dmg skills.

10

Good luck farming your limoanys and grells! :slight_smile:

11

There is no auto working optimal meta.
You can make it easier to survive if your dps is up for it.

Normally I spec offensive devotions and defense on gear.
seems atm be the way to go.
I play hardcore mainly.

12

Yea, thx for replays. Grim Dawn for sure have best community of all arpgā€™s.
Still I think this game is just not for me. Max reses at 75%ā€¦ dislake this back in diablo. i got res 75% and get hit by mob over half of my health its silly.
Having resistance in GD in 60%+ fell like other games 0%.

Game all about building your resistances (11 of themā€¦ its also kinda silly). I died few times too just check what type of damage im reciving (chaos, bleed and vitality all have red icons)
It will be cool if the max reses will be something like 25% max, and on elite, ultimate they should scale up to 50% / 75 % max to balance higher dmg from mobs.

But that how i see it. Many pople enjoy game like it is now, so i just step back.

Propably im just bland terrible at this game. Strange since i finish games like diablo2LoD, torchlight 1 + 2 , have some experience with TQ.

Soo after playing all this games its possible im just bad (even retarded? but how i manage d2 solo then?). I wonder if someone new to gengre try GD, what will be heā€™s experience ;X.

And about kitting mobs. Anyone battered with that camera zoom? Playing with some ā€œteleportā€ skills, running fast is kinda headache with that very limited zoom out.

Soo farewell. Lets hope i will find time to go back to this tittle after some years, new content and futher balance patches.

13

Its funny when you write things like that and then say you go to Torchlight. You played it on elite, did you? Defenses in TL2 in a nutshell are

Ignore armor/resist system past NG0

1 - Get enough all damage reduction (limoany, grell, few items)
2 - Get proper hp pool (riechliu, items)

to not get oneshot. Add some movement skill to avoid well telegraphed oneshots.

Everything else like block and evasion is supplementary. If you donā€™t have 1 and 2, what hits come through your block and evasion can oneshot, so its pointless.

Well, its not an issue in the first NG cycle and only really kicks in in NG+. First call is probably the damage of bear traps in the first overworld area in act 1, temple steppes. Then once you get to second part of act 1, you get slaughtered by cold mobs like a noob. Repeatedly.

At least GD has working armor now, and resists do what they are supposed to do. There are many defense mechanics that you can combine.

And no, full defense is not the only way to go. It was an issue before 1.002 but not anymore.

14

Eh, I never got the feeling that it was anywhere near approaching any kind of difficult except for it being just normal even for a casual player.

Grim Dawn is easier than, say, Path of Exile (more diverse build options and more defense setups), Diablo 2 Eastern Sun or MedianXLu Endgame. Diablo 2 vanilla and Torchlight 2 vanilla is just as easy as GD.

15

I feel like we play different gamesā€¦

  1. If you have resistance at 80%, then enemyā€™s damage will usually be easily manageable. You either have insanely low HP pool (i.e.4k in ultimate) or you dont have 80% resistance for the damage you take. Remember - some enemies can reduce your resistances, and getting high physical resistance is almost impossible.
  2. Actually, there are 10 ā€œdamage resistsā€, and one of them (physical) isnt meant to be maxed. I also think thatā€™s kinda too much, but game actually allows you to max most of them (or all, with certain intent). Also, Bleed resist isnt really relevant except when fighting Warden. Itā€™s DoT only, btw.
  3. In GD, you should reach some balance between defensive and offensive stats. As it should be in a good game. In many other games, you go just for offensive stats and shit on your enemies. Is that better? I dont think so.
  4. In GD, your death arent penaltized at all. A tiny exp loss is nothing, and when you reach maximum level, itā€™s absolustely nothing.
  5. You probably dont understand yet, what stuff is powerful in GD, and what is junk. I think, you tried to build your character with junk stuff and failed.
  6. Zoom is no different from other ARPGs. Your FoW is always kinda limited. Max movespeed is kinda low in GD, though.

P.S. In torchlight2, when playing at highest difficulty, you take insane damage from enemies, especially in melee (literally one-shots). Even of you max out your resists and HP. Sadly, you can change difficulty whenever you want, and it doesnt provides bonus loot or exp, just makes the game MUCH harder. Thatā€™s a very bad example of how a game should behave.

P.S.S.
As far as i know, in D2, maxing out your Vitality stat and maxing resists was imperative too. And even having res capped, you still take very high damage from some enemies (in Hell difficulty, of course).

16

Another troll bites the dust!

17

I played GD quite a lot in softcore then in hardcore (total close to 2.4k hours).

Hereā€™s what matters:
In GD you cannot facetank if you do not have the stats.
Without putting numbers since youā€™re not in Ultimate yet hereā€™s what you need to consider:

  • Armor - itā€™s your primary way to reduce physical damage --> there is also physical resistance but itā€™s something that is harder to get and usually you get it more easily with some end game gear. Also, keep in mind that physical damage from monsters is one of the damage type you want to reduce to most since itā€™s mostly every melee monster does it.
  • Resistances - As you know itā€™s really important! Letā€™s just say that the cap value of 80 make it even more important since the game is balanced around that value. That being said, in the first difficulty itā€™s not as much important and you shouldnā€™t need to max them all. Still youā€™ll need some :smiley: --> Having 0 might get you it trouble though :stuck_out_tongue:
  • Defensive Ability - early on itā€™s not as much important but later on it allows you to not be crit and/or not being hit!
  • Crowd control (CC) skills - REALLY IMPORTANT!!! --> for exemple (ring of steel with the transmuter ring of frost) as a dual wield build it allows you to ā€˜ā€˜facetankā€™ā€™ many packs of monsters without the need to kite as much.
  • Health regen : itā€™s something that not every masteries has but the devotion system have Giant Blood proc (Behemot) and Healing Rain proc (Tree of Life). Thos 2 are the best ones and I would always try to get at least one or both in any build that I make! Behemot is the one I would most likely always choose because itā€™s easier to get (less affinity requirements).
    ā€“> There is also Damage converted to health stat but itā€™s kinda bad early on. you can find this on gear/2 component/Devotion system.
  • Damage absorption / reducing monsterā€™s damage : This one might be really important for some build and/or how experienced you are with the game. Two exemples --> Maivenā€™s Sphere of Protection skill in the arcanist mastery has damage absorption and War Cry in the Soldier mastery reduce the targetā€™s damage. Both have the same goal, reducing the damage taken!
  • Health pool --> having a nice amount of health, if itā€™s too low you might die often with some build

Kiting : kiting is part of GD for many builds! But if you have stats to be able to tank with CC skills you wonā€™t need to kite as much! :wink:

I think I didnā€™t forget anything, hopefully it makes you comeback! Good Luck!

18

Playing in Normal is like kindergarden - there is 0 challenge and you can use whatever wanky build.
Once getting few factions items and epics (which rain from the sky) you can easily switch to Veteran.

I would say Elite is even easier once you move to it as at this point (around lv50) your build will be kind of complete and you would have decent gear (as well as devotions).

Utlimate is different story and here i also have complaint that you need to build mostly defensively to have decent survivability. But i like the challenge though all my 4 max level chars can kill Fabius in between 10-30 seconds.

I think you are either trolling mate (going back to TL2 lolā€¦) or just these games arent for youā€¦

19

I personally just go veteran strait after Warden, and yes, Elite is easier overall once you adjust your gear for the lost resistances. Ulti has just enough spike damage laying around to be a threat to a lot of non-tank builds, though. God the BS Moosilkii perfect triple hit Sky Shards is such an irritant for my squishy Spellbreaker, even with the capped out cold resistance and almost capped lightning, and 8k hp. You canā€™t really control it, and so much luck exist in how the shards land. Other than Moosilki though, I havenā€™t had many other deaths, and cleared BoC first try with almost pure offensive devotions.

At the current rate, figuring Log should be a rather simple battle, considering how almost any other Cthonic enemy barely scratches me and I have all the resistances to his damage types capped out anyway.