OR - A fake-noob revisits Grim Dawn like a billion years later.
Hi. I'm Trilkin. I play video games. Path of Exile: Harvest comes out in a few days, and rather than burn myself out on theorycrafting for it I decided to revisit another skinner box about clicking things until they die. Since I have a soft spot for Grim Dawn and Titan Quest, here I am.
I had trouble deciding on a build, and after reading a bunch of guides - including the ones recommended for newbies - I realized that wasn’t how I wanted to play this game. I needed to strike out on my own, make my own mistakes, and work within my own restrictions and preferences as a player. Due to all of that, the build diary will work under the following caveats:
"I'm a masochist!" - Caveats!
Minimal respeccing
This is a personal preference. I prefer starting with a clearing skill I’m going to take into end-game. I would rather not start as one build just to respec into an entirely different build because the target build is impossible to level with. That isn’t all that fun for me.
No twinking
This is a consequence of me coming back with no stash, but to be honest, I’d have just moved out my files to start from scratch anyway for the purpose of this diary.
Normal/Normal to start
That’s right. No Veteran. I’m not afraid of Veteran, but the minor increase in XP and somewhat substantial increase in drops early on do not offset the sheer amount of tedium playing on Veteran adds. These games all start after the first difficulty; Veteran is just trying to get a jumpstart on that experience without the tools to actually manage it. That isn’t fun.
No ‘side’ stuff before finishing the campaign on Normal
I.E., play like a newbie. No FG stuff early on to get the easy movement skill. No early Crucible. Campaign only for at least one difficulty.
No guides except for mechanics explanations
This one is slightly cheating because I’ve already read a few guides, but most of the information in them wasn’t incredibly helpful to me. It all felt like stuff I could’ve figured out on my own. This also means I will not be doing anything with complete efficiency on purpose - if at all. I’ll be making the same mistakes everybody else did, and you get to shake your head at me and watch! What I will be doing is using are the wiki and Grimtools, though, because I’d do it for any game. My Devotion mapping will be a mixture of clicking things randomly in Grimtools to see what happens and doing the final reading in-game. The search function is INCREDIBLY helpful, and I’m glad the game itself has one.
In addition to these restrictions, I have a few preferences that will help narrow down what I build:
"I'm also a picky bitch!" - Preferences!
- I prefer ranged builds due to generally faster clearing and less collision weirdness.
- Speed is important, but not completely paramount.
- I must feel safe for the campaign content. If I feel like I’m playing on a knife edge, my build is doing something wrong.
- Damage must be from me. This means no pet builds.
- I like fully clearing maps. I may end up overleveled for certain things.
- I’m going to be playing with a controller. GD’s controller support is pretty great, especially as sort of an afterthought. I normally play with keyboard and mouse, but I find playing GD with a controller to be rather relaxing.
I intend on posting with every act or two I finish. The exception is this initial post since it’s sort of a statement of intent. I think the first act on Normal is still important to post about just because it’s going to inform how I feel about the build going forward. After that, I’ll probably stick to every other act. Grimtools links will be supplied for every 10 levels so you can see what I’m doing, but I’ll try to do my best to explain my mentality.
"Whatever doesn't kill you makes you completely OP." - First Class Selection
I’m going to treat the first tree I choose as my ‘main’ tree for damage. This is where my primary clearing skill is going to come from and I want one that works from start to finish. Since I’m aiming for a ranged build, that already cuts some of my options out. I furthermore need defensive buttons (or appropriate amounts of CC) to help with staying safe.
Keeping to my preferences listed above, I narrow it down to Demolitionist, Occultist, Arcanist, Shaman, Inquisitor, and Necromancer. Soldier also could technically work here, but it doesn’t offer enough AOE clear within the tree at range for my preference.
Demolitionist seems the most straight forward. Fire Strike being immediately available means I can largely right-click my way to victory. The fact it’s a weapon skill means it synergizes really well with the attack procs in other trees. There is also a good amount of CC and a decent-ish defensive button available.
Occultist is interesting due to having multiple forms of damage, multiple forms of CC and debuffing, and multiple forms of healing. Like Demolitionist, I also have choices in damage types, but I am going to be pigeon-holed purely as a caster if I go this route. This doesn’t bother me.
Arcanist, frankly, doesn’t really floor me with its initial spread. There are some great defensive ‘oh-shit’ buttons available here, but the offensive tools in Arcanist feel like they require a fair amount of investment before they really show their value. Arcanist is something that feels like you need to respec into to really get the most out of.
Shaman, frankly, seems overtuned. It’s a jack of all trades and master of all on top of it. It has strong caster options, melee, ranged, caster, pet builds. All with strong defensive options available. For someone who has no idea what they want to play, Shaman seems like the tree to start with.
Inquisitor, by apparent nature, is an interesting hybrid tree. The dual-wielding gunslinger archetype combined with a trap-layer and misery-maker is definitely appealing to me. It also has an insanely good defensive bonus in Inquisitor’s Seal which is very tempting for me, but the fact you need to stay still keeps me on the fence.
Necromancer has some good self-cast tools, but it feels the least developed of the trees I picked out. A melee Bone Harvest build might be interesting for a future experiment, but the other major skill on offer for self-cast is a channel and - as mentioned - I don’t like standing still for too long.
I further narrow it down between Occultist, Shaman and Inquisitor and opt for Occultist for one reason, and one reason only: it has exploding eyes. That sounds metal as fuck. It’s also where the name of this character comes from - ‘Monitor.’ As in eyes. It’s also the name of an Android: Netrunner novella about surveillance and the power of large corporations. I don’t think that’s relevant here, but hey, factoids.
"That guy's name is literally Liquor Liquor." - Starting Out
Now that I’ve chosen my tree and the main skill I’m likely going to use, I also take a look at the other early damager: Bloody Pox. Immediately, I see the issue of the two spells having different damage types and, thus, harder to itemize for. Bloody Pox, however, has its own virtues without needing a lot of explicit support, so I still intend on leveling it up, but for now, I will treat it as a supplement to Dreeg’s Evil Eye.
Because DEE doesn’t have any real AOE at base, I leave the base skill at 1 for now and put points into the tree until I get to Blood Burst. At this point, I already feel the massive increase in power and begin pumping Blood Burst solely. This runs me into my first snag: spam casting this thing is expensive. I initially buy a cheap-o caster off-hand that has some energy regen on it. Between that and my energy pots, I make do. On Normal/Normal, nothing really poses a threat - especially not this early. I do stop pumping Blood Burst at about rank 7, though, and start putting more points into the tree to pick up other spells.
I pick up Bloody Pox, obviously, and Curse of Frailty to eventually use with Vulnerability. I luck out early and get a +2 Vulnerability weapon that helps me delete heroes/bosses. I also make sure to use components to increase my poison damage and energy regen as they become available to me. I also pick up Sigil of Consumption, but find that at this level, it isn’t incredibly useful - especially once I get Blood of Dreeg. Blood of Dreeg is a weird spell. Its low cooldown and high duration make me wonder if it should’ve been a toggle instead, but I try to keep 100% uptime on it. Until I get my second class, it’s going to be the only buff I have. For now, I’m also going to remove the point I put in Sigil of Consumption, but I know I will come back around to it later on.
I’ve decided early on that I’m going to sit on my attribute points for now and only use them when I need to meet a gearing requirement not easily attainable by a few points in a tree -OR- for immediately massively useful upgrades, if applicable. My end-game plan is to eventually dump everything left into Spirit, but we’ll see how that goes.
As for devotions, at the time I hit level 10, I only have one point and it goes into Red/Chaos. I intend on taking Rat as my first constellation for the extra poison damage. The next will be Bat to open the way to Manticore. I may change this plan if I feel like I need a little bit of extra speed or defense instead, but we’ll see.
Either way, it’s just the first 10 levels. Outside of talking out my mentality of why I chose certain things, there isn’t a lot of note to happen here. The game’s quite literally just started. God speed to me.
"Trilkin finds out poison isn't super well supported." - Second Class Selection
This actually ended up easier than my main class. There’s only one class that really synergizes with Poison damage, and that’s Nightblade. Most of the passive parts of Nightblade work extremely well with this build, and it has a few extra defensive tools as well as another easily maintained buff to make things go faster. Because of my initial, intense focus on Occultist, however, I also expect to not put too much investment into Nightblade at first. For now, my immediate goal with it is to grab Veil of Shadows and put 3 points into it. The 10% speed debuff should synergize great with Curse of Frailty to keep me safe against bosses for now.
"How to dress like a murder hobo." - Gearing Plan
Rather than focusing on specific items, I’m just going to go over what my priorities are for stats in this order:
- Resistances (to cap or comfort)
- OA and DA
- Poison -> Acid Damage
- Speed
- Vitality Damage (to get the most out of my other abilities)
- Health
Through Normal, taking hits won’t be a problem, but this mentality is to prepare me for Elite. If I find good MIs, Legendaries, or faction-specific gear, I will update this section as well as make a note in the appropriate section of the diary.
"Poison and Taxes" - The Road to Krieg
Why taxes? Because the eye is a god damn shakedown artist which how much energy it demands. By this point, Blood Burst and the base skill are maxed. I also have a point in Terrifying Gaze for the small CC chance, but this is where I will likely be keeping my energy expenditures for now. My next priorities are to max Vulnerability and Blood of Dreeg. At that point, I think it might be time to start shoring up some of my defenses and adding a bit of speed to this build by dipping into Nightblade, but I’m not quite there yet.
So far, so good, though. I’ve ran into no issues, and have been able to comfortably face tank even the optional bosses in the caves (albeit with the occasional retreat to let my regen do its work.) Trash mobs die in single casts. Most hero and boss mobs get deleted very quickly. The initial power of the build at least in the early stages of the game feels satisfying. We’ll see how long this honeymoon lasts.
I do make an alteration to my plans, though, and opt to take Scorpion before Bat - both for the more immediate damage boosts from the constellation as well as to experiment with the proc. Devotions, I’m definitely going to be less strict about respeccing out of since they’re the most ‘liquid’ part of any build, in my opinion.
"To Hell with this cell; we're breaking out tonight!" - End of Act 1
Level 24 GT - End of Act 1
To give you an idea of how much trouble I had, I was largely watching Blue Bloods and holding the A button of my controller while Krieg died. I couldn’t have done the same thing on Veteran, but I don’t think I would’ve had much issue other than the fight taking longer. My plans stated earlier remain the same for now. Blood of Dreeg is especially good sustain, and the extra damage does not hurt. I also understand why it isn’t a toggle now: it’s a potent heal, so having it as a toggle would reduce some of its value. When I pick up its sibling from Nightblade, I’m going to have some rather effective burst healing.
I took a swing over to say hi to Salazar as well. I didn’t have much luck in getting a key the first time and I - uh - killed the dirtbag traitor cultist in town. It took a few restarts to finally get a key and have a chat. Unsurprisingly, it was a short discussion. I plowed through the Sanctuary with zero issues. Again, I suspect the same results would’ve happened in Veteran - just taking a little longer.
As for choices, there aren’t any really to make in Act 1. I take Duncan for the caster stats on crafted gear, kill the cultist, and that’s about it. Not much to report otherwise! I think this is going to be the tale of Normal in general. Next up, I blow some rocks up.
"That part where I actually died." - East Marsh + Sunken Reliquary
I finally experienced my first death. In fact, I experienced two. To the same mob. East Marsh is a pretty fun place, I learned, but it actually was still largely trivial except for those giant mobs that seem to think they’re Diablo 2 druids. Giant exploding rocks. Lightning. Yup. This is where I learned that resist Really Fucking Matter because those rocks one-shot me. I didn’t even know what killed me the first time. I just exploded.
Outside of that, though, the Marsh - and Reliquary for that matter - were ezpz. I found some really nice upgrades, but I’m still a few levels too low for them yet. If nothing else, this gave me some idea of what harder content is going to be like and so far, I’m satisfied.
I do, however, note that the Scorpion proc is very underwhelming. I was hoping it’d be projectiles that flew out from me rather than being ground spikes and the damage they actually do is extremely underwhelming. That said, the other damage bonuses from the constellation make it worth keeping. This experience, though, redirected my devotion plan to take Sailor’s Guide next for some easy resists and movement speed.
I also opted to stop pumping Blood of Dreeg for now and started dumping my points into maxing Pneumatic Burst next for the speed and second heal. This was a good idea. The amount of raw sustain this gives me along with the burst healing is incredibly good.
I’m still having some energy problems - more now that I’m casting faster - but that’s something that’s only going to be solved with gear.
"Mister Cronley, what went on in your head?" - End of Act 2
Compared to my adventures in the East Marsh, finishing Act 2 was a breeze. It doesn’t hurt that Act 2 feels like it’s the shortest act in terms of questing. Note that I am marking the death of Cronley and the quest to find Homestead as the end of Act 2. This means I haven’t gotten to Steps of Torment yet, but I certainly promise you I will.
I finished out maxing both Pneumatic Burst and Blood of Dreeg. I find myself at a bit of a crossroads now: do I continue with Occultist, or do I go with Nightblade for now for the passives? I am leaning heavily toward the latter. Right now, damage isn’t really much of a concern, and Nightblade can only improve it for right now while also shoring up some of my defenses.
Note: while I know that the quest reward for keeping the talisman is a relic, I don’t expect a new player to know. As such, I ignored my own knowledge of the relic and turned in the quest as I would’ve done on my first playthrough.
Cronley himself was little more than a speedbump. Some of his subordinates took longer to kill than him, but that isn’t saying a whole lot. The exploding eyes are turning out to be a really good choice as my main damaging skill. If I feel like I start falling behind, I am likely to start putting points into Bloody Pox for further supplement.
"Steps of Mild Inconvenience" - Steps of Torment
I’m well aware that Normal Steps isn’t really much of a benchmark, but it was pretty fun to go through it as the first proper ‘side dungeon’ area. I had a similar experience as East Marsh in the sense that mobs here were a little more threatening, but only a little. I also was able to start equipping some of the upgrades from East Marsh and found further upgrades in Steps itself.
I had a slow debuff and the monsters were tankier due to the area effect, but I honestly didn’t feel much of the latter. Things died pretty quickly. The only parts that threatened me were the two bosses - especially the Executioner who I couldn’t outsustain. It’s possible with Mark of Consumption I could’ve, but I didn’t go that route and - honestly - it isn’t necessary anyway. Most of my damage is DoT damage so a little bit of kiting for bosses doesn’t hurt me. More accurately, it was a case of stepping out of mechanics and actually ‘doing’ the fight. I anticipate having to do this more once I hit Elite and beyond anyway.
I went forward with Nightblade and started shoring up my defenses. A single point in Phantasmal Armor for now to add some retailation and - thus - damage to Dreeg’s Evil Eye as well as the energy leech which ended up actually helping my energy sustain in a noticeable manner. The next thing I max will be Shadow Dance for the DA and the dodge buff.
If nothing else, Steps actually showed me that I’d like a bit more ‘reach’ around me. After I’m finished with Shadow Dance, I am likely going to go back to Occultist and start putting points into the tree to reach Vile Eruption. I’m not sure if the extra fragments will help for ‘coverage,’ but I still want to get Possession at the end of the tree anyway.
Devotion-wise, I’m looking to shore up my lack of speed for now. I’ve already committed to having to respec my devotions at some point at least partially - again, fine with me since they’re the passive part of my build - so I’m looking for what I need ‘right now.’ Having finished Sailor’s Guide, I’m eyeing Jackal now. It gives great overall benefits to speed and damage.
I’m predicting that Act 3 and 4 are going to largely be easy. The AoM and FG acts are likely where I’m really going to start getting tested, but we’ll see.
"Okay, real talk for a sec..." - Critique of The Game So Far
THIS IS NOT REQUIRED READING AND IS NOT PART OF THE BUILD. SKIP THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ MY OPINIONS OF THE VIDEO GAME.
I’m almost done with Act 3 (I think it’ll be the delineation for Act 3, anyway,) and I wanted to throw this in first. The actual diary entry will be done tonight (and I’ll probably be done with the base game for that matter.)
No matter what you read here, I like Grim Dawn. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t play it and I wouldn’t have started this diary in the first place nor continue it. Granted, the main reason I did start it was to have a project before Path of Exile’s next league started, but that project could’ve literally been anything other than this.
As I said at the beginning of this thread, I was a fan of Titan Quest. Truth be told, it was an impulse buy at Gamestop one day when it first came out, but the box felt substantial and I was burnt out on D2. I wanted the Next Best Thing. It was immediate upon playing TQ that there was a lot to love about the game, but there were also some problems with its environmental design.
A lot of the areas felt expansive for the sake of being expansive and the default game speed did it all very little favors. With the anniversary edition and the different game speed options, those issues are largely mitigated. It makes the overly-bloated areas feel much smaller, and this made the base game significantly more fun to play through.
Grim Dawn carries a lot of the same problems. I understand that budget was a massive issue with GD and Crate was basically started in a closet (I’m exaggerating, don’t hit me,) but it also feels like no lessons in regard to overall environmental design were actually heeded. Act 3 is where I REALLY started feeling that, because Act 3 drags. It doesn’t drag as badly as some of the areas in Titan Quest, but Act 3 really gives me the feeling of ‘are we there yet?’
A lot of the reason for that is the game up until this point all looks and feels the same. Act 2 looked a little different because it was in the mountains, but to call it an ‘act’ is being very generous. I understand when it released, the real draw for Act 2 was Steps of Torment. It was the first roguelike dungeon and I imagine most of the development time for the act went into it, but we’re already at the point that we should’ve stopped calling these sections Acts in the first place.
Even using Titan Quest as an example, every Act felt distinct. There were entirely different environments, more new monster types; even the gear looked different. TQ’s bigger budget definitely showed there, but part of the appeal of an action RPG is that variety in the first place. In Grim Dawn, it’s not nearly as well delineated - for better or worse. Act 1 is distinct with a distinct ending by killing Krieg. It definitely helps that, in order to get to Act 2, you need to start from Devil’s Crossing and go the opposite direction, so it feels like you’re going to a new place.
Act 2, however, feels more like an intermission and just more hammering in that things are fucked up, people are fucked up, and the world is fucked up. Cronley, like Krieg, is just an example of that. Cronley’s far less memorable simply because he feels like a speedbump. His lieutenants were more intimidating, and only because they actually managed to do damage to me once.
Once you cross that little bridge, you’re in Act 3 - basically the farmland version of Act 1. All told, THIS should be Act 2. Even if it drags, it at least feels like a proper act in length. It doesn’t feel that way in tone, though, thanks to how much of the bestiary is recycled. It feels like there is one unique monster type per area, and everything else remains the same throughout the entire game. Due to how uniform everything tends to look, it’s really hard to even tell.
I guess what I’m getting at is that there is a very rushed quality to all of this. The maps all feel pretty much the same in terms of navigation even with the random blockages to take the place of drawing up entirely different maps. That’s a clever workaround, but it does feel ‘cheaper.’
And it is cheaper by design. I understand that. By all appearances, Grim Dawn is very much a budget game and that’s fine. It’s just the fact that a lot of these same issues were in Titan Quest and feel more like intentional design choices rather than compromise. The lack of Act identity hurts the game tremendously as well. I can imagine a new player trying to get into this, getting bored half-way through, and going back to something else.
Another issue I find that was also in TQ is the balance between the masteries and the damage types. There simply isn’t a lot of support for some damage types. There’s plenty for the basic elements in a variety of different builds; there’s good support for vitality and aether damage casters. Poison and chaos, though? They’re very poorly supported. Poison seems to be pigeonholed as a ‘retaliation’ damage type due to sharing a resist with acid or purely as pet damage, and chaos barely exists at all in the tree outside of partial conversion and an awful lot of itemization for it. There are items for builds that feel like they simply don’t exist outside of a toy for someone who’s literally done everything else and has max rolled items for every build in the game.
Shaman is just outright broken as a mastery. It’s the only mastery that can do quite literally anything with minimal to no investment in other trees. Other masteries can do one specific role without investment in other trees (Arcanist comes to mind,) but Shaman can support literally any play style purely on its own. You’re stuck with one damage type, but does it really matter?
Naturally, the appeal of Grim Dawn for most of its players now is the end game content and the constant grind for min/maxing while pushing SR levels and making the roguelike runs quicker and more efficient. This is essentially the same loop as Diablo 3 with Normal Rifts (the roguelikes) Greater Rifts (SR,) so that’s all fine, but the base game is the first impression for any new player, and I don’t think GD’s first impression is that great.
Maybe some of the AoM and FG monster types need to be added to the base game. Maybe there should be monster type randomization in general based on what you own. Maybe there should be a simple system in place similar to the area mutators that randomizes simple events in each area. The totems were a good first step toward this, actually. I just think it should go a little further with little mini-quests that can randomly appear at various stages of the campaign with different objectives (defend the thing, kill the boss, escort the (UNKILLABLE) dude, etc.) I know this would require significant dev time and that Grim Dawn is largely in maintenance mode, but it would go a long way toward making the first playthrough of the game more memorable - if even that little bit.
I’ll have more to say, I’m sure, after I’m done with the campaign in its entirety as well as finish the various difficulties and break into end game. For now, this is more of a stream-of-consciousness ‘I like this game, but it also bugs me’ sort of thing.
"Weird setup for At The Mountains of Madness, but okay." - End of Act 3
To give you an idea of how stubborn I’m being, despite the Emissary being RIGHT THERE in front of Homestead, I still didn’t go to FG yet. I may ultimately weaken just to get a movement skill, though. I’m technically about to FG content with the roguelike dungeon right?
Not a lot has fundamentally changed for the build up to this point. At this point, I’ve already finished maxing Shadow Dance and pumped Occultist to reach Vile Eruption. It was a little underwhelming for what I wanted it for, but as it turns out, the fragments also tend to hit whatever the initial target was so my bossing speed basically practically tripled. The only reason I knew I hit the final room of the dungeon was because the gate closed behind me otherwise the boss died almost as fast as the trash champions do. Thanks to my procs and absolutely ridiculous health regen, I also don’t even remember if I took any damage. I just stood there, held the Eye button, and he popped.
What also probably contributed to this was Acid Spray from Manticore. Oh, right. I have Manticore now. Act 3 is pretty long so the gap in points between the end of Act 2 and Act 3 is enormous. I finished up Jackal and just went straight for Manticore. I technically still have one more point to put into it to complete the constellation, but I don’t actually need the completion bonus for my next aim: Abomination. For now, Acid Spray gave me some of the additional coverage I wanted. It acts as sort of a ghetto piercing mod for my eyes and that, in turn, procs my poison bolts anyway. It’s starting to get pretty silly.
As for my devotion plan in general, I’m starting to put points into Behemoth. It’ll give me more health to help my health regeneration scale better (thus better survivability) as well as the completion points toward picking up Abomination. After that, I’ll pick up Spider for some OA and DA and then use the crossroads for the single points I’d need for Abomination. I know this isn’t very efficient in terms of speed, but the different layers of stat bonuses make it effective all around.
For skills, I think I’m going to skip pumping Vile Eruption and leave the single point there so I can just go straight for Possession. After maxing Possession, I’m going to start working on Vulnerability and Night’s Chill for extra damage potential.
To give you an idea of how powerful I am at this stage: trash dies in a single cast. An entire pack usually requires 2 or 3 depending on spread they are. Champion (yellow) monsters take maybe 2 or 3 at most. Usually just 1 if I bother to debuff them. I also realize I’ve been using the term ‘champion mob’ incorrectly through my diary as they’re actually a mob rarity. I’ve been meaning ‘champion’ as Hero and Boss monsters. Hero monsters are rarely more durable than actual Champion monsters, but Bosses take a few more hits usually. Absolutely nothing I’ve come across since East Marsh lasts more than maybe three seconds of attention.
With all of this in mind, it’s safe to say that I think this build is definitely easy to blaze through Veteran with. It’ll still take a little bit longer because of the inflated mob HP (especially on bosses,) but it only ever gets easier and the increased drop rates will probably mean larger jumps in power.
Next up will be going through Port Valbury (the act 3 roguelike) and seeing how the build holds up in there. I may also go through Steps of Torment and Port Valubury a second time on Veteran just to test myself.
"Heck, I already made the Tonberry joke." - Port Valbury
I weakened like a failure. I went to the FG area and got a movement skill. Dishonor upon my goats. By the way, I recommend any completely new player reading this to go do that as soon as possible. It’s amazing how much more fun this game is when you have a movement skill. The Emissary is VERY close to where you first spawn. Go, go. Get one. I picked Dreeg by the way because I’m an Occultist anyway why not.
This is the first area so far that’s actually made me move actively - both because of the environment and because the mobs in here love to drop poopy puddles on me. I can’t tank them with this build, but it’s fine. This is also the area that convinces me to actually halt my plans to finish out the ‘core’ of Occultist and go back to Nightblade. I put some points into Night’s Chill for the -resists and start maxing Veil of Shadows to get the aura to spread as far as I can get it. After I finish with that, I’m probably just going to max Night’s Chill while I’m here for max debuff.
Besides having to actually move out of poop, the only issue I run into is how maze-like High Town is. It’s obnoxious, actually. The map gives it the appearance of being open too, but your actual traveling path is very narrow and snakes around. The places it blocks you feel extraordinarily arbitrary just to keep you funneled which I guess is good for linearity, but anti-fun when I actually want to get somewhere. I can’t count how many times I teleported into a wall thinking I had free line of sight.
The bosses all gave me zero issues and I kinda otherwise zipped through this. Next, I assume I go punch Cthulhu in the face.
"Who did you expect at the end of all this?!" - End of Act 4
“God? The devil, perhaps? No. It’s just … me.”
Level 50 GT
Level 51 GT (end of act)
Yup. Punched Cthulhu. The entire act felt as short as act 2, and the last boss was very underwhelming. That said, I was also probably extraordinarily overgeared for Normal at that point, and I’ve long come to terms with the fact that Normal (at least base game) ended for me when I killed Krieg.
I did miss a few shrines despite my map clearing, so I’m going to go back and grab those as well as do the witch’s side quest. I’m also going to do Bastion of Chaos, naturally, before moving on to Act 5. My plans so far haven’t changed at all for the build. I finished out Night’s Chill and Aura of Shadow so now I’m going back to Occultist. Going straight to Possession for real now and get that sweet bonus.
I’m satisfied with the performance of the build so far. I generally would prefer more screen coverage, but I also knew when picking this skill that my coverage would be a little limited. It’s fine, though. It’s a strong clearer and strong bosser so far. 3 more Acts to go! Next update will be Bastion of Chaos.
"How hard could he possibly hi---" - Bastion of Chaos
AKA “That Other Time Trilkin Died”
The answer to the title question is ‘he could two shot you, idiot.’ Besides me standing still and taking it like a bitch, BoC goes super smoothly - even if it takes me two keys. I try an experiment which ends up lowering my overall damage and learn a valuable lesson in monster resists. I respecced my points out of Vulnerability and Night’s Chill except for 1 each and pumped myself all the way to Possession. This ended up not being the greatest idea because, while I gained about 800 damage on paper, I lost more than that in monsters just being more resistant to me now.
I go through all of BoC like that and it ends up not being TOO much of an issue, but noticeable all the same. My priority once I get out is to respec out of Possession for now and go back to 40 Occultist. My points then go into maxing Night’s Chill again and Black Death rather than Vulnerability. The extra damage source ends up being more valuable than the resists, and it also turns Bloody Pox from a ‘button I press for the -hp’ to ‘button I press and then just run.’ I switch Acid Spray to Bloody Pox as well, putting Scorpion Sting back on Evil Eye.
My setup, I think for the near future, is going to be to use Bloody Pox for clear (with the occasional Eye thrown into Champions as need be) and Evil Eye for anything Hero or above in conjunction. I’ve also been using Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze more after ignoring it for so long, and let me tell you how much of a mistake that was: kinda big. I’m using Mark of Dreeg as part of my component build anyway, so why wasn’t I using this again? Between Infinite Gaze and Bloody Pox’s self-propagation, I can speed through areas faster since things tend to just die around me. My Poison Bolts from the medal also do an absurd amount of damage for a passive proc. I tested this in the first area of Act 5 and found it pretty effective so far. My proposed finishing build is going to end up looking like this, but I’m likely going to experiment more with it.
Next up, I probably get told to get out of Shrek’s swamp.
"Stand out on the edge of the Earth." - End of Act 5 + Ancient Grove
Act 5 is, by far, my favorite act at this point. It’s expansive yet every corner I explore doesn’t feel wasted. I found more optional bosses in Act 5 than I felt like I found in the entirety of the base game. They might be reskins, but the encounters still feel different enough to feel worth my time.
Beyond that, not much changes for the build. Leveling is obviously going to be slower now, so the main progression is in my gear. I keep to the same rules I started the build with as I haven’t found any legendaries that really work with the build yet. A lot of my gear through the act was fairly old and it wasn’t until the end of this act that I started getting and crafting a few upgrades. Most of the older gear is kept because of skill, damage or resist bonuses, but I’m starting to find straight improvements to them all so I’m slowly shedding it.
After I got my attribute respec potion, I decided to dump my points there as well. I put enough into Physique to wear my new boots (as well as a potential replacement belt if I need the defense,) and the rest into Spirit. I don’t foresee myself needing Cunning, although I have found a few epic guns that give good stats so I don’t know just yet. I have two difficulties worth of respec pots to go.
Ancient Grove is ezpz except for the very first locked-room boss I ran into. I don’t know what about it was hitting me so hard, but I had to do a lot of moving because its projectiles all hurt like a motherfucker. I assume it was because of my low armor. I’m hoping the upgrades help, but we’ll see. I did AG as soon as I ran into it and I’ll be doing that for the one in Act 7 as well because at this point, I’m not sure how impactful the extra level or so will be from finishing the Act.
Oh, I also decided to be friendly with Barrowholm. Praise the Ravager.
Next up is the Shadow Over Malmouth where I assume I punch a deep one in the face.
"Now you must come with us; taste our pleasures." - End of Act 6
I really did expect Deep Ones…
Note that at this point, I’m not going to supply GT links every ten levels. It’s very clear that I’ve overleveled and overgeared Normal by a fair bit and, thus, the progression curve is just getting slower.
Act 6 was a joke. It wasn’t nearly as fun as Act 5 because I have a very strong hatred for the narrow, maze-y town areas in this game. They’re great for atmosphere, but shit for playable. It feels tedious and longer than it needed to, but at least the final area looked pretty cool, if a bit too much like a Void-area reskin. It’s fine, though; the Void areas are cool.
Toward the middle of the act, I decided to start doing a little bit of devotion optimization. I ended up backtracking to do the Shrine of Moogledragon or whatever his name is and get the point and respec myself into, ultimately, Abomination. You can check the GT link for my full path since it’s different than my leveling path. I actually respecced about a point or two earlier than I really should have, so I didn’t actually have Tainted Eruption initially. The damage loss from not having Acid Spray from Manticore was pretty noticeable, so ultimately, I’d recommend waiting until you have the 45 points to fully respec. Once I was able to get that point in Tainted Eruption, my damage blew right back up.
Skill wise, I just dumped my points into Aspect of the Guardian. Once I max it, I’m going to be maxing Occultist and grabbing Possession for realsies. I’m likely going to just put one point in it initially and switch over to Nightblade to start getting the rest of what I need out of it, but I’m not fully sure yet.
I did also get a few nice gear upgrades. Nothing major, but a new chest armor - along with my changed devotion setup - helped my survivability quite tremendously. I facetanked the last boss with zero issues thanks to the combination of not being fragile, life steal, and an overwhelming amount of damage. All three phases of him melted.
I do have a few side quests I need to finish in the act, and I’m not going to bother reporting on those unless they’re important (doubtful,) so the next entry should be the final one for Normal: Act 7. Are you excited? I know I am.
"Sacrifice yourself or bow to lesser gods." - End of A7/Tomb/Normal
This is going to be for Act 7, Tomb of the Heretic and my Normal post-mortem. This actually won’t be as lengthy as you think.
Act 7 was, as I predicted, extraordinarily easy. Easy enough that I was able to just face tank the final boss (something I can’t say for the boss of Tomb of the Heretic.) There actually isn’t a whole lot to talk about here. The first half of the act honestly is kind of boring to both look at and play through, but it’s made up for with a great second half that has more variety in it than the rest of the game combined, I think. I continue putting points in Occultist, but I only get two levels total from the act, so I get to the end of the tree… and that’s it.
Devotion-wise was more interesting. Act 7 showers devotion points on you, so I was able to fully complete not only Manticore, but Owl as well. Owl ended up being a surprise choice for me, but it was the logical one for right now. I may redo my devotion points again as I run into the need for defense since I’m still relying on my regen to keep me alive. I know that’s eventually going to wear itself out, but for right now, I feel very comfortable.
I do die once during the Act proper… because I summoned the level 80-whatever celestial in the desert without even looking at the thing. I just mindlessly clicked because a thing was there and ooh hey that guy isn’t my friend. I actually do try killing him by kiting him around for a while, but 2.5mil HP made me give up and just accept my fate.
Tomb of the Heretic goes the same as the other roguelikes: it gives some resistance, but it’s not hard. I do die on the last boss once out of sheer hubris by trying to face tank him way too much. It ended as you might expect for a caster with very little in the way of real defense. Actually killing him just required letting my DoTs do their work and he died pretty damn quickly.
Between the act and the dungeon, I do get some nice gear upgrades. They’re mostly straight upgrades to what I was waring, but I do find an interesting legendary that converts acid to fire. I might consider taking that build path later if more items support it.
So, at the end of normal, do I think this build was a success with pretty minimal knowledge going in?
Yeah. I’d say so. I was able to obtain the goals I set for myself, and I felt a very nice curve of power. It started dawning on me in Act 3, but most of my damage actually ends up being from my procs. Between my devotions and my item choices, it all lined up perfectly. Toward the end of normal, I just dropped Pox on things with Twin Fangs on it, and it cut through basically everything. The denser the pack, the more effective it was. I eventually put Acid Spray onto Curse of Frailty and it wasn’t too uncommon to see my just outright one shot a larger pack that way. I think when I go to Elite (I have a few things in Normal I’m missing for completion’s sake in terms of shrines, chests, and a quest,) I’ll swap those two devotion procs.
The best part is, that above paragraph? I didn’t read any guide to tell me about it. I didn’t actually use the wiki for anything other than finding some of the hidden areas. Tomb of the Heretic can go fuck itself, that’s all I’m going to say.
The game itself is intuitive enough that it’s easy to just put things like this together yourself. Yes, a guide will help you min-max something, but it’s not at all necessary for a functional build. I’m pretty confident I can go through Elite and Ultimate with this build. If I have issues with survival, I already know what actions I need to take to fix it (devotion is so good here.) The fact the devotion tree actually has a search function is $cashmoney, and the easy of respeccing in and out of things for experimentation makes the game so much more friendly.
I was surprised, honestly. Pleasantly so. The build absolutely would work in Veteran, you’d just be two-shotting things instead of one-shotting them at the end. I checked. It’s also not worth it IMO, but some people like skiing uphill.
Anyway, I’m not going to do act by act breakdowns of Elite and Ultimate. I’m just going to post trees and do post-mortems for each difficulty. I will be updating this post with more guidelines on how I put everything together, but as I said, most of it is pretty straight-forward and follows the fundamentals of any action RPG: pick a main ability, get gear that makes that ability better, supplement with survival and utility. Doing that, I’m confident you can make ANY ability in Grim Dawn work.
Changelog
6/30/20, 12:15pm Eastern US - Normal finished. Tree posted. Next update for Elite.
6/27/20, 11:30pm Eastern US - Act 6 finished. Tree posted. Next update for Act 7/End of Normal.
6/19/20, 8:00am Eastern US - Act 5 and Ancient Grove finished. Tree posted. Next update for Act 6.
6/19/20, 4:20ayyyyym Eastern US - Bastion of Chaos finished. Tree posted. Next update for Act 5.
6/18/20, 2:00am Eastern US - Act 4 finished. Trees posted. Next update for Bastion of the Deep Ones
6/17/20, 10:00am Eastern US - Port Valbury cleared. Tree posted. Next update for Act 4.
6/17/20, 4:30am Eastern US - Act 3 finished. Trees posted. Next update for Port Tonberry. … Wait.
6/16/20, 8:25pm Eastern US - Mid Act 3 critique section added. Not required reading for the diary.
6/15/20, 10:15pm Eastern US - Steps of Torment cleared. Tree posted. Future plans written. Harvest fast approaching. Must at least finish Normal first.
6/15/20, 9:05am Eastern US - Finished Act 2. Tree posted. Next update for Steps of Torment.
6/15/20, 4:45am Eastern US - Decided to post about East Marsh, because that was interesting. Also added a little bit about how I handle attribute points in Starting Out.
6/15/20, 12:45am Eastern US - Finished Act 1. Tree posted. A bit of post-mortem. Next update will be after Act 2.
6/14/20, 9:10am Eastern US - Updated to level 20. Next update will be after killing Warden Krieg. Kreig. Kraig. Craig. Whatever.
6/14/20, 6:30am Eastern US - Initial post. Only the first 10 levels, but also the outline
