Grim dawn is a fantastic game, my personal favourite with over 1000 hours played, but having played many other games in the genre movement Skills are the only skills that are missing to make this game really stand out from the crowd.
Currently there are very few skills for movement, you’ve got Blitz, Shadow Strike and a few others granted by items (riftstone and Alkomos’ weapon skill for example). Other games like D3 and POE have skills like teleport, leap slam, arrow teleport, some of which are purely for movement which is important to note.
In my opinion, the builds which need to use movement base skills the most are caster builds and ranged builds which are traditionally more squishy requiring the most kiting, not face tanking. These are the classes which are severely lacking in movement Skills.
My suggestion is each class would be given a movement skill which does no damage and you would be granted the skill upon choosing that class. Notice on the skill tree screen there is a big blank area underneath the portrait artwork? This would be the perfect location to place the movement skill for each class as it would not interfere with the skill tree itself. Each class would have a skill unique to them in keeping with the theme of that class. Here are my suggestions:
Soldier: Charge - basically functioning the same a blitz but to wherever your cursor is, also allowing you to escape combat when you’re a little overwhelmed. Charges a medium distance
Nightblade: Stealth - for a limited period of time (5 seconds?) You go invisible allowing you to move freely and reposition yourself. All threat generated is lost upon entering stealth. Has a longer cool down compared to other movement Skills.
Arcanist: Teleport/Blink - Teleport to wherever you want but the further away you teleport the longer the cool down is. Since casters generally stack %cooldown reduction this skill should scale well as you get stronger.
Demolitionist: Duel Portals - The Demolitionist can place two portals on the ground allowing the Demolitionist to Teleport between the two. Can be positioned to go behind mobs and in front again to keep your distance and have them running back and forth until their dead. This skill has a longer cool down.
Shaman: lightning step - Blink a short distance followed by a short period of greatly improved movement speed (3 or 4 seconds). The blink allows you to escape combat if needed. (Couldn’t really think of a good one for the shaman)
Occultist: Pentagram - place a pentagram on the floor and after 2 seconds get Teleport to the location of the Pentagram. Has a shorter cool down. With this one you can confuse your enemies by luring them one way and then you get Teleported to the other side.
Some of these skills would allow you to progress through the game a little faster at the beginning and it would also make the game better to play allowing for more diverse builds and increased survivability.
I really hope something like this can be implemented in the expansion or in a content update in the future!
Thanks for reading and I look forward to what you guys think!