My first character, am I doing alright or is there things to improve?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hi all,

Been enjoying GD for some 150+ hours and after some initial stumbles I searched and found this Commando Guide, although a tad old it did improve my character. Reason was I realized that I had spread out my points all over the place so wanted some more streamlined and that was it. Here is my toon at the time of writing, Commando Level 56, although I just last night got to the part where I have no Spirit Guide any longer, I am guessing one will be found later on again though ? :thinking:

So far the life regeneration is pretty good, have been able to more or less just stand infront of the mobs and the life bar been stable. Part from the Bloodlord Thalonis last evening, then I had to drink a couple of life pots, since it drained to quickly to regenerate. Then again, I am playing on normal difficulty so might be that as well.

Just thought I have a check from you more experienced players since from what I have seen in other threads, it seem that the end game gets a bit moreā€¦ interesting ? :crazy_face:

And on a side note, since it feels a bit silly making a new thread about it. Any good way to get plenty of Aether Crystalā€™s ?? The crafting part seems to LOVE them in the recipes ! :rofl:

Thank you for looking and for any and all recommendations ! :clinking_glasses:

2

Yup. Just follow along with the AoM content and you will eventually reach a town area with a new spirit guide.

3

You can also find one inside crucible if you own the DLC :slight_smile:

4

Thanks, thatā€™s good to know, since I most likely be changing some constellations later on ! :beers:

Nope, not bought that DLC. Isnā€™t that DLC like a farming DLC type of thing ?

Thank you for your replies, much appreciated ! :upside_down_face:

5

Crucible is totally optional but some people, once they get to endgame, do nothing else but run Crucible of the Dead to try and beat their best times for Gladiator 150-170 with specific builds. It is also nice for getting the first few devo points on a new character, or accessing the spirit guide, inventor, blacksmith and shared stash right at the beginning of the game before you even unlock Devilā€™s Crossing.

6

And the fact that in some arenas (in Crucible of the Pog for example) all npcs are close to each other and you donā€™t have to run back and forth when preparing your character.

7

Also, Crucible can be a LOT of fun with a friend, putting tactics and strategies into action in the co-op arena style atmosphere is a fun way to kill some hours. People dont make much noise about GD multiplayer, because its such a great game single player, but its absolutely also one of the most fun multiplayer games ive played.

2 Likes
8

Crucible is additional challenge, different than campaign. Something more to test your character against. Inside youā€™ll find mechanics and monster combinations unavailable anywhere else. You can even play it from level 1 - Crucible will scale down. It is often treated as ā€œfarming DLCā€, but itā€™s not that easy to even finish it.

Plenty of Aether Crystals:

  • on your way to Warden Krieg (Underground Transit),
  • in Conflagration,
  • even around and inside Burial Hill close to Devilā€™s Crossing,
  • Immolation (if you have access to it already).
9

Sorry for late reply. I did these location and got a nice stash of them, thanks ! And had a quest for Herald the Destruction in Immolation so did go there as well, for the first time. Got to say it is not a pleasant location, way to much toxin on the ground for my liking ! :crazy_face:

On another note, is there any improvements that I could do for my character ?? I am still on Normal, trying to have my Resistances maxed out if possible and then using gears that benefit a Soldier/Demolitionist, but part from that not really have much of a clue as what I am doing ! :rofl:

Here is my present character, Commando at Level 64. I have used all my points, part from 2 in Attributes, been putting the last 5 or so in Cunning, should I keep adding to that Attribute ?? I do have the Tonic of Reshaping and Tonic of Clarity to use if anyone think I need to reset my Attributes for better allocations ?? :thinking:

I only have one Devotion Skill, which is Assassinā€™s Mark and it is at Level 17 presently. I think the devotion path suggested in the guide I found is doing rather well, here is the path suggested incase not wanting to view the full guide.

  • Start with Assasins Blade (Assasins Mark on Cadence)->
  • Eel and Spider ->
  • Kraken ->
  • Hydra ->
  • Hawk, unlearn Spider ->
  • Harvestmans Scyte, unlearn Eel ->
  • Harpy, Crane and Empty Throne ->
  • Unknown Soldier (Living Shadow on Grenado or Perforator Round/Skill from Rifle)

Just finished the Harpy and be starting the Crane when finding the next Shrine.

If any other information is needed, or screenshots from in game, let me know and I add those. Would really appreciate and and all adviceā€™s that you experienced player have to give ! :beers:

10

So, have progressed further and now finished FG DLC, got a couple side quests left to do though. Have a question in regards to crafting (and thought I use this thread instead of creating a new one).

My character is now level 78 and if I understand things right, I should be having items that adds to Physical Damage ? If thatā€™s correct I am thinking of making the Oleronā€™s Wrath Relic, but as you all know, that would involve hunting down a lot of resources, so I thought I ask to see if that Relic is actually the best one for me or if there is another one that be better for my build ?? :thinking:

Yes I know, being a tad lazy ! :flushed: But to be honest, the below list of Ingredients for this one Relic sort of put me of from just making it and see if it would indeed improve things for the character. :flushed:

List of Ingredients needed and OMG !

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If this is the wrong place to ask such a question as above, could a moderator be so kind and move this and add a fitting title to it, thank you. :beers:

11

Itā€™s your thread and in this case thereā€™s not much need to move anything elsewhere. Ask whatever you want.

As far as relics go, yes some can require alot if the relic requires other relics. Just piece it together as you can.

12

Thanks, appreciate the input ! :smiley:

Yeah I figured that from this relic. Question is though, would this one benefit this build or would you suggest another relic ? Itā€™s not that I mind the resources, just would feel a bit discouraging if I understand things wrong and this relic would not be what I should go for ? If that make sense ?

13

Iā€™m not as expert on late-game builds and equipment as some of the others are but it looks to me like it could serve your build well for a bit surely.

Letā€™s wait and see if anyone else has a better point of view on it.

14

Juggernaut is actually quite nice Iā€™d say, as Commando lacks healing.

I see that you are trying to keep true to the guide that you posted in the OP, but my advice is to go with the damage type that your items are providing. Currently thatā€™s physical damage, so check constellations for stats that boost this damage type.

Because you are following this guide, you are choosing some constellations that donā€™t work for your current character. Hydra is ranged only, Kraken is two-handed only, and Unknown Soldier boosts a different damage type than the one you need (pierce vs. physical damage).

Physical damage constellations you want to keep an eye on are Ulzaad/Light of Empyrion/Azrakaa and Assassinā€™s Blade. Ghoul is also a nice constellation for melee. Shieldmaiden/Obelisk/Targo and Shield Wall are catered towards shields. Try to find out what makes these ones good in particular, then try some different combinations to see what works best for you.

15

First, thank you for your reply, much appreciated and very informative for a n00b like me ! :+1:

To be honest, I did not even think about that. What I been doing is just adding armor/weapon that increases the DPS while trying to maintain the Resistances around 80% or above.

Now then ā€¦ I tried a respec for Physical Damage build but that actually gave me less DPS for some reason ?? (Comparison picture in the drop down below) Although saying that I might have picked the wrong constellations ? :flushed: ā€¦ As you can see I tried to go for both the Ulzaad and Light of Empyrion Constellations but not quiet sure what I had to pick to get there was the right choices. Assassinā€™s blade I kept, both since you suggested it and also due to been having it for so long that the Assassinā€™s Mark is almost maxed out so donā€™t really want to remove it ! :rofl:

Picture of Physical Build

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C3Q5K5a.jpg2024Ɨ992

Now, I tried it another way instead. I did change my gear for Piercing Damage instead and that gave me a considerable better stats picture, although did lose some health and armor in the progress but hopefully can live with that. Armor mostly due to the previous items I was wearing was Heavy Armor and now it is the normal ones. I do have 2 spare points to put somewhere in the Constellations, and Iā€™m guessing there be a few more both from Elite and Ultimate when I progress further, for more allocations.

Picture of Piercing Build

PefUwV3.jpg2026Ɨ989

In the last I did not do anything part from changing gears and remove 2 points in the Constellations, not sure where to put them yet so leaving them for now.

In regards to the Constellations Hydra and Kraken. Hydra as you said is for Ranged weapons and thatā€™s what I am using 95% of the time. Just using the melee weapon when going for totems in low level areas (and now changed from sword and shield to a two handed as well). As for the Kraken, it does say it is also for two handed range weapon, which is why I kept it there.

Once again, really appreciate your reply ! It made me look at things a bit different then I had before, which I probably should have thought of myself but all the information is sort of a overflow for a newbie so do appreciate you ā€˜kickedā€™ me in the right direction, so to speak ! :crazy_face:

16

Possibly silly question: I notice the build you based this on is one of the old, base game only, pre-grimtools builds. I used a lot of those myself, but coming back to the game recently Iā€™ve found that the grimcalc links no longer work. Is there some workaround that allows you to see them still? Or were you just using that old guide in the sense of looking at the gear, devotions, and text about the skills?

To the very limited extent that I can offer feedback on your character - you can pull two or three points from Scars of Battle. The point of that skill is to get armor absorption to 100% (or 99% to economize skill points further). My characters with the Soldier class get to net 10/10 Military Conditioning well before your level; cranking up health and physique is always nice.

The Demolitionist mastery bar not being at 50 also looks odd to me. You donā€™t need it for skills obviously, but thatā€™s a lot of raw stats and health to pass up. Especially on a character with a level cap of 100 (this kind of thing was more common on base game only level 85 builds). But a lot has changed since I last played so maybe skimping on masteries even on expansion builds is more viable than I think. :slight_smile: And if this is working for you and youā€™re having fun, carry on, keep up the good work!

Also, good choice making a first character Cadence Commando! :smiley: (Mine is the physical mace & shield type of Commando).

17

Itā€™s probably that. grimcalc is an old tool that was in use before Dammitt created grimtools. Itā€™s now defunct and the build itself is long outdated it looks.

18

Keeping your resistances up is great, especially once you advance to higher difficulties.

Thereā€™s a good reason you usually want to stack a single damage type, and this reason is resistance reduction effects on items, skills and constellations.

The reasoning behind this is pretty simple, letā€™s imagine a monster that has 100% vitality resistance and 100% pierce resistance. Now letā€™s imagine your character does 1000 vitality damage and 1000 pierce damage. How much damage will your character do? The answer is obviously none, as the enemy has 100% resistance to both damage types (this is something that doesnā€™t happen in practice, but the example is most easily explained like this/math is hard).

Assassinā€™s Blade provides 32% resistance reduction to pierce on enemies, so by using this you are now doing 320 pierce damage, but still no vitality damage. If you manage to transfer over all damage to pierce damage you are now doing 2000 pierce damage. Still, only 32% of this damage will hit, which is 640 pierce damage. In other words, resistance reduction is a key factor in how much damage your character actually outputs. Therefore, most builds try to stack a single damage type and also its corresponding resistance reduction type.

I advise you to read a guide on how different types of resistance reduction stack and interact. Iā€™m not sure where to find one to be honest, someone else might be able to help you there.

Looking at Demolitionist and Soldier, you can see that only Thermite Mine and Hellfire Mine provide a source of resistance reduction. None of the skills in these skill trees offer bonuses to Chaos and Aether damage, though, so your best bet is probably fire damage, which benefits from Thermite Mine. Demolitionist also has skills to boost fire damage.

BTW, there is also a constellation that provides resistance reduction for every damage type.

There are some items that enable a cool Fire Forcewave build for example, like this one and this one. Still got some levels to go before you can find these items, though.

For now stick with what you have and what you find, and adjust accordingly. Hope this helped.

19

Doesnā€™t look like grimcalc even exists any more. I canā€™t access it with either Edge or Firefox.

20

Regarding RR for Commandos - Break Morale gives Physical RR. Combine with Assassinā€™s Mark, and Physical resistance being much lower than the others to start with, and it works pretty well. Thatā€™s probably a little awkward for a ranged build, but on the other hand anything tough enough that you care about RR is probably up in your face anyway.

Oleron is a nice capstone devotion for physical builds, but youā€™d have to completely rework everything to get there.

Powbam, Medea - thanks, thatā€™s what I thought. :slight_smile: