I am not a hardcore or a competitive ARPG player, but I did beat Diablo 2 and 3 on Normal difficulty one time. I never even bothered with Nightmare as it was too hard.
I only chose Veteran mode in Grim Dawn because the normal mode was too easy. Veteran mode was great for the first area and a bit tough for bosses. I died a only a few times by the time I reached level 23, but died about 20 times in my attempts to kill the Warden. That got frustrating and I gave up on Veteran mode, switched to Normal mode, and killed the Warden on the first try… That screams of an extreme balance to me. Veteran mode made most monsters more difficult, but made defeating the final-boss impossible… or at least impossible with my build. One way or another, its an imbalance.
I know there are ways to make efficient Nightblades, but this is a ROLE-playing game and I want to be the Dual-Weapon-specializing fury NightBLADES are meantt to be. I am sure there are many ways to make an effective build like that and I simply failed to do so.
Here are the screenshots of my Stats (all 3 windows in Inventory), Skills, and Devotion (please delete unnecessary spaces):
https : // drive . google . com/open?id=0B54HJ36TbhjwWElsMjloWTI2ZWM
Please advice on my build and let me know if it would be of more help to advice me on my build if I were to take and post a bunch of screenshots that show properties of all the items my character is wearing! I was too lazy to do it, but if it will help with recommendations and suggestions, then I’ll do it!
I also have a side-question:
Do you get any bonuses if you dual-wield only sword.s/short swords or lose anything if one weapon is a sword and another, for example, is a mace or a knife? After all the class name is NightBLADE…
You don’t consider that maybe you messed up your character? Veteran mode is more or less a cakewalk for most people/builds, the only imbalance here is the speed leveling ability of some builds over others. The one you mistake you can’t make early on is ignoring basic health pool and you pretty much you ignored health/tankiness here, should be looking to maintain 100hp/level or bit less in early-mid game. You need to be pumping attributes into physique as melee, almost or even 100% of them. Mastery bar provides a lot of raw stats incl hp and most people recommend between 1.5 and 2 points into the mastery bar till level 50 when it drops to 2 points/level, you’ve only got 10/66 in it atm which is making you really squishy
I would go to spirit guide (top right corner of devil’s crossing) and refund all your points. Pump up nightblade bar to 25 if not a bit more. Max out blade burst+lethal assault, 1 point shadow strike, 1 point ring of steel+ring of frost mod, keep pneumatic burst as is. You’ll have much more damage and tankiness.
Btw as a general recommendation I suggest doing Demolitionist second for newer players and being fire strike saboteur. It’s quite good offensively and defensively without gear and can be become pretty beast later on
ps you can dodge a lot of the wardens attacks/damage
pps nightblades are THE #1 boss killers
ppps the benefit of dual wielding daggers is fast attack speed, you can see speeds listed on each weapon when you hover them. generally speaking you should aim for the most attack speed possible unless one weapon is doing way more flat damage than the faster one
Veteran is honestly easy for most builds, even for the infamously awful Bloody Pox build you can plow through Veteran without too many problems (even in Hardcore, which I exclusively play).
The problem you’re having here is that you have terrible skill allocation. You shouldn’t be maxing every single skill you come across; if you’ve noticed, your mastery points give you a bit of raw stats, which is much more effective early than late. A large portion of playing on higher difficulties such as Veteran, Elite, and especially Ultimate, is trying to be survivable because you CAN be instantly killed in this game from full HP if you’re not careful.
Now for what you should specifically do, I would first take out everything but one point in each of the three skills on the top tree for Dual Blades and use those points for your Nightblade or second class mastery bar to work towards a specific skill later you’d want. Look through carefully and see what you want, because I can’t tell you what’s “right” as nearly everything is viable in Grim Dawn. Then you should focus on leveling that skill and buffing it’s specific damage type(s) (side note: don’t try and have too many damage types, it because really hard to manage them later).
As a final note about attribute points and devotions, don’t worry too much about them. They don’t matter a lot until later, although I will recommend you dump most of them in physique. A lot of health is necessary to do well in Ultimate and Physique is the stat that gives health and Defensive Ability (another stat that helps you not die). I hope this helps.
Thank you! I will try the suggested build, but I will still be a slave to the gear I picked since I didn’t save much money…
The reason I think its an imbalance is because Veteran mode makes normal monsters harder but makes Warden not harder - it makes it him impossible to kill with my build. Even if my build is the problem, then, for the game to be balanced, my build should also be a big problem when it comes to normal monsters, yet with just some effort I am successfully slicing away waves hordes upon hordes of average monsters mixed with bosses and heroes coming onto me all at once from every direction. I died maybe 5 times on Veteran mode in total, never died more than once fighting someone or many someone’s who managed kill me, but failed to kill the Warden after 20 attemps/deaths. Doesn’t seem right, but let’s focus on fixing the issue rather than dwelling on it!
I make these assumptions - please let me know if they make sense:
If an item is significantly more expensive and is more rare than a less rare and significantly cheaper item that has SIMILAR, but NOT IDENTICAL stats and/or SETS of stats, then the more rare and the significantly more expensive item is the better one / the one to keep. For example, we have one very expensive green and one significantly cheaper yellow item, both items (weapons) have identical damage and DPS stats, both items add Phys, Cun, and Spirit in terms of %, but the green item provides 2% more for Phys, Cun, and Spirit., but the yellow item additionally adds some 350hp. I know it is almost impossible to say which is better without seeing all the build stats and the exact item stats, but I am sure you know what I am talking about.
If build-related items, such as Nightblade items, have a higher requirement for, let’s say, Spirit, then Spirit is very important to Nightblade builds in general, and more points should be spent on Nightblade items. Common sense told me that Phys is the most important stat for Nightblades, but all green and blue Nightblade items I came across required a lot of Spirit points… What I mean by “Nightblade” items are items that have “Nightblade” somewhere in their title, like “Nightbuild Mask of Terror” or “Boots of a Hasty Nightblade” (these are made up names, but you get the point).
Again, big thanks!
P.S. I only plan on going through Grim Dawn once on Veteran unless an expansion comes out or I find a MP-buddy.
Usually if you play as casual player, not a rushing ‘pro’ you try to clean every corner you find obscured and open all the secrets in the walls. Playing like this you should find enough viable items for your level.
Price is not the best index of item importance (just as in life).
Classic nightblades excel at piercing damage (including RP side) though it’s now not the best supported damage type. Swords usually have highest conversion of your physical damage into piercing (armor piercing stat) and that is main difference between them and other weapon types. Some weapons completely lack physical damage and deal elemental or chaos damage.
Also you should use components that drops and some crafted ones, not just stockpile them (especially if you’re not planning to go past veteran).
The game is pretty balanced as is. Part of this balance imply to have some survivability if you want to play on a high difficulty. Veteran suggests that you know what you’re doing with your build. If you die too often or have some “wall” (like the Warden) it’s the index that you are doing something wrong. Others said what’s it in your build. Usually 20th levels have ~2000 hp. Also there is such thingy as hit&run tactic in ARPGs and nightblade’s squishness (and description as well) imply that you use it instead of trying to facetank every enemy you meet (even if it works with a lesser ones). If you want to facetank you should go Soldier with a shield.
That’s what I’m talking about, so the balance part is ok. If you would read this and paid some attention you should’ve understood that you play your class wrong.
Oh, just as my wife - we played together and she lost interest once we finished veteran. But in Elite it all just begins cuz any viable build you make start to shine from 50s and this is just about the time you finish main campaign (~55 if you do all the sidequests as well including Outcast’s).
Here’s more practical advice: http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-FzVk21
If it’s piercing you should change your devotions toward Assassin’s Blade and Harpy. Assign your active devotion to cadence (if you take it) or to shadow strike. This variant have same flat piercing damage as your build and adds shadow strike for the hit&run tactics. It also adds soldier for basic attack replacer (cadence) though you can drop it.
If it’s poison/acid then you better go with another build like this http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-kqIFTj, use Amarasta’s Blade Burst instead of basic attack for the Lethal Assault buff. Depending on your playstyle feel free to move points between Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends (more hit&run) and Nidalla’s Hidden Hand (more stay and fight).
If you go cold use same as above for Lethal Assault but move both Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends and Nidalla’s Hidden Hand points into Shadow Strike itself, rest as you wish (Amarasta’s Blade Burst or Pneumatic Burst or Night’s Chill).
As I can read, you got mostly frustrated by the boss fight, rather than the balance of veteran, in general.
Though some builds are better/faster for leveling than others and all, the issues you are facing are burried somewhere else:
Lack of knowledge about certain encounters and the related mechanics, ingame rules and principles. Nothing to worry about as a new player.
Related to 1) - you’ve picked a play style which requires some investment in defenses to work as expected. Investments in physique, more points in skill mastery at the beginning, some HP, some armor. If you’ve started as ranged, you probably wouldn’t create this thread.
The Warden himself. Past a certain patch, fight got fucked up. There’s no difference for ranged chars, but affected melees. At the moment you are either able to facetank him as melee, or try again later. Something was done to his ground stomp, which now deals damage at the start of the animation/or the cast time is shorter, and if staying close you literally can’t run away undamaged, even if you have MS on boots. This denies any idea of strategical gameplay around his mechanics and urges you to facetank, as it’s the optimal option. But it requires a relatively well built char.
If you are new to the game and prefer easy times and non-frustrating experience at the lower difficulties, play either super tanky melees like warders or shield builds, or make your first playthroughs as ranged. When you learn the game and mechanics it would be easier to experiment.
Starting with Nightblade mastery is probably the worst move for Veteran… it doesnt have any skills that can be OP early… Shaman has PRimal Strike, for example, Soldier has Forcewave/Blade Arc, etc.
I see major issues right off the bat, why elemental awakening for a pierce build? Why no shadow dance? Why no anatomy of murder? Why so much useless soldier stuff? Why ZT when it only uses one weapon? Why Living Shadow? Why support for Physical in devotions when you’ll be converting it all to pierce with a slicer? Why no devotion for resistance reduction?
Veteran mode is more or less a cakewalk for most people/builds, the only imbalance here is the speed leveling ability of some builds over others. The one you mistake you can’t make early on is ignoring basic health pool and you pretty much you ignored health/tankiness here, should be looking to maintain 100hp/level or bit less in early-mid game. You need to be pumping attributes into physique as melee, almost or even 100% of them. Mastery bar provides a lot of raw stats incl hp and most people recommend between 1.5 and 2 points into the mastery bar till level 50 when it drops to 2 points/level, you’ve only got 10/66 in it atm which is making you really squishy