New player for HC

Hi all!!
I finally decided myself in buying the game with all the expansions. I’m a completitionist addict loving Arpg and MMOs. I remember the incredible times i had playing D2, Sacred 2 and even some D3. All these games i played only in Hard Core mode. I love that feeling of heartbeating and the time you need to take to progress in the game. I died so many times and loved to recreate a new adventure.
I’ll play GD in single player only i think.
My plans in Grim Dawn are the following, and i’d like to hear your opinions and suggestions before starting:
1- my first character will be a pet summoner build, something like the fluffy build there’s posted on the forums. Is it a good choice as a new player? And is it a good choice in HC? Meaning…do pets hold aggro well?
2- I want to use it to help create a network of safe characters for my future builds. Does this thing make sense in this game? In Sacred 2 i had my crafter, my shopper and so on…
3- i don’t understand how the crucible works. In HC, if i do the crucible and die…i think it’s permadeath…so is it really worth it? and i don’t know…how many round of monsters you need to defeat to complete it?
4- insert here any helpful hint you would give to a new player.
Thanks a lot!!!

Depends on the pet in question but I’d say no, unless you’re the type to read guide, dig mechanics and minmax a lot. A lot of builds in GD are pretty straightforward in how you build them but pets aren’t, there are more noob traps in pets than in any other playstyle.

Also depends. Some pets have taunt, they hold aggro better. But even they are not perfect. Thing is you want to debuff enemies for your pet, and debuffing causes aggro to accumulate.

It makes sense to always have at least one endgame character for buying reputation mandates, exp potions and difficult skip merits for your twinks.

You can stop any 10 waves so the trick is not to bite more than you can chew. Same advice for SR.

Safely reaching level 100 on HC is 20% build and 80% knowing the game well. I get PMs from people like you once in a while. Usually they RIP mid levels even with seemingly cookie cutter stuff.

1 Like
  1. Unable to answer that. Heard it’s a good choice.
  2. There’s a shared stash between characters and the blueprints they find are automatically shared. One character can also buy or unlock benefits for the next.
  3. Yes, death is permanent even in Crucible. It ends after 170th wave, but you have an option to claim lower rewards after every 10 waves. Also you can start from wave 50/100/150 if you survived it once.
  4. Stash and blueprint catalogue are separate for HC and non-HC characters.
    Go slow and explore everything.
    I would discourage you from following a build on first playthrough, but you have experience with similar games, so you probably know what you’re doing.

Thanks a lot for the replies.
What kind of pets are best for taunting enemies? I was thinking of using occultist and shaman pets…but i’m open to ideas :slight_smile:

Welcome to Grim Dawn.

As a fellow HC-exclusive player with a similar background (D2 and D3), the biggest tip I can give a new Grim Dawn player is to read up on armor absorption as it is an easily missed stat.

Beginning with a pet summoner build is pretty forgiving and the “Fluffy” conjurer build that you referenced is actually the easiest build that I have personally levelled to 100 (and is still alive). Note that true pets do generally draw aggro away from you whereas “player-scaled pets” do not.

Further down the track you might want to look at other builds such as those by RektbyProtoss here [HC] Build Collection by RektbyProtoss

Good luck with your HC journey.

Thanks a lot for the kind welcome, the infos and the incredible link!!

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I also wouldn’t recommend pets as a first HC build. However since it seems like you are using a guide, it can work out. The most common issues are a combination of lack of sufficient AoE/damage, keeping certain pets alive, and keeping yourself alive. What makes this unfriendly to new players is that one issue can easily cause all of the others, so it would take quite the veteran arpg player to pull off a successful pet build blind on HC.

So, so true :+1:

Eh, Yes and No. Discovering everything yourself, what works well and what doesn’t, on HC blind typically makes the game take much longer to finish (Ultimate). If you have that much time to give then yeah, it will be good fun. When you finally starting looking at forum guides and GT links you’ll appreciate the build design so much more.

However I would only really recommend playing blind on softcore, at least for a considerable time to experience some of Ultimate and/or higher level difficulty. You can then choose when to delete and start over, because you’ll probably die quite a few times before clearing Ultimate.

If you want to play blind then don’t look into the spoiler. A good skill to solve common issues for HC + pets: Wendigo totem at rank 12+ from Shaman