Could not have explained it better, its exactly what I feel like. I really need to get further in the game to enjoy it more. Level 41 now (veteran btw, i love loot :p). Cant wait to get my first legendaries. One of the most important things for me in RPG’s is the feeling you got lucky, PoE has a shit ton of that in crafting. Since I dont know a lot about GD game mechanics yet I dont know when to feel lucky with an item drop 
oh, you’ll learn! 
There are a lot of legendary items with stats for specific builds (and others you’ll be like, WTF is this for?, however the devs are doing a good jobs fine tuning some of those…). For example, if you’re playing a lightning based warder and you get an Ulto’s set piece to drop, you’ll feel very luck! Have you been to http://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items? You can look at all the items there, and filter it so you can look at just the list of legendries and epics. You can start to see how some pieces with certain damage types work. Starts to give you an idea of what you want to drop! You’ll notice certain items with + skill have certain damage types. Like a lot with + arcanist skills have + to aether damage. + the soldier skill gear has + physical damage…so on and so forth…
One of the trickier things to get used to know if you’re “lucky” is when a green item drops… For example, bloodsworn rings are nice for different builds BUT you need to have the right prefix/suffix on them. Such as subjugator’s bloodsworn ring of the wild is AWESOME for a pet build (also VERY hard to get…)…but sucks for others… Knowing what prefix/suffix will help you (as you’ve already pointed out the base stats of the parent item are the same its the prefix/suffix that make them unique) will help you speed up your game too. This way you’re not stopping and looking at all the stats all of the time… Knowing that you don’t need the “of Celerity” (plus % casting speed) if you’re a melee build lets you just quickly pick up and go with those items, but if it is “of Alacrity” (plus % attack speed) then you should take a closer look as you may have found a good item… But then you’ll be sad again when the prefix is “light bringer’s”… 
RNG can be a vile mistress…
There’s also mods like grim quest that add lots of more varied build options without making the game chrating mode
Weird I just finished normal and was getting a legendary from the guy in Fort Ikon. When I hover over that little chest icon it shows the item you will get. It was a chest armor with over 1k armor, I was like holy shit!!! Then I close the window and check my inventory only to see there is a legendary crossbow instead of a chest armor lol
Anyway gonna do a BoC run now, any way to get keys easily because I read you need one every time…
Also wondering if I should turn off magic items at this point, I only pick them up for iron bits and I have 400k iron bits already.
Past a certain level (around 35) yellows become mostly a source of iron, as they more likely won’t provide any upgrade, unless looking for something very specific. Having access to faction gear and strong mid tier blues is also a factor. Also, the clutter and the pain to fight in a field clogged with items.
If you don’t need huge amounts of iron, there’s no point to keep yellows on. The only disadvantage is the jewel/belt drops you gonna miss, but there’s the show all button, after the fight.
The legendary reward bug should have been fixed. Why is this still occurring? Report the bug again.
I don’t know when that was fixed, but they mention playing an earlier version in another one of their posts.
Correct thats probably it.
Alright I will turn of magic items, its annoying because theres to many now that I’m doing BoC at level 50. Using the crossbow right now, Silverbolts, actually helps a lot!
That’s not what I was trying to say. My issue is I have no reason to aether damage at all.
Since PoE keeps popping up, in PoE I would pick fire because of raw damage, cold for slow/freeze, lightning for shock or poison if I feel mean.
GD’s cold can slow/freeze, but other than that we have like 10 damage types that are literally indistinguishable from each other. Whatever you pick, all you have to do is use a mastery and items that maximize that particular type of damage, find means to debuff monsters resistance and you’re done. Damage choice does not affect gameplay at all. Crate could literally shuffle fire, poison, vitality, chaos and aether around and it wouldn’t make any difference at all.
Just to be clear: I’m not saying GD should be PoE or some other game. I’m saying I understand why the OP feels the game has no focus.
I’ve never played PoE so I don’t really know…but can you pick any damage type for any class? So you can play any class with any damage type? Grim dawn is definitely different in that aspect. I can see where you coming from saying that the different damage types don’t really matter besides some monsters are more resistant to some then others. In grim dawn you don’t pick your damage type based on what you want to do, but you pick your damage type based on what class you want to play and skills you want to use. Each class has skills that focus on only several damage types (so you’re not suck with only one). So once you pick your class and you choose your skills, that picks your damage type for you. You’ll want to focus on skills with similar damage types. There are a lot of different skills providing lots of different options so I can agree that if you don’t know you need to focus on skills with similar/same damage types then your build will appear more random and thus unfocused. I think that is just part of the learning process… There is a lot to focus on in GD, you just have to know what you’re looking for and unfortunately, I do see how that can be confusing to a new player. It is when you don’t know what to focus on that makes the game hard… Which is why it was very good the OP came here and posted and took peoples advice. Looks like he’s doing much better now.
i know what he means and I still feel the same about damage types. They might have gone with just fire, cold and lightning if they dont have any different effects anyway, to much clutter imo. Hes even forgetting the burn effect of fire and the pierce effect of chaos damage. They all have their own purpose in PoE and change builds drastically. Still this is not a reason to not play this game, just one negative point of the game.
The thing is in PoE, damage type matters, because it does different things.
Fire is just raw damage.
Cold will slow and potentially freeze enemies. Freeze itself is meaningful, because killing frozen enemies causes them to shatter, so necromancers-type foes are left with nothing to resurrect.
Lightning can shock and shocked chars (your avatar included) takes increased damage. Initially you could stack shocks resulting in quite some damage output increase.
And poison/chaos… It goes straight through energy shields (making it very dangerous to low-life characters), is mostly found in DoT form and is very, very hard to lower enemies’ resist.
So you see, picking a damage type (or several) is actually meaningful.
And yes, any character can use any damage types, because damage type does not come from class, but from the skill gems you use. Skill gems themselves can require high INT making them less suitable for a brawler (still, with a little care they can be used) and some classes have easier access to buffs for a particular damage type. In the end, class selection matters, too, but it’s not a take-it-or-leave-it option.
Fwiw, if you enjoy GD, I highly recommend trying PoE. It’s free, entirely supported by non-game affecting microtransactions. You’ll probably end up paying for extra stash space (there are sales every now and then), but other than that, you don’t have to spend a dime.
- Leveling with a different build than the build you want at the end. I read that a lot of builds only get effective when you meet certain requirements (items or devotions). I dont feel like playing through the whole game with a build I dont want to play and maybe not even get to play the build I want because its viable way to late into the game.
This. Can’t forget the time, was playing POE on HC in some public party, entered room with a boss and then there was 4 flame totems of 4 characters all running around… So diverse leveling…
Leveling with a secondary skill, unrelated to the main build, is common in GD as well. It’s widespread in majority of the aRPGs.
PoE is a game of extremes, so players often pick a strong AoE skill to level as fast as possible, as in practice there’s no story line, but the focus is on mapping meta. So they rush. That’s why it’s more noticeable there.
Poison bomb in GD, anyone? DEE just to level your witchblade or witch hunter? RoS for leveling? Dreeg’s gaze? Blade spirit? Etc.
All of these carry you long enough, to switch to main skill when char has grown in power.
If you aim that build it is only natural that you feel bored and exhausted because there is no action in that build at all. Waiting for moster to hit you and die by themselves… Dude, that is not a good way to spend time. If you dont struggle in a game, you may not have joy. I suggest you to change your aim and play-style.
I’ve been following grim dawn since long before I heard about poe and i bought into the poe beta…
I’ve never switched up builds unless something wasn’t working or I wanted to try a different option.
I’m leveling a 2h savagry warder right now. Been running it that way since act 1 vetern. I’m halfway through elite now. Going well too. I’m aiming to stick with physical.
Play however you want in this game and don’t follow build guides other than for some advice. Way more fun that way. Also don’t plan on finding spcific gear on your first build.
Hello guys.
Tell me if I miss something, but from my point of view the games really lacks a variety in term of GAMEPLAY TYPE of builds, and especially regarding “movement” based builds.
DISCLAIMER: I’ll make some reference to D3 here, please guys don’t eviscerate me.
This is just that it’s the game I “recently” (let’s say I stopped playing it 1 year 1/2 ago) mostly played.
I also add that I played D1 (yes I’m old, 35 :o )/D2/TQ for a looong time, that I didn’t liked POE at all (I though it was cheap and “falsely” profound; c’mon man, look at this ridiculous hudge skill tree… OK I stop the POE troll 
)
So NO I’m not in a “D3 IS BETTER YOLO” mode, i’m just using some examples of it because this is the ARPG I know the best at this time, and that I think that it tried (successfully or not) to add some GAMEPLAY variation style that are worth mentioning.
DISCLAIMER 2: also English is not my native language (Frenchy here), so forgive my approximations/mistakes
Back to GM.
As I said, I think what GD clearly lacks is some gameplay variation on builds, and especially MOVEMENTS based builds.
Ex: The Whirlwind (tourbilol) or bunny (leap) barbarian or the demon hunter class in general in D3, the teleport sorcerer in D2 (OK, forget TELEPORT if you want, I know its a delicate subject and difficult to equilibrate)
I think this is what I miss the most in GD, the “fast and furious” feeling it gives is something I miss.
I know this is not the point of GD, that is is much more “steady, stable” (I cannot find the adequate english word here, but I guess you understand what I mean), but for me it would be a nice addition to allow us a much more speedy gameplay between 2 classical “builds”.
Also, something stupid I know but I can’t help feeling it, I despise the fact that we can edit our characters and modify them through some editors.
I know that I just don’t have to use them, but only knowing that I COULD do this is sometimes interfering with my enjoyment of lvling characters (perhaps I need to consult, I don’t know :o )
I would have loved a “certified” mode switchable by character that forbid any external modification.
This being said, keep in mind that I love GD, I think it’s a great game that successfully mixed “oldschool” and “modern” elements of ARPG, with a “quite good” lore (which is a great compliment from me, since in all other ARPG game I tend to find them “bad”, with exception of D3 which adjectives I have in mind are “painfully painfull like worst compilation of worst TV novelas ever”)
Soldier has the Blitz skill to send you across the screen rapidly and Nightblade has Shadow Strike which “teleports” you to a new position.
You can also buy back skill points at the Spirit Guide and reassign them, though you can’t change the masteries. Same with Devotion points, they can be bought back as well.