We just picked up the game a couple of months ago and are loving it. I’m an ARPG veteran from Diablo 1 days that recently picked up Grim Dawn because of the reviews and wanted to get my gf into it, so we started a couple of months ago and she’s loving it. She was used to the arcadish watered down hack/slash such as the console Gauntlet Legends and Baldurs Gate Dark Legacy, which she loves, so I set us up for Normal mode and a youtube video she could follow for her build because we’re still noobs at the game, and her character is a Pyro/Shaman build that focuses on stun jacks and Lightning damage, and she really loves leveling up and enhancing these powers, and she loves the incredible amount of detail and additional complexity compared to what she was used to playing before.
My question is, given that she’s (or should I say, we) still learning and absorbing the game mechanics/skills/etc… would you guys have an idea of how she can compliment her build from here on out? The youtube video she was following for her character was made in 2015, so I’m wondering if you guys have any addendums/changes/input into whether to stay the course or make changes given patch changes since then. We’re level 55 at the moment and about to tackle the Necropolis (playing Normal).
Also, bonus question: should we switch to Veteran now, or wait until we complete everything in Normal first? Not even sure what everything means since there’s this crucible thing and all these shattered realm shards and who knows what else; I don’t know what’s Forgotten Gods stuff and what’s expansion lol.
Veteran(assuming that’s what you mean and not Elite) is a modifier for Normal, thus is pretty pointless to enable after defeating Normal since you have sorta no reason to stick around there any longer (potentially)
Enable Veteran as you go for optional additional challenge “here and now”, ex in preparation for Elite/Ultimate scaling later or just if Normal is a tad too comfy already
anyway, as to the build, teh game has changed a lot since then,
lots of new items available, specially MIs that boost the snot out of your char(s) and chosen skills, like Stun Jacks
looks like guy in vid is ignoring RR for some reason, which technically is less optimal as it’s a significant dmg boosting mechanic
not really sure what his item/stat priorities is, but gonna assume it’s less optimal too since didn’t show char page 1/resist stats etc
didn’t immediately spot devos used, so kinda hard to say there
Lightning Elementalist is totally fine and dandy, stun jacks is totally fine too so you can’t really do anything “wrong” there and it’s just about optimizing your approach if that’s what you guys wish for.
To upload your character to Grim Dawn Build Calculator click the ‘up arrow’ button in the upper-lefthand corner. If you have cloud saves enabled (enabled by default) your save file will be in \Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata########\219990\remote\save\main_{character name}\player.gdc
Otherwise it will be in \My Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save\main_{character name}\player.gdc
Then click on the icon below the arrow and copy the link shown to paste here.
Yeah, I’m sure a ton has been updated, and I couldn’t see other details as you mentioned aside from his skills, but so far it’s worked for her because we’re in Normal difficulty; will have to up it to Veteran tonight.
In the “Dreaming of Stun Jacks” thread I saw a post with a link to this build which seems to be along the lines of what that guy was aiming for, except that we can now see the full picture including the devotions and items so we might try that out; the only problem they point out is its low sustain which I’m assuming prevents it from being any good in later difficulties.
sustain can be fixed there in couple of ways (also not really sure why they went with shield there, doesn’t really do much)
for 1.2 regen is very useful: and elementalist has bunch of native regen support, rest can be made up with couple items and choice devos
alternatively, if cooldown jacks isn’t the interest can just rely on lifesteal with the lifesteal modifiers to stun jacks on some specific items like korvaak blade
either way you have options, so fret not
Hi Medea! Sorry, what I meant was in-game, as in I want to save my current build and try something else out. Save what I have and then wipe all skills/devotions and either manually assign them or load them from a saved file, fool around with it in-game and then if I like it I can save it or just reload what I had before.