I have played the game since beta, on and off. About 530 hours ingame so far, playing, not afk.
I have crafted a few low level relics over the years, but nothing special, just a few low levels.
Last night I wanted to try to make a level 70 one (think it was), and I ran out of Tainted Brain Matter before I were able to finish it. And this is with 530 hours ingame, and very little crafting, so hardly anyone has been used before. ehhh ok, so its not meant to be able to make these for people that do not play this game for a living?
Seems brutally harsh to me, and I cannot see that its a even remotely easy way to farm these either. Killed Krieg a couple times and played normally for like 6 hours after my crafting attempt, still no Tainted Brain Matter.
Seriously, its not meant to be able to craft more then maybe 1 of these ever over hundreds of hours of playing?
If you farm treasure troves, run the roguelike dungeons and SR/Crucible, youll collect a good amount of resources all around. I personally find any steep crafting requirements to be an incentive for these methodologies. Ive realized after all my time in this game, that it is truly a game for those who love the grind, loot farming, min-maxing, and being meticulous about their build designs.
I think if you dont enjoy running roguelikes and SR/Crucible, and target farming MIs or components etc to nerd out on getting that final 1% to a stat on your build, the end-game aspect of GD will not grip you. But then again, what ARPG endgame doesnt put an emphasis on these things?
EDIT: Also farming Monster Shrines can help a lot!
Don’t forget the Blacksmith at the Necropolis can transfer Blood of Ch’thon and Ancient Hearts into Tainted Brains for a fee in bits as well. I remember using him often in vanilla for Ancient Hearts before Grove and Ugdenbog were a thing.
Horrus, the cursed smith in Gates of Necropolis allows you to make Tainted Brain Matters with blood of Ch’thons 1:1. You can make Bloods with Ancient Hearts.
I tried to make Dirge of Arkovia, I have made all the parts, just needed the last 3 Tainted Brain Matters to make the final relic. I played Elite, were level 76/77 when killed Krieg 2 times without any drop of Tainted Brain Matter. So I had the ones I needed to make all the parts, I am guessing around maybe 20, from ALL my chars combined.
My chars are level 75, 59, 61, 52, 63, 31, 77 and 77. The current char is one of the level 77s, Elite.
Regular smiths won’t do it. There are several special smiths scattered throughout the game who offer special stuff. You need to check the one Evil_Baka mentioned.
Don’t think so, I have gotten both hearts and blood and brains blowing up even level 15 epics with lower level chars And also, aetherial missives and mutugens (but those seems to be more rare than the vanilla game materials)
Well, according to GrimTools, Krieg’s lab scales to level 69 on Elite. Not sure though if it lowers the chances of rare mats to drop (outside of not dropping at all when you overleveled of course).
Anyway, I can advise you to make a bunch of Darkvale runs (up to Zaria) for the treasure trove as Knife mentioned. Why Darkvale? Because it has dynamite spawn in it as well, so you’ll never run out of it. Treasure troves have quite high chances of dropping some random rare mat + bunch of iron bits + chance for epics and legendaries + chance for blueprients. You’ll also get Chthonic Seals of Binding from killing Bloodsworn cultists and occasional Blood of Chthon from heroes/Zaria which you can convert to Brain Matter as Evil_Baka said.
More long-winded but Treasure Troves on Ultimate is also a good source. From experience, just about every dynamite used yields a rare crafting material, a ton of bits and for anyone on their first few playthroughs, good chances for blueprints too. Also a good way to get Epics/Legendaries to blow up with excess dynamite if you hit multiple spots like the 1 in Cronley’s Hideout + Moneybags Martin dropping 1-2 when killed.
i feel like brains and hearts are “easy” to get to the point i’ve recommended people that voiced they needed Blood of Ch’thon that they use the blacksmith swap
mentioning you’ve played since the beta on and off, it makes me curious how much actual/deliberate crafting material farming you’ve done, since like Ulvar mentions getting “plenty” on just a single character playthrough to 100 shouldn’t really be a big deal.
Aside from the easy farm in ex Warden Lab runs, you’ve tons of treasure troves your character runs into just on regular leveling 1-100, and ofc the dismantling of purples
^but since your highest char is merely in the 70s i think that presents a fair bulk of your problem - not having level 1-100 in “current day” Grim Dawn, with the increased loot drop system - possibly relying a lot on your older finds and lower level acquisitions.
all that said is not a discouragement to the notion of increasing purple crafting materials a bit, i wouldn’t mind that,
and find it “annoying” that while ex Seal is is easier to farm, thus many recipes have high amount requirement - but rare crafting materials, blood brains etc are still used in not just in large amounts in single crafts but “duplicate” amounts through relic crafts requiring relics.
^making it feel like the drop rate vs amount requirement utilization should the be “equally” generous as Seals of Binding
something that easily highlights this is the Relic Build Order tool, that displays all the amount of X purple mats needed for to craft a high level relic start-finish ex https://gd.guur3k.com/relic/solaels_decimation/
^when relics, and Legendary armor/item crafts have 10+ requirements of the mats, it feels a little “silly” they aren’t as generous as seals of binding imo
so while i agree with others that acquiring them is “tolerable”/manageable, i would definitely not mind if they became more generous drops to ex Seal of Binding lvls easy of farm
And also, aetherial missives and mutugens (but those seems to be more rare than the vanilla game materials)
perhaps that was a bit lucky but still you should get the idea.