On a Guide to Ultimate Grim Dawn

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
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Whole article is here: On a Guide to Ultimate Grim Dawn Relevant section is below.

I’ve seen so many people who ask, How do I start the game on Ultimate?

You just don’t. It’s not a balanced play experience. It’s not designed to take a first level character though the game. If you want to play the game, start on normal. This new feature was designed specifically with players like me in mind.

GUIDE TO PLAYING GRIM DAWN ON ULTIMATE MODE

Don’t.

Before the expansion released, here was my procedure: I’d start the game, and run to the early loot corpses. There’s several corpses in the first area that grant you a green weapon of exceptional utility. You can grab an axe, a gun, or a two handed blade. I grab which-ever-one goes with the build I’m going to try out.

Then I enter the Crucible. The Crucible is an paid expansion that allows you to fight hordes of monsters in waves in exchange for treasure given equal to a high score. It also gives tributes when you can use to toggle bonus zones for advantages in Crucible or turn in tributes to get devotion points. I’m running the Crucible specifically to gather tributes to exchange for devotion points.

I run one set of ten waves. This gets me to level 7-9. I then grab the treasure, and take my mostly green equipment back for another 30 waves of the crucible. I do this three times to accumulate the 15 tributes to Unlock the first 5 devotion points in the crucible.

Why? Devotion points (normally gathered by activating shrines in play) allow you to modify your build using both unique abilities and to shore up weaknesses and focus strengths. Look at this star chart! The cost of these increases in the crucible the more you have.

This entire process takes around 10 minutes, tops. Once that happens, I then load up the main game, and speed-run the game to ultimate. I have to complete the hidden path witch quest (for the extra skill point) and the two quests that give bonus attribute points. I also grab all the shines that are directly in the way, brining my devotion point total up to around 35-40.

Running through veteran and elite takes between five and six hours. I use a movement ability and movement speed gear to make a beeline through the game. You can even skip the whole first act by repairing the bridge (although I usually kill the warden and complete act I in the base difficulty to pick up all the devotion points from shines).

In order for this to work, I usually have complete gear sets for level 20 (Explorer’s, providing a nice boost to movement speed), level 40 (the Perdition set, bloodcallers set, or other early-mid game sets) ready for them to go. I use experience potions, from maximum reputation vendors. That allows me to kill the boss on elite in about 5 hours, puts me somewhere between level 45-55, and ready for ultimate.

Then I can finally play the game. Ultimate has the best drop rates, and more content than I need to hit level 100 before I can even finish all the content. It is where the actual game begins.

The whole point of the expansion allowing players to enter Ultimate was to eliminate the time spent needing to speed-run the first two difficulties.
If you try to start Ultimate as a straight level 1 character, you will be using a butter knife against enemies that will cause you to explode like a microwave shoved into a grape. Preparing a character for ultimate requires the following:

You have to access the Forgotten Gods content on the difficulty level you want to skip. This can be done by speaking to the new character that appears in Devil’s Crossing at the end of act I. My death knight was at the end of Ultimate, deep into the Ashes of Malmouth content, and I found him inside Malmouth, so it’s likely you’ll be able to access Forgotten Gods from any of the major towns.

When you access the content, there’s a guy with a bag that looks like a normal vendor. On his consumables page, he sells the tokens. They run in the range of 200k.

On a new character, use the token. The elite token unlocks elite and gives a skill point. The ultimate token unlocks elite and ultimate and gives two skill points. You also gain the appropriate amount of attribute points.

If you do that, and then follow the procedure above to boost a character to where they need to survive ultimate, it’ll be fine.
It was a change that helps me with the way I play the game. It’s why I still play this, and quit Hearthstone. It’s because they play it too. They aren’t looking to maximize profits. They are just looking to flourish while providing something worthwhile.

Have a good weekend. Take time for yourself.

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You forgot about The Other You quest on Ultimate which gives another skill point.

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The whole point of the difficulty skipping tokens was to provide alternative more challenging methods of levelling new characters for people that have reached elite and ultimate. This alternative does not need to be used and players will be expected to choose the option that is most fun to them. It is important to note also that it is difficult to create a balanced challenge because people play very differently (some farm crucible and lower difficulty before starting for devotion whereas others don’t); if ultimate is balanced for the latter type then the former find it too easy. The situation where low level ultimate is far easier than it would be for a higher level character of 80+ had to be avoided because of how nonsensical this would be.

That being said starting Elite and Ultimate at lvl 1 will clearly be difficult. Monsters have a lot of health and there is the resistance penalty. Only people that have a good understanding of Grim Dawn and/or arpg will be able to tackle this with a good degree of success. (you do know that lvl 1 can be skipped without killing a single monster? prison lore note + one of the lower crossing lore notes)

In order to do well one must select skills that do good AoE damage and also invest in good single target damage for hero/boss; this is essential. In Grim Dawn this means using levelling skills (e.g word of pain for aoe + Rune of Hagarrad for single target).

There are plenty of ways to make the experience much easier, like doing crucible for 8 devotion points and/or gaining devotions in normal (20+ makes the experience far smoother). These things can be acquired in ~1 hour or so.

Player choice was greatly increased. There are so many options and the balance is fine given that players can make it easier by more devotion/gear preparation. Honestly, I only foresee hardcore players complaining about low level ultimate because of how dangerous it can be, but it must be dangerous.

TLDR: it is hard but there are plenty of ways to approach low level elite/ultimate to make the experience smoother and players will be expected to do so if it makes it more fun for them.

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Deja vu, I just read this on reddit

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I was trying to get the word out.

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Stupid (relative) newbie offering his inadequately informed view here…

Started playing last November and only have one character who had completed Ultimate prior to Forgotten Gods release (along with a dozen alts from 50 to 80 in normal and elite).

I am enjoying running my new Templar up on Ultimate storyline. But yes, last night I did some crucibles and dropped back to normal/elite to portal hop and pick up devotion points from shrines. Just completing two constellations has significantly improved Ultimate progression/survivability.

The benefit of this approach for me is (a) faster character progression and (b) not needing to run through the storyline multiple times (I enjoy it but three trips per character is more than I want).