Overwhelmed

Occultist is viable for every single content ingame. That is all I have to say :stuck_out_tongue:

All mastery combinations are viable.
A few are great, a few aren’t very good. You can take anything to endgame though.

Respec option: pretty much everything but mastery (and you can do that with gdstash).

Advice depends on what type of playstyle you enjoy.
Ranged? Caster? Melee? Pet? Assassin? Dual Wield? Big sword? Tank? Etc.

If you are starting over with no stashed items, farming characters, etc, you will probably want to go with a strong tanky build like one of the Oathkeeper or Soldier based ones. You could also try a more kiting elemental based build with rapid kill or a pet build with Necromancer, Occultist or Shaman. Those characters should survive in most situations and provide you with the gear for later characters.

Or you can read a build guide that appeals to you and use the GDStash mod, which will let you edit items, etc. I like to play self-found myself, but it takes time–LOTS of time–to build up what you need for varied end-game builds.

That said, you can play self found and make it through all the campaign/dlc content, barring a few very tough optional bosses, with a little patience and the willingness to sacrifice your life occasionally. :wink: You might want to read a few of the build guides for beginners here, and that will help, too.

I think, all. Not in equal measure, maybe, and some might require specific gear, but all are viable.
Though, of course, playstyle for combo you’ve chosen might differ from what you expected.

Soldier is damn viable with ANY other mastery. Probably the best for starters. As well as new Oathkeeper. For example, you can try my build. Still easy and solid as rock.

And you can respec anything but mastery choices. And you cant “respec” faction choices you already did (might lock you out of some augment or other item you need).

Top 3 classes to avoid/leave for later if you want a top tier build as your first char:

  • defiler (nerco + demolitionist)

  • battlemage (soldier + arcanist)

  • saboteur (nightblade + demolitionist)

Play the skills/masteries you like/invent build on your own, don’t read any build guides.
Since you can respec your skill/devotions points pretty cheaply, there’s nothing you cannot fix in case you screw up.
It’s boring to play a perfect build that doesn’t have any hiccups along the way (I mean too little defense or something like that)
And if you for some reason feel like full respecc, don’t want relevelling, you can do that easiliy with i.e. GD Defiler.

Well, if you respec too much, the cost would get kinda high over time.

Add Pyromancer to the list. It really weak without proper gear.

Perhaps add warlock to that list also.

And gear is also extremely important, plus what is the definition of “top-tier” build?

Don’t add pet Warlock or Pyromancer to that list :stuck_out_tongue:

Sorry,but author name is brids,not birds:p.I agree with most said.Top tier is little vague though.Deceiver at some point was bad class,but is ok.Is Spellbreaker outside of PB much better?Elementalist have synergy,but always with same items,something else will be better,same think can be said for most sorcs.

I would recommend to take a look at the three targetfarmable sets in the game: Krieg, Dark One’s and Vanquisher. One is an aetherbased attackbuild set (very stronk), one a Vitality caster set (also pretty good, prolly the hardest - but shortest :stuck_out_tongue: - farming though) and one a firebased set wich supports a “hit and run” playstyle. If you aim for one of these, you have a nice goal and upgrade path for your character + a working build, in case you want to farm some gear for other characters.

https://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81737

This guide helped me a LOT.

I don’t think you need to fret much over what to play first. Difficulty balance is nice in this game. I would just suggest you pick the style of build you want to play and farm with it. You may not be strong initially but you can play content that you can clear for farming, challenger instead of gladiator crucible etc.

I would only say that generally casters are harder to get to work well, and adcth (life steal) is usually the strongest way to heal or sustain your health.

So tanky builds seem like the way to go. Since Oathkeeper is new I suppose I’ll pick him over soldier and then figure out what the pair it with. I tried looking at various builds but that just confused me and made me more indecisive. It’s great that they added respecs though, that takes a lot of pressure of me. Thanks for the helpful advice everyone. (and yes, Brids, not Birds. :stuck_out_tongue: )

Another good piece of advice is take a look at the legendary faction weapons/gear. They can be crafted sooner than RNG drops (unless you get lucky) and will help in the farming process.

From my pow there is a rather simple way to determine good and bad starting class combo. More synergies two masteries has - more noob friendly it is. And good way to check synergies is to look at flats damage(+XX ) class provide. For example:

Oathkeeper has physical on all skills, Soldier has physical on all skills - good noob friendly physical combo
Shaman has lightning on many skill, Inquisitor has +elemental - good starting combo for lightning
Necromancer provide aether, vitality, poison, some cold, Demolitionist provide physical, fire, lightning, some chaos - hard combo, not new player friendly.

Actually the most important thing about class is to have easy access to RR,if you have dual class RR on passive source is even better.There are few examples of when single RR outperform dual,but is nice start.

Well, for example pyromancer has great fire RR access(CoF+Thermite mines) but it doesnt make him particulary new player friendly. So its not that easy also. Though yeah, checking if combo provide some rr for main damage type is also good, though in my experience rr is less useful on normal then on highter difficulty