PoE veteran, just started. Any tips?

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

Hi all,

After recently quitting Path of Exile due to boredom (after several thousands of hours of fun and thoroughly beating that game), I’ve installed Grim Dawn earlier this week to get my aRPG fix.

Have to say that I love it so far. Started with just checking it out and taking things as I go, not following any build guide. Currently somewhere in Elite Act 2.

I’ve been encountering some survivability issues since starting Elite though. I guess that resists can be mostly ignored throughout Normal, but become very important even early on in Elite? Had expected a bit more of a curve to that.

So, my main question is regarding survivability. I’m playing Pyromancer, currently level 52, sitting on ~4.2k hp and ~11k sheet dps. Capped ele/vitality/chaos resists, ~45% acid+poison res, ~15% aether/pierce/bleed res. Playing rifles with vitality+chaos focus, most of my sustain comes from life leech.

Does this sound like an “okay-ish” point to sit at, at this level? I haven’t really stopped to grind out better gear, mostly just pushing the progression awaiting a brick wall that will force me to go back and grind. Generally, I’m doing rather fine on most trash, but occasionally get swamped and die (when it happens, it’s mostly heroes with a bunch of adds). Also, I’m finding that some (most) bosses take quite a lot of kiting to take down, and I frequently need to fall back to get my potions off cooldown. Does this sound right until you get better gear / outlevel the content, or am I doing something seriously wrong in my build?

Also, any other beginner tips are greatly appreciated, as well as hints from other PoE veterans as to how the two games compare and knowledge transfers from the one to the other :slight_smile:

2

It would be better to post your build using grimcalc.com

Starting elite, resistance is indeed important. What’s your DA ? Chances are you getting crit by mobs ? What’s your devotion ?

3

^ Good point, only GrimCalc’s Demolitionist’s tree isn’t up to date. Here it is though: http://grimcalc.com/build/Fq9gOnr (Searing Strike points into 2H ranged). Bloody Pox, Doom Bolt and Blood of Dreeg are mostly there to test out since I had some +skills gear.

Explosive Strike as main damage dealer, both single target and AoE. Witchfire/Second Rite for the flat dmg to reduce reliance on item drops since it’s my first character. Possession for the massive damage boost and some survivability.
Currently pushing for 50points Demolitionist to complete the Fire Strike line with Brimstone (in hindsight, should’ve probably pushed that before Possession to get better CC/AoE).

Devotion build is a bit all-over the place, didn’t have a clear direction in mind when I started. Kraken for the 2H dmg boost, Affliction for the passive ranged damage. Twin Fangs on Fire Strike for the occasional extra dmg+leech, Wendigo’s Mark on Stun Jacks for sustain and dmg against packs, Flame Torrent on Pestilence (item) to effectively give dps+leech aura for mobs that get close. Empty Throne for the affinity + some resists, Gallows for affinity + dmg. Not sure what to build to next, might spec out of Affliction later, dunno.

Oh, and DA is currently 1030. I probably over-built Cunning for now, but likely isn’t a problem since I’ll need it to meet requirements for Rifles later on anyway.

4

First of all, I don’t think Bloody Pox is any good in your build, so respec that out. and so is Stun Jack. No use putting points there if you’re not gonna mainly use it. Better on Vindictive Flame(Total Speed and regen) and Flame Touched(OA and damage). Flashbang is also good for DA Reduction and CC.

Solael’s witchfire is also useless since your main damage is fire, so scratch that out and put into Curse of Fraility and Vulnerability instead. you can max those out for best performance since it’s a heavy debuff. (It affects boss too !) Blood of Dreeg is awesome and is your main heal, so max that out. Aspect of Guardian is optional. 1 Doom bolt is enough for devotion proc. Possesion isn’t worth it, maybe only for the Damage absorption ? Your choice. Also, Blast Shield is awesome, make it 12/12.

For devotion, I recommend going Viper -> Hawk - > Behemoth first. It’s almost essential in every build for the huge Heal and regen.

Edit : Sigil of consumption is ok if you want, but only if you take Destruction which add Fire damage to it. Which will result in huge damage and lifesteal later on.

Edit 2 : Don’t put points into cunning. (You can’t respect points). Most builds put everything into physique and save 10-15 points for spirit in case you need some of the best amulets there.

5

http://grimcalc.com/build/6SPeqz7

Here’s a test build that should cover your essential skills. Canister Bomb for AOE and fire strike for single target. Note that this is with +skills from items later on. What you should max is Flame Touched (Ultimate Level), Fire Strike skill line, except brimstone, Flashbang max, and Ulzuin Chosen. Curse of Fraility skill line and Blood of Dreeg should be maxed if you can.

Blast Shield should be 12/12 after + skills. Vindictive Flame should be 16/16 too.

Edit : You can drop the doom bolt if you don’t have anything to proc.

6

@Narukana: First off, thank you for taking the time to reply to that. Some points though:

Agreed about Bloody Pox, tried it as a devo trigger. Same thing for Stun Jacks, which seems like a great delivery mechanism to get Wendigo’s Mark out against packs. Could you explain a bit why this isn’t viable/good as a devo proc mechanism?

Noted. Those don’t work as devo triggers though (well Flashbang does, and might be a better delivery mechanism due to the added CC. Will look into that).

Ehm, my main damage isn’t Fire. As mentioned, it’s Vitality+Chaos. Fire Strike’s sheet dmg is 207 Fire damage, v.s. 1970 Vit and 1804 Chaos (and 1130 phys as the other main dmg type).

I guess the Vitality res reduction is good? Otherwise it seems lackluster on paper…

Thanks, noted.

It’s a ton of flat damage, and ~150% increased dmg for Vitality+Chaos (main damage types), and Poison (which I get from Affliction devo). Don’t quite see why that’s bad, could you elaborate?

Not sure I understand what makes it so good since I have capped resist already? It also doesn’t work as a devo trigger. Is it just the dmg absorption?

From your follow-up post, since we’re still talking skills:

Why not get brimstone? The extra Chaos dmg benefits from the %scaling I already have, and it should add both better AoE dmg and more reliable devo procs, no?

Are Viper and Hawk only for the affinity? I have access to Behemoth already. I did consider it, what makes it good apart from the HP buff? The devo trigger looks decent-ish, but with a 30sec cooldown it would seem too unreliable to mitigate repeated burst damage from bosses, no?

Edit: Sorry if I’m coming across as stubborn or wanting to ignore your advice. I’m just trying to understand why you feel some things are better than others :slight_smile:

7

Ok I’ll try to answer some of the questions

BLast Shield is one of the best survival procs in the game. You are pretty much God mode for 4 seconds every 12 seconds should your health drop bellow 70%.

That absorb soaks up listed amount on every hit, it’s not like 800-1000 extra hit points. That’s the real value of the balst shield. You only need 10 points with + skills. Major win

Also, searing light from Flashbang works on bosses too. Fumble is a huge deal for survival. Leave it at 7 points with +skills.

Soalel’s debuffs chaos too. Get it. Not a lot of chaos debuff in the game, unless you get hellfire mine too.

Get Vulnerability. -36 Vit resist is very good and again there is not a lot of it in the game. Remember also that -n resists stacks with itself too. But reduced n resist or reduced %n resist do not stack with themselves. All these 3 debuff types stack with eachother though with % coming in last and affecting even when monsters are defbuffed into the negative side.

Possession hell yes for your build.

Blood of dreeg hell yes for any occult build. Heal on demand and regen and huge OA.

Cheeers

8

Well honestly, I wasn’t really asking for build advice, although the thread did turn into that. I was mostly wondering if my raw numbers are on the okay-ish side of things (health, DA, sheet DPS and so forth), given mid-50’s char and Act2 Elite.

Also, I’m a bit confused if I’m not going too fast in the progression due to the automatic monster lvl scaling. I just now reached Homestead, but I’m around 8 levels under most trash, not to mention heroes and bosses. Would it be wise to backtrack a bit a grind some levels before pushing further?

Alright thanks, that makes sense. I’ll spec over some points.

Do you mean Eldritch Fire (devo)? Solael’s buffs chaos dmg, it’s not a debuff.

Alright, thanks, that’s useful :slight_smile:

9

When levelling keep in mind that faction gear is very good. Grind some rep and get the best faction gear for your level.

Pyromancer isn’t top tier, but it can still do very well. It’s a good choice for a first build IMO. Kraken is awesome, but it is better suited to melee IMO.

I would suggest switching to focus on fire and chaos damage with dual wield pistols.

With ideal gear this build can beat the second crucible difficulty. Haven’t tried higher yet. When you hit 85 you could probably immediately do Steps of Torment. Enjoy.

http://grimcalc.com/build/EIoFmuR

Skills:

Flame Touched - You are taking this mainly for the flat fire damage and offensive ability. Flat fire damage is added to your weapon damage only. Over level it if you can.

Temper - Optional 1 point. If can give you some value when you get items which give extra demolitionist skills.

Blast Shield - Amazing defensive skill. That damage absorption is nuts. Definitely over level.

Fire Strike - Flat fire damage and extra % weapon damage is good. Over level if you can.

Explosive strike - One point is fine. Flat physical is not useful considering it is not a physical build. Burn isn’t great in general.

Static strike - Amazing in certain builds, but not great in this one because it focuses on lightning. That chance to knock down will get better when you get + skill level items.

Brimstone - The bread and butter of the build. Flat fire and chaos damage is delicious. Also it makes it an AOE.

Flashbang/Searing Light - Great skills, but I only ever put one in each. I let my + skills increase them.

Vindictive Flame - Great skill. Overall speed, regen and stun retaliation.

Ulzuin’s Wrath - Knockdown and slow attack retaliation are very good. Let + skills level this.

Solael’s Witchfire - Flat chaos is always great. Attack speed too. Even though attack speed doesn’t scale well, over level this for flat chaos damage.

Second Rite - One point for vitality resist and a bit of % chaos damage. Let + skills provide their benefit.

Possession - Awesome skill. 12% damage absorb is amazing. Also it gives you flat chaos damage which is perfect for this build. Extra % chaos damage is a bonus. Over level for more flat chaos damage! (Note: I keep this at 12 on my conjurer because he doesn’t need the flat damage)

Curse of Frailty - Put points in and let + skills increase it until you are happy with the area. I never put more than 1 or 2 points in this for a non-physical build.

Vulnerability - Less elemental resist helps your fire damage and less defensive ability means more crits. Honestly I’m a little on the fence about this one. Anyway, keep this at 10 points. Do not over level. It scales very badly past 10 points.

Blood of Dreeg - A heal, regen and offensive ability. IMO over levelling this skill is mandatory for any class which has occultist.

Aspect of the Guardian - 12% physical resistance is very good for defence. Also you won’t have to worry about poison resist on your gear. Keep this at 12 points. Don’t over level.

Devotions:

Viper - Offensive ability and -20 elemental resists is awesome. Flat reduction to resist is a very powerful stat. It will get applied off your weapon damage (fire strike). Also this is needed to support Behemoth.

Hawk - Crit damage, offensive ability, reduced cunning requirement… What more can I say? Also supports Abomination.

Scholar’s Light - Bit of resist, damage and energy regen. It’s not amazing, but fine to support Abomination.

Fiend - More fire and chaos damage. Not great, but supports Abomination.

Solael’s Witchblade - More fire and chaos damage is nice, but the resist reduction and slow on Eldritch Fire is what you’re really after. Great constellation and supports Abomination a bit.

Behemoth - Great health and regen. Very nice defensive constellation. Supports Abomination.

Chariot of the Dead - Tons of cunning and offensive ability with a bit of defence. Great constellation. Supports Abomination.

Abomination - Just to Abominable Might and pick up that health and offensive ability on the left. Abomination Might gives more health and flat chaos damage which is amazing. Abomination gives extra offensive ability, health, chaos damage and poison resist. Very nice.

Ulzuin’s Torch - Grab some crit damage, offensive ability, fire resist and fire damage here. Burn isn’t great and the meteor shower isn’t all that great with this build.

Revenant - Extra points to spend? Life steal and attack speed are great.

10

Welcome to GD, I’ve been playing PoE for a while too (did quit like 2 years ago though), and I understand that some things might be a bit confusing, but I think you’re doing more than fine.
Here are some thoughts that I would like to share with you (some are general, some are personal opinions):
-Narukana told you about Viper+Hawk because those are 2 awesome constelations, and ofc give you some desired points to advance. They give you OA(prolly the most important stat in the game), 20% reduced target’s ele rez(fire,cold,lightning; and this one was another reason Narukana sugested it, to reduce fire rez), crit dmg, energy leech to better sustain your attacks.
-There are no things like “bad builds”, but some things just…won’t fit, if you know what I mean. After all, it all depends on you to make it work; and that’s why you must read this Advanced Mechanics and the game mechanics from the main menu (main page).
-Try not to worry to much about skills that can trigger devos, you’ll end up having plenty: from tree, from gear. And if you won’t, you can always take a 1pt wonder, that you see best fit, why not?
-Blast Shield is indeed awesome, it provides a good amount of absorb shield, resistances, +max res, and a HUGE chance to avoid projectiles. For 12 points, I’d say it’s worth.
-Vindictive Flame gives you All Speed, Flame Touched gives you fire dmg and the much desired OA(flat, and a lot), Solael’s Witchfire gives you Att speed and chaos (even Vit dmg with Second Rite). If I were you, I’d max all 3.
-1pt Canister Bomb with max transmuter gives you 100% chance to stun, with a big AoE. This one could be a devo trigger.
-Flashbang is a great debuff skill (reduces target DA=> You will have “more” OA). Coupled with CoF and Vulnerability(even more DA reduction) is a must have.
-I’d recommend taking Solael’s Witchblade constelation, for -x% fire and chaos res. Will help both a lot.
-But… There are so many good skills in these 2 classes, you gotta decide, right? :))
I could make the list longer, but why not let you experiment more? :slight_smile:
Narukana had a good point, but I think that:
a) he missed the section where you said you wanna go chaos, not fire;
or b) he intentionally gave you that advice, considering fire dmg can be better scaled, being one of the best dmg types atm.
(though I run a 2h riffle Cadence Witchblade, and love chaos dmg.My build).

Edit: It seems that Aryah was suggesting similar things, but more explicit, while I was replying also :slight_smile:

11

Yes, indeed i missed about the chaos part. I thought you were gonna be a fire type damage. Sorry about that :frowning:

12

I was refering to the devotion not the skill. Solael devotion ability does debuff enemy fire and chaos resist by -20% at lvl 15. Check it in grim calc too. When reaching act 2 you should be lvl 17-18. No back track is usually needed. There are harder areas by the time you get to Homestead lvl wise but starts to get a bit easier afterwards. At lvl 25-30 your build begins to take shape.

At lvl 40 it will get a bit hard again, You will finish main quest around this time suggest getting to at least lvl 48-50 before moving on to elite (Do loghorrean and Bastion of Chaos for quick leveling yourself and your devotions). Also lvl 50 is a game changer in terms of items. Better epics and also legendaries that can be worn at this point.

13

Thanks, yeah, figured you were talking about the devo.

I just hit 54, and I noticed the game changer at 50. Still feel underlevelled for Elite Homestead at this point…

14

Haven’t played a Rifle/Chaos Build so far but your 11k dps should be solid for lvl 52. Healthwise around 5K is what I would try to achieve, I roughly look out for at least 100 times more my lvl. Depending on your build this could be more or less - e.g. more for a melee build, less if you’ve got lots of damage absorb, so since you’ve got possesion with a ranged build it should be ok.

I would really try to increase your pierce and bleeding resistance, especially the pierce part.

From my experience its roughly
1.Pierce
2.Elemental
3.Bleed/Poison
4.Everything else

Of course this changes a bit depending on where you’re running around, but over the whole course of the game it should be something like this. Oh, and on ultimate you want to have everything as high as possible.

On a Sidenote, especially for lategame you should put at least one point in semi-important skills e.g. aspect of the guardian since you’ll get a lot +1 on occultist gear if you’re going for sets.

15

Yeah your pierce and bleed resists were probably killing you in act 2 against all the cronley enemies. 4.2k hp is moderately low at your level too. Have you slotted components or augments yet?

Also for your build, while much of the advice here is good if you intend to min/max your build, don’t feel compelled to change what you’re doing if it is working fine. You can definitely get through ultimate in a sub optimal build setup. I would focus a little more on defense then you are though. Also don’t spec out of kraken if you intend to stay 2h, it’s one of the best devotions in the game.

16

The average progression is normal lvl0-50 elite lvl50-70 ultimate lvl70-85.
That just means you missed some stuff, which is not uncommon since a fair number of quests/zones are hidden / optional. It’s however not a big deal, the monsters scale with your level and will always be a couple levels above you. You never out level the content, when you hit level 85, the monsters you face are level 90.

You won’t really hit a brick wall, the game progression is smooth, only the transition between difficulties can be a bit rough if you are not paying attention because each new difficulty decreases your resistances by -33%. Some zones (the ones you need a skeleton key for) are a bit tougher than others too, namely the Steps of Torments and the Bastion of Chaos. Then you have the Nemesis bosses when you reach max factions status with the enemy factions.

Regarding your character, the dps sheet doesn’t really say much about you unfortunately, it doesn’t account for spells or anything. And while resistances are important, having good resistances at all time isn’t. Not all monsters deal all types of damage at once and you can just swap accessories to accommodate whatever creature you are fightiing. Around Homestead you will find lightning & aether green creatures and pierce & poison insectoids mostly. So again, can’t really say if your character is good or not. That’s why people are commenting on your build really, it’s the only reliable information. Seems to me you are doing okay, using potions is normal, so is dying, but there is always room for improvements. You could start looking at factions gears to get something decent, and look at components and augments to boost your stats.

Edit: you might wanna look at devotion shrines too, by now you should have maybe 35 or so devotions pts, if you don’t, you missed some stuff and you might wanna explore the previous zones or difficulty more extensively. There are 28 shrines on normal difficulty alone.

17

Well, the main difference from PoE, is that you cant oneshot whole screens of monsters at once, god forbid offscreen them…
Another difference is that certain enemies are hardly resistant to leech, or even immune to it. You just cant rely upon lifesteal all the time.
Pyromancer is nice for rapid killing weak enemies, and is strong enough to complete main campain. It’s quite fragile, though, as any ranged character should be. It’s normal, that you kite enemies sometimes. If you want to be tanky, choose another build.
OF course, there are stronger builds, than pyromancer, despite he’s still good. Maybe, you made some mistakes while building him?

I’d adviced to rush Abomination, for Abominable might, first. For undergeared characters, that flat damage bonus is incredible.

18

There’s also some resemblance to PoE: defence is still your #1 priority.

Also, I cannot imagine my pyro without CoF with Solael’s Witchblade’s proc attached to it. It’s THAT good. Though you have to keep in mind that CoF is only decreasing move speed, ranged attackers remain just as dangerous when cursed. I’ve dies a few times because I forgot that.

19

Elite was not a problem for me, but Ultimate is. Regardless of difficulty, you should try to get your resists maxed out, it would help you greatly. This is especially important for Ultimate, which I realized by trial and error.

Regarding damage, DPS means nothing in many cases. Focus on skills that do splash and/or DoT area damage, it will help you clear out garbage mobs. Focus on single target DPS for bosses. Calculate DPS yourself, from all skills you have, the default DPS only accounts for primary/secondary attack. Example item skill - sacred strike. Grenado is pretty good with its passives.

20

I don’t think it’s been mentioned but you also want to confirm that you have enough DA. If you’re able to step bosses from critting, great, but it’s important that trash shouldn’t be able to crit you. It’s easy to get what the percentage to hit and crit is versus the last monster you faced by hovering you DA.

Taking a point in BWC and the modifier is also an amazing defense, especially against bosses. So is AotG and its physical resistance.

If you’re focusing chaos/vitality, you want to get CoF + Vulnerability and Soleal’s Witchblade. The meta currently is to reduce resistances and it remains exponentially strong (since +% damage is additive and reduction to resistances mostly yields a larger damage increase).

Something not stated is to try and get 135% movespeed. Also, reduction to CC (stun, petrify, etc) and even entrapment reduction is wonderful on a ranged character.