I’ve just started playing Grim Dawn, and like it so far. I have a Pet-based Conjurer at Level 28.
I’ve been looking through the Build Compendium for different builds, but some things are puzzling me about a lot of them. In Titan Quest i usually maxed a skill or put in a single point in it for the +skills gear to take effect. I never put in, say 7/16 in a skill, unless i really had shortage of skillpoints. In Diablo 2 things where different since alot of skills did’nt scale very well. They got less effective the more skillpoints you put in them, so there you naturally had skills 7/20 or something. Problem is that in Grim Dawn you don’t have a scaling issue with the skills as far as i can see.
Then why is almost every build in the compendium consisting of non-maxed or non-single point skills? Have i missed something?
Yeah, as a TQ player this confused me somewhat when I started Grim Dawn.
Basically, in my experience, skill point usage is tight (you’ll notice masteries go up to 50 instead of 32 now) and so you probably won’t be able to max every skill you want to use. But usually the core skills.
I’ve also noticed +skills items are scarcer (no more easy +3 all skills from an item like Stonebinders Cuffs) so again, that makes skill point usage tighter.
But you don’t need to max every skill, there’s plenty of skills you can successfully use without maxing them. For exmaple on my Sorcerer (Demolition/Arcanist) my Flashbang is 8/8 in the skill and its synergy, rather than 12, and that’s plenty to make strong.
I also noticed in TQ skills tended to have a lower max level (think Plague tree, all 8 to max if I remember) so in Grim Dawn the skill has higher potential but you don’t necessary need to get it there.
All in all I think TQ was better in some ways, but each tree tended to have the “must have” skills which you maxed as routine, Grim Dawn has more variety.
Thanks alot for that info. Now it all makes a lot more sense. I agree that there where too many “must have” skills in TQ, that made many builds very similiar.
About +Skill gear. Can you find good +to all skills gear like in TQ or is single point skills kinda useless in GD?
there are lot of epic and legendary items that give + 1 - 2 to a certain skill you can also find normal gear with a good affix on it that gives + to a skill:
In GD, some skills scales really well past “soft” maximum (for example, Brimstone, Deadly Momentum, Blindside, etc.). Those are usually maxed.
Bot many skills dont scale well past that point, so why would you want to max them? Unlike TQ, in GD the number of skillpoints is quite limited, and you cant max out all skills you want. You should chose the most powerful ones, worth your points, and leave all others aboard.
Also remember that many items and some components also give you various skills/buffs/auras which you don’t get in TQ. One of your pets, the skelly, you’ll get from an item - the Black Grimnoire of Og’Napesh. Purified Salt gives you an aura as does Imbued Silver. Chipped Claw gives you Ground Slam which you can use as an early LMB skill. These all help to balance out the lack of skill points compared to TQ. Not that I don’t wish we had a few more of course. I also find it frustrating not to be able to max out all the skills I want. But that’s the one of the many differences between the two games.
I must admit I like the limited number of skill points.
Once you get good gear, you can shuffle points around to get better results, which makes building builds more fun to me.
Taking that one new skill with 1/10 may not be so interesting if you had to take one point from a really good skill, but let’s say you have +4 skills, then that new skill at 5/10 may well be worth a point from another skill.
Yes, limited number of points encourages build diversity. It forces to choose between “skill A” or “skill B”, between maxing skill or putting just few points to reach soft cap, etc.
And honestly depending on the class lot of end build with get a +4 / +1 All (4 to one Mastery 1 to the other) or something similar to that.
Also never forget the Nemesis Shoulder that give +3/+3 to two skills if you are using both this is 6 free skills point. So yes there is still a lot of 1 point wonders considering they can go easily to 5 with the end gear and that quite often make a huge impact.
