Returning to Grim Dawn after 5 years is like reuniting with a lost love,

Grim Dawn General Discussion
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… and to find out that while both of you have changed significantly since you last saw each other, the love is still there. It’s been 5 years since I decided to play GD, and I’m back to shake off the rust and relearn as much as I can before the expansion pack drops. I’ve been having a blast so far! This thread will exist for me to update and chronicle my experiences playing Grim Dawn as a very rusty returning veteran of the game.

Because Grim Dawn is so dear to my heart, I really wanted to take a thoughtful approach to how I’d play the game for another long stretch of time (even if I put far fewer hours in day to day). I wanted to think a bit so I could play in a way that lets me enjoy this return as much as possible. I came to a few decisions but note that: I am here to have fun and relearn the game, none of the restrictions I’m trying on are meant as a challenge, but are instead meant to enhance my experience of returning to a game I love dearly.

Decision 1: Semi-Solo Self Found (could change later)

I decided to go semi-ssf for each character I play for the rest of the year. No GDstash whatsoever. Not for mandates, not for consumables, not for anything. No sharing of crafting components between characters or anything. I'm not coming back as a playtester; I want to enjoy the game as it's intended to be played. Also, I lost almost all my old save files... lol. I found a few pre-FG characters and decided to make one --- **Exception - Fog of war and Mandates:** I am reusing an old Fog of War file. I legit get OCD about unexplored map and I don't find it enjoyable running into every nook and cranny trying to reveal as much fog as possible. When I saw my Forgotten Gods areas were still unexplored after using the old file, I groaned. I will also share reputation mandates, as I view the faction mechanic as part of intended meta progression, and I don't enjoy farming reputation.

If I change my mind later on any of this, I will edit this section to note it and update the thread with a post just for narrative consistency. I fully expect that at some point, I’ll want to let characters help others with perfect gear if I get tired of RNG, I might keep some characters purely SSF and let others share, and keep a spreadsheet of which are which… I might eventually just open it up to hand me down twink gear if I get tired of leveling new builds, but whatever happens it’ll get updated here.

Decision 2: Choice of First Class Build

Meet Shan, my first choice of build coming back to the game and her current gear at level 50:
– Sentinel, Level 50 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

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I am following this build created by @banana_peel - Sentinel, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

I chose this build for a few reasons.

  1. It’s a top build. I like to play games with strong end-game builds. One might think one learns faster or more without a build or with an average one, but I don’t enjoy build crafting and I find I learn faster by seeing what’s really good and experiencing all the content. I don’t enjoy or find builds that are too weak to be particularly interesting.
  2. It’s a conversion build, gear-dependent to reach end-game strength. I wanted to a build that is relatively safe and a bit slower to ramp up (sword/gun and board). I’ll be likely be going with physical aegis until I can swap over to the conversion gear.
  3. It’s tanky enough that I can limit-test without dying often. I want to see how hard new and old bosses alike hit and play casually so I can get a feel for which enemies I need to particularly keep in mind when I’m playing squishier builds.

I will be building characters around their core skills from start to finish, but I will swap arround their secondary skills as needed for the leveling experience. If I’m playing a cadence build, I won’t be using forcewave to level. I saw a PoE streamer saying how he hated the feeling of completely changing your build just because you leveled optimally, felt like he missed the feeling of a build coming together naturally even if hard won at time, and that resonated with ne. I might change my mind about this later if I want to try some uber gear-dependent builds, for I think there is enough gear support in the game to get most builds to the point that they can farm end game, even if they’re using a different damage the final build intends.

Decision 3: Playstyle

I am playing with casual-seriousness and serious-casualness. I never found GD to be particularly hard, nor am I having a hard time in my first run so far. I will try to avoid doing anything too stupid without putting a portal down first, but I’ll be piloting lazily when I feel like it, and trying hard when I feel like it. I do want to get back not just my gaming knowledge, but some of my piloting skills, which require trial and error and a feel for which enemies dish out what.

As I play I want to improve holistically. So I will also be casually reading and rereading guides, strategies (for farming, for leveling, for early game smoothness), and will update this thread as I decide which I utilize and my experience utilizing them. This thread is meant to be a complete chronicle of my experiences. Please do link me advice for my character while leveling, gear to pick/look out for, changes you might make, strategies you recommend I learn, etc. I will appreciate all earnest input and will update this thread with written accounts of my experience on any input I do utilize!

The only thing in this thread I’m vowing to stick to is ZERO GDStash for the year of 2026.

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Reserved for my thoughts on playing through level 50

Thoughts in no particular order:

  • So far I love the sunder mechanic, I may change my mind at high level lol.
  • Aegis is definitely a slow start, but I used Lightning Nova from components in between shield throws until I got closer to level 50. I don’t consider this to be contradictory to what I wrote in the OP that I’d be playing with the build’s end-game core skills, because I was still using/leveling toward them, and the components are intended to supplement your build.
  • I died 4 times by the time I hit 50. 1 from face-tanking Naren Kur the Ostracized, 2 from standing in degen while reading item stats and spacing out, and 1 from Karroz’s on-death degen pool. (Is it on death? Maybe he just cast it right before he died.) Not once did I feel like there was an unfair death. The only fight so far that I felt I had to play a bit carefully for was Bolvar. Those pistol barrages hurt!
  • Faction armor is so good. I have farmed to honored for DC, Homestead, and Rovers, so I can get collecting their blueprints out of the way and access their gear and starter augments. Before unlocking the level 35 gear I felt I had to pay a bit of attention fightning non-bosses, but after utilizing faction shops I haven’t felt squishy at all.
  • Forgotten Gods is such a beautiful campaign still, compared to the earlier areas. I haven’t played past unlocking the SR for that devotion point, but even in just the opening area of FG I notice the difference.
  • The game holds up super well. I can see why so many people who discover it late still choose to stick around despite the smaller player base. And hey, a few thousand concurrent players ain’t bad!
  • Without looking anything up, I almost instantly discovered the movement tech of vire’s might into Evade to cancel the delay animation at the end of each VM cast. I love this, it feels so good when I want to reach my next destination just a bit faster.
  • I’m surprised by both how much I’ve forgotten and how much I remember. I didn’t even have to check the fog-of-war-revealed map for the little side secret areas with chests or the truly secret side zones. But I am surprised I barely remember what a good deal of the old unique items supported. I remember a lot of them, but have forgotten a lot too (and some have changed ofc).
  • I love the new side zones I’ve found. I like that Boris gets a friend in the pit based on a tournament that happened here in the past.
  • The feeling of some uncertainty about where to focus spending skill points beyond my main skill, devotion points, etc., having to read faction gear again to pick the pieces that fill the gaps in my stats, it’s refreshing!
  • That said, I remember to try to get resists up, OA up for crits, DA where I can get it, movement speed, and my active devotion skills ASAP to boost my power.
  • I am really enjoying rereading not just lore notes but NPC dialogue. I think it’s underappreciated that you usually get 2-3 choices during even non-quest conversations, where you get to act like either a nice hero savior man, a cold, pragmatic survivor, or a complete asshole.
  • I love the markers for MI’s, double rares, and double rare MI’s.
  • Do people still like to get 5-10 devotion points from crucible before starting campaign? I kind of regret forgetting to do that, I liked having more devotion completed earlier into the campaign.
  • I’m enjoying exploring most of the map again, incase I forget anything or find something new. I could just b-line to secrets and objectives, but forcing myself to explore is actually refreshing my memory on what to potentially skip in future runs. Though if anyone has done a written guide on how to level to 100 without missing any skill/attribute points, I’d be interested. Eventually, the campaign will feel repetitive and the remaining fun will just be trying to finish builds efficiently and enjoying how they feel once completed.
  • I am really appreciating now how Crate made some great decisions for new/average players that I failed to appreciate as a praetorian. For example, as a playtester not doing ssf, the game always felt so easy to me that I didn’t really see the point of adding modifiers to challenge areas. Oh boy, a side area with a slightly higher level also has a single modifier, or even 3, big whoop. But especially now that the sunder mechanic is also in the game, I can imagine these areas are GREAT for new/average players. Area gives somewhat better rewards, and if they get easy enough modifiers, they feel good about themselves for beating a challenge area, and if they get some adversarial modifiers, it will most likely just feel tougher for them, but still doable. These areas are a win-win for the new player experience.
  • Bounties are well written. I don’t have to look up the spawn location of targets; the descriptions remind me of playing Morrowind, though it’s easier to find stuff in GD than Morrowind. The quest descriptions are always all you need to find the enemy.
  • Don’t ask me about play-time, I sometimes leave the game open and unpaused for long stretches. I will genuinely not know how long it took me in-game to have reached anything.
  • I’ll add more in the morning
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Welcome back

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I’ve never bothered to get devotion points in Crucible since I don’t like that mode of play. Easy enough to get all 55 just by playing through the campaign these days with so many extra shrines.

Not sure if it’s after you stopped playing, but Crate did add some new areas to the game - 8 to be exact.

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Probably best to level as Fire? Because of Solael’s Witchblade in devo. And fighting with a suboptimal Phys build against armor can be annoying sometimes.

wrong link, no 50 lev. link anywhere

no, I never see it mentioned. Although I don’t read beginner guides fully these days. The last time I saw it was myself. The problem is that it’s in a separate mode outside of the game and also you level up by doing it and that’s more fun to do in Main Campaign.

Grim Tools checklist or Grim Dawn Wiki (Quests page)

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you don’t need to worry so much about missing skill/attributes while levelling anymore doomG.
Even if you’re not using a merit to frontload them, Crate added a backwards reward thing, so if you skip a point quest/ex Hidden path on Normal, but you clear it on Ult, you get the point rewards you skipped prior difficulty. As long as you clear the quests on Ult you get all attribute/skill rewards :+1:

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@Gnomish_Inquisition Not having to do Hidden Path three times in SSF is great!

@adoomgod Also you don’t need to do Elite now, you can go to Ultimate after beating Normal Loghorrean

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specially since technically those quests actually give pretty tiny XP :sweat_smile:

what i like to do is obtain the stones on going through Vet playthrough, but not use them/put them in char stash, then when enters Ult i take them out and insta complete first part of Ult Hidden path, with Sanctum now avail to open when pleases :smiley:

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Good idea, you don’t need to go back / think about it anymore. I remember using Legion medals in Blood Grave like that because there are usually more than 5 lying around. Oh and Slith necklaces.

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Welcome back aDG! I’m in the same boat as you… I was away for years, and recently returned. I had to think about how I wanted to play as well, since I had a stable full of fully-geared lvl 90-100s, but just jumping back into them didn’t appeal to me.

So I took a route, entirely new to me (after watching Reinan22 on Twitch)… I decided to play Hardcore. I share whatever can fit in the shared Stash, but also decide to utilize GDStash for MI and Legendaries… just in case I get a HUGE unlucky streak, and can’t find build-enabling items. Other than that caveat, I won’t be using GDStash to outfit in any other fashion.

So far, so good. I’ve raised a coupld chars, Lightning Warder and a Pierce EoR. I’m using other people’s builds for these, since I’ve never really ventured into the build-it-myself realm. But plan on changing that with Fangs… where I’ll throw my hat in the ring of Melee Chaos Werewolf Primalist (Zerker/Occultist)… and see how it goes!

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Welcome back, buddy!

Not exactly a guide, but that’s what the grimtools checklist is for: Grim Dawn Checklist (you can upload your character and see which quests you’ve missed)

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Welcome back adoomgod. It’s always great to see OG players return to GD.

Best of luck on your journey!

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I’ll look into switching to fire.
Fixed the link, thank you.
Yeah that’s what I waffled about too, I don’t like the many levels you get in crucible for a few devotion points.

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That’s brilliant. I have the stones but haven’t turned them in yet, so I’ll do this!

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Aegis is also easier to convert Aegis to Fire than to Phys fully with this shield Colossal Defender - Items - Grim Dawn Item Database although you could just convert Phys to Chaos with this medal I guess Lagoth'Ak's Voidbinding - Items - Grim Dawn Item Database and play Fire / Chaos hybrid but the Fire medal seems more useful with its Life Leech Basilisk Fang - Items - Grim Dawn Item Database

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Welcome back , always a good sign when veterans come back to the game , respect

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Because of this old thread I’ve known [1.1.4.2] The Doom God - The 0.6s CD Vitality Doom Bolter (Cr+, Naked farmer, SR 80) I mistook @adoomgod with its author, another vet @sir_spanksalot. Maybe he’ll come back some day too.

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Which area do you recommend I farm these in?

Welcome back! I had the same thought regarding MI’s. I just fear using GDStash even for that might tempt me to use it for more, but I suppose that’s what discipline is for! But if I’m truly getting limited on stash space I’ll probably use the “extra storage” of GDStash as well since otherwise I’d be using characters as mules, which is just a sucky experience. But I’ll endure through the end of the year.

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I think it would be best if you look here [1.1.8.1] Fire Shield Throw Paladin from scratch - build journal and guide These items are mentionedt here with tips how to get them.

Just use Item Assistant. It’s only for storing items thus you cannot give yourself items with it. No temptation.

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Perfect, will utilize both!