Dude his darkblaze build inspired me so much. I would be pumped if he returned!
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Yeah, I’m not using GDStash to craft anything, just store items I don’t want to risk to RNG if I happen to require them for a build later. I’ve been farming for 3 nights now for items for my current character, and have only found 1 out of 6 I need/want. So strange how when playing a melee character, 80% of the Legendary weapons I find are ranged. :\ #sus
That’s generally the case in any game really. When people ask how they can best find a certain item, I always think about playing a different character/build and boom there is the item you are looking for. Now asking RNGzus to give you good rolls is another story.
Regarding making a build and then looking for the right items, versus finding an interesting item to then build around…
“When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad…because of all the things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them.”
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Long play sessions in SR should pay off eventually due to the anti-duplicate item drop system in the game. But if finishing a build proves to be too frustrating, I may end up revising my self-imposed rules. Like allowing characters to share items they’ve found with each other.
I know I said I would allow myself to share mandates, but I’m considering sharing components, too, since farming crafting is a pain. But I want to put at least a few characters through crafting with only ssf materials, so I can document my experience here.
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only thing you really have to farm these days is Crystals
regular comps drop galore, and you’ll have so many unused in inventory by the end, on the way to those 1000 stacks (exception being Kilrian soul ofc)
even regular mats like brains/eyes etc drop decently (eyes and seals outright got drop increases), but, Zantai in his mercifulness made treasure troves nicely useful, and they now always give guaranteed 2 materia when you blow up the chest, making it an even better source than dismantle (50% chance for for 1 mat per 1 dynamite), so i dismantle a whole lot less now, which means less crystal farming too 
.
Even stuff like blooms myself haven’t target farmed in ages, because i get enough per char just doing the ugden quest run-through on vet+ult (around 40-50 each time)
*that is from the perspective of someone that’s not rushing through campaign tho and actually clears quests/boss instead of beeline to 100.
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Good to know, ty. I totally forgot about crafting dynamite at the legion blacksmiths for treasure troves. Good looking out.
Levels 50-67
- Beat Loggy, ez pz.
- Realized that exploring every nook and cranny is a slog since I have played through campaign questing 100’s of times and it’s all coming back to me. I remembered I can skip past a lot of mobs. Will farm a couple factions to completion later for their augments.
- Realized upon beating Loggy I unlocked elite and ultimate. Ran into elite to speed run some of act 1 and 2 just to grab more devotion points without leveling too quickly. I want my powers to boost me ASAP. I don’t consider this spoiling a pure playthrough since I’m not trying to recreate a “new player who doesn’t know anything”'s experience. Tricks that I remember I can use or that I learn from the forum are fairplay. My plan for this character is to 100% Normal with full exploration, rush through elite, and fully explore ultimate just to see how all content feels on ultimate.
- Think to myself that after finishing a few characters, my futures characters should start in ultimate. Will try this after I complete blueprints and have a full set of mandates and whatnot.
- Again, this isn’t a challenge run, just trying to put some restrictions that I think will enhance my experience playing the game. I can already feel the pull of sharing gear between characters and I haven’t even finished one yet! But I’m having fun doing ssf for this character and next build I’ll probably pick something that isn’t as gear-dependent and maintain ssf. I’m thinking this mad lee build.
- I’ve died 4 more times while reaching lvl 67. Once to Ilgorr the Eternal’s new sunder attack on normal. Twice to the stunjacks pit boss in four hills on Elite while doing devotion shrines. Underestimated the potency of shotgun stuns on me lol, and once again to standing in ground damage while reading items in my inventory. None of this felt remotely unfair, and the tension I’ve felt fighting since putting on faction gear was Loxmere jumpscaring the shit out of me and Shar’Zul from Bastion of Chaos, forgot how much fire he can spawn at once and almost died twice in a single fight.
- This has been a great first experience as a person playing a very sub-par leveling build and tossing the rust off. I definitely started feeling the pain of not having all my gear to support my build and put in a bit more effort to rectify that.
This is where I left off:
I think Normal is pretty darn well-tuned now. Not a challenge if you build synergistically, probably kills newbies way more often than forum-goers imagine. The average player doesn’t know how to build characters. They spread skill points poorly, don’t gear well, don’t realize the power of components and faction shops, etc. Sunder is neat because it can really sneak up on you if you’re new and bossing lazily.
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Altoholism slowly kicking in I see. Even after years of being sober.
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Level 67-75 + beating all campaign + DLC
- Well, I didn’t die once from 67-75. Felt like smooth sailing despite using a SSF fresh start chaos aegis build but I suppose that’s what normal is for. Finishing at lvl 75 (I did lvl up 2 or 3 times in elite grabbing some shrines though) is surreal!
- Forgotten Gods is definitely my favorite part of the campaign. Gorgeous, rich lore, some funny elements that don’t break immersion. Chef’s kiss.
- I know many will disagree, but I feel like Korvaak should have double the base HP he has. I guess I’ll see how he feels on higher difficulties, considering normal players won’t probably face him with a cohesive build. But given it’s DLC content, I was surprised how fast he died.
- Grim Dawn is definitely still my favorite ARPG
- Really cool seeing little changes, like I noticed higher level relics don’t require multiple lower level relics anymore. Or am I crazy. Crafting looks a bit reasonable and I want to do a lot of ssf crafting to see where I like and dislike the farming grind.
- I love all the new side areas. I can’t believe how many were added post-release. Crate, the passion and love you have for this game you created and its fans is truly remarkable. I respect the fuck out of all of you.
- I realized I had gotten the supporter pack transmogs without ever really using them. The God transmogs are craaaaazy!
- I still love how generous GD is with loot. It was a brilliant design decision to have so many damage types because it allows the game to be more generous with loot without just spoonfeeding you every exact piece you need for your desired build.
- I explored all the Fog of War I could, minus Anastasia’s dungeon and Kymon quest zones, which I’ll grab on my next character. My future runs will be a lot quicker since I am re-memorizing how to route without skipping anything. Even on future characters I like to 100% all the side quests in Ultimate. I just feel an OCD sense of incompletion otherwise.
- SSF felt totally fine. I picked up every green that dropped and ported back whenever full to sell. Iron bits and crafting supplies felt jusssst generous enough that if I wanted to craft a bunch of things at once I only needed to farm a bit more than what I already had. I think this is a triumph for Crate.
- I’m looking forward to Ultimate and SR farming! I think I’ll do a little SR farming in normal first just to try to push up my SR so I can skip in Ultimate. I remember this being a thing. I hope it still is.
Feel free to ask me any questions about my experience coming back to GD if you have any.
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That’s normal/story-mode for you 
Everything has plenty more hp on higher difficulties, especially noticeable if you start in ultimate from the start.
Level 75 - 100 - Farming Elite!
- Playing a build that isn’t overly synergetic/relies on conversion gear was actually a great returning experience to Grim Dawn. There are certainly builds I could have played and geared more easily to steamroll the game, but I wanted a bit of a handicap. I knew chaos aegis would make me have to take the game a bit slower and boy did it!
- The difficulty balance is REALLY GOOD! It wasn’t that I was getting my teeth kicked in in ultimate so much as it felt like ultimate enemies were too spongey for me to enjoy progressing. So what’d I do? I went back to elite and it felt GREAT! Farmed up faction rep, improved my MI’s, smooth sailing with incremental upgrades showing up at a nice pace. Sure, with hand-me-down gear or a super synergetic, easy-to-gear build will steamroll everything, but as I did this and imagined myself in a newbie’s shoes, this all felt just right.
- Black Legion and Malmouth Resistance rep being tied to only the Aether Vanguard is a bit of a pain the first time through. But doing quests on multiple difficulties and ofc mandates alleviate this entirely on future runs.
- I mentioned it above, but I really need to highlight the brilliance of MI’s. They offer a very reliable way to boost a build. The small power spikes I got from simply swapping my MI with a higher-level version of the same MI felt fantastic.
- Ultimate is definitely harder for new players than most forum players realize, since most forum goers are long past remembering what it is like to jump in without a planned build or adequate gear. But it doesn’t feel unfair at all or overly damage spikey. Sunder also makes it spicier.
- Waiting for RNG to give me my desired set helm or for pieces to drop organically will probably take a while. Looking forward to FoA’s altar to help weighted drops.
- I totally forgot how much the monster density picks up in higher difficulties + more negative faction rep. It’s awesome! On slower builds you can face a true horde and be surrounded at times. Fantastic feeling. I think people playing easy to gear to builds out the gate are actually missing out on a fun and challenging experience.
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Wasn’t it just Malmouth tied to that? I coulda sworn you get Legion rep with just regular Aetherials?
You would think, but it’s only Vanguard for them.
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Hmmm. I mean, you unlock them waaaay quicker vs Malmouth so its never an issue but…interesting. 2600 hrs in and im still learning 
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They get a LOT of reputation exp from quests and you get their quests earlier in the acts. So there are less acts you need to skip if you want to speedrun their quests. Whereas with the resistance you need to go all the way to ashes of malmouth content.
Plus, you can run bounties for additional faction rep if you aren’t in an area to farm rep via mob kill. I do that from time to time to get to Honored faster. It’s some decent exp too and something else to do besides killing a ton of mobs or relying on quests. They are a lot better than D3 bounties too, so that’s an added bonus.
All your points explain pretty well how I felt when I came back as well. Recently I’ve been playing a weaker build than the previous couple I tried, and Elite has been feeling very nice. I also didn’t stay in Veteran as long as I would normally. I could really feel the increase in pack size and health in heroes and bosses. My first Nemesis was an absolute war. All these big patches since 1.2 have made the game feel incredible for me. I’m not sure these have directly brought in new players, but for returning players like me they’ve absolutely made me stay. I’m also spending waaay to much time theory-crafting builds on the Grim Tools site.
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Welcome back brother!
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Level 100 - Overstaying in Elite!
- This is where Shan, my Chaos Aegis Sentinel is currently:
Sentinel, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator - Had Maska on the community Discord let me know that droprates in Shattered Realm on normal and elite were nerfed, meaning my insistence on farming elite SR20 over and over again was super inefficient. Explained why the legendaries dropping felt like less than before! I definitely overstayed farming Elite difficulty.
- After 2 voidsoul drops + my BIS ring, I decided to head into Ultimate. My goodness, the enemies were not as spongey now that I had gotten a few BIS pieces and a few decent placeholders, and legendaries rain from the sky!
- I’m finishing ultimate quests before finishing faction rep + vendor farming for my divine conduit blueprint and nemesis farming for my helmet blueprint. This is my plan to stay on 1 character ssf and finishing it except for BIS MI affixes, which I won’t really need to feel finished. BIS uniques + MI’s with acceptable affixes = done enough for me to move on for my tastes.
- I WILL try to farm for BIS MI affixes after building more characters or in between playing them. I want to see if I can stomach farming them within a single character. I’ll let you guys knows if that changes but I still like the idea of characters completing their own gear all by themselves, at least to the point of breezing through ULT SR 30-31.
- SSF is still quite fun. The feeling of anticipation for the 2 last blueprints I need dropping is great, now that I know how I can farm them in a reasonable amount of time.
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