Single class builds?

[Zoso]

Again, this is an Issue which in my Opinion is made by the Advertising to the Game as well by the Game. If we would talk about an “REAL” Dual-Class System, it would feel completly different to what they offers us in Grim Dawn(as well Titan Quest). If you look as example Torchlight 2 or Diablo 2- each class offers three whole Skilltrees - and the class alone build alot of variety. If you play Druid as example, you can play him as shapeshifter, as elementalmage or petmaster, or mix everything. So an Dual-Class System would mean for me, that you pick two full-fleshed-out Classes like as example again if i could pick Necromancer PLUS Druide in Diablo 2. However Grim Dawn(or Titan Quest) - each Mastery doesn’t feel like an complete or full “Class” - but moreover simply an partly Class.

That’s way (in my opinion) this whole Dual-Class Wording so misleading ist. For the difference about Diablo 2 and Grim Dawn isn’t that actually can pick two “Classes” in Grim Dawn and in Diablo 2 only one, for me the real difference is simply, how you pick your class. In Diablo 2 you pick beforehand your Class, in Grim Dawn you pick your Class while you play, as you Pick your two Masteries.

Maybe the Real Intention behind Crate/ironlore was really to offers an Dual-Class System, however if it goes by my, if that is the Case, than i myself have to agree with you; than i would find it as well an “weak”(bad sounds so harsh) design decision. However in my Perspective, even if intended by the devs or not, its not even the Case to begin with, because after i played into Titan Quest back than, i understood (or at leas saw it like this) that isn’t meant as a game - where you play two classes at the same time, but moreover you pick TWO SKILLTREES (AKA MASTERIES) to build your Class.

And at some certain point, i don’t even understand the complain to begin with. Let’s say you want to play focused on Arcanist, than an second Mastery for Stats wouldn’t change that you still play an Arcanist. It seems people are so too focused in this stupid Nametag instead. Maybe Crate should consider to change the Nametag System, that the “Dual-Class” name is only shown when you actually spent Points in the Skills/Passive and not already if you pick your second mastery and spent points in the Mastery itself. Of course i understand how nice it sounds if you play an “Druid” or “Elementalist” or even one of this Single-Class names as “Arcanist” however in the End even this doesn’t tell about how this class are played. I mean alone Shaman you can play in so different ways, that “Shaman” itself tells nothing about your Class. So it’s moreover an “Title”…
/edit: I mean, whats the Difference? If they would make “Single-Class”(i go now by your wording) more viable, than the only thing what they could do is, so that you spent more Points in the Mastery Statwise as long as you don’t pick an second mastery. What would that Change? The can’t simply buff the Mastery double (i heard that as suggestion) - because it would kill the complete Balancing. (by buff double means - you still have only spent 50 Points into the Mastery - but as long as you don’t pick your second Mastery - your stats are doubled) because that would mean that you access to way more Skillpoints than People who pick 2 Classes. Than we would talk about how viable 2 Classes are. The only thing they possible could do so you can spent in an single-mastery up 100 Points in the Masterytree, but than i want to know - whats the difference between when you pick two classes and spent 50 in both - or 100 in one? The only thing is(like i mentioned) the Nametag, and that with the two Class Pickup you are more flexible due the different Statpoints both masterys offer for each upgrade. So in my opinion the better solution would be(like i mentioned) that the classtag only changes when you put Points in the second skilltree in Skills/Passive. So as long Aracanist+Shamane you only put Points in Mastery of Shaman, but skill on Arkanist, your classtag still will be “Arcanist”… however i don’t know how easy it is to implement that…

@Tyr:
Nope - maybe i might be wrong in the Case of "Dual-Class"System and the Devs really intended to offer that. However it doesn’t change the fact either if you pick TWO CLASSES or build your ONE Class out of two Masteries, that the whole concept of Grim Dawn intents you to pick BOTH. So you could say - your “Single-Class-Mastery-Build” thing is the thing which is “Supported” here. The Mainfocus on the Game is clearly that you pick two Classes/Masteries…

I mean - as example - you can Speedrun Games - even such like Dark Souls within few Hours - however the actuall intention behind the Game is that you actually PLAY it and not speedrun it. That People workaround or find other ways to enjoy the Game, doesn’t mean that Core Features etc automatically are only “supported”. So it’s a cool thing if “you” can make single-class viable and fix stats issue Itemwise etc - but that doesn’t mean the Game is intended to played this wise. It simply means you found a way how to fix the “downside”.

Thanks for the expansive reply. I just mentioned my dislike of the system because this thread was asking about single-class builds and nothing really came to my mind. I mean, you could argue that Grim Dawn has 15 classes, and that Soldier, Occultist, Nightblade and the other masteries are not actual classes.

In my imagination, I could see a system whereby the 15 combinations would be viable and powerful, but the 6 single masteries would also offer something unique if one chose to focus on one of them completely. Maybe a passive stat boost until you lock in a secondary class, or some skill which is only available for, say, a pure Nightblade.

With the upcoming Necromancer, for example, I’d ideally like to play a character who is called a Necromancer, and nothing else! (who knows, it might be viable.) The individual mastery names each have their own class fantasy to them, and so do each of the combinations.

Anyway, its not that big a deal to me, but I felt compelled to make my point earlier in this thread.

[powbam]

With the upcoming Necromancer, for example, I’d ideally like to play a character who is called a Necromancer, and nothing else! (who knows, it might be viable.) The individual mastery names each have their own class fantasy to them, and so do each of the combinations.

Or maybe they should just put in the ability to edit the mastery name no matter which ones you pick. Same thing. Easier implementation. Call yourself whatever you like.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

[mamba]

In my imagination, I could see a system whereby the 15 combinations would be viable and powerful, but the 6 single masteries would also offer something unique if one chose to focus on one of them completely. Maybe a passive stat boost until you lock in a secondary class, or some skill which is only available for, say, a pure Nightblade.

I do not see any need for that. The two masteries can be specced in multiple ways. Going e.g. Soldier + Shaman and only speccing Soldier skills plus the Shaman bar for stats is one of many builds possible Soldier + Shaman builds. Its difference compared to the other builds that use skills from both masteries is not really much bigger either.

If you want to have a single mastery, live with the consequences. The compensation is having more skill points available for skills. If you feel your stats are too low, get a second mastery and invest in its bar instead.

[Zoso]

I do not see any need for that. The two masteries can be specced in multiple ways. Going e.g. Soldier + Shaman and only speccing Soldier skills plus the Shaman bar for stats is one of many builds possible Soldier + Shaman builds. Its difference compared to the other builds that use skills from both masteries is not really much bigger either.

If you want to have a single mastery, live with the consequences. The compensation is having more skill points available for skills. If you feel your stats are too low, get a second mastery and invest in its bar instead.

The point is (as I made it before) that you are no longer playing a Soldier, instead, you are then playing something called a “Warder.” Which brings with it a (possibly) different class fantasy.

Thats really all I’m commenting on, to me it seems like its a small missed opportunity to not have, say, a full-on Demolitionist, wearing some kind of Demolitionist-looking armor, using Demolitionist abilities, called a Demolitionist, et cetera. Unless you gimp yourself a bit. And even to me thats not worth the price to pay for significantly reduced primary stats and so forth.

[Tyr]

@LightningYu
You are clearly overthinking this.

And you are also falling into the trap of thinking that stats alone could “save” a single mastery class which, speaking as a player who basically sorts through and juggles item affixes/components/augments/devotions all day, is utterly ridiculous.

Your whole “the game forces you to pick two classes” argument hinges on the assumption that you simply don’t gain enough stats to play as a single mastery class, and that trying to circumvent this somehow counts as trying to game the system - which doesn’t make sense considering how easy it is to beat mastery stats using just suffixes and components. That assumption also hinges on the devs making masteries absolute - which is clearly wrong considering how many builds these days are even defined by the items they use (hell, the loading screen even says so). Items are THAT powerful, and they’re only part of your sources for stats - there’s also augments, devotions, and of course, stat gain from leveling.

Food for thought:
Consider that Arcanist mastery gives you 500 total physique/cunning/spirit and 1150 HP/1500 energy.
A single “of the eagle” suffix on a non-accessory slot gives you roughly 120 physique/cunning/spirit, so 4 instances of such a suffix basically gives you the extent of physique/cunning/spirit bonus from masteries. A single Mutated Scale component gives you 180 base health and +3% health. 5 of those plus a base health of 1250 (250 default and an estimate of 1000 from your base mastery) gives you a total bonus of roughly 1.2k health. Congrats, you’ve almost beaten mastery stats. Now instead of just fixating on items, try to distribute that stat gain through all the various sources of stat gain you have - levels/devotions/augments/components and gear - and try to account for the fact that you don’t need to raise all three of physique/cunning/spirit (unless you’re trying to build a heavy armor gunslinger/caster - and I definitely wouldn’t suggest going single mastery class for that).

Now, you might try to argue “but dual-classes should get even more stats from your sample setup!” True, but that’s beside the point. If you ask around or try to check out the build compendium, people don’t just stack stats endlessly with their builds - they aim for breakpoints. This is what I previously referred to as a baseline, like 10k HP is generally seen as acceptable for ultimate. Your challenge, as someone trying to make a single mastery build work, is to find a way to make your extra skill points count considering the extra work you had to do to reach ultimate difficulty breakpoints/baselines.

It’s also extremely presumptuous to argue that a single mastery’s worth of skills can’t possibly be enough to create a viable build - which would imply a SEVERE imbalance on the part of that specific mastery, and which would affect ALL classes that include that mastery.
If a mastery was underperforming that much the devs would be trying to fix it.

@Zoso
I normally don’t expect more from the average forumer than what they can obviously deliver but since you like sticking around, I’m going to address this now - you simply do not have game experience or knowledge to even make such an assumption, so I question why you keep repeating it.
I would suggest just playing the game since the info I gave out earlier is pretty much already obvious for people who have tried to make builds like these work, and is mostly for the benefit of experienced players who have simply been devoting most of their focus towards other things.

[Zoso]

You are clearly overthinking this.

And you are also falling into the trap of thinking that stats alone could “save” a single mastery class which, speaking as a player who basically sorts through and juggles item affixes/components/augments/devotions all day, is utterly ridiculous.

Your whole “the game forces you to pick two classes” argument hinges on the assumption that you simply don’t gain enough stats to play as a single mastery class, and that trying to circumvent this somehow counts as trying to game the system - which is stupid considering how easy it is to beat mastery stats using just suffixes and components. That assumption also hinges on the devs making masteries absolute - which is clearly wrong considering how many builds these days are even defined by the items they use (hell, the loading screen even says so). Items are THAT powerful, and they’re only part of your sources for stats - there’s also augments, devotions, and of course, stat gain from leveling.

Food for thought:
Consider that Arcanist mastery gives you 500 total physique/cunning/spirit and 1150 HP/1500 energy.
A single “of the eagle” suffix on a non-accessory slot gives you roughly 120 physique/cunning/spirit, so 4 instances of such a suffix basically gives you the extent of physique/cunning/spirit bonus from masteries. A single Mutated Scale component gives you 180 base health and +3% health. 5 of those plus a base health of 1250 (250 default and an estimate of 1000 from your base mastery) gives you a total bonus of roughly 1.2k health. Congrats, you’ve almost beaten mastery stats. Now instead of just fixating on items, try to distribute that stat gain through all the various sources of stat gain you have - levels/devotions/augments/components and gear - and try to account for the fact that you don’t need to raise all three of physique/cunning/spirit (unless you’re trying to build a heavy armor gunslinger/caster - and I definitely wouldn’t suggest going single mastery class for that).

Now, you might try to argue “but dual-classes should get even more stats from your sample setup!” True, but that’s beside the point. If you ask around or try to check out the build compendium, people don’t just stack stats endlessly with their builds - they aim for breakpoints. This is what I previously referred to as a baseline, like 10k HP is generally seen as acceptable for ultimate. Your challenge, as someone trying to make a single mastery build work, is to find a way to make your extra skill points count considering the extra work you had to do to reach ultimate difficulty breakpoints/baselines.

It’s also extremely presumptuous to argue that a single mastery’s worth of skills can’t possibly be enough to create a viable build - which would imply a SEVERE imbalance on the part of that specific mastery, and which would affect ALL classes that include that mastery.
If a mastery was underperforming that much the devs would be trying to fix it.

Maybe relax a little… my opinion is, as I assumed above, probably a marginal one, but not therefore a stupid one.

I tend to care more about these things (class identity, lore) than other people do. Most of my experience in this game comes from the beta, so I’m sure I’m not up to date on everything, but its apparent to me that almost every build on, for example, the compendium on these forums, is a dual-class build. That very simple fact implies that single-mastery builds are probably somewhat gimped, whatever the causes may be for individual cases.

Maybe the future will bring some more full-on Nightblade builds who take advantage of many of the skills that that mastery offers, without the need for branching out to other classes (and therefore being renamed into something other than Nightblade) to be survivable and “competetive” or at least equally viable. I would like it.

[Tyr]

This isn’t an MMO. The strongest builds, whatever they are, are definitely not the most played or advertised ones.