If fine means that you can kinda sorta survive in Ultimate, then yeah sure. I recently leveled a Demolitionist up to level 65(ish) without picking a second class, just to see if I could do it. Beyond 65 it is just a pain in the ass.
Basically, if you want to play Ultimate as a single class, you´re screwing yourself. You will be either missing health, constantly struggling with spirit regain, not being able to wear all the cool shit you have, or all of the above.
Uhm, this game is made with dual-class build mentality, fine is as good as you can get for single class build. It’s like going into McDonald and demand a vegan meal, they can slap something together for you, and it works, but it’s not the best by any mean
Technically any class could be played as a single class. But the question is, would this build be viable at all, and if it eventually is - the extent of its viability and if it’s worth the sweat.
As having a char who barely finishes elite in pain, and can potentialy get 1-2 shot in ultimate, is hard to be considered viable and worth the trouble.
You say soldier and shaman, because of the HP nodes? Not enough.
The major issue with single classes is that you dramatically lack basic stats, and the poor HP/DA/OA increase is insufficient for the higher difficulties, also leveling is nightmare.
You got to be very picky with gear. To plan the gear you’d wear in advance, at any single point of the game, and rely on twinking - you can’t progress naturally, nor just slap and go. You will need specific gear with certain stats to enable the rest of the setup. The stat points have to be distributed even more carefully, and they are always insufficient, throughout the whole leveling proces.
When you hear someone to claim for single class support - the desire is exactly this, a mechanic/ability to somehow compensate for the lacking stats.
The game is not designed to be balanced around single classes, and every single patch brings content and equipment out of the reach of such builds. They could be mediocre at best, or serve as a personal challenge.
Basically, playing a single class is gimping yourself on purpose, and is just painfull with nothing worthy in return.
HAH! As I’ve said single mastery classes are likely not going to win an offensive or defensive contest against dual mastery builds, but they have their own advantages. Leveling is one of them.
You clearly have no experience leveling a character by riding the momentum you get from overleveled skills.
Also false. While you definitely shouldn’t try to juggle both heavy armors and caster gear, everything else is just a matter of knowing your options.
Not much different from playing any other build, although knowledge about item affixes helps.
How would you know?
And your basis is what? Theory built on clearly wrong assumptions? A few hours of playing a single mastery build in the current (MUCH more character-friendly) meta and going “Boohoo, this particular build isn’t working for me so all of them must suck?”
Well, since single class cannot perform better than dual-class, it cannot be classified as “good” or “great”, can it? So yeah, “fine” is as good as it can get
Well, since single class cannot perform better than dual-class, it cannot be classified as “good” or “great”, can it? So yeah, “fine” is as good as it can get
Stupid, shallow logic.
There are a lot of factors to consider when determining whether a build is “good” or “great”, and it so happens that not every build can meet all of that criteria.
Because, you know, that’s a side effect of build diversity.
Add to that the fact that different people value different things, and your two-way “fine”, “good” and “great” measuring system falls apart.
It’s like your MCDonalds example. As nice a regular meal is, a vegan dish would definitely be the “great” option for someone with a heart condition. Or just someone who wants to start eating healthier, because as much as we love them we all know processed/fast foods have lots of carcinogens.
Nuff bullshit. Of course in this genre there are general criterias defining what’s good/bad/viable and whatnot.
You may have different personal definitions of good and bad, but it doesn’t mean that the single class is a good and viable option in general, or it’s easy to make, or it’s supported. As it’s not.
I definitely don’t consider myself an expert on every single mastery build, but I’ve been poking and prodding the limits of game mechanics for a while now. A very long while, if you check the post date. I do consider myself well-versed in knowing the various options the game gives you to improve your character, options that a lot of people tend to take for granted.
You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. You obviously base your assumptions on unproven and untested theory.
You obviously don’t even read since I’ve already laid out how my argument in an objective manner in previous posts, and you obviously don’t even know enough about the current meta to recognize how blatantly powerful overleveled skills are pre-ultimate.
Feel free to argue with me over something I’ve already definitely proven in a previous, MUCH harsher meta, complete with self-imposed handicaps and restrictions. Feel free to argue with me over something you clearly have very limited knowledge about.
Trust me, given your flimsy, mostly speculative argument and the fact that we’re talking about something that’s VERY familiar territory for me, I WILL destroy you.
The build in the link makes a single SoT run in good fucking 40 minutes. Based on one of the fastest clear speed archetypes in game… “Great survivability and DPS”…
If you don’t realize this build is shit and serves the only purpose to challenge your own self and rub your own ego, but can’t be used as a proof of how single class is super viable and easy to build around, then any further talks are pointless.
Now make a toe-to-toe single class melee build able to do the warden on ultimate, and the internet will explode. Gosh…
Dual Masteries are a feature of the game just as having a gear slot for pants is.
You can choose not to wear pants and will probably beat Ultimate, but this does not mean that you aren’t skipping out on a core mechanic.
As somebody mentioned early on, this seems like a great topic for a mod, but we have no intention of changing something that is fundamental to Grim Dawn.
And I would LOVE to see you tackle ultimate SoT in mostly yellows/greens and maybe a few blues with a dual-mastery build build and do SO much better. The vid is obviously a kind of stress test, not a class-and-builds-thread advertisement run.
Seriously. Do it. I’m waiting.
End-game gears are cheap these days. The end-game version of that build basically just runs through everything in SoT. Because end-game gear. I’m not sure why I have to explain that like I’m explaining the sky to a three year old.
Intent does not change the fact that such builds are not only viable, but flourish under the Grim Dawn system. Ultimately they’re just like any other build, you just have to figure out what makes them tick.
I don’t expect someone (even a dev) who hasn’t taken the time to really study single-mastery builds and their potential to spontaneously “get” why they can work, but I do take offense in being (repeatedly) told I am wrong when I clearly have more insight about the issue.
I don’t say this build is bad because you are bad, but that it’s this way it is as it’s unsupported by the game development. As such, I wouldn’t expect anything different as a result, by default.
I respect your efforts and creativity, but I dislike your statement that the single class viability is easy to achieve, or that it leads to respectful results. If you haven’t got it yet.
Because the devs are human? You can really only expect the devs to keep giving players options and possibilities - you don’t expect them to spontaneously know the full extent of what these options/possibilities bring.
It’s the curse of being a game dev.
A year ago (when my post was made) the devs were basically still trying very hard to work out OA scaling because “everyone” thought masteries like Occultist were gimped and that Soldier/Arcanist-combination builds were the only viable ones thanks to innate +OA.
The devs were also still in the process of trying to increase the availability of stat points/health/resists in the game - basically imagine most of your gear at the moment with bad resists or no survivability bonuses.
The game itself was much harsher - ultimate resist penalties were higher, and Log had a tendency to spawn an infinite number of mobs.
The meta at the time also called for as many points as possible into physique simply because physique was a more powerful stat at the time. Spirit and Cunning have been every-so-slowly catching up since.
Those are VERY long odds to make a single-mastery build with handicapped stats work. In the end, it was not only viable, it flourished.
If you think a 40 min ultimate SoT run on a build with zero legendaries/mythical relics is long, you should really look into similar forum threads at the time. Everyone was struggling.
I agree with Tyr, personally. Not all of them are ‘easy’, but so far, the only class I haven’t tried making a single class build with is Nightblade, and that’s mostly because I hate the class. It’d be very clear what to do for Nightblade in any case: Take ABB and the entire top line, various passive bonuses, and you’re done.
As it stands, the only real issue I’ve ever found when I try to make a single class build is attributes, and there are various ways to deal with that. Some builds don’t even benefit much FROM a second class. Hell, my current character is AAR, as Druid… Because AAR needs freaking nothing at all from any other class, so I thought I’d try grabbing Mog’s Pact. I could easily have put the same points into Arcanist and been just fine.
The game is certainly designed for double classes, and in the majority of cases, there’s good reason for that, and it makes life easier. That’s not ALWAYS the case though, nor is it somehow non-viable to complete the main game as one class. I don’t think single classes need more support in game, but I do think they need more community support, as there seems to be a prevailing notion that they can’t reasonably be done.
How romantic, I’m crying.
It’s a bit different. It’s not about possibilities, options and whatnot. Players have one goal: to break the game or even faceroll - the worst abuse for any developer. The devs have one goal: to play them right and get on top with another unachievable challenge - the best motivational factor.
It’s a never ending dogfight.
You don’t even realize it, but even with your single class perversions you are not actually playing for fun, you are fighting them. You were not given an option, though you had one by your will.
You already had a reply from a developer on how’s that playstyle supported, dunno why you keep going on the end results. Or do you mean you single class lovers have found a breach and fucked the game the bad way? Game too easy, single class facerolling much?
20% increase of item requirements incoming, fuckers.
Mastery investment goes beyond 50 and additional ‘ultimate’ bonuses kick in.