The Road so Far.

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

“…reporting in.”

WEEK 1:
Down loaded and installed Grim Dawn! Was very very anxious to play a D2 'barbarian’ish character and thus Bazil was born. I fully intended it to be a Blademaster and started as a Nightblade. Few levels in I was less than happy. I don’t think it was the game’s fault but more my computer…possibly more 70% my computer, 20% my eye/hand skills and 10% game lol.

The problem of fun was more in that mobility of mob’s (which I actually love) and the lack of ability to swiftly switch targets while melee’ing.

I got a lot of gear that had bleeding damage %, and a new character started to form in mind. Not knowing how to switch items from one character to another (short of buying another version of game and LAN’ing it), I decided to take a gamble and create another character…deleting poor Bazil in the process.

I created a Conjurer (named Nephira), and as luck would have it a lot of bleed gear was dropping again. The gear also had Vitality damage on it and (after a bit) I started to do some research. Started to look like Vitality over bleed was the best way to go after many a youtube and forum feed back reviews.

Got character to 30’s but was literally falling a sleep playing it. Was fun but boring if that makes since. Decided I should take a break from it and try a retaliation build of sorts…was starting to get some decent gear for it.

Still not knowing how to x-fer gear, I decided to take another gamble (waits for the shock and awe and/or gasp to pass) …just kidding. I kept my Conjurer and just created Warder named Talionis <–see what I did there (TYVM Squib for the build).

Got to around 20’ish and was just not fortunate to get gear to retaliate with, was reduced to getting by with Devouring Swarm…which felt more like my Conjurer… and again starting to fall asleep while playing.

So I shelved it for a time. I figured eventually I will figure out a way to x-fer gear between characters. Forum search engine thus far has many a lead to all things not how to lol.

So I decided one more attempt at something and after eenee meenee minee moe, fate landed on another Conjurer/Summoner (TYVM JayNyne).

I had to pause at this point wondering if I was suffering from M.A.D. (Multiple Alt Disease) or not. Decided it doesn’t much matter…each of these characters would eventually be end gamed and geared out as they are keepers to me.

Back to the ‘Summoner’, loads of fun thus far. Not getting gear for it yet but they are hardy enough to get buy w/o it. Some fights I do actually have to summon yet another one as the last got it self perished. Laying down AoE’s in support keeps me in the action.

The game play is good for me, as I mentioned…computer and what not. I can see how people would loathe pet meister, but for me it is awesome. Looking forward to getting gear for it and a way to transfer items between characters lol.

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Great read. As for transferring items, go to your stash, there is a second tab, that is a shared stash. You have up to 4 tabs to get for iron bits and you start with one.

That shared stash is available for all chars on the main campaign. It will definitely come in handy for you, since you have alot of gear spread out on your characters.

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The transfer stash is the Smuggler in the NW corner in Devil’s crossing.

4

Read the game guide, there is valuable information in it.

Amongst them http://grimdawn.com/guide/gameplay/servicenpcs.php

5

Eureka!!! j/k

TYVM all for the info. on item transferring. I swear if it was a snake it would have bitten me. @ one point (with Bazil) I even clicked on the transfer tab, but didn’t realize what I was looking at back when.

A good week indeed. Loving the community btw<–forgot to give honorable mentions in that regard.

6

“…reporting in.”

WEEK 2:

Do to work schedule and being in general worn out after work…haven’t played much at all. I have however, read A LOT and watched/reviewed a great many more videos. Thanks to all who take the time to share…really helps and spins great theories.

One such theory…or perhaps even a school of thought that I personally favor is that dead mobs don’t do damage. However most builds (and I have not seen them all by any means) seem to favor around survival.

Nothing wrong with this ofc. I attribute it to that there is a large HC fans that play this game. Which seems to fit (probably not right but certainly not wrong kind of thing lol) appropriately. I digress though…

So the pet (summoner) meister was working (still working actually) but… was still lacking that Kazot quick kill thrill. So as I eluded/said above I started searching (again).

Klo0ga had an interesting Bleeding Conjurer build…one I have now bookmarked as a yeah down the road to play.

pohx kappa months back started a Sorcerer.

Wolfoverclocked had an array of stuff and theories. One particular video was his beloved AAR going chaos damage on a Warlock. I have to admit it made my head hurt a bit afterwards lol.

And pretty much between the three I decided I wanted to build a Warlock. Something like this (WiP) build*. If you have by chance seen their videos, it is easy to see how I came to this theory of build.

BUT by stroke of luck after I had already gotten levels into the build I came across yet another build in action…soooo similar to my concept. I had to know how he pulled it off. TYVM Andy Yang, for answering my questions and for posting your build in action.

If you haven’t seen the video check it out here. He can beat down Loghorrean in under :30 seconds. I don’t know if that is a best time or record…but most videos on subject I have seen take around 6-8 minutes.

And again I attribute the time variance primarily to defensive builds versus a more offensive build. Surprisingly though Andy’s build is offensively set, it is not as such as I first thought it to be.

  • = note points will change as I get gear, and more so as I adjust for the “feel” I am looking for.
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Just remember that your theory of “Dead mobs don’t do damage” is a two way street… “Dead players don’t do damage”. :slight_smile:

I don’t play HC and definitely find adding survival ability helps as there are just too many (especially on Ultimate) mobs to kill before they can do damage and the bosses/heroes also can’t be killed that fast either. On normal/vet you can usually get away with just going straight DPS, but Elite and Ultimate things just hit too hard/fast that just a hit or two could kill you if you have no defense… It is even more important for a caster type that are already squishy. Plus if you die vs bosses, they get healed…

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I don’t disagree, in fact think I mentioned the build is more survival orientated than I first thought it to be. If you watch the video, you’ll see Log getting down’d in about 30 seconds on Ultimate level…w/o MSoP to boot :eek:

Andy admits that the video is of a very polished character. It’ll be a long road getting to that point but it is what I aspire for for my Warlock, and will happily make the journey.

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I watched the video…but it was on my phone so it was hard to see some smaller details… Was impressive though. Yeah, any character that can take log down that easily will need to be very polished. Probably mostly/all Bis gear…and BiS gear with good rolls…not all legendries are created equal…

It will definitely a long journey, but a fun one! I wish you luck on yours. The community here can help greatly with the journey. If you goal includes getting all the BiS gear, the trading thread will help a ton! So many legs drop that you can’t use…but other people can! :slight_smile:

10

Not only is his character very polished, you could also spot that he used some potions and an aether cluster to further boost his damage and durability. You’ll be able to gather the potions and clusters soon, but the gears and levels will come in eventually, too.

Since I do play on HC, with three lvl75-80ish characters and a bunch of lvl50 alts so far, I can attest to the emphasis on survival for several popular HC viable builds. Damage can get you far on normal/elite but on ultimate there’s just too much damage coming your way. It gets better once you have some good gears though, and with the capability to respec and reapply augments/components, you will be able to trade defense for more offense as you upgrade your gears.

I would recommend that you stick to one character and take it as far as you can first, just so it can collect good gears for your other alts. You’ll also hit revered status with various factions faster, which will enable you to buy transferable writs that grant bonus faction gain for your alts. That way those alts will be able to gain access to faction specific gears/augments sooner too.

Since crafted gears can also be transferred, you should also pick your most played character as the designated salvager so that it accumulates crafting materials. You can transfer them in a multiplayer game but I’ve found that it’s just easier to have one character hoarding the brains/blood/hearts.

Might want to make a couple alts as mules if you start getting gears that you don’t know whether to keep or salvage. I have -nine- and over half of them already have full stash of epics, and one odd mule with a full stash of legendaries. You’ll be swimming in gears sooner than you expect. Just remember to name them properly so that you don’t end up guessing who is storing what.

11

“…reporting in!”

Week 3 ('ish):

Got to level 36. Amazingly and vastly different experience than with my other characters who previously gotten to their low to mid 30’s. Better drops for one…never seen so many blues and greens. Even got drops that I can use like Maiven’s set…had to make the lens ofc.

I started with going into PRM’s but wasn’t really feeling it. I am sure it is super awesome by 40’s, but I never intended for this build to invest that much into it. Luckily I got a Searing Ember very low level and used that bad boy up until about level 35. It plus OFF = dead trash mobs and some Lt.'s.

Last few levels I have been more using AAR more and more till finally @ 36 I took it (Searing Ember) off my hot bar completely.

With my other characters, I have gotten LLM (lost like a motherf@#$%^) with where I was and quest and side quest. This time around, things flowed at a natural progression. I don’t mean that in a, ‘oh I have been here before and I know what to do now’, way either lol. I still have lil clue as to where things are as of yet :stuck_out_tongue: I mean rather than wonder the wrong way, and or things that randomly appear on map…have just seemed so far (*knocks on wood) to align.

Much more engaging than my pet meister (still love the pet meister), not as impervious as my Vitality Conjurer and currently throwing more DPS than my Bleeding Conjurer…which was surprising because that guy was a monster I thought.

The Build so far <–more for remembrance, in case I do a guide on it later.

As to previous and above comments/tips, thank you very much.

12

Nice update! AAR is the nice and massive DPS…but huge energy hog… I actually have a lv 85 AAR sorcerer (based off of Wolfoverclock’s build) so I’ve used AAR a bit… OOF, devastation and then AAR to clean up works awesome! Are you still doing melee with AAR? Just noticed the 2 points in Witchfire, seems like that would be better off somewhere else…like reckless power which will be a biiig boost to your AAR and devastation… At least for now while you’re working on leveling… Remember, respeccing is pretty cheap so if you find something that works now (especially based on the gear you’re getting) it is better to try to use that advantage than to try to keep to the mold of your “final” build. PRM is actually a skill that works better early game I believe, than late. At least the few places I’ve see people use it, it is typically during early leveling but then they spec out later.

One example is the 11 of the 12 points in OOF probably could be reduced and spread else where. You’re getting a lot of different damage types, so unless you’re using elemental over straight fire, you’ll be losing some synergies. A lot of acranist abilities use fire and aether OR cold. OOF is a good CC skill and the fire res debuff is nice too (although vulnerability would be a better point investment for res debuff as it also does vit and acid/poison). The points may be better used shifted to elemental exchange (especially if energy is an issue), AAR (which can cause energy issues) and devastation… Also one point in mirrors is a great idea, it is a nice “oh $#!+” button… One point in Nullification is nice too as it can remove reflect and other buffs from mobs (really helps!) or poison/bleed/debuffs from yourself! It has saved me from bleeding to death a number of times… Don’t get me wrong, OOF is a really nice skill, and I have mine close to max on my AAR sorcerer but I also have a warpfire with 90% conversion of cold to fire damage, just typically early on it is an additional damage source that can get neglected and better used as just a CC skill.

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Not so much. Definitely plan to re-slot points, just haven’t gotten to it yet (back then).

Yeah agreed it definitely doesn’t suck. I felt its (for lack of better wording) randomness a bit off. More so in comparison to ranged AoE of Searing Ember

Pretty much in agreement. As of yet I am more fire based…still waiting on the AETHER gear to drop (i.e. getting more fire based gear atm) so OOF is my go to CC and Fire buff. Since AAR does fire as well it seems to be working. Primarily it is my CC and group trash clearer. I may fiddle/tweak points later though.

Thank you so much for your input.