I am somewhat embarrassed to ask this, as I am almost sure everyone is going to facepalm reading this. I am a youngish gamer, still in school and I love RPGS of all walks of life, ARPGS in particular. Whenever I get a new one I immediately look up the meta builds and just copy them picking out one that suits my playstyle… I am sick of doing this.
So with Grim Dawn I want to cut my teeth on theorycrafting. I know its not witchcraft, people use numbers to break down the game, experiment and come up with builds improving etc.
The only problem is I have no clue how to do it. Where do I start? I am not looking for a step by step explanation of each stat how it multiplies and relates to other stats. Rather I believe the first step is understanding how the game mechanics work mathematically.
I would love some tips, maybe some recommended reading to learn mechanics because this time I am not going to look at a single build and try and craft something myself that I may even be able to tackle HC with.
1.Only one damage attack from the spammable ones, and maybe an alternative one.
Some circuit breakers (skills that activate on x% life) to have a layer of defence that let you get out when getting pounded.
Dont understimate Defensive Ability and Offensive Ability (its what let you crit (and avoid being crited) and hit.
Low life its a no-no, maybe with some special builds, so almost everyone is investing in physique heavily. Aim for at least 10k hp, believe me you will need it.
Stats from mastery bar and point distribution let you equip things, both doesnt reset so you have to plan carefully what your equip will be. Devetioins and equip give stats also.
Plan to max all resistances, Normal and elite are forgiving but ultimate is hell on earth, its the big-boy pool.
Focus, dont spread too thin, learn what skills are one point wonders and what ones you should max. Personall tastes affect this.
In this forum section there is a stikcy with a link to advance mechanics, its uber useful.
Dont be afraid to experiment, but the true test is ultimate, some builds do lower difficulties in a breeze and the eat dust in ultimate.
Im not a top player, just a old gamer that like to do the same, plan characters just to see if they are playable. And after several weeks i got my first ultimate viable build (still need some work), so keep going and ask in the builds forum, there are several nice guys who can help a lot.
If you posted what you are thinking of going in terms of mastery combination and playstyle (ranged, caster, tank, etc.) it would be easier to give you some tips without defining the build for you.
Useful resources to help you research and theory craft builds would be:
https://grimcalc.com - lets you calculate your skill point distribution and pick multiple masteries. This is a great place to start with getting a general idea of how much room you have to work with. All told you get 226 skill points across all three difficulties by level 85, so mess around with that and see what you are able to come up with. I will say it gets easier to use this as you get more used to the game and are more familiar with how skills work, which skills are good/bad and which are worth investing into/ are one point wonders.
I would lean heavily toward investing in physique on your first character. Even once you get more familiar with making builds, physique is so much better than cunning & spirit you will find yourself investing 80-90% of you attribute points into it in most of your builds. I will say however, do NOT spend your points until you need to to equip gear. You will find at higher level (65+) that physique requirements become absurd and end up further pushing you toward putting most of your attribute points into that stat, however you may need a number of points in spirit to equip rings/amulets (also cunning for ranged weapons) so save them and use them up to the gear requirement point and no more. I have had builds that literally thread the needle on gear requirements to the point where I am barely over the requirement for both physique and spirit and have no room to invest extra; I’d of been screwed with even one less attribute point, so air on the side of caution when spending those points as they are not refundable without using external mods.
Generally most builds invest 50/32 or 50/25 into the mastery bars (50 for primary mastery, 32/25 for secondary). This is not a set in stone rule, you can absolutely do something different, but most of my builds and the builds I have seen online have that kind of distribution. The other general rule with mastery bar investment is to only go so far as the last skill you want to use in a mastery, so don’t put in “extra” points into the mastery bar that do not lead to anything you want to use. While the extra stats may be nice, those points could be better spent on skills that would have a bigger impact on your character.
Mastery bar investment gives you a large majority of your base health and base stats and those numbers will get you the best balance of stats for most mastery combinations. I’ve done 50/50 before on a build, but it does limit you a lot in what you can get skill wise from both masteries since you only have 126 skill points left over to work with, so keep that in mind if you want to try going deep into both masteries.
Start by focusing on one damage type, so fire, ice, chaos, etc. Many builds focus on more, but to start out it is easier to find synergies with one damage type. Do note that DoT damage (damage over time) such as burn are considered there own damage types, but will often come paired with flat damage types such as fire on items and skills.
When you finish a difficulty and jump to the next one you will lose resistances. For Elite your top row of resists will go down by 25% and for ultimate ALL resists in both rows go down 25%. Be aware of this when switching difficulties so you can fill the gaps you will have with components/augments.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got at the moment. There are plenty of other resources to use here on the forum in the build section and the stickies in gameplay discussion. Also feel free to ask questions!
I will also say, you may already realize this since you want to stop copying guides, but YOU are playing. Don’t let someone else decide what skills and gear you should use. Listen to advice or opinions, but ultimately you need to make the final decision. Nothing you do in the game with your build is wrong, as long as you enjoy it.
wow thanks guys! Some fantastic information that is bound to help me and avoid some pitfalls such as physique and gear requirements.
I also learnt a fair bit myself since posting. While the guide I found was based on wow it did explain extremely well the way to go about it for any game really. If I want to theorycraft to take full advantage of the games systems I need to know exactly how they work… This can be gathered through online reliable resources and doing tests myself. Once I understand how the game works, i.e. how damage of a specific type is calculated, it will be much easier finding ways to manipulate my damage and defenses to create builds that are are min maxed. But being an ARPG, a single item can make a build work so I have a lot of work to do and am super excited to dive in!