Trying to learn buildcrafting, need a brutal critique

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
21

You totally can plan a build from level 1 and play to endgame. Here’s my last character to do so. Was started in ultimate and made it all the way to SR24. In HC.

Plan
And this is after campaign, before SR.
Reality

For almost any build in Grim Dawn, you can just play and trust that there is item support for it. But it can be helpful to know which items are out there beforehand. Some are locked behind factions. Some are in side areas that you’d typically skip.

The problem with your build is that it’s untested and optimistic. There’s not enough skillpoints for the playstyle you want. Your important skills are half maxed. And your damage and resistance reduction is split between fire and physical. You can get away with not maxing your skills if your gear can compensate.

For Example
Note the skill allocation on Blade Burst and Lethal Assault. With the right affixes(more skills), I’d even be able to max Guardians of Empyrion.

Again, my advice for you, especially for skill only build plans, would be to Focus and Sacrifice.

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22

One can also just pick two random masteries and adjust as you go along. No plan needed. Respecs just costs iron bits and aether crytals. Like once you hit level 2 roll a dice and pick a mastery. At level 10, roll the dice again and pick the other mastery. Then just play according to what feels good and fits with the items you get. As long as you focus on one thing at the time (spam caster, cooldown caster, melee, summoner etc) and one damage type.

23

I understand that you can do that, but that’s not how I enjoy playing ARPGs. If items are so intrinsically linked to build identity in Grim Dawn that it’s effectively impossible to plan a build to get me through the game without them, then maybe Grim Dawn just isn’t for me.

That being said, I received great advice on how to view the skills and what to look for in buildcrafting earlier in the thread and was able to create a game plan, a rough draft, an outline if you will, of what I want to spend my points into as I level and it’s worked fantastically through Act 1 so far. So clearly, I don’t need to plan around items to plan a leveling build

24

“Viable” in this context is “the core gameplay idea is coherent and makes sense”. Will it be a top tier meta build? No. But will it likely be successful enough to clear the campaign with some minor modifications like my LE builds? Almost certainly.

“reaching end game” is “I’ve completed all story content and the only thing left to do is push endless content (if available).” So, my goals are to look at the skill planner, plan out all the available skill points to put together an outline for how I want to proceed, and then play the game. Will I have all the skill points by the time I finish all story content? Absolutely not. Will there be changes made as I go? Almost certainly. Does that matter at all? No, it’s an outline for getting through the story not a completed and fully realized build meant for pushing an endless endgame as far as possible.

Dude…

What did you think this thread was about???

25

You can plan a build without items, you can plan a build without skills too. You can complete the campaign in Ultimate difficulty without any plan at all. Will it be fun? I don’t think so. I played my first 400 hours not knowing about grim tools in the first place so I just learned by doing so to say. Took me a while to figure out stuff you can imagine. Now I really enjoy planning builds with items because a build in grim dawn is a build with at least some items. Like in how many other ARPGs can you actually plan a realistic build WITH items? I take advantage of that and it makes the progress more fun for me.

I think you will get a better experience with the game if you also become aware of monster infrequents and guaranteed drops, faction gear and so on. This makes the anticipation strogner like “now I am in this area which can drop the dope shield I have planned for let’s hope I can get one with insane affixes too”. Because the core MI’s have guaranteed drop, but not their affixes - those are random and “impossible” to plan around. But you will find them anyway and can get the feeling of surpised instead like “wow dope shield what is this” and so on, and then you find 7 more and realize that they all have some stats in common… you have now discovered a monster infrequent.

Grim Dawn item drops is like not all the other ARPGs. Like Diablo 2, there is no guaranteed items there (except maybe low level runewords). But you can play Diablo 2 without items. Same with Grim Dawn, you can play it without any plans of items. But I think you will get a better experience if you plan around at least some core items which have guaranteed drop chance.

You can play act 1 with the skill gained from the searing amber component through act 1 too. It is also quite fantastic.

If you wanna “craft builds” you have to take items into account imo, because items can alter a skill quite a bit in GD.

Like discussing things like “should I have 8 or 10 points in agonizing flames”, who cares it’s not gonna make or break anything for you.

Now my real question is, why don’t you wanna plan aroud items in GD? What is the reason?

26

Yeah, builds in Grim Dawn are mainly about gear, devotion… Skill points distribution is probably the least important / the easiest part that’s why the confusion in this thread. Regulars don’t consider empty GT with just skills points “a build” and planning skills “buildcrafting”.

That said, Fire Melee Shieldbreaker is very strong, hard to mess up so not planning much may be more viable than it is for other hmmm archetypes.

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27

That said, there are often multiple options for gear for a similar build. Budget versions, usually target farmable greens, and the optimal equipment, which are often legendary, but sometimes also target farmable stuff.

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28

Then I’ll call it a skill template, tomayto, tomahto. All my skill templates try to do is give me an idea of how I should spend my skill points prior to starting the character and Grim Dawn seems to be the exception to the genre in that you can’t plan your skills and then build the other aspects of the build around that and you have to start from gear and work backwards? I don’t understand why this is so confusing otherwise, unless the assumption is that this skill template is a fully complete build, which it obviously isn’t, or that I won’t be adjusting skill points as I go and the skill template is set in stone, which is absurd.

You set up a skill template, you play the game, you find gear, you move things around. You plan for RR on BWC, but find a sword or devotion that does it better, you redistribute those points somewhere else. GIJW seems to not be a player that plans their skills out in advance and the concept is baffling to them.

29

you can do skill templates “fine” for levelling, specially if you already have the mindset of constant adjustments to whatever happens. If that is the case i’d probably just do an even more simple one, and if nothing else it might “confuse” the uninitiated less

what might help, or what might force an overlap more is still slotting items, because XY stuff is available during levelling; but it also requires being aware of them.

It’s super easy for me to form a “complete” leveling char in my mind/GT, because i’m also aware of the various MIs/modifier items during levelling, which might also resolve that stickler part for more exact fitting point distribution that’s being raised goes hand in had with/only comes from item slotted

ex Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator we have our main skill maxed signifying the core of the build we’re aiming at, 1pt = no priority/potential 1pt “just because”, 2pt = low priority, 4pt = high priority
But it still runs into that thing were you wont be able to “proper” guestimate how many bonus skills you can max/adjust for, other than “i wont be able to max all”
vs with one direction build items Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator or Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator - it just gives a much better idea about what you can really take or to what extend

It’s also why some of the initial comments were about the point distributions themselves, not being that useful in terms of breakpoint or max vs softcap, “why are we 8 pointing this skill”, if we’re boosting it what guarantee do we have it will get +16 from items, - and if we don’t get +16 on items is it as good, if we’re not boosting it is it worth the 8 or just down to 1 or 0

Some stuff is easier to leave behind or not care about as much on a point for point scaling, like you might not need Presence of virtue OA desperately despite OA being “good”. But whether that means 1, 4, softcap or max is still going to be much simpler consideration if you have a bunch of items either directly adding points, or allowing you to shuffle from elsewhere.
But stuff like skills, RF vs Mortar outright will “hinge” much more on those items, not so much just in terms of point investment, but how strong it gets from modifiers or which direction those modifier takes it, as it might switch the build up “completely” Grim Dawn Item Database

alternatively you just put 1pt into “everything” and actually use it all, however very suboptimal, while then just settling for the +1class items to enable your piano Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
(this used to be a way i levelled frequently back in the day because of lokar/wilhelm amulet give you +1s from the start - but it’s much weaker/sillier ofc)

3 Likes
30

Planning out skills in advance makes sense, but planning out very specific levels (7 points here, 9 there) makes less sense in Grim Dawn because no matter what you are going to get tons of +X to skill Y items as you play.

So if I were to make a skill template for this game, it’d be less about allocating specific values, and more about identifying the skills I am going to use and their priorities.

For your build that might look like this: Shieldbreaker, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

There I’ve divided the skills in the following sections

  • Core skills → these are going be maxed and maxed early, as they define the build. If I find gear that boosts them, I will simply have more points in them.
    • In your build: Righteous Fury, Resistance reducing skills
  • Sweet spot skills → these skills tend to do great at a certain level, but then suffer from declining return on investment. You generally want to keep these at a specific level. If you find gear that boosts them, you can reclaim a few points to spend elsewhere.
    • In your build: Vindictive Flame is great to have at 11 points because of the total speed boost, Blast Shield works great at 5 or 10 points because of the max resistance boost.
  • 2 pointers → these are skills I’d like to spend a lot more points in, but they’re not the biggest priority when levelling. All leftover points are spend on these, so they will hopefully be much higher than 2 points in practice. Spending 2 points in grim tools just lets me identify them quickly.
    • In your build: All the nice passive boost skills. I also put mortar trap in this category. (not judging if it would be effective, just running with your build idea.)
  • 1 pointers → Skills that are nice to have but either not that great, or purely for utility or as a prerequisite. Having 1 point means they benefit from any +1 to all skill items you find, but I am never going to spend more points here.
    • In your build: Vire’s might is great utility, but you only need 1 point. Ulzuin’s Wrath isn’t that great, but you might as well spend a point. 1 point in Summon Guardians of Empyrion is enough to unlock Celestial Presence. Etc, etc.

A template like this lets me plan out and prioritise skills, while being easier to adjust for gear you find. It lets me quickly see what I anticipate the real priorities are going to be, without getting lost in the weeds of how many exact skillpoints I will have at any given moment.

Anyway, that’s how I’d do it if I wanted to avoid pre-planning gear.

Edit: Uh, I now see this is basically what Gnomish inquisition said. So yeah. That.

2 Likes
31

I feel like the discussion is shifting into what is or isnt “buildcrafting”, so I wanted to just drop my thoughts in here as well.

Imo, it is perfectly fine to do it without gear taken into account even though items are fundamentally an integral part of a “complete” build.

For example, this is my leveling setup for Pet Occultist -

image
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Since I do not like to farm for specific items while leveling, I tend not to include gear and design the “build” in such a manner that it works with pretty much any and every item you may come across.

Exceptions would be items with damage conversion and also ones that grant more than +10 skill points to a particular skill since at that point you have extra skill points you can invest elsewhere.

So, there is room for changes to be made as necessary, but that does not mean the setup becomes invalid in any way or form. If anything, its strength becomes the fact that its design allows for a lot of flexibility in terms of item choices, which imo is a good thing to aim for while leveling a new character.

I do not know how relevant something like that is in the context of this thread, but simply wanted to encourage that it is perfectly a viable method of going about “buildcrafting”. Not everything has to be done within the context of a fully fleshed out and min-maxed endgame setups in mind.

I cannot offer critique on the build itself, posted in the OP, since non pet builds are mostly outside my expertise, but welcome to making builds :blush:

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32

I am doing that, but I am not nitpicky as to “should I take 1 point in concecration?” or “you can leave divine mandate at 8 points in order to save 3 skill points which could be elsewhere”, while leveling because items and devotions are more important. It is like discussing what kind of door handles should be used on a specific car…

Just this year I have completed 14 SSF chars, doing “all” MC stuff, all skeleton key dungeons, and SR25 with each. The concept of planning skills is not baffling to me. What is “baffling” is not taking advantage of the MI system in GD as well because that is what makes GD standout imo. But each can and should do whatever they want. However, “I can not include items in my plan beacause of RNG”, is not valid in GD. I think MIs and other guarnteed gear is what makes planning and building chars from scratch is the most fun part in GD.

So, why trying to play Grim Dawn the same way as you play other ARPGs? What is the fun in that? Why play GD in the first place then. All ARPGs have their tweak that makes them unique imo. For instance, I do not plan builds or play path of exile with the same approach as I do with GD. In GD you have monster infrequents, in PoE you have skill gems that you buy or get from certain quests. Should I dismiss skill gems in PoE because they are items and are therefore “RNG”? No, I should learn where and how to get them instead.

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33

Here’s the thing. What level does it drop? Will it be worth stopping to target farm if something else drops in 2-5 levels? Should I go back and refarm it at a higher level? How far out of my way do I go off the main story path to get DLC MI’s? Should I stop and farm Rep for a Rep item or keep going? Is anything in this integral to my build or a “nice to have”?

You may enjoy spending dozens of hours planning out every intricate detail of your characters, knowing exactly what gear to farm and where to get it, how long you should spend farming it before you decide to move on. Etc. That’s up to you. I personally just want an outline of what a skill tree may look like before I start playing and whatever drops will drop. I often do look at gear in the planner to see what may be helpful to look for, but don’t want to plan a build that requires drops as it may not drop and I’m not going to stop and farm for hours for an item that will be replaced in a few more levels and I’m sure as hell not going to waste time backtracking to refarm a better version every 5-10 levels because I planned a build that required this item.

Gnomish, Maya, and Jason get the idea and offered great advice on how to get a general idea for how I want to proceed. Gnomish and Jason with the “don’t stress about the details in this game when setting up a skill planner” and Maya with the “plan it out in 10 level increments so you can see ‘checkpoints’ of what your build can look like.” idea.

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34

But

  1. MIs will drop, especially those that are “boss specific” since bosses have 100% drop chance
  2. It does not take hours to refarm a new one, and it does not require you to update them every 5-10 levels.

You are underestimating how easy they are to obtain.

Here is an example of my latest build that I played SSF.

I wanted to make a 2H melee Warlord.
I first look up in Grimtools what MI 2H melee weapons there are that enhances the skills Warlord has to offer, Cadence, Blade Arc and Righteous fervor.
Then I look up other MI’s that have skill modifiers (helmet, medal and amulet) and possibly other MI gear that has +skill bonuses.
Then I cook up some very crude GTs with just skills and said items
Cadence blueprint Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Blade arc blueprint Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
RF blueprint Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

This process took about 30 min. Adding devotions would take longer time but for each build I know I should grab Kraken, a resistance reudction devotion (Assassins mark or Rumor) and at leaast one defensive one like Tortoise, Ghoul or Behemot. On the physical damage builds I should aim for Vire and/or Azrakaa, and the acid damage ones Yugol and Abomination.

I decided to go with Cadence because blade arc weapon seemed to be way better on say a Death Knight who has tons of flat aether and vitality damage to convert, and RF seemed to lean too heavy on the Oathkeeper side, Soldier tree had not that much to offer in terms of offensive powers due to acid damage.

So, I made a devotion map for said build Warlord, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator with some points to spare so I can either pump in one more tier-2 devotion like dire-bear, another circut breaker like Ghoul, or just pick nodes here and there which grants attack speed (2 in jackal, 2 in spider etc) or whatever is needed/seems fun/useful. This took 5 minutes.

Now planning how to level this dude. Started with forcewave, try to always have a big 2H weapon and casting speed. Did this until I got the cave where the Cadence mace dropped. Since the boss was quite hard at this stage, I was content with the one he dropped (100% drop chance) respecced to cadence and moved on. Got the amulet by killing Morgara (100% drop chance). The medal is dropped at 100% chance from a boss in a cave in “act 1” which has 3 random spawn locations. I did not bother to get it, will get one once I get to Ultimate. Before getting to kill Karroz 7 of that helmet and 6 of those shoulders had dropped around the Homestead areas so I saved a few of them, those that had the most resistances and put on one of them. I know I want that soldier belt from the crabs in AoM so I did some AoM before going to the FG storyline (just do the first Q there to get movement augment for medal right)

Once I hit level 40, I felt it was time for a weapon upgrade. That is the only thing one need to refarm. So I ran that cave again, boss was easier now so I decided to get 3 weapons. It took 3 trials (you know, 100% drop chance) and took the one that had best attack speed (speed is king) this took less than 10 min all in all, not “several hours”.

This were easy peasy in Veteran, we got to level 60ish when all main quests were done. I will skip elite, just waste of time. So in order to prepare for Ultimate I ran some more side quests, bounties and totems. Got to level 70 and refarmed the weapon once again (same drill as at level 40). Wanted a better belt too, because belts armor is global armor. So I ran the ugdendog areas about 15-20 min to also do some totems and I dropped 4 good belts which all were worth saving. Also got to reputation status high enough with Coven to buy that chest piece level 65 version.

Hit ultimate at level 70. Now I felt it was time to grab that medal so I searched for the cave using grim tool map to see its 3 spawn locations. Bingo, got it on the first try because 100% drop chance you know? +3 deadly momentum is really powerful for this chap. Also craft Juggernaut relic.

Now he just blasted through the game like a titan! Saw that I was close to getting to honored with several factions, which meant that I can get writ and boost their rep gain even more. Started to do the hidden path to get those nice solael pants that always roll with aether and bleed res, life steal and freeze res. Used the first one I got (also 100% drop chance). Also got several upgrades of helmet and shoulders just by running around doing quests and stuff around Homestead.

Level 84 time for another weapon! Again, 3 runs = max 10 min and we got 3 weapons all which were insane upgrades.

Just blasting through the game, nothing is hard tbh (yet). Came to AoM ungdenbog again oh time to look for another belt upgrade. BINGO got several ones by the time we got to Barrowholm.

Oh, now we are honored with Coven, in fact almost revered! lets get those rings baby! And see if there are some side quests we can do to get revered for that level 90 chest armor. Oh yeah here we goooo!!!

Once we got to beat the “only” three hard things in this game for the main story (Kymon, Korvaak and Master of flesh). I had a look on what was missing.

  1. higher armor gloves with attack speed affix. I crafted 20 such, got 3 worthy upgrades.
  2. amulet has been with me since level 30-something… this I can refarm
  3. medal can be upgraded too…
    so I did 3 runs of Mogara and 3 runs of Gutworm. Took about 15 min.

Main campaign completed in ultimate in 18 hours.

Now before I went to do the skeleton key dungeons and SR up to 20, I had a look at the reputations again and saw that some key ones were not revered, so I fixed that. Farmed 5 more pants from Solael 5 runs less than 10 min. Patched my resistances and used an attribute respec potion. Wait, I forgot sometihng… a level 94 version of the weapon! Did 3 more runs to get it less than 10 min you know.
And… what to do with those “free” devotion points? I just grabbed attack speed nodes.

After 1 more hour after “beating the game” I had a build that I did the skeleton key dungeons with and SR 20. It was pretty hard at times, but managable by using evade at the correct times and not facetanking all the time.

So, no “refarm every 5-10 levels for hours”. By planning around the core items in advance, it made me have more checkpoints and things to look forward to. It made the play experience more enjoyable and smooth for me. Would it had worked anyways just by planning the skills / not planning anything? Yes of course. But it made me think less when in the game and just enjoy the ride, isn’t that why we make plans?

You should play how you think is fun, but again, these “refarms” does not take several hours every 5-10 levels. And planning does not take dozens of hours. For me, it was less than 1 hours. You have already spent too much time on stuff that does not matter like breakpoints for Blast Shield or wheather 1 point in conceration is good, or which is the best temper or safeguard. Just ignore such things in the beginning, you can consider that once char is level 100 and fully geared and you wanna do stuff like SR30+ etc.

Planning around and refarming these core items is what makes leveling new builds in Grim Dawn over and over again what is fun. There are not that many other ARPGs where you have this system with items, and I like to take advantage of it. It enhances my game experience. And I wish it will do that for you too once you can give up on the “oh but it is RNG and it will take hours and hours to do”. It will not. Only if you wanna get the most sick rolls on these items, it can take several hours. But we don’t need such rolls to beat SR20-30.

Planning for core items also makes me better mentally prepared for what areas I should “clear all” vs. areas I can “skip” and so on. It makes the playthrough more efficient in that sense.

List of priorities when making a SSF build (imo)

  • main damage dealing skill and damage type (includes resistance reductions)
  • items that supports that damage dealing skill and damage type
  • How to sustain? Life regen, prevent damage, life steal? Which ones fits the build/class best?
  • devotion that supports that damage type (resistance reduction) and some defensive ones
  • maxing and overcapping resistances, good armor
  • good CC resistances
  • OA and DA
  • piloting
  • optimizing skill points

Now, this “I can not plan around items because of RNG” “it takes dozens of hours to plan” “refarm items every 5-10 levels for several hours”, must come from somewhere. I wonder from where, because it is not simply true. Maybe in 2018, but not in 2025.

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35

Let me just answer some of your questions here.

Items are scaled to your level, so whatever level you are. Or maybe a few levels higher. Sometimes you’ll get a 70 item at 55, so you have to wait a bit to equip.

You almost never have to refarm an item due to it’s level. I might farm a green item for an affix I want, but never for level.

AoM is kind of the main campaign, so you don’t go out of your way for those items. You just get them when you go through the area. If I have important items in FG, I’ll often do that area earlier in the playthrough. Typically you want to visit side areas if they have good gear for your build. Imagine if in D3, certain areas dropped certain legendaries. You’d go there for sure.

Never in Veteran, but it makes sense to do that in Ultimate due to increase rep gain from bounties. I recommend cycling the bounties until you get the crafting bounty.

And just to be clear, no one here is saying that your builds should include items. You can do skill only builds if you want. I used to do that(+ devos). I think you have a misconception about what kind of game this is. It’s not like D2, where you can’t count on any items during a playthrough. It’s more like BG3 where if you progress to a certain point in the game and beat a boss, you just get the items from that boss.

Also, there are skill modifying items in LE and D3. What’s different in Grim Dawn is that here you get a lot of those items guaranteed in the campaign. And the way we do builds reflects that difference.

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36

Never is a strong word. There is some faction stuff worth to stop by for a bit and farm rep for on Veteran sometimes imo.

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37

I guess it depends. If you rely on some MI that you get at level 30, you might want a new one when you reach level 60 :stuck_out_tongue:
Though generally I agree that the frequency at which you ‘need’ new items is very low. Also with medals/rings, I sometimes carry some low level items 30+ levels higher till I find a clearly better one.

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38

And sometimes you get a killer MI with fantastic affixes at a low level that you can never replicate again with tons of farming.

39

if you are dealing weapon damage (and shield damage as in cases of skills like Blitz), you’d better refarm them now and then, if you feels your damage is lacking, like “hey I am level 70 now and damage seems a bit low what has happened? Oh shit I have level 30 weapon still”

Yeah and those can be totally fine for rings, amulet and medals :slight_smile: