What masteries to avoid if you like guns?

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

One of the many reasons I love this game, is because it’s set in a fantasy world and you can use guns.

Obviously, Demo+Inquisitor wass right up my alley for my first playthrough and now I’m running a Demo+Occultist but at some point, I’d like to dabble in other masteries too.
So, are there mastery combos, other than Pyro and Purifier, that are great with guns? I like any type of gun: 2h Rifles, Pistol with Shield or Dual Wield, all are great but not a fan of classes casting spells. I like shooting guns.

I know that technically, any mastery can use any weapons, right? But surely, there must be masteries where guns are just not viable and not how you’re supposed to play it?

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Vindicator for lightning 2H and Tactician or Warlord for physical dual pistols are both solid. There are neat Witchblade/Deceiver builds using both the Harbinger and Rah’zin sets that are more on the caster side.

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I’ve played Harbinger Witchblade, it’s pretty good. Its “casting” side is one big nuke you drop between your shots.

Vindicator is, like, THE ranged build for a long time now.

I’m also considering Bonemonger Oppressor with some aether pistols, but not sure yet.

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4

The fun bit then is finding a way to make it viable :smiley:

I don’t think there’s any mastery that can’t do guns in some way, though nightblade is probably one of the less obvious ones to do guns. (Though there are ranged weapons with specific bonuses for nightblade skills)
Soldier also has a decent amount of skills that can’t be used with ranged, but also has some that can, so… Anything is possible! :smiley:

5

nope

like, take Nightblade, we look at this and see a melee mastery right? - yet it has direct items/guns with support for a skill, “to make it vialbe”/not locked in to only melee

now, “viable” might depend on your preferences and tolerances, if you’re ex top20 builder you’re probably not gonna include ABB gunner anytime soon, but it’s there/doable, totally fine if you’re not expecting tip top of the line kill performance

as for pew things you might try that isn’t as meme territory as ABB Nightblade gunner
Paladin
Warlord
Oppressor
Vindicator
Druid
Tactician
Shieldbreaker

i feel like i’m forgetting one :thinking:

*as for shield + gun you have stronghold set as example Stronghold of the Legion - Item sets - Grim Dawn Item Database

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Pew pew Sentinel, Defiler and Pyromancer aren’t bad options either

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OP already did Pyro so that wasn’t the one
unsure if it was Defiler i was thinking of, mebe

8

Indeed, I just want to play through the campaign and fire weapons. I don’t need to have the most optimal build, just a fun one.
Good to see pretty much all masteries can use guns. It’s how I’m running my Pyro now: just pick skills I think are cool, and build around that.
Optimal? Probably not. But fun. And if I move to a harder difficulty and I feel it no longer works, I either roll another character and start over or just respect some skills.

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this is all that should be necessary, for any class,
specially if you feel Pyro isn’t bringing it, that thing should be a right beast

10

ABB Acid Witch Hunter Sir! @Gnomish_Inquisition

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@Snowbat I haven’t never liked the Oathkeeper mastery, since there are some skills for gunners, I kind of “ommited” this particular mastery. [I can hear the reaction of @Gnomish_Inquisition “Poor descision IMO” :smiley: ]

Other users maybe will feel it differently, but (IMO) the masteries lean towards the damage type and guns as follows:
Soldier = Physical gunners / riflers
Demo = Fire gunners / riflers
Occu = Acid / Vitality / Chaos gunners / riflers
Niblade = Cold / Acid gunners / riflers
Necro = Vitality / Aether gunners / riflers
Arca = Elem / Aether / Chaos gunners / riflers
Shaman = Phys / Light / Cold gunners / riflers
Inqui = Phys / Ele / Pierce gunners / riflers

12

LoL … my favourite playstyle is ABB nightblade gunner. Amazing leveling with ranged ABB and bladetrap and awesome endgame with Northern Wyrm or double Hagarradian Enforcer. Such fun gameplay, probably the most fun Gun gameplay in this genre.

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13

i prefer the lower CDR approach myself, like Ugden bilelauncher, just ABB on LMB and go pew :grin:

14

I have an ABB Infiltrator with dual Hagarradian Enforcers and all the gear that supports Chilling Rounds. Love the ice theme. Can’t wait for FoA with items that increase the proc cap of WPS for that guy.