Worrying about how builds are expected to be built...

(Still not a player yet. Blame my financial constrictions–my current machine cannot run GD well at all, even at lowest graphic settings. Single digit FpS. But given that I like to have everything planned in advance…)

There is something that is oddly…dispiriting to me about the builds compilation section. Even just from looking at the Mage Hunters and Spellbinders, it seems like the active skills are almost always heavily slanted towards those of one component class, with the other component seemingly only used for support. I can somewhat understand this with Mage Hunters (q.v. hybrid difficulties)…but Spellbinders? When both components are casters?

I’ll admit that in Titan Quest, my tendency was always to keep the two components balanced. Start Defense, then at L8, start putting all points in Storm until the two sides have equal amounts. Then points get allocated Defense, Storm, Defense, Storm, Defense, Storm, etc. Trying to get a “true” Paladin, basically, rather than a Defender with just a comparative trace of Stormcaller. (Same principle applies for Ritualist, Templar, Illusionist, etc.) Not having gotten particularly deep into Epic, let alone Heroic (if I have the two names in the right order…), I didn’t get much of a chance to see how viable the plan actually is, I’ll admit. Yet I’d expect most people to pick a class dyad expressly to be balanced, rather than lopsided.

I can’t help but wonder of late, though, if my point allocation philosophy is atypical even for TQ. That I pick my classes based on what kind of conceits I’d want to role-play (take the skills of each component class, alphabetize them to remove any sense of power cadence, read through them, work out what the mentality behind them is) probably doesn’t help. (For the record, when/if I get a machine that can actually run GD, my target is either Infiltrator or Mage Hunter. Cabalist is dead last. Ick.) Power, by itself, has no appeal to me, whatever the game. I can understand it being necessary, but not it being sufficient.

I suppose to put this in D&D terms, I’m aiming for 10 paladin/10 bard, rather than 17 paladin/3 bard. (What was even the point in the latter for a scant three bard levels?!) I don’t exactly want, say, an Infiltrator where you have to squint to see the Nightblade elements.

It all really depends on exactly how you want to play your build to know where and when to put points.

I’m having a such a blast with my Panetti’s Mage Hunter build that I started a Hardcore char with it to get the achievements.

My Point allocation always starts with Arcanist, 1 point into Panetti’s then 15 into mastery until I unlock the first modifier that lets it pierce targets. Max it out then put 12 more into Panetti’s and then I start into Inquisitor and pick up the skills I want along the way to Mastery 50 to get my exclusive buff. Once I’m done getting what I want in Inquisitor I go back to Arcanist and flesh it out more.

Someone else might go about that an entirely different way, but have the same game style with their Mage Hunter. It all depends on what YOU want as a player and there really isn’t any right or wrong choice as long as you’re having fun with the build you chose to play and how you want to play it.

I think it also depends on the build itself. My Spellbinder isn’t a caster, mainly melee. Only spell I’m using is Callidor’s Tempest line.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZPo3pPV

I’ve no idea how well it’ll play end game, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with it in Normal so far. Future devotions will be Crane, Phoenix (Necrotic Edge), Targo (Callidor’s), Crab (Maiven’s) and 3 points in Affliction (Arcane Will).

My Mage Hunter looks like this:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7AkoyN

My builds are pretty simple and I do die a lot (7 for the Spellbinder, 60 for the Mage Hunter), but I prefer to max out a few skills rather than have a lot of buttons to push. Old TQ habit. :smiley:

Many builds in GD aren’t “balanced” in the same way that they are in TQIT/AE. You simply don’t always have enough points to max both masteries and get all the skills you want to a decent level so you have to make choices. Same with devotions, there are more shrines than you have points and will be even more to choose from when the Forgotten Gods expansion comes out later this year. It’s already confirmed that neither level nor devotion points are being increased so what we have is now is it. If you just have the base game that’s L85 and 50 devotion points, if you have AoM (which you’ll need for the 2nd expansion) then it’s L100 and 55 devotion points.

It’s like this. You choose a couple of skills as your main, and the damage type you want with those skills. After this you choose your second mastery to better support this in various ways. Resist reduction, support AOE speels of same dmg type(with or without end game mods), OA, %crit dmg.

You can’t have 10 main skills:)

From an RP prespective closest to paladins are Tacticiansatm ,although I went with a Crusader theme. Word of Renewal is the main paladin-like skill

And here I thought I was the only one approaching my characters like that. Ever since TQ, too. Level one mastery till I can choose the second one, focus on the second one for the same amount of levels, then switch after each level up.

(Ha, I used paladin/bard for my example simply because I was looking for two classes that both used Charisma heavily. Originally the example was going to be paladin/sorcerer, but I worried I might draw attention to the possible mismatch.)

I’m not really looking for ten main skills–just four to six. Using my TQ Paladin as the example, I have Batter, Rally, Shield Charge, Spell Shock, Squall, and Thunderball charted out. Seven skills if you count the basal auto-attack. (I count Summon Wisp as a passive.) What bothers me a bit is that I seem to be relying mostly on Batter, compared to the others. I wonder if I’m spoiled by Tales of Maj’Eyal (lots of skills by the time you reach L12, for example, with a turn-based cooldown for each one, and precious little way to reduce the cooldowns)?

Using the Nightblade as an example, there’s at least three actives I’d want at the ready–Rune of Hagarrad, Shadow Strike, and Ring of Frost. And I’m curious as to whether Word of Pain would be merited (I’m worried about tactical overlap with the Rune). Ideal is for all three or four to be used equally often. For Mage Hunter, it would be at least the Rune, Sky Shard, and Flash Freeze (and Chilling Rounds if I can discover a pistol that plays nicely with a cold Mage Hunter). Point being, I want versatility, not curb-stomp battles (a twelve-second boss fight? Where’s the substance? Where’s the beef?).

That said…I’m wondering if it’s odd that whenever I use a potion at all in TQ (or Diablo 2, for that matter), whether health or mana, I feel like I did something wrong (e.g. not getting out of the way of an attack in time, using too many skills in succession). Potions strike me as emergency measures, first and foremost.

Such “balanced” characters usually are not tweaked for maximum effectiveness but abide a more roleplaying-like concept of play. Or the player has some major OCD. :stuck_out_tongue:

Focusing on both masteries only ever really works when both provide the same amount of suitable passive and active skills for the desired classcombo.

Theres nothing wrong with playing or leveling that way though.

Personally my first character in every RPG or ARPG is a mishmash character that I level like I see fit, without putting too much thought into it. Its for the roleplaying aspect and story. If I do more characters after that, I increasingly go the minmax-route. That provides me an additional “layer of fun” after the first playthoughs.

I suppose part of it is that I don’t have that good a sense of what I’d enjoy out of the gate. So I go for something that I could feel myself in the shoes of. (See: Temporal Warden in Tales of Maj’Eyal, green/blue in Magic: the Gathering, Engineer–sort of, as none of the classes really glowed to me for role-playing conceits–in Torchlight II, etc.)

Not that my equipment-building conceits are up to snuff (I know I haven’t played yet, but I’d like to think I’d be able to do something right). See this sketch for a Mage Hunter:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0410yV

Less than 6000 HP? I clearly don’t have an eye for defense…

Although cobbling it together did give me a sense of skill allocation. Namely, focusing on Flash Freeze and Flames of Ignaffar for offense, even if I would’ve liked to cram Rune of Hagarrad in there. But passives badly suffered. Clearly need to drain some active skill points for them…

That’s actually not a bad crack at it for a first timer who has never played the game tho there are certain skills you will want to take that you haven’t picked and you will need to tone back on others or get rid of them completely in order to do so. Don’t worry about your health so much as you will get more of that thru gear/components, plus you didn’t even touch the Devotions screen in GrimTools which will inevitably provide you more health as well.

Fundamentally Grim Dawn is a game about mechanics/gameplay first and lore/roleplay second, but there ARE builds that make use of a wide variety of skills. My Conjurer makes use of every single button on his first skillbar multiple times a fight, and he has an equally full skill bar of buffs and auras on his second row. Summoners in general are about balancing debuffs and devotion procs and make for a very active, “balanced” (in the way you are describing) build. I’ve also been using a DW ranged Purifier build that I’m taking through Elite right now which dips fairly substantially into both trees.

That being said, the gearing system in Grim Dawn is more than versatile enough to support experimentation and finding something that works for what you want to do. Every build that got put into that compendium was someone’s idea first, after all. There are thousands of items in this game and more than enough to support every damage type/skill tree enough that you can make something that will, at the very least, perform.

As far as the build you posted itself, it looks very solid, although I would take the point out of Null Field as it will affect your Flames of Ignaffar. The ideal combo there would be Seal (in melee range) > Olexra (for fire shred) > Flames and then shooting until they’re dead, which I’m sure you figured out already. You also haven’t touched your devotion points, which basically function like a huge, universal skill tree that can add a ton of depth and variety to your build. Consider Elemental Storm on your Chilling Rounds, for example, in order to give further Elemental shred. From there you have a ton of options to further enhance your skillset and bring even more survivability and DPS to the table.

tl;dr, just try things out. Respecs are always available and there’s gear to support pretty much everything in the game.

Agree. My very simplified Conjurer has a full hotkey board just to summon pets and one other skill. The second is half full with buffs and then I have Blood of Dreeg on the RMB and that’s it. It’s not the best build in the world by a long shot, but it’s been fun to play. I cut it back because the Lazy Pokemon guide I was following looked like it was going to run out of spaces for all the stuff it wanted me to use. I sometimes wonder how people fit all their skills in.

At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve just started a 2H ranged Tactician who looks like he’ll have only Field of Command and Electrified Weapons from Hell’s Bane Ammo on the hotkey, Cadence on LMB and Rune of Kalastor on the RMB. Everything else is passives/buffs. He may pick up some other stuff but I guess it depends on what he finds.

I really wouldn’t worry about building for end game. Just pick a class and start playing, learning how the game works, what sort of problems you may run into and just enjoy. Theorycrafting and mini-maxing can come later. :slight_smile:

Ha, the reason Devotion is untouched is that I’m still trying to figure out what I want in there (even as a rough draft), besides Hawk and Leviathan.

(Null Field affects Flames of Ignaffar? Does that mean it hinders friendly projectiles, too?)

EDIT: Ah, now I see. I thought the cast time lengthening referred to actually placing the Seal, not whatever you cast while inside.

Now that I finally have a machine that can run Grim Dawn properly, I’ve tried out the Nightblade to L9. It’s…not that interesting, thus far. (Yes, I know, only L9. Still.) I was expecting a bit more from Shadow Strike, somehow.

Inquisitor, though…I’m not at L9 for that yet, and I already love Rune of Hagarrad. Now if only there were much in the way of missile-miscible equipment that boosted it–there’s a fair amount of Mage Hunter equipment, but most equipment that boosts Rune of Hagarrad/Biting Cold/Chillsurge seems to go to Infiltrators. (Well, that dyad is heavily slanted towards cold…) More importantly, no pistols that fit the bill. (Bah, should keep it up with the Inquisitor until I get Flames of Ignaffar, see how that handles.)

On a side note, I was considering using Aura of Censure in the Mage Hunter sketch, rather than Star Pact. It would certainly free up skill points for passives! Only problem is, AoC seems to be intended more for Tacticians and Purifiers. (Never mind that I was imagining an Infiltrator with AoC and Veil of Shadow together to decrepify everything that drew near…) Probably to do with the Aura dealing fire damage itself, not cold.

Skyknight Even at L9 it can be fun with any mastery. At your lvl SS is solely a single target spell and fun in early leveling means good aoe.

In vEteran TRy one of these:

  1. MAx Amarasta blade burst+lethal assault (max nightfall too when at full mastery )

  2. Transmuted phantasmal blades

So far, I’ve tried out to L9 (why there? After that is your second mastery, so things start getting muddled. Not to mention I don’t think I’d want to spend too long on a diagnostic.) everything except Shaman and Necromancer. Inquisitor is definitely at top. Soldier and Demolitionist are close behind. Arcanist didn’t handle as nicely as I thought it would. Occultist…not my style. So with two component classes left to go, I should be close to working out my ideal dyad.

Well, after testing up to the third tier of each component class, I’ve decided that Shaman and Inquisitor appeal the most to me. So that should mean Vindicator, right?

Well, not necessarily. Looking at all the equipment that supplies bonuses to both Shaman and Inquisitor skills, it seems there’s a strong expectation to use Storm Box of Elgoloth (which was only above average to me; not as fun as Rune of Hagarrad or Flames of Ignaffar) and Storm Totem (which I didn’t test). So now I’m wondering how next to proceed.

Wanted: something like TQ Defiler for this game. Preferably something that won’t trigger achievements (I wasn’t pleased when my TQ Test character triggered the L75 achievement on the Anniversary Edition). Is there such a program? That way I can test every skill to see how it handles.

EDIT: After doing another read-over of the skills, I’ve come to the conclusion that my favorite is either Rune of Hagarrad or Flames of Ignaffar. So I’m definitely doing some sort of Inquisitor. Looking at which equipment supplies bonuses to the Rune, it looks like that’s best suited to either an Infiltrator or a Mage Hunter. Only annoying part is that legendary sets don’t seem to do any such supplying–and I get the feeling they’re necessary for endgame. Flames of Ignaffar has the Mageslayer and Black Scorch Covenant…although I’m not sure if I want anything to do with the latter. I’ll just need to see what classes have Flames-attuned equipment.

Okay, now that I’ve settled into an Infiltrator…another bothersome conceit seems to have reared its head–that I should only set one skill as my primary. More specifically, I was asked (long before I could return to the Discord) whether I was trying to focus on Shadow Strike or Rune of Hagarrad.

I was thinking of concentrating on both, truth be told. (Really, what’s the point of the class dyads if you’re going to be mostly focusing on one side?!)

More to the point, I have to wonder how relying on one skill for the most part doesn’t get boring…

For the record, my map is here (the actual Infiltrator is only at L20; this is so I know what to angle for): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mGxorZ. Figuring out how much to invest in basal Shadow Strike and in Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends is still ongoing. {grumble, grumble} And here I thought I’d be able to get away with never respecifying my skill points…{grumble, grumble}

(Now among other things, what’s the problem with Witch Moon? I don’t see anything that immediately marks it as a poor piece of equipment…If this is eliding out of the forum theme, private messages are fine.)

considering your reality, I like to play melee because the animations are less aggressive to the GPU and that way you can have a less painful game.
I want to test combinations that fire fires and all sorts of complex calculations to the GPU but it’s just a distant wish