KickStarter Grim Dawn

[gestalt11]

Removed all points I had in briathorn and added them in auto attacks. Was frightened for a moment, since I made ui bigger and because of this it showed I had only one point available when in reality I had 12.
Didn't see any other fun skills in the shaman so I will be multiclassing as a shaman/soldier since the latter has lots of aa passive procs. Time will tell.

Storm totem can wreck things pretty good. Also Wendigo totem is pretty amazing. And do not under estimate to 40% life from heart of oak. Savagery is very good, not sure how it compares to cadence now. Used to be a lot better than cadence. Anyway probably your decision is what damage type and weapon type (@H etc) and whether you use a shield is more what should affect whether points go into shaman or solider. The solider passive weapon procs work on anything even ranged but shaman ones are 2h melee only etc.

 

[1451]

ye I maxxed brute force, feral hunger and the entire savagery tree. I left out upheaval because my crit chance is already pathetic so I felt I would not be using it that much.

I like how in grimcalc class combinations have cool names but you get no new skills ingame. It's just like an abomination from warcraft.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Don't underestimate the Cocktail. It lowers resistances, does excellent DOT, sticks around for up to 5 seconds to kite mobs over, recharges quickly (even with the transmuter) and sets up for a Canister follow-up beautifully. For me, it's been a much more reliable go-to as a RMB skill.

Grenado - I feel - is a lot more useful for a Shaman/Demo build, because the Lightning damage synergizes (Skyfire Grenado? Something like that).

 

[gestalt11]

Don't underestimate the Cocktail. It lowers resistances, does excellent DOT, sticks around for up to 5 seconds to kite mobs over, recharges quickly (even with the transmuter) and sets up for a Canister follow-up beautifully. For me, it's been a much more reliable go-to as a RMB skill.

Grenado - I feel - is a lot more useful for a Shaman/Demo build, because the Lightning damage synergizes (Skyfire Grenado? Something like that).

Careful with the resistance debuff on cocktail it won't stack with any other raw res debuff such as mark of dreeg or acid spray from manicore devotion. The debuff on thermite is much better since its -x% and always stacks although the raw res is for all res not just fire/lightning/chaos. Cocktail used to be terrible but they have buffed it up a lot since EA. But it also reduces armor and damage on things so that is pretty nice too and important for grenado since its largest portion is physical.

Grenado, with a lot of points, just plain hits hard. Even without the later addons. Shaman is kind of weird because you don't entirely get raw lightning damage. You either need to have proced savagery or with stormcaller pact its only 33% of the time. Demo can actually give you a consistent 85% to lightning but shaman can't. Oddly an Elementalist using grenado might want to use Primal bond for the physical damage instead of stormcallers and it would give dam absorb. On the other hand stormcaller 50% crit + high impact 50% would make Greando crit for pretty crazy damage. Lotta ways to play things really

 

[Lone Wolf]

Shaman is kind of weird because you don't entirely get raw lightning damage.

Doesn't Brute Force give you + raw Lightning Damage and + Physical %?

Primal Strike and Stormcaller's also lend themselves to lightning builds. There's a lot of end-game Shaman/Demo itemization for +Lightning, +Fire.

Lotta ways to play things really

True. Unoptimized builds only become an issue late in Elite. But you can reallocate everything aside from Attribute points, so most builds are workable one way or another.

 

[coldcrow]

A little off topic, but thought i would ask here first. Does anyone else have serious performance issues?

I run it on a i7-930 18gb ram and 670 2gb and the only way to have close to 60 fps is by turning everything off/low. In the starting town i can get to 70+ but that's an almost static place. The really strange thing is that I upgraded from an ati 5850 2gb and while in every other game I have seen huge improvements, here it's almost the same deal.

It's unstable for quite alot of users, including me. Freezes regularily, so I am forced to wait until they fix the issue. Since it just freezes I suspect it is some kind of haywire AI function or other loop.

 

[Multidirectional]

I run it on a i7-930 18gb ram and 670 2gb and the only way to have close to 60 fps is by turning everything off/low. In the starting town i can get to 70+ but that's an almost static place. The really strange thing is that I upgraded from an ati 5850 2gb and while in every other game I have seen huge improvements, here it's almost the same deal.

My FPS is at 60 with everything maxed including 4xAA most of the time with i5-2320, 8 gb ram and a gtx 760, except some drops below 50 fps when fighting largest groups of enemies and occasional stutter when running around in open areas. If this is the same shitty TQ engine than my hopes for it ever being properly optimized aren't big.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Experimenting with different builds...

The Spellbreaker has a really nifty Night's Chill/Shadowstrike (Nightfall)/Olexa's/Tempest combo. You toggle Night's Chill, then Shadowstrike into a clump of enemies, triggering Nightfall; hit Olexa's for the freeze and -%fire resist and then Tempest whatever's left to death.

Olexa's is amazing. It has just about the biggest range of any AOE (16m at 12/12), is instant, DOTs well and debuffs fire/physical (with Absolute Zero).

 

[gestalt11]

Shaman is kind of weird because you don't entirely get raw lightning damage.

Doesn't Brute Force give you + raw Lightning Damage and + Physical %?

Primal Strike and Stormcaller's also lend themselves to lightning builds. There's a lot of end-game Shaman/Demo itemization for +Lightning, +Fire.

Lotta ways to play things really

True. Unoptimized builds only become an issue late in Elite. But you can reallocate everything aside from Attribute points, so most builds are workable one way or another.

No brute force gives +%phys but only raw lightning damage, and even if it did it would require a 2H melee to get it. Shaman is clearly quite lightning (and bleed) focused. But the way it does lightning is very contingent as far as +%dam. It often adds raw lightnig. Not that you can't leverage some real high lightning damage with savagery + stormcallers. Its just kind of funky to ramp all that up/get the lucky proc. Also that setup kind of favors as fast an attack speed as possible so its kind of at tension with 2H weapons.

Edit: don't get me wrong Elementalist is a really amazing setup in multiple ways. Just saying leveraging the lightning with some demo things is not entirely straightforward and in fact demo gives you the most reliable lightning %dam bonus and thermite mine is probably the best lightning debuff in the game. It is actually demo that in the best lightning mastery in the game. Demo make the Shaman stuff better much more than the other way around. In the end items are a far larger contributor to +%dam than skills usually. So that is actually not that big of a deal but Shaman gives alot of other nice things like strraight up lightning based attacks and high crit damage and lightning conversion for your weapons. And Demo adds things like Blast Shield is amazing for 2H melee because it lets you soak HUGE alpha strikes. Elementalist plays together pretty great but not actually in the obvious way of stacking +%dam, which is a good thing, because stacking +%dam is actually the weakest of syngeries.

 

[gestalt11]

Experimenting with different builds...

The Spellbreaker has a really nifty Night's Chill/Shadowstrike (Nightfall)/Olexa's/Tempest combo. You toggle Night's Chill, then Shadowstrike into a clump of enemies, triggering Nightfall; hit Olexa's for the freeze and -%fire resist and then Tempest whatever's left to death.

Olexa's is amazing. It has just about the biggest range of any AOE (16m at 12/12), is instant, DOTs well and debuffs fire/physical (with Absolute Zero).

Yeah if only it wasn't useless on bosses/heroes since they can't be frozen and therefore can't get the res debuff. This is the main reason you see it skipped or skimped on. Trash mobs are easy to clear, you can even do it with mostly jsut deovtion and equipment procs. Yo uwanna invest lotsa points into things that make you kill and/or survive bosses/heroes.

 

[Multidirectional]

Olexa's is amazing. It has just about the biggest range of any AOE (16m at 12/12), is instant, DOTs well and debuffs fire/physical (with Absolute Zero).

Yeah I made an Arcanist couple days ago and in love with this spell. AOE is almost enough to fill entire freaking screen. What enemies it doesn't kill instantly usually remain frozen there for 4,5 seconds, awesome. Using replicating missile for main attack but it is pretty slow at killing lone strong enemies, might have to switch it out to that fire ray thing. Still undecided what I should take for second mastery, thinking maybe soldier for its great defensive passives.

Yeah if only it wasn't useless on bosses/heroes since they can't be frozen and therefore can't get the res debuff.

There were plenty of bosses/heroes that got frozen with my freeze flash, though they do usually have reduced freeze duration.

 

[gestalt11]

Olexa's is amazing. It has just about the biggest range of any AOE (16m at 12/12), is instant, DOTs well and debuffs fire/physical (with Absolute Zero).

Yeah I made an Arcanist couple days ago and in love with this spell. AOE is almost enough to fill entire freaking screen. What enemies it doesn't kill instantly usually remain frozen there for 4,5 seconds, awesome. Using replicating missile for main attack but it is pretty slow at killing lone strong enemies, might have to switch it out to that fire ray thing. Still undecided what I should take for second mastery, thinking maybe soldier for its great defensive passives.

Yeah if only it wasn't useless on bosses/heroes since they can't be frozen and therefore can't get the res debuff.

There were plenty of bosses/heroes that got frozen with my freeze flash, though they do usually have reduced freeze duration.

Yes nothing is truly immune but the freeze is so short and recharge is long that its damage contribution goes from OMFG -100% res to something like 10% extra damage at best. Not saying its a bad skill per se. But this why you usually see it as a 1 point wonder used for CC.

 

[Multidirectional]

Well maybe it becomes much weaker on higher difficulties but as a starter for veteran mode it is OMFG AWESOME. Seeing how you can realocate those points later for really cheap I see absolutely no reason not to get first 40 or so levels without it. Can anyone else recommend a good second mastery for arcanist? Some awesome personal experiences with that?

 

[made]

So what are the differences between difficulties exactly? The game and wiki are strangle tight-lipped about it. Resists get a penalty, and beyond that? Higher chance for epixx on elite+?

 

[4249]

The level scaling stops on normal/veteran at about level 60. So no way of getting those level 75 legendaries there. Also legendaries have a higher drop rate at elite and even higher at ultimate.

Higher difficulties have a smaller amount of Shrines.

Other than that and the first row resistances getting a penalty it's a pretty standard Diablo clone affair.

Higher difficulties will challenge you with more powerful higher-level enemies, allowing you to continue gaining levels and unlock the full potential of your characters. As you gain levels, you will start to see better equipment, including Legendary Items, which will almost never drop on Normal Difficulty.

 

[DDZ]

A little off topic, but thought i would ask here first. Does anyone else have serious performance issues?

I run it on a i7-930 18gb ram and 670 2gb and the only way to have close to 60 fps is by turning everything off/low. In the starting town i can get to 70+ but that's an almost static place. The really strange thing is that I upgraded from an ati 5850 2gb and while in every other game I have seen huge improvements, here it's almost the same deal.

I have an i5-3550 with a R9 290 and get a steady 60fps running the game with everything on max at 2560x1600. So, nope.

 

[1451]

Completed the cthonic rift on plains of strife. Intense, I liked it. The hellish creatures, the darkness the disorientation thanks to random, irrelevant items being thrown here and there.
Good stuff, I just wish the drops weren't common helmets and shoulderpads. I would prefer less but more exotic items.

The shaman/soldier hybrid is beginning to shape up. Those auto attacks hurt a lot but my defences still suck against the red energies(vitality damage). Have to be constantly on the move to avoid their red pools of vomit.
It's not that bad, just needs to be used to it. Different types of enemies, different approach in defeating them.

 

[gestalt11]

So what are the differences between difficulties exactly? The game and wiki are strangle tight-lipped about it. Resists get a penalty, and beyond that? Higher chance for epixx on elite+?

elite first row of resists are -25%. ultimate first row is -50 second row is -25. Elite has spawn sizes about similar to veteran maybe like 10% more I believe this increases some again in ultimate? Things hit a bit harder and are tougher elite versus veteran. Hero frequency of Elite is similar to veteran but maybe a bit more, like 10=20%?

I haven't mucked around in Ultimate yet (I need to beat logherrean on Elite) but my understanding is things really start hitting pretty hard in Ultimate and you will really start to notice a difference between low armor and high armor characters in Ultimate.

 

[gestalt11]

Completed the cthonic rift on plains of strife. Intense, I liked it. The hellish creatures, the darkness the disorientation thanks to random, irrelevant items being thrown here and there.
Good stuff, I just wish the drops weren't common helmets and shoulderpads. I would prefer less but more exotic items.

The shaman/soldier hybrid is beginning to shape up. Those auto attacks hurt a lot but my defences still suck against the red energies(vitality damage). Have to be constantly on the move to avoid their red pools of vomit.
It's not that bad, just needs to be used to it. Different types of enemies, different approach in defeating them.

Isn't the red from those guys choas? The bald gollum guys in Mountain deeps do vitality. But yeah in general never stand in the patch based AOEs in Grim Dawn they generally do tons of damage compared to most other things. I believe this is on purpose since there is a gameplay remedy.

 

[gestalt11]

The level scaling stops on normal/veteran at about level 60. So no way of getting those level 75 legendaries there. Also legendaries have a higher drop rate at elite and even higher at ultimate.

Higher difficulties have a smaller amount of Shrines.

Other than that and the first row resistances getting a penalty it's a pretty standard Diablo clone affair.

Higher difficulties will challenge you with more powerful higher-level enemies, allowing you to continue gaining levels and unlock the full potential of your characters. As you gain levels, you will start to see better equipment, including Legendary Items, which will almost never drop on Normal Difficulty.

Less Shrine but there are 58 total shrines. So if you get every single shrine you can you cap out at 50 points after 5 shrines in Ultimate (so like every shrine in Act 1 ultimate or early act 2 if you skip craig crags). The shrines also have different requirements for things that want items. Some in ultimate will want a relic and not just some material thing.

 

[Durandal]

Changed from molotov to dual-wield Firestrike build, and I'm feeling like fucking Max Payne
Maxed out Flame Touch, Solael's, Fire/Explosive Strike, and maxed out Curse of Frailty + Vulnerability to make me feel like I'm experiencing Bullet Time

as squishy as I am, I only now noticed the amount of ranged enemies the game throws at you camping around the edges of the screen, even moreso than in other ARPGs
maybe because in Path of Exile ranged enemies which didn't deal elemental/chaos damage were like mosquito bites given how nearly every build has either high regen/ES or profitable lifesteal setups
in Grim Dawn the damage is rather noticeable. maybe I should invest in some life on hit constellations after getting Solael's Chaosblade

 

[gestalt11]

Changed from molotov to dual-wield Firestrike build, and I'm feeling like fucking Max Payne
Maxed out Flame Touch, Solael's, Fire/Explosive Strike, and maxed out Curse of Frailty + Vulnerability to make me feel like I'm experiencing Bullet Time

as squishy as I am, I only now noticed the amount of ranged enemies the game throws at you camping around the edges of the screen, even moreso than in other ARPGs
maybe because in Path of Exile ranged enemies which didn't deal elemental/chaos damage were like mosquito bites given how nearly every build has either high regen/ES or profitable lifesteal setups
in Grim Dawn the damage is rather noticeable. maybe I should invest in some life on hit constellations after getting Solael's Chaosblade

In general, if you are doing significant melee weapon damage (as opposed to mostly doing damage from added on stuff) you should get a decent amount of %life steal as its a rather large help for survival. However for Pyromancer/FS build you will probably eventually wind up doing more damage from non-weapon damage stuff with Brimstoen and static strike etc. so later on this may not work as well as you think it should if you solely went by how much damage you appear to be doing. Also Blast shield is great for melee guys.

You definitely want to invest in Blood of Dreeg and combining that with health/regen devotion (like behmeoth or tree of life) helps alot. BoD is quite good OA and heftyy life regen and its passive is pretty good resistance too since it has physical resistance. Also possession has damaage absorb. So later on a pyro can certainly transition off of life steal if they want to focus more on brimstone/static. Unfortunately Pyromancer fire strike has more powers that you want than there are points so you have to make some tough choices.

 

[oldmanpaco]

So what do you spend money on? I've bought some dynamite but beyond that there is nothing that looks really relevant. I have over 300K (which I assume is chump change with how fast you get it) at lvl 43. Does it become more important on higher levels?

 

[Jaesun]

Crafting weapons and gear with the Blacksmith.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Crafting will eat up enormous amounts. Buying a single decent item from a vendor will cost anywhere between 50-75k.

You can also convert your money to Dynamite from the Homestead shopkeep at 5k per stick.

There's also the secret Blood Grove vendor that sells some rare materials (at a premium). At level 43, I'm assuming you're almost into Elite, if not already there. By the end of Elite, money will stop being a thing. It's mainly a limiter during the early to midgame phase.