KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Scyrito]

Ran through the Forgotten Gods campaign on Ultimate with a non-meta Ulzuin Purifier. Seems both shorter and less difficult than Ashes, took around 3½ hours with no deaths. Found the last boss a disappointment, first try and the kill time was probably around 2 mins. Fucked around with Shattered Realm a bit, on first glance seems nearly identical to Diablo 3's Greater Rifts.

The quality of life improvements really help the game overall though, being able to start a frest toon straight on Ultimate is a godsend. The transmutation option is pretty damn sweet too, finished like 5 sets that have been laying around missing the final piece for ages.

So far I'd say that the expansion is worth the 15 shekels if you like the base game/Ashes. Gonna fire up something like an acid oathkeeper/occultist next for maximum heresy.

EDIT: For reference, here's the toon that I used.

https://imgur.com/a/7hr9KFF

 

[Sykar]

Ran through the Forgotten Gods campaign on Ultimate with a non-meta Ulzuin Purifier. Seems both shorter and less difficult than Ashes, took around 3½ hours with no deaths. Found the last boss a disappointment, first try and the kill time was probably around 2 mins. Fucked around with Shattered Realm a bit, on first glance seems nearly identical to Diablo 3's Greater Rifts.

The quality of life improvements really help the game overall though, being able to start a frest toon straight on Ultimate is a godsend. The transmutation option is pretty damn sweet too, finished like 5 sets that have been laying around missing the final piece for ages.

So far I'd say that the expansion is worth the 15 shekels if you like the base game/Ashes. Gonna fire up something like an acid oathkeeper/occultist next for maximum heresy.

I guess it depends on how well geared you are and op your class is.

 

[Okagron]

but read on the GD forum that the last boss is epic, 25+ minute fight.

I think you are mixing it up with the new superboss, that one took people 25 minutes on their first try.

 

[Lacrymas]

Has anyone started Ultimate with a level 1 char? Does it require a lot of twinking? Do all masteries work? I'd imagine starting as nightblade will be hell, but starting out as pet Necro a lot easier.

 

[Scyrito]

Has anyone started Ultimate with a level 1 char? Does it require a lot of twinking? Do all masteries work? I'd imagine starting as nightblade will be hell, but starting out as pet Necro a lot easier.

Got the Crucible DLC? It makes the process way easier, since you have an access to a smith immediately at level 1 to craft level-appropriate gear (ie. the random yellow pieces). If you go in naked in Ultimate at 1, chances are you'll get your shit pushed in.

You'll get a metric shit-ton of xp from quests on Ultimate, I went instantly up to 20 or so from turning in the first story quest. Mind you, that was with the Malmouth faction xp potion. Also, keep in mind that once you've unlocked Ultimate using the token you have ALL the rift gates unlocked in normal and elite, so if Ultimate gets too bad due to wonky scaling you can hit elite or even normal to breeze through story quests for easy xp and/or get some shrines for fast devotions.

Nightblade should work fine, just rush to soft-cap Pneumatic Burst and Shadow dance. Helps a lot with damage intake. Although if you're going Reaper, I'd go skele-necro first before investing heavily in 'Blade.

Leveling a Trickster (Nightblade/Shaman) in Ultimate myself and Primal Strike spam with capped Pneumatic/Dance seems to work a treat.

 

[Lacrymas]

Don't you get all the devotion points when you boost a char up to Ultimate? That's what it says on the tokens.

 

[Scyrito]

Don't you get all the devotion points when you boost a char up to Ultimate? That's what it says on the tokens.

Nah, you get all the skill/attribute points from lower difficulty quests. No devotions.
There are added Shrines in Ultimate now though, so you can get all 55 in a single playthrough. Still, getting a few strong constellations early will make low-level Ultimate way smoother.

 

[Renevent]

I started completely untwinked with a fresh character in ultimate. It's hard/slow but not undoable. I would def make sure to have some XP potions (max faction purchase from malmouth) which will make leveling go by far quicker. Also, since you have normal/epic completely unlocked go back to those difficulties and grab as many easy shrines as you can (can get over 20 in under an hour).

Once you get rolling it starts getting easier, am now level 54 and just killed the Warden.

As far as the comment the new boss/content was smashed easily...well yeah...looking at that character is completely twinked out and very powerful. I don't think it will be anywhere near that easy with a new character.

I haven't seen the new stuff yet (obviously) but so far a lot of the new improvements are fantastic. Love the loot filter, melee does seem improved, the new class is awesome, and the difficulty merit system is GREAT. Will make rolling new toons so much better.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I've taffed around with this game before, but now I feel like making a fresh start since the new DLC is out. But I also have a few questions I'd like to throw out to the pros:

# At what point should I start using the Crucible and its features?
# Any particular builds I should stay away from?
# I'm leaning towards an Inquisitor/Demolitionist build and going dual handgun. Probably not the most optimal build, but it sounds like loads of fun.
# Since this will be a fresh install, should I start on Normal difficulty, or shoot for a higher one? (Will I have the option now to start at a higher one?)
# Refresh my memory, is The Sentinel the douche at the end of the Hidden Path questline? The HP end boss was one of a handful of bosses to give me trouble during my last playthrough.
# And most importantly... will the loading screens rotate now so I won't be looking at the same damn loading screen all the time?

 

[Scyrito]

I've taffed around with this game before, but now I feel like making a fresh start since the new DLC is out. But I also have a few questions I'd like to throw out to the pros:

# At what point should I start using the Crucible and its features?
# Any particular builds I should stay away from?
# I'm leaning towards an Inquisitor/Demolitionist build and going dual handgun. Probably not the most optimal build, but it sounds like loads of fun.
# Since this will be a fresh install, should I start on Normal difficulty, or shoot for a higher one? (Will I have the option now to start at a higher one?)
# Refresh my memory, is The Sentinel the douche at the end of the Hidden Path questline? The HP end boss was one of a handful of bosses to give me trouble during my last playthrough.
# And most importantly... will the loading screens rotate now so I won't be looking at the same damn loading screen all the time?

1. I would save the Crucible until you have some semblance of a build you like and want to test out its viability. Or you can start farming the first 10 waves at level 1 to get tokens for easy Devotion points, will most likely make your campaign playthrough way too easy though.
2. Pretty much any build works in campaign, just stick with one (or max two) damage types and figure out some synergies. Most fun I've had in game was coming up with my own wonky builds instead of sticking to the meta-builds plastered all over the official forums.
3. Purifiers are great fun, I build mine as glass cannons for extra fun. Dual pistol Purifier has ridonkolous damage potential, cant go wrong with it. Easy to build too.
4. Start on normal with veteran option enabled. Since fresh install can't get the unlock tokens anyway.
5. He sure is. I second him being a douche.
6. Mine seems to rotate between the Forgotten Gods and vanilla load screen. Haven't seen the Malmouth chick with the big rack so far.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

# Any particular builds I should stay away from?

I like necro/occultist build. It basically turns the game into walking simulator - you can enjoy the view and get immersed into the game's deep lore while your skellies and dogs murder everything. Really cool.

 

[Lacrymas]

Pet builds in general are easy mode from start to finish, including Ultimate and 170 Crucible, I doubt they'll lose their potency in the Shattered Realm. I'm not sure how the loading screens rotate, perhaps it depends on the area you are trying to load, or it's just random. But they do rotate somehow. And yeah, don't sweat the build choice, you can go through the campaign as any build. Crucible is the thing that tests builds and you have to optimize them for it, perhaps now Shattered Realm too. Regardless, don't sweat it, go with whatever you like.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I started playing Forgotten Gods yesterday and I think the areas are well done so far, music reminded me of Lut Gholein which is a good thing. My necro/occultist is boring as shit and feels like easymode though, so I think I'll roll a new character with the new mastery.

 

[Lacrymas]

The whole expansion is Grim Dawn: Diablo 2's Second Act. At least up to the lava zone. The areas are well done, true, but that's because they don't have anything to do with the entire rest of the game, including AoM. It feels like a different game, honestly. That's not bad, just weird.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I personally didn't like Malmouth at all, I thought the areas were very cramped and repetitive, and the enemies uninteresting.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The Oathkeeper's like someone is doing the 'I heard you like' meme with the Soldier. Shield focused? Check. Blitz equivalent? Check. Auto-attack replacer? Check. Physical/internal focus? Check.

The only real differences are the whirlwind attack (which comes very late, tier-wise) and the summon (ditto), as well as some interesting acid conversion. Even the exclusive skill is like some sort of weird hybrid of the Soldier ones.

Might be REAL interesting to level as a replacement for Demo support in a fire-based Nightblade build. Righteous Fire gives more tankiness, less damage and you can whilwind around like nobody's business with a summon that reduces physical resistance. Alternatively, forget the Nightblade and go Demo/Oathkeeper for some nasty fire damage. You could still dual with the right relics/items, although there's a lot of redundancy in this build (with two possible auto-attackers).

 

[Sykar]

The Oathkeeper's like someone is doing the 'I heard you like' meme with the Soldier. Shield focused? Check. Blitz equivalent? Check. Auto-attack replacer? Check. Physical/internal focus? Check.

The only real differences are the whirlwind attack (which comes very late, tier-wise) and the summon (ditto), as well as some interesting acid conversion. Even the exclusive skill is like some sort of weird hybrid of the Soldier ones.

Might be REAL interesting to level as a replacement for Demo support in a fire-based Nightblade build. Righteous Fire gives more tankiness, less damage and you can whilwind around like nobody's business with a summon that reduces physical resistance. Alternatively, forget the Nightblade and go Demo/Oathkeeper for some nasty fire damage. You could still dual with the right relics/items, although there's a lot of redundancy in this build (with two possible auto-attackers).

Except Vire's Might lets you freely chose where you want to go so it can also serve as a disengage and can be furthermore modded to leave a trail of fire behind. It gives you a shield throw and the auto attack procs are sword&board exclusive, unlike the soldier ones. You have a short defensive buffs available to every type of character with damage absorption on demand. Furthermore Judgment gathers and knocks down enemies near you, something the soldier lacks entirely, alongside the summons, shield throw, freely target-able dash, displacement knockdown CC and on demand damage absorb. The exclusive buffs are not that similar to the Soldiers, especially Path of the Three which gives you CD reduction which the Soldier lacks completely, as well as the entire tree allowing you to go either physical/fire and/or poison/vitality damage, whereas the soldier has physical, trauma, bleeding and piercing only.

So yeah, it is like soldier excpet when it is not like soldier which is like 1/2 of the tree at least.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Nah.

The poison/vit stuff is for speciality builds and is not the focus of the mastery. That entire set-up is one exclusive and a few transmuters. Yes, there are key differences to the Soldier (and many, many similarities), but so far I'm not enamoured. Not saying the mastery is ineffective, just not interesting for me, personally. The whirlwind's alright, I guess.

 

[Okagron]

On the first glance they might look similar, but actually playing both is a completely different affair. Only thing they have in common is really shield support and that's about it. And you can do a ton of Oathkeeper builds without any shield. Soldier doesn't have a shield throw, a whirlwind skill and an AoE attack that sucks enemies into you. And Vire's Might is not Blitz, you can do insane stuff with Vire's Might that Blitz can't do.

That argument can honestly be applied to Occultist and Necromancer. Several vitality skills and overall major focus on Vitality? Check. Pets? Check. Vitality resist reduction? Check. Actually playing both is a completely different matter.

 

[Renevent]

Yeah, been playing Oathkeeper and it is a completely different class and plays much different. It's def one of the most complete classes as well, and in that regard feels much like the Dream mastery from TQ's expansion. It's not even physical focused IMO, it's either 50/50 physical + fire or poison + vitality.

 

[Lacrymas]

What I want to see them do is make another pass at the other masteries and add things that are either missing, mostly conversions that make sense (like Aether -> Vitality in Necro); or change some abilities to make them more useful (Ill Omen, Nightblade dual-wield tree, etc.). Hellfire Mine having chaos damage makes no sense at all, nobody is going to go chaos and so deep into Demo to grab Hellfire Mines. It gave lightning damage before and it was way more appropriate. Or give more chaos conversion to the Demo tree in general. Necro, Inquisitor and Oathkeeper are, as a whole, much more versatile and well thought-out than the previous ones and I'd like to see them "updated".

 

[Okagron]

Dual wield Nightblade passives are powerful, specially Execution. Acid Dervish and Korba Trickster are really powerful, don't think the dual wield passives need any change.

Also, Darkblaze Pyromancer and chaos Pyromancers are overall a thing. And people just grab mines for resistance reduction and not for the damage.

 

[Lacrymas]

Very rarely do you see DW builds putting more than 1 point in Belgothian's Shears or Amarasta's Quick Cut for example. Also, yeah, picking up Hellfire Mines *just* for the resistance reduction seems very limited, they could add other things to it, have a transmuter that converts the damage and resistance reduction to lightning for example. The masteries need more transmuters in general. Trozan's Sky Shard could have a cold -> fire transmuter. PRM could have elemental -> chaos.

 

[Okagron]

That highly depends on the build. Belgothian Blademaster/Infiltrator completely max Belgothian's Shears and put several points in Quick Cut. Same for Acid builds, to get the most out of Nidalla's Hidden Hand. And some people leave it as one pointer because they have several +1 to Nightblade skills and they just want max % chance to do those wps.

And highly doubt they are adding transmuters to old masteries at this point. They leave those now for skill modifiers. Converting resistance reduction also was new tech introduced in Forgotten Gods, hence why it's on Guardian of Empyrion. It seems masteries are pretty much are set in stone when it comes to the skills themselves.

Plus, Thermite Mines already reduce lightning resist on the base skill and there's skill mods that turn the damage into lightning. It would be kind of redudant to add a transmuter that does that.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I can confirm that DW Dervish (Nightblade/Oathkeeper) focused on acid damage with Amarasta's and Righteous Fire is pretty badass. Scything through content like it ain't no thing.

Not feeling Oathkeeper for a main mastery, but definite upside for a support. Much like Inquisitor, really.