KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Commissar Draco]

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.

Running now Oathkeeper as Main Mastery (Paladin) and its far more powerful than both my Purifier build but game is also far easier than my old Warder (Soldier+Shaman) I played the GM when in early access. Now when I have those two Angels summons game plays itself and I did not died once. Helps that this time i got optimized gear but still this Mastery is what waited for its Soldier which doesn't sucks and all those special attacks (Shield Throw, whirlind and dash) are fun to execute. Its nice that plot of game recognises some classes My toons were greeted with proper respect by Chosen of Kymon and with hostility from Necromancers cause of their Inquisitor status nice details which base game lacked.

Suffer Not the Wytch to Live!

Chilling with Inquisitorial Comrades.

 

[Lone Wolf]

and its far more powerful than both my Purifier build

Is your Purifier gear optimised, like your Oathkeeper? Quite honestly, any optimised build trivialises most content.

But, yes, OK is definitely more fun than Soldier (the latter can be like watching paint dry, as a main mastery).

 

[Commissar Draco]

and its far more powerful than both my Purifier build

Is your Purifier gear optimised, like your Oathkeeper? Quite honestly, any optimised build trivialises most content.

But, yes, OK is definitely more fun than Soldier (the latter can be like watching paint dry, as a main mastery).

It DPS build with low health and no pets to distract baddies and yes only trans mutated the gear for my Paladin to have this armor set with +2 to oath-keeper skills and which looks badass too.

 

[Haba]

I can't start this bullshit hidden quest, ffs.

Spoiler

I go to the secret room and there is no crate to break. What is this faggotry?

Does it work for you? What difficulty are you on?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm getting ready to start my new character, but I did some reading on the various difficulty levels.

I'm torn on how I should start. As I'm starting fresh I don't have to worry about Elite (and probably won't ever pick it) but I'm also reading elsewhere that adding Veteran to my gameplay is pointless as it beefs up the difficulty without giving much in return. (Note: possibly outdated information.)

So should I start with vanilla Normal, or go Normal + Veteran?

 

[Hobo Elf]

Normal is too easy and puts me to sleep. Veteran at least requires you to pop a pot occasionally if you aren't careful.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Some idiot (me) deleted the grim dawn saves on my pc unintentionally ages ago.

so goys, I started playing from lv1 oathkeeper on normal; the non-heretic type which focuses on physical and fire damage.

the active skills are fun. Want to end up with a WPS focused oppressor (necro+oathkeeper) focusing on physical damage ( so that doesn't have to depend on damage conversion gear shenanigans).

You know be braindead and keep on clicking with charge build up skill (righteous fury) for the main part. And WPS proc 100% of the time. All of the WPS proc devotion skills for moar (mostly) passive bang bang.

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

is there something absurdly wrong with this build?

 

[Haba]

My "normal" DPM is 31k. I literally went through the first half of the expansion while forgetting to toggle Oleron's Rage and Field Command. On Elite difficulty.

 

[Lacrymas]

So should I start with vanilla Normal, or go Normal + Veteran?

Veteran spawns more mobs and more heroes, meaning more xp and more loot. If you just want to rush normal to get to the other difficulties, it doesn't really matter.

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

is there something absurdly wrong with this build?

Without the heretical conversions, the Necro passives are pointless in this build. You won't have enough +Vitality damage to make use of the vampiric effects or enough +Cold to make Necrotic Strike useful. You should also put at least 6 points in Mark of Torment, then the damage reduction DR kicks in. I'd just go heretical version, remove the Presence of Virtue line and put them into Bone and Soul Harvest. Also use Harbinger of Souls instead of Divine Mandate.

Something like this perhaps - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVAlYb62
A bunch of points can be swapped around.

 

[Luckmann]

I'm getting ready to start my new character, but I did some reading on the various difficulty levels.

I'm torn on how I should start. As I'm starting fresh I don't have to worry about Elite (and probably won't ever pick it) but I'm also reading elsewhere that adding Veteran to my gameplay is pointless as it beefs up the difficulty without giving much in return. (Note: possibly outdated information.)

So should I start with vanilla Normal, or go Normal + Veteran?

Veteran. Why anyone would ever play "Normal" is beyond me. There's nothing Normal about it. It's just easymode. Veteran isn't even hard.

 

[Removal]

Finished it up, rates a solid meh-okay depending on how much you enjoyed the base game. Areas look nice, but level design is pretty much the same in terms of switchback paths leading to islands and so on. Enemy mobs appeared to mostly be copy pastes beyond appearance.
Final boss was pretty good compared to most of the bosses in game though a bit much of "dodge the projectiles"
lore/storyfag wise it wraps up a bunch of points, I thought some parts were a bit hamfisted but it is the last expansion
All in all I can't see myself running through FG a second time, but it's a fairly cheap expansion and you can blow through it pretty quickly

 

[Lone Wolf]

is there something absurdly wrong with this build?

The main issue with your build is that it doesn't synergize at all. Necro is for Aether/Vitality, which you're not using. The procs might feel strong in Normal/Veteran, but by the time you're lvl 50 or so, the damage output will be pitiful, because the game really wants you to focus on one or two damage types. You're aiming for ~2,500% bonus for Physical, for example. Unless you want to push Fire/Burning hard.

While Necro does give you a nice RR (Resistance Reduction) for Phys, you're better off going for a Soldier. It will reinforce your shield handily, along with some great passives (Field Command, in particular). Especially since you picked the Divine Mandate exclusive, which is Internal damage focused. The only other mastery with Internal damage as a feature is... Soldier. Furthermore, the Oleron devotion constellation will take care of your RR needs and replace what you lost on Necro.

If you've already played your build past the selection of the 2nd mastery, feel free to check out Grim Dawn Defiler. You can use that app to edit your toon and change the mastery selections.

Also, the 10 skill points you have in Rebuke are a waste. Yours isn't a retaliation build.

Here's an alternative set-up:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV1MQywV

Headline changes include:

- re-speccing to Soldier
- freeing up redundant skill points in OK
- doubling down on AA focused passives and procs

Your AOE will not be great; this is a slow build. On the other hand, with the right gear/constellations/augments/relics, you should be essentially unkillable.

 

[Okagron]

Rebuke adds flat damage to weapon damage attacks and that's a Righteous Fervor build. Plus it has reflected damage reduction which physical struggles the most with. One point in it is fine though.

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

is there something absurdly wrong with this build?

If you are going for full damage, Oppressor is far better than Warlord. You can use Gladiator belt to fully convert vitality to physical and thus convert the flat vitality in Reaping Strike and two Seals of Might to convert 50% aether to physical to convert the flat aether in Spectral Binding and the flat Aether in Reaping Strike. Also, be on the lookout for Fleshwarped Pauldrons, they have +3 to Righteous Fervor and have around 30% aether to physical to convert even more flat damage in Necromancer.

The Seal of Might and Gladiator belt are more for midgame to lategame (if you are seemingly starting from scratch), but go for the wps anyway because of the weapon damage on those wps. A basic attack with any wps on >>>>>>>> a basic attack with nothing. Plus, Reaping Strike heals a lot because of the great amount of attack damage converted to health it has.

You can also go Bone Harvest just for Soul Harvest because of the amount of flat damage it adds to weapon damage attacks (specially when you get Gladiator belt for the flat vitality to physical).

 

[Lone Wolf]

Rebuke adds flat damage to weapon damage attacks and that's a Righteous Fervor build.

True, but +13% attack speed and +80% all damage (10 pts in Squad Tactics) >>> +30 Physical damage. Even +200 OA, 200% all damage (10 pts in Fighting Spirit) >>> +30 Physical damage.

If you are going for full damage, Oppressor is far better than Warlord. You can use Gladiator belt to fully convert vitality to physical and thus convert the flat vitality in Reaping Strike and two Seals of Might to convert 50% aether to physical to convert the flat aether in Spectral Binding and the flat Aether in Reaping Strike. Also, be on the lookout for Fleshwarped Pauldrons, they have +3 to Righteous Fervor and have around 30% aether to physical to convert even more flat damage in Necromancer.

Building for lvl 75+ viability is a lot of hours of boredom. And that's assuming he gets a Gladiator Belt in a reasonable timeframe. The 50-75 stretch will be brutal. Hell, he might level it to 100 without getting the belt...

Considering you're playing untwinked Chaotic_Heretic, you should probably try to enjoy the whole journey. Obviously, though, whatever floats your boat.

 

[jungl]

People still play diablo clones? You think they be dead like mmorpgs by now

 

[Okagron]

Squad Tactics is only worth it for the attack speed because % all damage hardly matters in the endgame (like i said, some extra % damage doesn't mean much when you have 2000% already). Plus weapon damage attacks benefit a ton more from flat damage. Fighting Spirit happens so infrequently that is extremely unreliable honestly. If it was more like Deadly Aim, i think the skill would be much better. I did say to leave as one pointer because the flat damage in Rebuke scales rather poorly.

Not saying Warlord sucks for shield builds, quite the opposite actually. It's really strong. Oppressor just has an higher damage celiing compared to Warlord. It is less tanky, so if you want more tankyness go for Warlord.

I mentioned Seal of Might and Gladiator belt more as the items that are gonna be used in the end. People tend to look at skills for what they look like at the start and not what you can make them look like in the end. Game has a ton of conversions options to allow multiple different builds.

 

[Lacrymas]

People still play diablo clones? You think they be dead like mmorpgs by now

GD is probably the best Diablo-like in existence, including Diablo. So yeah, the best of the best is worth playing, regardless of genre.

 

[Circuit the Short]

Men, anyone experiencing perfomance drop in 64 bit version? (compared to 32 bit one)

 

[Lone Wolf]

Fighting Spirit happens so infrequently that is extremely unreliable honestly

It activates 'on taking damage' and with 10 pts does so 38% of the time, lasting 8 seconds (16 second refresh). It's up about 40% of the time that you're in combat. In practice, it's great, give it a try sometime.

I mentioned Seal of Might and Gladiator belt more as the items that are gonna be used in the end. People tend to look at skills for what they look like at the start and not what you can make them look like in the end. Game has a ton of conversions options to allow multiple different builds.

I know, but untwinked those items aren't going to be easy to come by until end game. Levelling an underpowered character sucks a dick, even if there's a viable end build.

Men, anyone experiencing perfomance drop in 64 bit version? (compared to 32 bit one)

Nope, just the same old occasional micro-stutter.

 

[Okagron]

In practice, it's great, give it a try sometime.

I have done it several times and always found it rather underwhelming. I just leave it as one pointer at this point. Deadly Aim is much more consistent and has a better proc mechanism in my opinion.

I know, but untwinked those items aren't going to be easy to come by until end game. Levelling an underpowered character sucks a dick, even if there's a viable end build.

That can be true for some builds, but i have leveled this exact Oppressor. It's pretty strong with just the double physical resistance reduction from Spectral Wrath and Celestial Presence.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Thanks for the suggestions Lone Wolf , Lacrymas and Okagron .

Think I am going to aim for the physical Oppressor stuff.
May the RNG Old gods have mercy on my sanity and gib me the required conversion drops.
WPS and procs with no-twink shit gear is stupidly OP on veteran at least. And Reaping strike life-leech helps a lot with survivability.

What about a heretical version.
Going for vitality main with Harbinger of Souls for the Exclusive Skill ; secondary depends on items for conversion/bonuses . No clue about what items are there in that regards though.

How about this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/mN4MM8B2

Not sure about how harbinger of souls conversion will interact with heretical transmuter of Righteous Fevor.
Putting harbinger of souls aside; If i get this correctly as long as the righteous fervor is my main left click attack; all WPS procs should have the heretical transmuter of righteous fervor (so physical into acid and fire into vitality).
will the physical to acid conversion hold for other non WPS skills while Righteous Fervor charges are up?

The devotion isn't optimized; but just had to get dryad's blessing, cleansing waters, turtle shell, will of rattosh and wayward soul. Will of Rattosh is the supreme constellation for vitality builds and you know the others are p. great for survivability. You cannot deal damage if you cannot survive.

I guess I could drop Wayward Souls to dick around a bit; but wayward souls is very amazing for a vitality focused build.

Also going acid primary and path of the three makes more sense while going for rumor, guardian gaze, sting etc., but I am sure there are equips there to make harbinger of souls (and vit/aether) work with Oppressor.

Also is there any official word whether this is the last expansion or no?

 

[Okagron]

Not sure about how harbinger of souls conversion will interact with heretical transmuter of Righteous Fevor.
Putting harbinger of souls aside; If i get this correctly as long as the righteous fervor is my main left click attack; all WPS procs should have the heretical transmuter of righteous fervor (so physical into acid and fire into vitality).

The transmuter does have a major issue and it's the fact that is heavily biased towards acid. The majority of weapons have a physical base damage and that is converted to acid. So if you use it for a vitality build and use a physical weapon, the base damage will be acid. It's better to not use the transmuter if you plan to go vitality.

The only exception is if you plan to use a vitality based damage weapon instead of a physical one. That way the transmuter can't "steal" physical to acid, at least for the base damage. It does mean flat physical damage sources will be converted to acid still, which sucks. You better off really not using the transmuter and just get physical to vitality (like in Harbinger of Souls) to convert the physical in Righteous Fervor.

About the conversion of the transmuter and interaction with WPS procs. Let's say you get Smite, which has fire in it. When it goes through Righteous Fervor, that fire damage will converted to vitality because wps enhance the auto attack replacer. Conversion on auto attack replacers will convert the appropriate damage when a wps with that damage interacts with it.

And last, no, the conversion on Righteous Fervor will not affect any skill outside of wps while Righteous Fervor is up.

I haven't done a melee vitality Oppressor but it can work. Got the double vitality resistance reduction and all the other stuff both masteries bring to Vitality. It will probably deal less damage than if you went phyisical, because vitality is balanced around the fact it heals a ton. So it deals less damage to counter balance that.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Not sure about how harbinger of souls conversion will interact with heretical transmuter of Righteous Fevor.
Putting harbinger of souls aside; If i get this correctly as long as the righteous fervor is my main left click attack; all WPS procs should have the heretical transmuter of righteous fervor (so physical into acid and fire into vitality).

The transmuter does have a major issue and it's the fact that is heavily biased towards acid. The majority of weapons have a physical base damage and that is converted to acid. So if you use it for a vitality build and use a physical weapon, the base damage will be acid. It's better to not use the transmuter if you plan to go vitality.

The only exception is if you plan to use a vitality based damage weapon instead of a physical one. That way the transmuter can't "steal" physical to acid, at least for the base damage. It does mean flat physical damage sources will be converted to acid still, which sucks. You better off really not using the transmuter and just get physical to vitality (like in Harbinger of Souls) to convert the physical in Righteous Fervor.

About the conversion of the transmuter and interaction with WPS procs. Let's say you get Smite, which has fire in it. When it goes through Righteous Fervor, that fire damage will converted to vitality because wps enhance the auto attack replacer. Conversion on auto attack replacers will convert the appropriate damage when a wps with that damage interacts with it.

And last, no, the conversion on Righteous Fervor will not affect any skill outside of wps while Righteous Fervor is up.

I haven't done a melee vitality Oppressor but it can work. Got the double vitality resistance reduction and all the other stuff both masteries bring to Vitality. It will probably deal less damage than if you went phyisical, because vitality is balanced around the fact it heals a ton. So it deals less damage to counter balance that.

well going poison and acid for heretical oppressor makes sense too.

something like this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrjjjOZ

ravenous earth and tainted eruption. Too bad I couldn't fit dying god and yugol constellations in this theorycraft draft.

EDIT: lose out on the double resist for vitality/physical route though; and that sucks a lot. maybe going oathkeeper+occultest for curse of vulnerability and full on plague heresy with dreegs evil eye/ bloody pox is more efficient. but that makes it more of a caster build and looses the full 100% WPS gimmick,

 

[Okagron]

Better off really going Dervish or Sentinel if you plan to go Acid with Oathkeeper. Necromancer hardly brings anything to acid except the aformentioned Ravenous Earth. And Ravenous Earth is really only good in caster builds and the only time is used outside of that is for the damage reduction in Decay.

I think an Acid shield Sentinel can work though. You do lose the Necro wps though, but you get RR in Vulnerability and Blood of Dreeg, which rocks in acid builds.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Better off really going Dervish or Sentinel if you plan to go Acid with Oathkeeper. Necromancer hardly brings anything to acid except the aformentioned Ravenous Earth. And Ravenous Earth is really only good in caster builds and the only time is used outside of that is for the damage reduction in Decay.

I think an Acid shield Sentinel can work though. You do lose the Necro wps though, but you get RR in Vulnerability and Blood of Dreeg, which rocks in acid builds.

yeah occurred to me after i checked the resistance cheat sheet.
So its a toss between physical and vitality for a oathkeeper. physical looks more attractive though.