Grim Dawn - An ARPG from Crate (ex Iron Lore aka Titan Quest devs)

Yah, different skills stack. A lot of the point of making builds, is finding those synergies. Using one class for the dot, and another to debuff the enemy to that damage type for instance.

wow! never tried it with controller and i greatly prefer playing with one (when it doesnt gimp you). noted.

Oh man, you’re in for a treat.

The only thing that’s kind of wonky is the inventory management. It’s do-able with the controller once you get in the groove of it, but in the beginning I just switched to the mouse to handle inventory. Other times when I was too lazy to reach for the mouse, I got pretty good at using the controller too. But don’t let the inventory scare you away from using the controller.

After my post five days ago that whined a bit about my inability to get into the game, I spent the last five days pushing through it, trying to get to the “good stuff.” I just finished killed the final boss and unlocked Elite difficulty.

My first character (before my original post post) was some sort of Shaman that used 2-handers. I found it extremely boring because I was mowing through everything on Veteran, and never felt the need to do anything other than hold my mouse button down and walk forward for hours at a time.

I ended up creating a new character, a Pyromancer (Demonologist & Occultist). I utilized a sword & shield, molotov cocktails, and applied nearly all of my devotion points (I think I ended the game with 17 or 18) to beefing up crow and hellhound pets.

My new guy was still tearing everything up on Veteran difficulty, but my strategies were more varied, my build more interesting, and I even had to kite a couple bosses here and there while my fire bombs and pets did the majority of the work.

Because I don’t want to spoil anything, I haven’t read any build guides or anything, so I look forward to seeing what else the game has to offer.

I’m finally getting into the meat of the game, and it’s finally becoming clear to me why the game is so adored. I was having a truly great time near the end when my gear and skill build started to matter more.

It’s just too bad the game doesn’t run as well as Diablo 3 on my system, but it doesn’t ruin the experience for me if I just play with everything on law settings.

Glad to hear you are enjoying it. As I have said countless times in this thread, I think elite is the best difficulty level. You have to be careful, but everything is doable, even if you have a lousy build/equipment.

This has been on my regular rotation for a while now, so I’m really looking forward to the next expansion - even after I lost interest in Path of Exile (which is fantastic, but just requires a bit too much time commitment, what with it having that competitive aspect in the league system), I’m still pottering about with this on and off.

I just love playing around with the builds, and the system is really nice for that, with lots of fiddly aspects that actually do things - you can create mighty, facerolling builds or you can create trick pony builds with odd synergies. Great fun. It’s like rummaging around in an attic, and the way the mechanics are set out is both opaque enough and informative enough to give you that feeling. I have the GDTH trainer set up for just going straight into high level builds fully geared up with a couple of (so to speak) “blank” lvl 100 characters (based on a save available on Nexus), so I can sample the high-level playstyles, and I’ve also got a few characters I’ve “grown with” and am invested in.

But the story, writing and setting are also quite compelling too (well-encapsulated by the marketing imagery, that mix of Puritan fashion, mediaeval and cowboy time period and technology levels, and the almost Fallout-like post-apocalyptic art design for the game world), and I keep discovering new bits of lore and odd little nooks and crannies I never explored before. (The only major bummer is the voice-acting, which isn’t absolutely terribad, but mostly just short of mediocre.)

Good, solid development team, I think: it’s a game that doesn’t look or feel “expensive,” but it works, it’s of a piece, it’s got a vision and it’s sticking to it.

So you can okay with mouse and controller switching between them at will? Or do you have to go to a menu to switch from one to the other etc?

You can switch between them at will. They both work at all times.

Awesome thanks!

After 500+ hours, I’ve come to the conclusion that a 2h ranged, primal strike vindicator is the best solo self found class. This of course, is only pertinent to the combos I’ve tried, but I have tried a lot of them.

I recently got stuck back into this game, and pushed on with my vindi, and I think got over the final hurdles of understanding when it comes to mechanics in this game. I think I actually “get it” all now. That’s a pretty good endorsement of the game for me, that it took me 500 hours to feel like I truly understand everything that’s going on. It could also be that the game is just really damn obtuse lol.

I have to tell you, I am in love with this vindicator build though, currently face tanking everything in ultimate, with massive and fast AOE clear. REALLY really fun character to play, lightning everywhere, what’s not to like?

One of the things I’ve realized fully over the last 100 hours or so, is how many builds really rely on conversion. If you look on the GD forums, literally every one of those builds relies on a piece of gear or two that converts one damage type to another. At the min/max, bleeding edge, fastest possible crucible running point in the game, conversion is pretty much mandatory, because you need to squeeze out every last ounce from your character. My problem with this of course, is that I play solo self found, so relying on finding a drop or counting on a conversion can be really difficult, unless it’s something you can find on vendors / faction. The other thing I’ve realized, that I’ve been coming to for a long time, is how important defense is post Elite Malmouth.

Why I love my primal strike vindicator:

  1. Lightning!!! Massive AOE clear, kills most things before they even get to you.
  2. When they do get to you, you can laugh at them as you sit in your inquisitors seal with your wendigo totem healing you.
  3. Just the right number of buttons for controller play, just complicated enough to keep things interesting.
  4. Inquisitor is easily the best single class in the game, most notably for inquisitors seal, which at this point, I find very hard to play without. That flat damage reduction is just such a big deal at higher difficulties.
  5. The build is great, and feels powerful, from the very second you get primal strike. This is a build that feels strong the entire time, you never feel underpowered.
  6. Doesn’t really need any conversion to be powerful. Just equip lightning gear, and when you can, lightning/vitality and you’ll be just fine.
  7. Very few things in the game turn into a brick wall with lightning damage. Lightning is a great all around damage type, and seems to have very few mobs that are specifically resistant too it. A major problem with say…vitality damage.

Easiest way to level, is start with shaman and abuse devouring swarm until you hit level 10 or so, and then respec into primal strike with the thunderous strike transmuter. From there on out, it’s a gravy train with biscuit wheels.

Posted below are just the essential skills you need to make the build work as an immortal, face tanking, lightning hurling demigod. Anything else you want to do at that point will probably be fine. Keep in mind that primal strike is not a “default” attack, which is why the ranged bonuses I have chosen are there, and not others. If you just took the leftover points, and did nothing but finish off the shaman mastery bar, you’d be in great shape. Cheers!

Lightning Ranged Vindicator

Great post. I can’t wait to dive back into this game. But I’m going to wait for the release of the new expansion. I don’t want to burn myself out before Forgotten Gods comes out.

I’m looking forward to trying that build.

++ All of that. That lightning vindicator sounds like a great way to start off the upcoming expansion.

Thanks for this Ultrazen! I keep trying to get into Path of Exile, and I bounce off fairly quickly each time. I think I’m turned off by the multiplayer/competitive/trading aspect, and think Grim Dawn might better fill the ARPG itch (or another run of Diablo3, but whatever). I know PoE can do solo self-found too, but I find myself leaning more and more often to games designed for single-player first.

If you like ARPGs, in my opinion, Grim Dawn is the best one ever made. It’s an amazing, deep game that is a real rabbit hole to go down. Give it enough time to get used to it, and understand what’s going on, it’s well worth it.

Thanks for the write up Ultrazen. Grim Dawn is easily my favourite ARPG too. There are some aspects that annoy me, but in terms of skills and general character development, it is clearly the best. A part of it is how well the various classes intermesh, and how differently we can build our characters.

One of my favourite characters right now uses the Shaman tree for offensive, and the Warrior tree to provide support abilities. Here’s a link to how I’ve built so far https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2gDeKKV Level 80 Warder, I think with gear he’s found all himself via Crucible and running through Normal and Elite difficulty. I did twink him initially.

The Warder’s primary attack is of course Savagery. Building up those charges and essentially laying waste to everything in front of me. I’m certainly a fan of Primal Strike, however I had to respec my build at one point because I wanted to invest the points into more survivability and building up my offensive (OA) and defensive (DA) ability. Part of the reason for increasing OA is so I can proc more crits. With my devotions, when I crit, the Hand of Ultos procs giving me the equivalent of Primal Strike.

The Reckless Tempest devotion is the other important critical, set to my Primal Strike. When I’m at range, I fire a few shots and cast Primal Strike, hoping it crits. If it does, then I’ve managed to lay waste to a mob in no time. Should I feel inclined, I’ll switch then to my axe and finish off whatever else needs to die. By that stage, my DPS has soared and I’m able to one-two shot enemies.

The trouble with my build up to this point is the speed at which a character can die. I won’t go as far to say one shot kills, though all too often it feels like it. I have multiple safety nets though, one of which is Menhirs Will. I do need to make sure I have my axe equipped, but when my health drops to 33%, I get a sudden resurgence that’s enough for me to say “yep, let’s hang back for a while and kite.” Thankfully I don’t get to that point overly often because Wayward Soul devotion kicks in first. However, the number of times that Menhirs Will has saved me from death has made the investment worthwhile.

I will be sad when I have to replace my Dawnguard set with something else. I don’t see it lasting too much longer when I move into the final difficulty. Plus my resistances need a fair bit of work. Especially pierce! My plan moving forward is to ease back on the DPS, get some more resistant gear and get more offensive and defensive ability. Oh, and having some backup gear doing cold damage I think because the skellies that have high lightning resist take a long time to die. In contrast, Fire zombies and the like blow up ever so nicely.

I had been wanting to try out Grim Dawn for quite awhile, but there were other games keeping my interest. Finally got the itch for an ARGP, but it wasn’t on sale so I played Diablo 3 for the first time. I had played it at launch, but for whatever reason I only played for one night. I played as a Witch Doctor and it was…fine? Put 12 hours into it, but it wasn’t really the followup to Diablo 2 that I wanted. The difficulty was a pushover, it looked more like WoW than Diablo, the story seems like it was written by a kid in junior high. It was fun, but it didn’t scratch the itch I wanted. Thankfully, Grim Dawn went on sale again and I snagged it up.

From the opening hour this game was everything I was looking for. I love the atmosphere of the game, and on Veteran I’m enjoying the difficulty way more than Diablo 3. I never came close to dying in Diablo 3 even after bumping it up to hard and bosses would be destroyed before characters finished their dialogue, but in Grim Dawn I was having to pull back from even the first boss. Loot feels more rewarding in Grim Dawn, I don’t think I really compared loot in Diablo 3, just tossed on whatever had the higher number.

I am playing as a Warder too, up to level 22. I started off as a soldier and wanted to focus on 2H melee, Shaman seemed like a perfect match. I dabbled in a bunch of skills early on, but refunded them and have been mostly pumping Primal Strike lately. I haven’t touched the devotions yet, guess I’ll look into those more next time. Amazing game so far.

Realizing that I am really finally done with D3, and the delay of Path of Exile on the PS4, brought me back into Grim Dawn. The Lightning Ranged Vindicator Ultrazen posted sounds super fun so I am building up one of those. Maybe this time I’ll actually finish the game? I don’t think I’ve ever made it past Act 2.

A couple of things I’ve learned along the way. 1. Once you finish the “main” campaign boss in normal difficulty, you’re better off to start a new game in elite difficulty. Normal Malmouth is tougher than elite new game. 2. Malmouth is a huge pain in the ass, map wise, and killed the game for me a few times until I figured it out, another reason to skip it until you get more gear/levels. You really need your resits max to do Malmouth, or you’ll just get one shot.

I generally go all the way through the “main” campaign both normal and elite, and then go back to normal or veteran and do malmouth. Malmouth is good to farm, when you can do it without dying all the time, because that faction vendor sells experience potions (which can be used from the shared stash), so it’s good to farm the rep. By the time you get through the elite main campaign, your resists and gear will be good enough to handle Malmouth.

Thanks!
When you say “main” campaign, what do you mean by that? ie where’s your stopping point. Since I don’t think I’ve made it that far some idea of what to look for would be helpful!

There is a boss named Loghorrean, he’s in the Necropolis. That’s the “main” (original) games end boss. Once you beat him, the NPC at Fort Ikon will give you a quest that opens up Malmouth, that’s when I start over on elite. You’ll probably be about level 36 or so.

One other piece of advice. As long as you are killing stuff fast enough with your primal strike, don’t worry about maxing it. Work towards wendigo totem and then inquisitors seal. Those 2 skills are really the whole ballgame. That combo makes you very very tough to kill.