The Purifier works beautifully with the gamepad. Unfortunately, I haven’t tried other classes with the gamepad yet, so I don’t know who else works well. Basically the Purifier is a dual-gunslinger. Demolitionist + Inquisitor. It’s very satisfying to put your main attacks on the triggers and pow pow pow, the monsters are pushed back before they get to you.
I can see the gamepad working well with any class where you only need to do 6 abilities at the most. If you regularly use more than 6 abilities, it gets a bit iffy.
Right Trigger
Left Trigger
A
B
X
Y
These are really easy to press, and should be the main abilities you use.
Right Bumper - Health potion
Left Bumper - Mana Potion
These potion buttons are preset. You could change them, but I figure that’s a pretty good setup.
Right Stick Click
Left Stick Click
I use these for abilities that I don’t use as often as the main 6. Stuff that I need to do relatively rarely. The sticks are not all that convenient to click all the time.
And I definitely don’t assign or use the d-pad for anything, though I suppose I could. I’m pretty sure there’s a default assignment for the d-pad already, but I hate d-pads in general, and the 360 d-pad is notoriously not great anyway.
For everything else I switch to mouse and keyboard. So for example, when I first start up Grim Dawn for the evening and log in as a character, and I need to put on my buffs, I do that with the mouse. No use wasting buttons on the gamepad for buffs when the mouse will get the job done. You can put up buffs that toggle on while you’re in town. You can trade with merchants and sort inventory using the mouse while in town, so don’t try to mess with that stuff with the gamepad. It can be done, but it’s so much easier with the mouse.
I think the next character that I’m going to try with the gamepad will be either my Warder (Soldier + Shaman) (level 61), who I haven’t played since last year, or my Nightblade (level 25 or so). Both are melee characters. One uses two handed weapons (the warder) and the other dual-wields swords (nightblade). Both should be interesting to try out with the gamepad.