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

I unlocked Ultimate difficulty, but I’m not jumping in yet. I’ll probably do the Bog area until I need a change of scenery. Then I’ll give Ultimate a try. It’s interesting that I’m 80 now, and I’m finding lots of crappy equipment that requires level 84 or 85 to wear. Erm, theoretically something to look forward to, I guess.

By the way, the guns I’ve been using are called “Shrapnel guns”, and come from a recipe I used at the beginning of Elite difficulty. I don’t remember when I found this recipe, but it was one of the 4 single-handed guns I could make at the blacksmith’s. The very first Shrapnel gun I made was badass, it was better than the yellow guns I was using at the time (which is not an easy feat, since none of the blue guns in the game are better than those yellow guns I used through normal difficulty’s Act 3, not even empowered versions of blue guns). So then after making one of those guns, I tried making a second one. But since it was a random green recipe, the second time was really crappy. So I made another, and another, and another, and another. In the meantime, I’d been using this one ingredient that I’d been accumulating with all my characters since I’ve been playing this game over a year ago, and whittling this ingredient down from many to just a few left. I finally made a gun that was almost as good as that first shrapnel gun I made.

Thank god for that first good roll. Otherwise I never would have known that these shrapnel guns could be so good. And I’ve been using them since level 50, with nothing coming close.

I did recently find a blue empowered gun that does come a little close. When I find some more Oeron’s blood ingredients, I’ll imbue it, and see if it’s really better than one of my green shrapnel guns.

76 and at the end of elite act 4 now. I spent the last 30 minutes going through my gear and upgrading as needed. At just below 10k DPS and 1000 armor. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I am still way too squishy, but I think 90% of my deaths (I am scared to look how many this character has) are from just being stupid. If I actually play smart and prepare before running into packed rooms and make sure I have an exit path, I do fine, but all too often I just charge in, something stuns me and does a ton of damage and I can’t get out.

Finally have my exclusive final skill in inquisitor so I do fire damage to anything close to me. Plan to pump the next few levels of skill points into and hope to see a difference. Then I will start filling in my occultist skills (I said above I was inquisitor/acranist, but it is inquisitor/occultist).

Hey cool, you get access to Curse of Frailty (up to 25% reduced physical resistance for your enemies) and Vulnerability (up to 30% reduced Elemental resistance for enemies). Those should help you a lot as a gun slinger.

Yep, those are both already close to max. Have those and the pets from occultist side, but I really need to pump some points into the pets next.

I think I’m enjoying the swamp area in Act 5 more this time because I’m more familiar with it this time through. It definitely took some getting used to that first time. Once you know that you have to keep moving, and that taking down a flower will mean that it comes back and has to be killed again, etc. Those kinds of things, once expected, don’t annoy as much, and are actually kind of fun. On Elite difficulty, at least, this has been my favorite area so far. You’ve got these barbed hulk-looking enemies that kill you if they get close, so you have to keep your distance as you shoot at them. But, the AI is really good at trapping me in situations where they surround me. Whether it’s blocking my way back across a narrow bridge, or spawning all around me when I’m in a corner of the map, it’s quite tense when they get all around me and I have to shoot my way out with an opening before they overwhelm me.

For $7.50 on Steam sale? You convinced me. Downloading.

I didn’t get to actually play Grim Dawn last night, but I did get to fiddle around with the inventory for a few minutes.

I was able to confirm that the empowered version of a set item doesn’t provide set bonuses alongside a regular version of that set. Basically it’s treated like two separate sets.

I also discovered I have way too much fire resistance. I started a game on Ultimate difficulty, just to see what my resists would be. My Fire resist was still 83%, and not just that, but something like 64% over that, which is being wasted. I need to get rid of some resist equipment and put on some other resists. My Chaos resist was still maxed out and well over 80%, also being wasted. My lightning resist was also near full, but the other resists all needed work on Ultimate.

Hopefully by the time I finish the expansion acts on Elite, I’ll find some good combination of equipment for Ultimate. Juggling resists is like a puzzle, if you swap out this peace for this peace, you lost some poison but you gained some pierce and chaos. If you then swap out this peace over here, you gained some bleeding and vitality, but lost some cold resist. They you get new boots with cold resist, but gave up boots that had aether resist.

This is the reason I almost never substitute just one item in Grim Dawn. It’s either a wholesale change of wardrobe, or I keep wearing the same thing until I die (several times).

Some really… grim… locations and lore-tidbits in the game.

Loved reading the diary from the family escaping the war… then slowly turning to canibalism, or the town that is taken over by cultists who drain their victims through ingenious ways.

Is there a button or setting for attack in place?

Holding down shift is default.

Ah, thanks!

I sucked at dodging incoming fire last night. Mostly because I was playing with my son on one arm, and a mouse in the other hand. Dodge is so hard when using the mouse, having to click on the right area without accidentally clicking on an enemy, which is hard because the screen is usually full of enemies. Dodging is sooooo much easier when I play with the controller. Just move the left thumbstick. You don’t need to find a patch of clear ground to lick on.

Thankfully I hit level 81 right at the start of the night. So all my frequent deaths last night wiped out all my experience, but that just put me right at 81 again. Phew.

Hard to know for sure without the game going, but I think in run-n-gun fights I just keep the move button held down all the time and swerve the mouse around as needed. Of course, that also presumes I’m playing two-handed and can use number keys to activate abilities.

I’m enjoying this enough that it’s eating into my POE time. Speaking of which, there are a few interesting parallels between the two games. For instance, passive skill tree and galaxy perks?

Just spent about an hour trying to get my Xbox controller to work correctly. Finally got it sorted out, but jesus what a circus between steam and GD to get it done.

I just saw my first nemesis. I knew because instead of his name being in purple, like a boss, it was in red letters. And this was a gigantic version of a beast. I’d never seen one this big before. I started shooting at it. He walked up to me and slapped me once and I died.

Hmmm. I’m not sure if I want to even go back to retrieve my grave on that one. Sounds too dangerous. I’ve never encountered an enemy that could kill me in one hit before. Even the biggest enemies, like the guy at the bottom of Steps of Torments usually needs two hits to kill me.

Wow, that sucks. What kind of problems did you have? It was literally just plug and play for me.

Shades of Asheron’s Call. :)

It was some weird snafu of controller default vs customized, and a war between the ingame menu and the steam big picture settings. For some reason, my xbox controller had the steam controller defaults loaded, which took quite a while to figure out. I had to manually go in and load a downloaded xbox profile to override the steam controller layout. With the steam controller setup, GD wouldn’t even use the controller for anything, which is what made it so tough to figure out. When looking at the steam big picture config page, it just says “default control layout provided by crate”.

I’m sure I could have caught the problem quicker, but I kept trying to fix it in game, which was pointless.

I just realized you can put components and augments on items. I thought it was one or the other. Wow, I feel stupid…