Going through this thread again, it looks like I started playing this in September 2016, and Gordon picked it up in March 2017. Gordon has caught up to me in hours almost!
Also, tonight I think I’ll go back to my Purifier. This was enough of a break. If I can finish Act 6 this weekend, then I can finally try out Ultimate difficulty for the first time. It will finally let me see if I can setup my Purifier for survival from the worst that the game can throw at me.
Just can’t get excited about fighting elite Log with my Deceiver. While I have improved my build a lot, its still way too squishy. I am pretty sure I can do it now, but I figured I would reach level 80 first, except getting a lot of green trash now, so it’s taking longer. Port Valbury has still has some tough stuff, so have been doing that. Anyway…
Been researching the best sword and board tank, and this Witchblade (soldier/occultist) seems to be the favorite: Cadence Witchblade. Of course I always end up doing my own thing, which is why my characters always suck at the higher difficulties, but it should be fun trying.
My arcanist hit 66 and is getting deep enough into an Elite play through that the green drops are becoming quite a bit better than my blue ones.
If you aren’t already, if you have weak spots where you are using older, lower level stuff, start crafting enchanted stuff. It will give you items around your current level and you have a chance of getting rare affixes (green items). You have to do it a bunch of times before you get that perfect double rare affix item you need, but it has really been worth it for me. Went through 100 scrap crafting rings, but ended up with one better than the low level blue ring I was using. It beats waiting for drops or going around to all the merchants.
That looks like a nice build. However, some of those skills have been nerfed since then. Like Curse of Frailty since 1.0.0.6 doesn’t do nearly as much -%physical resistance. It’s still badass though. It should be a good fun build.
Yeah, you’re right, I read through some of the 100 pages of replies and there are lots of newer variations after the various patches. I can never stick to builds anyway. Its more fun to experiment and play around and do whatever sounds good. For instance, in this build you are supposed to go two handed until level 75, where you redo your skills and switch to sword and board, but I am not doing that. Straight sword and shield from the beginning.
thats the best part of the game… as long as you can do it, it doesn’t matter how you do it. its pretty hard to actually follow a “build” anyway since they often change and many rely on specific sets
Phew, finally finished Malmouth on Elite with my Purifier. I don’t remember the final boss being hard on Normal difficulty. His third and final form was really tough in this one. I died a lot. All my progress through level 86 got wiped clean.
I finally got him by setting up mines and running away a lot. Phew! Those mines are way better at killing bosses than I could have ever imagined when I first tried them out. If anyone has any Demolitionist classes mixed in with whatever else you’re running, I highly recommend putting some points into the Hellfire mines. They’re a life saver.
Now I can go to sleep.
Tomorrow: My first foray into Ultimate difficulty. Or, if I feel like taking a break, back to my low level Battlemage.
Wow, playing a Nightblade with a controller is so much better than playing with a mouse. I might be in love.
Now considering good class sinergies. I’m tempted to go with Necromancer for the vitality-stealing passives and auras. We’ll see.
I haven’t tried a nightlbade/melee yet with the gamepad (which is funny, since when I heard about the gamepad support the first thing I wanted to try was melee. Ahhh, alt-itis) but I am really liking it. My biggest complaint about the genre has been that the control scheme has been largely stuck in 1997. FPS games evolved to incorporate things like elevation and mouselook (remember using page up/page down to look up and down?), but for some reason we’ve been stuck with click-to-everything since the original Diablo. These games to me have begged to be played like a twin-stick shooter, or at the very least WASD movement while using the mouse to aim attacks.
I know Victor Vran came out on PC and played with a gamepad and while I liked the control scheme as much as I thought I would, the game itself was way too shallow. I didn’t care much for Diablo 3, even on console, so it’s terrific that I can finally play a crunchy ARPG with a gamepad on my PC. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised about how well it works. I was expecting some serious clunk, considering this is a control scheme shoehorned into an engine that’s over a decade old.
Yeah, Grim Dawn with the controller feels fantastic. The one flaw in the game (having to use the mouse) is now gone. Well, not totally gone. I still switch to the mouse for inventory management. Diablo 3 on console still has the upper hand there.
That is a plus for me - I mean, the fact that you can switch between controller and mouse as needed in a really natural way (and the UI switches and adapts accordingly on the fly). That way you can get the best of both worlds, and I love it.
Yeah, that was one area of polish I didn’t expect. The fact that the game pad has its own ui/hotbar and the game will seamlessly switch between the two is great! It’s the kind of touch I only expect in a game that was concurrently developed for console and PC.
I’ll have to give this another shot. I bounced off it after an hour or two on a couple occasions, but I haven’t tried with the gamepad yet.
I can scarcely imagine playing an ARPG with a gamepad any more than an FPS.
/getoffmylawn
The good news is that means you have plenty of options! :)
I find myself in agreement with you, sir.
The gamepad is really fantastic. This game feels so clunky and awkward with a mouse and keyboard now. I also switch to mouse for inventory management (although after a couple hours, using the control stick to navigate items and stuff isn’t that bad). My purifier is level 57 now, and ranged weapons are so much easier to control and kite things with. One thing that initially bothered me was using spells like Inquisitor Seal, which puts a rune on the ground. I thought it would be hard to accurately pinpoint the spell and use it as effectively as you can with a mouse. That fear proved unfounded, it turned out to be easier to target the spell since you can turn around to place it on the ground right in front of you. It ends up being easier to do this than with a mouse, as you have to move your mouse away from your target constantly to place the rune and move.
seriously, give it a try. i will never play an arpg with mouse and keyboard again. so much more comfortable too, and less damn clicking
I’ll also endorse a controller. It took a bit of fiddling until to figure how to set it up, but it only took about 10 minutes and wow, it’s so much better.
Last night I spent about 20 minutes with the game, doing the first ten waves of Crucible twice with my young Battlemage, netting me two devotion points.
I didn’t have fun or anything, but I got two devotion points real quick, and about 4 levels.
I feel dirty. Like I cheated or something.
Would not recommend. Stay away from The Crucible.