Put about 20 levels into an Elementalist last night. I think this is the build I’m shooting for: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7wz6dV
Seems fragile, so I’ll have to see how well I can survive. If it’s rough, I’ll need to adjust as I go.
I got to level 25 last night with my Vindicator. I love that Storm Totem so much. I also really like having one point in Briarthon, or whatever the Shaman pet is called. Theoretically that means he’s really weak and a waste of a point, right? Except, I’ve been surprised by how long he survives and distracts opponents away from me. He might not do much damage, but he makes for a great companion in single player.
Are firearms overpowered? I started a nightblade last night (only level 4 now). My plan was to duel wield, but I found this pistol and now I can kill things before they even get to me. Why wouldn’t I do that?
I assumed controller support meant also having a dodge button (a la Victor Vran) so I’m disappointed Grim Dawn doesn’t. Having a dodge really makes the game more engrossing, but I’m going to give GD a chance.
I do love the look and art in this game. The story isn’t painful to hear like Diablo 3’s either.
Ranged weapons always do less damage than melee weapons of equivalent level. In certain parts of the game that might be enough to kill enemies before they get to you anyway, especially if your build enhances your ranged damage. Are you playing on Veteran? Believe me, the enemy will get to you soon enough.
And when you get to bosses, they’ll have so many hit points, they will get to you even if you do beaucoup damage. Don’t worry, it’s not overpowered. :)
Yeah, Diablo 3’s dodge move is something I do miss in this game. But you get used to it. You just have to dodge by moving your character slowly with the left thumbstick. It’s very important when bosses are throwing big projectiles slowly towards you.
I’m doing veteran and just killed the first boss. I did need to switch to my duel wielding to do enough damage. I finally had to use a potion to boost the health.
oh yes. I’m almost at the end of ultimate with my Purifier which basically just shoots things and has tons of auras. Don’t forget the power of some of the devotions, they are what really takes things to the next level especially with auto attack builds
I had a friend try this. He said he wasn’t able to toggle the ability on twice.
I haven’t tried it myself yet.
You have to slot the two different icons. I.E. you have to hotbar both of them.
Yeah, my vindicator has 2 lightning buffs; you just need to place both buffs on the bar and voila. Increased DPS by quite a bit.
I started a reaper (well I started a lot of classes); anyone played one yet? Curious if 2H is the way to go if using bone harvest and/or ravenous earth.
I have a vitality reaper, with more or less this setup, can be 2h or 1h or ranged, mine uses stat sticks and plays like a caster. There are quite a few ways to build a reaper that are pretty viable, there is a lot of support for both aether or vitality. The double dipping from Harbinger of souls and anatomy of murder gives you some pretty insane vitality damage, to both your phantasmal blades, and your siphon souls.
This build has quite a bit of sustain, as phantasmal blades, siphon souls, and pneumatic burst all provide a lot of healing.
Pretty fun build, and you can level it more or less as it ends up, take phantasmal blades early and max out spectral wrath, pretty much a cakewalk. Can facetank most stuff, but great at kiting as well if need be.
Oh cool, thanks for the build. That’s pretty much what I was looking for - i.e., a “caster tank” of some sort.
I don’t know how I missed this, given that I have 5 different Shaman characters going right now thanks to @Ultrazen, but the Shaman also has an ability called Wind Devil, which I’d never tried out because it sounded too much like the useless little tornadoes that the Druid had in Diablo II: Lord or Destruction. Well, here’s what I just realized, the follow up skill that adds to Wind Devil is called Tempest, and it lowers enemy’s Elemental Resists quite a bit.
So theoretically, a Shaman combination build that’s concentrating on Lightning damage could really benefit from also taking 12 points into Tempest, and lowering Elemental resists by 35%. I guess it will depend on how Wind Devil behaves on screen. I’ll have to try it out this weekend.
I have a couple of lightning based shaman, 1 point in wind devil and max points in raging tempest isn’t really needed until ultimate, but there it’s pretty much required. It’s one of those skills you can save until very late, as primal strike does such ridiculous damage up through the beginning of Ultimate on it’s own. They do tend to meander a bit, and it’s not the biggest debuff in the game, so they are sort of a 2nd tier debuff, but helpful nonetheless, especially on boss fights.
To MrGrumpy, there are a lot of variations you can make to that build depending on what gear you find along the way. It’s very easy to incorporate bleeding or poison if you start finding gear that has both vitality and those other boosts. That build is just sort of a rough idea, and can easily be goofed around with :P I’m glad you mentioned reaper, as I actually went back and started playing this guy again, it’s a really fun character, and it just melts bosses.
All this talk of Ultimate difficulty recently made me want to go back to my level 86 Purifier yesterday, who is the character farthest along in the game.
I played him for a bit, took him to level 87, and got another Devotion point.
Even though my Purifier is badass, I’d forgotten how actively I need to keep attacking to stay alive. Basically I have to really concentrate on offense and defense at the same time. If I concentrate too much on dodging and running away, I die anyway. If I stay on the offense, I steal enough health to counteract a LOT of damage, but at the same time if I keep standing in one spot too stubbornly, I learned, I also die. Good thing this character is softcore. He has over 100 deaths I think.
But once I got back into the swing of things, it’s so satisfying. I just have to keep shooting and using my various powers, and then if the enemy isn’t dying fast, back off, let them step on my landmines, and do it again. Meanwhile, meteors are constantly coming down from the sky automatically on attack, enemies are being frozen, there’s poison novas being triggered, there’s lightning attacks and health stealing attacks firing off. Every fight is a giant fireworks display with this guy. :)
Could I trouble you for your Purifier build?
Sure, I’ll post it tonight after I get home. Some parts of the current build are through the equipment I found. The health stealing, for example, I think is all from the equipment.
p.s. I leveled that build with ravenous earth not bone harvest. RE makes leveling pretty easy, and is great for devotions as well. It’s debatable which one is better end game, and it really depends on what gear you end up with.
Alternate reaper vitality build
Hey very cool, Grimtools has an import character feature. And here I was thinking you’d given me a Herculean task tonight trying to recreate my character in the character builder.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZorjbGV
Notice the haphazard spreading of points in the Devotion tree at this point. Now that I’ve got the Meteors and the two big other things I was aiming for. Now I’m just grabbing random defensive and offensive nodes here and there.
My Petless Conjurer build is now level 29, and still alive (hardcore is so tense in this game). That’s my attempt at the Vitality Tank. I haven’t reached high enough level to get the vitality Storm Totem yet.
I did test Ultrazen’s theory and confirmed it by putting a Hollowed Fang on both my shield and my Gorefeast axe. And I assigned one Blood drinker to Left Thumbstick press, and the other to Right thumbstick press. Theoretically this allows me to have stacked 20% life steal on each of those. So it does work.
However, I’m wondering when I finally get my Storm Totem, turned into a Vitality totem instead, will that also steal life for me when I activate Blood drinker twice and am stealing over 50% attack damage as health?
Only frustrating thing about that build is that I have no default attack move. I’m using the little sword symbol as my default attack. It’s the only character I’ve ever created who has had to use that as a default attack. It feels so weird. Like I’m leaving something on the table.
A couple of points into savagery and tenacity of the boar won’t hurt anything if you want a default weapon attack.
p.s. Twin Fangs devotion assigned to bloody pox is amazing.