Gendal
2764
Most everything works at first, it’s not till much later that it will start to fall apart. But you can respec and find a build that’s more up to date later if/when, so no worries. Or just experiment and find it yourself, but the choices are legion in this game and the late game builds not at all obvious.
I don’t know how much the game has changed in recent patches, but I tried that Night King build in May of 2018 when the game was on a much later patch, 1.07 at least, and the build was incredibly powerful through most of Elite difficulty. Like I said, I just got cocky and went after the spider queen, which is the reason I died.
And Brian isn’t even playing hardcore, so I think the Night King build will still be incredibly powerful. It might not be the best, or as good as it used to be, but it will still be amazingly powerful, in my opinion, at least judging from my experience. It’s the only build I’ve ever played in an ARPG where more offense really IS the best defense. Stuff around me usually died so fast that I didn’t need to build better defenses. The whole build is focused on making your skeletons more powerful. And they kill things so fast that it is the most viable hardcore build I’ve ever played. The reason I died to the Spider queen is because the skeletons couldn’t take her down fast enough. She was almost dead, but she wiped my skeletons, and I was still making new skeletons when she got me.
kerzain
2766
I’ve been having fun playing a new Necomancer/Arcanist since the expansion released, but I’m gonna have to shelve the game for now. It’s been crashing every 20 minutes or so since the expansion. I’m sure this will be fixed soon, then it’ll be back to committing Aetherside.
No crashes here. Is it the 64-bit version? Have you tried the other version?
kerzain
2768
I was playing the 64-bit before the expansion and it worked fine. I’m still using it, but I guess I should try 32bit to see if that fixes the issue until they patch it.
Strato
2769
Yeah I’ve seen reports of the 64 bit version crashing while 32 is still stable. I have a CTD on a run just before that kinda pissed me off. Will no doubt stick to 32 for the time being until it is fixed.
LeeAbe
2770
My first thought whenever I have crashes is video card drivers. Have you checked those?
I had one crash with the 64-bit version last night. Will have to run 32 for the time being.
Grim Dawn seems to be really sensitive to GPU overclocking, so you might want to double-check that.
kerzain
2773
Oh my god I’m too lazy to do stuff like check my drivers and overclock. But Grim Dawn is worth double checking this stuff anyway.
Decided to pick up Malmouth since the sale ends shortly. Going to try a Cabalist using this build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8z30KWOrSQ
Sounds like a lot of fun. :)
Grim Dawn is a game where you need to commit to a skill (with a few 1 point wonder exceptions) and really make the most of that skill with support devotions, gear, etc. Half training a bunch of different stuff, is a sure way to make a build that won’t work for long. Necro is an incredibly powerful build, all the way through ultimate, but you have to set it up correctly and support it.
You not only need all 16 points in skellies, you need max points in all the other skellie skills as well. Check out some pet build guides on the forums to get an idea of how and why people make builds the way they do!
I’m going to try mostly Oathbreaker + a little Necromancer. Any tips on melee survivability? I’ve played a mostly Nightblade build that survived almost entirely off that pnuematic pulse skill, but not really sure on survivability ideas for other melee builds.
Make sure to grab the life refresh and leech stuff in the devotion tree. Ghoul, Giants Blood, etc.
That’s exactly what the Night King encourages, which is possibly why it so far works so well.
Yeah, upthread when the Ashes expansion came out back in the day, I was having a hell of a time trying to survive as a Necromancer because I was putting points incorrectly. I was doing okay until I hit the Malmouth expansion area, then my skeletons were dying constantly and so was I. I actually couldn’t go on anymore, even as non-hardcore character because I was dying so much.
That Night King link I put up there is actually really good at explaining what makes a good Skeleton build. Remember: Flat damage is the best damage. Not % damage increases, just flat damage. If you can add flat damage to your pets, the skeletons then get their bonuses on top of that flat damage. So every piece of equipment you find, you need to add as much flat damage as possible to your skeletons. not % damage.
I’ve been spending way too much time greedily researching builds. This game has one hell of a dedicated base and www.grimtools.com is just freaking awesome. It occurs to me though that the vast majority are dependent on gear that will only drop for 85+ characters and only after 100s of hours.
My biggest problem is that without those drops it seems that the only truly survivable characters in Act 3+ ultimate are Soldier based. Both my Sorcerer and Witch Hunter totally devastated up until that point and then just hit a wall. Especially in Malmouth and Gods expansions.
I’m still having a ton of fun with this, but not sure I have the fortitude to farm for the purples needed for those builds.
Would love to be shown that I’m wrong.
I’ve had 600 hours of mostly getting characters to about level 80ish and then trying something new. The end game grind has never held much allure for me, and it’s just so much fun trying new builds. Malmouth in particular, is a killer for me, I just don’t like how much damage is dealt in that expansion, it tends to really kill a lot of builds that are otherwise really fun.
My most “fun” builds, have been builds that didn’t really do that well in Malmout ultimate but eh, who cares lol. I will say, that the forgotten gods expansion seems better balanced in terms of jumping into from the main quest, so it may be a better end game farming avenue.
p.s. Most game guide posters, and end game farmers, actually use cheat programs to give themselves gear and test builds. There are very few people that have actually grinded for a full set of endgame gear.
Heh, I’m 900+ hours in, I’ve never reached Ultimate difficulty yet. So it will be a while before I have to worry about farming purples and whatnot.
But a lot of my playtime is with now-dead hardcore characters.
Edit: Oh I forgot about my non-hardcore Purifier, I’m pretty sure he’s in Ultimate difficulty. I’m sure he’ll run into a brick wall eventually,
