Agree 100% on the expansion. The new areas are by far the best looking thing they’ve done, and the dungeon designs are more interesting.
I’m kind of meh on Oathkeeper though…it seems like a pretty thin retread of stuff we’ve already had. I get that it expands a few build choices, but the re-use of the “default attack that builds 6 times” is just…beyond boring at this point. I really wish they would have given this new class something truly special and different mechanics wise. The spin to win is pretty lackluster, and I have a hard time seeing this class being used as anything but a buffbot for other classes. I’m also getting pretty tired of skills on a cooldown timer, especially early on in the tree. That shield throw skill could really be something if it wasn’t on a cooldown, I’d rather have them limit usage via mana cost than a hard timer.
I have 600+ hours into this game, so it’s certainly been something I’ve really enjoyed, and my criticisms are probably just a reflection of burn out more than actual problems.
I started an Oathkeeper/Soldier, as I rarely play sword and board, but then restarted with a Night King build, following that outline pretty closely. Oh man, I was doing pet classes all wrong. I’m only 25 now but jeez this is so much more effective than any pet set up I’ve tried in the past. I have died once (and for me that’s something!) and that was because I was an idiot.
Of course, with a massive stash of good gear from all my other playing of the game, plus using the Crucible to blitz nearly to 20, I kind of started with a leg up.
Yeah, I agree. I’m only as far as Kavath or whatever it is, but I really like the new campaign area so far. I love the enemy variety, and the little things they do to keep combat interesting, and keep enemies interesting.
I also agree with @Ultrazen that the Oathkeeper skill tree feels like a bit of a retread. Judgement is still my favorite thing in it, and I do love the shield throw, so I’m orienting my build more and more towards those two skills, since they feel unique and fun. I do like the fact that their version of Blitz now passes you through enemies and leaves behind a fire trail that burns enemies. That gives it a very different feel from Blitz because you only use Blitz to get into a crowd, never to run away from the crowd. With this skill, you can use it to GTFO when you’re in trouble, and it leaves behind a trail of fire for pursuing enemies to step into.
On the other hand, Righteous Fire, the main attack, doesn’t feel different from the other charge skills at all yet.
That’s me in a nutshell. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rolled a character and started to use a new skill at level 10 and then found out it was on a cooldown timer. Instant buzzkill.
KevinC
2827
The only skills I want on a cooldown are ultimate level stuff or awesome defense/utility abilities. Like if an ability will make me invulnerable for x seconds, I’m okay with a cooldown. If I can drop a nuke from orbit to wipe out an entire screen at once, put it on a cooldown. But for the majority of abilities? I’d much rather it be controlled by expensive resource costs or other limitations. I hate cooldowns, especially the annoying ones that are 4.5 seconds or something. It’s just long enough to feel clunky and annoy me.
To me it’s their one major misstep in the game. I might have to bite the bullet and look into modding this game. I worked in QA for Titan Quest, primarily on the editor, and I’m guessing this game is set up much the same, if it is, it will be fairly easy to change things around.
I can think of very few skills in GD that actually warrant a cooldown… it seems to me that every cooldown skill does about 1/5th the damage you could do if you just used one of your spam skills.
I will say though, the Oathkeeper/Soldier combination is the first character I’ve played in Grim Dawn that’s constantly out of mana/energy. Constantly. I have to keep drinking potions and actually have to buy potions at the vendor because not enough drop during the course of play. So that’s a first.
So even with the cooldowns, mana is still a limiter for the Oathkeeper. (I’m not using any mana skills from Soldier).
I think this is the crux of the point for me, having hard cooldowns really flattens out the gameplay, and makes it very mechanical. I want to panic and blow all my mana when I’m in trouble, and then see if I can recover. As the game sits now, it takes away some variation in gameplay that would be exciting and to me more fun.
p.s. This is just me nitpicking game mechanics, as I still love GD and think it’s the best ARPG ever made. They did so many things well in this game, this kind of stuff is bound to show up for me after 600+ hours.
vyshka
2831
Are the Grim Dawn forums the place to go for builds?
OK, I’m trying to wrap my head around the DLC’s. I’ve played the base game for over 300 hours. I deleted all my old characters and now have a 43 vindicator in act 3.
The Crucible (which I don’t own) you can battle waves of mobs to get exp and some good items to get a good start on a character. Ashes of Malmouth continues the story with two more acts after the end of the base game, 2 new classes and a variety of improves. The Forgotten Gods is confusing to me. Its a new area but you can go there very early. Does it adjust to your level? Do you do it to farm equipment? Going there, do you out-level your place in the campaign?
Anybody shed any light on this?
Thanks :)
vyshka
2833
It seemed to adjust, or at least I briefly went into the 1st area as a level 30, and was able to survive.
I’ve been playing with the steam controller, and that seems to work pretty well with this game.
LeeAbe
2834
Normal/veteran didn’t used to adjust. Too much Crucible and everything would be green. Hoping they adjusted it with this DLC.
I grabbed this on GOG for 7 bux last weekend and then … I realized … it felt familiar. So I Blindsighted a load up to Titan’s Quest: Anniversary and now I am playing almost the same game (I never played it very far) but I have a Kassandra on the greek isles and I am having a bit of sun.
I haven’t looked but it would seem that the same developers made the two games. Grim Dawn is just a bit grim – Titan’s Quest is sunny and stuff as you kill.
Strato
2836
Yes, Arthur Bruno is the Lead Designer for Grim Dawn and was lead gameplay designer for Titan Quest. The engine for Grim Dawn is the same as for Titan Quest, though modified over time. Crate was and is ex Iron Lore staff.
Edit: To add, Grim Dawn does get its sunny areas too. It isn’t quite the fields of wheat that Elysium had in the TQ expansion, but close :) Like with Titan Quest, the environments are fairly diverse and I’m looking forward to the new act once I get off my butt and finish ultimate Malmouth with my character.
Agreed. Playing, without issue, on the big screen from my couch made this game that much more enjoyable.
Grim Dawn build forums!
Yes, there are a ton of great guides there! Also:
GD Builder For planning out new builds!
FG does scale to level, whereas the campaign does not. FG isn’t big enough to really destroy your leveling that much though, and because of the way levels work (exponential experience gains needed and rewarded depending on what level mobs you fight), you’ll slow down your leveling if you are fighting lower level mobs so you’ll catch back up to the campaign pretty quickly.
Well, at 27 I’m still enjoying the Night King build, even in its infant stage. I will say the new expansion area though is the first time I’ve died several times in rapid succession; the mobs even on level are pretty robust. Part of it though is my own uncertainty about positioning. As this is a pet build, naturally the pets do the work, but I am finding it difficult to manage where I stand in the fracas. I can’t just stand off too far and send in the clowns, because they tend to rubber-band back to me unless I constantly work the “target pet” key, and I can’t really tell the pets from the mobs in the explosion of VFX usually. If I wade in and use my own DPS, I usually end up in some nasty elemental effects and because the build is not focused on defense at all, especially at the leveling phase, I am fairly squishy.
Fights usually are either facerolls or nail-biters, nothing in between. It is fun, though. The build is sort of limiting in terms of weapons, in that you have to have a one-handed melee and an off-hand, so any cool 2H weapons are pretty much off the table, but otherwise I am rather digging it.
LeeAbe
2840
I need a shattered realms for dummies explanation please. I went in there and was doing ok, but I am 28 and everything was 32+. I made it to the first level’s portal in the time limit, but eventually was killed on the next level after time ran out.
I read the official page on them, but I still don’t really get it. Am I supposed to go up a few more levels first, or is everything always red? What’s happens when you run out of time?
My Warlord is level 73 now. This game has swallowed all my gaming time over the last week.
Those of you who launch the x64 version, is there a particular reason to do so? Is it supposed to run smoother or be able to load more things into memory or something? What’s the deal? What’s the limitation of regular Grim Dawn vs the x64 version?
