Btw, I don’t know when it happened, but I did notice there was a patch or two, and now the Oathkeeper version of Blitz is exactly like Soldier’s Blitz. When you run into someone, you stop. So you no longer pass through enemies with it.
Which, basically sucks. It’s almost as if someone from Crate read my last post saying I like the way it’s different from Blitz that you can pass through enemies with it and escape when you’re in trouble, and they decided, wait, it’s not supposed to work like that. It’s supposed to be exactly like Blitz! So they changed it. Bleh.
So that’s no longer fun. So I guess I’ll be putting even more emphasis on Judgement with that character.
I can’t stand that GrimTools is down for maintenance right now. Come on GrimTools! I need to figure out what Devotions I’m going to get with my Templar.
Gendal
2844
Are you by chance using a controller?
You can now toggle your preferred Mobility Skill behavior when using a Gamepad in the game options (lock on target or move max distance).
Once I did this it let me use my charge thingy skill to escape instead of just running to the closest enemy and stopping.
I was using a controller before, and I’m still using a controller when it suddenly stopped working the same way. I guess they changed the default behaviour. Thanks! I’ll go into the options and change it.
EDIT: Woohoo! It works the old way again! Thanks @Gendal.
Level 53 on my Cabalist (following the Night King build as much as I can), and it’s still pretty interesting. I don’t have the plans for the Adept Spellblade or Plaguebearer’s Master Spellblade, so I can’t equip those, but other than that I’m pretty much sticking to the build. I was using the stuff I had in my stash from other characters but very little of it was pet specific, and I’m still only about half way to the level of +pet damage the build recommends, though there’s certainly still time to get that as I’m just in Veteran and getting to the the end of Act V. Dorked around a bit in the Forgotten Gods stuff but not too much.
I will say this pet build is the best build I’ve tried so far, not that that’s saying much. Before, I was having issues clearing things like the dungeons behind skeleton key doors, but this build just walks through them pretty much, though I do have to watch my health for spike damage bursts. One thing that’s made it much nicer this time through too is setting the loot filter to greens and above once I hit around the mid-forties. Yellows are useless except for selling, but it takes so much time to pick all that crap up and having to go to the vendor every five minutes kinda blows too.
Yeah, I tend to only keep the yellow filter on until about level 35. And definitely never in a skeleton key door place. Those places have way too much loot even with green or above.
I also ran into the same problem with the Night King, I didn’t have the Master Spellblade. But I did have Adept Spellblade in my list already, so I crafted the right one.
One thing I was wondering is how the build would differ with regards to the devotions now with the additions of the Forgotten Gods. For example, there is a new Devotion area at the very top of the Devotion Star Chart called Korvaak the Eldritch Sun now. And it has nodes with
- +30% pet damage,
- +6% pet health (irrelevant to this build, but still)
- +20% Chaos Resistance for Pets (and you)
- +30% pet damage, +8% pet crit damage
- +30% pet damage +5% offensive pet ability
- Eye of Korvaak special ability that can be assigned to the skeletons that sounds amazing.
Seriously, that one sounds perfect for the Night King build. Though the requirements are steep (18 blue, 10 green).
The other problem with the Night King build is that he assigns Arcane Bomb from the Devotion tree to Blight Fiend. Only, now Arcane Bomb can’t be assigned to Blight Fiend anymore, so that part of the build doesn’t work. So maybe that can be removed, and you can go for Korvaak instead. Also, if you’re going to assign Korvaak to the Skeletons, you don’t need Rend anymore (which is sad, because Rend is Amaaaaazing when assigned to the skeletons, but maybe Korvaak will be even better at the end, since it can petrify enemies left and right).
Edit: Yep, it works. If I get rid of the Widow (who culminates in Arcane Bomb), and Huntress (for Rend), then I can instead get the dog and the candlelight, both of which are fairly worthless for this build, but it does let me get Korvaak’s nodes, and Dying God, and Time Dilation.
Cool stuff; I will think about that when I get more devotion points. I have that potion for resetting all devotion points, so I can do it all in one go I guess.
Well I finished the last expansion boss on elite. Level 86 Witch Hunter with mostly purples and he still owned me. I had no idea I was about to get to him and had maybe 5% left to go to hit 87. I died once, but got him down pretty good so decided to finish him off and risk the XP loss.
I should have known better. He got super strong as he lost health. I died seven or eight times when he just had a sliver of health left.
Soooo frustrating. From about to level to 1/4 bar full. Lost ~2 hours of experience.
I get these bosses are optional, and really geared towards hardcore players who make the ultimate builds, but… just…
aarggh. Ima walking away for awhile.
I also finished the expansion content tonight. But I was playing a new character, and went there right after Act 1, so I was only level 35 when I finished the content. The boss that killed me was The Messenger. Repeatedly. However, once I figured out I didn’t have to fight him where he was standing (on lava), it was much easier once I stood on solid ground and made him come to me.
The final boss did almost get me a couple of times, and his last sliver of health did last forever, but I just kept patiently running away and having him run through my burning flames when chasing me. I just concentrated on dodging his various missiles and such.
It’s the one thing I’ve never cared for in GD much, that super spikey damage. There are so many builds in this game that are nullified by this approach to fights. I have so many builds that are super fun to play, and do just fine in the campaign, but just completely fall apart on a lot of boss fights. I wish they could figure out a way to make these fights difficult, without making them cheap, and just one shotting bullet sponges.
In a way it’s gotten worse with this expansion, because they’ve created a build now that is not only the best defense, but the best offense as well (retaliation warlord). It’s really kind of pointless to play anything else at this point if you want to pursue tough content.
I realize that stuff like this is tough to crack from a game design standpoint, but I do wish the boss fights had a little more thought put into them in terms of mechanics. I especially hate the bosses that have really short cooldown rush attacks and megaton one hit power, it just feels so cheap.
Gendal
2852
Agreed, it’s one of the reasons I would never play HC. I am a walking engine of destruction 99.9% of the time, until I am not. That requires a dedication and focus I do not have, as witnessed by my 40+ deaths on my two lvl 100 characters.
I now have a patchwork pet occultist/shaman capable of farming the equipment I need for better builds but I burned myself out for awhile and can’t stand the though of farming. What will happen is by the time I get back to playing, they will nerf this build and I will have to start another character who would be able to farm effectively.
Hehe…I’ve got close to 700 hours into GD, and my highest character is 86, with no real probable likelihood it will ever be higher :P Once the game hits that ‘blink and you’re dead’ stage, I’d rather just level a new build.
One of these days, when I am really and truly burnt on this game, I’ll get GD stash and just put together end game min/max builds and run stuff for times. Until then, I just can’t muster the interest up for “end game”, but my tolerance is low.
Yeah, Elite difficulty is my personal sweet spot. I love Veteran difficulty too, just starting a new character, planning them out, getting them through the campaign, that’s fun. But then getting them through Elite, that’s the really fun part, and it’s doubly so as a Hardcore character. But yeah, none of my hardcore characters have actually made it through Elite difficulty yet.
After that, I’m not sure if Ultimate would be much fun in Hardcore. But as an immortal character, my Purifier is actually really fun in Ultimate. Sure I die a lot, but not dying takes a lot of player skill, not just character design. It involves laying down Hellfire mines as I run away from the enemy, then laying down a seal on the ground and shoot shoot shooting my way to victory. It’s actually quite thrilling. If I don’t do it right, I die. But unlike Gendal and Anklebiter, I don’t much care about dying as a softcore character. Who cares? I can just gain that experience back some other day.
Elite Malmouth is harder than Ultimate 1st act. Same is true for Elite and Normal/vet. Malmouth is the first time the game gets really dangerous, and Ultimate Malmouth is always where I hit that wall. My 86 vindicator has every resist overcapped, and I still get 1 shot by some stuff, and that’s along with taking just about every defensive devotion I can get my hands on.
Standing on an inquis seal, with a maxed wendigo totem running, a maxed word of renewal going, a bunch of heal on attack, and maxed resists and still getting ganked…eh…no thanks game design. That particular character was soooooo good up until malmouth as well, it was pretty much immortal, I could face tank anything up to that point, which was the goal of the build.
I think it’s more the lack of any kind of smooth transition to that kind of damage being done to you that bugs me. When you can sleepwalk through most of the game, and then just all of a sudden hit these insta-gib walls it always ends up feeling really cheap to me.
My 88 purifier is a better build in that regard. I think he’s still on Act IV in Ultimate, or Act III. I’m not sure how you reached Ultimate Malmouth at only level 86. Are you skipping a lot of content on the way there?
But yeah my 88 Purifier is built on the notion from the beginning of never face-tanking anything. So if the enemy gets to my seal, I’ll die, so I only stand on the seal until the enemy gets there, then it’s time to run run run before laying down another seal and shooting.
Hmm, not sure I skipped much but don’t specifically remember, I have a lot of characters lol. That one got that far, because it was the best combination of DPS and survivability I’ve had to date, and was just such a big letdown when it hit Malmouth, as everything that had been working went to hell.
Grembel
2858
I have uninstalled a few times. My best character to date was an 86 warder. Loved playing the build lots of lightning and face tanking. Progressed maybe halfway through ultimate with him before the grind got me and I moved on. Am back now with a necro pet build at 58 or so getting ready to start elite and loving it.
@Rock8man is right in that XP does come fast if that is your goal. After logging in disgust last night I turned on today and ran a few swarming hive runs in Ultimate. Got back everything I lost last night and a few purples for the effort.
Really not sure where to go from there though. I love unbalanced games and have a strong drive to beat them with min-maxing / smart planning etc. Looks like Grim Dawn has my number with this one. I thought my Witch Hunter would pass muster… she does SOO much damage. But I have my doubts.
Probably take her to 100 just to do it and retire her.
Wow, that is one badass looking Witch Hunter.
After you beat the final boss in the expansion area, is there more to do? I did another quest for my faction, but there seems to be no other quests after that one. But I distinctly remember passing an area in the expansion that was blocked off by a magical looking green gate. And I thought, aha, I bet that opens later. Maybe it’s open now that I’ve beaten the boss? Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Where was that green barrier?
OMG I figured, now I’ve got a few purples and have zero xp bar. Let’s try taking Lucius on again in Ultimate.
Er, how many hitpoints does this guy have again? About 20 tries later and he had just a sliver of health missing. I did get him down halfway at one point, but you know, after getting one-shot a few times he gets a huge chunk of health back.
Sure would like to move on in the campaign, but see no way to pass this guy.
Ultimate is all about resist reduction. Unlike other levels they actually have some resists so if you were relying on non-stacked RR or none (missing/not using some of the skills or not prioritizing the right devotions for your damage type(s) you will find every boss a massive hp sponge. Fix your resist reduction and they drop as fast or faster than Veteran.
