Steps of Torment? Yeah, that will kill ya. Were you hardcore? If so, my condolences.
How were your resistances? And your Stun reduction?
LeeAbe
3344
I am not that brave, but thank you. Just frustrated that I thought it wouldn’t be a problem, yet it was. I was lacking in stun resistance.
Yeah, Quest Asshole in Steps of Torment will do it to you. Died there on characters who had crushed everything en route a couple times.
One of my big beefs with GD has always been how spiky it is, both in difficulty and ‘once in a while’ combat. There are a lot of points in the game that have these gotcha deathtraps that are really only avoidable if you know they are coming and have built for them. Even then they can catch you out.
I think part of that problem is the few too many resists to worry about thing. I’ve always wished the game had about half the resists to worry about as it does.
My experience has been that since getting serious about resistances toward the end of act 1, most of the spikiness has been smoothed out. That and staying a lot more mobile; so much of the truly dangerous stuff is ground-based and often hard to see, particularly if you’re melee.
LeeAbe
3348
Yeah, the ground stuff has always been my main complaint, especially since resistance does not mitigate it at all. I have had far too many deaths either not seeing it, or trying to travel within area that is full of ground stuff. It’s not fun.
Ormus
3349
The complaints about spikiness are valid. However that is because most players (myself included) simply can’t make themselves prioritise resistances enough. Also entering the super dungeons is trouble.
I have managed to clear the game on hardcore ultimate but you really need to know what you can and cannot take on. I followed a build for that playthrough as well.
You beat Forgotten Gods too? Or just the base acts in hardcore?
Ormus
3351
It was before FG came out, but I did clear Ashes of Malmouth.
I need to come back to the game but so many games! I have a softcore character about halfway through FG in Veteran, dual-wield pistols, need to finish it off. I like the loot shrines.
I never paid close enough attention to notice that ground effects weren’t mitigated by resists. Does this only apply to innate ground effects in places like Immolation, or does this also apply to monster/boss spell/ability effects like fire bombs and aether pools?
Ground effects from bosses and such are mitigated by resists. The aether effects in Immolation and such are not.
Exactly what I needed to know. Thanks.
Winding down my current play through of Grim Dawn, but I like the changes in the new patch. Most noticeable is that the loot on the ground kind of fades when it’s not in line of sight.
One thing I really enjoyed a lot in this playthrough was the ability to make sets. Most of them weren’t useful for this character, but it’s been neat to have all these completed sets in my shared stash now, even high level ones. Mostly it’s only been possible because of that one recipe where you can convert any set item into another random item within the same set. So when you find something, and then find that same something again, it lets you convert one of them into a different item in that set. That let me finish quite a few sets this time. And since I’m not using any of them, I figure, what the hell, collecting sets is as good a criteria for keep items around as any, so I’ve been throwing out and selling all the non-set items in my shared stash.
Out with you! You look potentially good for a theoretical character, but you’re not part of a set, so I don’t need you anymore.
I have been absolutely obliterating everything with my sword & board Warlord, now level 55. I’m also a huge fan of Blitz-type skills, because I love being able to quickly traverse a battlefield during combat (one of the things I loved so much in Diablo 3). Because I enjoy it more for the traversal mechanism than the actual damage it does with my current build, While I do use Blitz, instead of spending points on Vire’s might I crafted a Glyph of the Nothern Ram and have been using it on my medal for the Ramming Speed ability. This allows me to zip back and forth as needed between my two skills.
I’m primarily focused on physical melee damage, but do have a very healthy lightning/physical damage reflection going on. And I have a very heavy focus on shield use (the skills for which have pumped up said reflection damage).
I completed the Forgotten Gods expansion right after defeating the Warden, which only an extended break around level 35 to go grab some devotion points around Homestead, before returning at about level 47 to finish off the expansion. When I was done with that i went and wrapped up the base game, and have the Malmouth expansion still to go (another expansion I don’t think I’ve ever touched before).
At veteran, every boss I’ve encountered has been a cake walk. Every encounter, a speed bump, and every pile of monsters just free experience. I’m positive things will provide a genuine challenge once I complete Malmouth and flip over to Elite difficulty, but I’m enjoying being a powerhouse while it lasts. I’m doing much better here than with my janky dual pistol Mage Hunter.
Strato
3357
I started playing this game again after the most recent patch, which so happened to coincide with a new computer. I decided to start afresh, wiping everything. Goodbye content on steam cloud, no looking back from there. My necro/demolitionist build (whom I’ve called Sam Pyre) is rocking the thermite mines as his main skill. You know how in Grim Dawn dot effects are so subtle they can pretty much spell the end of a character’s life. Yeah, those mines are just that. I drop them and can kite away to my heart’s content and the monsters melt.
I did plan to use the drain essence ability in the necro tree as my main damage skill, stacking on top of the aether weakness that the thermite mines provide. Once I reached elite difficulty though, I found myself with some severe survivability problems. Yeah, it happens. So I switched things up and completely respecced. I didn’t want to go the path of a two handed melee character as I’ve done that plenty of times before, but I went two handed with a massive scythe and changed things so that I relied on the necrotic edge and (less so) reaping strike abilities. Turns out everything is falling before my scythe like mere chaff, and where my survival was questionable, now it’s anything but thanks to the massive heals I get from lifesteal.
I finished up my recent playthroughts going through Port Valbury and Bastion of Chaos. Both areas take a long time when past the Skeleton Key segment, and I walked around both times with quite the wealth of Epic (blue) and Legendary (purple) items. And a bunch of green items for good measure to just give me more iron. Turns out re-enabling all those shared stash slots is expensive.
I really am happy with how this game has turned out over the years. I was a supporter even before the kickstarter, based solely on how much I adored Titan Quest. Given my experiences with the Defiler class (the necro/demo) and how much gameplay can change even when keeping the same two actual classes, yeah, I’m really happy. I do want to go back to a caster again at some point, but that just depends on the items that drop. All hail the might loot totems I guess.
kerzain, gotta ask, when you say easy have you never hit an encounter that got you killed? I ask because I recently got back into the game and did a sword and board (warlord) and it was pretty easy from 1-25. After that I would hit these weird spikes of challenge (Gargabol, Herald of the Flame, Alkamos). I ended up speccing out of my sword and board over to a two hander using cadence and it is better but still spiky in spots. Working on FG now having completed Malmouth. I like the build for the most part but feel like I’m not grokking something fundamental (or maybe I am and this is just how it plays).
I’m basically focusing on physical damage and life on hit - so upping attack speed and maxing cadence with AOE is what keeps me plowing in crowds. Range damage dealers are my bane as I can get tied up with a melee group but can’t recover life quick enough - so positioning is becoming key.
All this is still on normal, about level 57 now.
LeeAbe
3359
This game is just too long now. I am at level 55, I did Forgotten Gods and I am at the end of the normal game and will start Malmouth. But nothing has been challenging on veteran for quite awhile for my conjurer. I just walk through areas and everything around me drops with dots with no effort on my part. I am ready to get on with Elite already. I don’t know how to fix it, but I am getting bored with it again.
If I remember right though, I can skip Malmouth in veteran and go to Elite at least, but I wonder if that will hurt me on faction/shrines?
You’ll be fine on shrines. Malmouth remnant, whatever it’s called, is the only faction you would be missing iirc.
It really depends on your build, and what factions you need. Generally there is something you need out of a malmouth faction, which is annoying, because I’ve always freaking hated that part of the game. They really upped their “can’t get there from here” level design for that, and it drives me nuts.
Check out what mobs you need to kill, because once you have the faction opened up, you don’t actually have to go “there”, you just have to focus on killing a certain group of mobs, which generally are spread out pretty well through the game. I think there was one group of mobs that were primarily there, been a long time.
As far as shrines go, there are way more than you need to cap, so you should be OK.
LeeAbe
3362
I did Malmouth anyway thanks. The difficulty does ramp up a little bit, so it’s not so bad. I am going to be level 90 by the time I finish Veteran at this point.
