Grim Dawn - An ARPG from Crate (ex Iron Lore aka Titan Quest devs)

I’ve played the Warror, Demolitionist, Shaman?, Occultist?, Arcanist? There’s one other base class left to try, the one with that shows of a dual wielding rogue.

All other classes, I thought, was just a matter of which of these you picked as a second class? I’m not worried about a second class yet. I’m just getting a feel for the original 6 classes first.

That’s a shame that all the classes don’t stay powerful later.

Ah ok, sorry, my fault, forgetting the names myself now. Regular classes:

Soldier
Shaman
Occultist
Demolitionist
Nightblade
Arcanist

I don’t think I ever played a single class past level 10 because half the fun for me is combining them. I have no ideal if any of them are doable or not at higher difficulties.

I think they did some work on pets awhile back, but I’ve never used them much. Dreeg’s Evil Eye is very strong all by itself, though.

Pet classes, built correctly, are absolutely viable and pretty quick to clear as well. Not as barnstormingly strong as they used to be, because they changed up agro, but still great.

I got my retribution Warder up to 36 and he is basically unkillable on veteran so far. Melee creatures die instantly but ranged? Ug. His damage is so pathetic that unless they start to melee it takes comparatively forever to kill anything. Not particularly fun for me, but probably a great combination for babby’s first HC character.

I want a ranged fireball/glass cannon build to take the taste out of my mouth now…

So last night, I played as the last one of those that I hadn’t tried yet: The Nightblade. Funny enough, I was basically making the EXACT character I’d just finished playing through in Titan Quest Anniversary edition (Harbinger). I have all these dual-wield moves that sometimes trigger, just like in the older game under the Warrior tree, and I have on Right Click the shadow strike move from the Dream tree.

Overall, I’d say that it was harder to get through the same portion of the game than most of the other characters, but just like the Occultist, once I unlocked the higher level abilities I was able to get to around level 11, suddenly it became a lot easier. I especially love that move where the blades swirl all around you. There’s two moves like that. And both are great when you’re surrounded by enemies.

When I was done, I was actually level 15, unlike all my other characters, who only reached level 11. So maybe tonight I’ll try to have the other characters catch up.

Or I could create a warrior to make up for the hardcore Warrior I made who died. That way I’ll have a character from each tree again.

So pick arcanist, max Flash Freeze and put a flintcore bolt on your offhand for the greater fireball.

Proceed to mow through all trash on veteran entire screens at a time. Flash freeze, if it doesn’t kill them all outright also kindly grants each mob a 60 to 100% penalty to fire resistance, making them wonderfully vulnerable to the fireball.

Max arcanist and then devastation and proceed to mow through bosses like trash as well.

Not sure it will hold up past Veteran very well but it’s easy enough to respec later.

I played as a non-hardcore Soldier last night, got her up to level 13.

This was my 7th time through the opening content of the game, so here’s some observations of that first part of the game:

  • I like this first part a lot. This is very important, because this is the part you play the most. The only thing that bothers me about Path of Exile is that I don’t like the opening section all that much. It gets better later in the first act, but playing through that beach and the den of evil, and all that, I just bear it because I know it will get better, but I wish they opening of the game was better. Well, Grim Dawn’s starting area, the most important area in a ARPG, is a good one.

  • This is the first ARPG I’ve played where there’s so much “set loot”. So now when I start, I know exactly where to go to find a good starting green gun (Francis’ Gun), and which house I have to clear to find a 2 handed lightning sword that kicks ass at the start. In fact, most of the green loot seems to come from set locations or quests. And I’m surprised at my own reaction, but I enjoy this. Maybe more ARPGs should have more non-randomized loot to ensure that players never get screwed. At the very least you’re going to get access to this equipment every single play-through, even if you crap out in the random loot generator, which some of my characters did.

So yeah, kudos to Grim Dawn.

Now that I’ve played through the beginning of the game 7 times, it’s time to move forward. For my Soldier, I noticed that having two handed weapon abilities isn’t completely unique. There’s one other class that has bonuses to 2 handed melee weapons. That’s the Shaman. So my first second class instinct is to level up my Soldier all the way, and then choose Shaman as a second class, and gain those other 2 handed weapon passive bonuses that add lightning damage and other things. I think that will make my Soldier even more badass.

Gendal’s synergy suggestion of taking my Arcanist and adding a demolitionist as a second class to combine ice and fire sounds like a great synergy too.

Careful about leveling up soldier all the way. Once you do you are stuck with it. You can not undo points in the base class level like you can with other stuff. So take a look at what you get in the upper tiers.

Warder can be fun, just be careful about going too heavily toward the overly defensive route, which tends to become less effective in the higher difficulties. You want a nice mix of damage and panic buttons, IMO.

You have more patience than I do. Act I is my least favorite part of the game, especially the long dungeon to the first boss. Not that I don’t like it, it’s just huge and I think the rest of the game has more interesting dungeons and enemies to fight. I also found the game much more interesting at higher levels where you have more character development choices to make.

I don’t think I’ve reached that far yet. I’m talking about the early part of the game, not the end of Act 1, which is likely what you’re talking about? With all my characters I’ve reached the third Portal, and with two of them I reached the fourth Portal, and with one of those two characters, I reached the fifth Portal after the long dungeon to the town that starts with B. Berkshire estates, or something like that. But most of my other characters haven’t reached that far yet. I’m just talking about the early game. The first two-three hours. That’s the part that I feel is the most important in an ARPG to be really fun.

I don’t know, with each of the six starting classes I found the rate of advancement pretty quick and lots of abilities to explore with each class. The arcanist gave me the most choices early on, it felt like. But even the Soldier’s abilities gave me the choice on whether to focus on two handed abilities or go with weapon and shield so that I could also go into shield abilities.

I am referring to all of Act I. I thought the whole swamp area was just too big and on subsequent play-throughs could never wait to get through it (I think Act 3 is probably my favorite for atmosphere/enemies). I am guessing you aren’t even halfway through Act 1 yet, but it has been a while since I played.

We just play very differently. I found it got more interesting combining the classes to see what skills compliment each other and seeing how they do on the higher difficulty levels. And I am guessing you haven’t even gotten into the constellations yet? To me it sounds like you are missing out on the more interesting aspects of the game, but to each their own. If you’re having fun, more power to you.

So I am going to take the Demo as a secondary class but to be clear my recommendation above is all arcanist. The Greater Fireball you pair with Flash Freeze is a crafted item that you won’t have yet but it’s very easy to get with another character then transfer over to a starting arcanist. It’s very powerful for the easy of acquisition and will save you a ton of skill points because it can last through all of veteran as your main attack.

The other thing that probably isn’t obvious is that reducing any monster’s fire resistance by 5% is far more powerful than increasing your own fire damage by 5%.

More power to me? I have no idea what’s waiting for me past level 13. I have only one constellation point for each character, so I have no idea how those work yet. There’s not much you can do with one constellation point.

I’m not saying I want to keep playing the beginning over and over. I’m just saying that in any good ARPG, that is the portion of the game you inevitably play most often. That’s all. So I packed in some of that up front just to try out the different starting classes. I only got the ability to pick a second class for each character, so I have no idea how these combinations will work. I have to admit I’m leary of going outside of my beginning class because of Titan Quest. In TQ, the moment I left my starting class and started combining classes, my character started doing poorly and dying a lot. Hopefully Grim Dawn is better balanced and that won’t happen, but I’m not far enough in the game to know one way or the other.

Oh cool. You can craft items in this game? I’ll look forward to that. So if the Great Fireball is something I can get and hand down to my Arcanist, I think I’ll keep playing as my Soldier for now, make Shaman his secondary class, and then when he’s able to make a Great Fireball, I’ll hand that down to my Arcanist.

You will run into a blacksmith quest line shortly, and from that you can start crafting things like the flintcore bolt (which attached to an offhand item will grant Greater Fireball as a skill). Also relics, some of which are very powerful, though the best require you to find their recipes as rare drops.

What I described is kind of an optimal path for jump starting an arcanist with a small bit of twinking from another character. Later you can go in all kinds of different directions thanks to the generous respec features (just remember you can’t respec attribute or mastery points).

Yes. It doesn’t matter so much on normal, but in the higher difficulty debuffing resists and finding abilities that work together to debuff/damage the same type are increasingly important.

I eschewed sleep last night in order to play over 6 hours of Grim Dawn yesterday. I was up until literally quarter to three playing this. It’s got me deep.

I got my Soldier, now my Warder since I added Shaman as my second class, to level 20 from 13. So it took me a long time to level up each time. I miss gaining levels faster from the early game. My Warder is still in Act 1, still going after the Burrnwich estates, or whatever they are called, going after the Warden.

From a leveling up perspective, this stage of the game is just pumping points into Soldier mastery every time in the hopes of reaching the next tier, which seem to be getting farther and farther away. And leveling up a character takes longer and longer. Most of my equipment is blue now, and I guess I should get used to the idea of playing this character with little or no changes for a while.

Nevertheless, the actual moment to moment gameplay is a blast, so I don’t mind that much. Though I wish they hadn’t done it this way. It’s not very rewarding to level up and just put all the points into a mastery and not get anywhere. And then an hour later level up again, and only put a point into a decent enhancement that doesn’t do much more than putting a point into the mastery. And then an hour later level up again and put points into the mastery. And then an hour later level up and put points into the mastery. Remember the early levels of the game? Where leveling up was faster and every level you were putting points into an interesting new ability? I miss that.

Part of the slow leveling may be because you’re mastery dumping. If you don’t invest in your combat abilities, your clear speed can take a real hit and result in slow leveling.

That’s a good point. I was only Mastery dumping because when I didn’t do that in Titan’s Quest, I started getting really weak and getting my ass kicked. So from then on all my characters went into Mastery first. It hadn’t occurred to me that Grim Dawn might not be balanced the same way.

The other thing is that it’s so hard to tell which of the abilities needs more than one point. Which abilities are worth putting multiple points in, and which are just fine with one point.

Remember, you can respec anything easily other than ability points (Physique, Cunning, & Spirit) and mastery points. So think twice before sinking points into mastery. Pretty much everybody just puts points based into Physique from what I can tell, using Devotions & gear to make up the difference, even on something like my pure arcanist build. Only later, like 50-60+ might you put points into something else for some legendary gear requirements.

Devotions can be build defining btw if you haven’t looked to much into them. I find its interface to be overwhelming and bewildering but man can it take a character to the next level. So many cool little synergies if you spend the time to find them.