So I just started a game on my laptop. Create a character…and it doesn’t show. Apparently cloud save is off on my desktop, and on for my laptop. So 1) serves me right, 2) must be a cloud thing.
My necromancer made it to Homestead this weekend. I don’t know why, but that stretch of game from your first home base to Homestead is the toughest part of the game for me usually. If I stop playing a character in Grim Dawn, it’s usually somewhere in that stretch.
What made this attempt different is that this is the first character with which I didn’t even try to do the dungeon you open with the skeleton key. I just warped to the previous portal and kept going without even trying the dungeon and dying in it. Overall this lead to a much more light-hearted Grim Dawn experience. Usually getting beat down in that dungeon is always a reminder that no matter how powerful my character feels, he/she is just a putz. But not this time!
I think I prefer this method. I know the game gives you a key, and you’re already deep in the dungeon, and the game really wants you to go in and get humbled, but I think from now on I’m going to skip that dungeon.
Yeah, I usually don’t do deeper Steps of Torment runs until later, like when a retrieval quest asks for an item from in there (I think it’s the Witch at Fort Ikon who gives that quest).
I gotta say, so far I’m sort of bouncing off the expansion zones. The swampy zones and endless quantities of poison… not loving it. The best part of the Xpac so far for me is just trying out the two new classes in the older zones.
Yeah, but there’s a Devotion Shrine in there so it’s worth doing for that alone. Plus it gives a lot of Rover rep so you can get to honored quicker at which they give you the quest to unlock another Devotion shrine. Plus, Steps is very easy with a necro character.
I meant the area of the dungeon behind the skeleton key. I still did the part leading up to the door. So I got the devotion shrine.
Unless you mean that there’s another devotion shrine behind the door? If so, I’ve never gotten to that. I always die in the third or fourth room. And once you die, you can’t open it again until much later in the game when you craft another key. At which point I went back and I died in the third or fourth room again.
Ah, okay. Yeah, I do the same thing. I made it though 3 levels before I died the last time I used the key and really didn’t get any decent drops. Might be good grinding in there after finishing the game though.
My Apostate managed to make it all the way to the end of the Steps of Torment before being smooshed in a one-shot by Alkamos, which was sort of disappointing. I usually have no trouble through most of the Steps, but the Apostate is just too weak to withstand hits if enemies (particularly bosses) get by my pets. Unfortunately, Alkamos doesn’t make much effort to wipe them out and I can’t re-summon them fast enough to replenish before he’s on me. Ah well, I’m way beyond that now, level 45 and eager to make it through to the new content.
I tried around there and got crushed in the room of death. Came back at 54 and managed to get by Alkamos with my Inquistors Seal and some kiting over to another seal. Not to sound like a broken record but resistances are really important for these big bosses. Alkie is all about cold attacks so chug one of those cold resist potions to get up to 80%. I was suprised how much easier it was. Still didn’t get anything nice to drop though. GD rng hates me. :)
I finally got a Wraith as a pet a couple of days ago, but am pretty disappointed with it. I didn’t realize that the Wraith would only last for 10 seconds. Any pet that I have to cast and re-cast all the time is not a good one, in my book. What a pain in the ass.
Doesn’t sound all bad if you think of it as a 10 second dot you don’t have to aim.
It’s all just numbers, man!
With my pet shaman build he’s hard because unlike other bosses he seems to ignore pets and go straight for the player. I got squashed on Elite difficulty after he froze me! Wish I had taken the anti freeze potion along with me.
I just use my wraith on bosses. It’s not needed for anything else. And even for the bosses, 10 seconds is fine. None of them really last longer than that.
Got my Cabalist up to 73 now and I’m a good way though the Elite difficulty play-though. I’ll be glad to get to Ultimate and start getting some of the better legendary drops.
I switched my Eldritch Fire devotion skill over to Curse of Frailty and that was a great move because it turns COF into a huge 10 meter, 12 second damage DOT and Eldritch Fire procs every time immediately from it and spreads though the mob’s ranks. It’s awesome. I gave Aetherfire to my Blight Fiend.
Last night I found an area of the game I’ve never found before on any playthrough. I’m pretty sure it must have been there in the past, but I never returned to the area with enough dynamite before.
There’s a quest you get at Homestead to go find some cannons in the confliguration, or something like that. In order to do that one, you have to constantly run through green-Aether infested areas to the north of Homestead. And it’s tough enough as it is to get through that area once, constantly dying if you don’t time your potion drinking correctly. Dying just to the environment, never mind the actual enemies. But anyway, part way through that area, there’s a place where you can clear a pathway if you have 3 dynamite. I actually remembered to return there today. And that leads to an area with a portal, and the portal takes you to a different area that’s full of Aether environmental hazards all over the place. After taking an hour or so to finally clear that area, I found a new gate in the game that needs a skeleton key! So a whole new rogue-like dungeon type place I guess.
I swear no one reads my posts. ;-)
mild quest chain spoilers
The Fort Ikon witch quest chain will take you there eventually, too.
I haven’t been working on faction at all with this character, and I am wondering how much that is hurting me. I didn’t get the rovers shrine quest, so there is one shrine I am down. Wonder what else I am missing? Level 51 and in the new areas, so It is near impossible to get rover faction at this point because all of that area is dark blue to me.
Speaking of lower level stuff, does the Warden still drop a tainted brain if he is blue? I need one, don’t know where to get it.
Hey I actually know what you’re talking about now!
Well you did describe it better than I did. I do have a key now, so I should go back, I just hate dealing with the aether patches so have no real urge. I find elite difficulty much more fun in general, so I just want to be done with this normal/veteran play through.
New patch out in a couple of weeks. Better controller support, but that’s not what I am happy about. This is:
What this means to you is that the casting behavior of all skills will be updated to be much more responsive. Casting a skill will make the character cast it immediately in the targeted direction rather than forcing the character to run up to the skill’s casting distance.
As an example, let’s say you try to cast the Arcanist’s Callidor’s Tempest. Currently, if you point the cursor far away from your character, your character would run up to the minimum distance that ability can be cast and then actually cast the skill. With the V1.0.3.0 improvements, it won’t matter where your cursor is on the screen. Callidor’s Tempest will cast immediately without any additional movement. A major improvement!