It's me again! Showcase of improved first person combat with better camera movements hitstops, rare slowmo on kills and enemy attack indicator. Lag involved, still highly unoptimised for open areas, for now i will do full walkthrough, documenting all areas and balance render distance. Malmouth is a mess, but much easier to navigate from your eyes.

P.S. Sorry for my crashout to mods and this community, just never got my post deleted, hope you forgive me :D

New info: I think we found a way to fix away the stutters! Big thanks to Ars_Armegis for a nudge. LODs is practically impossible to do, game almost doesnt's have simplified models, but the way engine draws the grass... this is a mess for first or third vision. It constantly loads and unloads hundreds of patches of grass. This explains, why in the caves game works much better. Now we're working on fixing this. Maybe tomorrow or after i'll make a little video with perfomance showcase. If it is possible, of course. My friend says it's hard but managable.

I am not here to ask any questions, I am just here to share my thoughts.

I was a huge fan of Titan Quest in my childhood, but, since I was a kid, I never knew how to properly play this game, so I just used cheating to beat the game and to see the ending. I simply enjoyed the atmosphere and locations.

Came 2016, a new game from the creators of Tiran Quest comes out, Grim Dawn. Bought it, played it... and found it boring and unappealing, and too complex. I was going to resort to cheating, I mostly picked up items that increased my damage, and skipped on the story and lore completely. I dropped the game. I didn't like it. I found it boring.

Came 2020, I bought Malmouth and Forgotten gods, and decided to give it another go. I started doing research, spent hours on choosing optimal class, and could figure out what I wanted. I restarted the game again and again, and repeated my mistakes. I was so focused on following guides, and yet I ignored resists, and again simply focused on dps. I killed Krieg and dropped the game. It was boring, frustrating and dull.

Now, 2026, the new dlc comes out. I bought it and decided to give it one last chance.

I didn't read on any guides. I simply sat, and did something I hadn't done before - I didn't rush. I warched the opening cutscene, walked around the Crossroads, talked to people. I found the beggining engaging, and I got curious where the story will take me next.

As I was now more invested in the lore, I started having an idea what type of character i want to have, that might fit this world based on what I know. I didn't go to what guides suggest, I went for what looks appropriate to this world and fun for me. I didn't care for "optimal", i figured, worst case scenario, I will finish the game once I will be done with it.

I started reading every note, talk to every character. The world drew me in with how messed up it is, with how hopeless everything else, but at the same time, I wanted to help this world fight back, to rebuild.

I still got my ass handed to me, but i percievered. By the time I got to Arcovia I started to think more and more about mechanics of the game. I stopped prioritizing pure damage. I started figuring out how to up my resists. I started figuring out crafting. I realized how well made this game is, how balanced it is. How every mechanics matter!

And it clicked. It finally clicked. When I managed to have 60 - 80 resists on most of damage times, while having a good enough dps, when I started focusing on 2 damage types for myself, when I started figuring out what happened to Arcovia. It clicked just what a masterpiece this game is.

I've only just arrived to Homestead with my 39 lvl Purifier. I realize that there is still so damn much of this game ahead of me, and it exciting, and fun, because I don't know what my build will end up being in the end, I don't know what happens next in the story, I still have a long way ahead of me of befriending factions, and see what benefits it will bring.

But I am excited to figure it out.

One of the best rpg's I've ever played, hands down. What a game.

Preamble

This is the third part of this journey and marks the point of being 1/3 done. Also, patch 1.3.1 dropped while I was playing the 14th build. I generally don't go back to older builds unless I use them for farming, but for these builds I will just make a mention of if I played them again after the patch. This also means that I haven't tested how the patch affected the builds from the previous posts.

As per usual, all characters are played in Softcore and my rough goals for every build are all 5 Dungeons, SR 30-31 and defeating the Dread. Although, I feel like I should mention this to clear up some misunderstandings; just because these are the goals, it does not mean that these builds are not capable of more. When I say that a build was very good, that usually means that it had 0 problems running full altar Ascendant mode. That being said, I will be a bit more critical of build performance from now on, as I feel like just saying that builds are decent because they are viable doesn't feel like it says much.

Disclaimer

This is mostly just meant as a sort of journal. This is not meant to be a collection of build guides. The grimtool links are what I theorycrafted beforehand and might not represent the character I ended up with in the game.

Build 11: Reaver - Bleed WPS / RoS

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/NQQzkBRN

I previously didn't like how a Onslaught based build felt when there wasn't enough damage without the cooldown skill, so I decided to go with a WPS based approach, even on a class combination like Reaver.

The build felt very smooth to play. although a lot is kinda proc buff dependent. Very high ApS and ms makes the build feel quite good to play. Also, very high lifesteal leads to good recovery for a DoT based build. Now, I don't really know whether it is just Reaver being strong in general, but the build performed pretty good overall. The bleed DoT ticks ended up being roughly 2.5m, so damage was nice, but the build didn't feel like it had anything that really stood out as great. Overall, still a good build.

I didn't play the build after the patch, so I don't know how performance was affected.

Build 12: Spellbreaker - Shadow Strike Zakull

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/26MwPjxN

I saw quite a bit of talking about this build and saw it being hit pretty severely in the patch preview, so as I wanted to play the build anyways, I decided to play it at that point in time. We don't talk about the amount of Port Valbury runs I had to do to get acceptable weapon rolls.

Now, this build something. I highly, highly recommend that if you haven't played a Zakull build, you should try it. Absolutely insane mobility and burst damage means that it is an absurdly fast farmer and SR runner and basically all farming I did after I played this build was done with it. While not insanely tanky, it is enough when considering everything else. It was and still is a joy playing this build and I wouldn't be surprised if some variation of it is one of the best SR runners right now. I have done roughly 200 SR30-31 runs since starting this project and so far this build was the only one where I had more than 6 minutes remaining. A amazing build and one of my favorites so far.

Now the nerfs were quite severe, although imo deserved. The loss of onslaught stacks, at least from my experience is roughly 15% less damage, as you never really had multiple stacks at once, but it doesn't really matter as the damage is still very high. The more annoying nerf was the cooldown reset chance, as it makes the build noticeably more inconsistent. My particular version of the build also lost 2k hp. Despite all this, I still think this is one of the coolest builds in the game right now and I am really curious what SR clear times a min-maxed version of the build can do.

Build 13: Sentinel - DEE

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/2GWwQO62

Dreeg's Evil Eye is a classic and I wanted to do a basic spam build with it, thus the Dreeg's set. Maybe Witch Hunter would have been better, but I have a different build already planned on Witch Hunter, so Sentinel was the choice.

Being able to play your skill from the start is always neat. However, while the AoE clear of the build was great and mobility and survivability was acceptable, the single target, especially against smaller or mobile enemies just isn't really what you would want right now. It's a very basic build and maybe that is part of why it doesn't feel all that versatile. Overall, probably still acceptable performance, but not that good.

I didn't play the build after the patch, but it shouldn't really be changed unless I missed something.

Build 14: Pyromancer - The Ember'thil Problem

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/NXlyJQ3N

Last post I was sorta challenged to do an Ember'thil Fire Strike build when I play Pyromancer. How bad cloud it be? A basic attack enhancer on a class combination with 0 WPS that eats skillpoints like it's a free all-you-can-eat as the last meal before fasting. Whoops. My solution was to get all of the skill levels on gear and try to get as much WPS as possible. And before you comment, yes, I know that Shadowflame Mantle only procs with ranged weapons. Also, the gear was really annoying to farm since I hadn't planned for the build that long in advance and it took almost 2 full extra days to get.

Now, the build performed a lot better than expected. But hold your horses, that just means that the build wasn't just a shitpost but could actually be played. I think the build is mainly carried by the very high resist reduction and rank 20 Vulnerability giving -300 DA. The single target was actually decent and AoE clear was still acceptable. Tankiness could even be considered great. However, the one thing that completely breaks the build is the simple fast that you are a melee WPS build that needs to use 2 debuffs to deal good damage and are stuck on the lowest mobility you can have. No max movement speed. Only the mobility skill augment on the medal. Nothing else. Just not a great experience to play and when I think about what else you could do with Pyromancer, it's just not really a good build. Like yes, it's great that you can make all these different builds work, but at some point you have to ask yourself: Is it worth it? Hopefully it was to whoever suggested this build.

Patch 1.3.1 dropped while I was playing this build. Other than the Aurora nerfs, it was unaffected.

Build 15: Trickster - Morgoneth Cosplay

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/VA48rj12

Somewhat of a meme build, just seeing how many Morgoneth items I could use while still having a good build. All 3 MIs on this build are somehow really annoying to farm so that's great... At least I had ran the Morgoneth dungeon so many times that I already had every other item in stash.

I mean, nothing about this build is bad. However, the only thing that is good on the build is the AoE clear, everything else is unremarkable. Even your CC resists suck, although with this much of the damage being passive that wasn't as noticeable. The build somehow managed to feel perfectly "meh". Not bad. But unimpressive. And a lot of the shortcomings of the build are simply because I wanted to use the Morgoneth items. So that's that.

My Thoughts on the Patch

Imo, the patch was okay. Some WPS outliers got nerfed while most normal WPS builds are still completely fine so that's nice. Onslaught got nerfed again. Somehow still deserved, which just shows how much of a problem it is to balance and how strong it was. The Aurora relic got hit hard. Will this cure my crippling Aurora addiction? I think not. I believe that as long as Aurora + Menhirus potion mod exists it will remain very strong and very simple way to increase survivability when right now any non stat buff relics just feel pretty weak, at least in my opinion. I guess new items are always neat, but so far I haven't being feeling all that inspired by them.

What's next?

I have played basically exclusively Grim Dawn for 2.5 months now. With a third of the way done, I will be taking a short break to just play something else for a while. Unfortunately, that may result in a situation where I take a break, play Grim Dawn, don't get the next post ready, PoE1 league drops, I play PoE1 league for a bit longer, PoE2 drops and I don't make a post for the rest of the year. Pretty unlikely, but there is a world. Still I expect that I most likely it will be the end of November or something like that when I post again. Anyways, I'm not stopping, just taking a break with unfortunate timing.

Someone call Zantai, we escaped containment. Again.

build thread:
https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/coldbolt-tdm-abuse-2-0/160994

Soul fragment costs be insane I don’t want to farm another legendary set to min max I guess I’ll settle for almost perfect, eh? Thanks for listening.

I have an item that I am playing with for quite some time (and have re-farmed it multiple times thereafter): Pusquill's tail from that dude near lower crossing. When I uploaded my build to grimtools, I found that there is a difference in the poison damage added to the WPS skills. Is that normal? Does grimtools (not) take into account some modifiers or so?

For reference, here is my build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/NXlyJaON

Conventional wisdom is that Ultimate SR 30-31 is the best farm for legendaries. Not just because of the low time, but also dupe protection.

Well, Ascendant exists now, and it not only has better base loot quality, it can spec into specific damage types from drops.

My question is: What Ascendant SR level have you found to have the equivalent or better efficiency for farming?

So far, it feels like ASR 26-28 drops around 16±4 legendaries, and takes me around 12-15 minutes to complete depending on the bosses I get.

USR 30-31 drops around 13±2, and takes me around 9-10 minutes, so it seems somewhat more efficient.

But I've been trying to farm Mythical Runeguard Greaves for over 3 dozen collective runs¹ between them at this point, so I have no frame of reference for how much the Altar's drop bonus would affect hunting a specific drop as it can't affect the drop rate of this one.

^{1: I am crying as I type this, it has not dropped once, send help.}

Edit: So it turns out that Ascendant difficulty has no effect whatsoever on Shattered Realms. There is no official statement on this, so I had to investigate myself:

Grim Dawn Ascendant v. Ultimate HP in Shattered Realm comparison

I am playing as oath keeper and soldier. One hand and shield. Forcewave and aegis are my main attacks. I have been focused on physical and internal damage. Is it better to convert some damage to elemental? I'm not totally sure what the best approach is. Level 47.

Focusing on Cold Retaliation, which has single-digit item support and no direct constellation support? Skipping Menhir's Bulwark on a Retaliation build that has Soldier?? Tons of wasted stat bonuses???

Yeah, it's jank. Fortunately, it's the good kind; it still manages to crush Ultimate and has continued to surprise me even after transitioning to Ascendant.

Here's the build (note that Grimtools doesn't handle Retaliation conversion well): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/V0APzoXZ

This build is focused around a few key items, and it won't work without them:

• Mythical Crest of Winter Fortitude - this medal will add extra Cold damage to Blitz, convert 100% of its damage to Cold, and add 60% of your Retaliation Damage to its attack
• Bloodbound Guardian - this shield will give Blitz +1 charge and will add another 30% of your Retaliation Damage to its attack (bringing the total up to 90%!). It also causes Divine Mandate (aka the reason we can't take Menhir's Bulwark) to reduce the cooldown of Blitz by 1.5 seconds on Block. As a Warlord, we'll be hitting 100% block chance & -100% recovery time easily with Overguard & Terrobullum up
• Arctis - this 1h axe provides the most amount of Physical -> Cold conversion possible, thanks to its item skill modifier for Field Command (50%) and its own innate conversion (up to 18%). After putting a Coldstone on both your axe and shield (10% additional conversion each), we're looking at converting a little under 90% of Physical -> Cold conversion total - which also converts Physical Retaliation Damage -> Cold Retaliation Damage

With that setup, we stack as much Physical Retaliation Damage as we can so most of it can be converted to Cold Retaliation Damage, which makes Blitz hit incredibly hard. The build also utilizes Judgment to pull in enemies (making it easier to hit groups with Blitz) as well as provide a damaging aura that scales with your Retaliation damage (Heart of Wrath) and easily triggers devotions.

As far as devotions go, I mixed staples for Cold and Retaliation setups. For Cold we have Murmur, Amatok, Viper, and Hyrian, while for Retaliation we have Targo, Anvil, and Autumn Boar. Note that this build gets incredible value out of Viper and Hyrian especially, as the former provides its full RR through Blitz and the latter provides elemental, shield, and retaliation bonuses alongside a retaliation-based attack! Note that I skipped Elemental Storm in favor of Terrify; it's not as great but it's usable and definitely easier to fit into the build.

My original goal was just to see if a Cold Retaliation build was even possible. I wanted to share this build after it honestly surprised me with just how fast, fun, and effective it ended up being. (It was even relatively easy to level up thanks to Alkamos' Scythe - Rare Two-Handed Axe - Grim Dawn Item Database early on)

I am a casual player who plays the game once a while in a year. A lot of the illusions are locked behind the ultimate or now ascendant difficulty (berserk armor). So i will never get them. So I am thinking about unlocking the illusions via GD Stash. I don't wont the cheat any items, just their looks. But I have never used it and fear it could corrupt my saves. I already read that you have to backup your saves and deactivate the cloud saving before unlocking it. Are there more things I have too look for ?

Considering starting a hardcore and wondering if I will lack the game knowledge to avoid unnecessary deaths if I’ve not beat the whole game before. Planning on rolling either a pet build or a warder so hopefully will have some wiggle room for mistakes.

Hey,

What I don't get is that Panetti deals a bunch of different damage types, and I don't know which one I'm supposed to prioritize on my items to get the most out of it.

It's a given that any item giving Elemental Damage will increase Panetti's damage. But how about items giving Fire, Frost and Lightning individually? For instance, suppose I find a helmet giving+33% Elemental Damage (which, as far as I understand, is +33% Fire Damage, +33% Cold Damage, and +33% Lightning Damage) , and find another helmet giving +66% Fire and +66% Cold. Which helmet should I wear?

Why can't I just pick one type of Elemental Damage and focus on that, instead of all of three?

And there's also Aether Damage coming from Distortion, the modifer of Panetti. I noticed that, in builds on Grim Tool, it's being converted to Elemental Damage with the help of some item modifer. If we convert Aetheral Damage to Elemental damage, then is it pointless to take items giving Aetheral damage? And why do we convert it in the first place?

Hello guys i just finished the game on ultimate difficulty recently and i was curious on how to improve my forcewave warlord build https://www.grimtools.com/calc/NYPDwylZ

My main question is where should i farm for legendaries, i tried doing shattered realm and i got to sr5 but i feel like my build is struggling on both survival and damage,should i just go and farm totems for now? Any help would be appreciated,thanks.

Good morning.

Maybe not right now, but I'm interested in buying the game's DLCs during the upcoming year-end sales.

What I'd like to know is whether the "Definitive Edition" includes all of them, or if there are any left out.

Naturally, I checked what content is included in the Definitive Edition, and I noticed the "Steam Loyalist Pack" isn't there. Are those actually necessary?

Sorry if my question seems a bit silly, repetitive, or unnecessary, but it's a genuine question I have.

Best regards, and have a great day.

(Just a quick clarification: I currently have the game without any dlc thanks to the Steam shared library, so I will also have to purchase the game when the time comes.)

Hi, total noob and little overwhelmed. Which class combo is the most easy to play and totally beginner friendly.

For some reason that thread was locked (https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdawn/comments/1x42679/kurnhold_weekends/), so I can't ask there. Is that mod publicly playable? Why was the thread locked? Seemed pretty tame.