Hello chums!

I hope you're all doing great lately? Like many of you, I'm working through my eternal backlog. I've recently come to "Grim Dawn"- a Diablo clone that has more in common with what Diablo 3 was originally gonna look like- tough, mature and gritty.

So far, I'm super into this game. I've only done about 4 hours over 3 sessions, but it's a great pick up and play game. I'll admit, the story has done absolutely NOTHING for me, but that's not why you come to a game like this. It's all about loot-em-up mechanics and seeing what kinda cool spells and enemies you come up with.

So far, I'm playing an Occultist with points in the Hellhound Summon, and a few in that poison skill, paired with Arcanist points that are focused in the "Meteor Strike" style attack, with the "Buff your attack with elemental damage" skills. I'm using an epic 2H shotgun, which seems way strong, but I've just found a poleaxe that has an extra 200(!) DPS, I just need another level or two with points in strength to use it

Anyone else playing, especially now the expansion has come out? What builds are you using? What kinda weird shit are you playing with :D

I was a huge fan of Diablo's 1 and 2 and really disliked Diablo 3, of all the Diablo-like games out there Grim Dawn is the best one i've played they completely nailed it.
I played it in 2016 so i don't remember details about my character, but i put 71 hours into it apparently.
I've always had Victor Vran on my to do list so that's probably the next game in this vein that i'll play, but i'm more than ready for Diablo 2 to appear on GOG.

I've been playing a "Captain America" Oathkeeper this expansion, been having decent fun with it. Unfortunately I found this expansion a bit disappointing. The way they are adding content to the game makes the progression feel disjointed. Not in any way as bad as PoE (which is a total mess at this point), but enough to make me lose direction. It also didn't help that the new end-game they added this expansion (Shattered Realms) is sorta half baked. It's a good idea, but it needs refinement.

The last expansion was just the perfect balance for me. I could play through all the three campaigns and by the time I hit the end of the third I was max level and had a 90% perfect gear set. With this one I'm left at a point where going through the campaigns feel pointless but none of the grind activities are especially engaging.

I also played through the Anniversary edition of Titan Quest recently, and it showed me how they're still sorta shackled by some of the design of that game. They've been making strides to improve, but I wish they would've embraced a fully active playstyle at this point. In Titan Quest it made sense, you are playing a hoplite who has some special abilities to use now and then, but for many of the classes in Grim Dawn it doesn't make sense to have these 3-4-5 second CD abilities when that's all you're doing. I realize it would take a massive overhaul of the game at this point, but having played with fully active skills like the laser beam or the flame thrower or the whirlwind it easily shows how much more engaging it makes the combat.

Yeah I like Grim Dawn as well and have been playing the new expansion. I never put a crazy amount of time into the game (Steam says I have 162 hours) but I have finished the original campaign and got to the end of the first expansion Ashes of Malmouth, I never beat it because I was having trouble on my Druid spec. I made a Oathkeeper and Nightblade with the newest expansion and I haven't died yet, I feel super tanky so I'm liking that. Will try the Ashes of Malmouth boss with that spec eventually.

If I had to make a complaint about the game is that it still feels like a mod of Titan Quest. A very good mod of course, but the game feels older than what it is I guess. The sound design and animations are just very underwhelming, they lack a punchy feeling. In the end I don't mind though, the gameplay is what keeps pulling me back. I will probably stick with GD until Wolcen is finished, which is taking a very long time unfortunately.

Grabbed the expansion and having a lot of fun. Doing the Demo/Nightblade as I wanted to dual wield but I look forward to the inevitable replay in a few months where I do a more caster-style play.

Has anyone figured out how to get the new mobility runes? I skipped the expansion quest for now but I wouldn't mind taking a trip to not-egypt to grab a leapslam or teleport or something.

Still, Grim Dawn is probably my favorite ARPG and has been for a while now. The skill progression is a bit awkward but I think the only ARPG that got it "right" is Diablo 3 as just about every level feels like your build is changing (or at least can change). Whereas PoE and GD/TQ are all about racing to get the skills your build is based around and then not really changing things up for 4-400 hours.

@ares42:I think you hit the nail on the head. While a bit reductive, this is still just a total conversion/expansion pack for Titan Quest. They're still missing QoL features like interactable highlighting, cooldowns are unintuitive (but may be required as I am pretty sure my spammier characters have had inputs dropped), and the skill tree feels old school in a bad way.

Yup. I love this game. Haven't gotten either of the expansions yet though.

It is one of the few arpgs on PC that supports a gamepad so for that reason alone it's my favorite of the bunch.

I totally relate to the D3/GD comparison dude. When I was playing D3, it felt like everytime I levelled up, I was changing my ENTIRE build around, and that was fun as fuck.

In GD, it feels like I've got maybe 2/3 spells and I'm doing a lot of left clicking. Everytime I go back to the main town, I visit the skill swapper and completely change my points, but there's only so much it changes. I went from the meteor strike to having the raven and the hellhound summoned, and I put a bunch of points into the AOE freeze skill, and the rest into the "Imbue your weapon with chaos energy" skill.

Oh something I don't like is how unremarkable your guy looks. I just look like some tool in a leather jacket at the moment. I maybe swap my main weapon every 5 or so levels when something different drops- like how I went from an Epic gun to an epic poleaxe. It's largely the same gameplay though.

I'm starting to wanna pick up Titan Quest mind you. I never finished it, and I adore the aspect of Ancient Greece as a click-em-up. I'm not BORED of GD, but the game play isn't setting my world alight

I think you have to do a specific quest in the expansion first, but they are just recipe drops. After I got my first one as a quest reward I've found a few more as drops. They too were sorta disappointing though. The range and cooldown makes them fairly mediocre as travelling tools, but they can be useful as oh shit buttons in combat. Also, if you're running some sort of low energy build the cost can be quite punishing.