Grim Dawn

Are some effects in the game unique to items? Like I got a Gunslinger's something-or-other epic chest armor (not at home to get the precise name) last night, and its effect allows me to dual wield pistols. Unless I'm blind, I don't see anything like that in any of the normal skill trees.

Just pick this up fpr $15. I am not planning to play the early access. Any ETA when they will have a full game ready?

Technically it's the full game right now, but it should exit EA in February.

I think I have to give this a go.

The UI for the Devotion tree is quite something. It's horrible trying to plan something out of that.

This game is pretty good. I like the dual class thing. I have a shaman occultist with pets.

I've got a weapon that has a aoe chance onvhit proc and I put those collection things on it so it gives off a piercing aura.

Still only low-level though.

yeah. gear is a bit different as well.
Basically all RNG drops can have 1 suffix and 1 prffix.
Its the prefix and suffix themselves that are "magic" or "rare".

yellow items have one or two "magic" affix's. A magic affix is weaker, usually 1 stat. or perhaps several in small values. Example. "mystic"=3% spirit. or "nightblades" +2%cunning, +3%OA, +1 "random nightblade active skill) These all have 40% +/- deviation.

A green item has one or two "RARE" affix's. (it can be one rare, or one magic as well. pay close attention)
Example of rare affix: "celestial" 19% elem resist, +20% elem damage, +20%light radius, -5%skill cd reducion, 14less damage from Chthonic. level 55 req, 18% deviation.

Celestial is a good example. -5% cd reduction. SUPER powerful. As an Arcanist, the single most powerful stat. others probably pretty good too.

Epic are blue.
These are uniques. Unique art, and preset stats. Often specific things. +1 to all Arcanist skills. gives a skill, etc.
these tend to be the "best", unless you build a full set of rares using OP mods like the CD reduc I just mentioned.
Legenaries, are purple. and are also uniques. Mostly just t2 epics. nothing really special about them, other then higher level, and thus better.


+1 skills do allow surpassing caps of course.
Items Graceful Dusk

full arcanist.
I get +281% damage from that spirit. This adds into other sources. +271% cold, +221% lighting for skyshards for example.





Skills Graceful Dusk
Skills are often 1 point wonders.
some examples. Arcane will. when hp drops, get a burst of power. +25% total damage, and some energy regen. up to +130% at rank 10. This may sound amazing. But consider what I said earlier.
I have +552% cold damage, and 492% lightning damage. That +130% just ADDS into those values. which ok... but not remotely worth 10 stat points. it might be ok for an aether ray build which needs as much energy as possible.
Reckless power is kindof garbage for this reason too.
While Maivens -damage is nothing. Its totally trivial. -15% damage, out of my, again 552%... 537% cold damage. yikes...

Of course, any +1 to all skills just furthers this 1 point wonder nature.
Flash freeze is another. Im ranking it up now, for the larger aoe, but leveling 1 point did the job.

So, why CD reduction? well in my case skyshards needs it. you can see a number of skills with CD. most are not super important. there are 3 key skills that do have it.
Skyshards my primary damage skill. hits like a truck. Mine is about 3kx3 every cast. not including frostburn or lit procs.
3s CD. 2.46s CD with my -18% cdr. Just offhand. had not had much luck....

Mirror of Ereoctes
100% damage immunity, 165% damage reflect. 3s duration, 15s cd.
12.s CD with my cdr. this is massive. Mirror literally makes you unkillable. run up. face tank anything/everything for 3 sec. kite when it drops. Flash freeze for aoe freeze, or tempst for aoe kb good here. buying time to CD.

Flash freeze itself with a 7.5s cd.

All these devotion powers have chance to proc with CD's as well. Again CDR godlike.


Celestial or magi on helms. 5% cdr.
Magi of the grove on amulet. 11% cdr.
15% offhand cdr (shields can get 12% from supercharged, or chronomancer)
5% dagger cdr.

Each of these has that deviation. About 20%. so a max roll would be, 6% on helm. 14 on ammy. 18 on offhand, 6% on dagger.
44% CDR is max I think. unless there is some CDR hidden in that devotion chart I cant find..

8.1s CD on Mirror with 44% cdr. 3s immune, with 5.1s downtime. beast.

Hateyou_sl said:

Advice for new people, don't do Veteran mode in the beginning. It was something they put in because early accessors ran out of stuff to do/challenge. It really isn't needed anymore with the final extra two difficulties added. You level faster without veteran on and it's easier going. The next two difficulties will do plenty to challenge you.

Click to expand...

Can't you just toggle it on and off as needed though? I'm like 5 levels ahead on my second character that is on veteran compared to my first one that was on normal, at the same point in the story. Trash should be easy either way if you're focusing on a good AOE skill, and only bosses are a real pain in the ass.

yeah. im still playing on vet.

its viable. but do note, especially early. Mastery points are VERY strong, and important. you are really missing out, not dual classing from a TON of free spirit/phsy/cunning.
I have to gear, and spend devotion points on physique just to wear epic/legendary armor.

For each Skill Point you invest into Mastery, you get 38 Health/Energy and 10 Attribute Points. The different classes divide it up differently.

Click to expand...

So the game really encourages dual-class. Arguably, single class goes give you more skill points to spend directly on any given skill.


It may not be obvious. but with devotion points.. you can invest them to unlock constellations. then go to the respec lady, and remove lower points no longer needed.

Protip: Get those collections completed and don't save them for a "good" weapon. Halfway through chapter 1 you get a guy that can remove them. Also the spells/skills you get are like fully leveled skills and they destroy any ability you may have at lower level unless you pump every point into it.

Dabbled some in all classes (highest is a level 33 pyromancer), but thinking about a Shaman + arcanist combo or arcanist + shaman combo. Not sure which to get first. Thinking that if I go half assed with the pets, then they won't really be functional higher up, so might be best to go shaman first.

Anyone have any experience with those? Also know that shaman has a lot of 2h skills, so might combo well with soldier too.

Some wide screen grabs
- Album on Imgur

Rerolled into a nightblade (pure nightblade currently, but will probably add soldier at some point). Dps feels a lot higher than summoner, and not relying on dumb pet AI is nice. I'm finding myself very squishy though (playing on veteran). Most boss fights I have to use potions or use hit and run tactics to regenerate. Is there lifesteal at later levels? Because looking at the tree, I don't see myself getting much self sustain from passives.