Another Pro is the modding community. Dawn of masteries adds a ton of classes to play the base game with. Reign of terror lets you play Diablo 2 and Diablo 1 with the Grim Dawn engine.
my simple opinion is that is better then diablo 4 and its semi-better then POE.. only reason why i feel grim dawn is better then poe is because poe is dificult to get into also, arent graphics a bit old in poe aswell... also, last epoch doesnt look that great, when you zoom in
Grim Dawn is a love letter to the genre, developed by people that's really passionate about it, that's why it's still being updated and the systems for theorycrafting entwine so well, that the build diversity is virtually endless. Just to give an example, there's amulets that are called "conduits", and they heavily modify something about a class/skill, making some apparently really different classes onto synergic ones, like turning an ice damage skill into a fire one. If you like this genre, is definitely worth checking it out, now or next year, when the new expansion releases with even more content.
The conduit amulets are just one of many base types. A large amount of the monster infrequents will drastically affect how skills function. Converting damage types is one possible affix you'll find on them. If you want more GD look into some mods. Dawn of Masteries or Grimarillion are both fantastic on their own.
Never heard of the conduit amulets! Even though I had this game for years, Ive just started the Elite difficulty lol. Do those amulets appear on Elite or Ultimate difficulty?
@@Balryon maby not the right name, look for stats that convert a damage type into another. that way you can go crazy with certain builds:) so just making this up now: if you have a build that focusses on fire damage, but a specific weaponnor skill does poison. and you like the skill. if ypu can convert poison to fire, it suddenly becomes a useful skill. another famous one is the huge flash freeze skill, if you convert ice to something else, that whole skill changes. still freezes enemies too ;-)
@@Balryon The recipees for Conduit amulets are unlocked on the dungeon from Forgotten Gods, Tomb of the Heretic (You need to do that "secret" quest first), there's 1 for each class, and they have 11 different prefixes that modify a skill of that class (So 99 modifiers in total). If you are curious about them, you can check them out on grimtools dot com, just pick the amulet slot, write "conduit" and you will see them. Just to dig into the example i said before, if you pick the "Conduit of Night Whispers", one of the modifiers it has turns the Amarasta's Blade Burst from Nightblade into a fire skill (and also giving it a 100% of cd reduction so you can spam it). Cheers and welcome to the game!
Exploring is very important in Grim Dawn. There are many unmarked and hidden areas in the game to find that offer significant rewards, including a large number of devotion points
True about devotion points. My current character (acid aegis sentinel) currently has something like 35 devotion points collected in normal difficulty and I still have most of the Malmouth episode remaining, though I did play through FG episode out of order, but only to the last (I think) devotion shrine. There is even one devotion shrine in the Port Valbury outskirts and I think most players prefer not going there.
True. recently I found a random hole in the ground that lead me to a cave with a boss that was 6 levels higher than me. And there was no marker, no nothing. Reminds me of classic RPG games like Morrowind or Gothic, where the world did not scale to you and there were places you could get fkd up if you ventured there too early, so you had to remember the place and come back later
I have 400 hours in this game. Tried countless builds over the last 6 years. And i'm still having fun, still find new ways to play the game. Endgame is not a joke. The build variety is mindboggling, with great itemization, and extremely hard foes to vanquish. Plus there's one-shot dungeons, the crucible, shattered realms, celestial bosses, and a whole lot of secret thuings. Don't worry, if you like building new characters, theorycrafting and running dungeons, the game won't get boring in 40 hours, not even in 400 hours. Just get the 2 major expansions, they add a lot of stuff to do, and a lot more build variety. And there's a new expansion on the horizon.
Path of Exile was too much of a single skill spamfest for me. Diablo 3 didn't have a skilltree, so that was kinda boring. I haven't tried Diablo 4 yet. Torchlight 2 felt like flashgame to me and I didn't feel much resistence when playing it. Not much of a multiplayer gamer and I don't give a crap about the endgame. So this game is perfect for me.
@@magurmaas DLC is not strictly necessary. Ashes of Malmouth adds new environments and two new classes. Forgotten Gods adds more stuff and one new class. Lots of content but you don't really need it, because the base game is already pretty large.
The game was done on an improved Titan Quest engine. The developers of this game also developed Titan Quest. As for difficulty, Veteran (available on the Normal difficulty) ups the challenge right from the beginning. That said, playing on Normal is quite chill.
I didn't remember veteran mode until i saw the warden fight... I was utterly confused how he could just facetank elites and ground dot's without the lifebar moving.
FYI, you can dynamically change the difficulty whenever you want. If you decide in a later session that normal has been too chill, you can change to veteran on the main menu. When you load in next, it will generate all the enemies with that boost to their stats.
Probably my favorite ARPG of all-time, like 900 hours in & still going strong! The build diversity is incredible, so many choices, so many chances to make your build unique. Amazing game, soooooo happy you're giving it a try!
One thing i love about this game is the fact that when you choose the second class, the name of your class changes as well, in this case was Nightblade + Occultist = Witch Hunter. So cool.
Grim Dawn is one of the best arpgs ever made. Great replayability, insane amount of variety in builds with the dual classes + devotion system + build defining items, a perfect transmog system, a passionate dev studio, a passionate community, deep lore, ungodly amounts of loot
@@kr1me2000 This is single handedly the most drug-induced schizophrenia comment I have ever read. Grim Dawn is TIERS above Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4. Even on an ancient engine and with vastly lesser budget.
@@kr1me2000 ooooof... idk but DI is super decent for mobile game and D4 is gettin better overtime... i hate those comparasions from ppl who did play game once a year ago, did not like it and then trash it everywhere even knowing there are updates.
I do not get tired of playing this game. I keep finding myself coming back to it even after over 2000 hours of it. So many little hidden things to find, all the armor set, I love it.
Grim dawn's build diversity is out of this world. I probably have like 10+ characters I played concurrently at one point just because I kept finding legendaries made for specific builds I wanna try out. Funnily enough I also did a nightblade build for my first character, with my second class being the oathkeeper from the second expansion (bought definitive edition on a discount which included all the expansions). It was a acid/poison damage dual wield auto attacker with aoe debuffs and a lot of mobility. Fun time. Hope you continue this series, including the expansions and end-game, since I'm already following your poe one. Lol
What a coincidence I have a nightblade/oathkeeper build too and I absolutely love using oathkeepers shield throw that hits multiple foes! Dervish is the name thats given to that class combo I think too.
I am currently running a reaper(nightblade+necromancer) with over 700 hours. I fell in love with this game the devs are amazing. Your review gave me a sense of nostalgia. Thank you for this review!
I have like 800+ hours in GD, playing as a necro/shaman (u get the necromancer class if u buy the 1st expansion) and I always have a blast. The thing with this game is also its replayability, especially on the superior difficulties, because u can unlock secrets u never knew existed and battle bosses that are sometimes harder than the end game bosses. The loot is plenty, improves with difficulty, the class variery is amazing and the builds can be tweaked and changed by items, attachments, relics, sets, uniques to come to a completely different build than what u started with. All in all, this is a love letter to ARPGs and a solid game to sink your teeth in if u have the patience to go through Elite and Ultimate difficulties also (just like in diablo 2, te campaign will be almost the same, but everything is scaled up in difficulty and itemization). Cant wait to watch more of your videos on this game.
As someone who only really liked Torchlight 2, I've recently been binging Grim Dawn and it is awesome, this is another game where should make a series about because it is awesome. A few tips: 1. In terms of classes, pick whatever class seems cool but when it comes to picking your second class, I would hold off on it until you get accustomed and even max out your first class before choosing. I'm currently level 65 inquisitor and I still haven't picked my second class. 2. Devotion tree may seem overwhelming but it's kind of simple, there's a search bar at the top where you can search for whatever damage type or stats you need. Whatever constellation you want to work towards, it will need a certain amount of colours shown of the left. You start off at the centre which give you one of each colour and you work from there. 3. This game is so good in it's skill design that you don't need a guide, even the features you were confused about, you will naturally learn about when you play more (although I do recommend search up what different damage types do). Have fun playing this game because it is one of the best ARPGs out there.
@@NyxVellum Torchlight 2 has steam workshop mod support. GD and TL2 are both great classic ARPGs, but I'd say TL2 has faster-paced combat if that's what you're looking for.
@@willistan3562 Pretty sure GD has mod support as well but from what I've seen, it's mostly QoL. I loved TL2 BUT I will say that GD is way more fun, especially if you go all in on 1 or 2 skills that decimate that whole screen (I love Word of Pain)
@@NyxVellum Torchlight 2 can be a lot of fun, but there's only four classes you can play, and build diversity is minimal at best. Also, the graphics are like... WoW Classic era graphics. As in when the game first launched back in 2004. If you felt Grim Dawn's graphics were dated, your eyeballs are going to be seared by the palette choices in Torchlight 2. Having said that, I like the utility of the pets in TL2, it is both your auto-pickup and a way to vend without having to personally go to town, which is really great.
The game has indeed a really great lore. I wish all the notes scattered around the game were voiced and we could listen to them while running around like it was in Diablo 3. That'd be a pure teeth-sinking goodness.
Grim dawns character building is top notch, when I recommend it to friends I always say "it's D2 but with multiclassing" So much variety in builds especially when you start focusing on a few specific damage types and start tailoring your gear & devotions to suit the abilities youre focusing on. Love to see GD getting some more attention! Glad you enjoyed it!
With both expansions (and a third one that's coming which will add a huge amount of stuff including new mechanics), it's a brilliant ARPG. It's like between Diablo/LE and PoE in terms of complexity. It plays different, it's a very oldschool experience, but many people love that, and the amount of theorycrafting you can do is crazy. Very good itemization and character building.
It took me quite a few attempts (over several years) to actually get into Grim Dawn, but it really is such a blast. You can make such cool combos by combining the different classes together. The one thing I'll mention is that I found it much better to just crank your point into individual skills as opposed to "spreading yourself thin," as long as you have enough mana to keep using it. My last character I played was a dual wielding Nightblade on Hardcore and I was absolutely blasting everything with a ton of dashes and huge AOE cold bursts. Really fun game
I think you missed one of the best parts of this game. Two weapon sets. You want to be ranged, you can be ranged. You can switch to melee, you switch to your other set and slice and dice.
One little QOL I liked about Grim Dawn is that when an NPC gives you a quest and you've already completed the objective .. you just tell the NPC, "yeah I took care of that already .." and you get your EXP and rewards instead of having to go do it twice. I'd love to see that in more games.
probably shouldnt wait. this game has so much to offer you can easely play it till Q1-2 next year and still woulndt have finished everything @@vayyyylmao
The first 100 lv. on normal is your typical tutorial run - experiment and stuff. Ultimate Difficulty it gets real, game is just so massive it takes a long time, enjoy the ride. I hope you check out everything there is, this game is nuts. It's so good.
Grim Dawn definitely gives me that old school D2 vibes, although I had to laugh at your freak out of unknowingly spending points on the constellations lol
It actually has a very impressive d2 mod that recreates possibly the whole game. Only played it up to the end of act 1 but was pretty blown away. Maybe redundant now we have d2r though
Reign of Terror? I did the full endgame on that mod back in like 2017/2018. Kind of unbalanced endgame back then but I think it got rebalanced since then.@@TheGabrielbowater
I have played this game when it came out. I think it uses the Titan Quest engine and the UI as well as the Skill System are pretty much the same as Titan Quest. What I really love about Grim Dawn is what kind of cool builds you can make. For example my favourite Character was created by packing as many "Activate when hit" skills as i could into him and making him as tanky as possible. Funny enough it worked and was so fun to theory craft. Theory craftin in Grim Dawn is not as complicated as in POE but its complicated enough that you can lose yourselfe in it for 5 Hours by going trough skills and Build layouts, Equipment, searching the Wiki for Effects and Items that (in my example) Activate when hit. Its quite fun. Just checked, I got 375 Hours in it and yeah.
Titen Quest was done as another company, Iron Lore. Then the publisher dumped the game (Titan Quest only took off commercially a year after release) The main developer guy still wanted to build a better game that Titan Quest. then decided to establish crate and crowd fund GrimDawn. The rest is history. The developers still listen to the players. Forgotten Gods DLC is what really made the game for me the best ARPG there is so far. My favorite mastery. Also the things were one can use 2 shields and one shild is a weapon. The one hope I do have that there will be a new game using the more lighter graphic style of TQ, and further improve GD. With asteries ideally I would like to build my own mastery sets. I know the game would be completely unbalanced if we could do that, but I think it would be a ton of fun and interesting builds. Yes I notived how hard is for the GrimDawn developers to balance the game as it is. As an alternative being able to develop different masteries sets, that I can swap during a play through. That adds more depth for the developers and us gamers too. More choices, more to prepare for different sceanrios, while the deveopers could take same of the hidden bosses out of hiding, and let us find out the best approach to engage these bosses.
Just to actually point out BIG things you have missed as this game takes time: - Entire crafting system including empowering potions and new gear - Deeper look into the devotion system - Many abilities that you unlock via character progression - Customization of the damage you do by conversion of damage - Reputation system that rewards you for killing monsters - Crazier endgame bosses - With DLCs you also get two classes which enhance both what you can do ingame but also add new gear and mechanics. I'd actually recommend getting the DLCs as they really add a lot.
Other big things is the replayability with the questing, in that quests can have different outcomes. You can unlock different dungeons or vendors depending upon your choices. As well, there are a lot of secret areas to find, and hard bosses to uncover. And modding!
Grim Dawn is an amazing game. There's a rarety type of item called Monster Infrequent (MI). These items only drop from certain monsters or monster types. One very cool feature is that you can see them actually wearing that item, for example the red bludgeon named Barrog's Bloody Hand you got early on at 12:52 is a Monster Infrequent. And it's literally the boss's hand. Or at the Warden Kreig, you got his MI mace and shield, both of which he is carrying. And they look the exact same as when you equip them. This feature is available in Titan Quest, which is another game by the same developers. I recommend you check it out for the ancient Egypt vibes
One of the very cool thing about Grim Dawn, is that, because its offline, it has mods. A lot of mods just add new 'classes' that you can missmatch with the original ones to make almost infinite combinaisons.
You find scrap everywhere. I don't know why the game tells you to find it in Lower Crossing, maybe just cuz it's the 1st place you're going to. You can also buy scrap in the town from the merchant near the portal so you didn't need to wander around to find it unless you were short on funds to buy it. You have 2 stashes, one for personal stuff and a shared one that will show up for all your characters. Crafting can be done with stuff while it's in your stash and also certain devotion statues will ask for certain things and the items required can be used while they're in the stash as well. In the beginning, things are fairly easy as they should be, but later on certain enemies will do lots of damage to you so you're gonna want to get some resistance and you can craft certain resistance items later on that you can't actually find in the world (you can also overcap your resistance so that when certain enemy skills lower your resistances they don't go lower than your maximum). It'll show what your current resistance is if you hover over 1 of them. This game is a blast to play and has wonderful build diversity and some of the bosses will own you if you're not geared properly or have low resistances. Gear is also really fun too. Steam should be doing their winter sale soon too and buying this game in the definitive edition is the way to go (it usually goes for about $35 CAD). The dlc on its own sadly only averages about 30% off when one of the dlcs is 7 years old. The dlc is absolutely fantastic though and adds tons of cool stuff to the game (3 new classes, lots of extra devotions, a transmogrify merchant, monster totems (you fight elite monsters and if you win you are showered with tons of loot), tons of new items, new dungeons, nemesis monsters, factions, augments for your gear, etc.
it should be noted that GD is one of the few iso arpg where your choice matters the outcome on some quests. Take that blacksmiths side quests, there are 2 - 3 way you can solve it and the way you chose how to resolve it reflected later on. It's not that much of effect sure but some of your early choices shows up again later on.
LOL - You have just opened up the Pandora's Box of ARPG games! It does not matter now how many other ARPG games you play, you will find yourself forever coming back to this game when you get tired with the other offerings. I am a total addict with over 5,000 hours and 70+ diverse buiilds in the game. With the upcoming new DLC, I will again be tied to my PC and goggled eyed for that adventure. There is going to be a new Shapeshifter class and my brain is already spinning with what possible dual combos I can make with that!
Grim dawn is awesome. There is so many secrets and the Lore is even more awesome. Kind of the only one of the genre where u look at the screen to find secrets and not only the minimap to go faster
Grim Dawn is one of my favorite ARPGs. I enjoyed watching your video because it reminded me of how much the game has evolved over the years. When I first started playing, components had to be assembled and you had to manually activate each buff at the start of every session. The devs have done a great job of polishing the game over the years. The story is probably the weakest part of Grim Dawn, though the rivalry between the Aetherials and Chthonians does make it a bit more distinctive.
Please do a full playthrough if you are up to it! I have hundreds of hours in this game but am still trying to understand some systems, you seem quick to catch on things and I think that could be helpful for a lot of newcomers. Great video!
Hey, glad you are enjoying Grimdawn, if I can give you a little tip, once you find a new amulet, keep the initial amulet you were wearing. It can be used for a secret quest much later in the game, so do not sell it.
Not claiming Im a vet in Grimdawn but I have over 1200 hours in this game and have 7 end game builds. Here are reasons why Grimdawn is the BEST arpg out of them all. -Build diversity. Listen to this, you can pick TWO classes to build your character. If you are new to this, you should try it out. Learning from Titan Quest, they succesfully turn it into the best things of this genre. And even after you pick 2 classes, there are like at least 7-8 different builds for that combination. So….no need to be over complicated like POE, this game still generate tons of build and the best thing is, all the builds are pretty balance. -Loot table. If you are sick of Diablo 3 or 4 where Legendary equips literally rains from the sky, then Grim Dawn is kinda like Diablo 2 in term of loot. There are some wicked rare items that takes hundreds of hours to farm for. -Map and Enviroment. This is probably what Grim Dawn did best. There are so many hidden places in the game where you can get to. -Game difficulty. Grim Dawn might be easy at Normal difficulty but once you go to Ultimate one, things are completely INSANE. Again, same as Titan Quest, you get -50 in all Resist, monsters have more HP and deals much more dmg make picking right equip, skill, devotion, stat.. much more challenging. Overall, it is more satisfying and challenging than almost all arpg like TQ or Diablo, and pretty much same as PoE. Normal monster can sometimes 1 hit you, especially when your resist is not high enough. -Devs support. Another best thing about this 10 year old game. The devs of this game are super active and regularly update the game monthly. They just release a HUGE update on the game and there is one more big upcoming one in Jan. There are much much more things to say about Grim Dawn but I’m very confident to say, in term of Diablo like ARPG, this masterpiece is the absolute BEST. And it requires ZERO internet to play with.
"Not claiming Im a vet in Grimdawn but I have over 1200 hours in this game" I just love how in the ARPG genre, 1200 hours is considered rookie numbers 🤣
@@nothingtoseehere9648 agree, 1200 hrs in ARPG is still rookie, I had 8600 hrs in POE before I quit and there are so many things in the game that I dont even understand.
You can actually fix that bridge right away if you just farm out Scrap early game by quitting and reloading to respawn loot, letting you try to fight the bandits as soon as you like. They have a minimum level though, even though many enemies will scale up to your level.
Just started playing this one with a soldier build and I gotta say, blunt forcing your way through is something else in this game. Just something about they way enemies and the environment reacts to your big hits makes bonking addictive
This game just keeps on giving, the 1.2 update was really impressive for a game so old AND we have another xpac incoming?? It’s a pretty safe bet that there is no better arpg for the single player minded than this right here. There is more than you can likely see in even a few playthroughs. I still find stuff to this day that I’m like huhhhhhh what is this doing here???
thanks for giving this game some love, 2 bits of advice 1 max out your skills if you want to use it it makes it far more op, can respec at spirit guide(one is in every town) 2 use loot filter at like lvl 5 there is so much more loot than you will ever be able to deal with. and turn off lowest 2 qualities
oh, FYI, you can turn the camera by holding down mouse middle button and moving the mouse left and right. I still don't get that the majority of players still do not know this.
You can rotate the camera in grim dawn, I think the default is on the middle mouse button there must be some keybinds for it. I really love this features adds so much to the immersion. Great video and great editing ^^
I haven't gotten to the end game with most of my characters just because each time I am about to go past level 50 with a character, I think of a new possible combination or build and start a new character. However, I got to level 100 with two characters (the last one being a pet build Conjurer) and it was tons of fun. There are several hidden areas, bosses that get quite challenging on Ultimate Difficulty. What keeps me coming back to the game is how fun it is to build new characters and try stuff, there are even items that change the damage type of some abilities
I hope you continued to enjoy the game! This is definitely my favorite ARPG (I didn't play D2 in its heyday, and despite trying it a couple years back, I couldn't get into it), and I can't wait for Titan Quest 2.
Dual wield gunner build is actually really fun and flashy with all the skill procs happening all over the screen. But it requires specific item to be equipped to enable dual wielding of guns. Interesting to see how you played through without any active skill at all. But as long as you are having fun that's all that matters.
Think someone else in the comments mentioned it but I was super surprised when he could face tank Warden Krieg. On veteran difficulty, his second phase has 100k health. Remember I had a bunch of close calls playing on hardcore. Actually made me use the dodge mechanic!
It is totally chill! I return to Grim Dawn over and over, in between other games, to pick up where I left off or try a new DLC. My favorite part, for new players or casual players, is that you can make just about any build work if you just understand some basics of aRPGs. Like, don't spread your points all over; that skill will take up to 16 points because it's actually awesome if you max it. Or, pay attention to resists if you start getting in trouble, find better gear or better weapons. There are, of course, serious players who make min/maxed builds and you can totally follow a guide to make something really great. But you don't have to! You can also just play it and probably make it work if you just think through what you are doing a little. There's a ton of great balance under the hood.
i really think you can backpedal on your first cons when you level up factions and enemies(when you discover you can do it,it modifies elite spawns, mob density and unlock nemesies) and when you unlock more difficulties and start to be known that there are secret bosses and how to reach them, sure, the game is old now, but here's another pro, we still can play it in older laptop or pc (how many of you have a 3050 laptop like me?), for the last cons yes, its old and we really want a sequel.
I'm glad youre giving a chance to grim dawn, its a really fun game. It will be easier to play without any guides then poe, much more forgiving game in terms of respeccing.
Always fun to see people discover Grim Dawn for the first time. I believe it will be one of those evergreen classics that people are still playing after 10, 20 years like Diablo 2. If you like this one you can check out Titan Quest, the first game these devs worked on and carried over a lot of mechanics. The graphics are more primitive but people are still playing it and they came up with an expansion like 10 years after the game was out.
Over 1800 hours in the game and I haven't gotten tired of it yet. At this stage, "Ashes of Malmouth" and "Forgotten Gods" are are practically necessary, the rest DLCs are optional. The game is extremely friendly to casual players (like me), which is very good.
As Nightblade + Occultist and the right build you are completly op even in the DLC area. Played that to level 100 first with my build to lvl ~60 and then with a build I looked up. Was totally worth it!
3:21 yep. last epoch totally adopted this skill tree style from this game. which I love. the horizontal progression is neat, you can fit more that way.
You say "I play a lot of Diablo" but in truth youre a ARPG savant my friend. Ive been binging all your first impressions! You have great insight and a very good fresh perspective and mindset when playing arpgs I really relate to and like
"Why is the game giving me items above my level" *Eyes quest log filled with side quests not completed due to narrow scoped push to just chase main quest and nothing else*
GD is a great game. It starts out pretty easy, and never really gets harder than "average-to-difficult," although it will spike hard in specific places. The game is also _huge_ especially if you pick up the expansions. You could play on veteran if its really a problem, I kind of like the normal difficulty. Also: there are secret areas _everywhere_, places where you can break walls in dungeons or even on the side of the road to open up a new path that isn't actually on the map.
@@UnsoberIdiot Lol, I guess what I meant was that even most of the places you expect it to be hard, like boss fights, are still pretty average difficulty.
Best game in the genre. After putting three thousand plus hours into it softcore and hardcore and creating many different builds. Just waiting for the new DLC. Also normal is chill. Veteran gets a bit hairy and then elite is very different and ultimate is pretty absurd for a first time playthrough. You actually don't really have to read the quest logs beyond where you need to end up. The lore is fantastic but it's not required to read. There are people who speed run the game and they completely ignore all the lore. If you want the game to be even more chill, max out summon familiar. Birdo is essentially a mobile turret that can carry you through normal and elite. The end game is excellent. Won't spoil anything but it definitely doesn't fall apart. The devotion map is not that complicated. Basically you have three tiers of devotions. The tier one devotions give the most constellation completion points. The tier two and tier three devotions require a certain number of constellation points to unlock and give massive damage boosts and often have a super cool proc that can be applied to your own skills or you can have it so your pet can proc it. For most builds, you will be aiming for one or two tier three devotions. If you plan to go poison/acid that would be something like abomination on the bottom far left of your devotion map and/or Yuugol if you go cold poison which makes a lot of sense for nightblade and allows you to pick up rumour constellation which will spread a debuff to enemies resistance to cold and acid damage. Most constellations have a proc skill which can activate either on attack or on block or other qualifier. You attach your proc skill to a relevant activation skill like amarasta's blade burst. There are also passive aura buffs that you can get from materials like the impaling weapons aura. The skills you get from the constellations will level up as you gain experience with them. So it is a great idea to decide which constellation skills you want and try to get them as early as possible. Your resistances are integral to your survival in this game, especially when you reach elite. Also your resistance debuffs on enemies are likewise one of your most important considerations. With the nightblade always make sure your pneumatic burst is active, even if you are at full health because it is both a heal and total speed buff. Amarasta's blade burst is not a ranged skill, that would be phantasmal blades and you need to put a lot of support into them if you want to use them. Finally this site is pretty much your one stop resource which allows you to plan builds and mess around with the devotion tree and whatnot: www.grimtools.com
I did a 2-hand gunner demolitionist/shaman build my first playthrough of the game. That was a mistake since it felt like I got all of the combat styles out of the game my first playthrough. The only combat style that I even sort of missed out on was dual wielding assassin type gameplay but the game isn't engaging enough for me to do another playthrough any time soon unlike Path of Exile. I did thoroughly enjoy that first playthrough though so it's not like I hate the game.
I have 110 hrs on Grim Dawn, I am only in Act 5, there are 7. Pretty chill, viby game. I enjoy it as much as Diablo 3. I'd say Diablo 3 > PoE/Grim Dawn > Wolcen. I have not played Last Epoch but don't need to, Grim Dawn is comfort food, AND the Discord/Forum community is top notch; they are always helping.
A quick bit of info I think you'll like after watching your POE videos, is that you can fully respec ALMOST everything. You cannot respec your class levels (the little bar at the bottom.) That means this character is locked into the combo of Nightblade / Occultist. However, you can completely respec all skill points and devotion points you put in. Tired of the passive autoattack buffs at the top row of Nightblade? Sink those points into minions with nothing but some cash.
I loved your videos on POE. And i Loved this one. I play Diablo then Grim Dawn then poe all over the year because these games brings me so much different fun. But GD is so unique. It has this feeling no other have. I'll watch everey other video about it. Thx again :)
Grim Dawn is an amazing game, a hidden gem of the genre. I don't know of any other ARPG where you can be a spellslinger, or heavy metal holy warrior, or gunslinger, or fanatic demolition expert all in the same game. it's a blast. How about a necromantic conjurer of hellish beasts? or a buzzsaw bezerker? or just run around as a powerful melee character pounding mobs in one hit? SO many cool options in the game, it's literally as deep as PoE (deeper IMO), but it's shelled out pieces at a time so it's not as overwhelming. They even have a exorcist class that uses elemental energies and seals to destroy the unholy. the variety of options in classes is the best in the genre IMO. (though PoE doesn't use classes, so it's hard to compare). I'd also note that you played it in normal. Veteran provides a harder experience, and I'd recommend it for players who are experienced in ARPG's. Normal is definitely chill for experienced players, honestly I think most vet ARPG players would be bored, hence Veteran difficulty. And there's sooooo much in the game to do, I don't have time or space for it. I'll just end with: If you like ARPG's, don't mind a slightly slower pace of combat (thought it get's quite difficult later on if you haven't optimized your builds and gear a bit), and love the idea of a fantasy meets post apocalyptic zombie meets steampunk sci fi adventure meets wild west showdown, this game is for you.
Grim Dawn is Just magnificent, Titan Quest with bits of D2 and some devs ideas, with cool setting, one of Best arpgs i ever played and i played my fair share
Great video, never played the game. It doesn't seem to be too punishing to "yolo" your way through. Seems like you can pretty much select whatever you like and it's going to work. I'm pretty sure it's gonna get harder later on though! Came for PoE videos, stood for your story telling and your vibe!
@@NyxVellum Even more so when you realize that in Devil's Crossing there is an NPC that lets you respec everything except class choices. You can play around with your skills, try new ones, try devotions etc and then just change the ones that didn't work
The main campaign and world allows you to try all sorts of stuff without being too punishing. The Elite is a middleground, but the Ultimate difficulty is far less merciful and can be ourtight brutal if you go where unprepared and don't have a decent understanding of a characterbuilding. The endgame... I'd say only selected people are capable of creating builds suitable for the top endgame content and the easiest way to beat this said content is to copy them and hope you are as skillful with the builds as the creators are. Because superbosses delete poor characters faster than they can say "whoops". Grim Dawn is less convoluted than PoE but its depth is still astonishing.
you can also full respec anything except your class choices at anytime so if you're not liking your skills or devotions you can change them out and try something new. this is also an argument to make your second class choice a bit later if you don't have a particular "theme" in mind
Going patchwork of whatever you like will for for a time, until the game will tell you : Nope, find some synergies or you will die repeatedly later on... Grim Dawn seems quite simple on the surface, but at some point every build will hit a road block like ecvery other ARPG.
Based on how you talk about your character, I think you would have done well going Soldier or Shaman with the second class...something with and auto attack replacer. Honestly, if you had the expansions, I would have said Nightblade/Oathkeeper to give you the Dervish class. Oathkeeper also gives acid/poison damage on some of the skills, so it would work with your theme. Oathkeeper also gives a lot of durability to your character and a movement skill.
I have been coop playing this game since the day it came out with my brother. Some of the coolest builds you can put together whether you are hack n' slash or sorcery or even a combo of these. Later acts get greater mobs and more challenge, the game does a fantastic job of breaking you in from beginner or new to game to the insanity that some areas and most boss fights offer later.
I suggest and recommend Sacred and Sacred 2 if you haven't played them. Sacred 1 didnt age well but sacred 2 is graphically and gameplay fine still today. Grim Dawn has armor "remove" damage as a flat number, not scaling at all. So you either die in one hit or take no damage. End game doubles down the mistake, so you are completely immune and end game is just easy
Grim Dawn is built on the engine powering Titan Quest, so it uses a lot of Titan Quest mechanics like the class progression system, crafting, and all the little item upgrades you can pickup.
D2 vibes? Indeed! As GD is the spiritual successor to D2. Your first playthrough (normal) is like a tutorial, as you'll be unlocking Elite and then Ultimate. Elite is already a high bump in the difficulty as you'll be destroyed without resistances. Glad you liked the game and I hope to see more GD playthroughs!
You would enjoy the Inquisitor class, which allows dual wielding guns (also some items give the ability to dual wield guns or blades, which allows crazy builds like dual wielding Death Knight). Dlcs add tons of items and 3 classes. Which leads to a ton of new class combinations. (Soldier+Necromancer=Deathknight) Can't talk about the superbosses or hidden quests because I only done a few so far (Playing Hardcore). Multiplayer in this game is super fun. Endgame sets are unreal fun. Sets can change your complete build basicly. You can Respec (not class but all skills and also devotion). A friend of mine who brought me into the game found new stuff with me, even with 1k hours. The "looks" of the game can probably be modded. The real CON is : Storage. There is a mod to get infinite storage but takes some configuration. Maybe with the new dlc which comes next year. V1.2 changed a lot. I also encourage you to find that blacksmith. Actually, just clear the whole areas. It's not tooooo much to handle. Tips for new player's: - In Options, change the loot range and activate Auto collect components. - In the loot filter, activate "always show Double rare". Other than that, better leave it on these settings + don't show common/rare once you are ~ lvl 50 Don't want to level forever with your 2nd char? Tips (dlcs required): - In the first dlcs, there is a faction which sells 2x Exp potion's. - In the second DLC (which you can enter after act 1), there is an npc in the first city which sells a merit. Allows you to skip normal/Elite. - Craft a Explorer set, more XP. - Hidden Zone in dlc 2 has some XP ring - hidden questline in dlc 1 has a superboss, which drops a set which provides 40% XP flat, useable with lvl 1
First time i decide to play tanky build in aRPG and developers troll me all the way with shield drops and dropping 1H looking like shield all the time :D Loved it
Great video, very fun I've played 1800+ hours of Grim Dawn, and aside for Diablo 3, it's the only game where I really enjoy playing melee People say that soldier is a boring class but I just love it for Hardcore, even more in the latest difficulties, however, I've always wanted to play a rogue/assasin kind of type, and after watching your video, I may try something similar but in Softcore of course, until I see how much survavility it has Edit: I think the crafting in Grim Dawn is one of the few which I actually use, and keeps relevant for a long, long time because of potions, components, relics, etc. Of course you can craft gear, and weapons but in my experience, the best usually are drops Later on (in the current iteration) there are legendary sets that can be crafted maybe just for transmog sake as I'm a casual that don't do really difficult stuff
This is a great game. And if you fancy to continue playing it: this game has a bit of an exploration component, it rewards you for exploring and clearing all of the zone with secret area, stash of loot and bosses. So if it's your jam, explore away!
21:26 HIYA! Thank you for your thumbs up and comments. Nom nom nom algorithm food.
Pro: Inventory item sort, something PoE doesn't have. In PoE I have to stop and take the time to arrange my inventory, like a Tetris mini game. lol ☮️
Another Pro is the modding community. Dawn of masteries adds a ton of classes to play the base game with. Reign of terror lets you play Diablo 2 and Diablo 1 with the Grim Dawn engine.
really you never played this game?🤣🤣
now try the dawn of mastries mod
1600 possible builds
my simple opinion is that is better then diablo 4 and its semi-better then POE.. only reason why i feel grim dawn is better then poe is because poe is dificult to get into
also, arent graphics a bit old in poe aswell... also, last epoch doesnt look that great, when you zoom in
I started playing this last night and I didn’t log off until 3:30 am and that was reluctantly. This game does not disappoint.
Grim Dawn is a love letter to the genre, developed by people that's really passionate about it, that's why it's still being updated and the systems for theorycrafting entwine so well, that the build diversity is virtually endless. Just to give an example, there's amulets that are called "conduits", and they heavily modify something about a class/skill, making some apparently really different classes onto synergic ones, like turning an ice damage skill into a fire one. If you like this genre, is definitely worth checking it out, now or next year, when the new expansion releases with even more content.
The conduit amulets are just one of many base types. A large amount of the monster infrequents will drastically affect how skills function. Converting damage types is one possible affix you'll find on them. If you want more GD look into some mods. Dawn of Masteries or Grimarillion are both fantastic on their own.
ye it is the best in the genre, still getting updates, and even a dlc coming
Never heard of the conduit amulets! Even though I had this game for years, Ive just started the Elite difficulty lol. Do those amulets appear on Elite or Ultimate difficulty?
@@Balryon maby not the right name, look for stats that convert a damage type into another. that way you can go crazy with certain builds:)
so just making this up now: if you have a build that focusses on fire damage, but a specific weaponnor skill does poison. and you like the skill. if ypu can convert poison to fire, it suddenly becomes a useful skill.
another famous one is the huge flash freeze skill, if you convert ice to something else, that whole skill changes. still freezes enemies too ;-)
@@Balryon The recipees for Conduit amulets are unlocked on the dungeon from Forgotten Gods, Tomb of the Heretic (You need to do that "secret" quest first), there's 1 for each class, and they have 11 different prefixes that modify a skill of that class (So 99 modifiers in total). If you are curious about them, you can check them out on grimtools dot com, just pick the amulet slot, write "conduit" and you will see them. Just to dig into the example i said before, if you pick the "Conduit of Night Whispers", one of the modifiers it has turns the Amarasta's Blade Burst from Nightblade into a fire skill (and also giving it a 100% of cd reduction so you can spam it). Cheers and welcome to the game!
Exploring is very important in Grim Dawn. There are many unmarked and hidden areas in the game to find that offer significant rewards, including a large number of devotion points
True about devotion points. My current character (acid aegis sentinel) currently has something like 35 devotion points collected in normal difficulty and I still have most of the Malmouth episode remaining, though I did play through FG episode out of order, but only to the last (I think) devotion shrine. There is even one devotion shrine in the Port Valbury outskirts and I think most players prefer not going there.
True. recently I found a random hole in the ground that lead me to a cave with a boss that was 6 levels higher than me. And there was no marker, no nothing. Reminds me of classic RPG games like Morrowind or Gothic, where the world did not scale to you and there were places you could get fkd up if you ventured there too early, so you had to remember the place and come back later
I have 400 hours in this game. Tried countless builds over the last 6 years. And i'm still having fun, still find new ways to play the game. Endgame is not a joke. The build variety is mindboggling, with great itemization, and extremely hard foes to vanquish. Plus there's one-shot dungeons, the crucible, shattered realms, celestial bosses, and a whole lot of secret thuings. Don't worry, if you like building new characters, theorycrafting and running dungeons, the game won't get boring in 40 hours, not even in 400 hours. Just get the 2 major expansions, they add a lot of stuff to do, and a lot more build variety. And there's a new expansion on the horizon.
Can’t wait to get that far, that sounds so fun but I’m playing through Titan Quest and loving that too
Path of Exile was too much of a single skill spamfest for me. Diablo 3 didn't have a skilltree, so that was kinda boring. I haven't tried Diablo 4 yet. Torchlight 2 felt like flashgame to me and I didn't feel much resistence when playing it. Not much of a multiplayer gamer and I don't give a crap about the endgame. So this game is perfect for me.
Got the game for 1.2$. Stoked to play it. But wait, they are giving a new DLC?
@@magurmaas DLC is not strictly necessary. Ashes of Malmouth adds new environments and two new classes. Forgotten Gods adds more stuff and one new class. Lots of content but you don't really need it, because the base game is already pretty large.
Fangs of Asterkarn is coming up in 2025. It seems to be doing that too. New environments and a new mastery: The Berserker.
The game was done on an improved Titan Quest engine. The developers of this game also developed Titan Quest. As for difficulty, Veteran (available on the Normal difficulty) ups the challenge right from the beginning. That said, playing on Normal is quite chill.
That is really interesting. Thank you for sharing.
I didn't remember veteran mode until i saw the warden fight...
I was utterly confused how he could just facetank elites and ground dot's without the lifebar moving.
FYI, you can dynamically change the difficulty whenever you want. If you decide in a later session that normal has been too chill, you can change to veteran on the main menu. When you load in next, it will generate all the enemies with that boost to their stats.
I played Titen Quest and Immortal Throne and sank 2k hours into it. Then later GD released and I did the same. Love theese games.
Just played TQ recently. It's sooo janky compared to GD. I wonder how deep the modifications are. It feels as if they rebuilt it from scratch almost.
Probably my favorite ARPG of all-time, like 900 hours in & still going strong!
The build diversity is incredible, so many choices, so many chances to make your build unique. Amazing game, soooooo happy you're giving it a try!
my personal fav arpg is path of exile
One thing i love about this game is the fact that when you choose the second class, the name of your class changes as well, in this case was Nightblade + Occultist = Witch Hunter. So cool.
I think you just sold me on the game
Over 1,400 hours in and still going. One of my favorite games of all time.
I have around 100 hours, and have never seen a roll (space) button
@@YuriLongarms That's because it was added in the last update
1004 now lol. just started a pet character, again😂
Grim Dawn is one of the best arpgs ever made.
Great replayability, insane amount of variety in builds with the dual classes + devotion system + build defining items, a perfect transmog system, a passionate dev studio, a passionate community, deep lore, ungodly amounts of loot
A top 5 all time ARPG. Grim Dawn has stood the test of time.
I would put Grim Dawn between Diablo immortal and Diablo 4, its TERRIBLE but not THE WORST.
Yea nobody asked...you clearly don't know what a good ARPG is @@kr1me2000
@@kr1me2000 This is single handedly the most drug-induced schizophrenia comment I have ever read. Grim Dawn is TIERS above Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4. Even on an ancient engine and with vastly lesser budget.
@@kr1me2000 ooooof... idk but DI is super decent for mobile game and D4 is gettin better overtime...
i hate those comparasions from ppl who did play game once a year ago, did not like it and then trash it everywhere even knowing there are updates.
They can update the game but there is no one playing it..... I hope they work on Diablo 5@@Adirtan
My god, even Grim Dawn? I love it! If I see "Diablo 4 player tries Titan Quest for the first time" I might just yeet a newborn.
So many games! Thanks for the comment :)
Grim dawns graphics still acceptable compared to Titan's quest in my opinion.
@@sachinjungade9265 Same developer, but 10 years older game. And still surprisingly fun to play despite the even older graphics.
They have a mod that will titan quest your grim dawn right now buddy
Titan Quest 2 recently got an announcement trailer tooooo! I'm very excited.
I do not get tired of playing this game. I keep finding myself coming back to it even after over 2000 hours of it. So many little hidden things to find, all the armor set, I love it.
Grim dawn's build diversity is out of this world. I probably have like 10+ characters I played concurrently at one point just because I kept finding legendaries made for specific builds I wanna try out. Funnily enough I also did a nightblade build for my first character, with my second class being the oathkeeper from the second expansion (bought definitive edition on a discount which included all the expansions). It was a acid/poison damage dual wield auto attacker with aoe debuffs and a lot of mobility. Fun time. Hope you continue this series, including the expansions and end-game, since I'm already following your poe one. Lol
What a coincidence I have a nightblade/oathkeeper build too and I absolutely love using oathkeepers shield throw that hits multiple foes! Dervish is the name thats given to that class combo I think too.
I am currently running a reaper(nightblade+necromancer) with over 700 hours. I fell in love with this game the devs are amazing. Your review gave me a sense of nostalgia. Thank you for this review!
I have like 800+ hours in GD, playing as a necro/shaman (u get the necromancer class if u buy the 1st expansion) and I always have a blast. The thing with this game is also its replayability, especially on the superior difficulties, because u can unlock secrets u never knew existed and battle bosses that are sometimes harder than the end game bosses. The loot is plenty, improves with difficulty, the class variery is amazing and the builds can be tweaked and changed by items, attachments, relics, sets, uniques to come to a completely different build than what u started with. All in all, this is a love letter to ARPGs and a solid game to sink your teeth in if u have the patience to go through Elite and Ultimate difficulties also (just like in diablo 2, te campaign will be almost the same, but everything is scaled up in difficulty and itemization). Cant wait to watch more of your videos on this game.
This is one of mine "down" games, when I'm done with PoE league or just have nothing new I would just replay Grim Dawn... like a comfort food.
Tastes good!
The DLC each add a new class, and yes there is dual wielding for guns. The amount of cross class builds is really nice and diverse.
The first DLC, Ashes of Malmouth, adds 2 masteries: Necromancer and Inquisitor. Forgotten Gods yes, it only adds one mastery with the Oathkeeper.
Grim Dawn is probably the best ARPG ever created right behind Diablo 2 and i seriously mean that. Continue the playthrough!
Thanks for the feedback
I co-sign this opinion. D2 #1, Grim Dawn #2 all time
As someone who only really liked Torchlight 2, I've recently been binging Grim Dawn and it is awesome, this is another game where should make a series about because it is awesome.
A few tips:
1. In terms of classes, pick whatever class seems cool but when it comes to picking your second class, I would hold off on it until you get accustomed and even max out your first class before choosing. I'm currently level 65 inquisitor and I still haven't picked my second class.
2. Devotion tree may seem overwhelming but it's kind of simple, there's a search bar at the top where you can search for whatever damage type or stats you need. Whatever constellation you want to work towards, it will need a certain amount of colours shown of the left. You start off at the centre which give you one of each colour and you work from there.
3. This game is so good in it's skill design that you don't need a guide, even the features you were confused about, you will naturally learn about when you play more (although I do recommend search up what different damage types do).
Have fun playing this game because it is one of the best ARPGs out there.
Thanks for the tips. Torchlight 2 looks fun!
@@NyxVellum Torchlight 2 has steam workshop mod support. GD and TL2 are both great classic ARPGs, but I'd say TL2 has faster-paced combat if that's what you're looking for.
@@willistan3562 Pretty sure GD has mod support as well but from what I've seen, it's mostly QoL. I loved TL2 BUT I will say that GD is way more fun, especially if you go all in on 1 or 2 skills that decimate that whole screen (I love Word of Pain)
@@immortalolive3576 That's true, but GD doesn't have steam workshop support. TL2 has the advantage on easier modding and management.
@@NyxVellum Torchlight 2 can be a lot of fun, but there's only four classes you can play, and build diversity is minimal at best. Also, the graphics are like... WoW Classic era graphics. As in when the game first launched back in 2004. If you felt Grim Dawn's graphics were dated, your eyeballs are going to be seared by the palette choices in Torchlight 2. Having said that, I like the utility of the pets in TL2, it is both your auto-pickup and a way to vend without having to personally go to town, which is really great.
The game has indeed a really great lore. I wish all the notes scattered around the game were voiced and we could listen to them while running around like it was in Diablo 3. That'd be a pure teeth-sinking goodness.
Grim dawns character building is top notch, when I recommend it to friends I always say "it's D2 but with multiclassing"
So much variety in builds especially when you start focusing on a few specific damage types and start tailoring your gear & devotions to suit the abilities youre focusing on. Love to see GD getting some more attention! Glad you enjoyed it!
With both expansions (and a third one that's coming which will add a huge amount of stuff including new mechanics), it's a brilliant ARPG. It's like between Diablo/LE and PoE in terms of complexity. It plays different, it's a very oldschool experience, but many people love that, and the amount of theorycrafting you can do is crazy. Very good itemization and character building.
It took me quite a few attempts (over several years) to actually get into Grim Dawn, but it really is such a blast. You can make such cool combos by combining the different classes together. The one thing I'll mention is that I found it much better to just crank your point into individual skills as opposed to "spreading yourself thin," as long as you have enough mana to keep using it. My last character I played was a dual wielding Nightblade on Hardcore and I was absolutely blasting everything with a ton of dashes and huge AOE cold bursts. Really fun game
I think you missed one of the best parts of this game.
Two weapon sets. You want to be ranged, you can be ranged. You can switch to melee, you switch to your other set and slice and dice.
Such a great game. Been playing since very early alpha and it's grown so much. Lots of fun builds like Shield Throw, Pets, Doom Bolt, and Leap, etc.
It's a great game
bro this game is a treasure. ive played it before but i stopped beacuse im reviewing for my board exam. but will definitely come back.
Happy you found a series that works for you, I very rarely comment on things but I enjoy your content immensely
this game has hooked me so much recently, I'm loving it a lot, nice video giving your impressions!
One little QOL I liked about Grim Dawn is that when an NPC gives you a quest and you've already completed the objective .. you just tell the NPC, "yeah I took care of that already .." and you get your EXP and rewards instead of having to go do it twice. I'd love to see that in more games.
This game been on my bucket list to play for so long. Might just go for it during the upcoming weekend
It's a good time. There are hundreds of hours of content.
actually you might wanna wait a little more since the 3rd big dlc is coming Q1 or 2 next year so you can grind it all
probably shouldnt wait. this game has so much to offer you can easely play it till Q1-2 next year and still woulndt have finished everything
@@vayyyylmao
The first 100 lv. on normal is your typical tutorial run - experiment and stuff.
Ultimate Difficulty it gets real, game is just so massive it takes a long time, enjoy the ride.
I hope you check out everything there is, this game is nuts. It's so good.
I recommend trying a Shaman at some point. They have a very fun two handed gun build.
Grim Dawn definitely gives me that old school D2 vibes, although I had to laugh at your freak out of unknowingly spending points on the constellations lol
I need to read the tooltips!
Its actually super cheap to respec points anyway, so its not all that punishing if you want to change it up@@NyxVellum
It actually has a very impressive d2 mod that recreates possibly the whole game. Only played it up to the end of act 1 but was pretty blown away. Maybe redundant now we have d2r though
Reign of Terror? I did the full endgame on that mod back in like 2017/2018. Kind of unbalanced endgame back then but I think it got rebalanced since then.@@TheGabrielbowater
@@TheGabrielbowater Classic D2 is better than the "remastered" or whatever they call it.
Man I love your series I am extreamly glad that you started playing grim dawn and POE
I have played this game when it came out. I think it uses the Titan Quest engine and the UI as well as the Skill System are pretty much the same as Titan Quest. What I really love about Grim Dawn is what kind of cool builds you can make. For example my favourite Character was created by packing as many "Activate when hit" skills as i could into him and making him as tanky as possible. Funny enough it worked and was so fun to theory craft.
Theory craftin in Grim Dawn is not as complicated as in POE but its complicated enough that you can lose yourselfe in it for 5 Hours by going trough skills and Build layouts, Equipment, searching the Wiki for Effects and Items that (in my example) Activate when hit.
Its quite fun. Just checked, I got 375 Hours in it and yeah.
Yeah, one of the rare arpgs where a full thorns/retaliation build is not only possible, but surprisingly viable.
Great points. Thanks for sharing.
Titen Quest was done as another company, Iron Lore. Then the publisher dumped the game (Titan Quest only took off commercially a year after release) The main developer guy still wanted to build a better game that Titan Quest. then decided to establish crate and crowd fund GrimDawn. The rest is history.
The developers still listen to the players. Forgotten Gods DLC is what really made the game for me the best ARPG there is so far. My favorite mastery. Also the things were one can use 2 shields and one shild is a weapon. The one hope I do have that there will be a new game using the more lighter graphic style of TQ, and further improve GD. With asteries ideally I would like to build my own mastery sets. I know the game would be completely unbalanced if we could do that, but I think it would be a ton of fun and interesting builds. Yes I notived how hard is for the GrimDawn developers to balance the game as it is. As an alternative being able to develop different masteries sets, that I can swap during a play through. That adds more depth for the developers and us gamers too. More choices, more to prepare for different sceanrios, while the deveopers could take same of the hidden bosses out of hiding, and let us find out the best approach to engage these bosses.
Just to actually point out BIG things you have missed as this game takes time:
- Entire crafting system including empowering potions and new gear
- Deeper look into the devotion system
- Many abilities that you unlock via character progression
- Customization of the damage you do by conversion of damage
- Reputation system that rewards you for killing monsters
- Crazier endgame bosses
- With DLCs you also get two classes which enhance both what you can do ingame but also add new gear and mechanics.
I'd actually recommend getting the DLCs as they really add a lot.
Other big things is the replayability with the questing, in that quests can have different outcomes. You can unlock different dungeons or vendors depending upon your choices.
As well, there are a lot of secret areas to find, and hard bosses to uncover.
And modding!
Grim Dawn is an amazing game. There's a rarety type of item called Monster Infrequent (MI). These items only drop from certain monsters or monster types. One very cool feature is that you can see them actually wearing that item, for example the red bludgeon named Barrog's Bloody Hand you got early on at 12:52 is a Monster Infrequent. And it's literally the boss's hand. Or at the Warden Kreig, you got his MI mace and shield, both of which he is carrying. And they look the exact same as when you equip them.
This feature is available in Titan Quest, which is another game by the same developers. I recommend you check it out for the ancient Egypt vibes
I love how GD has, probably, the most chill and welcoming community out of all the ARPG communities =)
One of the very cool thing about Grim Dawn, is that, because its offline, it has mods. A lot of mods just add new 'classes' that you can missmatch with the original ones to make almost infinite combinaisons.
There's also a Diablo 2 mod that remakes basically all of Diablo 2 over Grim Dawn's engine. Free Diablo 2 remaster!
I adore Grim Dawn. I have hundreds of hours in it. I'm really excited for the DLC.
You find scrap everywhere. I don't know why the game tells you to find it in Lower Crossing, maybe just cuz it's the 1st place you're going to. You can also buy scrap in the town from the merchant near the portal so you didn't need to wander around to find it unless you were short on funds to buy it. You have 2 stashes, one for personal stuff and a shared one that will show up for all your characters. Crafting can be done with stuff while it's in your stash and also certain devotion statues will ask for certain things and the items required can be used while they're in the stash as well.
In the beginning, things are fairly easy as they should be, but later on certain enemies will do lots of damage to you so you're gonna want to get some resistance and you can craft certain resistance items later on that you can't actually find in the world (you can also overcap your resistance so that when certain enemy skills lower your resistances they don't go lower than your maximum). It'll show what your current resistance is if you hover over 1 of them.
This game is a blast to play and has wonderful build diversity and some of the bosses will own you if you're not geared properly or have low resistances. Gear is also really fun too. Steam should be doing their winter sale soon too and buying this game in the definitive edition is the way to go (it usually goes for about $35 CAD). The dlc on its own sadly only averages about 30% off when one of the dlcs is 7 years old. The dlc is absolutely fantastic though and adds tons of cool stuff to the game (3 new classes, lots of extra devotions, a transmogrify merchant, monster totems (you fight elite monsters and if you win you are showered with tons of loot), tons of new items, new dungeons, nemesis monsters, factions, augments for your gear, etc.
it should be noted that GD is one of the few iso arpg where your choice matters the outcome on some quests. Take that blacksmiths side quests, there are 2 - 3 way you can solve it and the way you chose how to resolve it reflected later on. It's not that much of effect sure but some of your early choices shows up again later on.
LOL - You have just opened up the Pandora's Box of ARPG games! It does not matter now how many other ARPG games you play, you will find yourself forever coming back to this game when you get tired with the other offerings. I am a total addict with over 5,000 hours and 70+ diverse buiilds in the game. With the upcoming new DLC, I will again be tied to my PC and goggled eyed for that adventure. There is going to be a new Shapeshifter class and my brain is already spinning with what possible dual combos I can make with that!
Grim dawn is awesome. There is so many secrets and the Lore is even more awesome. Kind of the only one of the genre where u look at the screen to find secrets and not only the minimap to go faster
Grim Dawn is one of my favorite ARPGs. I enjoyed watching your video because it reminded me of how much the game has evolved over the years. When I first started playing, components had to be assembled and you had to manually activate each buff at the start of every session. The devs have done a great job of polishing the game over the years. The story is probably the weakest part of Grim Dawn, though the rivalry between the Aetherials and Chthonians does make it a bit more distinctive.
Please do a full playthrough if you are up to it! I have hundreds of hours in this game but am still trying to understand some systems, you seem quick to catch on things and I think that could be helpful for a lot of newcomers. Great video!
This game absolutely eats Diablo's fucking lunch and wipes its mouth on Diablo's shirt.
Hey, glad you are enjoying Grimdawn, if I can give you a little tip, once you find a new amulet, keep the initial amulet you were wearing. It can be used for a secret quest much later in the game, so do not sell it.
Not claiming Im a vet in Grimdawn but I have over 1200 hours in this game and have 7 end game builds. Here are reasons why Grimdawn is the BEST arpg out of them all.
-Build diversity. Listen to this, you can pick TWO classes to build your character. If you are new to this, you should try it out. Learning from Titan Quest, they succesfully turn it into the best things of this genre. And even after you pick 2 classes, there are like at least 7-8 different builds for that combination. So….no need to be over complicated like POE, this game still generate tons of build and the best thing is, all the builds are pretty balance.
-Loot table. If you are sick of Diablo 3 or 4 where Legendary equips literally rains from the sky, then Grim Dawn is kinda like Diablo 2 in term of loot. There are some wicked rare items that takes hundreds of hours to farm for.
-Map and Enviroment. This is probably what Grim Dawn did best. There are so many hidden places in the game where you can get to.
-Game difficulty. Grim Dawn might be easy at Normal difficulty but once you go to Ultimate one, things are completely INSANE. Again, same as Titan Quest, you get -50 in all Resist, monsters have more HP and deals much more dmg make picking right equip, skill, devotion, stat.. much more challenging. Overall, it is more satisfying and challenging than almost all arpg like TQ or Diablo, and pretty much same as PoE. Normal monster can sometimes 1 hit you, especially when your resist is not high enough.
-Devs support. Another best thing about this 10 year old game. The devs of this game are super active and regularly update the game monthly. They just release a HUGE update on the game and there is one more big upcoming one in Jan.
There are much much more things to say about Grim Dawn but I’m very confident to say, in term of Diablo like ARPG, this masterpiece is the absolute BEST. And it requires ZERO internet to play with.
"Not claiming Im a vet in Grimdawn but I have over 1200 hours in this game"
I just love how in the ARPG genre, 1200 hours is considered rookie numbers 🤣
@@nothingtoseehere9648 agree, 1200 hrs in ARPG is still rookie, I had 8600 hrs in POE before I quit and there are so many things in the game that I dont even understand.
The story is really fun and has lots of side quests to explore, so you can do a lot of teeth sinking.
You can actually fix that bridge right away if you just farm out Scrap early game by quitting and reloading to respawn loot, letting you try to fight the bandits as soon as you like. They have a minimum level though, even though many enemies will scale up to your level.
Just started playing this one with a soldier build and I gotta say, blunt forcing your way through is something else in this game. Just something about they way enemies and the environment reacts to your big hits makes bonking addictive
Expansions and their classes are WELL worth it. Inquisitor is super fun.
This game just keeps on giving, the 1.2 update was really impressive for a game so old AND we have another xpac incoming?? It’s a pretty safe bet that there is no better arpg for the single player minded than this right here. There is more than you can likely see in even a few playthroughs. I still find stuff to this day that I’m like huhhhhhh what is this doing here???
thanks for giving this game some love,
2 bits of advice
1 max out your skills if you want to use it it makes it far more op, can respec at spirit guide(one is in every town)
2 use loot filter at like lvl 5 there is so much more loot than you will ever be able to deal with. and turn off lowest 2 qualities
oh, FYI, you can turn the camera by holding down mouse middle button and moving the mouse left and right. I still don't get that the majority of players still do not know this.
You can rotate the camera in grim dawn, I think the default is on the middle mouse button there must be some keybinds for it. I really love this features adds so much to the immersion. Great video and great editing ^^
This. One of the best features imo
I haven't gotten to the end game with most of my characters just because each time I am about to go past level 50 with a character, I think of a new possible combination or build and start a new character.
However, I got to level 100 with two characters (the last one being a pet build Conjurer) and it was tons of fun. There are several hidden areas, bosses that get quite challenging on Ultimate Difficulty.
What keeps me coming back to the game is how fun it is to build new characters and try stuff, there are even items that change the damage type of some abilities
This game is criminally underrated. :( Thanks for giving it the spotlight!
Currently playing through this and Titan Quest. They hold up so well and even outperform many recent arpgs
I hope you continued to enjoy the game! This is definitely my favorite ARPG (I didn't play D2 in its heyday, and despite trying it a couple years back, I couldn't get into it), and I can't wait for Titan Quest 2.
Dual wield gunner build is actually really fun and flashy with all the skill procs happening all over the screen. But it requires specific item to be equipped to enable dual wielding of guns.
Interesting to see how you played through without any active skill at all. But as long as you are having fun that's all that matters.
Holding down the mouse wheel to rotate the camera is something I wish other games could implement
Think someone else in the comments mentioned it but I was super surprised when he could face tank Warden Krieg. On veteran difficulty, his second phase has 100k health. Remember I had a bunch of close calls playing on hardcore. Actually made me use the dodge mechanic!
It is totally chill! I return to Grim Dawn over and over, in between other games, to pick up where I left off or try a new DLC.
My favorite part, for new players or casual players, is that you can make just about any build work if you just understand some basics of aRPGs. Like, don't spread your points all over; that skill will take up to 16 points because it's actually awesome if you max it. Or, pay attention to resists if you start getting in trouble, find better gear or better weapons.
There are, of course, serious players who make min/maxed builds and you can totally follow a guide to make something really great. But you don't have to! You can also just play it and probably make it work if you just think through what you are doing a little. There's a ton of great balance under the hood.
i really think you can backpedal on your first cons when you level up factions and enemies(when you discover you can do it,it modifies elite spawns, mob density and unlock nemesies) and when you unlock more difficulties and start to be known that there are secret bosses and how to reach them, sure, the game is old now, but here's another pro, we still can play it in older laptop or pc (how many of you have a 3050 laptop like me?), for the last cons yes, its old and we really want a sequel.
I'm glad youre giving a chance to grim dawn, its a really fun game. It will be easier to play without any guides then poe, much more forgiving game in terms of respeccing.
I'm having fun with it.
Always fun to see people discover Grim Dawn for the first time. I believe it will be one of those evergreen classics that people are still playing after 10, 20 years like Diablo 2.
If you like this one you can check out Titan Quest, the first game these devs worked on and carried over a lot of mechanics. The graphics are more primitive but people are still playing it and they came up with an expansion like 10 years after the game was out.
Grim Dawn didn't catch me at first, but I kept going and man I'm obsessed now
This takes me back to when I switched back and forth playing Grim Dawn and Torchlight 2
Over 1800 hours in the game and I haven't gotten tired of it yet.
At this stage, "Ashes of Malmouth" and "Forgotten Gods" are are practically necessary, the rest DLCs are optional.
The game is extremely friendly to casual players (like me), which is very good.
As Nightblade + Occultist and the right build you are completly op even in the DLC area. Played that to level 100 first with my build to lvl ~60 and then with a build I looked up. Was totally worth it!
Thanks for the tip!
@@NyxVellum Oh and the Devotion system can overwhelm at first just like the massive skill tree in PoE. Not as complex but in the area.
3:21 yep. last epoch totally adopted this skill tree style from this game. which I love. the horizontal progression is neat, you can fit more that way.
You say "I play a lot of Diablo" but in truth youre a ARPG savant my friend. Ive been binging all your first impressions! You have great insight and a very good fresh perspective and mindset when playing arpgs I really relate to and like
"Why is the game giving me items above my level"
*Eyes quest log filled with side quests not completed due to narrow scoped push to just chase main quest and nothing else*
GD is a great game. It starts out pretty easy, and never really gets harder than "average-to-difficult," although it will spike hard in specific places. The game is also _huge_ especially if you pick up the expansions. You could play on veteran if its really a problem, I kind of like the normal difficulty. Also: there are secret areas _everywhere_, places where you can break walls in dungeons or even on the side of the road to open up a new path that isn't actually on the map.
>"I kind of like the normal difficulty."
>"never really gets harder than "average-to-difficult,""
I mean...
@@UnsoberIdiot Lol, I guess what I meant was that even most of the places you expect it to be hard, like boss fights, are still pretty average difficulty.
recently just finished ashes of malmouth. was epic. the vibe of the city was so eerie and the music complements it so well.
Best game in the genre. After putting three thousand plus hours into it softcore and hardcore and creating many different builds. Just waiting for the new DLC. Also normal is chill. Veteran gets a bit hairy and then elite is very different and ultimate is pretty absurd for a first time playthrough. You actually don't really have to read the quest logs beyond where you need to end up. The lore is fantastic but it's not required to read. There are people who speed run the game and they completely ignore all the lore.
If you want the game to be even more chill, max out summon familiar. Birdo is essentially a mobile turret that can carry you through normal and elite.
The end game is excellent. Won't spoil anything but it definitely doesn't fall apart.
The devotion map is not that complicated. Basically you have three tiers of devotions. The tier one devotions give the most constellation completion points. The tier two and tier three devotions require a certain number of constellation points to unlock and give massive damage boosts and often have a super cool proc that can be applied to your own skills or you can have it so your pet can proc it. For most builds, you will be aiming for one or two tier three devotions. If you plan to go poison/acid that would be something like abomination on the bottom far left of your devotion map and/or Yuugol if you go cold poison which makes a lot of sense for nightblade and allows you to pick up rumour constellation which will spread a debuff to enemies resistance to cold and acid damage. Most constellations have a proc skill which can activate either on attack or on block or other qualifier. You attach your proc skill to a relevant activation skill like amarasta's blade burst. There are also passive aura buffs that you can get from materials like the impaling weapons aura. The skills you get from the constellations will level up as you gain experience with them. So it is a great idea to decide which constellation skills you want and try to get them as early as possible.
Your resistances are integral to your survival in this game, especially when you reach elite. Also your resistance debuffs on enemies are likewise one of your most important considerations. With the nightblade always make sure your pneumatic burst is active, even if you are at full health because it is both a heal and total speed buff. Amarasta's blade burst is not a ranged skill, that would be phantasmal blades and you need to put a lot of support into them if you want to use them.
Finally this site is pretty much your one stop resource which allows you to plan builds and mess around with the devotion tree and whatnot: www.grimtools.com
I've enjoyed grim dawn so much
Me too!
bro is coming up with banger one after another.Let me finish the video. will let you know my thoughts.
Thanks Rob. Much appreciated.
As a grim dawn vet, I kept saying "put your devotion points in"lol. Cool constellations that give you passive and strong abilities.
Haha, first impressions are tough!
also, link skills to buttons lol, not much handholding in gd ;)
I did a 2-hand gunner demolitionist/shaman build my first playthrough of the game. That was a mistake since it felt like I got all of the combat styles out of the game my first playthrough. The only combat style that I even sort of missed out on was dual wielding assassin type gameplay but the game isn't engaging enough for me to do another playthrough any time soon unlike Path of Exile. I did thoroughly enjoy that first playthrough though so it's not like I hate the game.
I get where you are coming from!
I have 110 hrs on Grim Dawn, I am only in Act 5, there are 7. Pretty chill, viby game. I enjoy it as much as Diablo 3. I'd say Diablo 3 > PoE/Grim Dawn > Wolcen. I have not played Last Epoch but don't need to, Grim Dawn is comfort food, AND the Discord/Forum community is top notch; they are always helping.
I need Grim Dawn 2 in my life as the first left me with the 😮factor!
A quick bit of info I think you'll like after watching your POE videos, is that you can fully respec ALMOST everything. You cannot respec your class levels (the little bar at the bottom.) That means this character is locked into the combo of Nightblade / Occultist.
However, you can completely respec all skill points and devotion points you put in. Tired of the passive autoattack buffs at the top row of Nightblade? Sink those points into minions with nothing but some cash.
I loved your videos on POE. And i Loved this one. I play Diablo then Grim Dawn then poe all over the year because these games brings me so much different fun. But GD is so unique. It has this feeling no other have. I'll watch everey other video about it. Thx again :)
Thank you so much for your support
Grim Dawn is an amazing game, a hidden gem of the genre. I don't know of any other ARPG where you can be a spellslinger, or heavy metal holy warrior, or gunslinger, or fanatic demolition expert all in the same game. it's a blast. How about a necromantic conjurer of hellish beasts? or a buzzsaw bezerker? or just run around as a powerful melee character pounding mobs in one hit? SO many cool options in the game, it's literally as deep as PoE (deeper IMO), but it's shelled out pieces at a time so it's not as overwhelming. They even have a exorcist class that uses elemental energies and seals to destroy the unholy. the variety of options in classes is the best in the genre IMO. (though PoE doesn't use classes, so it's hard to compare).
I'd also note that you played it in normal. Veteran provides a harder experience, and I'd recommend it for players who are experienced in ARPG's. Normal is definitely chill for experienced players, honestly I think most vet ARPG players would be bored, hence Veteran difficulty.
And there's sooooo much in the game to do, I don't have time or space for it. I'll just end with: If you like ARPG's, don't mind a slightly slower pace of combat (thought it get's quite difficult later on if you haven't optimized your builds and gear a bit), and love the idea of a fantasy meets post apocalyptic zombie meets steampunk sci fi adventure meets wild west showdown, this game is for you.
Grim Dawn is Just magnificent, Titan Quest with bits of D2 and some devs ideas, with cool setting, one of Best arpgs i ever played and i played my fair share
Great video, never played the game. It doesn't seem to be too punishing to "yolo" your way through. Seems like you can pretty much select whatever you like and it's going to work. I'm pretty sure it's gonna get harder later on though!
Came for PoE videos, stood for your story telling and your vibe!
Yeah, I love that I could be confident in my choices. Thanks for hanging out!
@@NyxVellum Even more so when you realize that in Devil's Crossing there is an NPC that lets you respec everything except class choices. You can play around with your skills, try new ones, try devotions etc and then just change the ones that didn't work
The main campaign and world allows you to try all sorts of stuff without being too punishing. The Elite is a middleground, but the Ultimate difficulty is far less merciful and can be ourtight brutal if you go where unprepared and don't have a decent understanding of a characterbuilding. The endgame... I'd say only selected people are capable of creating builds suitable for the top endgame content and the easiest way to beat this said content is to copy them and hope you are as skillful with the builds as the creators are. Because superbosses delete poor characters faster than they can say "whoops". Grim Dawn is less convoluted than PoE but its depth is still astonishing.
you can also full respec anything except your class choices at anytime so if you're not liking your skills or devotions you can change them out and try something new.
this is also an argument to make your second class choice a bit later if you don't have a particular "theme" in mind
Going patchwork of whatever you like will for for a time, until the game will tell you : Nope, find some synergies or you will die repeatedly later on... Grim Dawn seems quite simple on the surface, but at some point every build will hit a road block like ecvery other ARPG.
Based on how you talk about your character, I think you would have done well going Soldier or Shaman with the second class...something with and auto attack replacer. Honestly, if you had the expansions, I would have said Nightblade/Oathkeeper to give you the Dervish class. Oathkeeper also gives acid/poison damage on some of the skills, so it would work with your theme. Oathkeeper also gives a lot of durability to your character and a movement skill.
I have been coop playing this game since the day it came out with my brother. Some of the coolest builds you can put together whether you are hack n' slash or sorcery or even a combo of these. Later acts get greater mobs and more challenge, the game does a fantastic job of breaking you in from beginner or new to game to the insanity that some areas and most boss fights offer later.
I suggest and recommend Sacred and Sacred 2 if you haven't played them. Sacred 1 didnt age well but sacred 2 is graphically and gameplay fine still today. Grim Dawn has armor "remove" damage as a flat number, not scaling at all. So you either die in one hit or take no damage. End game doubles down the mistake, so you are completely immune and end game is just easy
Grim Dawn is built on the engine powering Titan Quest, so it uses a lot of Titan Quest mechanics like the class progression system, crafting, and all the little item upgrades you can pickup.
D2 vibes? Indeed! As GD is the spiritual successor to D2. Your first playthrough (normal) is like a tutorial, as you'll be unlocking Elite and then Ultimate. Elite is already a high bump in the difficulty as you'll be destroyed without resistances. Glad you liked the game and I hope to see more GD playthroughs!
You may also try Titan Quest. It's from the same dev, might be quite old, but it has a pretty nice world of ancient mythos Greece.
You would enjoy the Inquisitor class, which allows dual wielding guns (also some items give the ability to dual wield guns or blades, which allows crazy builds like dual wielding Death Knight).
Dlcs add tons of items and 3 classes. Which leads to a ton of new class combinations. (Soldier+Necromancer=Deathknight)
Can't talk about the superbosses or hidden quests because I only done a few so far (Playing Hardcore).
Multiplayer in this game is super fun.
Endgame sets are unreal fun.
Sets can change your complete build basicly.
You can Respec (not class but all skills and also devotion).
A friend of mine who brought me into the game found new stuff with me, even with 1k hours.
The "looks" of the game can probably be modded.
The real CON is : Storage.
There is a mod to get infinite storage but takes some configuration. Maybe with the new dlc which comes next year.
V1.2 changed a lot.
I also encourage you to find that blacksmith. Actually, just clear the whole areas. It's not tooooo much to handle.
Tips for new player's:
- In Options, change the loot range and activate Auto collect components.
- In the loot filter, activate "always show Double rare".
Other than that, better leave it on these settings + don't show common/rare once you are ~ lvl 50
Don't want to level forever with your 2nd char?
Tips (dlcs required):
- In the first dlcs, there is a faction which sells 2x Exp potion's.
- In the second DLC (which you can enter after act 1), there is an npc in the first city which sells a merit. Allows you to skip normal/Elite.
- Craft a Explorer set, more XP.
- Hidden Zone in dlc 2 has some XP ring
- hidden questline in dlc 1 has a superboss, which drops a set which provides 40% XP flat, useable with lvl 1
Hack n Slash!
Playing Grim Dawn solo is guaranteed a fun time!... You should go vet, an aRPGs pro won't have a problem with it
First time i decide to play tanky build in aRPG and developers troll me all the way with shield drops and dropping 1H looking like shield all the time :D Loved it
Great video, very fun
I've played 1800+ hours of Grim Dawn, and aside for Diablo 3, it's the only game where I really enjoy playing melee
People say that soldier is a boring class but I just love it for Hardcore, even more in the latest difficulties, however, I've always wanted to play a rogue/assasin kind of type, and after watching your video, I may try something similar but in Softcore of course, until I see how much survavility it has
Edit: I think the crafting in Grim Dawn is one of the few which I actually use, and keeps relevant for a long, long time because of potions, components, relics, etc. Of course you can craft gear, and weapons but in my experience, the best usually are drops
Later on (in the current iteration) there are legendary sets that can be crafted maybe just for transmog sake as I'm a casual that don't do really difficult stuff
This is a great game. And if you fancy to continue playing it: this game has a bit of an exploration component, it rewards you for exploring and clearing all of the zone with secret area, stash of loot and bosses. So if it's your jam, explore away!