Grim Dawn gameplay question.

[Batmeat]

First, the game is very graphically appealing. Plays nearly identical to diablo II LOD and quests like vanilla WoW. But, it's very unbalanced when it comes to fighting. Am I doing something wrong? Here is what I've noticed.

1 - taking 3 base cinder embers(or whatever the fire gems are called), and combining them into a new one, then attaching them to a garbage weapon gives you the option to throw a fireball. The damage on that fireball is insane at my level. I'm only a level 12 soldier. I was using the best weapon I could find/buy before adding the cinder gem. It made fights fun against the more difficult mobs and monsters. Now, I don't even have to swing the weapon. spamming the fireball option totally incinerates mobs, elite monsters (gold named ones), and even the more difficult monsters. I can literally run into mobs and wipe them out without needing to use any health pots. That includes the bosses and rare named. I tried the same thing with the poison gems. Same deal.

2- is it going to be more balanced at the later levels? I only payed $18.00 for it on the Steam summer sale. It's fun, but currently isn't even a challenge. Maybe I should re-roll and crank the difficulty? I started on whatever the standard level is.

 

[TidusZ]

it gets a lot harder on the second playthrough

 

[bystander36]

Yes, at higher levels/difficulties, those runes do not get stronger, but your enemies do. You can also consider playing on veteran mode, which will make things more challenging.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Play on Veteran mode, it is the equivalent of Normal difficulty in other games.

Also, the enhancements are fixed in power, so 100 damage at level 1 is massive, at level 10 the monsters laugh and hold out marshmallows to roast.

 

[Borealis7]

Play on Veteran mode, it is the equivalent of Normal difficulty in other games.

Also, the enhancements are fixed in power, so 100 damage at level 1 is massive, at level 10 the monsters laugh and hold out marshmallows to roast.

yeah, that sucks. i got the searing ember spam skill i use as long range AOE but i know one day it'll be useless. the Slam skill from the claw is pretty good too.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Soldiers aren't supposed to be slinging spells, but at the low levels, you pretty much just use whatever has the higher numbers. Once you get your second mastery and decide what character you want to play (meaning what skills you plan on using), then the game starts getting really interesting.

Also, I highly recommend making an account at the official forums (http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/) as the people there can answer any and all questions you may have in a much faster time frame than Anandtech. The people here also know their stuff but the Grim Dawn forums are active all day and all night.

 

[Elganja]

i'm a huge fan of this game, the developers from Titan Quest made it, so if you have played that you'll see many similarities

it def gets harder as you work your way up through elite and ultimate... through the first play through (normal/veteran) and even second (elite) i stuck with my dual wielding solider. By the time i got to the end of elite and started ultimate, it became very apparent i had zero survive-ability.

Luckily, I invested my skill and mastery points wisely and was able to easily make the switch to sword and shield... so word of advice, really think you how you use your mastery points (you can't get those back)

 

[Batmeat]

I started it over on Veteran. Little harder making it more challenging. I got other character to 20 before calling it quits.

 

[Jumpem]

It definitely gets more challenging in Elite and beyond.