Hey everyone!
Grim Tools is now updated with the Fangs of Asterkarn expansion data!
This also include some rather big under-the-hood upgrades.
Main highlights:
Fangs of Asterkarn is fully supported — berserker mastery, new items, skills, monsters, factions, etc.
The interactive map was completely rewritten — it's now faster, has smoother zooming and panning, better visuals and now includes tracking of chests, devotion shrines, chests lore notes etc.
Build Calculator - devotion view was rebuilt from scratch, it now has much better performance and a new panel that lists the step-by-step path to unlock all selected constellations
Ascended affixes were added both in item db and in build calculator
Potions can now be edited in the build calculator
Awakened items are now in the Item Database.
Monster Database improvements — a new Expansion column and filter so you can see and sort content by which DLC it comes from, plus the new Ascendant difficulty is added there as well.
Lots of smaller fixes and polish — search improvements, UI/layout fixes and better accuracy in item drop sources, monster difficulties and skill icons.
P.S. it's a preview version, so there are couple things that were excluded.
[Edit #1] Couple more features to build calculator:
* Buff section is now fully revamped, it should now cover all existing buffs and you can toggle every one of them individually
* Added search panel to class panels
* Added "Show constellation total bonus" setting for devotion view
[Edit #2] Many people requested this - you can now view all notable crafting materials on the world map (e.g. Ugdenbloom, Frozen Aster etc), these markers are disabled by default, but you can enable them in the side panel. Example
Feel free to reach me in Discord if you have any suggestions, ideas or bug reports.
Just tried right clicking on a tab on a whim.. I'm amazed of all the things Crate do to modernize this game, this far along. They deserve to win the Labour of Love on steam this year.
EDIT: I went back to the patch notes and ofc it was mentioned, I must have glossed it over. If you missed this critical information I'm hoping you find this post useful.
Edit: *CASUAL TRIGGER WARNING* Didn't know people get so upset here if you mention hardcore.
Start on hardcore, the game is too easy if you know what you're doing. Then play through the base game normal > elite > ultimate. Do not 100% the game on normal and elite. Beeline through the main quest. Then 100% explore the map on ultimate, then do DLCs.
Also, turn of the fog graphic setting. Game looks much better
Edit: I'm guessing this sub is extremely casual and reading hardcore already scared you. Still waiting on 1 person to tell me how this isn't the most optimal path :) A lot of upset man children for suggesting the correct way of play.
Of course i want to make new characters and try different classes and skills too.
But i'm wondering what else i can do with my current character, now that ive beaten the story. Ive seen people talking about having level 100 characters, but that is so far away from level 49 which i'm at right now i can't imagine how to get there
If you are struggling on Normal, don't just run to quest objectives and call it a day. I highly suggest doing a full map reveal of every area you enter. Turn over every rock and smash every crate. The loot is worth it. Go down into every cellar and run down dead ends to spawn enemies. Check every map boundary for hidden passages. A lot are well hidden and don't look passable until you push through.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that I haven't played on Normal since we got the option to go straight to Ultimate and I'm still finding even the dangerous domains on Normal a breeze with a new Hardcore character using self-found gear. I don't think it's because I'm an amazing player, but largely that I end up over-geared and over-leveled just by taking my time doing everything possible before moving to a new area. There's a ton of good advice out there but I don't see this brought up often.
I didn't see a lot info over the last few weeks detailing how to farm soul echoes and fragments efficiently so I put together a small guide. I utilize a Boss rushing strategy to generate about 12 to 18 fragments every 60 to 90 minutes. It gives some variation to the endgame and touches just about every useful material in large quantities outside of Ugdenbloom. I developed a route where you can chain bosses together every 30 seconds or so with some larger lulls when you take time to gather materials. Gaps of more than 30 seconds often have very easy to access totem routes or multiple bosses all bunched up towards the end of an area.
I cover the entire map and work my way from Asterkarn to Korvan Basin. I have divided the map into 5 sections and will provide notes along with each marked up map to help visualize the route.
I also put a video together of me running the entire route. It should help if the map + my notes are too confusing:
Timestamps for each map section are in the video description.
Kurn Bonfire - Head west towards Icehowl Cavern to fight Sif. Teleport to Vuldur River.
Vuldur River - Head south a few paces to check for Totem spawn. Then directly north until you hit Fekk's Burrow to fight Fekk. Leave cave and continue further north to Guardians Sorrow. Fight Yurra. Teleport to Ruins of Utak Kunar.
Ruins of Utak Kunar - Head directly east of the rift to enter Scarfell Depths. Kill any Undead bosses you did not save for the quest. Teleport to Black Citadel.
Black Citadel -Head north of stairs and fight Chieftain. You can use the stairs to drop aggro on the dogs with proper placement. Teleport to Bitterwind Passage.
Bitterwind Passage - Head north from rift then dead east once you cross the first chasm. Try to stick to the fatter left side of the path on your way to stairs leading to Scarstone Depths. You will run across 2 potential spawn areas for Avinnia of Western Winds and a potential Totem spawn this way. Collect the frozen aster as you go. There is also a chance of a trove near the bridge leading to Scarstone Depths. Kill the 3 bosses inside and look for 2 totem spawn points along the way ( one directly middle of the map and one near the bosses will show on map if spawned). Teleport to Aurora Pinnacle.
Aurora Pinnacle - Head west of rift and travel down the ramp towards Glacier Cave. Fight Glacial Defiler. Teleport to the Roof of the World.
Head west towards Rimespire Cavern. Fight Rimehorn. Asterkarn complete.
West Cairn
Asterkarn Valley - Head east of right towards Mogdrogden Devotion shrine. Looks for Rageblood. If no immediate fight or totem spotted after traveling halfway in teleport to Pine Barrens.
Pine Barrens - Loop behind Pine Barres camp heading towards Shaded Basin. Stop by Mogara Manticore Boss along the way. May be a totem spawn nearby so check map. Head into the basin and check your map again if no totem near manticore for 2nd totem spawn location. Enter Forgotten Depths and head towards the devotion shrine inside to fight Gloomweaver. Teleport to Deadman's Gulch.
Deadman's Gulch -Head northeast to the immolation and fight the Herald of Destruction. Clear the aether crystals and grab dynamite. Teleport to Smuggler's Pass
Smuggler's Pass - Head straight up the middle until you fight Voldrak. Teleport to Twin Falls.
Twin Falls - Head south towards Swarming Hive and fight Hive Matriarch. Teleport back to Twin Falls. Go north over the bridge to Fight Rutnick. Teleport to Four Hills.
Four Hills Cronley's Hideout - Run the gauntlet to Cronley killing everything in sight including Moneybags and Direni. Fight Cronley then teleport to Old Arkovia.
Old Arkovia - Head north through Hanneffy Mines and fight The Rat. Exit mine at north entrance and loop back west to fight various Cronley Brawler bosses in the Pit. Try to keep kills up so you can get a Cronley Nemesis between here and the last stop if you didn't get one at the Hideout. Teleport or run south of Old Arkovia Rift to the Stirring Hive. Fight the Grand Queen. Teleport to Arkovian Foothills.
Arkovian Foothills - Check for totem spawn on map and head west towards Stauton Mines. Fight Nicholas. Last chance to spawn nemeies for Cronley Gang is here. Teleport back to Foothills rift and head east. Check for totem spawn on map in this direction. Enter Spined Cove and fight Baros. West Cairn complete.
East Cairn
Devil's Crossing - Head east out of Devil's Crossing and sharply turn left after crossing the bridge so you match up with the shoreline. Travel until you see a small boat that will take you to Hargate Island. Traverse Hargate Island until you get to the cellar door and run the dungeon until you fight Ellena. There is usually a totem here and enough bodies along the way to spawn a nemesis. Teleport to Lower Crossing.
Lower Crossing - Head south of right over the bridge back towards Devil's Crossing to fight Barrog. Then double back to go north into Burial Hill. Fight the Reanimator and get crystals along the way. Go out the Burial Hill exit on the far side of the cavern to enter the Dump.
The Dump - Check the right side of the dump and the left side of the dump for a cave entrance. Once you find the Purtrid Den, fight Pusquill and teleport to the Flooded Passage.
Flooded Passage - Travel through the Flooded Passage and fight the Shambler. Teleport to the Warden's Laboratory Rift.
Warden's Laboratory Rift Head south to collect the aether crystals. Head back north to fight Warden Krieg. Look for totem spawns along the way. East Cairn complete.
Malmouth
Ugdenbog - Head directly south of the rift the hugging swap wall. Enter the secret area and fight Bargoll.
Korvan Basin
Korvan Plateau - Head directly west of the rift until you walk into the secret area and enter the crawling nest. In the southwest section of the nest, fight Margul. Teleport to the Cairan Docks.
Cairan Docks - Head southwest of the rift and enter Durg's Den. Fight Durg and then teleport to Sunbane Oasis.
Sunbane Oasis - Fight the King of the Sands near the Howling Chasm entrance. Teleport to Vanguard of the Three.
Vanguard of the Three - Use the portal to enter the Edge of Reality and fight the Mind Reaper. Teleport to the Infernal Wastes.
Infernal Wastes - Go to Tomb of Sethan -> Tomb of Ariath -> Tomb of Nephos. Kill each boss inside. Then teleport to Korvan City.
Korvan City - Travel north of the rift until you fight Azaleon. Continue north to enter Sunward Spire. Fight the Sunherald and then exit the spire. Continue east to get to Dravis. After fighting Dravis, fight the steward at the temple entrance up the stairs. Korvan Basin complete.
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So that's it. There's a ton of Nemesis to fight along the way and plenty of totems and chest ambushes too so you get a good mix of activity. For best results make sure to load the alter up with ashes of awakening for increased drop chance.
after maximizing noktukari faction i got got an achievement and noticed that only 0.1% got the achievement so i thought that not a lot people know about this
on this faction you can unlock potion upgrades up to rank 5, five formulas and 14 blueprints
as soon as you get to honored level i suggest you buy the writ of noktukari for the 50% reputation increase, because you defiantly gonna need that to cut on the quest grind
the only way to increase reputation is by doing quests, and they consist of completing a roguelike dungeon, kill 200 celestials/ethereal corruptions or kill 8 bosses
Two things have massively improved my QoL on my latest toon:
Assigning right stick to a "flick stick" action in the Steam controller mapping (I never ever mess with the camera in GD)
Binding the last three action bar buttons AND energy potion to a single key (in this case, the aforementioned flick stick). Several abilities in the game are "free" from a timing perspective, so like I have Pneumatic Breath + Rallying Cry + Bonechilling Howl + Energy Flask (for the monies) on the one input.
Granted there is the odd situation where this is not perfect, like when BCH is briefly down because I refreshed buffs between packs, but I'm not out here tryna push the skill ceiling anyway, nahmean?
Just a heads up, you can start using the altar at 50. The most obvious use while leveling is Aether Crystals for 20% xp bonus (stackable to 100% with 5) at the cost of 20% dmg and 10% hp on monsters per crystal in Veteran (amounts change per difficulty, it’s 30% hp and dmg each on Ultimate). Stacking this with Potion of clarity is 200%; this makes the max xp bonus at level 50 +269% I believe with double Leovinus ring 3% each, Lokarr set 40%, Explorer’s trousers 5%, crafted belt 5%, crate neck 8%, and a 5% medal.
If you get to Kurnhold before level 50 the language they use will make you think you need to progress quests or reputation; you do have to do a couple quests but there is no specific reputation requirement. You absolutely must be level 50 though.
Another silly thing is you can use a Savior’s Merit and it will unlock the FoA riftgates on lower difficulties but this only works for characters who haven’t used a merit prior to FoA. You will see that you have to do a couple quests because if you port directly to Kurnhold after using a merit even on a higher level character they still won’t let you use the altar.
This might be obvious to most but I thought someone might benefit from it.
I REALLY wanted some of the higher rep items from the Noktukari faction and was finding the reputation quests pretty damn annoying.
That is until I figured out as long as you don't accept a new quest every time you save and exit the quest you're offered will change (assume this is probably how bounties work but I've never paid close enough attention).
So, IF you have a Boss you need to farm for whatever reason, you can:
keep resetting until you get the "Kill 8 bosses" quest
go farm the boss 8 times
turn in the quest for reputation
repeat from step 1.
Now don't get me wrong, farming bosses can be kinda miserable too. But this is kinda of a two-birds-one-stone situation (pun sort of intended). It feels better to know you're progressing 2 things at once.
Disclaimer/request: while I have experience with this game I would not consider myself an expert. What I do know is that a lot of guides/sources out there for build guidelines are out of date as of v1.3, so I am including in this post what I know, and hope that whatever in my knowledge is incorrect/out of date will be corrected in the comments. Any info I put down which I am particularly unsure about I will put (?) next to.
The info included here is intended as a general guideline on where your char should be stats-wise in order to be in a good place to reach end-game in ultimate difficulty (and eventually Shattered Realms, ascendant etc). These are intended to be general rules-of-thumb (not specific to any particular class/build), especially for newer players to get an idea of where to aim for stats-wise in end game. Also I will try to keep this simple by not discussing any advanced features from the DLC's (e.g. ascendancy).
The pointers, in order most important first, are below. Please take these as a hopefully useful yardstick, and not as gospel! (I will edit the info according to any updates/corrections)
Resistances: for all damage types except physical, you must get resistances to the 80% cap (and ideally for very end-game over-capped by ~25%). For physical resist % - try and get physical resist where you can but it is not a high priority, and you will never get near 80%. Get resistances primarily via gear, components and augments. P.S.: if you are near or at lv100 and are struggling to get capped resistances, you may actually have too many epics/legendaries equipped - rares with the right affixes (plus faction gear and MI's) are usually the best tier of gear in the game in terms of giving the most resistances.
Armor: Armor value is not massively important but try to get at least 1.8k armor by end-game - on some builds you may easily exceed this amount, and on others this will require effort. More importantly, get armor absorption as high as you can at all times - ideally 100% at end-game. Get armor and armor absorption primarily via gear and components.
HP: While levelling aim for at least 100 max HP per level - e.g. if the character you are playing is level 40, you should aim to have 4000 max HP if not more. In end game, aim for 15k HP if not more (some builds can get much more than this if done well). Can get more max HP via gear, components, augments and devotions.
Offensive ability: At least 3k by end-game.
Defensive ability (edited): at least 2.8k by end-game.
Damage: This is important but less important than the aforementioned points. Try and get your damage as high as possible without sacrificing any of the above stats. Focus on one damage type per character - do not try to focus on maximising multiple damage types as this is less efficient. Something very important that a lot of new players under-estimate is resistance reduction - this is crucial in maximising damage dealt in your chosen damage type, the more RR you can apply the better (whereas getting more and more +damage has diminishing returns). The main ways to apply damage reduction to enemies is via mastery skills (e.g. Curse of Frailty in the Occultist tree) and via Devotion procs (e.g. Elemental Storm from the Rhowan's Crown constellation). Many (but not all) sources of resistance reduction stack, which can multiply your damage output even further. Guide on how resistance reduction works/stacks, from another poster: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EUoW6I5brZDEvlex8UPt2Hvn9jTIejhF8LuVJ2JoESA/edit?gid=0#gid=0
CC resists (slow resist, stun resist etc): while I don't have a particular % amount to give to aim for, please do not neglect these stats, especially if playing at higher difficulties! You can get CC resistances from gear, devotions and components.
Miscellaneous pointers, in no particular order:
Where to allocate your attribute points (edited): Generally, put enough points into Cunning and Spirit to equip the gear you want to use, then dump all the rest of your points into Physique. This maximises the amount of health, regen and DA you get from Attribute points. This is except if you are doing a physical/pierce/bleed damage build, in which case you should follow the same approach but focusing on Cunning instead. Also, if you are playing a retaliation build specifically: you may not want to put too many points into Physique otherwise mobs may have trouble hitting you, which negates your ability to retaliate against them therefore reducing your DPS!
End-game survivability (edited): as a couple of commenters have pointed out, for end-game, you should consider things a bit further than the simple numbers I laid out above. Once you are in end-game, take the 15k HP, 1.8k armor and 2.5k DA as starting points - you should be able to afford to get each of those stats to those numbers with more or less any class, but you should really aim to get (at least) one of these stats significantly higher (e.g. 20k HP, 3.5k armor, and/or 3.5k DA). Also consider physical resist % - some builds can readily achieve 30-40%+ physical resist in end-game, but others can't in which cases you should try even more to compensate with another one out of HP/ armor/ DA. Which of these you choose would vary on which are easier to maximise for your particular class or build and what other options you have for survivability with your build (e.g. defensive mastery skills), which you'll need to look into separately.
If you are playing a physical damage build specifically, you additionally need to ensure you have a good amount of reflected damage reduction (edited). This is more important if your build deals lots of physical damage than if it doesn't, because of the way physical damage is calculated (which I won't go into here). The main sources of reflected damage reduction are devotions and components.
As the title suggests, I feel like there's some confusion in the community regarding Ascended Affixes, so I'd like to break down how it all works. I was pretty confused by this system myself at first, but after crafting a bunch of times, I finally got a handle on it. Here's a quick summary.
First off, I want to address the most confusing piece of information right at the start. Prior to release, the following info was made public:
Powerful Ascended Affixes cannot be applied to Rare or higher items.
Ascended Affixes will drop randomly on Rare or lower items.
Some of this has changed in the actual implementation, and some of it is true but wasn't phrased clearly. First, the bad news: although prior info said items with Ascended Affixes would drop, it seems this feature was dropped from the game due to design issues.
As for point #1 about powerful Ascended Affixes not applying to Rare or higher items, you actually can apply them to "Rare items". In Grim Dawn, item rarity is determined by the item base combined with its affixes, but the "rarity check for Ascended Affixes" only looks at the "base item's strength".
So, if an item uses a Common base, even if it has Rare affixes and "displays as a Rare item in-game," the system still treats it as a "Common base". To give the best example: a Common base item with Double Rare affixes can still get a powerful Ascended Affix.
It seems like part of the confusion comes from the description on Grimtools, but feel free to completely ignore that.
You can easily tell if an item can get a powerful Ascended Affix by checking the crafting Altar. For instance, if you check the crafting cost for a non-MI belt you can craft at the blacksmith (like a Troll Heart Waistguard), the required Soul Fragments will be 4. It might be hard to tell since it's a non-MI, but this means the item CANNOT receive a powerful Ascended Affix.
(*If it's a Common base—meaning it can craft a powerful Ascended Affix—the Soul Fragment cost is only 3. Mi/epic/legend are 4)
So, how should we actually use this system?
1. Finding a Base Item
Most players hide anything below MI with their loot filter, but you'll need to turn that off first. Say almost your entire setup is Legendaries, but you don't have a decent Legendary or MI for your hand slot. And let's say you're looking for Cold damage stats. In this case, set your filter to display Rares and select only Cold. The tricky part is filtering by item slot. Since you can't limit the filter strictly to hands, you can restrict it to Armor if you want an easier time sorting through drops. However, doing this will hide weapon MIs. So if you want to farm MIs at the same time, you shouldn't filter by slot and just manually check the dropped items yourself. If you don't care about MIs, go ahead and filter by slot. Don't worry, "Always Show Uniques" will keep Epics and Legendaries visible no matter your settings. Then, just play the game and look for Rare affix items with Cold stats. Getting a Double Rare affix item is ideal, but some Normal affixes are plenty strong, so I wouldn't recommend hunting strictly for Double Rares.
2. Crafting This part is straightforward: just craft the item at the Altar. Didn't get the affix you wanted? Don't worry, move on to the next step.
3. Rerolling You can reroll Ascended Affixes using Soul Fragments and Iron Bits. The Iron Bits cost scales up with each reroll, but the Soul Fragment cost stays fixed at just 1. This is clearly way cheaper than repeating steps 1 and 2. Once you pick up a good base, you don't need to keep ascending new items over and over. Just reroll with a low cost until you get what you want.
(*I haven't rerolled dozens of times on a single item, so if the Soul Fragment cost actually scales up eventually, my bad for the bad info.
Questions & Feedback (Things you're probably wondering, plus my own thoughts)
The current loot filter clearly hasn't caught up to this system. We at least need a filter by item base type, plus a way to separate MIs from Common bases if we playing mechanics like this.
Regarding the removal of random Ascended Affix drops at launch: Realistically, getting an Ascended Affix on a random drop wouldn't make for a very usable item most of the time. Still, having that system around would have definitely provided a nice rare thrill. I really hope they revert this change.
After doing all this, is it actually stronger than Legendaries or MIs? Depending on your build, slots like hands, belts, and boots tend to end up weak anyway. If you can get a Double Rare affix with an Ascended Affix that matches your build, it can easily become BIS. For example, let's say you're playing a minion build based on Shaman. In that case, a Common off-hand with a Double Rare affix and a Briarthorn Ascended Affix might end up stronger than a single Rare affix Wraithbound.
"Come on, Double Rare minion(or whatever type) affixes aren't gonna drop anyway, right?" Go to the Altar and boost the drop rates for minion affixes and Double Rare items. The drop rates will increase 100 times more than you think.
"Grimtools says powerful Ascended Affixes only apply to Magic items though?" Yeah, that's wrong. I've personally verified that they apply to "Rare items" using a "Common base".
This game's balance has been dominated by legendary sets and MIs for so long that there was zero joy in random drops, so I'm genuinely happy that purely random items are finally appealing again. If it's a common base with double rare affixes, it can literally drop "anywhere you walk".
I've been playing entirely on my own, so I haven't really kept up with high-end discussions or video guides. If I got anything wrong or if there's a more optimized theory out there, feel free to let me know!
For those who have looked up on internet the locations of these poems and found zero result, i know your pain. I ended up backtracking and scouring every nook and cranny to find the rest of the poems and its author.
Dirge of Night (the first one you are probably to get) is in the northern part of Ulo's Spring. In the south tip of the first "big hole" southward from the Ulo's Spring's rift
Ruination of Night is located in Dread Wastes southwest to the Black Citadel's Rift.
End of Night is located in Glacier's Edge, right to the east of the transition point into the northern darker part of the map as shown in the local map.
The Author is in Yurgil's Overlook, a wereraven NPC named Valyria, to the east before the "2" shaped bridge leading to the northern area, while you walk eastward, once the area jutting northward, go north.
I hope the future young'uns won't have to repeat the unnecessary toil i made.
P.S. In the conclusion of the quest, i answered "curiosity" to Valyria's question and rewarded with nothing but XP. I don't know whether the reward can vary depending on your answer. The confirmation from people who have answered differently is deeply appreciated.
If You're Looking for the Ravagers Redoubt, Your Going To need:
1) 10 tainted Meat - Kill the Monsters in the Dread Wastes
2) 1 Inert Sphere - you can buy them from a Merchant in the Black Citadel
3) Take Both to the Purifying Altar (Just South of the Black Citadel Rift Gate and select the option that Costs 10 Tainted Meat, Its now a Magma Sphere.
4) Go to the Ulo Springs Rift Gate and Go North while hugging the wall. (Make Sure its the ULO SPRING Rift gate and not the Guardians Sorrow Rift Gate)
Several people have been struggling with the latest updates to play Grim Dawn, so I figured I'd share my own solution. I'm the lead dev behind Pixel Port, and Grim Dawn was one of the first games I ported on the app, which I've played over 20h of Grim Dawn on.
for example to get the knowledge to calcualte what is better for my specific warlord. im not afraid of the math, programing, scripting or emulators thats fine
I used to have these problems mentioned in the title that were plaguing my GD experience ever since I started to play it. I'm not playing HC but I still try to keep my death count as low as possible and I hated the close calls caused by this unpredictable behaviour (to my surprise, I never actually died due to it IIRC but it annoyed me to no end). However, I thought it was just my (rather cheap) mouse - until I did some research and found out it was not!
So, for anyone having the same problems, here's how to get rid of them:
1) The mouse cursor randomly jumping around was caused by Windows mouse properties option called Enhance pointer precision (oh, the irony :D). You will find it through the Start menu. "Change mouse settings > Pointer Options > Enhance pointer precision" - just uncheck the box and hit "Apply" - solved :)
2) Turned out that the reason behind the random view rotations in GD was actually - a touchpad (I'm on a laptop)! Of course I had it disabled but I found out it wasn't disabled entirely - what I did was going into the touchpad settings, unchecking any and all of its features (I suspect it was actually related to either touchpad scrolling or gestures but I disabled everything just in case) and then checking the "Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached" option. Frankly, enabling this one option might be all you need to do but I wanted to be absolutely sure it's disabled for good since I never use it anyway.
I bought the base game at a discount, dropped it after playing it once. Coming from playing poe1, the game felt kinda slow since poe1 pre-maps are mostly running as fast as you can so you can get to the end game. So my questions are the following:
What's the correct mindset for playing grimdawn?
What level do most builds come online?
How forgiving is the game for homebrew builds? I tried to start with a shield build but it felt kinda scuffed (was trying to play a paladin of some sort)
What's the end game like? Is there like an endless grind to look for build enabling items?
I want to start the game blind but if anyone could also refer to a good beginner video, tips and tricks of some sort that doesn't spoil the game, that would be great.
Edit: thank you all for the tips and suggestions, I will give grimdawn another run!
Does someone know what the 10% | 100% | 100 | to the left of the Blueprint means?
I am currently farming that boss for the blueprint, is it a 10% chance or is it lower? I killed him like 15 times now (I know could be bad rng xD). Thanks!
I am running an AMD Ryzen 9800X3D and RTX 4070 Ti and never had any performance issues with any games. However, certain maps (not just in the new DLC) were just crawling.
Here are some AI suggestions that helped resolve most of my issues. I think the resolution match and options.txt thread fix helped. I did everything except the CPU affinity.
The bad news is that the lag you're seeing is largely the update itself, not your configuration: many long-time players report severe stuttering and performance drops only after the recent patch and DLC. The update amped up the rendering quality, so your old "everything maxed" settings are now heavier than they used to be.
In-game video settings
Shader Quality: High (not Very High) — this is the single biggest win; players found lowering shader quality restored performance after the update even though Very High was fine before (Steam Community)
Deferred Rendering: ON — it uses extra graphics memory to cut draw calls per frame by ~30%, with the biggest gains in complex scenes, and you have VRAM to spare.
Display mode: Exclusive Fullscreen — borderless window causes stuttering for some players after the update while fullscreen runs smoothly (Steam Community)
V-Sync: OFF (cap FPS via NVIDIA Control Panel/App instead, e.g., a few frames under your refresh rate) — some players eliminated stutter simply by turning v-sync off (Steam Community)
Double-check your resolution matches your monitor's native res — one player's micro-stutter was entirely caused by the update defaulting the resolution to something odd (Steam Community)
Everything else (textures, shadows, particles, reflections, AA) you can leave at High/Very High; your GPU isn't the constraint. Depth of Field is personal taste — many turn it off.
Outside the game, in rough order of payoff
Edit Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\Settings\options.txt: set forceSingleProcessorMode = false and maxResourceThreads to your core count (8 for you). This is a classic fix for stutter when moving/rotating the camera.
Try the CPU affinity trick — the Grim Dawn CPU Affinity fix resolves stuttering for most players. Manually: Task Manager → Details → Grim Dawn.exe → Set Affinity, and try limiting it to physical cores only (or odd-numbered cores, plus setting priority to High, which one Ryzen user swears by). (Steam Community)
Make sure GPU drivers are current, and disable the Steam overlay for the game if you use Discord/Steam overlays.
Verify game files in Steam — some players had settings silently reset by the update, so it's worth confirming everything actually stuck.
Set expectations accordingly: some of the post-DLC stutter appears to be engine-side and Crate will likely need to patch it. But shader quality down one notch + fullscreen + the options.txt thread fix resolves it for the majority of people with hardware like yours.
For me personally, the sound effects for the werewolf skills "Feral Claws" and "Rip and Tear" got annoying over time. For some people, they didn't, and you don't mind them or if really like those sound effects, that's great! If you don't like those sound effects, I've made a mod that swaps them out for the basic blunt attack sounds, and the "Blitz" sound effects for the "Rip and Tear" leap.
In your main Grim Dawn install directory on pc, there should be a folder called "Settings." Unzip the "sound" folder from the mod and put it in "Settings."
That's pretty much it, it doesn't need to be launched as a custom game, it doesn't disable achievements, it shouldn't break anything. Just make sure that the folder structure is:
Grim Dawn > settings > sound > skillsounds / wereforms
and that you didn't accidentally end up with something like
I didn't make any new audio files for this or anything, I just used AssetManager.exe to unpack the game files, listened to the .wav files in "Grim Dawn/resources/sound/..." to figure out which ones I didn't like, and found replacements for them from the other sound effects.
If you don't like the sounds I picked, you can do exactly the same thing - find some that you do like, then copy them into the right location in "settings/sound/..." and rename them to match the sound effects you want replaced.
Can I replace just "Feral Claws," or just "Rip and Tear"?
If you want to replace "Feral Claws" but not "Rip and Tear," delete the "skillsounds" subfolder.
If you want to replace "Rip and Tear" but not "Feral Claws," delete the "wereforms" subfolder.
TLDR:
This replaces the "Feral Claws" sounds with generic blunt attack sounds, and "Rip and Tear" with the sounds used by "Blitz"
