Grim Dawn, a Diablo-style Action RPG

[Boro]

Same here, brought a 2h warder to level 34, and had this bastard work me for my latest devotion point. One dingy Savagery-shot at a time.



Yep, it's Kilrian, the Tainted Soul himself. He has an arrow ability that applies a DoT that deals 1/4 of your current health.

For 8 ticks.

That's no facetanking material

1 death.

Also, the fire revenants can nuke me from full health to zero.

[Wyatan]

Trouble with Kilrian is that he deals a kind of damage the resistance to which people usually eschew.

Other issue is that health potions (usual last resort to counter spiky DOTs) got ninja-nerfed in the latest patch.

[Bobchillingworth]

Just started playing this game, enjoying it so far, but is there an easier way to highlight environment objects besides having to mouse-over them? A lot of them are difficult to discern from the non-interactive props, and "alt" doesn't seem to actually highlight anything.

[Boro]

Kilrian looks like a fire revenant from the wiki, but the problem is the arrow is an untyped undodgeable DoT that's LITERALLY a static-field with no resists. (Unless it's tied to internal trauma...)

I haven't found a way to highlight objects as of yet, but it's always bone piles, crates, and dessicated human corpses that one should be looking for. Besides, the big loot always comes from the heroes, bosses and (muuuch later on) nemeses.

Now, going on a tangent here, I really love the undead for so many reasons, namely that they are incredibly well-rounded, unlike the more basic aether corruptions (And they're cool too!).

For starters, we have the skeleton warriors and crossbones. They are the cannon fodder, to punish those without good AoE, block movement, and generally be a distraction for the real beef. Massed crossbones are also good at nicking away at health, and annoying low-defense low-health characters, since their bolts are much less visible than the thrown grenades of zombies or magic projectiles of other enemies.

Then there are the Skeleton Knights: They have a reflective aura, they are durable, and cause lots of bleeding damage using Blade Arc.
There are also Deathchill Crossbones: They can trow small star-shaped bolts of ice in a fan shape, surround themselves with a frost aura, and generally be more of a ranged threat than the regular crossbones.

Propping them up are the Skeleton Priests, who have a surprisingly large healing potential, and aren't one-hit squishies themselves either.

Finally the elite skeletons, the Revenants come in three flavor: Fire, Ice, and Storm. Fire and Ice revenants can cause an explosion of the aforementioned star-shaped bullets, of which the fire ones are instant-kill material for my 4000+hp warder with 32% fire resists. The ice ones simply freeze you in place. The revenants also have an ability to surround themselves with an aura of their chosen element. causing Damage over Time to any close heroes. And they have an ungodly amount of health and armor.

And, because that's not enough in-your-face killing power, there are also Skeleton Warlocks, who are notorious for popping vitality-draining (Vit damage type) DoT runes under your feet, preferably while you're surrounded by skeletons. They are relatively fragile, which is quite a relief.

There's also the huge skeletal golem but I don't want to talk about those things anymore *sniff*.

But skeletons aren't ALL the undead out there. There are ghosts.

Regular, massed melee apparitions, and undead nobles. The latter come in two flavor: melee and ranged ones. Ranged mobs throw frost stars at you and shoot crossbows, while the melee guys use a charge attack that turns them invisible while they charge. For the onlooker, it feels like the enemy is teleporting!

So they have a counter to everything!

Be tanky? they can outheal you (If AoE), or delay you (If single target) (And the fire revenant still nukes you from full to zero)
Be squishy? Crossbows, magic, "tele"kills.

There's no real building silver-bullet here. Of course good handed down gear helps a lot (Which I don't have), but the real answer is tactics and maintaining frontage, taking out the key pieces of the skeleton gang, then finally dealing with the rest. And if the ghosts show up, well... good luck, you'll need it. (If you are melee, that is)

[Bobchillingworth]

Hmm. I'm playing as a Soldier, I guess I'm around halfway through Act 1 (level 14 IIRC, just entered the flooded cave area), but I think I'm doing something wrong. Not "wrong" as in, "I'm dying a lot", but the combat balance seems way off (difficulty is Normal / Veteran). All I do is wade into combat with my two-handed sword and use the "Tremor" version of the cleave skill and everything dies. Nothing can kill me because my defenses are pretty high, plus I have some ability that regens most of my health if I fall to a third remaining. Most mobs die very quickly to the tremor shock waves since it hits everything, so a lot of fights devolve into running into a chokepoint and standing still while spamming Tremor and stuff explodes in front of me. Bosses take forever to go down though.

My only experience with an ARPG is Torchlight II, and in that game I at least had to use more than one skill. Here I'm just holding down my attack key. I seriously doubt my build is particularly strong, I don't think I have any special abilities proccing or whatever when I attack (I don't even know if any can with Tremor). Is Normal difficulty just that easy? Is there more to the game and I just need to get further in? It's an almost completely mindless experience so far.

[SevenSpirits]

I don't have a lot of time to devote to games like this. Do you think it's worth playing if I'm only going to play max 10-20 hours?

[Wyatan]

I don't have a lot of time to devote to games like this. Do you think it's worth playing if I'm only going to play max 10-20 hours?

I'd say no.
If you haven't played it yet, I'd try Bastion instead.

It's an "ARPG" too, although of a different vein: no sprawling skill tree, no loot, no grind. On the other hand, it can be experienced for the story, which isn't exactly the strong suit of the various "Diablo-likes".
10-20 hours should be enough for a playthrough.

[SevenSpirits]

I have played Bastion (and liked it). Thanks.

[Rowain]

@Bob lvl 14 and flooded cave is just outside beginners area . Normal diff ends somewhere between 45 and 50 and believe me you will find Monsters that are dangerous.

[Boro]

I have to note that my spellbreaker, a pure phantasmal blades character with a fairly high (9pt) phantasmal blades and 12/12 Heart Seeker can explode entire groups of enemies with one throw, and bosses in only a few. The damage is mostly balanced between vitality, bleeding some others, with a bit of other stuff coming in. Defense is Pneumatic burst (4 points), 3s invincishield, and having 4 points in bat so a throw steals back like a third of my health bar. Mr. Warden wasn't nuking me from full to zero thankfully