Grim Dawn

OP, you should feel ashamed of your shitty DPS

Put cadence as your default left click attack, ffs
And play veteran, noob

Everything until the Warden is pretty dull, but it only gets better after that.
You get areas that are more pleasant and rewarding to explore and it's about the time when your build starts becoming enjoyable.

pleb

Also Necromancer class when?

The Warden doesn't take more than two or three hours once you know what you're doing, and it takes way less time if you rush him.

Game is pretty fun, I just unlocked the kraken devotion thing and I see fear in Aetherial's eyes when I equip my two-handed mace. It's got some cosmetic issues tho.

Player models look like shit, the male looks like some kind of bulgarian thug. All equipment looks the same, at least for warrior builds you always kind of end looking like some kind of medieval mad max dude. Not a lot of enviroments either, there's some variation but most looks kinda same-y. Titan Quest didn't have either of these problems.

I liked the more semi-permanent bodies from titan quest better too, is there a mod that adds them in yet?

are you saying slot 1 is default left click and won't do a regular non-skill strike?

Are there any that are more weeaboo focused?

My dps comes from spells mostly, after I blitz in I can clear a stack of baddies with tempest in 3 seconds.

It'd fuck up the whole Death's Vigil/Kymon's Chosen thing.

Though, I guess they could just add two classes, Necromancer and Paladin, make them unable to mix and have them automatically lock you into their respective factions.

Diablo was never a big thing in moonland, so there aren't any nips with a mind to clone it and infuse it with 100% pure JAPAN.

A shame, really. If Ys is anything to go by, they'd do wonders with the music.

Oh baby.

So how should I move around the horoscope if I make a Fire Strike build with Grenado/Canister Bomb support? Currently I'm aiming for the Unknown Soldier, going through Order first, completing the Crane and Assassin's Blade, before hopping on the Falcon sign due to the divine skill that's so great on a default attack.

Short of hopping onto Falcon immediately, how else could I go about it? Do the Assassin's Blade first and slap that on Markovian's Advantage for the second sign being Falcon Swoop?

You pick devotions based on your primary damage type.

Ah, I see. So, would Scholar's Light be a good idea to take then as I go for Kraken after Unknown Soldier?

Unknown Soldier is only good for you if your primary damage is either Bleeding or Piercing.
But yeah, if you want Kraken, I guess Scholar's Light is a good way to get the Eldritch points.

If you like grim dawn you should check out titan quest, first act is way too long and pretty boring but it really picks up after. Game also has new bosses on higher difficulties

I think the majority of Grim Dawn players already played Titan Quest to some degree or another.

Well yeah, just got the impression that OP didnt

Some hot opinions coming in.

8/10
It may feel slow now, but it didn't back then. Great shit overall, graphics and scary atmosphere hold up today perfectly fine.

9/10
Still the king. Could be more scary though.
(I haven't played it without LoD though)

7/10
Very solid, true open world, shitton of content.
Didn't play the expansion.

8/10
I know you faggots like to hate it, and it was nearly unplayable on launch, but it's pretty solid with all patches, expansion and community patch. Also true open world and unique setting made it my most played game of them all.

8/10
Great shit, super atmospheric, intense and offers god-tier customization. I made Alchemist into berserker necromancer hybrid and finished the game. Could be harder though

6/10
Passable but disappointing. Shallow, atmosphere and flexibility of TL1 gone, huge empty areas, tries to be D2 too hard.
Didn't play Synergies mod, people say it fixes most of that.

4/10
Slow and boring. Could play longer than 2 hours. Cross-class system looked interesting, but I almost fell asleep from it.
But has cool setting and supposedly the most content of all these games to date.

7/10
Basically fixed TQ. Needs more polish and content. And armor variety. Yes needs more variety in general. Very solid shit right there.

6/10
Another cross-class game. Good variety but pretty bland areas and combat. Terribly slow start, but not as slow as TQ holy fuck.

2/10
Piece of shit. Has nice graphics hence 2 instead of 1. Fuck it.

5/10
Better than I expected but it ain't no diablo. More like edgier Torchlight 2. Trial didn't warrant a purchase, so I can't comment on full game or expansion. Hopefully it's better.

6/10
Diablo 2 HD marred by being free to play online game. Could be really strong if made into proper video game.

7/10
Ugly and clunky but it just werks somehow. Also shitton of content and cool animoo setting.

4/10
It doesn't werk anymore, they broke it. But at least it looks nicer and still somehow has shitton of content.

Forgettable piece of generic shit. How could they made it so with such setting and ambition is beyond me.

4/10
Great fucking setting and visuals. Turboshit gameplay and overall bugfest.
Still finished it for setting and visuals, we need more cyberpunk ARPGs.

8/10
Not MMO one.
Basically Devil May Cry on diablo 2 engine. Not even sure if it's relevant to this thread, but it's great fucking game.

2/10
Still not MMO.
They broke it. It still uses the same beautiful sprites so it's 2 instead of 1.

Game only me played/10.
Solid basis and cool visuals but no content. Buyable packs just reuse base assets for higher levels. Huge disappointment.

Really like Ys, Shining and Phantasy Star after Universe series, but those aren't really relevant, they went full on action games with hitbox combat, manual dodging and shit.

Phantasy Star Online
Phantasy Star Universe
Shadow Flare
Lodoss something on Dreamcast, but I didn't play it.

Sacred 2 is pure shit.

In my mind, it's the worst thing about Diablo's legacy.

Fighting scores of demons is best coupled with hype, not freight.

fugg

Unless it looks like a goddamn anime, i.e. D3.

Give it another chance with all fixes and patches. And that one mod that makes grass not glowing toxic green plasma.
You'll love it.

I dunno mate, none of the other games to date did it right for me - be it shooters, point and clicks or walking sims.
Only D1 and to a lesser extent D2 actually gave me the feeling of actually being inside of horror story. Well Splatterhouse 3 for genesis did.
Either way those two games are fantastic from gameplay point alone, and that is enough to play them.

It's not, and I doubt it will ever be fixed. If anything the full version is worse because you'll see how horribly shitty itemization and character progression are, I actually bought D3 on release after playing the demo/trial with a friend. D3 has a good, fluid combat engine (maybe even the best in any ARPG to date) but the game they attached to it is mediocre at best. They constantly patch it and overhaul the entire game system but without ever addressing the core problems.

Agreed on Titan Quest, some people hyped it constantly so I tried it and I forced myself to play for about 5-6h before quitting when it didn't get better. That's why I haven't picked up Grim Dawn yet.

Dungeon Siege 1 was the only DS worth playing and it was only alright too.

It's not about being scared as in a horror but building the atmosphere is important for any game. Doom wouldn't be the same if you were shooting terrorists or something. Look at Diablo 3 and Torchlight, even ignoring gameplay, they're so generic and cartoony they can't possibly produce moments like the Butcher in D1 or Durance of Hate in D2.

Yeah, I love the games, but I really don't like what they did to pretty much all ARPGs that followed.
Darker atmospheres are taken for granted, and no one has the senses to notice the dissonance between the presentation and the gameplay.
I am 100% certain that music and surroundings that actually fit the havoc would do wonders to lower the tedium of the grind.

That 'e' isn't supposed to be there.

What dissonance? You're never a victim in Diablo games, but neither you're Duke Nukem. You're indeed a hero battling hordes of monsters, but it doesn't make world any less bleak. On the contrary the fact that whatever victories and solutions you may achieve are temporary at best, pointless at worse makes it even darker.

What kind of setting do you expect of these games? Heroic fantasy with fanfares and half-naked ladies selling you magic scroll of experience boost?
MMOs usually do that these days as well as Sacred did, and I can't say it doesn't work, but if dark and pre-apocalyptic atmosphere is to leave diablo clones, all we will be left with would be Souls clones, and those fare not nearly as good.

Grim Dawn is significantly better than Titan Quest.
While most ARPGs fail to keep my attention past the first kill of the final boss, I'm still engaged in Grim Dawn even as I approach him on the highest difficulty.

The first "act" can get pretty boring while you gather the skill points to make your build into something fun, but it's short and I'd say it's completely worth it.

My beef is primarily with the music.

Fine, have your dark atmospheres, but surely something can be done about the few drowsy notes or deathly silence playing in the background.
It's the most jarring part of the dissonance I'm talking about. You're fighting countless demons to nothing at all or tunes that are better at putting you to sleep than anything else.

It's perfectly possible for music to be dark AND get your blood running at the same time, but no one seems to want to stray from the standard set by Diablo.
Imagine fighting a boss to vid related.
Wouldn't it make for a better experience?

I think in spite of all its faults, Path of Exile is still currently the best in the genre.

I enjoyed Grim Dawn, but I used pretty much two skills through the entire game and nothing else, and had zero difficulties on veteran.

So, general quesiton for Grim Dawn:

What's a good class synergy for Occultist and/or is pure Occultist viable?

I'm not saying it's good but that is the route they went with Diablo over time, unfortunately.
In D1 you're an adventurer who dies to common monsters when cornered, you can't run and have to advance very carefully because a big group of enemies with a unique monster will fuck you up. You can clearly see the game was a turn-based dungeon crawl early in development. The enemies are mostly undead and demons, environments are dark and gothic.
In D2 most monsters are just a nuisance at worst, you can outrun most enemies, and outside of boss fights you're not really in danger of dying until higher difficulties. There is still some atmosphere from D1 but there's many more human and animals enemies, more generic fantasy locations (plains, deserts, jungles) and less catacombs and hell levels.
In D3 you're a nephilim demi-god who constantly jumps, teleports and farts fireballs as an afterthought, you don't care about survivability, just how quickly you can kill enemies. Enemies are cartoons and the game looks like WoW with a slightly darker spin.

pure occultist is very viable if you get more summons through equipment

Also Diablo 1 was a much slower-paced game.

TL2 with Synergies is like giving the base game some brownies filled with weed. Just kidding, they're full of crack cocaine and speed.
The amount of enemies triples, if not downright quadruples, along with the number of champions and varying degrees of elites. Entering Act II is like discovering a hardcore techno club in the middle of the desert packed full of drugged up ravers. And then realizing that the rest of the desert is the same way. And it stays that way until the end of the game.

I should have realized back then what they would do to diablo
it still hurts

Occultist with shaman = more pets and pet buffs
Occultist with arcanist = pets + mage dps
Occultist with soldier = pets + tanking

Occultist will jive with just anything I think, I particularly enjoy my conjurer and warlock but my witchblade isn't bad either. I suggest you just pick another class you like and merge them.

How is titan quest a 4 yet hellgate london is a 5?
Although i will admit it starts off slow, still everything else about it was fine

Also did you even play dungeon siege 1? Should i be listening to your opinion if you haven't even tried the original dungeon siege

This is relevant.

I'm thinking of going the "Blast them with hellfire" route, so I suppose Arcanist is a good synergy then.

Mixing Occultist with Demolitionist makes a "Pyromancer", which is what I'm playing right now.
I'm blasting them with hellfire alright, but can't tank for shit. Recently had to fuck around with my devotions to get some life steal.

Diablo2 v1.09 forever!
Haha
>>>/fighters/5263

Core gameplay is very good, but goddamn being f2p online game cripples it.

Well I played through PoE the same way. I didn't complete harder difficulties though.

Hellgate is boring, generic and buggy piece of shit, but at least it's somewhat entertaining, has interesting designs to weapons and armor and overall more or less playable.
TQ is borderline unplayable with its snail speed. You run slow, you fight slow, everything is so goddamn slow it makes Diablo 1 look like an F-Zero game.

No, I never had a chance.

How much is it different from 2? From screenshots they look really similar and from what I've read DS2 is more or less improved version of DS1 gameplay-wise.

but user it gets slightly faster the further you get into it, also in all other aspects it does exceptionally well
Also not entirely sure, but i think a few of the classes have spped boosts
alternatively you could just grab the one with teleport
Still i enjoyed it over more than hellgate london, there was clearly something more than a single part of that

I don't know man, I felt like titanquest dragged a lot in terms of pacing, really really long game especially once you got Immortal Throne.

I really enjoyed the game though, but there were a few too many builds and a lot of them took ages to actually get fun. Thankfully grim dawn fixed both my problems, although I wish the game was longer, but they seem to be working on that with the updates adding in Act 4 and stuff.

PoE could be better if devs hire real coders and designers and told them what to do instead of trying to do everything themselves and horribly failing. Also

I missed out.

it's $5 to upgrade 3 tabs to premium tabs
you may not like that you have to pay them to not have to make a trade thread on their forums and have your shit listed
but it's a pretty fair deal IMO
I still think they should maybe convert 1 of the standard tabs into a premium tab, but I want them to get more money so that they can maybe get shit done better and faster by hiring competent people to fix their shit
you can make the game look like an early developer alpha and it still runs like a crippled sloth

Gonna start this game for the first time today, what should I expect?

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are you paying grinding gear games to give you OP items that you can't find in the game?
no, you are paying to not have to deal with having to create a thread on their trade forum listing the things you want to sell
you can still create that thread on the trade forum without paying them anything, trading is not put behind a paywall

Its sure is fair that you need to pay more in f2p game than in p2p game. 15$ for fucking currency tab so you dont need 2-3 tabs filled with currency alone and you dont need to sell it cheaper just to empty your stash. And 10 regular stash is a bare minimum for high level player.

They never do. It takes them years to fix their shit, and they dont even admit that they fucked up. And most of updates is just terrible looking hats, terrible low lvl unique items, and reskinned old skills.
Their coding policy is

Every time TQ is mentioned I tell you guys to go install Soulvizier, and do you do it? No.
I know that shouldn't factor into your rating but it seriously fixes the shit out of the game

Game is about trading. Rare items drop is like once per few years of playing. Literally. To be able to gain required for your build items you need to trade.

Even devs agree that its a shit method. And you can hoard your shit on 20 different accounts. Good luck managing that. You will spend hours playing tetris while premium user will do it in a couple of clicks.

so you are bitching about $20 for a game that you can play for free when most other games in the same genre cost that or more, have the same type of trade forum for listing items and some doesn't even allow you to trade
all the other autist that are trading through the premium tabs has payed for the convinence not to have to deal with the forum threads and the multiple accounts and mule characters
they payed for it, why shouldn't you pay for it?
yes, you could argue that it should be default in the game which is why I said that maybe everyone should have at least 1 premium tab for trading and the currency tab would also be very nice but at the same time I want them to get more money because I think it's a good game despite its many flaws
you may not like that you have to pay for convenience of easy trading, which is fine and I can agree that the currency tab is slightly on the cash grabby side of things which is why I haven't bought it and I don't desperately need it
but what do you suggest? infinitely expanding storage so you can hoard all the shit and have them all have the trading feature?
naah, 1 trading tab and the currency tab for all so it can go back to being cosmetics only so people can finally stop bitching about it but who am I kidding, people will bitch and moan about people having more stash tabs than them anyway

aetherals

Grim Dawn is a good game but I think the devs were creatively bankrupt or some shit like the skills themselves don't look interesting (outside maybe aether ray but that skill is garbage in terms of damage and you need to channel it)

I enjoyed the whole "melee special attack skill with % probability" thing for nightblade/soldier.
Made autoattack combat a lot more interesting.

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Is Van Helsing worth a go? I've had it sitting around for over a year and wonder if it's worth the time.

I played the first one and it was meh.
Nice graphics and overall high production values but very low variety in terms of weapons and skill.
It's basically a game with 1 class instead of your usual 3-5.
I'd give it 4/10.

Haven't played others.

It's pretty alright.
6/10. Play it if you already own it

see and keep looking at it for any future statement about easy trading being pay to win

Thanks, sounds pretty average but I'll try to get through it.

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if you're going to play van helsing, get the final cut version

also check out the van helsing enhanced mod

And that's why Soulvizier is a massive improvement over the main game, movement speed and attack speed buff are way more common so you can easily get to 160+% speed in both, only downside is that you really look retarded when you run.

It's a bit sad that in TQ you don't really end up looking like a Bronze Age soldier. More like a peasant with random metal plates attached everywhere.

I was really disappointed to find out all the gear eventually turns into WoW-tier fantasy shit by the time you get far into the end game.

Which one is the best? There's 3 of these games plus different editions and DLC. Do they have a hardcore mode like Diablo2?

(noice)
Final Cut.
Optimized, patched, and has all three games' content rolled into one neat package. Can't say anything else because I haven't played it myself, just looked it up recently.

Ah, cool. Thanks.

That sounds cool, I remember Van Helsing being quite funny for an ARPG, but in a good way.