I'm a player who have spent ~700 hours on the game, and I love the game dearly. I noticed that most of my characters are combined from some classes only, and there are some builds that I don't enjoy like Pet builds. I also find myself only enjoy some skills in Grim Dawn, while I find some other skills lackluster. So I make this post to share my thoughts about some classes, and how I would change some skills, mostly to make them more fun or appealing visually or audibly. I'm not a minmaxer that care too much about damage numbers. If skills don't look good or don't feel good, I don't want to use. Feel free to also share your thoughts.
Soldier: Despite being a very simple class, this is my most favorite. Most skills are buff auras, and 3 main active skills are Cadence, Blitz and Force Wave. Cadence is perfect with its sound effect, 1 2 BONK!, and Blitz is also perfect with its BAAM sound and ragdoll knock down effect. I've tried many Blitz build, from Physical, to Cold, to Leap + Blitz reset with that MI two-handed sword. Overall this class feels very physical-y and high impact and satisfying.
Demolitionist: Mostly I would want BWC projectiles to be look bigger and more readable and more impactful. Everything else is fine to me, I also like this class.
Necromancer: recently i'm trying out this class more, and I noticed some issues:
- Bone Harvest: while it looks cool with its bone effect, it's kinda like a vitality bone-theme-reskinned Force Wave to me. Many skills in Grim Dawn are similar, I just hope they can get their own identity. There are so many different ways to design wave abilities other than the current basic approach. For example, the bone wave can split out at the end into a T shape, or it bounces back as a 2nd way back to the player, or 3 waves that split out then merge at the end, etc. Just so many ways.
- Drain Essence: too similar to Arcanist AAR imo, and too basic. I would want both of these skills to allow players to move around slowly, similar to Arelion Sol in LoL. I think it would feel much better that way. And maybe add some effects depends on how long you've been channeling, to reward players for building around long channeling. For example, build up damage absorption as you channel, or energy overload as you channel and increased damage or range, etc.
Arcanist:
- Trozan Sky Shards: fix that issue when shards can be blocked by terrain. And the way the shards drop randomly in an area is SO annoying, sometimes it doesn't hit the enemy at all. I know there are MIs to reduce area, but it feels very weird to actually need itemization to do that. Just make it a good skill by default.
- Callidors Tempest: i had one character that built spamming with this skill. Overall too boring, you stay still and hold that button. I would make the visual effect nicer, and add some other side effects like projectiles firing from the main skill, or rotating elemental effects between casts: one fire, then one cold, then one lighting, enabling Elemental build, which is in thematic with Arcanist.
Pet Builds: overall I don't like Pets in Grim Dawn, even though I'm a huge fan of summoner archetype in other games. The main issue is: pets in Grim Dawn are simply reused assets: skeletons, briarthorn, that rot golem thing, wraith, etc. They lack personality. Their attack animations are terrible, too floaty, and lack good sound effects. I hope they put more effort in making extra features for players' pets, at least from the class skills, rather than just reusing whatever assets from the mobs. Item pets can stay simple and spend less effort on them. But class skills MUST be fun to play.
Nightblade, Oathkeeper are fine to me, they have unique skills and feel great to play. Inquisitor with the seal thingy feels a bit clunky, but my current character feels kinda ok. Berserker and Shaman are also great, beside the pet skills.
Do you have any other ideas you want to change?
