Top Tips for Beginners Guide (from the viewpoint of a returning player with only 300 hours)
So after a bit of a break from GD, I decided to come back to play a little bit before the release of FOA DLC.
Been watching some twitch streamers and saw some new people trying the game which is great!
Here are some of my top tips that I found/realised when I was starting out that you may find useful.
In no particular order:
1. Minimap
There is a toggle button on the right side corner near the energy bar can make the circle bigger. This is useful as it highlights quest stars, shrines, totems, and other things of note that are not shown when you open the normal map.
- Loot filter
You can pretty safely remove white items as soon as you start the game and yellow items once your character has every slot filled. The game drops a tonne of greens very early so you never need to look at yellows again. And no, picking them up and selling them for bits is not worth the time.
Also, enable the "always show double rares" in your loot filter. Double rare means that the green item has a rare prefix and rare suffix, usually you only get either or as a rare. This might be confusing to understand but for beginner's purposes its not that important.
Side note: Blue is not always better than green items. Dont think that you can just equip all the blues you have picked up and think that thats an upgrade. It really isnt. Most blues are going to be character/class/build specific and not relevant to whichever class you pick.
- Camera
Get comfortable with rotating the camera to face the direction you want to go or just to explore/admire the view. You can hold the mousewheel and swivel or I like to have key binds to rotate the camera. This also lets you see things you wont normally see such as hidden chests or pathways.
- Riftgates
You can teleport to any riftgate by just opening the map, clicking world map and then selecting the riftgate of where you want to go. You dont need to manually spawn a personal riftgate first then click into it.
Side note - its a good idea to open a personal riftgate (and not use it) every so often, this means if you die, then you can teleport back there rather than to the nearest riftgate and walk through the long dungeon or whatever all over again. I like to open a personal riftgate if I see any scary mob packs or a boss fight.
Side note 2 - this is for efficiency but if you see something interesting on your way, open a personal riftgate but then keep progressing to the next riftgate. Then teleport back to that place of interest. (saves time walking back)
- Lorenotes
Lorenotes can be clicked for experience points. Also it has lore if you want to read it. You can always go back and read the notes you have found by clicking the `/~ key.
- Blueprints
These are crafting recipes that unlock at the blacksmith. You want to click these soon after you pick them up because these are a random drop and if you are holding it or saving it then the game can technically give you another copy of the same blueprint rather than giving you a new one since you had already learnt it.
- Blacksmiths
Pretty early on in Act 1 there is a quest involving Angrim/Duncan. You can choose to side with one or the other and the person you side with will return to Devils Crossing and become your blacksmith. They offer slightly different craftable items but in general it doesnt matter who you pick. Since you get to play the storyline over in Elite difficulty and then again in Ultimate, you can pick a different guy so you have access to both blacksmith's items in the end.
Each town's blacksmith offers slightly different craft completion bonuses which are additional stats that are added to the item you craft. These bonuses are shown if you hover over the side side of the craft button.
- Components
Components drop frequently in the game, dont be afraid to read and use them by right clicking it and slotting it into its relevant item slot. These provide valuable power/defences/resistances at all stages of the game. Later on, when you unlock kasperov's apprentice near the middle of Act 1, she can help you to remove components from gear you want to keep, or destroy the gear and return the component you want to save.
There are some key components that are very useful such as an "antivenom salve" (armor/poison res) that do not drop naturally and need to be crafted at the blacksmith. This particular one is ideally placed on the belt as the armor bonus from it is applied across all armor pieces.
What you can do is head to the blacksmith, go to the last tab and search "pierce" if you want a component with pierce resistance and then see which slot it applies to. Same thing you can search "aether res" and "chaos res" etc and find what you need.
- Itemizing
Arguably the most important part of an ARPG is the LOOT!
It can be very confusing and overwhelming to know what items to keep and what to equip when starting out.
During leveling, for armor pieces prioritise in roughly this order:
Does it have higher armor than what you currently have
resistances that I am lacking
any +health
damage of the relevant type
any +skills to what I am using
For weapons:
Does it have the right damage type and is it higher?
are there any damage conversion that I dont want
does it provide any skill benefit to what I am using
(I understand that this is ultra basic but as you play and read the item tooltips you should get more comfortable figuring it out)
- "MI's" or "Monster Infrequents"
There are specific items with a special name (involving the name of that said monster) with a guaranteed drop rate (not always 100%) and provide certain benefits to certain skills. These can be target farmed by killing that monster again and again. These can be build defining items and provide big power boosts at all stages of the game.
The Grimtools website is a great resource to find what is relevant to your build and it will also tell you where to farm it if you want to do some research.
- BIG DAMAGE!
General rule is to focus on a main skill ability and put points into that and use it as your left/right click. Its tempting to put a point into every skill but they may not work well with each other or lack damage and give you too many buttons to press.
Ideally you have one or two damage skills and a few passive/supporting skills.
Feel free to play around with each skill to see what you like as it can be easily changed at the spirit guide for a little bit of iron bits.
Side note: its a good idea to also put 1 or 2 points into the mastery bar each time you level as it provides raw stats like health and energy and this is required to equip certain gear as you find them while leveling
- Attribute points
Generally you can pretty much dump most points into physique for health and put less points into cunning/spirit to meet item requirements.
Its a good idea to hold some points in reserve so you can see where you need to put the points in order to equip a new bit of gear you found.
- Devotions/Shrines
Every now and then you will discover a shrine that requires an offering of some sort or for you to kill enemies. Make sure you dont skip these. Each time you clear a shrine you get a devotion point. These are huge in how the character develops into the late game so you want to get it.
In terms of how to build out a devotion, this is a much more complex topic but you can use it to fill in resistance gaps, get more damage, get more health, movement speed, get certain skills etc. use the search bar and type in "cold" or "lightning" or "fire" or "chaos resistance" or "pet" etc to try to see where to put the points.
Side note: This can also be respec'ed at the spirit guide but it requires aether crystals, 1 per point so keep that in mind.
The very basic explanation of how it works is, a certain constellation requires a certain number of certain colors. once it meets the requirements you can put points into it. When you complete that constellation it provides you with a completion bonus.
For example, if one devotion needs 1 green before you can put points into it, you put 1 point into the green node in the crossroads (centre of the devotions page), and then fill out that devotion. Once complete, it might grant you 3 green points. This means that the 1 point in the crossroads is not required anymore as it is "self-sustaining". So you can then go and remove that point at the spirit guide and use it elsewhere.
- Items Hidden!?
There is a keyboard hotkey bind to show/hide items. This is useful when killing big packs of enemies at a shrine/totem as item tags can clutter up the screen when you are fighting. It also means that if you accidentally press this while in panic, you might be thinking that no items are dropping for some reason. So check the settings and know which button it is and you can use it.
Side note: holding down the "Alt" key will show all items even the ones hidden by your loot filter.
- Any other suggestions?
Ive tried to keep it as simple and beginner friendly as possible but still ended up with quite a
bit of text. I think I've covered a lot of the basics that a new player might need to get started.
I may also have made some mistakes given my level of knowledge compared to the thousands of hours of gametime experts so feel free to correct anything above.
Thanks and happy gaming!