Grim Dawn is an awesome game, but if you're not prepared it'll bludgeon, butcher or blow you up with glee - and I know that from experience. So let me help you avoid some headaches by sharing everything I wish I knew before I first started.

Video version of this guide (~14 minutes)

1) Which Class?

Grim Dawn's class system is a lot different than most ARPGs. Instead of just picking one class and sticking with it, you get to combine two different masteries to create your character.

You can respec your individual skills fairly easily, but once you pick a mastery, that choice is locked in stone. So naturally, the first thing you're probably wondering is: which two classes actually work together?

And the good news is: pretty much all of them.

I intentionally chose Berserker and Occultist for my first characters - two classes that sound like they should have absolutely nothing to do with each other - and still I found heaps of fun synergies right off the bat.

So while certain combinations will be easier to assemble than others, you don't have to worry about accidentally ruining your character. Grim Dawn gives you enough tools to make pretty much anything work. So pick the two things that sound cool and see what happens. And if that means being a wizard werewolf, then by all means - embrace your destiny!

2) Which Difficulty?

Right off the bat, Grim Dawn lets you choose between Normal and Veteran difficulty. Now, if you're used to modern games where Normal is basically an all-expenses paid tour through the game, you might be tempted to jump straight into Veteran. Grim Dawn is not that kind of game.

Normal is already decently challenging, while Veteran is nasty enough that you'll be forced to actually think about your build, gearing choices and playstyle - even in the earlygame. And I know this because I had my face used as a mop more times than I'm willing to admit.

This isn't to say that Veteran is impossible. It's not. It's actually really fun... but only if you're looking for a challenge. If you want a more balanced experience, just start with Normal.

Once you get a better understanding of the game, or if you find yourself in too deep and need to take a breather, you can change the difficulty from the main menu at any point. So don't make yourself suffer... unless you want to.

Veteran difficulty can be spooky, but it's also a lot of fun

3) Safety Portal

Regardless of what difficulty you choose, there's one little trick you'll want to learn immediately, or you're going to have a bad time. And that is the safety portal.

In just about every location you can press L to drop a portal, which essentially serves as a checkpoint you can teleport to. And trust me when I say, you'll want to use and abuse this whenever possible.

Exploring a dangerous area and you haven't seen a checkpoint in a while? Drop a portal. You've entered a room and you suddenly hear boss music? Drop a portal. Everything you're fighting is suddenly a dozen levels higher than you? You betcha, smash that portal button!

That way if a boss turns you into a decorative smear on the floor you can respawn, jump through the portal, and start slashing their shins all over again. It's a simple habit to learn, but it'll save you a ton of time... and frustration.

4) Focus Your Build

One of the most important things I learned from Grim Dawn - but also its predecessor Titan Quest - is that any damaging ability can become the core of your build... if you actually build around it.

The big mistake is trying to do everything at once. If you spread your skill points across a dozen different abilities, you'll find yourself slowly getting weaker over time until eventually you're barely able to clear out even the trash-tier enemies.

So instead, max out the ability you want to work around, and then look through your skill trees for anything that makes it better. More damage? Great. More attack speed? Sounds good. Reducing enemy resistances? Even better.

On the other hand, if an ability isn't contributing much to your build, either completely ignore it or stick a single point in there to get a little bit of utility like a long jump. Do that, and Grim Dawn's difficulty will feel a lot more manageable.

Reducing the enemy's defense is even better than increasing your offense

5) Enchant Your Gear

Grim Dawn is unfortunately pretty bad at teaching you what truly matters, and this is what made my first playthrough quite... messy. For the longest time I barely enchanted my gear. I mean, why would I? Why waste useful resources on a poop-tier axe I'd replace in the next 15 minutes?

As it turns out, that was a terrible idea. Like really, really terrible.

The components you can put into your gear can give you some genuinely massive bonuses - everything from extra damage to resistance and health. And those stats only become more and more important the further you go.

But there's a catch. The basic components you can find lying around aren't all that great. To get truly awesome enchantments you'll need to craft them yourself at the blacksmith. And once you have them, just shove them into literally every single piece of gear you own.

And don't worry about wasting resources. You can extract these enchantments from your old gear for a small fee. The item itself will get destroyed, but honestly? Who cares. You were going to replace it anyway.

So don't make the same mistake I did. Once you're past the tutorial area - enchant everything you have. Your future self will thank you.

6) What Loot is Good?

But that does bring up a question: what gear is even worth keeping, let alone enchanting? Well, Grim Dawn's items have A LOT of different stats, and much to my surprise, very few of them are actually filler. Which is fantastic for build-crafting... but it also means that figuring out whether an item is actually good is like trying to find a piece of hay in a stack of needles. Or in other words, kinda prickly.

But here are the basics. Ideally, you want items that give you a nice mixture of resistances, health and damage. But that's not a luxury you're going to have early on.

So instead, when comparing weapons simply look at the damage numbers. If it's green, you're good to go. And if it's red, it's good to go to the dump.

For armor and jewelry, pay more attention to the stats themselves. Since there's a lot of items to go through, you want to be fairly critical about this. If it doesn't seem good at first glance, just move on. If it's a tiny upgrade, just move on. It's just not worth wasting your time over such small upgrades.

Once you have an actually good candidate, however, you'll want to take a look at how much damage your current abilities doe Then equip the new item, and look again. If it's a big improvement, take it. If it's a small loss but you gain a lot more defense, also take it. For everything else, just move on.

Until you reach the higher difficulties, it really doesn't have to be any more complicated than this.

Relevant damage types & a bit of survivability make for a supremely useful item

7) Loot Filter

Once you get past the first hour or two, white and yellow items are going to become mostly irrelevant. So unless you enjoy playing minesweeper every time a boss explodes into a shower of loot, turn on the loot filter.

It sounds complicated, but don't worry, it's super simple. All you want to do is disable white and yellow items, and turn on "always show double rares" to highlight the really juicy stuff. And that's it. Suddenly you'll only see the items you actually care about, and your screen won't constantly be covered in heaps of garbage.

And don't worry about losing out on money from selling the low-tier items. You'll get plenty just playing normally, so it's really not worth the trouble. Trust me on this, a nice and tidy inventory is worth a lot more than a pair of soiled trousers you found on the ground.

8) Side Quest

Most of Grim Dawn's side quests are pretty straightforward. Go somewhere, kill something, and you'll get a bit of money, experience and maybe a piece of loot.

But a handful of quests give you something much, much more powerful: permanent upgrades for your character. We're talking extra skill points, attribute points, expanded inventory space and other such goodies. As such, this is not a game where you'll want to skip over quests - even if they're slightly lower level.

So whenever you reach a new town, or whenever you finish a big chunk of the main quest, take a quick look around to see if any new quests have appeared. You don't have to be obsessive about this - Grim Dawn is pretty good at highlighting the important ones - but just check every once in a while. It's well worth the trouble.

In a game about loot, more inventory size is the best thing you can ever have

9) Explore Everything

And while we're on the subject of things worth doing, don't just rush from quest to quest. Explore the world. All of it.

Grim Dawn's world is entirely hand-crafted, which means that unlike a lot of ARPGs, there's a good reason to stick your nose into every corner of the world. You can run into secret quests, bonus bosses, cool areas that are so hidden they aren't even marked on the map, or just some nice little story moments to flesh out the world. Oh, and most importantly, you can find shrines that give you insanely powerful perks.

Personally, I like doing a circle around the outer edge of the map and then slowly moving inwards. That way I can clear the entire area without accidentally wandering into the next zone or missing something fun.

But whatever your method, the path less traveled is always worth checking out in Grim Dawn.

10) Dynamite

Just like in real life, a lot of problems in Grim Dawn can be solved by the generous application of dynamite. It lets you open bonus chests, sneak into secret areas, and is even required for a couple of quests. But unfortunately, you won't get enough by simply playing normally.

So what do you do? Well, there are two ways to stock up. The slow but free way is to explore mines and human encampments, as you'll usually find a stick or two lying around there.

Or, and this is the much better option, you can go to the blacksmith in Homestead and just make the stuff yourself. It's not particularly expensive either, so as soon as you reach the village just start mixing explosive materials together. I'm sure it'll be perfectly fine!

It's cheap to craft, so make a bunch. It'll always come handy when exploring.

11) Handy UI Tweaks

Grim Dawn has some very useful in-game options that aren't exactly essential, but once you know about them you'll never want to go back.

First of all, there's a tiny button on the bottom right of your energy bar that lets you change the size of your minimap. And since the default is designed with ants in mind, you should definitely make it bigger. It'll make finding quests and navigating unfamiliar areas much easier.

There's also a little key icon next to your quests that lets you hide the quest tracker. It's a small quality-of-life thing, but sometimes you really don't want a giant wall of text covering the right side of the screen.

The Move Reagents button in your inventory is another lifesaver. It'll send all of your crafting components and upgrades straight to your stash, regardless of where you are. You can even do this with things like dynamite, because Grim Dawn is gracious enough to let you use them from your stash. Now that is convenient!

And finally, head into the keybinds menu and rebind the Pickup action. This lets you mash a single button to pick up all the loot around you, instead of individually harvesting all those items like some kind of medieval peasant. It's a little janky so it won't always work perfectly, but believe me, it's infinitely better than the alternative!

Clicking on all that loot with your mouse is for chumps

Got Any Questions?

And there you have it. Hopefully this guide will save you from making some of the same mistakes I did and make those first few hours of Grim Dawn a little less painful. Because Grim Dawn really is fantastic... once you manage to get past the first difficulty hump and stop getting one-shot.

And if you have any tips of your own - or if you just want to tell me I'm being a dumbass and doing something completely wrong - let me know in the video's comments. I'm always happy to learn something new.