[00:08] This time pretty excited to bring you that Grimdawn's DLC, Fangs of Aster, is finally released. Just yesterday, from the time of this video, it is on sale for $19 US as a base price, but there's a small launch discount bringing it down
[00:23] to 17. And given that I've been waiting for this one for years so I can finally get around to playing Grim Dawn by popular request basically, I'm pretty excited to finally be able to talk about it a little bit. But with that exact
[00:35] upfront at the start of this video. This isn't going to be like a super deep dive into the DLC itself. I'm going to talk about the new mastery and stuff and a naturally how I feel about them thus far. But if you want like a hardcore
[00:49] deep dive into the DLC, I'm sure there's likely a content creator out there who does that kind of thing for this game. But as it stands, I am simply not capable of delivering a video like that and won't be until I finish playing
[01:01] some time, which we'll get into towards the end of the video. In large part, Grim Dawn for the first time very recently. I made a video about it, and it was literally just in anticipation of this upcoming update. So, I kind of
[01:16] wanted to establish a baseline before the DLC came out. But thanks to when before I get to go much farther than people know who watch the channel at least, I love to play this type of game
[01:29] to relax. These are great games to chill with, as the good ones at least manage to balance a great deal of mechanical depth while also not exactly being super intensive to play. And because of that, when uh people found out that I hadn't
[01:42] played Grim Dawn, obviously that was a big request on the channel for a long time. But when I went to look into it, this DLC was supposed to be in development. And that was back in god, I want to say like 2022, 2023. And it was
[01:55] in the works before that even. I believe that's just when I found out about it. And in that process, I also discovered that this DLC was supposed to bring a is exactly how I like to play these games. So, I decided to hold off and
[02:08] wait until this DLC dropped. Both so that when I reviewed it, the review would be obsolete right after when this DLC released, but also because I could then play it the exact way I wanted to play it. But with all that boring stuff
[02:21] out of the way, let's get into the meat of the video. And so, like many a DLC, this is launched with a patch alongside it, patch 1.3, which brought some great changes just immediately that I was able to notice just in the short time frame
[02:33] from playing it for the first time to now. and then of course the DLC content something I noticed immediately, what I'm talking about is the UI in particular. So the base game patch uh overhauls the UI. It scales
[02:47] appropriately on 4K monitors, which is what I personally use. So that was nice to begin with. They also made changes to the stash, giving it dedicated component and crafting material pages, extra space per tab, which can now be customized and
[03:00] labeled. They've added buttons to autodump your inventory into those you don't even have to do that manually. You can just click an inventory button and it'll do it for you. They've added new control schemes, new tool tips, etc.
[03:13] So, like just immediately, I would be surprised if people didn't notice the UI changes. Very welcome on my end. And almost everything else for the base game patch that I could see were extensive balance changes to all sorts of various
[03:27] items as well as actually fixing some issues with them as well. And I got to the game well enough to tell you what's important there, but it's extensive. There's a lot of them. Now, let's talk about the DLC proper and what you are
[03:40] actually paying for if you choose to buy it, which is the new campaign, the new class, and a whole bunch of other features to go along with that DLC. Now, much because that's more of a late game thing and I am simply not there yet. But
[03:53] nonetheless, I do know it is about the tribes of the Karna and you'll be interacting with up to three different tribes of them and getting involved there. The DLC itself just in like land mass is about 80% of the base game which
[04:06] increases the total world space by about 32% which is pretty wild. And like I factions you'll be interacting with and then getting down into the story of that DLC accordingly. But obviously with a game like this, the story there is
[04:21] really just the start because for starters, they've added a new ascendant game difficulty, an extra step above what was already there, which was ultimate, I believe. And then on top of that, in that difficulty, you'll also be
[04:33] able to ascend your epic items. So, from what I understand, the epic items are set items that while useful at certain points in the game, eventually became outshined by other itemization because of some of the things that they lack.
[04:47] And then the ascendant version of these items is meant to bridge that gap. But speak more on when I actually go to review the game and experience those things for myself. But speaking of items, this particular update also adds
[05:00] an insane amount of them to the tune of like 500ish, I think it is. And naturally, all the new enemies that you're going to kill to receive those items, which includes new super bosses, nemesis bosses, that is to say, the
[05:12] factional bosses that come up in the base game. So, that will also get some new content there. And then two new roglike dungeons as well. And if that somehow wasn't enough for you, there are of course new enemies and the like, but
[05:25] there's also going to be new monster archetypes as well across the entirety of the game. So, even the base game should see some changes to uh the things you are fighting just generally across the board there. Now, they also made
[05:38] some changes to uh previous content beyond that as well. Uh, the Crucible DLC has been expanded with extra waves to accommodate for all this stuff. The Shattered Realm now has new regions and bosses added to it. And then there are
[05:51] some other things such as the ability to roll all of the aixes on your rare and magic items to help perfect those, of course. And then you're also going to be able to customize your potions a bit. So, the base game has a basic health and
[06:06] resource. And there's a system in this DLC that allows you to customize them and provide buffs and things instead, which will be fun to mess around with. However, for me in particular, I fully admit that the main draw of this
[06:20] particular DLC was in fact the new class or the new mastery. Now, the way Grim Dawn handles its classes is by combining two of these masteries. So, you'll pick one and then you'll get to pick a second one not too long after that, and those
[06:35] they add one of these masteries, it has to combine with all of the previous ones. And so while the new class itself is exciting, it also again affects all comes with it. And in particular, that brings the total number of combinations
[06:50] to 45, which is pretty extensive as you would guess, which combined with all the itemization and everything already present gives you an enormous amount of ways to build a character. That said, the Berserker, the new mastery, is more
[07:03] or less what you would expect from the class name. It focuses on, of course, shape-shifting, which is really the big thing for me personally. Now, on the shape-shifting side, you can pick either a werewolf or a were raven a little
[07:17] later. The were raven is interesting to me, but I'm going werewolf cuz it's a the werewolf does, uh, pretty standard stuff. you get increased attack speed, increased movement, as well as being able to cause things like bleed damage
[07:31] things. In that way, it's a very uh standard approach to something like that. But what is interesting is something I know about this game thus far is that there are like weapon attack replacers for a lot of various classes
[07:45] here and there. And in particular, the shape shifts replace your basic abilities. And so it'll be interesting to discover as time goes on exactly what stacks and what doesn't because it does seem like you can use your other
[07:57] abilities elsewhere in your shape-shifted form, which does seem to you do have to be aware of stuff like the weapon attack replacers. So that's Now, for me at least, I've been trying to grab gear that stacks movement and
[08:12] attack speed cuz that seems fun, and I'm obviously very early game when most things work super well anyway. But on the non-shapeshifted side, you also get a bunch of abilities centered around either dual wielding or two-handed and
[08:25] then also buffing yourself as you would expect. Building up charges, dealing cold and pierce damage primarily it seems like. And they also get a couple of abilities that have a chance to be used when you're using your default
[08:37] weapon attack. So again, overall seems to be pretty standard for what you would expect for a berserker overall, but still kind of exactly the class fantasy that I was going for personally. And in fact, I'm choosing to mix that with a
[08:50] of their conjuring spells a little later, but I am very curious to see what other combinations people wind up leaning into to get the most out of it. But thus far, having played it through the first total act of the game, I'm
[09:03] having a lot of fun with it. But I imagine when I eventually get into the late game is when I'll see how well it actually does. But speaking of that, um, if you want a review for this, it's going to be a while. As I mentioned in
[09:15] my video about it not all that long ago, it's going to take me some time to go through this. A dedicated several weeks at best, and even then, that might not be enough. And the sort of problem there, so to speak, is that uh the next
[09:28] couple months are very spoken for as far as my schedule is concerned. So, the full is probably going to be like November or December. And if I don't have enough time, then I'll have to push it out probably until like next summer.
[09:41] So, as far as a review goes, it's going to be a minute. That said, if I can't get it done by December, what I might do is drop a sort of progress update video around Christmas or something just to see how things are moving along. But
[09:53] overall, I am having a ton of fun with this. I'm really glad the DLC is finally I wanted to get across with this video which I have hopefully done. So, if you are enjoying all of that, I'd love to hear all about it down in the comments
[10:06] for yourself, or if you're looking forward to the eventual review for it, I comment, subscribe, all the YouTube jazz. But regardless of any of that, truly just thank you so much for watching. I really do appreciate it. May
[10:20] you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day.