Buying and starting
🧾 Do I need the expansions?
No, and you should not buy them all at once. The base game is a complete campaign of four acts. Ashes of Malmouth is the one that extends it — two more acts, two masteries and the level cap from 85 to 100. Forgotten Gods adds an endgame. Fangs of Asterkarn is aimed at people who already finished.
🌀 Is the Crucible worth it?
It is a wave arena, not story content, and for most of the game's life it was the one genuinely optional purchase. That changed in July 2026: Fangs of Asterkarn adds thirty Crucible waves, and without the Crucible DLC that part of the expansion simply does not exist for you.
🔟 Do I have to pick two masteries?
You have to pick one at level 2. The second, at level 10, is optional in the sense that you can stay single-class — but almost nothing is built around it and you would be giving up half your skills for no benefit. Take the second.
🎮 Is there a right first class?
No, but there are forgiving ones. See the beginner's guide — Soldier, Demolitionist and Occultist ask the least of a new player, and none of them limits what you pair them with later.
Building and respeccing
↩️ Can I respec?
Skill points, yes, one at a time at a Spirit Guide, from 25 Iron Bits early to a cap of 15,000 late. Devotion, yes, for Iron Bits plus an Aether Crystal. Attribute points, yes, at the same place. Your two masteries, no — that pair is permanent.
⭐ How many devotion points can I get?
50 in the base game, 55 with the expansions, one per restored shrine. Every shrine is available on Ultimate, so a character who starts there can reach 55 in a single playthrough instead of clearing all three difficulties.
🛡️ Why do I keep dying on Elite?
Almost always resistances rather than damage. Check your character sheet against the damage type that killed you and fix it with components and gear before you touch your skill tree.
📈 What is the level cap?
85 in the base game, 100 with Ashes of Malmouth.
Endgame and the 2026 expansion
🏁 What is there after the campaign?
Three separate things: the Crucible arena, the Shattered Realm from Forgotten Gods, and Ascendant mode from Fangs of Asterkarn. They are not tiers of the same ladder — they are different formats.
🐻 Is Fangs of Asterkarn worth it for a new player?
Not first. It adds a 6 km² zone, over sixty bosses, Ascendant mode and the Berserker mastery, and it assumes you have already been to Cairn. Buy it when you come back, not when you arrive.
☠️ Can one character kill every nemesis?
No. There are eleven, and two of them — Zantarin and the Iron Maiden — belong to the two factions that exclude each other. Whichever side you took in Act 3 decides which of those two you will ever meet.
🔑 What are the Skeleton Key shrines?
Four shrines on Ultimate sit behind locked doors that want a Skeleton Key. Three of them are not even named in-game. They are listed in the Ultimate shrine tracker under the room they are in, because that is the only way to find them.
Still to verify
Cross-checked on 10 September 2026 against the Official Grim Dawn Wiki, Crate's own guide pages and the community's beginner threads, which agree on the figures used here. What is still unverified is the only thing reading cannot settle — nobody here has played it.