Grim Dawn Grim Misadventures #54

We learn about the WYSIWYG loot system, "ultimate" skill levels, crafting blueprints, and more in the 54th "Grim Misadventures" feature to reach the official Grim Dawn forums. I really like the concept of skills levels beyond what can be achieved otherwise, and wish other games would do the same:

Ultimate Skill Levels
As you explore Grim Dawn's loot-filled dungeons, you will eventually come upon items that grant bonuses to specific mastery skills or even a bonus to all skills in a mastery. As long as you have at least one point in a skill, it will benefit from these stats and the level of the skill will turn blue in the skill tree.

This serves as a great way to free up your skill points so you can spend them elsewhere, but you may notice that if your skill was already maxed out, its level will actually go beyond what you can normally invest in it. These are ultimate skill levels and the only way to gain them is through items with skill bonuses.

For the first few ultimate levels, skills will generally scale as they did up to the max rank, but as you reach the highest ultimate levels (all skills can go up to 10 levels above the maximum in the skill tree) you will gain higher and higher bonuses. Note that percent-based bonuses on skills will generally not scale this way and may suffer from diminishing returns as you continue to invest in them.

Reaching the ultimate levels of skills is a powerful way to optimize your character.