Introduction
Hey there, I'm Silent Snowfall and I'm working to make an expansive mod for Grim Dawn. This mod currently: Adds 1 new mastery. Reworks all base classes. Adds more inventory and storage space. Increases the run speed cap. Adds several dozen new items and new affixes for randomized loot, and includes brand new original visual fx! A warning in advance: I am a complete novice when it comes to mod making. This is my first mod, and I'm learning as I go. If you encounter any bugs or issues whatsoever, please let me know! I'm also guessing that for a while at least, the mod will most likely be un-balanced (probably on the overpowered side of things) so if you do try the mod out, I would really appreciate any and all feedback on how balanced you think the changes are and what I could do to improve them. Ideally, I want this mod to end up being a fun and balanced addition to the game that allows people to try a wide diversity of different builds, each unique and interesting. I have been greatly inspired by mods such as Grimarillion, Diablo 3 Classes, Zenith, Cataclysm, Grim Dawn Reborn, Dawn of Masteries, Combo Mod, and more. I hope to make a mod that both myself and many others can get hours of enjoyment from. For a detailed list of changes made, see the "Read-Me" file included with my mod.

Most Recent Changes (Version 5.0)
-    Introducing my second new Mastery: Chemist, a Fire/Poison/Vitality focused class that specializes in self-buffing and decimating whole battlefields
     of enemies! Power comes at a price though, and the class has a few drawbacks to balance its large potential damage output. The Chemist is a
     Swiss-army-knife, versatile and able to improve your character in a myriad of different ways. It should make for an excellent secondary class to most other
     masteries, but can easily handle enemies on its own
-    Added approximately two dozen new affixes to the game, all related to the new skills being added via the new masteries. Also expanded the
     gear types that my new affixes will apply to
-    Added 20 new items (all relating to Chemist) and also fixed some issues causing a few of the new items I created for the Frost Zealot to
     not drop. Additionally augmented several existing items
-    New Skill for Frost Zealot: Zealot’s Flurry! Spin around slicing and dicing nearby enemies into pieces! (This was sort of a test skill but
     I kept it in because it’s fun!) 
-    Added new AI-generated art for the Frost Zealot (Note: This is still not the final art I have in mind for the mastery, but I feel that for the time being
     it’s better than just a blue-toned soldier recolor) [Further Note: Yes, the Chemist uses green-toned demolitionist art but in this particular case I
     actually think it’s fitting and looks pretty good. I’ll definitely replace it someday though]
-    Updated a few skill icons for Frost Zealot
-    Fixed Frost Zealot’s “Encase in Ice” skill to work no matter what weapons or off-hands you have equipped – Additionally increased health
     threshold and health regen for it
-    Added Pierce Damage to Frost Zealot’s “Trail of Ice” modifier
-    Added a bonus to pets on Frost Zealot’s “Whispers of the Cold” skill
-    Added a Transmuter to Frost Zealot’s “Hail Storm” skill which converts Physical Damage to Piercing Damage
-    Reduced the size and amount of snowflakes in Frost Zealot’s “Winds of the North” skill and also increased the visual radius to more accurately
     reflect the area being affected
-    Added small chance of putting enemies to sleep to Nightblade’s “Drowsing Haze” modifier
-    Reduced drop-rate for “Rimefrost” prefix on random loot – Idk why but it was set to drop way more often than other affixes
-    Various small bug fixes and tweaks

5.1 Changes
-    Reworked Necromancer’s “Ravenous Earth” skill and all related modifiers. The skill is now called “Chilling Maw” and erupts with cold damage,
     additionally inflicting frostburn to affected enemies
-    Removed a few erroneous “mythical” and “empowered” tags that were showing up on some of the new items I created
-    Increased the health regen on Chemist’s “Stimulant” skill and added a pet bonus to the skill
-    Sped up the transformation animation of Chemist’s “Mutation” skill, added an energy reserve, and slightly increased the duration
-    Changed the flat Vitality Damage in Occultist’s “Doombolt” to one second of Vitality Decay, and added a transmuter for the skill which
     converts Chaos Damage to Lightning and Vitality Damage to Poison.
-    Occultist’s “Sigil of Destruction” now caps on radius at rank 12 and does not increase further than 6.5 meters. Life steal is now a flat 35%
     across all ranks. Gave the skill a new transmuter which converts Vitality Damage to Poison and reduces damage in favor of further
     debuffing the enemies


Context and Notes on Recent Changes
I'm trying something a bit different with Chemist, where skills have "milestone ranks" so to speak, and improve extra or gain new bonuses at various ranks. Not every skill has these milestones, but many of them do. The thought process here is that having milestones will make choosing which skills you want to focus on more important and reward you more for emphasizing certain skills over others. Additionally, it should make dropping a single point into a skill less impactful, as you will need to invest a decent bit on some of the skills to really see their true power. This is an experiment, and if feedback is negative on it, I will not do it again on future masteries, but if it's mostly positive, I will probably do it again, or something similar. Additionally, I should mention that GD just got an update recently. Personally I'm glad to see that Crate still cares about the game and takes time to continue balancing it and adding new items and whatnot, but as far as my mod goes, it most likely will currently not reflect all of the recent changes from the latest GD update. This is because my mod files naturally overwrite the games base files and don't get affected by the update. This means I will need to go through the patch notes, looking at every single change, and then manually add those changes to my mod if my mod affects the same files. This will take quite a while, and I don't want to delay this update, but I will definitely work on this and help integrate the recent GD patch changes with my mod in the near future.

Overview of Past Changes
Phase 1
My mod currently overhauls all the base classes in the game. The Necromancer changes are focused on making the class a life-draining monster whose closeness with death makes his abilities chilling like the grave. The Nightblade changes are focused on making him a truly elusive assassin that weaves in and out of battle taking down single targets quickly while evading attacks. The Soldier changes are focused on making him a truly un-killable warrior who thrives on being right in the thick of combat. The Arcanist changes are focused on making them a true fountain of magical knowledge that knows how to push past their own limits and cause chaotic and aetherial elemental destruction. The Occultist changes are more minor and mainly focus on enhancing their sustain so that they can survive better while also slightly enhancing their chaotic destructive power. The Shaman rework is fairly minor as I actually like
the base Shaman a lot already, but I did change a few things around in the kit, plus give them a new ability. The Inquisitor rework is focused on making him not have quite so many active abilities, and doubling down on his role as an elemental damage dealer. The Oathkeeper changes are focused on making her a true
force of widespread destruction that can deal just as much damage as she can take. In the future, when I have more extensive modding knowledge, I
may also come back and rework them further, possibly adding more new abilities at that point. For now, the early iterations of this mod will
mostly be smaller changes and touch-ups to make the classes a bit different and a bit more in-line with my own personal image of them. I have essentially finished all of the main changes I want to make to the base classes in Grim Dawn, and will mostly just be tweaking and balancing them in the future, though as stated I may come back later and add/rework new skills to them. There is also now more inventory/storage space (full credit to Modder JMD for this)!
Phase 2
My mod now adds new items and randomized loot affixes to the game. The new items and affixes mainly affect the new/reworked skills for the game's base classes that I have reworked. As I continue working on this project, I will add more new items and even more various affixes that can randomize the loot that drops for the player. This will especially be the case when I eventually (hopefully) start adding entire new masteries to the game. For the time being, the new loot is sort of a drop in the ocean compared to all the other loot in the game, but there should be a chance to encounter a few more unique items to customize your play-styles with. Please don't hesitate to share your feedback on the new items with me, due to the scope of the project there is no way for me to personally play-test every single item and reworked skill in a balanced way (without spending months in between each update), so your feedback will be a necessary part of the health of the mod for making changes to make the mod more balanced. OP items and skills should be nerfed, and weak ones should be buffed.
Phase 3
My mod now features a couple entirely new and original skill visuals, specifically for Nightblade's "Scorpion Sting" modifier, and Necromancer's "Siphon Souls". I worked hard on these to try and make them feel fluid and look immersive, but if you notice anything weird or off about them, please let me know! I also updated some ability icons (mostly re-using the main game's assets) but did make a new one myself for Shaman's "Way of the Wild" skill that I think doesn't look completely awful. The important thing here with this phase was that I learned that I CAN indeed make new visuals, even if they aren't quite on par with the quality of the original game assets. I also reworked the Nightblade Mastery a little more. I now should be ready for the final (and by far the longest) phase.

Currently working on
"Phase 4" - Creating new masteries to add to the game. Ignoring small updates to fix bugs or make balance changes, updates will now be pretty far apart, as I don't plan to release a new mastery until I feel it is fully finished and completely ready for the game, including new items to go along with it. There is no set number of masteries I plan to add, though I do have ideas for around a dozen. Whether or not I actually go through with each idea is another matter, but there are several I am definitely going to try and do. I'll keep each new mastery a surprise until release, but I'll leave you with a hint about what the third mastery might be (I haven't decided yet myself): Something Edgy, something Holy, or something Punchy!

Things I Don't Plan To Do
There are several aspects of the game that I am not interested in changing, so please do not request changes for them as I do not ever plan to mess with them. This includes: Pets and pet-based skills, changes to the core features of the game (such as attribute points, skill points per level up, and devotion limit), and making new quests, monsters or maps. I personally feel that pets are a fairly balanced feature of the game at the moment, and I enjoy using them. I don't want to mess with them, as it would be both complicated, and most likely very unbalanced. I'm also not at all trying to make new pets because I can't make 3D models for crap lol (for that same reason I will not be adding any new enemies). As far as the core features of the game go, Crate set them up a certain way for a reason, and I don't really know what messing with them would do to the balance of the game, or possibly cause things to break. Perhaps if my mod is ever popular in the future, it will be merged with another mod that changes those things, but I don't ever plan to do that myself. This excludes speed caps, which I might change. Lastly, maps and quests I simply have 0 interest in. I'm purely interested in the gameplay aspect of Grim Dawn.

Notes
- I chose the name Grim Dusk for my mod. I looked across both Nexus Mods and the Crate Forums to make sure it wasn't already in use and I didn't find anything. If I was mistaken on this, PLEASE LET ME KNOW, so that I can choose a different name.
- Since I am new to modding I have no clue what impact updating the files will have on your saves. It SEEMS to keep everything just fine when I am testing the mod myself, but just be aware that something could possibly break if you update the mod.
- I am in no way an artist. All new items use original base-game assets and simply have new names, stats, and sometimes abilities.
- You MUST have both Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods dlc for this mod to work. 

Thanks
Enormous Thanks to JMD for letting me use his assets from his Grim UI Mod in my own mod!
Enormous Thanks to Ceno for his video guide on making a mastery and his Crate Forum guide on using the PSEditor!
Enormous Thanks to CRATE for the awesome video game they made and the assets they provided to modders to help them make changes to the game!
Huge Thanks to tt300 for helping me figure out how to incorporate JMD's mod assets into my own!
Huge Thanks to Wayback for his guide on creating new affixes and getting them to drop!
Huge Thanks to Ashbrain for his assistance in helping me get my PSEditor set up correctly!
Thanks to Elfe for their Crate Forum guide on setting up the Asset Manager!
Thanks to DraonCC for their additional guide on using the PSEditor!
Thanks to Asylum101 and Serious_Stan for their advice on the Crate Forums!
Thanks to cftx for their guide on using the Archive tool!
Thanks to TqFan for helping me figure out how to use the Archive Tool!
Thanks to Front210 for their contributions to the Grim UI mod, without which I probably couldn't have used it!
Thanks to Dream AI for the temporary Frost Zealot mastery art.

Like what you've played? Feel free to support me on Patreon to help me afford a commission for new custom artwork to go with my mod: patreon.com/user?u=83186406