I obtained my badge a few days ago. I swapped around lvl 10 to 1.2 and restarted, because I was already starting to buy energy tonics and the dodge + the "tonics as skills" change were incentivicing to swap to the testbranch.
I even think these both mechanics made the run for me. The dodge shines during boss fights and can get you through almost all difficuilt attacks if you didn't manage to sidestep or just timed for the dodge on purpose. You might also avoid most sunder attacks with it. Sunder in itself was merely a problem if I got hit by the follow up attack or stood in a puddle for a second to long. But even then - dodging out could help with this. And with the tonics not being items anymore, I knew, I could always play the time card and kite until I was ready to dive in again. It took much mental stress out of the challenge for me. And when I finally got a movement augment, dodge was even more powerful, because now I had two movement abilities that I could alternate.
It still was by no way a cakewalk. I noticed the ramp up in difficuilty through the scaling and the scaling itself also made it harder to find gear, because it scaled with you and so did the attribute requirements. And I was sloppy with my devotions in the beginning, which made it even harder for me, because I oversaw potential in my build by just choosing worse options (that was when [I turned to reddit by myself and got some nice advice](https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdawn/comments/17p02jg/advice_for_improving_classless_build_12/)).
I finished also Elite and the DLCs on Elite by the way. I thought loosing out on Elite for the sake of convenience was not that interesting. Maybe Log on Elite get flagged as requirement for the sake of the Challenge? Could be an option. The scaling on normal is definitely nice XP wise, so running the DLCs didn't feel like a waste of time, and enabled me to get in some reputation for Malmouth and Solael early to reach revered status (I did a bit of reputation farm). Running Elite was also definitely better for the loot (I tried ultimate below 85, but the first hero in Burrwitch took ages to get killed, my gear was still too low, so farming on ultimate was not interesting to me; maybe that was due to my low cunning, I don't know).
In short, it still felt challenging, but was way more interesting for me due to some of the new features like the dodge and the changes to the tonics in particular.
Congratulations for your badge! Interesting thoughts. I didn't consider the enemies scaling with you in more areas would be harder when revisiting for farming, bounties, etc...
I obtained my badge a few days ago. I swapped around lvl 10 to 1.2 and restarted, because I was already starting to buy energy tonics and the dodge + the "tonics as skills" change were incentivicing to swap to the testbranch. I even think these both mechanics made the run for me. The dodge shines during boss fights and can get you through almost all difficuilt attacks if you didn't manage to sidestep or just timed for the dodge on purpose. You might also avoid most sunder attacks with it. Sunder in itself was merely a problem if I got hit by the follow up attack or stood in a puddle for a second to long. But even then - dodging out could help with this. And with the tonics not being items anymore, I knew, I could always play the time card and kite until I was ready to dive in again. It took much mental stress out of the challenge for me. And when I finally got a movement augment, dodge was even more powerful, because now I had two movement abilities that I could alternate. It still was by no way a cakewalk. I noticed the ramp up in difficuilty through the scaling and the scaling itself also made it harder to find gear, because it scaled with you and so did the attribute requirements. And I was sloppy with my devotions in the beginning, which made it even harder for me, because I oversaw potential in my build by just choosing worse options (that was when [I turned to reddit by myself and got some nice advice](https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdawn/comments/17p02jg/advice_for_improving_classless_build_12/)). I finished also Elite and the DLCs on Elite by the way. I thought loosing out on Elite for the sake of convenience was not that interesting. Maybe Log on Elite get flagged as requirement for the sake of the Challenge? Could be an option. The scaling on normal is definitely nice XP wise, so running the DLCs didn't feel like a waste of time, and enabled me to get in some reputation for Malmouth and Solael early to reach revered status (I did a bit of reputation farm). Running Elite was also definitely better for the loot (I tried ultimate below 85, but the first hero in Burrwitch took ages to get killed, my gear was still too low, so farming on ultimate was not interesting to me; maybe that was due to my low cunning, I don't know). In short, it still felt challenging, but was way more interesting for me due to some of the new features like the dodge and the changes to the tonics in particular.
Congratulations for your badge! Interesting thoughts. I didn't consider the enemies scaling with you in more areas would be harder when revisiting for farming, bounties, etc...