The Difficulty Trap
Why farming components before Ultimate wastes weeks, and what actually works once you get there.
The situation
The drop table doesn't care how long you've played
Epic and legendary crafting materials in Grim Dawn — components, relic ingredients, the boss-locked stuff like Blood of Ch'thon or an Aetherial Leviathan Eye — aren't rare because they're gated behind some hidden unlock. They're rare because the difficulty you're farming on directly scales the odds. Run the same content on Normal and Ultimate and you are not playing the same drop table twice; you're playing two different ones, and only one of them was built to reward you.
That means the biggest mistake isn't a bad farming route. It's farming at all before you're on Ultimate. Hours spent grinding Nemesis spawns or bounty stacks on Elite “to be safe” are hours spent fighting bad odds that Ultimate simply doesn't have.
The method
Three difficulties, one real farm
Normal — leveling only
Don't farm materials here. Drop rates and item quality sit at their floor, and you'll clear the campaign fast anyway. Use Normal to level up, bank skill points, and start banking faction reputation with the groups that hand out bounties later — that reputation carries forward, so it's not wasted time, it's setup.
Elite — prep and unlock
Materials start being worth picking up here, and epic-tier components begin appearing on Nemesis kills. But this is a bridge, not a destination. Push faction reputation as high as you can, start running bounties as they unlock, and get through the story fast enough to open Ultimate — because Elite's drop table is still a discount version of what's ahead.
Ultimate — the actual farm
This is where component, relic, and legendary material drop rates hit their real values. Everything in the loop below only pays off once you're here. You don't need to have “finished” Ultimate story content to start — entering Ultimate opens the higher material tables immediately, so push into it as fast as your build can safely survive rather than waiting to feel ready.
The loop
What to actually run in Ultimate
Bounties — Steps of Torment / faction bounties
The single most consistent bulk source of components and materials once unlocked. Stack a full set of faction bounties and clear them in one pass rather than one at a time — the reward pool is built around batching.
Nemesis hunting
Each Nemesis boss (Benn'jahr, Fabius, Kubacabra, Alexander, and the rest) drops materials tied specifically to their own loot table. Don't wait on random spawns — summoning shrines and faction items exist specifically to force the encounter on your schedule instead of theirs.
Shattered Realm
Once unlocked, low-to-mid Empowered floors give a fast, repeatable loop for components, relics, and materials that scales with your Empowered Shard level — pick a floor your build can clear quickly rather than the highest one it can survive.
Bastion of Chaos / Port Valbury
Requires Ashes of Malmouth. These zones are dense, purpose-built heroic and boss farming grounds — a faster material-per-minute rate than sweeping open zones for the same monster types.
- Run heavy on Ultimate; drop rates and quality both scale with difficulty.
- Loot-filter components and materials so you don't miss drops mid-clear.
- If you're after one specific component, confirm its actual source first — many are boss-locked, not a random world drop.
The mixup
“Farm everywhere” isn't a strategy — it's why runs feel slow
This is where most farming routes lose time, because Normal, Elite, and Ultimate get treated like one long grind instead of three very different drop tables. They aren't.
| Normal | Elite | Ultimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best use | Leveling only | Prep: faction rep, bounty unlocks | The actual farm |
| Material quality | Floor — commons only | Blues and early epics start appearing | Full epic / legendary / component pool |
| Recommended activity | Story push | Bounty rotations, early Nemesis kills | Bounties, Nemesis hunting, Shattered Realm, Bastion of Chaos |
You don't need to fully clear Ultimate story content before farming it. Entering Ultimate is what flips the material tables to their real values — not finishing it. The moment you're geared enough to survive Ultimate content at all, every hour spent farming Elite instead is an hour spent on the worse drop table.
Summary
- Normal is for leveling and banking faction reputation — don't farm materials here.
- Elite is prep: push reputation, start bounties as they unlock, and clear story fast to open Ultimate.
- Ultimate is the only difficulty where epic and legendary material drop rates are actually worth farming for.
- Once in Ultimate, run bounties for bulk, Nemesis hunting (forced via shrines/items) for boss-locked components, Shattered Realm for a scalable repeatable loop, and Bastion of Chaos / Port Valbury for dense heroic farming if you own Ashes of Malmouth.
- If you're chasing one specific component, confirm its real source before farming blind — many are locked to a single boss or zone, not a random drop.