I removed Bard’s Harp and replaced it with Ulo the Keeper of the Waters. I also removed the aforementioned Jackal and Eel. I added Crane but deleted Lion. I removed Hawk and Scholar’s light but added Fox. Wendigo, Bat, Empty Throne, Manticore, Huntress, and Rattosh the Veilwarden remain which are the heart of the build.
You could keep Hawk and Scholar’s light and remove Fox but it’ll cost you a point in Huntress and another in Crossroads. There are probably other ways to do it too but this is the option I saw:
I’m keeping Fox for now since it adds bleed damage.
This results in 6 active constellations which are all “chance on attack” and 5 passive (including Crossroads). I actually had to put a point in Doombolt just to have something to bind Cleansing Waters to.
I’m going to play it for a bit and see how it works out. The worst part of it is that I’ve got three new constellations to level: Rattosh, Huntress, and Ulo.
I am planning to expand the devotion section and add specific steps, but to get Kraken you fill out everything but Rattosh. It offers no affinity so I use it when I need to make self supporting devotions work. Using the points that go into Rattosh normally you fill out Kraken. After that you can remove the points from Jackal as Kraken gives you enough red and you can remove the points from Eel as Kraken gives you enough blue once it is finished.
As far as your alternate devotion setup I can see the appeal. I assume Ulo will break any entrapment on you? That would be nice. I like Hawk for the OA and crit damage but I could see passing it. I would like Fox over Scholar’s Light of course, but points were just a wee bit too tight. I would have a hard time giving up Bard’s Harp though. That energy regen is so helpful. I have considered an alternate setup using Harvestman’s Scythe but so far I have not made the switch.
I might try a Mythical Mark of the Forbidden, that looks like it could be pretty effective. I wonder how much of a difference the -health regeneration makes on enemies.
If I can ever get a pair to drop I am considering using Dark One’s gloves. I really like my current gloves, but the enemy damage reduction on Dark One’s seems like it would be very potent.
Thanks for the input! As a general note, I will probably revise a few things and expand some sections soon. I hope folks are enjoying the build.
Hi Beoron, I am a very novice player, intrigued by your build. Would love to give it a spin but have a couple noob(ie) questions if you don’t mind.
I don’t have crucible. Any changes to your suggestions in the guide if you lack crucible ?
The Build calculator seems to shows occultist as the first mastery you choose but in your leveling comments you speak about leveling grasping vines first. Did you take shaman mastery first or occultist and how far did you go into the initial mastery before spending points on the second.
Without Crucible it takes longer to get max level devotions but no biggy. Otherwise I wouldn’t really change much. You could perhaps go a wee bit less defensive on components as campaign is easier but for nemesis and such I would probably stay fairly defensive. I suppose the worst part would be getting Rend quite a bit later, as it is really strong as soon as you get it.
Hm that is odd, I am pretty sure I went Shaman first. Once I get a little less busy I plan to expand the leveling guide, but in short, I would definitely start Shaman and rush for Grasping Vines. Maxing that gives a lot of great AoE damage quickly. I usually also max Briarthorn because it will be a great help early on. I would then either go after Devouring Swarm or Curse of Frailty for the resistance debuff, probably Curse of Frailty. You definitely want to have some bleed resistance debuff or a strong pet before Arkovia. I would then max whichever of Curse or Swarm you didn’t max. Once you are feeling comfortable damage wise I would go after your ultimate skill of choice while picking up other skills along the way. The last core skills I leveled were the initial Bloody Pox skill and Blood of Dreeg as I feel they are less essential early on. Oh and once your Briarthorn starts dying a lot and you are killing faster feel free to ditch it or put it down to one point for the meatshield. So I definitely invest a lot more heavily into Shaman at first.
I hope that helps! Let me know if you need anything else.
I am very new, so maybe it is my mistake, but when I click on your Build calculator link it shows occultist tab to the left of the devotion tab, and shaman to the right. I inferred that meant occultist was taken first, but that seemed very inconsistent with what you had written thus my question.
Howdy! I finally got around to updating a few items. The main changes were to the relic and medal and I added another grimtools link to show what I consider perfect items for the build. I still plan to expand the leveling and devotion sections, but I have been rather busy lately.
This looks to be a good patch for this build. The change to Wildheart Vanguard should end up being significantly more damage since instead of 80 flat vitality damage to Vines the 3 piece bonus will now add 40% weapon damage. The Wildblood Crusher does 160-586 damage and % weapon damage includes flat damage bonuses which there are quite a few of in this build.
The change to Primal Bond is not major, but definitely welcome.
I am going to consider some major changes to skills with some of these updates. Brute Force’s change could add 700 health before % bonuses and the flat lightning damage will partially go to Vines now. Higher health also means more healing from Wendigo Totem. Solael’s Witchfire and Second Rite’s bonuses are both more appealing now too. I am considering forgoing Storm Totem and investing in some of these skills. I will try a few different combos.
I used GDStash to see what kind of damage the summons do and the tool tip is 2100-2900 vitality damage and 5300 bleeding damage over 2 seconds in an AoE. The summons appear to function just like the Necromancer’s skeletal mages but with blood colored spells. They do the AoE ring attack and the meteor attack. With 20% chance to summon on attack, a 2.4 second cooldown, and them surviving for 16 seconds I was pretty much always at the 4 summon limit. Losing the skills and health from Locust Gem is unfortunate, but I think the summon damage far outweighs those negatives. This should increase DPS pretty heavily.
So I changed the build quite a bit with 1.0.6.0. It still centers around the Wildheart Vanguard set, but I changed the armor, gloves, amulet, removed points from Bloody Pox and Storm Totem, and maxed Second Rite and Brute Force. The build is tankier and I believe does even more damage.
Blood Knight’s Pendant was a huge damage boost over Locust Gem. The mages it summons do fantastic AoE damage and body block. With Deathstalker I usually have 5 player scaled pets out at a time. Blood Kngith’s Armor allows me to reallocate 20 points from spirit vs Valguur’s Raiment and nets me a solid 2 piece bonus. Dark One’s Grasp adds a very powerful enemy damage debuff to Bloody Pox that was too hard to resist.
As Wildheart Vanguard’s Grasping Vines buffs have been strengthened the damage from the base Bloody Pox skill has become fairly negligible to the overall build. Storm Totem was a big damage dealer for me, but the damage from Second Rite transferred to Grasping Vines through Wildheart’s 3 piece bonus and the health from Brute Force outweighed its damage in my mind.
Overall it seems that 1.0.6.0 has made for the best iteration of this build yet. I am doing more damage and am tankier. With the Crucible changes I was able to solo 170 Gladiator on my first try without difficulty. I may tweak a few things as I experiment with 1.0.6.0 some more, but overall I feel like the build is in a really good spot.
I have read elsewhere in the forum that the % weapon damage modifier for Grasping Vines on Wildheart Vanguard is not adding the full damage of the weapon, but only flat damage bonuses. I am not sure if this is the case, but if so it means this build will be much stronger if it is an issue that is hotfixed.
Thanks to all who have contributed to this build. I hope it is fun for anyone who tries it!
This hotfix addressed the issue with Wildblood’s % weapon damage. I have been enjoying that and the Blood Knight items that really shine with this build.
I haven’t updated in a few patches but most didn’t have significant changes to the build. The Wildblood Crusher now has +1 to all Shaman skills rather than a bonus to one particular skill so some small adjustments need to be made there. The weapon also had some energy regen added which is pretty helpful as this build spams a lot of spells. I will need to look into how to spend the extra skills from FG.
Looking at the new items the one that really jumps out is Bloodsurge. It fits really well into this build. I am unsure if it comes out on top over Blood Knight’s Pendant though.
Rune of Vampiric Shadows seems like the obvious choice for a movement augment.
I will try to play FG some and then update the grimtools with any changes I end up making.
I need to play with them some. Nighttalon looks interesting. I am considering trying to work in Mogdrogen and leverage more flat bleed damage with the weapon damage that’s on the Wildblood 3 piece bonus. I think I may work up a few alternative devotion plans when I get a chance. There’s nothing super game changing in the new devotions as far as I can tell though.
These are all buffs, some of them fairly considerable. I have not used Tip the Scales lately but I likely will if this is stackable resist reduction, especially considering it was buffed in 1.1.1.0 as well. Looking forward to this patch!
A basic leveling tip i found useful and discovered myself.
First you need a damage ability obviously.
The step i found useful is only put enough points in them to begin with so that you easily kill stuff. Too much and you run into energy issues mostly.
When enough damage for the moment then go into buffs or passives.
I am stuck though with this build. But cant be stuck at lvl 9
So i should be able to continue without screwing too much up.
I put a few points in Devouring swarm and Grasping vines.
I got 5 spare points but i think maybe mogdrogen for energy or simply move up in mastery or save for occultist.
This is the reason i like a well made and detailed leveling guide.
The game is not very forgiving when re skilling too much. Very pricey.
But i hope for a leveling guide soon
