This is the first build I’m posting here. Recently instead of playing the game I just resorted to making builds on grimtools and trying them out, and this is the strongest one I came up with so far.
I was surprised how much damage this build puts out. It can do a 20 second dummy and I did 150-170 in 9 minutes with 4 buffs.
Ultos set - No way around this, core of the build, huge lightning damage and converts most physical to lightning. With the recent buffs from 1.0.6 its pretty good
Cindertouch - The flat lightning damage alone makes these worth it, other choice is Light’s Defender Gauntles
Stormtitan threads - One of the few good legendary boots, fit great with this build. Could maybe be replaced with a great pair of stoneplate greaves.
Avenger’s girdle - +1 all shaman skills is too many points to pass up on. Mythical Ulzuins Torment is another choice for more OA/DA and lightning damage.
Mythical Mark of divinity - Great for the defensive stats and the circuit breaker, since this build is not insanely tanky. There are no good offensive options anyway, the best alternative would be a rare medal with a great roll.
Eye of the storm - Flat lightning damage on the Stormcaller Aura makes this the best choice
Legs - Stonehide is very welcome to round out the resists. Any good defensive MI pants will do.
Rings - The best I could come up with. Alternatives would be the Mythical Signet of Astral Ruminations or Mythical Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth (pet ring, but flat lightning damage is what we want).
Skills:
Demolitionist is mostly used for the passives, mines are used to melt tougher enemies. A few more points in blast shield might be nice, but not important.
Savagery and Primal Strike are the main damage sources, the brute force line adds more damage and Stormcaller’s Pact adds more phys -> lightning conversion and huge crit damage. Wind Devil for resist reduction. Since the equipment doesn’t allow Savagery to get to 9 charge levels, it just stays at 16, points are better spent elsewhere.
The previous version of the build doesn’t use the transmuter on Primal Strike, it works fine that way, but it’s a bit better with spammable Primal Strike and Savagery just for the buff.
Devotions:
Easy: Things that do lightning damage and reduce lightning resist plus Kraken and Ghoulish Hunger, which is too good to pass up on. Small detour to Solemn Watcher for pierce resist and DA.
Hand of Ultos to Primal Strike - Primal Strike is the main damage source and we want to procc Hand of Ultos often - the other choice would be to put it on Savagery.
Might be worth trying. Only 2.43 -> 2.62 attacks per second according to grimtools, but also cast speed. Does not seem worth it damage wise, but they are neat as a more defensive option.
Looks like a cool idea actually, I’ll have to try that.
Good idea
True, except OA/DA. I underestimated it giving me basically 16 skill points. The loss of 50 DA is easily offset by having a lot more health. Not sure if the loss of 70 OA and 106% lightning damage is covered by the higher skill levels.
I got to the 8%, but even the more accurate calculation is incomplete, as there is no OA calculated into that and Cindertouch gives 124 OA 4% crit damage. Not to mention the procc and damage of everything else.
I think I need to create a DPS calculator :), Grimtools doesn’t appear to be open source unfortunately.
Nice work. Have you tried the build with Hand of Ultos bound to Primal Strike already? I have a penchant for that devotion for some reason, I have a hard time getting rid of it on my shaman, lol
Well, I don’t want to spend months reverse engineering the game, but a reasonable approximation should be possible.
Not yet. You can get it instead of spear, but I preferred the Spear procc and spear ends up with 80 more OA. It is possible to get both if you drop Tempest and Solemn Watcher, takes quite a hit on DA to do so though.
I also added Avenger’s Girdle for Shaman skill bonus, OA/DA took a hit, but damage should be higher now.
Also binding Hand of Ultos or Reckless Tempest to Upheaval makes way more sense than Savagery. Since Upheaval activates on crit it also activates the devotions. That means another devotion could go on Savagery, not sure if worth it.
Hey there,
any way to incorporate Viper in this devotion setup? Also have you tried Dying God? Wondering what is better, Hands of Ultos+Dying god vs Hands of Ultos + Spear of Heavens.
So I’ve been meaning to try a Primal Strike build one day (probably in a long time, after I farm up an Ultos set).
It was actually the first character I made back in 2016, but after getting to level 40+ I found out that it’s pretty heavily gear dependent, so I switched to another character.
Now that I’m back to playing the game, I have seen a couple of Primal Strike builds, and they all (or most), seem to incorporate Savagery into them.
I am assuming you’re using Savagery to build up some stacks for a DPS boost, and then using Primal Strike for AOE and main damage?
Or is Savagery the only thing that can proc the WPS skills? Or can Primal Strike proc them too if you’re not taking the transmuter skill for it?
And lastly, how exactly does the basic attack loop go? Savagery-PS-Savagery-PS? Or is it something like Savagery-Savagery-PS… or some other combination?
Viper and Hand of Ultos resist reduction don’t stack though. Haven’t tried Dying God, as this build is not desperate for crit damage, the 10% speed would be nice though.
The attack loop goes hold left click (Savagery) use right click when Primal Strike is off cooldown. If you go for the transmuter, you don’t necessarily need Savagery. Check out this build if you want pure primal strike: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74659
Also, I made a video of me playing poorly but still finishing 170 in 9:40 :):
On dummy both versions I tested (take this build and put a point into thunderous strike) did basically the same at about 19-20 seconds. With thunderous strike the wps skills dont make sense and the big bursts of damage are better for actual gameplay imo
I don’t like putting many points into Wendigo Totem, but for just 2 points its a bit of passive healing and on average 4.3% lifesteal. That is a pretty good deal.
Vindictive Flame was 3 points for 2% speed going from 11 -> 14, but yeah, it’s a bit better invested in getting 3% more RR on mines.
And when dropping the WPS and going Thunderous Strikes frees up enough points to be meaningful, beating vanilla Primal Strike. This is where I ended up now: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2g4o56V
