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INTRODUCTION
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I haven’t been active for a while in testing and posting, reserving my strength for heartful rants in changelog threads. And, oh, has there been stuff to rant about! The whole shaman lightning meta swept in a thunderstorm of nerfs! Many a build defining Conduit turned to dust!
But is there a silver lining in that mushroom cloud of build annihilation brought about by the recent patches? Because of Mr. Z’s unsatiable hunger for memes, Wind Devil and Storm Totem much beloved conduits were slaughtered/destroyed. But this time mercy was shown. To make up for the conduit removal indiscretions, uptime on both Totems and Devils was increased for EVERYONE!
That means every build has 100% uptime on all 3 Devils even without cdr. That means maxing Maelstrom is viable on pretty much everything. But the real gem is that many shaman builds can now easily have…
(pause for suspense)
…5 TOTEMS!!!
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Therefore, hereby, I present to you 2 remakes of my old vindicator builds with the same theme of 5 Totems and Storm Box: LD Stormreaver and Allagast.
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[1.1.6.2] Light’s Defender Stormreaver Vindicator
GT https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWjAgL2 (crafted with 1x slow res & 1x physique) or https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWjAgL2 for more phys res)
Saves _Marosh.zip (1.2 MB)
Crucible 4+3 T1 SB (5:04) https://youtu.be/b-L2KplBizA
SR 80 no death https://youtu.be/-z4_tiLtfKY
Shoutout to @mad_lee for the blue ring suggestion. It’s indeed better offensively than second Witch ring as it allows for full spirit dump.
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[1.1.6.2] Allagast Vindicator
GT https://www.grimtools.com/calc/vNQkP1XV (crafted with 3x slow res)
Saves _MaroshBox.zip (1.2 MB)
Crucible 4+3 T1 SB (5:22) https://youtu.be/pOiaW4SVc2M
SR75 no death https://youtu.be/IJmdbo90TjY
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Noob Q&A
Q: What about Celestials?
A: These two builds are made for top performance in general endgame, loud & proud. Can they do Celestials as is? Stoically, no. Can they be tweaked/pharma’ed to do so? Yes. If interested in doing all content including Celestials without tweaks look for key words: pets, Dark One, retal.
Q: But my friend told me you need 3k DA in endgame…
A: Imo DA is overrated unless you attempt SR100+. Both builds do SR75+ no sweat. 2.8k is enough. Drop spirit dump if it’s not.
Q: What’s up with that phys res?
A: LD and Allagast is what’s up. These builds simply lack phys res. Could’ve squeezed 5% more with Arcane Currents pants but I don’t like the no DoT dmg and no OA thing on them. LD Stormreaver got no stun res so Wyrmscale boots are set in stone. Other than that, there are simply no viable sources of phys res here…
Q: Which build is better?
A: Stormreaver.
Q: Why do those builds have different devotions?
A: Stormreaver is tankier and could afford letting go of the overnerfed Revenant. Allagast needs that extra 6% adcth and had to stick to the overnerfed Revenant. Anyway, the right question is: why did they overnerf Revenant?
Q: Can those builds facetank everything?
A: Stormreaver, yes, just about everything under SR75 except Alex meteor in SR, Zantarin’s shotgun, enraged stormboxed Mad Queen, etc. Allagast, no, gotta kite like the wind.
Q: What’s your final verdict of the lightning changes?
A: Well, 5 Totem 'Reaver - with some natural glassification resulting from no res Halakor amulet - actually seems stronger than before the nerfs. Allagast, however, was not saved by the 5 Totem situation. Stormbox was greatly overnerfed, and the set lacks defensively in every conceivable way (except the charity cc res scraps). Still probably the best hit-the-mole-with-a-stormbox kinda build (also, might wanna switch back to Aetherbolt amulet, though, Halakor on Allagast is mostly for novelty)
