[1.1.8.1] Crimson Storm - Vitality Primal Strike Conjurer SR 65

[teppieteptep]

What’s better than lightning? Red lightning, at least in visuals.

From what I’ve seen so far in the forums, Vitality Primal Strike seems to be looked down on due to lack of support, and the Rotgheist Set is probably better used on a Dreeg’s Evil Eye build.

With the 1.1.7.0 change on the Rylok Mark to include Lightning to Vitality conversion on Primal Strike, some have tried but had issues on the Torrent conversion, which isn’t affected by the Primal Strike one. The proposed solution was global Lightning to Vitality, but Rotgheist can only give up to 72%. I’ve thought about using Valguur’s Helm for full conversion, but the bonuses from Rotgheist will be dropped.

With these things in mind, I decided to build a Vitality Primal Strike character anyway, and this is what I came up with:

Grimtools Link (updated for 1.1.8.1)

Stats

permanent buffs on, standing near Wendigo Totem and Dying God active, damage is from Primal Strike

damage breakdown for Primal Strike, residual Physical damage is from Mogdrogen’s Pact

Gear

Weapon: Wildblood Crusher

• I originally used a Nightbringer but Wildblood Crusher performs better due to the Attack Speed.

Head, Amulet, Chest, Shoulder: Rotgheist Set - Vitality Primal Strike support set; core items

• This is the “Ultos Set” for Vitality Primal Strike. Unfortunately, it can only give 72% max Lightning to Vitality global conversion for Torrent, but it’s fine considering overall bonuses.

Rings: Mythical Cursebearer and Mythical Signet of the Fallen

• Original build had different rings but the Attack Speed added to Mythical Signet of the Fallen made the double Vitality RR ring combo make more sense now.

Gloves: Mythical Voidrend Talons - Vitality damage, Attack Speed, +2 to Possession

• This is the only Legendary Gloves that has both Vitality Damage and Attack Speed, perfect for the build. I also put in Consecrated Wrappings instead of Restless Remains since the build already has lots of lifesteal.

Pants: Mythical Wendigomane Leggings - Vitality damage, OA, Physical Resistance

• The pants really depend on the resistances; you can definitely use other items here. This one just fits what I currently have. A better one could be MI pants with CC resistances.

Boots: Depends

• Originally had Mythical Greaves of Ill Omens. The one in the Grimtools link is the current best fit to the build. This slot really depends on the CC resistances, which the build lacks.

Belt: Lunal’Valgoth’s Girdle - Elemental to Vitality conversion, +1 to Occultist

• The one in the Grimtools link is the best one I have for the build.

Medal: Rylok Mark - +3 to Primal Strike, Flat Vitality damage to Primal Strike

• The Primal Strike conversion is extra here since Rotgheist already has it covered, but this item is needed to make Primal Strike 26/16. Better affixes are always nice.

Skills

Occultist

Solael’s Witchfire (16/12), Second Rite (16/12)

• Main skill is put at 16 for the extra Attack Speed, Second Rite is for the Flat Vitality damage

Possession (hardcap)

• The build’s exclusive skill; not much else to say.

Grasping Vines line (1 point each)

• I got this just to trigger Rattosh proc more frequently.

Curse of Frailty (1 point), Vulnerability (hardcap)

• Just need to hardcap Vulnerability for max Vitality RR.

Blood of Dreeg, Aspect of the Guardian (hardcapped)

• Main skill hardcapped for OA, modifier hardcapped for damage. Too bad I can’t get another point for both.

Shaman

Brute Force (hardcapped)

• The flat Lightning damage will be converted to Vitality, and the health bonus is always welcome.

Wendigo Totem, Blood Pact (1 point)

• More lifesteal, little bit of damage and heal. Not bad for 1-pointers.

Primal Strike line (hardcapped, take Thunderous Strike transmuter)

• The main lightning strike visual is red, indicating full conversion of Primal Strike. The bouncing lightning is still colored white, so Torrent is most likely not fully converted, or the visual doesn’t change color at all. Not sure about it.

Devouring Swarm (hardcapped)

• More Vitality RR.

Mogdrogen’s Pact (1 point), Heart of the Wild (10/10), Oak Skin (10/10)

• I’ve noticed that the Physical Damage bonus on Mogdrogen’s Pact doesn’t get converted. Softcap for the modifiers is good enough

Devotions

Tier 1

Ghoul - up to proc only, no need to complete

Jackal, Viper, Eel, Lion, Spider, Hawk - mostly for affinity. The points are really tight in this build.

Tier 2

Kraken - Two-hander? Kraken.

Revenant - All nodes help the build. I’ve initially thought of using Scales of Ulcama for the Flat RR, but Revenant is better for this build. Bound to Primal Strike.

Solemn Watcher - Great defensive constellation, and fits the affinities just right.

Tier 3

Rattosh, the Veilwarden - mandatory for the RR. Bound to Bloody Pox

Dying God - that’s a lotta damage, especially since this is a Vitality build and needs the Attack Speed badly. Bound to Wendigo Rush (medal augment) for 100% activation.

Performance

The build performs better than what I expected. I’ve switched different items around and this is the best version so far. Highest crits I’ve seen are around 300k in Main Campaign and around 200k in SR boss rooms. There’s just too many numbers flying to keep track.

The main issues with the build are:

• Sort of squishy - Despite having good Physical Resistance, I still see the Health bar go down quite often, and I need to keep hitting enemies to sustain.
• Vulnerable to CC - Apart from Stun and Skill Disruption, everything else can control you, especially Slow. I always use a Hoarfrost Ointment in SR and sometimes in Main Campaign when I fight Frozen mobs or Alkamos. I have crafted some Stoneplate Greaves for CC resistances, but I decided not to use it until I cleared SR 65.

Main Campaign - facetanked all bosses, need Hoarfrost Ointment for Alkamos. Always move away from Gargabol’s volcanoes.

Nemesis bosses - main problem is Kubacabra, but I’ve facetanked it in SR 65; not sure how it’ll fare in higher shards, I’ll test up to 75 soon. Never catch Aleksander’s meteor or Grava’thul’s pink balls of death.

Mad Queen - around 10 seconds. She procced Serenity, but facetanked all the way.

Not a very fast Lokarr kill, as you can see with the potion timers on the left.

It’s not a very fast SR runner, but it can clear it fast enough. I usually clear shard 66 boss room with around 4-5 minutes left on the timer. Never aggro all bosses at once. I’ve found that using Vire’s shrine helps a lot.

Other Celestials: Probably not. Ravager of Souls was not a fun fight; I died in a few hits. I’ll try Mogdrogen later.

Crucible: I don’t really play Crucible; I think the build needs more CC resistances and defenses for it.

Final Thoughts:
Vitality Primal Strike isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and I’ve learned more about the game mechanics as I was building and testing this. I’m still learning a lot about min-maxing characters, and I am very grateful for the community and the forums for the inspiration and insight.
P.S. I am currently learning how to format posts better.

[Duchy]

I am also now playing vitality PS but it is quite different than yours. I think that your AS is low, you have poor CC res also. Morgoneth weapon is not a good choice I would say. I will post it sometimes next week. I think that Rotgheist can easily do SR 80. But I will have to test it and I have two other PS builds coming before this one as well. Also rings with RR should be used.

[teppieteptep]

Thanks for feedback. I have a setup that includes RR rings and more CC res, but it involves a lot more green items besides the belt and medal. Looking forward to your builds!

[Duchy]

Yeah I have 3 greens there (1 craftable). But I suggest to look at components. There is a lot of CC res on them.

[teppieteptep]

Added v2 Grimtools link.

• Changed weapon, rings, and boots. Smoother performance with better CC resists. The in-game damage tooltip shows a bit of Lightning damage because of the weapon change, but I think it’s fine considering the Attack Speed boost.

only permanent buffs, Wendigo Totem and Dying God inactive

[wafflebroski]

cool build, good to see someone trying to use the rhotgheist set

Have you explored the wildblood set? getting the full conversion from the medal lets you have some room with other sets

I had a conjurer that was unkillable, using full wildblood and 3/4 valguurs. spamming grasping vines and primal strike wps. SR75+ ez

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RVvwXKWZ

DA is lower than I recall, I also think I was using serenity but you get the point.

[Duchy]

Build now looks a lot better . But the CC res could be still improved.

[teppieteptep]

Interesting build, GT link seems to have some extra skill points.

Rylok medal only converts the Lightning damage from the base skill, so you still need the helm from Rotgheist for the Physical part. And there’s still the problem of converting Torrent since it requires Global Lightning/Elemental to Vitality.

[Duchy]

And there’s still the problem of converting Torrent since it requires Global Lightning/Elemental to Vitality.

My aether and cold PS builds have no conversion for Torrent at all and they work fine. I don’t think it is that necessary. I can’t say if vitality will be different in SR. I am now halfway through the main campaign with it. And it behaves good so far. I have not yet noticed any weakness of the build.

[teppieteptep]

I am still not sure how Torrent exactly works. Do you mean it’s not as important in terms of conversions for overall damage?

[Duchy]

Torrent is an AoE skill and I have no problem killing groups of enemies with those builds. I don’t think it is that important. I only softcap it or go a little over softcap.

Torrent deals weapon damage. And has some lightning flat on top of it. If the flat is not converted I don’t think it is such a tragedy. And going above 12/12 yields little improvents in % WD. I would only put skill points in Torrent above 12/12 if all else is covered or if you have 100% conversion of lightning.

[Duchy]

I think that main problem for PS builds are CC res (the higher the better the result), phys res (25 % - 30 % is OK), lifesteal (20 % is OK) and large enough health pool (how large depends on if you have some damage reduction or absorption - but going below 15k-16k for higher SR would be low). If WD averages around 25k it is sufficent (for ranged slightly above 20k is fine). AS should be at least around 170 %. RR at least 100 % depending on damage type.

[wafflebroski]

this build most of the damage is going to come from grasping vines spam. BTW you can cast grasping vines while using PS without any animation cancelling.

anyway your v2 looks a lot better GL with further fine tuning

[teppieteptep]

I’ll keep these in mind, thanks for the info. Maybe Crate will give us a better weapon partner for PS Rotgheist.

[teppieteptep]

I’ve noticed this too. Grasping Vines is instant cast, I was mainly using Bloody Pox to proc devotions but dropped it in the v2.

[freakinjstu]

If you aren’t married to Full Rotgheist, you might want to try 3pc Blood Knight + Rotgheist Helm + Rylok Mark. You get everything you want from Rotgheist, plus Blood Knight’s 15% Phys Resist and 14% Attack Speed just what you need for PS spam.

Also, maybe try this Devotion map: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YZeAzydZ. Very similar to yours, but I prefer Wendigo Mark to Ghoul. Wendigo attached to CoF or GV can provide a ton of healing that most importantly does not require you to hit (given this build’s challenges with CC)

Plus you get 8 more Phys Resist, Wendigo has great Melee VIT nodes, and Sailor, Lotus, Panther all have stuff you need. It will cost you some OA but you can always make that up on your greens, look for ‘Aggressive’ or ‘of Attack’ mods.

[Duchy]

That version with Blood Knight pieces looks really interesting but CC res is not good (slow especially). I run on my version full Rotgheist set. Maybe Blood Knight could be better. I am not sure that losing Ghoul on a PS build is a good idea.

[teppieteptep]

I’ve tested Bat, Wendigo, and Ghoul for sustain options, so far Ghoul still takes the win.

[Duchy]

Scales + Ghoul take the win.

[freakinjstu]

Scales + Ghoul sounds fun, I assume you are dropping Revenant?