Introduction
Congratz, everyone. One of the most recommended builds for beginners since times immemorial now has a guide available, in dragon quality to boot.
I have quite a history with Primal Strike, it was one of my most favorite skills in vanilla, but one can level just that many characters with it before getting weary. Beginner’s Lightning Elementalist was the first beginner build I posted a whooping three years ago. I always regretted the class choice I made back then, it was obsolete really fast. Druid would had aged much better.
Anyway, the preferred high end class for Ultos set based build went from Elementalist and Conjurer in vanilla through Vindicator and Druid in AoM and early FG, but recently if you say Ultos you’ll hear Warder. This is a relatively new trend, and I tend to follow trends. Two years ago I wanted to remake my Elementalist as Conjurer while one year ago I had faith in Druid. But today I post a Warder.
Mechanics of Primal Strike
Primal Strike comes in two forms – cooldown and non-cooldown version. People seldom play cooldown Primal Strike to the point where I can’t even tell you whether it’s good or bad, but non-cooldown Primal Strike has been a popular skill pretty much since the release of the game. Non-cooldown Primal Strike is unlocked with transmuter – Thunderous Strike, which reduces weapon damage and total damage as the price for cooldown removal.
Among two penalties the weapon damage one applies first, which is subtracted from weapon damage value of Primal Strike. Total damage penalty is then applied to most damage sources of the skill, including it’s weapon damage. The only exception is Torrent.
What that means is maxed out rank 26 Primal Strike is essentially a 187% weapon damage AoE skill with fairly impressive flat damage part. If you’re getting bonus weapon damage or flat damage via skill modifiers they are also subject to total damage penalty, e.g. if Korvan Storm Halberd is used then it’s 35% weapon damage bonus is effectively reduced to 25% by total damage penalty of Thunderous Strike.
The penalty is even known to apply to lifesteal ratio because lifesteal is considered as an offensive (‘damage’) stat. It is basically double-dipping, as a result non-cooldown Primal Strike will have less lifesteal than a theoretical skill with same damage output that didn’t had cooldown and associated penalties to begin with. This means you’ll have to stack more lifesteal than you would normally be fine with.
Torrent is not affected by penalties of Thunderous Strike because due to engine limitations it’s a separate part of sorts, more like a built-in proc. In theory that would have meant Torrent is a beast with non-cooldown PS because you’ll be able to cover the whole screen with it’s lightning. In practice Torrent has a limited proc rate that is easy to notice even with fairly modest attack speed. The proc rate of Torrent seems to be about 1.5 times per second while your attack speed will eventually reach 3 times per second.
Contrary to what it might appear, non-cooldown Primal Strike is not a default attack replacer, even though it’s normally bound to left mouse button and scales with attack speed. Therefore, WPS skills such as Feral Hunger, Upheaval, Markovian’s Advantage and Zolhan’s Technique do not work with Primal Strike.
Levelling
Test character was levelled on Hardcore, starting from Veteran, on which I completed the vanilla campaign and rushed AoM campaign up to Coven of Ugdenbog to open the faction. I’ve also partially played through FG campaign somewhere in the middle to get access to Korvan Storm Halberd farming spots. Then I moved to Elite, which was played in full.
The reason for such progression is mostly to not die out of boredom. I feel it isn’t really saving that much time as opposed to full playthrough of normal / veteran and elite. The reason for that is a playthrough puts your factions close to Honored, it is somewhere around 10k faction score out of 25k required. The missing faction score you’d simply have to grind up on Elite and that will take time comparable to rushing through the campaigns. In short, it’s a matter of preference.
The reason I rushed Coven on Veteran is to guarantee I’ll have it Revered by 90. It’s important because most faction gear used in my setup actually comes from Coven. Moreover Coven is a faction that gets reputation from killing beast enemies and absurdly enough they don’t care whether you’re killing wendigos in Ugdenbog, slith in Burrwitch or eldritch velociraptors in another plane of reality, pretty convenient though.
Faction choices made:
- Kymon's Chosen over the other faction. Mostly because they sell Thundering Gem, which I ended up not using.
- Cult of Dreeg on normal and elite to guarantee I can buy Mark of the Farseer from them by 90.
- Friends with Outcast. No particular reason.
- Enemies with Barrowholm. I estimate the chances of this character ever needing anything from them as rather low.
Levels 1-20
Levelling with Primal Strike is commonly regarded to be as very easy, but it does require some minimal level of know how.
The main pitfall is the energy consumption of Primal Strike – there isn’t really much point in having the skill level of Primal Strike high if you’re running out of energy using it. The max skill level a fresh low level Shaman is able to sustain before any investments into Energy and Energy regeneration is about 5/16.
This is circumvented by picking up Torrent instead. Torrent is amazing because it doesn’t cost you any energy. Moreover it’s very useful because it lashes out at distant targets so you don’t have to walk up close to every enemy as melee.
| Level | |
|---|---|
| 2 | 2 points into Shaman Mastery Bar, 1 into Brute Force |
| 3 | 3 points into Shaman Mastery Bar |
| 4, 5 | 2 points into Shaman Mastery Bar, 1 into Primal Strike |
| 6 | 1 point into Shaman Mastery Bar, 1 into Primal Strike, 1 into Thunderous Strike |
| Kasparov quest | into Primal Strike |
| 7 | 2 points into Shaman Mastery Bar, 1 into Primal Strike |
| 8 | 3 points into Shaman Mastery Bar |
| 9 - 12 | 3 points into Torrent |
| 13 | 3 points into Shaman Mastery Bar |
| 14 | 2 points into Shaman Mastery Bar, 1 point into Wendigo Totem |
| 15 | 3 points into Shaman Mastery Bar |
| 16 | 2 points into Shaman Mastery Bar, 1 point into Storm Surge |
| 17 | 1 point into Mogdrogen’s Pact, 1 point into Heart of the Wild, 1 point into Oak Skin |
| 18 - 20 | 3 point into Oak Skin |
You’re of course putting Primal Strike on your left mouse button and getting Thunderous Strike asap. Perhaps it’s possible to level with cooldown Primal Strike but it isn’t how it commonly done and it doesn’t make a good use of Torrent unlike spam version.
Maxing Oak Skin that early is a novelty of mine. It’s a very fat passive these days.
Do not forget to make use of the Blacksmith once you rescue him. Things of particular interest are Scaled Hides and Wardstones, later Antivenom Salve. All that stuff the Blacksmith knows by default and is pretty cheap so you really don’t have any excuse not to use it.
Levels 21-35
If you’ve been disappointed with damage output so far then worry not – this is where crazy scaling begins.
This is roughly the level range where an abundant supply of Ectoplasm becomes available, meaning that you can put more points into Primal Strike without running out of energy in fights and therefore improving your damage output. The earliest location where you can farm Ectoplasm is Spinal Cove.
Another way of improving your damage is to invest points into Storm Surge. It doesn’t scale your damage as good as the main node of Primal Strike, but it doesn’t tax you with energy cost that much either.
In short, first bump the Primal Strike node to something like 8-12, the exact number will depend on your energy regeneration. Then max Storm Surge, then push Shaman mastery bar to 50 and pick up Stormcaller’s Pact. Personally I did it this way:
| Level | |
|---|---|
| 21 | 3 points into Primal Strike |
| 22 - 24 | 3 points into Storm Surge |
| 25 | 2 points into Storm Surge, 1 point into Shaman Mastery Bar |
| 26 - 33 | 3 points into Shaman Mastery Bar |
| 34, 35 | 3 points into Stormcaller’s Pact |
Devotion-wise you’ll be rushing Kraken. Kraken is a silver bullet for 2H builds and it’s acquisition is a breaking point since which 2H builds start to become good.
Also don’t ignore the new components that become available in this level range, notably Ancient Armor Plate for chest & leg armor, Attuned Lodestone for medal and Mark of Illusion for rings if you’re lucky. Possibly Arcane Lens for the amulet.
Levels 36-50
Finish the Stormcaller’s Pact, then max out Brute Force (do not touch Feral Hunger and Upheaval, they don’t work with Primal Strike since Primal Strike isn’t a default attack replacer). After that max out Primal Strike itself (but yet again, be wary of energy consumption. You should be able to handle it at this point but still remember about it just in case). Last but not least invest 1 point into Wind Devil and max Raging Tempest for elemental resistance reduction.
If you happen to be in possession of Arbiter relic blueprint then craft yourself one, it’s a very good and fitting relic for the build. The only guaranteed way to get that blueprint is to buy it from Hyram after you rescue him in Steelcap District of City of Malmouth, otherwise farming totems is your best bet.
Levels 51-65
Skill-wise you just need to push Soldier mastery bar up to when Field Command becomes available and them max Field Command. Same as Oak Skin it’s one hell of a fat passive as well. One point into Menhir’s Will just in case.
You might wonder why I’m not picking Military Conditioning. It’s a good passive for sure, but what it basically does is improves your health. Pushing the mastery bar further also improves your health, albeit to lesser extent. But at the very same it gives you access to new skills I consider of greater importance, while investments into Military Conditioning will hold you back. Another point is Warder is a very beefy class even without Military Conditioning and Heart of the Wild, more beefy than most other classes in the game.
Once you hit 65 you should buy Coven Warder Chestguard, Coven Warder Spaulders and Coven Flameweaver Casque from their Quartermaster. Albeit not a perfect fit it’s still a good gear to use for this build.
Also if you by chance already have Honored with Coven you can also get Potent Stardust augment for your weapon to improve your damage output a bit. My Primal Strike sheet DPS was an almost neat 46k at this point.
Levels 66-75
Further push Soldier until you hit 40 in mastery bar. You want Scars of Battle. Getting Scars of Battle is the only class skill that provides armor absorption, so it’s common for soldiers to take it and max it because then they can use a different component in one of the gear slots that is usually reserved for armor absorption. For example it easily allows Warder to use two Sanctified Bones.
Mind that I’m not picking War Cry yet because of Arbiter relic, which skill offers a similar effect that is just a bit weaker in potency. I’ll be getting War Cry once I decide to switch to Eye of the Storm. If you already have Eye of the Storm relic then you should get War Cry first.
Levels 76-84
Started putting points into War Cry because I was planning to switch to Eye of the Storm relic at late 80’s (which actually happened at 90 because turned out I didn’t had a recipe yet on this “account” and had to grind it from totems), also putting some points into Wendigo Totem. I feel like Wendigo Totem isn’t that necessary before this point because the character is durable enough with some fairly minimal care about gear, as well as damage is high enough to leech though it.
Levels 85-90
Mostly finishing touches at this point – Military Conditioning (sweet spot 11/10), Heart of the Wild (pointless above 10) and Wendigo Totem (9/12 or 12/12, depends if you can afford it with your +skills from gear) with Blood Pact (sweet spot 5/12). Squad Tactics is worth it as well.
This is a good level range to farm Ugdenbloom on Elite, because it will stop dropping once you’re on your way past 90, which means you’ll have to farm it on Ultimate. Your post-90 needs are:
| Slot | non-Ugdenbloom | Ugdenbloom | How much | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weapon | Amber | Seal of Corruption or S. of Blades | 8 | High |
| Head | Sanctified Bone | N/A | N/A | No Update |
| Chest | Sanctified Bone | N/A | N/A | No Update |
| Shoulders | Scaled Hide | Living Armor or Sacred Plating | 16 | High |
| Rings | Mark of Illusion | Bloodied Crystal | 8 per ring | Medium |
| Amulet | Arcane Lens, Arcane Spark | Seal of Annihilation | 16 | Low |
| Medal | Arcane Spark, Attuned Lodestone | N/A | N/A | No Update |
| Belt | Antivenom Salve | Ugdenbog Leather | 8 | High |
| Pants | Ancient Armor Plate | Ugdenbog Leather | 8 | Low |
| Gloves | Restless Remains | N/A | N/A | No Update |
| Boots | Mark of Traveler | Ugdenbog Leather | 8 | Low¹ |
¹ - If movement speed or slow resistance is low then Mark of Traveler used, otherwise Ugdenbog Leather.
As you can see the minimal budget for your post-90 needs is 48 Ugdenblooms, although you can reduce it to 32 if you’re fine with Mark of Illusions over Bloodied Crystals. At it’s most you’ll need 72 Ugdenbloom.
Levels 91-100
As always with my guides this is a level range where I work on optimizing my build for Ultimate. First of all if you’re level 90 then you absolutely should get the following from Coven Quartermaster:
- Coven Storm Seal - restart the game until you get one with 4% DA and 5% attack speed rolls, as well as preferably above average resistance (>30% poison and >24% elemental) and %lightning damage (>100%) rolls, can compromise on some but not all. I find it especially important to invest into these rings because a) you'll buy two copies at the same time, and b) these are endgame viable rings.
- Skyshard Powder - augment for rings
- Elite Coven Warder Chestguard - restart the game until you get all rolls above average (except %bleed and bleed resistance), especially OA better be above 60.
- Elite Coven Warder Spaulders - same as above
- Potent Malmouth's Heart - augment for the weapon, if for some reason you don't have access to it yet then use any weapon augment with %lightning, I can recommend Scarabshell Powder
From Malmouth Resistance Quartermaster:
From Cult of Dreeg Quartermaster:
You’ll also need a +1 to Shaman belt. There are basically two options - Bysmiel Lethal Girdle and Chains of Brandis. The former is bought from Cult of Bysmiel Quartermaster but it’s built-in bonuses are kind of crappy and it can only get one affix as all green craftable belts. Chains of Brandis is a monster infrequent though, has good bonuses and can get two affixes, problem is you’ll have to go into Port Valbury to grab it, and likely not once or twice. Moreover, Port Valbury is a level 75 location on Elite so you’ll have to go on Ultimate for high level version. Which is why I recommend to craft Bysmiel Lethal Girdle as a placeholder first. Craft a dozen and pick the best one, surely there would be something worthwhile. If not then craft a dozen more.
If you have spare resources you can also try to craft another Eye of the Storm to improve rolls and/or completion bonus, thankfully it’s a pretty cheap relic with effective grinding price of 12 Chthonic Sigils, and a good sum in iron. The rest is small stuff.
Devotions
This is a minor modification of @Slev1n’s setup. I tried to invent a wheel something novel but in the end yet again come to conclusion that it’s borderline impossible to make a lightning setup that won’t be losing to established ones, for reasons I’ll omit because who cares.
Acquisition Order:
- Crossroads (green)
- Scholar's Light
- Crossroads (blue)
- Eel
- Kraken
- Spider
- Remove Scholar's Light
- Widow (bind to Primal Strike)
- Crossroads (purple)
- Toad
- Rhowan's Crown (see below on bindings)
- Remove Crossroads (purple)
- Remove Crossroads (green)
- Viper
- Jackal
- Ultos (without leftmost node, bind proc to Wind Devil)
- Sailor's Guide
- Spear of the Heaven
- Ghoul (four nodes up to proc)
Bindings:
- Arcane Bomb (Widow) to Primal Strike – non-negotiable
- Elemental Storm (Rhowan's Crown) to whatever. If you're using Arbiter relic then it's granted skill is a good candidate to bind Elemental Storm too. Later in the game if you're using Seal of Corruption then it's granted skill Aether Corruption is also a decent candidate. If neither apply then bind Elemental Storm to Wendigo Totem. In theory it shouldn't be worse than Aether Corruption, in practice putting Wendigo Totem on the ground is a bit more clunky than casting Aether Corruption.
- Hand of Ultos (Ultos) to Wind Devil – standard combo because each Wind Devil is a separate entity ('pet'), so electrocute from Hand of Ultos will stack when procced by different Wind Devils, increasing damage a bit hence giving it an advantage over other options.
- Spear of the Heaven, Ghoulish Hunger – to any permanent aura
Endgame Skill Min-Maxing
Terminology used:
- Max - means that you should put the maximum possible number of skillpoints into it and try to push it high up with gear.
- Keep at X - means that it's best if skill level stays at certain number. Since skill level can fluctuate based on gear you should adjust your skillpoint investment to keep the given number.
- Onepoint - means that it deserves one skillpoint investment either to enable something or because you'll be letting +skills from gear push it high up.
Primal Strike - max, main skill.
Thunderous Strike - one point, transmuter to enable no-cd mode of Primal Strike.
Torrent - max it, but don’t go out of your way to push it high with gear. It’s useful but not at expense of anything else.
Storm Surge - max, decent damage boost for Primal Strike.
Wind Devil - one point to enable access to Raging Tempest
Raging Tempest - max, the only source of stackable resistance reduction Warder has access to.
Maelstrom - one point, it improves the proc chance of devotions bound to it because of the mechanical quirks.
Stormcaller’s Pact - max, the exclusive skill of choice.
Brute Force - max, good damage passive for any lightning 2H build.
Wendigo Totem - keep at 5/12, 9/12, 12/12 or 15/12. These are the breakpoints where you get an extra % of max hp healed. 5 is poverty mode, 9 is reasonable, 12 is nice, 15 is luxury.
Blood Pact - keep at 5/12 or 8/12, these are breakpoints for it’s attack damage converted to health. 5 is a must while 8 is a bit of a luxury.
Mogdrogen’s Pact - one point to enable the rest of the line.
Heart of the Wild - keep at 10, it doesn’t scale anywhere good enough above that.
Oak Skin - max, very fat stat passive.
Military Conditioning - keep at 11/10 or 14/10 because of how it scales. 14 is luxury mode.
Scars of Battle - keep at 8, one of the reasons to take Soldier. Good chunk of crowd control resistances and armor absorption that allows non-standard component arragements.
Field Command - max, very good chunk of stats.
Squad Tactics - keep at 12, this is non-negotiable for a Primal Strike build that wants to avoid using Savagery for buff.
War Cry - max, it is the only skill of such type that has damage reduction scaling that good after softcap. Another reason to take Soldier.
Menhir’s Will - at least one point, but I recommend to keep at 6 if you have some spare points (I didn’t).
Blitz - one point for mobility.
Endgame Items & Farming
Weapon - Korvan Storm Halberd (GT Link)
- Drops from Animated Statue enemy type that spawn all across Forgotten Gods campaign, most often in tombs and ruins of various kind, e.g. Temple of Osyr.
- Has level 20, 40, 55, 70, 84 and 94 versions.
- ”Charged” “of Alacrity” is fine, spending time to farm uber affixes is pointless if you'll be using full Ultos set in the end.
- Fantasy version is Skyfallen Korvan Storm Halberd of Fury
Chest - Elite Coven Warder Chestguard (GT Link)
- Faction item, sold by Coven of Ugdenbog Quartermaster
- Can restart the game to reroll stats
- Preferably above average rolls for everything except %bleed and bleeding resistance. You especially want close to max OA.
Shoulders - Elite Coven Warder Spaulders (GT Link)
- Faction item, sold by Coven of Ugdenbog Quartermaster
- Can restart the game to reroll stats
- Preferably above average rolls for everything except %bleed and bleeding resistance. You especially want close to max OA.
Head - Fettan Mask (GT Link)
- A once per difficulty pickup at Maw of Enaht
- Has normal, elite and ultimate difficulty version. Elite is good for levelling while final setup should use version from Ultimate.
Gloves – anything with attack speed.
- A normal craftable heavy gloves with “of Alacrity” or “of Aether Storms” would do.
- Alternatively can do the same but with special craftable Plagueguard Grips
Boots – anything that covers lacking resistances, usually pierce, poison and chaos are problematic to cover for this setup.
- A normal craftable single or double rare boots would do.
- Alternatively can do the same but with special craftable Stoneplate Greaves
Pants - anything that covers lacking resistances, usually pierce, poison and chaos are problematic to cover for this setup.
- Most efficient would be farming Solael-Sect Legguards until you get something decent. You really can use extra lifesteal.
- A normal craftable single or double rare boots would do.
- Alternatively can do the same but with special craftable Rimeguard Chausses
Rings - Coven Storm Seal (GT Link)
- Faction item, sold by Coven of Ugdenbog Quartermaster
- Can restart the game to reroll stats
- Can buy two copies
- Should get one with 4% Defensive Ability and 5% attack speed
- If other stats are above average too – very good!
Amulet - Zaria’s Pendant (GT Link)
- Drops from Zaria
- Is a pet item, so farming it too much is unreasonable because of the bias system. I managed to get a Thunderstruck one but it's an absolutely stupid amount of luck. Treat as a placeholder.
Medal - Mark of the Farseer (GT Link)
- Craftable, blueprint is sold by Cult of Dreeg Quartermaster
- Craft with Angrim or Egellon
Relic - Eye of the Storm (GT Link)
- Blueprint is a random drop
- Desired completion bonuses are Torrent + Oak Skin, Storm Surge + Blood Pact, Raging Tempest + Torrent.
Conclusion
Honestly I was taken aback by current dps capabilities of Primal Strike. If you check out my Elementalist from three years ago you’ll see that sheet dps of a very similar setup didn’t exceed 100k. GT has a Savagery setup but I vividly remember Primal Strike had been only slightly higher, around 95k or so. Granted that I was a bit lucky with gear, I managed to push sheet dps to 170k+ this time using new gear and state of the art building knowledge. Totally not powercreep I tell ya! 
I think it can do at least SR65 on softcore, but I’m too lazy to test it out.
Anyway, hope you enjoy it.
Credit goes to @Slev1n for poking me to make a Warder guide. He has some personal interest in that as an author of a couple high end up to date Ultos Warder builds, which I can recommend you as an upgrade over my budget setup:
well done
(Well one, because I am still too lazy to finish my guide xD )
Looks like a … special pet build !