[1.1.9.7] Beginner’s 2H Ranged Lightning Savagery Vindicator (pre-Evoker)

I saw, you got respond in Discord, but I would write short comment myself. If you replace Savagery with PS, you can use the same devotion map. One downside of PS is the fact you can’t trigger WPS and bind them to devotions. I would prioritize procing Widow with Primal Strike.

As for gear, rifle is the key item. Possibly, faction gear or other items with + skills to Primal Strike skill line can be helpful, other items should be similar for both builds. PS Vindicator is also a great build and in early levels deals much more damage, so you should be fine in that regard.

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Hello, I feel like I must be doing something wrong with following the devotions part of this guide. I’ve just finished the Tortoise, but I cannot remove the lower right node from the Ghoul because it is needed for the Revenant, and Ultos still requires three more green afinities. Should I grab the Scholar’s light or something, in order to get the green needed to unlock Ultos? Thank you!

That’s because there’s Hydra missing in the path. Grab Hydra, it will give you 2 red needed to remove node from Ghoul and 3 green needed for Ultos.

Oh, yes, that would solve things. Thank you!

Nice build guide, I just started leveling a Vindicator and love it.

A few remarks for early leveling for people that started fresh during the 35-50 stage:

  • Until the Ugdenbog Sparkthrower is available I’d run with “Sparkbolt Arbalest” (Level 35) which adds massive ligthning base damage and combine that with the easily farmable Mogaras Fangs ( add phys dmg to Mogdrogen’s Pact which the Sparkbolts seems to convert to lightning (40%) if I’m not mistaken - I see a good boost in Savagery/Base Dmg from that alone and at that early stage it outperfoms most yellow/green amulets
  • If you have starfire rings dropping, they are nice for leveling as well (level 40+) due to proccing sky fragment (10%) as 2m AoE Lightning/Cold
  • I also found that any green armor that can roll with “of Insight” (legs, boots…) is just crazy good at early game, it gives like 80-90% elemental dmg boost for 8 seconds and stacks. Every other affix is in the 30-40% light/elemental damage range… crazy
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Hey, maybe a dumb question but will I have a bad time playing this in hardcore?

I am not a hardcore player, so don’t have experience playing there, but it’s possible to tweak it a bit to make it more suitable for that content. It’s not gonna be Blitz Warlord or whatever, but it should work. Focus early on life steal and maybe try maintaining high health and DA throughout the game. Also, HC is also about how you play certain build, so if you played other builds in HC, it’s easier to navigate the Vindicator.

I blasted to 60 and seemed fine. A bit lacking on damage compared to PS for obvious reasons, but was def. feeling it. Ripped due to being dumb, gonna give it another go.

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(talking about endgame build with the Evoker of Elgoloth)
This is fun and can endure a lot of punishment if you stay in the seal, AND relocate and re-cast another inquisitor seal when the area becomes saturated with DoT + RR. Also some extreme bosses like Gargabol and Kra’Vall can kill really fast if you stay static which is tempting with this build - cast the seal, then shoot from there, works on almost every other boss - I did get killed from sudden bursts of damage, in most cases from being way too optimistic (and not noticing the hero mob in a pack), and in one case not kiting when I really had to. So yeah it’s not a Warlord build where you can face tank anything without any risk. Not HC safe IMHO if you’re not used to endgame content. Oh also if you get frozen and/or skill cancelled then you have a bad time, possibly a quick death, as I noticed a few times, you need to keep shooting to stay alive.

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Hey, i’m following this build and noticed that you didn’t put Hydra in the Devotion dropdown. However, if i look at the devotions in the Skills Window, you’ve been using Hydra very early, and if we follow your Devotion order in the dropdown, at “Revenant, remove Ghoul’s lower right node (not the proc ofc)” we cant remove the Ghoul node. We will have to go get Hydra to be able to remove it.

Also this build is much stronger on v1.2. The Demo Video probably just show 40% of its current power that this build has now on v1.2.

Wind Devil are now Permanent and we can summon all 3 of them. Combined with Reckless Tempest, they are doing most of the damage.

Right now as I’m leveling up (at lvl 65 atm) i only need to run around to kill thrash enemies. Only using Savagery against Elites and Bosses.

Anyway, great build. Very fun to play and super tanky with all that leeching. Only died against “Avatar of Mogdrogen”, cause i felt i was strong enough to handle him on Normal when i reached his Devotion Shrine.

Cheers!

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Hello. I am a newbie into the game and I was playing a 2h ranged shaman with Primal strike and Torrent as my main source of damage instead of Savagery. I switched to your build but I feel I had more aoe and overall damage before, not sure if this build will start scaling later on on the game. I am playing on veteran but I keep dying with yours. If you have any advice it will help me a lot. Ty

I really liked the build but I was thinking in a variation to add a briarthorn as a permanent pet. I like Ranged Build + Pets

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Hey, thank you for the guide. I love your levelling guides.

I do have a question about this section:

You will need 500+ to wear ranged weapon, so you need few points in cunning. Physique, depending on your armor. You can also put points here for extra health and defensive ability. Rest can go in spirit for extra damage. I’ve put more points compared to end game build, since the damage without top gear is low. For leveling I don’t see point is spirit besides to use jewels and caster armor. Cunning to use ranged weapons and rest is in physique.

I’m a bit confused. You mention putting the rest into Spirit, but then say you don’t see much point in Spirit for levelling. Does this mean Spirit is more important at end-game, but not during levelling? Could you clarify the balance of stat allocation for levelling versus the end-game?

Thanks again for the guide and all your hard work!

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In early stages of the game, your damage will be low. Having small values of % damage means every point invested in spirit will do very little to boost your damage. At the same time you need to survive and no one likes dying. Considering it’s a guide for newish players, my goal is to make conservative build with enough safety nets to help players not die that often. Physique boosts your health and defensive ability, both are helpful. Having that and flat health from skills would give you nice start. Also, rushing Hydra for life steal is good for leveling, with added movement speed even more so.

For end game builds though, your goal is to deal damage in order to kill enemies before they can gang on you, especially in Crucible and Shattered Realm. And more damage is more leech. You also don’t have 200% damage, but 2000% and above, so each point in spirit is more meaningful. So, my personal advice is to focus on physique during leveling and reassess your attributes at level 94 and above, when you have better stats and clear idea, what gear you’re going to use.

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Fantastic! This is exactly the answer I was looking for, clear and very informative. Thank you so much. Once again, your guides are hands down the best on this forum, so well written and easy to follow!! :slight_smile:

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I’m a bit confused here. Isn’t it the other way around?

+% bonus damage in the game is additive. In the early stages of the game, assuming you already have +100% Lightning Damage, an additional +50% would mean a multiplier of 1.25x to your already existing lightning damage (adding 50% to the already existing 200% = 250%. 250% is 1.25 times as much as 200%). In other words, a 25% increase of the total.

On the other hand, when in the late game you already have +2000% lightning damage, an extra +50% would just be… 2.5% of what’s already existing. It would barely be felt.

It’s like 50 extra HP when you already have 200 HP vs 50 extra HP when you already have 2000.

But I wouldn’t invalidate your points about survivability being important in the early game especially for newer players, as that is absolutely true. Just wanted to correct a possible math error.