GOOD NEWS! THE BUG JUST GOT FIXED!!!
Summon hurricanes and then swap weapons again, Thor! The bug just got fixed!
The what?
Why Ultos' Axe instead of Stormreaver?
- The latter has +2 to all Shaman skills which makes Wind Devils disappear when weapon switching.
- The axe gives ~10% Physical Resistance and some health regen which makes the Callagadra fight very reliable and safe unlike with Stormreaver.
- The axe’s +4 to Stormcaller’s Pact which gives +16% crit damage and some % lightning damage is actually quite strong and makes its dps close to Stormreaver and competitive vs something like a Skyfallen Korvan Storm Halberd of Ferocity.
Crucible “naked” 150-170 5:40 (inexperienced pilot)
Ravager 1:09, face tanked 1 Sunder burst + blood pools
Callagadra 1:32
Callagadra 1:44, no max Arcane Will
This build was intended to replicate the Hardcore survivability (and damage) of the top 1 Avenger Warder while having the option to switch to ranged on the fly.
Compared to the top Avenger Warder, here are its pros and cons.
(+) Ranged & Melee option (Left 4 Druid Thor) that is super fun
(+) High uptime Arcane Will (8s duration, ~3.4s cd)
(+) Higher effective DA due to above and Korvaak proc
(+) Mirror & Nullification
(+) ~9% higher Physical Resistance
(+) Much higher regens (5803 often, 11526 on Giant’s Blood, and Ghoulish Hunger as backup)
(+) Much much higher base and effective OA with +119% Crit Damage
(+) Flashy lightning graphics and skills, you wouldn’t fall asleep while farming SR (I did with Avenger Warder)
(-) 1 less dash skill
(-) 16% less Damage Reduction (War Cry vs peak Mythical Open Hand of Mercy)
(-) No Menhir’s Will
(-) No 100+ Armor procs
(-) Slightly less Attack Speed (except on Arcane Will or Ghoul proc)
Note that the +4 Savagery on the ranged weapon lets you get 9 Savagery charges that carry over in melee.
Disclaimer: The author is proud of and in-love with this build and thus his opinions and comparisons here are extremely biased. Note that the build’s performance is yet to be objectively tested or rigorously peer-reviewed by reputable builders and testers.
Sample stats on full buffs (except Ghoul proc):
Alt ranged weapon:
GRIMTOOLS
(+) Stronger Rifle (needs more cunning) albeit Double Rare.
Mythical Champion of the Light, albeit with a weaker dps, was a tanky melee alternative used before the Ultos’ axe bug was fixed.
Ravager 1:10 face tanked with rifle (but can’t reliably tank Sunder)
LEVELING GUIDE (catered for newer players, both HC and SC)
Required DLCs
Ashes of Malmouth, Forgotten Gods
Here’s a beginner’s leveling guide I used to use pre-level 100 by S.E.P_Ralf.
Below are my notes for my build that are not in the guide:
Devotion Path
- Green Crossroads
- Scholar’s Light
- Hawk
- Remove Crossroads via Spirit Guide
- Blue Crossroads
- Lizard
- Remove Crossroads via Spirit Guide
- Widow (assign skill to Primal Strike)
- Kraken
- Ghoul (assign skill to a “permanent” passive)
- Behemoth (assign skill to a “permanent” passive, to Arcane Will post Veilkeeper)
- Ultos excluding the left node (assign skill to Wind Devil)
- Sailor’s Guide
- Eel
- Spear of the Heavens (assign skill to a “permanent” passive)
- Korvaak (see #2 of the Elite+ section in the “NOTES” below about assigning this skill)
Attribute Points Allocation
Attributes: Put all points to Physique and Cunning by a ratio of about 3:1, having a final of 28 points to Cunning in total. Cunning is needed to equip 2H ranged early and Ugdenbog Sparkthrower in the late.
NOTES
General
- We use mutated Primal Strike (Thunderous Strike) first to level up instead of Savagery as Savagery without Upheaval or a decent OA would be too slow in the early to mid game.
- Farming for Korvan Storm Halberd early is not necessary as any 2H weapon with lightning bonus affixes would do good enough in the early game. Plus, Korvan Halberd in this version is tedious to farm and is annoying to weapon switch with (switching using weapons that give flat health bonus drains Constitution for some reason).
- Do not sell any Scrap or Chilled Steel as you’d need a ton of them for your end game pants
- I strongly recommend kiting with your ranged weapon in Hardcore if you feel unsafe, i.e. boss seems hard hitting, but watch out for their ranged attacks too
- Never put points on Feral Hunger once you start using Upheaval. This is because Feral Hunger is a wps (weapon pool skill) while Upheaval is special in that it exclusively triggers from non-wps crit attacks. In other words, they compete with/block each other, which makes Feral Hunger bad for Upheaval builds.
Early campaign
- Once you have access, I’ll recommend farming (main menu to reset) Warden’s Lab for a decent amount of Aether Crystals before reaching too high of a level, as a big level gap would mean 0 drops and there’s no unlimited level scaling in Normal. Aether Crystals are almost always used for crafting which is crucial for capping your resistances.
- Skeleton Key dungeons when you’re not yet level 100 are optional. They are time consuming, but if you’re lucky, you could get good mid-game items such as Falcon’s Claw, Wildcaller’s Decapitator, Salt-core Bolter, and Sparkbolt Arbalest, which I personally got in my first Druid playthrough. Some of them also have unique merchants where you can farm (via a quick refresh trick) great items such as those stated in the Late campaign section.
- In Homestead, feel free to side with either faction you want. Personally I’m biased towards the ones that are philomath leaning, and in my opinion they have the better armor augments, and the other side’s elemental mace is not so good for the build anyways. A faster way to farm the recommended Ascended Diadem and Ascended Epaulets is stated in #2 of the Late campaign section.
Mid campaign
- Once you meet the Avatar of Mogdrogen, don’t foolishly fight him in Hardcore. I’d recommend completing your full endgame build first and overcapping (increasing beyond max) Lightning and Cold resistances by +80% via augments and potions if you wanna fight him, as he has an 80% elemental resistance reduction debuff (fortunately he and his pets have no fire attacks).
- In Fort Ikon, siding with the Outcasts gives good augments and is the moral choice in my opinion. But if you wanna get the Black Legion’s armor augments asap, you may skip the Outcasts quests temporarily as they reduce Black Legion’s rep. There’s no need to sweat over Black Legion’s lightning sword because of the next point…
- Once you hit level 50, I recommend finishing the base game campaign (big boss that starts with L only, not necessarily the DLC’s) to unlock Elite/Ultimate difficulty. This is so that you can farm the easy to get level 50 Hevill’s Greatsword with a decent affix from the same spot in Devil’s Crossing. It can only have 1 affix, but it’s lightning-biased, so it’s likely you’ll get a decent one quickly. I recommend going back to Normal to finish the DLC campaigns and unlock the rest of the factions to passively increase your reputations with them while playing Elite and/or Ultimate.
- Said Hevill’s Greatsword has a level 70 version as well, so feel free to farm it again at this level.
Late campaign
- To farm Ugdenbog Sparkthrower, bring a Skeleton Key and go to Ancient Grove in Ugdenbog to find Vinelton (head northwest from the start of Feral Thicket). It sells 1 to 2 Sparkthrowers per refresh. A refresh trick I learned from RektByProtoss is to go to a different area with loading, wait 5 seconds, then go back. The area you’ll use to refresh is just at the northeast called Tainted Wood. For late game purposes (level 100), out of 38 Ugdenbog Sparkthrowers from continuous refreshing, I got 1 with a “Skyfallen” and 1 with a “of Ferocity”, separately. Mythical Evoker of Elgoloth is stronger without both of these 2 affixes.
- You can farm the recommended Ascended Diadem (Fleshwarped Casque is a good alternative) and Ascended Epaulets in the Port Valbury Skeleton Key dungeon (found through the Aetherial rift in The Conflagration, Homestead) using the same trick with the merchant, Agarrad. They are found by heading northeast from the beginning of Port Valbury: High Town. Refresh by heading back (southwest) to Old Town and waiting for ~5 seconds.
- For gameplay purposes, I recommend allying with Barrowholm (but not necessarily committing murder in one of their quests), as they’re the only faction with the % Health armor augment (Solael’s Bloodbinding is a great alternative, however) which is really good for the endgame build. Allying with them gives access to the Ravager superboss battle as well (don’t fight him in Hardcore without completing your endgame build!).
- If you can’t stomach them, you may side with them at first (Normal diff), max the rep, buy tons of their augments and all their equipment and blueprints, and then kill them on your next difficulty playthroughs (Elite and/or Ultimate). Alternatively, you may kill them at first in Normal and/or Elite, and then side with them in Ultimate for the end game augments and superboss.
Elite+ and DLCs, transition to Savagery
- Around levels 74+, look out for random drop Champion of the Light (epic item) or Ultos’ Stormseeker (legendary, much rarer). Malmouth’s Greatsword (level 84) is more reliable to get (just farm Malmouth faction rep), but the bonus flat health is annoying for weapon switching due to constitution drain.
- Once you’ve obtained the final devotion skill (Korvaak), you’ll realize that you don’t have 1 more skill to assign it to (Wendigo Totem doesn’t work as such Crit strike devo procs trigger from %weapon damage or Wind Devil-like fake-pet skills). To level it, you can re-spec most or all of the Primal Strike node into the full Savagery node as well as max Upheaval. Assign Savagery and Upheaval to the Widow and Ultos devo skills respectively, while Wind Devil goes to Korvaak.
- You may fully remove Primal Strike if you already have ~3000 OA, or just remove the cd-removal mutator that weakens Primal Strike (Thunderous Strike). In the latter case, you would probably be short in skill points, so minimize Torrent and Storm Surge to level 1, as the Primal Strike base skill itself has the highest impact to damage (with diminishing returns beyond level 16).
- Here’s a sample Budget build around level 90+ (armor augments not set).
^The given build’s unset affixes for non-faction equips must prioritize health, lightning/elemental damage, and resistances for chaos, acid, and vitality. The craftable boots and gloves can be replaced by epic/legendary items or generics with great affixes. Fleshwarped Platemail is farmable (together with aether crystals) from Fleshwarped Commanders and Hoarfrost Dreadguards in Port Valbury, The Conflagration, or the Gates of Necropolis.
Post-campaigns, farming for end game
- Once you’ve reached level 100 and obtained most or all of of the bonus skill and attribute points from quests, you may proceed to end game gear (and component Blueprint) farming in Ultimate. You may check this guide, by RektByProtoss (Shattered Realm shard numbers are divided by 2.5 in the current version). He also said that Veilkeeper’s items randomly drop from Shattered Realm chests, which is confirmed by the v1.1.9.0 patch notes:
- Note that Mythical Ultos’ Stormseeker and Mythical Evoker of Elgoloth are your end game weapons, with Skyfallen/Thunderstruck Ugdenbog Sparkthrower of Ferocity as a ranged alternative albeit super rare (see Late Campaign section for how to farm it). Your melee weapon can be easily farmed once you get the Blueprint for Mythical Ultos’ Hood, which you can transmute.
- Once you’re confident that your OA is enough for Savagery + Upheaval alone, Primal Strike would have fulfilled its purpose. Re-spec its entire node to something else.
- Look out for Rimeguard Chausses Blueprint as it’s your end game pants. Once you get it, put your stockpiled Scraps and Chilled Steel to use by crafting a ton of them until you get the following affix combination: Prefix can be anything with decent Offensive Ability (“Aggresive” being the best and most practical, “Menacing”, “Renegade’s”, and “Resonant” are great as well), while Suffix can be “of Maiven’s Wit”, “of Destruction”, or “of Squalls”, from great to best.
- It’s likely you’ll complete Mythical Ultos’ set first before Veilkeeper’s because the former has a Blueprint and Transmuting exists. If you do, you can refer to the levelling guide for the Ultos’ build setup and maybe tweak it here and there (but still use Savagery + Upheaval as your main attack to have enough triggers for your offensive Devotion skills).
- Feel free to try riskier ways to hunt gear, such as deep Shattered Realm 30-31 (a.k.a. the old 75-76) once you’re super confident. But without the full Veilkeeper’s or Mythical Ultos’ set at the very least, they are suicidal in Hardcore. Still normally risky regardless, especially vs enemies like Grava’Thul with nullify projectiles and very high lightning res and Zantarin with his popular 1-hit shotgun.
- Once you’ve completed the set, congratulations! I’d strongly recommend setting Giant’s Blood to Arcane Will. Check for excess/mismatches in skill point allocation as well. Refer to the Ravager and Callagadra fight vids for how to do them 100% safely with this build. Thank you for reading!
Build Updates:
v1.1: Added cheap Primal Strike to make room Korvaak’s proc in Wind Devil for the juicy indirect 130+ OA & DA, more OA from Seal of Corruption and Stormcage Legguards, and Spellward Powder. All thanks to @mad_lee 
v1.2: Now has 2 versions, the first having higher dps and high level Primal Strike and the second without Primal Strike and Elemental Storm but being a lot tankier with lots of DA and Ghoul devo, reliable vs Ravager and Calla
v1.3: Combined into just 1 version, as turned out 88 more Spirit allowed the Hardcore version to match the earlier version in damage while still being very reliable vs Calla & Ravager.
v1.4: Added Arcanist Mastery to get level 3 Conversion (Slow Res capped), minimized Oak Skin, put Giant’s Blood proc on Arcane Will
v1.5: Maxed Arcane Will, minimized Nullification, Oak Skin up to 7
v1.6: -4 Storm Touched, +3 Oak Skin, +1 Nullification, replaced 1 Dreeg’s Omen with Mankind’s Vigil to overcap Aether & Chaos res
v1.7: replaced 1 more Dreeg’s Omen with Mankind’s Vigil
v1.8: replaced all (4) Dreeg’s Omen’s with +16% Health total augments, +4 Storm Touched, -4 Oak Skin, changed ranged component to Hell Bane’s Ammo, added alt build with stronger ranged weapon (double rare)
v1.9: replaced three 4% Health augments with Dreeg’s Omen’s, 5 points of Spirit turned into Physique (no more accidental armor unequip unable to re-equip), now close to flat 17k HP
So I was wrong that Deputy was correct, it doesn’t matter which way you assign them, it works out the exact same way. Just the way you were interpreting the thread was wrong, or at least the way you wrote it was wrong: