Introduction:
My first guide! After the recent buff to primal strike I played around with it a bit, and this cooldown primal strike/savagery build is the result. I played the character in hardcore through veteran and ultimate (skipped elite) using only easily obtainable green items and low level components, so I think it would make for an excellent fresh start beginner character. Performance was good, smooth levelling without any close calls, and it handles SR26 pretty comfortably.
How the build works:
Pretty standard stuff, Korvan Storm Halberd gives us some phys to lightning conversion and decreases the cooldown of our primal strike. As a filler skill we use savagery with both feral hunger and upheaval giving us some AOE. Fleshwarped Casque gives us full uptime on our warcry, which provides both damage reduction and flat resistance shred. A very tanky character, it felt pretty much unkillable during leveling and even in SR26. Tested both spam primal strike and this cooldown variation, and cooldown feels like the way to go. It deals more damage (together with savagery), provides more phys res, more oa, more regen, and more attack speed. Just more of everything.
Leveling guide
I chose to level using a Troll Bonecrusher until reaching Forgotten Gods and farming the Korvan Storm Halberd. Theoretically you could also just start Forgotten Gods right after killing warden Krieg and get the halberd earlier, but I wanted to try something different this time.
Level 1-10
Pick shaman as your first mastery, put one point into the mastery bar, one point into savagery and one into brute force. Keep in mind that brute force only works with two handed weapons, so pick up Hevill’s Greatsword from the eastern part of lower crossing. All attribute points go into physique until you reach about 50 points (a long time from now). Next we wanna put 4 more points into our mastery, unlocking both primal strike and mogdrogens pact (one point each for now). After that work on maxing out both might of the bear and brute force, giving us more health and damage early on, and put your remaining points in the mastery bar. For devotions go with blue crossroads and start sailors guide.
Level 10-20
After unlocking torrent (one point), start maxing out savagery, and then primal strike. You should be getting some more devotion points now, so finish sailors guide, green crossroads and then start quill. For your relic slot you pretty much just use whatever you can get, I went with the free Bone Talisman from the rovers you meet at the arkovian foothills riftgate. Finding a blueprint for Guile early would be a big damage increase though.
Level 20-30
Both savagery and primal strike maxed? Then put one point into feral hunger and start dumping everything into your mastery bar, you’re probably really needing that extra energy since primal strike is quite hungry. You could put an ectoplasm component into one of your jewellery slots, but I personally just used my energy potion frequently. After reaching the Old Arkovia Riftgate, get yourself the Troll Bonecrusher from the troll right north of the rover camp. It’s a guaranteed drop and will probably double your dps at this point. As you level your way through the mastery bar, put one point each into tenacity of the boar, heart of the wild, upheavel, oak skin, storm surge and storm touched. We stop putting points into the mastery bar after reaching storm touched, so 32 points in total. For devotions you finish quill, respec both blue and green crossroads, take yellow crossroads, lotus, and start working on kraken.
Faction: Kymons Chosen
Level 30-40
Now it’s time to pick soldier as your second mastery. We want to reach warcry as soon as possible, so start putting your points into the mastery bar, picking up both menhirs will, military conditioning and field command. Put one point into warcry and max out its modifier, terrify. Once you’ve unlocked warcry, you really want to swap your helmet for a Fleshwarped Casque, in order to reduce the cooldown. Also pick up Zarias Pendant and craft yourself a Solar Belt with the blueprint sold by homestead (assuming you have enough reputation). You can also buy yourself a higher level Troll Bonecrusher from the “secret” vendor just north of the Blood Grove Riftgate. Look for affixes like “superior” “of alacrity”, you can reset the vendor by teleporting away for a couple seconds and then coming back. In terms of devotions, finish kraken (big damage) and start with harvestmans scythe.
Level 40-50
More points into soldier mastery until you reach squad tactics (one point), and then get your warcry to 12 points. after that everything goes into the mastery bar again, until we reach menhirs bulwark, pick up one point into scars of battle as well. As you’re going through the void to malmouth, try to get a Rylok Crest, it increases your savagery damage a little. Once you hit level 50 you can also start using black legion equipment (sold by their faction vendor), I personally got the Legion Greaves, and the Legion Chestguard for some nice physical resistance. You can also buy relic blueprints from Hyram the vendor in malmouth (Steelcap District Rift), so get yourself a Desolation. For devotions, finish harvestmans scythe, respec sailors guide, get lion, respec yellow crossroads, and start with chariot of the dead.
Faction Barrowholm friendly (although it doesn’t really matter here)
Level 50-60
As you enter Forgotten Gods, side with Faction Cult of Solael, this will make farming your new weapon easier later on. The first spot to get a Korvan Storm Halberd is the Temple of Osyr, they are dropped by the big reanimated statues. Just run the temple a couple times until you get one, no need to worry about affixes for now. Important: the game might tell you that the halberd will decrease your DPS, but thats false. We are simply shifting damage from savagery into primal strike, your overall damage will increase drasticly. I personally beat almost the entirety of ultimate difficulty using a mediocre level 55 Storm Halberd, the weapon is that strong. As for skillpoint distribution, put one point into menhirs bulwark, one point into wind devil, and then max out raging tempest for the resist reduction. Before starting ultimate difficulty ( assuming you’re skipping elite like me) you have to fix your resists. The top row should ideally be 50% overcapped, and you might need to spend some time farming equipment for that. Remember that putting points into oak skin gives you aether and pierce resistance, and scars of battle can fix your bleed res. Devotions: finish chariot of the dead (bind to field command), pick up crab (bind to mogdrogens pact), respec quill, get widow (bind to primal strike), and work on getting tempest.
After reaching reputation honored with the cult of solael, Raiken will give you a new quest which ultimately gives you both a great lightning movement rune and access to the Map Room of Rahn. This is a great place to farm a Korvan Storm Halberd with better affixes, ideally something like “charged” “of alacrity” or “of thunder”.
Level 60-70
Going through the start of ultimate should be a breeze with your new weapon. I spent my skillpoints on getting oak skin to 10 points and scars of battle to 5, in order to help with my resists. After that I maxed out squad tactics for some damage and attack speed. At level 70 you can also finally equip the upgraded Slith Primal Ring, which can help getting your resists capped as well. Now you might actually have to put some points into spirit in order to equip jewellery, I think I ended up with about 17 spirit at the end of the game, the rest goes into physique. In terms of devotions, finish tempest (bind to upheaval), get behemoth (bind to menhirs bulwark), and start ultos, sheperd of storms.
If you feel like you’re dealing too little damage at any point, you can always go back to normal/veteran difficulty and farm yourself a higher level storm halberd (wasn’t necessary in my case).
Level 70-80
Max out menhirs bulwark for more damage, regeneration and damage absorption. I also got tenacity of the boar up to 12 points in order to fix my offensive ability, but you could also put those points into mogdrogens pact or storm touched. Military conditioning went up to 5 points for some extra health (not that we really need it). Remember that you can buy upgraded versions of your black legion equipment once you reach revered reputation with them (I forgot to do this). Devotions: finish ultos, sheperd of storms and bind it to savagery. Done with devotions!
Before starting Forgotten Gods you wanna do the “hidden path” quest, as it gives you your endgame pants Solael-Sect Legguards, and free skill and attribute points.
Level 80-90
I beat ultimate Korvaak at about level 88, having farmed a new Storm Halberd on the way there. At level 90 you can switch over to equipment from the coven of ugdenbog, the Elite Coven Warder Spaulders and the Elite Coven Warder Chestguard, for some more damage and points to savagery. Alternative: Elite Dreeg Defender Cuirass for a more defensive option. You also wanna get yourself two gollus rings, they compliment a regeneration focused build nicely. Try to find some with resists and some offensive or defensive ability on them ideally. As for skillpoints, I maxed out field command for oa and da, put a couple more points into military conditioning (I stopped at 8), and started maxing out mogdrogens pact.
Level 90-100
Time to get ready for Shattered Realm! Finish the build by maxing out mogdrogens pact and getting strom touched to 13 points for more attack speed. I also put another point into scars of battle for more armor absorption. Last few points can be spent wherever you feel like it, oak skin maybe, to increase da. Elite Rhowari Grips are a good way to fill your glove slot if you’re not finding anything better. Fix your offensive and defensive ability with your jewellery or pants, farming gollus rings is relatively fast and it shouldn’t take too long for something good to drop. You should be aiming for about 2800 oa and da (with savagery active). Get yourself a decent Korvan Storm Halberd, “charged” “of alacrity” should be enough and is pretty easy to farm using the map room of rahn. For the sake of keeping it beginner friendly I kept my Desolation Relic, but you can obviously upgrade to Eye of the Storm, the blueprint shouldn’t be particularly rare.
SR26 completion with beginner setup
Morgoneth kill with beginner setup
Endgame:
The build clears SR26 without problems, anything higher and you start noticing the lack of damage compared to a full endgame character in legendary gear. Thankfully upgrading the build further is pretty easy, Ultos Set is a no brainer and can be farmed in SR, it might just take a while for the blueprint to drop. You can also upgrade the low level components with high level ones like Ugdenbog Leather, Seal of Annihilation and Runebound Topaz.
Qickly threw this together in Grimtools:
Endgame Grimtools Example
Thanks for checking out my guide, this character was a ton of fun to play!
