I decided to try lightning AAR build. Druid is not a typical combo for AAR but it seemed to have good synergy now when you don’t have to recast Wind Devils. This build is enabled by two items - Crimson’s Arcane Scepter and Mythical Stormseer Sapphire. Defensively this build uses ADCtH to AAR from Pulsing Shard, high health regeneration, many defensive devos with high cooldown reduction and Gollus’ rings, Maiven’s sphere for damage absorption, aura from chest armor for % damage reduction and Wendigo Totem for additional healing. For AAR tanking is important and thus you build around it. It also uses Mirror of Ereoctes and Nullfication when needed. Total lightning RR is up to -103 %. Build also uses crit damage to AAR - total is up to 135 % crit damage. This build can clear SR 38-39 if played well. For higher SR build would need more physical damage mitigation and DPS.
This build is just a template. Customize it to your own liking.
SR
I managed to finish SR 36-37 5 out of 5 times within the timer. Don’t do anything stupid and you will be fine.
I managed to finish SR 38-39 3 out of 5 times within the timer. If you die you will be on edge with the timer. Killing some nemeses is slower. Avoid big physical hits. You can get oneshot by them. Don’t be hit by bosses like Benny, Gargaban, Theodin etc.
Completing SR 40 within the timer is hard but not impossible.
Celestials
Ravager of Minds can be killed without pharma. It is a slow and annoying fight due to constant avoiding of his null and sunder.
Callagadra can be killed without pharma. It is slow but fine if you avoid tornadoes and sunder.
I completely redid this build to push higher SR but Druid is not made to be a great tank. I went heavily into health regen and defense. Build went from SR 34 to SR 36-37 and I managed to kill Celestials.
Edit - I changed some items in this build resulting in clearing SR 38. I added % DR and more DPS.
I’ve actually been playing an extremely similar build. I find it a lot of fun, definitely my best AAR build attempt yet. (I also tried a fire sorcerer and an aether warlock, but neither were that much fun. Not enough sustain. Health regen on this build makes a huge difference)
Haven’t managed to kill celestials (except Lokar/Mogdrogen) but that’s mostly because I’m not very good at piloting and don’t know their attack pattern. (and probably picked the worst ravager.)
I note you have much higher base DA (though considering Arcane Will gives a huge boost and has a high uptime I’m wondering if that is overkill…) and I went for higher armour at 3.1K. My build also has somewhat higher %lightning damage, at 2700/3300 (with temp) vs 2400/2600, and more crit damage. (30 vs 16.) I’d suggest putting a few more points in Elemental Balance, up to rank 8 it gives 2% crit damage per point.
A few things I did differently:
Full veilkeeper set → you’re almost there anyway, and that extra 6% offense + 200% health regen makes Arcane Will an actually powerful proc. You get a damage reduction aura, though, which is also good.
Iskandra relic insteaf of Eternity → More damage with the proc. You lose the -1 cooldown proc, but most procs are near 100% uptime already.
Phantom belt instead of Ygraad chains → I lose vit conversion, gain a lot of OA and damage & physique requirement reduction. (but you get that from the relic.) Honestly that vit conversion adds a lot of flat damage from the gloves, so I should probably look for some good chains. (Edit: or not, see below.)
Crafted boots instead of purple → mostly because I had a double rare pair sitting in my stash.
1 point storm totem instead of Wendigo totem → Mostly because I don’t have vit conversion, but I also don’t like having to stand near the totem for regen. I use them to proc Ultos, which is okay in longer fights when I get 3 of them active, though your seal of corruption is a better proccer in general.
Hyrian & Lantern devotions instead of Harp & scholar’s light → I should try the harp, I’ve heard good things about it and that proc looks neat. But I obviously went for armour, and I like the lantern buffs a lot.
I have soft-capped nullification, which gives huge elemental damage reduction with permanent uptime. I think this build has the skillpoints to spare for it, though you need it a bit less because of the armour’s aura. (My only other DR comes from a lodestone…)
I never found a good “seer’s” Crimson Sceptre, I would definitly use that for more CDR if I had one.
All in all it’s really nice to see another Veilkeeper AAR build, I’ll definitely experiment with a few of the choices you made on this build.
What makes it better? You don’t get more sources of damage really, and need more points for celestial presence… on paper this druid looks better to me.
I think that flat absorption on Ascension which you have up often due to high CDR. And regen is still good enough. Regen alone will not save the build. I tried it in previous iterations of the build.
It doesn’t. Double conversion is not a thing.
I will try if more armor due to your devo path will be better than two defensive procs I have from Crab and Harp. You do have more damage but I build for high SR. And Eternity relic is thus a better choice for my purposes.
Belt covnerts vit to aether and that aether is not converted to lightning. And the small amount of added aether damage by this conversion is irrelevant.
Curious if you tried the new Aetherbolt amulet (that will apparently get benefit from next expansions itemization), but is it better or go with the Stormseer Sapphire instead?
