I have a few Upheaval builds from FG that I’ve been looking at to see if I can transition them to the new expansion reality. Overall I’ve noticed a general consistency improvement which makes the skill feel much better and it’s new found flexibility.
This particular Upheaval was inspired by the fleshwarped casque which provides phys % and OA% to the Arcanist class, which alongside other general Arcanist skills made me curious. Originally I had this fella sporting Avenger set for health regen, but I transitioned away from it because of a really great new weapon called the Ironlord Demolisher. It seems like the Blast Shield mod is what most are high on but what really gets me going here is the Upheaval-like WPS called Demolish. This bad boy gives you a very important WPS that you are desperate to find now that Upheaval is no longer the solitary supercrit it once was. Now Demolish is the big bonk thanks to it’s huge +crit damage%. Between Upheaval and Demolish you can achieve 60% proc without ascendencies which is pretty good for bonking! Demolish can get up to 700 000 crits that I have noticed on low phys res enemies.
Devotions I reworked as well to find more attack speed and resist reduction (phys -95%), as Arcanist doesn’t add much in that regard. But what it does have is great tankiness between Maiven’s and Primal Bond damage absorption (23 and 16%, I’m not sure how they add up), lifesteal with the flask and Feral Hunger, loads of phys res and armour which feels very good now that enemies do a lot more phys damage, and +health from Shaman.
He sports a bunch of shielding between Aurora, Turtle Shell, and flask.
The build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/NkBgO5QZ
This fella can take both Mogs though the white wolf is a tougher fight (avoid the forcewave!), Ravager you can semi-facetank, Calla is just annoying because of the big tornadoes which force you to move. Crate I’ve got to half but that’s a really hard fight, I might try more to get a rhythm for when to disengage as this fight is a real dance. I haven’t tried Nerf because I don’t really feel like running through the whole quest atm. I used the attack speed potion.
With ascendencies this toon will only get better (ideally getting upheaval % as I’m at 85% proc), and manticore isn’t fully leveled yet. This build became much, much better than what I remember from his FG iteration.