Put aside the ranged. Become who you were born to be.
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Upheaval and some other WPS seem to hit the target with base AA as well, so ~150% WD multiplier on the splash is effectively a 250% WD against the target. Which boosts single target substantially and makes a lot of 2H Shamans competitive. But also poses the question if the splash multiplier is too strong.
I’ve played several builds already. Ultos Archon and ranged pierce Vindicator didn’t feel OP, and Evoker Vindicator after dropping Shadowflame shoulder and replacing it with big stat shoulder + Upheaval didn’t look much better, if better at all.
But lee’s video of Avenger and the following results of Veilkeeper Ritualist, perhaps, stand out. Maybe the base WD on the splash it ok, but the existing mods for it are too strong? Hard to tell for now, will test more.
Some Ritualist gameplay:
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Tried Ultos Archon a little more and it’s pretty underwhelming, actually. The set is super poor on stats. +2 to one mastery out of 4 slots that give +1 is a huge mountain to climb. I’ve spent 2 hours trying to figure out the devo route and couldn’t. Lightning melee like this needs both da and oa to survive cause it depends on on crit procs for sustain (Korvaak in this instance). So you need to produces a huge stack of oa somewhere in a very limited amount of open slots. And somehow keep da. And as%. And hp. And res. The set needs a sizeable stat influx.
This case, and some other examples, kinda confirm that current Upheaval when unmodded is not OP. Will try Veilkeeper Archon with Stormreaver to compare directly to the dedicated set.
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Played a custom alternative. Note, this is not the best way to play Veilkeeper or Stormreaver, it’s a build made for 1 to 1 comparison of a “custom” option with dedicated Ultos.
It plays a little better than Ultos, probably due to big dots and extra arc (dont mind the deaths against very tough bossrooms), which confirms the Ultos accusations. But still underwhelming in itself. Once again lightning finds it hard to find its footing in a melee platfrom (DW Archon is a freak of nature born out of an unusual arc bonuses). Lightning Veilkeeper Druid with totems should probably be better, yet to test it.
Again about Ultos. I honestly want some rework for the set. I don’t understand its identity at all. It has mid mods to PS, low mods to Savagery. Nothing stands out. It has massive cdr on an attacking build, what for? How can i utilise it? It has no way whatsoever to play cd PS and Savagery together because of skillpoint shortage. It’s a set for attack skills with a dmg type that’s the most unfriendly to melee, while not providing any stat cushion or tools to sustain.
Pretty much all mastery sets have smth interesting going on there, even if not exactly strong. What’s going on in Ultos, i don’t get.
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This has irked me for some time. There are so many items giving cdr bonuses to PS yet hardly ever are they used for that purpose, because building up both PS and a filler attack eats a ridiculous amount of points, and if that filler attack is a DAR then you need even more points for WPS to make that usable. Looking at the Builds section for PS on GrimTools…it’s a bit of a graveyard and CD PS is hardly ever used (there are actual Korvan Wyrm builds without it, wth).
My idea for FoA Ultos was giving Savagery Onslaught charges to hyperboost that CD PS but I’m not sure even that would fix the build. Ultos is universally crap stats-wise. Its crit damage mods are weak because the set itself gives all of 150-ish + 6% OA across 5/6 item slots. Its damage resistances are still among the worst of all the 5pc sets despite the Lightning/Elemental res adjustment and it has 0 cc res. Several ranged sets such as Ulzuin, Uroboruuk and Runebinder give more health than the melee Ultos does. Markovian gives like 2k more health, has the best resistances of all 5pc sets, a shield, minor cc res, higher armor. What does Ultos have? 300 regen. That leaves the set defensively in a horrible position (cc-wise especially), while it’s supposedly meant to be spending most of its skill points just building the AA/PS/WPS side of it. Unless FoA Ultos ends up getting a built-in WPS or a WPS trigger % increase to save some points, even an Onslaught mod will be difficult to build around. Though I guess this could expand into a bigger discussion of whether AA is up to par point-cost wise with casting or CD-removal spam overall, given that spam builds just need to max out one line for their core source of damage (which can be as little as two nodes) while AA needs to max out the AA and then has an additional point tax of WPS to get off the ground.
Agree with this.
And some OA/DA. I quite like the regen identity though, it would make it interesting to build with with warder/demolitionist if it weren’t for the problematic dual identity (or lack of it) of the set.
I’d rather see the PS bonuses be oriented entirely around DoTs on a longer recharge. I wouldn’t be sad to see bleed bonuses on the set either. There’s lightning/bleed boots, pants and a medal (and the 1h axe if you count it), but that’s the extent to which bleeding is supported on PS. The only bleeding skill mod is on Mark of the Farseer. I would absolutely play the Ultos set if it had something like bleed, electrocute, and perhaps increased recharge for PS with %TDM.
I’d also like to see more of wonky drawbacks in this game, like “-50% total lightning damage to Primal Strike, +50% total bleeding/electrocute damage to primal strike”. Those kinds of things only really exist on Dying God, Blood Orb of Ch’thon, Mistborn Amulet and Fevered Rage. I think the game should lean into gimmicks like that more. Berserker especially is naturally suited for something like “Gain +x% OA and -y DA%” and that’d make it flavorful and more interesting to build, even if it only had the consequence of making you need to balance stats in a different way.
The amulet in the set is also incredibly bland and would feel much more exciting with a skill mod/proc/passive buff. That doesn’t encourage picking 3-4 pieces of the sets toward something else either.
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I wouldn’t be against that (probably more the bleed side than the electrocute side cause electrocute already has a number of dedicated options like Ludrigan or Stormreaver) but that would only exacerbate Ultos’ points problem. If you’re gonna be building with DoTs, you need multiple sources, which means Savagery, PS, Upheaval, Feral Hunger become a must, plus you have a problem of splitting your RR (you need Raging Tempest for your flat sustain but you need Devouring Swarm for your bleed). A build that’s already dying for points (building up your WPS already eats into some really important skills) would be even more points desperate. The point starvation needs to be fixed first otherwise a DoT Ultos is dead on arrival. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Ultos ends up losing the PS focus altogether if the Wildcaller set ends up getting an ascended version. It would make Ultos very, very bland, and I’d much rather the Savagery + CD PS was re-emphasised rather than abandoned, but without more points or free WPS percentages it’ll keep being an either Savagery or spam PS build but not both.
All the electrocute stuff on PS is on the 3rd node. Meanwhile all bleed dmg comes from 1st node, with 3rd node being just % duration/dmg. My idea was that the mixed sava/PS could choose to invest in only one of the nodes, or even leave them at 1 point without feeling bad for using them only for the dot/devotion proc. Going 16-1-12 would be an alternative playstyle where you focus more on big dot crits that benefit from PS’s high %wd, but not something that you feel compelled to do.
I did not intend that doing electrocute + bleed at once is the goal. It’s normal that you focus on one or the other, although I’d be tempted to fit berserker + huntress into this even when playing electocute (that would be fun!).
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That’d work if you could just live off of regen but I don’t think Ultos gives you enough of it (or it’ll be a struggle to find the points to properly scale it). So to stay alive you’d still need a respectable amount of flat lightning or really high leech if you’re not going to take any on-tree lightning RR. Though I guess the only way to know for sure is to get that bleed included and try it after, else it’s just speculation on my part.
In this case we’re speaking of going electrocute (so lightning, really). It would naturally still have flat lightning damage and RR.
In that case, yeah, but you were really in favour of getting the lightning + bleed combo going. That’s why I was mentioning the possible RR/points issue, obviously won’t apply to pure lightning.
Trying some 2 Hand Fire Strike Blaze Rush Elementalist right now. I have around 70% Wps proc rate which is okay i guess, but you really struggle with point allocation imo.(Mainly because of demo) Fire Strike/Thermite Mine/Vindictive flame eat so many points its crazy. Would condencing the latter 2 to 12 points instead of 16 points somehow be gamebreaking?
If Blazerush had +2 points to Demo instead of 4 points to temper/flame touched it would make things much easier here.
Also:
Is there no way to rework this WPS so it also can be activated via 2 hand melee?
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Lol Ultos warder gets like 5k regen on standy plus more with procs…along with easy 25-30k hp. Its not exactly dying to a stiff breeze…that being said OA has always been a problem considering the set, like you mentioned, gives crit modifiers.
I think Ultos woes, savagery side aside (who plays sav ultos idk) stem from outdated and weak support for Primal Strike. (Skill itself could use some buffs too methinks)
But I really, really hope that Ultos gets to keep its identity as “the” spam primal strike melee set. It doesnt need that much love to get to where it needs to be. But as is, i think deserves some love.
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