Stats shown are with passives and Word of Renewal active.
Grimtools
Current Gear. My current setup, affixes on the Yeti Horn are not needed for capping resists, DA etc., thus this is also the affixless-MI setup.
Probably Best/Ideal setup. Swapping out the pants for a ‘Thunderstruck’ or ‘of Kings’ green for more stun resist is also an idea.
Build Concept
[ul][li]Wind Devil is our main form of area damage, literally cast a few and they’ll roam around destroying packs with Maelstrom while you lie back and do nothing. With the Yeti Horn and Mythical Trozan’s set, it’s possible to have up to 5 out on a cooldown of ~1.5s. The Conduit lowers the cooldown on these even more and makes maintaining them easier but is not required.[/li]
[li]In between Devil casts, we use Storm Box of Elgoloth. The base skill provides a nice amount of stackable DA strip but the main bulk of damage is from Lightning Tether which is capable of striking multiple times per second.[/li]
[li]This is a hybrid Lightning/Electrocute build - most single damage builds will lean towards either dealing as much direct damage as possible as quickly as possible or stacking DoTs and the other will be left on the wayside a bit, however this build is more or less in the middle. Wind Devil/Maelstrom, Lightning Tether and Hand of Ultos are all decent sources of Electrocute and with 5 Devils/Tether’s multiple damage ticks, you will output a nice amount of Lightning damage as well.[/li]
[li]While our OA is just passable, we can reduce our enemies DA by 290 in total through Storm Box and Fallen Comet (from Trozen’s 4-piece). This allows us to proc Deadly Aim to push our OA to acceptable levels.[/li]
[/ul]
Abilities
Wind Devil (Hand of Ultos) - Main form of area damage and largely forms your single target through Maelstrom and the main skill.
Wendigo Totem - Used for sustaining via healing.
Storm Box of Elgoloth (Dryad’s Blessing) - Alongside Wind Devil, this is your single-target damage.
Inquisitor Seal (Elemental Storm) - Used for the damage absorption and resistance it provides to stay alive. Also provides % crit damage.
Word of Renewal - Used for the passive stats it provides and as an on-demand heal.
Aether Corruption (Arcane Bomb) - Slight bit of resist reduction and a way to spread Aether Bombs throughout a crowd. The lower attack/cast speed is nice too.
Pet Attack - Used to direct the Devils to attack a specific target.
Mogdrogen’s Pact (Wayward Soul) - Used mainly for the large amount of % health Heart of the Wild provides.
Aura of Censure - Used for the reduced target’s damage and resist reduction.
Stormcaller Aura - Provides extra % Lightning/Electrocute damage.
Void-Ward Aura - Provides needed Chaos resistance.
Resist Reduction
Wind Devil - Provides -35% Elemental resistance through Raging Tempest, -10% Elemental resistance through M. Trozan Hat’s skill modifier and 25% reduced target’s Elemental resistance through Hand of Ultos.
Aura of Censure - Provides -33% Elemental resistance.
Inquisitor Seal - Provides 32 reduced Elemental resistance through Elemental Storm.
Aether Corruption - Provides -8% Lightning resistance and -35% Lightning resistance through Arcane Bomb.
In total, this leaves us at -153% Lightning resistance with the remainder reduced by 25% afterwards.
Attributes
Enough in Spirit to use our Focus after -% requirements, rest goes into Physique.
Gear and Other Options
[ul][li]Aetherbolt Pendant can be used instead of Conduit of Wild Whispers and the blueprint is buyable from the Coven of Ugdenbog. I chose not to because of the +% max to all resists a Conduit offers regardless of prefix and because it offers more resists than Aetherbolt.[/li]
[li]M. Gildam Arcanum Commendation can potentially be replaced with a good craftable/MI amulet like Watcher’s Crest or Kymon’s Badge (resists and OA are what to look for). If you do, replace Cindertouch with M. Purging Touch to keep skill bonuses to Lightning Tether and for the proc and casting speed.[/li]
[li]While you probably could replace M. Legplates of Valor with a set of MI pants, the % Physical resistance on it is half of what this build has so is rather valuable.[/li]
[li]I’d say the best prefix for a Yeti Horn would either be Thunderstruck for % OA, the Physical resisttance and as this allows you to replace an Aether Soul with something like Seal of Annihilation or Runecarved for more Fire/Lightning resistance (outside of Seal) and so the Bloodied Crystal can be replaced with something like another Runebound Topaz.[/li]
[li]Best suffix is up in the air, there’s a lot of good options.[/ul][/li]
Devotion
[ul][li]Hand of Ultos is bound to Wind Devil to increase it’s AoE potential. It’s also worth noting that Hand of Ultos is the only proc in this build that deals % weapon damage to leech off of.[/li]
[li]While Dryad is not taken for any important affinity, it is important overall because of the 4th node that adds % Spirit and lowers the Spirit requirements on our off-hand. It also adds 20% reduced Poison/Bleed duration and 36% via the celestial power (which is always active in a fight). Despite the different naming convention to Heart of the Wild, I’m going to assume it stacks additively for a total of 81% reduced Poison/Bleeding duration.[/ul][/li]
Playstyle
Keep Word of Renewal active 24/7. Drop down a Wendigo Totem/Inquisitor Seal underneath you before going into encounters, you’re pretty squishy without both. Apply Aether Corruption and start throwing Devils out or tethering enemies with Storm Box, sit back and watch things die. If you start to get overwhelmed, you can start kiting without dropping your damage significantly. You don’t have a circuit breaker so choose whether to back out sooner rather than later.
Kills
Levelling Pointers
I’ll go over some ideas/tips that I used while levelling. I do not want to make this a “put x points here at this level” kind of guide, though I may give examples of what my point placements at various stages were like if it is relevant.
General
[ul][li]Try to stick to a ratio of 2 points into your mastery bar and 1 point into skills. Another way of thinking about it is that you should have your current level * 2 in mastery points. For this build, I finished adding mastery points at around level 45.[/li]
[li]For Normal, you can afford to 1 point most skills, invest a bit more in others and then focus slightly more than that for your main abilities. For example, this is what my skill selection looked like at Level 45 whilst going through Act 4 of Normal.[/ul][/li]
Levels 1 - 25
[ul][li]Until ~level 20, Wind Devil isn’t helpful due to a lack of Maelstrom. Until then, I levelled with maxed Briarthorn. Component skills like Fireblast/Lightning Nova are also an option, I’ve also heard that pumping Devouring Swarm is decent early on. You may need/want Ectoplasms for it or the Component skills though.[/li]
[li]Level 23 is perfect for respeccing as you can get Wind Devil w/ Maelstrom and 1 point in Storm Box and Lightning Tether like this.[/li]
[li]Either before or after respeccing, try and get an Overseer Eye as soon as possible. Any Eye will do this early on. Overseer Heroes will have the best chances unfortunately as normal Overseers have a really low chance of dropping one.[/li]
[li]At Level 25, craft and/or equip a Fervor relic. If you don’t have access to one, Squall is your next best bet. You can use this up until you can make/equip an Eye of the Storm.[/li]
[li]Devotion-wise, Rhowan’s Crown is your first goal. Wolverine, Hawk and Scholar’s Light will unlock it. Bind it to Storm Box for now when you do.[/ul][/li]
Levels 25 - 50
[ul][li]After Rhowan’s Crown, move on to Chariot of the Dead. Your next goal after that will be Widow which is opened by taking Viper and the Crossroads Primordial node.[/li]
[li]While passing through Asterkarn, you want to pick up a Yeti Horn. Your best chances of getting one are from Yeti Heroes and Ragrathar Rageblood, the Boss that spawns further up in the area around the locked shrine. Any will do, the skill modifier on it will make a world of difference. Use it for the rest of Normal and until you can replace it with a new one in Elite and then Ultimate.[/ul][/li]
Other things of note
Aura of Censure vs Stormcaller’s Pact
Between the Shaman/Inquisitor exclusives for this build, these 2 are obviously the contenders.
Stormcaller’s Pact will offer a bit more in terms of DPS. This is because this build already has tons of resist reduction but not as much crit damage and the numerous ticks from Storm Box/up to 5 Devils means that % chance for more Lightning damage is going to see a lot of use. The % cold damage is also welcome as we deal a nice amount through 5 Devils w/ Raging Tempest and have a large amount of Elemental resist reduction to compliment it. Early versions of this build took Stormcaller’s Pact (hence it’s what I also levelled with).
So then, why did I opt to go Aura of Censure in the end? Because of the -18% reduced target’s damage. Alongside Inquisitor Seal and Wendigo Totem, this helps you to stand your ground better. Comparatively, I noticed almost immediately that it was making a big difference and that my DPS without Stormcaller’s Pact was sufficient enough, thus I stuck with it. If you’re all about more damage and/or kiting though, feel free to take Stormcaller’s Pact instead.
Why not Druid?
Originally, I was on the fence over going Vindicator (w/ Storm Box) or Druid (w/ Trozan’s Sky Shard). I almost went the latter but was persuaded otherwise because well, Trozan/Devil Druids are nothing new - they’ve been done several times already in the past and have had a few recent guides. Even if I’m swapping the focus from entirely Sky Shards to balancing Devils and Sky Shards, I did not think it was different enough to warrant another.
