So straight to the point.
No matter how hard i tried to use devastation as leveling skill it feels VERY VERY VERY underwhelming with a lot of cons(monster can move out, projectiles stuck in the textures, sometimes you can be really unlucky and 80% of your devastation can miss even if monster stay inside of it, very underwhelming dmg numbers, i can continue with the list)
Right now i’m trying to build a character based around chaos devastation with two-hand sword from FoA and i m not very happy with results.(i can write another topic on that sword btw, where i can find chaos demo/arcanist items in the game?)
I m quite sure it will feel somewhat good when i will get extra projectiles on sword, but right now (lvl 80) it feels very-very weak.
Can we buff baseline devastation to 2 projectiles(maybe hide it in 26 rank to reward for overleveling) and maybe nerf dmg in exchange a tiny bit ?I doubt it will feel “broken” but will be way more consistent
Also just to make sure - my most critique is to BASELINE devastation, not fully geared(i usually give up on this skill after level 80-90 and have not tested it full lategame potential so i can’t say much in that matter.)
However, this skill is designed to be a end game skill, not a leveling skill. Many skills perform bad during leveling, but good for end game. Devastation is just one of them.
So it should not be usable into early-midgame? I find this logic very flawed, to be honest.
You can use, but you should not hold too many expectations. In addition, it is a hard thing to reach 26 rank during leveling. So your suggestion (to add a projectile) is actually only valuable in end game.
And is it good in endgame? Not much I would say…
that’s a lie. It’s doable with good multiple solutions in midgame, and it will reward player who heavy investing in reaching this 26 rank. Also it always feels good when overranking a skill gives unique rewards(example: ulzuin’s chosen on rank 16 gives +1 charge to grenado)
It’s not a leveling skill. It is additional damage meant to be used with other spammier skills.
It’s no different than suggesting that Reap Spirit in Necromancer be a good leveling skill. Or Blade Spirit in Night blade. For leveling and mid game, all skills that require 50 mastery points in a class are meant to be supportive to a build, not defining it.
That being said, I do miss old OG devastation lol. It was so strong.
Even in this role Devastation is a weak skill for a skill that requires 50 points in arcanist mastery.
Atleast in my opinion.Blade spirits and Reap spirits atleast not punish you for attempting to move out of boss abilities and forcing said boss to leave devastation area
Eshimi is kinda right
Most skills can be used for levelling, this includes blade spirits even if it’s a pita to build around. But Devas is even more pita because it’s not a “passive”, and all its MIs are gated off to later game areas.
And there in lies the rub, or as Mav said
how many half decent Devas builds was there for endgame pre foa? 2?, how many are there now?
If part of its levelling issues carries over to endgame and hampers it there too, i think it’s fair to say the skill is hampered a lil then.
How much is fair to be hampered during levelling/for a t50 skill i can’t really say, but trying to do a devas levelling in 1.3 PTR i did feel kinda disappointed, more so than with OFF, and that should perhaps be atleast a tiny indicator it could use some classic tweaks like was done with nado/db etc
(ie transfer a lil bit of modifier stats into base node, without making it absolutely explode baseline)
As for comparison, Reap spirit is indeed way more awesome to use levelling, so being t50 isn’t the sole issue in devas, short duration high cd, tough to modify during levelling/specially earlier in MC.
*even if you jump straight into FG and luck out getting the lightning devas offhand immediately from the trial, Devas was still kinda… "meh"s 
I wonder how good is immortal army these days for levelling… Blade Spirits + Guardians of Empyrion…
I haven’t tested Deva in FoA enough to give an informed opinion on my personal experiences, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Deva is another skill that fell off a bit.
I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing it get a bit more power built back into the skill itself, and a bit of its power nerfed on its item support on its strong builds to compensate. (So they end up in about the same end game power level)
From what I have played of devastation, I do kind of agree it just doesn’t feel great until you’re fully itemized around it, which is sort of a shame because it used to be so thrilling the moment you got it.
i haven’t done pure/double pseudo pets levelling in a while, only 1 side with other using support skill 
I think Empys are still fine, simply because buttload of MIs, blade spirit’s main struggle is/was limited MIs for levelling so you’re basically relying on base rank dmg and summon count for devo stack. And, atleast before FoA, you kinda relied on going hostile with Barrowholm immediately and getting reaper pants asap to reach rank24, unsure if FoA itemization skill points changed that tho 
I kinda have this idea of Evoker running DW onslaught, avalanche and devastation.
With +projectiles and something like this Mythical Arcanum Frigus - Legendary One-Handed Ranged - Grim Dawn Item Database could be fun
DW not viable, the gun doesn’t enable devas unfortunately 
- still requires caster offhand
Skills should be viable without onslaught stacks…
This is one of your best repeated opinions. I don’t think anyone wants to see a meta where the majority of top builds all utilize onslaught stacks.
Will let you know if/when I finish my Immortal Army Dervish build. 
I get the impression that you think you’ll be able to roll +1 proj asc affix on the Anointed Blade. Sadly that’s not how this works. Strong affixes (like +1 Deva proj) can only roll on basic white items.
Just wanted to clarify.
I also made an anointed blade build and have been using it in ascendant. It’s the worst FoA build I’ve made by a good amount and it’s purely because of the drawbacks to devastation and the squishiness of it. It’s the primary source of damage for the build, but the cooldown is horrible, the single target is horrible, the reliability vs moving targets is horrible. The fact the build needs to facetank to reset the cooldown of devastation sucks since it’s squishy. If you have to kite you cannot reset the cooldown and DPS becomes nothing.
When it works it’s ok at best.
You can get cooldown down to a few seconds. I used it in spiritbinder build and evoker build and CD was never an issue. There’s Time Dilation and Serenity too - probably a must have if you focus on Devastation. You are not making a good Devastation build if it doesn’t have tons of CDR…
Yeah, unless the target is big and it gets hit by multiple nukes. It’s good for annihilating packs, though.
Make sure target isn’t moving 
Back to point 1: is there even need for CD reset with the amount of CDR Arcanist can get?
I’d say the only downside of Devastation is the main point of this thread: lack of low level items. This is understandable since you usually get far in later levels when you at least have access to damage conversion (which makes Devastation half-decent) and CDR.
Other than that: you get good damage skill that’s on-going and lasts than most DoTs without you doing anything which means you can attack or channel something else. To me, that’s the main strength of Devastation - apply RR, use buffs (if any), cast it and dump damage as long as it lasts and as long as your survivalbility allows it. Then you have a few seconds to relocate (move outside of puddles, etc.) and you repeat the combo.
I dunno. Maybe Devastation fell off. It was never main damage source for me since it’s kinda cheap single node skill that only requires damage conversion and some CDR and it does good “bonus” damage while I’m using my “main skill”. I mean, that’s the indented use, right? You have to do something while Devastation is ongoing and that something will always have a higher DPS than Devastation.