I have this Warder, it’s my first real character and my only level 100. For the most part it’s been great, I’m not sure if I died at all through all of vanilla ultimate, except for Sentinel I believe. She can clear SoT while I watch TV, though not sure how much of a challenge that really is. Log died easily.
Now I’m playing in AoM content and things aren’t going well. I’m dying embarrassingly too much. The crab boss killed me a few times. The witch, Janaxxia, killed me at least a half dozen times. The boss in the abandoned mines killed me a handful of times. I died at a devotion shrine. I died to other hero bosses. I think I even died to a pack of mobs once that didn’t have a hero. This is NOT what it’s been like with this character at any point previous to AoM ultimate.
So how do I fix this character? The build had been solid before. I’m not open to completely changing the character. I’m not adding a shield or becoming a caster. I want it to remain a 2h lightning/electro based character. Gear is the best I have, I know at least a couple pieces are extremely outdated. I’m just not sure how to proceed because this isn’t fun, going from demi-god to garbage. Is the build just not optimized enough? The gear just not AoM ultimate ready? Or the lightning Warder just a weak build in general (it sure didn’t feel weak one Act earlier)?
Besides the gear issue, some things that stick out the most:
Low OA
Lowish DA
No points in Raging Tempest - you need 12/12
No points in Zolhan’s Technique - at least 9/12 is ideal
1+ point each in Blindside (DA reduction), Squad Tactics (attack speed), Blood Pact (life steal), and Break Morale (skill disruption)
Wendigo Totem should be at a multiple of 3 (e.g. 12/12 or 15/12)
Mogdrogen’s Pact is too high
Tenacity of the Boar has poor returns past 12/12
Heart of the Wild should be at 10/10
Since WPS Savagery is so skillpoint hungry, it might be a good idea to switch to PS instead, at least for now (ofc gear changes are necessary). Also since your CDR is so low you can dump Behemoth. To get 10 green, you can swap out Empty Throne for Quill or Toad. Then you can put 5 points into Revenant.
But IMHO the biggest issue remains gearing. Check out this thread for gearing and devotion tips, which can apply to Warder.
EDIT:
Forgot about one of the biggest issues of them all - no Arcane Bomb! It’s absolutely essential.
Regarding the build recommendations, that is…difficult to achieve. So I’ll reduce Fighting Spirit and Menhir’s Will to try Zolhan’s at 9 pts. I’ll reduce Mog’s Pact to buff Heart of the Wild. I’ll have to reduce Wendigo Totem to 12/12, Brute Force to 12/12 and Storm Touched to 12/12 in order to add 1pt Wind Devils and Raging Tempest, and I’ll see what happens.
Regarding devotions, I’m aware of the lack Arcane Bomb. Before I posted this I was looking to see how I could make that work. I’ll keep your suggestions in mind. First I’ll rearrange some skill points and see how that feels and go from there.
Play through AOM content on Normal or Elite. Get faction reputation so you can buy augments from the Coven, they’re pretty easy to farm reputation with. (it’s actually best if you reach them on Normal so you can build up reputation through Elite and Ultimate as you kill beasts in A1-A4).
Your components and augments are both very suboptimal. This makes sense given you haven’t pushed through AOM content yet, but if you go through AOM content on Normal/Elite you should be able to get Ugdenblooms and craft better components.
Key stats that changed:
+250DA
+2000HP
+8% Attack Speed
My changes:
Removed eel and two nodes from Rowan’s Crown in favor of Solemn Watcher (+DA)
Added Runebound Topaz and Tainted Heart components to Rings, Amulet, and Medal.
Tweaked some other augments/components to keep resists maxed. You can probably get away with less tweaking if you use Molten Skin on pants instead of Spellscorched Plating
[li]Pulled points out of:[/li][LIST]
Feral Hunger: this skill works best as a one point wonder IMO, if you want more sustain put a few points into Blood Pact.
Mogdrogen’s Pact: Your primary damage is lightning, and going HP regen warder requires better gearing. You’re better off spending these points elsewhere.
Wendigo Totem: As stated by the previous poster, best returns on WT are at multiples of three. (I reduced from 14 to 12)
Menhir’s Will: You shouldn’t rely on circuit breakers too heavily. (Reduced to 1 point investment.)
Scars of Battle: Your stun resist is already way overmax, and you dont need the bleed resist. (I reduced to soft cap, 8/8)
Tenacity of the Boar: Diminishing returns past 12/12 (I reduced from 14 to 12)
Stormtouched: You only really gain 1% attack speed for pushing this from 12/12 to 13/12, plus a tiny bit of conditional +% lightning damage. It might be worth it to hardmax this later, but for now there are better investments (like squad tactics).
Fighting Form: Again I don’t think you should rely on Circuit Breakers too much. You have basically no CDR so this will only be up half the time. If you reach 25% CDR with better gear this might be worth more investment.
[li]Put points into:[/li][ul]
[li]Zolhan’s Technique: Maxed out % chance at 9/12.[/li]
[li]Wind Devil (1) + Raging Tempest (Soft maxed at 12/12). Need that resist reduction.[/li]
[li]Veterancy: One point wonder when you have any amount of +Soldier skills (good ROI in terms of health regen)[/li]
[li]Blood Pact: One point wonder with the conditional ADCTH[/li]
[li]Squad Tactics: +% all damage and +% attack speed. (8/12, could invest more but not necessary at the moment)[/li]
[li]Military Conditioning: One point overmax gives +1% HP and +1% Physique, which I think is worth it.[/li]
[li]Blindside: One point wonder with AOE DA reduction. Will help you crit even with your poor OA.[/li]
[li]Markovian’s Advantage: One point wonder for us with DA reduction. Might be overdoing the number of proc attacks though (not sure if multiple of them can activate off of a single attack?)[/li]
[li]Heart of the Wild: +% health and reduced poison/bleed duration. Health is always good for survivability and poison damage is something you will run into in Ugdenbog a lot.[/li]
[/ul]
[/LIST]
Overall what you’re going to be able to accomplish will be limited because you don’t have many legendary items. As far as beginning builds go, I’d highly recommend checking out Stupid Dragon’s Beginner 2-h Lightning Elementalist. It’s very similar to what you’re doing here, except it’s an Elementalist instead of a Warder:
I think looking at how this build is geared will help you understand how to gear your character better going into AOM content without having access to a ton of top-tier legendaries.
The two components you mentioned I don’t believe I have those recipes, Runebound Topaz and Tainted Heart. Are those AoM vendor purchased or drops? I did not have AoM when I made this character. I have been through it on Elite though. So I’ve been gaining rep all through Ultimate so I’m honored with most of them, revered with Coven iirc. I really appreciate the comprehensive review of the character. I will say though, I disagree with your opinion on Feral Hunger. I’d be really leery of dropping it as it seems to be a massive source of sustain with large mob packs.
I’ve made some changes based on Dioarchet’s recommendations, which are really similar to Mater’s suggestions as well. Basically added Wind Devils with soft cap Raging Tempest as well as 9/12 Zolhan’s. I did not put points into Squad Tactics, Blood Pact, or Break Morale. i’ll find a point for Blood Pact, the other two will probably wait until I have more freedom with points at some point.
I went through Void’s Edge and performed quite well compared to my AoM experience so far. Things die faster, probably due to Raging Tempest. I don’t feel like Zolhan’s is doing anything but idk. The build has a lot of procs that go off all over the place so it’s hard to notice unless it’s really splashy and obvious. My sheet DPS dropped a lot but that doesn’t seem to matter with the resist reduction. I have been slaughtering Cthonian Tyrants which was a big change from last time I encountered those at the end of Act 4. Also the Taskmasters nearly killed me repeatedly in Elite, but they were little threat this time around. I did die to the boss, but that’s mostly because I just facetanked it and didn’t pull out as needed, but just barely. He had about 10% health when I died. This is far better than any of the major AoM bosses I faced so far, and better than the character’s performance in AoM Elite, at least in this particular dungeon.
I’ll keep playing with it and see how the rest goes.
Glad to hear you’re having more success with this build!
You’re right to disagree on Feral Hunger; it should be at 8/10 at least.
The DA reduction on Markovian’s Advantage is redundant with that on Blindside, so you shouldn’t pump both for the purposes of DA reduction.
For the purposes of pure DPS, I’m somewhat hesitant about MA because although it does more damage, it has a somewhat slower animation. So I’m not sure about it from an ROI perspective.
1 pt each in Squad Tactics and Blood Pact has outsized returns for your build; you can sacrifice points from Brute Force to get them. Break Morale is kind of a luxurious perk so yeah you can ignore that for now.
Note that the more WPS chance you get, the less Upheaval will proc, the less it procs devotions. So you might want to consider attaching Reckless Tempest to something else.
If you have doubts about devotions in general check out jajaja’s electrocute warder. It’s the best one I’ve seen. One variation you can do is substitute Tempest with Eel + Dying God (4/7) for more OA, DA and better resists, although you will lose the proc and some damage bonuses.
EDIT: This is Mator’s build with my own adjustments to skills and devotions. You will have to make your own adjustments to gear as you see fit. Devotions were designed to maximise OA. If you can get enough OA from gear, you can switch to jajaja’s setup exactly. If you can farm a good Rylok Crest and get more Ultos items with CDR, you can pump more points into Fighting Spirit from, for example Oak Skin and/or Brute Force. BTW you need better armor absorption. Try to get exactly or just under 100%.
EDIT2:
Variation with maxed Blindside for more DA reduction.
Yes I looked at jajaja’s build before I started this character. After my first character flopped stupendously I started looking at builds to see what works and what skills and classes synergize well. My biggest problem, less now than before, is understanding the “why’s?” of some of the choices.
You are right that I’m reluctant to fiddle with devotions. Neither Toad nor Quill help my build much, or as much as empty throne and hawk. I do understand it’s a means to an ends though. Also, there are devotions I really like, like Tempest and Behemoth. I’m not comfortable dropping Behemoth, though I do understand your point about CDR in regards to it. It’s kept me alive often. In fact, I have it on every character except one, who will be getting ToL instead. I will take another look at jajaja’s devotion choices though and go from there.
I guess I never realized the value of that skill. My Elementalist uses Ultos set and I have only 1 point in it.
They don’t stack? TIL.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure about it either.
Agreed. Brute force is boosting physical and internal trauma damage, and adding a small amount of flat lightning damage. It really isn’t anywhere near as valuable as 1pt Squad Tactics/Blood Pact.