So I am still new to the game, but so far I am really enjoying playing my Lightning Warder (I always play lightning and thunder characters in all games where available). Outside of just playing the game I really enjoy theorycrafting the devotion constellations, and I am a bit stuck on what the best options are for my character. This is an example of what I have https://www.grimtools.com/calc/vNQEeX8N. As you can see I still have 8 spare points left that I am unsure what’s best to go for. Naturally, I wanted to go for the tempest, as it gives the biggest lightning damage bonuses and a cool last node effect, but I feel like the Crown, Ultos, Kraken and Arcane Bomb along with few T1 devotions already give me plenty of damage, so I was thinking about the Revenant devotion instead as it has some useful defensive bonuses along with really cool looking last node. Otherwise, I could screw both - the Tempest and Revenant, and go for Eel and Solemn Watcher instead for full defensive.
Here are some Primal Strike guides with optimized Devotions in random order (Vindicator, two Druids and two Warders] (but of course you don’t have to min-max if you don’t like to, i.e. if you like the look of Elemental Storm or something along those lines)
People always take Ghoul for it’s OP heal.
The last one from Ceno’s druid is the most similar to yours (uses Purple) I think:
I love theorycrafting the devotions too and done dozens setups, even weird with rare devotions like Crab, Typhos and Hyrian for PS builds. I have some old one just like yours with Chariot:
Thanks for the reply! I actually am not using Primal Strike, maybe I should have clarified that before, I tried it, but eventually I went for savagery, totems and wind devils, that’s way more enjoyable to me. What do you think about this devotion set-up - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV1qG0zV.
It looks like a good mix of defensive and offensive stats, I also took your advice and went for the ghoul, as most people seem to be taking it, however, my biggest issue is that I am new to the game, so I am not sure which ones are worth taking or not. For example, the Chariot looks like it is really good to me, but in reality I really don’t know if it is or not and if it is an overkill combined with ghoul.
It’s fine man. No need to overthink it and get into paralysis by analysis.
Min-max when you need it(for example need for defense because you dying to often or if you want to beat a time record in Crucible)
People normally don’t take both Revenant and Rhowan’s Crown because 2 sources of Reduced Target Resistances don’t stack (you benefit from one source of Reduced Target Resistances (like Elemental Storm or Raise the Dead), from one source of % Reduced Target Resistances (like Viper or Ultos) and from any number of -% Lightning /Elemental res.
However you can leave it at that because Revenant is good just for the stats and Raise the Dead is pretty bad devotion skill at low level because skelies live for a very short time and you can have small number of them and I think Elemental Storm beats it then.
Hard to tell what’s optimal/overkill for where you are at the game right now (your equipment, skills etc) Only you can tell Sometimes following an optimized guide forces playstyle a bit and I don’t think it’s good for a new player (it takes some fun away I think from experimenting, taking decision by yourself, developing own playstyle).
It makes sense what you said, for me the most fun I’m having so far is when I try out different things, once I started looking too much into what other people are doing I started doubting my choices, coming back and worth with devotions and it became less fun.
Just a question more for if that’s ok, I’m not trying to fit Spear of Heavens and Tempest, simply because I already have Ultos, Crown and the widow bomb devotion skills, which I feel like should give plenty of damage already, am I wrong with this assumption?
Also what do you think about the Charriot devotion skill, it looks really cool and sounds like a great survivability skill, but maybe I am missing something and it’s actually crap?
Simply upload your character in grimtools. That makes it a lot easier to talk about it.
Chariot has too much cooldown. Yeah 12% health and some DA is nice and all but with 7 sec duration on 18 sec cooldown? Not worth in the slightest. It just doesn’t offer any consistency.
Missing out on spear is bad both statwise and for the proc that does damage and also gives sustain (lifesteal off the 60% weapon damage).
As mentioned crown and revenant don’t stack.
A caster build as yours would profit highly off the lifesteal from bat. Especially since you have very good proccers (totes/devils).
I might also add that it seems a bit odd going the caster way as soldier does not really synergize as a hybrid caster well.
Well at the beggining I was going for Primal Strike build which seemed to be a very good option to match with soldier as second class, but I tried out the totem and devils path and I enjoy it much more than the first one, but I am stuck with the soldier now, unless I am missing something completely here.
I’m not home right now for few days, so can’t uplaod my character, but I am still very new, I don’t even have all the devotion points unlocked yet.
It has some stats in the savagery tree, wind devil, totems, the Magdrogen(?) aura and some in the Brutal strikes/feral(?) the one at the very top. Basically, my idea is I put totems, devils and smash the mobs from melee at the same time. I assume it might not be optimal at all, but I really enjoy this playstyle of being a hybrid of melee fighter and caster.
I noticed that the bat looks really good, however, the nodes leading up to the devotion skill are all very irrelevant for my character, while the Charriot ones all are great. Is this a wrong way of seeing it?
With some CDR and let’s say 14 second cooldown the uptime of Chariot is going to be about 50% because the cooldown start as soon as the duration starts. 12% + 1550 is probably more like 20 - 25% heal and let’s not forget about the armor Not saying it’s the best but not the worst either it’d be better if it wasn’t random though
@Kruul You can reset your mastery with some tool, for example GD Defiler, if you want (Gd Stash too probably)
Ahh, I did not know that! So which second class would be a good option for the playstyle that I am doing right now, which is a mix of melee (preferably 2h) and casting?
I would say Inquisitor/Demolitionist but let’s wait what @jrc has in mind.
(Soldier is not bad though and you can certainly beat the game on Ultimate with him without problems if you like him)
Not at all. You are obviously right that at first glance Charriot seems better. It just simply turns out that the Proc is simply good enough to make it worth nevertheless. Many (if not most) caster builds utilize Bat for its sustain. For some builds it is their main form of sustain acually. Basically it is too strong to leave even without synergy. (Btw it also gives 5 affinity of useful colors)
Btw forgot to say: Tempest is not worth the investment and is rarely ever used.
For melee/caster hybrids the closest choice to your original idea is Savagery/Stormtotem Vindicator which has been one of the stronger builds in GD for a long time ya1’s stormreaver vindicator.
A less flashy choice but probably one of the strongest builds out there right now is Dark One’s (Vitality) Ritualist Dmt’s Ritualist. Similar builds are available for Cabalist and Conjurer.
A personal favourite of mine is RoH/Melee Infiltrator, flashy DW action. Strong but sometimes glassy Ya1’s Infiltrator
Shieldbraker might be a choice although usually not 2 handed. Forcewave builds aswell although they are technically not melee.
The strongest choice staying with warder is probably Ultos Primal Strike Warder.
Just have a look through the build compendiums for inspiration. Most builds posted there are very well crafted and will crush Ultimate even if you miss some parts of the build.
That being said I wanna clearify that your build concept is totally fine for clearing MC content and nemesis aswell if well crafted. It will just not synergize just as well as some of the top builds out there. Thats the beauty of GD. As long as a build it is thought through almost any build can succeed to a good extend.
Thanks a lot for the informative reply, the Vindicator build you posted actually looks really cool, exactly what I was looking for! I will try to go for something similar.
I did use the GDefiler to reset the soldier mastery, although I do not feel great about it, kind of like cheating a bit.
If I may ask one more thing - the build is not using the Stormcaller’s Pact exclusive skill from Shaman tree, and instead opts for the Aura of Censure which is more of a defensive focused skill. And in general, I’ve noticed that most of the skills taken from the Inquisitor mastery tree are defensive, could you explain why so much focus is given for the survivability, rather than towards some of the skills that look and sound really cool and are offensive focused?
As a author of Ultos Vindicator I could explain. Aura of Censure is great defensively with the damage reduction but also provides you with massive -elemental resistance reduction which is stackable. Furthermore it’s passive, so it’s the best possible from of RR. I would even say it’s the foremost reason why Vindicator it’s the best Ultos build. And you lose crit damage not taking Stormcaller which is compensated by Deadly Aim which synergies well with cool down reduction from Ultos weapon. And don’t forget racial bonus on Word of Renewal node. So Vindy is amazing class.
Devotions: You could pick 2 out 3 lightning constellations usually. Tempest it’s better suited for electrocute casters, melee lightning builds benefit the best from Ultos devotion(set name is a hint ) and usually it’s good idea to take Spear for stats and passive activated proc. There is also the idea to take some universal T3 devotions like Dying God for speed and crit or even Korvaak.
Flat RR isn’t stacking so you need one source of from it. Revenant it’s weaker RR but nodes provide attack speed and life steal, crucial stats for any melee. For casters and especially class combos with one source of -RR I take elemental storm. Casters can proc it often and suits their style better. Note that @tqFan is right and elemental storm it’s preferable for early leveling.
Also I would take Widow and Arcane bomb early too for RR and bind it to my major attack. Another lightning proc for early game can be Tsunami since it can be unlocked immediately.
Ghoul is also almost mandatory for melee builds. It’s failsafe mechanism against dying against tough opponents and also life steal on one node. Other devotions are utility ones like Sailors’ guide or Tower, Spider or just affinity points.
Hey thanks for elaborating! I’ve read somewhere that Solem Watcher is basically mandatory for all the builds too for the bonuses that it gives, is it actually true, as Sailor’s Guide has really good bonuses too and is slightly cheaper.
It’s not mandatory but it’s excellent generic devotion similar to Sailors guide, Hawk or Spider.
The thing it’s Solemn watcher requires 10 blue points and some builds don’t invest heavy there. Also since it costs 5 points to receive 5 affinity you can be 1 point short of taking T3 constellation like Dying God or Spear. In this case players sub Watcher with Panther.
But I use it probably in 2/3 of my builds at least.
Spider was freshly buffed and now I like it, especially since your options of boosting attack speed are limited. And 6 greens affinity is massive!
By the way, when you go for a build like that, do you just max out what you want from the Shaman tree first, and then go for Inquisitor, or you skill them both at the same time? Which approach makes most sense?
Since Spirit Guide is so cheap (and if you need money, play Crucible a bit and sell greens), you can try to optimize your character for every N total skill points you have. For example at first you focus only on Shaman but later when you have more skill points it may be worth it to respec some less powerful Shaman (sub)skills and rush to i.e. Aura of Censure and grab useful Inquisitor skills along the way.
I think devos on my Stormreaver are pretty good for balanced 2h lightning with no flat rr in the masteries and no conversion from other elements. Can drop Solemn Watcher and Ghul for more offense in Viper and DG.
Only you can tell Sometimes following an optimized guide forces playstyle a bit and I don’t think it’s good for a new player (it takes some fun away I think from experimenting, taking decision by yourself, developing own playstyle).
) and usually it’s good idea to take Spear for stats and passive activated proc. There is also the idea to take some universal T3 devotions like Dying God for speed and crit or even Korvaak.