Raka'jax builds discussion

So after dropping the Raka’jax recipe yesterday I started messing around in Grimtools to see what kind of build one could make with it. Since the natural choices for a Lightning weapon build are Conjurer and Elementalist, here are a couple rough builds with no real thought put into optimising them:

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/1NXlnBND

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2MAYl2m

First thing you’ll notice: both Savagery and Primal Strike are used, with PS in its native cooldown mode. The builds aren’t too tight on skill points thanks to huge bonuses from Ultos set + Raka’jax so why not. The devotions are also pretty wonky but I don’t have a very good picture of what I need them to do yet. The Conjurer version also uses a couple crazy MIs and a very specific BoM, because GT let me mess around with them mostly. From what I’ve seen on the stat tabs, the greatest challenges here appear to be DA and attack speed, with AS looking quite dire in fact, though GT doesn’t account for the Savagery bonuses.

Does anybody have a similar build ? If you do, do you have any insight regarding what could be improved here ? I must admit that my only completed Shaman build is a TSS druid so I have very little experience with that mastery.

I’d suggest considering one of two things. A, Soldier. That automatically helps everyone with defenses, and you don’t really need the damage sources you’re getting outside of Shaman if you simply grab the Wind Devil line. Also, you COULD simply be Shaman, youre’ not obligated to take a second class. As long as you have the stats needed, you’ll be fine without a second class, and you’ve got enough places to shove points in Shaman IMO.

I’d dump the Wendigo, personally. Get ADCTH somewhere on your gear, and put those in a more useful place. Melee is one thing, but you’re Ranged.

And really, Wind Devils plus Tempest? Currently insane damage with the line maxed. Those things will clear packs ALONE. AFAIK, they each have a separate ‘Tempest’, so it procs all the time.

Do yourself a favor and don’t listen to this guy.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/dVbK8OZJ

Elementalist wins, no competition here.
Why take PS and Savagery both at once? Just take PS alone, it’s not worth to ever dump points into it if you’re going to use it on cooldown, other skills could use the points.
Also, by taking wind devils second node you’re able to drop elemental storm and get some better devo.

Your resistances will always depend on your luck with drops and rolls… could swap the glyph ring in for a green, for example.

I think, Rakajax is best used for Primal Strike build (most probably, Conjurer). Ranged weapon has significant advantages over melee - no need to chase every enemy, you can stand near totem all the time, lightning component for ranged weapon is much better than melee one, and Primal Strike gives so much flat damage, that slight damage loss is hardly relevant.
But to make it shine, you should have 4 pieces of Ultos set and very high OA. I wanted to try it, but i have only 1 item from Ultos set (exclusing weapon), so i give up on this idea.

-Primal Strike outright sucks

-Elementalist and Conjurer are both good.

-Wind Devil’s second nodes sucks. The RR is a bad joke, elemental storm is much better

-Glyph while good like he suggest needs to be swapped for a green ring in most cases due to resistances

Yes, after nerfing Tottent. But if you plan to use Savagery, why would you want to use Rakajax? It sucks for Savagery.

Yes, after nerfing Tottent. But if you plan to use Savagery, why would you want to use Rakajax? It sucks for Savagery.

Well because I wanted to see if i would be practical to make a Savagery build using a 2h ranged weapon. Note here that Raka’jax is basically the only high level lightning ranged 2 hander. I know that you can do dw Savagery with Exonerators as Chthon showed but I don’t like dual guns. Primal Strike was originally not in the cards, but the massive +skills I saw from items gave enough free points to max it out without taking more than a couple points out of important skills. It’s a fun skill to use, but it sucks to build around. The only dedicated PS build I would ever consider would be using Vortex of Souls. The hope here was to use it as a cooldown nuke for big crits.

I also challenge your assertion that Raka’jax is more suited to transmuted PS than to Savagery. This build has a huge lack of attack speed. PS has energy issues forcing you to use energy components instead of dread skulls, and lacks the 13% bonus AS from Storm Touched. If it sucks for Savagery, it probably just sucks for everything.

I could just do a melee build using Ultos 5 piece since I have all but the shoulders, but the purpose of this post was to talk about Raka’jax.

Why take PS and Savagery both at once? Just take PS alone, it’s not worth to ever dump points into it if you’re going to use it on cooldown, other skills could use the points.

See above. Also there really isn’t much to put the points into that isn’t a tiny improvement.

Also, by taking wind devils second node you’re able to drop elemental storm and get some better devo.

Wind Devils are unreliable garbage. I use them on my TSS build, their only purpose is to proc Whirlpool and RR debuff bosses that have no adds. I also don’t wanna bother with the constant recasting to compensate for their shitty AI.

Your resistances will always depend on your luck with drops and rolls… could swap the glyph ring in for a green, for example.

That I agree with. I have a bunch of decent Cronley rings as well, the Glyph was there since the GT links were meant as a proof of concept. Since I don’t have a godly pair of sect pants yet I would have had to use one in practice. Shame too because I have like 5 of the Glyphs and one has close to perfect rolls.

I’d suggest considering one of two things. A, Soldier. That automatically helps everyone with defenses, and you don’t really need the damage sources you’re getting outside of Shaman if you simply grab the Wind Devil line. Also, you COULD simply be Shaman, youre’ not obligated to take a second class. As long as you have the stats needed, you’ll be fine without a second class, and you’ve got enough places to shove points in Shaman IMO.

I’d dump the Wendigo, personally. Get ADCTH somewhere on your gear, and put those in a more useful place. Melee is one thing, but you’re Ranged.

And really, Wind Devils plus Tempest? Currently insane damage with the line maxed. Those things will clear packs ALONE. AFAIK, they each have a separate ‘Tempest’, so it procs all the time.

No. Soldier ? Provides nothing to a lightning ranged build. Its good defensive bonuses work on melee builds only, the others are worse than what Demo gives IMO. Also I do absolutely need damage outside of Shaman, that class has no innate stackable RR and trash-tier OA. Shaman single class sucks complete ass, plus you really need the base stats from pushing a second mastery bar if only to meet the high Cunning req on Raka’jax. There’s also nothing worthwhile to put all those points into on Shaman. I have ADCTH already from the pants and Blood Pact. Plus Wendigo procs devotions like crazy and works on life leech resistant targets. Tempest mines are much better than Wind Devils, get 6 of them instantly instead of 1-3 that require constant recasting. Plus the mines are actually useful on their own for far fewer points.

-Elementalist and Conjurer are both good.

Both good, though the more I think about it the more I prefer Elementalist. Conjurer is probably nice for those who want more fluid gameplay though since CoF is better QoL than the mines. Easier to cap resists too with AotG.

I’d say Conjurer is better, if you will use Familiar with Storm Spirit. Convenient resistance reduction, massive resistance boost… I tried using Thermite Mines on my ranged Demo, and let’s be honest - they’re AWFUL! Yes, they provide great resist reduction, but they’re so clunky and unreliable, that i threw that skill into trash bin.

Rakajax doesnt have attack speed, true. But it has crit damage and massive OA boost instead. Considering Stormcaller’s Pact already provides 50% crit damage, you surely WILL use critical strikes, so you DO need those extra OA and crit damage. And of course, +2 to all skills. A valid compensation for mere attack speed, CD reduction a bit of extra flat damage found on axe. Not to mention that ranged is much better than melee by default, because it’s ranged and you dont have to chase every mob to kill him.

As i already said, i sisnt tested this build because i lack Ultos set, and it isnt worth a try without one, will sure be a piece of sh*t.

Never used the item before, but analyzing it’s stats tells me a bunch of things…

  • No attack speed and very slow 2-hander means LMB builds will always be inferior with this weapon. You’ll never be able to cap attack speed, and every optimal LMB build I’ve seen has at LEAST 190%. That means Savagery or transmuted PB is out. I’m not saying you couldn’t use these skills and kill Ultimate with the right gear; it would just be sub-optimal compared to a different weapon.

  • Lack of casting speed similarly hurts builds that rely on those skills, but Shaman doesn’t have any anyway.

  • Lack of CDR is less of a big deal IMO because you can just have a bigger skill rotation to compensate.

  • The flat Lightning is negligible; with the conversion the bow basically does 40/40/20 Lightning/Physical/Pierce.

  • The most meaningful stats are OA and crit damage, which makes me lean towards an Electrocute DoT based caster build since A) those two stats are the most important in DoT builds, B) the granted skill is one of the better Electrocute DoTs in the game (150/sec base), and C) it benefits by having multiple sources that don’t need to applied as fast as possible, which plays around the aforementioned weaknesses of the item.

  • Non-transmuted PS, Maelstrom, Non-transmuted Stun Jacks, and Skyfire Grenado are the best sources of Electrocute you can get.

  • Unfortunately Stormreaver is probably better for a build like this with a better Electrocute source, flat Electrocute and +200% to Electrocute duration, but Raka’Jax at least stands up to it well with +18% crit damage and arguably higher OA (also ranged > melee).

Lol,

I have a raka’jax build: warder

with buffs active

  • Raka’Jax outright sucks, whether that’s with Primal Strike or Savagery. Still better with Primal Strike than Savagery though. And yes, I agree - Primal Strike also outright sucks.

  • Yeah, no. Conjurer is “good”, but worse compared to Elementalist. Flame Touched and Thermite Mines can be compared to BoD and CoF, sure, but Flash Bang + Vindictive Flame + Blast Shield > Aspect of the Guardian + Second Rite.

  • Wind Devil’s second node has more RR than elemental storm. The fuck you talking about.

  • Agree on the glyph.

Cool approach, not sure how it would compare to what I posted. Tried it?

RIP those who don’t know what “Pet Attack” is.

nope, and probably never will lol, my warder build is pretty old.

raka’jax looks cool on paper but it lacks a good amount of stats to be useful imo

^ this sums it up pretty well

-Actually I only said Conjurer cause of CoF being much more ranged friendly than Mines

Besides that Elementalist beats it in every aspect

-Why does the weapon suck? I am curious

Are you comparing with Silverbolt, Vortex or Harbringer builds cause that’s just unfair

Raka’jax won’t be top tier but one can certainly make use of the Savagery and the proc’s AoE and other procs to make a decent build imo. It could use some attack speed though

Others already answered that.

Silverbolt? Don’t you mean Valdun? Silverbolt is at best just a level tool to get a Valdun build going.

To be perfectly clear: When saying Raka’Jax is bad, then that doesn’t mean a build based on it wouldn’t be able to complete ultimate. But it can’t compete with Valdun, VoS and Harbinger by no means (as you admit yourself).

Read the reply

TY

Also, Silverbolt + Valdun pieces > Full Valdun. Tested by atleast two known sources

My Witchblade feels very well with ~165% attack speed, and he facerolls everything and has good killing speed. 190% is quite a lot, actually.

True, Rakajax is a solid choice for Primal Strike, but Primal Strike itself was nerfed too hard for unknown reason.