My Commando (Chaos/Fire/Physical damage) is about ready to try Epic difficulty. I have done everything there is to do in Veteran, except the final boss of the Bastion of Chaos (got him to half life when he somehow one-shot me; I could not be bothered doing that whole zone again). I am undecided on where to take Devotions going forward and would like a little advice before I continue.
So far, I have gone:
Crossroads: Eldritch
Hawk
Scholar’s Light
Crossroads: Primordial
Sailor’s Guide
Kraken
Viper
Solael’s Witchblade [Eldritch Fire on Fire Strike]
Behemoth (first two stars)
I had two ideas in mind. The more defensive idea was:
Finish Behemoth [Giant’s Blood on Flame Touched]
Solemn Watcher
Dryad [Dryad’s Blessing on Flashbang]
Ulo the Keeper of the Waters [Cleansing Waters on Warcry]
More offensive:
One more point in Behemoth [Giant’s Blood on Flame Touched]
Solemn Watcher
Fiend [Flame Torrent on Warcry]
Ulzuin’s Torch [swap Eldritch Fire to Flashbang and Meteor Shower on Fire Strike]
Both concepts have four points still undetermined and two points in Crossroads that I could refund. I am not sure which, if either, would be the better plan to take. I am also not sure what to do with the spare points at the end. My basic play is throwing out Flashbang to draw/debuff groups, spamming Fire Strike, and using Warcry if they get too close.
So, the idea would be finish Behemoth, Crossroads: Ascendant, Harpy, then use the Ascendant to get Hydra and Chariot of the Dead, which provide the Chaos/Eldritch required for Ulzuin’s Torch?
Harpy/Hydra strike me as a poor choice, as I do not do the Cold or Piercing damage they boost. Chariot of the Dead would presumably put my crit chance through the roof, but the build does not have any skills/devotions that benefit from crits (and the proc is kind of crappy). Are you certain that is a good plan for a Fire Strike Commando build?
Don’t invest into War cry, Kymon’s augment does the same thing.
Are you doing dual guns or rifle?
If rifle then something like this will probably work. Falcon on fire strike, Eldritch fire on Flashbang. Blast shield + Flashbang + Soldier passives should make you tanky enough to afford an offensive devotion spec.
If dual guns, then scrap the character and start a Pyromancer or Sorcerer.
Edit: good, you use a rifle, I have a problem with reading titles apparently.
Right, harpy is for blademasters. You have empty throne and owl instead. Or even falcon if you do not use chariot.
Chariot is good, learn to love it by looking at spider and raven, which is what you usually can substitute it with (for affinity). But wait, in that scheme you can remove either chariot or hydra, put 1 pt in eldritch crossroads, and be left with 6 points for whatever you wish. Like Rhowan’s crown.
I have been playing a similar character just a slight bit behind you (heading toward Necropolis now) and I am currently driving toward this build for devotion:
You could easily take Sailor’s Guide instead of Viper but in reality in order to hit this spec either of those is likely to be your final constellation anyway so you can see where you are at when you get there. This requires some monkeying around with adding and removing points to get here (for example in the final build Kraken only has enough affinity because of the reward from… Kraken) but I am pretty sure the path maps out reasonably enough and it is more straightforward if you wait for Meteor Shower at the end or I think you can hit it with 7 points to spare by building some alternate constellations and then moving things around once you get past it.
I made an earlier attempt and came up with this build:
But getting to the dying god stuff ended up with me having things like Scorpion and Eel that are not doing much and I’m not sure the pickup of the Fiend and partial Dying God makes up for that.
You might want to take Shaman all the way to 50 and max Stromcaller’s pact, it’s what makes Elementalist so awesome (>50% extra crit damage). You can easily do it by removing Explosive strike and Briarthorn, none of which are good for this build.
Thank you for the responses. It looks like the basic gist is to finish Behemoth for Chaos/Eldritch and also grab Hydra for Chaos/Eldritch and the boosts to Offensive Ability, which then lets me get to Ulzuin’s Torch. To get Hydra, I need Ascendant, so Crossroads: Ascendant and Empty Throne (resistances) or Owl (elemental damage).
This then leaves enough points for something else at the end. Rhowan’s Crown is tempting, but not sure if I have a spare skill to assign Elemental Storm to (I will check that out later). If not, I would be tempted to pick up some resistances (making them less important on gear).
Tree of Life etc on a commando shooter looks like overcautiousness when not playing melee. there is already one class that mostly adds resilence (soldier), but not much fire and other magic damage support. Defensive devotion with offensive gear and support skills works better with less tank more cannon classes. With a commando, you can do the opposite. Defensive support skills, offensive devotion.
Rhowan’s Crown is tempting, but not sure if I have a spare skill to assign Elemental Storm to (I will check that out later)
Getting more resist reduction should be your concern, you don’t have access to many skills like that if you don’t count demo’s native skills. Perhaps you can use the black star of deceit, at least until 1.4, which does exactly same - 30 flat reduction. Though it requires using that medal. If not that, agonizing flames for 12 points.
I had been using the Briarthorn to run interference on packs to keep from being overwhelmed but maybe I’ll test not summoning him and see how it goes. I was thinking to max firestrike for the additional damage type and area damage but maybe that is not really necessary (I don’t have experience at later stages of the game).
Side question that is maybe deserving of its own thread but does anyone have experience or thoughts on the viability of building a a rifle firestrike character but focusing more on lightning damage as primary instead of fire damage? In my particular case with Shaman that would also feed nicely into Stormcaller’s pact if I go there I think. I’m just not sure if the Lightning Damage provided by the Static Strike upgrade to Fire Strike will be enough to make this viable or not.