Storm Totem Tank Help?

[MalVeauX]

So starting Ultimate now.

A little update on where we’re at with the build:

Resistances in Ultimate so far:

Skills:

Shaman Mastery 50
16/16 Storm Totem
12/12 Stormcaller’s Pact
12/12 Wendigo Totem
1/12 Wind Devil -> 12/12 Maelstrom
12/12 Grasping Vines
1/10 Mogdrogans’ Pact -> 10/10 Heart of the Wild
1/16 Savagery

Soldier Mastery 20
16/16 Menhir’s Will
10/10 Military Conditioning
10/10 Shield Training
1/12 Overguard
5/12 Field Command

The rest of my skills will likely go into Soldier to flesh out the tank skills, like finishing off Field Command & Overguard and Veterency and 1 last point into mastery for more stats. I don’t want to dump hard into the mastery to get to Scars even though I want it, because I only have 30 more skill points to get at this point, so I won’t have enough to get everything.

Attribute Points:

57 into Physique
0 into Cunning
14 into Spirit

I may put 6 more into Spirit and the rest into Physique as I get to 85 as a goal, I don’t want to be under-Spirit and miss out on some jewelry options as I find them.

Devotions (I have done all 45 in Elite out of 50 total up to this point):

Crossroads; Order
Crossroads; Primordial
Tsunami (Completed); Grasping Vines
Turtle (Completed); Mogdrogen’s Pact
Owl (Completed)
Crane (Completed)
Wraith (Completed)
Ulo the Keeper of the Waters (Completed); Savagery
Tempest (Completed); Storm Totem
Shieldmaiden (Incomplete); 4% Block star, 15% Damage Blocked star, 25% Stun Reduction & 20% Damage Blocked star, -15% Recovery Time & 10% Damage Blocked star
Targo the Builder (Incomplete); +20 Def star, 5% health star, 5% health star, Armor 5% & 20% Damage Blocked star

I don’t see a real need for Targo’s devotional proc, so I may spend the last 5 on the Empty Throne & 5% Health Crossroads (I think I like this better than completing Targo). The stacked resistances may make gear easier to manage so I can start working in more lightning damage instead of just stacking resistances with gear/augments/components.

My plan for the last 5 devotion points are all the combat shrines and the ones that do not require a Relic or any other harder components, just to keep it simple for others.

My current Lightning Damage Modifier: 674%
My current Electrocution Damage Modifier: 492%

Storm Totem is doing 3.8k lightning damage, 1.8k electrocution damage.
Tempest does 2.2k lightning damage & 2.3k electrocution damage.
Maelstrom is doing 1.9k lightning damage, 3k electrocution damage.
Tsunami does 800 cold damage, 1.3k lightning damage, 1k frostburn damage.

My damage will probably be on the lower end, and slow killing for resistant heros/bosses. Trash mobs seem to be melting away decently still though.

My gear focus next will be to start managing resistances and getting more lightning/electrocution damage modifiers.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Completed Act 1 in Ultimate without much trouble.

The only fights that are troublesome are hero Overminds. They’re basically super resistant to lightning so most of my attacks do very little damage. Everything else still melts away nicely and I’m able to tank most mobs without too much issue. A few fights with stacked DoT’s and afflictions, I had to move out of the mob. Had a few fights where Menhir’s popped, and here and there Turtle activates. The nice thing is, they work, and I just keep on going. Usually happens when I lure two mobs together with a hero involved or three, and try to tank the entire group. When it’s a single mob and a single hero, it’s no problem at all.

Warden was super easy. Didn’t even need to kite. He barely could damage me. I face tanked him and he melted from lightning.

Slith island wasn’t too bad. Sort of tough walking through the sludge that auto-damages you, that hurt a few times and caused Menhir’s to pop.

Salazar wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t quite face tank him without moving the whole time. I had to change my position after he would cast Sigil under me. I just dropped all totems and vines and moved out of the Sigil but stayed in my totem’s range and he went down without too much trouble and I didn’t take much damage from him if I didn’t stand in his Sigil. That Sigil hurts though.

Gutworm wasn’t too bad either. Had to kite a few times as he hits really hard, but ultimately I was able to tank him without too much trouble and simply kited during his big attack animations. He melted to lightning while I circled him a few times.

Finished Act as level 73. Getting closed to being Revered with Devil’s Crossing. Most of the EXP came from turning in all the quests.

Very best,

[TZ_Tz]

Almost lvl 75, nice update !

Survivor’s Ingenuity surely help you increase OA and DA

You also has good enough resistance with your current gear :

Perhaps you should put component on belt, rings, and hand.
They still have empty slot

Shaman Oak Skin can increase Pierce Resistance if you have spare skill points.
56% perhaps is still good enough, unless you fight Fabius later

[Drizzto]

try to focus more on OA, 1300 OA is really low for your level.

[MalVeauX]

Good point! Yea, I have not put components and everything in all slots yet. Just didn’t have anything really worth putting in there yet. But, good point with that Augment! I’ll have to finish off some more rep in Act 2 to get revered in Devil’s Crossing. Black Legion will be the last one, but they don’t have much that I’m after anyways.

I definitely want to start seeing my damage go up. Things hit really hard in Ultimate, so killing faster would be a benefit.

I’ll see what I have that can support getting my Offensive Ability up. Thanks!

Great suggestion about Oak Skin. I was looking at Scars of Battle, but its too heavy of a skill investment to get that, so maybe Oak Skin will have to do. The big pierce resistance is useful at least until I get gear and it wouldn’t cause me to do anything permanent to get Oak Skin. I’ll probably do that!

I have a lot of components to sort and craft, currently trying to gather everything necessary to craft an Eye of the Storm Relic. I just need a blueprint for Terror, Squall and Mistborn Talisman to drop and I’d be able to make it happen.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Update,

Completed Act 2 Ultimate, cleared all areas, did all quests. Revered with Devil’s Crossing now, so I have Revered with all factions I’m aligned with except the Black Legion (Honored). Not too bad. The hardest foes were the Storm Revenants and various Heros that spawned that were “electrified” and they all simply have huge resistances to lightning, but, very little did much damage. The most damage came from the Hero that guards the Shrine in the Undercity, simply because he stacked something nasty with aether and other damage and if you stand in it, it gets bad fast. So I had to kite a few times with him. I definitely feel the sluggishness of lower damage right now. While I’m still firmly killing stuff no problem, the battles do take a bit longer to clear out trash mobs and focus on the hero/boss. Still quite doable. Just not nearly as fast as the end of Elite was of course.

I’m thinking of re-doing my devotions at this point to try and get towards Spear of Heavens for the lightning bump (180% total from that constellation alone).

I’m considering dropping Ulo the Keeper completely. The resistances are good, but now I can get Augments to make up for that I think. And the chance to remove all negative afflictions seems great on paper, but its pretty useless in real-world-play because while it does clear the afflictions, they’re instantly re-applied as if it never happened. So, that constellation is pretty much just resistances. I can get that elsewhere, so I will cash this one in and start planning towards Spear of the Heavens.

Currently level 77 standing in Homestead, starting Act 3.

Founds some interesting gear along the way (Storm Titans).

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Any opinions on Markovian’s Defense?

While losing 18% overall damage seems like a bad thing, the uptime of Overguard seems like its really worth it, with big absorption, damage blocking and much faster recovery allowing to block more often.

I’m curious if 18% damage loss is equivalent to 18% damage gained, as in, can I just put a 20% total damage augment on there and nullify this negative effect while gaining the benefit of Markovian’s Defense?

Very best,

[TZ_Tz]

Live report from Cairn

Congratz, now you can use lvl 75 gear.

You should make friend with Anasteria in this Ultimate level.
She offers nice augments in her Revered Shop.
Could be alternative for Black Legion augments.

[MalVeauX]

Completed the non-Dungeon Steps of Torment in Ultimate. Not bad at all. I had to kite during mobs of several Gargantuan skellies, but that was it.

The Devotion Shrine was really hard actually. It spawned tons of hero Gargantuan skellies, Revenents, Warlocks, etc, so facing down things with lots and lots of HP (making it more apparent when damage is low) and lots of resistances (also making it apparent when damage is low). I finished all the waves, but it took a while. I basically led them around a square pathway with vines behind me at all times to keep them sluggishly slowed and taking damage thanks to Tsunami (lots of electrocution damage actually), and dropping a Storm Totem every few. I just kept dragging them around, stuck in vines, and eating Tsunami and Storm Totems until they fell. Ugly fight. But, once I figured out I could drag them through and they’d be silly enough to do it, it become a simple fight of attrition.

Only 1 more Devotion shine to go, and I’ll have all 50. I got the one in Steps of Torment and the one in the Den of the Lost. Darkvale also produces a Devotion point through combat, otherwise, there’s the Mogdrogen shrine quest (which I have). I’m doing the Mogdrogen shrine anyways because of the loot and EXP which is typically substantial, so I’ll probably not get the Darkvale shrine until later and let it rest. Maybe in the expansion we will go past 50 devotion points and I’ll back track to these shrines that are left over.

I just completed the Empty Throne for more resistances.

I still have not decided what I want to do with the Ulo Keeper points when I re-spec them; cleansing waters proc is pretty useless. The resistances are still good. But, I want to get Spear of the Heavens soon for more damage, so I’ll need more resistances in gear/components/augments to allow me to drop the constellation.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Nearing completion of the Homestead quests and moving towards the Blood Grove right now to wrap up those quests. Sided with Kymon again for easy fast quests to get the EXP since they’re all on the way.

Hard boss fight was the Herald of the Flame in Ultimate. The ground is covered in aether that auto-hurts and you can’t resist it without shards. He spawns pretty hard hitting mobs above 50% health. Under 50% health he spawns big hulks and they are really hard hitting. Instead of standing and fighting the Herald and two Hulks face to face, which was too much even with my resists being really high, I simply used the hulks as bounce points. My storm totems would hit the hulks and then hit the Herald. So I was able to stay away from the Herald and out of the aether ground and still damage the Herald easily that way. If the hulks got too many good hits in, I just kited away and pulled them from the Herald. They get too far and drop dead if they’re too far from the Herald and then the Herald will respawn them, but one by one, instead of two. I just run up, drop a totem and vines on the herald and move off again and drag the hulks around. Herald fell eventually. Doing that run around method with vines and totem, my health stayed pretty much full.

Right before the killing blow from totems:

And grabbed the achievement:

Will continue tomorrow. Would be great to hit 85 tomorrow. We will see.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Update in Ultimate.

Started late today as I was going over gear & devotions. I’ve picked up some stuff along the way, mainly hanging onto anything with lightning damage gear. I’m now level 80 in Ultimate, in the Blood Grove doing quests. Pretty easy going so far there, most things are wimpy with health and I’m still tanky enough. Definitely want more damage to speed it up. So that was my goal to re-spec a little today and reconfigure to get the damage up and see how it goes.

First, I went back and did one shrine that required a Calamity Relic, instead of waiting for the last combat shrine, simply because Calamity is easy to make and I wanted to complete my Devotions so I could get more specific with gear, components and augments for resistances and damage output.

So now I have 50 devotion points:

So here’s what I did with my devotions with all 50 to re-work in some more damage.

I dropped Targo completely. I miss the life, but can make that up.
I dropped Ulo completely. Miss the resists, but can make them up.
I dropped some Shieldmaiden. This is my most sad loss. Love the shielf-beef. But I need more lightning damage. I’ll look again later on and see what I can do to free up 4 points and get the shield stars back if I can.

50 points spent on:
Crossroads: 1 Order, 1 Primordial, 1 Chaos
Tsuanmi (Completed)
[b]Owl /b
Empty Throne (Completed)
Turtle (Completed)
[b]Wraith /b
Eel (Completed)
Viper (Completed)
Vulture (Completed)
[b]Tempest /b
Spear of the Heavens (Completed)

*Bold denotes increased lightning/electrocution damage.

All points in, no constellations are incomplete, full bonuses. I will re-think it again later to see if I can find a way to get Shieldmaiden stars back in (4 stars specifically) but it may not be possible since it’s Order and I just don’t have room to lose Primordial or Chaos at this point to keep Spear.

Lightning damage is now 1047%.
Electrocution damage is now 600%.

Storm Totem is now over 5k lightning damage & 2k electrocution damage. Two of these are always on the ground active, and they fire fast, each lasts 12 seconds.

• Reckless Tempest is on Storm Totem and is 15/15 now, and it does 3.3k lightning damage and 3k electroctuion damage in a big AOE and recharges every 10 seconds.
  Maelstrom is now 2.5k lightning damage & 3.5k electrocution damage. Can have three of them up and active at a time and they are also 12 seconds.
  Grasping Vines has Tsunami on it, it procs every time with Vines, the slowed enemy and crowd control is what it’s for at first, but Tsunami does fairly decent damage for something that can be cast every 1.2 seconds. Tsunami now does 623 physical damage, 800 cold damage, 1.7k lightning damage, and 1k frostburn damage.
  Savagery does 2.7k lightning damage per swing.
  Spear of Heavens procs 50% chance when I’m hit, goes well with a tank build as I get hit a lot. It has a 1 second cool down. It procs non-stop when I’m in a mob or fighting something at 50% with 1 second CD. It’s currently dropping 2k lightning damage, 700 aether damage and some other minor damage from my weapon (another 750 or so). It does this in an AOE of 2.4 meters. And it stuns the target(s) for 1 second. Awesome devotion so far. It’s like having a 4th Maelstrom that stuns and does damage always at my side. This is level 1 right now, so I have to level it up and will see how the damage scales.

With the new damage output, just running through the Blood Grove, the killing speed is much improved and Heros drop faster.

So, resistances and stuff as of now, with gear change up:

Gear changes:

Dawnguard Helm + Components/Augments for resists
Dawnguard Chest + Components/Augments for resists
Rare Shoulderplates of Squals + Components/Augments for resists
Stormtitan Treads + Components/Augments for resists, speed
Sash of Immortal Sage + Components/Augments for resists

Focused on stacking lightning damage, resists and armor.

I’ve lost quite a bit of shield bonuses to make these changes, so we will see if the increase in damage pays off in some minor loss in tankiness. That said, Overguard is maxed, and I can tell when I use it because I can be knee-deep in a double stacked mob and when Overguard is up, I barely take damage at all with a Totem up. Without it I take a bit here and there, but Overguard with full points really makes a difference since I lost the passive devotion shield buffs.

And now it’s time to finish Act 3 and move into Act 4 and really see how things fair.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Example of all skills/procs together, this is basically how every battle looks. You just see lots of lightning jumping from all the enemies due to the Totems, big strikes coming down from Maelstrom. And it gets super intense with the big strikes when Reckless procs. Mean while Spears drop (lower left example) and damage/stun enemies the whole time every second. Vines (Tsunami really) is also causing cold/lightning/frostburn damage. It’s a big light show. Really fun to watch while they melt.

Clearing the Fort for Kymon.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Update:

Entered Ultimate Act 4 with Fort Ikon quests. Went ahead a little bit. Current level at this point is level 82. I grabbed some of Kymon’s quests along the way for the experience bumps.

On the way in, took out Thall’Nosh with totems, he was fairly easy.

Took care of Lucious. He was tough. Hit real hard. But, he was actually really easy to take down. I kited around the central trash pile, he can’t get around that thing so he cannot hit you with melee. Most of his ranged attacks barely manage anything with maximum aether resistance and most of them don’t hit with the pile stopping line of sight for some of them. I dodged the barrage attacks as they’re fairly predictable. I laid storm totems on the edges as the cooldown came up and cast wind devils for maelstrom and kept vines up for the constant damage (tsunami). He melted pretty quickly as my totems are doing 5.3k damage right now. He’s not someone to face tank just yet. But he was fairly easy to beat.

Here we are at level 82 in Ultimate Ikon. I changed a few minor items (metal for more damage, some rare). Need to get my bleed back to maximum, lost a wee smidge there.

Following the quest line, I think I’ll hit 85 just doing the normal quests at this point.

As to my previous worries, the storm totems over 5k damage are doing very nicely. Mobs melt. Bosses go down. Fights might take 10~15 seconds, and bosses can take a minute or two. But it’s totally viable so far without any special gear to make it or break it. I’m just using what I’ve found along the way. It’s living up to my thought of the old D&D characters like clerics with call lightning while wearing heavy plate.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Ultimate Update:

I went back to do Mogdrogen’s Shrine because it should produce a lot of EXP to help level a little faster and finish the quest from the Rovers. Gave a nice 108k EXP which nearly put me at level 83.

I went ahead and went through the Necropolis and entered the Seal of Log. Cleared those areas with ease. Nothing really posed much of an issue. I took out Thalonis pretty easy too. I just dropped Totems and ran around the tables and the lightning bounced off his summons into him and dropped him after a little bit. Not a hard fight at all.

At this point I’m level 83.

I thought about grinding out the last levels to finish off level 85 with the final quest, but, grinding takes forever, so I figured I’d do the quest and then look for more big quests (rep quests) that result in big EXP rewards to finish things off. But I decided I’d go ahead and finish the last quest.

I took on Loghorrean. I set up a rift in case I fell.

From my battles in the past, I know Log his hard if you’re tank-facing him and he will hit you a few times in a row and that could be bad with his adds, DoT, tentacles, etc. So instead, I took a comfortable back seat. I just stood a little bit away from him and dropped totems and just sat there in his tentacles. They proc’d my Wendigo totem so I was always healed up without taking hardly any damage. I dropped totems and Maelstroms and they did the rest. Once his life hit a certain point, he spawned his Tyrant Heroes. I kill those separately, so I pulled away and dropped totems and started doing a big circle in the area with vines always up to slow them down if possible and deal damage. Once the two Heroes fell, the rest of the adds were nothing to worry about so I ignore them and go back to my spot near Log and drop Storm Totems and and stay out of melee range of his attacks and just take the poison and chaos stuff that he queefs out. The lightning bounces off the tentacles and adds into Log and eventually whittles him down. Was actually an easy fight. Menhir’s Will only proc’d once when the Tyrants were active and I took a juicy crit or something. Overall, easier fight than some of my previous ones. He’s easy for ranged tanks though.

And got some nice EXP and the final achievement:

+++++++++++++++

So I’m still level 83 in Ultimate and beat the quest line of the game. All that remains are a few side quests, faction quests, etc, but I’ve done them in other difficulties.

I will grind out the last levels to 85 and see about any last gear changes from things I’ve found along the way. Then I will post a new thread with a more complete and comprehensible progression log and build that is new-player friendly and shows that Storm Totems are totally Ultimate viable from start to finish without any pre-farmed specific gear. I will cover the re-specs too as they were important early game and late game to adapt based on what items I found while playing.

Total time was played off and on with this character for about a week, but my work days I didn’t play so it was only a few days of real game time.

Very best,

[Verdict_MJB]

you should grab the lightning sword from that Lady’s diary in Homestead. Just have to turn in a note then go find and break a vase.

[MalVeauX]

you should grab the lightning sword from that Lady’s diary in Homestead. Just have to turn in a note then go find and break a vase.

Will check it out! I just got off my 4 day bender of work, so I may be able to finish things off and get 85 today and then write this up proper, and then start another toon.

Very best,

[MalVeauX]

Update,

Instead of just grinding areas for my final leveling, I actually went ahead and figured I’d try it out in Crucible to see how it works out there. I was able to complete all the waves in the standard difficulty without any trouble at all, it was too easy even. Just did it to see how it worked. Will have to advance to Challenger and Gladiator to see how far it really can go. In standard difficulty the clearing speed is very fast, even on the electrified bosses as they’re all too easy. Fabius was easy. The experience was good. I got level 84 and half way to 85 just in one full 150 wave clear which didn’t take much time, so that’s good, much better than grinding areas in the main campaign for this final level to hit 85.

Will do another set of waves to hit 85 and be done.

Starting to look at options for my next build, which may be a non-tank caster to change it up (I’m addicted to tanks and Shamans in general). I may have to explore a poison Occultist or a cold Arcanist next.

Very best,

[valium]

I too have discovered the majesty that is storm totem, except the vitality version of it. it is amazing.

[MalVeauX]

Final update for the character, made level 85 doing some more Crucible.

At this point, it’s more just about tweaking gear as I find more, and updating components/augments/Relic as things become available. But the idea of the build is finished, and realized through Ultimate to level 85 and through standard Crucible. Not a top build obviously, but this is something that can be done by someone with absolutely zero, first character, no twinking, and no specific gear at all.

Very best,

[TZ_Tz]

Congratz, finally our Hero reach lvl 85 with self-found gear.
From zero to Hero