[v1]Ultos, the Storm Striker

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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1

With the game being officially released for at least 2 weeks. I decided to make a v1 update to my previous build. I felt it was necessary to do rather than updating the thread because I have modified my skills, gear layout and devotions.
Just like the last build, I’ll be going a little in-depth with my explanations about what to do with the build.

Table of Contents

[list=I]
[li]Skill Build, Pros and Cons[/li]
[li]Skill Explanation[/li]
[li]Devotion Guide[/li]
[li]Gear, Components, and Augments (Part 1) (Part 2)[/li]
[li]Basic Strategies[/li]
[li]Leveling Tips[/li]
[li]Videos and Conclusion[/li][/list]

2

Build without Bonuses
Build with Bonuses

Pros:

  • Hits hard
  • Hits fast
  • Lightning EVERWHERES!!! #FEELSGOODMANS
  • Moves well
  • Does an amazing job of PKing other players in Multiplayer when PVP isn’t enabled via lag spikes #FEELSGOODMANS

Cons:

  • Hard to level
  • Can cause lag in multiplayer #FEELSBADMANS
3

These are the recommended skills that I’ve used in my primal strike warder.

Shaman

  • [li]Brute Force[/li]The Flat lightning damage goes well with Primal Strike. I don’t recommend putting more than a point though because those skill points can go into better areas. Let bonus skills increase it.
    [li]Primal Strike[/li]This will be are main damage dealer. In all honesty, Savagery scales much better than Primal Strike, but the whole point of focusing on primal strike is to constantly get that sexually gratifying (#Kreygasm) “OOMF” when throwing out a primal strike. Since this will be our main damage dealer, You will want have this up to it’s ULTIMATE rank.
    [li]Thunderous Strike[/li]Removes Cooldown of Primal Strike and reduces it’s energy cost. This makes it an obvious transmuter to have in order to spam Primal Strike. Don’t worry your head over the damage reduction, You’ll find a way to get more Damage output in your Primal Strike eventually. As of this writing, I have 26K DPS on my Primal Strike, so trust me when I say reduced damage is not an issue.
    [li]Torrent[/li]It’s a chain lightning that can scale with weapon damage. Why shouldn’t this be maxed?
    [li]Storm Surge[/li]Only a point is needed. Let the bonus skill points scale it.
    [li]Wendigo Totem[/li]This one’s a black sheep in terms of the character’s theme, but it has really good healing. Max this because even bonus skill points make this scale really well.
    [li]Mogdrogen’s Pact[/li]It’s a must have, Max this.
    [li]Heart of the Wild[/li]Maintain this at rank 10. Getting higher isn’t really worth it.
    [li]Oak Skin[/li]Maintain this at rank 10 since you get high pierce resist and the armor stacks really well with the %Armor Bonus.
    [li]Stormcaller’s Pact[/li]Keep this at max at all times.

Soldier

  • [li]Military Conditioning[/li]Gives high health. This will let you survive longer in a fight.
    [li]Fighting Spirit[/li]You’re going to get hit anyway, so might as well use that to your advantage. Maxing this skill out will make this skill more consistently triggered to get more DPS and OA out of it.
    [li]Menhir’s Will[/li]Get this at rank 6, This skill will help you stay alive in a lot of fights.
    [li]Blitz[/li]This your mobility and (sometimes) CC skill. This skill will allow you to get into the thick of fights. If you can find an enemy who isn’t in the pack you’re fighting, you can use that enemy as a way to get out of the thick of things when the going gets tough. A point is only needed since the chance to knockdown doesn’t scale with rank.
    [li]Field Command[/li]Max this skill. Offensive Ability and Defensive Ability can be hard to come by sometimes and the %Armor on the skill scales really well.
    [li]Squad Tactics[/li]With this maxed alongside it’s main skill, Field Command, you become Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.
    [li]Scars of Battle[/li] This skill should be maintained at rank 8. The bleed resist is good, the CC resist is heaven sent, and the Armor Absorption is GODSEND.
4

In this guide, I’m going to explain what Constellations I took, how I got to them and why I took them. The list will be numbered as a means to show priority, where number 1 should be the first thing you should get. Without further ado, let’s get started.

  1. [li]Turtle[/li]In order to get this constellation, first put a point on the Order Star in the crossroads to have access to Turtle. After that, complete the constellation. This constellation has an amazing survivability proc. Almost ALL builds will be building around having the proc of the constellation. This should help in letting you live more often as you level up your warder.
    [li]Scholar’s Light[/li]Place a point on the Eldritch Star on crossroads to have access to Scholar’s Light. After that, complete the constellation. The stats are okay, gives some early game DPS and elem resist, but the whole point of the constellation is to get Kraken
    [li]Lizard[/li]The constellation should be available, so it’s just a matter of completing it. Stacking HP regen is the name of the game in this build. When in tandem with Behemoth, Mogdrogen’s Pact and later on, Tree of Life, you’ll be getting at least 300 HP/sec.
    [li]Kraken[/li]Upon completing the previous recommended Constellations, this constellation should then be available, so it’s just a matter of completing it. This constellation is HEAVENSENT for 2-Handed Builds. As such, it is a MUST to complete this constellation.
    [li]Viper[/li]Upon completing the previous recommended Constellations, this constellation should then be available, so it’s just a matter of completing it. Viper is a must have for melee elemental builds because the debuff will always proc on weapon damage. This will help make Primal Strike stronger in later parts of the game.
    [li]Behemoth[/li]Upon completing the previous recommended Constellations, this constellation should then be available, so it’s just a matter of completing it. The regen Stats and healing from the skill are really helpful. Be sure to complete this constellation.
    [li]Widow[/li]Upon completing the previous recommended Constellations, this constellation should then be available, so it’s just a matter of removing a point from the eldritch star and completing widow. This constellation offers lightning resist debuff so you can deal more damage with primal strike. It scales really well in boss fights with the help of viper and blessed steel.
    [li]Lion[/li]This constellation should then be available, so it’s just a matter of completing it. The stats aren’t bad, provided the slight tankiness it gives. This is really just used to get Ulo.
    [li]Ulo, the Keeper of the Waters[/li]Upon completing the previous recommended Constellations, this constellation should then be available, so it’s just a matter of completing it. Gives decent resists. I recommend attaching the proc to a skill that has cooldown (Blitz or the skill from blessed steel). I don’t think that it’s bad, I just can’t really seem to use it well for some reason. The true purpose of this constellation is to get Menhir’s Obelisk and Tree of Life.
    [li]Tree of Life[/li]To get this constellation, put a point on the Primordial Star in the crossroads constellation and then complete the Tree of Life constellation. You’ll be stacking health regen naturally at this point. Combine that with high armor and wendigo totem and you’ll be a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus
    [li]Obelisk of Menhir[/li]Upon completing the previous recommended Constellations, this constellation should then be available. This is the only constellation in the build where it isn’t completed mostly because we don’t have enough points and there are only 2 stars worth investing into, the %Armor bonus and the Armor Bonus.
5

The path to electrifying divinity is a harsh path. On the way, try finding gear with these affixes.

Prefixes

Suffixes

While we’re still talking about getting gear with certain affixes, I highly recommend finding an Incorruptible Ring of the Basilisk. If you can somehow put BOTH of those affixes into Gollus’s Ring, than congratulations, you just acquired the one ring to rule them all. It doesn’t really matter what ring has the affixes. What’s important is getting those affixes because this will free up your Hand Slot in your gear choices and you can try crafting something that can give you high defenses and/or high damage.

There are good number of Factions I highly recommend getting revered with, as the gear augments they offer are just really good, and the equipment some of them have are highly recommended when RNGesus has you on your naughty list. Specifically, I’m talking about Devil’s Crossing, Rovers, Kymon’s Chosen, The Black Legion, and The Outcast. Here is a list of Augments I recommend placing on your end-game gear, assuming you have the incorruptible ring of the basilisk:

6

These are the items that make the Warder REALLY STRONG. The only slots that are not going to be mentioned here are the ring slots and hand slot because I’ve already mentioned them in the first part. If there is any additional thing I would recommend about the rings, is that you should use the component Corpse Dust for each ring.
Here’s the list of gear and components that will let you clear end-game content easily.

  • [li]Weapon: Stormreaver[/li]Component: Blessed Steel
    This weapon adds alot of utility to your skills. Even the skill from the weapon is useful as it’s not only ranged, but it has weapon damage, which can be used with lifesteal gear. Blessed Steel gives us more damage with Elemental damage and resist debuff.
    [li]Head: Ultos’s Hood[/li]Component: Sanctified Bone
    You want to get the 4-piece bonus of the set, which gives +2 to all shaman skills. Even when we’re not completing the set, this helm is highly recommended because more points in Torrent means more AOE. In addition to that, the helm has decent defensive stats. The component on the helm gives you a chance to clear SoT and BoC a little bit faster.
    [li]Shoulders: Ultos’s Spaulders[/li]Component: Scaled Hide
    Decent offensive stats. Scaled Hide is great with Scars of Battle because the armor absorption will apply to ALL your armor slots. Since you’ll be going above 43% increased Armor Absorption, Armor will absorb 100% of it’s armor value. This transforms the armor formula into simple subtraction.
    [li]Chest: Ultos’s Cuirass[/li]Component: Chains of Oleron
    There’s sort of a trend that majority of the end-game gear is going to focus on Offensive stats, but this is because we’ll have a few amount of gear that will provide resists SO HIGH that it’s possible to focus on high damage output while having good resistances. This allows us to get away with stuff like completing the set, and equipping some offensive components.
    [li]Hands: Grasp of Unchained Might[/li]Component: Antivenom Salve or Consecrated Wrappings
    Really good gloves for this build, has high armor, good attack speed, and good proc. The component is pretty much the best choice for the gloves as fire, vitality, and poison resists are what this build lacks. Consecrated Wrappings is good if you get the GG ring I mentioned earlier.
    [li]Legs: Empowered Legplates of Valor[/li]Component: Ancient Armor Plate
    BIS. Insanely high resists, +2 to Scars of Battle, high armor, and high Health. General rule with %Armor bonus (from components, skills and items that don’t have armor) is that this bonus applies to ALL armor slots. This is will give the warder some tankiness so that the warder can focus on damage output.
    [li]Feet: Golemborn Greaves[/li]Component: Mark of Mogdrogen
    Another piece of gear that offers REALLY GOOD defensive stats. In addition to that, the proc is AMAZING!!! Since we’ll have gear that have high resistances, we can get away with equipping a Mark of Mogdrogen for move speed, health, and health regen.
    [li]Amulet: Ultos’s Gem[/li]Component: Arcane Spark
    Amazing Amulet. The +2 to Primal Strike and %Physical to Lightning Conversion are pretty golden. Arcane Spark is a must have for its stats.
    [li]Ring: Lifegiver Signet[/li] Go back to the top of this post to know about the component for this ring. Lifesteal is very useful for this build. The vitality resist from the ring are also useful. Even though the chain lightnings from torrent and storm tap only do 45% Weapon damage, the fact that they deal damage to MULTIPLE TARGETS makes this ring very useful.
    [li]Medal: Badge of Mastery[/li]Component: Black Tallow
    BIS simply because it’s so STRONK! The main stats to look out for when crafting one are at least 30% Elemental Resist and +3 to Primal Strike, if by chance the badge has +5 to primal strike, than remove 2 points from Primal Strike because the skill will only scale up to rank 26. This will give you 2 more skill points to be used.
    [li]Waist: Tinker’s Ingenuity[/li]Component:Antivenom Salve
    Gives high bleeding and poison & acid resists, also reduces the armor requirements in order to equip Empowered Legplates of Valor. Antivenom Salve goes hand in hand with this as it further increases poison & acid resists and gives health regen.
    [li]Relic: Eye of the Storm[/li]This is a no-brainer since we’re focusing on lightning damage. Gives +1 to all shaman skills, reduces skill energy cost, and gives an AMAZING AURA that improves our lightning damage. Be sure to roll +1 to Torrent to improve the damage output even more.
7

Here are somethings you have to know in order to play as a primal strike warder.

  • Knowing when to place a totem is key for survivability. If there are a lot of mobs or there are heroes, place a totem. Make sure that the totem is always close to you and your enemies, so be sure to always reset your totem whenever you can and try to stay within the totem’s radius as much as possible.
  • The warder is tanky, but that still doesn’t mean he can’t die due to carelessness. Be aware of you’re surroundings. If for whatever reason, you feel like you can’t take the heat, then step back out of the fight for a second and get back in when you’re ready.
  • Be sure to spam Sacred Strike when it’s up for additional resist debuff.
  • When just trying to run through things, Blitz can help cover the distance. Be sure that you’ll be able to move out once it hits though.
8

Here are some tips when leveling:

  • It’s highly recommended that you find ALL the shrines in normal and elite. That way, you only have to go through acts 1 and 2 to complete your build. In doing so, you’ll have more time to level up your procs, which are incredible life savers.
  • Try maxing out Primal Strike and Torrent as early as possible and be sure before you complete normal, that you get majority of your survivability skills to a good level.
  • Remember to follow the devotion guide as you progress.
  • When leveling up in Elite, get to Stormcaller’s Pact as early as you can, and than max out squad tactics.
  • Early on in ultimate, get Heart of the Wild and Oak Skin to Rank 5, max out Mogdrogen’s Pact as well. After that, get Fighting Spirit to Rank 12. After that, put a point into brute force.

Here is a list of what your build should look like by the end of each difficulty:

9

Ultimate Loghorrean Kill
Ultimate Fabius Kill
Ultimate Benn’jhar Kill
Ultimate SoT Clear

Overall, this build has become really solid. It hits hard, hits fast, and can take shit like tank! I’m very certain that this build is viable for hardcore JUST as long as you dump all your stat points into physique and play smart. So if you want to feel the thunder, then go ahead and try this build out.

I’d like to thank jajaja and Molamoth for their output.

I’d also like to thank Crate for making such an awesome game. :smiley:

10

Wow, perfect timing, I wanted to roll a Primal Strike Character, looking forward to trying out your build, thanks!

11

Hmm. Looks sexy… but no Fighting Spirit or Markovian’s Advantage? Military Condi 0… why? Can u post a gameplay vid pls? Want to see this build in action. Thx.

12

How about this for the hands?

https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/7915-Empowered-Thundertouch-Bracers

13

I might be willing to put a point into fighting spirit, but I’m keeping Military conditioning at 0 because I have gear that will give me high Health, and I’ve been doing fine so far without it. I can’t really do videos but I’ll put up a download link in which you can try out the character.

You can, ultimately, I’d prefer Thunderstruck Exalted Handguards of Alacrity as that will give you a lot of DPS. In my case, I only have an Incorruptible Diamond Signet of the Rift Hound as my ring, so I’m stuck using Empowered Zealot’s Gauntlets because of it’s pierce and Chaos Resist and then augmented 2 of my slots with Mogdrogen’s Touch to give me poison resist and vit resist.

14

Maybe Grasp of Unchained Might? Nice dmg boost and tons of AS + proc.

15

I might consider that… Once I get my GG ring. =D

16

GG ring means? :smiley:

Btw what do u think about this leg: https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/8233-Stormcage-Legguards

17

Can’t say I agree with some parts of your build:

warder is quite possibly the best HC class if built right. i can’t think of any class thats tankier. why forgo ur biggest advantage - OP heart of the wild/military conditioning.

getting warcry at lvl 10 doenst make sense, it scales harder the higher it is due to subtraction nature of it. also it needs a cast so either no points or max. getting it half assed is like wasting ur casts.

if you’re stretched on points i’d consider using a kymon’s enchant over warcry, it does the samething mostly as long as ur hitting for 100% or more weapon dmg aoe, which u are.

why max storm surge, its literally terrible compared to how much lightnign dmg u are getting from a lvl 26 PS plus torrent. its so minimal, u could really use the points elsewhere. the bleed dmg/+physic are mostly useless since ur going lightning.

devotions - u feel squishy at times, because you have low autoheal. no tree of life and no wendigo totem; wendigo is super good, but if you really can’t afford the skill points, then you should get tree of life. chariot isn’t that good honestly. you have no -enemy resist. either get arcane bomb or rowans since u arent going wind devil. cool effects everywhere doenst make u strong, -resist does, reckless tempest isn’t that good.

scars of battle - this scales just as good post lvl 8/8 , why keep at 8? get as much as you need.

decorated soldier - 8 points for the 20 or so ele resist and a small amount of slow isn’t worth it if ur low on points. ele resist is so easily obtained from gear.

eye of the storm isn’t a no brainer… since you have literally no -resist. using malediction will DRASTICALLY out dmg eye of the storm. trust me.

not to be harsh but i don’t think ur build is very good at end game content even though it should be with such a powerful class. but please do prove me wrong with some gameplay vids :slight_smile: i’d love to see a BoC clear or fabius kill.

edit - just saw ur blessed steel, its single target and needs a cast tho, kinda meh, not sure if i’d take taht over rhowans or winddevil. would still take arcane bomb over reckless tempest anyday

18

Really awesome guide. Looking forward for leveling tips. Thank you!

19

so is there somewhere your guide for warden? Saw your other posts and they are cool. But I want to try warden :slight_smile:

Thanks

20

thought extensively about one, probably will make for HC. haven’t done it yet thats why was interested in how this one was.