Attribute Points:
The following specs are for a Savagery & Lightning based Warder. If you are going to go physical, pierce, or bleeding I would swap the Cunning and Spirit numbers. (For the record, this is not how I have assigned my attribute points as I was enjoying Stonefist Rebuke and the Leviathan before the recent stealth nerf.)
Physical: 45
Needed for more of our gear regardless of your damage focus. Adds defensive ability which helps negate criticals against you. Adds hp.
Cunning: 10
If your versatility includes the physical, bleeding, trauma, or piercing route you will want more cunning than spirit. There are also some sword and shield cunning requirements to accomodate. Plus cunning will provide some offensive ability increases to better your odds of landing crits.
Spirit: 35
Since we are lightning damage based this only makes since as it contributes to your damage and it’s DoT duration.
Note on Offensive Ability (OA): You do not need to over due this but you do want enough that you average 1 criticle strike per swing. This means if you hit 5 targets on average and you have a 20% chance to crit, chances are one of them will do so thus enabling your “on criticle” procs. 20% is a good amount, often we’ll hit more than 5 targets because of “on hit” and “on attack” procs fighting with you. When you are factoring in your OA rating, keep in mind skills like ‘Fighting Spirit’ that will likely activate in every engagement. If you watch my battles you will see my procs crit’ing as much as my main attack and with enough damage that main attacks aren’t necessarily needed (see videos above).
Gear:
This build is a bit gear dependant for it’s final product BUT IS NOT required to successfully complete 100% of the game. You just may not do it as quick or with as much flare. Or you may opt to do it using one of the variations covered above.
My gear:
Two-Handed Weapon: Ultos’ Stormseeker
Torso Armor: Ultos’ Cuirass
Head Armor: Ultos’ Hood
Amulet: Ultos’ Gem
Shoulders: Ultos’ Spaulders
Legs: Stormcage Legguards
Gloves: Grasp of Unchained Might
Boots: Stormtitan Treads
Belt: Guthook Belt
Relic: Eye of the Storm
Rings (both): Ring of the Black Matriarch
Medal: Empowered Crimson Heart
Swap Gear:
Crystallum
Skybreach Bulwark
Meat Shield
Tinker’s Ingenuity
Mark of Divinity
Menhir’s Bastion
Incorruptible Obsidian Band of Attack
Resistant Cronley’s Signet of Protection
(Work in Progress, I’ll be revisiting this section after more thorough research on things like BiS, set synergy, etc.)
Components:
Weapon: Haunted Steel or Hallowed Fang. Both offer life steal and both offer a blood thirsty skill. Equip these as soon as you can. This build’s defense weighs heavily on this offensive life steal and we only need the 8% Haunted Steel provides because of our large damage output.
Note on Life Steal: The devs recently relaxed the rules to lifesteal where as it applies to not only mobs but also bosses (who were generally immune earlier). When you dish out this much damage, even at 8% life steal (provided by the haunted steel component) you can heal yourself VERY quickly. For example, if I land a 60,000 damage blow (not calculating based on the 120000+ damage seen in my videos and pictures to allow for enemy armor/resistances and inferior gear) that’s healing for 4800 health (minus any resistance the enemy/boss has to life steal). Even if they are at 80% life steal resistant, if we take 4800 minus that 80% we still get 960 life healed per hit. Multiple that by the multiple simultaneous targets you hit (3 with Zolhan’s Technique, 8 with Blitz, 5 with Feral Hunger, or 13 with Blade Arc/Lac, 5 with Torrent. Primal Strike and Upheavel hit everyone with weapon damage in a defined radius.) therefore keeping the hp tank topped off is not hard. Did I mention the Haunted Steel component also grants an additional 30% life steal skill?
Note: Your procs and skills that include weapon damage carry your life steal attributes over as well! For example, Falcon swoop. Not only does each falcon pack a punch because of our high weapon damage, but that 60% weapon damage included means that life steal applies here as well. Because of how many falcons who hit even more targets, the amount of life steal is multiplied by that as well.
Torso: Kilrian’s Shattered Soul or Chains of Oleron. Since my offensive rating is good I’ve opted for attack speed of KSS over CoO’s OA boost. Plus playing hardcore the 20% vitality resist is a nice bonus.
Legs & Shoulders: I used Silk Swatch in both as I was lacking bleeding and piercing resistance. However, I would strongly recommend putting Scaled Hide into one of them for the 20% armor absorption if you haven’t already elevated this using the Scars of Battle skill in the soldier line (which also provides bleeding resistance) or by another means. Consumables can make up the difference in needed resistances but there’s no consumable for armor absorption.
Medal & Amulet: Attuned Loadstone for the additional lightning damage, crit damage, and procs. However you may considering Aether Soul/Black Tallows for their aether & chaos resistances.
(Rest of components section coming soon)
Procs Broken Down: (NOT EXHAUSTIVE, STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS).
Here is a list of one variation of my gear that you see in the videos causing endless procs. Essentially, I’ve found three strong factors in keeping procs rolling. Low proc cooldowns, long durations and damage over Time (DoT), and ‘on crit’ procs as they can be triggered by other procs that cause critical damage. Therefore you will want a high offensive rating if this is to be your focus. The DoT doesn’t need to do much damage, it simply keeps the ‘on attack’ and ‘on crit’ procs rolling. Therefore, if you can find a proc that dishes out damage over time with a low cool down (or no cool down like the ring I mentioned below) than you have a key ingredient to endless procs. Some procs can be dead-ends such as devotions that only trigger by a skill they are assigned too but we have enough skills in this build to keep those rolling with little effort too (wind devils, grasping vines, etc.). This build also has a unique skill set in Shaman that will allow you to assign 3 different procs to your normal, default attack (using savagery, feral hunger, and upheaval). Procs that include weapon damage also inherently gain weapon damage bonuses such as our life steal attribute. Because our attack does so much damage, so do our procs (as I’ve shown by killing Loghorrean by them alone in the vid above). Consequently our (weapon damage including) procs also return health to us via the inherent life steal component. Because we have so many (weapon damage including) procs that cover the map, it keeps the healing rolling in even without attacking which you can see in my videos. All that said, not including my weapon swap procs I still have a dozen of them ready to go. The percentage to activate isn’t cumulative (meaning adding them together and having it equal 100% doesn’t guarantee an activation) however, this also means multiple can activate by the same trigger. I.E. one attack from an enemy can trigger multiple ‘on hit’ procs. I have a dozen procs below and as you can see in any of my videos they don’t stop.
Likely one of the modders can break down the mechanics better, my list is made by testing and observation.
On Hit: (Whether being attacked by ranged, melee, casters, etc.)
(Legs) Stormcage Legguards - Chain Lightning (20% Chance when Hit) - Affects 5 Targets, 2 Second CD.
Triggers Lightning Nova
Triggers Ultos Wrath
Triggers Venom of the Black Matriarch
(Boots) Stormtitan Treads - Storm Titan (25% Chance when Hit) - Affects All in 4 Meter Radius, 3 Second Duration, 3 Second CD
Triggers Lightning Nova
Triggers Ultos Wrath
Triggers Venom of the Black Matriarch
(Devotion) Spear of the Heavens (50% Chance when Hit) - Affects All in 1.8 Meter Radius
Triggers Ultos Wrath (via crit)
Triggers Unchained Fury (via crit)
(Component) Kilrian’s Shattered Soul - Kilrian’s Flame (10% Chance when Hit by Melee Attacks) - 3 Meter Radius, 6 Second Duration, 12 Second CD.
Triggers Lightning Nova
Triggers Ultos Wrath
Triggers Venom of the Black Matriarch
(Skill) Fighting Spirit - (40% Chance of Activating [max lvl]) +200% to All Damage, +235 OA, 8 Second Duration, 11.8 CD
On Critical: (Not just from attacks, but can be triggered by all criticals, criticals caused by other procs and even retaliation damage)
(Gloves) Grasp of Unchained Might - Unchained Fury (33% Chance on Critical Attack) - Increases Attack Speed 10%, +125 OA & -30 DA.
Dead End, But Increases Attack Speed which increases default attack procs (linked to Savagery) and passive attacks procs (Feral Hunger, Upheaval).
(Set Bonus) Ultos’ Wrath (50% Chance on Critical Attack) - Massive Lightning Storm, 5 Second Duration, 2.5 Second CD, 8 Meter Radius
Triggers Lightning Nova
(Devotion) Reckless Tempest (100% Chance on Critical Attack) - Lightning Bolts, 6 Second Duration, 8 Meter Radius, Each Bolt Affects 3 Targets, 7.4 Second CD
Dead End but triggers immediately after CD ends because of all the crits happening from everything else.
On Attack: (Can be triggered by other attacks, retaliation, skills, etc. Not just your primary attack)
(Ring) Ring of the Black Matriarch - Venom of the Black Matriarch (15% Chance on Attack) - Poison & Physical Resist Reduction, 5 Second Duration, No CD
Triggers Ultos wrath
Triggers Lightning Nova
Note: I found this to be one of the more helpful elements in this equation because it has NO cool down, can be triggered by your many attacks and other procs, and lasts for 5 seconds each. This means the more enemies the better momentum of this proc. Not to mention it reduces their physical resistance.
(Weapon) Ultos Stormseeker - Lightning Nova (15% Chance on Attack) - Affects all in 4.8 Meter Radius, 1 Second CD.
Triggers Venom of the Black Matriarch
Triggers Ultos Wrath
(Devotion) Falcon Swoop (15% Chance on Attack) - 6 Projectiles, 100% Pass through, 1.5 Second CD.
Dead End but at max level provides tons of damage as seen in my pic above backed by fully amped Savagery. Because of it’s inherent weapon damage it also adds very nice life steal. Plus it sounds cool when it procs.
(Devotion) Tsunami (35% Chance on Attack) 12 Meter Range, 1.1 Second CD
Dead End, more so needed to unlock other devotions in this line and it compliments my lightning oriented damage.
This is not exhaustive and I’m still refining. There are a lot of items in the game that offer procs, even some great ones among greens so I encourage you to experiment!