to give people an idea what this build is capable of, even during the journey to max level (and of course, to show off):
I ran into the dreaded 4 pack of the Hounds (like one fire Hound, one Poison Hound, etc.) plus a 4 boss pack of the Mosquitoes, right next to each other. I don’t have any of the level 70 augments on my gear, and I’m still wearing a level 40 ring. Didn’t use a single pot and no kiting, just facetanking.
edit: has anyone tried out maxing out counterstrike?
Vnice indeed! I’m almost jealous of finding a boss mob like that; makes me think of the future coming survival mode that the devs are working on.
Beasts in general tend to be easy targets for retaliation, they tend to be fast, and only a few of them do ranged damage. In particular the dermapteran (sp?) hive and queen – you can let the bugs swam you on all sides and they all melt to your retaliation damage.
I doubt it would be worth it. This build doesn’t need any more “on hit” damage, what you need more of is some sort of active attack or spell to take out ranged targets, that’s why I decided to keep Devouring Swarm maxed. Squib says in his OP that there are about 80% melee enemies in the game but I think it’s much lower, probably 50% or even less, so having an active attack or spell ability is very helpful to augment the heavy retaliation of this build.
May I ask which equipment you are wearing? Cause the stuff I got dropped so far seems to favor procs on getting hit and as such is obviously very dependant on equipment. The lastest of these pieces is the Bloodfury Spaulders so I can hope to copy your build to some extent.
I want to redo this run on hc though and…
I feel incredibly spoiled as far as drops are concerned. Most of the legendaries I got so far have some merit for this build and I dont think I can replicate this on a single run.
I dont really know how to deal with ranged threats. I can Final Stop them to be stunned, the first ranged guy to hit me gets struck with the Banhammer of Doom, I can pretty much no sell fire and electric attacks and Contagion is another dps I can inflict on them.
The latter three activate simply “on hit”, that includes any ranged attack.
The Wyrmscale shield also starts to cool down as soon as it activates. Meaning you can have it active and when it runs out it procs again right away.
Forget what I said about it being situational, its active pretty much all the time.
so TL;DR what did you look for in your equipment?
Well in some ways my build is more of a Devouring Swarm build than it is a retaliation one. By focusing a bit on DS, I become less reliant on being hit to kill stuff. I’m always looking for good retaliation, but I’ve found that for some slots there wasn’t any amazing retaliation items available (or I hadn’t found any yet), so for those I would focus on buffing Devouring Swarm instead. This means adding +DS skill, +% vitality damage, and sometimes +% bleeding damage and duration. When combined with the changes I made to my devotions gives me a fairly strong DS that melts nearly everything on the screen. I also need to look for defensive stats too like resists and health, obviously.
I also chose to use some components and augments to help with vitality damage such as Rotbloom Powder for rings and amulet and Outcast’s Deathtouch for weapon and shield. I have haunted steel on my dagger. Dread skull on amulet and medal. I was lucky to have a badge of mastery with +5 to devouring swarm that had been sitting in my stash for ages waiting for a build to make use of it (this is actually my first ever build to use shaman class).
I only have 808% total retaliation damage after buffs, which seems to be a lot less than what I have seen others get. Most of it is pierce, lightning and acid. Even so, it totally melts anything that tries to melee me. I have 86% damage reflect too.
In practice, DS will melt almost everything on the screen after a few seconds – keep in mind that it is also debuffing vitality and bleed by a significant amount and I also have Wendigo Totem up for all heroes and bosses which does even more vitality damage. Since DS is a DOT, you still need some patience for some enemies to die - those floating aether crystal formation thingies from act 4 come to mind as being a real pain to kill.
Here’re some of the items and skills I have at level 79:
Having a lot of fun with this build, sometimes I dont even realise there is a hero pack in the middle of what im ‘fighting’ just when they are the last ones standing and I mouse over them.
Although mages and arches are a absolute pain, I just wanna cry when I see a hero mage, took me about 3 minutes to kill Rolderathis at the Sunken Reliquary and sometimes I have to give up killing heroes because they heal faster than I could damage them, now Im basicaly using Shield Bash to deal extra damage
Thank you. 
I wanted to try that build but I keep getting weird curveball drops that look like the game tries to troll me but then loses interest halfway through and I end up getting drops that shine in the stalling and damage mitigation departments instead.
Just wanted to say thank you for putting all the effort you did into this build. So far it has been my favorite one as far as the leveling experience.
Got any updates for us on it?
Not much to update. 1.0.0.4 introduced some better augments which made this build even stronger. 
Anyone know where the perdition set can drop? Have been farming treasure troves for days, but to no avail. Any particular enemies, or areas? Or just random. Any help appreciated.
Am currently looking for the faceguard and the shield. I have the others.
I would LOVE another build from you, man. You’re in-depth guides are super helpful, especially to newer players.
I second this. Amazing guide. Thanks for sharing. Would love to see more guides from you.
Since the set is level 40 you’ll want to farm enemies around that level. For this scaling probably between act 2/steps of torment up to the rotting croplands in act 3. For the most part though it’s just luck of the draw… I gave away a praetorian set to a fellow player thinking I’d likely pick up another set well before I needed it but now that I’ve given it away I don’t seem to be finding anything from that set lol
I’m delighted you’re enjoying it. I’ve been eager to do another. I like to be thorough and I’m coming up on completing hardcore ultimate with a few unique builds (and some that have been done already) but I want to make sure they are hardcore ultimate viable before backing them on the forums. I tend to be a bit more cautious since I only play hardcore. Losing that spell breaker at lvl 81 did “encourage” me to take a week off before re-rolling lol
Fingers-crossed a summoner is next
I also would like to express my gratitude for a good detailed guide especially around leveling/devotion/attributes. This is my first char to reach L85 and I quite enjoyed its survivability.
Have you reached the final verdict on BiS gear for this build?
I am using the following and they seem to work OK, but I just wanted to see if you decided.
Helm: Terror of the Grove
Rings: Closed Fist of Vengeance/Open Hand of Misery
Hands: Colossal Grasp
Boots: Venomspine Greaves
Luck would have it i was able to get the shield to drop yesterday. In the darkvale gate. But i am more interested in the faceguard than the shield, because the shield doesnt have +% all retaliation.
And annoyingly a hero monster dropped 2 weeping mantles. One from the monster and one from the orb. Talk about crazy rng. Hope rngesus is with me tonight.
My problem is to many guys going at once. My sig is just the guys I have in ultimate but I have another dozen or so in elite and a bunch in normal vet. I’ll be playing one guy while in my mind I’m theorycrafting another…
I should revisit this, I’ve had quite a few suggestions made as well as I’ve found many new legendaries myself. The helm does offer nice retal but unfortunately not as much in the way of other stats. I’d almost prefer the justicar helm for it’s other benefits though I consider those lesser to retaliation itself. The rings are good and may very well be BiS (2x closed fist may be better for the retal, though the hp regen bonus is nice as a set) but with my recent equipment acquisitions I’ve been able to maintain 165% (270%+ with procs) reflect at the same time I’m carrying over 150k+ retaliation damage. My initial build couldn’t maintain high levels of both. Because of the reflect I’m now able to drop ranged/casters decently without having to equipment swap. So I’m keeping that in mind when evaluating BiS gear. Colossal Grasp I have but now that you mention it I’ll have to take a closer look, I’ve kept in in the back of my mind for my 2H warder. The greaves are good for retal but so are the boots I’m wearing as well as the golemborn greaves and when you compare hp/armor between the three the venomspike are lacking (though their retaliation skill is very cool looking).
Oh, okay. Hmm, well, you could always make a straw poll.
This looks like a lot of fun. Kind of reminds me of leveling prot paladins in WoW.
