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Welcome to Part 7 of my series on raising a Warder completely from scratch.
Last time, I patched up the holes in my resistances and cleared Normal difficulty. This time, we’re picking up where we left off and blasting our way through Elite!
- Use Grim Tools to collect any Monster Infrequents and Devotion Shrines you missed.
- I charged into the final boss of Elite with low Chaos Resistance and paid dearly for it.
- The lightning effects became too hard on my eyes, so I decided to rebuild as a physical-damage Warder.
All right, let’s get started.
Skill Progression
Maxing Out Fighting Spirit and Raging Tempest
During the previous stage of the build, I was missing attacks against bosses far too often. With enemy resistances also increasing in Elite, fixing those problems had become an urgent priority.
For this stage of the skill progression, I focused my points on two skills:
- Fighting Spirit, to reduce missed attacks against bosses and make my Attack Damage Converted to Health more reliable.
- Raging Tempest, to lower enemy resistances and make my damage easier to apply.
I raised Fighting Spirit to its maximum base level of 12.
I raised Raging Tempest to level 13 with equipment bonuses included, since its resistance reduction gains are especially efficient up to that point.
Raising the Shaman Mastery Bar to Unlock One Point in Blood Pact
Blood Pact is a Shaman skill that allows Wendigo Totem to automatically grant an area-of-effect Attack Damage Converted to Health buff.
Wendigo Totem already restores health while you fight near it, so adding Blood Pact gives us a second layer of healing on top of that.
The Shaman mastery also provides excellent physique growth, surpassed mainly by the heavily armored warrior masteries such as Soldier and Oathkeeper.
Its cunning and spirit growth are fairly balanced as well, so progressing toward Blood Pact steadily improves the build’s underlying stats at the same time.
Improving Core Stats with Brute Force and Field Command
For this build, Brute Force provides several useful bonuses for a straightforward melee fighter:
- Increased lightning damage
- Increased maximum health
Field Command provides:
- Offensive Ability
- Defensive Ability
- Armor
All of these are extremely useful for a warrior whose main strategy is standing in front of enemies and hitting them repeatedly.
After unlocking Blood Pact, I began investing in these two skills.
Investing in War Cry from Around Level 63
War Cry applies a debuff that reduces enemy damage.
To improve the build’s durability, I began concentrating my skill points into War Cry.
Because of how my Devotion setup changed later, I removed Rhowan’s Crown and also picked up Terrify to reduce enemy lightning resistance.
However…
To be completely honest, Terrify’s resistance reduction is relatively weak, and my clearing speed noticeably dropped after making the switch.
For comparison:
- Elemental Storm, the Celestial Power from Rhowan’s Crown, can reduce Elemental Resistance by up to 32%.
- Terrify can reduce all resistances by 21%.
These two effects belong to the same resistance-reduction category, so they cannot stack with each other.
Farming a Korvan Storm Halberd
One of the easiest weapons to obtain for a Primal Strike build—and one of the most effective—is the Korvan Storm Halberd.
As you can see from its stats on Grim Tools, it offers a ridiculous number of benefits for a lightning-focused Primal Strike Warder:
- +4 to Primal Strike
- Reduces Primal Strike’s cooldown by one second
- Increases Primal Strike’s area of effect by two meters, allowing it to hit more enemies
- Adds 35% weapon damage to Primal Strike
- Increases lightning damage and electrocute damage
- Converts physical damage into lightning damage, allowing it to benefit from your lightning damage modifiers
- Grants a flat increase to maximum health
- Synergizes with the percentage-based maximum health skills available to both Soldier and Shaman
- Provides a solid Offensive Ability bonus
In other words, this is exactly the kind of weapon a lightning Primal Strike Warder desperately wants.
The weapon also scales with the player’s level.
As your level increases, higher-level versions begin dropping with better stats, higher level requirements, and higher physique requirements.
Here is a quick list of the Korvan Storm Halberd’s level and physique requirements:
| Required Level | Required Physique |
|---|---|
| 20 | 219 |
| 40 | 376 |
| 55 | 472 |
| 70 | 552 |
| 84 | 613 |
| 94 | 650 |
Until now, I had been using Wildcaller’s Decapitator, another Epic two-handed weapon designed for Primal Strike.
I was lucky enough to obtain it at a low level, so I kept using it for quite a while. By this point, however, the enemies had leveled up enough that its damage was beginning to feel inadequate.
Korvan Storm Halberds drop from the large number of enemies found in the Temple of Osyr, one of the first major destinations in the main quest of the Forgotten Gods expansion.
Naturally, you cannot obtain this weapon at all unless you own the DLC.
Rare items that drop from specific enemy types are known as Monster Infrequents, or MIs.
Once you know the direction of your build, deliberately farming an MI that supports it is an extremely effective way to increase your power.
After all, Epic and Legendary items are not something you can reliably target-farm.
I plan to write a separate guide explaining how to find and farm suitable MI items for your build, so please wait just a little longer for that one.
Anyway, I successfully obtained a Korvan Storm Halberd…
And then, almost immediately afterward, I found an Empowered Falcon’s Claw, a stronger two-handed axe that also supports Primal Strike.
So I ended up using that instead.
I attached an Amber component to increase lightning and electrocute damage, then added Potent Scarab Shell Powder, an augment sold by the Cult of Dreeg, for even more lightning and electrocute damage.
This partially compensated for the damage I lost by giving up Elemental Storm’s resistance reduction.
Even so, my actual damage output was still slightly lower than before.
That was definitely a mistake on my part.
Resistance reduction usually contributes more to your real damage output than simply stacking additional damage bonuses.
Using Grim Tools to Collect Missed Devotion Shrines
Grim Tools has a useful feature called the Checklist.
It allows you to track things such as:
- Attribute-point quests
- Lore notes
- Blueprints
- Devotion Shrine locations
- Which Devotion Shrines you have already restored
Using the Checklist, I went back and restored as many shrines as possible throughout Normal, the first half of Elite, and the Forgotten Gods areas.
The goal was to collect more Devotion Points and increase the build’s overall power.
This takes quite a while, so grab a snack and work through it at your own pace.
Building a Lightning Devotion Setup—Then Discovering the Visual Effects Were Too Much
Eventually, after a great deal of running around, I restored all 55 Devotion Shrines needed to reach the maximum number of Devotion Points.
I then used a Tonic of Clarity to reset my Devotion Points and created the following lightning-focused route:
- Blue Crossroads
- Lizard
- Yellow Crossroads
- Lion
- Purple Crossroads
- Toad
- Harvestman’s Scythe
- Tempest
- Assigned to Wind Devil
- Raven
- Kraken
- Chariot of the Dead
- Behemoth
- Ultos, Shepherd of Storms
- Assigned to Primal Strike
- Remove Raven at a Spirit Guide
- Remove Blue Crossroads at a Spirit Guide
- Ghoul
- Skip the nodes granting 15 Physique, 15 Spirit, and 15 Defensive Ability
- Red Crossroads
- Green Crossroads
The main goals of this setup were:
- Increase Offensive Ability to make attacks more reliable and synergize with Devotion skills triggered by critical hits.
- Increase lightning and electrocute damage.
- Stack maximum health and health regeneration.
- Add automatic defensive and healing Devotion skills triggered when taking damage.
The result was an absolute health monster.
At level 73, the character had:
- Approximately 16,000 health
- 2,416 health regeneration per second
The lightning attacks were also spectacular, with electricity exploding all over the screen.
Unfortunately…
They also started hurting my eyes.
The problem may not be obvious from a short video clip, but after playing for an extended period, the constant flashing effects began making me feel motion sick and nauseous.
If I continued like this, I might have been forced to abandon the Warder series entirely.
To keep the project going, I decided that I would rebuild the character as a physical-damage Warder starting with the next installment.
Cruising Through Elite and Struggling Only Against the Final Boss
In terms of raw combat strength, everything went extremely smoothly after that.
I raced through Elite without getting stuck anywhere and eventually reached the final boss.
And then…
I struggled much more than expected.
According to Grim Tools—and this is your spoiler warning—the boss deals a significant amount of Chaos damage.
At the time, my Chaos Resistance was only 32%.
Even with my enormous health pool and massive health regeneration, I simply was not reducing enough incoming damage.
I died roughly six times.
Looking back, I really did charge in like a wild boar.
Yes.
Resistances are important!
Heading into the New DLC Area Next Time
And with that, I completed the main campaign on Elite difficulty.
Starting next time, I plan to head into the new DLC area.
Before that, however, I will probably rebuild the character as a physical-damage Warder to reduce the strain on my eyes.
That is all for this installment.
Have a fantastic gaming life!
Thank you very much for reading all the way to the end!
Previous entry: Patch Up Your Resistances and Clear Normal Difficulty [Warder from a Fresh Start #6]
