Edit Guide

Endless Ward Storm Master Shaman Build Guide

Posted By Advorsus on October 30, 2023
Last updated on October 30, 2023

Overview

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This is my personal guide for a Storm Totem Shaman Primalist. The build was originally supposed to be for a shockwave Upheaval totem build, but once I saw the damage possibilities of Summon Storm Totem, I switched once I got to endgame.

This build is perfect if you want to stand around and tank everything while still dishing out a ton of lightning damage, and filling your screen with lightning strikes. There's only really two requirements for this build to work. The Boardman's Legacy set for primalist, and two Ornate Heorot Idol with cast speed for totems. Outside of these two things, there's a lot of flexibility. You mainly want to pick up minion damage/health, lightning and spell damage for totems, and a few defensive things like a little bit of health and void resist on your exalted items. The extra bit of defenses is due to being vulnerable at the beginning of echoes prior to placing your Summon Storm Totem. Once you place your totem down you will quickly notice that you're getting 60k+ ward. This is what makes the build work so well and why you don't have to invest a crazy amount of defenses, outside of a few ward bypassing degens, you're pretty much immune to damage after the first few seconds of an echo. This ward also hits allies, meaning it's a great support tool for playing with groups of people as they will also see their own ward climb to ridiculous numbers.

PSA: The videos in the guide are with an unoptimized version at level 92 without the uniques, and only having the set, the two idols, and the rest of the gear is exalts. This is to show that the build can be used very early and is pretty flexible. Playing casually I was able to start empowered monoliths around level 86.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Unbeatable survivability
  • Allows you to facetank everything (Even shades of Orobyss & Gaspar)
  • Storm Totem has a lot of built in damage that makes it hit surprisingly hard
  • Easy to build for with lots of flexibility and potential
  • Very easy leveling process
  • Works great both solo and in teams
  • Massive amounts of lightning to fill your screen with

Cons

  • At the start of echoes you are slightly more vulnerable due to less defensive layers than normal
  • Requires a 3 piece set that not everyone has, and could require some farming
  • Massive amounts of lightning filling your screen can be graphically intensive, sometimes causes lag issues due to so much going on at once

Gameplay / Mechanics

Gameplay wise the build is very easy to play, albeit a little button intensive at times. The most important part is when you first enter echoes.

  1. Place your Summon Storm Totem first and allow it a few seconds to start hitting enemies.
  2. Then you can use Warcry totem to group them all together.
  3. Then Crowstorm teleport on top of them.

This is my typical opening rotation to start building up massive amounts of ward. Usually once you hit 4k-5k ward which is pretty quickly, you're good to run around the map throwing down Summon Storm Totem as you progress. As long as you stand within the lightning of your Storm totem you'll accumulate massive amounts of ward and can zip around the map with Crowstorm. If you get a lot of enemies in one area you can group them together with Warcry totem, and watch as your Summon Storm Totem lights them up.

Earthquake I typically only use on tougher enemies for the extra Lightning Storm, or occasionally on large groups of enemies to dispatch them quickly. Swipe is used mainly as a buff for your totem's damage, as well as to maintain your mana so that you can keep spamming abilities.

Skills

Passives

Stat Priorities

Equipment

Main stats to focus on:

Boardman's Set is the only thing that's absolutely necessary. Everything else can be flexed between exalts and uniques. Everything listed here is mainly for endgame, but the Aurora's Time Glass and Omen of Thunder can be switched out for exalted items if you don't have them. This build is very flexible, as long as you have Boardman's Set and focus the stats lsited, you'll be good. I did try other things in the offhand. If you're having trouble with survivabilty early on a shield could help greatly and is perfectly fine to switch out for. I chose the additional damage route, but go with what works best for you.

Blessings

These are flexible dependent on need and what you're farming for at the time. Anything that fits within your main stats, or focuses on farming the item you need to improve the build as you go.

Timeline
Blessings
The Black Sun

Any

Ending the Storm

Any

Reign of Dragons

Any

The Age of Winter

Any

Spirits of Fire

Any

Fall of the Outcasts

Any

The Stolen Lance

Any

Blood, Frost, and Death

Any

Fall of the Empire

Any

The Last Ruin

Any

Build Variants

Leveling

Leveling this build is very easy. Get Summon Thorn Totem as soon as you can, this is a great leveling ability that can have multiple totems summoned. The other skill that I would use for leveling that gets changed later is Upheaval, I would use the totem version of that as well. The other skills are Summon Storm Totem, Warcry made into a totem, and Swipe. The last 3 can be built how it is within the guide as you level them. It's an extremely easy leveling process with so many totems and you should breeze through the story by just picking up random rares, no uniques required for leveling.

Once you get through the story, you'll switch out Summon Thorn Totem and Upheaval. Neither have good lightning options and this will make building your character easier as you have less stats to focus on. Switch them out for Summon Storm Crows andEarthquake and start following the skill tree guide for those. I would also look to pick up a Tempest Maw if possible until you get Boardman's Set available, this helps greatly for early monos.

SWITCH TO Boardman's Set AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!! Then start focusing on getting the idols you need, and filling your other gear slots with Exalts.

Endgame

Once you get to endgame you should have Boardman's Set online, your two main Ornate Heorot Idol, and some decent exalted items. You should keep checking exalts as they drop to min-max your stats as you climb corruption level.

Once you open empowered monos I would begin looking at farming Age of Winter and target echoes that reward unique items. This timeline is probably the best way to farm for Aurora's Time Glass. This unique isn't mandatory, but it pretty much elimites the previous issues of being 1-shot as soon as you enter an echo. The last thing I would look at farming for is Omen of Thunder from the Arena. This will just help round out the damage for your Summon Storm Totem. Outside of that it's just min maxing your exalts.

Loot Filter

No loot filter is provided for this guide. You can generate a loot filter for this build in the Build Planner or create one using Filter Wizard in the Loot Filters section.

FAQ

How much ward do you get?

I haven't been able to calculate it. When you get to the 60-65k ward point you'll see the bar go back to 0 and start over climbing up to the limit. What it's actually doing is saving that previous bar as a separate resource that's not shown. If you build the ward for a long time on say a boss, you can stand still and watch it drain backwards from 65k multiple times. So essentially you can have a few 100k ward at any given time.

Why not invest heavily into ward retention?

As you climb higher into the amount of ward you have, the faster it drains. When you're looking at having such a high amount, you can imagine it drains pretty quicky. What offsets this is storm totem's cast speed, so you'll be gainin ward faster than it drains. But investing heavily into ward retention for such a large amount of ward would mostly be a waste of a stat slot on items.

Do any of your other skills add to the ward?

No, although other skills like earthquake can create lightning storms, they're separate things. There is a bug where you can cast earthquake and gain large amounts of ward while standing in the area before you select an echo, but it doesn't work while in the actual echo itself.

How easy is this build?

As long as you have the set, this is the easiest build I've played thus far, and I have many characters. This shaman was the easiest leveling process, the easiest to build, and easiest to climb with. As long as you can get used to play around the early part of the echo, then you're pretty much immortal.

Video

Changelog

  • Build guide was published

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