Devotion advice needed

[videospirit]

Building a Stormcaller Shaman/Soldier. Definitely going to be getting kraken/Rhowan's crown/widow/ultos, Shephard of storms for constellations, but not sure what to do with the other devotion points. toad/quill/dryad/ulo/ghoul/behemoth or maybe toad/quill/empty throne/eel/lizard/bat/vire the stone matron or even toad/quill/chariot/tempest/purple crossroad/behemoth Or maybe something I haven't considered. What would you all recommend?

The mandatory 4 constellations use 22 devotion, give 1 ascendant 1 eldritch 2 chaos 6 primordial
and they require 3 ascendant, 9 eldritch, 4 chaos, and 4 primordial from the remaining constellations.

Edit: Removed Viper from the mandatory constelations

[Befuddled Honey Badger]

Fyi, Viper and Hand of Ultos can not stack together.

Out of the 3 types of resistance reduction (RR), the only kind that can stack with other sources of the same reduction type is:

1: -n% X Resistance e.g. Widow's Arcane Bomb, which can also bring enemy resistances into the negative. The sum of all these RR are added together along with the highest of the following RR type:

2: n Reduced Target's X resistance, e.g. Rhowan's Crown's Elemental Storm, does not stack with other reduction of the same type (highest value is chosen) and can also bring resistances into the negative. After this is added to the sum of all type 1 RR, then:

3: Viper/HoU type of resistance, i.e. n% Reduced Target's Resistance, is added. The highest value RR is chosen, can not bring resistances to negative and are calculated last in the chain.

Type 1 and 2 RR are Absolute Reductions. That is to say they reduce the resistance by the value shown, so if 1 + 2 = 100% and the enemy has 40% Resistance then you would take it to -60% Resistance.

Type 3 is % reduction, so taking level 25 HoU's 25% RR as an example, if the enemy has 40% Resistance then you would reduce the resistance to 30% (40 x 0.25 = 10), which is why it can not reduce Resistances to negative values.

Also, I have a very similar Devotion set up on my Thunderous Strike Vindicator that clears 100-160 Gladiator Crucible (having done 170 on my Tactician the extra legendary drops seem to negligible to finishing on 160 for me):

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/m23P4zQV

[videospirit]

I think I'll try kraken/ultos/widow/3 points of crown/behemoth/chariot/dryad/ghoul/quill or toad/phoenix/eel needs 55 devotion.

[videospirit]

played with the calculator, realized ghoul only needs 4 points for its skill and came up with kraken/widow/3 points of crown/behemoth/quill/chariot/primordial crossroad/ascendant crossroad/ultos/dryad/ulo/4 points of ghoul for 55 devotion gets all the devotion skills I'd really like but the third tier ones.

[videospirit]

Considered tree builds but couldn't get the skill without massive sacrifices but now that I know where the breakoffs are I came up with kraken/widow/3 points of crown/3 points of behemoth/wraith/quill/chariot/dryad/ulo/4 points of ghoul/4 points of tree/tortoise or solemn watcher or stag/5 points of tree and now I want to try this build, all the on hit heals and I can replace the ultos a bit with an augment on weapon I think

[Anathema]

You know... just give us the Grimtools link because you listing all the devotions all the time is hard to work with.

[myhr2]

One thing that is important to remember is that you must have enough eligible skills to link to all your devotions skills. Ultos + Widow + Rohwan's Crown + Dryad is a lot of "on attack" skills.

There are two Tier 3 Lightning constellations, Ultos and Spear of the Heavens. The advantage of Spear is that it's a "when hit" skill, and if you're going 2 handed melee, well, you'll get hit a lot. Also, it's a Ligthning/Aether devotion that synergize a wee-bit better with Widow (Ultos is Lightning/Ice)

Here are a couple suggestions :

Offensive set-up : everything you initially requested, plus Spear of the Heaven :
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/vNQzY8X2
Notes : you only have Behemoth as defensive constellation. Viper seems redundant, but is taken because Blue and Red constellation, and 3% OA is great anyway. There is Hawk too for OA.

Balanced set-up : Spear as Lightning Tier 3
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVlYP8jZ
Notes : spare points can go either into Chariot for more defense (and more OR), or Tempest, for more offense.

Tree build : Spear + Tree
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZwg658Z
Notes : ok, no Rohwan's crown, but it should be ok! You don't absolutely need all 3 types of RR for a successful build, 2 out of 3 is generally enough, in my experience (need confirmations for veteran,though, I only have one character in Ultimate). Cleansing Water can be linked to pretty much any skill you use at least once every 20 seconds, so there is that. Another important thing with this build : you don't need that much OA, since you have no "on crit" skills.

Ok, one last set-up, has Ultos + Widow + Rohwan's crown, plus high OA constellations like Hawk and Chariot :
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/m23PJG7V
Notes : spare points can go into Tempest or Dryad, but be careful of skill-linking, 4 "on-attach" skills are hard to set-up. Can aim for specific constellations skills like Giant's blood.

[Matthew]

On that last one you can get Chariot without Empty Throne. Spares enough points so you can get Eel, Tower, Panther, and the first two into Obelisk. Not the most exciting set-up, but gives 10% DA and more flat OA/DA.

[Jan]

Originally posted by myhr2:

One thing that is important to remember is that you must have enough eligible skills to link to all your devotions skills. Ultos + Widow + Rohwan's Crown + Dryad is a lot of "on attack" skills.

Notes : spare points can go into Tempest or Dryad, but be careful of skill-linking, 4 "on-attach" skills are hard to set-up. Can aim for specific constellations skills like Giant's blood.

This is so true.
Not only that the total number of skills to manage may reach some diminishing returns at some point, also it gets more and more difficult to just find good skills that can actually trigger the devotions.

This is for example why i wont pick raise the dead on my cabalist.
The devotion may be fine but there are several other devotions that are more important to trigger and the good skills already bound to those other more important devotions. So for me there is more value in not getting raise the dead and instead spending the points in something passive.

[videospirit]

The setup that grabs tree and viper https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2EAbkj2 weapon attack 16235

The setup with ultos ulo's and ghoul https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2m9l9l2 weapon attack 17636

[videospirit]

myhr2's spear/ultos build https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0PBPaV weapon attack 18425

My variant of spear/ultos that trades viper/quill for ghoul/wraith/scholar's flame https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0PBy1V weapon attack 18450

My variant of myhr2's spear/tree that trades ghoul/dryad/tortoise for lion/stag/crown/behemoth https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0PBP1V weapon attack 16746