Vulkanos Fumor – Faction Unity Champion Spotlight

Vulkanos Fumor is a recently added Faction Unity champion added to Raid: Shadow Legends, bringing explosive… firepower to the Demonspawn faction. With his huge direct damage, overwhelming amounts of HP Burns and HP Burn Explosions, and tankiness, Vulkanos is a must-build champion for any account lucky enough to pull him.

Read on to find out what makes Vulkanos so strong, how to build him, and what Demonspawn to combo with him.

Vulkanos is essentially a DEF based damage dealer who has an incredibly powerful passive ability.

His A1 permanently increases its damage by 10%, up to 100%, every time it is used in a fight. He also counterattacks whenever an enemy under a HP Burn attacks your team. This is a very powerful default attack. The damage output is roughly equal to his A2 before the scaling damage; after you have fully stacked the 100% bonus, it will hit one enemy roughly twice as hard as his A2 will, but not as hard as his A3.

His A2 is his main AoE attack. This hits all enemies and does strong, but not insane, damage. It also places a Fear debuff for 2 turns which cannot be resisted by enemies under HP Burn. This is an incredibly strong form of control since it is very rare for any control debuffs to last for 2 turns.

His A3 is his big damaging move. This is a double hitting attack which scales up by 10% extra damage for each turn of HP Burn remaining on the enemy team, up to 100%. For example, against 4 enemies (such as Arena or Hydra fights), having 2-turn burns on each enemy would boost the damage by 80%.

His passive is much more powerful than it might initially seem. Whenever an enemy receives a buff or has their Turn Meter increased, he has a 70% chance (when booked—or a 75% chance with masteries) to place a HP Burn on them. If they already have a HP Burn debuff, he has a 70% chance (when booked) to activate it instead.

The key thing here is that this can activate multiple times in the same move. For example, when Siphi the Lost Bride applies 3 buffs and a Turn Meter boost to her entire team, Vulkanos gets 4 attempts to Burn or Explode the Burn on each enemy she affects. Check out Nub and YST’s showcase of Vulkanos where you can see this passive wipe out enemy teams entirely on its own.

Note that against the Hydra he can instantly Burn heads as soon as they respawn, since they spawn with the Serpents Will buff. Likewise, Poison Cloud is a buff, so he can instantly Burn heads that receive it as well, which counters the Cloud’s effects.

One weakness for Vulkanos is that against enemies who do not apply buffs or boost turn meter (i.e. most bosses), Vulkanos will not apply any HP Burns, so you will want another HP Burn champion on his team for those situations.

As a Faction Unity champion, Vulkanos should always be paired with other Demonspawn.

One faction ally drastically improves his ability to place and explode HP Burns, making them irresistible and unblockable. This is essential for arena where Block Debuffs and high resistance enemies are common, and it also lets you forgo building accuracy on Vulkanos.

Two faction allies give Vulkanos a stacking 5% Ignore Defence bonus whenever a HP Burn debuff activates on an enemy, which is a massive increase to his direct damage. (Against many enemies, expect to hit over 3 times harder once this bonus has been fully stacked.)

Three faction allies lets Vulkanos Block Revive any enemy that dies while under HP Burn. This is massively destructive in arena modes where revives are common, or against the Ice Golem boss who tries to revive his minions. (For Hydra, note that the 3-ally bonuses are of almost zero value, so he only needs two other Demonspawn for this game mode.)

The bonuses on his A3 from Faction Unity are nowhere near as impactful as his passive but are still worth noting: taking half damage is useful for surviving the initial turns in arena; reducing the cooldown of his A3 will boost his damage substantially over time; and ignoring Stoneskin against enemies under HP Burn is a useful trick for arena fights.

There are a lot of strong options in the Demonspawn depending on which area of the game you are fighting.

For a go-second, “kill them with burns” arena team, champions such as Wythir the Crowned, Helicath and Duchess Lilitu can be excellent options to keep Vulkanos alive. Duhr the Hungerer is your best epic option.

Not that Increase Defence, which boosts Vulkanos’ damage, is a rare buff in this faction, with only Wythir and Tyrant Ixilmor bringing it reliably.

Once you’ve unlocked her in Siege, Authoratrix Lamasu will be a powerful option in every game mode. The mythical champions, Karnage and Komidus, are both powerful options as well in multiple modes.

For Hydra or other bosses, consider Sicia Flametongue, Tyrant Ixilmor, or Akoth the Seared to have a consistent way to apply HP Burns. Gorlos Hellmaw brings a consistent Decrease Defence buff as an epic and even brings a single target HP Burn as well.

The key stats to look for on Vulkanos are:

1. Crit Rate to 100%
2. Defence
3. Crit Damage
4. Speed

Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and Defence are all needed to make Vulcanos deal more damage, so build as much as possible. Speed is always good: an early player should aim for 170; an endgame player for 230+; and inbetween for everyone else. Due to his passives, he does not need accuracy (if you’re running him with at least one other Demonspawn.)

The recommended sets for Vulcanos are:

1. Lethal
2. Savage
3. Pinpoint
4. Feral
5. Stoneskin

The build for Vulcanos can vary greatly depending on where you want to use him. Lethal or Savage are good options if you want to kickstart his Ignore Defence scaling in a double Demonspawn team, though they lose their value after enough HP Burns have detonated.

Stoneskin is always a strong option in arena to ensure he survives the first turn, especially since he excels against speed teams with his passive.

An alternative build is to simply exploit his passive HP Burn explosions with a high level Incinerate blessing against teams with a lot of buffs and turn meter boosting. Here Pinpoint or Feral can be needed to protect him from the Polymorph blessing. Since his personal damage becomes less important, you can sacrifice Ignore Defence or other damage stats here.

This is where things really start to get spicy.

The Incinerate blessing has long been considered a meme by the Raid community, since so few champions can use it effectively. When it works though, it really works well, and Vulkanos joins the ranks of Gizmak and Sulfyurion as a top tier choice for this blessing.

Incinerate very simply boosts the damage of HP Burn debuffs from the user in the arena. Since Vulkanos can apply and explode HP Burns incredibly frequently with his passive against champions with lots of buffs and turn meter boosting (such as Siphi), this can add a ton of damage to your team and potentially even scare opponents away from using buffing moves in Live Arena at all. The big downside of Incinerate is that it is currently useless in every mode outside of arena, including Siege.

Nature’s Wrath is a great alternative option which will boost the direct damage that Vulkanos deals substantially. It is also viable in every content area of the game.

Finally, although Polymorph is always a strong option (at 6-star only) for arena, Incinerate should be preferred.