IV. PLAYER’S GUIDE
Devotions
[Add: Crossroads Ascendant – Purple]
1. Shepherd’s Crook (Bind: Curse of Frailty)
[Remove: Crossroads Ascendant – Purple]
[Add: Crossroads Chaos – Red]
[Add: Rat – all 4 nodes]
[Add: Crossroads Eldritch – Green]
2. Huntress (Bind: Raise Skeletons) – 5 nodes for proc only
[Add: Crossroad Primordial – Blue]
3. Lizard
[Remove: Crossroad Primordial – Blue]
4. Behemoth (Bind: Master of Death)
[Remove: Rat – all 4 nodes]
5. Eel
6. Viper
[Remove: Crossroads Chaos – Red]
7. Bat (Bind: Ravenous Earth)
[Remove: Crossroads Eldritch – Green]
8. Wretch
9. Dying God (Bind: Reap Spirit)
10. Widow (Bind: Summon Blight Fiend)
11. Aeon’s Hourglass (Bind: Bone Harvest)
12. Player’s Choice (1 point) – suggested options:[ul]
[li]Crossroads: 5% health[/li]
[li]Empty Throne: 15% stun resist[/li]
[li]Bysmiel’s Bonds: 30% pet damage[/li]
[li]Huntress (middle node): assorted bonuses[/ul][/li]
Equipment Priority
- +% pet damage until at least 600-800% fully buffed. Keep in mind that your pets will have end up with higher final damage than listed since bonuses to individual damage types are unlisted.
- Pet +% attack speed bonuses until at least +50% fully buffed. Don’t worry too much about hitting this threshold until you’ve maxed Manipulation. Keep in mind that “total speed” will also increase attack speed.
- Pet +% offensive ability bonuses until at least +25% fully buffed. Don’t worry too much about hitting this threshold until you’ve maxed Master of Death.
- Large player health bonuses.
- Resistances (starting in Elite) until capped.
- Health regen (starting in Elite) to offset Hungering Void.
- Other pet offensive bonuses, including bonuses greater than thresholds set above.
- Player DA.
- Player +% vitality damage.
- Any other useful bonuses.
Keep in mind that larger bonuses in lower-priority areas can be more cost-effective than smaller bonuses in higher-priority areas, depending on your current need.
Low priority: Pet defensive bonuses, since our build doesn’t use pets to hold aggro. Swarmlings and skeletons also have minimal health, rendering defensive bonuses ineffectual. Only pick up pet defensive bonuses with the lowest opportunity costs.
Leveling Guide
Invest your first 85 attribute points into physique. Split the remaining points between physique and spirit to meet endgame equipment requirements as needed. You’ll need 724 spirit for endgame caster off-hands.
Factions: Side with Order of Death’s Vigil, The Outcast, and Barrowholm in all difficulties.
In Normal/Veteran, proceed in Act 5 up until allying yourself with Barrowholm, then move on to Elite. In Elite, skip Acts 5 and 6 entirely. You’ll level faster and gain more loot by jumping up immediately to the next difficulty.
Leveling: Milestones below may differ by 1-2 levels depending on your quest progression. Additional skill points are available from “Kasparov’s Experiment” and “The Hidden Path” in all difficulties (6 total), and “The Other You” in Ultimate difficulty only (1 total).
Levels 1-13:
Take Necromancer mastery to 1 and max out Raise Skeletons, then continue to mastery 10 and max out Undead Legion. Once available, bind Rend to Raise Skeletons.
Level 13-46:
Take Occultist mastery to 50, maxing out the mastery bar. Add the following skills along the way:[ul]
[li]Level 13: 4 points into Curse of Frailty (CoF). Once available, bind Shepherd’s Call to CoF.[/li]
[li]Level 18: 3 points into Vulnerability.[/li]
[li]Level 20: 1 point into Summon Hellhound. Apply Enchanted Flints to both your weapon and off-hand for 2x Burning Weapons (add both buffs to 2nd quickbar and always toggle on). Once available, bind Giant’s Blood to Burning Weapons.[/li]
[li]Level 21: Max out Blood of Dreeg (BoD) and make sure that BoD is always active.[/li]
[li]Level 25: Equip Guile (relic) if available.[/li]
[li]Level 26: 1 point into Summon Familiar and max out Storm Spirit.[/li]
[li]Level 35: Equip Deathchill (relic) if available. Shop for pet gear from Rovers and Order of Death’s Vigil.[/li]
[li]Level 42: 1 point into Bonds of Bysmiel and max out Manipulation.[/ul][/li]
Levels 46-74:
Take Necromancer mastery to 50, maxing out the mastery bar. Add the following skills along the way:[ul]
[li]Level 46: 1 point into Bone Harvest. Once available, bind Time Dilation to Bone Harvest. Craft and equip an Adept’s Spellblade; ignore the affix for now.[/li]
[li]Level 48: 1 point into Summon Blight Fiend. Once available, bind Widow to Summon Blight Fiend.[/li]
[li]Level 48: 1 point into Ravenous Earth. Once available, bind Twin Fangs to Ravenous Earth.[/li]
[li]Level 51: 1 point into Dread.[/li]
[li]Level 51: 1 point into Will of the Crypt.[/li]
[li]Level 54: 1 point into Rotting Fumes.[/li]
[li]Level 55: Shop for pet jewelry from Black Legion.[/li]
[li]Level 65: Craft and equip a Master’s Spellblade. From this point through endgame: whenever you have the iron bits and crafting materials available, keep crafting additional Master’s Spellblades until you have one with the Plaguebearer’s prefix to use. Then, continue with the crafting until you have a Plaguebearer’s prefix with 33 RR or higher. Always use whichever Spellblade you have with the highest RR value – the other stats are not important.[/ul][/li]> Spellblade Crafting:
The Plaguebearer’s Master’s Spellblade should be crafted by a low-level mule at around level 12 to match the lowest level of the Plaguebearer’s prefix. (Load up either the shared stash or a stash tool like GDStash/GDIA with rares/epics to sell for iron bits to craft with.) Two reasons to do it this way:[list=2]
[li]At such a low level, the affix pool is far less diluted by affixes that only exist at higher levels. This results in a much higher chance of successfully rolling the Plaguebearer’s prefix. The decreased level has no impact on the strength of the RR effect.[/li]> [li]Many affixes have a larger deviation on rolls at lower levels. Because of this, it’s possible to roll up to +2/-2 on the RR effect of the Spellblade compared to crafting it at max level. Thus, equipping the best product from several successfully created Spellblades will usually result in +1 or +2 higher RR than crafting with a high-level character.[/list][/li][ul][li]Level 65: Shop for pet items from Coven and Barrowholm.[/li]
[li]Level 67: 1 point into Reap Spirit. Once available, bind Hungering Void to Reap Spirit.[/li]
[li]Level 68: Max out Master of Death. Re-bind Giant’s Blood to Master of Death.[/li]
[li]Level 70: Equip Primal Instinct (relic) if available. Shop for elite pet gear from Rovers and Order of Death’s Vigil.[/ul][/li]
Level 74-100:
Max out Rotting Fumes, then Soul Harvest, and finally Hellfire.
As your close in on endgame, you’ll want to refer to the Grimtools link for the final build as a reference. Try to keep your flat damage pet bonuses (BoD, Hellfire, Storm Spirit, Soul Harvest) overleveled and your primary resist reductions (CoF, Vulnerability) at softcap to support your pets.
Have fun! And if you have any questions that haven’t already been answered in all the posts above, feel free to post them in the comment thread below.