[1.0.2.1] The Night King: Pet/Vitality Hybrid Cabalist. 5s MQ, 3.5m Glad. Necro & Devotion Guides

[DaShiv]

Any merit to the Hysteria relic instead of Guile at 25? Or is the flat damage aura too good for that many skellies?

For this build (and necromancer builds in general), flat damage will increase DPS more than an additional pet at lower levels, especially given the relative low base damage of pets early on and the shortage of flat damage bonuses at lower levels.

Concerning the step for lev 21. I would have thought it would be better to have one Enchant flint and one Vicious spikes ( empowered impaling weapons). Spikes to ramp up the damage of the archer skeles ?

Archers don’t actually inflict much piercing damage. From the Necromancer Abilities guide:

Skeletal Archer
Combat: Ranged
Health/Armor: No bonuses

Abilities (skill level 16):

1. Ancient Weapons[ul]
   [li]Default ranged attack, 100% weapon damage[/li]
   [li]44-60 physical damage, 18 vitality damage (74%/26%)[/ul][/li]2. Deathbolt[ul]
   [li]Projectile spell: 80% chance to pierce (scales with skill rank)[/li]
   [li]60 piercing damage, 27 vitality damage (69%/31%)[/ul]

[/li]
You can see that their default attack is actually physical/vitality just like warriors and revenants, and they only cast their piercing Deathbolt once per 3s or so.

On the other hand, Enchanted Flint is superior because:[ul]
[li]Arcanists inflict 100% fire damage, and Enchant Flint significantly improves that damage, especially at lower levels and damage multipliers.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Enchanted Flint not only adds flat fire damage, but also flat burn damage to all pets. Even though pet DOTs aren’t displayed, stacking burn DOTs using so many different pets produces significant DPS against bosses.[/ul][/li]

So… any way to incorporate this instead of Master’s Spellblade?

http://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9465

Not sure if there is a way to make the 1/5 chance to proc work for this kind of build though. If there is, that thing is freaking insane in that it’s both flat reduction AND % target resists reduction. Aaand it has some of that CDR.

Not for this build as is - Bone Harvest is our method of applying RR, and with Mindwarp’s 20% chance of applying RR and RR duration of 5s, we’d need to reduce Bone Harvest CD down to less than 1s before Mindwarp becomes feasible. It’s strictly designed to be a melee RR weapon. I wrote about this elsewhere:

Master's Spellblade Discussion

The reason I mentioned the Mythical Mindwarp is that the Plaguebearer’s Master’s Spellblade is even more niche than before, given that melee builds currently have a far superior flat RR option. And the only caster builds that have shown any willingness to give up tons of bonuses (including skill mods) on their weapons in exchange for flat RR are… pet builds. :rolleyes: Maybe even pet build, singular.