VII. PET DEVOTIONS
Pet Devotions for Ashes of Malmouth [Updated: 1.0.4.0]
Pet builds derive more of their power from devotions than any other build type, so plotting the most effective devotion path is an essential step toward crafting a successful pet build. AoM brings new devotions, a new pet mastery, and new items/modifiers, the combination of which requires a thorough re-evaluation of the devotion choices available for the new setting.
Tier 3 (T3) Devotions[ul]
[li]T3 devotions can be found along the outer edges of constellation map. They require at least 10 affinities of a single color, but provide no affinities upon completion and therefore can never self-sustain.[/ul]T3 devotions are the heart of any devotion plan. Node for node, they can provide better bonuses and stronger unique effects than are available to T1 or T2 devotions. Experienced theorycrafters can even combine multiple T3’s in extremely powerful ways.[/li]
Pet builds are fortunate to have multiple T3 devotions to build toward. Here’s an analysis of their different options, in order of preference.
Rankings of T3 Devotions for Pet Builds[list=2][li]Dying God[/li]
[li]Mogdrogen the Wolf[/li]
[li]Aeon’s Hourglass[/li]
[li]Ishtak, the Spring Maiden[/li]
[li]Tree of Life[/li]
[li]Light of Empyrion[/list][/li]
1. Dying God
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+66% crit damage[/li]
[li]+290% to all damage[/li]
[li]+289% vitality damage[/li]
[li]+289% chaos damage[/li]
[li]+15% attack speed[/li]
[li]+10% movement speed[/li]
[li]10% chance to stun for 1s[/li]
[li]56% chance of 30% slow for 3s[/li]
[li]70% chance of terrify retaliation for 3s[/li]
[li]720 chaos retaliation[/ul]The combined pet bonuses from this devotion are unbeatable, especially for pet vitality or chaos conversion builds. AoM’s introduction of additional sources of +% OA for pets – from mythical items, new devotions, and the Master of Death exclusive – makes Dying God’s massive crit bonus even more valuable than it was before. This is because the higher the rate of critical hits, the more important it is to increase critical hit damage. Endgame pet builds in AoM can easily reach 60-100% OA or more, and at that OA level it’s imperative to make the most of crit damage.[/li]
Note that Dying God is the only devotion with a serious penalty: the constant health drain from Hungering Void will force pet builds to divert resources away from pets and invest into health sustain instead. This can be a harder task than for most other build types, since pet builds can’t simply equip an item or component to heal themselves using ADCTH from their pet’s attacks. Thus, the cost of Dying God is actually higher than implied by its affinity requirements. Nevertheless, paying this price of admission is well worth the results from the strongest pet devotion available.
Any cabalist pet build should automatically take Dying God over Mogdrogen, because cabalist provides easy +% pet OA (Master of Death), +pet speed (Manipulation), and regen (Blood of Dreeg) to complement Dying God.
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Crit bonus was reduced from +72% to +66%.
2. Mogdrogen the Wolf
Pet bonuses:[ul][li]24 bleeding damage over 3 seconds (8 bleeding dam/sec)[/li]
[li]+20% offensive ability[/li]
[li]+110% to all damage[/li]
[li]+46% attack speed[/li]
[li]+46% movement speed[/ul]Although prior to AoM this devotion had reigned supreme as the best for most pet builds, Mogdrogen slipped down to second place post-xpac due to +% pet OA and +% pet speed being more easily accessible from new sources (such as Eldritch Mirror). That said, this can still be the best T3 devotion for some pet builds that meet one or more of the following criteria:[ul][*]Builds that must sacrifice too much to meet the sustain for Hungering Void.[/li]
[li]Builds without Master of Death that are short on pet OA.[/li]
[li]Builds without Manipulation that are short on pet speed.[/li]
[li]Builds already having high pet crit, such as from Primal Bond and/or Elemental Balance.[/li]
[li]Builds that synergize better with other green/purple devotions.[/li]
[li]Hybrid builds that also utilize player-based bleed damage.[/ul]With the addition of the Quill and Toad for cheap green/purple, Mogdrogen is far easier to squeeze into devotion plans than ever before, opening up many new combinations. It can be especially devastating when paired with another T3 devotion, such as when coupled with Dying God to create the Max Pet DPS Devotion Path.[/li]
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Added 8 Bleed damage / 3s for pets.
3. Aeon’s Hourglass
Pet bonuses: none.
It’s unusual for a devotion with zero listed pet bonuses to be listed among pet devotions. However, with AoM’s increased devotion cap, devotion plans using multiple T3s are far more viable than ever, and Aeon’s Hourglass is undoubtedly the best second (or third) T3 devotion for pet builds.
As previously explained in Understanding Pet Damage: “CDR is extremely helpful for pet builds to maintain devotion procs and skill effects.” With the new summons and effects introduced by AoM, the CD reduction from Time Dilation (TD) now has an even larger impact on pet builds:[ul]
[li]Army maintenance via faster resummoning, which is especially important for pets with multiple summons such as Raise Skeleton and for mastery summons (such as briarthorn or hellhound) with increased summon limit via skill modifiers. Every single summon has an associated cooldown, and reducing that cooldown allows for quick replacement of combat casualties and easy “healing” by resummoning injured pets.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Increased number of pets from new temporary summons such as blight fiend (with Unstable Anomaly) and sundered wraith (Reap Spirit). Maximizing their numbers requires some combination of TD, CDR, and/or skill modifiers.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Persistence of pet devotions and temporary pets such as buffs from Hungering Void and Howl of Mogdrogen, as well as temporary pets from Bysmiel’s Command and Conjure Primal Spirit. TD can easily make these effects effectively permanent with over 100% uptime.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]More frequent use of temporary and/or instant party buffs such as Call of the Grave and Blood of Dreeg’s instant heal.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Weaken more enemies using CD-based debuffs such as Decay, High Potency, and Focused Gaze.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Improved summoner survivability by improving uptime of abilities for mitigation (such as Mark of Torment and Mirror) and sustain (such as Giant’s Blood and Tree of Life).[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Free resets of offensive devotion procs and better synergy with direct damage abilities for hybrid pet builds. Both of these can be very potent with duration-based AOE effects, especially those with longer cooldowns such as Reckless Tempest and Devastation.[/ul]Although Aeon’s Hourglass can’t compete with the “Big Two” devotions in terms of raw pet DPS, its devotion nodes provide very strong defensive bonuses and the sheer scope of TD’s utility is unparalleled. Almost every facet of pet builds is governed in whole or in part by cooldowns, and pet builds can have literally dozens of cooldowns running at the same time (most of them invisibly). Thus, having all cooldowns being frequently reset by TD dramatically increases overall build performance.[/li]
Aeon’s Hourglass is especially effective for necromancer-based builds to help with resummoning of skeletons, and its red/blue affinity pairs extremely well with Dying God.
4. Ishtak, the Spring Maiden
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]33 physical damage[/li]
[li]Taunt target[/li]
[li]+130 offensive ability[/li]
[li]+130 defensive ability[/li]
[li]+3% defensive ability[/li]
[li]+4% attack speed[/li]
[li]+4% movement speed[/li]
[li]+120 health/s[/li]
[li]25% fire resistance[/li]
[li]20% bleed resistance[/li]
[li]25% poison & acid resistance[/ul]A build-defining devotion, Ishtak is one of several methods of creating a taunt build that allows pets to steal aggro away from the summoner. Ishtak also provides flat physical damage for physical conversion builds and/or builds that are low in flat damage, and its damage absorb is especially helpful for masteries without a primary mitigation ability (i.e. Mirror, Blast Shield, etc). Shamans fit all of these criteria perfectly, and the physical resistance from Emboldening Presence also greatly complements pet taunts. Further, Heart of the Wild has superb synergy with Ishtak’s massive flat health bonuses.[/li]
Taunting lends itself to a passive and/or defensive playstyle, because a DPS-centric active playstyle that relies on aggro-causing debuffs (such as Curse of Frailty) would thoroughly undermine the effectiveness of pet taunts. Therefore, Ishtak is primarily a pet utility devotion and not a max-DPS devotion, even though its OA, flat damage, and speed bonuses improve pet DPS to some extent. Ishtak’s absorb proc can also allow the devotion to act as a secondary defensive T3, especially due to its strong blue synergy with Dying God.
5. Tree of Life
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]10%+700 health restored[/li]
[li]+10% health[/li]
[li]+80% health regeneration[/li]
[li]+150 health/s[/li]
[li]+55% energy regeneration[/li]
[li]+12 energy/s[/ul]Tree of Life finishes a distant 5th place, far behind the other T3 pet devotions due to its purely defensive and highly niche nature. Healing Rain is the only devotion proc that can heal pets, which can complement pet healing via mastery (Blood of Dreeg, Wendigo Totem, Word of Renewal) or items. Taunt builds in particular may consider whether this has a place in their devotion plan. Alternately, Healing Rain can also help offset the health drain from Hungering Void for builds that lack better alternatives, and/or provide energy for casting-hungry builds.[/li]
Pet builds that don’t fall into one of these specific use categories should use one of the higher ranked T3 devotions instead.
6. Light of Empyrion
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+6% health[/li]
[li]+5% max all resistance[/li]
[li]15% aether resistance[/li]
[li]15% chaos resistance[/li]
[li]15% vitality resistance[/li]
[li]15% elemental resistance[/ul]Don’t let the pet bonuses fool you: this is not an actual pet devotion. The provided resistance bonuses don’t come anywhere close to being enough to help reach the increased resistance cap, and the proc’s AOE is far too small and too negligible in damage to be of use for a pet build. This T3 should be completely avoided by pet builds.[/li]
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Corrected pet Elemental Resist bonus to be 15% Elemental Resist instead of 15% Increased Current Elemental Resist.
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Pet bonuses were removed from Rattosh, thus it was also removed from this T3 list. Its previous entry has been archived below:[spoiler]6. Rattosh, the Veilwarden
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]-20% enemy vitality resistance[/li]
[li]-8% enemy life leech resistance[/li]
[li]+30% to all damage[/li]
[li]+100% vitality damage[/li]
[li]+8% health[/li]
[li]15% vitality resistance[/ul]Rattosh looks great on paper, but winds up being deceptively bad for pet builds in practice: the pet bonuses are simply far worse than competing devotions. Even for necromancer builds with a lot of pet vitality damage, Mogdrogen and especially Dying God’s bonuses both far outpace Rattosh. To add insult to injury, even Shepherd’s Crook (a T1 devotion) improves pet DPS better than Rattosh does.[/li]
Although the vitality RR might seem tempting, remember that all 3 of the major pet classes already have vitality RR (Spectral Wrath, Vulnerability, and Devouring Swarm), which makes taking a T3 for additional -20 vitality RR exorbitantly inefficient for pet builds. All pet builds also inflict many different damage types, and thus they should stick to using more efficient T2 devotions to improve their RR and leave Rattosh for the vitality/leech casters.[/spoiler]
Tier 1 (T1) and Tier 2 (T2) Devotions[ul]
[li]T1 devotions can be found near the center of the constellation map. They require 1 affinity point to unlock, but provide multiple affinity points upon completion. All T1 devotions can self-sustain (i.e. fulfill their affinity requirement using their own completion affinity), allowing for the removal of any prerequisite affinities originally used to unlock the T1.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]T2 devotions can be found sandwiched between T1 and T3 devotions on the constellation map. They require multiple affinity points to unlock, and provide less affinity than T1’s upon completion. T2’s cannot self-sustain on their own without the help of additional affinities from other completed devotions.[/ul]The lower tier devotions provide the affinity needed to reach T3 devotions, so for T1-T2 devotions, affinity points-per-node and the type of affinity provided can be just as important as the actual player and pet bonuses themselves. Remember that the T3 devotions should be doing the heaviest lifting for pet builds, so the goal should be to meet those T3 requirements first and foremost, rather than trying to collect every T1-T2 devotion with pet bonuses.[/li]
Note that T1 devotions are actually more important than T2 devotions, because most of a devotion path’s affinity points will come from T1 devotions. Also, taking too many T2 devotions will make it difficult or impossible to complete multiple T3’s; in that way, T2’s actually compete with T3’s indirectly. Pay close attention in choosing the best T1’s to provide the necessary affinity for T3’s, then add/substitute in whichever T2’s that affinities permit.
For pet builds, these are the best T1’s and T2’s to pay attention to:
Top T1 Devotions for Pet Builds[list=2][li]Shepherd’s Crook[/li]
[li]Raven[/li]
[li]Panther[/li]
[li]Toad[/li]
[li]Hawk[/list][/li]
1. Shepherd’s Crook
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+28% crit damage[/li]
[li]+210% to all damage[/li]
[li]+13% health[/li]
[li]+5% defensive ability[/li]
[li]15% elemental resistance[/li]
[li]+300% to all retaliation[/ul]Shepherd’s Crook provides enormous pet bonuses for a lowly T1 devotion, and is usually the first priority for any build that uses pet scaling. The only drawback is that both CDR and some type of spammy attack ability are needed to maximize uptime on the devotion proc.[/li]
2. Raven
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]6 lightning damage[/li]
[li]+5% offensive ability[/li]
[li]+15% to all damage[/li]
[li]+60% lightning damage[/ul]Raven’s flat damage makes it a terrific bargain for a T1 devotion, especially when coupled with a very useful OA bonus as well. The devotion provides fairly good affinity efficiency, but having all of its affinity awarded as green makes Raven a tough fit for devotion paths using blue-red and/or blue-yellow T3’s.[/li]
3. Panther
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+5% crit damage[/li]
[li]+5% offensive ability[/li]
[li]+15% to all damage[/ul]A deceptively understated T1 devotion, Panther’s crit and OA bonuses continue to scale extremely well into endgame. Just as valuable, however, is Panther’s excellent affinity value; the yellow affinity provided is especially helpful to meet requirements for devotions such as Bard’s Harp and Staff of Rattosh. Even for builds not aiming toward the blue T3’s, Panther is well worth picking up for its top-shelf combination of affinities and pet bonuses.[/li]
4. Toad
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+4% Attack Damage Converted to Health (ADCTH)[/li]
[li]+3% offensive ability[/ul]Already one of the best T1’s for completion affinities, Toad becomes an automatic pickup for any green/purple pet build with its new pet bonuses in 1.0.4.0. The OA bonus on its own is useful for all builds, while the ADCTH bonus can be a major survivability boon for skeleton builds but becomes much less useful for slow tanky pets such as briarthorns.[/li]
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Added 3% Offensive Ability and 4% Damage Converted to Health bonuses for pets.
5. Hawk
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+4% crit damage[/li]
[li]+2% offensive ability[/ul]With the 1.0.4.0 update, Hawk becomes a notable pet T1 devotion. The combination of solid OA/crit bonuses for both player and pets makes Hawk a decent T1 for hybrid pet builds, but its completion affinity bonus is rather mediocre.[/li]
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Added 4% Crit damage and 2% Offensive Ability bonuses for pets.
Top T2 Devotions for Pet Builds
[list=2][li]Bysmiel’s Bonds[/li]
[li]Manticore[/li]
[li]Bard’s Harp[/li]
[li]Huntress[/li]
[li]Staff of Rattosh[/list][/li]
1. Bysmiel’s Bonds
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]Summon Eldritch Hound (physical/acid damage)[/li]
[li]+70% to all damage[/li]
[li]+8% attack speed[/li]
[li]+8% movement speed[/li]
[li]+10% health[/li]
[li]20% vitality resistance[/ul]This T2 devotion is the only one to provide a pet-scaled pet – all other devotion pets are player-scaled. This makes Bysmiel’s Bonds especially valuable for non-necromancer builds with low pet counts. Builds without Mogdrogen (devotion) and/or Manipulation (Occultist passive) will also find the pet speed bonus extra useful.[/li]
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Health bonus increased from +8% to +10%. Eldritch Hound summons closer to enemy and has slightly increased attack speed.
2. Manticore
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]28 Reduced Target’s Resistances for 5 seconds[/li]
[li]+3% offensive ability[/li]
[li]+60% poison damage[/li]
[li]+5% health[/ul]Already an important T2 devotion to provide supporting RR for the wide variety of damage types that pet builds must deal with, Manticore leapfrogs the competition to become even more essential with added pet bonuses from 1.0.4.0. Even elemental pet builds should generally pick Manticore over Rowan’s Crown.[/li]
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Added 60% Poison damage, 5% Health and 3% Offensive Ability bonuses for pets.
3. Bard’s Harp
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+110 offensive ability[/li]
[li]+110 defensive ability[/li]
[li]25% energy restored[/li]
[li]+7 energy/s[/li]
[li]45% reduced entrapment duration[/li]
[li]45% slow resistance[/ul]Although there are other devotions that increase pet %OA, this T2 devotion is unique in providing pets with a large chunk of flat OA. Considering that endgame pet builds in AoM can reach very high +% pet OA values, flat OA bonuses can offer much better returns for pet builds than simply stacking +%OA even higher. Bard’s Harp also buffs the summoner with lots of DA, health, resistances, and especially energy regen; the latter is very useful to support continuous resummoning of pets (especially temporary pets) or to power expensive attack abilities such as Reap Spirit. Uptime for the Inspiration proc is significantly improved for high CDR and/or TD builds.[/li]
4. Huntress
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]18 bleeding damage over 3 seconds (6 bleeding dam/sec)[/li]
[li]-32% enemy bleeding resistance[/li]
[li]+5% offensive ability[/li]
[li]+8% health[/ul]An already solid pet T2 devotion with a very well-rounded proc, Huntress becomes even more competitive with additional flat bleed damage after 1.0.4.0. Skeleton builds can stack the flat bleed damage especially effectively, and Huntress becomes the only devotion to be granting pets flat damage while simultaneously inflicting RR to amplify that damage as well as all other bleed damage, such as from Rend, Conjure Primal Spirit, etc.[/li]
Patch 1.0.4.0 Update: Added 6 Bleed damage / 3s bonus for pets.
5. Staff of Rattosh
Pet bonuses:[ul]
[li]+6% crit damage[/li]
[li]+3% offensive ability[/li]
[li]+80% to all damage[/li]
[li]+3% defensive ability[/li]
[li]15% aether resistance[/li]
[li]10% vitality resistance[/ul]A T2 devotion with a solid set of both offensive and defensive pet bonuses, Staff of Rattosh also provides some great defensive bonuses for the player as well (+5% health, +200 health, +20 DA, +15% aether resistance, +10% vitality resistance). Builds without Dying God should especially consider Staff for the extra crit damage. The main drawback to Staff is competition from other devotions, especially from its cheaper T1 rivals that also provide similar offensive bonuses.[/li]
Special Topic: Devotions for Raise Skeletons (Necromancer Mastery)
A devotion proc bound to Raise Skeleton can be triggered by any of its skeletons, with up to 10 max skeletons (up to 12 max with skill modifiers) all making use of the same proc. This can greatly increase devotion proc frequency! Choosing an appropriate devotion based on the build’s RR profile can also significantly improve proc performance.
Note that all skeletons will also share the same devotion proc cooldown. However, the shorter the proc cooldown (CD), the more efficiently it can be shared among all skeletons. With short enough CD (especially with high CDR), multiple skeletons can continuously spam devotion procs to provide significant additional DPS. Keep in mind that devotions that inflict damage on a per-tick basis (such as Aetherfire, Rend, Wendigo’s Mark, etc) won’t stack when multiple instances are applied to the same target.
No-CD AOE devotion procs:[ul]
[li]Aetherfire[/li]> [li]Flame Torrent[/li]> [li]Rend[/ul]Very low-CD (<1s) AOE devotion procs:[ul][/li]> [li]Bull Rush[/li]> [li]Guardian’s Gaze[/li]> [li]Twin Fangs[/ul]Low-CD (<1.6s) AOE devotion procs:[ul][/li]> [li]Acid Spray[/li]> [li]Blind Fury[/li]> [li]Elemental Storm[/li]> [li]Fissure[/li]> [li]Hand of Ultos[/li]> [li]Maul[/li]> [li]Scorpion Sting[/li]> [li]Tsunami[/ul][/li]
Alternatively, no-CD devotions without AOEs can also be bound to Raise Skeletons to provide numerous iterations of direct damage and/or debuff effects. High skeleton count can help make up for the devotions’ lack of AOE.
No-CD non-AOE devotion procs:[ul]
[li]Assassin’s Mark[/li]> [li]Eldritch Fire i[/i][/li]> [li]Rumor i[/i][/li]> [li]Wendigo’s Mark[/li]> [li]Will of Rattosh[/ul][/li]
Note that conversion affects damage from devotion procs, including skeleton-specific conversion bonuses from Will of the Crypt. Flat damage bonuses for pets are also applied to devotion procs based on the %WD of the proc. Therefore, the following reduced-CD devotions may be of special interest:
Physical/IT devotions (for conversion builds):[ul]
[li]Blind Fury[/li]> [li]Bull Rush[/li]> [li]Maul[/ul]%WD devotions (for builds with very high flat damage):[ul][/li]> [li]Blind Fury[/li]> [li]Bull Rush[/li]> [li]Flame Torrent[/li]> [li]Maul[/li]> [li]Scorpion Sting[/li]> [li]Tsunami[/li]> [li]Twin Fangs[/ul][/li]
Lastly, certain devotion procs are centered on the attacker instead of the target. This can cause wasted cooldowns if the devotion is accidentally triggered by skeletal archers or arcanists outside of melee range, rather than by skeletal warriors or revenants. To mitigate this issue, some attacker-centered devotions are restricted to only proc from melee attacks, which prevents wasted cooldowns by ranged skeletons.
Attacker-centered devotions that are melee-restricted (remains efficient when used by mixed skeletons):[ul]
[li]Blind Fury[/li]> [li]Bull Rush (unlisted melee restriction)[/li]> [li]Maul[/ul]Attacker-centered devotions that can be procced at range (thus CDs are effectively longer than listed due to misfiring):[ul][/li]> [li]Flame Torrent[/li]> [li]Guardian’s Gaze[/li]> [li]Scorpion Sting[/ul]Devotion effects centered on the target instead of the attacker will not suffer from this issue.[/li]