I crafted around 15 so far and the highest resist reduction I got was 17 a few times… am I doing something wrong? I used a level 12 character and crafted them at the crucible blacksmith.
I’m not sure I get the part about equipping the best product, when i’m crafting them with a level 12 character I can’t equip them.
I’ve now crafted about 400 Master’s Spellblades using a L12 mule as suggested. However not once has the Plaguebearer’s prefix appeared.
I’ve seen plenty of other prefixes like Thunderstruck, but not Plasguebearers.
Can I double check I’m doing this correctly, and that the prefix isnt bugged or something? Seems a lot of spellblades to craft and not see a single instance of Plasguebearer.
Hey nobody needs to queue up to speak here - there are always multiple angles of looking at things!
Let’s start with Flame Torrent: it’s gotten a lot of attention lately, but IMO it’s massively overhyped and overvalued. Flame Torrent is great while leveling and for lower-DPS skeleton builds, but it significantly underperforms at endgame when you’re looking at high DPS pet builds (such as the 1M+ variety).
First, some guideposts. I had posted this earlier in another thread about benchmarking pet DPS:
(For consistency with the videos, we’ll use 1.0.2.1 builds and numbers.)
Let’s assume a consistent 4 concurrent procs of Flame Torrent for an average of 100k DPS. (Completely ballpark estimate, but this doesn’t matter very much for our purposes.) This means that, for the sake of argument, Skelemancer has 570k DPS with 100k additional coming from Flame Torrent, i.e. Flame Torrent represents an extra 17.5% DPS for that build. However, Flame Torrent would only add an additional 7.5% DPS to the Night King. That’s actually not very much: for example, the Night King’s DPS could be improved by 7.5 percent with just +16% more attack speed from items/devos.
Now look at what happens when you go in the opposite direction: for a build with only 200k DPS, another 100K DPS from Flame Torrent is going to represent a huge +50% increase to DPS, which means of course they’re going to sing mad praises about how amazing Flame Torrent is.
IMO Flame Torrent is a DPS crutch to help builds with weak DPS: how fervently someone advocates for Flame Torrent becomes a reflection of how badly their build relies on it for DPS. On the other hand, once you’ve reached 1M+ DPS by building up a serious reservoir of all the pet DPS components (flat damage, +% damage, RR, OA/crit, speed, and pet count), then a comparatively small percentage increase to any of those factors thereafter will further boost DPS by more than Flame Torrent ever could. It simply becomes more efficient to just pile on any of those 6 DPS factors even higher since they’re all multiplicative factors. Remember: multiplicative stacking is incredibly powerful, and pet builds excel at it better than any other build type.
Flame Torrent also suffers from some serious mechanical disadvantages:[ul]
[li]DPS loss. In order effectively make use of Flame Torrent, most players will walk all pets (including non-skeletons) directly next to their intended target so that skeletons alone can use their procs. However, this costs DPS due to (a) interruption of autoattack from all pets (at a cost of 1M+/s), and (b) exposure of all pets (including ranged pets) to additional damage and unnecessary casualties, especially from AOEs.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Limited coverage. Flame Torrent’s limited range means that outside of the “skeleton walking” tactic for burst damage, it actually affects relatively few targets compared to other devotions with better-coverage AOEs. In particular, Flame Torrent is largely wasted on ranged skeletons.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]Limited RR. Most experienced players would consider about 60-100 RR to be a good benchmark for primary damage type(s) at endgame, but skeleton builds using Flame Torrent almost never achieve anywhere close to this much RR for fire and/or chaos. This means that while skeletal Flame Torrent looks good at early difficulties and against low-resistance targets like the practice dummy and Mad Queen, it significantly underperforms against many target types (such as Chthonians) during actual gameplay in Ultimate/Gladiator.[/ul][/li]None of this means that Flame Torrent is bad - it’s simply deeply flawed, and it’s better early on in a build’s life than for optimal max-DPS at endgame.
Moving on, let’s consider Rend as one of the alternatives to Flame Torrent. Rend has its own issues: as a debuff with an attached damage component, multiple Rend procs on the same target won’t stack damage, and it also won’t benefit from crit DOT mechanics for continuous crits. There will be no abusive single-target damage here. But even without multi-proc stacking or perma-crits, Rend provides some useful benefits:[ul]
[li]+5% pet OA (Huntress node). This increases Rend damage and also further multiplies single-target DPS.[/ul][ul][/li]
[li]-150 enemy OA. I discussed its value in “Debuff All the Things” in the Analysis section, and reapersgaze touched upon it earlier as well. In short,[/li] it reduces your resummoning of pets, and more importantly, it reduces the need to kite, which hugely improves DPS.[/ul][ul]
[li]-32% bleed RR. The built-in RR for its own damage type means that Rend’s damage is far more consistent against all enemies, regardless of situation.[/ul][/li]That’s all nice and good, but what about Rend’s actual damage output when used by the Night King, especially since pet bleed damage isn’t displayed on-screen? Here are the damage factors:[ul]
[li]285 base damage[/li]
[li]+2071% pet bleed damage, thanks to +% to all pet damage - remember that pets can easily inflict any damage type![/li]
[li]-131% bleed RR (CoF + Spellblade + Rend; reduced to -119% after 1.0.3.0 nerf)[/li]
[li]3.78x max pet crit (reduced to 3.62x max pet crit after 1.0.3.0 nerf) with over 4k effective pet OA[/ul][/li]Throw in Crucible bonuses, and this comes out to well over 50k/s max bleed per target per second. As for how many targets Rend can hit…
…approximately every enemy on-screen, permanently, as if the entire arena floor were made of lava for them. Considering there can often be 20+ enemies on-screen at once in Crucible, Rend is easily capable of 500k DPS or more, just by itself. Of course all that DPS is completely spread out as AOE, but when your build already has 1M+ single-target DPS, having a very large and steady supply of AOE damage is extremely useful for improving clear times and for protection from being swarmed.
In fact, Rend is so effective that sometimes the fastest and most effective way to deal with trash is to just cast a single CoF on them and let Rend finish them off. In the same Gladiator run, you can see this is exactly what I did with the NW and NE spawns in wave 141, and the SE spawns in wave 147. This allows pets to be more efficiently deployed against targets where their massive single-target DPS can be put to better use.
tl;dr: Many pet cabalists rely on Flame Torrent to supplement their lackluster skeleton DPS because their single-target DPS and boss kill times would be extremely lacking otherwise. However, once skeleton DPS is multiplied high enough to reach top tier levels, there are other, more interesting skeleton devotion options like Rend that open up.
Bysmiel’s Command provides better pure single-target DPS, while Huntress provides a smaller amount (via +% OA) but will also shred enemy OA and inflict AOE damage. IMO you receive better returns from providing badly-needed cover to one’s weakness than from fighting diminishing returns by trying to pile one’s strengths even higher.
If you’re playing HC, the OA shred from Rend becomes even more valuable.
As described in the guide, you’ll want to:[ul]
[li]Craft at Angrim for +% armor bonuses.[/li]
[li]The process is to repeatedly craft Master’s Spellblades until you have several with “Plaguebearer’s” prefixes. Other affixes will NOT generate as high of RR values.[/li][*]Wait until your intended character is at least level 65, then craft the items with a level 12 mule and give the best Spellblade to your intended level 65+ character to equip. The leveling guide explicitly lists level 65 for this task.[/ul]
NVM, I finally got one after about 600 crafts.
I crafted mine exactly as I described pre-AoM, but affixes on caster weapons were known to be bugged in the first few patches of AoM, and it’s still not clear whether the problems with affixes have been resolved. You can either check if the the results are any different crafting at level 65 (since it’s possible they patched out my crafting trick), or wait for the next patch/hotfix to see whether it resolves the known affix issue.
Edit: 600 seems awfully unlucky - I had far better luck than that pre-AoM.
Quick question DaShiv: I’m respeccing my pet cabalist to your build as I discovered what you already knew: skeletons make crappy damage sponges and Time Dilation makes crappy damage sponges into infinite damage sponges.
However, I’m missing most of this gear. Does this devotion set up with Arcane Bomb still work if the skeletons are mainly doing vitality instead of lightning? Or do I need the specific gear listed to be effective?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: Here’s the current build I’m thinking about using until I can gear it with your suggestions at which point I would respec. It’s vitality-based, reduces DA extensively, and has good survivability. No raven as resistances are already maxed for the character while survivability isn’t being emphasized for skeletons. Artifact is either Dirge or Bysmiel.
I guess I’ll chalk it down to inexperience 
Also I see on your grimtools link the RR on your spellblade is 41. is that just luck of draw as mine is a lowly 30. Presumably I keep rolling the dice here?
[/li]
Thanks once I do craft a plaguebearer prefix’ed spellblade do I then transfer to my level 65+ and continue crafting spellblades with him? Or stick to only crafting them on a level 12?
The current maximum -RR is 37, crafting for the lowest-tier Plaguebearer’s Affix.
Stick to only crafting at 12.
And I do believe this is the most (only?) ‘realistic’ set that allows maxing of both WotC & Raise Skeleton, for your consideration.
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/vNQ9LYMN
I’d much prefer of Kings on the boots… But you’re force to use an MI helm which seems like a much less attractive option.
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZRAqQ0V
Overall I’ve come to the same conclusion you have; it’s just simply not worth investing more than 1+skills into Will of the Crypt.
Something I would like your opinion on is the following switches;
How much power Master’s spellblade gives to this build after the nerf??
Another announcement: the final planned section of the guide has been posted, so the guide is now officially content-complete. Next up: development for V2.0 of the build. I’m fairly certain there’ll be enough changes to justify being a V2.0 instead of a V1.1.
The newly-posted Pet Devotions section of the guide has recommended T1 and T2 devotions for all pet builds - I’d definitely start with those if you’re not using Widow and lightning conversion.
The main gear you need for lightning conversion is simply the Stormbringer of Malmouth, which can be easily crafted once you have high enough reputation with Malmouth Resistance. Using Arcane Bomb is worth it even if all you have is the Stormbringer.
Grimtool simply reports the average roll, which is incorrectly reported for this item. (Post-nerf average roll is -30 RR.) In the guide, I suggest re-rolling until obtaining at least -33 RR or higher. As Ceveth mentioned, the highest possible roll is currently -37 RR.
That actually looks pretty good considering the double overcap, although clearly the skill points are showing lots of signs of being spread too thin. The question would then become whether reaching max overcap for WotC was worth all the sacrifices that had to be made.
For Clairvoyant’s Hat, I think it’d realistically be a requirement to replace it with something else that also has CDR, considering how reliant we are upon fast resummoning to maintain skeletons.
Most other builds use the Overlord’s but I like the Bonescavengers for the extra pets and to overcap Raise Skeleton. It really depends on how important WotC is to the final build. One thing I’ll note: bound spirits from Bonescavengers do a lot of vitality damage, which is used very effectively via conversion by our build. I think this decision is, like the relic decision, very dependent on what the final build looks like it needs the most.
As for the “of Kings”, keep in mind that the suffix also provides a pretty hefty +% damage and +% speed proc, and that stun resistance can be annoying to find. I don’t find the other bonuses on the armor-only version of Caged Souls to be nearly as useful, except for the skill bonus obviously.
The nerf costs the build 12 RR (from 49 max to 37 max on spellblade), but the new max on spellblade is still 9 RR higher than Manticore (28 RR).
Any merit to the Hysteria relic instead of Guile at 25? Or is the flat damage aura too good for that many skellies?
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 ?
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.
Shame the ring slots are taken up as well.
There are a lot of rings that provide that particular stat that would work well with Bone Harvest’s application.
*Oh, right, Viper and lightning conversion. So this build doesn’t need any of those lesser shreds.
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.
Archers don’t actually inflict much piercing damage. From the Necromancer Abilities guide:
[/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]
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:
what do you think of this as a replacement for the spellblade?
How integral has Behemoth been for your sustain?
There’s a pretty sizable difference between up to 37 flat RR and 18 flat RR. As a comparison, Manticore is 28 flat RR.
Giant’s Blood is far more useful in this build than most because it’s running very consistently thanks to TD resets (and ensures that we have a large positive regen of 400+ despite Hungering Void). If you look at the active buffs in Gladiator video, you can see that I have 3 devotion procs (Shepherd’s Call, Hungering Void, and Giant’s Blood) active the vast majority of the time, which helps provide the build with its balance of DPS and survivability.
[QUOTE=DaShiv;580192]There’s a pretty sizable difference between up to 37 flat RR and 18 flat RR. As a comparison, Manticore is 28 flat RR.
thx for the reply, but that is not what i meant…
i wanted to know how thevale piercer is doing i an whole as a replacement.
i know it gives us less RR, but in exchange we get vitality damage for our char and all damage / attack speed for our pets, we get 1 additional skeleton and +3 to will of the crypt ( maybe negligible)
so waht is your oppinion on that?
If you’re asking specifically about the Valepiercer, whether mathematically the additional skeleton and other bonuses make up for the lost RR, then it’s a pretty resounding no. Keep in mind that the hellhound can only debuff one enemy at a time compared to the AOE debuffing via Bone Harvest.
If you’re asking on a more general level - about whether the spellblade can be replaced at all - then I think it’s a maybe. It certainly would’ve been a hard “no” pre-nerf.
