1.0.4.0 Pet build?

[thepowerofmediocrity]

There was a thread similar to yours that came out recently, and Avatar of Dreeg listed the various types of pet builds you’ll find post-expansion. Here’s what he listed:

Best Summoner for Ultimate Difficulty ?

The most intuitive build would be Cabalist because 1) both classes give meaningful buffs to pets (AS, RR, OA, resistance, flat damage) and 2) you have specific item support.

There are, however, other, less intuitive builds, such as (listed according to strength):

1. Elemental pets Warlock;
2. Lightning pets Deceiver; (Conjurer???)
3. Fire / Chaos pets Deceiver;
4. Fire pets Pyromancer;
5. Retaliation pets Conjurer;
6. Vitality pets Ritualist;
7. Aether/Lightning pets Apostate;
8. Physical/pierce pets Deceiver.

And a few others, which are more “hybrid” in approach:
9) Acid/poison Cabalist;
10) Chaos/fire Witchblade

And, that’s about it ! OFC, the more you go down the list, the less item support you will find and the harder it will be for you to somehow improvise if you don’t have the gear. Acid/poison Cabalist for example, requires specific lvl. 94 items in order to work and the same thing does for the Lightning pets Deceiver.

Since version 1.0.4.0 came out, Poison/Acid pets Cabalist was buffed significantly, to the point where you can play it as a regular summoner and don’t have to worry about going hybrid. Here would be my list of the most effective summoners:

1. DaShiv’s The Night King (Lightning Pets Cabalist)
2. The next amazing pet build DaShiv comes up with (last I heard it was going to be a Spellbinder)
3. Scruize’s Thundercats Lightning Conjurer
4. Arn Quimson’s SUMMON ALL THE THINGS! Ritualist
5. Avatar of Dreeg’s Elemental Pets Warlock (Haven’t seen an expansion version of this, but I’ll take him at his word that it’s as powerful as he says it is)
6. DaShiv’s Dracarris Incarnate Fire Pets Pyromancer
7. ReapersGaze Lost Souls Skelemancer
8. Poison/Acid Cabalist
9. Conjurer Pet Retaliation Build
10. Sly Hound Deceiver Pet Build (I haven’t tested the Fire/Chaos version yet but I assume it will be similar in strength to the Touch of Purity build I already posted)

I believe that covers all the viable pet options. Witching Hour Chaos pets is super close to being viable but falls just short (I think the Witchblade hybrid is just a novelty / inferior option of the Harbinger Witchblade or basically any other Chaos Witchblade you can think of). Vitality pets I’m sure is there somewhere but Vitality is not that good to build around for pets because common mobs easily have 90+ resistances to it.

To answer OP’s question specifically, the best ‘lazy’ pet builds you’re going to find are Arn Quimson’s Ritualist (for effectiveness) and the Conjurer Pet Retaliation build (for maximum laziness).