Skills
In case you’re unfamiliar with Occultist and Shaman pet skills, below is a brief description of all the skills we use and why we use them.
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Terminology
[ul][li]Soft cap[/li]number of points you can put into a skill. Summon Familiar has a soft cap of 16, Lightning Strike has a soft cap of 12.
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[ul][li]Hard cap[/li]maximum number of points a skill can have included skill bonuses. This is always the soft cap plus 10.
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[ul][li]Ultimate ranks[/li]The range of points between the soft cap and the hard cap.
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[ul][li]Overcap[/li]Anything over the soft cap.
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Skills
[ul][li]Summon Familiar[/li]This summons a Raven pet that shoots lightning balls, and is the main source of damage for this build. The summoned Raven scales very well with points, gaining both extra damage an extra projectiles. If close to the target, it’s possible to hit a single target with multiple projectiles which can be very powerful. The Mythical Will of Bysmiel amulet allows you to summon a second Familiar, which is even better. Hard-capping this skill is the number one item priority for this build.
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[ul][li]Storm Spirit[/li]This gives the Familiar an aura that adds flat and % elemental damage, and provides elemental resistance. The Familiar’s own attack is actually a spell, and only gets a fraction of the flat damage added to it, but other pets benefit fully. The auras from 2 familiars do not stack. You generally want as many points in this as possible, but if you’re using the Beastcaller’s Set and also investing in Briarthorn, this is an okay place to take points from. It’s a good place to spend points but non-essential.
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[ul][li]Lightning Strike[/li]This gives the Familiar a powerful extra spell. It is worth as many points as you can get, but rarely worth specifically itemizing for.
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[ul][li]Bonds of Bysmiel[/li]This boosts pet health. Pets have access to a lot of health bonuses, and there are a lot of skill bonuses to this from items, so it is rarely worth investing more than a single point. Pets usually do not have a hard time staying alive.
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[ul][li]Manipulation[/li]This adds damage and, more importantly, speed to your pets. Until the soft-cap, this provides 2% total speed per point, and 1% afterwards. I tend to leave this at the soft cap, but if you have points to spare, this is a great place to put them.
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[ul][li]Curse of Frailty[/li]This provides Physical and Bleeding resistance reduction. Our main sources of damage are elemental, so we mainly take this for the Vulnerability modifiers. More points in this increases the radius and duration as well, so I like to keep this around 5 points on elemental pet builds such as this one.
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[ul][li]Vulnerability[/li]This modifies Curse of Frailty to reduce DA and resistances to Acid & Poison, Elemental, and Vitality damage. This gives 3% RR per point until the soft cap, and 1% per point after. This is worth keeping at the soft cap.
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[ul][li]Blood of Dreeg[/li]Instant heal, and a bunch of HP regen, flat OA, and flat damage. This skill is great and deserves 16 points, but is not worth itemizing for.
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[ul][li]Aspect of the Guardian[/li]This provides rare physical resist and a LOT of poison resist. Until the soft cap it adds 1% physical resist per point, and afterwards only every 3 to 4 points. I try to keep this soft capped.
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[ul][li]Dreeg’s Evil Eye[/li]With the Focused Gaze transmuter, this is great for procing Celestial Powers. You can use Grasping Vines or Doom Bolt instead if you prefer.
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[ul][li]Mogdrogen’s Pact[/li]This provides some hp and energy regen, along with some physical flat damage. This build doesn’t have enough skill points to make this worth investing in, but you need one point for Heart of the Wild and Oak Skin.
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[ul][li]Heart of the Wild[/li]Adds 3% HP per point until the soft cap. This is a great place to dump extra points if you want some extra durability, but I usually don’t have the points to spare. This is never really worth overcapping.
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[ul][li]Oak Skin[/li]This provides pierce resistance and armor. The resistance can be pretty useful and give you some flexibility with devotions and items, but on this build you don’t really need it.
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[ul][li]Summon Briarthorn[/li]The Briarthorn is an okay pet but not really worth investing in unless you’re going to use the Beastcaller’s set to get two of them. This build places one point in Briarthorn to use his aura skill.
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[ul][li]Emboldening Presence[/li]This provides % damage, flat OA, and physical and bleeding resistance. Like Aspect of the Guardian, it provides 1% physical resist until the soft cap, and then every 3 to 4 points after. Keep this soft capped to take advantage of the physical resist, but it’s not worth extra investment beyond that.
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[ul][li]Wind Devil[/li]Required for Raging Tempest.
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[ul][li]Raging Tempest[/li]Provides -35% elemental resistance at 12/12, and an additional -1% for each point afterwards. This is worth using at the soft cap on elemental pet builds, but it does require you to use an extra skill, making the build a bit more active and drawing a bit more agro to yourself. This is optional, but will increase your offensive power.
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[ul][li]Primal Bond[/li]Provides damage reduction, reduced damage from beasts, and both % damage and % crit damage to pets. The pet bonuses scale well into ultimate ranks, and the damage reduction scales decently. This is worth getting as high as possible.
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[ul][li]Conjure Primal Spirit[/li]Very fast, very powerful pet, but temporary. You have to continuously re-summon him, and without any CDR he has only 50% up time. Primal Spirit is amazing, you want as many points in it as possible.
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Suggested Skill Ordering
[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Take Occultist and max Familiar. Keep 16 points in Familiar unless you end up with more than +10 to the skill.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Put a few points into Lightning Strike. The goal for Lightning Strike at this point is to keep it high enough to 1-shot trash mobs. Put a single point into Storm Spirit to get extra bonus from any +skills items you find, and optionally a single point into Hellhound to draw some extra agro.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Finish the Occultist mastery and max Maniuplation. Manipulation has diminishing returns past the soft cap, so feel free to remove a few points if you end up with any items with skill bonuses.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Max Blood of Dreeg and Aspect of the Guardian. AotG is good to have maxed before going into Act 5 because of all the poison damage there. As with Manipulation, you don’t need to overcap AotG as the Physical resist doesn’t scale into ultimate ranks and you’ll have more than enough poison resist. Put one point into Curse of Frailty as soon as you get the Sheperd’s Call celestial power so you have something to bind it to.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Max Storm Spirit, and at this point probably Lightning Strike.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Take shaman and max Primal Spirit, putting one point in the Mogdrogen’s Pact tree on the way. If/when you need a second skill to proc Celestial Powers, put a point Dreeg’s Evil Eye, Grasping Vines, or Doom Bolt.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Max Primal Bond
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Take Briarthorn and max Emboldening Presence. As with Manipulation and AotG, you don’t need to overcap this so only place enough points to have 12 points including bonuses.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Put extra points into Curse of Frailty and Vulnerability. I like to have 5 points (including bonuses) in the base skill to have a decent AoE and duration. Vulnerability should be kept at 10 including skill bonuses.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Grim Tools[/COLOR][/li]Put the rest of your points into Raging Tempest, up to the soft cap of 12 including bonuses, with one point in both Wind Devil and Maelstrom.
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Assuming you have some skill bonuses from items, you’ll probably have some points left over after soft capping various skills. You can use the rest wherever you like. Some good options are Oak for extra pierce resist, Heart of the Wild for health, or Manipulation for a little extra speed.
Both Wind Devil and the Celestial Power Arcane Bomb are useful but optional. If you want a build that is simpler to play (few buttons to press), you can skill Wind Devil and only need to use Curse of Frailty as an active skill.
Tip: Do not be afraid to change skill point investments as your gear changes. If you’ve got limited gear, you’ll definitely want to make the most out of every skill point you have.